Heart's Desire

by Sorcha MacMurrough

  Sinead held out her hand. "Let's go have that conversation, shall we?"

  Once they were away from the blast of the music and the whirl of people, Austin pulled her into his arms and kissed Sinead with a passionate abandon which sent her world spinning.

  "Let's go to my quarters down the hall," he murmured against her lips.

  As much as she wanted to, she hesitated. "I don't know if that's such a good idea--"

  "We can't talk out here," Austin insisted, as Sinead hesitated and tried to step away.

  Reluctantly she followed him. They got to the end of the wing and at last he released her waist as he searched through all his pockets for his keys.

  Suddenly the door flew open, and there was Margaret, her naked flesh barely covered by Austin's familiar burgundy silk robe. Sinead's eyes widened in horror as she backed away.

  "You gave me the keys, remember?" Margaret said, as she slid her arms around Austin. "I'm sorry you've wasted your time keeping her sweet, dearie. Mickey rang and said she'd beaten me in court, and given all those millions away to charity. Get the randy cow out of here now and let's go to bed."

  Sinead clapped her hand to her mouth and ran. She heard her name shouted, but it only made her sprint faster. She thanked heaven that she had parked the car right out in front of the entrance. She hurled the door open and prayed the old Mini would start in the cold. It did, and she pulled away with the door still ajar, the tears blurring her eyes as she tried to slam it shut. She willed herself to stay calm, and cursed herself, Austin and Margaret with every single foul word she had ever heard.

  After a few minutes she pulled off the main road into a quiet cul-de sac, no longer able to quell her nausea.

  She opened the door to be spectacularly sick on the side of the road. Then she sat numbly, shaking like a leaf for half an hour. She huddled in her evening dress hugging her arms around her with her head on the wheel. She seemed almost frozen, and not only with the cold.

  She eventually began to fiddle with the car heater in an effort to warm herself, and tried to decide what to do next as her stomach roiled like a tempest-tossed sea.

  She couldn't face Mike and Maeve and tell them what a fool she'd been all along. How she had believed Austin's protestations, when all the time he was scheming...

  Mike had said the architect was ruthless. He'd tried to warn her, to protect her. Yet she had still been willing to surrender herself to Austin all over again.

  The sound of someone approaching with their dog forced her to consider her position. She couldn't sit there all night. She couldn't go home. She had been talking to Mike about a clean break.

  She swallowed hard. Now was the time.

  She started the car, and headed for the main road to Dublin. It was the perfect place to lose herself, to start all over again.

  Sinead drove on until she saw a service station, and decided she'd better phone Maeve just to tell her not to notify the police that she was a missing person. It was a brief phone call, and it hurt her almost as much as her sister when she told her their suspicions of Austin had proved true, and that she was not coming back.

  "But what about your things? This is you home!"

  "I'll be in touch, Maeve. But I want nothing from the old life to remind me. Take care of yourself. I'll ring soon."

  Sinead heard Maeve protest tearfully down the phone, but she hung up the receiver decisively. She was never going back, she insisted, trying to persuade herself. She was never going to see Austin Riordan again, and she had never really loved him. She kept saying these words over and over as she drove on through the night, hoping that if she repeated them often enough they might come true.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Sinead's suspicions that money didn't buy happiness were confirmed within the next few weeks as she tried to create a whole new world for herself in Dublin with the help of her new large bank account. True to her word, she refused to send for her things and went on a shopping spree, raiding every Grafton Street shop for a new wardrobe.

  She went to a real estate agent's and found a suitable apartment to rent, and registered herself with a nursing agency under an assumed name. The clerks were suspicious, but she explained tearfully that she had just fled an awful marriage and didn't want to run the risk of being found.

  They seemed a bit inquisitive about her story, but because she looked prosperous and respectable, they accepted her. Within days she had a wonderful job at a children's special school.

  The flurry of activity there kept her busy and prevented her from brooding during the day. But at night Sinead wept miserably and she felt physically ill morning, noon and night. She could barely eat and kept herself going on a diet of coffee, yogurt and chocolate because it was all she could manage to keep down.

  Sinead had said she wanted to strip herself of all memories of the past, but occasionally she took her evening gown out of the cupboard, and pressed it to her cheek. It was the dress she'd worn the magical first night of Austin's family's visit, when it had seemed she couldn't be happier. It had also been the dress she'd worn on the night her whole fantasy world had come crashing down around her ears.

  Sinead did not phone Maeve, and kept putting it off, knowing her sister would beg her to return, and fearing that she might try to send Mike to persuade her. Sinead knew they could try to trace her through her bank account, so she moved her money to a different one under her assumed name. They wouldn't be able to come looking for her. Besides, Maeve and Mike would be better off without having to cope with the mess she'd made of her life.

  Christmas passed, the Christmas she had so looked forward to with Mike and Maeve, and which she had planned so carefully with Austin. Sinead thought resentfully of the lovely amethyst ring he'd planned to give Margaret, and hoped the buxom brunette was spending Christmas in prison where she belonged. She thought of the lovely sweater she'd planned to give him. The hopes she'd had that they would be a couple. That things could have remained perfect forever.

  But how could they have been perfect? Their life together had been nothing but lies, treachery and deception.

  Sinead spent the day alone in her flat, with the TV and radio silent, trying to read, but more often putting the book down to think, to remember. She knew she was homesick, for Castlemaine, Maeve, the hospital, and yes, even Austin, and his home in Killyfassy Forest.

  Though she had spent only a few blissful days there, she felt as though it was a part of her. She knew Austin had tricked and deceived her, but had glimpsed a glimmer of some feelings for her besides contempt for her stupidity, whatever Margaret had said.

  She told herself that it didn't matter now. She was not going to let her past mistake with Austin Riordan ruin the rest of her life.

  But as the weeks passed, and Sinead still felt no better, she realised that one past mistake could not be ignored forever. She was coming along the corridor of Manor Park School pushing a trolley when she began to get a sharp ache in her back. Before she knew it she had fainted away.

  Her eyes opened several minutes later to find the chief doctor at the school, Dr. Lansing, tall, silver-haired and distinguished, staring down at her.

  She blushed and quickly tried to sit up.

  "Now, now, just hold still a minute, and don't be embarrassed," he said rather gruffly.

  "I'm so sorry," Sinead muttered as she rubbed her eyes. "I must be coming down with flu."

  "Flu my foot, girl. You're pregnant. Now come into my office and tell me exactly what you're playing at," he insisted, not unkindly.

  He helped her to her feet, escorted her down the hall by her elbow, and placed her in an armchair. Then he turned to the credenza to boil the kettle for a cup of tea.

  "You can tell me to mind my own business, my dear, but we all like you here. You've been here for two months, and we've all see that you're upset, and not well. For a while now I've had my suspicions that you're pregnant. And I know you're name isn't Jennifer Michaels or Jennifer anything else, because you're so abs
ent-minded you forget what you're supposed to be called."

  Sinead smiled weakly and hung her head in shame.

  "So now that I've shown you I'm a genius, save me the hard work and just tell me the rest of it. Why are you hiding here, under a false name, pregnant and alone, with no friends or family to spend Christmas with?"

  "I, I was in a relationship, and it-it hasn't worked out. I didn't know I was pregnant when I left. But it wouldn't make a difference anyway. He was only using me, and there's another woman involved. My sister and her husband are very good people. They bailed me out when I was widowed and injured in a car accident last year."

  Dr. Lansing looked surprised, but nodded. "Go on."

  "My husband left me some money, so when I found out the truth about the man I was involved with, I left home and came to Dublin to start a new life."

  "Well, my dear, you've certainly done your best here. I would never dream of complaining. You're an excellent nurse, get along well with everyone, the children love you, and you work harder than any one I've ever seen. But you will forgive me if I say that you're obviously unhappy. I suppose I've watched and waited for you to snap out of it.

  "But you haven't put the past behind you, no matter how hard you've tried. Now you're going to have to make a decision about the baby as well. It won't be easy to raise a child on your own, even with money, and you tell me your man wouldn't want to have anything to do with it. But it's what YOU want that counts. Only when you start listening to your heart, will you know what you have to do."

  "What I have to do and what I want to do, and what I end up getting from life, are always completely different things," Sinead said sadly.

  "They don't always have to be. Let's start at the beginning. Do you want to go home to your family?"

  "Yes, but..."

  "You're afraid. Of what?"

  Sinead shook her head.

  "All right, we'll leave that for moment." He took a sip of his tea and sat back in his chair. His shrewd blue eyes once again fixed on her sharply. "Do you want to go back to your old job? Your old friends?"

  "Yes, but..."

  "Ah, that word again. But what?"

  "The other woman works at the hospital and so does he. She's been promoted above me, and she's made my life a misery for months. And I don't want to see him..."

  "And the baby? Do you want it?"

  "Yes, but..." She laughed as she said it again.

  Dr. Lansing waited patiently until at length she said, "I know he's cheated on me and betrayed me, and God knows I'm a fool, but I still love him. I always have. No matter how logical I try to be, I can't help wishing I could see him again, even if I get hurt again in the process. I'd love his baby no matter what, even if he doesn't want me."

  "What would happen if you did see each other? Would he hurt you physically? Are you in danger?" Dr. Lansing asked with evident concern.

  "No, nothing like that. It would just be so hard to face."

  "If you'll forgive my saying so, dear, it's been pretty hard facing a new start away from your friends and family, alone and pregnant. Compared with that, I think you'll be up to the challenge. You're not the type to run away. It will hurt, but not as much as never dealing with it. Allowing it to fester inside of you."

  Sinead shook her head.

  The doctor asked in his most reasonable tone, "What have you got to lose? If it fails, you can always come back here safe and sound. I promise, I'll always have a job open for you, no matter what. You have friends, and a new life already set up in case you're right and you can't ever or don't want to ever return to the old one. But you'll never be at peace if you just run away. Go home, see your family, confront your problems head on. I'll be here for you if you need me to confide in again, and pick up the pieces."

  He patted her on the shoulder. She broke down the, and wept into the silk handkerchief he handed her.

  "That's right, you have a good cry. I'll leave you now. Let me know what you decide. Stay here, take your time." He shut the door behind him softly.

  Sinead sat in the darkening book-lined office and knew he was right about confronting her worst fears. But she wasn't ready to go yet. She would need some time to think about it. Besides, if she were to go home, she'd need to look a bit more calm and collected. Otherwise Mike and Maeve would go out of their minds with worry. If they hadn't already. Maeve was due at the end of February, around Mike's birthday. As much as she wanted to be there, she didn't want to add to her sister's stress at an already difficult time. She rang and left a message saying she was fine. She might have said more, but she got annoyed when the new machine kept beeping at her, and hung up.

  Then she looked at the calendar. She would wait until the middle of March before she went home. Then at least she'd get to see her new niece or nephew, even she did have to come back here.

  The decision made, Sinead began to feel more relieved. Dr. Lansing was right. She had hundreds of questions which did nothing but torment her. Going back to get answers couldn't possibly be as bad as never knowing.

  In a more positive frame of mind now than she had been since she had fled the staff disco at the hospital, she drained her cup of now cold tea, and rose from the chair. She smoothed her hair and uniform, and with a spring to her step, left the office and headed down the corridor.

  She went back about her duties with a lighter heart, and when she had a spare moment, made an appointment with one of the doctors in the nearby practice for a full check up and advice on pre-natal care.

  Chapter Thirty

  The bitter winter turned to glorious spring, and Sinead began to look forward to the future, no matter what it held. She began to grow rosy again, and soon her sickness limited itself to mornings only, before disappearing altogether. She grew round, and often felt her stomach and longed for a boy with his father's dark hair and gray eyes.

  She wondered how Maeve was and whether the baby were born yet, but she didn't dare phone. She had determined to go home, and didn't want to get scared off by anything Maeve had to tell her. She'd know all about the new baby, the hospital, Margaret, and Austin soon enough. The important thing was to have the courage to go home.

  She drove her new shiny blue Renault down to Castlemaine on St Patrick's Day, and bought some shamrock for luck in the florist downstairs from her flat before setting off. Dr. Lansing had reminded her over and over again that she could come back if she couldn't take it, but that she had to find out once and for all what she wanted.

  Sinead still nearly turned the car around two or three times to head back to Dublin. By the time she saw the road signs for Castlemaine, her palms were sweaty and she could barely grip the steering wheel in her nerveless fingers.

  Sinead drove around the town for a few minutes, enjoying the comfortable familiarity of it, and determined that she would park a little way down the street and go up to the house on foot. She could always duck out again quickly if she felt it was too much for her.

  Sinead checked her hair and pulled her trenchcoat around her to hide her growing stomach. She didn't want to give Maeve too many shocks at once. Mike's car was in the drive, so that meant someone was home. She steeled herself for the confrontation and slipped her key quietly in the lock. She heard voices murmuring in the kitchen, and tiptoed down the hall towards the doorway.

  She gripped the door frame as she recognised Austin's voice, though in a tone she had never heard before.

  "They've looked everywhere, all these months, and still nothing! No car, nothing! Sinead hasn't phoned, she hasn't written, she didn't take anything with her, her bank account was closed, and the police and my private investigators have come up with nothing."

  She heard his voice crack, and heard Maeve say, "Don't give up, Austin. Please try to get a grip on yourself. She will ring. I know you love her, but she's my sister. I know her. She would never kill herself. She was deeply hurt when she thought you'd betrayed her, but she's not the type who runs away. She'll come back, you'll see."

  "B
ut what if that suicide at the hospital had been her?" Austin cried. "God, what would I do without her? My life wouldn't be worth living."

  Sinead heard a choking sound, and all was silent for several moments. She felt her knees tremble, horrified at what she had put them all through.

  She heard Mike say, "Come on, lad, she loves you. She'll come back. It wasn't your fault. Margaret deceived you. She deceived Sinead too, the hospital, even poor old Luke, who's dead because of her. You have to believe Sinead is alive. Please don't give up."

  Sinead peeped into the room and saw Maeve and Mike comforting Austin, who wept with his head on the table. She stepped into the room now, but put her hand to her lips and cut off any remarks they might have made. She could see the astonishment and relief in their eyes.

  As they gently left Austin at the table, they patted her on the shoulder and kissed her before leaving them alone together.