by Susan Napier
His arms tightened across her back. ‘Foolish woman,’ he chided fiercely. ‘Your getting pregnant changed only the timing of my proposal. I’d already been rehearsing one for weeks, trying to think of a way to phrase it so that you wouldn’t reject me for trying to rush you into something you weren’t ready for. I knew that sometimes your cautious soul worried everything was happening too fast.’
‘So…you weren’t sorry?’
‘Sorry? I was glad. I loved the idea of your having my baby. I loved seeing your pregnancy grow and I loved Liam. Even though we had him for such a short time, and through all the pain and grief, I never regretted for one moment that we had had him to add to the sum of our love.’
That brought on another tormenting doubt. ‘I just don’t know if…I know how much you want a family, but I don’t know if I can ever risk having another baby—going through that kind of loss again,’ she blurted.
He cupped her face and kissed the agony from her brow. ‘We have each other. That’s what matters most to me. The giver, not the gift, remember?’
They lingered a little longer amongst the poignant memories of their beloved son and then Ryan led Nina by the hand to the master bedroom next door where the wardrobes were still divided into his and hers, crammed with all the clothes she had left behind.
‘To have and to hold, Nina,’ Ryan said thickly as they lay down on the wide bed and cuddled together in sweet, passionless intimacy, talking in low voices, reminiscing, crying, laughing. When Ryan finally glanced at his watch, he was startled to see how the time had slipped away.
‘Teresa will have made and dumped out umpteen cups of coffee by now,’ he said, urging Nina up. ‘And I have something to show you.’ He looked briefly uncertain. ‘That’s if…I assume by the number of bags that you’re not just here for the weekend?’
‘I’ve closed up the cottage,’ she said huskily. ‘George is extremely miffed with me, but Ray was all for it. He said he could manage quite well on his own.’ She had been a little hurt by the cavalier way the old man had treated her departure.
Ryan chuckled. ‘That’s because with what he’s stinging me on the sale, he can afford to employ a full-time housekeeper to boss around for the rest of his life.’
‘You’re buying the house in Puriri Bay?’ Nina was stunned.
‘Actually, you’re buying it. I was planning to put the deed in your name. I want you to know that your magical isle is there whenever you need it.’
Nina felt a flash of fear. ‘You think this might happen to me again?’
He took her hands in a reassuring grip. ‘No. From what I’ve read—and Dave Freeman has told me—dissociative amnesia is rarely repeated. It’s an isolated episode, like an accident, complete in itself.’
‘I’m going to see a doctor,’ she announced as they went back down the stairs. ‘Just to make sure.’
‘If that’s what you want—’ Ryan broke off at the sound of a high-pitched squeaking, and suddenly a diminutive, long-haired Jack Russell puppy came slipping and sliding out the door to the kitchen across the black-and-white tiles, a black sock dangling from its mouth.
‘Come back here, you little bandit!’ Teresa Robson’s large bulk bobbed into sight as Nina captured the furry fugitive and lifted him up gently in her cupped hands. ‘Oh, so you found her, then, Mr Flint. Lovely to have you back again, Mrs Flint! And aren’t you looking a picture!’ she said, beaming, as if Nina had just arrived back from a successful weekend shopping trip.
Nina, aware of her blotchy, tear-swollen face, pillow-ruffled hair and crumpled clothes, smiled ruefully back. ‘Nice to see you, too, Teresa. And who’s this?’ Her gaze moved from the tiny puppy in her hands, who was trying to lick her salty chin, to Ryan’s sheepish face.
‘Ah…I only bought him yesterday. He hasn’t got a name yet,’ he admitted. ‘I thought you might like to think of one,’ he said, and her heart melted a little more.
‘How about Bandit?’ she suggested, gently removing the sock and handing it to the housekeeper, slipping easily back into the old routine. ‘Could we have that coffee Ryan asked for in the lounge, Teresa, if it hasn’t gone cold?’
‘I’ll have it there in a tick…and some scones I’ve just whipped up. And let me take the little one back. I think he’s overdue for a purposeful visit to the garden!’
‘Is that what you wanted to show me?’ Nina asked Ryan as the incongruous pair vanished back into the kitchen.
‘Well, one of the things,’ he said mysteriously, and led her out past the pool and up the wrought-iron staircase to her studio.
‘What on earth…?’ She walked into the formerly bland room and stared around her in amazement at the drop cloths and pencil drafting on all four walls and ceiling. Billowing clouds were waiting to be filled in on the graduated wash of blue sky that was beginning to stretch over the upper walls and ceiling. On the lower half of the walls, painting had only just begun on a small patch of the stunningly realistic, wind-ruffled sea.
‘I thought…since you found it so inspirational to be painting on an island…that, well, you might like to feel that your studio was your private island, too. Not as magical, perhaps, but still a place for your creative imagination to soar free,’ Ryan explained with endearing diffidence. ‘Of course, if you don’t like it, we can easily have it painted over again,’ he added hastily.
Nina was revolving slowly and now she stopped, facing him, her eyes misting again, but this time with serene faith in her future with this wonderfully thoughtful, insightful man.
‘I don’t like it—I love it,’ she said softly. ‘But that’s because of the giver, darling, not the gift.’ And she felt in her pocket for his silver lighter and handed it to him as she had handed him her heart: his cherished matched set.
CHAPTER TEN
NINA placed the sheaf of flowers on the bright square of neatly clipped grass and rose to her feet, her eyes lingering on the gold letters etched into the polished granite slab.
Liam Robert Flint
Aged 12 months
Beloved son
She smiled sadly. He would have been ten years old today. She turned and walked through the sleepy cemetery next to the small wooden church in which she and Ryan had been married.
As she opened the low gate in the old-fashioned white picket fence, she saw an overweight Jack Russell terrier come scooting around from the back of the church, hotly pursued by a laughing boy and girl, a tall man jogging with loose-limbed grace up the rear.
‘Daddy says we can sail to the island tomorrow and stay for the whole weekend at the bach! And Grampa Ray is going to tell me how to catch a big, man-eating shark!’ shouted the smaller of the two children, a dainty, mop-topped little girl in a frilly pink dress and grass-stained white shoes. She skipped to a screeching halt, almost tripping over the wheezing dog, who had dropped the slobbery stick he was carrying at Nina’s feet.
‘Is he, darling?’ Nina said, straightening her daughter’s hopelessly twisted dress, now covered with biddy-bids. ‘And what are you going to do, Tony?’
The skinny, dark-haired six-year-old looked up at her with shiny green eyes, his sturdy chin jutting. ‘I’m going to paint a whale for Daddy’s office,’ he said with the dignity of one who had several works pinned up in that august establishment. Dignity was soon forgotten in the desire to score over a mere five-year-old. ‘A whale is way bigger than a shark, you know, Sara.’
The little girl poked her tongue out at him in answer.
‘It took me a while to find them,’ their father said, his blue eyes warm with love as they studied Nina’s tranquil face, his blue-black hair—now liberally flecked with what he liked to call distinguished grey—tousled by his run. ‘The vicar had them pulling weeds in his garden—or in Bandit’s case, digging a hole to China!’
‘What do you and Daddy like doing best on Shearwater Island, Mummy?’ Sara asked curiously.
Nina caught the wicked gleam in Ryan’s eyes as they glanced at each other over the top of
Sara’s innocent head, and they both burst out laughing.
And despite their children’s gleeful pestering, refused to explain what was so funny.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-4583-3
SECRET SEDUCTION
First North American Publication 2000.
Copyright © 2000 by Susan Napier.
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
® and TM are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.
Visit us at www.eHarlequin.com
