Just Another Miracle!

by Caroline Anderson

She whimpered against his mouth and he muttered an apology, his tongue softly tracing the swollen outline of her lips.

  They parted for him and his tongue delved gently, seeking out the soft velvet recesses, finding her tongue and teasing it with little flicks and tiny bites that made her moan with need.

  His hand moved slowly across her shoulder to her throat, his fingertip teasing the hollow where her pulse beat like a wild thing under his touch, then it moved down, down, until it reached her breast, his palm chafing lightly against the straining peak.

  The fine cotton lawn of her nightdress was no barrier to sensation, and she arched up, drawn tight as a bowstring by his teasing caress.

  At last his large, firm hand closed gently over her breast, bringing instant relief, but it was short-lived, a fleeting balm in a wild torrent of desire that came from nowhere and threatened to swamp her.

  She moaned his name against his lips, and he lifted his head, scattering hot, open-mouthed kisses down her throat, circling her nipple with devastating intent.

  ‘Please—oh, please!’ she begged, and then his mouth closed hotly over the aching peak, drawing it into his mouth and suckling it hard.

  She cried out softly in the darkness and he shifted against her, moving to share the pleasure equally with its eager twin.

  Her fingers wound through his hair, soft and springy beneath her palms, cradling his head against her breasts as he drove her wild with his clever tongue.

  He moved up over her again, his weight pressing her down into the mattress, his mouth seeking hers again in desperation. His breathing was ragged, and against her breasts the savage beating of his heart matched her own.

  Even through the quilt she could feel the hard thrust of his arousal against her thighs, and her hands ached to touch him, to feel the hot satin of his skin beneath her palms.

  Then suddenly, as suddenly as he had started, he stopped, dropping his head on her shoulder with a shaky sigh.

  ‘What the bloody hell are we doing, Poppy?’ he asked raggedly. ‘I only meant to hold you...’

  Sanity returned slowly, like the seeping cold of the winter ground, chilling her to her bones.

  She could hear Mrs Cripps talking about the other nanny, and saying it was easy to see why he had chosen Poppy. She had fallen headlong into the trap.

  She closed her eyes as a hot rush of shame flooded her cheeks.

  ‘Please let me go,’ she whispered unsteadily, and with a heavy sigh he lifted himself away from her and swung his legs over the bed, his hands hanging between his knees, his head bowed.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said quietly, and his voice sounded somehow distant. ‘I promised you I wouldn’t do that—forgive me. It won’t happen again.’

  She struggled to a sitting position and tugged the quilt up round her chest, tucking it under her arms as if it could protect her from her shame.

  ‘About the boys—’ she began, her voice unsteady.

  ‘Not tonight, Poppy,’ he said gruffly. ‘My control is hanging on by a thread. I think I’d better get out of here before I give in to the urge to tear that quilt off you and bury myself in your soft, willing body.’

  He stood up, ran his hands through his hair and walked slowly from the room, leaving Poppy aching with need and burning with humiliation.

  She was up before the rest of the house, dressed in a tracksuit and trainers, as sexless as possible. She cleaned the boys’ shoes, laid the breakfast things and then slumped at the table with a cup of tea.

  What a fool she’d been! But no more. Oh, no! From now on she was keeping him at arm’s length, and her sympathy would very definitely be reserved for the boys. Damn her soft heart, anyway!

  A door opened and closed and she looked up, that soft heart sinking as she saw James crossing the hall towards her. He was dressed in a suit, his hair still slightly damp from the shower, and he looked immaculate and remote.

  ‘Good morning,’ she said formally. ‘There’s tea in the pot.’

  ‘Thank you.’ He helped himself, pulled up a chair and sat down opposite her with a sigh. ‘About last night...’ She looked up and met his eyes, and saw the remoteness falter for a second. ‘It won’t happen again, Poppy—I promise.’

  She stirred her tea to occupy her hands. ‘I’d already decided that. I don’t want to become another notch on your bedpost.’ She laid the spoon down very precisely. ‘About the boys—’

  He sighed. ‘Yes, the boys. I don’t know what we can do. God knows where they got this idea from that Clare died because of them.’

  ‘Do you ever talk to them about how she died?’

  He sighed again. ‘Probably not. I tend not to talk about it.’

  ‘Is it still painful?’

  ‘Painful?’ He glanced quickly at her, then away. ‘No, not really, not any more. It was very sudden, though, and I felt...’

  He paused, and Poppy waited, giving him time. He picked up the pepper-grinder, inspecting it closely. ‘She had a headache. She often had them, so it wasn’t anything very unusual. We had to go out to a business dinner and she decided she couldn’t go, so we cancelled the babysitter and she went to bed early. When I came in she was asleep, apparently quite normally, but she didn’t seem to hear me come in. I had some paperwork to do, so I went back down to my study and worked till about four, then I went back up.’

  He put the pepper-grinder down very carefully. ‘She was dead. She’d had a brain haemorrhage—a weak blood vessel that had finally given up. She was twenty-seven; I wasn’t quite thirty. You don’t expect that sort of thing to happen when you’re that age.

  ‘The business was beginning to take off, and I threw myself into it so I didn’t have to cope with my grief. I thought if I kept myself busy enough I wouldn’t have time to think, but even if I worked till two and got up at six, there were still four hours with nothing but emptiness.’

  He sighed and picked up the pepper again. ‘After a while it stopped hurting, but then the loneliness really got under way.’

  ‘And you carried on burying yourself in your work so you wouldn’t have to deal with that, either.’

  He met her eyes, and laughed ruefully. ‘Pop psychology? Or should I say Poppy psychology?’

  ‘Am I right?’

  He sighed. ‘Yes. You know you are. Now I’m trapped by it.’

  She poured them both another cup of tea and sat down again. ‘When I first met you, I thought you needed a miracle,’ she said softly. ‘But you don’t, you need a wife.’

  He inhaled sharply, then let his breath out on a long, denying sigh. ‘No. Oh, I’ll grant you the idea has appeal—a mother for my children, someone to keep the home fires burning, a warm and willing woman in my bed at night—but, just in case you’ve got any ideas about applying for the job, you can put it right out of your pretty, warm-hearted little head, because I don’t have either the time or the inclination for another emotional commitment.’

  She smiled understandingly. ‘Not me. I’m going to marry a farmer, remember? But I think Helen has her eye on the post.’

  ‘Helen?’ His voice was incredulous. ‘Don’t be silly—she’s a colleague, at most a friend, nothing more.’

  ‘Then why was she jealous of me last night?’

  His brows twitched together. ‘She wasn’t.’

  ‘She was—why do you think she tried so hard to put me down? She saw me as a threat, James.’

  ‘Rubbish!’

  Poppy sighed softly. ‘Suit yourself,’ she told him, and put the cups in the sink. How could he be so naive?

  CHAPTER FOUR

  JAMES stuck to his promise. For the rest of that week Poppy hardly saw him at all, and when she did it was in the company of the boys. They were very wary of their father, but he was making a real effort to talk to them and to listen to their answers, and several times she found them together in the little sitting room, going through the photo albums and talking about Clare.

  The downside of this was that he left the house at five every morning
to get the hours in at the office, and Poppy could see him getting more and more tired with every day that passed.

  And Helen didn’t like it. ‘I thought you had a nanny now for the children?’ she overheard the woman say one evening, when she had come round after supper to go over some paperwork with James.

  ‘I have.’

  ‘So let her look after them.’

  Poppy couldn’t be bothered to listen to any more. The woman was so cold and hard and unfeeling she wondered James could bear to be in the room with her, never mind work with her day after day, week after week...

  She took them coffee in the drawing room later, and couldn’t help but notice how Helen matched the room. Poppy hated the room, so it was no surprise to her that Helen liked it so much.

  Funny, she had the distinct feeling James hated it too. It was colourless—a mass of white and cream so tediously neutral that Poppy wanted to drag some pillarboxred cushions in there and fling them around just to liven things up!

  The furniture was all new, limed ash in the same neutral tones as the upholstery and the doubtless hideously expensive ivory silk wallpaper, and the curtains were swagged and full and trailed artistically all over the colourless carpet.

  Poppy tried to imagine the damage that would result from a wet, muddy collie running in off the farmyard and having a damn good shake in the middle of the floor, and it cheered her up no end.

  She retreated to the kitchen, making herself a cup of cocoa and curling up by the boiler with a book. It wasn’t quite the same as the Aga at home, but it came a pretty close second and she didn’t fancy closeting herself in the flat.

  Shortly before ten she heard James showing Helen out of the door, and she went through to the drawing room to retrieve the tray. James walked in behind her and helped, taking it from her and removing her temptation to drop the thing and watch the coffee pot savage the immaculate carpet—

  ‘Poppy? What’s wrong?’

  She blinked. ‘Wrong? Nothing.’

  ‘You look ready to kill.’

  She smiled faintly. ‘I do?’

  ‘You do. Want to talk about it?’

  She sighed and shoved her hand through her hair, raking it up off her face and dropping it carelessly so it tumbled over her shoulders again. ‘I just hate this room.’

  His smile was wry. ‘Do you? That’s interesting. So do I.’

  She looked at him in astonishment. ‘You do? So why is it like this?’

  His laugh was tinged with embarrassment. ‘I had it done by a designer at huge expense.’

  ‘Don’t tell me—a friend of Helen’s?’

  ‘Yeouch. You really hate her, don’t you?’

  ‘Hate?’ Poppy felt guilty. ‘It’s not my business to hate or like her.’

  ‘That wasn’t what I said.’

  ‘No.’ She shifted uncomfortably, but he let her off the hook.

  ‘In answer to your question, yes, it was a friend of Helen’s. She did Helen’s flat, too.’

  Poppy looked round the room. ‘It’s just so-’

  ‘Colourless?’

  She smiled. ‘Yes. Absolutely. And new. In an old house, I would have thought you’d have antiques. You have everywhere else.’

  ‘Yup.’ His lips pursed thoughtfully. ‘Helen—ah—thought it might be nice to have one room that was more contemporary. I hardly use it—it was worth a try.’

  ‘And you hate it.’

  His mouth quirked. ‘I find it very—’ he shrugged ‘—neutral.’

  They shared a smile.

  ‘So what would you do to it?’ James asked her.

  ‘Colour. I’d warm it up a bit—put some colour in the curtains—perhaps a contrast lining in the swags and tails—some coloured cushions, a nice carpet in the centre—and I’d get rid of the limed ash and put some warm, old wood in here—mahogany, probably, or bird’s eye maple. Maybe both.’

  ‘Where from?’

  She looked at him in astonishment. ‘Auction sales.’

  His mouth lifted. ‘I haven’t been to an auction sale for years. Not since Clare and I first got married.’ He looked down at the tray in his hands, but not before Poppy caught a flash of sadness in his eyes.

  Oh, hell, she thought. Well, perhaps it would do him good to remember the woman who had put that smile on his face in the photos. It might make him see the wretched Frisbee more clearly.

  ‘How about cocoa?’ she suggested.

  James looked up at her again, his expression strangely expectant. ‘Cocoa? In the kitchen?’

  Poppy grinned. ‘Or we could come in here?’

  He gave a mock shudder, and the last trace of sadness faded from his eyes. ‘Kitchen, I think,’ he said with a grin, and Poppy followed him out, not even bothering to hide her smile. Five minutes later they were slouched over the table nursing steaming cocoa, and Poppy was idly trailing a spoon around in the froth at the top. She broke the companionable silence.

  ‘So, how are you getting on with the children?’ she asked him softly.

  James sighed. ‘OK. I didn’t realise they were so obsessed with their mother. I thought they would hardly remember her, and of course I’m right, they only have a very sketchy memory. That’s the trouble. They want to know everything about her, and only I can tell them.’

  ‘What about Clare’s parents?’

  He shook his head. ‘They can’t talk about her. They’ve never really dealt with their grief, and they can’t cope with seeing the boys.’

  ‘How sad.’

  James heaved a sigh. ‘Yes. I think so. They need their grandparents. God knows, they’ve seen little enough of me.’

  ‘But you’re changing that.’

  He met Poppy’s eyes, his own sceptical. ‘I’m trying. But I really am busy at work, and, although I’d love to comply with your ideals, it doesn’t necessarily pan out like that, Poppy. I’m not convinced it ever will.’ He looked down at his cocoa, swirling the mug pensively.

  ‘They treat me like a stranger, Poppy,’ he said quietly. ‘As if they don’t know me.’

  ‘And do they?’

  He looked up at her, his eyes fathoms deep with sorrow. ‘No. And I don’t know them any more. They’ve changed—grown up, I suppose. Turned into people. When Clare died they weren’t much more than babies, and their needs were so simple to meet. Food, shelter, affection—it was so much more straightforward. Now they want answers to difficult questions, questions I hardly know the answer to myself.’

  He looked down again, and Poppy felt her eyes fill. ‘James, you’ll be all right,’ she told him earnestly. ‘You just need to do things together.’

  ‘Like what? I don’t even know what they’d like to do!’

  Poppy shrugged. ‘Go to the zoo? Perhaps you could do that this weekend?’

  He looked horrified. ‘The zoo? Good grief, Poppy, do you have any idea how long it is since I went to the zoo?’

  She laughed. ‘Twenty-five years?’ she offered.

  He snorted. ‘Easily. Probably more. Anyway, this weekend’s out. I have to go to Birmingham for a conference about this takeover.’

  Poppy put her spoon down very deliberately and sat back in the chair. ‘James, I don’t want to be awkward, but I haven’t had a day off in two weeks and it’s the start of their half-term, so I’ll be going flat out with them all next week! You can’t go away this weekend—not unless someone else is having the children?’

  He looked at her in blank astonishment. ‘Someone else—no. Oh, hell, Poppy, I’m sony. I just didn’t think. I’ll ask Mrs Cripps.’

  ‘She’ll say no.’

  ‘Not if I offer her enough money.’

  Poppy sighed. ‘They hate her.’

  He rammed his big hands through his hair, ruffling the tight curls and leaving them in chaos. Poppy longed to reach out and smooth them down again—

  ‘What do you suggest, then?’

  ‘Apart from a weekend off, which I take it is out of the question?’

  He lifted his shou
lders helplessly. ‘I can’t I’m sorry, it’s just not possible to reschedule it for any other time.’

  ‘Can I take them home with me to the farm for the weekend? That way I get to have a break, and so do they.’

  He looked as if she’d just offered him eternal life on a plate. ‘What’s the catch?’ he asked.

  Poppy laughed shortly. ‘No catch. But they’ll have to fit in with the others—get up early, help with the stock, go out on the farm with my brothers. They’ll be quite safe—probably tired, but safe. My mother will feed them till their tummies burst, and they’ll sleep like logs after all the fresh air.’

  ‘It sounds wonderful—can I come?’ he joked, but behind the words Poppy detected a real sense of longing. When had he last had fun? she wondered. Really let his hair down and enjoyed himself? She found herself trapped by his lovely hazel eyes, and without thinking she reached out a hand and laid it against the hard plane of his jaw. The skin was taut, scratchy with stubble this late in the day. Her fingers were fascinated by it She dropped her hand before she did something silly, like slide her fingers round behind his head and drag him towards her for a kiss—

  ‘You’d be more than welcome to join us if you could get away,’ she said softly.

  His eyes creased with a smile that tipped one side of his mouth in gentle irony. “Thank you, Poppy. If there were only enough hours in the day...’

  Poppy spent the weekend wondering how he would have fitted in, and she found herself somewhat confused. The James she saw every day leaving for work or shut up in the library at night would have been lost at the farm. The man who had dressed in jeans and chased through the woods with his sons would have had a whale of a time.

  But which man was the real James? ‘Who is he, Bridie?’ she asked the beautiful but totally scatty Irish setter that was draped across her lap. Bridie thumped her tail and peered up at Poppy through her glorious auburn eyebrows, her great liquid eyes adoring.

  Poppy stroked her shoulder and sighed. ‘I don’t know either,’ she told the dog. ‘I wish I did.’

  ‘Know what?’ her mother asked, coming into the room behind Poppy.

  ‘Who James is. He’s so busy being Mr Big he doesn’t ever stop to be himself. I wonder if he even knows who he is any more.’