"Yes,” Guy said firmly, “and I would like to speak to her, sir."
Frank's shoulders beneath his grey turtleneck rose in a shrug. “I can't help you, she's not here, son,” He gave Guy a long, level look, as if for the first time considering the younger man's intentions towards his daughter. “Is it urgent?"
"No,” Guy lied.
"Well in that case, I'll tell her that you called."
Guy hesitated, feeling awkward. “I hope that you don't have a problem with what I'm about to say, but I want to marry your daughter, sir. She's a wonderful woman, and I have only the best intentions towards her."
At her husband's side, Belinda scoffed, “Over my dead body."
"That depends on whether or not you intend to hurt her,” Frank said, gruffly ignoring his wife's outburst.
"I would never do anything to hurt Shelly,” Guy stated firmly, meeting her father's gaze.
"Good,” Frank said curtly. He offered his hand to his wife, and she entwined her fingers with his. “I just don't want to see Shelly get hurt. These last few months have been tough on her. You wouldn't do anything to harm her, son, I know. Would you, son?"
There was grit underlying the man's polite tone, and his pale blue eyes hardened for just an instant. Guy suspected his wife, who was several inches shorter, wasn't in a position to see them. But he read Blake's look as a warning.
"No, never,” Guy assured.
Frank nodded and his smile returned, all signs of a storm gone. “Good, but as my wife said, Shelly isn't here."
"Are you sure? Only I tried her address,” Guy admitted guiltily.
Frank chortled. “Keen, aren't you?"
"Yes, sir, when it comes to Shelly, always.” Guy tried out one of his charming grins, he was sure that even Belinda melted a bit.
Frank smiled. “I can see that, but you wouldn't have found Shelly at home in London. She's staying with her sister in the country for the next few weeks."
"Oh.” Guy's shoulders slumped with his disappointment.
Frank looked at his wife, begging her silently not to interrupt, then looked to the young man. He was really suffering and he was certain that his daughter meant something to him. “Would you like the address?"
"Would I ever?” Guy nodded enthusiastically and looked from one to the other. Belinda's lips were pressed tightly together in a disapproving frown. Her brother seemed not to know what to think, but her father smiled jovially and said, “Let me just fetch a pen and paper."
Guy tucked the number in the pocket of his Levi's, and with a quick nod to her brother, said, “Nice bike, I drive a Z156 myself."
Steven whistled through his teeth. “Now that there is power, the new engine, I heard, can do two eighty. Is that true?"
Guy nodded and Steven whistled through his teeth again. He opened his mouth to say something, but his mother gave him a dark frown. He turned to Guy with a sheepish look on his face.
* * * *
Back in his sleek red Jaguar, Guy laid his head back against the burgundy leather seat and read the address over again, putting it to memory. Step one was accomplished. Now came the hardest part. Convincing Shelly that he wasn't the lowlife she believed him to be and giving her the strength once more to trust in men—to trust in him.
While he contemplated his next move, something from the corner of his eye caught his attention—a figure striding directly towards him, a small, wildly curved, brown-haired figure, her arms on her hips, her posture animated. Even from ten feet away, he could feel her fury.
Guy sat up and rolled the window down. “Hi, Claire."
Claire's narrowed russet-brown gaze landed on him and never wavered. He wondered if that was good or bad.
Bad, he decided, when he caught a glint of the emotion in her eyes.
When he made to get out of the Jaguar, she warned, “Don't bother. If you come out here, I might really do you some bodily harm!"
Guy swallowed. “How's Shelly?"
"You've got some nerve to ask?” she snapped.
Guy gave a long drawn out sigh. “I tried to convince Shelly that I was the right man for her. She ended up pouring spaghetti sauce over me, remember?"
A droll twinkle lit up Claire's eyes. “Aye, but still, maybe you could have stuck around."
"I did try.” Guy grinned charmingly. “And I'm back for more."
"Even if she uses the spaghetti trick, again?” Claire asked with an impish smile.
"Even then.” Guy looked at the steering wheel, and said softly, “I love her."
Blatantly eavesdropping, Belinda moved down the front steps and sidled up closer to the Jaguar. Guy noticed that Shelly's brother, Steven, seemed to be taking a long time too, getting back on his bike. And Frank seemed interested in something in the neatly trimmed hedge surrounding the well-tended front garden.
Claire studied him. “You know, I really think you do,” she said eventually
Guy cast a quick glance at Belinda and lowered his voice. “Well, you're the only one."
Claire gave him a wide, warm smile and the gesture made her almost pretty. “The others will come around. It's Shelly you've really got to convince."
Guy rolled his eyes. “Don't remind me. The woman is as stubborn as a bull. Once her mind's set, there's no moving her."
Claire laughed, “You haven't seen her stubborn, yet."
Guy blanched. “I haven't?"
"No way.” She grinned, “But she's also very sweet and—"
"And beautiful,” Guy finished for her.
"Aye and beautiful,” Claire consented, her eyes twinkling with laughter.
Guy turned the key in the ignition, and the Jaguar roared to life. “I'm going to drive over there and clear the air now."
"Don't you think it would be better to think on it for a night?” Claire suggested practically “After all, you just turning up out of the blue will shock Shelly witless. So you're better to have all you want to say properly prepared. You're probably only going to get the one chance to convince her. And if you blow it, well—” She shrugged, not needing to finish the rest.
Although Guy hated to postpone meeting Shelly a moment longer after having already waited so long, he had to concede that the woman had a point.
"I've waited six months, I suppose another night won't hurt,” he admitted, dejectedly.
"No, it won't,” Claire agreed. “Cheer up. The morning will come around quickly enough."
Guy nodded, but he didn't feel so convinced, then an unwelcome thought occurred to him. “Claire, a lot can happen in half a year. Do you know if Shelly is seeing someone else? Is there another man in her life? Is she back together with Ted?” He swallowed. “God, please say so if she's living with another man. It would kill me, but I'd live with it. I'd have to,” he grimaced. “But if she was back with that cheating, no-good, two-timing, bastard, I'd never get another day's piece in my life!"
"No, there isn't another man,” Claire replied. “There hasn't been since you left for the States.” And there will never be another, she thought privately, because they can never be you, and you're all my best friend wants.
Guy breathed a sigh of relief. Good, that would certainly make things easier. If Shelly had fallen in love whilst he'd been away, he would probably never have gotten her back. At least now, as small as it was, he had a chance.
Guy looked at Claire as another thought came to him. “Is Ted still in the area? I'd feel a whole lot better knowing exactly where that bastard is."
"Nah.” She shook her head. “After Ted finally realized that Shelly was never going to take him back, he moved to Wales, Cardiff if I'm not mistaken. The last I heard was that he's running a small pub with some trashy American called Sue.” Claire shrugged. “Knowing Ted's love for the ladies, I can't see his new relationship lasting long."
A smile brushed Guy's lips, if the Sue Shelly's friend was meaning was the Sue he believed, then the relationship was in double trouble for she was as promiscuous as Ted. Still he supposed that it mig
ht actually make the relationship work if they understood each other's faults, stranger things had happened.
Before he drove away, Claire warned, “Remember and go easy on her. She's had a really rough time of it these past few months."
As he turned off the suburban lane onto the busy rush hour motorway, it came to Guy that Claire was the second person, in a matter of minutes to have said such a thing. What could it mean? Had Shelly been ill? Had the end of their short relationship affected her more than she ever let on? With worry crowding in on his thoughts, he knew that he would get very little sleep that night until the mystery was cleared come the morrow. He would hear the truth from Shelly's own lips.
* * * *
Next morning, Guy pulled up at the end of Shelly's sister's drive, mud spurting around his vehicle in a dirty cloud. He sat for a moment looking at the house. Big, built of red stone, it looked a real family home—the sort of place you could retreat to, where your family would close ranks around you. With a groan, he switched off the ignition. The Jaguar ticked and pinged as the engine cooled down. Listening to it, Guy didn't expect his gut to clench the way it did when a vivid memory of Shelly came to him. Of her, running along the beach, her smile brilliant, throwing her arms around his neck and treating him to her soft lips. Her husky voice telling him she wanted to love him back in her bungalow, and her firm body pressed tight to his.
He climbed out of the Jaguar and slammed the door a little too hard. Shoving the memories to the back of his mind, he picked up his mobile phone, keying in the number he'd been given. A woman answered, sounding like Shelly and yet not.
Her sister?
"Miss Blake?” He hazarded a guess.
"Yes?"
"Could I speak to Shelly, please? It's Guy Pearson."
There was silence for a minute and then her sister said, “No."
Great! Guy rolled her eyes. So she had heard of him too and formed her own black opinion.
"Mr. Pearson, are you still there?"
"Yeah, I'm still here,” Guy said as he looked around the sun-drenched yard.
Another long silence rattled down the line, jarring his already frayed nerves. “Well I don't know if I should tell you this, but my sister's in the rose garden about half a mile down the drive, at the back of the farm cottages."
"Thanks,” Guy exploded with relief. “Can I see her?"
Another pause. “Yes, my father told me that'd you'd probably call. I'm warning you now, hurt her and you will have me to deal with. Do you understand?"
"Yes,” Guy promised.
"I hope you do, because if you hurt her, I'll cut your balls off."
Guy swallowed over the shock in his throat. “Don't worry, I won't be hurting her. My balls happen to be very dear to me."
He thought he heard unmistakable humor in the voice that answered, “Good, we have an understanding then."
He hung up his cellular phone, turned the car around and headed down the drive. Shelly's sister's warning still ringing loudly in his ears.
He found the grassy track. Following it, he pulled up outside two pretty little farm cottages, with thatched straw roofs and flowers blooming in disarray in the neatly fenced gardens. He cut the engine and got out, closing the door softly.
Crazy, his palms were sweating, his legs felt like jelly and his mouth was dry. For anything, one more threatening word from her sister, or a disapproving stare from her mother, he would have gotten back in the car and driven away. But that wouldn't help at all. He retrieved the bouquet he'd brought from the back seat, and taking Shelly's sister's advice, went round the back to the garden.
She was there. Standing with her back to him, bending over a rose, the strawberry blonde hair he loved so much gleaming under the warm June sun.
Guy stood there, riveted to the spot. After so many months of being denied, he drank in the sight of her. She was wearing a large straw sunbonnet and a faded blue cotton dress that looked both soft and well-loved.
He thought that she was probably naked under it. Hot, hungry desire raked through him. His cock stiffened, instantly hard. Feeling like a peeping tom, he watched as she plucked a handful of rose petals and let them sift through her fingers.
Two squirrels, chattering madly, chased each other through the dropping leaves of a weeping willow. As Shelly turned towards him, she tilted her face towards the sky to capture the warm radiance of the sun, he realized that she was obviously touched by the scene for she was smiling, her face lit to radiance.
As she straightened and turned back to cast a mirth filled look upon the squirrels, he realized with a shock that she was pregnant.
His Shelly was pregnant.
Pain stabbed him, taking his breath, and a tightening feeling pulled at his gut. Leaning against the tree that had been his cover for support, he watched as she picked up a basket full of flowers, turned, and went back towards the cottages.
He didn't follow her, he couldn't. His feet felt like lead and he was still struggling to breathe. The roses he had brought for her fell unheeded at his feet.
She was pregnant!
The woman he wanted to marry was carrying another man's child. He hadn't even imagined, hadn't even considered the possibility. Well, he obviously wasn't needed in her life. Probably wouldn't even be welcome. His emotions churning, Guy winced as desolation rushed through him.
In a daze, he turned and made his way back to his car. A mile down the road, he pulled to the side and rested his head against the steering wheel. In all his thirty-six years, Guy had never cried, but that moment on the little dirt track, with the branches of the ancient oak trees scraping gently off the top of his car, tears of disappointment welled up in his eyes and made it impossible to drive.
Chapter 28
In the dim interior of the cottage, Shelly put the basket of flowers she'd collected from the garden on the heavyset, wooden table and then poured herself a glass of water. While she drank it, she had to fight an almost overpowering, irrational urge to run to the window and peer out. It was foolish really; back then in the garden, for a moment, she'd felt Guy's presence so strongly. It was almost as if he'd been standing behind her, watching her.
She shook her head. It had only been wishful thinking on her part. How could Guy have been in her backyard, when he was thousands of miles away in the States? Could it be that she missed him so much she'd somehow imagined the entire thing?
Back in the garden, she sat on the wooden bench and looked at the spiral of the village of Wroxhan's impressive cathedral in the distance, outlined against the blue May sky. She had been looking at the spiral for months now ever since coming to Norfolk. She was sick of looking at it, but it was the most imposing part of the landscape surrounding the farm cottages which belonged to her sister's husband. It drew one's eye like a magnet, no matter where one was within the farm grounds.
The sun felt warmer today, she thought. The full heat of summer would soon be upon them. Soon enough though, it would be autumn, the season for digging up and weeding the garden before the first frost set in. Her eyes moved from the cathedral to her distended abdomen and she smiled. Given her size, she probably wouldn't be able to get near enough to the ground to weed it. At seven months, she felt as fat as a whale.
The child within her kicked and she shifted on her hard seat, then stood up. Sometimes walking helped ease the discomfort. She smiled, considering how much the baby kicked, she was sure he would be a football player when he grew up. As she walked around the garden, breathing in the fresh scents of the flowers, she thanked God once again for the support of her family over the last months. They had been so kind to her, so unwaveringly supportive. And all she wanted to do was leave. To go home, home to London, where she could cry all day, until her heart was content for Guy, whom she missed terribly.
She frowned. Just for a moment, she'd been so sure, so sure that he'd been by her in the garden.
The baby kicked again, he was restless today. He must sense his mother's mood, she thought, sighing.
Shelly had not been surprised to learn that she was with child. Horrified, yes, but surprised, no. She had known it since the very first hour of the babe's conception, although she had tried to ignore the feelings, told herself that condoms were safe. But even before she'd found the burst condom, she'd known. She had been as sure then that she was pregnant as she was now, that the babe she carried was a boy.
During the months of her stay at the farm, Shelly had come to be deeply grateful for her unborn child. She nurtured the baby within her body and tried very hard not to think beyond the moment. Memories, especially of Guy and what could have been were simply too painful to contemplate.
Looking up, she was surprised to see her sister Kate enter the garden through the open kitchen door. Kate usually spent the afternoon taking bookings for the holiday cottages she rented.
"So how did the visit go then? Did you get everything sorted out?"
Shelly looked at her as if she had suddenly grown two heads. “Kate, have you had too much sun? You're not making any sense whatsoever."
Kate's blue eyes, so like their father's, narrowed thoughtfully while she ran a hand through her lustrous black hair. “You didn't have any unexpected visitors, then?"
"Should I have?” Shelly swatted a bee away from her face. “The whole idea of coming here was that I wouldn't get disturbed from people. The doctors said that I needed my rest, remember?"
"Mmm.” Kate's pretty face darkened. “I should have cut his balls off after all."
Shelly laughed. “And who, may I ask, do you intend to unman?"
Kate curled her lip. “Just a bastard."
Shelly laughed again and looked up into her sister's face. At five nine, Kate topped her by seven inches. “Whatever the poor guy did to deserve your wrath, sister dear, I really think you should leave him his balls."
Kate gave a silent measuring smile. “You're right. Maybe I should just bruise them a little."
Shelly pushed away the flickering memory of Guy, lying in the sand after she'd kicked him in the nuts, and nodded. “Certainly. If you don't want to look at the inside of a jail cell, you'd better."
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