by Karin Baine
‘That was amazing!’ There was a moment when Freya was actually smiling at him as they came to rest, her face glowing with excitement in a brief unguarded moment, making him yearn for more. It brought back memories of their early dates, having fun together when they hadn’t had a care in the world. He wanted her to look at him the way she used to, without that constant suspicion.
‘It reminds me of the time we did that obstacle race for charity. Do you remember? We slid the whole way to the bottom of the hill in the pouring rain.’ They’d laughed the whole way down and Freya’s gung-ho attitude to the whole course had impressed him. He’d fallen in love with her that day as she’d tackled rope ladders and crawled under tarpaulins with a grin on her face and dirt in her hair. Her joie de vivre had been irresistible and he’d known then he didn’t want to be without her. He still didn’t.
‘I’ve never seen so much mud in my life.’ Her sweet laugh was almost as much of a surprise now as it had been then. Even though she’d been covered from head to toe she’d found only humour in the situation, which had made her utterly adorable.
‘And they wouldn’t let us on the bus back until we’d been hosed down.’ There was another part to that story that wasn’t suitable for present company but he saw the rush of blood to her cheeks and knew she was also thinking of the steamy shower they’d taken together later at his place afterwards.
‘At least we’ll stay nice and dry today.’ She got out of the toboggan and dusted down her clothes, the moment over.
‘I can’t believe we’ve never done that before.’ He helped the girls back to their feet, wondering how different things could’ve been between him and Freya. There was a reason they’d never gone sledding or done any of this fun festive stuff together. He’d been too caught up in his past to make new, more pleasant memories associated with the season. If anything, he’d gone on to make matters worse. He’d left her at Christmas and he could see the very second she remembered it too as she turned away from him, back towards their two charges, who were tossing handfuls of ploughed snow at each other.
‘Hands up who wants to go get some hot chocolate.’
‘Me!’ Gloves and voices shot up into the air at once, including Lucas’s. He could do with a little warmth when the atmosphere between the adults was becoming frostier by the second.
They trekked back towards the others, where he did a quick check to make sure the activity hadn’t had any impact on Hope’s blood-sugar level before they had their warm drinks and hot dogs. He was making a note of everything she ate and drank today so they could adjust her insulin accordingly later.
Once he’d had his fill, Lucas left them keeping warm by the fire so he could check on the others. When he was satisfied there were no medical emergencies and everyone else was enjoying their day, he made it back in time for toasting marshmallows over the fire.
‘Here, you can help.’ Freya handed him two of the wooden sticks with marshmallows skewered on the end. Even though he knew it was to save the girls from getting their hands too close to the open fire, he wanted to see it as a truce of sorts where she no longer saw him as the enemy.
‘How do you know when they’re done?’ he asked, holding the sticks tentatively over the fire as the heat seared through his gloves.
When there was no answer forthcoming, he looked up to see Freya tilt her head to one side, amusement dancing with the reflection of the flickering flames in her eyes. ‘Are you serious?’
‘I just want to make sure I get it right for the girls,’ he said with a huff.
This was beyond the realms of his usual out-of-hours leisure pursuits, not that he had many these days. Sledding or toasting marshmallows hadn’t been part of his childhood reality or on any syllabus when he’d had his head buried in medical books to escape the horrors of it. He certainly hadn’t much call, or want, to do it since.
‘You just want a light golden colour. Don’t let it burn and make sure they’re cooled down enough before you try to eat them.’ She stopped teasing and seemed to thaw a little towards him as she coaxed him through the basic skills of marshmallow toasting.
Perhaps it was her caring nature that made her willing to help him out but he wanted to believe it was because she could see he was still the old Lucas at heart. The one who’d never meant to hurt her. The one she used to love. He longed for them both to break free from the memory of that broken man he’d become at the end of their marriage.
‘These are really good.’ Along with the others he tucked into the gooey white molten goodness with gusto and did his best to lick off the sticky sweetness coating his lips so he didn’t waste a morsel or a second of this experience. This could be the last time she let him this close to her again.
‘You missed a bit.’ She pulled off her mitten and brushed the corner of his mouth with the soft pad of her thumb.
It was an innocent gesture but the moment she touched him his whole body sparked to life, every nerve ending tingling with awareness. As though he’d been dormant for too long, a soulless creature waiting for her to initiate that contact, that bolt of electricity, to awaken him from his slumber.
‘Thanks.’ He locked his eyes on hers and he saw a brief flare of desire before she blinked it away. They might only have been married a short while but he knew his wife well enough to recognise that look. It was the same flicker of interest he’d found so hard to resist when they’d first started working together and he still didn’t want to. He could see that same internal fight against it in her eyes too and hope flared in his chest along with desire.
The most he thought he could ask from her was forgiveness so he could start his new life over, never imagining the one good thing from his past might still be available to him. He’d simply accepted that he’d hurt her too much to ever go back. If she did still harbour feelings for him somewhere beyond that tough shell she’d cocooned herself in, it conflicted more than ever with his original plan for a permanent split. It brought them straight back to square one, where he knew walking away was best for her but when the time came would inflict more suffering on them both.
‘They’re very messy girls, aren’t they?’ She fussed around the girls, wiping their mouths and hands in what he figured was an attempt to undermine the significance of the moment they’d had. It didn’t work when he could see how flustered she was and she could barely look in his direction. She’d never been very good at disguising her feelings for him, which was what had made him break his rule about dating work colleagues in the first place.
‘We’ll have to do that again over the weekend.’ He wasn’t just talking about the sweet treat. If they went back to Scotland without resolving what had happened they’d both be doomed to wallow in their misery for the rest of their days. They needed another moment together; a chance to reconnect properly where he could make amends and finally give them the closure they needed.
* * *
‘I doubt we’ll find the time.’ Freya didn’t know if he meant toasting marshmallows, talking about their early days together, or another brief moment when she forgot everything except how much she wished they were still together, but all of those scenarios were too dangerous to repeat.
When he was joining in with the kids, doing things he’d apparently never done before, it was too easy to forget they’d been apart for so long. The sight of him so youthful, so carefree took her back to the time when they’d enjoyed each other’s company to the exclusion of everything else. It was painful to watch at times when she was no closer to understanding what had brought the sudden change in him and turned him into the distant man who’d eventually walked out on her.
Perhaps she should’ve confronted him the second she’d heard about his reappearance back into society but she’d worried it might just tip her over the edge of sanity. She’d barely held it together after realising he wasn’t coming back to her but she’d also been afraid the sight
of him again would prove too painful, that her feelings for him would remain the same despite what he’d done. She’d been afraid of this.
It was vital for her well-being to focus on everything his betrayal had cost her—her marriage, her trust and her chance of baby-filled happiness—instead of attraction and naivety, which had blinded her to danger too often. The only thing she needed from him was a reason for destroying the life she’d planned for them, and nothing more.
She moved the girls on towards the storyteller in the tent so they were safely back in company. With his wooden staff and flowing purple robes he could’ve been some mystical shaman from the Middle Ages, but the girls were more fascinated than afraid. They edged ever closer to listen to his Christmas tales, leaving the adults in the cold, and she could see Lucas glancing back at the campfire, and most likely the marshmallows, with longing.
‘Have you honestly never done any of this sort of thing before? Not even at school?’ Freya couldn’t quite get her head around the notion a grown man hadn’t experienced any of these basic pleasures in life. She knew he’d struggled with her idea of fun at Christmas but he’d never opened up to tell her why. Every time she’d tried to ask him what it was that troubled him so much about it, he’d shut down the conversation and pushed her away. Until living under the same roof had become unbearable.
‘Nope.’ He still wasn’t giving anything away and made her want to shake the information out of him. She’d only ever wanted to understand him and it hurt that he’d never been able to trust her with the sort of personal information a wife should’ve known—the history of ex-loves and family and all of those experiences that formed a person.
Of course, she hadn’t been able to share some important events in her own life but that was because she’d tried to bury them in order to create a future with him. Lucas had given little information about himself and she wasn’t convinced it had been in order to benefit their relationship.
Looking back, anytime she’d enquired about his life pre-medical school he’d always distracted her with a kiss, or more. Infatuated as she had been, she had always given in to temptation instead of pushing the subject. Later, towards the end of their relationship, he hadn’t bothered to employ any such tactics and had simply refused to answer any questions, that ever-present scowl declaring the matter off limits.
It rankled now that she’d been too blinded by love to see the obvious flaws in their marriage when he’d insisted on erecting that barrier. She’d been so desperate to create the perfect family she’d ignored the first signs of discord and had ploughed ahead with her obsession for a child at all costs. Her blinkered naivety and his insular behaviour had ensured they would never have succeeded as a couple. Yet, even though he was still refusing to be drawn on his personal history, there was something different about him. That willingness to participate in activities beyond his comfort zone had been distinctly lacking during their last time together and her temper was rising at the injustice of it all.
‘So what’s changed?’ Her blunt questioning was directly in line with her sudden desire to uncover the facts. This new Lucas was embracing all the clichés he’d professed to despise when they’d been together and she’d been the one to bear the brunt of his dark moods because of it. It was only natural she should want to know who, or what, had brought about this new attitude. Even if the thought of someone taking her place, sharing a deeper bond with her husband than she apparently had, made her want to weep. At the time she would’ve done anything to save her marriage, if only she’d been given the chance.
‘I came here for the kids. Every child deserves at least one happy time in their lives to look back on.’ As a round of applause sounded for the storyteller Lucas bent down to receive a running hug from the returning Scarlett and Hope. There was such a haunted expression on his face it reached that mothering instinct deep inside her and she had to catch the sob in her throat before she embarrassed them all.
It occurred to her then that his own upbringing remained somewhat of a mystery to her. His mother had left home when he was very little, and he had no siblings—he’d revealed that much in the early days, when they’d been getting to know each other—but when it had come to mention of his father, he’d changed the subject, or distracted her, every time. When Lucas had refused to even invite him to their wedding she’d just assumed it had been a strained relationship. Watching him interact with the children now and replaying his words made her question what kind of childhood he’d actually had.
It was a sobering thought to realise she’d never really known who her husband was beyond the man he’d become. Even more so to discover she still wanted to find out.
CHAPTER THREE
FREYA WAS NUMB and not just from the wind and ice sprayed in her face after they’d travelled the snowy plains at high speed on the snowmobiles. Her smile was frozen on for the girls’ sakes, but though she was saying and doing all the right things so they didn’t know anything was amiss, her head and heart were scrambled, trying to come to terms with a very different Lucas from the last one she’d seen.
He certainly seemed keen to remind her about the good times they’d had together, sending her emotions into a dizzying jumble as she tried to protect herself by recalling those agonising last days of their marriage. When he was smiling at her or playing with the children it was easy to forget they were no longer together. Unless he’d had that chip on his shoulder surgically removed she didn’t know what had caused the change in him, which made his past behaviour seem even more erratic in comparison. Despite the nights she’d spent cursing the man’s name she found herself clinging to the hope there was something behind it other than being single again. If she had more information to explain the state of his mind then and now she might be able to look back on these past months in a completely different light.
There’d been that one moment when he’d opened the door to his past and let her have the briefest glimpse inside. Unfortunately, she’d been shut out from gathering any more info of a personal nature once he’d thrown himself back into his role of medical supervisor and children’s entertainer as they’d continued their day of adventure.
‘What did you think was the most fun today?’ he asked everybody as they piled on the bus at the end of the day.
‘The huskies.’
‘Tobogganing.’
‘Building snowmen.’
Everyone clearly had their own favourite activity of the day but they all had that same joyful expression as they animatedly swapped stories of their adventures. Apart from Scarlett, who was asleep on Lucas’s shoulder, and Hope, who was gently snoring in the seat next to Freya. Exhaustion had finally claimed them. She didn’t know if he was using the sleeping child as some sort of buffer to keep her away as he made his way down the stationary bus to his seat but he didn’t appear to be in a hurry to discard the little girl dribbling over his shoulder. He’d always had a special rapport with the kids he treated. He was very comfortable in their company and never, ever talked down to them. It was one of the many reasons patients and families loved him and one of the reasons she’d known he would’ve made a wonderful father.
‘What about you, Dr Lucas? What was your favourite thing?’ One of the children turned the question back on him and Freya watched and listened for the reply as intently as the tiny interviewer.
She hadn’t managed to coax him into enjoying any of the family Christmas traditions she’d been so keen to uphold but she’d seen a whole new side to him today. He’d really thrown himself into the part of Santa’s little helper but she couldn’t help but wonder if it had been solely for the children’s benefit. After all, he’d proved to be a good actor before when she’d believed they had been happily married, only to have him leave her at the worst possible time of the year.
‘Um... I have to say it was toasting marshmallows over the fire.’ He caught her eye for a split second and th
e heat of that moment warmed her chilled bones as she recalled that moment when she’d touched him again.
A few days ago, if someone had told her she’d meet up with her ex-husband the only physical contact she would’ve imagined making had been a swift kick somewhere delicate as payback for the hurt he’d caused her. Not tenderly brushing melted marshmallow from his lips as though they were still together with that spark between them very much alive. She didn’t enjoy that hitch in her breath as they connected over the heads of the children filing past because it drew attention to those lingering feelings she apparently still had for him. After everything he’d done and the time they’d had apart, he shouldn’t be able to have any effect on her other than the need to hate him. More than that, it left her open for more pain from someone who clearly hadn’t loved her enough to stay with her.
Curiosity and a need to salve her own conscience over the end of their marriage might be pushing her towards him for more answers but she’d have to remain wary of getting too close. She wouldn’t survive falling for him a second time.
Roll on tomorrow when they were on a plane back to reality and their now very separate lives.
* * *
The duo of snow-dusted log cabins welcoming them home for the night was a Christmas card come to life. The orange glow spilling out from the windows into the dark night definitely made Freya want to kick off her boots at the door and take a place by the fireplace inside. Which was exactly what she would do when the children had been fed, the necessary medication administered and everyone readied for bed.
‘Thank goodness they got caterers in. That’s all I can say.’ Freya handed the last plate to Lucas to dry and drained the soapy water out of the sink.
‘I know. I’m shattered.’ Gillian opened the cupboards to put away the now clean dishes as their efficient production line rid all traces of the group dinner. The hot buffet provided by the hotel to the larger cabin on their return had saved them a lot of extra work but the trio had volunteered for washing-up duty once everyone had taken their fill.
