Malcolm glanced over to where Elspeth was sleeping by the fire and Fraser wondered what he thought of their relationship. How much he had guessed about the feelings that were running between them. Well, if his father knew what was going on, Fraser would be glad of the information. Because he wasn’t sure that he and Elspeth were doing such a great job between them of figuring their relationship out.
‘You were only married two years,’ Fraser said, accusing. ‘You threw away everything that you and Mum had for something that didn’t even last.’
Malcolm rubbed at his hair and sighed. ‘Aye. It’s easy to see that now. But at the time...’
‘At the time you were only thinking about one thing.’
‘Fraser...’ His father’s voice trailed off as he shook his head. ‘That’s not what happened. When I met Louise I fell in love with her. I’m sorry if it hurts you to hear that. I didn’t want to lie to your mother, and so I told her what I was feeling. Louise and I were happy for a short time, but...but sometimes that’s not enough. I was sad for a very long time after you left. It’s hard for a relationship to survive that.’
‘You chose her,’ Fraser said, the words tearing at his throat.
It was the thought that had haunted him for so many years. The fact that he hadn’t been good enough for his father. That he hadn’t been enough. That his father hadn’t chosen him.
‘I didn’t know at the time, Fraser, that that was what I was choosing. I know that’s what you threatened, but I thought you would come round. That if I gave you space you would change your mind. I didn’t know what to do. I always wanted you to come home, but I didn’t know how to talk to you.’
Malcolm leaned forward, but Fraser moved away on instinct, needing to keep some distance. Everything his father was saying... It was making him question everything he’d thought he’d known about his past. About himself.
‘You moved Louise in here when I was barely out of the door.’
Fraser held up his hands in defeat. ‘You were a child, Fraser, and so angry. I didn’t know what to do.’
‘I just wanted you to choose me!’ Fraser exclaimed, and then glanced across to make sure that he hadn’t woken Elspeth. ‘I wanted me and Mum to be more important than she was. I wanted our life together, what you had with us, to be more important than what you thought you might have with her.’
His father sank into his chair. ‘If I’d known, son, that I wouldn’t see you for so long, that you really meant it, I wouldn’t have done it. I would do anything to go back and make a different choice.’
Fraser looked into his father’s face and for the first time felt ashamed. He saw that he had brought as much pain to his father as he had felt himself over the years. If either one of them had compromised perhaps they both could have been spared some pain.
‘It’s not too late,’ Malcolm said, reading the mood and placing a hand over Fraser’s. ‘There’s a new life on the way and I hope—’
Malcolm’s voice cracked, and Fraser swallowed down an answering lump in his throat.
‘I hope that this is the start of something. I would so love to get to know you again, Fraser. To meet my grandchild and watch him grow up.’
‘Aye,’ Fraser said eventually, not trusting himself with a longer word. After several deep breaths he lifted his head and looked his father in the eye. ‘I’d like that too,’ he said, with a small nod that sealed the matter.
CHAPTER TWELVE
‘DO YOU—?’
‘Should we—?’
Elspeth laughed nervously, feeling the doorknob cool and smooth beneath her hand as she started again. ‘I think we should probably talk about what happened earlier,’ she said.
After she had woken alone in the study and gone to find Fraser and Malcolm, Elspeth had been astonished to discover them at the table in the kitchen, papers strewn between them and an animated conversation in flow. She had wondered if she’d woken in some sort of parallel universe. But the two men had been full of plans, looking to the future of Ballanross.
They had all spent a lively afternoon around that table, playing with different ideas, making suggestions for new business ventures. And it had only been as they’d left the kitchen late in the evening that there had been space to think, never mind talk about the kiss that had happened earlier.
As she had turned the brass knob on her bedroom door she’d paused, knowing in that moment that she absolutely did not want to sleep on it alone. To let whatever had captured them that morning dissipate overnight or become too big to talk about. She’d opened her mouth to speak, only Fraser had too.
Now she took a deep breath, deciding to be brave, and to say what she had been thinking all day: ‘I think we need to talk about what happened earlier. We’re meant to be just friends, Fraser. I can’t be in a relationship—not with all the other responsibilities in my life. But all the time we’re either snapping at each other or—’
‘Kissing each other?’
She tried to hide her smile, not wanting Fraser to know how the memory of that kiss lit her up from the inside.
‘Or trying really hard not to.’
He snorted, gave a little huff of laughter. ‘Hmmph, thanks for the ego-boost.’
She opened the door behind her and glanced back over her shoulder as she crossed the threshold to make sure that Fraser had read her invitation and followed.
Elspeth pulled the heavy velvet curtains before sitting down on the stiff upholstered bench in front of the window. ‘I’m clearly not doing a great job.’
‘I’m glad you stopped trying,’ Fraser replied as he joined her.
‘Who said I stopped?’
She ducked her head as he stared at her, not wanting him to know how she was feeling. It had been hard enough to resist him when her memories from the wedding were faded and dog-eared and starting to feel as if they could have happened to someone else. The memory of this morning was so sharp and Technicolor that her mind could have her back in the moment faster than she could blink.
‘That helps,’ he said, brushing one hand across her cheek. ‘If everything that happened this morning was while you were trying to resist me I’d like to see what happens when you really let yourself go.’
She couldn’t help the smile turning up the corners of her lips, and she gave him a look to remind him that he knew exactly what happened when she let down her guard with him. The widening of his eyes and the slight flush to his skin let her know that she’d hit her mark.
She felt herself leaning in to him, drawn to him as if she had no control over her own body. But she couldn’t let that distract her—again. She pulled herself back into line. She wasn’t just some slave to her hormones. She was going to be a mother: she had to get her life in order. She moved away, leaving Fraser with his lips moistened and fire in his eyes.
‘Don’t be sensible,’ he said, reading her perfectly.
‘We have to be,’ she replied, glancing down at her bump, knowing that he would understand what she was thinking. He was developing an uncanny knack for that. ‘We’re meant to be talking.’
‘I don’t want to talk. I want to—’
She touched his lips with the tips of her fingers, stopping the words before they could be said.
‘Don’t say it. If you say it I might change my mind. We’ve been pretending we can will these feelings to disappear. We’ve done a terrible job, so we need a new plan.’
Fraser leaned away from her slightly. From the thoughtful look on his face, he seemed to be assessing how serious she was about this. Could he be playful and kiss her—or was this talk non-negotiable.
‘Does there always have to be a plan?’ he asked.
‘Yes!’
Fraser visibly started at the bite in her tone, but to his credit didn’t push her on it. Well, at least she’d answered his unspoken question, as well as the one he’d asked out l
oud. There was to be no kissing on the agenda until they’d talked about what happened earlier.
‘Okay,’ he said, speaking softly and slowly, as if trying to calm a skittish horse. ‘Then how about this for a plan?’
He cupped her cheek, his hand moving as slowly as his words, and just as she was about to push him away he paused and flicked his gaze up to her eyes from her mouth. But he didn’t kiss her. Didn’t cross the invisible line that she had drawn between them.
‘I think about this all day,’ he said. ‘It’s exhausting trying to deny it. To deny myself.’
Elspeth heaved in a deep breath, sending it down to her fingertips to stop them grabbing at him—to her mouth, to stop it begging him to deliver on what that look had just promised.
‘It doesn’t leave me time or energy for anything else. Maybe if we stopped fighting. Maybe if we...’
She thought he was going to do it—to lean in and complete this kiss. He was going to make their bed and she would enjoy lying in it.
But he just rested his forehead against hers. ‘Maybe, if we weren’t putting so much effort into fighting so damn hard, things would work themselves out.’
‘But...’ Elspeth started to say. She had so many sensible objections that she didn’t even know where to start. She couldn’t be in a relationship. There was too much at stake. If she were distracted by Fraser and something happened to Sarah she would never be able to forgive herself.
‘I know... I know,’ Fraser said, lifting her hand back to his lips for a gentle kiss. ‘There’s a million reasons why this might not work. Why it would make more sense for us to resist. But I can’t help feeling that if I weren’t expending so much energy resisting you every second of the day, maybe we’d find the answer to making this work. Could that be our plan? We stop fighting against what we want and see what happens.’
What if he was right? She was thinking about him all day anyway—when she was at work, when she was with Sarah, when she was in the car, when she should be sleeping. Thinking about how she was going to resist him. Thinking about that night after the wedding. Thinking about all the reasons why this was a bad idea. If all that went away, would she have more time for everything else in her life, rather than less?
‘Watchful waiting...’ Elspeth said thoughtfully.
Fraser frowned. ‘What?’
At last she met his eyes. ‘It’s doctor-speak for wait and see. For observing how something progresses before you decide whether you need to intervene or not.’
Fraser nodded, reflecting her smile back at her. He was still so close she could feel his breath on her lips. Still not taking that choice from her.
‘Watchful waiting,’ he echoed. ‘I like the sound of that. Though the waiting part sounds a lot like what we’ve been doing already.’
A surge of heat started in the pit of her belly and spread up over her chest, until she was sure her cheeks were flaming. ‘I can’t wait for you much longer, I don’t think,’ she said, being honest at last. ‘I’m not sure I’ve got the strength.’
He gave her a look that burned and melted her at the same time, like a candle, puddling wax around its own flame.
‘You’re the strongest woman I—’
She pressed her lips against his and it lit her up as it had the last time, the first time, every time she had kissed him. But with the urgency of knowing she shouldn’t be doing this gone, she felt something else in his kiss, a sweetness, a tenderness that had been drowned out before. Or, she wondered, maybe this was new. Maybe this was deeper.
With her eyes closed, she brought her hand to his face, rubbed her thumb against the fullness of his bottom lip, rediscovering the contours of his mouth, taking the time to relearn every line.
The night of the wedding, and in the dreams she had had since, he was a silhouetted shape in the half-light. He was the desire and the urgency that had made her lose her inhibitions and led her into trouble. Now the urgency had gone, had been replaced with something richer. She didn’t need to consume this experience in one sitting, knowing that she wouldn’t have another chance. She could take her time over this. Indulge every curiosity. She could stop and enjoy every moment with each of her senses. And she intended to.
‘Enjoying yourself?’ Fraser asked, as her explorations continued.
‘Mmm...’ Elsepth replied as she trailed kisses along his jaw, pressed her lips to the soft, sensitive skin behind his ear.
His lips dropped to her collarbone, nudging aside the fabric of her sweater, sending a shock of desire right through her. His cold hands on her waist made her jump, and she pulled away.
‘What’s the hurry?’ she asked, acting innocent.
Fraser held his hands up in supplication. ‘If you want to be in charge...’
He leaned back and turned his head, pulling her on top of him so she could carry on where she’d left off—except he’d clearly forgotten the football-sized bump between them, and she let out an oomph as she landed on him and the breath was squeezed from her.
Fraser lifted his head in alarm, propping himself up on his elbows. ‘Did I hurt you? Are you okay?’
‘I’m fine,’ Elspeth said, pushing him back on the bench seat, lowering herself gently until she was lying on top of him. ‘Things have changed a wee bit since we were last here. That’s all.’
He ran his hands over her bump and smiled at her appreciatively.
‘You look beautiful,’ he said, pulling her face down for another kiss with one hand. The other still rested possessively on her belly. ‘And you feel incredible. All full and tight and about to burst. It’s been impossible to ignore how sexy you are like this.’
She laughed, kissing him back. ‘The hormones must have gone to your head. But I’ll take it.’ She resumed her explorations, and this time didn’t protest as his hands found their way under her clothes and over her skin.
* * *
There was no light around the edges of the curtains when Elspeth’s phone rang the next morning. That didn’t mean much in the Highlands in winter—it could be nine in the morning or three in the afternoon. So she glanced at the time on her phone as she picked it up—five in the morning.
She felt a frisson of dread familiar to anyone living with chronic illness and disability in their lives when a phone rang in the middle of the night. Her mother’s name was on the screen. Elspeth swallowed her fear down, not wanting her mother to hear that she was worried.
‘Mum? Everything okay?’ she asked in a whisper, not wanting to wake Fraser, snoring softly beside her.
Elspeth held her breath as her mum spoke. She had fallen in the shower and had to call an ambulance. She was in A&E now, which meant that the respite carer they’d booked was at home with Sarah, unsupervised.
‘I’ll come home right away,’ Elspeth said, calculating driving times in her head. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll be back in a few hours.’
She ignored her mum’s protests—because what else could she do? She wasn’t going to risk having someone underqualified and inexperienced taking care of Sarah when she could be back there herself in a few hours, making sure that everything was done exactly as it needed to be.
A hmmmph beside her in the bed let her know that Fraser was awake and unhappy about it. One of his hands curved around her hip, but she pushed it away. This wouldn’t have happened if she hadn’t come up here with him, she thought to herself. She wouldn’t be sitting here wondering what might happen to Sarah if the agency had sent someone inexperienced, imagining all the worst-case scenarios that haunted her late at night when she thought about strangers looking after her sister.
She crept from under the blankets, hoping Fraser would fall back to sleep before remembering that she didn’t have her car here and she’d need him to drive her home.
‘What’s going on?’ he asked, lifting himself on to one elbow and eyeing her suspiciously as she flicked on a light and
started throwing things into her suitcase. ‘Elspeth?’ he said, trepidation in his voice. ‘Are ye going somewhere?’
‘There’s an emergency at home,’ she said, without looking round. ‘I’ve got to go and take care of my sister. I’m sorry. I know we meant to stay longer. Perhaps I could take the car and—’
Fraser sat up properly, pushing the hair out of his eyes, still not looking one hundred per cent awake.
‘No, I’ll drive you, Elspeth. Of course I will. Is Sarah okay? Your mum?’
‘Mum’s had a fall. She’s in A&E waiting for X-rays—which means Sarah’s home alone with the carer.’
‘I’m sorry about your mum. But is there no one else who can help out? Someone closer?’
That’s just what Alex would say.
The thought appeared in her brain before she could stop it.
* * *
‘I really have to go, Fraser. I know it’s not what we planned, but that’s just the way it is.’
Fraser glanced around the room, trying to guess from the light—or lack of it—what time it was. From the grit in his eyes and the ache in his muscles he guessed that it wasn’t much later than when they had finally fallen asleep.
‘It’s not about what we planned, Elspeth,’ he said, trying to catch up with what was happening, trying to stave off the fear that she was about to walk out on him. ‘It was an innocent question. I’m trying to understand what’s going on.’
She stopped packing and stood still for a moment. ‘Look, I know you’re not used to this. But this is how it is with my family—my life. Sometimes I have to drop everything and just go.’
She was moving round the room purposefully, pulling on clothes, throwing others sharply into her suitcase. It was clear that she was leaving. Had she given him a moment’s consideration or was she just going to lift his keys and go?
‘This is exactly what I was worried about, coming up here. This is exactly why I’ve said all along that this won’t work.’
‘And would you be running so fast if it wasn’t for last night?’ he asked, knowing that he was entering dangerous waters. Last night they had found such a fragile balance...she had taken such a risk by giving in to what she wanted. What they both wanted. Was she regretting it now?
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