Too Charming (19 page)

He shook his head and slumped even further down the sofa. ‘No. She clearly doesn’t want me around, or she wouldn’t have fled in the first place.’

Megan found it hard to believe what she was hearing. He sounded so down, defeated. Where was the man who was always so maddeningly sure of
himself? As he ran a hand through his already dishevelled hair, Megan realised with a start that this was a totally different side to Scott Armstrong. With his cocky manner and smooth good looks it was easy to assume he was shallow. She had. But the man sitting before her now, vulnerable, uncertain, hurting because his mother didn’t appear to want him in her life, was far deeper, far more complex, than she’d ever given him credit for. And she was falling in love with him.

Chapter Twenty

Scott beckoned Megan to sit down. He didn’t have the energy to stand, and he wasn’t prepared to keep looking up at her. What on earth was she doing here? After she’d seen the state of his mother in the police station, he wouldn’t have blamed her if she’d never contacted him again. Many women would have seen it as the time to get out. God knows
, he’d certainly given her the opportunity to do exactly that. Telling her they should cool things off for a while had nearly killed him, but the thought of her staying with him simply through pity had hurt even more. Yet, despite what he’d said, she’d still turned up on his doorstep, proving what a warm, caring woman she really was. Right now though, he couldn’t handle that kindness. Nor could he bear the look of sympathy in her eyes. ‘Look, Megan, I appreciate the house call, but there really isn’t anything you can do. It’s my mess and I’ll deal with it.’

‘Do you think that’s the only reason I came round? To see if I could help with your mother?’

‘What other reason is there?’

She took the seat opposite, staring at him with her huge blue eyes. ‘Tell me, why did you turn down the murder case?’

Ah, so she’d heard about that had she? ‘It was a big case. I had too much on. I couldn’t devote enough time to it to do the client justice.’

‘That’s the only reason?’

Those eyes of hers weren’t looking away. They were fixed on him. Heck, she was just like her father. The same interrogation technique. Coolly stare the other person down with those magnificent eyes until they’ll admit anything. ‘It’s enough of a reason.’

‘No, it isn’t. You turned the case down because I didn’t want you to do it, didn’t you?’

He could lie and say no, but what was the point? She knew what the answer was anyway. ‘I had a diary clash, Megan,’ he replied sternly, ‘and if you call it anything different I’ll be had up before the Bar Standards Board.’

Immediately she smiled.
Such a gorgeous smile. It lit up her eyes and caused his heart to flip in his chest. ‘Of course.’ Still smiling, she stood up and snuggled down next to him, wrapping her arms around him, pulling him close against her. ‘This is what I came over to do.’

God help him, his bloody eyes started to fill with tears again. As he sank into her embrace, he bit on the inside of his cheek in an attempt not to break down. He’d embarrassed himself enough in front of this woman. But the hug felt so good. So exactly what he needed. Lifting his arms, he placed them around her and squeezed her back.

When he was sure he had a handle on his emotions again, he pulled away. ‘Thanks. That was …’ Might as well admit it. ‘Just what I needed.’

‘So why do I get the impression you still want me to go?’

Go? Was she mad? Of course he didn’t
want
her to go. What he wanted was something entirely different. It involved him taking off her clothes and burying himself inside her until he couldn’t think or remember anything but her and how wonderful she was. ‘I don’t want you to go,’ he admitted.

‘But?’

He exhaled slowly. ‘Megan, I appreciate you coming round. I really do. But my life is one hell of a mess at the moment and I don’t want you getting mixed up in it.’ He moved further away from her. Far enough that she wouldn’t be able to read the shame in his eyes. ‘I meant it when I said we need to cool it. To think about what we really want. And frankly, the last thing I want is for you to stay here out of some misguided sense of charity.’

‘Charity?’ The disgusted expression on her face was almost laughable. ‘That’s why you think I’m here? Poor Scott is going through a bad time, and though I really don’t like him any more, not now I know he’s got an alcoholic mother, I’ll come round and give him one last roll in the sheets. It’s the least I can for those hours he’s spent servicing me.’

He raised his eyes to the ceiling. ‘That wasn’t exactly how my thought processes were going.’

‘Weren’t they? I’m not sure who to feel insulted for. You or me.’ She leapt up from the sofa and began to pace the room like a trapped bobcat. ‘I don’t need time to think about what I really want, Scott. I know perfectly well what I want. I want you.’ He swallowed down the lump in his throat. ‘And yes, some of what I’m feeling for you right now is sympathy. Jesus, who wouldn’t? But that’s not the only reason why I’m here. I care for you, Scott. A lot. Enough to want to help, in any way I can. If it isn’t by tracking down your mother, which I could do, very easily, if you’d let me, then it’s by being here for you.
A shoulder for you to lean on. Someone who’ll make you a hot meal, if you want. Take you to bed, if you want that, too. At least I hope you want the last part. I was pretty much banking on that bit.’

He didn’t know what to say. His reputation for fast thinking was in tatters. Her words left him speechless.

‘So, what’s it to be?’ she prompted.

Racking his brain, he desperately tried to remember what she’d said. The bits in between
I care for you
and
I want to take you to bed
, that was.
He had no trouble remembering those. ‘Can we start with the last part?’ he finally croaked out. ‘Then maybe work up to the other two later.’ He moved to stand in front of her. Clasping her by the shoulders, he bent his head and started to explore that enticing mouth of hers. ‘Probably a lot later.’

Still with his mouth fastened on
to hers, he lifted her into his arms and carried her up the stairs. ‘And just so we’re clear,’ he told her as he laid her on the bed. ‘I care a lot about you, too.’ He suspected his feelings went far deeper than caring. That they were actually merging into love. But he wasn’t ready to admit that to himself yet, never mind her.

‘When did your mother start drinking?’ Megan asked a couple of hours later as they cleared away the plates from the meal they’d just shared.

They’d done the making love part.
Twice – once in the shower. Then she’d made a quick pasta dish with the food that he’d bought for his mother. Now, he guessed, she was doing the shoulder to lean on bit. Except much as he enjoyed leaning on her, preferably with his whole body, naked, he wasn’t ready to talk. Not about this. It was too painful, too shaming. Too likely to rock the relationship boat that they had only just managed to stabilise.

‘When my father left us.
When I was seven.’

‘I’m sorry.’ She took his hand and led him towards the sitting room. ‘Is that why you took up drawing?’

Scott was a man. He loved to talk about himself. But not about
this
. ‘I guess, yes. It gave me something to do in the evenings.’ When his mother was drowning her sorrows in the bottom of a vodka bottle. Even now, Scott couldn’t touch the stuff.

‘When I first came in and saw the whiskey glass, I thought …’

‘I was going down the same slippery slope?’ He sighed and looked down at their joined hands, her fingers entwined in his. ‘I might do, one day. I don’t know. I try to restrict my drinking to just a couple of times a week. I don’t drink to excess. This afternoon was the first time in a long while I’d reached for the whiskey bottle in anger. Usually to let off steam I go for a beer or two. I remember putting the glass to my lips and then seeing her face.’ He looked over at Megan. ‘That was how she started. So upset and angry with life that she reached for the bottle.’

‘But she didn’t have the strength to stop herself.’ Megan reminded him. ‘You do.’

‘Perhaps. Or perhaps my troubles are very minor compared to hers.’

‘Why did your father leave?’

That was the million dollar question. One he simply couldn’t, wouldn’t answer. Instinctively he released his hand from hers. ‘He left,’ he replied bluntly. ‘That’s all that matters. It broke her heart.’

‘So you would draw while she drank.’

‘Pretty much, yes.’ He rubbed a hand over his face. He still hadn’t shaved. Something Megan had reminded him of as he’d kissed the soft, sensitive skin of her breasts. ‘I don’t want your pity, Megan,’ he ground out as he saw sympathy swim once more in her eyes. ‘She was a good mother. She held down a job to provide for me. I always had clean clothes on my back and food in my stomach.’

‘And what about love?’ she asked softly. ‘How much of that did you have?’

How could Megan read him so easily? ‘Enough,’ he replied shortly. Enough that he knew his mother cared for him. Just not as much as she’d loved his father.

Megan saw his face close up and knew she wasn’t going to get any further with that line of questioning. Years on the force had taught her when to continue probing, and when to change tactics. ‘Scott, about what I mentioned earlier. Tracking her down. I can do that, you know.’

‘I know.’ She heard him take in a deep breath, knew he was wrestling with what to do. ‘I’m worried she’s started to fall in with a bad crowd. That she’s taken up with a drug dealer,’ he admitted. ‘Before it had only ever been alcohol. Now …’ he trailed off, looked at her with haunted grey eyes. ‘She’s on a downward spiral. I’m terrified this can only go one way.’

‘Then let me help you,’ she pleaded, taking hold of his hands and gripping them tightly. ‘Come on, Scott. At least let me find out where she’s staying.’

‘I can’t have the police hunting down my mother,’ he replied in a tortured voice. ‘Christ.’

She reached for his face and smoothed out the furrowed lines on his brow. ‘It won’t be like that. I’ll do it discre
etly. Nobody else involved but me.’

‘You’ve got enough on your plate.’

‘What, too much to help you? Too much to help stop a woman from eventually killing herself? No, I don’t think so.’ She knew that what she was offering was difficult for him to accept. His lover tracking down his alcoholic mother. It wasn’t hard to understand how humiliating that was for him.

‘I’m frightened of what you’ll find,’ he finally admitted to her, avoiding her eyes.

Frankly, so was she. ‘I know. But sitting here and hoping shit won’t happen doesn’t stop it happening. Isn’t it far better to know what’s going on, rather than second guess?  At least, if we can find her, it’ll be a start. You’ll know what you’re up against. Be able to begin fighting back.’

‘Yeah, you’re right.’ He finally met her eyes and smiled. It wasn’t his usual, confident grin, but at least it was something. ‘God, you’re a tough one, Megan. How can something so tough come in such a small, cute package?’

‘I’ll overlook the cute part, if you take me to bed one more time before I go.’

‘I can do that, but I’d rather you stayed. Sleep with me tonight. Come with me to the gym tomorrow. You’ll still be home to have breakfast with Sally.’

Megan wasn’t going to argue this time. These last few days all she’d dreamt of was spending the night in Scott’s arms. At one point she hadn’t believed she’d ever be doing that again. So while Scott went to the bathroom, she quickly phoned her parents and warned them she wouldn’t be back until breakfast. Perhaps it was a slippery slope, staying the night, but Megan was too relieved to worry about that. The future would take care of itself – for now she had Scott back in her life. A different Scott to the one she thought she knew. Deeper. More vulnerable. Altogether more loveable.

Chapter Twenty-One

Once again Scott found himself biking over to Megan’s house for a family meal. This time it was Sunday roast. Not something he was going to turn down in a hurry. It felt good to be part of a family, no matter how small a part it actually was.
Probably because his own family life had turned out so catastrophically bad.

According to Megan’s sources, Scott’s mother had chosen to live with a notorious drug dealer instead of her son.
Reg someone or other. When Megan had told him, it had taken all of her considerable powers of persuasion to stop him from jumping on to his bike and having it out with the man.

‘Macho posturing isn’t going to help,’ she’d told him in no uncertain terms. ‘It’ll just make things worse. He’ll see
you as the enemy, which, trust me, is the last thing you want. And there’s no way your mother will respond to you telling her what to do. She has to work that out for herself. You know where she is now. You know that at least she has a roof over her head. If she’s with Reg, she’s physically safe. He won’t let anyone harm what’s his. What you need to do now is work out how to get her to see where her life is heading.’

Easy to say.
A bloody sight more difficult to actually fathom out how to do, he didn’t even know where to start. Again, Megan had come to the rescue. She knew some good counsellors who’d be able to help. Before he knew what was happening, she was making him an appointment to meet with one the next day.

Right now, however, as he roared on
to their driveway, he made up his mind that he was going to put the whole sorry mess behind him. Live for the moment.

‘Scott!’

There was a sight that would go a long way towards helping him do exactly that. Sally had already opened the door and was jumping up and down, yelling his name. He wasn’t sure when they’d gone from greeting each other with a smile to full-blown hugs. Whenever it was, he was glad. He wrapped his arms around her tiny body and lifted her up. ‘Hello, Titch.’

‘I’m not small,’ she protested as he brought her safely back down again. ‘I’m one of the tallest girls in my class.’

‘Maybe so,’ he smiled, ruffling her hair. ‘But you’re a titch compared to me.’

‘That’s because you’re too tall.’ She looked up at him, craning her neck. ‘It must be lonely up there.’

He laughed and squeezed her dainty hand. It was lonely at times, but it had nothing to do with his height. The truth was he hadn’t even realised he was lonely until he’d met Megan. Now the days he spent apart from her felt like a giant void. To say it was unnerving was putting it politely. Even worse was the knowledge that sometimes he actually caught himself counting down to the time he’d see her again, and the void would be filled.

As Sally ran up the stairs to gather together her latest artwork, he poked his nose in the kitchen and found Dot, up to her elbows in pastry, the radio blaring out classical music. She gave him her warm, twinkly smile. The one that made him
realise with a sharp tug how much he wished his own mother would greet him that way. ‘Do I get to eat that later?’ he asked, once he’d kissed her on her flour-dusted cheek.

‘If you’re good,’ she replied with a dimpled grin.

‘And what constitutes good in your book?’

‘Eating everything I put in front of you will do, for a start.’

He laughed. ‘Well, in that case, I can promise you I’ll be as good as gold.’

She waved him away and he went in search of Megan, who he found arguing with her father over some police matter in the living room.

‘Scott.’ It did his heart good to see the welcome on her face. To have her walk over to him and kiss him, even though her father was in the room. ‘I didn’t hear the doorbell.’

‘That’s because your daughter beat me to it.’

She smiled. ‘She’s been looking out for you.’

‘So I guessed. She’s also been drawing more pictures.’

‘It’s worrying to see the effect the Armstrong charm has on the Taylor women.’

Scott found himself grinning like an idiot, though he was also conscious of her father in the background, his rather stern face telling him the Taylor male was still to be convinced.

After a few minutes of small talk, Megan drifted off to help her mother and Scott was left standing with her father. The silence stretched out between them, becoming more and more awkward. Why, suddenly, couldn’t he think of anything to say?

Thankfully Stanley started to talk. ‘I think this is where I’m supposed to ask you if your intentions towards my daughter are
honourable.’

Scott froze. Well then. Swallowing down the quick burst of terror, he told himself that would teach him to leave the conversation up to her father. Slowly he crossed his legs at his ankles, making a determined effort not to look panicked.  ‘I have to admit, most of my intentions fall in the
dishonourable category,’ he finally replied, trying a little humour. A glance over in her father’s direction confirmed his fears. There was no reassuring smile. Not even a glint of amusement: humour was the wrong tactic. He changed gears and slipped into lawyer mode. That way he could answer anything that was thrown at him. ‘Mr Taylor,’ he began again, deliberately choosing the formal title in an effort to convey his sincerity. ‘I can’t say I know where my relationship with Megan is going to end, but I can say for certain that I’m not playing any games. I have no intention of hurting her. She means too much to me.’

Stanley nodded, seemingly satisfied, but Scott was still aware of the tension between them. But, whilst they were already wading knee deep in dangerous topics, he might as well get everything out in the open. ‘I know you don’t think much of me.’

‘I didn’t say that,’ the older man replied steadily.

‘No, but detectives aren’t the only ones good at reading between the lines. Lawyers do it, too.’

Stanley considered him carefully, with the same steady gaze that Scott had received before. The one that made him feel like a specimen under a microscope. ‘I don’t have anything against you, Scott.’

‘Perhaps not, but I also know I’m not the man you imagined your daughter going out with.’ He paused, but saw no hint that Stanley was going to contradict him. ‘I can only say I plan to reverse your opinion of me. To grow on you.’

Was that a small smile on his face? Or was he seeing what he wanted to see?

‘I’m sure you will, Scott. I’m sure you will. But I meant what I said earlier. I don’t have anything against you. Megan finds it hard to accept what you do for a living, but I don’t. My only concern is for her. She’s been badly let down in the past. I won’t have her, or Sally, going through that again. Not if I can help it.’

Scott was saved a reply by the entrance of the little girl herself. Still, he looked Stanley in the eye and nodded. Message received, loud and clear.

No doubt feeling his mission had been
accomplished, Stanley then rose from his chair and left the room, leaving Scott with Sally. A far easier companion.

‘Here’s a picture I made for you,’ she announced proudly, pushing one of a handful of her latest masterpieces over in his direction.

He looked down at the colourful artwork, just about making out the sea and three figures.

‘It’s
you, me and Mum by the beach. Next to the pier we went on.’

The more he studied the picture, the more it touched him, and terrified him, in equal measures. She’d drawn them all holding hands, Sally in the middle, and they looked like a real family. As his heart lurched, he wondered frantically if that’s how Sally saw them. A family. ‘Have you shown this to your mum?’ he asked softly, feeling a crazy surge of raw emotion. One he wasn’t sure he could explain.

Sally shook her head and Scott thanked God. He was pretty certain it wasn’t a picture that Megan would want to see. It would no doubt terrify her as much as it did him, though for entirely different reasons. The terror on his side came from the fact that he could easily imagine them as a family, spending lots of similar days together. But family days out with him weren’t likely to be on Megan’s to-do list. She’d given him several none-too-subtle hints that, while she was enjoying her time with him, it had an expiry date. His moral compass didn’t fit with hers and there were parts of him she didn’t understand and didn’t even like. Sure, he was making some progress in changing her mind, but he had a horrible feeling that it wasn’t going to be enough.

While Scott had been receiving his grilling from Stanley, Megan, too, had been on the wrong side of a grilling. In her case, from her mother.

‘How is that poor boy doing?’ she asked as she put the finishing touches on an apple pie.

Megan had never met anyone who was less like a
poor boy
. ‘By poor boy I assume you mean Scott?’

‘Of course.
Such a terrible business. Has he seen his mother again since, you know, that night?’

‘The night she was brought into the station, you mean,’ Megan replied dryly. What had happened was now common knowledge, which made her mother’s attempt at being discre
etly all the more laughable. ‘No, he hasn’t. I told him to back off and talk to an expert in dependency first, before charging in like a raging bull.’

‘It can’t have been easy for him, growing up as he did. No father and an alcoholic mother who, from the sound of things, didn’t really take much notice of him.’

Megan studied her mother. ‘You’ve fallen under the man’s spell, haven’t you?’ she accused. ‘I can’t believe you’re now repeating his sob story to me. What are you trying to do? Make me feel so sorry for him that I jump into bed with him? I hate to say this, Mum, but that ship has already sailed.’

‘I worked that out for myself,’ she replied tartly. ‘I was only making conversation. Telling you that I approved of him, if my opinion matters at all to you.’

Knowing she’d gone too far, Megan bent to hug her. ‘Sorry. Of course your opinion matters to me. It matters a lot. It’s just …’ She sighed, and rested her head against her mother’s. ‘I’m in real trouble, Mum. I like him so much.’ She wasn’t going to admit to the other L-word, not yet. ‘I know it’s going to hurt badly when it all comes to an end.’

Gently her mother shifted away so she could look at her. ‘Oh Megan, why do you assume it will end?’

‘Because he’s not the sort of man that thinks long-term.’ Tears filled her eyes and she had to blink rapidly to stop them from escaping. ‘I knew that when I went into this relationship. It’s why I fought it for so damned long. But then I thought, why not? I can have a little fun. I just have to be careful.’ She tried to laugh. ‘I’ve forgotten how to be careful.’

Her mum reached down and squeezed her hand. ‘Darling Megan, you can’t spend all your life being careful. Sometimes you just have to live it and see where it takes you.’

Megan sighed and closed her eyes for a moment. Of course her mother was right. Mothers often were. But she had the horrid feeling that this particular road was taking her right back to searing heartbreak. A place she’d promised to never revisit.

It had been a lovely evening, Megan reflected as she stood in the hallway waiting for Scott, who’d bounded upstairs to say goodbye to Sally. All her favourite people had been gathered around one table. It had almost been too lovely, carrying with it the danger that she would start to believe such evenings could become a permanent fixture.

Stop thinking so much
, she scolded herself. Live for now.  As Scott came back into view, his long limbs bounding back down the stairs, she automatically reached for his black leather jacket and handed it to him.

‘Hey, thanks.
I could get used to such service.’  Giving her a quick, maddening grin, he shrugged it on.

‘I only provide it to make sure our visitors actually leave,’ she retorted distractedly, her mind more focused on how the jacket hugged his broad frame.

As he was zipping up she noticed a sheet of paper falling out of his pocket and reached to take it. ‘What’s that?’

‘
Ahh.’ Without looking at it, he took it from her and pushed it back in. ‘Just a picture that Sally drew for me.’

‘Really? Let me see.’

The glance he gave her was fleeting, but long enough for her to see the hesitation in it and start to wonder. What exactly had Sally drawn that was making him look so uncomfortable?

‘Hand it over,’ she demanded in her commanding police sergeant voice. It worked. Within moments she was staring down at a touching family picture.
And immediately regretted asking to see it. ‘Shit, shit, shit.’ The words flew out of her mouth at the same rate her heart sunk in her chest. As she continued to stare at the three figures, noting the care Sally had put into the picture, she felt ripples of raw panic. Is that actually how Sally had started to see them, or was it just an innocent drawing of a day by the sea? She couldn’t be certain, but it was fear of this very thing that had always made her so wary of getting into another relationship. She didn’t want Sally to get hurt. Something she seemed to have lost sight of while allowing herself to be dazzled by Scott.

‘I didn’t think the drawing was that bad,’ Scott remarked, his flippant words totally at odds with the rigid expression on his face.