by Liz Fielding
‘No, it isn’t. You’re afraid. That’s not making a choice, it’s giving in, capitulating to something you can’t control.’
He sounded so matter-of-fact. As if this was something that could be handled by directly confronting it. Did he think she hadn’t tried? She’d lost count of the number of driving courses she’d booked. And then cancelled. Couldn’t begin to remember the times, encouraged by friends, when she’d got behind the wheel of a car, reached for the key…fallen apart.
‘Please,’ she begged. ‘Don’t do this.’
He turned off the engine, got out of the car, leaned back against the door, arms folded, going nowhere. ‘Tell me about it.’
She glanced at him. ‘I know what you’re up to, Jake.’
‘I’m just trying to get you behind the wheel of a car. You’re scared. Well, that’s good. The road is a dangerous place. But you’ve got wide-open tarmac as far as the eye can see here.’ He gestured at the abandoned airfield. ‘No one to hit. No one to run into you. Learn to handle the car at least.’
‘You don’t care whether I can drive, Jake. This is just another attempt to get me off your back.’ Well, that got his attention. Took the ‘casual’ out of his laid-back posture. ‘Listen to me. Hear what I’m saying. I’m not on your back. Go away and leave me in peace.’
‘You want peace, but you don’t give a hoot about my feelings, is that it?’
The space between her brows pulled together in a frown. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Think about it. See it from my point of view. You keep telling me to go, saying that you can handle it. Well, I want you to show me. Get in the driving seat and show me how capable you are. Because if you won’t, Amy, I’m left with the conclusion that you’re playing games with me. That this is all a sham. That no matter how much you keep saying go, you’re determined to entangle me, keep me on side.’
‘That’s not true.’ He shrugged, his gaze locked into hers, continuing to challenge her. ‘I just can’t—’ Her voice broke.
‘Why, Amy?’ His voice was kitten-soft, his arms were strong about her and he pulled her close, cradled her against his chest.
‘Please, Jake. Let it go.’
‘Tell me why I should.’
It must seem such a small thing to him; he loved cars, motorbikes, handled them with consummate ease.
‘My mother and sister were killed in a car accident,’ she said, into his chest. He said nothing. Not reason enough? She looked up. ‘I should have been dead, too.’
‘I see. This is all to do with survivor guilt. The “Why me?” thing.’ She pulled away, shivered, and he opened the car door. ‘Come on. Inside with you.’
She did as she was told, sat there numbly, with her arms tightly wound about her, while he walked around the car, climbed in beside her. ‘Take me home,’ she said.
He made no move to start the car. ‘Your mother was driving?’ he asked, matter-of-factly, as if he knew that gentleness would be a mistake. She continued to stare out of the window, but she knew he was looking at her. Waiting. Insisting on the whole story. So be it. She’d tell him and then he’d understand.
‘She hated driving, especially at night, but my father was away,’ she said, as quickly as she could, desperate to get it over with. Then he’d see why getting behind the wheel of a car was so utterly impossible. ‘He was working in Scotland and Beatrice—’
‘Beatrice? Your sister?’
‘She was two years older than me and she was in the Christmas play at school. I didn’t want to go. I was so jealous of her angel wings and the glittery stuff on her white dress and the make up. I was in the back being a miserable little brat.’
‘How old were you?’
She swallowed, remembering it all. ‘Um…six. Nearly six.’ He reached out and his hand tightened over hers as if to steady her, reassure her. ‘No one knows what happened,’ she said, rushing on. ‘We swerved. A dog, or a fox on the road, maybe, they said. They said in the newspaper that it was a miracle I wasn’t hurt.’ She frowned.
‘My mother and my big sister were dead. Where was the miracle in that?’
‘And your father?’ He anticipated what was coming, could only guess at how hard it would be for her to say the words. But he needed her to tell him, needed her to open up, let him in so that he could share the hurt.
‘He died in a car accident the same night—rushing home after being phoned at work and told that Mum…’ Her voice caught. He waited while she took a breath.
‘He was driving too fast. He shouldn’t have been driving at all…’ She turned and looked at him. ‘But there was no one with him. No one to stop him. I think that he must have been crying. I expect that was it.’ And her voice, that cool, even voice, finally faltered, cracked.
‘It wasn’t your fault, Amy,’ he said, hating himself for making her remember, gathering her into his arms, holding her as hot, silent tears ran down his neck, soaked into his shirt. Her hair, scented with camomile, brushed against his cheek. Beneath his hands, her body shook as she struggled to hold back the pain. ‘It wasn’t your fault,’ he said, again.
‘Yes, it was.’ She looked up and her eyes were clouded, grey, unhappy. He’d done that to her, selfishly making her remember so that he could forget. ‘Don’t you see? It was all my fault. I was sitting in the back of the car, whining and moaning because I wasn’t old enough to be an angel in the school play. My mother was distracted. There was no fox. She turned to yell at me…’
‘It wasn’t your fault, Amy,’ he said fiercely as he realised what she’d put herself through over years and years of regret, guilt. Never talking about it. ‘You were a little kid and little kids whine. If you were being difficult, she should have stopped the car.’
‘But—’
‘Your mother didn’t have to drive if she didn’t want to. She could have asked a friend to take you all to the play. She could have called a taxi. It was her responsibility to get you there safely—’
‘Don’t blame her!’
‘I’m not,’ he said, holding her shoulders, facing her squarely. ‘I’m not blaming her. I’m saying that you shouldn’t blame yourself.’
‘Easy to say.’ She looked up, her lashes spiked with tears. ‘I’ve tried to drive, Jake. I just can’t do it.’
‘Yes,’ he said, firmly. ‘You can.’ He took out a handkerchief, wiped her eyes, blotted her cheeks. ‘Being here is not what I wanted. I told you that. I tried to buy help for you so that I could keep my distance. Not get involved. But here I am, doing it myself because it’s the only way you’ll let me do anything for you. That’s a heck of a big step for me. Won’t you meet me halfway?’
Jake had forced from her a secret she’d kept guarded in her heart since the accident and he hadn’t been shocked, or horrified.
And he was right; he’d come a long way for her. He was a thousand miles away from the man who’d stood on her doorstep and said he’d didn’t do commitment. All this—reading the books, worrying about her wearing high heels, joining the Bunny Club—what was that if it wasn’t commitment?
‘Why?’
‘Why do I want you to meet me halfway?’
‘No, why is it such a big step for you? Why is it so difficult for you to become emotionally involved?’
He touched the corner of her mouth. ‘Enough secrets for one day,’ he said. ‘Come on, I’ll take you home. We’ll get a take-out for dinner.’
‘That’s it? I’m let off the driving lesson?’
‘For today.’
‘And tomorrow?’
‘That’s up to you. Think about it. I won’t pressure you, I promise.’ He handed her his handkerchief. ‘I’ll make a bargain with you, though.’ She waited. ‘Learn to drive, and on the day you pass your driving test I’ll tell you the story of my life. If you really want to know it.’
‘Promise?’
He pressed his lips against her forehead and then he took her hand, and with her fingers he silently crossed his heart.
SIXTH MONTH. Baby is growing fast. She has eyelashes now, and her hearing is finely attuned so she’ll be listening if you sing to her, or tell her a story.
THE yellow monster was parked outside and Jake was in the nursery when Amy climbed down from the bus at the end of a long day.
Her legs no longer able to keep up with her racing heart, she took the stairs at the sedate pace befitting her rapidly increasing girth. The door was shut to keep the smell of paint from filtering through the cottage. To keep her from seeing the nursery until it was completed and she could get the total effect. He’d made her swear, on her honour, not to peek.
She had smiled at that and, having explained what she’d had in mind, left him to it, indulging the kid in him.
She smiled now, despite her impatience. He’d done everything himself. It had taken weeks, working odd evenings, weekends when he could, turning up unexpectedly and making her heart turn over. And she’d been good. Kept her word. She hadn’t even looked in the boxes of furniture that had arrived the week before and been stowed in the garage. Well, he’d locked the garage and taken the key.
She could hear him moving about, and about to call out, let him know that she was home, instead she leaned her cheek against the warm wood, indulging herself, letting her imagination drool over her own particular fantasy of Jake wearing nothing but a pair of ancient denim cut-offs and honest sweat.
Then she sighed. Fantasy was right. Impending fatherhood had effectively switched off the ‘lust’ buttons in Jake’s head. The nearest he’d come to kissing her had been a brief touch to her cheek that put her in the same bracket as an elderly maiden aunt.
Not that it had made her feel like any kind of aunt. Jake, that close, had made her feel hot, and female, and inclined to rip her clothes off. So far, she’d restrained herself.
She smoothed her baggy sweater tight against her rapidly increasing bump and pulled a face. It was just as well: six months pregnant and looking it, she wasn’t likely to have the same effect on Jake. About to knock and tell him that she was home, she changed her mind.
She’d wait until she’d showered, put on some fresh mascara and a new loose silk shirt that hung to her thighs in soft shape-blurring folds. Not until she’d got the cool, friendly mask firmly in place would she see him. A girl had her pride.
Better make that a cold shower.
Jake surveyed the nursery. It wasn’t exactly what Amy had planned. Correction, it wasn’t anything like she’d planned, which was why he’d made her promise not to look until it was finished. He knew she’d kept her word because…well…if she’d looked she wouldn’t have been able to stop herself from demanding to know what the heck he thought he was up to.
She’d probably hate it.
She’d probably insist he did it all again.
Which wasn’t all bad. It would mean he’d have to keep coming back until he got it right. He didn’t want to think about what that meant. He was afraid a psychologist would have a field-day with it, though.
He turned as he heard the shower running in the bathroom. Amy was home. For a moment he allowed his mind to wander. He knew the theory, knew how her body had changed, how she’d look with his baby growing inside her. But the mystery of it, the beauty of it haunted him as he thought about the water flowing over her skin and imagined how it would feel beneath his hands, his mouth. Imagined how she would look when he touched her…
He snapped back, rubbed his hands hard over his face as if to erase the pictures his mind tormented him with. He’d been spending too much time here. Rushing down most evenings, spending weekends with Amy when he should have been at his desk.
The heartless empty echo of his penthouse offered no temptation to return to London, but the nursery was finished, the new furniture installed. Even the old narrow bed where he’d lain awake on the occasional nights he’d stayed over, thinking about Amy, on the other side of the landing, had been carted off to the tip.
That was what he’d come for. To do the things she wouldn’t let him pay someone else to do for her. She’d been right about that. Trying to buy peace of mind was cheap. Peace of mind came with the sweat of hard work, the muscle ache of doing something that said, I care enough to do this for you myself.
But staying longer would be self-indulgent, would put out all the wrong signals.
Nothing had changed.
He hadn’t changed. He had other priorities, other responsibilities that needed his urgent attention. Things he’d let slip.
He’d go and put the pasta dish he’d made for her supper in the oven, then take a shower and leave. No fuss.
He backed out of the room, taking one last look around, then closed the door behind him. As he turned he collided with Amy, catching her shoulders as she struggled for her balance, clutching at the towel she’d wrapped about her.
‘Oops,’ she said, as a small plastic bottle slipped from her fingers. And then, as she met his gaze, she blushed.
On the nights they’d spent in the same house he’d been careful to avoid intimacy, too conscious of an attraction that refused to die down no matter how much cold water he threw at it.
But the peachy blush betrayed her and the heat of it enveloped him, found an immediate answering response from a body kept too long on a short leash.
‘I seem to be a bit wobbly on my pins,’ she said after a long moment in which neither of them moved.
‘It’s normal,’ he replied on automatic. The thinking, reasoning part of him had been seized by the sudden thickening of sexual tension. The softness of her skin beneath his palms, soft moist lips that invited him to taste the sweetness within… ‘Your hormones are softening and stretching your muscles and joints.’ He knew it all off by heart now, could apparently spill it out without the need for rational thought. It was just as well. His mouth might be making sense, but his mind was taking a holiday… ‘To make giving birth easier.’
‘Oh,’ she said, holding his gaze, keeping him fixed, enchanted. It was like the first time they’d met, and he felt the same charge, the same free fall desire, the same longing to take everything that her eyes promised. ‘Is that all?’ she asked, after a long moment when the silence rushed back, suffocating rational thought.
‘All?’ He didn’t want her to move. ‘No, it’s not all,’ he said, desperate to prolong the contact, keep her close.
‘Your centre of gravity has shifted, too. Your balance is off beam…’ Her hair was wet, clinging to her face, and as he watched a drip slid down a strand and after a seemingly endless pause finally dropped and ran down into the hollow beneath her shoulder, where it pooled for a moment, and as if in a trance he bent to scoop it up on his tongue. And was confronted with the soft folds of the towel tucked between her breasts. He stared at it for a moment. ‘Take it off.’
Her eyes flickered uncertainly. ‘What?’
‘Take it off. The towel. I want to see you.’ He looked up and her throat moved as she swallowed. ‘Please…’ Then his own throat tightened, closed down, shutting off the power of speech as she reached for the tail of the towel tucked between her breasts, her eyes never leaving his face as she pulled it loose, held it for a moment, then let it fall.
‘Oh…’ The sound exhaled from deep inside him and then for a long time he forgot to breathe. Her face had become lovelier as she’d taken on the bloom of approaching motherhood, but no amount of theory could have prepared him for the changes in her, warned him that she would have become so much more beautiful, enriched by nature’s perfect curves.
His hands slid from her shoulders, over breasts that were fuller, riper, and he cradled them in his palms. They were smooth and white with a faint tracery of blue veins. He acknowledged them, saluted them with the tip of his tongue, and there was a sharp intake of breath as his mouth pulled on the nipples that would soon suckle his son.
His breath, or hers? He couldn’t say, but sank to his knees, his hands sliding over the place where his baby was growing.
> ‘Jake…’ As he pressed his cheek against her abdomen Amy struggled to get the word past her throat. This was too much; she wanted him too much. She’d thought she was in control of this, but she wasn’t. Another moment and she’d lose all sense and beg him…beg him…
‘Jake…please…’ She grasped his head between her hands.
Please, don’t? Or, Please, don’t ever stop? She didn’t know what she might have said if Jake hadn’t moved right then, if he’d looked up, seen the need burning from her eyes. Instead he eased back, reached for the towel and passed it to her, giving her a moment to wrap it about her as he retrieved the bottle of oil, fixing his gaze on the label. As if looking at her was somehow beyond him.
‘Massage oil?’ He straightened. His eyes flickered back to the label. ‘Mandarin oil,’ he said. ‘This is to help with stretch marks, isn’t it? I read about that…’
‘You read too much,’ she said, holding out her hand for the bottle.
He looked at her then, and his jaw muscles tightened as he surrendered the bottle. ‘Maybe.’ Then, ‘Soft joints,’ he reminded her. ‘You need to be careful. Keep off those high heels you love so much.’
Careful? That was all he was bothered about? That she was being careful? She wanted to scream. No, worse, she wanted to weep. ‘You’re full of…theory, Jake. Morning sickness, green leafy vegetables, floppy muscles… Tell me, what other excitements have you got lined up for me?’
‘Breathlessness, heartburn, leg cramps,’ he said abruptly. ‘Will that do to be going on with? Are you finished in the bathroom?’
‘All done. I won’t disturb you, Jake.’
Too late, he thought, as he stepped beneath the water. She’d already disturbed him. Fatally. He’d stayed too long, got too close. And just now…holding her, he’d come within a heartbeat of telling her that he loved her. Which couldn’t be true. Love, he knew, was a word that had no meaning.
He flipped the water on to cold.
Hormones, nothing. Amy leaned back against her bedroom door and caught at her breath. It hadn’t been pregnancy-driven hormones that had flipped the wobble button when she’d run into Jake on the landing. And when he’d touched her, kissed her breasts, laid his head against their growing baby, she’d come close to saying that if the offer was still open she would marry him whether he loved her or not.