Caroline Anderson, Josie Metcalfe, Maggie Kingsley, Margaret McDonagh

by Brides of Penhally Bay Vol. 03 (li

  ‘I don’t know, Tom,’ she said uncertainly. ‘We have so much history. Maybe too much.’

  ‘You said…’ He caught her hands, and held them tightly. ‘When you first told me about the baby—you said you loved me all those years ago. Has it all gone—that love?’

  ‘I think…’ She stared up into the face she knew so well, at the lines which seemed to have become even more deeply etched around his eyes and on his forehead over the past few days. ‘I think I will always love you, Tom, but I don’t know whether loving you would be enough. What happened—the baby—I think it might always come between us. Not spoken about, but always there, and when we argued—and we would argue because all couples do—my fear is we’d use it as a weapon against one another.’

  ‘I wouldn’t.’

  She smiled unevenly.

  ‘You can’t be sure of that, Tom.’

  ‘Eve, no one can be sure of anything,’ he insisted. ‘We might have years of happiness together, or our lives could be snuffed out in a second by some pointless car crash. You said I wasn’t to blame for Charlie’s death, and for the deaths of those people in India, because I did what I thought was right at the time—that it was all anyone could do. Well, the decision you made about the baby was right for you at the time, it was all you could do, and you have to see that, accept that.’

  ‘I hear what you’re saying, Tom,’ she murmured, ‘and my head tells me you’re right, but my heart…’

  ‘Eve, I have loved you for so long,’ he said, his voice constricted. ‘I was in love with you even when we were at school.’

  ‘No, you weren’t,’ she said. ‘Starchy Dwyer, remember?’

  ‘Do you want to know why I called you that?’ he said. ‘It was because I fancied you like mad but I was the no-hoper, Tom Cornish’s son, whereas you…You were the one who always got the good grades, the one whose parents were respectable, acceptable, and I’d have looked a proper fool in front of my friends if I’d asked you out, and you’d said no, so it was easier to act like I thought you were the prat.’

  ‘It was a pretty good act,’ she said with feeling, and his lips curved into a slight smile, then the smile disappeared.

  ‘Eve, I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Yes, we’ve made mistakes, and I made the biggest one of all, but I need you, Eve. It’s not just the wanting—though God knows I want you so much—but…’ He let go of her hands and thrust his fingers through his hair, his face taut, strained. ‘I need you.’

  ‘Tom—’

  ‘No, please, let me finish,’ he pressed. ‘All these years I’ve been chasing dreams, and nothing brought me any happiness, any contentment, because you weren’t in my life. When I think of all the years we could have had together, the memories we could have made and shared. I lost them. Me. Not you. Me, always on the move, thinking excitement was the answer, when all the time what I really wanted was here, in my own back yard, because, you see…’ His voice cracked. ‘You are my dreams, Eve, you always have been.’

  There was honesty and truth in his face, and she knew she would never love anyone as much as she loved him, but so much had happened over the last few days, and she felt raw, exposed, vulnerable.

  ‘Twenty years, Tom,’ she said slowly. ‘It’s a lot of years to forget.’

  ‘I’m not asking you to forget them,’ he said, his voice soft with understanding. ‘I know you can’t, just as I know I can’t go back and give myself the knowledge I have now. I wish I could. I wish I hadn’t been the stupid, blind, selfish person I was then, but all the wishing in the world can’t make that happen, but if we can both—somehow—forgive ourselves, then maybe we won’t just have a shared past. Maybe we can have a future, together.’

  ‘But, you’re leaving,’ she said. ‘You’re going to China.’

  ‘Yes, I’m leaving.’ He nodded. ‘But what I want to know is, if I come back to Penhally, when all of this upheaval is over, would you want to see me again?’

  She gazed out to sea to where the little nosegay was floating away towards the horizon, and then she looked up at him. Up into the face that had once haunted her dreams, the face she’d once loved, and then hated, and saw the entreaty in his eyes, the desperate hope, and though she didn’t know what the future was going to bring she did know that the fates had given her another chance at happiness and she would be foolish to let it go.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, her voice a little wobbly, a little tremulous. ‘I’d want to see you again, Tom.’

  And a blinding smile illuminated his face, and he caught her hand, and pressed her knuckles to his lips.

  ‘One day at a time, Eve,’ he said. ‘We’ll take this one day at a time, and no matter how long it takes I will wait for you.’

  And she smiled back at him, and nodded, and together they walked back down into Penhally Bay.

  EPILOGUE

  Six months later

  DUSK. A magical time, a perfect time for a wedding. That’s what any guest staying at the exclusive Lake Lausanne hotel would have said if they’d looked out of the dining-room windows onto the lawn and seen a clergyman and two other men standing beside an archway of spring blossom, clearly waiting for a bride to arrive. However, if those guests had looked a little closer, they would have seen that one of the men looked distinctly nervous.

  ‘Mitch, are you quite sure this morning suit doesn’t make me look like a complete prat?’

  ‘Well, now you come to mention it…’ the pilot began, then grinned as Tom gazed at him in dismay. ‘You look fine.’

  Tom tugged at his tie. ‘Shouldn’t Eve be here by now?’

  ‘Tom, Eve is not going to do a runner, although I will if you keep on stressing.’

  ‘Right. Sorry,’ Tom muttered, glancing down at his watch.

  ‘Eight minutes,’ Mitch observed.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The ceremony is due to begin in eight minutes,’ the pilot declared. ‘Which is exactly two minutes less than the time was when you last checked your watch.’

  ‘Right.’

  Mitch shot Tom a mischievous glance.

  ‘Wouldn’t it just be typical if we were to get a call from Deltaron?’ he said, then guffawed when Tom’s mouth fell open in horror. ‘Just kidding. They know you’re not available. Know I’m not, too. No way was I going to miss out on being your best man.’

  ‘I really appreciate you agreeing to do this, Mitch,’ Tom said awkwardly. ‘It’s…well…it’s very good of you.’

  The big pilot looked equally embarrassed.

  ‘Me miss out on the opportunity of seeing the head of operations at Deltaron in a complete panic? No chance.’

  ‘I guess not.’ Tom smiled, then glanced down at his watch again.

  ‘Seven minutes,’ Mitch said, ‘and if you look at your watch one more time I’ll ram it down your throat.’

  ‘Amanda, are you sure we’re not late?’ Eve said as she glanced out of the French windows of the hotel. ‘Tom’s walking up and down out there like he’s scared I’m not going to turn up or something.’

  ‘Of course you’re not late,’ Amanda insisted as Tassie pirouetted past them, clearly revelling in her pale blue brides-maid’s dress. ‘And, even if you were, it’s the bride’s prerogative.’

  ‘Not this bride,’ Eve said with a shaky laugh. ‘This bride’s been waiting twenty years for this moment.’

  ‘No doubts, then?’ Tassie’s mother said, and Eve shook her head.

  ‘None at all,’ she replied, and she didn’t have, not now.

  Bit by bit, over the last six months, Tom had chipped away at her worries, emailing or phoning her every day, but it was when he had returned to Penhally for both Melinda and Rachel’s little boys’ christenings that she had finally been convinced. She knew he would never feel comfortable in Penhally, and yet he’d come back because she’d wanted him to. Come back to make her happy, and it was that which convinced her to say yes when he’d asked her to marry him, and that night, after Rachel’s baby’s christe
ning…

  Her face softened. She’d been so nervous and self-conscious that night, and he’d been so gentle, so tender, making her laugh, relaxing her, so their joining had been even more wonderful, even more perfect, than it had been the last time they’d made love twenty years ago.

  ‘I still can’t believe you’re actually going to be living here,’ Amanda continued. ‘I thought you were like me—destined always to stay in Penhally.’

  ‘I thought so, too,’ Eve admitted, ‘but it makes sense for us to live in Switzerland when most of Tom’s team have homes here, and…’ She shrugged. ‘I think it’s maybe way past time I spread my wings.’

  ‘Tassie and I wouldn’t be here at all if Tom hadn’t paid our air fares,’ Amanda said. ‘We owe you so—’

  ‘You owe us nothing,’ Eve interrupted, putting her fingers to the woman’s lips quickly to silence her. ‘We wanted you at our wedding, and I’ll be very cross if you don’t use those other air tickets Tom gave you to come and visit us regularly.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘No buts,’ Eve insisted. ‘Tassie’s special, and so are you.’

  ‘I don’t know about us being special,’ Amanda said, blowing her nose vigorously, ‘but you certainly look lovely today. That colour really suits you.’

  Eve uncertainly smoothed down the folds of the long crimson skirt and matching embroidered bolero jacket she was wearing.

  ‘You don’t think it looks odd, me wearing red?’ she said. ‘It’s just Tom likes this colour—’

  ‘I think you look gorgeous,’ Amanda insisted. ‘Like you have a candle inside you, burning with happiness.’

  It was how Eve felt as she stepped out of the French windows and saw Mitch nudge Tom, and Tom’s whole face light up when he turned and saw her. It was how she felt throughout the whole ceremony as Tom repeated his vows, his voice a little husky, and she made her own pledges, her voice just as uneven, and his fingers tightened round hers as though he never wanted to let her go.

  She didn’t want to let go of him either. All she wanted was to be alone with him, but Mitch had organised a wedding supper for them and she knew it would have seemed ungrateful if she and Tom had slipped away the minute they’d finished eating.

  Mitch obviously didn’t agree. In fact, the second their plates were cleared, the pilot gave Amanda a very decided wink, then glanced at his watch.

  ‘Half past nine already,’ he said. ‘I think it’s time some folk should be in their beds.’

  ‘But I don’t normally go to bed until ten o’clock,’ Tassie protested and, as Amanda laughed, and Eve blushed, Tom got to his feet.

  ‘I couldn’t agree with you more, Mitch,’ he said, ‘but there’s something I want to do first.’

  Eve’s eyebrows rose as he strode across to the quartet who had been playing a medley of tunes throughout the evening.

  ‘What he’s up to, Mitch?’ she asked and the pilot shook his head.

  ‘Haven’t a clue, love.’

  Neither did she until the quartet began to play the opening bars of a tune she recognised instantly, and when Tom held out his arms to her, she had to blink very rapidly before she could walk out onto the small dance floor and join him.

  ‘My very own Lady in Red,’ he murmured into her hair as he drew her into his arms. ‘And you are mine now, for always, aren’t you?’

  And she was, she thought as he whirled her round the small dance floor, holding her closer, and closer, moulding his body to hers, so she could feel the uneven throb of his heartbeat, could see his eyes growing darker and more intense with every passing second and, when the music ended, and he kissed her, she never wanted the kiss to end.

  Neither, it seemed, did the other diners if the eruption of applause, and the sound of Mitch whooping enthusiastically, was anything to go by when they finally drew apart.

  ‘I think maybe Mitch was right,’ Tom said, leaning his forehead against hers, his cheeks flushed, his breathing uneven. ‘Maybe it is time we go to bed before I completely forget we’re not alone.’

  ‘Definitely,’ she said, chuckling shakily as the leader of the quartet shook her hand, and said something incomprehensible in Swiss, and the diners applauded again.

  She thought it even more when Tom drew her back into his arms the second they reached their hotel room.

  ‘Oh, Tom, I am so happy.’ She sighed, as he slid his hands up her sides so she felt the heat of his fingers through the fine satin of her jacket. ‘I keep thinking I’m going to wake up, find this is all a dream, that no one has the right to be as happy as I am right now.’

  ‘You do,’ he said, tracing the outline of her jaw with his lips. ‘You deserve everything you’ve ever wanted, and I’m going to make it my life’s ambition to ensure you get it.’

  ‘You already have,’ she said huskily. ‘In fact…’ She took a deep breath. ‘There’s something I have to tell you.’

  ‘Later,’ he said, his eyes liquid with desire as he began unbuttoning her jacket. ‘Later we talk, but right now…’

  She wanted the ‘right now’, too, she thought as he eased her jacket off, then her bra, and when he caressed her breasts with his fingers and lips she felt the heat flare everywhere. Every part of her body seemed so much more sensitive tonight, she thought as he removed the rest of her clothing, then his, and she knew why but it would keep. Just for a little while it would keep, she decided as she clung to him, revelling in his hardness as he whispered words of love, and touched her, and kissed her, telling her over and over how beautiful she was, how desirable, until she was shaking with need.

  ‘Tom, please—please,’ she gasped, wanting more, even more.

  And he laughed, and kissed her again, and just when she thought she wouldn’t be able to bear it any longer, he finally entered her, hot and slick, and she rose up to join him, wanting to give him the same joy he was giving her, and felt her heart clutch with happiness when he carried her over the edge and his cry matched hers as they spiralled and shuddered and climaxed together.

  ‘My wife,’ he said, gathering her, spoon-like, against his chest. ‘You’re all I’ve ever wanted Eve, all I’ll ever need.’

  She gazed down at his arms encircling her, and cleared her throat.

  ‘Tom…do you remember when you told me how much you would like to have children?’

  His grip on her tightened.

  ‘Eve, I’m happy simply having you,’ he said softly. ‘I’m not saying it wouldn’t be a great joy to me if we were so blessed, but…’ He turned her round in his arms so he could look at her. ‘For such a long time I thought I’d lost you. For an even longer time I thought I’d messed things up completely. If we should have a baby then it would be wonderful because you deserve so much to be a mother, but if we’re not lucky—if it doesn’t happen—you’ve already made my life complete, just by being you.’

  ‘You’ve made my life complete, too,’ she said unevenly, ‘but what I meant…’ She could feel her cheeks darkening which was ridiculous because she had nothing to feel embarrassed about, but she so wanted him to feel the same way she did. ‘When I asked whether you still wanted to be a father I was thinking of…perhaps in about six months?’

  ‘Six months?’ he repeated with a frown. ‘Eve—’

  ‘Tom, when did we first make love again?’ she interrupted, and saw his frown deepen.

  ‘It was when I came back for Rachel’s son’s christening. When I asked you to marry me, and you…’ He smiled. ‘You said yes, and made me the happiest man on the planet.’

  ‘That was three months ago, Tom.’ He still looked confused and she chuckled softly. ‘And you call yourself a doctor. Think about it. Tom. If I’m asking whether you would like to be a father in six months’ time, and we made love three months ago…’

  He stared at her silently for a second, then sat up so fast she had to catch hold of him to prevent herself landing face down in the pillow.

  ‘You’re pregnant?’ He gasped.

  ‘Yes.’
She nodded, watching his face anxiously.

  A smile tugged at his lips. A smile that grew, and grew, and tentatively he reached out and gently put his fingers on her stomach.

  ‘A baby,’ he said, wonder plain in his voice. ‘We’re going to have a baby.’

  ‘Are…are you pleased?’ she said, and he dashed his hand across his eyes.

  ‘Oh, Eve,’ he said, his voice husky. ‘Oh, my love, my love.’

  And he clasped her to him, his eyes as bright and shimmering as she knew hers must be, then released her abruptly, concern plain on his face, and gently touched her tummy again, and she laughed, a hiccuping laugh that was halfway towards a sob.

  ‘Tom, I’m not made of glass,’ she said. ‘I won’t break.’

  ‘No, but I think I might,’ he said. ‘Break with happiness, and joy.’

  And he drew her to him again and kissed her so tenderly, and she felt the wetness on his cheeks, knew her own cheeks were tear-stained, too, but they were tears of happiness. That at last—at long last—she and Tom would have not just a past together, but a glorious, wonderful future.

  DR DEVEREUX’S

  PROPOSAL

  BY MARGARET McDONAGH

  Margaret McDonagh says of herself: ‘I began losing myself in the magical world of books from a very young age, and I always knew that I had to write, pursuing the dream for over twenty years, often with cussed stubbornness in the face of rejection letters! Despite having numerous romance novellas, short stories and serials published, the news that my first “proper book” had been accepted by Harlequin Mills & Boon for their Medical™ Romance line brought indescribable joy! Having a passion for learning makes researching an involving pleasure, and I love developing new characters, getting to know them, setting them challenges to overcome. The hardest part is saying goodbye to them, because they become so real to me. And I always fall in love with my heroes! Writing and reading books, keeping in touch with friends, watching sport and meeting the demands of my four-legged companions keeps me well occupied. I hope you enjoy reading this book as much as I loved writing it.’