The Secret in His Heart

It dawned on her belatedly that she hadn’t even asked if there was anyone else who might have been a consideration in this, but that was so stupid. He was a fit, healthy and presumably sexual active man who was entitled to have a relationship with anyone he chose. She’d just assumed he wasn’t in a relationship, assumed that just because he’d never mentioned anyone, there wasn’t anyone.

OK, so he probably wasn’t getting married to her, whoever she might be, but that didn’t stop him having a lover. Several, if he chose. Did he bring them back here?

She realised she was staring up at the house and wondering which was his bedroom, wondering where in the house he made love to the femme du jour, and it stopped her in her tracks.

What was she doing, even thinking about his private life? Why the hell was she here at all? How had she had the nerve to ask him to do this?

But he’d said ‘yet’ …

She sighed and stopped staring up at the house. Thinking about James and sex in the same breath was so not the way forward, not if she wanted to keep this clinical and uninvolved. And she did. She had to, because it was complicated enough. She looked around her instead, her eye drawn again to the cabin behind her. It was painted in a lovely muted grey-green, set up slightly on stilts so it was raised above the level of the garden like the house, with steps up to the doors.

She wondered what he used it for. It might be a store room, but it seemed far too good to use as a glory-hole. That would be such a waste.

Home gym? Possibly, although he didn’t have the sort of muscles that came from working out. He looked like more of a runner, or maybe a tennis player. Not that she’d studied his body, she thought, frowning at herself. Why would she? But she’d noticed, of course she had.

She dragged herself back to the subject. Hobbies room? She wasn’t aware that he had any. James had never mentioned it, and she realised that for all she’d known him for years, she hardly knew him. Not really. Not deep down. She’d met him nine years ago, worked with him for a year as his SHO, seen him umpteen times since then while she’d been with Joe, but he didn’t give a lot away, at least not to her. Never had.

Maybe that was how she’d felt able to come down here and ask him this? Although if she’d known more about how he ticked she could have engineered her argument to target his weak spot. Or had she inadvertently done that? His reaction had been instant and unmistakeable. He’d recoiled from the idea as if it was unthinkable, but then he’d begun to relent—hadn’t he?

She wasn’t sure. It would have helped if Joe had paved the way, but he hadn’t, and so she’d had to go in cold and blunder about in what was obviously a very sensitive area. Pushing his buttons, as he’d put it. And he’d said no, so she’d upset him for nothing.

Except he hadn’t given her a flat-out no in the end, had he? He’d said don’t do anything yet. Whatever yet meant.

She sighed. Back to that again.

He didn’t really need another trip to the supermarket. They could have managed. He’d just needed space to think, to work out what, if anything, he could do to stop Connie from making the biggest mistake of her life.

Or his.

He swore softly under his breath, swung the car into a parking space and did a quick raid of the bacon and sausage aisle to replace all the breakfast ingredients Saffy had pinched, then he drove back home, lecturing himself every inch of the way on how his responsibility to Connie did not mean he had to do this.

He just had to stop her doing something utterly crazy. The very thought of her with a total stranger made him gag, but he wasn’t much more thrilled by the idea of her conceiving a child from a nameless donor courtesy of a turkey baster.

Hell, it could be anybody! They could have some inherited disease, some genetic disorder that would be passed on to a child—a predisposition to cancer, heart disease, all manner of things. Rationally, of course, he knew that no reputable clinic would use unscreened donors, and the checks were rigorous. Very rigorous. He knew that, but even so …

What would Joe have thought about it? If he’d refused, what would Joe and Connie have done next? Asked another friend? Gone to a clinic?

It was irrelevant, he told himself again. That was then, this was now, this was Connie on her own, fulfilling a lost dream. God knows what her motives were, but he was pretty sure she hadn’t examined them in enough detail or thought through the ramifications. Somehow or other he had to talk her out of it, or at the very least try. He owed it to Joe. He’d promised to take care of her, and he would, because he kept his promises, and he’d keep this one if it killed him.

Assuming she’d let him, because her biological clock was obviously ticking so loud it was deafening her to reason. And as for his crazy reaction, that absurd urge to give her his baby—and without the benefit of any damn turkey baster—

Swearing viciously under his breath, he pulled up in a slew of gravel, and immediately he could hear Saffy yipping and scrabbling at the gate.

‘Do you reckon she can smell the shopping?’ Connie asked, smiling tentatively at him over the top, and he laughed briefly and turned his attention to the shopping bags, wondering yet again how on earth he was in this position. Why she hadn’t warned him over the phone, said something, anything, some little hint so he hadn’t been quite so unprepared when she’d just come out with it, though quite how she would have warned him—

‘Probably,’ he said drily. ‘I think I’d better put this lot away in the fridge pronto. I take it she can’t open the fridge?’

‘She hasn’t ever done it yet.’

‘Don’t start now,’ he said, giving the dog a level stare immediately cancelled out by a head-rub that had her shadowing him into the kitchen.

Connie followed him, too, hesitating on the threshold. ‘James, I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to put you in a difficult position.’

He paused, his hand on the fridge door, and looked at her over his shoulder. ‘You didn’t,’ he said honestly. ‘Joe did. It was his idea. You were just following up on it.’

‘I could have let it go.’

‘So why didn’t you?’

Her smile was wry and touched with sadness. ‘Because I couldn’t,’ she answered softly, ‘not while there was any hope,’ and he straightened up and shut the fridge and hugged her, because she just looked so damned unhappy and there was nothing he could do to make it better.

No amount of taking care of her was going to sort this out, short of doing what she’d asked, and he wasn’t sure he would ever be able to do that, despite that visceral urge which had caught him off guard. Or because of it? Just the thought of her pregnant with his child …

He let her go, easing her gently away with his hands on her shoulders and creating some much-needed distance between them, because his thoughts were suddenly wildly inappropriate, and the graphic images shocked him.

‘Why don’t you stick the kettle on and we’ll have a cup of tea, and then we can take Saffy for a walk and go to the pub for supper.’

‘Are we still going? I thought you’d just been shopping.’

He shrugged. ‘I didn’t bother to get anything for tonight. The pub seemed like a good idea—unless—is Saffy all right to leave here while we eat?’

She stared at him for a second, as if she was regrouping.

‘Yes, she’s fine. I’ve got a big wire travelling crate I use for her—it’s a sort of retreat. I leave the door open all day so she can go in there to sleep or get away from it all, and I put her in there at night.’

‘Because you don’t trust her?’

‘Not entirely,’ she said drily. ‘Still early days, and she did pinch the steak and the sausages.’

‘The crate it is, then.’ He smiled wryly, then glanced at his watch. ‘Why don’t we bring your luggage in and put it in your room while the kettle boils? I would have done it before but things ran away with us a little.’

Didn’t they just? she thought.

He carried the dog’s crate, she carried her overnight bag and the bag of stuff for Saffy—food, toys, blanket. Well, not a blanket, really, just an old jumper of Joe’s she’d been unable to part with, and then when Saffy had come home she’d found a justification for her sentimental idiocy.

‘Can we leave the crate down here?’ she asked. ‘She’ll be fine in the kitchen, she’s used to it.’

‘Sure. Come on up, I’ll give you a guided tour. It’ll take about ten seconds. The house isn’t exactly enormous.’

It wasn’t, but it was lovely. There were doors from the entrance hall into the ground floor living space, essentially one big L-shaped room, with a cloakroom off the hallway under the stairs, and the landing above led into three bedrooms, two doubles and a single, and a small but well-equipped and surprisingly luxurious bathroom.

He showed her into the large bedroom at the front, simply furnished with a double bed, wardrobe and chest of drawers. There was a pale blue and white rug on the bare boards between the bed and the window, and on the edge of it was a comfy armchair, just right for reading in. And the bed, made up in crisp white linen, sat squarely opposite the window—perfect for lying there drinking early morning tea and gazing out to sea.

She crossed to the window and looked left, over the river mouth, the current rippling the water. The window was open and she could hear the suck of the sea on the shingle, the keening of the gulls overhead, and if she breathed in she could smell the salt in the air.

‘Oh, James, it’s lovely,’ she sighed.

‘Everyone likes this room.’ He put her bag down and took a step towards the door. ‘I’ll leave you to settle in.’

‘No need. I travel light. It’ll take me three seconds to unpack.’

She followed him back out onto the landing and noticed another flight of stairs leading up.

‘So what’s up there?’ she asked.

‘My room.’

He didn’t volunteer anything else, didn’t offer to show it to her, and she didn’t ask. She didn’t want to enter his personal space. Not under the circumstances. Not after her earlier speculation about his love life. The last thing she needed was to see the bed he slept in. So she didn’t ask, just followed him downstairs, got her walking boots out of the car and put them on.

‘In your own time, Slater,’ she said lightly, and he gave her one of those wry smiles of his and got off the steps and led her and Saffy out of the gate.

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