She bent over, putting the fruit in the fridge, and he was treated to the curve in question, her jeans, loose now since she’d lost weight, pulling taut as she bent and giving him a tempting view of the very part of her that was giving him so much trouble.
He yanked his eyes off her and concentrated on not dribbling the softly fried egg down his chest.
‘You around for a while?’ he asked Joe around a mouthful of sandwich.
‘Why?’
‘I need a shower.’
Joe arched a brow. ‘Long time since we shared a shower,’ he said dryly, and Mike felt himself colour.
‘I don’t want to share it with you, you jackass. I need someone to grab me when I fall over, and Fran’s too little. I’d squash her.’
Joe looked disbelieving, but he shrugged and nodded. ‘I can give you a hand. Be more fun with Fran, though.’
He felt himself colour again, his neck reddening, and his
hands itched to strangle Joe. Not that his brother realised he was being tactless. How could he? Only they knew their marriage was in tatters.
‘Don’t tease him, Joe,’ their mother said gently, and Mike heard something else in her tone. A warning? A warning to tread softly?
So maybe their problems weren’t as private as he’d thought.
Damn.
He pushed the plate away. ‘That was lovely, Mum. Thanks. Right, Joe, are you ready? I don’t want to hold you up, I know you’ve got loads to do.’
‘Tell me about it,’ Joe said, dropping his mug into the sink and handing his brother the crutches. ‘Come on, then, Hopalong, let’s get you scrubbed. Pity we haven’t still got the sheep-dip.’
‘Ha-ha. I need a bin bag and some elastic bands,’ he said, and while Joe found those, he headed upstairs the same way he’d come down.
He turned the shower on, got the temperature right and then Joe trussed his leg up like a turkey and he swung round into the bath, getting awkwardly to his feet and pulling the shower curtain closed. ‘So how are we going to manage this, Joe?’ he asked.
‘Hell, you want me to wash you?’ Joe asked in disbelief.
‘Not the shower—the farm,’ Mike retorted, struggling with the soap and wondering if a little help
wouldn’t
go amiss.
There was a heavy sigh from Joe, and the curtain twitched back a little. ‘We’ll cope, bro. You get yourself right. Don’t worry about the farm. Dad’s quite enjoying having a bit to do with it again, and at least the weather’s nice.’
‘Yeah—and Mum was probably planning all sorts of work on their house in the next few weeks and it won’t get done.’
‘It doesn’t matter. There’s always another day. Want a hand with your hair?’
‘No, I’m fine,’ he lied, struggling to scrub it with one elbow propped against the tiles so he didn’t lose his balance. He rinsed it quickly, swilled the water over his body one last time and turned off the taps. ‘Might need a hand getting out,’ he confessed, and Joe steadied him while he sat on the edge and swivelled round, grunting with the pain in his side.
‘Your ribs OK?’ Joe asked, giving him a searching look.
‘Not really, but what are you going to do about it? What I could really do with is a good night’s sleep. I couldn’t get comfortable last night.’
Except when I was snuggled up to Fran, he thought, but didn’t voice it. Too much information, and he didn’t want to think about it when he was stark naked. His body was all too keen to betray him at the moment.
Joe towelled off his back and leg, took the bin bag off his cast and washed his toes carefully with a flannel, then looked round. ‘Got any clean boxers?’
‘In the bedroom. It doesn’t matter, I’ll go like this.’
‘What, and shock Mum rigid? You’ve grown up a bit since she changed your last nappy.’
‘Well, then, hopefully she won’t be foolish enough to be in my bedroom.’
She wasn’t. Fran was, bending over the laundry basket, and he grabbed another pair of new boxers out of the drawer, struggled into them and then lay back under cover of the quilt to get his breath.
‘You OK now?’
He nodded. ‘Thanks, Joe. You go and get on. I’m sorry to hold you up—and I’m sorry about all this…’ He waved in the general direction of his leg, and Joe shot him a wry grin.
‘Could have been a whole lot worse, big bro,’ he said softly, and left them.
Alone.
Fran stood up, washing in her arms, and eyed him warily. ‘Are you OK? You have to go to the fracture clinic in a bit.’
He nodded. ‘Can you take me?’
‘Of course I can,’ she said, frowning slightly. ‘I need to put the washing on. Can you manage to dress yourself?’
He nodded again, not wanting to make her do anything intimate for him—not if it was so repugnant to her—and her recoil in the night couldn’t have been clearer. ‘I’ll be fine. I’ll come down in a little while,’ he said.
‘Take your painkillers first,’ she advised, and left the room as if it was on fire.
The fracture clinic seemed happy with him.
He told them he was having trouble getting comfortable, and they gave him some advice for propping up his leg in the night—advice which Fran was relieved to know would make it impossible for her to end up snuggled on his lap, thank goodness, because he’d have to lie on his back. At least it didn’t seem to be swelling, so long as he kept it propped up, and that seemed to be what worried them most.
She drove him home, and when they were almost
there, he asked her to drive down to the river. ‘I want to see it,’ he said.
‘What, the tree?’ she asked, a cold shiver of dread running over her. ‘Whatever for?’
‘To know how big an idiot I was?’
She gave a strangled little laugh. ‘Oh, I can tell you that.’
‘I thought you had,’ he pointed out. ‘But I want to see for myself.’
So she detoured, turning left instead of right and running down past Tregorran House to the gate at the bottom of the hill, opening it and driving along the river until they reached the fallen tree.
‘Here you go,’ she said. ‘The crime scene.’
He opened the door, got out with difficulty and swung himself over to the tree on his crutches, standing there and staring down at it for an age.
He could see the depression where Joe had dug away the ground under his leg. It was about five feet from where the tree had ended up—which would put it right across the back of his shoulders, maybe even his head. Whatever, he wouldn’t have survived it.
He felt goose-bumps coming up all over him, and he gave a sudden shiver.
Fran took his arm. ‘Come on, Mike. You’ve seen enough,’ she said softly, and he looked at her and realised she was as white as a sheet.
Poor Fran. He wanted to hug her. Was it wise?
‘Ah, hell,’ he muttered, and turned back to the Land Rover. He couldn’t hug her, could he, with the crutches hanging on his arms? And anyway, she probably wouldn’t
want it. He got back in, swung his legs in—he was getting good at it now, although his ribs still hurt like hell to do it—and Fran shut the door.
She walked round the bonnet, giving the tree one last wary look, and slid behind the wheel, starting the engine and heading back towards the road.
‘I’m sorry.’
She shot him a startled look. ‘What for?’
‘Being so bloody stupid. Scaring the living daylights out of you. Making you come back here when you obviously didn’t want to. Take your pick.’
She sighed softly and gave him a hesitant little smile. ‘Idiot. Put your seat belt on. I don’t want you flying through the windscreen if we meet a lunatic tourist. We’ve all got enough to worry about at the moment.’
He fastened his seat belt obediently, tried to find a comfortable position against the backrest as they jolted down the track and then sighed with relief when they hit the flat, even surface of the road again. They were home in moments, and he slid down out of the Land Rover and swung himself towards the back door.
‘Gosh, it’s hot,’ Fran said, following him in. ‘Fancy a drink?’
‘Coffee would be good.’
There was a second’s hesitation, then she said, ‘Oh. I was thinking more of something cold—a fruit smoothie? Use up some of that lovely fruit I sorted out this morning.’
He would rather have had a coffee, but she was right, the fruit needed to be used up and with all the painkillers he was on, if he didn’t have fruit his system would grind to a halt. ‘Sounds good,’ he lied, and eased himself into a
chair. Brodie wasn’t around—gone off with Joe and Sarah, probably, so it was just him and Fran and a rather awkward tension between them which he’d never felt before.
She peeled and chopped the fruit—strawberries, a chunk of melon, two bananas and a handful of blueberries—threw in a good glug of locally sourced apple juice and turned on the liquidiser.
At least it drowned out the silence, he thought, and then she handed him a glass of purplish mush, clinked hers against it and said, ‘Welcome home, Mike.’
What could he do? He picked up the glass, took a breath and sipped, then frowned at it. ‘This is really nice,’ he said, surprised, and she smiled—in relief?
‘Good. Drink up, and you can go and have a lie-down. You look tired.’
He was, and, curiously, what he wanted more than anything was to ask her to join him, but he didn’t think he could. Not easily. Not after last night.
So he drank up, took some more painkillers and went to bed.
Alone.
H
E SLEPT
most of that day, and the night was made easier by the stack of pillows under and around his leg, propping it up and protecting his toes from the pressure of the quilt. Not that he needed it, because it was hot, and in the end they abandoned it in favour of a sheet.
But then it grew cooler, the wind picking up a little, and because their bedroom was on a corner and there was a cross-draught from the windows, Fran found herself snuggling closer to him for warmth.
Only her head and shoulders, her body carefully kept out of reach, but he slid his arm round her and held her, and together they slept the rest of the night till the fingers of light crept over the horizon and woke them.
Well, woke her. And when she looked up, Mike was watching her, his eyes curiously intent, and her heart thumped.
‘Want a drink?’ she asked him, easing away and stretching out the kinks in her neck.
‘Mmm. Tea would be nice.’
She hesitated. ‘How about juice? It’s quicker and it won’t keep you awake.’
He gave a short laugh. ‘Fran, I’ve slept for nearly eighteen hours straight, apart from waking up for supper. I don’t think sleep’s an issue.’
‘OK.’
She slipped out of bed and went down to the kitchen, foraging in the back of the cupboard for the decaf tea bags she’d bought for them. ‘Oh, Brodie, it would be so much easier if I could tell him what I was doing and why, but I don’t know if I can. What do you think he’ll say?’
And that was the trouble, of course. Mike was avoiding her, she was avoiding him, and they just weren’t talking. Not that they ever had, really. Maybe that was the trouble, but once the lid was off that box…
‘I can’t talk to him, Brodie. Not about getting pregnant again. Not until I know how he feels about me.’ And, of course, without talking to him, she never would.
‘So—what are we going to do today?’
Mike dragged his eyes from the window and looked at her. They were in the sitting room overlooking the garden and the sea in the distance, the church and lighthouse just visible on the horizon.
‘I don’t know. You tell me,’ he said, wondering if he sounded like a spoilt brat. He felt like one. If it wasn’t for the physical impossibility, he would have stamped his foot, but because he couldn’t he just ground his teeth and crossed his arms over his chest, drumming his fingers on the other arm.
God, he
hated
the inactivity! Hated sitting still, being unable to do anything, just—sitting, for heaven’s sake! He
never
sat! Well, not unless he was in front of the computer,
filling in endless farm returns and tweaking the farm-shop website. Maybe he should do that.
‘How about going for a drive?’
He thought about it, but his ribs probably weren’t up to being jostled and he’d quickly discovered that if he didn’t have his foot up, the cast got uncomfortably tight. Although comfort wasn’t really a word he could have used truthfully and it was all a matter of degree.
‘We could play Scrabble.’
Fran stared at him. ‘You hate Scrabble.’
‘Not as much as I hate lying here doing nothing. Got any better ideas?’
She looked away, and he was stunned to see a warm sweep of colour brush over her cheeks. Fran, blushing? She got up hastily and crouched down, rummaging in the cupboard where the games were kept, and by the time she straightened up her colour had returned to normal.
She still didn’t look at him, though, and he was fascinated. Fascinated, and very curious, and strangely a little edgy.
‘If I move the coffee-table over by you, can you manage on that?’ she asked.
‘I’ll give it a try.’
It worked. Sort of. It was a little low, but that was fine, because every time she leant over to put her letters down on the board, he got a view straight down the V of her T-shirt, and it was worth every second of the discomfort he felt when he put his own letters down.
Especially when she realised it was hurting him and started taking the letters from him and putting them down for him. So he got twice as many opportunities to see the soft, warm shadow between her breasts.
The effect was predictable, and he shifted a little on the sofa, pretending it was to do with his ribs but actually trying to ease the tension in his boxers.
‘Grackle? You can’t have that!’ she said. ‘It doesn’t exist.’
‘Want a bet?’
‘What is it, then?’
‘It’s a type of mynah bird.’
She sat back and stared at him. ‘Really?’
‘Look it up.’
‘And lose my go? No way. I know you and animals.’ She added the score, and he leant over and shifted one of the letters to expose the coloured square.
‘Don’t forget it’s on a double word score,’ he pointed out, and she scribbled out the score and wrote the correct one in.
‘I’m not going to let you win,’ she said fiercely, scowling at her letters and checking the board. ‘You always win—even though you hate it, you always win.’ She put down ‘lathe’, and he added an ‘r’ to it and got another double word score.
‘Don’t sulk,’ he teased, and she glared at him, then laughed and threw a letter at him.
‘Don’t gloat, then! I was going to do that when I got an “r”.’
‘You should have hung on.’
‘No doubt.’ She shuffled her letters, grinned and hung ‘runcible’ on the ‘r’ of ‘lather’, getting a triple word score and a bonus for using all her letters.
‘Runcible? You can’t have that, it’s not a proper word!’ he protested.
‘Yes, it is.’
‘Rubbish. It’s Edward Lear—he has a runcible spoon in “The Owl and the Pussycat”—“They dined on mince and
slices of quince which they ate with a runcible spoon.” It’s just nonsense.’
‘
And
a runcible cat in “The Pobble Who Has No Toes”,’ she said, and quoted back at him, ‘“He has gone to fish, for his Aunt Jobiska’s runcible cat with crimson whiskers.” I rest my case,’ she said smugly.
He tried not to laugh. ‘It’s not in the dictionary.’
‘Oh, yes, it is.’
‘I bet it isn’t.’
‘What do you bet?’
He took a slow breath, his eyes locked with hers. ‘A kiss.’
She coloured, and then looked away and laughed a little oddly. ‘You’re on.’ And she handed him the dictionary.
Except he didn’t take it. He caught her wrist, gave it a gentle tug and toppled her towards him. She gave a little shriek and grabbed the back of the sofa with her free hand so she didn’t fall on him, but his nose ended up in her cleavage, and he turned his head and brushed his lips against the soft, shadowed skin.
She caught her breath and straightened, sinking down onto the edge of the sofa, and their eyes locked. Slowly, carefully, he leant forwards, stifling the groan as his ribs pinched, and touched his mouth to hers.
For an endless, aching second she was still, then she moved away. ‘Uh-uh,’ she said, her voice over-bright and her smile pinned in place. ‘You have to win a kiss, and you haven’t looked it up yet.’ And she stood up and moved back to the other side of the coffee-table and safety.
He found it—of course. She was never so definite if she wasn’t sure about something, and he’d bet she’d looked it up recently when they’d been doing Lear at school.
‘See? It’s a three-pronged fork with a curved edge on one side.’
‘Shame,’ he said softly, closing the dictionary, and her eyes flew up and met his, then slid away again, but he’d had his kiss. Sort of. And it had left him aching for more.
He wanted to drag her off to bed, kiss her senseless and drive out this reluctance of hers, but he had a feeling it wouldn’t and, anyway, it was as much as he could do to drag himself there, never mind an unwilling woman.
Besides, he didn’t want to. Not if it meant her going through hell again with another failed pregnancy somewhere down the line because of him.
He reached out, letters in hand, but she tutted and put another word down before him. ‘My turn,’ she pointed out. ‘You forfeited your turn when you looked in the dictionary.’
He gave up trying and let her win, as much as anything because he couldn’t sit there any longer and look down her cleavage at something he wasn’t able to touch…
Sophie came later, running into the sitting room with her eyes wide with worry and fascination. ‘Wow, you’ve got a proper cast!’ she said in awe. ‘Can I draw a picture on it?’
‘Sure—when I’ve had a hug.’
‘Mind his ribs, darling,’ Fran warned her. ‘He’s a bit sore.’
Her eyes widened. ‘Will I hurt you if I hug you?’ she asked, nibbling her lip, and he shook his head and pulled her up onto his lap, snuggling her close on his right side, the side that didn’t have the bruises. Well, not so many, anyway, and he needed a cuddle from his little girl.
She wriggled down tighter, burrowing under his arm, and then lay almost motionless, even breathing carefully
in case she hurt him. It made him want to laugh and cry at the same time, and he hugged her gently.
‘So—are you all ready for your holiday?’ he said, and she shuffled round so she could see him, gently kneeing him in the groin as she did so. He grabbed her leg and held it still, and over her shoulder he could see Fran biting her lip and trying not to laugh.
‘Yup. I’ve packed my things already. I want to see Nessie again. Last time we went to Scotland we saw Nessie,’ she said. ‘Didn’t we, Mummy?’
Kirsten smiled. ‘Well, there were some ripples on Loch Ness that might have been caused by an animal, but they could have been the wind.’
‘It was Nessie, I know it was,’ Sophie said adamantly. ‘And we had haggis. I’m not eating
that
again!’ She pulled a face, and Mike chuckled.
‘Didn’t you like it?’
‘It was dis
gust
ing!’ she said. ‘All greasy and smelly and made of a sheep’s
stomach
! It was horrid. But we had lots of shortbread and I like that. Mummy says we can go back to the shop we bought it from and get some more. Oh, and we’re going up Ben Nevis again! We walked halfway up last time, to the little lake, and Andrew had to carry me down ‘cos I had bendy legs, but I’m bigger now. Maybe we’ll even get to the top!’
He smothered the laugh and hugged her again. ‘Poor old Andrew! Let’s hope you make it both ways this time. Coming down’s always the hardest bit.’ He knew—he’d carried Sophie down his fair share of hills over the years, and it got your knees like nothing else. ‘Hey, how about
some cake? I know Fran’s brought some over from the shop and I’m getting really hungry.’
‘Good idea,’ Fran said with a smile. ‘Come on, guys, let’s go and make tea for Mike.’ She held out her hand to Sophie, who slithered over his chest, grabbed her hand and cuddled up to her side.
‘Can I make him banana sandwiches?’
‘I expect so.’ Fran chuckled, and Mike listened to them making their way towards the kitchen and smiled at Kirsten.
‘Sounds like you’ll have a busy holiday.’
‘Well, we will if she has anything to do with it, but we all love Scotland and Andrew’s parents spoil her to death. So—are you OK to have her for the week when we get back?’
‘Fine. Make it Sunday afternoon, can you? I should be able to help out in the shop over the weekend by then, and I feel I ought to be pulling my weight.’
‘Sunday’s fine. It’ll give me time to unpack and wash her stuff.’ She stared at his leg. ‘I’m sorry about your accident.’
He shrugged. ‘I was being stupid.’
‘So I gather. And I always thought you were clever. Maybe we should get Sophie screened for the reckless gene.’
He snorted. ‘So rude.’
‘You asked for it.’ She stopped smiling and perched on the edge of the sofa. ‘Actually, I’ve got something to tell you.’
He looked up into her face, and his heart sank. He knew, before she opened her mouth, what she was going to say.
‘When’s it due?’ he asked.
She frowned, then said sadly, ‘Is it so obvious?’
He nodded. ‘I’ve seen that look in your eyes before, don’t forget. So when is it? February? March?’
‘February—the very end. We haven’t told Sophie yet, but I wanted to warn you, because of Fran and—well, you know.’
Yes, he knew. What he didn’t know was how on earth he was going to tell Fran. He dredged up a smile. ‘Congratulations, Kirsten,’ he said softly, and, drawing her down, he hugged her gently and brushed a kiss against her cheek. ‘I hope it all goes well for you. Sophie’s dying for a little brother or sister and we don’t seem to be getting any closer to achieving that for her, so I’m really pleased for you.’
She blinked hard and smiled. ‘Thank you. I know it isn’t easy for you.’
‘Mummy—Mummy! It’s a chocolate fudge cake! Absolutely my favourite! And I’ve made some banana sandwiches, and Fran’s made a huge pot of tea—she’s bringing it on a tray.’
‘How lovely—I’ll help her,’ Kirsten said, standing up and giving him another slightly worried smile. ‘Mike, are you sure you’re OK about it?’
‘About what?’ Sophie asked, bouncing around the room with the dog on her heels.
‘Having you for the week once you’re back,’ he said quickly. ‘I think if Fran’s OK with it, we could have you from the weekend after next? I should get a walking cast so I might be a bit more mobile by then. And we’re pushed on the farm at the moment, because one of the shop ladies is off on holiday, so we’ll have you from Sunday afternoon, perhaps? Then we’ll have plenty of time to hear about your holiday.’
Kirsten shot him a grateful look for his hasty intervention. ‘That would be fine. I’ll bring her over—we’ll go and talk to Fran now and sort out the times,’ she said, and went out to help with the tea things.
Sophie went too, dithering and skipping and chatting to Brodie as she went, and Mike laid his head back against the sofa and closed his eyes.
Pregnant.
Hell. It was going to kill Fran—and he was going to have to strike the fatal blow…
Mike seemed much more comfortable with the new cast.
Maybe it was because his leg was starting to recover from the insult of the fracture and the repair, or maybe he was giving in and taking the painkillers regularly and not trying to be heroic.
Whatever, he was sleeping better, and that meant Fran was too.
Just as well, she thought, because with him out of action, now she was on holiday from school she was doing as much as she could on the farm to help out. She didn’t do the milking—Russell seemed more than happy to do that, and she didn’t like to stop him. She sensed that he missed the farm, and also that he needed to be needed, something that Mike wasn’t very good at understanding.