From Waif To His Wife

‘Yes. Grace, when she stopped to think about it, thought there was something a bit odd about you. Jack was convinced you were distressed about something-he virtually pulled me off the plane. You weren’t answering your phone.’

She closed her eyes. ‘How did you find me?’ she whispered.

‘I couldn’t think of anywhere else to look but the house and your boat, since we were talking about them only a couple of days ago, so I took a chance. What set you off this time?’ he queried harshly.

‘Rafe,’ her mind was whirling but it swooped on one of the things he’d said that didn’t make sense, ‘what did you mean when you said you knew you had to let me go?’

‘Maisie…’ For the first time it was no longer the hard, angry man in charge, as the lines and angles of his face settled into lines of weariness.

And he released her suddenly. ‘Someone once wished this on me so it could be poetic justice, but you, of all people, should know what it’s like to want someone you can’t have.’

She froze. ‘But-but you can’t! I mean-what about your cousin, what about the kind of person that made me, what about-?’

He smiled drily. ‘In the end, none of that mattered. Only you mattered. What kind of a person did it make you?’ He shook his head. ‘I suspect there was wonderful material to work with anyway but it fired you into solid gold for me. Your spirit, your endurance through what life threw at you, that spark of vitality that I only ever once saw quenched in you…’

He paused then went on with an effort. ‘I was watching you the other day while you were on the patio with Susie. And it struck me that if anyone had told me a girl and her baby meant more to me than anything in the world, that she was the difference between darkness and light for me, I wouldn’t have believed them. But it happened.

‘And it happened,’ he went on, ‘with a girl I’d barely ever laid a hand on.’

Maisie swayed a little where she stood. ‘But you still believed I was in love with Tim?’

‘Who wouldn’t?’ he said tiredly. ‘When the news of his death came as such a shock it sent you into early labour.’

‘No.’ She shook her head so droplets flew. ‘It could have been the accident or-it could have happened anyway.’

‘Stress can-’

‘Perhaps,’ she interrupted, ‘but I’m the only one who knows what was really stressing me out.’

He searched her eyes with a frown in his. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I’m the only one who knows that I said goodbye to Tim Dixon in a little hut in Tonga because I was no longer in love with him, because I never had been. Yes, it came as a shock, his death, and it was sad.’ She tipped a hand. ‘Sad for Susie, sad because it was an untimely death, but devastating? No, not for me.’

‘So what…?’ His words hung on the air.

‘It was you I was stressed about. I-it hit me that day that I just couldn’t go on any longer, living with you, loving you but knowing there was no hope.’ Her throat worked.

‘But,’ he paused, ‘that night in the Tree House, you seemed to be looking for excuses for Tim. I’ve never forgotten that and what it could mean.’

Her mind flew back and she saw the candles again, their wine glasses, and heard the murmur of the sea on the beach. ‘I was, but only because whether I liked it or not he’s always going to be part of Susie so I wanted some mitigating circumstances for him. Something so as not to view him with utter contempt for her sake, that’s all.’

His face didn’t change. ‘When?’

She hesitated. ‘When?’

‘Did you fall in love with me?’

She closed her eyes. ‘When it was the last thing in the world that should have happened to me-almost from the beginning.’ Her lashes lifted. ‘When I loved nothing better than to be with you, when I felt safe, yes, but so much more, yet all the time I kept saying to myself-this can’t be happening to me, but not only that, he could never want me.’

‘Oh, Maisie,’ he breathed.

But she went on, ‘And that same day, the day Tim died, was the day Sonia told me all about why she was the way she was, because of your parents’ marriage, and it seemed to explain why you could be cynical about love and all the trimmings. It just-it was too much on top of the misery I was already going through.’ Tears beaded her lashes.

‘Maisie,’ this time he reached for her but only took her hand, ‘yes, I was cynical. That’s why I was starting to suspect only an arranged marriage was going to work for me. My parents put themselves through hell, and Sonia and I followed.’ He sighed. ‘But you gave no sign of distress until I told you about Tim. You were-bright and breezy.’

She managed to smile but twistedly. ‘If you had any idea how exhausting it was, keeping myself bright and breezy…’ She shook her head. ‘I think that might have been another factor. I was mentally so tired.’

‘Maisie-’

‘No, please let me go on,’ she begged. ‘I could never find the words to explain to you-I didn’t even know if it mattered to you-but Mairead was me responding to my music, the one area where I could shut everything else out…then I found in-in-’ she rubbed her face ‘-in dire circumstances like Sonia’s soiree, well, the only way I could cope was by extending that bubble a bit. I don’t suppose I’m making any sense but-’

‘You are,’ he said very quietly. ‘Can I tell you how it happened for me?’

‘Yes, please,’ she whispered.

‘Everything that had ever plagued me disappeared when I saw you in that hospital bed. That’s when I knew none of it carried any weight at all. That you were paramount to me and it was going to be sheer hell living without you.’

He raked a hand across his jaw. ‘In fact, everything came together, Maisie, Mairead, they merged and became,’ he paused, ‘the only girl in the world for me. But that’s when the agony really began.’

‘Rafe?’ She lifted her face to his and her eyes were green and incredulous. Her lips were trembling and she was shaking like a leaf in a gale. ‘Tell me I’m not dreaming?’

He smiled fleetingly at last but he sobered immediately and touched her face with his fingertips. ‘When I’m away from you I can’t get you out of my mind, when I have you in my arms it couldn’t feel more right. When I think of losing you, my whole world falls down and the only way to right it is to know that you belong to me and I belong to you.’ He closed his eyes briefly. ‘You could have no idea how ironic that is but it’s true.’

‘Tell me,’ she whispered.

‘I will one day but-’

‘Excuse me.’

They both turned convulsively to see a man standing on the jetty, regarding them a trifle awkwardly.

He said, ‘I heard the splashes and came running but you did the right thing climbing onto the boat. Then you seemed a little-um-preoccupied so I retreated but-uh-would this be your bag, though, miss? I found it on the jetty.’

‘Oh, thank you!’ Maisie breathed and Rafe reached over to take it. ‘Thanks, mate,’ he added.

‘Are you both OK?’

‘Fine, never better,’ Rafe assured him. ‘We actually make a habit of doing this.’

The stranger stared up at them then shrugged. ‘If I were you I’d get dry and warm before you catch pneumonia.’

‘Not a bad idea,’ Rafe said gravely and turned to Maisie, who was rather desperately trying not to laugh. ‘You wouldn’t have the keys for the boat in that bag by any chance, my love?’

‘Y-yes,’ she said a little unsteadily and pulled them from her bag.

They laughed together, standing in the middle of the Amelie’s shipshape little saloon, standing in the circle of each other’s arms, still dripping.

‘He must think we’re mad!’ she said.

‘He could be right. I’m certainly mad about you. I’ve done this once before without permission but I think it needs to be done again.’ And he started to undress her.