The Lost Wife

by Maggie Cox

  Shaking his head with a groan, Jake swung his long jean clad legs over the side of the bed. The night was already drawing in, and he reached towards the lamp to turn it on and illuminate the gloom. If the temperature in the room hadn’t been quite so chill he would have taken an ice-cold shower to help quell the searing ocean of need that his erotic dreams of Ailsa were making him drown in. As it was, now that he was fully awake he found himself concerned that she didn’t have a better heating system in place.

  For a few distracting seconds sexual need was overshadowed by irritation and frustration that she hadn’t used some of the money he’d given her to live more comfortably. After all, there wasn’t just herself to consider. Didn’t their daughter deserve to benefit from her father’s wealth too? he thought angrily.

  She was cooking again. The most sumptuous aroma he could imagine was emanating from the kitchen as Jake walked down the stairs. His empty stomach growled hungrily. Ruefully he recalled that he hadn’t eaten the sandwich Ailsa had made him earlier. She was stirring something in a generous-sized cast iron pot on the range cooker, her slim back to him as he entered the cosy, much warmer room.

  But the first thing Jake asked didn’t concern her cooking. ‘Have you tried the phones again to see if there’s any service?’

  Laying down her wooden spoon on a nearby saucer, then smoothing her hands down over her ridiculously cheerful apron, Ailsa turned to him with a frown. ‘I have. It’s no-go, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Pity.’ The comment was uttered with more force than he’d intended.

  ‘I’m sorry it’s such disappointing news. Were you resting?’ she asked lightly, clearly attempting to divert his sullen mood and proffering an unexpected smile. A near-angelic smile that made Jake feel like the very worst boor. ‘You look a lot less tired than you did earlier.’

  ‘What have you done to me? Drugged my coffee? Woven some kind of spell? I don’t think I’ve slept so much in my entire life!’

  Her smile didn’t disappear. She gave a slight shrug of her slim shoulders, her serene expression the personification of kindness itself. ‘Then it must be exactly what you needed. I’m envious. Don’t knock it. I’m making us coq au vin for dinner tonight. I thought something more substantial as well as perhaps a bit more adventurous would be good.’

  ‘I don’t want you to spend all your time cooking for me. I’m not helpless. I can easily rustle something up for myself.’

  ‘I’m sure you can.’ Now her smile was a little tight-lipped, as if he had offended her. He found himself cursing his boorish inability to be more amenable. ‘But I’m making a special meal as a kind of truce between us,’ she continued, ‘When the time comes for you to leave, I want you to know that you’re welcome here if you should ever want to visit again.’

  ‘Well, it doesn’t look as if that time is coming any time soon … at least not tonight.’

  Standing in front of the uncurtained window, Jake glanced up at the darkening skies and the lacy fall of snow that showed little sign of abating. It took him aback that Ailsa had asserted he was welcome if he ever wanted to return. Yet frustration gnawed at him that he wasn’t yet able to head back to Copenhagen, as he’d planned, and sign off his work so that he could go and spend some time with Saskia and his mother. Even more frustration reigned because he wasn’t able to corral the desire that automatically seized him whenever he was in the same vicinity as Ailsa. Just being in the same room was becoming a physical and emotional torment that tested him to the very edge of his reason.

  ‘Dinner will be ready in about half an hour. The chicken is in the oven and I’m just making some vegetable soup for a starter. Would you mind going into the dining room and lighting some candles? If you need any spare you’ll find them in the sideboard drawer.’

  Did she know that he’d do anything she asked him right then—even climb onto the roof and howl like a wolf—just for the chance of a repeat showing of that sweet angelic smile she’d given him earlier?

  Deliberately holding her gaze, Jake couldn’t help grinning at the wild reaches of his imagination. ‘Sure.’

  ‘What’s so funny? Have I got dirt on my nose or something?’ Rubbing her face with the edge of her sleeve, she sounded vaguely upset.

  ‘No. Your face is fine … perfect, in fact. I was just amused at what I’d be prepared to do to be on the receiving end of one of your smiles again.’

  ‘Really?’ Her voice dropped to an entranced whisper, and the already slow and heavy primal beat in his blood throbbed even harder and headed devastatingly south.

  ‘Really … Are the matches in the sideboard drawer too?’

  ‘Yes, they are.’

  ‘I’d better go and light the candles, then.’

  Switching on the light as he entered the dining room, Jake moved towards the heavy mahogany sideboard where a pair of elegant silver candelabra stood. Blinking at them unseeingly for a moment, he took some deep slow breaths to reorientate himself. If he’d ever forgotten that Ailsa had the power to hold him in thrall with just a simple innocent glance, then he was forcefully reminded of that power now.

  Distractedly, he opened a drawer to retrieve the box of matches that she’d told him he would find there. He’d just struck one when the dining room was suddenly plunged into darkness. An answering jolt leapt in the pit of his stomach. Touching the flame in turn to the candle-tips in front of him, he watched the fire’s sensuous shadows weave and dance against the wall for hypnotic seconds before transporting the candelabra out into the hallway, almost bumping into an agitated Ailsa, who’d come to find him.

  In the glow of the candle flames, her beautiful almond eyes were as bright and golden as a cat’s. ‘It must be a power cut. We haven’t had one in ages, but we do get them out here from time to time.’

  ‘Why doesn’t that surprise me?’ he answered. Because he hadn’t been able to keep his growing desire for her in check, Jake failed to keep the irritation from his tone. ‘Have you checked the fuse box?’

  ‘It was the first thing I did. None of the switches have tripped, so it must be a power cut.’

  ‘Take this.’ Handing her one of the candelabrum, with its flickering trio of candles, he turned back into the dining room to collect its twin. Back in the dimmed hallway, he said brusquely, ‘Let’s get back into the kitchen, shall we?’

  ‘Thank goodness for the range cooker.’ Returning to the stove, Ailsa resumed her stirring of the fragrant soup she was cooking. ‘At least dinner won’t be ruined.’

  Setting his candelabrum down on the table, Jake moved to stand beside her. ‘Is the stove oil-fired?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So it supplies the central heating too?’

  She stopped stirring the soup. Her smooth brow was distinctly worried as she turned to face him. ‘I’m afraid not … But I’ve got the wood-burner in the living room. We can go and eat our dinner in there to keep warm, if you like?’

  ‘When you’ve had these power cuts before, have they lasted long?’

  ‘The last one lasted a whole day. It was a bit of a nuisance because I lost all the food in the freezer. Apart from that … we managed.’

  Jake bit back an accusing retort. He didn’t have any say about where or how Ailsa chose to live any more—he knew that. But Saskia was a different matter. ‘I can’t say I’m en-amoured of the idea of you and our daughter just “managing”. Don’t you think that it’s crazy, choosing to live in such an isolated place where you could potentially be cut off from the rest of the world for days in bad weather, and are prey to inconvenient losses of power that could leave you without heat and light for God knows how long?’

  ‘That’s a bit dramatic. They have power cuts in the city, as well you know. Besides … I’ve lived here for a long time now. I’m used to it and I like it.’ Looking as though she wanted to embellish upon that statement, she chewed down on her lip instead and said nothing.

  Jake sighed. ‘You should at least see about getting your own generator, so you’l
l have back-up if this happens again. Look … this probably isn’t the time to get you to think about moving somewhere less remote, but now that I’ve experienced what you and our daughter have to contend with for myself, I can’t promise I’m going to leave the subject alone.’

  Dropping down to a low cupboard next to the cooker, Ailsa retrieved two plain white dinner plates, along with a pair of matching soup bowls, and put them on the lowest oven shelf to warm them. As she straightened again, her previously pale cheeks were rosily flushed, Jake noticed. Was she angry at what he’d just said? If so, she’d clearly decided not to express it. He wondered why. The Ailsa he had known after the accident used to explode at the least little thing.

  ‘We’ll eat in here, shall we?’ she suggested. ‘The heat from the stove will keep us warm for a while.’

  As she stole a furtive glance at the strong-boned, scarred, but still handsome visage on the other side of the table where they sat eating dinner, Ailsa was glad she hadn’t irritably responded to Jake’s declaration that she and Saskia should be living somewhere less remote. Having promised herself that she wouldn’t add to his store of unhappiness, she meant to keep that vow. By the time he came to leave she wanted him to know that living ‘out in the sticks’, as it were, wasn’t nearly as dreadful or inconvenient as he imagined. She also wanted him to realise that she was much more together than she’d used to be … that she was capable and strong and forging a good life for herself and their daughter after the unspeakable tragedy that had wounded and demoralised them all.

  ‘I don’t know what you saw in me when we first met.’ The admission was out before she realised.

  Laying down his fork, Jake steadily met her gaze across the candle flames. The midnight-blue lake that confronted her was so compelling that Ailsa’s heartbeat all but thundered in her chest.

  ‘That’s easy. I saw a beautiful young woman who was shy and uncertain in an environment she clearly wasn’t used to,’ he answered, ‘but who was so intent on doing a good job that it was endearing.’ His rich voice was so low that she had to lean in to hear him.

  ‘Shy and uncertain just about sums me up back then. I was so afraid of making a mistake that I practically jumped out of my skin every time the phone rang.’

  ‘You left out beautiful.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I said you were beautiful as well as shy and uncertain.’

  She knotted her hands together. ‘I never felt very beautiful … and I’m not looking for you to reassure me about that. The truth is I was stunned that someone like you would even glance at a girl like me.’

  ‘Someone like me?’

  ‘Yes—someone who seemed to have it all … looks, money, position. It really was hard for me to understand your interest in me.’

  ‘You didn’t see the eyes of the other men that followed you whenever you walked into a room?’

  ‘No … I didn’t.’ I only saw your eyes, Ailsa admitted silently. From the very first time, when Jake had introduced himself to her, she’d been completely captivated by him. The other men that had walked through her days had been relegated to ghostlike figures of little substance in comparison.

  ‘Why don’t we take our drinks into the living room?

  It’s getting a little chilly in here and we can add another log to the burner,’ he suggested, already on his feet.

  Glancing distractedly down at her barely touched glass of wine, Ailsa felt her senses roar at the idea of spending the evening sitting by the fire with Jake, with nothing but the light of the dancing flames of fire and candle to illuminate the blackout.

  Her hand shook a little as she curled it round the glass’s crystal stem and stood up. ‘Are you sure you only want to drink orange juice? You wouldn’t prefer a glass of wine?’ she asked, a husky catch in her voice.

  A glimmer of a smile visited Jake’s well-cut lips but was quickly gone again. ‘I’m sure.’

  ‘You don’t enjoy it any more?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Can I ask why?’

  ‘I don’t touch alcohol because I can’t find pleasure in something potentially so destructive.’

  The seductive warmth that had been curling deep into Ailsa’s belly was suddenly replaced by ice-cold steel. She snatched her hand away from the wine glass as though a piece of it had sheared off and cut deep into her skin. ‘You mean because that driver was drunk when he ploughed into us?’

  A muscle flinched clearly in the cheek that was still smooth and unscarred. ‘Yes. But I’m not saying that you shouldn’t enjoy it. I’m sorry if I was too blunt.’

  His meant-to-be consoling words didn’t help. ‘You weren’t too blunt. I’d rather have the truth, no matter how hard it is to hear. I think there are too many sorrys between us … we’ve blamed each other for so much, Jake.’

  He looked to be considering this comment for a long time. Then he breathed out a sigh and said, ‘Let’s go into the living room, shall we? You take that candelabrum and I’ll bring the other one. Bring your wine too.’

  ‘I don’t want it now.’

  ‘Bring it.’ He lifted a gently chastising eyebrow.

  Once they’d arranged the candles in the best positions to light the room, Jake sat on one supremely comfortable couch and Ailsa on the other. The mere fact that they’d done that so automatically grieved her more than she could say. Cradling the glass of wine she no longer had the slightest inclination to drink, she focused her sights on the fire blazing in the burner rather than on her charismatic ex-husband—even though her secret wish was to gaze at his compelling features for the longest time. A disturbing thought struck her. What if when they woke tomorrow morning a thaw had taken place during the night, melting the snow? If so, there’d be no further need for him to stay …

  ‘Come back to me, Ailsa.’

  ‘What?’

  The smoky-voiced command jolted her. So much so that she almost spilled her wine. In her heart, wild hope tussled with a more pragmatic desire to be sensible.

  ‘You went to a place where I couldn’t reach you. I don’t like it when that happens. It worries me.’

  ‘I—I was thinking what a shame it is that we can’t switch on the Christmas lights,’ she lied. ‘You worked so hard fixing them up.’

  ‘We’ll switch them on tomorrow. It’s not the end of the world if we can’t turn them on tonight.’

  ‘No … It isn’t. We’ve seen the end of the world, haven’t we?’ Her voice faltered, dropped to a bare murmur.

  The fresh applewood log Jake had added to the fire crackled and hissed, and suddenly Ailsa was staring at long straight legs in velvet-napped, expensive blue denim as he came and planted his feet in front of her.

  Gently, he took her glass and set it down on a nearby surface. ‘Come here.’

  She didn’t argue. She didn’t have the heart. Besides, how could she argue with the man she had built every dream of love and hope around? It felt like heaven having him so close, sensing his warm breath brush her face, having his long-lashed blue eyes command her attention like no one else’s could.

  As his glance roved across her fire-warmed features, it was perhaps the most intense that she’d ever seen it. The heat from his hands burned through the denim of her jeans as they settled round her hips. ‘I wish you didn’t hurt so much. It near kills me to think of you in pain in any way.’

  ‘It’s not your fault. It’s just that sometimes—sometimes the most dreadful feelings wash over me … feelings stirred by the terrible memory of that car hitting us. I can still hear the ear-splitting sound of the car tyres skidding in the rain. Even when I tell myself that one day the memories and feelings will fade, because this hurt can’t last for ever, I don’t think I really believe it. Most of the time I try and stay positive … not let things get me down … especially for Saskia’s sake. But then something reminds me, and the pain comes back and makes a liar of me.’

  Jake’s hands firmed round her hips and Ailsa swallowed hard.

  ‘I just
wish it was spring again, so that I could throw open all the windows and breathe more freely—do you know what I mean? Sometimes I feel so trapped it’s as though I couldn’t run far enough away to escape.’ She sniffed, knowing that inside her emotions were helplessly unraveling. ‘But of course I’m only trying to escape from myself.’

  He didn’t reply. He didn’t have to. It was enough for her to know that he listened and understood. She exhaled a breath that wasn’t quite steady. Then he was kissing her—kissing her as though the desire had erupted pure and undiluted straight from his soul. If there was the slightest inclination in her to regain control then Ailsa willingly surrendered it. Beneath the onslaught of devastating emotion and the wild, hungry need that her heart and body easily matched she felt like the fragile frond of a willow, borne on a hurricane into the drowning rapids of a thunderous waterfall …

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  JAKE drew Ailsa down onto the couch behind them and never—not even for a moment—separated his mouth from her lips or his hands from her body. Hunger and desire long denied could no longer be contained. They cleaved to each other as though fearful another storm would batter them, separating them for ever this time …

  Finding herself positioned beneath Jake’s hard, heavier body, Ailsa greedily drove her fingers through the short silken strands of his hair, her senses bombarded by the twin scents of his arresting cologne and the deliciously musky male warmth that was his own personal blueprint. He raised his head to look at her. This time he didn’t ask her if this was what she wanted. There was no need.

  In the softly waving candlelight the strongly hewn features mesmerised her. Even his scar was beautiful, because it was an integral part of him now. And in spite of all that had happened he exuded such tenacity and strength. Ailsa sensed it. So how could even the cruellest wound mar or lessen such an indomitable presence?

  She gently touched her palm to the side of his face. ‘Jake … I want this as much as you do … I really do. But I haven’t—I mean it’s been a long time since I—What if I can’t manage it any more?’