‘You should feel it from inside!’
He levered himself up onto one elbow to stare down at her, brushing back a strand of black hair, his eyes serious. ‘I’m sorry I snapped at you.’
‘You were frustrated, I expect. Don’t worry about it, Finn—so was I.’
His face darkened. ‘You think that’s what it was all about? Frustration?’
‘I don’t know, do I? I’m trying to be practical.’ Trying not to read too much into this situation and having to fight very hard with herself not to. ‘What was it about, if not frustration?’
He turned onto his back, noticing for the first time the old-fashioned embossed wallpaper which covered the ceiling. Would she have ripped that down, the next time he came home—and would it really matter if she did? ‘You just happened to touch a raw nerve.’
‘Because I went ahead and decorated without asking you? Because I took control away from you?’
Would it sound crazy to tell her? Was it crazier still to have her think that he was the kind of intolerant tyrant who insisted on being privy to every decision made inside the home?
He shook his head, wondering if she had become a journalist because she was perceptive, or whether perception had come as a by-product of her career. Or was this just what happened naturally when a man and a woman started living together—started to know one another inside and out? Surely it weakened your defences to let someone get inside your head? Strengthened the relationship, yes, but at what cost?
‘What, Finn?’ she persisted softly.
‘More a case of burying my head in the sand, I guess. Arrested development—call it what you like. A crazy urge to hang on to the past—I’m not sure, Catherine.’
She rested her head on his shoulder. ‘You’re talking in riddles.’
He smoothed her hair absently. ‘I never changed this house at all, you see. I wanted to have it exactly the way it was.’
She thought about this for a moment. ‘Like Miss Havisham in Great Expectations, you mean?’
‘Well, I haven’t got a wedding dress covered in cobwebs, if that’s what you’re implying!’ He wound a strand of hair around his finger. ‘I suppose this place always represented where I came from. I felt it would be a kind of betrayal if I decorated the interior so that it looked like something you’d find in a magazine.’
‘If you applied that theory to everything then we’d still be travelling by horse and cart,’ she said reasonably.
He laughed. ‘Perhaps.’
She looked at his pensive profile. Was it only in bed that a man like this let his guard down? ‘You don’t need material things to remind you of your roots, Finn,’ she told him softly. ‘The values you learned are what matters, and you keep those deep in your heart.’
He nodded. This felt close. Dangerously close. A warm haven far away from the rest of the world. He forced himself to return to reality—because reality was the one thing he was equipped to deal with. He turned to face her and ran a lazy finger down her side, enjoying her responsive shiver. ‘So I guess this means we’ll be sharing a bedroom from now on?’
It felt like one step forward and two steps back, and all her zing and fizz and exhilaration evaporated. The brightness dimmed and Catherine felt curiously and ridiculously disappointed at his matter-of-fact assessment. Until she reminded herself that nothing had changed—not really.
Their situation was no different from what it had been before, except that now sex had been introduced into the equation. She shouldn’t start confusing post-coital confidences with real, true and lasting intimacy.
‘I guess we will,’ she said lightly. ‘Now, are you going to go down and make me my supper? I have a ferocious appetite on me!’
‘Ferocious, hmm?’ He smiled as he swung his naked body out of bed and looked down at her. ‘You know, Catherine, you’re sounding more Irish by the day.’
She nodded. She needed to. Her baby was going to be born in Ireland and have an Irish father.
She, too, needed roots.
Chapter Twelve
CHAPTER TWELVE
‘CATHERINE! For God’s sake, come in here and sit down.’
‘I can’t! I’m sorting out the kitchen cupboards!’
Finn levered himself up from the sofa and came and stood in the doorway, watching while she bent to work, wondering how a woman eight months into her pregnancy could possibly have such a delectable bottom. He walked over to where she crouched and cupped her buttocks.
‘Finn, stop it—’
He bent his head to nuzzle her ear. ‘Don’t you like it?’
‘That’s not the point—’
‘No?’ He kissed the back of her neck. ‘The point being what, precisely?’
‘I told you—I’m trying to get everything sorted out for when the baby comes.’
‘But the baby isn’t due for another month,’ he objected. ‘And I’m flying to London tomorrow. Leave it, Catherine. You won’t see me all week.’
‘I don’t see you all week as it is.’ She straightened up with difficulty and allowed him to help her to her feet. ‘So what’s the difference?’
‘A whole sea dividing us?’ he teased. ‘Won’t you miss me?’
She wound her arms around his neck. ‘A bit.’
He touched his lips to hers. ‘Only a bit?’
Much, much more. ‘Stop fishing for compliments!’
‘Then come and sit down and have a drink and watch some television.’
She sank onto the sofa. ‘What an exciting life we lead, Mr Delaney!’
‘Are you complaining?’ he asked seriously, as he handed her a glass of sparkling water.
‘No, I love it,’ she said simply. Just as she loved him. How cosy it all was on the outside. She took a sip and looked at him over the rim of the glass. She had been fidgety over the past few days. Perhaps it was because he was travelling to England. It was different, him being in London. A whole plane-ride away. Maybe now was the time to stop pretending that the future was never going to happen.
‘Finn?’
‘Mmm?’
‘There are so many things we haven’t discussed.’
‘Such as?’
‘Well, what happens when the baby’s born. What we’re going to do—’
‘I thought we were taking it a day at a time?’
‘And we are.’ She drew a deep breath. ‘But we can’t go on like that for ever, can we?’
He put his glass down. ‘I think we could.’
Her heart started beating frantically. ‘You do?’
‘I can’t see any reason why not.’ He smiled. ‘My sweet Catherine! We’ve discovered that we like one another. That we can live together without wanting to throw things.’ His eyes glittered. ‘Thankfully, you seem to have got all that out of your system!’ He smiled again as she giggled. ‘See! We make each other laugh. We’re compatible sexually—though that was never in any question, was it? That’s not bad to be going along with.’
‘And you think that’s enough?’
He got up and threw a log on the fire, because the May weather had taken a sudden, unseasonable dip. It fizzed like a golden firework in the grate and he turned to look down at her, his face all light and shadows cast by the flicker of the flames.
‘It’s more than a lot of people have,’ he said quietly. ‘But you must decide whether it’s enough for you. Whether you want to go chasing rainbows, or settle for giving this baby the security it deserves. Think about it, Catherine.’
Chasing rainbows. He made the search for love sound so insubstantial. And of course love had been the glaring omission from his list.
‘And fidelity?’ she asked, because that was more tangible than love.
‘I could not tolerate infidelity,’ he said slowly. ‘And I would not expect you to either.’
Which was not quite the same as saying that the situation would never arise, was it? That if someone came along and captured Finn’s heart he wouldn’t be off?
‘It’s up t
o you, Catherine,’ he said. ‘The choice is yours. I’m being honest in what I’m offering you.’
Choice. There it was again, that infernal word he was so fond of using and which she was so wary of. Because choice meant coming to a decision, and there was always the chance that she would make the wrong one.
She could give her baby security—and not just the security of being legitimate and being cared for. The security of having a father around. A father who, she was certain, would love the baby as much as she did, who would be the kind of role-model that any small boy would give his eye-teeth for.
He was not offering her rose-tinted dreams and an impossibly romantic future together, but surely that was just practical. And honest, as he had said.
She considered the alternative. Going back out there as a single mother and consigning herself to a life alone with her baby. Or foolishly hoping that she might meet another man who would capture her heart as Finn had done—knowing, deep down, that no other man would ever come close to holding a candle to him.
If they had been different people, with different upbringings and in different circumstances, then both of them might have gone chasing those elusive rainbows.
But they were not different people. They were Finn and Catherine. And their pasts had made them into the people they were today. The past was powerful, she recognised—it sent far-reaching repercussions down through the ages.
‘I’ll think about it,’ she said.
Their lovemaking seemed especially close that night, and they held each other very tightly afterwards for what seemed like a long time.
When Catherine went to the door to wave Finn off in the morning, her heart felt as heavy as the sky.
Finn glanced up at the leaden grey clouds and frowned. ‘Feels like snow.’
‘You can’t have snow in May,’ she protested.
‘Who says we can’t? One year we had a frosting in June!’
‘You’re kidding?’
‘No, sweetheart, I’m not.’ He caught her in his arms. ‘You will take care, won’t you?’
‘Of course I will! What do you think I’m going to do? Start snow-boarding? Cross-country skiing?’
‘I’m serious.’
She rose up on tiptoe to touch her lips to his. ‘And so am I,’ she whispered. ‘I’ll be fine. Ring me when you get to London.’
‘Get Aunt Finola to move in if the weather turns bad or if you’re worried. Or go and stay with Aisling and Patrick. When are you seeing the doctor next?’
‘The day after tomorrow. Finn, stop fussing, will you? Just go!’
His mouth lingered on hers until he drew away reluctantly. ‘Better go. Plane to catch.’ He held her one last time. ‘I’ll see you Friday.’
Love you, she thought silently as his car roared away, and she shivered and shut the door.
He rang her from the airport. ‘What’s the weather like?’
She glanced out at the sky. ‘Same.’
‘I’ll ring you just as soon as I get there.’
‘Finn, what’s wrong with you? Why are you so worried?’
‘What’s wrong with me? My wife’s pregnant and I’m leaving the country! Why on earth should I be worried, Catherine?’ he questioned wryly. But he was worried. Uneasy. Did every father-to-be feel like a cat on a hot tin roof at a time like this?
Catherine put the phone down and made herself some tea. She glanced at her watch to see that Finn’s flight would now be airborne. Keep him safe for me, she prayed, while outside the sky grew darker and the first snowflakes began to flutter down.
It snowed all afternoon, becoming whiter and thicker, until the garden looked just like a Christmas card. Catherine had just lit a fire when there was a loud banging on the door, and there stood Aunt Finola, scarcely recognisable beneath hood and scarf, a rain-mac worn over a thick overcoat and countless sweaters!
‘Come in.’ Catherine smiled. ‘What are you doing out on an afternoon like this?’
‘Finn rang me,’ explained Finola, shaking snow off her boots. ‘Told me to drop in and keep my eye on you.’
‘He keeps fussing and fussing!’
‘He’s worried about you. And the baby.’
‘I’m fine.’
‘Yes.’ Aunt Finola sat down and held her hands out to the heat before sending Catherine a shrewd look. ‘You’re looking much better these days. Less peaky. More…at peace with yourself,’ she finished.
It was an ironic choice of word. ‘Well, I’m pleased that’s the way I look,’ said Catherine slowly.
‘You mean it’s not the way you feel inside?’
She hesitated. This was Finn’s aunt, after all—and in some ways his mother, too. ‘I’m fine,’ she repeated carefully. ‘Honestly.’
‘Things seem better between you these days,’ observed Aunt Finola carefully. ‘You seem more relaxed these past few weeks. The two of yous seemed terrible tense a lot of the time before that.’
Catherine did some sums in her head, and blushed. Oh, God—was it that obvious? That the moment they had starting having sex their relationship had settled down?
‘You really love my boy, don’t you?’ asked Aunt Finola suddenly.
Catherine met her eyes in surprise. But what was the point in lying to someone who loved him, too? Wouldn’t she then be guilty of false pride? ‘Yes, I love him. Really love him.’
‘So why the long face?’
Catherine shook her head. ‘I can’t talk about it.’
‘Well, maybe you can’t—but I can. I don’t know what went on before Finn brought you here, and I don’t want to know, but I assume that he married you because you were pregnant.’
Catherine went very pink. ‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘Are you shocked?’
Aunt Finola gave a cross between a laugh and a snort. ‘Shocked? I’d be a very strange woman indeed to have reached my age and be shocked by something like that! It’s been going on since the beginning of time! But Finn’s a good man. He’ll care for you, stand by you.’
‘Yes, but…’ Catherine’s words tailed away.
‘You want more than that, is that it?’ Finola nodded her head. ‘Tell me, Catherine—is the relationship good, generally?’
‘Very good,’ Catherine realised, unconsciously beginning to list all the things he had said to her on the eve of his departure. ‘We get on, we make each other laugh…’ Her cheeks went pink again. ‘Oh, lots of things, really. But—’
‘But?’
It sounded so stupid to say it. ‘He doesn’t love me!’
Finola digested this for a moment or two in silence. ‘Doesn’t he? Are you sure?’
‘He never says he does!’
Finola shook her head. ‘Oh, you young women today!’ she said exasperatedly. ‘Fed a diet of unrealistic expectations by magazines and books! How many smooth-tongued chancers have you met for whom words are cheap—who tell you they love you one minute and are busy looking over your shoulder at another woman the next? It’s not what you say that matters, Catherine, it’s what you do that counts.’
‘You mean you think that Finn loves me?’
‘I’ve no idea what Finn thinks—he never lets me in. He’s let no one in, not really—not since he lost his mother.’ Her brow criss-crossed in lines of sadness. ‘Think about it, Catherine. They’d been everything to each other and suddenly she was taken away, without warning. What child wouldn’t have grown wary of love after something like that? Or of expressing it?’
Why had she never looked at it that way before? Her thoughts came tumbling out as words. ‘You think I’m being selfish?’
Finola shook her head. ‘I think you’re not counting your blessings and thinking of all the good things you do have. Love doesn’t always happen in a blinding flash, Catherine. Sometimes it grows slowly—like a great big oak tree from out of a tiny acorn. And marriages based on that kind of love are sometimes the best in the world. Solid and grounded.’ She caught the look on Catherine’s face. ‘Which doesn’t mean to say th
at they’re without passion.’
No. It didn’t.
‘It all boils down to whether you want instant gratification or whether you are prepared to work for something,’ finished Finola gently. ‘It’s not the modern way, I know.’
‘An old-fashioned marriage?’ questioned Catherine wryly.
‘There was a lot less divorce in those days.’ Aunt Finola shrugged. ‘People stuck by each other through the good times and the bad times. For richer for poorer. In sickness and in health. Forsaking all others.’
‘We got married in a register office,’ commented Catherine absently.
‘I know you did. But you still made vows, didn’t you? Even if you didn’t mean them at the time, that doesn’t mean they can’t be true in the future.’
Catherine nodded. ‘Thank you.’
‘For?’
‘For talking sense to me. For making me realise what’s important. I think I really needed to hear it!’ She smiled. ‘Shall I go and put the kettle on?’
‘Now you’re talking!’
By morning the world was silent and white, but at least the snow had stopped. Catherine got up as soon as it was light, peering out of the window at the frozen scene with pleasure—until she realised that the path to the gate was completely impassable. Someone could break their leg on that, she thought, especially if it became icy. And so, after a flurry of solicitous phone calls from Finn, Finola and Aisling, Catherine decided to clear the snow away.
She wrapped up warmly and set to work, and several people stopped to talk to her as she cleared the path—most of them asking when the baby was due.
‘Not until June,’ she told them.
‘You’ve a bit of a wait, then!’ said the postman’s wife, who had six herself. ‘The last month or so’s always the worst!’
No one seemed to think it odd that a pregnant woman should be working physically, but that was because, Catherine realised, it wasn’t. Not at all. And especially not in rural areas. For centuries women had been working in the fields until they had their babies, and what she was doing wasn’t so very different. That morning she felt strong, capable and really alive—as if she could conquer the world.
The path was almost cleared when the first pain came, so sharp and so unexpected that Catherine dropped her shovel and held her hands to her tight belly, her breath coming in clouds on the frozen air.
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