The Unexpected Baby

Yet he had worked it out in his own good time, weighing what seemed bad, very bad indeed, against what he knew of her, the love they shared, and had reached the truth.

On the other hand, perhaps seeing her with Liam again had completely turned his opinion of her around. That first meeting had been explained away, and he’d come to accept it. But the second—the wad of money that could only have come from her. The indisputable fact that she had arranged to sneak out and meet her ex-husband. Would he now see everything she’d said as a tissue of deceitful lies? Even the way Sam’s baby had been conceived?

She spent the day alternating between faint hope and bleak despair. He didn’t come that night, nor in the morning. But Pilar did.

CHAPTER TWELVE

ELENA knew she had to make herself eat something for her baby’s sake. She was uninterestedly slicing fruit when she heard the unmistakable sound of a noisy two-stroke engine pull into the courtyard.

Pilar on her moped, come to check on the practically invisible irrigation system that kept the pot plants alive. It saved having to drag the hose or watering cans up to the terrace that overlooked the garden and the courtyard at the front.

Pilar always came to check the system was working properly at least once a week when Elena was away. Now the Spanish woman would know she was back in residence, and would expect to take up her normal household duties.

But Elena didn’t want to see anyone. Only Jed. And Jed, it seemed, was in no hurry to come back.

Sighing, she resigned herself to the inevitable as the heavy slap of Pilar’s sandalled feet heralded her arrival in the kitchen. A huge woman, she was full of good humour and energy. Elena liked her very much, and vowed not to let her know how desperately she wanted to be left alone.

‘So you are having the baby—that is good! The little one will bring you much joy! I speak as I know from the five of my own!’ Pilar said in her exuberant, heavily accented English.

Her eyes widening, Elena glanced down at the front of her sundress. Another five months to go—was her pregnancy so obvious?

Pilar, taking a gaudy spotted pinafore from a plastic bag, tied it round her huge middle and disabused her. ‘Señor Nolan called to tell me the good news and say you are back here now and I am needed.’

‘When did he call? This morning?’ Had he been in the village below, that close to her, and not bothered to come up here? Was he coldly and unemotionally cutting her out of his life again?

‘No, no.’ Pilar gave her a look that suggested she doubted her sanity. ‘While I was making lunch yesterday. He asked in the village for the house of Pilar Casals. Now you see I was right to make you talk to me in English all these years! Señor Nolan has no Spanish, but we were able to understand each other.’

Which was more than Elena did at this moment. Jed should have been in Seville by yesterday lunchtime. But Pilar gave her no time to ponder why he hadn’t been, telling her, ‘And Tomás is to come and water the garden and do other heavy work. That is good for all of us. He is on his way now, on his bicycle. I tell him my old motorbike won’t take my weight and his. Are you going to eat that fruit, or shall I make the good tortilla?’

‘Fruit,’ Elena said weakly, resuming her slicing before Pilar could make good her threat.

She could understand Pilar’s elation very well. Her husband, Tomás, only worked when Pilar forced him to, and would happily sit around all day at one of the pavement cafés down in the village, drinking strong coffee and smoking his evil-smelling cigarillos under the shade of an orange tree, reading the papers and talking to his friends, perfectly content to let his wife work to put food on the table for the family. She would be delighted to know he would be bringing in extra income.

When Pilar began clattering round with the mop and bucket Elena took her fruit to eat in the garden under the shade of a giant fig tree. Pilar would fetch her if Jed phoned. Though she had by now stopped hoping that he would.

Responsibly, he had arranged for her to have all the help around the house and garden she needed, and had probably told Pilar to see she ate properly. He had done his duty by her and his brother’s unborn child. He would want little or no further contact.

By the end of the afternoon the ache in her heart had become permanent, the feeling of loss so acute it was difficult to contain. Surely his business in Seville wasn’t keeping him away this long? If he’d meant to return he would have done so by now. She had a thumping headache from listening for the sound of his car.

Tomás had set off back to the village on his rusty old bicycle, and Pilar was heading through the courtyard, pushing her moped, on her way home, turning to call over her shoulder, ‘I have made you Polio con Tomate; be sure you eat it.’

Standing in the doorway, Elena made herself smile and promise to eat the chicken in tomato sauce. She didn’t want the Spanish woman to guess how despairingly unhappy she was.

Then she heard the sound of an approaching engine and her smile turned to one of wobbly relief. He had come back!

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Her legs turned to something resembling water vapour and she sagged back against the doorframe, her stomach full of nervous flutters as she saw him appear in the arched doorway in the outer wall. Even though her eyes were misted with emotion she could see how drawn he looked, how tired. He stopped and exchanged a few words with Pilar, then walked towards her, the severity of his expression enclosing her rapidly beating heart in ice.

Nothing had changed in the last thirty-six hours.

He walked past her, into the coolness of the hall. She followed. At the entrance to the sitting room he made a curt after-you gesture with one hand. ‘Shall we talk?’

It was what she wanted, but her heart was somewhere under the soles of her feet, heavy and aching. The coldness of his voice, his eyes, everything about him, told her he was about to say something she couldn’t bear to hear.

She clung to the back of a chair for support. Her legs were shaking so badly. He put his briefcase down on a table and told her, ‘As you’ll have gathered, the Casalses will give you all the help you need around here. And I spoke to Catherine last night and told her you’d decided to wait here until the birth. It is your home, the place you’ll feel most comfortable in.’

He pushed his hands in his pockets and turned to stare out of the open windows, as if he’d seen enough of her. ‘I’ll be flying out to New York tomorrow and staying for four weeks, maybe five. I’ll let you know. After that I’ll check up on you from time to time, and nearer the birth I’ll be with you. We’ll book into a hotel in Cadiz. I’ve checked out a private maternity unit on the outskirts, and booked you in. I’m sure,’ he said coldly, ‘you went into the logistics of getting proper prenatal care when you first decided you wanted a child.’