by Неизвестный
he said huskily. ‘Sam and I grew up shutting everyone out but each other. I was his strength, he was mine, and we loved and needed one another. We did everything together. I knew he would never let me down. He knew the same.’
‘And then?’ she prompted gently, stroking his hair. She could feel the rippling waves of tension building up in his body, and she knew she would have done anything to make this easier for him.
He was pale, his eyes brilliant with tears he was refusing to shed. Because he would think less of himself if he did. He believed that would be unmanly. But she could see what was coming and she knew that, for Adam, the past had become a tragedy which had almost destroyed him.
‘We were almost sixteen-—still in the home, and about to leave after our birthday,' he said raggedly. ‘W-w-’ He stopped, pulling his brows together in furious frustration. Gently she put her hands on his diaphragm. ‘Remember,’
she said tenderly, her voice breaking with love, ‘breathe, Adam. Breathe.'
‘He—he had a headache. A f—fever.’
He stopped and she saw him forcing a mastery over his voice. She felt an incredible admiration for him. He was a man who loved deeply, whose inner strength was greater than most. A man her grandfather would have been proud to know.
‘You’re doing fine, sweetheart,' she murmured in an undertone.
‘They said—the couple who ran the home—that it was flu. They gave him medication for it and sent him to bed. I was up all night with him and I knew it was something more serious. I woke the couple up and they yelled at me. I yelled back. I tried to drag the guy out of bed and he lashed out at me. When I got back to Sam, I found that he was delirious and there was a weird rash on his body.’
‘Meningitis!’ she whispered, appalled.
Adam’s agonised face confirmed her guess. He pushed a hand through his hair, his eyes so glazed that she knew he was not seeing anything now, only the painful images of the past.
‘I stole the car keys from the hall table, carried Sam down the stairs and drove to the hospital.' he said in a raw, choking voice.
‘That’s illegal!’ Trish burst out.
Adam gave her a straight look. ‘I had to save my brother. He was crying with the pain and so was I; I swear I could feel it too. God knows how I drove. Adrenaline, I suppose. I’d never driven before! When I arrived, they took one look at Sam and rushed him to Intensive Care. They couldn’t prise me away. S—Sam...died before he got there, in my arms. I felt him slip away and part of me died there, with him...’
As his voice tailed away, she drew his head to her breast. She cried for him, and soon she could feel his shoulders shaking and the breaking of the barrier that had separated them both.
A long time later he became still, his breathing normal. Her hands stroked his hair, the curve of his beautiful neck, the broad and powerful shoulders.
'I’m so sorry, my darling,’ she whispered. He raised himself, looked at her long and hard, and kissed her with a breathtaking tenderness. ‘So am I,’ he said quietly. ‘I missed him so much, Trish! I closed up then. Even my counsellor couldn’t reach me. That was Christine,’
he said, surprising her. ‘She told me some of her troubles, her traumatic divorce and the difficulty of being a working mother of a toddler—partly to make me open up, I thinkand I felt sympathy for her. We forged a strong, supportive friendship.'
‘So you married.'
‘Yes, when I was eighteen. And I’m sure now that, when she saw the chemistry between you and me, she knew that you, above anyone else, would be able to teach me how to love.’ He paused. ‘Trish, I want us to start again.’
‘You want me to put on a green polyester frock?’ she asked teasingly.
To her delight, he laughed. And then sighed and kissed her with a fierce passion that had her gasping with need.
‘To hell with frocks,’ he muttered. ‘I want fantasy. I want a bride. At the soonest opportunity. A wife. Mother of my child. Our child, Trish!' he said fervently. ‘When I believed you might be pregnant, I was rocked to the core. I knew then that I was being given another chance to love, if only I dared to take it. But I had to be sure. I couldn’t bear to pour all my love into you and the baby and then be turned away.’
‘I’ve always loved you,’ she said gently.
‘Marry me,’ he murmured. ‘Give your grandmother an occasion to wear that incredible hat.'
Trish groaned. ‘You’ve almost convinced me that I should refuse!’
His mouth possessed hers. She lay in the cradle of his arms, absorbing his kisses, adoring the feel, the scent and the power of him. His strength. The fact that he had given her the greatest gifts of all: his heart and his trust. Her love for him hurt so much that it was driving her to clutch at him convulsively. She needed him and he needed her. With a trembling tenderness, he dropped tiny kisses on her nose and then pushed her away, his eyes dark with hunger.
‘Say yes,’ he ordered hoarsely.
‘Yes!’ she mouthed, incapable of saying the word out loud.
Ridiculously happy, they stared at one another. His hair tumbled about his forehead, as wild as hers. His eyes sparkled as hers must.
‘I adore you,’ he said helplessly.
‘You’ll have to,’ she replied, her face suddenly solemn.
‘Our love will be sorely tested.'
One eyebrow lifted roguishly. ‘Oh? How?’
‘I think I know what Gran’s wedding present might be.’
He thought for a moment. ‘Not...’ His eyes widened in horror. ‘Not the scarf!' he groaned.
‘And you’d better wear it,’ she warned. ‘I won’t have you hurting my gran!’
They were standing on the quay. Stephen and Lucy, Trish and Adam, little Sam and Julia. Sam was looking at his father anxiously, waiting for the answer to the question he’d just asked.
Adam checked with Stephen, then crouched down and spoke to his small son man to man. ‘If you want to keep an eye on your sister and be a page at Stephen’s wedding, I’m sure he’ll be very pleased. He didn’t ask you because he thought you might not want to dress up. You always like to wear old things——’
‘But I must look after Jules, mustn’t I?’ Sam said, catching his sister’s little hand as if she might break into little pieces if he didn’t.
‘Of course,' said Adam. He gave Sam a big hug and turned to his elder son. ‘That’s OK, then?’
‘Fine by us,’ Stephen said, putting an arm around his father’s shoulder.
‘On the boat, now,’ said Trish, bending down and getting a massive kiss from Sam. ‘Wave bye—bye, Julia, darling!
Sam’s off to school! Have a lovely day, darling! Bye!’ She wiped a little tear from her eye.
Adam’s arm came around her waist. ‘First day’s always the worst, they say,’ he told her fondly.
She sniffed and Lucy laughingly handed her a handkerchief ‘He’s so little!’ she protested, waving madly at the little figure in his smart royal-blue top.
‘He’ll be as big as his father before you know it,’ said Stephen with a grin. ‘Shall we go back, darling,’ he asked Lucy, ‘and write up the invitations?'
Trish and Adam watched them walking back to the cottage where they were living. Lucy ran the guesthouse and Stephen was on a fellowship, researching the medical properties of plants. Trish smiled fondly. Her knowledge—and her grandmother’s——had come in useful to him.
‘We must think of something restrained for Sam to wear,’ she said to Adam as they wandered along the beach.
‘No velvet trousers. I don’t want him looking silly.’
‘Darling,’ he said with a sigh, ‘if your grandmother is wearing that damn hat and I’m to be lumbered with that new scarf she’s knitting for the occasion, it won’t be Sam who looks silly!’
Trish giggled. ‘I love you,’ she said, hugging him.
‘Then, when it’s dark, let’s go for a swim and find the camomile again, and you can prove it,’ he murmured. She smi
led, lifted a radiant face and drew his mouth down to hers. Sentimental fool!’ she whispered lovingly.