‘How long are you staying?’
‘For a few days,’ Freya said. ‘They let me swap my off-duty, but I need to leave on Sunday. I’ll come back at visiting time.’
‘Did you come by train?’
‘No.’ Freya shook her head. ‘A friend drove me.’
‘Which friend?’ Alison asked, with a look in her eye that Freya couldn’t ignore.
‘A good one,’ Freya answered. ‘And that’s all I’m saying on the subject. I’ll be back this afternoon.’
* * *
And that ‘good friend’ hadn’t slept the hour away.
Richard had tried to, but he had found himself watching the distinct lack of emergencies at the casualty department at Cromayr Bay Hospital.
Oh, there was some activity—there were staff arriving for their shifts and some leaving—but not a single ambulance had pulled up.
One patient had arrived—a car had come into the forecourt and an elderly gentleman had spoken to a porter, who seemed also to man the doors. The porter had gone off and returned a few moments later with a wheelchair.
Richard had watched as they’d both helped a woman out of the front seat of the car. She’d been holding her wrist in a familiar way.
‘Colles’ fracture,’ Richard had diagnosed from a distance.
God, he’d go out of his mind with boredom here.
And it was cold. So much colder than mid-October in London that he’d sat with the heating on in the car.
And now he saw Freya, smiling and walking. She stopped and chatted to the same porter, who must also be on duty for wheelchairs and things.
She was happy here. Richard could see that.
‘Hey.’ He gave her a smile as she climbed into the warmth of the car. ‘How is she?’
‘Better than it sounded last night. If she has another bleed they’ll transfer her, though things are calm for now. I’ll go in and see her again later today.’
‘Sounds good.’
‘It does.’ Freya nodded. ‘I can’t thank you enough for this. It all seems like a bit of a false alarm now.’
‘Well, thank God it was.’
‘Did you cancel the room at the Tavern?’
‘No,’ Richard said. ‘I thought that so long as your friend’s okay we might both go there for dinner tonight. It sounds amazing.’
‘The restaurant’s new,’ Freya said as she directed him the short distance to her home. ‘I really want to see it. I hope they still do their game pie. It’s the best you’ll ever have tasted.’
‘It will be the first I’ve ever tasted,’ Richard admitted, and then he gave her thigh a squeeze. ‘And maybe we can slip upstairs to my room after.’
‘I think I like the sound of that.’ Freya smiled—and then brought them down to earth with a bump. ‘I need milk.’
‘I need sleep.’
They pulled in at a small store, but after a moment, rather than wait in the car, Richard, knowing the emptiness of her shelves in London, got out to make sure that she got things like bread and eggs too.
Yes, he was hungry.
And, no, he would not be buying condoms, Richard decided.
Another thing to add to the discussion list tonight.
Romantic dinners in Scotland, discussing his work and then sex minus a condom—he’d be asking her to move in next.
The oddest thing of all was that the thought didn’t terrify him...
He held open the door for a woman who was wheeling a pram and saw that Freya was standing behind a large gentleman, waiting to pay for her milk.
‘Did you get bread?’ he asked patiently.
‘No.’
‘Do you have butter?’
‘No.’
‘Is there anything else you need?’ Richard checked.
‘I don’t believe so.’
‘Anything else at all?’
He meant for tonight, and they both knew it.
And when he looked at her like that, when he smiled, she forgot her fears. She forgot the temporary nature of them.
‘Nothing I can think of.’ Freya smiled.
As he headed off to get bread and butter, and nothing else, he heard someone call her name.
‘Freya!’
She turned and gave a huge smile. ‘Mrs Roberts!’
‘It’s Leah,’ she reminded her, and Richard watched as Freya peered into the pram.
‘Oh, she’s beautiful!’
The baby really was. A gorgeous smiling baby, who was wide awake and looking up at her. There were certain babies that just had to be held.
‘Do you mind?’ Freya checked.
Leah laughed ‘Go ahead.’
Richard was back, so she handed him the milk to hold as she unstrapped the baby.
‘Oh, my...’ Freya said. ‘She is absolutely gorgeous.’
‘She really is,’ said Mrs Roberts, and then she glanced to Richard.
Freya remembered her manners. ‘This is Richard Lewis—he’s a friend of mine from London.’
‘It’s lovely to meet you, Richard. I’m Leah Roberts. I went through a bit of a time and...well, Freya really helped.’
‘I’m glad to hear it,’ Richard said. ‘What have you called your daughter?’
‘Freya,’ Mrs Roberts said, and then looked to Freya. ‘And, no, it wasn’t just because I like the name—though of course I do. You really helped me. You were so kind through my pregnancy. I kept wanting to talk to you, though I didn’t know how to.’
‘You did it in the end,’ Freya pointed out.
‘Yes—Norma came down to help, and I had Mrs Hunt come in for the first few weeks...’ She looked at her daughter. ‘I got to actually enjoy her. And though of course I didn’t care if it was a boy or a girl, she was a wonderful surprise.’ As Freya handed her back, Leah gazed fondly upon her daughter. ‘She’s a true blessing.’
‘Everything went well with the labour?’ Freya checked.
‘It did. Betty was wonderful, of course, but I did miss you so.’
* * *
He drove the last few minutes to her home, with Freya directing him.
‘Mine’s the blue one—though we’ll have to park a bit further up. It can be hard when there are lots of visitors.’
Richard parked, and as he climbed out the scent of the sea reached him. The sun was glistening on the water and there was an angry seagull squawking above as they walked down to her cottage.
Richard had to stoop to get in.
Her home was cold from being empty, and Mrs Hunt had closed the curtains. And yet it was gorgeous, Richard thought as they stepped in and she pulled back the lounge curtains and let in some light.
‘I’ll put the heating on,’ Freya said. ‘It’s a bit early to light a fire.’
Freya ran a vase under the tap and put the flowers on the table, in the hope of brightening it up.
‘Do you want a coffee?’ she called out.
‘No, all I want right now is bed.’
He was beat. A long day at work and a very long drive up to Scotland meant all he wanted to do was stretch out.
‘I’ll just have a shower first.’
‘You’ll have to wait for the water to warm—it will take half an hour or so.’
After turning on the tank in the airing cupboard she showed him the tiny bathroom, and then took him through to her bedroom. The curtains were already drawn closed, and as he stepped into the soft darkness of her room and saw the large bed, the thought of waiting half an hour for hot water held no appeal. So Richard started to undress.
‘Are you coming to bed?’ he asked.
‘Not yet,’ Freya said, because unlike Richard she had slept in the car. ‘I should maybe let my family know I’m here, and then I might go and...’ Her voice trailed off.
Because that was what looking at him did to her at times. Freya needed no reminders as to his beauty. All she ever had to do was turn her head. But here in the dark bedroom, with the lights off, it was not that which swayed her—more the thought of Rich
ard in her bed, and the waste of a morning spent on the phone, taking care of a hundred little jobs, when she could be with him.
‘I might just join you.’
He was already in. ‘God, your bed’s comfortable.’
‘I know,’ Freya agreed. ‘I found this mattress topper...’
She was speaking to a less than captivated audience. The bear was asleep. In her bed.
Bears could be many things. Intimidating, irresistible... She stood there, mulling it over, but couldn’t think of another adjective. She just knew that she wanted to lie with him, her bear, in her bed.
Freya set the alarm on her phone, so that she’d be up for visiting time, and undressed. She had forgotten how cold her house could get. Or maybe the goosebumps could be labelled as a sign of tiredness.
Either way, she was cold as she slipped into bed, and then she was colder still from the chill of neglected sheets against her skin.
But then Richard rolled over and wrapped her in his arms and she no longer felt cold.
* * *
She slept warm in his embrace, and struggled to wake to the sound of an alarm that was pinging somewhere, reminding Freya of where she needed to be.
She rolled onto her back and her brain scrambled to orientate.
She was home...
Alison. Visiting hours. Get up. Get dressed. Be there.
Except she was here.
Feeling his hot mouth on her breast and the sensual slow suck that had made a place low in her stomach draw tight.
It was as if he knew, for his fingers traced slow circles there, and then crept down, down, all the way down...
And then he left her breast, and as his mouth found hers his fingers worked magic.
She moaned, and he liked it. She should really reach for him, but she was feeling too selfish to move.
The alarm went off again, but neither of them cared. She was locked in the bliss of a kiss that delivered ten thousand volts and a hand that did the same.
Her hand went to the back of his head and he swallowed her throaty gasps. Freya could hear the sound of her sex, slick and wet, as he brought her to the boil. He kissed her while she came, and when he rolled atop her it didn’t feel disorientating, more like the right place to be on this earth.
As he slid, unsheathed, inside her, her whole body shivered with desire.
It had never been better for either of them. The tight and yet slippery grip of her...the absolute union of them.
He moved, but it was slowly, and he savoured the feel of each thrust and the slow draw-out followed by the faster pushing in.
She was digging her fingers into his back in an effort to hold on to her thoughts and reel them in. Because they were making love, Freya knew. They were making love.
They had done many things, but never this.
They were kissing and then pausing to look at each other. And she was in a heated frenzy of passion and emotion as he took her deeply, because a part of her wanted him to pause, while the other part wanted him never to stop.
He took her harder now, and she forgot to hold on. Her thoughts simply unravelled until there was nothing left in her mind but the shattering of them. As he shuddered he spilled himself deep inside her and she throbbed against him. The bliss of her clenching made Richard moan, and those last precious drops came to the fading twitches of her climax.
And as he lay there, spent and still inside her, Freya opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling as she found the word she had been missing before.
Irreplaceable.
There would never be another who came close to him.
Richard Lewis was irreplaceable in her heart.
And that shook her to her core.
This wasn’t some fling. It might have started as such, but now it couldn’t end without regrets.
Not any more.
Freya knew that when it ended he would be leaving with her heart, and she must not let that show.
And so she wriggled out from under him and then climbed from the bed. ‘I have to go and visit Alison.’
She really did have to go, or she’d be late for visiting time. But she knew her voice was distant, cold, detached.
‘I’ll just have a quick shower,’ Richard said, pulling back the sheet.
But Freya stopped him. ‘You don’t need to get up—my car’s outside.’
That surprised him. Richard didn’t really know why. He’d just assumed that the little purple car blocking his way belonged to a tourist—a visitor or a neighbour. It had never entered his head that it was hers.
‘My dad drives it to work once a week,’ Freya explained as she headed for the shower. ‘To keep the battery from dying.’
Richard dozed as Freya showered, and then she came back in, wearing the same grey dress she’d had on the day they had met. Now, though, underneath it, she had on a long-sleeved black top, as well as thick black tights. Her hair was up, and he saw she’d added a little lipstick as she came and sat on the bed.
‘I’ll be a couple of hours.’
‘Take your time.’
‘There’s everything you need in the kitchen. Well, there’s coffee, and your bread and things, but I’ll bring us back a fish supper. They do the best here.’
‘And there was me thinking you were finally going to cook.’
They parted with a smile and he heard her footsteps leave and then the sound of the door closing behind her.
Her father needed to drive her car rather more frequently than he currently was, Richard thought as he lay there, because it was taking her a few goes to get the engine ticking over.
Richard was fully awake.
Automatically he checked his phone, and then checked and checked again. But, as Freya had once predicted, he had no signal.
The seagull which had been calling for the last half-hour had found a friend or two, and they were all being rather vocal, yet it wasn’t that keeping him from going back to sleep.
‘To keep the battery from dying.’
Louder than the seagulls, Richard replayed Freya’s words, frowning as he mulled over them. They felt important, and yet he told himself it had just been a throwaway phrase.
He gave up on sleep and headed through the lounge and into her tiny kitchen, taking a moment to work out her rather fancy coffee machine.
As he got the milk out Richard read a note on the fridge, presumably for holidaymakers, reminding them to turn the water off at night and explaining a few nuances of the place.
He walked through to the lounge, and while, yes, it needed a helluva lot of work, it really was gorgeous.
There were books on the shelves, and little ornaments and shells dotted around. As well as that there were paintings on the wall that she had put there—not prints of some ugly old horse and cart. And there were throw rugs on the sofa.
‘To keep the battery from dying.’
Now he understood why he had stalled on those words.
This was Freya’s home.
And she was keeping it going as it awaited her return.
Richard walked through to the bedroom and opened the drapes and let in the view.
It was stunning.
Afternoon had given way to dusk and the lights from the bridge had come on. Richard found himself wondering what it must look like deep in winter.
He made another coffee and lay there, looking out but not enjoying it as he had on first sight. For he really knew her some more now.
* * *
‘Two fish suppers, please.’ Freya smiled as she placed her order. ‘And a large tub of the homemade tartar sauce.’
‘It’s good to see you back, Freya. Are you here to see Alison?’
Of course the world already knew.
‘Aye, I’ve just been in to see her—she’s looking well.’
It was just the kind of normal idle chatter that happened in this place all the time, Freya thought, and she realised she had missed it.
‘Will you be wanting pickled onions?’
; She was about to say no, even though she loved them, but perhaps they would both be eating them, Freya thought with a smile. ‘Two, please.’
As she drove up the hill to the cottage Freya felt her spirits buoyed. Their lovemaking had been blissful, and Alison had been looking brighter. And now she was simply enjoying the familiar rhythm of home.
Made all the better because Richard was here.
Yes, her mood was good.
It was a lot darker here than in London, and the clocks changing in a couple of weeks would make it darker still. But, unlike many, Freya loved winter and embraced its grey approach.
She’d said before that it was a bit early to be lighting a fire, Freya thought as she parked on her street, but there was a cold chill in the air as she got out. A fire would make the cottage so very cosy.
And, Freya thought as she turned the key in the door, it would be nice to sit by the fire with him.
The house was in darkness. She guessed that Richard must still be sleeping, so she put the supper down and got out plates, then found glasses for wine.
And to hell with it.
She lit a fire.
* * *
‘Richard?’ Freya pushed open her bedroom door. ‘Supper’s...’
Her voice trailed off as she saw that he was awake and sitting up in bed.
‘Enjoying the view?’ Freya asked as she looked out fondly to where his gaze fell.
‘Not particularly.’
She frowned at the unexpected response and looked out to the bridges. Such had been his tone that she had almost expected them somehow to have changed. For a fire to have broken out on one of them. Or some drama to be unfolding with flashing lights.
But the change was in him, in the room.
‘You never really moved to London, did you?’
She frowned at his question, and at the slightly hoarse note in his usually smooth voice.
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘I mean,’ he snapped, ‘that you’ve never really left here.’
‘Of course I have.’
‘Is the house up for sale?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Freya, why didn’t you bring your coffee machine down to London?’
It was the oddest question, and she frowned as she gave a simple answer. ‘Because I couldn’t fit it in my dad’s car.’
The Midwife's One-Night Fling Page 10
