by Sarah Morgan
“I’ll let you know.” She drew his head down and felt a flash of desire so strong it made her gasp against his lips.
“Are you making your decision on that based on what happens next?” He fumbled with the zip of her jeans. “Because you might give me performance anxiety.”
She ripped at his jacket, tugged at the hem of his sweater and almost stumbled stepping out of her jeans. “I have a feeling you’ll cope.” She’d never been in such a hurry for anything before, but Luke, for once, didn’t share her haste.
There was a flush across his cheekbones, and his breathing was unsteady, but he held her shoulders, keeping her at arm’s length.
“There’s something else I need to say.”
She could barely focus. “Can it wait?”
“No, because I don’t want you to accuse me of keeping things from you.”
Now what? “Whatever it is, tell me. I should warn you that unless you are about to confess to a series of major crimes likely to earn you a lengthy jail sentence, nothing is likely to make a difference to what happens next.”
“In the spirit of honesty and having everything out there, I should confess that I think I may have feelings for you.”
Relief mingled with giddy delight. “You only think?”
“It’s all new to me.”
She had feelings, too, and she wasn’t sure if those feelings were a good thing or a complication, and right now she didn’t care.
She tugged his shirt out of his jeans. “Let me know when you have it figured out, but in the meantime I think the best thing is if I distract you.” She grabbed him and pulled him across her living room toward the bedroom.
They stripped off the rest of their clothes, clumsy in their haste, and he tumbled her down onto the bed, trapping her beneath him.
His mouth was hot and urgent and she responded in kind, slaking her hunger. Even though the relationship was still relatively new, she already knew the feel of his tongue and the touch of his fingers. There was a greed to the way they took from each other, and a generosity in the way they gave.
They rolled so that she was on top and she pushed her fingers into his hair while she drank from the heat of his mouth. The kiss was incredible, electrically charged, desperate, and when she was dizzy with it, drowning, he flipped her onto her back again so that she was underneath him.
He cupped her face with his hand, his gaze locked on hers.
His eyes were a shade somewhere between blue and gray. They made her think of mountains and mist, and of still winter mornings. She’d seen his eyes bright with laughter and gleaming with determination, but right now they were fierce with need.
He’d said he had feelings for her, although he hadn’t said what those feeling were, but she saw it in the way he looked at her and felt it in the way he touched her.
Later, they might put words to those feelings, but for now this moment was all that mattered.
She heard the wind rattle the windows, but inside the hayloft it was cozy and warm and here in her bed the temperature was close to scorching.
He lowered his head again, and this time he kissed his way down to her shoulder and then lower, exploring the tips of her breasts with his tongue until she arched under him. She felt the slow slide of his hand over her thigh and the intimate pressure of his fingers as he stroked her with erotic precision.
Her body felt heavy, her brain slow and her thoughts disorientated. She wondered how it was he knew exactly how to touch her. “Don’t stop.”
“I’m not stopping.” Instead he shifted his position and she felt the weight of him, the power of him, and then he sank into her, driving deep, silencing her choked cry of pleasure with his mouth.
For a moment they stayed like that, locked together, all thought suspended by pleasure.
Then he started to move, slowly at first, and she wrapped her limbs around him and arched her hips, matching the rhythm he set, digging her fingers into the hard muscles of his shoulders. She held on to him, needing to feel something solid and safe to counteract the dizzying lightness she felt from being with him.
He kissed her mouth, her jaw, the curve of her neck, all the time keeping up the same relentless rhythm, driving her closer and closer with each measured thrust.
She let go, gave in to it, whispering that she wanted him, needed him. Her heart was hammering, her muscles clenched, and when she tipped over the edge with gut-swooping pleasure, she cried out his name and took him with her, the spasms of her body dragging him to the same point.
Afterward she lay with her head on his chest, feeling the unsteady rise and fall of his chest. She felt weak and achy and totally incapable of moving, but he didn’t seem inclined to move, either.
He held her tightly as if he had no intention of letting her go.
He was the first to speak. “I have a question.”
She smiled against his skin. “You have to ask?”
“My question isn’t performance related.” He kissed the top of her head and smoothed her hair back. “When I leave, will you come with me?”
She lifted her head, wishing he hadn’t chosen this moment to raise the topic of leaving. “You’ve booked the barn until March.”
“That’s the first thought that comes into your head? That you’ll have a vacancy?”
Her heart bumped against her chest. “You’ve become useful for mountain rescue training sessions. It’s not easy finding volunteers willing to hide in a freezing snow hole while they wait to be found.”
“I wonder why.” He lifted his hand and wound a wayward strand of her hair around his finger. “So you’ll miss your lodger, and your dogsbody. Nothing else? Because it seems to me that although I’ve laid everything on the line here, you haven’t done the same.”
“I know.” She rolled away from him and lay on her back, staring up at the wooden beams that stretched across her bedroom.
“Is this because you think I wasn’t honest with you? For what it’s worth, I had a good conversation with Suzanne after you left. It made me wish I’d contacted her sooner.”
“That’s not the problem.”
“Then what is?”
She felt a flash of frustration and something that was close to despair. “I can’t just leave, Luke. I can’t just walk away from my life.”
“I thought you wanted adventures.”
“I do.”
But the whole thing had become more complicated because now she wanted him, too.
So where did that leave her?
25
Beth
“I didn’t even know Hannah was seeing anyone.” Beth sat on the floor of the bedroom the following morning wrapping the last of the parcels while Jason kept watch at the door for inquisitive children. She’d packed the children’s gifts into separate bags so that she didn’t mix them up. “Why do you think she didn’t mention it?”
“Presumably because she didn’t want to talk about it.”
“But she talked about other things.” And Beth was still stunned by how unusually open her sister had been about their past and her feelings about the children. On the other hand, judging from the look on her face when Adam had stepped out of the car, there was plenty she hadn’t told them about her love life. “We talked about the accident.”
“You’re kidding.” Jason leaned against the door. “You never talk about the accident. Is this because of Luke?”
“I think he was probably the trigger.”
“Did it upset you, honey?”
She looked up at him, warmed by his concern. “No. It felt more like relief, because I got to understand how Hannah was thinking and feeling. Also, I realized the accident is part of the reason I’m so anxious about the children.”
“I know.”
“If you knew, why haven’t we ever talked about it?”
“Because
you hate talking about the accident. It stresses you.” He picked up a roll of tape that had somehow landed at his feet. “But you do worry a lot, and I hate to see it.”
“Do you think I’ve made the children cautious?” That was the last thing she wanted.
“If you’d seen Ruby climbing on the table this morning, you wouldn’t be worried. I’m more worried about you. If you want to see someone—talk to someone—”
Beth took the tape from him and cut another length. “I was wondering that myself. I’ll think about it.”
“I’m pleased you had a good talk with your sisters. Is that why you rescued Hannah downstairs?”
“She looked as if she needed rescuing. I was worried about her.” And she was worried about Posy, too, but she’d stomped off before Beth had found a chance to talk to her.
Presumably she’d wanted some space after Hannah’s explosion. It must have upset her.
Contemplating the complexity of families, Beth stuck tape on the last parcel. “Done. All ready to stuff into stockings. I can’t wait to see the kids’ faces on Christmas morning.”
“All Ruby wants is Bugsy. I’ve been on the internet whenever I can get a signal, and I can’t find anything that looks remotely like Bugsy. There’s a rabbit on eBay, but it looks psychotic and it’s the wrong color.”
“She’s had Bugsy since she was a baby. They’ve probably discontinued it.”
Jason was appalled. “They discontinue popular toys? Where is their sense of responsibility? I feel terrible. Melly says Ruby isn’t sleeping well. I’m the worst father in the world. Dammit, we should have bought five spares.”
“Spares?” Beth stuffed the bag under the bed. “I’m impressed. That’s advanced parenting stuff. A few weeks ago, you wouldn’t have thought of that.”
“I was a different person a few weeks ago. Or maybe I was the same person but with different priorities. From now on, when we buy something that important to the girls, we buy spares. We should have done it with Bugsy.”
“I did.”
“You—” Jason stared at her. “What?”
“I bought spares, although not five. I bought three.”
“Three?” He breathed an audible sigh of relief. “Then you have two spares back home? That’s the best news. You’re an incredible mother, Beth.”
It was time for a confession.
Beth stretched out her legs and winced. “I’m not incredible.”
“But if you have two spares back home—”
“I didn’t say I had spares back home.”
“But—”
“This isn’t the first time Bugsy has taken an unscheduled, unaccompanied trip without leaving a forwarding address.”
There was a long silence. “You mean you lost Bugsy, too? When?”
“The first time I lost him was—”
“Wait—there was more than one time?”
Beth squirmed. “I left him in that diner near the park. We went in for milkshakes one day, and Ruby started having a tantrum—I can’t remember why. Everyone was looking at me in that way they do when your kids misbehave. They’re all thinking about the way they’d handle it and how you’re not doing it right.”
“I know that look.” He caught her eye. “I didn’t use to know that look, it’s true, but then I spent time with them. Now I know that look.”
“All I wanted was to get out of there as fast as possible, so I threw some notes on the table and—” she dragged in a breath “—I left Bugsy. Right there on the seat. I called them later, but it had gone. So I used a spare Bugsy.”
“She didn’t notice?”
“I might have roughed him up a little to add to the authenticity.”
Jason looked stunned. “And the second time?”
“I left him on the subway.”
He rubbed his hand over his jaw. “You’re telling me you lost Bugsy twice, and you never said anything? I thought you were perfect.”
“No one is perfect, Jason. We’re human. We do our best, and that’s all anyone can do. You put me on this pedestal, and it was flattering, but it also always made me feel like a failure because I knew I wasn’t that woman.” She swallowed. “It wasn’t only that I felt you didn’t know the kids, I felt that you didn’t know me, either.” It was the most honest she’d been with him.
“I love you. I don’t care if you make mistakes. You have no idea how much better it makes me feel to know you lost Bugsy, too.” Jason pulled her to her feet. “And, by the way, I still think you’re an incredible mother in every way.”
“I don’t have a spare Bugsy.”
He wrapped her in his arms and she felt a rush of desire. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
“Mommy? Can I ride Socks?” Ruby wandered in and they broke apart.
Jason nudged the bag of presents farther under the bed with his foot. “No, honey. It’s snowing out there.”
“But I like the snow.”
“Maybe later if the weather improves, but right now Aunty Posy is busy and there’s a storm forecast.”
Beth saw Ruby’s lip wobble and picked her up. “The best thing to do in this weather is to bake a cake with Grandma. What do you think? We’ll do it together, the three of us.”
Ruby pondered. “Okay. But I want to ride Socks later.”
Beth carried her downstairs to the kitchen and pushed open the door.
The place smelled of cinnamon and cloves and Suzanne was sifting flour into a bowl.
Beth was relieved to see her mother looking relaxed and content.
Ruby wriggled out of Beth’s arms and clambered onto a chair. “Can I help?”
“Of course, but what’s our first rule when we cook?”
“We wash our hands.” Ruby slid off the chair again, hastily washed her hands and then dripped her way back to the table.
Suzanne handed her the spoon and pulled the bowl closer. “Do it gently, so that the flour doesn’t fly over the table.”
Beth’s phone rang. It was Corinna. Her heart started to pound. Tension knotted in her stomach. Last night she’d ignored the call, but she didn’t feel she could do it again. Why did she feel such a compulsion to answer it, knowing that Corinna was just using her? Her pulse started to race at the thought of what might happen if she ignored the call again. “I need to take this.”
Ruby’s face crumpled. “You said you’d cook. You promised.”
Guilt was an ache under her ribs. “Start with Grandma, and I’ll join you in a minute.” Beth caught her mother’s eye. “It will only be for a minute. It’s important.”
Suzanne said nothing. Instead she distracted Ruby, making her giggle by drawing shapes in the cake mix.
Beth stepped out of the room and then stopped.
What was she doing? This was insane.
Hannah was right about Corinna. She was a bully. Beth didn’t want to work for a bully.
And there was no obligation on her whatsoever to take this call. She’d call back at a time that suited her, and that wasn’t going to be when she was enjoying time with her family at Christmas.
Instead of answering the call, she rejected it and let it go to voice mail.
Maybe she wouldn’t bother calling at all.
If she could get a signal, she’d send an email later telling Corinna she was no longer interested in the job.
In the meantime, she was going to bake Christmas cookies with her child.
Her hands were shaking as she pushed the phone into the pocket of her jeans and returned to the kitchen.
Her mother looked at her. “Did you lose the signal?”
“No. I decided to call her back another time.” Her hands were actually shaking a little. “Probably a crazy decision.”
Her mother smiled. “Sounds like a good decision to me.”
&nb
sp; Beth was about to join Ruby at the table, when the back door opened and Posy walked in.
She stamped the snow off her boots and unzipped her coat. “It’s like the Arctic out there.”
Beth searched for evidence that her sister had spent the night crying. Had she and Luke had a confrontation?
Ruby abandoned the cooking and ran across to her. “Can we ride Socks?”
“Not right now.” Posy scooped her up and swung her round. “He’s in the farthest field and it’s freezing. Also, it’s snowing again.”
“I don’t want him to die.”
“Die?” Posy stroked Ruby’s hair. “Why would you think he’d die?”
Is that my fault? Beth wondered. Have I taught her to think the worst?
“Because it’s so, so cold,” Ruby said, and Posy shook her head.
“He’s not going to die. He has a very thick coat, tons of hay, and there’s a shelter he can hide in if he needs to.” Posy turned as Luke walked in behind her. He was carrying logs and had a backpack slung over his shoulder.
“What are you doing here?” Beth glanced from him to her mother, feeling a rush of protectiveness. Did she want Luke in her kitchen?
Suzanne looked up from the dough she was rolling out. “Bethany Butler, this is my house and everyone is welcome here.” She smiled at Luke. “Thank you for the logs. Posy will put them in the basket in the living room. Why don’t you sit down and warm up? I’ll make some coffee and you can have one of these cookies Ruby and I are baking. Did you bring those photos you promised to show me?”
“I have them here.” He pulled a laptop out of the backpack and placed it on the table a safe distance from Ruby’s cooking.
Posy left the room to take the logs next door and Beth followed her.
Hannah was curled up on the sofa with a book and Beth wondered why she was alone.
“Where’s Adam?”
Hannah didn’t look up from her book. “He had to finish a piece of work.”
Posy dumped the logs in the basket next to the fire. “I know you didn’t want him here and I’m sorry, but the guy flew all the way here from New York, so don’t you think you should at least talk to him, Hannah?”
