by Holly Martin
She frowned slightly. ‘I have no idea what this is. We’re friends who have sex, aren’t we?’
His heart sank that she believed that. He’d thought that he could show her his feelings with his actions rather than his words. He’d thought dropping everything to travel halfway across the world to help her with a pudding parade would show her how much she meant to him.
‘Skye, you are everything.’
She smiled sadly. ‘God, I wish that was true.’
He opened his mouth to speak and she stopped him with a kiss. ‘Just make love to me,’ she whispered against his lips.
Well he could certainly do that. He moved his hands down to her hips, pulling her tighter against him as he moved inside her deeper. He kissed her, trailed his hands back up to her breasts and felt her breath hitch, sensing the change in her as she gripped his shoulders. As she fell apart in his hands, her head falling back as she cried out his name, he kissed her throat as he soared over the edge himself. His feelings for her thundered through him and he vowed that before these two weeks were up, he would tell her how he really felt.
Skye was sitting outside the café looking out over Emerald Cove. The sea was a sparkling shamrock green today, living up to its name perfectly.
She had spent the morning making new flavours of ice creams ready for the parade. She’d experimented with adding some more summery varieties to the menu: lychee, blueberry, and a lovely mix of pineapple and banana. As the parade was about different puddings she wanted to experiment with making some real pudding-flavoured ice cream and, inspired by her conversation with Jesse the day before, she wanted to try crème-brûlée, Victoria-sponge and Eton-mess ice cream, coupled with cherry-pie, sherry-trifle and apple-crumble flavours. But she’d do that another day.
Now she was waiting outside for Jesse to meet her so they could go to the doctor’s, whiling away the time reading through Walter’s notebook.
‘Good morning,’ Sylvia said, suddenly appearing with Snowflake by her side. ‘Mind if I join you?’
‘Please do,’ Skye said.
Sylvia sat down and Snowflake flopped at her feet. ‘So how was the big romantic reunion?’
Skye laughed. ‘There’s no beating around the bush with you, is there?’
‘Honey, I’m eighty-three, there’s no time to beat around the bush when you get to my time in life. It’s better to just ask the things you really want to ask.’
Skye shook her head with a smile. ‘I’m sure you have enough inspiration for your stories without using my life.’
‘Oh come on, I’m not asking for a blow-by-blow. Just give an old lady something to get her teeth into. Were there fireworks?’
‘There were definitely those.’
Skye frowned slightly as she thought about the conversations she’d had with Jesse in the last few days. Was that really all that had been between them, just fireworks? He’d said it was way more than that but she wasn’t sure if they would ever have a proper relationship beyond what they had now.
‘Oh no, what was that face for? I bet Jesse was tired after the long flight from Canada, many men underperform when they’re tired.’
Skye couldn’t help but laugh again. ‘There was no underperforming. Everything was just fine in that department. It’s just… I guess nothing lasts forever.’
‘Well, sex certainly doesn’t. It never lasts as long as you want it to, does it?’
Skye smiled. Sex with Jesse had always been completely perfect, as if they were made for each other.
‘I wasn’t talking about sex.’
‘Oh no, are you and Jesse having problems?’
‘You mean, aside from the divorce?’
Sylvia waved it away as if it were an unimportant detail. ‘I see the way he looks at you. That boy loves you.’
Skye sighed. She really didn’t want to have this conversation. She wasn’t ready to face the possibility of her relationship with Jesse actually coming to an end.
‘You listen to me. As an expert on love and men and as someone who has been married six times in my life, some people drift through life never having met their soul mate, and some lose them far too soon. So when you find them, like you have, you hold onto them with both hands.’
‘It takes two people to hold onto a relationship though, Sylvia,’ Skye said. ‘Otherwise, me wrapping my body around one of his legs to prevent him from leaving just gets a bit awkward and needy.’
‘I’d recommend handcuffing him to the bed, much more effective. Plus, if he likes things a bit kinky, that will tick that box for him.’
Skye laughed.
‘In all seriousness, it’s not just you and him you have to think about,’ Sylvia said.
‘I know,’ Skye said, quietly.
‘That girl has had too many people let her down in her life for it to happen again,’ Sylvia said.
‘To be fair, just one person has let her down. Jesse has done an amazing job raising Bea by himself.’
‘Oh, I didn’t mean to imply he hadn’t. You can tell what a wonderful dad he is by just chatting to Bea.’
‘He is,’ Skye said loyally. ‘But no matter how much I want to be there for Bea, that is not a good enough reason to stay together. If we are going to commit to forever, we have to love each other, that all-consuming kind of love, and for Jesse it isn’t that. I think what we have is actually hurting Bea more than if we had properly split up. There is no closure, there is no moving on, for any of us.’
Sylvia nodded. ‘You’re right. If Jesse genuinely doesn’t love you then there is no point. But that’s not the case here and if you love him then I wouldn’t give up on him so easily. You need to tell him you love him.’
Skye knew she had to tell him how she felt and she also needed to tell him that their relationship had to change. She didn’t necessarily need him to move here, that was a big step and there was Bea to think of too, but she needed him to commit to a proper relationship, one where he loved her too. They could face a long-distance relationship and months of not seeing each other as long as they loved each other and could be together properly out in the open. But in her heart she knew she wasn’t going to get what she wanted out of this. Bea had told him Skye loved him and in the subsequent row he had shut down any possibility of them ever getting married again. Skye had offered him a job and he hadn’t expressed any interest in taking it up. So she would tell him that she loved him and that she wanted things to change, give him the chance to fight for her, to fight for them, but if he didn’t want that then she needed to let him go. Her heart hurt at the thought of not seeing either him or Bea again but she had to accept that her hopes and dreams of ever rekindling their relationship were probably never going to happen.
Skye looked at Sylvia’s face, hopeful of some big romantic happy-ever-after kind of story. She wasn’t going to get what she wanted either.
‘I think you might want to have this conversation with Jesse,’ Skye said.
‘Oh I will, believe me,’ Sylvia said.
Skye watched her and wondered why she was getting so involved. Was this just a side effect of Sylvia spending her life people-watching and writing about people’s love lives? She decided to change the subject. She noticed the bag Sylvia was carrying, which came from the local fudge shop.
‘Have you been treating yourself to something nice?’
Sylvia studied her for a moment and then clearly decided to let the subject drop. ‘Passion-fruit fudge. It’s actually for Bea. We’re going to have a rematch at chess. I promised her if she won, I’d buy her some fudge. She’s definitely going to win so thought I might as well get this now.’
Skye laughed. ‘She is very good at chess. I’ll tell her to go easy on you.’
‘Oh, no. Don’t do that. It’s much more fun to see her win. I used to date a grandmaster at chess so I picked up a few things. I’m not grandmaster status, nowhere near, but I am good. And to see Bea’s little mind whirring away, calculating both our moves three or four steps ahead, workin
g out the best strategy, well it’s something wonderful to see.’
Skye smiled that someone else had not only spotted Bea’s smarts but appreciated them. ‘Well this is a game I’m going to have to watch.’
‘And what do you have there?’ Sylvia asked, nodding to the leather notebook Skye was holding.
‘Oh, this is Walter’s old recipes. It looks like he wrote down everything he used to make in the café: starters, main courses, desserts.’ Skye flicked through the pages carefully, aware that some of them were loose and might come tumbling out. ‘Kendra gave it to me. Walter’s famous rhubarb pie used to be made in her bakery, so somehow his recipe book ended up there too. I’ve had a quick flick through and in between the recipes are little personal notes, almost like a diary. I think this might make fascinating reading.’
‘Ah, well, if it’s a diary, maybe you shouldn’t read it. I’m sure Walter wouldn’t want those kinds of things made public,’ Sylvia said, awkwardly.
‘What kind of things?’ Skye asked.
‘Well, his thoughts, his feelings.’
‘But whatever happened to Walter that he wrote about in these pages was sixty or seventy years ago. It’s not going to affect anyone now.’
‘I wouldn’t like the idea of anyone reading things I’d written after I’d died,’ Sylvia said.
‘Sylvia, you’re a world-famous author. Thousands of people will still be reading what you’ve written in all your hundreds of books long after you’re gone. And based on the last sexy book of yours I read, I don’t think any of your fans would be shocked by the stuff you might write in a personal diary. In fact, the life you’ve led would make a wonderfully interesting book.’
‘That is true. I think some of my stories are fairly tame compared to my real life. I just feel that, as Walter isn’t here to give his permission, it’s not exactly fair to read some of that stuff.’
‘Are you seriously telling me that if you found a seventy-year-old diary of someone, you wouldn’t read it? You? You’re one of the nosiest people I know.’
‘Of course I would be tempted but I’d respect their privacy,’ Sylvia said primly. Skye didn’t believe her for one moment. This was so not like Sylvia. She’d kind of expected Sylvia to want to read it too, especially if it had been written in the time Sylvia had been on the island.
Skye had kept a diary briefly when she had been married to Oliver. A nurse had encouraged her to keep one after her first miscarriage, to keep a journal of her feelings, and she had done that the whole time she had been together with Oliver, recording how she felt about each miscarriage. It was something she never looked back at now, but how would she feel if she died and someone with no connection to her at all found her diary and read all her personal thoughts and feelings during that difficult time? It made her cringe just thinking about it. Maybe Sylvia had a point.
Skye looked down at the leather diary. It felt like she’d been given a wonderful toy to unwrap and then told she couldn’t play with it. She’d been bursting with excitement to get back to her cottage later and curl up and read Walter’s meandering thoughts.
‘OK, I’m going to keep this for the recipes, especially for the famous rhubarb pie so we can honour Walter in the right way. And I will try my hardest not to read any of the personal stuff while I’m looking at the recipes.’
Sylvia nodded, reluctantly. ‘OK. I’m sure Walter would appreciate your discretion if you did read any of it. He was a very private man.’
Skye sighed; hearing that made her want to read it even less. She would have to resist. The most important thing was that she now had the recipe for the rhubarb pie, the jewel in the crown for the pudding parade, she didn’t need to read the rest. She’d have to keep reminding herself of that.
Chapter Eleven
Dr Lomax ushered Skye and Jesse into her office almost as soon as they’d arrived. She sat down opposite them and fixed Skye with a kindly smile that was genuine and warm.
‘So, I’m sure you’re aware that I saw Clover and Angel yesterday and we talked a lot about your miscarriages. Skye, I’m so sorry you went through that. Your records from when you weren’t on the island are patchy at best and I wasn’t aware of it, you’ve never said.’
‘It wasn’t something I wanted to talk about.’
Dr Lomax studied her for a moment. ‘Skye, having a miscarriage is very common. About one in four pregnancies sadly end in miscarriage and I can’t stress this enough, it would be very very unlikely to be because of anything you did or didn’t do. You can’t blame yourself.’
‘I know that’s what you’re supposed to say, as a doctor, but it’s hard to believe when I had three of them.’
‘It’s rare to have recurring miscarriages and it’s not that common that someone your age would have them but it does happen. And I know, based on your medical history when you were younger, that you had very irregular periods and that can be a cause of miscarriages. But sometimes there is just no reason at all, which I know is upsetting, but sometimes the baby’s cells just don’t join up properly and it’s no one’s fault.’
Skye looked at Jesse and smiled slightly, remembering his beautiful description of it a few nights before.
‘I had a miscarriage myself,’ Dr Lomax said.
‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ Skye said.
‘It was a long time ago and I had four healthy children after that. But when I became pregnant for the first time, as a doctor I knew all the medical advice given to pregnant mums. I ate the right foods, took the right vitamins and supplements, I did everything right. My ex-husband thought I was over the top but I wasn’t going to take any chances with my baby. Four weeks after I found out I was pregnant I lost it. I do know how you feel, Skye, and believe me when I say this wasn’t your fault.’
Skye stared at her. As awful as it sounded, hearing that Dr Lomax had miscarried did make her feel a tiny bit better. If someone who was medically trained and knew more about the human body and pregnancies than Skye would ever know could lose a baby, then it showed it could happen to anyone.
‘I wanted to have a little chat about your miscarriages and this new study that is taking place at St Mary’s hospital just the other side of the bridge over on the mainland,’ Dr Lomax said. ‘The study is looking at recurring miscarriages and trying to find why they happen and possible treatments. There is no reason to be worried there is anything wrong, but for me, you having three miscarriages in such a short span of time, I feel like it’s worth a deeper look to see possible reasons why it might have happened. And with this new study that’s taking place, I think you might be a good candidate for the research they are doing.’
Skye nodded, although inside she wanted to run away and hide. Only concern for Clover and her baby kept her glued to the chair.
‘Now, can you briefly describe the miscarriages to me?’ Dr Lomax said. ‘Your symptoms, what you went through.’
Skye stared at a tiny hole in her shorts. She really didn’t want to relive all of that again, but she would, if it helped Clover. She explained what she’d gone through and throughout the whole thing Jesse was stroking her back soothingly. It gave her strength, knowing he was here with her.
‘And were you tested at all after your miscarriages?’ Dr Lomax asked.
‘No, we didn’t even go to the hospital after the second and third time,’ Skye said. Oliver hadn’t seen the point but, looking back now, she realised how crappy that was.
‘That’s a shame, they might have been able to do some of these tests after your third miscarriage to rule out any other problems with you or the father. The doctors would also have liked to see the pregnancy cells that you passed, because they can tell a lot from those. And it’s always a good idea to see a doctor after losing a baby anyway to make sure there are no problems or infections caused by the miscarriage. There is still so much we don’t understand about miscarriages and sometimes a woman will lose her baby and there appears to be no reason why. But we understand a lot more now than we did five years
ago. A recent study, for example, showed that the cause of miscarriages could have significant links to the father of the baby and the quality of the sperm rather than it being something wrong with the mother.’ Dr Lomax eyed Jesse apologetically.
‘I wasn’t the father of Skye’s babies sadly,’ Jesse said. ‘If she’d been with me at that time, I would damn well have had more respect for her body than her ex-husband did and wouldn’t have been using her as a baby-making machine.’
Skye stared at Jesse. Going through a miscarriage with him would have been so different to what she’d gone through when she had been married to Oliver. He would have been supportive and kind.
‘I apologise. You two have been together for so long that I wasn’t sure if you were the father,’ Dr Lomax said. ‘But you’ve also made a really good point: trying for a baby so soon after losing one could be another reason why you lost the next one. Skye, if you’d had an infection which caused the miscarriage you might still have had that when you got pregnant again.’
‘So it could have been something as simple as an infection and that might not affect me at all now?’ Skye said.
‘Yes absolutely, and there might not have been any reason at all, as I’ve said. Hopefully this study can give us some answers. Although it might not pinpoint any reason at all, which actually we’d consider a good thing. If that’s the case we would see no reason why you couldn’t go on to have a healthy pregnancy. Are you two trying for a baby right now?’
Skye wanted to explain that they didn’t have that kind of relationship – that Jesse was here purely as a friend, nothing more – but Jesse took her hand, stalling all words in her mouth.
‘Not right now,’ he said.
She looked at him in confusion. ‘Not ever’ would be a more accurate reply.
‘Skye, you’re still young, I certainly wouldn’t let what happened in the past put you off trying again,’ Dr Lomax said.
‘That’s what I said,’ Jesse said. ‘If having children is important to her, then she shouldn’t give up on that.’