To Love Again

some time, only the steady tick of the clock and the purring of the cats to break the silence,

when she heard the key in the door. She sat up with a jolt, startling Gladys off her lap where

she had been taking a nap.

She stood up nervously, facing Lucas apprehensively. He looked haggard, his face pale,

as if he hadn’t managed to rid himself of the ‘bad taste’ in his mouth.

Then he looked up at her, and there was a light shining in his eyes that Christi had

never seen before, and as he opened his arms to her she ran into them gladly, nestling

against his chest with a choked sob.

‘I hadn’t gone far,’ he spoke huskily, ‘when I realised that I’d never told you how I felt

about you, how I’ve felt since the moment you came crashing into my arms that day so long

ago...’ His hands cradled each side of her face as he raised it to look at him. ‘I love you,

Christi,’ he said gruffly. ‘I’ve loved you for so long that you’ve become a part of me I can’t live

without.’

‘I love you, too,’ she cried unashamedly, the tears hot on her cheeks. ‘I love you so much!’

He nodded jerkily. ‘I know, that’s why I have the power to hurt you so much. I never

wanted to hurt you, Christi, I was just so busy protecting myself, I couldn’t do anything

else.’ He shook his head disgustedly. ‘I left myself vulnerable once before, my darling, and

I almost had the heart ripped out of me.’

‘By Marsha,’ she nodded.

‘Indirectly.’ He frowned, resting his forehead on hers. ‘By the time we separated, we

both knew it had to be or we would end up hating each other instead of just not loving each

other any more,’ he explained with a heavy sigh. ‘But only one of us could have the children

and, although I hated letting them go, I knew Marsha should be the one to take them, that I

could stand their loss much better than she ever could. You heard what she said about her career,

about how I denied her that,’ he reminded huskily. ‘Well, it was true. And, because she didn’t

have her career any more, the children became her whole life. If I had tried to take them away

from her, I would have destroyed her completely.’

‘But now,’ Christi shook her head, ‘now she has Julian, and

‘And I assured her weeks ago, once and for all, that I would never take our children away

from her,’ he interrupted firmly. ‘I doubt that legally I ever could have done, anyway.’

‘But

‘Oh, I’ll admit I was devastated by the news that another man was going to have a hand in

bringing up my children.’ His mouth twisted wryly. ‘So devastated that I gave into the weakness

of allowing myself to kiss you for the first time.’

The night she had been out to dinner with Dick Crosby! ‘I couldn’t understand what

Marsha was doing there with you that night,’ she groaned. ‘But I realise now why you looked

so grim when you stepped out of the lift.’

Lucas shook his head. ‘That had nothing to do with Marsha; she hadn’t even told me she

intended marrying then.’ He gave a rueful smile. ‘I was upset at seeing you with Dick Crosby, a

man not much younger than me.’

Oh, Dizzy, your plan worked completely! Christi silently congratulated her friend.

‘For years I’d told myself I was too old for you, that I had to let you have your own life,

your career, friends your own age—and there you were with a man only a few years younger

than I am!’ he concluded disgustedly. ‘By the time you got to Kendrick in the list of three men

your friend Dizzy picked out as "suitable" for you, I had decided that if you wanted an "older"

man in your life it had to be me!’

‘Oh, Lucas!’ She looked up at him lovingly.

He shook his head. ‘I hadn’t meant to kiss you that night you went out with Crosby,

but you seemed to be asking me to, and I had held off for so long! Afterwards, I could have

kicked myself, I was sure I had ruined the friendship between us.’

She smoothed the anxious frown from between his eyes.

‘And I thought you were disgusted by my wanton response,’ she murmured ruefully.

‘Disgusted!’ he snorted. ‘I wanted to take you then and there. If you hadn ’t got

out of my apartment when you did, I probably would have done,’ he admitted shakily. ‘I

told myself the best thing to do was forget it, continue as if nothing had happened—and then

maybe I could learn to live with the ache that never seemed to leave me! But the night you

went out with Barry Robbins I sat in here in a rage of jealousy all night, imagining what the two

of you were doing together. I lost control when you actually told me what he did to you!’

Even now he was slightly white about the lips.

Christi sighed. ‘I was searching for a reaction from you,’ she admitted shakily. ‘Any

reaction!’

‘Well, you certainly got one,’ he muttered self-derisively.

‘And I loved every moment of it,’ she told him huskily.

He laughed down at her indulgently, smoothing her cheek with his thumb-tip. ‘You’re

such a baby still,’ he murmured regretfully. ‘I should never have married you

‘I would never have married anyone else,’ she cut in firmly. ‘Oh, I think—even though

I didn’t at the time!—that you were right to give me those years to grow up, to let me spread

my wings, find my own friends, be free to enjoy my career. I’m sure I would be a different

type of person if I hadn’t had those years to grow,’ she acknowledged softly. ‘But I’ve always

known who I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.’

Lucas’s arms tightened about her. ‘I never felt I had the right to you,’ he said gruffly.

‘Even once I’d asked you to marry me and you had accepted me, I had my doubts, tried to

keep my distance, to give you time to back out if you wanted to.’

‘I thought you had only asked me to marry you that night because we’d just spent the day

with the children and you had realised how much you were going to hate them having a

stepfather

‘Of course I was feeling it that day, and it’s going to take me a long time to get used to

it. But none of that had anything to do with my asking you to marry me.’ He gave a rueful

smile. ‘Once I began making love to you, that was something I could no longer fight.’

‘And children of our own?’ she voiced tentatively. ‘Is it because you already have

Daisy and Robin, because you’ve been separated from them, that you don’t want us to have any

of our own?’

‘You’re only twenty-two, Christi,’ Lucas groaned. ‘You still have years to give birth in relative

safety if you choose to. For now, you have a career that you still haven’t conquered as I know

you would like to. Children of our own can wait,’ he decided firmly.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want children, he just wanted to give her even more time to just

be herself, allow her the freedom he knew had broken up his marriage to Marsh a, when he

had been so unreasonable in not giving her the same freedom! Christi stepped slightly back

from him, taking hold of his hand to press it gently against her stomach. ‘Not this one,

I’m afraid,’ she told him softly, her face radiant with love when he glanced up at her sharply,

only to look down again dazedly to the place where his hand lay.

‘When?’ he finally managed to breathe.

‘I’m not sure, but I think it was the first night of our honeymoon Lucas gave a laugh

that was half choked emotion, half indulgent love. ‘I meant, when is it due?’ he gently

corrected. ‘But I suppose now I can work that out for myself.’ He shook his head in silent

bewilderment. ‘I’m going to be a father again in just over seven months.’

‘If you think Daisy and Robin will be upset because ‘

‘Daisy and Robin will be delighted,’ he assured her drily. ‘In fact, they can’t understand

why we don’t already have other children now that we’re married,’ he said ruefully.

‘And you?’ She still looked at him anxiously. ‘How do you feel about it?’

Lucas looked down at her silently for several minutes, and then a blaze of love unlike

anything Christi had ever seen before lit up his face. ‘I feel proud, tender, protective, but most of

all I feel love.’ He kissed her gently on the lips.

And that was, after all, all that was important.

‘Quick, grab her, before she has the whole lot over!’ Christi warned desperately as her nine-

month-old daughter attempted to reach the branches of the Christmas tree that lit up the

corner of the room.

Robin bent down and gently moved his youngest sister out of harm’s way, getting down on

the floor with her to tickle her tummy. Daisy soon joined in the game, too.

Lucas chuckled indulgently as he watched the three children together from across the

room, then glanced up to meet Christi’s gaze, love flowing between them like an electric current.

The last sixteen months had been filled with such love, the birth of Shelley nine months ago

only increasing their happiness together. Robin and Daisy openly adored their new sister, and