His hands roved across her breasts, encountering nipples already peaking with desire, his fingers, thumbs teasing at the tight nubs, shooting messages of desire through her body.
Then her name became a question.
‘Beth?’
His hands at the buttons on her blouse…
Instead of answering, she sat up and stripped it off, over her head, then began to unbutton his staid white shirt, pushing back the edges so she could touch his skin.
Thoughts befuddled now by wanting Angus, tiny messages trying to get through—whispering in the back of her mind.
Her fingers trembled, so great was her need. They fumbled with his buttons so Angus stood and stripped off his clothes, too, joining her on the bed as she wriggled out of shorts and knickers, needing to feel his skin on hers, to be close to him all over. Wrapped in Angus once again…
But he took his time, teasing her, letting her tease him, hands grazing skin as they explored and remembered, little touches, kisses, sensations Beth had totally forgotten, desire enhanced by waiting until it became greedily demanding, their kisses hot and hard, their hands frantic in their touching.
‘I want to be inside you,’ Angus whispered, voice hoarse with the hunger they’d generated—had always generated between them.
For an answer Beth shifted, lifting her hips to ease his entry, clutching at his arms in an attempt to keep herself centred, then as his erection touched her—probed—some echo of the past returned, faint at first then yelling at her.
Yelling a warning about falling back into bed like this, as if there’d been no parting, no divorce, no Bobby—
Bobby!
‘No, Angus, wait, it’s not safe.’
She slid away from under him, so embarrassed she wanted to shrivel up and disappear, but Angus had reacted differently, sitting up and snapping on her bedside light, a look of fury on his face.
‘Are you still obsessed about not having another child? Is that what this is all about? Do you lead other men on then pull away or do they come prepared with condoms? And why, in heaven’s name, if you’re so damned determined to remain childless, wouldn’t you be on the Pill? You’re a doctor—it isn’t that difficult for you to get them.’
Beth stared at him, totally bewildered by his anger.
‘Angus, we’re not married,’ she said, lamely pointing out the obvious. ‘And I wasn’t thinking of not having another child, but of repeating the same mistake I made last time—of getting pregnant and putting you in a position where you felt you had to marry me.’
Her voice sounded very small, even to her own ears, and perhaps Angus hadn’t heard it, for he continued to pull on his clothes with a haste that suggested he couldn’t wait to get out of her hut.
Holding his shoes in one hand, he headed for the door, muttering now, but words Beth couldn’t hear. Then, just as she was resigned to him walking out and probably never talking to her again, he turned, glared at her, and said, ‘I didn’t have to marry you!’
CHAPTER SIX
ACCEPTING, after an hour of fruitless tossing and turning, that she wasn’t going to sleep, Beth got up and headed for the shower. She’d go back up and relieve Marcia by Robbie’s bed.
As water splashed down on her head, anxiety for the children who were supposed to be having a wonderful holiday simmered inside her, although it had been subdued for a while by the turbulent emotions Angus’s return into her life had caused.
But now he was gone again—his departure unmistakably final, so even if she did see him around the place, they would be meeting as colleagues, not almost-lovers.
She soaped her body all over, rubbing at her skin, actions automatic as her mind followed the trail of Angus.
No, she was damned if she was going to sigh over what had happened. Bad enough that she’d lost sleep.
So what if she and Angus were still attracted to each other?
So what if she’d upset him by her sudden refusal to make love?
Shampoo bubbles cascaded down her face.
She’d upset herself as well—badly—wanting him, aching for him, yet not lost enough in lust to risk what had happened before.
And if he thought she’d pulled away because of what he called her obsession to not have another child, then he could go on thinking that. Better that he thought her a little batty than realised just how much guilt she’d carried over that first pregnancy.
Lifting her head, she let the water stream down her face, hiding tears she wasn’t going to admit were there, rinsing out the conditioner from her hair.
By the time she’d dried herself off, combed the tangles from her hair and dressed in clean clothes, she was Dr Beth Stuart again, competent medical practitioner, in charge of the new Wallaby Island Medical Centre.
Mature!
This façade crumpled only slightly when she reached Robbie’s bed and found Angus sitting beside the pale, still child.
Beth stood inside the door, wanting to turn away but knowing it was too late.
‘I’ve nothing better to do so I thought I might sit with him for a while. Being in the centre helps me concentrate my mind on what might be happening. I have to consider what else it is, if it’s not bird flu.’
‘You—’ Beth began to speak then realised she didn’t have the words she needed, so stared at him instead, disbelief vying with anger.
Anger won and she began again.
‘You stalk out of my place, angry because one of us happened to have enough common sense to think about unwanted pregnancies, then come up here to sit beside a child you don’t even know. I know I never understood you, Angus, but you sure as hell never understood me either.’
His turn to frown.
‘What do you mean?’
Don’t sigh! Stay mad!
But mad—angry mad—was something Beth found difficult to sustain, though she did swallow the sigh.
‘I didn’t stop tonight because of my so-called obsession about not having another child,’ she said, hoping she was speaking crisply so he’d realise how maturely she was handling this argument. ‘I stopped because I didn’t want us back where we were before, with me being accidentally pregnant and you insisting on marrying me—of course you didn’t have to but your moral code wouldn’t allow otherwise. And for your information, I am not obsessed about not having another child.’
Angus was doing all right until she got to the ‘not obsessed’ part. That bit slipped beneath his skin.
Of course she had been. She’d gone ballistic—or as ballistic as Beth could ever go—when, after Bobby’s death, he’d suggested it.
‘Wasn’t that why we parted?’ he asked, aware he was treading in the dark and wondering what hidden traps might lie beneath his stumbling feet. ‘So, if I wanted a child or children, I could have them with someone else? That’s what you said.’
She shook her head—slowly—as if it was very, very heavy. Were her thoughts making it that way?
‘We lived on different planets, didn’t we?’ she said, a note of deep regret in her voice. ‘Together but apart because we couldn’t understand each other’s language. Not that we used language all that often.’
‘We talked all the time,’ Angus protested, although he knew they were empty words even before Beth raised her eyebrows. They had talked but never, ever about emotions.
‘Anyway,’ she said, sounding ridiculously cheerful and totally unconcerned about their coitus interruptus earlier, ‘all that’s in the past and it’s probably just as well we didn’t make love. We’d have ended up having a purely physical affair without giving it a moment’s rational thought. Gone into it for all the wrong reasons!’
He stared at her, uncertain that this self-possessed woman, chatting easily and unemotionally about their shared past and purely physical affairs, could possibly be his Beth.
Though that Beth was his, he had no doubt! He didn’t mean it in a possessive, ownership kind of way but since they’d met again—was it only last night?—he’d felt a deep ce
rtainty that they were meant to be together.
And always had been…
Though he could hardly say that now.
He replayed her last comments in his head and found something they could talk about.
‘Are there wrong and right reasons for an affair where physical attraction is concerned?’ he asked, and waited, keen to see just how this new Beth would respond.
She left her position in the doorway, where flight had probably been an option, and sat down beside him in the second chair, her hand reaching out to rest on Robbie’s thigh.
‘Of course there are,’ she said, stroking the child’s skin. As an excuse for not looking at her ex-husband? ‘A purely physical affair would be fine if both parties knew and accepted that’s all it was—physical pleasure given and received. But if there were doubts, if both parties weren’t in agreement or if the outcome of it—the parameters—were never discussed, it’s nothing short of dangerous.’
‘Experience talking, Beth?’ he asked, because he couldn’t help himself, though he regretted it the moment she looked up at him, hurt in her eyes.
‘My only experience was with you, Angus,’ she said quietly. ‘So, yes, in a way it is experience talking. I know I went into our relationship thinking that’s all it was—an affair—and though we didn’t talk about it—we’ve been there, to the not talking, haven’t we?—I assumed that’s what you thought it would be as well. Two people attracted to each other, enjoying the attraction. We came from such different worlds I couldn’t see how it would be otherwise. My pregnancy…’ She shrugged. ‘Well, who knows what might have happened?’
She’d turned away again, her eyes now fixed on the child. Which was probably just as well, because Angus had no idea what to say—what to reply—or even if a reply was necessary. She’d been right about them being on different planets—that’s how it had been when Bobby had died—and that’s exactly how he felt now, unable to put into words what he’d felt when he and Beth had begun their affair, unable to remember anything but the need he’d felt to be with her, and the strange melancholy that had followed him around whenever he hadn’t been…
‘Oh, you are here, Beth!’ Marcia appeared in the doorway. ‘Charles said to tell you, if you were still around, that Lily’s conscious and quite lucid. Dreadfully tired and drawn but talking to him and Jill, asking about the bulls, would you believe?’
‘That’s great news,’ Beth responded. ‘And with Jack shifted back to a cabin in the camp you have to wonder if perhaps we’ve raised alarms too early. The two adults were okay earlier when I checked, although little Danny is still quite ill.’
‘There’s no such thing as too early with a situation like this,’ Angus said, happy to switch from muddled emotional thoughts of the past to problems of the present. Problems he could deal with, but emotion—that was a different beast altogether. ‘With only one or two people sick plus dead birds, it might have seemed alarmist, but you had five ill, now six, some seriously. No, it was right to put the wheels in motion for quarantine and further investigation.’
‘So the mobile lab and decontamination unit will still come tomorrow?’ Beth asked, then glanced at the clock on the wall. ‘Or today, as it is now?’
‘They will,’ Angus said. ‘Something has been making people sick and if it isn’t the birds, what is it? Plus we’ve got to find out why the birds are dying. It’s not as if it’s one or two birds. I met a man called Grubby today and he had a bagful.’
‘Trust Grubby to be involved,’ Marcia said. ‘And I bet he wasn’t wearing gloves and a mask.’
‘He wasn’t, but his theory was interesting and I’ve put in a call to some bird experts on the mainland to see if there’s some way we can test it.’
‘Not until the containment lab arrives,’ Beth said, annoyed that she should feel such a clutch of panic at the thought of Angus in danger, yet unable to stop it.
So much for maturity! Not to mention parameters!
‘That’ll be exciting, won’t it?’ Marcia said. ‘Like stuff you see on television when someone sends some white powder through the post and everyone thinks it might be anthrax.’
‘I’m not sure “exciting” is the word I’d use,’ Beth said. ‘Look at Robbie here—he’s not excited and neither’s his mum, I bet.’
‘Oh, she’s okay now. I spoke to her tonight and told her the other little boy was already better and that Lily was over the worst and Robbie was resting more easily. I suppose she’s so used to him being sick she doesn’t get too stressed.’
Had Angus guessed what Beth had been about to say—that she was about to tell Marcia just how stressful every minor ailment or illness was for parents of a child with a disability—that he put his hand on her shoulder?
‘He does seem to be doing better,’ he said quietly.
And now that Beth turned her attention—all of it—from Angus to the child in the bed, she realised Marcia and Angus were right—Robbie did seem to be sleeping more naturally.
‘So you don’t need to sit here all night,’ Marcia said. ‘Either of you,’ she added with a smile. ‘I’ll call you, Beth, if he becomes fretful.’
She disappeared but not before she’d smiled again—a knowing kind of smile that should have made Beth angry but instead made her feel sad.
But only for a moment. Kissing Angus had reminded her of how good love-making had been between them, and had reminded her body of its needs. Not only reminding her but leaving her aching for the kind of bliss only Angus could bring to it.
Would it hurt to experience it again?
Surely not!
But could she make love with Angus without him realising how much she still loved him?
Of course she could! Hadn’t she concealed her love from him throughout their marriage? Hadn’t she held back from saying the words she’d longed to say because she’d known how awkward—how unwelcome—he’d have found them?
And wasn’t she so much more mature now? Better able to handle such things?
Besides, wouldn’t an affair—purely physical, of course—with Angus be a better memory to carry with her into the future than the memory of devastation she’d been left with when they’d parted?
Half-appalled yet totally excited by her thoughts, she took a deep breath and plunged into speech.
‘Do you want to come back to my place?’ she said, turning to the man she’d been so very angry with only a little earlier.
‘Are you crazy?’ Angus growled, keeping his voice low so he didn’t disturb the sleeping child but still conveying his outrage. ‘For what? So we can almost make love again?’
Beth shrugged, took a deep, silent breath, crossed her fingers for luck—or whatever—and said, as calmly as she could, ‘More so you could spend what’s left of the night there and be closer to the medical centre in the morning. After all, that was your original idea. And it needn’t be almost if we make love again, Angus.’ Was her voice wavering? Was her trepidation obvious? Keep calm! Just say it. ‘I’m the boss of this place. I know where they keep condoms.’
Angus stared at her, sure he should be offended by what she was saying yet so stunned to hear such words coming from shy, unworldly Beth he found them difficult to take in.
‘You’ve just been talking about all the wrong reasons for going into an affair,’ he muttered at her. ‘Isn’t this a prime example of a wrong reason—leftover lust from our marriage?’
To his surprise she smiled, although he suspected the smile didn’t reach her eyes.
‘I thought it was a prime example of the right kind of affair—no strings attached, like a holiday romance. We’re talking about it first, so it’s not just impulse. We both know it has no future because you’ll be gone when the conference is over or the quarantine lifted and I’ll be staying here. Perfect!’
Angus realised he didn’t have a clue how to react. His body told him one thing—urging him to agree with Beth’s invitation and analysis of the situation—while his mind was quite sure this wasn’
t Beth at all, just someone else in Beth’s body—that delectable, sexy, desirable and utterly tantalising body. Though that last bit was his body talking again…
He opened his mouth then realised he was about to launch into a string of incomplete sentences, things like ‘You’and ‘I’and ‘We’. Not even sentences, just pronouns, with no words to follow them because he had no idea what he wanted to say.
‘It’s up to you,’ Beth said cheerfully, though he suspected he could hear a note of strain beneath the words. Was this all an act, this grown-up, independent, affair-discussing Beth? ‘If you want to go back to the resort, I’ll drive you back, but you decide. I’ll meet you out front.’
And with that she disappeared.
To get some condoms?
The thought excited him—as did this new Beth, act or not! Not that she’d been dependent or clingy during their marriage, more that she’d been a follower—no, not even that. She’d just been there, willing to fit in—her upbringing leaving her with a need to please, but unobtrusively.
His chest tightened just thinking about it. The young foster-child, trying to be so good but invisible as well, hoping if she wasn’t noticed, then she might be allowed to stay. He’d only met one of her foster-mothers, who’d explained she’d have been happy to keep Beth for ever, even adopt her, but Beth’s maternal grandmother had been her guardian and she’d refused to release the child for adoption, or give her up completely, descending on whatever home Beth might be in to take her for a short time before tiring of the role of mother and giving her back to Children’s Services.
Her grandmother, the only relation she’d ever known, had died shortly before he’d met Beth, and though Angus thought the woman had behaved very badly as far as Beth was concerned, Beth, in her gentle, trusting, accepting and unquestioning way, had loved her.
Were these thoughts helping his decision?
Of course not! They were making him even more confused, although if he accepted that the Beth who’d offered him a bed—and an affair—was a very different Beth to the one he’d married, surely that would make the affair okay.
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