How To Mend A Broken Heart

Tess had dropped in on Jean on her yearly pilgrimage home those first two years after she’d moved to the UK. But it had been too hard on both of them. Jean had wanted to talk about Ryan and Tess hadn’t been able to bear it. So she’d stopped going.

Fletch, aware of her nearness, of her faint passionfruit fragrance, of her hand on his arm, waged a war within himself. Tess looked as devastated as he felt and it was as if the intervening years had never happened. As if he could walk right into her arms and seek the solace he so desperately craved.

It was a dangerous illusion.

He couldn’t hope to execute what he’d come here for if he let emotion take over. He just hadn’t been prepared for how hard it would be, seeing her again, talking to her again. He’d foolishly thought it would be easy.

Well … easier.

He gave himself a mental shake and rubbed the back of his neck. ‘She was first diagnosed five years ago. She’s been living with Trish for the last two years.’

‘Five years?’ she gasped. Tess couldn’t even begin to comprehend a world where Jean King was anything less than her larger-than-life self. ‘Why … why didn’t you tell me?’

Fletch raised an eyebrow. ‘Seriously, Tess? I rang you practically every day for a year after you went to England…. You made it pretty clear that no correspondence would be entered into. Anyway, what were you going to do?’ he asked, surprised at the bitterness in his tone. ‘Come home?’

Tess bit her lip. He was right. She had been ruthless with her no-contact request. ‘I’m sorry …’

She searched his silvery-green gaze and saw apprehension and worry and for one crazy moment almost took another step forward to embrace him. But a decade of denial slammed the door shut and she dropped her hand from his arm, shocked at the strength of the impulse.

She shook her head. ‘It’s just so wrong. Your mum has always been as fit as a fiddle …’

Fletch felt her withdrawal from their intimacy as keenly as if it had been ten years ago.

Damn it.

Did she really think because she hadn’t moved on that things weren’t going to change around her? ‘She’s seventy-four, Tess. She’s getting old. Did you think she was just always going to be here, frozen in time, waiting for you to come around?’

Tess recoiled as if he had slapped her, colour draining from her face. ‘I doubt your mother has been sitting around waiting on me,’ she retaliated.

‘You’re like a second daughter to her, Tess,’ he dismissed impatiently. ‘She’s missed you every day.’

I’ve missed you every day.

Fletch blinked at the thought. He had. Standing here in front of her, talking to her for the first time in nine years, he realised just how deeply he had missed her.

Tess felt the truth of his starkly delivered words wrap around her heart and squeeze. She wanted to deny them but she couldn’t. He was right. They had been close. And Jean was getting older.

Fletch sighed as Tess gnawed on her bottom lip, looking utterly wretched. He raised his hands in a halfsurrender.

‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to …’ To what? Get angry with her? Make her feel guilty? ‘Will you, please, just come and see her? She gets anxious easily these days and you’re the one she wants to see the most.’

Tess was torn. She’d love to see Jean again. Had missed her wise counsel and warm hugs over the years. And if it helped ease some of her mother-in-law’s anxiety to see her then that was the least Tess could do. But would it be Jean? And would it build an expectation, make it harder to walk away?

Because she was getting on that plane tomorrow. Just like she did every year.

And most importantly, what if Jean wanted to talk about Ryan? What if she didn’t remember he was dead? Talked about him as if he was alive and just down for a nap?

Tess looked at Fletcher. ‘What about …?’ She cleared her throat as a lump formed there. Even just saying it was beyond difficult. ‘What does she remember from …?’

Fletcher watched the shimmer of emotion in Tess’s amber gaze as she struggled with her words. He shook his head. ‘She doesn’t remember him at all, Tess.’

It had been a particularly difficult thing for Fletch to cope with. After Tess had refused to hear his name, his mother had been the only person he’d been able to talk openly with about Ryan.

Now it was as if his son had never existed.

‘Her memory seems to stretch to about a year after we were married. As far as she’s concerned, we’ve just got back from Bora Bora.’

Fletch had taken Tess to the tropical paradise for a surprise first wedding anniversary present. They’d lazed in their over-water bungalow all day. Making love, drinking cocktails and watching the multitude of colourful fish swim by their glass floor.

He shrugged. ‘There’s an occasional recall of an event beyond that but it’s rare.’

For a brief moment Tess envied Jean. The thought of forgetting how Ryan had felt in her arms or at her breast, forgetting the way his hair had stuck up in the middle from his double cowlick and how his giggle had filled the whole room. Forgetting that gut-wrenching day and all the empty days that had followed since.

It sounded like bliss.

The fantasy was shocking, wrong on so many levels, and she quickly moved to erase it from her mind. Jean was suffering from a debilitating disease that was ravaging her brain and would rob her of her most basic functions.

There was no upside to that.

And no justice in this world.

Although she already knew that more intimately than most.

Tess nodded. ‘Okay.’

Fletch blinked at her easy capitulation. ‘Really?’

‘Sure.’ She frowned, his disbelief irksome. ‘For Jean.’ He should know she’d do anything for his mother. ‘Did you think I wouldn’t?’

He shrugged. ‘Yes.’

His bluntness hurt but she pushed it aside—it was, after all, a fair statement. She had been sneaking into the country once a year for the last nine years with only two paltry visits to Jean to defend herself against his conviction.

But they’d agreed on a clean break.

And she’d stuck to it.

Eventually, so had he.

She gave him a measured look. ‘It’s Jean.’

Fletch nodded as the husky note in her voice didn’t mask her meaning. She wasn’t doing it for him.

And that was certainly what he was counting on now.

‘Thank you.’ He gestured to his car. ‘Do you want to follow me?’

Tess shook her head. ‘She’s at Trish’s, right? They still live in Indooroopilly?’