‘I have had boyfriends since Nat, Tom. Heaven knows, it’s been a long time, and I’ve tried. I’ve truly tried, but comes the time—well, the important time—and I can’t do it. I go rigid. I’m no good to you for all I’d like to be … ‘
Tears slid down her scarlet cheeks and Tom folded his arms around her and wondered how she’d take it she knew he’d like to mingle his tears with hers, as his pain for her took on another dimension—sinking to a depth he hadn’t known he could feel.
He held her and he rubbed his hands across her back, offering comfort, nothing more. She snuggled into him, accepting comfort.
When it changed he had no idea, but change it did, with Lauren raising her face again, kissing him, cautiously at first, eyes wary, questioning, yet her body responding to his touch.
He eased himself away, and looked into those changeable eyes.
‘Are you doing this for me? Do you feel obliged in any way?’
She flushed, the colour so delicate he had to touch her cheek to feel the warmth.
She shook her head, her gaze roaming his face as if some answer to an unasked question might be loitering there.
She opened her mouth to speak, closed it again, shrugged, then finally said, ‘It’s probably the opposite. I think I might be using you.’
It nearly broke his heart.
The heart he hadn’t thought he had.
The kind of heart you had to have to experience love …
He wanted to say please use him all she liked, but knew that would be crass. He wanted to say he’d do anything for her, whatever she wanted, but couldn’t have explained why. He wanted, more than anything, to make love to her and that thought shocked him so much he couldn’t speak at all.
He didn’t make love. Making love wasn’t in his repertoire, he practised mutually enjoyable sex.
‘You’d rather not?’ she asked.
He looked at the woman he hadn’t answered while all these confusing thoughts had been racing through his head.
‘I don’t know what I’d rather,’ he admitted. ‘Going further—and, yes, I’m so attracted to you I’d like nothing more, and forget the using-me part, that’s nonsense—but going further could complicate our lives. Do you realise that?’
She studied him again.
‘You mean if it didn’t work? If we weren’t suited? When we part but have to work together? Is that what you’re thinking?’
‘All of those,’ he told her, but he kissed her anyway. ‘But aren’t we getting ahead of ourselves here?’
Lauren didn’t know.
In point of fact, she knew nothing—absolutely nothing. Her brain had ceased to work while her body ached with a raw need that the kissing had generated, and which now pulsed through her body like a high-voltage charge.
She’d warned Tom what might happen if they went further.
He couldn’t say he didn’t know.
And he’d warned her of future consequences.
‘I don’t care,’ she whispered to him, and kissed him again, giving in to the sensations his firm but gentle touch was sending into all parts of her body, the brush of his fingers across her breasts spearing more need down between her thighs. She squirmed against him, mindless, barely registering his suggestion they move into the bedroom, barely aware of Tom closing the door behind them, leading her to that great raft of a bed, talking, touching, soothing, exciting, then soothing again, damping down fires before recharging them, her limbs now boneless, her nerves quivering, the charged wanting something she had never felt before.
‘Just touch my face at any time you want to stop. Or say the word,’ Tom whispered, his voice muffled as he spoke against a wet patch on her neck, a patch he’d licked and kissed and teased until she turned and twisted with desire, not knowing how to do the same to him, to excite him as much as he was exciting her.
Her first touch was so tentative he may not have felt it, but the warmth of his skin sent a tingle through her nerve endings so she splayed her hands across his chest, pushing his shirt to one side, relishing her own responses, learning the hardness of his muscles, the shape of his chest, a light line of hair arrowing downwards.
Follow it?
Did she dare?
Lost in the haze of sensations that were her body’s response to Tom’s ministrations, she felt her body relax, giving in to the jolt of pleasure his touch on her nipple produced, giving in to the quiver of anticipation as his questing hands slid lower. But she wanted to be more than a passive recipient of these delicious sensations, she wanted to explore, be part of the game, to learn what gave him pleasure while still discovering it herself. She let her fingers slide lower, and lower, Tom’s hand now joining hers, helping her cup him, his hand moving to brush across her mound, shooting new darts of excitement through her body.
The silky skin firmed beneath her touch, Tom’s finger probed gently into her, while excitement skittered now, her breathing slowed …
‘Are you okay?’
Tom’s husky words drifted through the air around them, but Lauren could barely discern their meaning. She knew she’d passed the bounds of other experiences—knew too that they’d never been like this—and most of all she knew she didn’t want to stop.
‘I’m pretty sure I am,’ she managed to reply, but now his fingers were working some magic on her body so it came out as a strangled squeak.
Was it Tom’s experience or because it was Tom, a man she was fairly sure she loved, that had released her from the memories of the past, the fear of pain that had probably built up in her mind to a level beyond any she had felt?
Her woozy mind lost the thread about then, and her body didn’t care about the answer. All it wanted was more of the same. Perhaps some release somewhere along the line, from the tension—exquisite tension—that was building and building in her body …
Then it came, the release, lifting her high into the air, the world in limbo as all thoughts and memories disappeared and she was lost to sheer sensation.
She shattered, pressed against Tom, came apart again, then, knowing she needed more—he needed more—she drew him into her body, clasping him inside her, moving again until she heard him gasp and felt his long-withheld release. She held him to her, relishing the weight of him on her body, wondering if his weight would help her put herself together again …
‘I never knew!’
She wasn’t certain how much later this was, if they’d slept or just lain together, but finally she’d found the words. Not the ‘Thank you’ she probably should have said, but the words to reveal her wonder—the miracle of it all …
He was gone when she woke in the morning, leaving her alone in the enormous bed, and inevitably all the things they’d considered the previous night about complicating things came rushing back to her. Questions she’d never considered hammered in her head.
How did she face a man when she’d done things like she’d done to him during the long night? How to face him without blushing? How to look at him without thinking of him naked? Without remembering how he’d felt inside her?
Fortunately, the sound of Bobby stirring—yawning loudly was Bobby’s way of announcing he was awake—in the next room reminded her of her responsibilities and while a rush of shame—how could they have done that with Bobby in the house?—swept through her, she got out of bed, clutched her discarded clothes to her, and bolted to her bedroom, where she hurriedly dressed and raced to the kitchen so she could pretend she’d been there all along when Bobby did appear.
Except Tom was there before her, making coffee, smiling at her. And forget blushing, she was certain her whole body had turned scarlet. Was that how scarlet women got their name? She’d lost her mind, obviously, and was now standing in the kitchen door, staring at Tom, thinking totally irrational thoughts and with no idea how to retrieve a little sanity.
‘Coffee?’ Tom asked, as if it was just an ordinary morning, although maybe his smile was just a little softer—teasing almost?
‘In a c
up? With milk and sugar how you like it?’ he persisted.
Apparently she hadn’t answered him, but how could she when her mind was replaying every instant of last night and her eyes couldn’t take in enough of his strong-boned face, a shadow of black stubble on his chin, his lips curled into the very slightest of smiles, and his broad, muscled chest, tanned skin spread like satin over it, the little pathway of hair—
Heat flooded her again but now at least she’d found some words.
‘You could at least have pulled on a shirt!’ she muttered at him, and he laughed, then set down the coffee pot and came towards her, sliding his arm around her shoulders and giving her a hug, and then a swift kiss.
It was interrupted before it could be anything but swift by Bobby’s ‘Bleagh!’
Somehow they got through breakfast—Lauren recovering slightly once Tom did pull on a shirt—but although she’d expected him to head off to the hospital as soon as the meal was finished, he lingered, helping with the dishes, hanging around, finally suggesting they all sit on the veranda for a while.
Something in the way he spoke brought Lauren out of her confusion over the night’s events and a cold shiver of presentiment rushed through her. Had Mike been in touch—had he found Bobby’s family? Or maybe ‘things being different’ meant Tom had had enough of them staying with him …
Lauren made more coffee—she’d need something to keep her going!—and joined Tom and Bobby on the veranda.
‘We need to talk, Bobby,’ Tom began. ‘I know you’re only a kid, but because it’s about your mother we do need to talk to you about what happens next.’
‘I ain’t got no relations!’ Bobby said, and stood up, ready to flee if there was any suggestion of him going to someone he didn’t know.
‘It’s not about relations, it’s about business,’ Tom said, and with a wave of relief she shouldn’t have felt, Lauren caught on. She reached out and took Bobby’s hand, pulling him onto her knee.
‘Remember,’ she said gently, ‘when Carrots the red guinea pig at the refuge died—what did we do?’
Bobby squirmed on her knee then turned and faced her.
‘We buried it. We had a—whatya call it—funeral.’
‘We did,’ Lauren said. ‘And we sang some songs and some of the kids talked and then we had a little party because Carrots had been a really good guinea pig and we were saying thank you to him for making us happy.’
‘So?’
Tom watched Lauren’s face. In fact, though he hoped he wasn’t being obvious, he’d been watching Lauren’s face since he’d woken up—at first watching her sleep beside him, her serene beauty catching at his heart, and then when she’d come into the kitchen, doubt and wonder mingling in her eyes, embarrassment colouring her cheeks. He’d read no regret, which had relieved him enormously, and now he was just watching—waiting—wondering just how she was going to get from the guinea pig to Joan …
When he’d started the conversation he hadn’t known how he’d get there either, so had been relieved when Lauren had caught on, but now?
‘With people, Bobby,’ Lauren was saying quietly, holding Bobby against her in the chair, ‘we do the same thing. We have a funeral and we celebrate the human spirit—like with your mum, we’d talk about the things she did to make you happy, and the good times you had together, and the Merlin rug she made for you, and everything happy and fun we can remember.’
‘Then we’d bury her?’
No fool, this kid, Tom thought, and felt a twinge of pride in his protégé.
‘It’s only her body we bury, because when you die your spirit leaves your body so all the fun parts and memories stay on with all the people who knew your mum, and with you especially. And we have a choice of how we want our bodies to be treated when we die—if we want them buried or cremated, which is burnt. They’re only like the shells we used to live in, like houses for our spirits, so it’s not as if it’s the person who’s being buried or cremated, but we have to decide what we think your mum would have preferred to have happen to her body.’
Okay, so she’d taken a while to get there, but she’d made it, and this time Tom felt pride in Lauren for handling it so well.
So far so well!
At least Bobby hadn’t belted her one!
‘Do we have to watch?’
Tom wasn’t sure how to take that question, Bobby’s tone giving no indication of his preference.
‘Only if you want to,’ Lauren told him. ‘If you want to go to the funeral then that’s fine, we’ll all go, but you don’t actually see the fire with a cremation.’
‘That’s good because she wouldn’t like to be buried, I know,’ Bobby declared, ‘but I want to go and I want to sing her song.’
‘What song is that?’ asked Tom.
‘It’s about a rainbow and a fat man from that place where the surfers all go sings it, and it’s Mum’s favourite.’
Tom looked blankly at Lauren, who smiled—an ordinary, everyday Lauren smile that for some reason made his heart clench and his stomach knot and a kind of panic start inside him.
‘“Somewhere over the Rainbow”,’ she was saying while his panic attack continued. ‘A Hawaiian man sings it with
“What a Wonderful World” like a medley. Joan used to bring the CD to the refuge. It could be in with her things.’
She gave Bobby a hug and promised him they’d sort it out, while Tom wondered if he could sort out what was happening to him.
Perhaps if he went to work …
Was it because he’d expected Lauren to feel a little awkward this morning but hadn’t considered how he, himself, might feel that seeing an ordinary Lauren smile had sent him into a spin?
It couldn’t be love.
He didn’t do love.
Love was destructive.
Love had killed his parents and his sister, the sister he’d loved.
And evidence of love’s destructive force was right here in front of him—in an orphaned child, although maybe Greg’s feelings for Joan had been more about control than love.
But evidence of love was definitely there in Bobby, the child talking of the song his mother had loved—a little boy wanting to show his love by singing it for her …
‘I’m going to work!’
It was an abrupt departure—too abrupt—but he couldn’t be worried about that. He had to get off the veranda before the tears pricking at his eyes at the image of the eight-year-old singing about rainbows—singing about hope——came streaming down his cheeks …
CHAPTER TEN
TOM must be regretting it, thought Lauren. How could he not be? A man like Tom, used to experienced, sophisticated women who could probably offer him all kinds of sensual pleasure, having to concentrate solely on her!
‘School today!’
Lauren stopped staring after Tom’s departing figure and concentrated on Bobby.
‘You want to go to school?’
Bobby nodded, then added, ‘But I have to take something to share to eat, like cake. It’s last day so we play games and have a party and watermelon then we have watermelon fights.’
Lauren forgot her own problems and smiled, remembering the last day of summer term when she’d been at school. Definitely watermelon fights but there was no time to bake a cake.
‘Come on, then,’ she said to Bobby, ‘Get ready and we’ll call at the bakery on the way and get a cake.’
Bobby sped away, appearing minutes later in his new jeans and tasselled shirt and cowboy hat and, no, she didn’t have the heart to object for all she knew he’d get cake and watermelon over all of it.
‘Can I tell them about the funeral?’ he asked, as they drove down to the town.
Was this normal?
How did one know?
‘Of course,’ she told him, ‘but as we haven’t made all the arrangements, you can’t tell people a date. Just say we’ll put a notice in the paper.’
Silence, then one small hand crept onto her lap.
‘You
and Tom’ll do that? You’ll do the notice and … ?’
She stopped the car for his voice had thickened, and she put her arms around him, assuring him they’d do the lot, he had no need to worry.
‘And you’ll take me?’
‘Of course we will,’ she said, hugging him to her and sniffing madly. ‘We’ll be right there beside you all the time.’
Choosing a cake soon took precedence over gloomy thoughts of funerals, so the little boy who marched proudly through the school gates in his new gear, Lauren by his side with the chocolate cake, had all of Bobby’s old swagger, something his teacher noticed right away, greeting him warmly then sending him off to find his friends.
He raced away, then came bounding back.
‘You know we get out early on last day,’ he said to Lauren, and although they’d never got around to discussing her collecting him from school, she felt a thrill of pleasure that he’d assumed it would happen.
‘What time?’ Lauren asked his teacher, who was obviously dying to ask questions about Bobby’s future but didn’t want to intrude.
‘Any time after one,’ the teacher said, then she touched Lauren on the arm. ‘He needs normality, that little boy.’
Lauren nodded, but as she walked back to the car, doubts descended.
She and Tom were hardly normality.
And this temporary situation wasn’t normal.
Stability was normal—that’s what Bobby needed.
Could she adopt him on her own?
Fired with determination to sort things out, she drove directly to the hospital where she settled at her desk and phoned Mike.
‘What’s happening? Who’s in charge of finding a relative for Bobby? Who do I need to speak to, to regularise his temporary care with me?’
Mike provided phone numbers but offered no joy as far as relatives were concerned. As far as anyone could discover, Bobby had no relatives.
The woman at Children’s Services was harassed.
‘You’ve no idea how many families break up over Christmas,’ she muttered at Lauren. ‘He’s fine to stay with you for the moment but his name must be somewhere in the system so someone will eventually be in touch with you. There’s all kinds of official stuff to go through to make him a ward of the state, which he’ll have to be.’
New Doc in Town / Orphan Under the Christmas Tree Page 31
