14. Murray
Getting my daughter back was one of the worst and best days of my life.
It was a Monday and almost two weeks since London and I had married. We’d spent most of our weekends avoiding each other and doing a terrible job of proving to Leth Sholas we were in a real relationship. At least we had the excuse of our actual jobs to explain why we were rarely seen together.
The tension in the house was getting so bad, I’d decided I would go out with the next crew heading to the North Atlantic tomorrow morning. The vessel would be out for ten days, and Kelly wasn’t due home until the weekend after that …
I’d started waking up at the same time as London.
Not because my alarm went off or because she woke me up …
but it was like my body knew when she was up and about.
Once I was awake, I’d hear the creak of the floorboards from upstairs.
Her guest room was above the guest room next door, and I’d started wondering all sorts of things I shouldn’t be wondering.
Like what she wore to bed.
If the golden freckles on her cheeks and nose could be found anywhere else on her body.
The woman living in my house, taking showers above my head, had been the subject of my masturbatory fantasies for the past year … and living with her was akin to torture.
I’d gone without sex for a long time, so I was used to celibacy.
While I suspected Jill had been unfaithful, I never was.
I’d seen what that betrayal did to my mum, and I vowed I’d never do that to a woman.
No matter what was going on between us. There had been stretches of months in our marriage where Jill didn’t want me to touch her.
Toward the end of our marriage, I didn’t want to touch her, and I didn’t for over a year.
When we separated, I had a few one-night stands for the first time in my life, and they’d left me cold.
The last had been after a gig the lads and I did on Scaris.
To say I was gun-shy of getting into a real relationship with anyone was an understatement, and since casual sex didn’t really do it for me, it meant I hadn’t had sex for almost eleven months (my right hand didn’t count). It wasn’t the longest I’d gone without sex, but it was close.
Now that London was a mere floor above me every night and every morning, my body was strung so taut, I might as well have been celibate for a decade.
That morning I woke up around five-ish. Almost the entire left wall of my bedroom was a wrap-around, floor-to-ceiling window. It was a nice detail, but it meant installing the best blackout blinds money could buy. Therefore, the sunlight no longer woke me.
Like the past four mornings, my London body clock alerted me before my alarm did. I groaned at the time and since I knew there was no way I’d fall back asleep, I got up to shower and used the time to fantasize about walking upstairs and getting into London’s shower with her.
It took the edge off but nowhere near enough.
Later as I dragged out getting dressed to shorten the amount of time London and I would spend in the kitchen together, I even considered staying in my room until she left.
I shook my head at my childishness and made my way upstairs to the kitchen.
A glance across the hall into London’s bedroom revealed her unmade bed.
An image of her undulating beneath me in her bedsheets flashed across my mind, sending hot blood southward.
I glanced hurriedly away, cursing under my breath as I replaced the image with thoughts of fish guts and bait.
It did the trick as I strolled into the kitchen, hoping I appeared normal.
London sat at the island, sipping a mug of coffee, a half-eaten bowl of granola and yogurt in front of her. She looked up from scrolling through her phone and gave me a tight-lipped smile. “Good morning.”
“Mornin’.” I nodded and then grimaced as soon as my back was to her. I mouthed fuck to myself as I turned on the coffee machine.
We talked more before we got married, for Pete’s sake. I had no idea what had gone wrong. We seemed fine the first night when I cooked her dinner. Of course, I’d had to leave her because I felt like I was on the verge of making a move on her after she mesmerized me with her piano skills.
So humble about it too.
She’d also confided in me about her childhood. Trusted me with it.
But then the next day … there was this guarded tension between us again.
I stared at the tiled wall in front of me, trying to think of something to say that might break whatever strangeness had flared between us.
“I saw Laird yesterday afternoon at the harbor. He mentioned you might be going on a fishing trip?”
At the toneless question, I finally turned around to face her.
London didn’t look at me, however, as she continued scrolling through her phone.
Her hair was pulled up in a bun as it always was for work, but little tendrils caressed her temples and cheeks.
I’d been itching lately to tuck them behind her ears simply for an excuse to touch her.
“It was obvious I didn’t know about it, which was a little embarrassing since I’m supposed to be your wife and all.” She threw me a tight smile before returning her attention to her phone.
Fuck.
Her words and tone brought me out of my teenage crushing and into reality.
“I’m sorry.” I crossed to the island, hoping she’d look at me. “I was considering it. Sometimes I like to go out with the lads on a longer haul when Kelly isn’t here.”
“Laird said this one is for ten days.” London finally put her phone down.
Her expression was flat. She had stunning eyes.
Her irises were turquoise except for a rim of dark green (or perhaps gray?) around the outer edge.
I’d never seen eye color like it, and they were striking against her red hair and fair skin.
Usually there was a lot going on behind those eyes, but right now they were irritatingly hard to read.
“It was just a thought.”
“Right.” She let out a huff of laughter, but I could have sworn I saw hurt flicker across her features. “Let’s be real, Murray. You’re trying to get away from me. I’m sorry this is weird, but you were the one who agreed to—”
“No, London, no.” I rounded the island now.
“I’m not … you’re not—” My phone suddenly rang loudly in my arse pocket and I growled in frustration.
My bloody phone and its constant prattling!
“Shit. Just give me one second to answer this and then you and I need to talk.” But as I pulled out my phone, London hopped off the stool.
“We’ll talk later.” She wouldn’t meet my gaze as she brushed past me.
Bloody hell. I was about to call after her when I saw it was Kelly calling. “Kelly?” I answered immediately.
Her quiet sob shot fear through me.
“Kelly, m’eudail, talk to me.”
“Daddy,” she cried. My daughter hadn’t called me daddy in years.
“Kelly? Kelly, what’s going on?”
Suddenly London was in front of me, concern written all over her.
“M-mum … M-mum h-had a party l-last n-night. I locked … l-locked myself in my bathroom. B-but a m-man t-tried to get in about half an hour ago. He finally just left, but I’m … I’m scared to leave.”
Impotent rage flooded through me, and I had to take a few deep breaths before I could reply calmly, “Here is what you’re going to do. You’re going to hang up with me and you’re going to call the police. Okay, m’eudail? Can you do that for me?”
“You, y-ou d-don’t think they’ll think it’s stupid for me to c-call them?”
Emotion burned in the back of my nose and eyes, almost choking me, and I had to pull the phone away so Kelly couldn’t hear my harsh exhale.
London suddenly reached out, wrapping her small hand around my arm and squeezing.
I gave her a grateful nod and put the phone back to my ear. “No, Kelly, they won’t think it’s stupid. Please, m’eudail. Call the police. I’m going to do the same, so they’ll come right away because we’re both calling, all right?”
She sniffled, her voice high-pitched with emotion. “Okay. Will you come g-get me?” she sobbed.
I squeezed my eyes closed, my fear and anger almost taking me out at my knees. “I am already on my way.”
Hanging up on her was the hardest thing I’d ever had to do.
“Murray, what is going on?” London asked as soon as I disconnected.
“Kelly’s locked in her bathroom. The woman who doesn’t even deserve to be called her mother threw a party last night, and some strange guy tried to get to Kelly. She’s scared to leave.” I dialed 999 as fury flashed across London’s face.
As soon as I connected and the man on the other end of the line asked what the emergency was, I talked as I made my way downstairs to the mudroom and heard London following me.
I explained to the operator what had happened and he assured me he’d send the police to do a welfare check.
“I have to go get her,” I told London as soon as I hung up.
“I’m coming with you.”
“The B and B?”
“This is more important.”
“You don’t have—”
“Murray, I want to be there for you, for this, as your friend,” London insisted, but then she winced. “And if I don’t go with you and people find out, questions will be asked. Questions that might lead to us being investigated for perjury.”
I nodded, unable to deal with thinking too much about our fake marriage. As soon as we were both strapped into the Discovery and my phone connected to the car, I tried Kelly again, but the line was engaged.
“The operator probably told her to stay on the line until the police arrive,” London reassured.
“Right, right. You’re right. Fuck!” I hit a palm off my wheel, my whole body vibrating with anxiety and rage. “Why did I let Jill take her all the way to Edinburgh?”
“Because you were trying to keep the peace for Kelly’s sake,” London surmised.
“Maybe it shouldn’t have been about keeping the fucking peace,” I hissed. “I never wanted to be him, but what have I become instead? A peacekeeper who has put his own daughter in jeopardy.”
“You did not. Murray, you can’t blame yourself for this. You tried to get sole custody, but you didn’t have the evidence you needed to prove Jill’s negligence.”
“If I’d threatened Jill … I could have put the fear of God in her more …”
“That’s not you.” London touched my arm tentatively. “I wouldn’t want that to be you, and neither would Kelly.”
I couldn’t hear her. All I could hear was my own self-loathing over having let this happen to my child. “What kind of man can’t protect his own daughter?”
“Murray—”
“Stop. Please. Just stop.” There was nothing anyone could say to make me feel better about this situation.
We were around thirty minutes from Edinburgh when London finally spoke again.
There had been silence between us since we’d boarded the ferry to the mainland.
London had called Tierney to explain her absence at the B and B and had suggested Tierney buy pastries from the bakery to do a continental breakfast. I’d heard Tierney tell her not to worry about it and to give me her best. I didn’t deserve her best.
Even when I reluctantly stopped to get diesel while London used the restroom at the services, neither of us spoke a word.
The only other thing that broke our silence was Fraser calling me multiple times (I didn’t answer because I didn’t want to deal with work right now), and then the police calling me to let me know they had Kelly in their care.
It settled my nerves a bit but not a lot.
Especially when they relayed that they’d arrested Jill.
They’d explain everything when I arrived.
I’d had the phone on speaker through the car’s Bluetooth. London heard this update, but she waited patiently for me to respond once I hung up.
Yet I couldn’t speak. My mind raced with the worst-case scenarios for why Jill had been arrested and how whatever she’d done had impacted Kelly.
Therefore, when London finally did talk, I physically jolted out of my thoughts.
“I never thought getting beaten up by my boyfriend would happen to me.”
Her words shocked me. Blunt and unexpected and brutal in their honesty.
“I naively assumed that I’d never choose someone capable of that.
” Her tone was soft, sorrowful, and her words seeped into my overwrought concern for Kelly.
“But I don’t think most men who abuse are pictures of aggression and violence.
I think they’re probably more like Nick.
Charming and charismatic. And the abuse—at least his was—is insidious.
Hard to prove. It started not with a bang, but quietly.
He would put me down, pluck out my insecurities and reinforce them.
Isolate me from my friends. Try to brainwash me into believing no one loved me but him.
And I don’t know how I didn’t truly see it at first. Maybe I did.
Maybe I just bought his crap, and that’s on me. ”
My chest fucking ached at what she described. When I glanced at her, she wiped tears off her cheeks. My fists clenched around the steering wheel.
“The first time he punched me, I was in shock. And there was no one I could call because he’d made me believe that no one would care.
” Her next breath was shaky, and I wished like hell I wasn’t driving so I could touch her, comfort her.
I wished like hell that son of a bitch was in front of me so I could wrap my hand around his throat and see how he liked it.
“He was so apologetic that I convinced myself it wouldn’t happen again.
But it did. Several times. And when it did happen, it was like he had a rage blackout and then was eerily calm again. ”
I glanced over to find her watching me, expression regretful and so sad it hurt to witness.
“I wished I could have called my dad and asked him to come get me and that he would have dropped everything to jump in a car to race across the country to make sure I was okay. But I don’t have a dad like Kelly’s dad.
I wouldn’t trade who you are or how you care for the people you love for anything, Murray Shaw. And neither would your daughter.”
Emotion thickened my throat so tight I couldn’t speak.
“There are things that will happen to her that you can’t control. It’s scary and awful, but that’s life. What you can control is how you show up for her. Do you hear me, Murray? You are the best father I’ve ever known, and I need you to hear me when I say that.”
I swallowed past the constriction and as we slowed in traffic, I could safely turn to meet her bright gaze. Something overwhelming filled my entire being as I looked at London. “I hear you … Thank you.”
Her smile was soft, kind, relieved as she reached out to pat my knee quickly. “Good. Now let’s go bring Kelly home.”