At Jason’s insistence, Bella also played while Prentice and the kids watched. She was nervous and it took her time to settle in but, once she did, it was good.
Prentice was impressed and didn’t hide it.
Jason just smiled.
Bella, it was clear to see, was both pleased and embarrassed by the male Camerons’ reactions.
Sally was adamant that she was getting her own guitar and Bella was going to teach her to play it when she got her cast off.
They had lunch. They horsed around. They walked the beach and its cliff path, Prentice and Bella hand-in-hand, Jason going ahead on his own, Sally running back and forth, tiring herself out (Fiona’s daughter would sleep like a log that night, for certain).
They went home and it was all a go, sorting the spent picnic, making dinner, getting ready for school the next day as Sally was returning after her accident.
Bella had no time to think, she was kept busy all day.
Prentice, Fiona thought, was a genius.
Sally crashed within Bella reading two pages of her book.
Jason didn’t long follow.
Prentice was walking down the stairs after checking on the children when it happened.
Fiona was floating by Bella as she tiredly made herself some nighttime herbal tea.
She had her hand curled around the mug, holding the teabag string against the side, when she missed the mug and poured boiling water over her hand. She cried out in pain and set the kettle down with a clatter.
Prentice was there in a trice.
He got close. “Jesus, baby, what’d you do?”
“I poured…” she stopped and cried, “Ouch!”
“Get to the sink,” Prentice ordered, hustling her to the sink, he shoved her hand under and turned on the cold tap.
She held her hand under the tap as Prentice went to get ice. He returned and, front to her back, he reached his arms around her and held the ice to the angry red marks on Bella’s hand under the tap.
Fiona hovered close.
With his head dipped so his cheek was close to hers, he moved the ice around her fingers and whispered, “The burn is still working through, baby, we need to stop it. The ice won’t feel good but we need to keep it on there.”
“Okay,” Bella whispered back, her voice pinched with pain.
It took awhile before he noticed. The angry red marks were taking his attention from the calloused white marks in her palms.
But he noticed.
And Fiona noticed when he noticed because she watched as his body grew completely still.
Bella, tired and mind fogged with the pain, didn’t notice. He had actually uncurled her fingers with his thumb and tipped her palm up before Bella realized what he was about.
When he saw the marks, Prentice’s inhalation was a sharp hiss.
Instantly, Bella curled her hand in a fist and her body jerked to the side, seeking escape.
She was in a disadvantageous position with his arms around her, his body close; she had no hope of getting away.
And she didn’t.
He stepped in, pinning her against the sink, his arms locking at her sides, his thumb worked her fingers to open her fist.
Her body gave in but her hand resisted. The burn meant this caused undue pain. When she emitted a muted whimper, Prentice stopped.
Fiona would have held her breath if she had any.
Instead, she did the only thing she could do.
She hovered.
His voice was soft when he ordered, “Show me.”
Bella’s reply was immediate, “Step back.”
“Show me, baby.”
Her hand still a fist, she said in a tone that, though it was firm, fear threaded through it, “Prentice… step… back!”
His other hand circled her other wrist, he pulled both her fisted hands in front of them and his voice was an absolute, wretched ache when he demanded, “Show me.”
Fiona watched the tears hit Bella’s eyes and tremble at their edges.
“I don’t want you to see,” she whispered, her tone just as heartbreaking.
“Show me.”
“You’ll think –”
“Show me, Elle.”
“But –”
His hands at her wrists gave hers a gentle shake and he whispered, “Show me, baby.”
She closed her eyes and Fiona saw the tears drop silently down her cheeks.
Then she opened them and her fists and Fiona saw she held her breath.
Prentice stared at her hands.
Then his jaw got tight and he closed his eyes.
When he opened them, he ran his thumbs gently along the white marks and muttered tenderly, “Baby.”
Bella’s head dropped forward in a sad expression of humiliation and defeat.
Prentice’s mouth went to her ear.
“You didn’t have these before,” he whispered but she didn’t reply. “Elle, answer me. You didn’t have these twenty years ago. Please, tell me I didn’t fucking miss this.”
“I didn’t have them,” she replied to the sink. “I started to…” she stopped. “Later. After you,” she drew in a breath and whispered, “it started when I lost you.”
Fiona didn’t know if that was what he wanted to hear or not and she couldn’t tell because he shoved his face in her neck and, taking her hands with his still at her wrists, he wrapped his arms tightly around her middle.
Bella’s head came up and Fiona could see she was still crying.
“They’re mine,” Prentice said to her neck.
Bella’s body twitched and her face went blank.
“What?” she breathed.
His mouth went back to her ear and his voice was tortured when he said, “They’re mine. My responsibility.”
Fiona felt a heavy weight hit her ghostly chest.
Bella felt the same. Fiona could see it with a look.
“What do you mean?” Bella whispered.
“You’d no’ have these marks, you’d no’ carry this pain if I’d no’ walked out of that fucking room.”
“Prentice, you can’t –”
She stopped speaking when he shook her with his hands at her wrists.
“You’d no’,” he growled fiercely.
“Pren,” she whispered softly.
“No.”
“I can’t have you thinking –”
“No.”
“Pren, please.”
“No. There would be no dreams, I’d have seen to that. Your father would no’ be in our lives. And you’d have had your fucking family, I would see to that too. I don’t give a fuck if we adopted or I had to buy you a family. I would have done it, whatever you wanted, to make you happy. Whatever you wanted, Elle. Anything. I’d have done whatever it took in order to give it to you. That’s how much I loved you.”
“Stop talking.”
“But I didn’t, I walked out of that room.”
“Prentice, stop talking.”
“I turned around and walked away. I didn’t even fucking call you.”
“Don’t do this to yourself, it wasn’t your fault.”
“No?”
“I’m weak,” she whispered.
Prentice was silent a moment before he laughed. It was an ugly noise and it hurt Fiona’s ghostly ears.
Bella felt the same.
Her pale face went ashen and, with a visible effort, she pulled free of his hands, turned off the tap, twisted in his arms and put her hands on his chest.
“It’s true, Prentice, I’m weak. I always have been,” she admitted this like it was a dirty little secret.
“He beat you to keep you from me,” Prentice countered. “What’s my excuse?”
Her head jerked and she asked, “Pardon?”
“You’re father hit you to control you. Your behavior wasn’t weak, it was survival. I had a good life, I’d never experienced that, no one ever treated me that way. What excuse do I have that I didn’t go after you? Wounded ego?”
Be
lla lifted her hands to either side of his neck and held on tight.
“Stop doing this. There’s no purpose.”
“No purpose?” he clipped. “If you stay, in a week, a month, ten years, it will eventually sink in that I left you to that. I didn’t protect you. I didn’t believe in you. What do I do when the bitterness creeps in, Elle, and you can’t bear to be with me anymore? What do I do?”
Her fingers curled into his neck but he didn’t give her the opportunity to reply.
“You needed me to protect you and I didn’t. I left you to that,” he continued, his hands came to hers at his neck and he pulled them away, his thumbs sliding along her palms, he went on, “And it was so bad, you harmed yourself because of it.”
She winced but recovered quickly and assured him, “I survived.”
He gave a short, unamused laugh. “Aye. You survived. But life isn’t survival, Elle, life is beautiful.”
She shook her head and said softly, “Not for everyone. Not for a lot of people, Pren, just for those fortunate few.”
Fiona watched as Prentice’s mouth got tight at her words but he replied, “True enough. But you deserve a beautiful life and I would have given it to you if I hadn’t given up, believed you’d played me, stopped believing in you, stopped believing in us.”
Fiona saw Bella was no longer listening.
Her eyes had grown unfocused.
Prentice saw it too.
He was losing her.
Do something! Fiona shouted.
“Elle,” he called but she didn’t reply. His hands curled into hers and gave them a gentle jerk as he repeated, “Elle.”
She shook her head as if clearing it and her eyes refocused.
“You said in ten years –” Bella whispered.
“Aye,” Prentice interrupted, his tone harsh. “Ten years, twenty years, fifty years. Who gives a fuck if, in the end, it might mean I lose you again.”
“Fifty years?” she breathed.
Fiona knew with a look that Prentice wanted to stick with the matter at hand and was losing patience at her shift. “Elle, we –”
Bella interrupted him, asking incredulously, “You want me here for fifty years?”
Now Fiona knew that Prentice was getting annoyed. “Aye, we established that last night.”
“Why?” Bella asked suddenly, her voice somehow both breathy and sharp.
Prentice’s brows drew together. “Why what?”
“Why do you want me here?”
“Elle…” Yes, definitely impatient, Fiona knew this because he released her but leaned into her, resting a hand on the edge of the sink, he tore the other through his hair.
“Tell me.” Her voice was getting sharper, colder. “Tell me why you want me here. I want to know.”
“Elle –”
“Why?” Bella’s voice was a lash and her body had grown solid.
Prentice stared at her, his impatience vanishing, understanding dawning.
Fiona knew they were in trouble.
Prentice was not a man prone to flowery words. In fact, the words she’d heard him say about her the night before on the balcony (they still made her ghostly belly melt) were the most flowery she’d ever had from him.
No, Prentice was more a man who spoke through actions.
This wasn’t a time for action; it was a time for words and Fiona doubted that Prentice could give Bella what she obviously needed.
Fiona was wrong.
His face gentled, his hand came to rest on her jaw and he answered her question in that soft voice filled with love.
“Your pancakes, your cookies, your smile.”
Uh-oh.
Even said in his beautiful, soft voice, Fiona didn’t think that was a great start.
Bella, staring up at him with fear and doubt barely masked behind the coldness in her eyes, didn’t either.
Prentice wasn’t done.
“The way you care for my home, the way you care for my family.”
Fiona decided this wasn’t going too well. No woman wanted a man to want her because she was a good housekeeper and babysitter and made good pancakes.
“The way you are with Sally, enjoying every second of her, never making her feel silly or getting impatient with her liveliness.”
All right, that was a wee bit better. Fiona watched Bella’s face shift slightly, still guarded but Prentice had struck a chord.
“The way you are with Jason, how you handle him with such care. Showing him that Fiona’s guitar, something she loved, wasn’t an instrument of mourning, which she’d hate, but an instrument to celebrate her and keep her memory alive.”
Bella started to shake her head but his hand at her jaw tightened.
“The way you make me laugh when you forget to be what your father wanted you to be and you’re just you.”
Her head jerked.
“Prentice –” Bella broke in.
Prentice wasn’t done.
His face dipped closer to hers. “The way you respond to me, no inhibitions, so quick, so wild, my kiss, my touch, my tongue,” his voice dropped deep, “my cock. I love kissing you, baby, touching you, fucking you. And I love knowing you love it too.”
Fiona could have done without hearing that but she saw he was getting to Bella because her eyes had grown glazed.
“Pren,” she whispered.
“The way you give of yourself, every second, to everyone without knowing you’re doing it or expecting that first thing in return. You’re the most generous person I’ve ever met in my life.” He got even closer, his arm sliding around her waist, his hand at her jaw gliding into her hair. “And I want you in my life until I’m no longer breathing.”
Bella was struggling with this, Fiona could see it. She wanted to believe but she couldn’t.
Or she wouldn’t.
“I –” Bella started to protest.
Prentice cut her off. “And I want you in my children’s lives.”
Bella bit her lip which had begun to tremble.
Then she said something bizarre.
“I think you’re confused.”
Prentice’s brows drew together, indicating to Fiona he thought what she said was bizarre as well.
“Confused how?”
“With who I am and who you think I am.”
“What?”
His voice was no longer soft and loving. Prentice wasn’t happy he’d laid it out for her and, apparently, it had no effect.
Fiona didn’t think this was a good sign.
“You think I’m that girl you met twenty years ago,” Bella explained. “I’m not that girl. I never was. And you’re confused.”
“So, who are you?” Prentice asked, his voice now edging towards impatience.
Bella heard it and decided not to respond.
Fiona watched as his hand fisted in her hair. “You’re telling me that all this is a game?”
Bella’s body jerked yet again and her face went pale.
“A game?” she whispered.
“Aye, a game,” Prentice clipped. “You’re saying you dropped everything in order to come to Sally… that was a game.”
“No!” Bella replied sharply.
“The laundry, the ironing, making the beds, hoovering the floors, baking the cookies, that wasn’t you? That was what your father said you were doing? That was you playing house?”
It was a low blow and Bella flinched like she’d been physically struck.
Fiona wished she could kick Prentice.
Where was he going with this?
“Of course not,” Bella whispered.
Prentice was relentless. “It wasn’t you that played darts with Annie, Dougal and me? It wasn’t you who asked Gordon over for hamburgers?”
Bella shook her head.
Prentice kept after her.
“It isn’t you who’s teaching Jace how to play guitar? It isn’t you who stares into my eyes like you do, like you’re lost in what you see and you don’t want to be found. And it isn’t
you who wraps your hand around my cock like you never want to let it go and moans in my mouth when my tongue slides into yours?”
Okay, Fiona thought, overshare.
Bella’s face was confused and her reply was hesitant, “Yes, um… well, that all is me but –”
“So, tell me, Elle, if that’s all you then how the fuck am I confused?”
Bella didn’t have an answer for that, evidently, because she didn’t speak.
She just stared at him.
He let her go but didn’t move away. His hands slid down her forearms and caught her wrists. Bringing them up between them, his thumbs slid into her fists, pushing back her fingers. Then he stroked her palms.
Bella closed her eyes.
Prentice spoke and his tone was now gentle. “I’m not confused, baby, you are.”
Bella opened her eyes.
“I’m not that girl you knew,” she whispered.
God, Fiona thought, Bella’s stubborn.
“You are,” Prentice, Fiona knew, could be stubborn too.
“I’m not.”
“Baby, you are, then and now. But, now, with time and maturity, you’re even better.”
Her eyes filled with tears and Fiona worried her lip. She watched as Bella curled open her fingers and lifted her hands, showing him her palms.
“This is me, Prentice,” she said, her voice harsh. “This is who I am. This is who you’d have in your house. This is who I’ve always been, weak, trapped, useless. I saved you when I left you years ago. Don’t you understand? That girl didn’t exist, you made her. She was only alive for you. This,” she jerked her hands still in his wrists, “is who I am.”
“You can’t believe that.”
“I know it.”
They stared at each other.
Fiona hovered anxiously.
Then Prentice broke through.
His eyes went soft and he lifted one of her hands to his mouth. Touching her palm to his lips, Bella (and Fiona) watched him kiss the scars tenderly. He repeated this gesture with her other hand.
Then he dropped it and placed it against his stomach, holding her hand flat over it with his.
“Then it’s good you’re with me so she can be alive again because I’m in love with her. I always have been,” he whispered. “And it’s good you’re with me so I can feel alive again.” He pressed her hand into his gut and his face moved closer. “Nothing,” he stated, “I felt nothing here.” He pressed her hand into his gut again. “Nothing, since Fiona died. And I didn’t think I could feel again after I lost Fee. Now it feels warm. Even when you first returned, you made it that way, when I saw you smile, when you made the children laugh, anytime I caught sight of your sweet, sexy ass –”