by Annie O'Neil
Maggie had only become grumpier with that little nugget of information.
This morning it was Nate. She missed him desperately. She hadn’t had a good snog in over two months and she wasn’t sure she could survive any longer without a kiss from her man.
Jayne knew exactly how she felt.
Not about snogging Maggie’s husband, obviously, but now that she and Sam had their ‘give friendship a chance thing’ going on she was really struggling to keep her body’s responses in check.
Working at the surgery was brilliant, but each time their hands brushed, or their paths crossed, she had these saucy stirrings. The man was sparking up all sorts of engines she’d forgotten she possessed.
It was an excruciatingly frustrating reminder of just how long it had been since she’d had sex. She’d had a couple of half-hearted flings over the course of her time in London. Maybe three. Maybe a couple of ill-advised one-night stands. But...nothing had stuck. No one seemed to have that special something.
Except Sam.
The truth was she wanted him. He was sexy. And they had sparks aplenty.
She flicked on the washing machine and stared out of the window towards the surgery.
Was that such a bad thing?
Yes...if you’re trying to be friends.
She caught herself running her fingers across her lips, her stomach feeling all glitterball sparkly at the memory of that near-kiss. It was like being a teenager all over again. Giggling and swooning and...her eyes flicked to the calendar... two more days.
All the fizz in her tummy flattened. Two more days and it would be seven years since her sister had died.
Busywork. She needed busywork. It was the perfect time to lay out the surprise she’d been working on for Maggie. Since she couldn’t really go far, Jayne had thought she’d bring a project to her.
A while later she had her friend blindfolded and was leading her up the steps.
Maggie burst into laughter when Jayne finally allowed her to take the blindfold off. ‘What did you do? Buy the entire craft store?’
‘Pretty much. I also popped in on Mum and Dad’s. The McTavishes let me have a little dig around the art studio for some watercolours and...’ She masked how weird that had felt, being in the studio without them, by pulling something out of a drawer with a flourish. ‘Their trusty glue gun.’
Maggie looked shocked. ‘They didn’t take it to Scotland?’
Jayne laughed. Her parents weren’t really glue gun artists.
‘Have you called them yet?’
Jayne sheepishly shook her head. She would. Maybe on the anniversary? Maybe after.
‘So. Operation Artwork. What do you think?’
Jayne and Maggie surveyed the kitchen together. There wasn’t a single surface that was visible. Glitter. Sequins. Canvasses. Piles of cloth. Reams of coloured paper. Scissors. Paints. She’d gone absolutely mad.
‘I thought we could get a head start on that Homemade Art Fair of yours.’
Maggie’s eyes sparkled with delight. ‘Quick—I’ve got an idea for the glue gun.’ Maggie wiggled her fingers at Jayne, then abruptly pressed her hands to her belly.
‘Cramp?’
‘Mmm... Nothing serious, I don’t think.’
‘Any bleeding today?’
‘Nothing beyond the usual.’
Maggie had been spotting every now and again, which wasn’t unusual. And there had been a bit of amniotic fluid. But at thirty-two weeks the more symptoms she was presenting, the greater the likelihood of the babies coming out before their due date. It wasn’t insanely early, but the longer the little ones could stay put, the better.
After the cramping had passed, Jayne handed her the glue gun. A few minutes of concentrated silence later Maggie held up an abstract of buttons and glitter glue. ‘What do you think? Would your parents be able to pass it off as one of theirs?’
‘Ha! You know as well as I do my parents are into landscapes and sculpture.’ And into leaving town at this time of year. A time full of memories.
As difficult as it was for Jayne to admit, easing back into life in Whitticombe was the tiniest bit easier without them here. Every time she looked at them she saw the loss in their eyes. Loss she had to own, all because of a silly desire to relive a childhood game.
If only she’d waited to tell Jules her happy news until she’d been back in London. And then what? Dealt with the wrath of her sister for keeping the happiest day of her life a secret? That hadn’t been an option either. Jules and Jayne had shared everything.
Which was why becoming a paediatric surgeon had been a no-brainer. Not that it had eased relations with her parents. If anything, they had become even more distant.
Maggie and Sam’s parents had all but adopted her in the weeks following Jules’s death. At that point she was still meant to be becoming family, and they’d treated her as one of their own.
She’d done her absolute best always to smile, never to cry. It hadn’t elicited sympathy from her own parents, so why she had thought it would work with anyone else... And yet when she’d cried about Stella in front of Maggie and Sam a few days ago he hadn’t thought her weak.
She realised now that it took strength to open up in that way. It took power to be the honest version of herself in front of people who mattered. Well...mostly honest.
Perhaps this was the beginning of that journey. Step by step. Day by day. Could she finally allow herself to grieve? To believe in the possibility of forgiveness one day?
As if on cue, Sam rapped on the frame of the half-open barn-style door. She became swiftly and vividly aware that she was wearing only a string-strapped summer dress. As he propped his arms on the bottom half of the door and locked eyes with her goose pimples skittered up her arms.
‘Mmm...smells like...’
Jayne rolled her eyes. ‘I know. I know. Burnt toast. We all know I’m not winning a cooking contest any time soon. Thanks to you lot, I’m beginning to realise just how much I relied on my local deli to stave off malnourishment.’
‘You don’t cook at all?’
Jayne shrugged. ‘I’m hardly ever home. And with every cuisine of the world on offer...no contest. Takeaway every time!’
He and Maggie both looked at her as if she was mad. They were right, of course. Her private life was pitiable. If anything, her flat was a near replica of how Jules had left it. Empty fridge. A couple of tins of date-expired tomato soup in the very bare cupboard. Two plates, two cups, two forks—and that was only because Jules had once had her over. They’d had a takeaway.
Why settle in, Jules had asked, when all I want is to be out there? She’d pointed out to the sparkling lights of central London with the same glimmer in her eye Jayne knew she’d had herself when she’d thought of moving into the Old Barn with Sam one day.
No wonder she hadn’t learned how to cook. She was living in Jules’s flat. Trying to live Jules’s life. The only thing she’d managed to make her own was her job—and look how well that had turned out.
Maggie unsuccessfully tried to press herself up and off the chaise longue Jayne had dragged into the kitchen so Maggie could direct in comfort.
‘I’m off on a walk.’
‘What? I thought you wanted to make art!’
Jayne and Sam rushed over to her. Sam started taking Maggie’s pulse, none-too-subtly, and Jayne knelt to help Maggie slide her very swollen feet into the only pair of flip-flops that would accept them. Nate’s.
Maggie’s eyes darted between Sam and Jayne. ‘No way. Not with you two fussbudgets hovering over me.’
‘We’re not hovering!’ they said as one. Then laughed. Then sobered.
Sam gave her shoulder a squeeze. ‘Mags... Are you sure you should be walking about?’
‘Stop your fussing. I’m just... I’m going to go down to the teashop.’ Her hands slipped un
der her enormous bump. ‘If I don’t get to boss someone around who isn’t one of the two of you I’ll go crazy! So help me up and let me unleash some of my pent-up crankiness on Dolly.’
‘It’s warm out,’ Sam cautioned. ‘Maybe you should carry a parasol or something.’
‘This is not the nineteenth century, Sam!’ Maggie pursed her lips. ‘The only fan I want is Nate, and I can’t have him.’ Her forehead crinkled and her lower lip stuck out, just as her daughter’s did when Maggie insisted she finish her vegetables.
Sam and Jayne exchanged a look behind Maggie’s back. Nate’s absence was really beginning to stress Maggie out. And the higher her stress levels the more danger she was in.
‘Don’t be too bossy,’ Jayne warned as Maggie waved goodbye without even turning around. ‘I’m coming to get you in an hour if you don’t reappear!’
Maggie slowly waddled round the corner, at which point Sam launched into a barrage of questions. How was her blood pressure? Had there been any bleeding? How were the headaches, the nausea, the swelling?
Jayne pulled out her phone and wiggled it in front of his face. ‘I’m tapped in to some of the world’s best obstetricians over at the London Merryweather. We’ve got an entire clinic of staff devoted to mothers experiencing difficult pregnancies. I’ve been stalking them. Making video calls. Demanding research papers. It’s the only thing I do at night.’
She made the mistake of looking into his mossy green eyes. Okay. Fair enough. There was a bit of fantasising going on at night as well...but she was trying not to let that world collide with the real one.
‘The point being...’ she pocketed her phone ‘...if anything goes wrong I’ve got a hotline to some of the best doctors in the country.’
‘London’s much further away than Oxford.’
She touched Sam’s arm. ‘Hey... When and if Maggie needs to be in hospital she’ll be in hospital. We’ve got weekly appointments from here on out, so I can start doing speed drills.’ She crossed her heart and put her fingers up Girl Scout-style. ‘I promise. I’m here for her.’
The lines of concern crinkling at the edges of his eyes smoothed out, and as they did so she saw his eyes travel round the kitchen and a smile twitch at the corners of his mouth. Underneath the extravagance of crafting materials there was a haphazard stack of children’s cereal bowls, a rack of incinerated toast, and some of last night’s congealed macaroni cheese. Balanced on the sink’s edge was a plate of... What had that been again?
Bacon! She’d burnt the bacon, too.
Sam turned to her, with a full smile this time. ‘Apart from takeaway places, doesn’t London also have loads of places where you can learn how to cook?’
More flirtatiously than she’d intended, she parried, ‘I’ve not got anyone to impress in London.’
Sam leant against the counter and shook his head. ‘I don’t believe that.’
She debated whether or not to be totally honest. A friend would disclose just how pants her social life was, so... Here goes nothing.
‘I have zero social life.’ She laughed.
She sort of did. The kind of social life that was jammed in between surgeries and forty-eight-hour shifts and trying to get a few hours of sleep. Nothing that stuck. Nothing that mattered...
* * *
‘I don’t believe that for a second. You’re a beautiful woman. Suitors must be queuing up at your door.’
A flush hit her cheeks and Sam gave himself a silent boot in the bum. Why was he quizzing Jayne about her love-life? He wanted details of the men she’d been with just about as much as she wanted to hear him talk about his ex-wife. Not at all.
She picked up some yarn and began twirling it around her finger so tightly that the blood ran out of it.
She didn’t meet his eye, but said, ‘I’ve gone out with the odd person, but they were set-ups mostly. The type that make up a foursome when a mate doesn’t want to go on a blind date on her own. It’s not really my thing. Dating. Getting to where I am on the surgical side of things has been my real goal, so...’
‘Snap.’
Her eyes widened with surprise. ‘Seriously? I thought you had the whole work-life balance thing covered?’
‘Ha! Not so much.’
He swirled his finger in a few drops of water on the counter as his ex-wife’s words echoed in his head. ‘There’s a ghost in this house.’
‘I think my ex would disagree with you on that one.’
He met her wide-eyed response straight on. It was the first time he’d properly mentioned his wife to Jayne. Obviously she knew about her, had seen her at Christmas, but even so...
Even so nothing. You’re just friends.
‘It used to drive her crazy how much time I spent at the surgery.’
‘That wasn’t very fair! You were just setting up!’
He smiled at the note of defensiveness in her tone.
As if she feared she’d been a bit too defensive, she playfully tacked on, ‘Didn’t she realise how much time it would take to steal all your grandad’s patients?’
He laughed. ‘All work and no play made Sam a very single boy,’ he said, twisting the oft-repeated phrase to more factual effect. ‘The truth is, hindsight is making it pretty clear I married her too soon.’
Once again he met Jayne’s eye.
‘Too soon...?’ She spoke barely above a whisper.
‘Too soon after you.’
Jayne’s cheeks drew in swiftly as she registered what he was saying. He hadn’t been over her when he’d got married. His sister was right. His ex had been right. There’d been a ghost in his house and another woman in his heart. He hadn’t realised it at the time. He’d truly thought he’d moved on. But here he was, and his heart pounding against his chest was telling him what he should have known all along.
Jayne Sinclair was the love of his life.
Maybe he’d never get over her. But he sure as hell had to find a way to live with it.
Jayne scrambled to fill the awkward silence. ‘Well... I obviously didn’t know her...but she should’ve known you don’t do things by halves. It’s a shame she didn’t stick around longer. Getting through tough times takes a while.’
Jayne stopped talking, clearly realising the words she spoke could just as easily have been about the pair of them. The words hung heavily between them.
‘Has it been worth it for you?’ He nudged her elbow. ‘The all work and no play?’
She snorted. ‘I think you know the answer to that one. The first transplant surgery I led ended with me having a bit of meltdown, so... I hate to admit it, but Sana—the nurse I told you about—she was right. I did need a break. A chance to get some perspective on things.’
She swept her tongue across her lips. Those stirrings he’d been trying to keep at bay reared up strong and vital.
She looked straight into his eyes and said, ‘Sam, I—I just wanted to say... I know you and I have history...and it makes everything a bit more complicated...but I owe you a thank-you. You’ve been amazing since I came back. More than I deserve.’
His eyes dropped to her dress. Fresh cherries dotted across sage-green fabric. Its flimsy straps were all but begging him to reach out and just slip one off a silky-soft shoulder, then the other off the other silky-soft shoulder...
A wave of lust swept through him like wildfire. Surged past any sensible, logical lines he might have drawn in the sand. He lifted his eyes as her dark lashes fluttered against her cheeks and unapologetically she met his gaze.
The atmosphere between them shifted. The space between them hummed. Instinct took over. Before he could think better of it Sam was cupping Jayne’s face in his hands, drawing her in close enough to breathe her in. Cotton. Sweet peas. Sugar.
‘What is it you want from me, Jayne?’
Instead of answering she went up on tiptoe and accepted the kiss sh
e knew he was waiting to give.
What followed was swift, carnal, and utterly satisfying. His brain barely had time to catch up with what his body was doing. Kissing. Tasting. Touching. Everything about Jayne’s body language mirrored his. The same old spell that had first drawn them together unleashed itself. Nestled right back into place as if not a solitary day had passed since they’d last made love.
He wove his fingers into the hair at the base of her neck and pulled her even closer to him. His body was consumed by the need to taste her. Her lips, her tongue, that sweet spot at the base of her throat. He dropped kisses the length of her collarbone, dragged his teeth along her earlobe until he heard her moan.
The sound of her pleasure shot straight to his groin. His hands swept along her curves as he unleashed swift flicks of his tongue into that sugary nook just below her ear. The way he knew would instantly made her grind her thighs together with longing and press her hipbones into his.
Close wasn’t close enough.
He wanted skin on skin.
He stepped back long enough for her to see the heat in his eyes—heat that soared in temperature as he took one of those flimsy spaghetti straps in each of his fingers and slipped them off her shoulders. He barely waited for the fabric to puddle on the floor before he was cupping her breasts, skating his hands along her stomach, feeling her shivers of response as he tugged her panties down to meet her dress.
It was insane. All of it. But it felt so good. A hot, intense reminder of just how magic the sexual chemistry between them had been. He could see it in her eyes. She hadn’t forgotten it either. She wanted him every bit as much as he wanted her.
The phone rang.
‘Don’t answer it,’ Jayne groaned.
‘Not mine...’ Sam growled.
She batted at the counter—presumably trying to switch the phone off—took hold of it and held it up behind his shoulder even as he swept a stack of fabric off the counter and replaced it with the two curved cheeks of Jayne’s bum.