No Longer Forbidden(58)

He was too aware that if the auction house was calling the week was up for the demolition team, as well. They’d get the same answer, since he couldn’t let anyone into the house while it was in the state he’d left it and he couldn’t face going back to clean up.

Nicodemus Marcussen, the man who had looked into the wrong end of a rifle twice, not to mention coming face-to-face with a jaguar and surviving a bout of malaria, couldn’t find the courage to do a bit of housekeeping and get on with his life. These days he had a lot of compassion for men like Rowan’s father, who drowned in alcohol to numb the pain of being alive.

He cursed and hung his head. Rowan’s father. She wanted to use the auction money to set up a trust for him. Twelve weeks was too long to put that off. Nic couldn’t keep doing it. Why hadn’t she contacted him to ask what was holding it up?

Heavy-hearted, he suspected he knew. Drawing his hand from his pocket, he examined the key that seemed to end up in his possession every morning. He’d come to associate its rough-smooth shape and metallic smell with guilt, anger and loss, but he couldn’t make himself get rid of it. The key or the house.

Rowan expected him to. Everyone did. The architect had delivered the drawings weeks ago. The builders were being put off as well. Nic was sole heir to everything Olief had owned. There’d been provision to support Cassandra and allow her the use of Rosedale, but the house, as part of Marcussen Media, was his. He had every right to knock it down, but he couldn’t make himself do it.

Clenching his hand around the biting shape, he recalled the signed documents arriving that had allowed the declaration of death. The Italian painter’s signature had been a shaky flourish in all the right places, but there had been nothing from Rowan. No forget-me-not stationery with a snooty missive demanding Nic sort out her finances.

He’d give anything for the privilege, he acknowledged with a wistful ache in his chest, but after a brief game of financial ping-pong with Frankie he’d had to leave Rowan’s modest balance for her to pay off. She didn’t want anything from him and it hurt so much he couldn’t bear it. But what did he intend with a gesture like that?

Connection, he thought simply. He just wanted to know they were still linked in some way. He was becoming as sentimental about attachment as she was.

The spark of irony glinted in his mind, no bigger than a dust mote catching in a beam of sunlight, but he held his breath, examining it.

When had he last felt like this? Truly wanting someone in his life? He’d grown up wanting Olief in his life, but when the opportunity had finally arisen he’d been too tainted by the years of neglect. He’d held back from letting real closeness develop with his father, certain he’d lose in the long run.

And he had.

Everything in him still screamed that it was dangerous to yearn for love and the indelible link of family, but that was what he wanted with Rowan. He’d settle for scraps if he had to, but he couldn’t function under the belief that he’d never see her again. He needed to know that his future contained her.

Even if it doesn’t include children, I still want something with a future.

How many times had he replayed those words in his head along with his own response that what had passed between them had been only shelter from a storm? He’d been scared when he’d said it. He could offer her a lot of things, including a secure future, but when it came to love he feared his heart was too damaged. He was.

He’d thawed a lot under Rowan’s warmth, though. It made him think that maybe, if she could be persuaded to keep seeing him … But he was getting ahead of himself. She might not want anything to do with him.

A yawning chasm opened before him as he contemplated going to her and putting his soul on the line. But it wouldn’t hurt any more than he was hurting right now. At least he’d know.

And, damn it, he was not a helpless six year old any longer. He was a man who knew how to fight for what he wanted. He would do anything to have her back in his life. To keep her in his life.

The decision made him suck in a breath that burned. A flame of something he barely recognized came to life inside him. Anticipation of relief from pain. Hope.

Wherever she’d gone, he’d find her and bring her back to where she belonged!

Rowan watched the little girl appear and disappear between the heavy coats of the bustling street, her face a picture of frightened despair as Ireland’s ever-present rain drizzled into it. Her voice, clear and agonizingly uncertain, lifted in a shaky plea. Everything in Rowan wanted to run to her. She was overwhelmed with compassion for this waif who’d lost everything.