So life went on, and it was early November, the nights cold enough now for huge fires made from the logs Tomás split daily.
Soon, she supposed, Jed would put in an appearance, and, nearer the time of the birth, whisk them off to wait in one of the hotels in Cadiz, to be near the maternity unit. He had given his word and he would keep it. No matter how difficult it would be for both of them; no matter if seeing him again resurrected the awful, keening pain in her heart.
He came on a black night of torrential rain. She heard him call her name and willed her heart to keep beating calmly, not to panic, not to ache, and most of all not to fruitlessly yearn for what could never be again.
She hauled herself out of the chair where she’d been watching the dancing flames and listening to the wind howling in the chimneys, and smoothed down the smothering smock she was wearing over maternity leggings. She resolutely refused to let herself feel embarrassed by the way she looked.
Her hands rested on the shelf that had once been her waist. This was her baby, her life. He wanted no part in either. She had to remember that. When he walked into the cosy, comfy room, the heavy curtains
closed to shut out the wild night, she said, ‘I think you should turn round and go straight back before the road gets impassable.’
Although he had visited occasionally since he’d discovered her with Liam he had never stayed overnight. She doubted he would want to, even if she suggested it. ‘In weather like this there can be rock falls, and the road down to the village turns into a river.’ He looked haunted, she saw, hollow-eyed with weight loss. She didn’t dare show she cared. ‘There’s no need for you to be here.’
‘I see the need,’ he said harshly, as if that was all that mattered. He strode further into the room, shrugged off his rain-darkened soft suede coat and dropped it on the floor. His black cashmere sweater clung to the wide bones of his shoulders. His eyes raked her, eyes that burned with the emotion that had been missing for months.
‘One.’ He came closer. ‘You shouldn’t be alone here in weather like this. Two.’ He came close enough to touch her if he’d wanted to. ‘I need to be here. With you. I can’t stay away. Don’t ask me to.’
Elena’s brow wrinkled, her eyes searching his face. What she saw was fierce intent and something else, something soft and lost that looked like pleading. Did he mean his sense of responsibility, the duty of care he felt towards her and Sam’s unborn child, wouldn’t let him rest when he knew she’d be alone at night after Pilar and Tomás had left?
Or did he mean something else?
‘I don’t understand.’ Her mouth felt unmanageable. The niggling backache she’d had all day suddenly became a ferocious spasm. She swallowed a gasp, waited until it had passed, then sank down again onto her chair.
Immediately he hunkered down in front of her. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Perfectly.’ His hair was wet, rumpled. She wanted to run her fingers through it—wouldn’t let herself, of course.
He gave her a searching look and then, as if satisfied, stood upright, fed more logs onto the fire, then began to pace.
‘I put you on a pedestal,’ he told her with almost savage self-contempt. ‘I had no right to do that. No one’s perfect.’ He swung round and smiled thinly. ‘Not even me. Especially not me. I believed what you told me about the baby. Not because I checked your story, because I didn’t. But when I’d cooled down my heart told me you were telling the truth. Then that business with Forrester cropped up and muddied the waters, and I didn’t know what to believe.’
He was staring into the fire again, one arm draped across the stone mantel, when the next contraction came. Elena sucked in her breath and ignored it. This was more important.
‘I had no damned right to let that happen,’ he said rawly. ‘If you felt sorry for him—you had been his wife and you must have loved him once—and wanted to help him get back on his feet, then I had no right to prevent you, to get violently jealous because you still had a residue to feeling left for him.’
Silently, Elena got to her feet, her hands pressed into the small of her back. The contractions were coming strongly now, quickly. But before she said anything about it, did anything about it, she had to know. ‘Are you suggesting we try again—to make this marriage work?’
‘Not try.’ He turned to her, his eyes burning. ‘It will work—if you can forgive me.’
‘Why now?’ she asked thickly, not daring to let herself believe in this sudden change of heart. ‘It’s been almost four months. You stayed away. And even when you made those duty visits we might as well have been on different planets.’
‘You think I don’t know that. You think it didn’t tear me apart?’ His eyes were tortured. He spread his hands. ‘Do you think I don’t know what a fool I’ve been? I can’t bear life without you, Elena. I need to be with you, I love you, dammit!’
This was Jed, her Jed. Showing the emotions he’d battened down. His flaws were all too human, as were hers. His strengths were what mattered, and she would match them with her own. She would find the courage to accept what he was saying. She moved towards him and put her hands on his shoulders.
‘I love you. I never stopped. Loving you hurt, but it never stopped.’
The hands that reached for her, held her, were unsteady, his kiss tender, infinitely loving. ‘I want to hold you for ever,’ he said thickly. ‘I’ve always regarded myself as being ultra-sensible, but with you my emotions rule my head. I’d have said all of this much sooner—months ago—but I was afraid I’d blown it, that you’d tell me I’d had my chance and wouldn’t get another. I want you to promise that the next time I behave like a cretin you’ll hit me with something heavy.’
‘Promise,’ she concurred breathlessly. ‘If you’ll do something for me.’
‘Anything.’
She couldn’t doubt his fervour. ‘Phone Tomás and ask him to bring Pilar up right away. She’s had five babies, and helped deliver dozens more.’
A tiny moment of shock, then he said quickly, ‘The baby’s coming?’
She nodded. ‘A couple of weeks early.’