by Sharon Booth
'This thing with Emerald,' she heard herself say, then stopped.
He closed his eyes briefly, then met her gaze, his mouth a straight line. She saw the tension in his face and a part of her ached for him. 'Aye?'
She could hear the reluctance in his voice. He didn't want to talk about it, but she had to be sure of one thing.
'What's really going on with her?'
His head shot up and he stared at her incredulously. 'Nowt. Nowt's going on. I thought you believed me!'
'So did I, 'til I realised you'd told her the one thing I begged you never to tell anyone. Now I don't know what to think.'
'You don't mean that. You can't.'
'Why can't I?' she said, wanting to hurt him and hating herself for doing so at the same time. 'You spent the night with her, got drunk with her, spilled my secrets. For all I know, you had sex with her, too.'
'I did not! I would never do that.'
'You can't remember telling her about me and Ryan?'
'I swear, I can't.'
'Then how do you know you've not forgotten you had sex with Emerald?'
He looked incredulous. 'How would you forget that?'
'Oh! So, it would be memorable, would it?'
'That's not what I meant! You're twisting me words. You know I'd never betray you like that.'
'You just did!'
They stared at each other, dumb with misery.
Eventually, Eden spoke, her voice hoarse with grief. 'You've been weird about Emerald from the start. Blind to her. She's a devious little cow and you can't see it. Always on her side, always defending her. I know she's pretty, but even so. I thought you were more sensible than that.'
'Eden, please believe me. It's nowt to do with how she looks. I feel sorry for the lass, that's all. The way Cain's bin with her and being left out of everything. You didn't see her at the wedding. She were so upset and hurt, and I ... I just felt for her, that's all.'
'So, she can behave how she likes because you're sorry for her.' Eden bit her lip, trying to control her temper. 'I wonder how sorry you'd feel for her if she looked like a yow's backside.'
Eliot slumped, seeming defeated. He dropped to the ground and tugged violently at the grass. 'Are we going to go round and round with this all day?' He looked up at her. 'Two days it's bin, and you've not said a word to me. The kids are worrying.'
Eden blinked away tears. 'I know that, but I can't help it,' she murmured. 'I could never understand your attitude towards Emerald, and then the way you kicked off at me about taking George — where was the understanding and forgiveness for me? You're quick enough to forgive her! You were horrible to me, Eliot. I know I shouldn't have done what I did, but you didn't give me the chance to explain, wouldn't listen. Instead, you went off to get drunk, spent the night with that — that bitch, and told her my deepest secret. The one thing I begged you never to tell anyone!'
'I know. I know that! God, Eden, you think I don't know?' His voice rose, a hint of panic in his tone, and he clamped his mouth shut, staring at the grass. She saw him take a deep breath. 'Are you going to leave me?'
Eden's stomach plummeted. The despair in his voice broke her. 'For God's sake, Eliot, why the hell would I do that?'
He raised his eyes to hers. ''Cos of what I did, the way things are.' He sounded bewildered, totally out of his depth. Did he really think that was how relationships worked?
'We've had a row. A big one,' she conceded, 'but still just a row. Do you really think I'd leave you because of that?'
His face was full of confusion. She thought, not for the first time, how much damage his relationship with Jemima had inflicted upon him.
Sighing, she stuck her hands in her pockets and gazed down at him. 'We're a couple, Eliot. Whatever's gone on, we handle it together. We work it out together. You don't run away — at least, I don't. You, on the other hand, seem incapable of facing up to an argument. You've got to learn not to run from our problems. You promised you'd work on that.'
'Aye,' he admitted shamefaced. 'I did.'
His misery tugged at her heart. 'You've been doing so well,' she said grudgingly. 'Let's count this as one setback and go forward.'
'You mean it?'
She shrugged. 'We're not out of the woods yet. I don't know where we go from here, and I'm not sure what we can do to fix it.'
He scrambled to his feet. 'We'll do whatever we can,' he said. 'Whatever it takes. But you know, don't you, that I didn't sleep with Emerald? That I would never do that to you?'
She hesitated, then nodded. 'I know. Even so,' she added quickly, 'Emerald has to go. Not because I have any doubts, but because I've simply had enough of her behaviour and her attitude. She can go to The Paradise or back to Cain's, or to Timbuktu for all I care.'
'Aye.' Eliot rubbed his forehead, clearly torn, but he seemed to accept he had no choice. It wasn't up for discussion. 'I understand that.'
'And if you and I are having problems, you don't storm off and confide in other people. You stay. You talk to me.'
He nodded. 'I promise.'
They stared at each other, and she saw the pain, relief and fear in his eyes.
'Is there anything else you'd like to tell me, Eliot?' She had to ask, although she suspected she was on a hiding to nothing.
The struggle he was clearly having was painful to watch. 'Nowt,' he said eventually, his voice sounding shaky.
Eden let it go, knowing that he would have to come to her in his own good time. Right now, there was something she had to make clear. Something he really needed to know, with absolute certainty. 'One more thing,' she said, her voice thick with emotion.
'Anything, Eden,' he said.
She choked back a sob. 'I love you.'
She saw the look of amazement on his face, then he held out his arms and she was safe within them once again, where she belonged, and he held her tightly and kissed her fiercely, and told her he loved her, too, and how sorry he was, over and over again.
JULY
Chapter Thirty-Five
Jed pushed open the door and ushered Beth inside the hotel room. He wondered what the reception staff at The Paradise Hotel made of them. They were becoming such frequent visitors they'd be invited to the staff Christmas party at this rate. But the fact was, choices were limited. Fleetsthorpe was out of the question, and he could hardly visit Beth at Thwaite Park. At least Kirkby Skimmer was far enough away from Beckthwaite to be reasonably safe, and once they were inside their room, they felt secure at last.
He was glad she'd called him. He'd missed her, and things had been tense, at the farm, this past couple of days. He didn't know for sure what had gone on, but clearly Emerald had done something to stir things up between Eden and Eliot. There was a big row going on in the kitchen when he left. Emerald had been yelling at Eden and Eden had been yelling back. Maybe Jed should have stayed, tried to mediate as he usually did, but he wasn't in the mood. Besides, he'd been too eager to get to The Paradise and meet up with Beth. Her text had come out of the blue, and he wasn't going to miss any opportunity to be with her, however much Emerald might need him. They would sort it out. They always did.
Beth looked beautiful, he thought, as she sat on the sofa, her hands on her lap. So classy and graceful. Although, he considered, she also looked strained. She was watching him with those large, dark eyes, and he could see a trace of nerves in them. He swallowed, wondering if this was the day he'd feared. Was Beth going to tell him they were over?
'Sit down, Jed.' That voice, usually so gentle and loving, was brittle and crackled with tension.
Jed sat, his mouth feeling dry. He tried to work out how he could persuade her to give him another chance, to not end their affair. She couldn't go back to the life she had before, surely?
'Beth,' he said, taking her hand, 'I'm trying to be cool with this, honest I am, but I can't do it.'
Her eyes widened. 'I'm sorry?'
'You can't throw this away,' he said, squeezing her fingers. 'What we have is special. Surel
y you feel it, too? I can't stand the thought of you living the rest of your life with that jerk. Don't do it, Beth, please.'
He held his breath as she stared at him for a moment, then slowly let it out as she reached out and stroked the side of his face, a smile on her lips. 'Oh, my poor darling Jed,' she whispered. 'Don't you understand how much I love you?'
He cupped her face gently. 'I thought — you looked as if you had something big to tell me.'
'And I do,' she confessed. 'There's no easy way to say this, and I have no idea how you're going to react, so I'll come out with it. Jed, I'm pregnant.'
The words echoed back through time. JoJo, standing before him, her tiny frame shivering as she stared up at him through tear-filled eyes. 'Jed, I'm pregnant,' she'd told him, and he'd let out a whoop of delight and squeezed her tightly, telling her how wonderful and clever and beautiful she was, and how she'd made him the happiest man in the world.
Beth was watching him, and there were no tears in her eyes. Just a trace of anxiety. 'Jed?'
He blinked, a delight so intense that it was painful battling with the fear. He fought to stay in control of his emotions. 'Are you pleased?' he asked her.
He saw the trace of disappointment in her face and felt like a heel. It wasn't what he wanted to say. What he wanted to say was how wonderful it was, and how happy he felt. He wanted to swoop her up in his arms and smother her with kisses. But he'd been here before, and it was terrifying.
'I'm more than pleased,' she said. 'I'm over the moon. Whatever happens, I want this baby more than anything.' Now there really were tears in her eyes, and he remembered how long she'd waited for this moment, and suddenly JoJo vanished from his mind and he threw his arms around her, reassuring her that he couldn't be happier, and admitting how much he wanted this baby, too.
'You haven't asked me,' she said, when he finally gave her room to breathe, and she pushed him away laughing.
'Asked you what?'
The laughter in her face died, and she stared at him in anguish. 'You haven't asked me if it's yours.'
Jed reeled back. 'Are you saying ...?'
He'd never asked, but he'd assumed that, once their relationship moved to an intimate level, she'd stopped sleeping with her husband. Had he been wrong?
'No,' she assured him, when he voiced his fears. 'I swear to you, Jed, there's been nothing between James and me since you and I first made love.' She took a deep breath. 'But, just before — after we first kissed.' She frowned. 'I already knew I didn't want him any longer, but I — I let him, because ...' She shrugged self-consciously. 'It was stupid, I know, but I felt guilty. I'd kissed you, and I knew what my heart was telling me, and I felt ashamed. I'd withdrawn from James because of his affair, and here I was, desperate to begin one with you. I know it sounds crazy, but I felt like I owed him, so I let it happen. But it was the last time, I promise.'
'You didn't owe him anything,' Jed said, aghast. 'Least of all sex.'
'I know! I know that now,' she said. 'But you have to remember the state I was in at the time. I was so low, so full of self-loathing. I wasn't the person I am now. You've given me my self-confidence back. You've made me stronger. It would never happen again.'
'But in the meantime, you don't know who the baby's father is.'
'No,' she admitted. 'I don't. Not for sure. I mean, the chances are it's yours. It would be a massive coincidence if James had got me pregnant now. But ...'
'But we can't rule out the possibility.' Jed took her hands again. 'Whatever happens, Beth, I wanna be with you. I want to bring this baby up with you. I guess this is it. Crunch time. James is gonna have to know about us. Who do you want to be with?'
Beth's eyes gleamed with tears. 'You don't even have to ask me that, do you? I want to be with you, Jed. I love you. I don't feel anything for James at all, and I want us to be together.' She smiled. 'The three of us.'
Jed hugged her tightly. 'Then it's settled.'
'No,' she said, pushing him gently away. 'It's not. Much as I would love it to be. How can I do this to him? I've already caused him to lose one child. If this baby turns out to be his, how can I deprive him of a second child?'
Jed's stomach turned over in dread. He felt icy cold. 'So, what are you saying?'
'I can't make any decision until I know whose baby this is. I just can't. And how can I expect you to bring up another man's child? Do you even want children? I've never asked you.'
Jed stood and wandered over to the bed. He didn't know why, but suddenly it felt like he needed some distance between him and Beth.
'Jed?' Beth watched him nervously. 'What is it?'
'I never told you why I came back to Britain,' he said at last. 'I never really explained why I left the band.'
'You said you realised it wasn't what you wanted,' she said, puzzled.
'That's true enough. But it was what made me realise that counts. That's the stuff I never told you. About me and JoJo.'
'JoJo?' Beth frowned. 'Isn't she the singer in the band? I Googled Raven's Wing and there was a lot of stuff about her.' She sat up straight, her face suddenly closed off. 'She's very pretty. Very petite.'
'Yeah. Just five feet tall and a real powerhouse. The voice of her generation, according to Rolling Stone.'
'And, you and JoJo were together?'
'For two years,' he confessed. 'We lived together, worked together, wrote songs together, performed together.'
'And you didn't think to mention it before?' Her voice was barely a whisper.
Jed heard her pain and tried to ignore his own. It felt like Groundhog Day. He'd been here before. He couldn't bear it all over again. 'We broke up, a couple of months before I came back to Britain,' he told her.
'And that's why you quit the band? Because you couldn't bear to work with her and not be part of a couple?'
He shook his head. 'No, Beth. I quit the band because I realised it wasn't what I wanted from my life. What I wanted was something I could never have, the whole time I was in Raven's Wing.'
She looked puzzled. 'So, what did you want?'
'A real life,' he said. 'For years, I thought I wanted a life like Dad's, but when I got it, I realised it was everything I hated. His own life was a car wreck. Why would I want to recreate that? I thought I could make it work, make it as normal as it's possible to be, when I was with JoJo. I thought we could have a life outside the band, but I was so wrong.'
'What happened?' she asked. 'Why did you break up?'
'JoJo got pregnant,' he told her. He saw her flinch and understood her reaction. 'I'm sorry, Beth. I should have told you sooner, but it was too raw at first, and then I didn't want to think about it when I was with you. I was so happy for the first time in ages, and I wanted to concentrate on that feeling. There'd been so much darkness beforehand.'
'But — but the baby?'
His fists clenched as he forced himself to remember. 'We didn't plan it, but I was over the moon. JoJo was apprehensive. She loved her career. She had big plans. She didn't want a baby to get in the way. But I told her we could make it work, and gradually she seemed to come around to the idea. We started buying baby clothes, thinking about names. We had a sonogram, and I saw its little heart beating.' He broke off, shaking his head as the memories overwhelmed him.
Beth moved over to the bed. Sitting beside him, she put her arm around him and he leaned into her, grateful for her support. 'She wouldn't let us tell anyone, but I kind of understood, because lots of moms wait until after the sonogram, right? But even after that, she was telling me to keep it quiet. She was worried the record company would freak, that the band members would want her out. I told her she was far too valuable for that to ever happen.'
'Jed,' Beth said softly. 'What happened to the baby?'
He gulped. 'Gone.'
'Gone?' She put her head on his shoulder. 'She lost it? I'm so sorry, Jed.'
'She didn't lose it,' he said, his voice hard. 'She got rid of it.'
Beth sat up. He could feel her eyes b
oring into the side of his face, but he couldn't look at her.
'Got rid of it?'
'Yeah. She went to a clinic without even telling me. Turns out, our baby was an inconvenience to her, and her career was far more important.'
'Oh, Jed.'
'I don't want you to think I'm not supportive of a woman's right to choose,' he said, finally turning to her. 'I'm not that guy, Beth, honest I'm not. But she let me believe — she let me buy clothes for it, discuss names. We saw its heartbeat on the sonogram, for God's sake! How could she take that away from me?'
'How could she bear to do it?' Beth wondered aloud. She took his hand, squeezing it tightly. 'It was cruel, Jed. If she didn't want the baby, she should have told you so from the start.'
'I think she thought she'd fit it in,' he said. 'Then the guys started discussing a European tour. She got all excited about it. But it would have clashed with the pregnancy. She'd have been too close to her due date to do it.'
'Surely they'd have postponed the tour?'
'They'd have had no choice. JoJo was a big part of the band. But clearly, the tour was more exciting to her than our child. She made her choice. And that's when I made mine. I wanted no part of that world any more. I wanted to walk away, to find some peace, a different way of life. I never really expected to find all this happiness, all this love. You.'
Beth was quiet for a moment, absorbing all the new information. 'You wanted a baby so much,' she said finally, 'yet, as far as you knew, I could never give you one. Why did you stay with me?'
He gasped. How could she even ask that question? 'Because I fell in love with you! With or without children, I wanted my life to be with you. And there are always options. I figured we could adopt or even foster. There are so many kids needing love, right?'
Beth was openly sobbing. 'I can't believe the difference between you and James. I love you so much, you know that? I'm so sorry it's such a mess.'