* * *
He was a good dancer. An amazing dancer, actually. And you could tell a lot about what kind of lover a man was by the way he danced.
And she couldn’t believe she was thinking that.
‘Come on,’ she said, grabbing his hand and towing him off the dance floor before she did something inappropriate. ‘I need air and water. Or maybe coffee.’
They went back to their table, she recovered her shoes and took one step before she kicked them off again.
‘Right, grab that bottle of wine off the table and follow me,’ she said, scooping up the shoes and a handful of the chocolate hearts that still littered the table.
He followed her out of the marquee and into the house via the front door, and she threw her shoes onto the stairs and headed down the hall to the kitchen.
‘Are you all right with dogs?’ she asked over her shoulder, but it was too late to worry because the dogs had sneaked past her and were already mugging him.
‘Hello, dogs, did you think you’d been forgotten?’ he said softly, and to her amazement he was fondling their ears and rubbing their tummies.
‘Come on, you two hussies, back in here.’ She ushered them all—him and the dogs—into the kitchen, filled the kettle and put it on, then plonked herself down at the kitchen table and put her feet up on the edge. ‘I hate those shoes,’ she grumbled, inspecting her feet, and she heard a dry chuckle from Joe.
‘What? Why are you laughing?’
‘Well, it isn’t rocket science to know that putting your feet into instruments of torture is going to hurt. Is there any chance of a proper coffee?’ he asked, dumping his jacket and undoing his bow tie.
How could he possibly look even sexier?
‘A proper coffee?’ she croaked.
‘Yeah, as in a mug, rather than a delicate little bone china thimble? I’m guessing it’s going to be a long night.’
‘Oh, I don’t doubt it, but Kate and Johnnie aren’t leaving, they’re staying here, so we can quit when we like. I need to find out where we’re sleeping, though—Ah, Mum. Perfect timing. Can we find a bed for Joe, please?’
‘Not until I get these shoes off.’ Her mother plonked herself down and winced. ‘Ooh, that’s better. Right. Bedrooms. I’ve put you in the little single room, darling, I hope you don’t mind, because Kate’s parents are in your room. Mike, where are we going to put Joe? The study?’
‘Could do. It’s got the sofa bed. It’s that or in here with the dogs unless you want to bunk up with Iona. Oh, well done, you picked up some of the chocolates. I’m Mike, by the way, Iona’s father. I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced.’
Joe got to his feet and shook hands. ‘Joe Baker. I’m a colleague of Iona’s.’
Her father searched his eyes. ‘Just a colleague? That’s a shame.’
‘Dad! Joe, I’m so sorry, just ignore him.’
But Joe was laughing, and he sent her a tiny, almost unnoticeable wink as he sat down again.
‘So, what do you do?’ her father asked, like a dog with a bone. ‘Are you in the ED with Iona?’
‘No. No, we have worked together,’ he said, stretching the point so far she nearly laughed out loud, ‘but I’m an interventional radiologist.’
‘What in the heck is that?’ her father asked, and so Joe blessedly launched into a long-winded explanation that kept them all neatly off the subject of how long they’d known each other and exactly what their relationship was.
She could have kissed him. Maybe it was just as well she really, really couldn’t...
* * *
They left the following morning after an early brunch, and as they drove away she rested her head back with a sigh and shut her eyes.
He glanced across at her. She looked tired. Maybe she needed to go home to bed.
With him? He felt his mouth tip into a rueful smile. No. Too soon—although it didn’t feel it, not after dancing with her last night...
‘Hangover?’ he asked, glancing across at her again, and she shook her head.
‘No, just a relieved-it’s-all-over-over. And, actually, it wasn’t nearly as bad as it could have been.’ She rolled her head towards him and rested a hand lightly on his shoulder. ‘Thank you so much for doing this, Joe. I know it can’t have been easy, but it made so much difference to me having you there. It just deflected all that sympathy I was expecting, so thank you.’
‘You’re welcome,’ he said, and realised he meant it. ‘As you said, it wasn’t as bad as it could have been, and some of it was quite fun. So how come it was at your parents’ house and not Kate’s parents’?’
‘They live abroad, so it was easier and cheaper to do it here. They all split the cost, I think, and let’s face it, it had already been planned for me so they all knew what was involved and it made it fairly simple. They all liked you, by the way. My father’s desperately match-making, and Isla even asked how well I knew you and if there was any way I could persuade you to be the sperm donor.’
What? ‘Tell me you didn’t tell her?’
‘Well, no, of course I didn’t. I promised I wouldn’t. I don’t think she was serious, but I put her off, anyway. I told her there was no way I could ask you, I didn’t know you nearly well enough, and she said that was a shame because you’d be perfect. Which you’re not, because A, you don’t want to do it, and, B, you don’t look like a Viking.’
All of which sounded reasonably plausible, but he had still a gut feeling he’d been played. Thank God he hadn’t given in to his instincts and found a way to sleep with her last night.
‘So why on earth would she ask? I thought the Viking thing was set in stone?’
‘No, not any more, apparently. Since the law changed there are far fewer donors, so they’ve realised that they have to compromise because other things are much more important. And, anyway, the baby stands a fair chance of looking like me and Isla, so it’s not really that big an issue.’
‘So is this why you really asked me to the wedding?’ he asked bluntly. ‘So she could size me up as a sperm donor now they’ve changed their criteria?’
She stared at him open-mouthed. ‘No! Absolutely not! It hadn’t even occurred to me to ask you. Well, no, that’s not strictly true, it had occurred to me, but that was before you told me how you felt about it and I realised it would be pointless asking you anyway, so I dismissed it. I certainly didn’t ask you to the wedding with that in mind, because apart from anything else she’s only just told me about their changed priorities. I just wanted someone with me to deflect all the sympathy, and it was a way for you to meet them and realise how nice they are so you could maybe understand why I want to do it, and get off my case a bit.’
‘They are nice,’ he agreed, still not quite convinced of her motive for inviting him. ‘They’re lovely. I’m sure they’ll be great parents. But it doesn’t change how I feel, Iona—either about me doing it again, which I never will so please don’t ask me, or about what it’ll do to you to give up your child, which you can’t know until the time comes. And it doesn’t matter how worthy the intended parents might be, that’s irrelevant to me because I’m not worried about them, I’m worried about you. I have huge sympathy for their situation, but you’re my concern, not them.’
‘I realise that, but they are mine, and it’s in my power to make them happy, and I don’t see why I shouldn’t do that—and, anyway, when did I ask you to worry about me?’
‘You haven’t—’
‘No, I haven’t. And how you could even think I’d trick you into coming to the wedding so they could assess your donor potential, for goodness’ sake? I’d never do that without discussing it with you first. It just shows how little you know about me if you think I could possibly be that devious. I wish I’d never told you...’
She turned her face away and he let his breath out on a long, quiet sigh, pulled over into
a handy layby behind a lorry and switched off the engine.
The driver got out and walked past them, heading no doubt for the tea hut behind them, and Joe reached for her with a sigh.
‘Come here.’
‘Why?’ she asked, her voice choked.
‘So I can give you a hug,’ he said, his voice softer now, but she shrugged off his hands and he dropped them back in his lap with another sigh. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you, it was just a knee-jerk reaction, and you’re right, I don’t really know you, Iona, but it doesn’t stop me caring deeply about what happens to you or worrying that you’re going to do something that could hurt you so badly. I just didn’t want you sleepwalking into it.’
‘I know, you keep saying that,’ she said, her voice sounding clogged with tears, ‘but you don’t have to worry about me. I’m a big girl, Joe. I can do this. I don’t need counselling, and certainly not from someone who doubts my motives about everything!’
She straightened up, swiping her cheeks with the backs of her hands, and he reached into his pocket and pulled out a tissue.
‘Here.’
She took it with a little hiccupping laugh. ‘You always knew you were going to end up doing this, didn’t you?’
‘Not like this. I’m sorry, I truly am. I don’t want to fight with you, but I just had a horrible sinking feeling you might have engineered the whole situation.’
She looked up at him, yesterday’s mascara smudging onto the fine skin beneath her wounded eyes. ‘How could I have done that? Even if I was that kind of person, how could I have done it? I only met you on Friday!’
‘May I remind you that you told me in words of one syllable that you were on the look-out for a sperm donor, so it’s not like it’s a huge leap.’
She glared at him, her eyes red-rimmed and filled with disgust. ‘I so shouldn’t have told you. It’s got nothing to do with you anyway, and just because you’ve been a sperm donor doesn’t give you the right to tell me what to do, but trust me, if I’d seriously considered you or anyone else as a potential donor, I would have asked openly, not resorted to subterfuge.’
‘So if it had been some other wedding and they were going to be there, you wouldn’t have asked me to go with you?’
‘No. Why would I? I wouldn’t have needed you there, but it wasn’t, it was Johnnie’s wedding and I had to go, I had no choice. He’s my baby brother, and with Kate pregnant and rubbing salt into the wound, I had to be there for Isla and Steve, too. And it was a chance for you to meet them.’
‘Are you absolutely sure that wasn’t my real role, even subconsciously? To be dangled in front of them to make them think there was some hope you’d found a suitable victim?’ he asked, hating himself but feeling gutted at the same time that yet again, he might have been used, not for himself but for what he could offer. ‘Because you seemed to me to be fine at the wedding, and I’m not convinced you needed my support at all.’
She glared at him, her face a riot of emotions, none of them good. ‘Of course I did, I was hanging by a thread! For heaven’s sake, listen to me, you’re not hearing what I’m saying! You were just my plus one. No ulterior motive. And what do you mean, victim? You make me sound like a black widow spider—’
‘OK, victim was a bad choice of word—’
‘Tell me about it!’
‘But if you knew you didn’t want to go alone, why not ask someone else to go with you? You surely have friends you could have asked, and you must have known about it for months.’
‘Of course I have, but I’ve been putting it out of my mind, refusing to face up to it, trying not to think about it. And suddenly it was Friday night and there it was, right in front of my nose, and I realised I couldn’t do it. And then there you were, and I thought maybe, if I could twist your arm—’
‘I don’t buy it. It just all seems too convenient when you’ve only just met me and you’re looking for—’
‘How big is your ego? For the last time, Joe, I don’t want your bloody sperm!’ she yelled, and the truck driver on his way back to his cab jerked to a halt and slopped coffee on his hand, his mouth open.
‘Well, that’s me told,’ he said mildly. ‘Shall I wind the windows down so you can repeat it, just in case there was anyone else who didn’t hear?’
‘No! Just take me home,’ she mumbled, sliding down into her seat, and he fired up the engine and dropped the window.
‘Don’t worry, mate, she wasn’t talking to you,’ he said grimly to the wary truck driver, and gunning the engine he pulled back out onto the road and shot her a glance.
She was staring straight ahead, her face a mask, and he turned the radio on and drove the rest of the way without another word, furious with himself for allowing her to dupe him. And to think he’d been contemplating taking her to bed!
But his thoughts were in turmoil, and by the time they’d reached Yoxburgh and he’d dropped her off and driven halfway home, he’d got his battered ego back in its box where it belonged and had the sickening realisation that he’d made a dreadful mistake, and that somewhere along the way he’d lost something infinitely precious that he hadn’t even known he’d had.
* * *
He was on a course all week, he’d told her, so at least she’d be spared the agony of bumping into him again after that humiliating fiasco in the layby.
Not that it was all her fault, not at all. How could he possibly have thought she was that conniving? But he’d dropped her off, leaving the engine running as he’d lifted her bag out of the back, and she’d taken it from him and gone inside without a word, and now the next time she saw him it would be unbearably awkward.
She shouldn’t have yelled at him like that, even if he’d deserved it, but she’d been so hurt, so distraught that he could have thought so little of her that she’d just lashed out.
Frankly she never wanted to speak to him again as long as she lived, but hospitals were too small to get away with that, and he’d already proved his worth in the ED so he was bound to be back. She had to clear the air, but how?
She didn’t have his mobile number so she couldn’t even text him. But she did know where he lived. She’d write a card and put it through his letterbox so he’d get it when he came back. Better late than never, and there was no way she wanted to bump into him in the hospital with a cloud like that hanging over them. She just hoped she could find his house in daylight—but not today. Not until he was out of the way because she wasn’t sure she could trust herself not to say something awful.
As if she hadn’t already.
Damn...
* * *
Damn.
Why had he said that? Any of it? Why had he believed even for a second that she could have tricked him into going to the wedding?
And she hadn’t been all right. She’d been silent and withdrawn until they’d got to the church, then she’d plastered on a brave smile and dazzled him and everyone else. Except during the vows, and because they’d been packed closely together in the pews, he’d felt a shudder run through her when the priest had said the words, ‘and forsaking all others’.
Not surprising, under the circumstances. The image of Natalie and her lover locked together on the tangled bedding was burned on his memory for all time.
It was all he’d been able to see for the rest of the service, so wrapped up in his own bitterness and regret he’d been oblivious to Iona. How had she taken it? She hadn’t cried, he knew that, but he’d seen nothing of the inner turmoil that she’d undoubtedly been feeling. He’d been too preoccupied with his own.
He swore and pulled over to the side of the road. He had to go back, to do something to repair the damage he’d caused, because he had to leave shortly and head for Manchester for the course he was booked on, and then he’d have no way of contacting her until he was back.
He’d be gone for days, and he couldn’t leav
e it that long without apologising. Not even he was that much of an egotistical bastard.
So he swung the car round, headed back and pulled up outside her house and rang the doorbell.
Nothing. Not a sound, not a flicker of movement through the frosted glass in the door—nothing. He rang it again, and then again, but she didn’t come to the door, so he stepped back to the edge of the pavement and looked up, but there was no sign of her at the windows, and he had no idea where her flat was in the house.
He could leave her a note—except he had nothing with him to write with or on, so that wouldn’t work. One last try?
No. If she was going to answer, she would have done it. He let out a heavy sigh, turned on his heel and went back to the car, slammed the door and rested his head on the steering wheel.
Idiot. Stupid, stupid idiot. How could he ever have considered that she’d use that kind of subterfuge? She couldn’t lie to save her life, and when he’d asked her why she was at the speed-dating event, she’d told him the truth. Not the whole truth, not until later, but probably nothing but the truth.
It was him who’d brought up the sperm donor thing, him who’d taken her back to his house, given her coffee and spilled his guts about his marriage. Why, he had no idea. It was so unlike him he still couldn’t understand why he’d done it, but there was just something about Iona that seemed to drag the truth out of him, whether he wanted it out or not.
Oh, well. She didn’t want it now. Didn’t want anything from him, if she wasn’t answering the door. Maybe it was as well. He had things to do before he left, like more research into the topic of the course, and a quick visit to his aunt. And it wouldn’t hurt to muck out the fridge and get rid of the things that were past their use-by date so the house didn’t reek when he got home after the course.
Angry, dispirited and utterly disgusted at himself, he straightened up, reached for the key and saw her there, standing by the car with her arms wrapped defensively round her and her eyes red-rimmed and wary.
He got out, shut the car door and stood there in silence facing her. What the hell had he done?
Their Own Little Miracle Page 5
