Now or Never

by Penny Jordan

  ‘You pay me to look after them,’ Laura had reminded her. ‘It’s my job.’

  ‘God, Laura,’ Zoë had protested. ‘Have you any idea how boring you sound? No wonder you don’t have a man!’

  Idly Zoë went on line and checked her horoscope, and then just to be on the safe side she checked Ian’s, scowling when she read that it was a good day for connecting with other people.

  Ian. Just thinking about him made her body ache for him. He wasn’t due home for another three days. How did he feel going without a shag for days on end? Or did he not go without! Jealousy, white-hot and feral, clawed at her insides, a living, tearing tormentor, mocking her. Viciously she punched her keyboard and then realised she had just wiped the details of a new sale she was supposed to be listing.

  Oh, hell! Well, she would just have to make them up!

  ‘Where are we going?’

  Laura knew the boys pretty well now. It was always George who asked the questions, looked anxious and constantly checked everything she said and did, until he felt totally secure that he understood. William was much more laid-back than his older brother.

  ‘To the doctor’s,’ Laura answered patiently as she drove them there in the car she’d recently bought out of her savings. It was much more convenient not having to share Zoë’s car. ‘Remember, we talked about it yesterday. You have to go and be weighed and measured, because the doctor needs to know how much you are both growing.’

  It wasn’t completely true. George had apparently had breathing difficulties in the early weeks of his life and was supposed to attend the local surgery for regular check-ups, but Laura had only discovered this when Ian had asked Zoë if George had kept his appointment.

  Sulkily Zoë had admitted that he had not and blamed her mother for this oversight, and it had been left to Laura to ring the surgery and apologise and make a fresh appointment.

  It had crossed her mind that George might be inclined to be slightly asthmatic. He certainly seemed to wheeze slightly and have trouble breathing properly whenever he became anxious, but Zoë had dismissed her concern with an airy, ‘Oh, for God’s sake stop fussing over him, Laura. There’s nothing wrong with him.’

  Marcus had had a bad week. One of his patients had gone into labour too early following a car accident, and had lost her baby. She and her husband were both devastated—the baby had been a much-longed-for sister for their eight-year-old son, and Marcus had felt totally helpless in the face of both parents’ shocked grief. The mother had lost so much blood they had thought they were going to lose her as well at one stage. And Marcus had stayed at the hospital with the husband until they knew she was safe.

  Today was his morning for repeat visits. He frowned as he looked at his list. George Chambers.

  So far he had missed three appointments, and the mother had apparently been told that there was a degree of concern that her child could potentially be asthmatic.

  George was his first patient. A little grimly, he flicked his intercom.

  When she heard George’s name called, Laura calmly detached William from the toys he was playing with and guided both boys out of the waiting room.

  Marcus’ eyes widened and then narrowed a little as his door opened and Laura walked in. He recognised her immediately from the wine bar. Unable to stop himself, he said coolly, ‘Ah, good, I’m pleased to see that you were able to make it.’

  Laura gave him a level look.

  ‘Yes, I’m sorry about the missed appointment. I did explain.’

  It irritated Marcus that she should be so calm and so unapologetic. Ignoring her, he turned to George and started to check him over.

  ‘Has he been having much difficulty breathing recently?’ he asked Laura, without looking at her. ‘Only there seems to be a degree of inflammation in his lungs…’

  ‘He does sometimes get slightly breathless when he is anxious,’ Laura confirmed.

  ‘I’d like to refer him to the asthma clinic,’ Marcus announced when he had finished examining George, giving the boy a reassuring smile as he saw the worried look in his eyes. ‘I see from our records that he didn’t keep the appointment before last either. You were away skiing at the time, I believe.’

  ‘Actually—’ Laura began, but Marcus refused to allow her to finish.

  ‘Mrs Chambers.’ He addressed her sternly, steepling his fingertips together as he looked at her over them. ‘Childhood asthma is on the increase. Normally I have anxious mothers demanding that I send their offspring to the asthma clinic to be checked out if they so much as even threaten to wheeze, but you for some reason seem to think…’ Realising that he was going too far, Marcus stopped. But that lost baby had been so very much wanted, and here was this woman who seemed to have such a cavalier attitude to her child’s health!

  ‘I don’t have your records here or your husband’s. Is there a history of asthma in either of your families?’

  Laura smiled unkindly at him.

  ‘Actually,’ she began again, ‘I am not George’s mother. I am merely his temporary nanny.’

  Not his mother. Marcus felt acutely discomfited.

  ‘Oh, I see. I’m sorry. I naturally assumed…’

  William, growing tired of the proceedings, tugged on Laura’s tee shirt. Obligingly and correctly interpreting his wishes, she picked him up and settled him on her knee, where he promptly leaned into her and closed his eyes.

  Zoë had insisted on keeping both boys up far later than their normal bedtime the previous night, and Laura was not surprised that William was tired.

  Distractedly Marcus noted the way the younger of the two boys snuggled into Laura’s body, quite plainly feeling at home with her.

  Now that he was not judging her with prejudice, Marcus was suddenly aware of how naturally and instinctively she nurtured both boys. A small pang spiralled through his body.

  ‘Laura, what’s asthma?’ George asked her unhappily half an hour later as she drove home.

  ‘Nothing for you to worry about,’ she comforted him, but she could see that he was not totally reassured.

  ‘Was that the post?’ Maggie asked Oliver with a smile.

  As casually as he could, Oliver nodded.

  ‘Anything interesting?’

  ‘Not so far as I can see,’ he replied, glancing quickly through the envelopes in his hand. The postman had been later than usual this morning. Normally he managed to pick up the letters and go quickly through them whilst Maggie was still upstairs. He remained convinced that they should have reported the poison pen letter to the police, but Maggie was so visibly happy and excited that he couldn’t bear to do or say anything that might upset her.

  ‘I saw Stella in town yesterday with her new grandson,’ Maggie told him. ‘Did I tell you?’

  ‘Nope, only half a dozen times,’ he replied with a grin. ‘Let me see. He’s gorgeous and looks just like Hughie did at his age, and…’

  ‘All right,’ Maggie laughed. ‘So I did tell you. Oh, Oliver, I can’t wait for our baby to be born. I just wish…’

  As he saw the look she was giving him he shook his head firmly, knowing what she was going to say.

  ‘No, Maggie,’ he told her. ‘You know what the specialist said. He doesn’t want to risk either of you in a natural birth.’

  ‘I know,’ Maggie acknowledged with a small sigh. ‘And of course our baby’s safety is the most important thing, but I can’t help wishing that I could give birth as nature intended, Oliver. I want to feel that my body has delivered our baby into life, and not the surgeon’s knife.’

  Tenderly Oliver put down the post and took her in his arms. He knew immediately what she was thinking and how she was inwardly comparing their child’s conception to his birth and condemning herself because they were both ‘manufactured’ events. How could he not, when she had spoken about this so many times to him?

  ‘I know that I couldn’t have conceived myself, but to at least have given birth,’ she had protested. ‘To at least have done that…’

/>   ‘You will be delivering our baby into life, Maggie,’ he told her emotionally as he wrapped her hand in his own and held it against his face, before turning to place a kiss in her palm.

  ‘You know,’ he told her thickly, ‘sometimes I can’t believe that all this is actually happening, and that you are a part of my life—the most wonderful, precious part of my life, Maggie, now and for always. And yet at the same time another part of me knows that this was always meant to happen, that loving you is my destiny, and the most important thing I will ever do. Whatever happens in the future, I want you to know that. I want you to know that even without this—’ gently, he patted her stomach ‘—you have given me the happiest days of my life. And yet you are only mine by default, really. I know that…if Dan hadn’t been such a fool…’

  ‘Oliver!’ Maggie protested, shaken by what he was saying and immediately wanting to reassure him.

  ‘No. Let me say it, because it’s true. If Dan hadn’t been such a fool, there would never have been any opportunity for me to play a role in your life.’

  ‘Oliver, I love you,’ Maggie whispered in a choked voice.

  ‘Yes, I know you do,’ he agreed softly. ‘Oh, Maggie, please don’t cry.’ He rubbed his thumb along the line of tears glistening on her face. ‘I want you to promise me that, if anything should ever happen to me, you’ll remember that more than anything else I want your happiness.’

  Happen to him? Maggie stared at him.

  ‘Oliver…’ she protested.

  ‘I know…’ he agreed ruefully. ‘It’s just that sometimes I have to tell you how precious you are to me. How very, very special, and how very, very much I love you. Pity we still haven’t had details of anything suitable from the estate agents’ yet,’ he continued so mundanely that Maggie had to laugh.

  They’d looked at over half a dozen properties now, but none of them had come anywhere close to being what they were looking for.

  Maggie had a mid-morning meeting with an old client, who was now considering downsizing and wanted to talk to her about designing an office for him in his home, and Oliver was due to visit a new small joinery business they were thinking of using, having seen samples of their work.

  As they kissed outside the front door Oliver waited to watch Maggie walk towards her own car. Her pregnancy was showing now and it suited her, he reflected tenderly.

  Sensing that he was watching her, Maggie turned round before unlocking her car. She raised her fingertips to her lips and blew him a kiss. She had laughed the previous weekend when he had insisted on taking her to the city to buy her far too many ridiculously expensive, specially designed mix and match maternity outfits, but there was no doubt that she felt good in them. Based on plain black and white stretch pieces enlivened by additions in a bold black and white large abstract pattern, the French maternity range had a style that far surpassed anything else she had seen.

  Tight tops, bare midriffs might be the preferred look of younger mothers to be, but it certainly wasn’t for her. In contrast the slim-fitting elegant black stretch skirt with its matching scoop-neck, short-sleeved top, embellished with the ‘bikini top’ style patterned piece that pulled down over the top, made not just a positive statement about her pride in her pregnancy but also made her feel that she looked good as well.

  Oliver couldn’t have done anything more to show her how much he loved her or how thrilled he was about this baby, Maggie acknowledged as she started her car, reaching for her sunglasses to shield her eyes from the May sunshine. They had been told that they could soon expect to feel the baby’s first movements, and Maggie had promised herself that she would not allow herself to feel them until Oliver was there with her to share that special moment. ‘So no kicking until your daddy is with us,’ she warned her bump with a tender smile that illuminated the whole of her face as she put her car in gear.

  Oliver thought that she didn’t know why he encouraged her to take her time coming downstairs every morning, but she was well aware of his surreptitious scrutiny of the mail. Neither of them had mentioned the letter she had received after she had made him promise not to do anything about it, but Maggie knew that Oliver hadn’t forgotten about it, any more than she had herself—or the arrival of the second one. But right now she was feeling so filled with happiness, so at one with the world, so totally confident and happy in her pregnancy that nothing and no one could hurt her. She could actually feel the tenderness of her love spilling from her heart to embrace everything and everyone around her. She had, Maggie acknowledged, quite simply never known a joy like it. It was unique, wonderful, a special, special gift to be shared with those she loved!

  Nicki was reading the paper when she heard the front doorbell ring. Kit had complained earlier in the week that he thought it unnecessary that they should have every single one of the national newspapers delivered every day. Nicki had simply refused to listen. She needed those papers. And the magazines she had taken to buying surreptitiously every time she went into town.

  She hesitated before opening the door, but then she reminded herself that it was all right, because Joey was safely at school.

  The man standing on her doorstep was a stranger to her. Tall, and dark-haired, he was wearing an obviously expensive business suit and an equally expensive tan, his cool blue gaze making her aware of the fact that she had neither combed her hair nor put on her make-up.

  ‘Hi there. I’m sorry to be bothering you,’ he told Nicki with a smile. ‘But am I right in thinking that Laura is living here?’

  He was looking for Laura? Immediately Nicki tensed. His accent was Irish but educated, and he had the kind of commanding air that successful men the world over carried about their persons.

  ‘I know that this is her father’s address,’ Nicki heard him persisting. ‘She used to work for me and…’

  Laura had worked for him! He must be the ‘married boss’ she was trying to avoid.

  Something about the way he was looking at her was making her feel uncomfortable. She lifted her hand to her hair, instinctively trying to smooth it, vaguely aware as she did so of an odd sense of confusion and even revulsion as she looked down at her creased clothes. A fierce spiral of shock and fear shot through her. What was happening to her? Why wasn’t she properly dressed, her hair clean and gleaming, her appearance pristine, her nails polished?

  ‘Is Laura here?’

  Blankly she stared at her persistent caller.

  ‘No. No, she isn’t,’ she told him dizzily, and then stepped back quickly, closing the door, and leaving him standing on the doorstep.

  Ryan lifted his hand to ring the doorbell again and then thought better of it. He had an aunt, over in Dublin, who was known for her eccentricity and her piety, and the woman he had just been speaking to reminded him of her a little.

  When Laura had walked out on him, he had never expected that he would have to come after her. No. He had assumed that she would be the one to come back to him. The fact that she had not done so had piqued his interest, and a coincidental meeting out of the city had given him the opportunity to seek her out.

  Women simply did not walk out on Ryan. And he never walked out on them. He simply, subtly, but oh, so unmistakably let them know that their time with him was over and that for their own sakes they needed to move on. And, of course, he had the excuse of a jealous Catholic wife, and the brace of children he had with her, who could never be put on one side. ‘You do understand how it is, don’t you, my darling?’ was a line he had always found did the trick.

  And when they did leave him, Ryan always had the pleasure of knowing that they would remember him with longing for the rest of their lives. For, whatever else he might not be, Ryan was a wonderful lover; he made sure of that…made sure that every woman he seduced and then bedded with such care and expertise enjoyed the kind of sexual pleasure that meant that no other man could ever supplant him in their memory. All over the world there were women for whom he would always be the supreme shag!

  Not that Ry
an would ever use so crude or indeed, even worse, so unlyrical a word to describe the act he had perfected, indeed elevated into an art form! No, what Ryan did was enable women to fulfil their destiny, to experience the full, rich extent of their sexuality; what he did was give them the most wonderful and the most precious gift of their lives, and what they gave him in return was a guaranteed, unassailable place in their hearts and their memories.

  Ryan’s first success had been with the young novice at the convent where his sister had been a pupil. He had pursued and persuaded her, and then when the time had come he had parted from her with pleas for her forgiveness and regrets that he had fallen so far as to attempt to steal her away from her calling.

  He still glimpsed her occasionally, whenever he collected his own daughter from the convent.

  Yes, she had been the first, and there had been many, many others since.

  And Laura should have been one of them. Mother of God, Laura was still going to be one of them, he had promised himself, already imagining the rapt delight with which she would fall into his arms when he turned up at her home.

  Getting into his car, he turned in the direction of the small country town he had just driven through. Maybe Laura had a job there now…

  Maggie’s meeting hadn’t taken as long as she had expected. It was a lovely sunny day and she decided on impulse to go into town. And then, without knowing why, she discovered instead that she was driving down the familiar road that led to Nicki’s. She didn’t need to do this, she told herself. There was no law that said that she had to try to understand, and even less of one that said she should try to find a way to put things right. Why should she? Nicki had made her position plain enough. And she, Maggie, owed her nothing. Nothing at all.

  But she owed the life she was carrying inside her everything she could give. One day her child might ask her to explain the meaning of loyalty and friendship and when that day came she wanted to be able to tell it just what those things meant. She could even show Nicki her precious scan pictures of the baby, she decided wryly—if Nicki would allow her to do so!