Mending Jodie's Heart (When Paths Meet Book 1)

by Sheila Claydon

  “I…does she really flirt?” Her eyes were wide as she picked up on what he had just told her.

  He grinned. “And how! But you don’t need to worry, she isn’t going to sleep with any of them, she’s just testing her powers. She’s doing all the things you didn’t have time to do when you were her age. Let her enjoy them.”

  “How come you know so much about teenage girls?”

  He shook his head. “You don’t want to know.”

  At last she relaxed, dropping the cell phone back onto the bedside table. “You’re probably right. I don’t want to know if it has anything to do with the days when you used to tour. I know you’re right about Izzie too, but it’s just so difficult…I can’t believe how craftily she’s maneuvered us into this, how easily I fell for it.”

  “Well you did, so how about we make the most of it?” Marcus started to stroke her shoulders and then changed his mind and let his hand dip lower until it brushed against her breasts. With a shudder she turned towards him, her eyes suddenly dark with a building desire that blotted out everything except wanting him. His smile was triumphant as he lifted her on top of him and before long, hidden beneath the glossy curtain of her hair, they forgot all about Izzie and concentrated, instead, on the whisper of skin on skin and the salty taste of their love.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  When Jodie woke Marcus was propped up on one elbow watching her. He leaned over and kissed her. “Hello.”

  “Hello,” her voice was full of sleep, her eyes soft with memory as she twined her arms around his neck and pulled him closer. With a groan he gathered her to him.

  “I wasn’t going to do this. I was going to creep out before people start turning up to feed the horses.”

  She pulled back a little and smiled. “To protect my reputation?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Well you don’t need to worry because you can sneak out the back way.”

  Supporting his weight on his elbows he looked down at her. “I don’t want to sneak Jodie. I want everyone to know how I feel about you. I want everyone to know how much…”

  “Sshh!” she put her fingers on his lips and then followed them with her mouth, tracing their outline with her tongue. It was all it took for him to lose himself in her arms and it was a long, long time before they spoke again. When they did it was because the rattling of the gate disturbed them.

  Panic stricken she leapt from the bed and made for the door. Marcus chuckled at the expression on her face. “Much as I appreciate the view I think you’d better put some clothes on before you go outside.”

  Hastily she pulled on a pair of jeans. Then she seized a sweater and headed for the stairs. By the time she returned Marcus was fully dressed and sitting on the side of the bed. He grinned at her. “How did you get out of that?”

  “I told them the truth…that I overslept.”

  “And they bought it?”

  “They’re a bit worried I’m sickening for something because it’s the first time the gate has ever been locked. I’m usually up hours before they arrive.”

  “Mmm…well perhaps it’s time you changed your habits. Marry me Jodie, or if you still can’t do that then just come and live with me and let someone else do the early morning stuff. You’ve done it for long enough.”

  Without answering she stripped off her clothes and then rummaged through her wardrobe for clean underwear, a fresh polo shirt and a pair of jodhpurs. Marcus waited, enjoying her lack of inhibition but frustrated by her silence. She didn’t speak until she had brushed the tangles from her hair and pleated it into a tidy plait. Then she turned and looked at him with eyes full of regret.

  “I can’t marry you Marcus, and I won’t live with you either, so if this isn’t enough you need to tell me now.”

  He reached her in two strides and locked her in his arms. “I’ll take you any way I can but I’m not going to give up. You’ll marry me one day.”

  She shook her head, smiling through a sudden blur of tears. “Go away. The sneak exit is via the kitchen but you can have coffee before you go.”

  “Not if it’s the stuff you usually serve!” He dipped his head and kissed her, then followed her down the stairs.

  Laughing she pushed him out the back door, wriggling away from him as he attempted to kiss her again. “Wait until this evening.”

  He caught hold of her wrist. “Is that a promise?”

  “That depends on Izzie.” As she spoke she suddenly remembered why Marcus was standing in her kitchen. He saw the panic wash across her face.

  “I’ll check on her as soon as I get home.”

  She nodded; relieved she didn’t have to explain anything. Then she turned away and left him. Marcus watched her go, his heart full. He had never doubted his feelings for her but now, after spending a night in her arms, he knew he couldn’t live without her.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  “Jodie you’ve got to come!” Izzie’s voice was a screech down the telephone but underneath it Jodie could hear the wobble of tears.

  With her heart in the pit of her stomach, she tried for calm. “Hang on. I’ll be there as soon as I can…just take some deep breaths and…”

  She stared at the cell phone. Izzie had cut the call. With her imagination in overdrive she abandoned the paperwork she’d been checking and rushed out into the yard. Carol was talking to one of the young volunteers who helped muck out the stables at the weekend. She barged into their conversation.

  “Carol I’ve got to go. There’s a problem with Izzie. Will you hold the fort ‘til I get back?”

  Without waiting for an answer she jumped into the Land Rover and crashed it into gear, all the while wondering why Marcus hadn’t called her.

  * * *

  She found out within moments of buzzing for the gates to open because when they swung inwards so she could drive up to the house, the first thing she saw was Izzie running towards her. With no thought that she was blocking the driveway, she cut the engine and jumped out, ready to defuse whatever nightmare had toppled her sister into hysteria.

  “I knew it was a bad idea for you to sleep over,” she said, bracing herself. Izzie shook her head impatiently, grabbing Jodie’s hand and pulling her towards the house as she spoke.

  “It’s not me. It’s Marcus who needs you, and Luke.”

  * * *

  Blue was lying in his basket and the kitchen was full of the sound of his labored breathing. When he saw Jodie he tried to wag his tail. Marcus was sitting on the floor next to him, his face pinched with grief.

  “I knew it was going to happen soon,” he said, without looking at her. “I just didn’t want it to be yet.”

  She crouched down next to him and reached out and caressed the old dog’s silky ears. Close to she could see the rapid involuntary movement of his cloudy eyes. It was something she’d seen years before when a horse had collapsed in front of her.

  “He’s suffering from nystagmus Marcus. I think he’s had a stroke.”

  He nodded. “That’s what the vet said when I called him. He says he’ll come as soon as he can.”

  Fighting her need to put her arms around him and hold him close, she stood up. “What about Luke? Does he know what’s happening?”

  “I don’t know. Izzie’s been looking after him because there’s no one else here. Mrs. Cotton left for a doctor’s appointment as soon as I got home, and nobody else is due yet.”

  * * *

  She found them in the garden. All the bird feeders were lined up on the patio table and Izzie was helping Luke to fill them with nuts and seeds. She looked up when Jodie walked towards them, her eyes full of questions. Jodie shook her head as she pulled out a chair and sat down. Luke ignored her until he’d finished what he was doing then he spoke to her as if she had been sitting next to him all along.

  “I need some more birdseed and some nuts, and a bird table.”

  “You’d better make a list,” Jodie told him. Then she and Izzie helped him to hang the
feeders on the various branches he’d chosen when she first gave them to him. It took quite a while because each one had a special place and he was very picky about it. Finally they finished.

  “Now it’s clearing up time,” Jodie said. He stared at her.

  “Mrs. Cotton clears up.”

  “Well Mrs. Cotton’s not here right now. She’s gone out, so you’ll have to do it Luke.”

  He shook his head. “Mrs. Cotton always clears up.”

  She sighed, wondering anew how Marcus could have allowed him to reach the age of eleven with no sense of responsibility at all. She’d worked with children for far too long to accept his disability as an excuse. Luke was bright and he liked to learn, so if she could teach less able children to care for the horses they rode, then she was sure Luke could learn to clear up after himself. Immediately she castigated herself for having such uncharitable thoughts while Marcus was sitting with his dying dog. Now was not the time to push Luke either. He was going to have a hard enough time coping with Blue’s death. She knew he and the old dog were exactly the same age, so now, as well as having to get used to a new home, he was going to have to cope with losing one of the lynchpins of his life. She wondered if anyone had ever talked to him about Blue and told him that because he was very old, he was going to die.

  Taking a deep breath, she smiled at him. “Well we’ll leave it for Mrs. Cotton this time then. Let’s go indoors now?”

  He followed her into the kitchen where Marcus was still sitting beside Blue gently rubbing the old dog’s head. He frowned when he saw Luke.

  “He shouldn’t be here. It will just upset him.”

  “So will discovering Blue has gone but without knowing why.”

  He glared at her. “I don’t want him here when the vet comes.”

  “He won’t be, but he has to understand what’s happening, even if it causes problems. Blue has been part of his life ever since he was born so you can’t let him just disappear with no explanation.”

  “Where is Blue going?” Luke’s question sliced through their conversation as he walked across to where the old dog was lying. His eyes were closed now but when he heard Luke’s voice they slatted open. For a long moment the boy and the dog looked at one another. Then Blue gave an enormous sigh and stopped breathing.

  * * *

  Much later, after Marcus had vented the worst of his grief by digging a deep hole at the end of the garden and laying Blue’s body in it, he sat at the kitchen counter with his head resting on one hand. Jodie pushed a mug towards him.

  “Drink your coffee while I check on Luke.”

  He didn’t answer but when she moved past him he put out his free hand and pulled her to him. With a sob she wrapped her arms around him and they clung together for a long moment. Then she gently but firmly extricated herself, knowing Izzie and Luke needed her more.

  They were sitting together watching a wildlife DVD. Izzie’s eyes were red but Luke was too intent on what was happening on the screen to notice when Jodie joined them. Sitting beside Izzie she raised a questioning eyebrow.

  “He doesn’t seem to care,” Izzie whispered. “He hasn’t said anything at all about Blue even though he knows he’s dead. All he’s worried about is whether Mrs. Cotton will be back in time to cook his lunch.”

  Jodie shook her head. “Because he doesn’t experience things the same as other people he might never grieve for him, or it might happen next week, next month, or even next year, and that’s something Marcus is going to find really hard to deal with.”

  * * *

  It proved to be harder than she’d anticipated because once Luke had accepted Blue was dead he spent all his time talking about him, and about what had happened to him when he died. Within a few days an obsession with death had replaced his interest in birds and he spent all his time drawing and labeling animal skeletons. Unable to cope with it, and with his incessant questions, Marcus retreated into his studio, only reappearing at the end of each day a few minutes before Luke’s bedtime.

  Izzie spent a lot of time in the studio as well, preparing for her first public performance. She came home each night though but to Jodie’s dismay she began to leave her bedroom door wide open again. She lost weight too, and there were permanent shadows under her eyes.

  At her wit’s end, Jodie divided her time between her work at the riding school and Luke, Marcus and Izzie, in the forlorn hope things would soon revert to something more manageable.

  She visited Luke at the end of every day while Marcus was still in the studio. She looked at his drawings and answered his incessant questions, she talked to Mrs. Cotton about how best to distract him, and she tried to persuade him to say hello to Buckmaster again. He wouldn’t though, even though he knew the big chestnut horse was waiting patiently outside. He wouldn’t even talk about him. Every time Jodie mentioned his name he clapped his hands over his ears and started making an irritating clicking noise with his tongue.

  Finally, she had had enough, and instead of waiting for Marcus to leave the studio and come up to the house to see her, like he did every evening, she went to find him instead. The sound that washed over her as she pushed open the door made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. She had never heard music like it. Every note was a cry of pain, every phrase the memory of a broken heart. Silently she slipped into the studio and sat on the floor just inside the door. By the time Marcus saw her, her cheeks were wet with tears; tears for him, for Luke, for Blue, for Izzie, and for her own lost dreams. With an exclamation of disgust he banged down the lid of the piano and hurried across to where she was crouching against the wall. Gathering her in his arms he rocked her to and fro.

  “Please don’t cry Jodie. I know I’ve been impossible and I’m sorry. I know I should be better at dealing with Luke but he makes me so angry that the only way I can stop myself from shaking him is to stay in the studio.”

  Burying her face in his shoulder she shook her head. “I wasn’t crying about you…I…it was that piece you were playing… it turned me inside out. My nerve endings are all on the outside now, along with every painful memory and every tear I’ve ever shed.”

  He brushed her hair with his lips. “It’s the only way I know to make sense of things. Instead of thinking about other people and about how they feel, all I want to do is shut myself in the studio and turn my own feelings into music.”

  Tilting her head back she gave him a watery smile. “Anyone listening to the piece you’ve just played will know you feel exactly like they do and they’ll forgive you.”

  Without answering he kissed her, licking at the salt of her tears with his tongue before probing lower to where her mouth was waiting. Within moments they had forgotten everything but their need for one another and when Marcus swept her up into his arms and carried her across to the huge couch that took up half of one wall, Jodie clung to him as if she were drowning.

  He untangled her arms with a groan. “Let me lock the door.”

  By the time he turned back to where she was sitting she had shed her fleece and polo shirt and was tugging at her jodhpurs.

  * * *

  Later, sprawled across his chest, Jodie looked at Marcus. The strain had gone from his face but he still looked tired and miserable. She ran her fingertips across the bow of his lips and then smiled as a shudder went through him. He saw her expression and grinned at her.

  “Witch!”

  “I wish,” she rolled away from him. “If I were a witch I would be able to put everything right with a magic potion.”

  “You do that already for me. You enchanted me when I first met you and I’m still under your spell.”

  “That’s not what I meant and you know it. Stop flirting with me and be serious.”

  He turned his head to look at her, reveling in the purity of her profile and the tangle of her hair even as he answered. “I’m not flirting. I mean it Jodie. And if you want to be serious, how about agreeing to marry me now you know everything about me, warts and all?”

 
She sighed. “Not that sort of serious…the how do we help Luke and Izzie sort of serious.”

  He frowned and then propped himself up on the couch and wedged a cushion under his head. “What’s wrong with Izzie? I thought the therapy was working.”

  Squirming around to face him, she shrugged. “It was but now it’s not. She hasn’t been the same ever since Blue died.”

  “Nor have any of us, but surely it doesn’t mean her old problems have come back.”

  “It does when she starts to leave her bedroom door wide open again every night, and when she barely raises a smile even when she’s talking about music. And she’s hardly been to see Luke at all.”

  “Well you can’t blame her for that, not if she’s feeling down. Who wants to spend all their time talking about death and dying, and what happens to bodies when they’re dead?”

  “Luke does, and that’s what I mean about being serious Marcus. He needs to work this out of his system before it becomes a total obsession, but he can’t do it without you.”

  “Me? You and Izzie get far more out of him in five minutes than I do in a day. No, I’m not the person you need for this.”

  Wriggling around even further, she faced him. “That’s where you’re wrong. Luke is behaving like he is because of you. He doesn’t understand grief. Although he knows Blue has died it doesn’t mean he understands why everyone is sad. He just knows it has something to do with dying and he’s trying to make sense of it.”

  “And you’re such an expert because…?”

  “Because I took the trouble to ask an expert about it,” Jodie’s face was full of sudden fury as she answered him.

  “An expert who knows more than Mrs. Cotton or the other people who care for him every day?”