Her mother looked relieved as she came fully into the room. ‘The sooner you get an album of your own together the better.’ She nodded.
The problem with that was that while the recording company were pressuring her to make an album with Adam they were reluctant to listen to any request she made to record one of her own. And as she was still technically contracted to them…
But it wouldn’t always be like that. Once the publicity from their joint appearance died down, she had no doubt that the recording company would see the sense in having a solo album out rather than nothing at all. And she had written enough songs now to put that album together.
It was strange… Adam had always been the songwriter in their partnership, but during the last three years, with lots of time on her hands, Maggi had managed to write twenty songs herself. Even to her critical eye they looked good. She was quietly confident that the recording company would recognise that too. In time…
In the meantime she intended forgetting about her telephone conversation with Adam. No one could make her do anything any more, and especially not with Adam!
* * *
Gardening had always been a great escape for her, letting her mind just drift while she concentrated on the task at hand, and, while they were into autumn now, there was still a lot of tidying up to do in the flowerbeds, ready for winter. Gardening had been one of the things she’d missed the most after her accident, and as soon as she was mobile again she had started to spend hours outside in quiet solitude, healing herself inside as well as out.
Her parents’ dog, Arthur, a long-haired collie, leapt and bounded about the garden as Maggi concentrated on weeding. It would save her father, a busy doctor, having to do the work at the weekend.
Strangely, she had spent a lot of time working in the garden in the last two weeks. Since her return from the music festival…
‘Hello there, Arthur,’ greeted a smooth male voice. ‘As full of energy as ever, I see.’ Adam laughed throatily as the dog leapt up and down in front of him.
Maggi was in the middle of weeding under the apple tree when she first heard his voice. Sitting back on her heels now, she was aware that her hair had been whipped into a tangled black mane by the briskness of the wind, that her face was completely bare of make-up, that her denims were old and faded, her checked shirt even more disreputable, and that her hands were black with dirt from her exertions in the flowerbeds over the last hour.
An hour during which Adam had obviously used his time to drive down here. Well, he could damn well turn his car around and return to London!
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘YOUR mother is in the kitchen and didn’t see me arrive,’ Adam told her as he saw her worried glance towards the house. ‘I saw you out here in the garden when I arrived, and so I—’
‘Just walked in,’ Maggi finished accusingly, putting down her small rake to wipe her hands down denims already slightly smeared with earth. ‘With your usual arrogance!’ Her eyes flashed angrily. ‘When will you ever learn that you aren’t wanted?’
‘Where you’re concerned?’ Grey eyes were narrowed ominously. ‘Probably never.’ He shrugged.
Now, what did he mean by that? Adam had never been the most straightforward of men, and—She was doing it again! She mustn’t care what he meant, mustn’t have any interest in anything he had to say.
‘You aren’t welcome at my parents’ home, Adam,’ she told him bluntly. Her parents were as unforgiving where this man was concerned as she was. Which wasn’t surprising. The man who should have stood by her three years ago had let her down in the worst way possible, leaving her parents to pick up the shattered pieces. No, he wouldn’t be welcomed there. By any of them.
‘I realise that.’ He nodded abruptly. ‘But I also know they’ve always had your best interests at heart.’
‘If you’re back to the subject of the two of us recording an album together,’ she bit out scornfully as she stood up, ‘then I can assure you they don’t think that is in my “best interests” any more than I do!’ The opposite in fact; her father had threatened to punch Adam on the nose if he came near her again.
Which would be a feat in itself! She had acquired her lack of stature from both her parents, and her father was only five feet six inches high; he would need to stand on a box to be able to reach Adam’s aristocratic nose!
Thinking of which, she glanced at the watch on her slender wrist; her father should be back for lunch after his morning surgery at any moment. Although the thought of her father standing on a box in order to punch this man was quite amusing, she wanted it to remain just that—a thought. There had been too much bitterness already, without involving her parents any further.
‘You have to go, Adam,’ she told him coldly.
He shifted slightly, his stance suddenly implacable. ‘I’ll go when I’m good and ready,’ he announced arrogantly.
He looked so vitally male, standing there with the breeze lightly ruffling the darkness of his hair, a black jacket worn over a white shirt and faded denims. A flicker of awareness shivered down her spine—a shiver she instantly suppressed.
‘Fine. You do that.’ She bent and picked up her tools, intending to return them to the shed on her way back into the house. ‘Just make sure you close the gate after you as you leave; Arthur still doesn’t have any road sense.’ She turned and walked away.
‘Magdalena!’
‘Goodbye, Adam.’ She didn’t even turn to look at him, her strides purposeful now, but not in the least hurried; the last thing she wanted was to look as if she was running away.
‘You really do walk very well again.’
He spoke softly, but loud enough for her to hear! Maggi spun sharply on her heel, her face white with outrage now. How dared he even mention that? How dared he? She had been like a broken doll when he’d betrayed her, unable to walk, unable to sing, unable ever to have—How dared he?
A sob caught in her throat, whether of pain or anger she wasn’t sure. All she knew was that at this particular moment in time she hated this man. Hated this man she had once loved most in all the world…
‘Steady.’ He had reached her side, his hands clasping her arms as she swayed, almost toppling over. ‘I didn’t mean to startle you.’ His expression was grim, his gaze concerned on her ashen face. ‘I only—’
‘Go away, Adam,’ she told him in a flatly controlled voice, firmly extracting herself from his grasp. ‘Go away. And don’t ever come back,’ she bit out vehemently.
‘Magdalena, it’s been three years—’
‘Don’t tell me how long it’s been!’ She spat the words out at him, her eyes flashing blue fire. ‘I’m the one who’s had to live through those years, trying to walk again, to sing again, to put my life back together.’ She was breathing hard in her agitation now, angry in part at her own physical weakness.
If only she hadn’t lost her balance—but she did occasionally, probably always would, the specialist had told her. But she had done so much better than anyone had expected. Than this man had expected. A crippled wife was certainly something he had never envisaged. Or, indeed, accepted. Well, she wasn’t crippled any longer, not by physical disability, and she didn’t intend this man to cripple her emotionally either.
He gave a pained frown. ‘Isn’t it time to forgive—?’
‘And forget?’ she finished contemptuously. ‘I don’t ever want to forget, Adam. Not what you were then. And who you are now.’
‘You don’t know who I am now, Magdalena.’ His voice was huskily soft. ‘I’ve suffered too the last three years—’
‘Your conscience finally caught up with you?’ she derided hardly, glaring at him. ‘Well, don’t look to me for forgiveness, Adam. Because I can’t give it to you.’ And she couldn’t. Not after what she had lost, what he had taken from her. Certainly she couldn’t forget this man’s wanton destruction. That was completely unforgivable.
He frowned down at her, grey eyes dark. ‘You never used to be bitter, Magdal—
’
‘Don’t try and lay a guilt trip on me, Adam,’ she cut in with a scornful laugh. ‘You were always very good at turning the tables so that everyone else came out in the wrong and you remained free of blame. Only this time the evidence is too damning, Adam. Too final,’ she added.
He recoiled as if she had actually hit him, his expression bleak. ‘I lost something too, Magdalena,’ he bit out tautly. ‘Something all of you seem to conveniently forget.’
Tears filled her eyes—tears she rapidly tried to blink away. ‘As easily as you forgot your marriage vows. Now—’
‘I didn’t forget my marriage vows, Magdalena,’ he ground out fiercely.
‘Misplaced them, then,’ she scorned. ‘The result was the same. You—’
‘Maggi, Ted—when are the two of you coming indoors for your—?’ Her mother broke off her gentle chiding as she rounded the corner of the house and saw the two of them in the garden, and her face suddenly stilled. ‘I heard voices… I thought it was your father teasing you again about pulling up the flowers and leaving in the weeds…’ She absently mentioned the long-standing joke between father and daughter.
Maggi had started to help her father in the garden when she was quite young, but the first time she had decided to weed the garden for him, when she was about eight, she had unwittingly pulled up all his tenderly nurtured flowers and left all the weeds in the ground. It was something he had never let her forget!
‘Adam,’ her mother grated now, brown eyes cold.
‘Maria,’ he returned curtly. ‘You’re looking well.’
Her mother did look well; she had the sort of beauty that only seemed to deepen as she grew older. Although at the moment she lacked her usual warm smile and was frowning darkly at Adam.
‘I don’t know why you’re here, Adam—although judging from the telephone calls we’ve had this last couple of weeks I can probably take a good guess!’ she added before he could make a reply. ‘But, whatever your reason, I would like you to leave now. You’re obviously upsetting Maggi.’ She looked pointedly at the two bright spots of angry colour in her daughter’s cheeks. ‘And I know Ted will be far from pleased to see you too. He hasn’t been too well recently…’ She let slip her concern for her husband’s health.
‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ Adam returned smoothly. ‘Nothing serious, I hope?’
‘Just the usual stress and strain attached to being a family doctor,’ Maggi’s mother dismissed briskly. ‘But I don’t want him worried.’
Maggi knew that her own ill health, the strain it had placed on all the family, hadn’t helped. She was an only child, and her parents had felt her pain as much as their own. The last three years hadn’t been easy for any of them…
‘I think I hear your father’s car now, Maggi,’ her mother said anxiously, turning back towards the house. ‘Please go, Adam,’ she entreated, pausing briefly before going back inside.
‘The feeling appears to be unanimous,’ Adam said with dry self-derision.
Maggi’s eyes flashed deeply blue as she turned back to him. ‘What else did you expect?’
He shrugged broad shoulders. ‘I’ve never been a vote-of-the-majority man; it doesn’t allow for individualism.’
In other words, he had no intention of going anywhere until he was good and ready—and at the moment he appeared to be neither of those things! But, if anything, her mother had made light of the condition of her father’s health; he had actually collapsed in his surgery a week or so ago, shortly after Maggi had returned from the music festival, and now had a locum helping him out until he was fit enough to take over his practice duties fully once again. He really didn’t need the added stress of seeing Adam.
‘Please go, Adam.’ No doubt her father would have seen the Range Rover parked somewhere outside in the street, but as he had no idea Adam had such a vehicle he wouldn’t make any connection between the two.
‘I want to talk to you,’ Adam told her determinedly. ‘If not here,’ he added, as she would have protested, ‘then somewhere else. I noticed a little coffee shop in the town as I drove through earlier, we could go there.’ His eyes were narrowed as he waited for her answer.
Maggi’s brows rose. ‘Adam Carmichael in the local coffee shop!’
He continued to look at her steadily, not amused by her mockery. ‘I drink coffee like everyone else,’ he rasped. ‘I’ll see you there in fifteen minutes.’ He turned on his heel and strode forcefully across the garden, letting himself out the way he had come in, by the side gate.
Maggi frowned at his sudden departure, knowing she would have to meet him; if she didn’t, he would come back. And both her mother and her father had endured enough stress and strain over the last three years to last them a lifetime.
Her father was in the kitchen drinking tea when she entered the house a few minutes later, a short, sandy-haired man, tending towards plumpness in middle age. Although, of late, his face had started to take on a certain gauntness…
‘Been digging up the flowers again, I hear,’ he greeted her, with a smile, absently patting the dog’s head as Arthur bounded over to greet him.
Maggi smiled, accepting the teasing. ‘I think I may have left a few bulbs in for next spring. I’ll leave the two of you to have lunch alone; I need to pop into town for a few things.’ She had seen the way her mother had glanced anxiously past her as she entered the room, and knew she was looking for Adam, so now she was doing her best to reassure her that he had gone. But he hadn’t gone very far… ‘Can I get either of you anything?’ she offered as she picked up her handbag and car keys.
‘We’re fine,’ her mother answered. ‘Don’t you think you should change those clothes first?’
Her denims and shirt looked a little the worse for her morning in the garden, but she had no intention of looking as if she had changed to go and meet Adam. ‘I shouldn’t be long.’ She shook her head.
‘Well, at least wash that smudge of dirt off the side of your nose and brush the earth off your jeans,’ her father suggested dryly.
Great. She had spent the whole of the time talking to Adam with dirt on her nose! ‘I’ll do that’ She nodded. ‘And no whisking Mamá up to bed for one of your siestas,’ she joked, none of them ever having forgotten the time when she was a child and had returned early from Sunday school because the vicar wasn’t feeling well, only to find her parents cuddled up in bed together, obviously post-lovemaking; they had been as startled to see her as she’d been to see them there. ‘I’ll only be an hour or so,’ she warned her father as she stood at the kitchen sink, drying her face after washing away the dirt.
‘At my age, Maggi, an hour is more than long enough!’ he returned self-derisively.
‘We’re embarrassing Mamá,’ Maggi realised indulgently as her mother blushed. ‘But…’ She paused on her way out of the door. ‘I never did believe that story you gave me about thinking of adopting Abuela and Abuelo’s tradition of the siesta!’
Her father grinned. ‘I always did say you were a bright child. Too bright for your own good sometimes!’ he added with mock reproof.
Maggi laughed to herself as she left the house, but it was laughter that faded as soon as she had unlocked her car and begun the drive to meet Adam. She didn’t like the fact that she had been pressurised into this meeting.
Lowell was a small place, boasting only one coffee shop—a local woman’s attempt at introducing a little gentility to the small farming town. Its chairs and tables were made out of pine, green and white cloths were spread over the latter, and several pastels adorned the walls, with greenery in every other available space.
Adam looked totally incongruous seated amongst the coffee shop’s tweeness; he was the only man in the room and his frame looked too large for the pine chair with its green and white checked cushion.
He looked up as she came in, obviously relieved at her arrival. The place was fairly full with women who had been shopping this morning and were now taking a break for their lunch. Most were keep
ing a surreptitious eye on the man in their midst, obviously having recognised him as someone they knew, although so far none of them seemed to have been brave enough to approach him and confirm his identity. Otherwise Adam wouldn’t still be sitting there! As it was, the occupants of the surrounding tables were talking animatedly together in whispers.
They recognised Maggi too as she entered. Several of them were her father’s patients, but even the people that weren’t knew her as the doctor’s daughter. Unfortunately, after the recent publicity in the newspapers, several of them recognised her as Adam’s wife too now!
‘I ordered us coffee,’ he muttered as she joined him at his table. ‘I didn’t order you any lunch; I’m not sure what you eat any more.’ He scowled.
He hadn’t seemed to have any trouble choosing her breakfast a couple of weeks ago!
‘Not a lot, by the look of you,’ he added tersely as he looked at her closely. ‘You’re too thin, Magdalena.’
She bit back her caustic reply as two coffees were brought to the table by Sally, who was the proprietress as well as the waitress.
Maggi could see the other woman’s eyes widen as Sally saw who had joined her prestigious customer, knew that speculation in the town would be rife over the next few days. In which case, someone was sure to mention it to her father on a visit to his surgery, negating the whole purpose of talking to Adam away from the house!
‘That wasn’t a criticism, Magdalena.’ Adam had noted her frown—and misinterpreted it. ‘Merely an observation.’
As if what he had to say about the way she looked was of any importance to her!
‘Duly noted, Adam,’ she dismissed, adding sugar to her coffee. ‘But I would prefer not to order lunch, thank you.’
‘Not intending to stay long enough to eat it, hmm?’ he guessed.
She certainly wasn‘t—had no intention of eating a cosy little meal with him. The food would probably stick in her throat, anyway! ‘I’ve told the record company and I’ve told you. I will not—’
A Marriage to Remember Page 7