It Was Only a Kiss

He might have decided to track her down...if he’d known about her. Naturally he’d never seen the letters or the presents. How typical of his father, he thought. He hadn’t wanted his mother, but her leaving St Sylve should have been on his terms, not hers, and he’d been left with a reminder that she’d left without permission: Luke himself.

Luke tucked a pillow behind his head. He now realised—could finally accept—that Jess had done this for him. She knew that there was a festering ulcer buried deep in his heart. She’d lanced it by tracking down his cousin—had started the process of healing by bringing him these papers. She knew it was necessary for him and also knew that he probably wouldn’t have done it without her pushing.

The folder of papers she’d left signified a particular type of freedom: the knowledge that he’d been wanted—loved. If he’d left with his mother he wouldn’t have had the material benefits his father had given him...but he would have been happier. Settled, not so neurotic about relationships.

Thanks, Dad.

Some time earlier, while reading the papers, he’d finally admitted that he was utterly in love with Jess.

Quickly following that thought had come acceptance that he was a ‘chicken-crap coward’—that he’d been scared of loving Jess in case he lost her, terrified of facing and dealing with the pain...and guess what? He had lost her. She was gone.

He missed her...and he felt sick every time he remembered that she wasn’t part of his life any more. Life together. It was what he wanted. She was the other chamber of his heart—the reason the sun came up in the morning. He could see her ripe with life, carrying his child. She would be the most fantastic mother—the glue that would hold his family together. He felt settled with her—calm, in control. Nothing much was wrong with his world if he could see her smile first thing in the morning.

He finally understood what love felt like...Jess.

Just Jess.

They were meant to be together; they would be together. He just had to find a way to make that happen.

Logistically, it was a nightmare. Her home, her life, was in Sandton. His was here at St Sylve. How much could he give up for her and, more importantly, would she even have him?

If he had to he would leave St Sylve. It would be a wrench, but if there was a choice between St Sylve and Jess, being with Jess would win. St Sylve was his heritage but Jess was his soul.

Luke rolled over, pointed the remote and switched the TV off. As soon as it was light he’d head for the airport, catch the first plane he could find and go to Jess.

He’d go to her because wherever she was, simply, was where he wanted—needed—to be.

* * *

Jess paced her mother’s kitchen, a glass of red wine in her hand, her thoughts a million miles away. Her father sat at the kitchen table, sketching, and her mother was making an apple crumble that Jess knew, from thirty-odd years of eating her mother’s food, would taste like cardboard.

When she refused to eat some she would only be telling the truth when she explained that along with destroying her heart Luke had also taken her appetite.

Clem stood at the stove, and Nick was somewhere in the house fixing something. He and Clem were in town for a couple of days to give Clem her ‘city fix’. It amused Jess that Clem’s need for a city fix always seemed to coincide with something that needed to be done at her parents’ house. It was, Jess knew, Clem’s very clever way of re-establishing and cementing Nick’s relationship with his parents after years of little or no communication.

Clem walked over to her and put her hand on her shoulder. ‘Oh, Jess, I do know what you’re going through. The month I spent without Nick was the loneliest, hardest of my life.’

Jess rested her head on Clem’s shoulder, dry-eyed but exhausted. ‘It’s been a week and my heart is shutting down...I never knew it could hurt this much.’

‘I have to tell you that your brothers are making plans to go down there and beat the snot out of him,’ Clem informed her. ‘There have been mutters about broken knees and cracked heads.’

Jess looked horrified. ‘They can’t! Honestly, why can’t they mind their own business?’

‘Because you are our business, Jessica Claire,’ her father said, his eyes focused on his sketch. ‘But I have faith in that young man. He just needs to get his head around the fact that he’s loved and in love.’

‘You don’t know Luke, Dad. He’s stubborn...’

‘But I know young men. I raised four and I was young myself once. Every one of your brothers took some time to shake off their...ahem...attachment to their bachelor lifestyle, to their freedom. I did the same.’