First Love, Last Love

Alex shrugged, hunched over his own coffee cup, lines of tension grooved into his face. ‘Not long, I should think. What was he doing at your place this morning?’

‘Just visiting,’ she told him resentfully.

‘Since when?’

‘Since about half an hour before you arrived. I gave him breakfast, actually. He hasn’t been taking care of himself, and I think he was lonely.’ The last was almost a rebuke.

‘Lonely!’ Alex gave a harsh laugh. ‘He should have thought of that before he—’ he stopped abruptly.

‘Before he what?’ Lauri prompted.

‘It isn’t important. This is a hell of a time to be bringing up old grievances, even if they do affect the present.’ He looked about them impatiently. ‘Why the hell doesn’t someone let us know how he is?’ he snapped.

‘They will, Alex.’ She put a hand soothingly on his arm. ‘You really are worried about him, aren’t you?’

His face hardened. ‘I wouldn’t want his death on my conscience,’ he told her abruptly.

‘It isn’t only that,’ Lauri rebuked gently. ‘You care for him, care what happens to him.’

He sighed. ‘I suppose I do, although why the hell I should … I just can’t forget what he did to my sister.’

‘Maybe it wasn’t all one-sided. You said that he and your sister weren’t happy together even before the accident. They might even have parted if the accident hadn’t happened. And you did say there was only the one affair, maybe he loved this other woman. If he did it must have been a very hard decision to choose to stay with a woman who didn’t love him when the chance of happiness beckoned him.’

Alex gave a strained smile. ‘You’re seeing this through a romantic haze, Lauren. What makes you think this other woman was free to love him?’

‘Well—because—’

‘She wasn’t. She was a married woman. Laurence had an affair with her and walked out when it got too hot to handle, using his crippled wife as an excuse.’

‘How do you know all this?’ she asked sharply.

‘Most of it I know to be fact, the rest is obvious.’

She shook her head. ‘Not to me. There could have been any number of reasons—’

‘You like him, don’t you?’ Alex cut in.

She coloured bright red. ‘Why shouldn’t I?’ She was on the defensive. ‘What he did in the past is none of my business. I like the man he is now.’

‘I hope you still feel that way later today.’

‘What do you mean?’ Lauri asked sharply.

Alex shrugged. ‘It isn’t up to me to tell you, although I’m sure Laurence thinks that I will. No doubt he’ll tell you himself, in his own time.’

‘This is hardly the time to keep secrets.’

‘It isn’t my secret,’ he rasped. ‘Thank God!’

‘Does this secret concern me?’

‘Oh yes,’ he gave a harsh laugh.

‘Then I have a right to know,’ she told him stubbornly.

‘Not this,’ he shook his head. ‘It may once have given me great pleasure to hurt Laurence, but not any more.’

Lauri frowned. ‘But if it concerns me …’