She’d jumped at the idea of the playroom, and according to her it was always a question of keeping out of his hair and giving him his space, but was that simply because she herself had needed her own space? Saying it was for him, when really it was for her?
Maybe he should be feeling rejected. Maybe he’d taken too much for granted, assumed that they’d want him in their life as much as he’d finally realised he wanted them in his? Was she just protecting the children? He could understand that, but it didn’t surely mean they couldn’t still carry on as they had before? Did they have to lose everything they’d had in order to protect the children?
He had no idea, but he knew he couldn’t solve this on his own. They should be talking. Properly talking, so they both knew where they were coming from.
Except not now. She needed time to find out how she really felt, something she obviously felt she hadn’t been able to do while she was still living with him and had no easy options, and maybe he did, too, so now probably wasn’t the best time to tackle it. No, if that was what she wanted, he’d go along with it and wait, give her the time she’d asked for.
It was hardly going to kill him.
* * *
It didn’t feel like home.
It should, because nothing about it had really changed, but in a weird way it was completely different. It reminded her of when she’d gone home from uni and her father’s wife—not her stepmother, she could never bring herself to think of her as that—had gone through the house from end to end and eradicated all that was familiar.
Which was ridiculous, because everything about the bits that had been changed—the carpets, the colour of the walls, the kitchen units and appliances—all of it had been her choice.
And yet it felt like a rental. An inadequate rental.
It didn’t help that the children were so unhappy, either. She’d thought they’d be pleased, but Evie had taken ages to settle in her cot, and Maisie had cried herself to sleep because she missed Nick.
They’d had a special bond since he’d rescued her from the sea, and she’d wrenched them apart without giving the children time to say goodbye. That had probably been unfair, but she’d been unable to do it without breaking down, and anyway he’d gone to work that morning before she’d had the call from the plumber to say he was going in, so she hadn’t really had a chance.
She got out of bed in the dark and stood at the open window, listening to the quiet sound of the sea, the barking of a dog, the hoot of an owl. Was it the one she’d heard from his house? Possibly. He wasn’t far away. A car drove past slowly, and she wondered hopefully if it was Nick, but it wasn’t.
She got back into bed and tried not to think about him, but it was impossible. She could feel his arms around her, his mouth on her, their bodies so in tune. Hear his voice so clearly as he’d reached out to her just yesterday afternoon.
Come to bed with me, Ellie...
And she’d turned him down, so it wouldn’t hurt, and now she regretted it because they could have had that one last bitter-sweet time together before the dream was over.
Because it couldn’t be real. She’d only met him at the end of March, and it was still only June. How could it be real? That sort of thing only happened in books.
No, it was gratitude, and honeymoon sex. A dangerous combination.
Time to get back to reality, however stark it was.
* * *
Nick stuck it out for two weeks before he cracked.
In that fortnight, he went through the house and cleaned it to within an inch of its life. Not that it needed it, because she’d pretty much kept it clean, but he pulled out all the furniture and found a toy and a T-shirt of Maisie’s with unicorns on the front that made him want to cry.
She loved her unicorn T-shirt so much...
And then he went into the playroom, but it was too sad and empty, barren now without the clutter of multicoloured plastic toys that had filled it until so recently, so that weekend he found the shelving unit he’d brought from the house in Bath, rebuilt it in the playroom and then tackled the stack of boxes one by one, starting with the stuff from his old house, which he’d never had time to deal with.
He found a few things worth keeping, but all the rest he took to the dump or charity shops. Most of it meant nothing, or at least nothing he wanted to remember. He didn’t need mementos of a broken marriage, and this was long overdue.
And then the following weekend he tackled Sam’s possessions, and it tore him apart.
Or maybe he was already torn apart and it just set his emotions free.
He found all sorts of things—a postcard of the seaside town they’d visited the last time he and Sam had gone to the beach, with a photograph of him and Sam on the sand, and a half-eaten stick of peppermint rock, bright pink on the outside, white inside with the name of the town running down the core in bright pink letters. They’d had an amazing day. He’d lifted Sam out of his wheelchair and dug a hole in the sand and propped him up in it so he could be comfortable on the beach, and he’d buried his legs, just like the children had buried him in the sand.
And Sam had laughed until the tears had run down his face.
They’d stayed there until he was too cold, and then they’d gone and found a stall selling rock, and he’d unwrapped it for Sam and he’d sucked the end of it and said it was the best thing he’d ever tasted.
Sam had insisted on keeping it, smelling it every now and then to remind him of that day. Did it still smell?
He lifted it out of the box and unwrapped the end carefully, peeling the Cellophane away from the sticky sweet, and he sniffed it and smiled. It did. Only faintly now, but enough to remind him, and he closed the Cellophane wrapper and laid it gently back in the box next to the photograph and the postcard, and opened another box.
Photos in this one, lots of them, including a photo of them taken after his accident, in matching wheelchairs.
And the last photo of Sam, with Rufus lying by his side, shortly before he died.
The image blurred, and he blinked and swiped his cheeks with the back of his hand, laid the photo back in the box and closed the lid.
So many memories, so many happy times.
And they had been happy. It wasn’t all about the sad stuff. He’d forgotten how good it was, how much fun they’d had. It had taken him all this time to realise it, but he’d been happy with Sam, and Sam had been happy, too, and despite all the problems he’d loved Sam with all his heart and wouldn’t have changed a thing. Why had he never realised this before?
He packed it all away again. He’d go through it later with his family, when they were ready, because he knew it would be good for them to do it, but not yet. They weren’t ready yet, but he had been, and he’d seen enough for now.
Enough to know that Ellie was wrong about him. It wasn’t about lame ducks, it was about unconditional love, the love he’d felt for Sam, for his sisters, for his parents. The love he felt for her and her children, and he needed to tell her that.
He looked at his watch.
Midday. Would she be at home? He knew David was up this weekend, he’d heard her mention it in the staff room. Not that she’d told him. They were walking carefully round each other, treading on eggshells, and the atmosphere between them was strained to say the least.
Time to change that, to clear the air if nothing else.
He’d given her long enough.
* * *
She ought to make herself some lunch. She couldn’t really be bothered, but it might make a change from moping around the house and wallowing in self-pity.
She went into her new kitchen and looked at the fridge. It was blank, because she’d left the pictures behind.
Had he thrown them out? He didn’t need to, they weren’t that precious. The children painted things at nursery all the time. She’d soon get more. But she could still see him
laying his hand over Evie’s handprint, see the look on his face, that touch of sorrow.
He should have been a father...
She pulled out cheese and butter, found a couple of slices of bread and made a cheese sandwich, but it reminded her of the beach, the day that Maisie had nearly drowned.
If he hadn’t been there...
There was a knock on the door, and she put the sandwich down and went to open it.
‘Nick?’
‘Can we talk?’
She searched his eyes, serious but determined, and she shrugged and stepped back, letting him in.
‘Coffee?’
‘No. I want to take you somewhere. I’ve got something to show you, something that might solve your housing crisis.’
She studied him, but he was giving nothing away. ‘Really? Because I went and looked at a house this morning and it was awful. So where is this house? Who’s it on the market with?’
‘It isn’t at the moment, although it was. It’s word of mouth.’
‘Oh. Right.’ Now she was intrigued, but only vaguely, because having him here in her house made her realise that all she needed was him, and she didn’t know how to start that conversation.
‘Shall we go?’
‘Um—yes, OK. Is it far away? Are we driving?’
‘No, I thought we could walk.’
‘OK.’ She picked up her keys, checked the windows were shut and set the alarm, closing the door behind her. ‘So where are we going?’
‘Just down here.’
They turned into Jacob’s Lane, and her feet slowed to a halt.
‘Nick...’
He turned to face her, his eyes more open and honest than she’d ever seen them.
‘Hear me out, Ellie. We need to talk. There’s so much we’ve left unsaid, so much we should have opened up about. You owe us that much. I owe us that much.’
She hesitated, but his gaze didn’t waver, his eyes fixed on hers, so transparent now. She could read the love in them, read the hurt, read the willingness to listen. And so she nodded and went with him.
He opened the front door and ushered her in, closing it softly behind her, and Rufus ran to her, tail wiggling furiously.
‘Hello, sweetie,’ she said, crouching down and hugging him, but Nick was waiting.
‘Come with me,’ he said, and then he took her by the hand and led her through towards the playroom.
No, it wasn’t the playroom, she couldn’t call it that—and anyway, he went straight past it, down to the end, to his room. What was he doing?
‘So, this is the master bedroom suite,’ he said, and the penny dropped. ‘It has plenty of storage, and a walk-in shower big enough for two.’
She remembered that only too well.
He opened the patio door and beckoned her out. ‘It leads out into the garden, which I understand from a friend has sunshine and shade in some part or another all day long. It’s totally enclosed, so it’s child-and dog-friendly, it’s got enough room for them to run about, corners for den building, and yet it’s manageable. There’s room over there for a new garage, so the existing garage could be turned into a playroom or games room. It needs a bigger paved area for family seating, but that could be done,’ he added, and led her back inside.
‘This is the second bedroom, with two more of very similar size, and a family bathroom here, which ideally could be refitted. And this is a very useful utility room with space for everything you might need, and a door to the garden.’
She shook her head and followed him, knowing exactly what he was up to but hearing him out because, as he’d pointed out, they owed each other that.
‘Right, the kitchen. The proper dining table at the moment is in the hall, but there’s room to extend the kitchen forward to make a bigger kitchen dining room, and then up here is the sitting room. It could do with updating. A good friend suggested New England meets industrial chic might work quite well.’
He turned and met her eyes as they got to the top of the stairs, and his smile was gentle.
‘Am I a good friend?’ she asked, a lump in her throat, and he nodded.
‘I think so. Don’t you?’
She looked up at the ceiling, blinking hard. ‘Nick, what are you getting at? I need to know.’
‘You do. Sit down. This could take a while.’
He reached for a box, a small cardboard box with a lid, and he sat beside her, took the lid off and handed her a photograph.
‘Who’s this?’
‘Samuel. Here’s another one of both of us, taken on the same day. It was the last time we ever went to the beach together. It must have been about five or six years ago. We had a wonderful day. We laughed the whole time, and I treasure that memory.’
She stared at the photo of him and his brother, so alike in many ways and yet so different.
‘Here’s another one. This is after my accident—I had a wheelchair for a while, so for that time we were the same, Sam and I. He teased me mercilessly about my incompetence with it, but his was electric so it was easier for him.’
He was smiling, his face an echo of happy memories, and he took the photos back from her and handed her another one, his smile fading. ‘This was just before he died, about eighteen months ago, with Rufus.’
‘Gosh, he looks so different.’ She traced her finger over his face, ravaged by illness, his eyes vacant now, one hand lying over his faithful dog.
Her eyes welled with tears, and she handed it back and looked away, sucking in a breath.
‘You don’t need to cry for him, Ellie. It was a happy release, and we’ve all shed enough tears. Rufus cried for weeks, and so did we, me and my parents and my sisters, but that’s over now. It’s time to remember the good things, and there were so many.’
‘I thought you resented him?’
He nodded. ‘So did I. I’ve spent years thinking he was a burden, feeling resentful, but actually I just felt guilty because I was all right and he wasn’t. Looking back on it, we were happy, Sam and I. We had a good childhood, although it was very different to what it would have been. But it didn’t cost me my marriage. My marriage was a mistake, based on a whole lot of assumptions about how much I could ask of a woman who really had no idea what she was taking on.’
‘In what way?’
He shrugged. ‘My commitment to Sam, to my parents. My inability to give her the children she wanted without going through the process of IVF, which she really didn’t want to do. It wasn’t fair to expect Rachel to accept all that, but it did point up what was missing between us. We didn’t love each other unconditionally. If we had, we might have made it, and I regret that, but it wasn’t Sam’s fault, it was mine.
‘I thought I’d given up a lot to be with Sam, but actually I didn’t give up anything worth having because my marriage was already broken. Sharing my time with him, caring for him, being with him taught me a lot about myself, gave me far more back than I gave him, and it hasn’t held me back in any way. I’ve done what I wanted to, achieved what I set out to achieve, and I’m a good doctor, a fairly decent human being, I think, and I’m where I want to be. Or I was, until I met you, and then it all changed.’
‘Changed?’
She searched his eyes, and he smiled tenderly.
‘Yes, it changed. It was like opening a window on a part of me I hadn’t known existed, and letting in the sunshine. I’d never dared to imagine living in a family, not after Rachel pulled the plug on our IVF plans. I’d put it all aside, and I thought I’d accepted it, but suddenly there you were with your beautiful little children, and I realised what I’d been missing. All that warmth and joy that I hadn’t appreciated when I was young suddenly made sense.’
‘So that was the draw?’ she asked, feeling hollowed out inside to know that it was only the children, but he shook his head fiercely.
‘
No! No, that wasn’t the draw, you were. You, with your warmth and kindness and sense of mischief, your humour, your incredible sensuality—the kids were a drawback, Ellie. I didn’t think I wanted to have anything to do with you because of them, but then you lost your home and I rashly opened the doors to you and in came the sunlight. Not a burden to be carried, but a joy.’
‘Not always.’
‘No, of course not, but they are a joy, and I love them. I love them dearly. I love you dearly, but I don’t need you, any of you. I have a life I’m happy with, I’m reasonably self-sufficient—I can live without you, just as you can live without me. You’re strong and clever and resourceful, you’ve made a home for your children that might not be perfect but that works perfectly well enough for now, and you’re an excellent doctor, a caring and decent human being, and you’ve made a success of your life, just as I have.
‘But it isn’t what I want. What I want is you, Ellie. I love you. I love you so much, and I can’t tell you how much I’ve missed you, but if you come back to me, then don’t do it out of gratitude, don’t do it because you feel sorry for me or guilty, do it because you love me, too, and you want to be with me for ever, unconditionally. Because this is the deal. If you come back to me, I want it to be as my wife, so don’t do it if you can’t buy into that, because I’d rather lose you now than down the line when it’ll hurt all of us much, much more.’
Ellie stared at him, letting his words sink in, and she felt a bubble of something wonderful bursting in her chest.
‘I do need you. I’ve missed you so much. I haven’t been able to eat, or sleep, or think—I thought, if I went home, I’d be able to see more clearly, but all I could see was that I was wrong, and I’m so, so sorry.’
She reached out and cradled his jaw in her hand, feeling the muscles jump beneath her thumb, and she smiled at him sadly.
‘I love you, Nick. I love you so much. I didn’t dare believe in it, I thought it was too quick to be real, but I was wrong, wasn’t I? Because it is real, it isn’t a dream. We did fall in love. I love you more than I ever thought I could love anyone. I just didn’t know how to tell you, or if you’d want to hear it.’
Tempted by the Single Mom Page 16