His Very Own Wife and Child
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Caroline Anderson
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CHAPTER ONE
IT COULDN’T be him.
Not here. She was seeing things.
‘Oh, Sally, it’s so good to see you!’ Annie hugged her hard, then threw a sparkling smile at the others. ‘Hi, David, hi, boys. Welcome back. Come on in!’
She had no choice. Annie was towing her into the hotel, arm still round her shoulders, and David was behind her with the boys, so there was nothing she could do but allow herself to be carried along. And, anyway, he couldn’t be here. The whole of the little country house hotel was booked for the wedding, and she’d seen the guest list. There was no way she would have missed his name. She was just fantasising—tired, emotional, with all this love in the air…
‘Are you all right? At least none of you seem to have broken anything! Good journey back from the airport?’
Sally found a smile. ‘Yes, we’re fine, no fractures and the road was clear. We’ve made really good time.’ She put the man out of her mind and concentrated on Annie, hugging her again and then holding her at arm’s length to study her. ‘Anyway, never mind us, how are you? You’re the one getting married tomorrow and I wasn’t even here to help you with the last-minute things. Fine matron of honour I am! I feel so guilty, and if it hadn’t been booked already there’s no way I would have abandoned you like that just to go skiing. Did you get everything done? Are you coping?’
Annie laughed, her face radiant. ‘Don’t worry about me, I’ve never been better. I can’t wait, and Patrick’s been brilliant, so you can relax. You know, I really didn’t have a clue what happiness was until I met him, but he’s just…’ She trailed off, shrugging and laughing off the emotion that had visibly bubbled to the surface.
‘I’m so glad for you,’ Sally said fervently, hugging her yet again and blinking away her own tears. ‘You deserve to be happy. You’ve been through hell. I’m really glad it’s over and things are looking so great for you all.’
‘Me, too.’ Annie’s hug tightened for a moment, then she released Sally and took a step back. ‘Look, I’m up to my eyes a bit for the next few minutes, sorting out a problem with the food, so why don’t you check in and sort yourselves out, then come down and find us when you’re ready? Patrick and Katie are downstairs in the dungeons with the others, and I should be there soon.’
‘Dungeons?’ That was Ben, bouncing up beside her and staring at Annie wide-eyed. ‘Really?’
Annie nodded seriously. ‘Well, they used to be, I think. It’s a very old house, and I think they kept prisoners downstairs at one time—smugglers, probably! There’s a little room with an iron grille instead of a door, and there are iron rings on the wall to tie people up to.’ She grinned as she walked away. ‘You’d better be good or you might end up in there!’
Ben’s eyes widened even further. ‘Cool!’ he said, and whirled round to tell his elder brother, just as Alex took a step forward.
There was a sickening crunch, Ben yelped, Alex buried his nose in his hands and howled, ‘Ow!’ As the blood started to drip through his fingers, David sighed, put down the cases and rummaged in his pockets.
‘Sally, have you got a—?’
‘Allow me,’ a voice said, and Sally straightened up and felt the air whoosh from her lungs. It couldn’t be, it really couldn’t—
‘Hello, Sal.’
She didn’t even notice the box of tissues he was holding out. She was too busy trying to stay upright. Her heart was pounding so hard she couldn’t hear, and it was jammed in her throat, totally obstructing her airway so that she had to make a conscious effort to drag in a breath, then another.
‘Cheers,’ David said, grabbing the tissues and shoving a handful at Alex. ‘Here. You’re dripping on the floor. Sally, are you OK? You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.’
She felt a bubble of hysterical laughter. A ghost? Or just her biggest ever mistake come back to haunt her? She shook her head, partly to clear it. ‘I’m fine, just a bit light-headed. It must be jet-lag,’ she said, turning her attention belatedly to Alex.
Oh, lord. Alex!
Alex, for all sorts of reasons—but the most pressing one was the spreading stain on the hotel carpet. The rest could wait. Please, God.
She stared at the clump of bloody tissues and the mess on the floor. She should be dealing with it, with him, and all she could think about was the man who’d made her happier than she’d ever been in her life—and had then walked away without a backward glance, leaving her life in chaos. What was he doing here? Why…?
‘Thank you,’ she managed somehow, and dragging her eyes from his, she turned her attention to her son. ‘Darling, let me see.’
‘It’s broken,’ Alex mumbled round the tissues. ‘He’s smashed it to bits, I know he has.’
‘Don’t be melodramatic,’ David said calmly. ‘Let your mother look.’ And he gently prised the boy’s hands away from his face.
Alex yelped. ‘Dad, careful! It’s broken!’
‘I don’t think so,’ Sally said, studying it and wondering if the blood would come out of the carpet or if the hotel would charge them for it. Thank God it was patterned, she thought inconsequentially, and then couldn’t believe she was worrying about anything so trivial when—
‘May I?’ Jack said to Alex. ‘I’m a doctor—I work in an emergency department, so I see this sort of thing all the time.’ With Alex’s wary nod, he ignored her murmur of dissent and bent his knees to bring himself down to Alex’s level, and her heart went into hyperdrive.
Oh, lord. They were eye to eye, nose to nose…
‘I’m Jack, by the way,’ he said with a smile. And then he touched him. He ran his fingertip lightly over the bridge of Alex’s nose, peered up it, then gave the cartilage an experimental little wiggle that brought a muted squawk of protest from her son. ‘Sorry. I’m sure it must be sore, but the septum hasn’t deviated—that’s the bit in the middle between your nostrils—and it hasn’t moved sideways, and it feels OK—’
‘No, it doesn’t!’ Alex retorted, and Jack laughed not unkindly and straightened up.
‘I’m sure it doesn’t, but noses are very sensitive. They hurt like crazy when you bump them, even if you don’t really damage them. If it’s any consolation you’ll probably have an impressive black eye in the morning, but I don’t think you can sue your brother for anything more dramatic. It’s not even really bleeding any longer.’
Alex grunted, and Jack handed him another tissue, took away the blood-soaked ones and held out his hand to David with the open smile that was his trade mark.
‘Jack Logan,’ he said. ‘I’m an old friend of Patrick’s. And you must be David Brown, Sally’s husband, if the Who’s Who I found in the room’s to be believed. Sal and I worked together years ago, on one of my rotations.’
‘Briefly,’ she put in, and wondered if the edge in her voice was noticeable. Probably. And if he was an old friend of Patrick’s, why hadn’t his name come up?
‘It’s a small world,’ David said, shaking his hand and returning his smile.
Sally wasn’t smiling. She was beyond it, too shocked to function except on autopilot, because she’d loved him so much, had given him everything of herself, and just when she’d needed him…
‘Mum, is Alex OK?’
She pulled herself together and looked down at Ben, hovering guiltily beside her and staring at his brother’s nose with awe. She reached out and squeezed his shoulder.
‘He’s fine. Don’t worry, darling. We need to check in and find our rooms, and I ought to do something about the carpet.’
‘Leave the carpet to me. I’ll get it sorted,’ Jack said in that low, slightly gruff voice that made her blood heat and her heart jiggle.
Crazy. Insane! After all these years, she should have been immune to his charms. She forced herself to meet his eyes. ‘Thank you. I’ll go and sort the kids out, make sure Alex is OK. We’ll see you later.’
Emphasis on the ‘we’, please note. Happily married woman, with two children and a safe, sensible career as a senior A and E nurse. So frightfully normal it was almost a cliché. And she had no business letting her eyes rest longingly on his features, noting the new touch of grey threaded through his toffee-coloured hair, the silver mingling with the gold streaks at his temples. That summer, too, his hair had faded to gold in the sun, and she guessed he’d been somewhere hot just recently. Either that or he’d had it highlighted, and she couldn’t imagine him having either the patience or the vanity for that.
He had crow’s feet now round those fabulous slate-blue eyes, she noticed, made all the more obvious by his tan. She’d always known he’d get them, because he’d laughed all the time, and the brackets around his mouth had deepened, too.
Oh, that mouth. Her eyes dropped lower, checking out those firm, sculptured lips she’d known so well. She shouldn’t be wondering if they would still feel the same, if he’d taste the same, if his hands were still so clever…
‘I’ll look forward to it,’ he murmured, and for a hideously embarrassing second she thought she’d voiced her feelings out loud, but no. He was just answering her ‘See you later’ with another stock response. Relief—and something else—sent her blood surging through her veins and her heart off once more on that wild-goose chase, and she struggled for a smile.
Dragging her eyes from his face, she ushered the children towards the reception desk where David was already checking them in, and by the time they’d filled in the registration form there was a member of the hotel staff cheerfully sorting out the carpet and Jack was nowhere to be seen.
Good, she told herself, and wondered why it didn’t feel good, why it felt as if the sun had gone behind a cloud and all the warmth had drained from the day…
He couldn’t believe she was here. He’d read the Who’s Who of the wedding party guests in his room, seen a Sally on the list and thought of her as he always did if he saw her name, but never in his wildest imaginings had he dreamt it would be his Sally.
‘No. She’s not your Sally. She’s David’s,’ he reminded himself sharply, and felt a stab of something that could only be jealousy. Crazy. He’d blown any chance of happiness with her when he’d married Clare. He had no right to be jealous of David.
He strode on, following a path around the hotel and behind the lawned terrace at the back, down into the woodland below. Running away, he told himself in disgust. He knew exactly what he was doing, and he knew why, but it didn’t make it sensible because, whether he liked it or not, in a few minutes he had to go back in there, put on a cheerful wedding face and pretend to enjoy himself, when all he wanted to do was get in the car and leave.
‘Liar,’ he growled. ‘You want to talk to her, to get her alone and find out how she is, touch her, hear her voice again, get to know the woman she is now. And if you’re really lucky, you’ll be utterly indifferent to her.’
He gave a snort of disbelief. Not a chance. When he’d seen her in the entrance hall, he’d felt as if he’d been hit by a truck. There was no way he’d be indifferent to Sally until he was dead. The best he could hope for in the next two days was a little dignity. With a sigh of resignation, he turned and made his way back to the hotel.
‘Jack seems a nice man.’
Nice? Jack? Not in a million years. Sexy, yes—fascinating, absolutely. But nice? She made a noncommittal ‘mmm’ noise and carried on unpacking.
‘You worked with him, he said?’
Sally hung up her dress, tugged at a crease and picked up a pair of trousers, threading them onto the hanger with exaggerated care. ‘Very briefly. It was years and years ago. He was an SHO on my new ward, but he was due to finish. We only coincided by a few weeks.’ Amazing weeks. Weeks that had changed her life…
‘You must have made an impression. He seems to remember you quite clearly.’
‘It’s my sparkling personality,’ she said, flashing him a smile and wishing he’d let it drop. The last thing she wanted to do was get into a conversation about Jack Logan with a man she’d spent the last nine years regretting marrying—and where had that come from?
The trousers fell from her fingers, and she bent and picked them up and brushed them absently. Really? She regretted it? But she’d got the boys, and they’d had a good life together. Hadn’t they? And what was the past tense all about?
‘Nice touch.’
She glanced over and saw him flicking through the contents of a shallow little box that had been lying on the bed.
‘Who’s Who of the wedding party, schedule of events for tonight and tomorrow, even a map of the surroundings in case we want a walk. See.’
Halting her run-away thoughts, she crossed over to the bed and took the box, all the sheets inside beautifully decorated with a delicate motif and enclosed in a tissue folder. The outside of the box was decorated with tiny pressed rosebuds, and it brought a lump to her throat.
It was so unashamedly romantic, so absolutely perfect, and Annie’s happiness shone through every word. They made a wonderful couple, and Sally felt a twinge of something that could have been jealousy. She squashed it hard. They deserved their happiness. She wasn’t going to envy them it, they were more than welcome.
She touched the rosebuds wistfully. ‘Pretty, isn’t it? And thoughtful—typical Annie. She’s been planning it for ages, but she hadn’t finished when we went on holiday,’ she said, and put the box down with hands that were suddenly unsteady.
Was he in the Who’s Who now? He hadn’t been—so he must be the missing friend that Patrick had been trying to locate, the man he’d called Oz. She remembered now that Jack had been born in Australia, but apart from the odd word if he was stressed—or aroused, and she wasn’t going to let herself think about that!—you really wouldn’t have known, and she’d forgotten until now.
Obviously, in the last couple of weeks while they’d been away, Patrick had tracked him down. Hence Jack’s presence here now, turning her brain into mush and her body into a wildfire.
How was she going to cope with seeing Jack over the next few days? David wasn’t stupid. He’d be bound to notice if her behaviour was different, and there was no way it wouldn’t be. For a start, the moment she’d seen him she’d stopped breathing, and David had picked up on it instantly. If she looked as if she’d seen a ghost every time she set eyes on him, it was going to be a dead give-away, and she couldn’t bear to hurt David by making him think she was still in love with Jack. He’d been so good to her—
‘Look, Mum! I’m getting a black eye!’
Alex and Ben burst into the room, Alex’s pain forgotten in favour of pride in his wound, and she examined it dutifully and made admiring noises. In fact, it was just the merest touch of purple extending into his lower eyelid from the corner of his left eye, but by the morning it might be more impressive, and she had the feeling that Alex wouldn’t mind that at all!
‘Come on, we ought to be going down,’ David said, checking his tie in the mirror and running an assessing eye over the boys. ‘Are you all set?’
They nodded, and he turned to Sally. ‘Are you ready?’
She shook her head. ‘Give me five minutes. Why don’t you take the boys down and introduce them to the others? I’ll be down soon.’
‘OK. Don’t be long.’
He took the boys out. She could hear them chattering excitedly on the way down the corridor, David’s deeper voice steadying them and warning Ben to mind the step.
Then a door swung shut and silence descended, broken only by the beat of her heart.
She closed her eyes and rested her cheek against the cool glass of the mirror. She wasn’t ready for this. She’d had no warning, no time to prepare herself either physically or mentally.
She’d put on weight, her hair needed a really good cut instead of the quick trim that was all she had time to fit in these days, and…
‘What are you think about?’ she asked herself, straightening up and glaring sternly at her reflection in the mirror. ‘You’re married—so’s he. There are more important things to worry about. It doesn’t matter what you look like!’
But it did, for her pride if nothing else, and she searched her face for the changes he’d find. Tiny lines, of tiredness and worry and the stress of her job, and the other day she’d even found a grey hair. At thirty-two? She’d yanked it out, but she doubted Clare would have a grey hair or a wrinkle.
Of course she’d only ever met her once before, so it would be interesting—was that the word?—to see her now. She might have run to seed, if there was any justice, but she’d have to be going some to look worse than this.
She dropped her eyes to her waist, sucked in her stomach and turned sideways, then sighed. The best underwear in the world wouldn’t take away the fact that she’d put on a stone and lost the pert youthfulness she’d had all those years ago, she thought, and then hauled herself up short again.
So what? She had two beautiful children to show for it, and a husband who loved her, a comfortable home and a job she was proud of. She didn’t need him, in any way, shape or form, and it didn’t matter to her in the slightest what he thought of her or what Clare looked like. He was the one who’d walked away, and there was no way on God’s green earth she wanted him back.
At all.
Ever.
She yanked herself up straight, gave herself a stern nod in the mirror and went out of the door. She could do this. She could…
She looked wonderful.
Softer, somehow, as if the years had mellowed her. She’d gained a little weight, and it suited her. She looked tired, though, and there were shadows in her eyes that had nothing to do with working too hard. They always used to sparkle, he mused. Except on that day—the day Clare had erupted into their lives, the day he’d walked away.
He swallowed and turned back to Patrick, forcing himself to pay attention. His old friend was getting married tomorrow, to a woman who lit up his world, and all Jack had to do was listen to him talk about her and try not to wonder what his own life would have been like if Clare hadn’t come back into it…
Funny, how that touch of grey didn’t age him, although compared to Patrick’s prematurely grey hair it was unnoticeable, and it had certainly done Patrick’s looks no harm at all. No, the silver threads at Jack’s temples suited him somehow—gave him a little of the gravitas that he sorely needed to counteract those laughing eyes. And it tied in with the crow’s feet round his eyes and the laughter lines that bracketed his mouth. He’d always laughed a lot, she remembered—made her laugh, too, but that had been years ago.
Nearly ten, to be exact, when she’d been only twenty-three and in her first staff job in the hospital where he’d been working as an SHO. He was four years older than her—he’d taken a gap year before uni and by the sound of it had blagged his way around the world with an ancient backpack and enough charm to sink a battleship. She could easily believe it. There’d been no lack of that charm in the man she’d met and fallen for. He must be thirty-six now, if not thirty-seven, she thought in astonishment. Where on earth had their lives gone?
He was standing by the bar with Patrick, and as she hesitated in the doorway, he threw back his head and laughed at something Patrick had said, then turned and caught sight of her. She was staring at him, arrested by that wonderful sound that she’d never thought to hear again, and there wasn’t time to look away.
His laughter ebbed, and with a quick murmured word to Patrick, he excused himself and crossed the room.
‘Sal.’
That was all. One word and her heart turned upside down.
‘So where’s Clare?’ she asked, getting it over with as quickly as possible, and for a second he looked startled.
‘Clare? She’s at home. In New Zealand.’
So far away. She felt a stupid pang of loss. She’d often wondered where he was, tried to picture him, wondered if they’d run into each other—hoped…
‘And your children?’ she asked, turning the knife another time, but not just in herself, it seemed, because something happened to his eyes.
‘There was only Chloe,’ he said. ‘I don’t see as much of her as I’d like.’
There was a wealth of sadness in those few words, and a story behind them, she’d stake her life on it. But she didn’t want to know. She really didn’t. And it seemed he didn’t want her to, because he said no more, just smiled and shrugged, and she had a crazy urge to take him in her arms and comfort him. No. Madness. He was married, and so was she. If she kept saying it, maybe she’d remember.
‘So how long are you here? Just for the wedding, or are you hoping to snatch a little longer?’
‘Trying to get rid of me already?’ he murmured with a crooked grin, then shook his head. ‘I’ve taken a six-month sabbatical—that’s why Patrick had trouble getting hold of me. I’ve been travelling. I’m here for a few weeks, dog-sitting for them while they’re away and catching up when they get back, getting a look at the area maybe, and then I’m off travelling again. You know me,’ he said lightly. ‘Always something else to see. So what about you? Have you had to come far today?’
She shook her head, wondering what Clare thought of his wanderlust. And he’d had the gall to have her feeling sorry for him because he didn’t see enough of his daughter? He should try being at home, then! ‘No. Well, yes, we’ve just been skiing in Canada and we came straight from the airport, but I’m working locally. I work in the same hospital as Annie and Patrick. So what are you doing? You said something about being an ED doctor?’
He nodded. ‘Yes. Suicidal career move, really, because there’s not much call for private work to boost the coffers,’ he said with a wry grin, ‘but it just appealed. When you see people all mashed up and you can sort them out and give them another chance at life—that’s amazing. And it got addictive, so I ended up working for MSF for a while—Médecins Sans Frontières—getting stuck into all sorts of nasty natural and manmade disasters.’ He laughed and ran a hand through his hair. ‘Still, that’s all history now and I’ve grown up. So what about you? Are you a paper-pushing hot-shot manager yet?’
She shook her head. ‘That’s not my style. I’m strictly clinical, a proper hands-on nurse,’ she told him. ‘Actually I like it—prefer it to a more administrative role—but even if I hadn’t, maternity leave rather scuppered my career progress.’
His grin was wry. ‘I can imagine. So what about David? What does he do? He looks like a civil engineer or an accountant or something.’
Oh, lord, he was so close to the truth it was painful.
‘He’s a structural engineer,’ she confessed, and he threw back his head and laughed again.
‘I knew it!’ he teased. ‘Middle England. You always were destined for it.’
And we’re very happy, she reminded herself, and I have no business looking at you like this, as if I’m trying to memorise every line on your face, every shadow, every hair, every tiny subtlety of expression…
‘We meet again.’
He looked past her, still smiling. ‘David. Hi. Sal was just telling me all about you,’ he said, and then smiled down at Alex in a way that made her heart hitch against her ribs. ‘Hello again, young man. How’s the nose?’
‘OK. I’ve got a black eye, though—sort of.’
‘I can see. Impressive.’
Alex wrinkled his nose and then winced. ‘Not very impressive yet,’ he said disgustedly.
‘Ah, well, it might be better in the morning. It’s usually more spectacular the second day.’ He turned to Ben and grinned. ‘And how’s the other wounded soldier? Sore head?’
‘I’ve got a bump—feel!’ he instructed proudly, taking Jack’s hand and placing it on his hair.
Sally watched, spellbound, as his gentle fingers searched out the bump and measured it with due solemnity. ‘Excellent. I’m impressed with you both.’
Ben beamed, and Sally felt her heart hitch again as Jack smiled down at her boys. If only…
Oh, damn, she was going to cry, and she absolutely never cried. She had to get them away.
‘Jack, you’ll have to excuse us, we need to talk to Annie. We’ve only just got back from our holiday and I should have been helping her. And, anyway, we can’t monopolise you—Patrick’s looking lonely and you’ve come a long way to see him.’
And she whisked her family away, crushing the longing to stay there and talk to him all evening. Too dangerous, for all sorts of reasons. Nearly ten years clearly hadn’t been long enough to neutralise her feelings, and if she stood there any longer she was just going to disgrace herself. Beg him to run his fingers through her hair, feel her scalp, knead it with those gentle, clever fingers that were so diabolically good at touching her until she begged for more…
No. Stop it. You’re here for Annie. Everything else can wait.
