Jed Hunter's Reluctant Bride

by James, Susanne

  ‘Thank God,’ was all he said.

  Quickly regaining his self-control, he rang Polly. ‘Polly? Milo’s safe. We’re coming home!’

  The way he spoke the words filled Cryssie with a deep sense of wonder. We’re coming home! Would any words ever again match those? she thought.

  After letting the police know, and still without asking any questions of Milo, they turned to go back to the car. But the child hesitated.

  ‘This is my new friend,’ he said. ‘She’s called Victoria, and we’ve been playing with our Runaways in her caravan. I brought mine with me,’ he added, holding Jed by the hand and looking up at them as if nothing unusual had happened that afternoon.

  ‘Well, thank you, Victoria, for letting Milo play,’ Cryssie said. ‘I’m afraid we have to go home now, because Milo’s mummy is waiting for him. Perhaps we’ll come and see you again soon.’

  As they walked slowly back to the car Jed and Cryssie exchanged glances over Milo’s head. They both knew that there would be time for explanations later. But for now, blessed thankfulness was the only emotion they felt, or that mattered.

  Much later, after the police had gone, they gently persuaded Milo to tell them how he’d got to the fair.

  ‘I went on the bus,’ he said importantly. ‘And I wasn’t going to the fair, anyway.’ He helped himself to another potato crisp. ‘I was going to see you, Jed, at your house. I wanted to throw stones in the river, like we did before. Cryssie said I couldn’t go this time, but I thought you wouldn’t mind. There were lots of people and children at the bus stop as I went by, and then a bus came and everyone got on, and I did as well.’

  ‘But—didn’t anyone ask you who you were with?’ Polly asked. ‘Who paid for you?’

  Milo shrugged. ‘No one. I didn’t have any money. No one paid. And then everyone got off, and so did I, and then we were all at the fair. After a bit I saw Victoria—you know, with her Runaway—and she said we could play with them together.’ He sucked a finger. ‘Her mummy and daddy work the rides,’ he said. ‘But I didn’t see them at all.’

  So it was that easy, Cryssie thought, for a child to mingle, to become anonymous, in a crowd. And for no one to realise or notice.

  After they’d all had something to eat, and put Milo to bed, Polly said, ‘I feel so utterly exhausted I’m going up as well—if you don’t mind, Cryssie—Jed?’ she asked. ‘I just want this day to end, and never to know another one like it.’

  ‘Of course, Polly,’ Jed said gently. ‘You’ll feel better in the morning. So will we all,’ he added.

  Polly hesitated. ‘I shall feel better when I know what you intend doing about the matter of the scarf I stole, Jed,’ she said simply, and Cryssie was touched at her sister’s courage to mention this today. ‘You must know that I stole from the store?’ she went on slowly. ‘And—’

  ‘Yes—I was informed,’ Jed said. ‘But, please think no more about it, Polly. I shan’t,’ he added. ‘That’s a very small drop of water in the ocean.’ He was silent for a moment, then, ‘I was wondering the other day whether you’d be interested in a small part-time job at Latimer’s, Polly—as a beauty consultant in the cosmetics department,’ he said, not looking at Cryssie, who had raised her eyes at him. ‘We stock most top-of-the-range make-up brands, as you probably know, but we’ve never bothered with a resident expert…someone who could give advice. It would be a very useful asset to us…if you’re interested, that is?’

  ‘Oh—Jed…’ Polly was overwhelmed at the suggestion.

  ‘You’d obviously need to think it over,’ he went on quickly. ‘But it would be the sort of arrangement that could easily fit in with Milo’s school hours.’

  He sat back and looked across at Cryssie then, a tiny glint of triumph in his eyes. How long had he been thinking this one up? she thought. But it was a wonderful possibility, and it might help to restore some of Polly’s self esteem—which, as he had so perceptively pointed out, was in short supply.

  And, as a first step in that direction, Polly went right over to Jed and kissed him softly on both cheeks. ‘I’ll let you have my acceptance in writing,’ she said.

  When Cryssie and Jed were alone together, she said curiously, ‘Was your suggestion to Polly a sudden rush of blood to the head, or…?’

  ‘No,’ he replied. ‘It’s been on my mind for a while that a professional in the beauty department, to give advice, would undoubtedly shift more of the expensive brands. And your sister is a very good advertisement, isn’t she?’

  Cryssie smiled. Polly had always known how to make the best of herself—a talent she could pass on. ‘Well, thanks for thinking of that, Jed,’ she said slowly.

  ‘It might solve more than one problem for her.’

  ‘That’s what I thought,’ he said smoothly.

  Sitting there, close together on the settee, Cryssie looked up at him thoughtfully. ‘I could not have kept going today without you, Jed,’ she said.

  He ran his hand through his hair restlessly. ‘If anyone…if anything had happened to Milo—’ he began, then was unable to go on. And Cryssie realised, again, that he loved their little boy almost as much as they did. ‘I could do with a drink,’ he said. ‘You don’t feel like going out somewhere, I suppose…?’

  ‘I couldn’t face anywhere else today, Jed, but there’s a bottle of red wine in the pantry. Let’s be devils and drink the lot! It’s only nine o’clock,’ she said lightly.

  She brought out two wine glasses, while Jed uncorked the bottle, and filled them to the brim. Then they stood facing each other in the modest room and sipped at the glowing liquid, their eyes meeting as unspoken messages passed between them.

  Presently, Cryssie said, ‘Some hours ago—or was it days ago?—I think you said we needed to talk…’

  Straight away he put down his glass and took hers from her hand, then pulled her towards him hungrily. Towering above her, with his arms tightly around her, he looked down for a long moment into her green uncomplicated eyes, whose sincerity had captured his heart from the very first moment. ‘Your sister has promised to give me her acceptance in writing,’ he murmured, kissing her softly behind her ear once, twice, three times. Cryssie felt her desire for him tingle with a burning fire. ‘But two words from you now will do. Will you agree to marry me, Cryssie? Please? Will you say yes?’

  They stood there as one, immovable in their shared pleasure at being close, at feeling their bodies meld with an intoxicating heat, and Cryssie thought that she wouldn’t mind staying there, like that, for eternity! Softly, she said, ‘And why should I?’

  He took a deep, deep breath. ‘Well, mainly because I’ve promised Milo that he’s going to come and live with me one day, but also because I love you,’ he said simply. ‘I love you. That’s all.’

  That’s all? But that was all she had ever wanted to hear him say! And at last he had said it! He did love her! She looked up at him adoringly. ‘I never thought I’d hear you say that,’ she whispered. ‘I didn’t think you were…’

  ‘What? You didn’t think I was capable of loving? Thought that my only obsession was chasing the material world?’ He smiled a tight, grim smile. ‘My ex-wife obviously thought that, too,’ he said. ‘That’s why, very soon after our marriage, she insisted on separate bedrooms—and a separate credit card account—which I readily agreed to. Until I discovered what she wanted a disproportionate amount of my money for.’ He paused, his lingering resentment still obvious. ‘She insisted that she wanted cosmetic surgery and breast enhancements…as if nature hadn’t already endowed her with more than her fair share! Just to keep up with her empty-headed friends. That’s when I put a stop to it all. And she never wanted children—something she told me after our wedding day. Because she’d never recover her figure, so she said.’

  Hearing him tell her all this made Cryssie hold him even more tightly. He had been so deeply hurt, so let down, she thought. No wonder he sometimes showed a hard, unfeeling edge.

  Gently, she took him by the han
d and led him upstairs to her bedroom, shutting the door behind them quietly. Totally unselfconsciously, he stepped out of his clothes, dropping them carelessly to the floor, and they lay down on the bed together, Jed cradling her in his arms.

  Dreamily, she said, ‘I hereby formally agree to stay with you, in your bed, at your side, satisfying your every whim, until my final breath. Will that do?’

  Raising himself on one elbow, he looked down at her for a long, heart-throbbing moment, then slowly he began to undress her, until she, too, was completely naked. His strong, warm hands caressing her body made her gasp in anticipation and sexual excitement, his eyes—those dark pools of passionate promise—mesmerising her as they always did. Then his mouth came down on hers greedily, and the moist meeting of their parted lips was a mere prelude to the ecstasy that was to come. There was no sense of urgency as they lay there, locked together, and Cryssie knew instinctively that he would take time to bring her to that indescribable point of fulfilled desire.

  ‘There is one more thing I need,’ he said softly, gazing down at her, drinking in the soft contours of her body, the smoothness of her flat stomach and rounded thighs. ‘Will you promise that we’ll give Milo at least four cousins to ruin the grass at Shepherd’s Keep?’

  ‘Only four?’ she teased.

  ‘Well, for starters,’ he said. ‘But, given that I’ll always be needing your business acumen, it might mean we’ll have to employ a couple of nannies!’

  ‘Then I shall consider my part in it a formal obligation,’ Cryssie said, ‘so that the Hunter dynasty will continue to thrive for many years to come!’

  She nestled into him, loving the musky, manly smell of him, the pulsating strength of his chest against the softness of her bare breasts. Then a little smile played across her lips for a second, and he murmured, ‘What’s funny?’

  ‘I was just thinking that everything that’s happened to us—to Polly and to Milo and to me—is all because of television’s Runaway Rascals! Isn’t that bizarre?’ She traced Jed’s lips and jaw with her forefinger, which he quickly took in his mouth and held between his teeth. ‘If I hadn’t bumped into you on Christmas Eve—when I was trying to buy one of them—you’d never have noticed me at all. I’d have been just one of the insignificant members of staff at Hydebound you’d have ditched, along with everyone else, without another thought.’

  ‘I suppose that is possible,’ he admitted. ‘Though something tells me that Crystal Rowe wouldn’t have remained anonymous for long!’

  She smiled again, smugly. ‘And even though you selfishly insisted on taking the last four of those dolls—I called you a few names, I can tell you, one of your shop assistants actually found one after all! And brought it to me—here!’

  ‘Of course she did,’ he said smoothly.

  Cryssie frowned. ‘What do you mean by that?’

  He smiled that slow, superior, heart-stopping smile. ‘Oh…it’s just that yours was one of the four I’d bought, but found I didn’t need after all. So the assistant and I hatched a plan for you—for Milo—not to be disappointed.’

  ‘Well, of all the…’ For once, Cryssie was speechless. Then, after a second or two, she said, ‘So, Mr Have-It-All-Your-Own-Way, is there any plan of yours that is never fulfilled?’

  ‘Never,’ he breathed softly into her ear. ‘Allow me to demonstrate…’