by Maggie Cox
Jack let his gaze hungrily roam over her at will, his blue eyes darkening to almost the colour of a perfectly clear night sky. ‘Now that I’m here I can see that I was always coming back to you, Caroline.’
He was speaking the truth. Ever since he’d suffered the heart attack, Jack had been made frighteningly aware of his own mortality, and pure instinct had sent him back to the woman he loved. The woman he now intended to stay with until he breathed his last breath.
‘And what about your ex-wife?’
Jack’s hand possessively circled Caroline’s wrist as for a fleeting moment he saw doubt reflected in her steady gaze.
‘A desperate mistake.’ He jerked her a little towards him, so that the soft feathery tips of her ravishing long blonde hair brushed his face. ‘I wasn’t in love with her, Caroline…I promise you that. Do you believe me?’
She had no reason not to. Even Caroline knew a man in love when she saw one, and Jack truly did adore her—she could see that. The tension inside her finally dispersed as she relaxed against his chest.
‘I don’t blame you for needing the comfort of someone else, Jack. Seventeen years is a long time to be alone…I can personally vouch for that.’
There was no blame in her voice, only a little lingering sorrow that they had waited so long to find each other again.
‘You’ll never be alone again, sweetheart…not so long as I live and breathe. And even after I’m gone I’ll come back and be your guardian angel. So you see? You’ll never be rid of me.’
Before Caroline could think another melancholy thought, Jack had captured her lips lovingly beneath his own and moved his hands down her body to bring her closer still…
‘You’re miles away, Jack…come back to me.’
Smiling up at his serious, preoccupied expression as they walked along the shoreline together, holding hands, Caroline intuitively tried to glean what her husband was thinking about. They had been married for exactly one week and one day, and had wasted no more time in getting to know each other all over again. They had even started finishing each other’s sentences, and sometimes accurately guessing each other’s thoughts like a long-time married couple.
With every day that passed, Caroline was more and more convinced that destiny had indeed decreed that they were meant to be together. But now, as he stopped on the wet yellow sand and turned to study her, the wind whipping a lock of his thick dark hair across the handsome brow that seemed a lot less troubled and careworn these days Caroline couldn’t deny the sudden jolt of anxiety that ran through her blood.
‘Jack?’
‘I’ve been meaning to ask…’
‘Yes?’ For a moment she didn’t breathe.
‘Did you—did you suffer any damage when you had the abortion?’ he asked finally.
Feeling shock roll through her, then ebb slowly away, Caroline sighed.
‘No…thankfully I didn’t. Why are you asking me this now, Jack?’
‘I just needed to know. Perhaps it’s too early to bring the subject up…I don’t know how you feel about it, but I was thinking…’
‘You were thinking that we might try again…for a baby?’
As soon as the words were out, and she saw the look of complete astonishment on his face, Caroline knew she had guessed right. She was so overwhelmed with elation that she could barely speak.
They had been absolutely honest with each other about so many things since they had got together again six weeks ago, and even more so since their marriage, but this was one topic that they had both somehow avoided. Caroline knew the reasons why. Past pain had made the subject brittle as glass, and they were still treading carefully around it to avoid being cut. But now they had a God-given opportunity to address it.
‘Is it at all possible, do you think?’
Watching her seemingly tussle with the question, Jack tried not to get his hopes up. Now that he was married to Caroline, he couldn’t deny his growing desire to be a father, for her to have his baby. But he also knew that she had suffered deep trauma over having been made to have the abortion, and that that trauma had been made worse when Jack had gone away. He could hardly blame her if the idea of becoming pregnant again engendered strong feelings of trepidation and even fear inside her.
‘I think it’s more than possible, given the fact that we’ve been rather lax with birth control,’ Caroline replied grinning.
Relieved that she didn’t seem too upset about the idea, Jack let his tense shoulders relax.
‘So you like the idea?’
His arms encircled her waist in her long red wool coat as her bewitching smile grew even wider. ‘I want us to have a baby, Jack. And this time nobody’s going to stop us! In fact…I have a sneaking suspicion that I could be pregnant already. My period’s late. I was going to tell you.’
‘My God…’ His gaze an intensely hopeful gleam, Jack felt something quicken inside him.
‘Well, Jack…you’ve been keeping me pretty busy for the past few weeks. It was bound to happen sooner or later, don’t you think?’
Examining her shining brown eyes, and seeing the joy that was all but pouring out of them, Jack was suddenly more than certain that his wife was carrying their baby inside her.
For a long moment he couldn’t speak, he was so moved by the idea that they were to become parents. Then he scooped her up into his arms and swung her round and round right there on the sand, for the world to witness his exultation. It didn’t matter that right then there was only an elderly man walking by with his dog. The man smiled at them both indulgently, lifted his cap and walked on, whistling for his dog to follow.
‘We’ll need a new place to live,’ Jack declared when Caroline had laughingly begged him to stop swinging her round because she was getting dizzy.
They had talked about where they would live, of course, but had arrived at no firm decision as yet. Right now Jack was staying at Caroline’s place, and work was still in progress on his house. But they’d agreed they would reside in neither of those places. They would start afresh somewhere else…somewhere they would both be free from the wounds of the past.
Tomorrow—when the temporary staff that Caroline had hired to look after her shop started work—they were flying out to the Caribbean for their honeymoon. And after that they would fly on to New York, where Jack wanted to introduce his new wife to his friends. He knew already that they would be absolutely captivated by her.
‘Could you bear to live by the sea again?’ Caroline asked him, her teeth worrying at her soft lower lip.
‘I know how much you love the ocean.’ Stroking his knuckles gently down the side of her cold windblown cheek, Jack smiled. ‘I have a house in California. It’s right by the sea. It’s rather beautiful, in fact. You would probably fall in love with it, come to think of it. We could always live there.’
Suddenly it didn’t matter to Caroline if they lived by the sea or not. As long as she could visit the ocean from time to time, she would be well content.
That settled, she momentarily rested her head against her husband’s chest. ‘I’m easy,’ she said, and smiled.
‘Hey,’ Jack said jokingly, ‘that’s not something you should say in front of your husband, Mrs Fitzgerald.’
‘I love you, Jack.’
‘I love you more, Caroline.’
‘You can’t possibly.’
‘I’m sorry, but I beg to differ. The love I feel for you can’t be measured.’
‘Is it deeper than the ocean?’ Her lips dimpled teasingly.
‘Fathoms deeper.’
‘Brighter than the brightest star?’
‘More dazzling than Venus herself.’
‘That’s a whole lot of love, Jack.’
‘Isn’t that the name of a song?’
He laughed and kissed the top of her head.
‘I’ll love you for ever, Caroline…that’s a promise.’
And, gazing up into her husband’s enraptured and loving face, Caroline saw that his impassioned v
ow was written on his very soul…
ISBN: 978-1-4268-3120-1
THE PREGNANCY SECRET
First North American Publication 2009.
Copyright © 2006 by Maggie Cox.
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