To Love Again

he was. And she was going to marry him.

CHAPTER SEVEN

‘WHAT do you mean, you’re getting married next week?’ Dizzy blustered down the

telephone line.

Christi smiled as she envisaged her friend’s surprise: the green eyes wide with shock,

her mouth open with disbelief.

These Sunday evening telephone calls between the two friends had been a ritual for

as long as Christi could remember, carried on even after Dizzy’s marriage to Christi’s

uncle, and although Christi didn’t usually have anything too dramatic to report, today was

different. Today she had to tell Dizzy and Zach that she intended marrying Lucas, very

soon.

‘Exactly what I said,’ she mused. ‘I hope you and Zach can make it before you have to

leave for the States.’

‘Zach’s doing the work here for the moment,’ Dizzy dismissed vaguely. ‘You know how

cautious he can be.’

‘Except when he married you,’ Christi chuckled. ‘A three-day courtship had to take him a

little by surprise!’

‘No more than yours is going to!’ Dizzy sounded as if she were frowning. ‘I don’t

understand it, last week you said they were all nice, but none of them were special. Last week

you were so angry with Dick and Barry—and me!—because you found out they were trying to

use you to get to your uncle... David!’ she pounced. ‘It has to be David,’ she said wonderingly.

Christi couldn’t blame her friend for jumping to that conclusion. She herself was still a

little dazed that Lucas was to be her husband next week! Not that he hadn’t given her the chance to

change her mind about accepting his proposal. His desperation of Saturday night seemed

to have worn off by this morning; he’d assured her that the chances of her being

pregnant from that one night were unlikely, and that if she would like to reconsider her

decision he would understand. Considering all that he had to lose if she should decide not to

marry him, she had only loved him all the more for his unselfishness. But she loved him, even if

his only reason for wanting to marry her was his children, and to be his wife this way was

better than not being his wife at all.

‘No, it isn’t David,’ she told her friend drily.

‘Not David? But—Lucas,’ Dizzy said with satisfaction. ‘He finally realised that he loves you!’

‘What?’ Now it was Christi’s turn to be amazed. How in the world had Dizzy guessed that

Christi was in love with Lucas?

‘It is him, isn’t it?’ her friend persisted eagerly. ‘Wel , yes ... But

‘How did I know?’ Dizzy finished excitedly. ‘How did you know I was in love with your

uncle when I was still fighting the idea myself?’ she dismissed. ‘We’ve always been so close,

Christi, howcould I not know? I took one look at the two of you together at my wedding and

knew he was the reason no other man has ever meant anything serious to you. All those

years he had been your next-door neighbour and I’d never guessed a thing, but as soon as I saw

you together, I knew.’

‘OK, Sherlock,’ Christi drawled, ‘what gave me away?’

‘The love in your eyes every time you looked at him,’ her friend said softly.

She swallowed hard. ‘Oh—that,’ she mumbled.

‘And now the two of you are finally going to be married,’ Dizzy cried gleefully. ‘My effort at

long-distance matchmaking paid off, then?’

‘What do you ? Dick, Barry and David were supposed to make Lucas jealous?’ she

realised slowly.

‘It worked, didn’t it?’ her friend gloated. ‘Although, what Zach’s going to say

about the wedding being next week, I don’t know,’ she added worriedly.

Christi was still dazed by Dizzy’s instinctive knowledge of the love for Lucas she had

tried for so long to hide from everyone. ‘What if your plan had gone wrong?’ she protested

weakly.

‘And you had actually fallen in love with Dick, Barry, or David?’ Dizzy said cheerfully. ‘Well,

that wouldn’t have been so bad, would it? They’re all very nice men, although I have to

admit David is my favourite,’ she added fondly.

‘Mine, too,’ Christi acknowledged softly. ‘But, Dizzy

‘Oh, love, you had tried everything else to get Lucas to see you as a woman,’ Dizzy

dismissed. ‘I just had this feeling you were getting to the "it’s now or never" stage.’

She should have realised Dizzy knew her too well! ‘If you think back, I had also tried the

jealousy bit before,’ she said drily.

‘Not with men of Lucas’s own age and experience,’ her friend returned confidently.

‘That was sure to get him to sit up and take notice. Oh, love, I’m so glad for you,’ she sighed

happily.

‘And I should be angry with you.’ Christi tried to sound indignant.

‘But you aren’t, are you?’ Dizzy chuckled.

How could she be, when possibly Dizzy’s matchmaking had helped to show Lucas she was a

grown woman, to prove to him that other men considered her mature enough to take on the

responsibility of a relationship? He was marrying her, wasn’t he? So he must finally see her as

all grown up. At least, grown up enough to become stepmother to the two children he wanted

back with him so desperately.

‘No,’ she admitted drily. ‘I’m not angry with you at all.’

‘I’ll get Zach so that you can discuss the wedding with him,’ Dizzy told her briskly.

‘Coward!’ Christi softly taunted.

‘Guilty as charged,’ Dizzy laughed before going off in search of her husband.

Knowing how Dizzy could twist her husband around her little finger, Christi knew

her friend would have done her best to persuade Zach around to the idea of her marriage to Lucas

before he even came on the telephone, especially as it now turned out to have been Dizzy’s idea

in the first place! However, her best friend couldn’t possibly have guessed at the impossible

position Lucas found himself in that necessitated him having a wife.

She was proved right about Dizzy’s influence wit] Zach, for her uncle gave his approval

unhesitantly. Apparently, he had liked Lucas when he’d met hin at the wedding last year and, as

Zach wryly claimed ‘We older men make the best husbands.’ A second later, he muttered, ‘Ouch!’

as Dizzy obviously hi him for his facetiousness.

Christi was chuckling softly to herself as she came off the telephone, her smile fading as the

doorbell rang and Henry set up the excited yapping that told her it was Lucas at the door.

She hadn’t seen him since they had had breakfast together earlier, Lucas claiming he had

some work to do. Christi was sure the work had just been an excuse, that Lucas himself needed

time to come to terms with the idea of becoming a husband again Although surely the pill must be

sweeter to swallow when it also meant he stood a chance of becoming full-time father to Robin and

Daisy again! Oh God, bitterness wasn’t going to make ; success of this relationship that was

already a fact because of all the wrong reasons; she had made he decision with her eyes wide

open, she didn’t have room for doubts now.

‘Lucas,’ she greeted him warmly as she threw open the door, the shadows dispelled

from all but the depths of her eyes.

He hesitated only fractionally before kissing her lightly on the mouth, but it was enough

to be noticeable when Christi was already feeling so sensitive.

‘I thought we would go out for dinner,’ he suggested abruptly.

She could see that, his appearance in the dark evening suit taking her breath away. She

didn’t want to go out anywhere, she just wanted Lucas to take her in his arms and reassure

her, in the only way in which they seemed to be close now, that everything would be all right,

that he did care for her.

But the distant expression in his eyes, and the grim set to his mouth, didn ’t

encourage such intimacies. The erotically beautiful man of the night before was far

removed from this harsh-faced stranger.

‘Just give me a few minutes to change,’ she nodded lightly.

‘Fine.’ He sat down in an armchair, opening up the newspaper that had been delivered

that day, immediately lost behind the voluminous pages.

Christi watched him woefully for several seconds before hastily leaving the room. Lucas

didn’t seem able to even look at her now! She was shaking badly by the time she reached her

bedroom, burying her face in Josephine’s fur as the cat stood on her dressing-table to rub

against her concernedly. ‘I think he actually hates me, Josie,’ she wailed brokenly, the haughty

animal not in the least offended by this shortened version of her name, butting her gently with

her regal head.

No, he didn’t hate her, she reasoned as the pain lessened, Lucas just hated the situation

Marsha’s remarriage had put them both in. But Christi loved him, would always love him, and

it didn’t really matter why he was marrying her, as long as he did.

All trace of tears had been deftly removed when she rejoined Lucas in the lounge a few

minutes later, the off-the-shoulder white dress having a gypsy style to it, her hair secured to one

side to fall in loose curls over one of those bare shoulders, her makeup suitably dramatic,