Caroline Anderson, Anne Fraser, Kate Hardy, Margaret McDonagh

by Brides of Penhally Bay Vol. 04 (lit)

  ‘Luca…’

  Flustered, Polly broke off. She had no idea what to say. Aside from Kate, no one had ever believed in her before and that Luca, who had known her less than a week, could say these things with apparent sincerity confused her completely. It also made keeping him at a distance ever more difficult.

  ‘I lost count of the number of people who said they had heard of the clinic but it was listening to your talk and meeting you at the school yesterday that convinced them to come. It’s you they come for, Polly.’

  The talk Nick had arranged with the headmaster and which Polly would have given anything to avoid. She had not expected Luca to accompany her, but he had. And, once more, he had been scarily sensitive to her emotions, picking up straight away on her nervousness and anxiety. He’d been supportive and understanding, although Polly felt a twinge of guilt that she hadn’t corrected his assumption that her unease was because she didn’t like to speak in public. Thankfully, he’d had no idea of the real reason for, or the extent of, her inner turmoil.

  Aside from the surgery, she’d managed to stay away from any places in Penhally that might provoke memories she was not yet able to cope with. Until yesterday. Visiting the school had threatened to be worse than she had anticipated…had it not been for Luca.

  Painful memories of her years growing up in Penhally had assailed her as soon as she had seen the building. For a few moments she had been frozen to the spot, scarcely able to breathe as the sudden weight of her past had crashed down on her. Luca had stopped beside her. He hadn’t said a word, but had taken her hand in his and linked their fingers.

  It was only now that she looked back on it with a clear head that she realised how she had clung to him, energised by the surge of electricity that had flowed between them, absorbing his strength, able to do what had to be done because he had been there beside her. And that frightened her. She had learned the lessons of the past and knew she could never again rely on anyone but herself, yet for those moments, with Luca, she had forgotten. For a short span of time she had not felt alone. And it had felt far too good.

  Acutely aware that just thinking about his touch made her hand tingle all over again, she turned away from his steady, silent inspection, desperate to steer the conversation away from herself. Searching for something—anything—she remembered Nick’s comments on the day Luca had arrived.

  ‘I’m sure some of the teenagers, the boys in particular, felt more comfortable talking to a man and were glad you were here,’ she murmured, fidgeting once more with the leaflets she still needed to put away. ‘You have an interest, too.’ Pausing, unable to help herself, she looked up and met his dark, watchful gaze. ‘Why did you give up your ambition to be a paediatric surgeon?’

  Luca felt the unexpected question like a body blow and it took a moment for him to catch his breath. Polly had neatly turned the tables on him, guarding her own secrets yet trying to expose his own. Had it been anyone else, he would have given the usual flippant answer to brush the enquirer off, but it was Polly who for the first time in the whole week had actually shown any sign of interest or asked him anything about himself. And because it was Polly, because he wanted her to trust him, to know him, despite the battle that still raged inside him against what he was beginning to feel for her, he told her the truth.

  ‘Paediatric surgery, and working with the older children in particular, was my dream, and what I went into medicine to do,’ he began, standing up and sinking his hands into the pockets of his jeans. ‘I worked ludicrously long hours during my training to achieve my goal, extra hours that I could—should—have spent at home with Elaine. When she died…’

  Luca paused, bracing himself, anticipating the customary stab of pain, confused and unsettled to find that it had dulled to a raw ache and no longer seared through him like a red-hot lance. He moved away, needing time to think, aware he had left out a huge chunk of important information but not yet ready to tell Polly what Elaine had done, or of his feelings, his guilt, concerned she would think badly of him. As he did of himself. Turning round, he discovered Polly hadn’t moved, but was watching him through big blue eyes. There was no pity in their depths, but he saw sorrow, pain on his behalf, and the kind of empathy that inspired such confidence and trust from her patients.

  Closing the gap between them again, he continued with the edited version of his tale. ‘Suddenly I was left alone with newborn twins. And while grieving for Elaine, I somehow had to make important decisions about what to do.’

  ‘It must have been impossibly difficult—a time of very mixed emotions.’

  ‘Yes, it was,’ he admitted, finding Polly as easy to talk to as he’d expected, and grateful that she faced things head on. ‘I couldn’t right the wrongs of the past, but I knew things had to change if I was to be any kind of father to Rosie and Toni. There were people who said I should give the girls up for adoption.’

  ‘What nonsense. How could anyone suggest something like that?’ she asked with evident disbelief and anger.

  Luca was warmed by her support, amused by her fierce indignation, and alerted by a brief yet unmistakable flash of intense, dark pain. Puzzled, he filed the moment away for later. ‘I don’t know, but adoption was never an option.’

  ‘Of course not.’ Her voice was throaty with emotion, tightening his gut and firing his blood, but again he noted the underlying pain. ‘How did you cope?’

  ‘I had no close family in Italy by then. My only grandparent died when I was eleven, and my parents, who spent long periods of time working abroad, died when I was sixteen. But Elaine’s parents were wonderfully supportive, and not just to the girls. Jane and Brian were like a second mother and father to me,’ he confided, smiling as he thought of his in-laws.

  ‘They were in Cornwall?’

  ‘That’s right.’ In response to Polly’s soft query, he explained how he had met Elaine when she had been backpacking in Italy during her gap year, and how they had fallen in love, changing the course of both their lives. ‘We lived in Cornwall for a while, and I did some of my early training at St Piran’s, but there came a point when Elaine and I decided to move back to Italy.’

  Once more Luca hesitated. He didn’t want to play what-if games in his head for the umpteenth time and wonder if Elaine would still be alive today if they had remained in Cornwall. Or if, at any point during those years, Elaine would have told the truth about the risk of what they were doing, and if he could have made her stop. If he had, of course, he would never have had the twins. Familiar guilt ripped at his heart. No man should have to make a choice between the lives of his wife and his children. Elaine had made the decision for him, driven by her single-minded determination—yet the consequences had been like playing Russian roulette with her life and those of the twins.

  Elaine had paid the ultimate price. And he had lost the wife he loved. But he had gained their twins…her final gift to him. He’d wanted Elaine back, but how could he wish away his daughters? It had been an impossible situation, one that even now he had not properly resolved in his head. All he did know was that he didn’t blame the girls or resent their existence, even though there had been moments of anger at Elaine…and himself. An unsteady breath shuddered through him.

  ‘Luca, what is it?’

  The whispered words and the light touch of Polly’s fingers on his wrist brought him back with a start. Before she could move away, he captured her hand, needing her touch, the comfort of human contact. For a moment he looked at the contrast of her pale skin against his darker tones, entranced by the impossible fragility in the bones of her slender hand and graceful fingers. His gaze slowly trailed up over her floaty skirt—which today was a swirl of greens and blues—and over the now familiar layers of assorted tops she wore and which so effectively masked her body.

  That brought him up short and for a moment he frowned, wondering why the fact that Polly was in hiding had not occurred to him before. Now that it had, he couldn’t shake the thought. And when he saw the jumble of e
motions chasing across her eyes, he knew he was right. He’d been aware of her heightened emotions at various times during the week, most especially with Kate, and yesterday at the school, when he had been uncertain of their cause but had welcomed her acceptance of his efforts of support. Now, though, he saw so much more. He saw the pain that raged inside her. A pain that might stem from a very different cause—and why/how/who/what/ when questions raged in his mind—but that appeared as deeply ingrained as his own. Maybe it was one of the reasons they were so drawn to each other…one lost soul instinctively recognised and reached out to another.

  ‘Luca?’

  This time Polly’s voice was laced with wary uncertainty, enough for him to refocus on what he had been saying but not enough for him to relinquish her hand when she tried to withdraw it. He could deny it and fight it all he wanted, but Polly set him on fire and his flesh burned from the contact with hers.

  ‘Jane and Brian brought me and the girls back to Cornwall.’ He cleared his throat, needing to finish the story before he could turn to other things. ‘I finished my training at St Piran’s, and they cared for the girls while I was at work. If I had continued with paediatric surgery, it would have entailed long shifts, spells of night duty and a lot of weekends, but I knew I needed a more settled routine and to work better hours if I was to have more time to be a father to my daughters, so I switched to general practice, which offered what I needed.’

  He was aware of Polly searching his own expressions and he tried to keep himself open to her, wanting her to trust him the same way. ‘Do you miss the surgery?’

  Another kick-in-the-gut question. ‘Sometimes, yes. But I genuinely enjoy being a GP,’ he confided truthfully. ‘Brian and Jane were both in their early seventies when the twins were born—Elaine was a late, unexpected but longed-for child after previous miscarriages and health problems.’ Problems Elaine had inherited and which, combined with others, had led to the fatal complications with the twins—facts she hadn’t shared with him until too late. He cleared his throat and pressed on. ‘Brian and Jane became ever more frail and found it impossible to care for two active, growing girls. I arranged other help, not entirely successful, then this post came up. It was time for a change, for me to take responsibility for raising my daughters, and for Jane and Brian to relax.’

  The older couple had a lot of medical issues between them and Luca was very concerned about them. He’d been relieved by their decision to move to a flat in a warden-assisted, sheltered-housing complex along the coast from Penhally.

  ‘The girls must miss them,’ Polly murmured, echoing his thoughts.

  ‘They do. It was a big change in routine for them. We see them often, although their failing health means not for too long each time. Rosie and Toni can be frighteningly intuitive for such tiny tots.’

  As he finished, he noted Polly’s increased tension and emotional distance when he talked of his daughters. Why? It was the question that seemed to crop up most often with Polly. The more he learned about her, the less he seemed to know.

  He hadn’t so much as looked at another woman from the moment he’d set eyes on Elaine twelve years ago, and that he not just noticed but was so attracted to Polly felt like a betrayal of the wife he had loved. His emotions and his libido had died with Elaine. He hadn’t imagined them ever coming back to life. Apparently they’d only been in hibernation because his body responded in a once-familiar way to Polly, his interest and attraction increasing every day.

  Why Polly? Why now? And what was he going to do about it?

  Polly remained an intriguing and complicated puzzle, more and more difficult to solve and understand. As he watched her, she bit her lip, her gaze still averted following his mention of the twins, and his free hand moved with a will of its own, tipping up her chin before his fingers brushed her cheek. Even though his other hand was still holding hers, the instant his fingers made contact with her face it felt as if he had been plugged into an electric socket, so intense was the physical charge that shot through him.

  Blue eyes widened in surprise but he also saw the answering awareness she failed to mask. Anxiety and confusion were evident, too, and gave him pause. Even white teeth nervously nibbled the soft swell of her lower lip, firing his blood and driving him insane. His thumb traced the outline of her upper lip, with its cute Cupid’s bow, before teasing across the lower one, erasing the tiny indentations left by her teeth.

  He heard her breath hitch and felt the racing of her pulse in her wrist. Her pounding heartbeat matched his own. This was crazy, and he knew it. If anyone had told him a week ago that he’d be lusting after and feeling protective of any woman, let alone one so opposite from Elaine, he would have considered having them certified. But Polly, his unique and fragile little gypsy, had thrown his life and his mind into total disarray, burrowing under his skin and refusing to be whittled out again.

  ‘You were married once, too?’ he ventured after a mo-ment’s silence, needing a few answers of his own.

  ‘Yes.’

  He barely heard her, so soft was her voice, but he registered the hurt that clouded her eyes and dulled their light. Again the pad of his thumb explored the succulent temptation of her lower lip. ‘What happened, Polly?’

  She shook her head, and long, dusky lashes lowered to hide her expression. Luca curbed his frustration, eager to uncover all her mysteries but scared of pushing too much too soon. A while ago he would never have imagined making this much progress with her. But he was desperate to know why Polly and her husband had divorced…and whether she was still in love with the man. That thought brought an uncomfortable burn far too reminiscent of jealousy.

  ‘We’ve both had to adapt and cope, haven’t we, zingarella?’ he whispered, leaning closer, breathing in the delicious scent of lilacs, feeling the tremor that rippled through her. It took every scrap of self-restraint not to close the last of the distance and kiss her but it was too soon—for both of them. ‘Sometimes life throws us unexpected challenges, no?’

  Luca was startled by Polly’s sudden humourless laugh. ‘What a masterful understatement, Luca.’

  The touch of uncharacteristic sarcasm was overridden by the raw emotions in her voice that conveyed not only agreement but also regret and a soul-deep pain that shook him to the core. Yet as he cupped her face, savouring the downy softness of her skin, concern for her was rivalled by the growing temptation that challenged the resolution he had made only moments ago not to kiss her.

  ‘Talk to me,’ he encouraged, hoping she could start opening up to him.

  She shook her head. ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Polly, I—’

  To his intense frustration, the emergency bell sounded at the front door. He wanted more time alone with Polly, but the possibility that someone was in need could not be ignored. The bell rang again, and he cursed. Sighing, he stroked her face one last time, lost in the turmoil swirling in her eyes, then he allowed himself the briefest, lightest of kisses…brushing her lips with his own, getting the tiniest, most tantalising hint of her taste, whetting his appetite and leaving him craving more.

  ‘This isn’t finished, zingarella,’ he whispered as he stepped back, reluctantly releasing her, his hands dropping to his sides as the bell rang a third time.

  Aware of Polly’s confusion, feeling as mixed up as she was, he forced himself to turn away and leave the room before he did something crazy—like throw all caution and common sense to the wind, gather her slender frame up in his arms, kiss her senseless and set them both on fire.

  Left alone, and with her legs unable to hold her up a moment longer, Polly sank down, grateful there was a chair behind her. The information leaflets she’d been holding slipped from her nerveless fingers and scattered across the floor. Luca had been going to kiss her. Which was scary enough. More frightening still was that she had wanted him to…and was disappointed that he hadn’t.

  She had learned much more about him—about his wife, his loss, his daughters, and the changes he had mad
e to his life to give the little girls the best he could. His pain had been evident and had twisted her heart. It had taken every bit of strength she possessed not to give in to her instinct to hug him. She was vulnerable to him and that made him dangerous, but keeping her distance, as she knew she must, was becoming harder with each passing day.

  Luca’s questions about her own marriage had caught her off guard. She never liked to think about Charles. Not for any reason. Kate was the only person who knew anything about what had happened, and even then Polly had been very careful to edit and censor her story, so the sudden compulsion she had experienced to confide in Luca had rocked her to the core. The thought of Luca knowing about her life, her mistakes, her marriage and what she had done, sent a chill down her spine. And the very fact that it mattered what he thought of her, and that she was even thinking like this, brought home how far he had broken through her defences in six days. Defences she had worked so hard to build since she had finally managed to put Charles behind her.

  To this day she didn’t know how something that had started out with such promise could have gone so badly wrong. She had believed in her marriage vows and had meant every word, including ‘for better, for worse’. But that had been before she’d known what ‘worse’ was. Or that sometimes there came a point where you had to think of yourself, to recognise that however hard you try, other people have to take responsibility for their own actions and decisions, and there was nothing more you can do for them. All that was left was to sur-vive…and to be safe, you have to walk away. By the time she had understood that and had reached that point with Charles, it had almost been too late, and the cost of doing it was more than she would ever have wanted to pay.