The rest of her life history Zack knew, the years she had spent with her mother’s parents, although they too were both dead now. But as far as she knew her father was alive somewhere, and could even have another family by now. She had never felt the least inclination to search him out, just as he had never felt the least bit curious about her.
At the time she had first met Zack, before she realised how important he was going to be in her life, she had told him both her parents were dead. As far as she was concerned it was the truth, her father was emotionally dead to her if not physically. Later it had been too late to correct her statement, so Zack had never been told the truth about her father.
Maybe if he had he would have understood her more, her need to work to maintain her identity, her wish not to bring a child into a potentially dangerous atmosphere, her disillusionment with her parents’ marriage warning her that her own marriage could be as disastrous.
‘Julie?’
She blinked, looking up at Zack. ‘Sorry. I—I was miles away.’
Connie smiled at her. ‘I was asking if you’d decided on any names for the baby.’
Colour flooded her cheeks. She and Zack rarely spoke about anything, let alone names for their baby! ‘It’s a bit early yet,’ she said huskily.
‘Connie already had the names picked out at three months,’ Ben teased his wife. ‘I wasn’t even consulted!’
Connie punched him in the stomach playfully. ‘You couldn’t make your mind up,’ she protested. ‘If I hadn’t decided on Nicholas and Suzanne they would probably be called Thingy and Whatshername.’
Ben grinned. ‘Probably.’
‘I like the name Emily for a girl,’ Zack put in softly.
Julie turned sharply to look at him. ‘That was my mother’s name.’
‘Yes,’ he nodded.
She wetted her suddenly dry lips. ‘I—Thank you.’
‘For liking a pretty name?’ he teased gently.
‘For God’s sake don’t reciprocate and like our father’s name!’ Ben spluttered with laughter. ‘You’ll regret it.’
By his humour Julie had a feeling she would, but her curiosity was aroused. ‘What was it?’ she rose to Ben’s bait.
‘Cedric!’ he laughed. ‘Awful, isn’t it?’
‘I—well, it-‘
‘Dreadful,’ Zack grinned.
‘Yes,’ she agreed with a smile.
‘Nice evening,’ Zack murmured as they came back to the lounge after seeing the other couple off.’
‘Very nice,’ Julie agreed stiltedly. ‘I think I’ll go to bed now.’
His hand on her arm stopped her leaving. ‘Stay and have a drink.’
She avoided looking at him, watching his hand on her arm, his hold very gentle but firm, allowing no chance for escape. ‘I think I’ve had enough for one evening,’ she refused.
‘Coffee, then?’ he persisted.
‘Mrs Humphries has gone to bed.’
‘I’m perfectly capable of making my wife a cup of coffee,’ he teased. ‘Please, Julie,’ his voice was softly pleading as he sensed her refusal. ‘I hardly ever see you. I’m at work all day, we have dinner together, and then you invariably disappear into your bedroom.’
‘The doctor told me to rest.’
‘I know that,’ he nodded. ‘But one late evening won’t hurt you. Please!’
His complaint that she always went to bed early was a valid one, she knew that. But she felt the less time she spent in his company the less chance he would have of guessing her love for him, a love that seemed to grow stronger every day.
‘Sit down,’ he encouraged. ‘Lie back and put your feet up. Now just sit there until I come back with your coffee.’
She lay back with her eyes closed, too weary to move. She had helped Mrs Humphries with the preparations for the dinner party, and after a week of idleness the extra activity had tired her out. She felt herself drifting off to sleep.
When she heard Zack come back into the room her eyes opened wide with alarm. ‘I think maybe I should go to bed after all.’ She struggled to sit up, aware of the intimacy of the situation.
‘I’ve made the coffee now,’ he pointed out reasonably. ‘What happened to you this evening?’ he frowned. ‘You seemed to drift off for a while.’
‘I—It was nothing.’
‘No?’
Julie sat forward, picking up the coffee pot, avoiding his probing gaze. ‘Would you like some?’ she offered, seeing there were two cups on the tray.
‘Please,’ he nodded, ‘Julie—’
‘It’s too late in the evening for post-mortems, Zack,’ she told him in a shrill voice, too tired to parry any move towards intimacy on his part.
‘But not too late completely?’
She swallowed hard, seeing the determination in his face. ‘I think we’re better off as we are.’
‘Better as we are!’ he scorned, coming down on his haunches beside her and taking her shaking hands in his. ‘You can’t mean that, Julie,’ he pleaded.
‘I do.’
‘But we’re living like strangers—’
‘We are strangers,’ her eyes flashed. ‘What do you know about me, Zack? Really know about me?’
He frowned at her vehemence. ‘What sort of question is that? We’re married—’
‘But what do you really know about me? You rushed our courtship, made me marry you after only knowing you a month. And you said yourself that we were only together fifty-six days out of our year of marriage.’
‘I didn’t need to be with you to know I loved you!’
‘You can’t love someone you don’t know!’
‘I knew you, Julie.’ He wrenched her chin up, forcing her to look at him. ‘I know you. And I can’t continue to live like this. I want you beside me at night, Julie. I want to hold you, love you—’
‘No!’ she wrenched away from him, getting to her feet. ‘No!’ She turned, falling over the stool he had put at her feet, and landed heavily on the floor, the breath knocked from her body.
‘Julie!’ Zack’s cry came out hoarse. ‘God, Julie!’
‘Get me to hospital, Zack,’ she groaned, her eyes closing. ‘Oh please God don’t let it happen again. Not again!’ she choked.
‘Again?’ Zack echoed sharply. ‘What do you mean? Julie!’
She couldn’t answer him. Blackness shadowed over her as she lost consciousness of the world.
CHAPTER 9
‘Just a faint,’ the doctor assured her at the hospital.
‘The—the baby?’ She lay on the examination couch, her expression anxious.
‘The baby is fine,’ he patted her hand reassuringly. ‘Although I’m going to keep you in for a couple of days.’
‘Then the baby isn’t all right!’ Julie struggled to sit up. ‘Tell me—’
‘The baby is unharmed,’ he soothed. ‘Really. I just think a couple of days’ rest wouldn’t do you any harm. Now I’d better let your husband in. He’s been prowling the waiting-room for the last half an hour.’
Oh God, Zack! What had she said to him after that fall? What had she given away? One look at Zack’s harsh face when the doctor brought him in showed her that she had said too much.
‘The doctor tells me you’re both all right,’ he said distantly.
‘Yes,’ she looked at him with apprehensive eyes.
‘A couple of days’ rest and Mrs Reedman can come home,’ the doctor told them cheerfully, finishing writing up his notes. ‘The fall was a shock to her, and in the circumstances I’m sure you can understand our caution.’
Zack looked at him with bleak eyes. ‘Yes.’
The doctor stood up. ‘I’ll leave you alone for a few minutes now, then we’ll get Mrs Reedman to her room.’
‘Thank you,’ Zack said deeply.
‘There really is no need to worry,’ the doctor assured them. ‘The admission is just a precaution on my part.’ He left them alone.
Julie looked up at Zack, dreading the next few minutes wit
h him. She had given herself away irrevocably, and Zack would, quite rightly, demand an explanation.
‘Zack-‘
‘You lost my child once before.’ He spoke as if he hadn’t heard her, pain etched into his harsh features.
She swallowed hard. ‘Yes.’
‘When?’
She turned her head away, staring sightlessly at the lemon-painted walls. ‘It must be obvious—after I left you,’ she said woodenly.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ he rasped. ‘Why keep something like that to yourself? Unless the child wasn’t mine?’ His voice deepened with suspicion.
She looked at him now, her eyes glittering deeply green. ‘How dare you say that?’ she choked. ‘How could you—’
‘Because you didn’t tell me!’ His fingers bit into her arms as he shook her. ‘Why keep something like that to yourself if the child were mine?’
He looked demonic in that moment, totally out of control, accusation in the coldness of his eyes.
And Julie hated him for it, hated him for the distrust he didn’t even try to hide. An hour ago he had wanted to make love to her, his own words were ‘to love her’, and now he was as good as accusing her of becoming pregnant by another man, of losing this mythical someone else’s baby.
‘You’re right, Zack,’ she scorned, more hurt than she would ever allow him to see. ‘The baby wasn’t yours.’
He seemed to go grey. ‘It wasn’t?’
She looked at him with cold eyes. ‘What’s the matter, Zack? You seem surprised. Wasn’t that what you wanted to hear?’
‘You know damn well it wasn’t?’ He thrust her away from him. ‘Is it the truth?’
‘No,’ she said wearily.
‘No...?’ he rasped.
‘Of course not,’ she sighed, defeated. ‘The baby was yours, and I lost it.’
‘Then why lie?’
‘Because I hate you!’ she told him vehemently. ‘You’re so quick to throw out accusations, to blame everyone but yourself.’
‘Myself?’ he echoed with a frown. ‘Are you saying I was to blame for the loss of the baby?’
She shook her head dully. ‘It just happened. No one can control these things.’
‘Why did no one know? Connie—’
‘Had no idea,’ she defended her friend. ‘It doesn’t take long to lose a baby, Zack. Just a matter of minutes, in fact,’ she recalled bitterly. ‘And a few days later you’re fit to go back out into the world.’ She looked at him with pained eyes. ‘Only inside you aren’t. Inside you’re still hurting, still grieving. As I still am. I wanted that baby, wanted it badly.’ She was no longer looking at him, talking softly to herself, realising for the first time that it was true. She had wanted that first baby badly—as she wanted this one.
‘Julie-‘
The fight was back in her eyes as she looked at him. ‘No more words, Zack, they don’t mean an awful lot on their own. I lost your baby once before, but this one, this one I intend holding on to. Even if I have to stay married to you to do so,’ she added cuttingly.
Zack seemed to blanch. ‘You really do hate me.’
‘What did you expect?’ she scorned. ‘In the last three months you’ve made love to me, callously left me without a word the next morning, proposed an affair with me, and now you’re forcing me to live with you. What do you expect me to do, Zack, love you?’
‘No,’ he said wearily. ‘I—I’ll let them get you to your room now. I’ll be back to see you tomorrow.’
Those few days Julie spent in hospital changed her relationship with Zack completely. When she returned home Zack was no longer the angry, accusing man he had been, nor did he show any signs of physical attraction to her. In fact, as the weeks progressed he became more of a friend to her.
Admittedly it was an uneasy friendship, treated tentatively at first by Julie, and then with growing confidence as the weeks turned into months and Zack’s coolly concerned manner remained constant.
They finally found a house to their liking about three miles from where Connie and Ben lived, and once the decorators had been in and they were actually able to move in Connie and Ben and the children became regular daytime visitors.
To all intents and purposes the marriage was a real one to outsiders. Zack’s tender care was in evidence at all times, and only Mrs Humphries and the daily woman they had hired to help in the house knew of their separate sleeping arrangements. It was quite easy to make the baby an excuse for that, especially as Mrs Humphries was aware of Julie’s short stay in hospital.
But Julie was dissatisfied, and she knew Zack wasn’t really happy. Not by word or deed did he show this, coming home from work to talk about the day’s events like any other husband, but occasionally she would look up and find him watching her, a deep hunger in his eyes, a hunger that he would quickly mask.
If he was still seeing Teresa Barr, or any other woman for that matter, then she didn’t know when. All his days were spent at work, all his evenings at home, so if there was a woman in his life he didn’t see her very often.
Towards the end of her eighth month of pregnancy she began to prepare the nursery. She had been too afraid to before this, not wanting to tempt fate. Mrs Humphries helped, enjoying it immensely, and the two of them had great fun picking out the wallpaper and curtains.
Zack had declined helping her choose them, seeming to spend more and more time in his study in the evenings.
‘Is the travelling too much for you?’ she finally asked him.
‘Mm?’ He looked up abstractedly.
Julie frowned at the deep lines etched beside his nose and mouth. They hadn’t been there a few months ago. ‘You seem tired, withdrawn,’ she said carefully.
‘I’m fine—really.’
‘The travelling—’
‘Is no bother,’ he dismissed, the evening newspaper still open in front of him—as it had been for the last half an hour.
‘Then work—’
‘No heavier than usual.’
She bit her lip worriedly. ‘Then what is it?’
He looked at her with vague grey eyes. ‘What’s what?’
‘Zack, what’s wrong?’ She stood up, her body heavy in this last month of pregnancy, the thick woollen dress exactly matching the green of her eyes. ‘You’ve been so quiet since Christmas.’
It had been a lovely family gathering at Connie and Ben’s, with obscure uncles and aunts putting in an appearance too. Only Zack had remained removed from the family fun, and he had remained that way ever since.
‘I’ve been busy at work—’
‘You just said it was no heavier than usual.’
He glared at her with an impatient frown. ‘What is this, Julie, an inquisition?’
She flinched at his scornful tone. ‘I’m just concerned about you.’
‘Why?’ he rasped.
‘I just am!’ she snapped back.
He shrugged, carefully folding the newspaper before putting it on the coffee-table. ‘If you must know, I felt—guilty, about deceiving everyone. The whole family think we’re ecstatically happy together.’
Julie turned away. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said quietly.
‘So am I. I’m sorry I ever forced myself on you, sorry I—Sorry I—Oh God, I’m just sorry for everything!’ He stood up to storm out of the room.
Julie hurried after him. ‘Zack!’
He turned halfway up the stairs, his expression remote. ‘Yes?’
She wetted her lips nervously. ‘I—Where are you going?’
‘Bed.’
She blinked. ‘But it’s only nine-thirty!’
Zack sighed heavily. ‘I’m not fit company tonight, Julie. Surely you can see that?’
‘Is it something I’ve done?’ she persisted.
‘No,’ he said ruefully. ‘Something we haven’t done. In a long time.’
Colour flooded her cheeks as his meaning became clear to her. ‘I’m hardly in any condition for that,’ she derided to cover her embarrassment.
‘I didn’t necessarily mean sex, Julie,’ he dismissed scathingly. ‘Sometimes at night, I have this urge to hold you, to maybe feel our child moving inside you. Sometimes—sometimes it almost drives me crazy!’ He ran up the rest of the stairs, and his bedroom door slammed a few seconds later.
Mrs Humphries appeared from the kitchen, a worried frown on her brow. ‘Is there anything wrong? I thought I heard shouting.’
‘Just Mr Reedman calling to me from upstairs,’ Julie dismissed with a tight smile.
‘If you’re sure…?’
‘Yes, I’m sure.’ She forced her smile to be brighter. ‘Mr Reedman and I are having an early night tonight, Mrs Humphries, so you can lock up if you like.’
She made her way slowly up the stairs, her movements slow and laboured. Once in her room she went through her usual nightly ritual of cleansing her face, her movements mechanical, her thoughts on other things.
Poor Zack, he had only been voicing a hunger she often had herself, even more so as the time for the baby to be born neared. She often felt she needed his strength, just his calm presence to reassure her. And tonight was no exception. Knowing that Zack felt the same way only made her own longing worse.
And why shouldn’t they sleep together, share a bed at least? They were married, and as she had already pointed out, she was in no condition for the physical side of their marriage.
All was quiet in Zack’s room as she made her way across the passage; his room was opposite hers, and the door was firmly closed. Maybe he would be asleep, if he was she wouldn’t disturb him.
The light was off inside his room, only his still figure beneath the bedclothes evidence of his presence. She turned to leave.
‘Julie…?’
When she looked back he was sitting up in bed, the light from the passageway outside his room showing his bare chest, the puzzled look on his face as he stared at her. ‘I—er—’ she wetted her lips in her nervousness. ‘I—wondered if you might like some—company.’ Heavens, how feeble that sounded!
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