‘So how’s the little hooligan?’ he asked, and she chuckled.
‘OK. He’s running around as if nothing’s happened. There’s something funny going on with Josh O’Hara and Megan Phillips, though,’ she told him. ‘Ben doesn’t remember him ever talking about a Megan, but she was helping with holding him and Josh came in and Ben introduced them, and there was a definite atmosphere. He said he’d met her on Paeds, but I’m sure there was more to it. Something in his eyes.’
‘Don’t go there, Lucy,’ he warned. ‘Lots of people have a past. Sometimes it’s best left where it belongs. Just remember Pandora’s box.’
‘Oh, don’t worry, I’m not going to say anything, but at least Ben’s alerted so he can keep an ear open in case of trouble. You never know when Josh might need a friend.’
‘You’re a good girl,’ he told her with quiet pride. ‘You’ve got your mother’s kindness. Give the kids a hug from me, and we’ll see you tomorrow.’
Kate met his eyes. ‘What was that about?’ she asked as he put the phone down.
‘Nothing, really. They think Josh and Megan might have a past, and not a happy one, judging by the sound of it.’
She frowned. ‘Do you know, I was thinking the other day she looked sad and a little lost. Poor girl. Poor both of them, whatever it is.’
She glanced at her watch. ‘Come on, Grandad. We need to get a move on.’
‘You realise if you marry me they’ll be calling you Grannie,’ he said slyly, and her eyes widened.
‘Well, that’s a good reason not to,’ she said, but he just laughed and got out of bed, hauling her up into his arms and kissing her soundly.
‘Coming in the shower with me?’ he asked, and she chuckled.
‘Now, there’s an offer I can’t refuse,’ she said.
They took Bruno in to see Jem the next day, after arranging access to the courtyard off the ward with the help and permission of the ward sister and Sid Evans, the ancient and very co-operative handyman, who was only too happy to let them into the garden through the locked outer gate.
Jem was delighted to see him, and Bruno, far from being over-excitable and boisterous, sniffed him cautiously, licked his hand and, when he leant forwards and brought it in range, his face, and then sat beside him, his head on his knee, gazing adoringly at him and moving not a muscle.
‘Do you think Bruno realises he’s not well?’ Kate murmured to Nick.
‘I have no idea, but if you told me that, I’d believe it. He’s much livelier with me than he is with you, so maybe he knows I’m stronger. He knows I can take it, so he jumps all over me.’
‘Yes, and you shouldn’t let him! And am I imagining it or did I see dog hair on the sofa yesterday?’
He looked guilty, and she laughed and told him off.
‘He’s not allowed on the furniture! Especially when it’s not ours!’
‘He just wanted a cuddle,’ Nick said, revealing more of the sentimental side of him she’d hardly known existed.
But there was lots about him she hadn’t known. She’d expected him to be a skilful lover, for instance, but he was far more than that, he was patient, humorous and teasing and then, when the chips were down, shockingly passionate. She discovered highs she hadn’t known existed, and she just hoped she’d never have to discover the lows to balance them.
Or maybe they’d already had their lows. Maybe now it was time for their highs, their time served, and this was their time.
She hoped so, because to walk away from this was going to be far harder than walking away from him before, and she’d thought that would break her.
But Jem wasn’t home yet, and that was the acid test, whether he’d accept Nick being part of their lives, whether he’d accept his authority, learn to take his say-so without question instead of debating every issue to death. And Nick might have to learn to compromise, not something that was second nature to him.
Jem came ‘home’ three days later, to the barn, and Bruno was overjoyed.
He followed him everywhere, sat beside him, and had to be dragged off to go for walks. Long, energetic walks along the cliffs that helped Nick work off some of the unforeseen frustration. Because since Jem had been home, there had been no long, lazy love-making, no romantic dinners, no casual touches, random kisses in the kitchen, unscheduled hugs that had gone on to become something much, much more.
And he was climbing the walls.
Not that he was any stranger to sexual frustration, but having her so close, wanting her so much, needing her for so very, very long and finally having her there—it was eating him alive.
So he walked the dog, and he went to work to try and forget about her, and every time he came home she’d look up and smile, and the need would slam through him and he’d be back to square one.
But Jem was flourishing, growing stronger every day, and with the help of Lauren, the physio, he was doing strengthening exercises that helped to keep his body balanced. Kate was still not working, but she was driving Jem here, there and everywhere, loving her new car, and she brought him down to the surgery to see Lauren three times a week, and sometimes, if they were lucky, they could catch a few minutes alone together.
But even though that time alone was short, Nick had no complaints. The crooked little slab pot Jem had made her on the day of his accident always sat in pride of place in the middle of the dining table, and today she was arranging yellow tulips in it, a troubled look on her face, and he left the cooking and went and hugged her.
‘He’s all right,’ he murmured, knowing the pot served as a reminder of how close she’d come to losing him.
‘I know.’ And she turned in his arms and kissed him, then rested her head against his shoulder for a moment before easing away. Just in case Jem came in. Just in case he saw them and it upset him.
They were very wary about that. Jem had forgiven his mother, her reasons for not telling him the truth had been understandable, but Nick’s initial reluctance to accept Jem as his son had left deep scars, and although he called him Dad and seemed to love him, there was still a certain wariness.
But Nick couldn’t wait any more—couldn’t go on like this, living in the barn and playing happy families and hiding his head in the sand. Jem was now strong enough to go up steps, and soon would be able to climb the stairs. Which meant if necessary they could go home to their house, and he could go home to his, and life could carry on as it had been, with a few adjustments.
It would be down to Jem to make that decision, and it was time to ask him to make it.
So when he got home from work that afternoon, he went and found him. It wasn’t hard. He just patted the dog when he came to greet him, and then followed him when he ran off again.
They were in the garden, sitting in the courtyard under a tree, Kate reading a book, Jem doing a maths puzzle—in a book, this time, the games console having been returned to Lucy—and he looked up and grinned. ‘Hi, Dad,’ he said, and carried on.
‘Oh, you’re back early! I’ll go and put the kettle on,’ Kate said with a welcoming smile, getting to her feet and squeezing his hand in passing. ‘In fact, I need to ring Chloe. Want to keep Jem company?’
‘Sure.’ It was, after all, why he was there, and this just made it easier. He smiled reassuringly, and she smiled back and went in, and he sat down beside his son and turned towards him, his arm along the back of the bench.
‘Jeremiah, can we talk?’
He put the puzzle book down and looked at Nick warily. ‘Why do I always get the feeling that when you call me Jeremiah I’m in trouble?’ he asked, and Nick chuckled.
‘You’re not in trouble, son. Far from it. I want to ask you something—well, several things, really. First of all, and probably most important, are you happy?’
‘What, here?’
‘Here, with me here, with us as a family—all of it, really.’
‘Oh. Well—yeah. The house is great, but I know it’s only for now, but us—yeah, it’s good. You’re a bit stu
ffy sometimes, and you tell me what to do, but I guess that’s just being a dad, and I want a dad, so it’s cool.’
Hurdle one, he thought with a sigh of relief. ‘What about your mother? Do you think she’s happy?’
‘Oh, yeah. She’s much smilier. She’s like she used to be, before she was ill, but more than that, too. Like she’s really happy, all the time.’
‘And do you think that’s anything to do with me?’ he asked tentatively, and Jem nodded.
‘I guess. She watches you sometimes, and gets a soppy look on her face, a bit like when she looks at Bruno, but sort of more. And I think she likes it that we’re all together.’
Nick felt a huge weight lift off his chest, but a sudden attack of nerves took him by surprise and he rubbed his hand over his leg, surreptitiously wiping his palm, flexing the fingers of the other hand.
‘Um—there’s something else, too. It’s sort of a tradition that when a man wants to marry a woman, he asks her father for permission, so he has his blessing first. And your mum hasn’t got a father, and her mother lives a long way away, and I was thinking, you’re the man in her life, really. So I was wondering, if I wanted to ask your mother to marry me, would you be happy with that?’
Jem stared at him. ‘You want to marry Mum?’
He nodded, and Jem frowned thoughtfully. ‘So we’ll live together always? Like a proper family?’
He nodded. ‘If that’s what you want, and what your mum wants. But it won’t make any difference to you and me, really, because I love you, and you’ll always be very precious to me. And I want to be a part of your life, whatever happens, so don’t think that if I don’t marry your mother, you won’t see me whenever you want to, because you will. But we don’t want to make you unhappy. We’ve done enough of that, for one reason or another, and we want to do the right thing now, which for me means spending as much time with you as you feel you’d like, and being with your mother if I can, because I love her, and I always have. I just couldn’t be with her before. But if you have a problem with that, then we can talk about it, maybe find another way that I can spend time with her. It’s up to you, really.’
‘Wow. So if I say yes, we can all be together? For ever? Like a real family?’
He opened his mouth to say yes, but couldn’t speak, so he just nodded, and Jem grinned even wider.
‘Excellent! Wow, that would be epic! But no yucky stuff when I’m around,’ he added firmly, and Nick had to stifle a smile.
Actually, no, he didn’t. He grinned back, and said, ‘Absolutely no yucky stuff at all. No PDAs whatsoever.’
Jem frowned in confusion. ‘They’re funny diary things, aren’t they? Like phones and stuff all in one?’
‘That’s personal digital assistants. This PDA means public displays of affection.’
‘Oh. Right. That’s OK, then. No PDAs.’
‘Except at the wedding. I’ll be expected to kiss her at the wedding.’
His son’s eyes widened. ‘Wow—are you going to have a real wedding?’
‘I don’t know. I haven’t asked her yet—not properly.’
‘Are you going to go down on one knee? ‘Cos she might like that. It was on a film, and she went all pink and blew her nose.’
‘I haven’t got that far,’ he said laughing, ‘but I’ll bear it in mind.’
‘And she’ll want a ring.’
‘And a house. Yours isn’t big enough, mine’s—well, it’s in a very busy place, and there isn’t much garden for the dog. But—how would you feel about living here? If we could buy it?’
His eyes grew even wider. ‘Here? For ever?’
He nodded, and to his surprise Jem’s eyes filled. ‘Mum would love that,’ he said unsteadily. ‘And so would the dog.’
‘And you?’
‘And me,’ he said, and Nick forgot everything about PDAs and yucky stuff, and, putting his arms round his son, he hugged him firmly to his chest.
‘That’s settled, then,’ he said, releasing him, and cleared his throat. ‘I’d better ask her.’
‘I’ll go and tell her you want to talk to her,’ Jem said, getting up and limping hurriedly towards the house.
‘Hey, Jem, I wasn’t going to do it now—’
He turned. ‘What? You want to wait? Why?’
Why, indeed. He smiled. ‘OK. Tell her I’d like to speak to her. I’ll be down the garden.’
He walked slowly down across the lawn to the fence, and leant on the top rail staring out over the sea in the distance, twisting a blade of grass into a little circle around his finger and plaiting the ends in.
‘Nick? What’s going on? Jem said you want me.’
He turned and smiled, and held out his hands, taking hers and drawing her closer. ‘Clever boy. I do.’
She blushed slightly and laughed. ‘Don’t be silly. What did you want?’
‘You. In my life. For ever.’ He glanced towards the house, and saw Jem standing outlined in the window, the dog at his side. He’d had his orders. With a wry smile, he went down on one knee in front of her, looked up into her slightly shocked, welling eyes and, his son forgotten, he said, ‘Kate, I love you. I’ve always loved you, through everything. You’ve been the one constant in my life, the rock that’s always been there. I need you, but more than that, I need you to need me, to want me, to smile every time you see me, to open your arms to me because you want to hold me, to make me feel whole again. I don’t want you unless you want to be with me. This isn’t for Jem. He’s another thing altogether, and I’ll always be part of his life. This is about us, you and me, and how we feel.
‘I know I’m not much of a catch—and you probably never thought when you fell in love with me that I’d be a grandfather when I got round to doing this—but will you do me the honour of sharing the rest of your life with me? Will you marry me, Kate?’
‘Oh, Nick,’ she said, biting her lip and pressing her fingers to her lips as the tears cascaded down her cheeks. ‘Oh, my darling, of course I’ll marry you! I’ve waited years for you—I’d given up hope. Oh, Nick, of course I’ll marry you,’ she said again, so he took her hand and slipped the little twisted circle of grass onto her ring finger.
‘This is just for now, because Jem said you should have a ring, but we’ll go and get you a proper one,’ he said, and as he got to his feet and she fell sobbing into his arms, he turned his head and gave Jem a thumbs-up.
There was a cheer from the house, and she lifted her head and looked up at him. ‘What are you doing?’
‘He’s watching us.’
She turned and looked at him, and held out her arms, and he limped down the path to them, meeting them at the edge of the lawn, and their arms wrapped around each other, the three of them together, laughing and crying and holding on, because finally—finally!—it was all going to be all right…
Epilogue
HE GAVE Kate away, their son, so proud, so serious, walking her down the aisle of the crowded church and standing straight and tall beside her, and, when the time came, he placed her hand in his father’s with the greatest solemnity and then gave him the biggest grin she’d ever seen.
And Nick grinned back, and winked at him, and then they turned back to Jeff Saunders and made their vows, long overdue but so very heartfelt, and when Jeff said, ‘You may kiss the bride,’ she saw Nick wink at their son as he bent his head to kiss her, and a great cheer went up from the congregation.
Family, friends, patients—there wasn’t a soul there who wasn’t cheering this long overdue couple on their way, and Kate felt her eyes fill as Nick touched his lips to hers and sealed their vows with a tender, lingering kiss.
While the choir sang, they signed the register, Jack and Lucy their witnesses, and then turned and walked back down the aisle between all the people who’d come to see them do what should have been done so many years ago.
Her mother was there, mopping her eyes and smiling, and Nick’s children, of course—Lucy, Kate’s very pregnant matron of honour, with Ben and the
ir children; Jack, his best man, with his growing family and of course Jem, fully recovered and fizzing with excitement and pride at his role in the proceedings.
Nick’s niece Charlotte was there with her husband James, and Jess Carmichael, the counsellor who’d helped them all so much, with her ‘plus one’. And of course the practice was closed, their on-call covered by an agency because everyone was there with an assortment of babies and children.
Showered with love and good wishes, they walked down between the pews, packed so tightly that Health and Safety would have had a fit, dozens more standing outside or crowded into the doorway, listening over a PA link, and as they came out into the glorious September sunshine, everyone cheered and showered them with rose petals.
Cameras were clicking, everyone was hugging them, and Kate thought she’d never been kissed by so many people in her life. All sorts of people. Friends, family, colleagues, but others, patients, neighbours, people she’d known all her life, people who’d taken this little broken family to their hearts and made them whole again with their kindness and acceptance.
Nick stopped and looked around. ‘Thank you so much for coming. I’m sorry we can’t fit everybody for the reception,’ he said, ‘but if you go up to the Smugglers’ and see Tony, there’s a drink there for all of you on the house.’
That raised a cheer, and in a blizzard of rose petals Nick and Kate walked down the path, through the lychgate and to the waiting car.
‘You’re coming with us,’ Kate heard Lucy say to Jem, and they entered the car alone, Jem standing with his sister and brothers. The chauffeur handed them glasses of champagne, and as they linked arms and drank and the cameras were popping, the car pulled slowly away.
‘All right?’ Nick said softly, and Kate smiled back at him.
‘Very all right,’ she said, and kissed him again.
‘Good party?’
‘Fantastic party. It’s a good party house.’
He chuckled and slid his arms round her from behind, nuzzling her neck. ‘No doubt we’ll regret that when he’s seventeen,’ he said wryly, and she laughed.
St Piran's: The Wedding of The Year / St Piran's: Rescuing Pregnant Cinderella Page 17