Starting Over

'Mmm... Well, when it's my turn, please remember I want something much simpler—a natural woodland DIY burial.'

Jon had laughed chiding him teasingly, 'If you think for one minute I'm going to dig a hole big enough for you...'

CASPAR SAT forward on the edge of his seat as the taxi turned into the drive. He had asked David not to say anything to Olivia about his return and a little reluctantly the other man had agreed.

'How is she?' he had asked David when he had rung from the airport to say that he had arrived.

'Much better,' David had confirmed. As David spoke to him Caspar had heard in the background the voices of his two daughters and a feeling of aching longing had filled him.

OLIVIA HAD perfectly understood when David had said that he was returning home. She was feeling a lot better although Jon had insisted that she was not to rush back to work. Ben's death had come as a shock to all of them despite the fact that he had been unwell for quite some time.

She heard Ally barking and saw the tail lights of the taxi disappearing but no premonition of who her visitor might be struck her as she went to open the door, so that the shock of seeing Caspar standing there made it impossible for her to hide her emotions from him.

The long flight to Manchester had given Caspar more time than he wanted to think, not just about what he was doing but what he had done and what he and Olivia had done— together and apart—the good and the bad.

He had missed his daughters and he had missed Olivia, too, but it took the fierce jolt of emotion bump-ing his heart against his ribs as he saw the feelings Olivia didn't have time to hide to make him acknowledge just how strong his love for her still was.

'Caspar...'

No sooner had Olivia done nothing more than gasp his name than Amelia and Alex came rushing into the hallway flinging themselves into their father's arms.

As he held them Caspar didn't make any attempt to conceal his tears, hugging them tightly to him as he looked at Olivia over their heads.

It was several hours later before they could finally sit down and talk.

'The girls are asleep,' Caspar told Olivia as he came downstairs.

'They've missed you,' Olivia responded softly.

Caspar gave her a rueful look.

'Have they? Your father seems to have done an excellent job of providing them with a male presence in their lives. All they could talk about was Grandpa.'

'They are excited about the fact that they've got another grandfather,' Olivia acknowledged. 'But no grandfather could ever take your place in their lives Caspar, or...' Olivia stopped. Now that she was over the shock of him coming home there were things that needed to be said before she could start admitting to him that it wasn't just in the children's eyes and lives that he couldn't be replaced.

'What—what made you decide to come home?'

Olivia asked him quietly.

'A lot of things,' Caspar responded. 'You...me...

our children...

'Why didn't you ring me and tell me how difficult things were for you, Livvy? Why did I have to learn from your father that you were ill?'

'My father rang you?' Olivia demanded. She started to frown. 'Is that why you've come home? Because—'

'I came home because this is my home. You are my home—you and the girls.' Caspar overrode her. 'Your father's telephone call simply gave me the excuse my pride needed. You don't know how many times I've wanted to ring you, how many times I've wished...'

He stopped and shook his head, going towards her as he saw the sparkle of her tears in her eyes.

'Livvy, don't, please,' he groaned, lifting his arms to take hold of her and then letting them drop to his sides again. It was too soon for such intimacies between them, he could sense that from Olivia's expression and yet, it was so damned hard not to be able to short-cut the awkwardness between them by taking her in his arms and showing her all the things he wanted to show her.

'If you'd rather I didn't stay here...' he began but Olivia shook her head immediately.

'No, the girls would be devastated if you didn't...'

Without looking at him she told him hurriedly, 'I'll make up the spare room bed for you.'

Caspar knew what she was saying.

'If that's what you prefer,' he accepted.

'I—I think we both need time, Caspar. We need to talk, to—'

'It's all right. I understand,' Caspar interrupted her.

'Where did it go wrong for us, Caspar?' Olivia asked him achingly, unable to stop herself.

'I don't know,' Caspar admitted. 'Perhaps we simply didn't value and nourish what we had enough.'

He had changed somehow, Olivia recognised; become softer, gentler, as though... A small dark shadow of fear touched her heart. Could another woman be responsible for the change she sensed in him?

He had come back to her she reminded herself firmly. To her and to their children, and Caspar wasn't the only one who had changed...discovered...

learned... The old Olivia she had been would have immediately demanded an answer to her suspicions, immediately challenged and exhumed everything he might say, driven by her fear of losing him and her insecurity. But she was wiser now and stronger, too, and for now it was enough that he was here and that both of them believed they had something worth working together for and building on.

THEY TALKED late into the night about the problems in their marriage and their feelings about their past and their hopes for the future.

'It's late and you look exhausted,' Caspar eventually told Olivia tenderly. 'I keep forgetting that you've been ill.'

'I'm fine now,' Olivia reassured him.

They went upstairs together parting on the landing to go to their separate beds without Caspar making any attempt to kiss her, Olivia noticed.

The whole house felt different now that he was home—warmer, safer...more complete somehow. Or was that more how she felt?

A T FIRST when Olivia woke up alone in the large bed that she and Caspar had bought together she couldn't understand just why she should feel so cocooned in such a state of emotional happiness and then she remembered Caspar had come home. Like a child with a much longed for and still unwrapped present she hugged the knowledge to her sleepily, savouring the sweetness of what was still to come.

In the spare room Caspar, too, was awake. The welcome the girls had given him, the look in Olivia's eyes when she had first seen him, were things to cherish—

like those who had given them to him. He was aware of a tremendous sense of protectiveness towards his wife and children, a feeling of being empowered by his love for them. He thought about Olivia sleeping alone in their bedroom. He wanted to go to her but he worried that it would be the wrong thing to do.

Olivia glanced at her bedside clock. It was three o'clock in the morning and she was wide awake and suddenly calmly sure of what she wanted to do.

As she opened the door to the spare room Caspar turned his head to look at her. As she walked towards him he sat up in the bed, reaching out his hand towards her.

'Maybe I'm doing the wrong thing and it's too soon for this,' she told him softly, 'but I've missed you....'

Her body quivered as he placed his hand inside her robe against the bare flesh of her waist. His touch felt both comfortingly familiar and shockingly exciting.

'I've missed you, too,' Caspar responded and realised how much he meant it.

'Perhaps that's been part of the problem,' she suggested. 'That somehow, somewhere we have both missed one another and misunderstood one another. I don't want it to be too late for us, Caspar. For us to have lost what we had that was so special...'

His hand was stroking her skin with gentle reassuring movements that made her want to close her eyes and purr with pleasure. As she looked down into his eyes she reached out automatically to trace the line of his jaw. When he turned his head and kissed her fingertips a surge of forgotten sweetly hot desire raced through her. Half afraid of what she was experiencing and wanting, she tried t

o lighten the intensity of her feelings telling him mundanely, 'My feet are freez-ing....'

Immediately Caspar released her to flip back the bedcovers, silently inviting her to join him in the bed.

Her cold feet had always been a joke between them, but Olivia had never thought there would come a day when she was glad to have them.

Accepting his invitation, she shrugged off her robe and burrowed down beneath the duvet, closing her eyes in bliss as Caspar took hold of her feet and gently chaffed some warmth back into them whilst she snuggled up to him.

'I thought we weren't going to do this,' Caspar teased her tenderly as he wrapped his arms around the welcoming warmth of her body and gently kissed her.