‘Yes, well, I think we should draw a veil over the last ten minutes and call it a night,’ Ginny suggested uncomfortably.
‘We still have to see my sister,’ he reminded her.
‘It’s getting late, Roarke. She could be asleep already. We can see her first thing in the morning. Your mother isn’t going to let James anywhere near her before the wedding, so the coast will be clear,’ Ginny pointed out, wishing she had thought of that earlier, then that kiss—or kisses—need never have happened.
‘You’re right,’ Roarke agreed, clearly in no mood to prolong the evening either. ‘Tomorrow will be better.’
By which time she should have got her head round what had happened tonight, and put it in perspective. It was laughable to think that she and Roarke could be attracted to each other. It had been a momentary aberration, and the clear light of day would put their relationship back on its customary footing. She had no doubt of that…no doubt at all.
Back in their bedroom, they barely spoke. Ginny collected her night things and disappeared into the bathroom. When she came out again, Roarke had taken a pillow and cover from the bed and made up the couch. Without a word, he went into the bathroom whilst Ginny hung up her things in the dressing room and hurried into bed. She had turned out the light and closed her eyes when Roarke reappeared. She heard him move about carefully in the darkness, then all noises ceased.
It wasn’t easy to sleep, and she tossed and turned for some time before her exhausted body gave up the struggle and she slept. Roarke tucked his hand under the pillow and studied the moonlight on the ceiling. On the bedside table her travel clock slowly ticked on.
Ginny was dreaming. It was a dream she hadn’t had for a long time, but it was no less powerful for all that. It was not a pleasant dream, but good dreams rarely returned to haunt a person. She was caught in the past, trapped by memories that came thick and fast. Unable to break free, she tossed and turned restlessly.
The nightmare was always the same. It was night, but she dared not put the light on, for the landlord of the grotty bedsit she called home was due to call to collect the rent and she didn’t have the money. She had a job washing dishes—it paid little, but it was all she could get. She had been sick all through her pregnancy, and it had lost her the few better paid jobs she had managed to get. Now her boss had threatened to fire her if she was late again—and she was late already…
The scene changed. Now she was standing outside the cheap restaurant, with the manager telling her to clear off. She tried to plead with him, but he didn’t want to know. She had to turn, had to take the next step. Anxiety began to rise in her, and her head thrashed about on the pillow. She didn’t want to go on, but the dream was remorseless. It took her back down that dingy street as she made her way home. As always, she didn’t hear the approach of the person who jumped her, just felt a shove in the back and hands grabbing for her bag. Beneath the covers her legs and arms thrashed about as, in her dream, she fought him, hanging on to the bag, for it contained all the money she had. But her pregnancy had made her clumsy and weak, and with one last shove he had got the bag and run.
She cried out, but it didn’t wake her, and for the hundredth time she careered into the heavy-duty bins and fell to the floor of the alleyway. And, as night followed day, there came the pains, making her groan in her sleep. In her dream she called for help, but nobody came, and she lay there in the dark, in pain, knowing her baby was coming and that she had to try to help herself. Tears streamed down her face as somehow she managed to get to her knees and crawl out to the road. Then more pain and she collapsed, and she knew she was going to lose her baby…
Dragged from an uneasy sleep, Roarke lay on the couch and tried to get his bearings. Then he heard sounds from across the room and sat up, glancing to the bed Ginny occupied. He could just make out the thrashing movements beneath the covers, and it was closely followed by a sound that turned his blood cold. Ginny was crying. Painful sobs that tore into the very heart of him and brought him to his feet in a hurry.
Padding to the bed, he stared down at her, knowing she wouldn’t want him anywhere near her, but knowing too that he couldn’t leave her trapped in the midst of the despairing dream she was having. Easing himself on to the edge of the bed, he reached out to gently shake her awake.
‘Wake up, Ginny. Ginny, can you hear me? It’s a dream. Come on, sweetheart, snap out of it!’
Ginny heard a voice calling her from a long way away. An insistent voice that dragged her out of the depths of her nightmare, leaving the pain behind but not the sense of loss. She felt hands lifting her, shaking her, and with a ragged gasp she woke.
She blinked at the figure who sat on the bed, holding her by the shoulders. ‘Roarke?’
‘You were crying in your sleep. Must have been a very bad dream.’ He explained his presence, eyes quartering her face in concern.
Ginny touched her hand to her cheeks and they came away moist. ‘Oh, God!’ she whispered achingly. She knew what dream it had been; the tendrils of it came drifting back, coiling around her heart, making her shiver in remembrance. ‘Did I wake you? I’m sorry. I should have known…’
Releasing her now that she was awake, Roarke sat back. ‘Known what? That seeing your father again would bring the memories back?’
She nodded, not really surprised by his astuteness. ‘I haven’t had that one in a while.’ She had been hoping she would never have it again, but she should have known better.
‘Was it about your father?’
Ginny rubbed her hands over her arms, warding off a chill that came more from inside than out. ‘Not really.’
Indirectly, her father’s refusal to help her had set her along a path which had ultimately led to the loss of her baby, but she wouldn’t put the blood on his hands.
‘Do you want to talk about it?’ Roarke offered. ‘I’ve been told I’m a very good listener.’
Ginny shook her head in swift refusal. ‘No. I don’t even want to think about it.’
He accepted that without argument. ‘Can I get you anything? Hot milk? Chocolate?’
‘I’ll be fine,’ Ginny declared confidently, though she knew from experience that she wouldn’t be. Whenever she had had the dream before, sleeping afterwards had been impossible. But she wasn’t his problem. She would deal with it. She had always dealt with it.
‘OK, but you know where I am if you need me,’ he told her as he got off the bed.
Ginny lay back against her pillows and listened to the sound of Roarke returning to his bed on the couch. She tried to keep her breathing light and did her best not to move about too much, wanting him to go back to sleep. Time passed slowly, but eventually she was sure he must no longer be awake, so she sat up, plumping the pillows behind her and stared out of the window, watching for a sign that would tell her dawn was approaching.
‘What’s the matter, Ginny?’
The disembodied voice drifting to her from the couch made her jump. ‘I thought you were asleep.’
‘I was waiting for you to drop off. At this rate, it looks as if neither of us will get any more sleep tonight,’ he remarked without rancour.
The last thing she wanted to do was disturb anyone other than herself. ‘Don’t let me keep you awake,’ she urged him, but should have known better by now.
‘Ginny, you can’t expect me to turn over and start knocking out zeds when I know darn well you’re afraid to sleep.’
Her heart leapt into her throat at his intuition. ‘I’m not…’ she began, but the rest of the sentence trailed off, because it was a lie and they both knew it. ‘You’re right, I am scared. I know from experience that if I sleep now I’ll only have the dream again. Once is enough for any night,’ she added with a shudder.
‘What’s it about, this dream?’
Ginny pulled her legs up and wrapped her arms around them protectively. ‘The worst day of my life,’ she admitted scratchily.
‘I guess that would have to be the time you lost your ba
by,’ Roarke stated softly, not wanting her to draw back into her shell.
She was getting used to him pulling rabbits out of the hat this way. ‘You guessed correctly.’
‘Have you ever spoken to anyone about that time?’ Roarke probed carefully.
Ginny shook her head, then, realising he couldn’t see the gesture, cleared her throat. ‘No.’ Who had there been to talk to? Her family had been denied her, and her old friends had drifted away into their own lives.
‘Talking helps, Ginny. Keeping it locked up inside yourself is asking for bad dreams to come.’
She knew he was right. The past was festering inside her, never healing. She had to get it out in the open for her own sake. He wasn’t the person she would have chosen to talk to, but he knew so much already there seemed little point in hiding the rest.
‘How good a listener are you?’ she asked wryly.
‘The best. I don’t judge, and I don’t tell tales. Try me.’
Ginny sighed heavily. ‘Where do I begin? My life had become such a mess by then. The start of it all was when I left with Mark. Nothing went right from then on.’
‘Except the baby,’ Roarke corrected evenly, and she smiled faintly.
‘You’re right. Except the baby. I wanted her. I was prepared to move mountains to give her what I had missed.’ Her smile faded away. ‘The day I discovered I was pregnant was the day Mark left me. He never knew about the baby. My father had cut me off, and Mark saw his meal ticket slipping out of his grasp. I didn’t know at the time, but he had gone to see the Brigadier, to try and get him to change his mind. I could have told him it wouldn’t work. He said no, and a week later Mark disappeared. Whilst I was waiting for hours for him to come home so I could tell him about the baby, he was miles away cutting his losses.’
Roarke made himself comfortable with his hands behind his head, listening to the flat voice tell its tale. ‘You never saw him again?’
‘I had no idea where to look. He told me very little about himself. Besides, when the bills that he had run up started to come in, I fell out of love very quickly. It wasn’t hard to decide to bring up my baby on my own, but from the start things were against me. I had an awful pregnancy. The sickness they told me would eventually stop, never did. I lost I don’t know how many jobs because the sickness prevented me from working. Money became tight.’
‘So you went to your father?’
Ginny closed her eyes against painful memories. ‘He wouldn’t let me in the house, even when I told him about the baby. He said things…’
Roarke’s face grew tight. ‘I’ve heard him. I can guess what he said.’
Ginny dropped her head to her knees. ‘He said I could come back, so long as it was without the baby. I refused, and he shut the door in my face.’
‘The man wants taking out and shooting!’
‘Amen to that.’
Roarke let a little time pass before pressing on. ‘What happened then?’
On the bed, Ginny shrugged, keeping her voice level, trying not to feel anything as she told the sorry story. ‘I went back to my grotty bedsit and did the best I could. Things got worse, though, and by the time I was seven months’ pregnant I owed back rent and was down to washing dishes. That last day I was sick again, and I had this ache low down in my back all day. When the landlord came for the rent, I hid in the dark. I had to wait ages for him to go and that made me late for work. I lost my job.
‘I thought that was the darkest moment, but I was wrong. As I walked home, wondering what I was going to do now, someone snatched my bag. I fought them, because I couldn’t afford to lose the money in it, but they were stronger than I was and shoved me into an alley.’ She felt again those hard hands pushing her. ‘There were several large metal bins in there and I must have hit one of them, because I ended up on the floor.’ Ginny felt her pulse pick up, and she licked her lips to moisten them. ‘That was when the pain started.’
‘Go on,’ Roarke urged her, even as his own stomach twisted into a knot at what he knew was coming.
‘I managed to crawl out of the alley, but that was all. Someone must have found me, because the next thing I can remember I was in an ambulance. Then everything begins to blur. I remember patches. People bending over me. Lights. The smell of disinfectant. Voices telling me to do this or that.’ She swallowed hard as memories came rushing back, but the lump remained in her throat. ‘Do you know what sound echoes the loudest in my mind? Her cry when she was born. It was so weak, barely there, and I knew then that something was wrong.’ Tears welled up in her eyes, and her lips trembled. ‘In my heart I knew I wasn’t going to have her for long.’
A teardrop overflowed, and then another. She felt the bed depress, and only then realised that Roarke had left the couch. She stared at him, her eyes filled with an unutterable sadness. ‘She lived for six hours. I held her hand. It was so tiny, Roarke. She seemed to hold on to me for a while…and then she died. My beautiful baby daughter died,’ she whispered achingly, and the tears that she had held back all these years finally found release.
She didn’t feel Roarke take her in his arms and rock her whilst the tears fell and she gave vent to her despair in long raking sobs. She cried until her throat ached and there were no more tears to shed. She wept for a life that had been cut tragically short, and for the love she had been unable to give. Finally she was still, and she sighed raggedly.
‘I loved her,’ she said huskily.
‘Only a fool would doubt it,’ Roarke returned gently, stroking a soothing hand down her back.
It was that which made Ginny aware of where she was, cradled against the warmth of his strong male chest. She could have felt awkward, but she didn’t. For the first time in for ever she felt…comforted. It was a strange sensation, considering who it was who held her.
‘I never meant to cry all over you,’ she apologised a little awkwardly.
‘Something tells me those tears have been a long time coming,’ he observed, looking down at her, and Ginny sighed.
‘I couldn’t cry, because I knew that if I started I would never stop, the pain was so bad. Instead I put all my energy into making something of my life. I got a job, took evening classes. Found a better job, and so on.’
Driving her on had been the need to stay one step ahead of her grief. Allied to a determination to never allow her emotions to blind her. Passion was a drug that scrambled the mind, leaving her open to hurt and betrayal. But she had learned her lesson and passion was out. This time she was going to be in control of her life. This time…
A yawn took her by surprise.
‘Think you can sleep now?’ Roarke queried.
‘Um-hum,’ she mumbled. Her eyelids felt weighted, and she decided to shut them for just a few seconds, then she would send him back to the couch.
Roarke listened to the measured sound of her breathing and smiled wryly. She was already asleep but he didn’t want to disturb her, so he would wait a few minutes before settling her back on the bed. Making himself comfortable against the pillows, he hooked her in more securely and closed his eyes.
CHAPTER SIX
GINNY drifted to consciousness feeling warm and cosy. Sighing, she rubbed her cheek against the pillow—and something tickled her nose. She moved her hand to brush it away, and her fingers encountered more of the tickly material. Puzzled, she opened her eyes and discovered her ‘pillow’ was a man’s chest, and the ‘tickly material’ the silky hairs that grew there. Furthermore, her ‘pillow’ was rising and falling rhythmically as it breathed.
Lifting her head carefully, she could see a stubbly jaw and ruffled black hair and recognised both as belonging to Roarke. Her eyes widened in surprise, and then the memories slowly returned. Last night she had had that dream again. Roarke had heard her, and he had urged her to talk about it. She had, and she had cried too. Cried tears that had been battened down inside her too long. The crying had drained her, and she must have fallen asleep in his arms, but why was she still there? Why hadn�
�t he gone back to the couch? Because he had fallen asleep too, came the obvious answer.
Ginny bit her lip and glanced down at the body she was literally draped around. She had certainly made herself comfortable, she thought dryly. He had some body, though, was the thought that swiftly followed. She had been right; there wasn’t an ounce of spare flesh on him. Her eyes began a lazy perusal of long legs and strong thighs, skipped over loins hidden by his shorts, and roved on over a flat stomach, that powerful chest and broad shoulders. Tanned and healthy and pretty much perfect, she decided whimsically.
She wondered what all that bronzed skin felt like to the touch. Her pulse-rate increased slightly as she considered the prospect of running her hand over his chest. A tiny voice in the back of her mind asked her what she thought she was doing, but with the thought had come a need to touch him, to know, and the voice was quashed.
Ginny set her hand down gently and held her breath as she moved it through the forest of silky hair. His skin was smooth, and touching it sent a tingle up her arm that slowly spread through her whole system. Her senses sprang to life, and she could feel her heart racing. That tiny voice urged her to stop, to be sensible, but she was enthralled by the sensations she was experiencing.
So caught up was she that it took a while for her to register that his chest was no longer rising and falling gently but much more powerfully as he dragged in air. Shock at the knowledge that Roarke was awake brought her head up, startled green eyes locking with smouldering grey ones. Time seemed to stand still, but then those eyes dropped to her lips, and they tingled as if he had actually touched them. She couldn’t help but moisten her lips with the tip of her tongue. With a growl Roarke’s fingers tangled in her fiery hair and eased her up those few inches necessary to allow his mouth to take hers.
It was no gentle kiss, but a sensuous invasion that sought pleasure even as it gave it. The intensity was mind-blowing, for it seemed as if they were intent on devouring each other. Ginny could feel her body responding to the stimulation and, as she moved against him instinctively, she felt the powerful response of his body too. Her stomach clenched, and that familiar ache started deep within her. She wanted him…badly.
His After-Hours Mistress Page 8
