He had to smile. How could he not, when her delight in this custom of his country was so obvious? But even smiling hurt when he considered how he should have brought Caroline home—how he’d intended bringing her home—four years ago.
He turned to practicality to hide the pain. At least that was something he was good at, hiding pain.
‘They stay indoors until the heat of the day has passed. I think that’s where this custom came from. Then in the cool of the evening they stroll out to meet their friends.’
‘It’s a lovely idea,’ she said, and she sounded so pleased by everything around her that he set aside the past and all that belonged there and took her hand, tucking it in the crook of his arm.
‘Shall we promenade, my lady?’
Big mistake. Now that her body was pressed close against his side, his left side—he’d made sure of that—his father’s idea of marriage came rushing back into his head, his body telling him it was the best idea it had heard in a long time.
The physical attraction between them had been slow-growing—back then. Awareness had quivered from the beginning, but they’d come to like each other as friends, delighting in talking, discussing, even arguing together, until it had seemed only natural that they should take what they’d both recognised as something special to another stage.
‘Are you thinking about sex?’
Caroline’s question startled him so much he stopped, halting her progress so suddenly she stumbled against him.
He opened his mouth to deny it, then laughed.
‘Why on earth would you ask that?’
‘Because I was,’ she admitted with a rueful laugh.
‘About us, and the past, and how good our love-making always was, and it seems to me that lately you’ve been … not reading my mind perhaps, but definitely on the same wavelength, so I thought I’d ask.’
What could he reply?
What he’d have liked to say was, ‘Oh, Caroline,’ then he’d have liked to take her in his arms and hold her close, perhaps whisper of the things he would do to her later in the privacy of a bedroom, but that was hardly appropriate given how she must feel about him.
How he’d treated her.
But she’d brought it up—the past and their love-making …
Desire and panic squirmed inside him. He tucked her arm back into the crook of his elbow and resumed walking.
‘It’s because of my father’s ridiculous assertion that we should marry,’ he said. ‘That’s what’s got us thinking this way.’
This time it was Caroline who stopped their progress.
‘Ha!’ she said, poking him in the chest. ‘You were thinking about it! You said us.’
‘Of course I was thinking about it,’ he muttered at her, dragging her to one side of the pavement so people could pass. ‘How could I not think about it when my body remembers how good it was between us? Physical attraction is a chemical thing, like magnetism—magnets attract. It’s a fact, and we just happen to be the negative and positive of a very powerful magnet.’
‘Oh!’ she said, and he had a feeling she might be smiling at him but they’d stepped back into deep shadow and he couldn’t really tell although he was sure he’d heard a smile in the exclamation. But when she added, ‘Well, that explains it,’ he knew the smile was there and no power on earth could have prevented the kiss he pressed on her lips.
‘We’ll never get to promenade,’ she whispered against his cheek, his scarred cheek, some time later. ‘And your father is sure to ask what I thought of the plaza.’
‘Tell him you liked the statue of the three gods playing in heaven,’ Jorge told her, intent on reclaiming her lips, for even just kissing Caroline was filling his soul with peace.
‘Best I see it,’ she said, speaking as gently as she moved, easing herself out of his arms.
He felt bereft—there was no other word—but he shut the loss away with so many other losses and continued their promenade, acutely aware that while she might think he could read her mind he didn’t have the faintest notion of what she could be thinking, or even how she felt about the kiss.
Although she had kissed him back—he knew that much.
She shouldn’t have kissed him back, Caroline told herself, but knew no power on earth could have stopped her once their lips had touched.
What had happened to her since arriving at the house that had changed her from a tense, unhappy wreck into a smiling, joking, kissing, for heaven’s sake, woman like the person she’d been four years ago?
Had Carlos’s declaration that they marry freed her from all the constraints that had been binding her—don’t touch him, don’t show your feelings, don’t embarrass yourself and him?
Or was it the relaxed feeling in the air, the beautiful surroundings, the smiling people and music spinning through the air?
Caroline hadn’t a clue but although she was thoroughly enjoying the moment—and had more than enjoyed the kiss!—she knew she should be wary. Just because things were peaceful between Jorge and herself right now, it didn’t mean the armistice would last. Self-preservation dictated she keep her feelings in check—well, some of them—particularly the love that both sang and wept inside her. It was okay to show her attraction—how could she avoid it when they kissed? But love—love was dangerous. Love made people feel uncomfortable, especially the object of the love if love was not returned, and Jorge had enough discomfort in his life.
Her thoughts flitted like demented dragonflies in her head while she walked, pressed too close to Jorge’s side. Now he stopped and she looked around, taking in her immediate surroundings for the first time.
‘Three gods playing in heaven?’ she queried, looking at the tangle of what might be figures in the fountain. But the man with whom she’d joked, the man she’d kissed, had gone and the closed-off stranger was back in his place. One look at his face was enough to tell her that.
‘You need not be intimidated by my father, neither would I press you into anything you don’t wish to do, but did you have ideas, when you came, of what you wished for in our reunion? Apart from a father for Ella?’
He’d released her hand from the crook of his arm and turned to face her—perhaps deliberately standing in the light from a lamppost so his scarred face was cruelly visible.
‘I thought we’d have a month,’ she admitted, knowing he deserved her honesty. ‘I thought that would give us time to work out a plan for the future—to work out together what would be best for Ella, and for all three of us.’
She watched him closely as she spoke but there was no hint of a reaction, although what she’d said had been as bland as custard, so why would he react?
‘You must have had some ideas,’ he persisted, and the anger that was never far beneath the surface of her composure flared again.
‘Of course I had some ideas,’ she snapped. ‘I had stupid, foolish, idiotic ideas that somewhere beneath the closed-off, self-pitying wreck you have become some spark of what we’d shared might have lingered. But one day with you was enough to know you’d chosen defeat over life—you’d shut yourself off with your injuries and your pain, shut yourself in on them and held them close, using them as a wall to hide behind, terrified you might see pity in the eyes of someone who loved you.’
She spun away, aware she’d said too much but not caring, the tension of the past weeks finally catching up with her.
Except she couldn’t walk away; that was as feeble a behaviour as his was, so she turned back to him.
‘And, yes, I’ve thought,’ she said. ‘I’ll get a flat, I’ll get a job, I’ll settle Ella into kindergarten—you can have just as much say in that as I do. We’ll be close, you can work out the shared parenting however you like, and as long as Ella is happy and settled I’ll be content.’
‘Content? You’d settle for content?’
His voice was harsh with anger but her own was still hot.
‘Are you telling me you haven’t?’ she demanded, and this time when she turned she con
tinued walking, back along the avenue of trees in the big plaza, past the smiling faces and the ice cream and mate stands, stalking out onto the boulevard, desperate to get back to the house, to her room, where she could give way to the torrent of emotions cascading through her mind and body—where she could have a damn good cry.
Jorge let her go and followed more slowly—keeping her in sight although he knew she’d be safe in this neighbourhood, with people strolling through the streets, unaware of the emotional storm in two of their number.
Or maybe there were storms in other hearts and heads.
Not that it mattered. What mattered was what Caroline had said—the words she’d flung at him. Was she right? Had he been hiding behind his pain?
He could think of a dozen ways to deny it, but the words prickled at his skin, or maybe at his conscience. Was fearing pity the weakness she obviously considered it? Was it weakness, not strength, that made him turn away from it?
Dinner with Carlos that evening, Caroline realised later, was a harbinger of things to come. He was congenial, charming and so obviously delighted by the revelation of an instant family that Caroline forbore arguing when he talked of marriage, thinking she’d take it up with Jorge when they were alone.
The problem was exacerbated the next day as she watched Carlos play in the garden with Ella, devoting himself wholeheartedly to her game of hide and seek. Ella was always the one to hide, Carlos pretending not to see her where she stood, usually in plain view, behind a tree or shrub.
Caroline saw the joy on the man’s face and read the happiness in his eyes. His hands trembled slightly when he touched Ella, as if he was afraid he’d break this precious new being who had come into his life.
Not having known him from before, she couldn’t say for certain he seemed to be getting younger, but the man who carried Ella to her bath a few days later was certainly a more carefree man than the man she’d first met.
Of Jorge she saw little. Having delivered a grandchild to his father, did he feel his duty was done? Or was he out of the house with genuine purpose, following through on his desire to find work in genetics?
The other alternative—perhaps the obvious one—was that he was avoiding her, and though it upset Caroline to think that, she was honest enough to admit she couldn’t blame him, for she’d thrown some harsh words at him on their promenade.
‘I have been talking to my father’s doctor.’ Three days after their arrival Jorge sought her out, finding her in the beautiful, book-lined library where she retreated when Ella played with Carlos. Jorge settled opposite her in a leather armchair and continued talking. ‘I noticed a change in him on our arrival and wondered, but he, the doctor, has confirmed he’s been having a series of TIAs.’
Transient ischemic attacks—the words of the acronym sounded in Caroline’s head. Small strokes, really, lasting only a minute or two, leaving the patient feeling confused and tired. The problem was that a third—she thought it was a third—of people who suffered them could go on to have a full-blown stroke.
‘Is he taking some kind of anti-platelet therapy? Aspirin at least?’ she asked, and Jorge nodded.
‘And lifestyle changes? I’ve noticed he doesn’t smoke, and as far as I’ve seen he only has a couple of glasses of wine in the evenings. Does he have a history of heart disease or carotid artery disease? ‘
To Caroline’s surprise, Jorge didn’t answer, smiling at her instead.
‘Are you aware you clicked straight into medical mode then?’ he asked.
She frowned at him, upset by the smile but not willing to let it show.
‘Why wouldn’t I?’ she demanded.
He shrugged but as his smile had faded she didn’t push for an answer. It was easier to cope with a non-smiling Jorge, so she didn’t have to hide behind medical questions—although she’d grown fond enough of Carlos, and not only because of his devotion to Ella, to be genuinely concerned.
‘Is he handling it well? What did the doctor say?’ she persisted.
‘Well enough, but you know they could be a precursor to something more serious,’ Jorge replied. ‘It is that I wished to discuss with you.’
‘The possibility of your father having a stroke?’ Caroline studied him, aware she was frowning, then shrugged her shoulders. ‘I don’t know any more than the experts—probably less.’
‘You know about the lifestyle changes. Yes, he did smoke cigars but no longer does; yes, he liked his drink before dinner and wine with dinner and a brandy after it, and has cut right down, but stress is another factor and right now, although he doesn’t show it, I know he must be stressed.’
Admittedly she barely knew the man but what she did know of him she liked. In fact, the more she saw and learned of him the more she liked him. He was the kind of man who showed his feelings, particularly his love, and his love appeared to be all-reaching—a huge umbrella he spread across his family, warming, protecting, oozing love.
Concern made her voice sharp as she asked, ‘Is it us being here? Is it too much for him?’
Jorge looked uncomfortable. He fidgeted in the chair, eventually standing up and taking a turn around the room, pausing by his father’s desk, touching things on it—a pen set, an old-fashioned blotter in a leather case, a matching leather tray of mail.
‘It is the opposite,’ he finally admitted. ‘Us being here—Ella being here—has given him a new lease on life, trite though that might sound. It is for that reason I would want him to live as long and as healthily as possible, that he might enjoy her company for many years to come.’
‘And she his,’ Caroline put in, still uncertain where this conversation was going. ‘She already adores him. I hate to say it, but if you don’t come home early one afternoon to play in the garden with her, then her Ablito, as she calls him, will replace you in her affections.’
Jorge took another turn around the room, pausing this time at the deep window embrasure, peering out through the slightly open and heavy velvet curtains into the garden.
‘They are playing there now. Even through the window you can hear their laughter.’
He turned back to Caroline.
‘He brought me up himself when my mother died, although he could have left the task to Antoinette and servants. He put me back together when I came home from France, held me in the night when I cried out in pain. I rewarded him by going away—by leaving him here, worrying all the time about my health, both mental and physical—yet he made no move, spoke no word, to hold me near him.’
Caroline found herself swallowing hard, images of Carlos as the father Jorge had known so vivid in her head she could have wept for him.
Wept for Jorge as well, for he was looking pale and strained—wretched, in fact, although the tell-tale tilt to his back wasn’t there so she doubted it was pain bothering him.
‘You’re telling me this because you feel you owe him something? And I can help you repay him in some way?’
‘You can,’ Jorge said, coming closer and taking both her hands in his. ‘I know it is a lot to ask of you, but you must know it is his dearest wish. You must know that, being the old-fashioned man he is, he frets about it.’
Caroline shook her head.
‘You’ve lost me,’ she said, although she had guessed where the conversation was going. Maybe it was because Jorge was touching her, actually holding her hands, and her brain had gone into a whirl that she felt she could not cope with it just now.
‘He mentioned it the first afternoon you were here,’ Jorge said.
‘I was in such a daze that first afternoon,’ she said, removing her hands from that tempting grasp, ‘I doubt I remember much of it. Your father calling Ella his princess, she telling him she was a girl. We walked, we argued.’
Jorge looked at her. For some reason, today she was wearing the pink T-shirt with the bright butterfly on it and she made a splash of colour in the dim library. He looked away again, the pain of looking at her too real. Did she really not remember? They’d had a long drive,
she would have been apprehensive about meeting his father, concerned about Ella.
‘He thinks we should marry.’ Jorge blurted out the words then knew they weren’t enough. ‘It pains him to think of Ella as a bastard and while you and I know that is a very old-fashioned take on things, it’s his take on it, and it worries him, probably enough, though he wouldn’t mention it again, to exacerbate his condition.’
He had to look at her. Had to try to read her reaction on her face, but it was blank, as if all emotion had been wiped away by the shock of his revelation. Then, as he watched, she nodded.
‘I suppose it’s easy enough to do—we marry. Do you have registry offices here? We can do it in a few minutes, although I’ll have to check on the legalities as far as being an Australian is concerned. The embassy could tell me. It’s no big deal, Jorge. We’ll sort it out—you can tell him that we’re onto it.’
Could she really be so casual about it?
Worse, could she really believe a couple of minutes in front of a judge or priest would satisfy his father as a marriage?
Of course, she didn’t know his father as he did. She had no idea what a wedding here entailed.
And knowing it would pain his father more to believe the marriage was a sham—to see it as a sham—he, Jorge, had to somehow backtrack along this conversation and bring the marriage in from another angle.
A marriage of convenience?
Convenient certainly, but a true marriage?
No matter how much he might wish to hold himself apart from Caroline—to continue to hide behind the barriers he’d built up—he couldn’t be part of a sham played out for his father. He also had no doubt the attraction that had existed between them from their first meeting was as strong as ever, so why not a marriage in every sense?
But how to put this to Caroline?
Caroline sat very still, thinking maybe if she didn’t move, the world would return to normal.
Although she’d tried to sound as casual as possible, flippant even, as if she fronted up to a judge to get married every day of the week, the thought of marrying Jorge, even if it wasn’t real, made her feel as if a hand had reached inside her body and clutched at her intestines. It clenched around them, tightening her lungs as well, fingers squeezing at her heart.
Melting the Argentine Doctor's Heart / Small Town Marriage Miracle Page 11