He looked at her as if she had two heads, and she thought of Lucy and Jack pointing out to him that he interfered, and stifled a smile.
‘Don’t laugh at me. I’m not impulsive, I’m decisive. It’s different,’ he protested.
‘Actually, you’re both,’ she pointed out gently, reaching for her coffee. ‘Nick, you’re going to have to get used to him. Jem likes to see all sides of a thing before he’ll commit to it. If I say jump, he doesn’t ask how high, he asks why. And I know it’s an alien concept to you, but it’s the way I’ve brought him up.’
‘It’s not an alien concept,’ he disagreed, stirring his coffee with huge concentration. ‘It’s just that some things are as they are. He has to know that there isn’t always an answer, that sometimes you have to take some things and some people on trust.’
‘And you know what he’d say to that?’
‘“Why?”’ they said together, and then laughed, reaching out and linking their fingers on the table.
‘Did you get anything for Gemma’s baby?’ she asked, and he nodded.
‘Yes. I found a lovely pop-up book of farm animals. It’s not for now, obviously, but I thought he might like it later.’
‘That’s a lovely idea, and it goes really well with my present. I’ve knitted him a little jumper with fluffy sheep on the front.’
He frowned quizzically. ‘Really? You can knit?’
She laughed. ‘Of course I can knit! All women can knit.’
‘Annabel couldn’t knit.’
She felt her smile die. ‘Nick, I’m not Annabel,’ she reminded him gently. ‘And that’s not a criticism of her, it’s just a fact.’
He closed his eyes for a second and sighed. ‘I know you’re not Annabel. I’m only too aware of who you are. I just didn’t know you could knit. It’s one of the very many things I don’t know about you, that I’ve never had the chance to find out. I didn’t mean to offend you by comparing you to Annabel.’
‘I’m not offended,’ she said quickly. ‘Not at all. But we are—were—different. You need to realise that if we’re going to live together.’
‘Well, then, isn’t it a good job that I’ve already noticed?’ he said softly, and, draining his coffee, he got to his feet. ‘There’s Lucy—she said she’d try and pop in. Come on, we’ll go up with her.’
He held out his hand to help Kate up, and then tucked her hand in the crook of his arm. ‘Hello, darling,’ he said, kissing his daughter’s cheek, and she took his other arm and walked with them to the ward.
‘I’ve got something for you, from Ben. His chilli recipe. He says you can look after Kate, spoil her a little. Here.’
He grinned and tucked it in his pocket, and vowed to make it for her soon.
* * *
They left Jem with Lucy, telling him they were going to see the barn and would be back later, and twenty minutes later they’d pulled up outside and unlocked the door.
‘Welcome home,’ he said softly, pushing the door open, and she stepped inside, a little bit of her disappointed that he hadn’t carried her over the threshold. But how stupid was that? They weren’t married—far from it, and they might never be. This was just about Jem, and if she’d expected more because of his tenderness with her last night, she was deluded.
The entrance was in the single-story section on the left-hand side, between the living space and the bedrooms, and they walked through to the sitting room with its low beamed ceiling and comfortable furniture grouped around the log burner, and into the central section where a battered old oak refectory table sat in pride of place.
It would be the perfect setting for family get-togethers, she thought—all Nick’s children with their spouses and families gathered around, the air filled with their laughter. She could hear it now, as she looked around her at the great vaulted space of the dining hall. Its huge, soaring window faced the courtyard, with its flat, winding paths and low shrubs giving structure to the sheltered little garden, the wings of the house wrapped round it like arms, protecting it from the elements, and then beyond it were the fields and then the sea.
And like Nick had the first time he’d stepped inside, she felt the house welcome her, as if those arms had folded round her and gathered her to its heart.
Romantic nonsense, she thought, and yet...
‘You were right, it is calm and tranquil here,’ she said softly, feeling the tension drain out of her. ‘It’ll be so good for him. Thank you, Nick.’
And going up on tiptoe, she kissed his cheek.
For a long moment he stared at her, their eyes locked, and then he seemed to pull himself together and looked away, and they walked around the rest of the house slowly and had their first real, proper look.
‘It’s amazing,’ she said, standing on the galleried walkway above the dining hall and looking out over the courtyard to the sea in the distance. ‘Beautiful. I could stand here all day and look at that view.’
‘There are plenty of chairs you could sit on,’ Nick pointed out with a smile, and she laughed softly and turned away from the window, looking up at the vaulted ceiling with its heavy beams. The gallery spanned the space, leading to a bedroom at each end, and they were both amazing.
‘Which bedroom do you want?’
She glanced at him. ‘I don’t know. Maybe I should be downstairs with Jem. He could call me then, if he needed me in the night.’
And she’d be further from temptation.
‘It doesn’t have its own shower.’
‘There’s a bathroom almost next to it. I’m sure I’ll manage.’ She went back downstairs and round the corner to the wing with the two bedrooms and the study in it, on the other side of the entrance hall. The bedroom there which she would take was a small room in comparison to the ones upstairs, but big enough for her, and most importantly it was close to Jem’s.
‘It’ll be fine,’ she said firmly, and he nodded. She wasn’t sure, but she thought he looked a tiny bit relieved. ‘What about you?’
He gave a wry smile. ‘If there’s no competition, I’ll have the one with the sea view from the window by the bed.’
It also had a view of her bedroom window, she realised, glancing out of it and looking up at the taller section of the barn. ‘We ought to get some food in,’ she said, trying to be practical and not think about his bedroom.
‘I’ve done it. I ordered it on line last night. It’s being delivered in the morning between seven and nine.’
‘Will you be here?’
‘Yes. I thought I’d stay here tonight, start moving some things in. I ought to go into the practice tomorrow, too, and catch up on some admin. I can’t just bail on them, and Jem seems to be improving steadily. I’ll take you over there whenever you like so you can be with him, if you don’t feel ready to drive yet. Just tell me when you want to be picked up.’
‘After the shopping arrives?’
He nodded. ‘Sure. I’ll come and get you from your place once it’s here.’
‘Or I could stay here, too,’ she said rashly, and his eyes locked with hers.
‘You could.’
But their eyes remained locked, both of them trapped, like rabbits in headlights, transfixed by the prospect of being alone together in this house.
Nick dragged his eyes away. ‘Of course you could move in, start getting settled, and I could stay at home. And you could get the dog back from Chloe and Oliver. He must miss you.’
‘But I can’t really leave him alone here, he’s not used to it. He’d be better in our puppy crèche until Jem’s out of hospital, at least for the days. And I’m not sure how safe the garden is. I don’t want him getting out.’
‘There’s a fenced area—I had a look at it this morning on my way to the agents. I couldn’t get into the house, but I walked all round the garden, and the back of it’s entirely enclosed to about four feet in height with sheep netting. He’d be quite safe. He could just run around and let off steam when you’re here, and he could go to the puppy crèche when n
either of us is around. And I can come over and help you walk him.’
‘But you’ve ordered food. It should be you here, not me.’
‘I can eat with you. You have to eat, too, Kate. As Ben said, I can wait on you,’ he said with a wry smile, and she chuckled.
‘I can just see that.’
‘Let me try. You never know, I might be good at it. One of my hidden talents.’
She gave a splutter of laughter. ‘Very successfully hidden. You’ve kept it from me for thirty-four years,’ she said drily, and went back to the kitchen to acquaint herself with it.
She heard a quiet sigh behind her, and turned back to him, shocked by the sadness in his eyes. ‘Oh, Nick...’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, his voice bleak. ‘It wasn’t the way it was meant to be, was it?’
‘What?’
‘Life. Our plans.’
‘We don’t always get what we’re expecting in life,’ she said gently. ‘I always thought you’d come back from university and marry me and I’d have your children. Instead you married Annabel, and I married James, and we couldn’t have any, and you ended up with loads.’
‘Was that why you gave up midwifery? Because it hurt too much not being able to have your own?’
She smiled. ‘That and watching you and Annabel bring the children down here on holiday year after year when they were little. All the children I might have had if I’d been with you, and yet there I was with James, banging our heads against a brick wall. And then you moved back down here close to your family and got a job in Wadebridge and bought the house on Harbour Road, and I was falling over you all the time, a constant reminder of what I’d lost.’
He sighed heavily. ‘Kate, don’t. We can’t turn the clock back.’
‘No. But even if we haven’t gone home together every night, I’ve worked with you for years now in the practice. I’ve seen you every day, spent time with you, so it hasn’t all been bad,’ she pointed out gently. ‘You’ve still been part of my life. And I have Jem. You can have no idea what that’s meant to me, over the years.’
‘I can imagine. My children are infinitely precious to me, even though I haven’t always seen eye to eye with them, so you don’t have to try and explain.’
She smiled sadly, wishing that Jem had been one of those precious children, that she’d been their mother, but, as he said, they couldn’t turn the clock back and if they did, it would all be very different. And so she couldn’t wish it undone, no matter how hard it had been at times.
He came over to her, standing just inches away, and with the tip of a long forefinger he tilted her head up so she met his eyes. ‘Don’t be sad, Kate. We’ve got a chance now, if we choose to take it. Let’s not waste it.’
A chance? For them? So maybe she hadn’t misunderstood. ‘I still don’t know how good you could be at waiting on me,’ she said lightly, and he laughed.
‘Oh, I’m good,’ he said, his eyes twinkling with mischief, and she sucked in a tiny little breath and turned away, before she did something silly, like kiss him. He’d kissed her last night, but that had been in the safety of the hospital, where anyone could have come in. They were alone here, and awareness of that and of him made her tingle with nerves.
‘I’m looking forward to finding out,’ she said lightly. ‘So, are you moving in here tonight, or am I?’
‘Do you want to?’
‘Not alone. It makes me feel a bit nervous,’ she admitted. She held her breath for a second, then said, ‘We could always be grown up about it and share.’
His mouth twisted into something that could have been a smile if it hadn’t been so touched with sadness.
‘Grown-ups sleep together, Kate,’ he said softly. ‘And I’m not sure you’re ready for that yet.’
Her heart hammered against her ribcage. ‘Can’t we have a little restraint?’
‘Oh, yes. We can have a little. I just think it might take rather more than that.’
She looked away, his eyes too revealing suddenly, full of feelings that had been locked away for very many years. Her tongue flicked out and moistened her lips, and he groaned.
‘Kate, don’t,’ he whispered, his voice almost inaudible.
The air was vibrating with tension, almost solid, as if she could cut it with a knife, and it seemed to have set all around them, holding them in place, their eyes locked again.
The sound of the doorbell was shocking, dissolving the air so they could move again, and Nick walked to the door as if he was in a trance.
He opened it and looked past the man standing on the broad flagstone path. There were three cars outside. His, and two others.
Of course. Kate’s new car.
‘Delivery for Mrs Althorp?’ the man said, brandishing a clipboard and some keys, and he gave himself a mental shake and breathed in.
‘Yes—thank you. Kate?’
‘I’m here,’ she said, coming to stand beside him. ‘Is that it?’
‘The metallic grey one,’ he said, his voice sounding strained. ‘You have to sign for it.’
‘You’d better check it over,’ the man said.
It could have had square wheels, for all the attention they gave it. Kate could see nothing but the look in Nick’s eyes, he could see nothing but her tongue flicking out to lick her lips.
‘It’s fine,’ he said, and she signed the sheet with trembling fingers and the delivery driver handed her the keys.
‘Enjoy your car, then,’ he said, and drove away in the other vehicle, leaving them standing there.
‘So, will it be all right? The car?’ he asked, trying desperately for normality, and she nodded.
Not that she was really able to concentrate on it, but it was exactly what she’d wanted, top of her wish list, and she was thrilled with it. She would be thrilled with it, just the moment she could get that look in his eyes out of her head.
‘It’s wonderful. Thank you, Nick. I’ll look after it, I promise.’
‘No. I’ll look after it. I’ve bought a service package with it. It’s got the next three years of servicing paid for. All you have to do is book it in.’
Her eyes filled. He seemed to have thought of everything, and she ought to pay a bit more attention to it after all his trouble and expense. She sat in the driver’s seat, and rested her head back with a sigh.
‘All right?’
‘Lovely. Really good seat. Gosh, it’s nice to rest my head. My neck’s still a bit achy.’
He gave a short sigh and held the door for her. ‘Come on, you need to lie down, and I’m going to massage it for you,’ he said firmly, and, locking the car, he ushered her back inside and down the corridor to her bedroom.
‘We’ll need to bring bed linen,’ she said, clutching at normality.
‘Yes. What have you got on under that top?’ he asked, and she swallowed.
‘A vest top and a bra.’
‘Right. Take the top off, leave the vest top on and lie down on your back with your head at the foot of the bed,’ he instructed in a businesslike doctor’s voice, and then he covered her with her top so only her shoulders were exposed, put a pillow under her knees, knelt down on the floor by her head and slid his warm, hard hands under her shoulders, running his fingers gently but firmly up the columns of muscle each side of her spine and up into her neck.
‘Oh, that’s amazing,’ she groaned, and he said nothing, just kept on with the gentle, rhythmic movement until the tension had eased out of her neck and shoulders and she was utterly relaxed. Then he got to his feet and stood looking down at her, an odd expression in his eyes.
‘Stay there for a while, have a rest. I won’t be long.’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘Get us some milk from the Trevellyans’ farm shop, and something for supper. I’ll only be a few minutes, it’s just up the road. Try and have a sleep.’
She heard the front door close behind him, and then the sound of a car driving away, crunching on the gravel. Odd, how they hadn’t
heard the other two arrive, but, then, she’d not been able to hear anything over the pounding of her heart.
She got up and pulled her top back on, lay down the right way up with a pillow under her head, and curled on her side, staring unseeingly out of the French doors at the courtyard beyond.
There. They’d managed it—been in a bedroom, had their hands on each other, even, and survived it.
They could do this. Behave like grown-ups.
Grown-ups sleep together, Kate.
‘Not if they choose not to,’ she said out loud, and closed her eyes determinedly. Before she knew it, she’d drifted off to sleep.
* * *
He wasn’t long—just long enough to give himself some much-needed sea air and take Kate’s new car out for a spin. He drove to the Trevellyans’ with the windows open and the wind in his hair, and by the time he’d returned with the shopping, he was almost back under control.
He pottered round the kitchen, putting everything away while the kettle boiled and investigating the contents of the cupboards. It was such a blessing that the place was furnished as a holiday cottage and equipped with everything. It meant they only had to bring clothes and bedding, and they could pick them up later. Or whoever was staying would. He still wasn’t sure who it would be.
The kettle boiled, and he made a pot of tea, left it to brew and tapped on her door.
There was no reply, and when he opened the door he saw she was fast asleep on her side, her hand lying open, relaxed, the fingers loosely curled. He stood there for a few moments, watching the slow rise and fall of her chest, and as if she’d become aware of him she opened her eyes and looked up.
‘Oh. You’re back,’ she said softly.
‘I’ve made tea. It’s in the kitchen. And Mike Trevellyan sends his love.’
‘Oh, you saw him.’
‘Yes. And he’d heard a rumour about me and Jem. I told him it was true. He won’t spread it further, but I thought he ought to know. And, anyway, they’re Ben and Lucy’s neighbours.’
‘Yes, of course. So it’s out, is it?’
She sat up on the edge of the bed and ran her hands through her hair, lifting it away from her neck and letting it fall, and he felt heat slam through him.
St. Piran's: The Wedding of The Year Page 12
