Her Pregnancy Bombshell

by Liz Fielding

  ‘When are you going to tell your family?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh…’ She gave a little shrug. ‘Do we have to? Mum and Dad are having a whale of a time travelling across India. Portia’s in the States. Posy is desperate to become a soloist and daren’t miss a performance—’

  ‘And Immi is up to her eyes organising something to rival the royal wedding.’

  ‘That’s about it. One wedding at a time in the family is more than enough to cope with, don’t you think?’

  ‘So you’re going for Option A?’

  ‘Option A?’ She finally turned to look at him and saw the ceiling debris whitening his hair, his shirt.

  ‘What on earth have you been up to?’ she asked, as if she didn’t know.

  He looked down, attempted to brush the mess from his shirt but it was damp and it smeared into the cloth.

  ‘Leave it. I’ll put it to soak.’

  ‘I’ll see to it.’

  ‘Right answer.’ He glanced up and when he saw that she was laughing, he smiled back and without warning her heart did a somersault. This was going to be so hard…

  ‘Tell me about the scullery ceiling,’ she said, quickly.

  ‘Do you want the good news or the bad news?’

  ‘There’s good news?’

  ‘The back door is now open and there’s a good draught clearing away the smell of smoke.’

  ‘And the bad news is that the scullery ceiling came down on your head.’ That must have been the curse she’d heard.

  ‘Not all of it. Just the bit in the corner near the door. Fortunately, it was wet so there wasn’t a lot of dust.’

  ‘More good news.’ Although what state the bedroom above would be in was another matter. ‘Can it be fixed?’

  ‘There’s no point until the roof is repaired. I noticed a builders’ merchant on the outskirts of the village. We can call in on the way down and order some tiles.’ She must have looked as horrified as she felt at the thought of him on the roof attempting to fix tiles. ‘I used to work for a local builder in the holidays to earn money for flying lessons.’

  ‘Tiling roofs?’

  ‘Carrying them up the scaffold to the tiler and, because no skill is ever wasted, I asked him to teach me how to do it.’

  ‘In case the flying didn’t work out?’

  ‘The alternative was following my father into medicine. He had dreams of me one day taking over his practice. Heaven knows why. He’s always complaining about the hours, the money, the paperwork,’ he said, but he was smiling. ‘The old fraud loves it.’

  ‘Which is why he wanted it for you.’ Andie had met Cleve’s father. He was the kind of family doctor that they used to make heart-warming television dramas about.

  ‘He hoped that if I had to pay for flying lessons I’d quickly get over my obsession with my great-grandfather’s heroics in a Spitfire and fall into line.’

  ‘Two stubborn men.’

  ‘I’m better with machines than people.’ He looked across to the table. ‘Do you feel up to a glass of orange juice and a banana?’

  ‘I think so.’

  He poured orange juice into a couple of glasses. Cut thick slices of bread and took out a pack of butter.

  ‘No butter for me.’ She peeled the banana and squashed it over the bread, picked up a jar of marmalade. ‘It appears to have survived.’

  ‘That’s not the jar I bought. Matt must have replaced it with one from his cupboard.’

  ‘I imagine we’ll need a witness,’ she said, as she dolloped marmalade on top of the banana, ‘and he’s been a total brick. Shall we ask him?’

  ‘You’re sure about not telling your family?’

  ‘Quite sure.’ She looked up. Cleve was piling thinly cut ham onto thickly buttered bread. Damn, it looked good. Maybe after the banana… ‘I’m sorry, I’m being selfish. You’ll want your parents here.’

  ‘This is about what you want, Miranda. They’ll understand.’

  Would they? Would her own parents?

  Probably not, but the thought of pretending that their marriage was more than it was, turning it into a celebration, was not something she could face. No doubt there would be a party of some sort when they got home but that was all it would be—a party. Not a wedding reception.

  ‘Maybe we’re getting ahead of ourselves,’ she said. ‘We’ll have to make enquiries about the legalities. There’ll probably be all kinds of rules and regulations. A million forms—’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘It would be different in Italy. Yards of red tape, all the stuff we’d have to do at home and then a whole lot of other stuff on top.’

  ‘But not here?’

  ‘No. L’Isola dei Fiori is a small island, the communities are close-knit, relationships are well known. No one could commit bigamy or marry a cousin because everyone would know the minute they applied for a licence.’ Cleve shifted his shoulders. It wasn’t a shrug, more an expression of awkwardness. ‘The clerk in the post office was very helpful.’

  ‘You went into the post office to check up on the legal requirements for marriage? After I turned you down?’

  ‘I went into the post office to call Lucy and pick up some local currency but while I was there I thought I might as well make enquiries.’

  ‘It sounds as if you had quite a conversation.’

  ‘A lot more information than I needed. One woman in the queue told me that if you wanted to marry your cousin you’d have to fly to Las Vegas.’

  ‘She spoke English?’

  ‘The clerk was translating.’

  ‘Oh. Quite a party, then.’ She was struggling not to smile at the image this scene was creating. ‘Does that happen often?’ she asked. ‘Cousins marrying in Las Vegas?’

  ‘Apparently not because you could never come back and being exiled from L’Isola dei Fiori would be as if you were dead. Like this.’ He mimed stabbing himself through the heart. ‘What the locals lacked in language skills they made up for in gesture.’

  ‘Right.’ She made a valiant effort not to laugh. ‘Well, so long as you didn’t go out of your way.’

  ‘Why would I do that when you’d turned me down?’

  ‘Because you’re a pilot and you’ve been trained to anticipate every eventuality.’

  She turned to him and discovered that he was smiling. One of those old-time Cleve smiles that had stolen her teenage heart and, hit by a wave of dizziness, she made a grab for the table. Before she made it his arm was around her shoulders and she was close against him breathing in a mix of smoke, old wet plaster, warm skin. It wasn’t helping…

  ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘Just a bit dizzy.’ His shoulder was just the right height for her head and she leaned against it. ‘It’s the sugar rush from all that banana, marmalade and orange juice on an empty stomach.’ Had to be. ‘I had the same training as you, Cleve, which is why I know that if you’d been here you would have done exactly what I did and I’d have been the one having kittens instead of you.’

  ‘Kittens? I thought we were having a baby.’

  She dug him in the ribs with her elbow.

  ‘I’m just saying that I understand why you reacted as you did.’ Fear driving anger… ‘I’d have been the one yelling at you for being an idiot,’ she said.

  ‘Would have been? From where I was standing you were yelling like a fishwife.’

  ‘Yes. Sorry. It’s the hormones.’

  ‘Of course it is.’

  ‘Are you laughing at my hormones?’ she said into his shoulder.

  ‘I wouldn’t dare.’

  ‘Wise man.’ Cleve’s arm was around her, her head was on his shoulder and suddenly she was smiling fit to bust. Not cool. This was a marriage of convenience, an arranged marriage. She’d arranged it.

  She straightened her face, cleared her throat, sat up. ‘Could you spare some of that ham?’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘I haven’t eaten properly for days.’

  He made her a sandwich, she took a bi
te, groaned with pleasure. ‘So what are they? These minimal legalities?’

  ‘We have to swear a Declaration of No Impediment before a notary, present it in Italian and English at the local government office in any town, along with our passports and the sindaco, the mayor, will issue a licence.’

  ‘That’s it?’

  ‘That’s it. All we have to do is decide where we’re going to hold the ceremony and who we want to conduct it.’

  ‘Can’t the mayor do that? In the town hall?’

  ‘I imagine so. We can ask when we get the licence. Do you want to go into San Rocco tomorrow to make an appointment with a notary? We could have lunch, do a little shopping?’

  ‘Shopping?’

  ‘Unless you packed an emergency wedding dress?’

  ‘All I’ve got in my bag are jeans, leggings and tops. Even for the most basic wedding I think I’ll need something a little more elegant.’ She felt a blush creep into her cheeks. ‘Not anything—’ she made a helpless gesture with her hand, unable to bring herself to say bridal ‘—you know…’

  ‘Frilly?’ he offered.

  ‘That’s the word.’

  ‘But it should be special.’

  ‘Yes.’ She’d only be doing this once. ‘Have you got a jacket?’

  ‘Not one I’d want to get married in. I need a new suit.’

  ‘Well, that’s convenient.’

  She would be in a special dress, Cleve would be wearing a suit and Matt could use her phone to video them making their vows and signing the register to send to their parents, her sisters, with the news that not only had they got married but they were going to have a baby.

  And afterwards, he would take a photograph of the two of them standing on the steps of the town hall that she could print out, put in a silver frame and tuck away in her underwear drawer.

  Just for her.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ANDIE CLEANED UP the kitchen and the stove while Cleve went to look for a ladder so that he could check the roof and see what he’d need to fix it.

  He’d stripped off his shirt and left it to soak in the scullery sink and she paused as she crossed the yard with an arm full of bed linen to hang over the wall to air.

  He’d lost weight in the last year and there wasn’t an ounce of fat on him, but he ran every day and the muscles on his back rippled in the sunlight. She knew how they felt beneath her fingers, the silk of his skin, the scent of his body unmasked by the aftershaves or colognes worn by most men. No scent of any kind was worn by flight crew. Every moment of the night they spent together was imprinted on her memory and she turned away before he saw all that betrayed in her face.

  ‘Will you hold the ladder, Miranda? I’m coming down.’

  ‘You shouldn’t have gone up without someone holding it,’ she said as she grasped the ladder, watching as his jeans-hugged backside descended until it was on a level with her eyes. ‘Next time, call me.’

  ‘Always.’ He turned to look down at her and for a moment there was nothing in the world but his gaze holding her and she was melting into the cobbles. ‘It’s okay, Miranda. I’ve got it now.’

  He’d got it, she’d had it…

  She moved aside and he stepped down from the ladder giving her an unimpeded view of wide shoulders tapering to narrow hips, his chest sprinkled with dark hair that arrowed down in a straight line to disappear beneath his zip.

  ‘What are you doing?’ he asked.

  She jumped, felt a hot guilty blush sweep across her cheeks, then realised it wasn’t an accusation but a question.

  ‘Oh, um, I’ve battled my way through the cobwebs, made it upstairs and now I’m sorting out the bedrooms.’

  ‘Don’t overdo it,’ he said, frowning as he touched his fingers to her cheek. ‘You look a bit flushed.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ she said quickly. ‘The ones on the far side of the villa, away from the kitchen, aren’t too bad. Just dust and—’ She came to an abrupt halt. Did he expect to sleep with her?

  What had happened between them had been one of those spontaneous moments; there had been no conscious thought, no need for words, but this was going to be so different. Awkward.

  Forget expect.

  Would he want to sleep with her? Really want to? Not just sex, which she knew from experience would be hot, but in his heart…

  ‘Cobwebs?’ he prompted.

  ‘And dust.’ She swallowed down the lump in her throat. ‘They sound like a couple of fairies in a Cinderella pantomime.’

  He grinned. ‘If they aren’t they ought to be.’ When she didn’t answer he said, ‘You don’t have to worry about me, Miranda. I’m perfectly capable of cleaning a room and making my own bed.’

  Was that little ping somewhere in the region of her heart disappointment? Despair? She’d left him sleeping to avoid the awkward morning-after encounter. It was going to be nothing compared to the evening before. A wedding night in which the groom was marrying out of duty…

  ‘I’ve cleaned the rooms but the mattresses and bed linen still needs airing.’ Desperate to get away from the subject of beds, she said, ‘If you’re up for a close encounter with a pair of Marigolds I’d far rather you tackled the upstairs bathroom.’

  ‘I’ll give it a thorough bottoming when we get back. Is it okay to take a shower in your bathroom for now?’

  ‘It’s not my bathroom, it’s Sofia’s. I couldn’t sleep in there. I’ve put my things in the room I used to share with Immi.’

  ‘Right. Well, I’ll put the ladder away, get cleaned up and then we’ll walk down into the village. If you’re still up for it? We could get a taxi for the uphill return?’

  ‘Yes.’ She swallowed. ‘Cleve…’ They were going to have to talk about this.

  ‘Hang on.’

  She waited as he folded up the ladder but when he turned around she lost her nerve.

  ‘I just wanted to say thank you. For the roof.’

  ‘Hadn’t you heard? Working holidays are all the rage.’ His hand brushed her shoulder, lingered for a moment, as he passed. ‘I won’t be long.’

  ‘I’ll shut the French doors.’

  *

  Cleve put the ladder away in the garage. Alberto had kept it pristine. Everything shelved, labelled, tools cleaned, oiled and hung in clips, the layer of dust lending a Sleeping Beauty air to the place. Clearly the cars were his Beauties and Cleve made a note to buy a new hasp and padlock for the door while they were out.

  He took clean clothes from his grip and tossed them on the king-size bed in which a king had once slept with his mistress. Having just had a fairly heavy hint that Miranda did not intend to follow Sofia’s example, he let the water run cold.

  Twenty minutes later, following the unmistakable sound of a scooter engine, he found Miranda riding around the courtyard, wearing a smile as wide as a barn door.

  She pulled up beside him.

  ‘You managed to start it.’

  ‘It was as clean as a whistle. I pumped some air into the tyres and put the battery on charge earlier. The tyres stayed pumped and the engine started first time. If you open the gate we can go.’

  ‘When was the last time you rode one of these things?’ he asked as he hauled open one of the gates and fastened it back.

  ‘Years, but it’s like riding a bike. Don’t worry, I won’t pitch you into a ditch.’

  ‘If you say so.’

  A dozen things went through his mind, not least the fact that they should be wearing helmets. He wanted to wrap Miranda in cotton wool, keep her safe, but that was his problem, not hers and he threw his leg over the saddle.

  ‘Hold on.’

  He needed no encouraging to wrap his arms around her waist as she shot through the gate and onto the road. He took full advantage of the opportunity to hold her close so that her back was close up against his chest, his cheek resting against her hair, which still smelled faintly of smoke, taking the curves as if they were one. His only problem was that they reached the edge of the village and
the DIY warehouse far too soon.

  Half an hour later, roofing supplies ordered with the promise that they would be delivered that afternoon, they were sitting outside the blue painted café, wine and water on the table, a waiter listing what was on the menu for lunch.

  Miranda ordered a swordfish steak with a salad.

  ‘You seem to have regained your appetite,’ he said as he ordered the same with a side order of fries.

  ‘Sunshine, fresh air…’ She shook her head. ‘The truth is that I was stressing over how to tell you about the baby.’

  ‘Why would you do that?’

  She looked at him helplessly. ‘Cleve…’

  ‘Stupid question.’ She was stressing because she thought he was screwed up with grief but it was too lovely a day to darken with the truth—that he was simply screwed up.

  He’d kept Rachel’s secret but Miranda would have to know everything before she took an irrevocable decision about her future. Not now, though. Not here. ‘I hope it hasn’t put you off your food.’

  ‘No.’ Andie shook her head. ‘I’m fine.’

  Nearly fine.

  Neither of them spoke for a while but the silence was the comfortable kind between two people who’d known one another for a long time and didn’t need to fill every moment with banal conversation. Instead they watched the bustle of a busy working harbour, the boats coming and going, men washing down decks, a skinny black cat creeping along on its belly, stalking something that only it could see.

  ‘I like this place,’ Cleve said as their food arrived.

  ‘Me too.’

  The waiter asked if there was anything else they wanted, wished them ‘Buon appetito’ and left them to it.

  They tasted the fish and pronounced it good. Andie helped herself to some of his fries. He asked why she hadn’t ordered her own. It was the normal, everyday stuff that was no different from lunch in the mess or down the pub and within minutes they were talking about work. The performance of the Learjet. How the Cyprus office was bringing in more business from the Middle East. Nothing personal. No more straying into dangerously emotional territory where the past could trip them up.