by Sue MacKay
‘Like I always did.’
‘You stole my jackets or coats whenever we were out. And they were way too big for you.’
And when he’d put one of those jackets on later there’d always be a hint of Fiona’s perfume on them. For weeks after she’d left him he’d wear a jacket just to have something of her with him. Eventually the scent had faded, disappeared, and he’d been left only with memories.
Craig and Kerry’s laughter broke through his reminiscing, drew him back to listen to Fiona telling amusing anecdotes about her experiences overseas. She continued to enthral them all so that dinner passed quickly.
Tom sipped his wine and smiled internally. Tonight had turned out to be fun. Everyone was relaxed, Fiona had been entertaining, and he’d stopped worrying about what she might want to talk about with him. Yes, this took him back to nights out in the early days of their marriage.
Just then the woman in his mind looked up and he smiled at her. She gave him a slow wink. His gut clenched. In the old days when they were out with other people that wink could have meant, Aren’t we having fun? or it could have been saying Isn’t this so boring? Let’s get out of here. Tonight he figured she meant they were having fun. Tonight he’d sit back and continue to enjoy his evening, and pretend they were like any other normal couple.
Kerry spooned sugar into her coffee, saying thoughtfully, ‘I can see why you’d want to go back after your leave’s finished.’
Tom’s hand stilled on his cup. Did she want to go back? Of course she would. Anyone listening to her for the last half-hour would know full well how much she’d loved what she’d been doing. Her face had come alive as she’d talked about the people she’d helped and the places she’d worked in. Fiona had found her niche in life. Once Fiona became passionate about something she didn’t let go. Not easily, anyway.
She had let go of their marriage. But easily? No, they’d both struggled to make it work. They’d failed each other because neither had known what to do about the dreadful situation they’d found themselves in.
Fiona explained to Kerry, ‘I’m not sure what I’m going to do next. The last three years have been wonderful, but now that I’m back home I’m starting to realise there are so many things I’ve been missing. Friends, family…’ She hesitated.
What family? Her father? Her mother had died before she and Tom had married. Him? Had she missed him at all?
‘A sense of belonging,’ she concluded.
This was something new. The old Fi had slotted in anywhere by dint of making everything around her hers.
Her eyes slid in his direction. ‘I know I’ve only been here a little over twenty-four hours, but already I can see what you’re doing at the hospital is awesome.’
Warmth crept over him. It felt good to know she approved of what he was doing. ‘Thanks, but it’s not just about me.’
‘True. He needs the rest of us to make tea and coffee and keep the cookie jar in his office full,’ quipped Kerry.
Craig leaned closer to Tom and spoke quietly, ‘Think you can persuade her to stay?’
‘I wouldn’t have a clue.’ Did he even want her to stay? In what capacity? Specialist—yes. He could always put her skills to good use. But how would he cope having her living in the same small village twenty-four-seven? And why was he even considering the idea? He didn’t believe in second chances.
In Theatre the next morning Fiona told Kerry, ‘You can bring Megan round now. I’m done.’
Snapping her latex gloves as she tugged them off, Fiona looked down at the little girl and smiled. The skin graft to repair a nasty burn from a log falling out of a firebox onto Megan’s leg had gone very well. ‘There you go, my little lion cub. That leg should look a lot better in a few days.’
‘I heard about a bit of an African scene in the games room last night,’ Kerry commented as she read printouts. ‘Apparently our boss makes a terrific roar, and looks quite sexy on his hands and knees with his backside pointing skyward.’
‘Who’s been blabbing?’ Fiona asked, amused that the staff had found Tom’s participation in the game she’d made up worthy of gossip.
‘Megan told me all about it while I prepped her. Not the bit about Tom looking sexy. That came from Liz. Of course I asked for all the finer details. Seems you weave a good yarn too.’
‘I’ve had plenty of practice.’ Fiona tried not to think about Tom’s backside—for all of two seconds. His derrière was very sexy. She’d always found him physically attractive. Studying him now, seeing the little crinkles at the corners of his mouth, ‘I wish I’d known.’
The scraping sound Tom’s chair made on the tile floor as he stood up screeched across her brain. The hand that touched, held her chin, felt gentle as it tipped her head back so that she looked into the deep, sad pools of Tom’s eyes. ‘So do I, but we can’t undo the past now.’
‘I might have acted differently—might not have given you such a hard time for not talking to me.’ But he had talked to her tonight, ever so slightly—about his friend. About something that had hurt him badly as a child. And still hurt him.
He shifted his head slowly from side to side. ‘Don’t go there, Fi.’ Sadness puckered his mouth.
She blinked, forced herself to look away. Years ago she’d done a lifetime’s worth of crying, had been dry-eyed for nearly five years now. That was why she shouldn’t be thinking of wanting Tom back. Everyone knew that once you got into a relationship with anyone—husband, lover, child, even a friend—there were going to be tears somewhere along the way.
‘You’re right, of course.’ She covered his hand with hers, felt his warmth.
‘For years I blamed myself for Billy’s death. It’s only recently I’ve accepted that more than one thing went wrong that day to culminate in a tragic accident.’
‘Recently?’ Since Liam’s death? She wanted to ask him, but she was afraid he might withdraw from her again and she didn’t want that. Not now, when he’d actually spoken to her about something so important to him.
Right now she was desperate to hold him in her arms and kiss away the pain in those beautiful eyes that she’d fallen in love with such a long time ago.
What held her back? Was she afraid he’d push her away? And if he did? At least she’d have tried. She stepped closer to him, and reached to touch his face. Her fingers moved of their own accord, tracing his mouth, reliving the memories of the curve of his chin, his cheekbones. She stretched up on her toes and touched his lips with hers. He trembled under her touch, made no move to draw away—or nearer.
She swallowed, pressed her lips closer, savoured him. It wasn’t enough. She slid her tongue across his lips, shivered in the heady mix of wine and Tom.
His hands caught her upper arms, pushed her just far enough away from him to break the contact with her mouth. ‘Fiona, don’t. We—This isn’t right.’
Her whisper croaked through her closed throat. ‘I’ve wanted to kiss you ever since I arrived.’
Tom stared at her, his mouth softening before he groaned, hauled her against him, and crushed his mouth to hers. A hard, demanding kiss that touched every cell in her body. A kiss that caressed fires that had been smothered for far too long.
She leaned into him, pressed as close as possible, flattening her breasts against his chest. And she wasn’t close enough. She pushed her thighs against his. Her skin crackled with longing. Her mouth was filled with Tom, his tongue seeking, exploring, tasting. She tasted and explored right back. She’d come home. They belonged together.
Then abruptly Tom was setting her away from him, leaving her blinking like a rabbit in headlights. What had happened? ‘Tom?’
‘Sorry, we shouldn’t be doing this.’ His hands dragged down his cheeks as he stumbled backwards. ‘There’s too much between us to be even thinking about getting close and personal.’
‘I should be the one to apologise. I started it.’ What had she been thinking of, kissing Tom? She hadn’t been thinking at all. There lay the problem.
/> Tom snatched up his jacket and all but ran out of the room, muttering over his shoulder, ‘I need to catch up on some paperwork.’
Paperwork? Fiona shrugged. Right, whatever. It was probably for the best. Their kiss had begun to really crank up into something she wasn’t so sure she’d have been able to stop if they’d carried on much longer. Would they have ended up making love? And then what? Tom had made it plain he wasn’t interested in rekindling their relationship. That hadn’t been her intention either when she’d first arrived.
It still wasn’t.
Just do the job and go away, she chanted in her head. Do the job and go away. Forget trying to put the past to rest. It wasn’t going to lie down, so she might as well leave it be.
But her heart was aching.
Tom kicked at a clump of snow on his front step. What he really needed was to get his head read. How could he have kissed Fiona? How could he have let her get even that close to him?
Hold up. She’d kissed him first. A sweet kiss that had sneaked in under his ribs and tickled his heart. Yeah, and he’d been quick to run with it, deepen it, until all his resolve to stay clear of Fiona had just disappeared as fast as the snap of his fingers. He smacked his forehead with his palm. How could he have taken her in his arms and put his lips to hers? Because that first kiss had fried his brain cells, had made him feel as though he’d finally found what he’d been looking for ever since Fiona had left him. That sense of being in the right place with the right person, the one woman who had been able to get beneath his skin and make him feel like he belonged, had returned as quickly as it took to start a kiss.
Stomping along the path heading away from the hospital, he tried to squash the feeling that he was losing control over his emotions. He searched for the inner strength that he always applied when the hurt and anger and bewilderment he felt around Fiona threatened to topple his world, but tonight he couldn’t put those feelings back in their place. He wanted her! Badly! She hummed in his blood. She stirred him so deeply it frightened him. His pulse thumped in his head.
He wanted to throw caution aside and race back into the cottage where he could lift Fiona against his chest. He ached to replace his lips on hers, to taste her sweetness again, to feel her melt against him. To claim her.
His legs stretched out as his pace increased, taking him further from temptation. He would never be that vulnerable again.
This dashing out of the cottage after dinner was becoming a habit. Fiona stared at the shut door and ran her shaking fingers across her swollen lips. But at least tonight they’d been kissing, not arguing.
But she shouldn’t have kissed him. Instead of easing the situation between them the tension had been racked up. She’d swear he’d been as shaken as she had. She’d felt his body quiver as their kiss lengthened. She’d tasted the heat of his tongue, smelt the increased maleness of his desire. Tom had wanted her as much as she’d wanted him.
She reached for the glass of wine she’d put aside before dinner. What did it matter if she got a little bit cranky now? Tom wasn’t here to notice. Oh, no, he’d dashed off to work.
Just like the good old times. Avoiding the situation. Not stopping to talk about what had happened between them.
Wise up, Fiona. Tom hasn’t changed as much as you’d hoped.
Chapter Seven
AFTER cleaning up the kitchen Fiona went to bed. Burrowed under the blankets, with the pillow tucked down around her neck, she tried to keep warm and hold the world at bay. Twice she nearly clambered out of bed to go and find Tom so she could be with him, to see if there was anything she could help with. Twice she chickened out, not wanting to upset him any further than that kiss seemed to have done.
Finally she dozed off—only to be woken by the phone ringing. If Tom had returned he’d get it. It would be for him anyway. Shivering, she pushed her head out of the cocoon of blankets and listened.
It continued to ring, sounding insistent in the quiet cottage. What if something had happened to one of her patients? Groaning, she crawled out and, grabbing her jersey, ran to the kitchen. Then stopped. The ringing came from inside Tom’s bedroom.
Someone must want him badly. The ringing persisted. Inside Tom’s bedroom door she ran her hand over the wall, searching for the light switch. Yellow light flooded the room, and she blinked. The phone lay on his bed. Pressing ‘talk’ she held it to her ear, only to hear a click and the dial tone. Typical. She tossed the phone down.
Shivering, she tugged her jersey over her head and down her tee shirt. Then she looked around Tom’s room.
Her lips twisted into a small smile as she saw his immaculately made bed. Her fingers reached for his pillow, lingering where his head might have lain the night before. Picking it up, she clutched it to her breast, inhaling Tom.
Over the edge of the pillow she looked around. A collection of black and white photos hung on the wall above his bed. All landscapes. He had a natural eye for balance and a real sense of the dramatic. None of the photos were familiar to her.
‘At least he’s still doing his photography.’
Fiona spoke out loud in an attempt to dispel the guilt she felt at invading his privacy.
‘But all these photos are impersonal. What happened to that wonderful collection of candid shots you took of people at the market, on the beach, everywhere?’
On his bedside table a photo frame lay face down. Automatically she lifted it and turned it over.
A sharp cry stung the night. Her cry.
In the deceptively simple photo Tom had captured her love for their baby as she held him against her breast. Liam. She remembered when the photo had been taken. Three days before he died.
Raw pain sliced her, tearing through her body like a hot knife through butter. Her knees jarred as she fell to the floor, still clutching the photo. She couldn’t take her eyes off the picture. She hadn’t looked at a photo of Liam for five years. Not since the day she’d made up her mind to put the past behind her and try to make a new life. Until then, every time she’d looked at Liam’s picture the guilt had gnawed at her, driving her almost insane.
Rocking on her knees, she stared at her son, willing him alive, knowing that was impossible. She drank him in. He had been gurgling contentedly, his tiny fist waving at Tom behind the camera. Now he should be running around with an abundance of energy, looking like his dad with that beautiful smile that tore through her.
‘I’m sorry, baby. I loved you so much and I let you die.’
The ache in her throat prevented her swallowing. Her jaw hurt as she fought the pain. Her eyes burned from unshed tears as she folded over her thighs. Her baby.
‘Fiona? Oh, my God. How did you find that? Oh, sweetheart, what are you doing in here?’ Tom had come back, was kneeling before her, scooping her into his arms. ‘You weren’t ever meant to see that photo. I knew it would break your heart. I didn’t leave it lying around deliberately. Believe me.’
She sagged against him. All the energy had poured out of her. ‘It—it’s like starting o-over,’ she stuttered around the ball in her throat. Tom had called her sweetheart. ‘As though the last six years haven’t m-meant a th-thing.’
‘Shh,’ Tom soothed, gently smoothing her hair away from her face. He wriggled around and leant back against his bed, lifting her onto his thighs.
‘I—’ She hiccupped, swallowed, started again. ‘I shouldn’t have come here. It’s my own fault, but I thought I was strong enough.’
Tom slid his arms around her. ‘There’s no avoiding the fact we had a son between us. He’s going to be there, in our hearts, in our very souls, for ever. It hurts and always will.’ His words almost a whisper, his light breaths lifting strands of her hair.
Now that they’d started, her tears continued in a flood, streaming down her cheeks, splashing onto Tom’s arms around her middle. ‘You know, you never admitted as much back then.’
‘Just looking at you reminds me of Liam.’
Fiona gasped as pain again lanced her
, stabbing her stomach, her lungs, her heart. Liam. Their baby. She blurted, ‘He had your curls, your generous mouth.’
‘Your blue eyes, your fair hair.’ Tom’s chin dropped on to the top of her head, and his hands caught together around her midriff. ‘He was so tiny.’
‘He was five months old.’ Of course he was tiny. And beautiful. And perfect. And she still missed him as though it had happened yesterday.
‘Have you moved on at all?’ Tom asked.
‘No one forgets their child, Tom. I carry him in my heart everywhere I go. I think of him dozens of times a day.’
Tom’s head lifted. ‘You seem whole.’
Oh, Tom. ‘I don’t often feel it.’
‘But you do feel it sometimes?’
Did he blame her for Liam’s death? It had been horrendous when Liam died, but years had gone by—Tom had to have made peace with himself.
She tried explaining. ‘Sometimes, when I’m helping people, especially children, I know a sense of peace for a little while. Those times have helped me get through some of the bad hours.’ She reached out a hand to his, her touch light against his fingers. Under her palm his heart thundered, and a yearning to embrace him, to soothe away the pain in his face, uncurled deep inside her.
Under her bottom she felt his thighs tense and his arms tighten their hold, then he relaxed. Was that a kiss on the top of her head? Heaven knew, she needed one. A real one, soft on the lips, big on comfort. Did Tom need one, too?
She raised her head, her mouth reaching for his. His lips were warm over hers. Their mouths blended together. Joining their pain, sharing their loss, seeking and giving solace. Not the kind of kiss that friends exchanged, but not one of passionate lovers either. Nothing like their earlier one.
It was what they needed.
She leaned into him, seeking shelter from her life as it had become. And her tongue slipped between his lips, tasted him. Again her head swam with memories. Tender memories. Hot memories. Her spine tingled. And then Tom’s mouth was no longer gentle but demanding. Her spirits soared as she returned his kisses.