Fiancee By Mistake

by Walker Kate

  'But I didn't agree. Exactly...' He laughed as her face showed precisely what she thought of the idea. 'They're not a patch on the real thing. But my brother is all for something to make the job quick and simple. He much prefers the easy life.'

  'Except where his fiancée's concerned,' Leah put in drily, and Sean found his mouth twisting in wry response.

  'Yeah, you could say that. His love-life always was amazingly complicated.'

  'And now it's complicated your life too.'

  A sudden memory of Marnie made him say quite honestly, 'Oh, I'm not so sure I can blame Pete for everything. I'm more than capable of screwing my own life up now and then.'

  She wanted to know exactly when and how; it was written all over her face. But he had no intention of opening up on that subject, so he moved on to a very different topic.

  'Your mother seems like a very warm, friendly sort of lady. I'd only spoken to her for a couple of minutes before she was treating me as if she'd known me for years.'

  Leah's smile grew, softened, making his heart turn over with a thump.

  "That's Mum, all right. She loves to meet new people and find out all about them.'

  Suddenly a shadow came down over her changeable face, dulling those amethyst eyes.

  'Was she OK?'

  'Seemed fine to me.' He frowned, catching the uncertainty in her tone. 'Why—is there a problem? You said earlier that your mother needed you particularly now, so what's happened to cause that?'

  Her frank surprise at the fact that he had even listened, let alone remembered what she had said, stabbed at him sharply. God, did she really think he was such a brute as to have been unmoved by her distress?

  'She and Dad...'

  'He's ill?' Sean queried when she didn't continue. 'Worse?'

  Hellfire, just how would he square his conscience if her father had died? Had she been rushing home to be with her family and he had stepped in...? He couldn't live with the guilt if that were the case.

  'Oh, no, nothing like that,' Leah hastened to reassure him, and the lifting of the pressure he had endured was like being released from what had felt like hours on the rack, for all it had only been a couple of seconds. 'But they've had problems. Then, six months ago, Dad just walked out. He said he needed space...'

  'The classic line.' Sean laughed cynically. 'I believe my old man used that one when he took off, too. I've even been known to try it myself once or twice.'

  That remark brought a reproachful glare from her darkened eyes.

  'It happens, darling.'

  'Not to my parents! At least I never thought it would. They were childhood sweethearts. They celebrated their silver wedding two years ago!'

  'Then you were lucky.'

  Suddenly restless, Sean got to his feet and took the poker to the fire. As he knocked the ash down to the bottom of the grate, the flames sprang up with renewed vigour.

  'At least you grew up with two parents. Not everyone has that chance.'

  'I know your father left, but that doesn't mean...'

  'Nothing lasts for ever, sweetheart.'

  Certainly not her own faithfulness, he reminded himself, thinking of how quickly she had forgotten her fiancé and turned to him. She might look so sweetly vulnerable now, on the exterior at least, but inside she was so very different.

  Reaching for the coal bucket, he slammed several large chunks onto the fire.

  "That's the way things are. Men and women just can't stay together for ever.'

  'But surely it doesn't have to be like that?'

  'Doesn't it? If you believe that then you're kidding yourself. If you want monogamy, marry a swan—or a seahorse. Aren't they supposed to mate for life?'

  'Mate!' she repeated, obvious distaste curling her tongue. 'Most people would call it love!'

  'Most people would! But personally I wouldn't believe them.'

  He certainly wouldn't believe her if she claimed to love her fiancé. The thought of her hypocrisy seemed to curdle in his stomach, bringing a sour taste to his tongue.

  There was nothing more he could do with the fire, but he knew he would find it impossible simply to sit opposite her and say nothing.

  'Can I get you anything? Some tea, perhaps?'

  'You don't have to dance attendance on me.' She was obviously still smarting from his use of the word 'mate'. 'I know you must feel I'm an awful nuisance.'

  'Did I say that? You couldn't help getting ill. And besides, after the time I spent in hospital and then convalescing, I'm quite enjoying being on the opposite side, so to speak.'

  'I'll bet you were a terrible patient'

  'The worst.' He couldn't help responding to the laughter in her eyes with a wry grin of his own. 'I've never been much good at sitting still and doing nothing. So I'm quite happy to play nursemaid for a while.'

  The amazing thing was, he realised as he flicked on the kettle in the kitchen, that he genuinely meant what he had said. In the past couple of days, a great deal of the restlessness and dissatisfaction that had plagued him since the accident had eased. The dark moods had lifted, too, and with them the nightmares of the crash that had made it so difficult to sleep.

  But then he just hadn't had time to brood, he reasoned. With Leah so sick there had always been something to do, and the effects of the appalling weather had only complicated matters.

  At least that was the logical explanation, so why did he feel so uncomfortable with it?

  'So, tell me some more about your family,' Leah said as she accepted her cup with a grateful smile. 'You've talked about Pete, but what about your mother? Did she take it hard when your father left?'

  '"Devastated" would be the word,' Sean said, returning to his own seat on the other side of the fire. 'There she was, with one child already and another on the way, and suddenly she had to cope on her own. She just went to pieces. I did my best to take care of her—and Pete, when he arrived.'

  'At nine? You must have been very mature.'

  Sean's mouth twisted as he put his hands together, fingertips touching to form a steeple, his eyes fixed on their restless tapping. He had only mentioned his childhood very briefly, three days before, but it seemed she had registered everything he had said, and remembered every detail.

  'I'm a Capricorn,' he said, aiming for a throwaway lightness. 'My birthday's January the twelfth. Someone once told me that Capricorns are born old.'

  'I've heard that too. But they're supposed to grow younger in their approach to life as they get older physically. So if I came back here in—say—twenty years, you'd be more like my sixteen-year-old cousin, James. But then I suppose you'd think I was too old for you. Unless, of course, you're heavily into older women.'

  The thought was disturbing. But even more unsettling was the fact that he, the Sean Gallagher who didn't believe in permanence, who thought that happy-ever-after was only for fairy tales, was actually considering what it might be like to be with the same woman—this woman—in twenty years' time.

  Tm sure any young man with red blood in his veins would still be interested in you twenty years from now.'

  Startled violet eyes met his over the top of her teacup.

  'But I'd be forty-five!'

  'Oh, come on, you know perfectly well that you have the sort of beauty that can only improve with age. Your eyes—that bone structure. Things like that will never fade.'

  'Oh, please...'

  Soft colour washed her cheeks and her eyes were brighter than ever.

  'Such flattery...'

  'I told you, I never resort to flattery,' Sean interrupted firmly. 'And certainly not with you. You must know the truth—see it every time you look in the mirror. Time will never rob you of your looks. It can only give you a different, deeper beauty.'

  He meant every word of it, and from the look in her eyes she recognised his sincerity for what it was. But he also saw that he had somehow overstepped the unwritten rules by which they had been carefully rebuilding their relationship. In doing so, he had unbalanced th
e delicate rapport they had been creating between them.

  For several long, intent heartbeats, violet eyes met blue, locked and held, communicating on a level too deep, too primitive for words. Then abruptly Leah blinked hard and dropped her gaze once more, hectic colour flaring high on her cheekbones.

  'This tea is wonderful.'

  'Coward,' he reproved softly, not knowing whether he was relieved or sorry that she was so obviously changing the subject.

  That brought her eyes up again in a rush, her chin lifting defiantly as her burning gaze clashed with his.

  'Not cowardice: common sense!' she said tartly. 'We both know this isn't real. It's just a sort of cabin fever, the result of being trapped together like this. But when it's over it will melt away again—like the snow.'

  And she would go back to that fiancé of hers. She didn't have to spell it out; it was there in the flatness of her tone, in the way her eyes wouldn't quite meet his.

  'Point taken,' he said stiffly. 'Would you like some more tea?'

  'I'd love some.'

  Her voice had a breathless quality, so that it came and went on the words like a faulty radio receiver.

  'I was so thirsty.'

  'Hardly surprising,' Sean returned with an equanimity that surprised even himself. It was light years removed from the way he was really feeling. 'After all, you didn't eat or drink properly for three days. It took endless patience even to get you to swallow a few sips of water.'

  That brought her head up, her expression sobering swiftly.

  'I really am grateful for the way you looked after me. You've been very kind.'

  It was impossible to interpret what she was thinking, but the look in those velvety eyes, their sudden darkness, made the breath catch suddenly in his throat.

  'You weren't a difficult patient. As I said, I was worse.'

  It was supposed to lighten the mood. Instead it had exactly the opposite effect, bringing a frown of concern to her face.

  'Was it so very bad for you?'

  A lift of his shoulders tried to shrug off the past as unimportant.

  'The hospital I don't remember too much about. At least, not at first."

  Her cup was empty again, and he got up to take it from her, painfully aware of the way her eyes watched every move.

  When he had replaced it on the tray it seemed more natural, easier, somehow, to sit at the end of the settee, just by her feet, instead of going back to his chair. Leah made no objection to his change of seat, instead she adjusted her own position, turning to face him more directly.

  'So it was convalescence that got to you? But by then your brother was with you.'

  Sean nodded, his face grim as he recalled the dark days after he had woken to find himself in hospital.

  'He stayed for weeks—waited on me hand and foot. In the end I had to tell him to go. Here, let me sort these cushions out. You don't look at all comfortable.'

  If he had hoped to distract her from this particular line of questioning, he didn't succeed. She waited quietly while he plumped up the cushions, leaning forward so that he could replace them behind her back, and then sank back again with a sigh of relief.

  'That's better, thanks. So, was that when he told you about Annie?'

  Sean nodded, lounging back against the arm of the settee.

  "The young idiot hadn't said a word before then. But once he'd mentioned her he couldn't stop. It was Annie this and Annie that until I thought I'd go mad if I heard her name once more.'

  Absently he rubbed at the scarred side of his face, frowning at the memory.

  'I really thought—hoped—that it might work out for him.'

  'You never know, it still could. It might just be a storm in a teacup, or a bad case of pre-wedding nerves. Does that hurt?'

  Startled by the sudden question, Sean glanced at her swiftly, surprising a look of deep concern on her face.

  'It aches sometimes,' he said slowly. 'Mind you, that's nothing compared to how it was when I woke up. It's ironic, really. At first I didn't realise what had happened, and then later, when I did remember, I just wished I could forget.'

  Seeing the distress that flickered across those expressive features, he sat up hastily, reaching out to take her hand.

  'Hey, it's all in the past. Believe me, I've mended.'

  Were those tears in her eyes, making them glitter like polished jewels? Was it possible...?

  'Sean, I'm sorry!'

  'For what?' He frowned his confusion.

  "The things I said earlier. I should never have accused you of hiding away here. I should have thought... I mean, I don't know the full facts. I've no idea what really happened.'

  'Do you want to know?' He startled himself as much as her with the question, not knowing he was going to say it until he heard it spoken out loud.

  'I'm not prying.'

  'It's OK.' Sean shrugged off her hesitancy. 'If you really want to hear, then I'll tell you.'

  Suddenly he wanted her to know, but he couldn't have explained why. He couldn't have said, even to himself, whether he wanted to shock her with the truth, or if it was simply time he shared the whole experience with someone—anyone.

  'It was a woman. A girlfriend, if you like, though there was nothing remotely girlish about Marnie. She was a woman through and through. We'd been seeing each other for around six months when I asked her to marry me.'

  A stab of memory made him pause and grimace in distaste.

  'I really believed we had something special—something exclusive. That illusion lasted another couple of months, until I found out that all the time she'd been with me there had been someone else. Another man. Someone she'd been seeing, dating—sleeping with even while she had my ring on her finger.'

  He paused, shaking his dark head as if in disbelief at the memory.

  'I was out of town quite a lot, filming, at the time, so I suppose she thought she'd never get caught. The poor sucker even believed she was thinking of marrying him! We had a hell of a fight about it and she flung my ring at me and stormed off—to go to him, I believed. But then I made the mistake of being seen with someone else. The next thing I knew, Marnie turned up on the doorstep.'

  A sudden pressure on his fingers made him look down briefly. He had forgotten that he still held her hand, and her grip had tightened sharply as she listened.

  'What happened?' It was barely a breath.

  'The big reconciliation scene.' Sean's laughter was harsh. 'At first she was all sweetness and light. Told me how sorry she was—asked me to forgive her.'

  'Did you...?' Leah put in, and his mouth twisted in cynical response.

  'Oh, yes, I was fool enough to consider it. I tried. But deep down I knew it wouldn't work. I looked at her and I couldn't even remember what I'd seen in her; all I could see was the deceit, the lies. But when I tried to tell her it was over she went ballistic—screaming and crying, threatening to hurt herself or harm me. I made the mistake of choosing the time when I was driving her home.'

  'No...' She had anticipated what he had been about to say.

  'Yes.' He nodded grimly. 'On a country road, when there were no other cars in sight, she suddenly grabbed the wheel. She was hysterical—totally out of control. The last thing I remember was her yelling that if she couldn't have me, no one else would. That was just before we hit the tree.'

  His smile was directed straight into her watchful pansy eyes, and was dark with the cynicism created by his memories.

  'I spent the next two weeks in hospital and she walked away with a sprained wrist.'

  'Oh, God!'

  'Six weeks later, Marnie married someone else entirely. From what I hear, she's already been unfaithful to him too.'

  Another assessing glance was slanted at her white, shocked face and then, realising he still held her hand, he slowly eased his fingers out of her grip.

  'You asked,' he murmured sardonically.

  But something had gone wrong. He had wanted to shock her and it was obvious that he had succ
eeded. But instead of the satisfaction he had anticipated he felt only a rather grubby sense of disquiet, wishing he had never opened his mouth.

  He might not be hiding in the cottage, as she had accused him of doing, but he now saw that, mentally at least, he had been doing something very close to that.

  In the months since the accident he had kept the sordid events that had surrounded it totally to himself. But now he realised that that meant it had festered in his mind. To get it all into the open had been a private act of exorcism, and for some reason he had chosen Leah as the person to tell.

  That thought lingered with him for the rest of the afternoon, making his mood uncomfortable and distinctly edgy. After a couple of attempts to revive the conversation, only to find herself rebuffed decidedly snappily, Leah gave up and retreated behind the defences of a novel she had selected from his shelves. That kept her occupied until late evening, when she stretched tiredly, hiding a wide yawn behind her hand. '

  "Time you were back in bed,' Sean said, getting to his feet. 'You don't want to overdo things on your first day up.'

  'But I've been in bed for ages! I'm not sure I'll be able to sleep.'

  "Then these should help.'

  He reached for a bottle that stood on the dresser and shook out two of the tablets it contained.

  "They're only very mild sleeping tablets!' he exclaimed when she eyed them with a look of dark suspicion on her face. 'I had some left from after my accident, and the doctor said you should take them at night in case your temperature went up again and you found it difficult to sleep.'

  "There's nothing wrong with my temperature, and I don't like taking tablets! I hate the way they make me feel. I use them so rarely that they really dope me up.'

  Sean sighed his exasperation.

  'Well, if you're asleep you won't notice that, will you? They'll just help you get some proper rest. And you needn't think I'll be prepared to get out of bed and bring them to you in the middle of the night when you're feeling rough. I want a good night's sleep, for a change, even if you don't.'

  'Oh, all right! Seeing as you put it so very graciously!'