His Cousin's Wife

‘Are you still working for the Rosten Group?’ After a moment’s pause her question seemed to escape of its own volition and Alex hesitated, too, before replying.

‘In absentia. I do some freelance work for the company now and then. But I’ve taken a break from the full time rat race,’ he finished and a heavy silence fell between them until he swung the car into the driveway of Shea’s house.

She barely suppressed a sigh of relief that she could at last escape. ‘Thank you for bringing me home,’ she began but Alex was already out of the car and striding around to open the passenger side door for her. She climbed out and repeated her thanks.

‘No worries,’ he replied lightly.

‘Well, I’ll say goodnight.’ Shea started walking towards the front door only to pause when she realised Alex had joined her. She gazed inquiringly at him and in the glow from the outside light Norah had left on for her, she saw him grimace slightly.

‘I told you I wanted to see Norah,’ he said, and Shea stood her ground.

‘It’s late. Norah’s most probably in bed,’ she began, and Alex held his wristwatch to the light.

‘Norah in bed at this hour? I seem to remember she never used to go to bed before midnight:

He was right, but Shea wasn’t inclined to tell him so. ‘Wouldn’t it be better if you came back in the morning?’

‘Better for whom?’ he asked softly. ‘For Norah? Or for you?’

‘I—’ Shea swallowed. ‘I really don’t know what you mean,’ she got out, and Alex continued to hold her gaze.

‘I think you do, Shea. Something tells me you aren’t that pleased to see me.’

‘Should I be?’ The words slipped out before she could draw them back and she made herself continue to the foot of the stairs. ‘Eleven years is a long time. People change,’ she said as she retreated.

‘They do that.’ The edge to his voice made her step falter. ‘But it doesn’t necessarily take eleven years,’ he added flatly.

Shea stopped then, her hand going to the railing to steady herself, and she heard him sigh.

‘Look, Shea, we used to be friends. Can’t we simply try to be that again?’

His deep voice struck more raw and tender chords. ‘Can’t we try to be friends?’ Didn’t he realise each word was a sabre thrust opening old wounds that had taken years to heal?

‘Friends?’ Shea bit off a sharp incredulous laugh as she turned back to face him.

‘Would that be so difficult?’ His eyes burned into hers across the few feet separating them and then he ran a strong hand through his fair hair.

And Shea’s eyes were drawn to the movement, to the line of his forearm, the long sensitive fingers enmeshed in thick strands of hair. Almost mesmerised, she watched as he then shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans, drawing the material tautly across his thighs, and she felt her stomach lurch in that old familiar way.

For all those long years that section of her emotions had lain dormant. No man since had stirred her in that purely physical way. Not even Jamie.

No! Not again! She wouldn’t allow him, or any other man, to have such a hold on her again. Physically or emotionally.

Yet her blood raced through her veins, her traitorous senses paying no heed.

‘I’d have thought we could both act like rational adults after all these years,’ Alex was saying.

Rational adults? Shea clutched at her composure and her chin rose. Did he really think their ages had anything to do with it? If they were seventy she’d still feel the same. It was called betrayal.

‘Look, Shea—’ Alex stopped and sighed. ‘OK, let’s leave it that you’re not overjoyed by my return. Although why—’ He made an irritated movement with his hand. ‘No matter. The fact remains that I am here and I plan to stay here for some time.’

Shea’s heart twisted painfully. Well, she told herself brutally, if she’d been subconsciously harbouring any illusions about this being a flying visit home he had just nipped them in the bud. She’d simply have to get used to having him turn up now and then. She’d have to steel herself. And her heart. Especially her heart. Because she knew if she let him get close to her and he ran true to form, she’d never survive it all the second time around.

‘We’re pretty much family,’ he continued with a shrug. ‘We’ll have to see each other occasionally.’

‘I’m sure we can manage to keep those occasions to a minimum,’ she said with an evenness she was proud of. ‘You’ll be working, I take it, and so will I. If we’re careful we needn’t see each other at all.’ She made herself hold his gaze and his jaw tightened as his eyes narrowed.

‘I’d prefer not to orchestrate any sidestepping. I think we should just behave as normally as possible.’

Shea could almost laugh at that. Normally? What did he mean? ‘Normal’ for Alex and herself had been spending every moment together, talking, laughing, making love. However, as she was trying to decide how to answer his comment, Norah called from the hallway.

‘Is that you, Shea?’

‘Yes. It’s me,’ she said and climbed the remaining stairs to the door. But Alex was there before her.

‘And she’s brought a guest,’ he said into the opening.

‘Alex!’ Norah’s hand went to her throat in surprise. She shot a quick, startled look at Shea.

‘Hello, Norah,’ Alex replied with a faint touch of uncharacteristic reticence in his deep voice.

Then Norah’s eyes crinkled at the corners as she smiled. ‘Alex,’ she repeated softly, a catch in her voice, and she opened her arms welcomingly.

Alex stepped into them, lifted her off the ground and swung her around before setting her back on her feet. ‘I wondered if you’d recognise me after all this time. Or if you’d want to.’

‘As if I wouldn’t,’ she admonished him. ‘And I’ve known you too many years to forget your face now.’ Norah patted his cheek and looked into his eyes. ‘But, Alex. You’ve changed.’

‘That’s to be expected, isn’t it?’ Alex gave a soft laugh. ‘But I hope that frown doesn’t mean you think I’ve changed for the worse, does it?’

‘Of course not. Those looks of yours would still charm birds out of trees.’

Alex’s grin widened, the creases bracketing his mouth deepening, and Shea felt her own mouth tighten in disgust. Norah couldn’t have spoken truer words. Other girls had succumbed, she knew. But she had been the one who’d fallen the hardest.

‘I’m relieved to hear it,’ Alex joked, ‘because you never know when you’ll need a few birds to come out of the trees.’

Norah and Alex laughed easily and somehow they had gravitated into the hallway, moving naturally towards the kitchen instead of the living room where they would normally take a guest. But Alex was family, so they went into the kitchen. As though he’d never been away, Shea thought with a stab of irritation.

Norah subsided into her favourite chair and Alex looked at Shea, obviously waiting for her to be seated before he himself sat down.

‘I think I’ll make some coffee, shall I?’ she asked quickly, hovering just inside the doorway.

‘To tell you the truth I’ve been dying for a cup of true Finlay coffee,’ Alex said amiably. ‘Haven’t tasted one as good since I left.’

‘I’d just brewed a fresh pot.’ Norah made to get up again but Shea motioned for her to remain where she was.

‘No. You stay there and talk to Alex. I’ll get it.’ Shea crossed to the old-fashioned dresser, busying herself taking Norah’s fine china mugs from their decorative hooks.

But she couldn’t prevent her eyes from slipping across to Alex as he seated himself at the scrubbed wooden table. She experienced a stabbing pain at the completely natural way Alex had drawn up that particular chair. He’d done so for as long as Shea could remember.

Until he left. Her lips tightened. She couldn’t forget that. He had betrayed them. Betrayed her.

She tried not to listen as Norah inquired about Alex’s flight home, then about his father and stepmother. She couldn’t stay and listen to Alex’s easy tone when she wanted to lash out at him, fling over him some of the anger and pain that burned inside her.

Automatically she set their mugs of coffee on the table, adding the sugar bowl and the milk jug, along with a plate of Norah’s freshly made cookies. Alex used to love them, too...

‘Aren’t you going to sit down, Shea?’ His words broke in on her unsettling thoughts and she moved forward to disguise the start of surprise his voice had caused her.

‘Yes. Of course. But if you’ll both excuse me for a moment. I’ll just, um, the bathroom,’ she muttered disjointedly and made her escape. Once she’d reached the safety of the hallway her step faltered, and she gulped shallow, calming breaths.

‘I’m sorry I haven’t managed to get home sooner,’ Shea heard Alex say and her hand went to the wall to steady herself. ‘Once Dad moved to the States I lost all contact apart from an occasional note from Jamie.’

‘Jamie wrote to you? I never knew that.’ Shea heard Norah say and her own lips tightened. Well, she, Shea, hadn’t known, either, and she felt a numbed surprise that Jamie had deceived her.

‘About the funeral, Norah,’ Alex was continuing. ‘I got the message you left about the accident and I was about to fly home but,’ he paused, ‘something came up.’

Shea didn’t stay to hear any more. She made herself hurry towards the bathroom.

So something had come up to prevent him attending Jamie’s funeral, Jamie who had been more than a brother to him. Some business deal no doubt, she thought bitterly. How could she think it would have been any other way? Alex hadn’t changed. He had been interested only in himself eleven years ago and he was still the same. Alex-oriented. Something she would never be again.

She automatically splashed her face and towelled it dry. Her reflection, face devoid of makeup, gazed back at her from the mirror above the vanity basin, and her frown deepened.

She rubbed at the slight indentation between her eyes. She looked—Well, she looked every bit of her twenty-eight years, and then some. She was definitely no longer the fresh-faced teenager Alex had left behind. He couldn’t help but notice the difference in her.

Shea shifted agitatedly, hanging up the towel and grasping her hairbrush. Did it matter what Alex Finlay thought? she asked herself derisively.

Her fingers loosened the knot of fair hair at the back of her head and she raked the brush through the tangles. Then she rewound it into its confining bob and rubbed at her throbbing temples.

There was nothing now to keep her from rejoining her mother-in-law and their guest so she walked back along the hallway. However, she hesitated again before she reached the kitchen doorway as she heard Norah’s words.

‘And is Patti with you?’

‘No.’ Shea thought she heard Alex sigh. ‘Patti and I aren’t together anymore. We divorced. It just didn’t work out.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that, Alex,’ Norah said softly as Shea’s entire body seemed to stiffen at Alex’s bombshell.

A tiny flicker of hope caught Shea unawares and she berated herself derisively.

‘We should never have married, Patti and I,’ Alex was saying.

‘That’s easy to say with hindsight,’ Norah put in sympathetically.

‘I suppose so,’ Alex agreed tiredly.

Realising she had been holding her breath Shea made herself exhale as her chest tightened painfully.

‘Our marriage lasted barely a year. We were finally divorced a couple of years ago and Patti’s remarried. She seems happy enough now.’ The chair creaked as Alex moved. ‘That’s the way things go sometimes.’

‘I suppose sometimes they do,’ Norah commiserated. ‘But I think it’s sad when young marriages break up. There seems to be so much of it these days.’

Alex made a noncommittal remark as Norah continued to decry the modern phenomena and Shea tried to analyse her own feelings at Alex’s revelation.

So Alex’s and Patti’s marriage hadn’t lasted. Shea could recall quite vividly the devastation she’d experienced when Alex’s father had told her of his son’s engagement to Joe Rosten’s daughter. And the pain of having to pretend to everyone that it meant nothing to her, for she had supposedly been a happily married woman herself at the time.

Donald Finlay had left for the States to attend his son’s wedding and when he eventually returned to Byron Bay he had packed up his belongings, rented out his cottage, and gone back to the States to marry a widow he’d met at the wedding. Shea had had no news of either Donald or Alex since that time. Neither Norah nor Jamie had spoken of them.

A tiny spark remaining inside Shea had died knowing Alex was married and only Jamie had known how badly the news of his cousin’s marriage had affected her.

Poor Jamie. He’d consoled her, knowing she could never feel for him what she had felt for his taller, smarter, more handsome cousin. Even though she’d tried so desperately for the six years of their marriage to do just that.

All things considered, she felt she could have been forgiven for feeling some delight at learning that Alex and Patti had parted. But she simply felt desensitised. Well, she could care less if Alex was married or single, she told herself and with a major clasp at her composure, Shea made herself re-enter the kitchen.

Alex immediately stood up and passed her her mug of coffee as she sat down on the opposite side of the table, as far from Alex as she could. But that was a strategic error, for now she only had to raise her eyes to look at him.

‘Coffee’s not cold, is it, love?’ Norah smiled at Shea and she shook her head, determinedly taking a placating sip.

She glanced across the rim of her coffee cup to find Alex’s hooded eyes resting on her and she stilled, her fingers tightening around the handle.

With precision timing the telephone jangled and Shea was hard put not to slosh her coffee into her lap.

‘I’ll get it.’ Norah was up and out the door before Shea or Alex could make a move.

And with Norah’s departure the tension recharged between them. Their eyes meshed and neither seemed able to break the hold.

How long they sat like that she couldn’t have told but she thought she saw a pulse beating erratically in Alex’s smoothly shaven jaw line. And was that his pain or simply a reflection of her own in the glittering darkness of his eyes?

Deep inside her she knew what she really wanted. She wanted, needed, yearned to throw herself into his strong arms, have his body mould itself to hers. She could almost feel him, smell the male scent of him, hear the murmur of the sea on the sand below them, see the moonlight dancing on their damp bodies.

Yes, she’d loved him then. Yet when she’d needed him most he had left her.

She dragged her gaze from his. Why, Alex? Why did you do it? Why did you leave me? The words echoed so loudly inside her head she thought she must have voiced them and she glanced quickly back at him. But he showed no sign that she had spoken.

His expression was guarded now, making him seem somewhat detached, light-years away from the Alex she had known so well, loved with such intensity and innocence.

Perhaps she had even imagined that earlier momentary fire. But her imagination wasn’t to blame for the remembered feel of him, the remembered taste of him...

Her hunger was a physical pain and she lowered her lashes in case he saw just how vulnerable to his nearness she really was. When she raised her eyes he had leaned forward in his chair and an entirely different anguish caught her, for all dispassion had left his face.

‘Shea!’

Her name seemed to be torn raggedly from him and his hand moved towards her. Shea felt herself drawn capriciously forward, only to check as Norah rejoined them, her quick glance going from her daughter-in-law to her nephew.

Shea hoped the telltale colour that had flooded her pale cheeks wouldn’t betray her previous lapse in control. Her nerves were jangling like mechanical puppets gone mad. If Norah hadn’t interrupted them Alex would have...

Would have what? she asked herself bitterly. Touched her? Kissed her? No! Never again. She couldn’t, wouldn’t, be able to bear it.

‘It was David,’ Norah said. ‘On the phone,’ she added, seeing the blank looks on both Shea’s and Alex’s faces. ‘He was just checking to see Shea got home all right.’

‘Oh.’ Shea swallowed. ‘That was thoughtful of him.’

‘Yes. Very thoughtful,’ Alex agreed drily, and Norah smiled.

‘It’s so kind of him to drive Shea to the meetings. David’s a pleasant young man.’ Norah beamed and Alex’s smile barely shadowed the corners of his mouth.

‘I’m sure he is,’ he said evenly, but before Norah could extol David Aston’s virtues any further a sound at the doorway drew their attention.

CHAPTER FOUR

‘MUM? Gran? What’s going on?’ Niall’s pyjama-clad body leant against the door jamb, fists rubbing at his sleepy eyes.

Panic gathered in a tight ball in Shea’s chest and she stood up, taking a couple of steps towards Niall, trying to put herself between Alex and her son. ‘It’s all right, love. Go on back to bed.’

But by now Niall was fully awake and he came forward to stand beside his mother.

‘You’re Cousin Alex, aren’t you?’ he said, obvious excitement in his young voice. ‘I’ve seen stacks of photos of you with my dad.’

Alex had pushed himself to his feet, too, and his expression was shadowed by his lashes as he looked down at Niall. Then he seemed to make himself relax and came around the table. ‘I am Alex. But you’re far too old to be young Niall,’ he teased with mock incredulity, and Niall grinned.

‘I’m ten,’ he said proudly.

‘Your father wrote to me about you,’ Alex continued, and Shea drew a sharp breath.

She had no idea Jamie had ever contacted his cousin to inform him of Niall’s birth. Another instance of Jamie’s secret letters. She reached out and clasped Niall’s thin shoulders, fighting an urge to push her son behind her, shield him with her body.

‘This is my son,’ she said unnecessarily, her slightly sharp voice betraying her total turmoil.

Niall slid a quick glance up at her before turning back to Alex. ‘I’m Niall James Alexander Finlay,’ he stated with a beam and, with obvious importance, took Alex’s outstretched hand. ‘The James is for my father and my grandfather and the Alexander is after you.’ His grin broadened. ‘The Niall bit’s just mine.’

Alex laughed easily and ran a hand over Niall’s tousled hair.

‘Do you think I look like you and Dad?’ Niall continued. ‘Gran says you could hardly tell you and Dad apart when you were boys and I’m supposed to look like him.’

‘You and Jamie did look like brothers when you were small,’ Norah put in quickly, not meeting her daughter-in-law’s eyes. ‘And Niall has the same colouring. But I can see a lot of Shea in him, too.’ With uncharacteristic nervousness her fingers played with the cord of her robe. ‘But I’m babbling. Would you like a glass of milk, Niall? And how about another cup of coffee, Alex?’

‘It’s a little late, Norah,’ Shea said, her hands still holding her son. ‘I’m sure Alex wants to get home.’

‘No. Unless it’s too late for you?’ He raised dark brows at his aunt who shook her head.

‘Did you know my dad died?’ Niall asked and Alex nodded solemnly. ‘He swam out to rescue a board rider and just when they were nearly safe a big wave picked up the board and knocked Dad out and he got drowned. He was a hero.’

‘He was that,’ Alex agreed.

‘So how come you haven’t been back home in so long, Cousin Alex?’ Niall asked then, as he sat down beside his mother who had reluctantly subsided into her chair.

Shea’s back stiffened and she swallowed, grasping the plate of Norah’s homemade cookies and offering them to Alex in an effort to disguise the inner chaos she suspected was visible on her face.

‘Call me Alex, Niall,’ Alex was saying. ‘And as to why I’ve stayed away so long, well, things just seemed to work out that way.’

Shea’s mouth was dry now. She could feel Alex’s eyes on her and a shiver raced along the length of her spine.

‘I’ve been fairly involved with my job and I guess the years simply slipped away from me.’

Norah set down a glass of milk in front of her grandson. ‘And how long will you be staying, Alex?’

It was a question Shea knew Norah had been burning to ask since Alex had reappeared. It had, after all, been one of the first querying thoughts to seep into her own numbed mind.

Alex’s gaze met Shea’s, held it. “How long am I staying? As I told Shea earlier, pretty well indefinitely at this stage,’ he said levelly before shifting his attention back to Norah. ‘I bought Joe’s house from him some time ago and I’m doing it up. When it’s finished I’ll decide whether or not to continue living there or to sell it’

‘Niall said there was some activity at the big white house,’ Norah commented and Niall turned to Alex in surprise.

‘The big white house? You own the big white house? Mum didn’t tell me that. Wow! What a mansion. Can I come and see inside it some time?’ he asked eagerly.

‘Niall—’ Shea began to chastise him but Alex cut in.

‘Sure you can. The interior’s something of a mausoleum. But I’m attempting to bring some normality to the decor.’

‘What’s a mausoleum?’ Niall frowned and Alex gave a laugh.

‘In this case, sort of dark and dingy. Looks like it should have cobwebs all over the furniture and bats flapping around the ceilings.’

‘Unreal! Pete and I would love to see it,’ Niall said with feeling, and then added, ‘Pete’s my best mate. I’d have to bring him, too. If I didn’t he’d be as mad as a hornet.’

‘Sure, Pete can come, too. Any time,’ Alex told him easily.

‘When? Tomorrow after school?’ Niall pressed, and Shea moved the cookies from his reach. He’d used the cover of adult conversation to eat two already.

‘We’ll see, Niall,’ she warned him with a glance. ‘Alex will be busy with his renovations.’

When Niall would have protested, Norah interrupted. ‘Fancy you and Shea running into each other at the Progress Association meeting. And Shea almost didn’t go tonight.’

How Shea wished now that she had stayed home. It would have given her more time to prepare—But she still would have speculated about the big white house, would have wondered anxiously if Alex might have returned.

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