‘Or I can walk over it with you.’
Ben arched a brow ironically, and Mike sighed. ‘Well, drive, then. I can get Joe to bring me up. We could all talk it over on site. I’ll speak to him and Dad first.’
‘Do that. And now I’m going to leave you in peace. Fran was cooking something that smelled really gorgeous, and I don’t want to be responsible for ruining your supper. Enjoy the book—and drop in when you’re next in the hospital. The fracture clinic’s right next to A and E, and if I’ve got time, I’ll stop for a coffee with you.’
‘I’ll do that,’ Mike promised.
Ben went out, and he could hear his voice in the kitchen, talking to Fran for a moment before the back door shut.
So Ben wanted to buy the land.
And if he did, Joe and Sarah would get enough money to refit their kitchen, which was absolutely falling apart, and he and Fran—they’d have enough money, he thought, the realisation slowly dawning, to pay for another cycle of IVF.
He swallowed. If Fran felt brave enough to go for it. And if she did, he’d have to find the strength from somewhere to support her when it all went wrong.
Assuming she even wanted a baby with him any more. Right now, he wasn’t sure she did. He didn’t know what was going on in her head, and that made life with her an absolute minefield.
And to make matters worse, Sophie was coming back on Sunday week and he still hadn’t worked out how to tell Fran that Kirsten was pregnant.
Oh, damn.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THERE was only one way to do this, Mike decided, and that was to tell Fran straight.
So he did—eventually.
She’d prepared a lovely meal—chilled watercress and tomato soup with basil and garlic croutons, a really tasty chicken dish in a creamy blue cheese sauce with shiitake mushrooms on a bed of wild rice served with the freshest, crunchiest runner beans out of their own garden, and then a fabulous fruit salad rammed with fresh summer fruits topped with a dollop of clotted cream. It was streets away from the usual food they ate, when she was up to her eyes in schoolwork and he was milking until six-thirty and then fighting with the paperwork. He didn’t care if it was geared to helping his leg mend, it was gorgeous, and he scraped the last dribble of cream off the edge of the bowl and pushed it away with a sigh of regret.
‘That was delicious, darling, thank you,’ he said with a smile, and she smiled back and took his plate.
‘You’re welcome,’ she said.
It would have been easier if he hadn’t felt so guilty because he was about to wreck it all by telling her about Kirsten. In fact, he was so preoccupied with working out how to do it he was surprised she hadn’t picked up on it.
But apparently she hadn’t, because she cleared the table, loaded the dishwasher and topped up his glass of apple juice without commenting on his silence.
He wished he didn’t have to do this. Telling her about the baby was going to spoil their evening, and good times between them were so few and far between. She’d made a real effort tonight—did he really have to say anything to spoil it?
Yes, because otherwise Sophie would come next weekend and if she knew she was bound to say something, and he owed Fran a few days to get used to the idea without having to pretend enthusiasm to a delighted little girl who was finally having her dream realised.
But not now. Later, perhaps. When they’d gone to bed. When he could lie there and hold her, and hug her when she cried—because she would, of course. She was bound to, and if she was already in his arms, maybe she wouldn’t run away and cry in private.
Although he hated it when she cried, he hated even more the idea that she’d run away and do it in a corner somewhere, like a wounded animal. That he really, really couldn’t bear.
‘Coffee?’ he suggested.
She hesitated, then smiled. ‘OK. Just a little one. I don’t want to keep you awake.’
He’d love her to keep him awake, but that wasn’t what she was talking about, and, anyway, there was still this whole pregnancy minefield.
Oh, hell. Life was so incredibly complicated.
‘What’s wrong, Mike? You’ve been frowning all evening.’
He turned towards her in the darkness. With the bedroom curtains open, as they always were, he could just about make out her features, but he couldn’t read her expression. That was a definite disadvantage of doing this in the dark, but it was more intimate, easier to say the things that would hurt her so badly.
‘Nothing’s wrong, exactly,’ he said, not knowing where to start. He reached out and found her hand, curling his fingers round it and squeezing gently. ‘It’s just—Kirsten’s…’
He let it hang, and after a few seconds she sucked in her breath and he knew she’d worked it out.
‘When?’ she said, her voice almost inaudible.
He ached to gather her into his arms. ‘February,’ he told her, although he couldn’t see that it made any difference, but it had been his first question, too, and he supposed it was only natural, part of the process of establishing just when the changes would start to show. Soon, he thought, remembering Kirsten’s first pregnancy.
Fran’s fingers tightened on his, and he squeezed back and didn’t let go.
‘Does Sophie know?’ she asked eventually, her voice hollow.
‘I don’t know. She didn’t when Kirsten told me.’
‘When did she tell you?’
‘On Sunday.’
‘Sunday?’ she exclaimed, pulling her fingers away. ‘But—it’s Thursday!’
‘I know,’ he said heavily. ‘I didn’t know how to tell you.’
‘Oh, Mike, that’s silly,’ she said, her voice more normal now—or was it? ‘It’s lovely for them. And Sophie will be delighted.’
‘Are you going to be OK with it?’ he asked, wishing to God he could read her face. If only he’d done this in daylight…
‘I’ll live. It was always going to happen, Mike.’ But this time there was a little wobble in her voice, and without thinking about it, because if he did he’d talk himself out of it, he reached out and gathered her against his chest.
For a moment she resisted, then he felt her chest hitch, and her arms slid round him and she squeezed him tight. Right over his cracked ribs, but he stifled the groan and held her, running his hands gently up and down over her back to comfort her.
‘I’m so sorry,’ he murmured, and she sniffed and her chest jerked again, but she wouldn’t let the tears fall, wouldn’t give way to them.
Damn, she was so ridiculously brave! If only she’d cry—let it out, let him hold her while she worked through all her feelings, but she wouldn’t, and he could understand that. He wouldn’t lie and cry in her arms either. It was just all too revealing.
‘I knew it would happen,’ she said finally. ‘I mean, why not? Everyone else in the world seems to be pregnant.’
Everyone but her. He knew that, knew without a shadow of a doubt that she wasn’t pregnant because she’d had a period this week. Not that it made any difference without the means to conceive, but it must just rub it in when something like this happened.
And she’d been in a foul mood earlier in the week, distant and unapproachable, and he didn’t know if she was still angry with him about the accident or unhappy because she wasn’t pregnant again or if it was just PMT.
In the good old days, if she’d been grumpy like this he would have made a wisecrack about her hormones. Not now. He knew better now, because PMT was an indicator of just how monumentally unsuccessful they were being in the baby department, and frankly it just wasn’t funny.
He pressed a kiss to her hair, and she snuggled closer, letting him hold her. He wasn’t really comfortable. He should have had his leg up on a pillow, but it wasn’t as bad as it had been and for now it wasn’t his priority.
Fran was, and he wasn’t going to do anything that might make her leave his arms. He wished he knew what to say, how to comfort her, but he didn’t, so he just held her, and aft
er an age she fell asleep.
It was hot—too hot to lie so close—and he shifted slightly, easing away from her and stretching his leg out, wishing he’d propped it up on the pillows first before they’d started this conversation.
She’d rolled to her side away from him, and he shifted to face her, hunting for a better position. It wasn’t, but his good leg brushed hers, and she wriggled back towards him, seeking him out in her sleep the way she always did if things were tough.
The way she always had, he corrected himself, and let his arm circle her waist, drawing her back more firmly against his chest. To hell with the heat. She needed him, and it was little enough to do for her.
Even if the feel of her soft, warm body in his arms was killing him…
Fran woke to Mike’s arm around her, his fingers curled gently around her breast, the insistent nudge of his erection against her bottom.
Heat speared through her, flooding her with a fierce, desperate need, a hollow ache that only he could fill. It was so long since she’d felt it, felt anything at all except empty and cold. And she wanted him—wanted the old Mike, the man who laughed and chased her around until she let him catch her, who made love to her, tormenting her until she was sobbing with need, then taking her with a wild and uncontrolled passion that left her spent and boneless in his arms.
Where was that man? Gone for ever? Or was he still here? If she only had the courage to reach out…
‘Mike?’ she whispered.
For a moment he said nothing, so she almost wondered if he was asleep, but he was too still, too silent, and then he spoke, his voice gruff and low.
‘I’m sorry. It’s just—I’ll move.’
‘No!’
The word was out before she could stop it, and he froze again. ‘Fran, please. I can’t do this. Can’t lie here night after night, wanting you like this, and—’
‘Wanting me?’ she breathed, stunned. Turning, she stared at him in the moonlight. ‘Do you want me? I thought you didn’t.’
‘Of course I want you,’ he whispered roughly. ‘I’ll always want you.’
‘But—you’ve been avoiding me. Going over to the farm office, telling me not to wait up, getting out of bed in the morning without waking me.’
‘I’ve always done that. I never wake you that early.’
‘Not like this, Mike. Not like this, so I thought you didn’t love me any more.’
‘Oh, Frankie, of course I love you.’ He sighed. ‘I just…’
‘Just can’t bring yourself to touch me?’ she said, her voice hollow to her ears—hollow and empty, like her heart.
‘No! How could you think that?’
‘Then why are you avoiding me?’ she wailed softly, ridiculously, all but inviting him to make love to her when she couldn’t even contemplate his intimate touch.
He sighed again, his hand coming up, the knuckles grazing her cheek with infinite tenderness. ‘It’s not that I can’t bring myself to touch you, Fran. It’s—oh, hell, much more complicated than that.’
‘Then tell me! Talk to me, Mike!’
He didn’t answer, but she could hear the cogs turning, feel the tension radiating out of him.
‘Mike?’
‘Frankie, I’m no good with words. I’m a farmer, for God’s sake. I don’t talk about my feelings.’
‘Why?’ she asked. ‘Why not? Dammit, I’m not enjoying this either, but we have to talk. Our marriage is in tatters, we’re falling apart and I’m trying here, really trying to get through to you, to sort it out, to find out if we’ve still got anything, and I can’t do that on my own! I can’t lay myself bare, wide open to you—not on my own! You have to do it too, Mike. You have to tell me how you feel. You have to share. Please…’
Her voice cracked, and with a ragged sigh he reached out and found her hands in the darkness, gripping them so tight she nearly cried out, but she wasn’t letting go, not now, when they were so close…
‘It’s not that I can’t bring myself to touch you,’ he said gruffly. ‘Far from it. It’s more that—I daren’t.’
‘Daren’t?’ she breathed. ‘Why ever not?’
He hesitated an age, then said, so softly she could hardly hear him, ‘In case you get pregnant.’
She froze with shock. So she was right, she thought numbly, her eyes searching his but unable to read them in the shadows. Her voice cracking, she said desperately, ‘I knew you didn’t want a child with me—’
‘Oh, Frankie, no!’ He reached out, wrapped her in his arms, dragged her against his chest with a groan of protest. ‘Of course I want a child with you. But every time you’re pregnant, every time you lose it—I just can’t bear to watch you go through that, sweetheart—not again. I can’t bear watching you fall apart, seeing what I’ve done to you destroying you—’
‘What you’ve done?’ She pushed away, tilting her head so she could look into his eyes, her hand cradling his face. ‘Mike, don’t be silly! You’ve done nothing to me.’
‘Except get you pregnant with dodgy sperm.’
‘We don’t know that. It could be my eggs. Maybe they’re dodgy. What makes you think it’s you? There’s nothing dodgy about Sophie.’
‘Maybe she was a one-off. My lucky break. And anyway, you’ve been avoiding me, too,’ he added softly. ‘Sometimes, when I’ve reached the end of my tether and I really, really needed you, you’ve turned away, reading a book or going to have a bath or—I don’t know, almost anything rather than be alone with me. I’ve even wondered…’
‘Wondered what?’ she asked, when the silence stretched on.
‘If there was someone else.’
‘Mike! You know I wouldn’t!’
‘I know. I do know. Or I know you wouldn’t have an affair, at least, but—you can’t stop yourself falling in love, Frankie. And if there’s someone else—someone you’d rather be with—I know you don’t want me to touch you. I’ve felt you recoil…’
‘When?’
‘The other night?’
‘Oh, Mike.’ She felt tears fill her eyes, felt the anguish in his voice cut through her like a knife. ‘It wasn’t that.’
‘What, then? What is it that makes you flinch away from me as if I’m somehow…repugnant to you?’
‘Oh, darling, you’re not. Not at all. It’s just—I feel like a medical investigation. As if so many people have looked at me there, touched me, talked about me—as if the part of me that had belonged to us is suddenly public property. And I don’t know if I could bear for you to touch me, or if it’ll just bring it all back—’ She broke off, biting her lip, then went on unsteadily, ‘Mike, I don’t know if I can respond to you any more. I don’t know if it hasn’t just killed it for me, and I’m scared to find out.’
His breath sighed against her face, warm and reassuring. ‘Oh, Frankie. Oh, my love—what’s happened to us?’ he whispered, folding her against his chest again and rocking her. She could still feel the brush of his erection, but softer now, less urgent, and as he cradled her so her confidence grew, her need to hold him, to touch him building until finally she found the courage to reach out.
‘Mike?’ Her voice was soft, gently questioning, and her hand stroked against his shadowed jaw, the rasp of stubble unbearably erotic against her palm. Leaning in to him, she brushed her lips lightly against his, tentatively, not sure of her reception or how she’d react if he took it further than this, but he wasn’t going to let her find out.
He drew back, taking her hand and turning his face into it, pressing a kiss against her palm. ‘No,’ he said softly. ‘Not tonight. Not when you’re still unsure—still not ready.’
‘I am,’ she lied, but he knew her better than that. So much better. And he was right, of course. She wasn’t ready, and maybe he wasn’t either. They still had a long way to go, a lot to unravel, much to talk through.
And for a man who didn’t talk and a woman usually too shy to reveal her inner self, it was going to be uphill all the way.
They slept in e
ach other’s arms, only waking to the sound of his family in the kitchen at seven.
She groaned, and he chuckled and hugged her closer to his chest. ‘Maybe they’ll cook us breakfast,’ he suggested.
‘And maybe I should be up and helping them, not lying here with you and—’ She broke off, and he let her go.
Lying here with him and—what? Wanting him, the way he wanted her? God, he hoped so, because a few more nights of persistent arousal was going to give him a serious medical problem.
But what if she didn’t? What if she never wanted him, couldn’t ever bear his touch? What if all the investigations had turned her off so thoroughly that they never made love again?
The thought took his breath away.
‘Coming down?’ she asked, and he shook his head.
‘I’ll have a shower first.’
‘Need a hand?’
‘No,’ he said firmly. Not to have a cold shower. And it would need a bucket of ice to settle him down after last night. He watched her as she walked down to the bathroom, the nightshirt hitched up slightly by the clothes she’d scooped up to take with her, revealing an incredibly tempting glimpse of the crease below her left buttock as she walked.
The softly shadowed fold did nothing to help his state of arousal, and with a groan he shut his eyes and dragged his mind to something dull. Anything. The paperwork? Farm records?
Funny how his mind had emptied, how he couldn’t think of a single thing except that soft shadow and the warm, silky feel of her skin…
She was busy all day, out on the farm, and he was driven crazy. He started to read the book Ben had given him, but it couldn’t hold his attention. Not against such fierce competition.
And he was getting so unfit it was driving him mad.
He went into the kitchen, poked about in the larder and found an unopened bag of rice. That might do the trick. He sat down on one of the chairs, draped the rice bag over his cast and did some lower-leg lifts until his thigh and abdominal muscles were burning. Then he shifted onto his right hip and lifted the leg up and in towards the centre, over and over, then stood up and held on to the sink and lifted his leg out sideways until the muscles round his hip were screaming in protest.
Caroline Anderson, Josie Metcalfe, Maggie Kingsley, Margaret McDonagh Page 10
