“Indonesia?” That was what Luke had decided?
“The precious Maitland Foundation. I’m supposed to spend the next two years in hell.”
“Beats jail,” she said quietly.
“He couldn’t prove it.”
Not, I didn’t do it. “It’s not so bad. You might even like it. It might even be good for you.”
“That’s what he said.” Jason strode away cursing, and Meg went back into the living room, resumed her seat on the couch. Such a world of difference between the two men. Outside, an engine roared into life. Tires screeched. Several minutes later Luke eased himself down beside her, slipped his arm back around her shoulders. He tugged her in close.
“Good choice.” She chanced a glance at him. He didn’t look happy but wasn’t quite as grim as when he’d left.
He leaned closer, kissed the top of her head and for a second rested his cheek there. “I guess so. Now start this movie up again or I’ll have to assume control of the remote.” No mention of the fact that the roads must now be drivable.
Meg relaxed against him, breathed in his nearness and pressed the button for play. If only.
If only they were a married couple and this was their life. If only he wanted to spend all his snowy afternoons, and rainy and sunny and windy ones, with her. A good man sharing the moments as he held her. Not to mention his nights and mornings, too. Instead of a man who wanted to have this brief time with her and then send her on her way.
Too soon the movie ended. She should stand, move away from Luke, get him to take her to Sally’s. But she didn’t move.
“The sequel’s even better,” he said, his arm still draped over her shoulders, his body pressed against hers.
“I’d heard that it was. So often they’re not.” She was pathetic. Wanting this. Wanting the crumbs of his presence and affection. She was too scared to analyze what it was she felt for her husband, but it was powerful enough that she wanted to eke out every moment she had left with him.
“I have it. Do you want to watch it?”
More than anything, because it bought her another couple of hours with Luke. She made to stand because another couple of hours only prolonged the inevitable. He wanted hours; she wanted years, a lifetime even. He pulled her effortlessly back down. “I should get going to Sally’s,” she said. She’d always been the type to rip a bandage off and get the pain over with.
“Should or want to?” He searched her face.
“Should.” It was the last thing she wanted.
“Then don’t. Stay here. This is okay, isn’t it?” As though that was the only thing stopping her from staying.
This was so much better than okay, which was precisely why she
“I make a mean spaghetti Bolognese.”
“Wouldn’t it be better for both of us if I left now?”
He contemplated her question, gave it more thought than she’d expected and she found herself on tenterhooks for his answer. Finally, he shook his head. “I like being near you, Meg. I don’t know why. You ease something within me. I’m going to miss you when you go, so I’m in no hurry for that to happen.”
He spoke an echo of her thoughts out loud.
Whatever time they had would be all that she would get. She wasn’t going to curtail it. She sank back into the cushions of the couch, determined instead to make every minute, every second of these precious hours count, to store every moment in her memory.
As they watched the sequel, the afternoon bled into dusk which darkened quickly to night. They ate together, his spaghetti Bolognese as good as he’d claimed. And then they watched the third and final installment.
As the closing credits rolled, neither of them made any move to stand.
Far from it. “Lie down here with me,” he said as though he knew that if she got up from the couch it would be to leave. It had to be. “It’s wide enough.”
So they lay down facing one another, heads on cushions. His hand resting at the curve of her waist.
“What will you do when you leave here?” he asked.
Meg chewed her lip. “Sally’s offered me a job with the Maitland Foundation.”
“You’ve accepted?”
She shook her head. “I wanted to see what you thought. Whether that might keep me too close?”
His hand curved more firmly around her. “The thought of having you close isn’t such a terrible thing.”
“But after people have thought we were married.”
“We were married.”
“Not properly.”
He shifted his hand, found hers, touched a finger to the gold band adorning it. “Tell that to the minister.”
“I just mean that it could be awkward.”
“I do what I think is right. I thought, still do, that marrying you was the right thing to do at the time.” He pulled her a little closer. “I’ve had no cause to regret that decision.”
“You don’t regret what we did last night?”
A smile spread across his face. “How could I possibly regret that? The very thought of it could sustain me for years to come.”
“I can’t help feeling that we’re missing something. That we ought to be regretting it.”
“In that case, you’re thinking too much.”
Maybe he was right. She was overthinking things. They’d had their night. She’d be able to take those memories and these with her, tucked up beside him, the scent of his cologne, the snow outside, the fire inside. He would be her benchmark, her standard. But he so far outshone anyone else she’d ever met that it was impossible to imagine that standard being reached again.
They lay on the couch talking for hours about everything and nothing. She’d never shared so much of herself with anyone or felt so honored and warmed by the trust he showed in sharing with her.
They changed positions so that he was spooned behind her, stroking her side. After a time his hand slowed and stopped. His breathing softened.
Meg still lay awake. “What if I loved you?” she whispered into the darkness.
She felt a deeper stillness steal over him.
He’d heard.
He said nothing.
And she knew there was no “what if” about it. Somewhere, somehow she’d fallen in love with him, with his quiet strength and his deep integrity, with his silver eyes and the way he kissed her, held her, and because he of all people seemed to see the person she was inside.
But he hadn’t asked for that-her love.
“That wouldn’t be a good idea,” he said gently.
Luke felt Meg shrink a little away from him and against overriding impulse he didn’t pull her back. She didn’t really love him. She couldn’t because he was all wrong for her. He was too old, too cynical about life and people and love. He was a loner. Wasn’t he?
She deserved someone closer to her own age, someone closer to her in optimism and kindness. She imagined qualities in him he didn’t have.
He would let her go. Set her free.
In the morning.
And the thought filled him with desolation. It was the thought of a Meg-less existence that broke his resolve, made him pull her in closer to him, made him try to absorb a little of her essence into himself. He wanted something from her that he’d never wanted from a woman before-just to be with her, to have her near. And the nearer the better. The feelings were so new that he didn’t know what to do with them, how to deal with them.
She’d helped him so much. Helped him on the island when he’d first been injured, helped him by marrying him, and the very thought of her had sustained him when he’d been ill. Even now, lying here like this, her breathing soft and gentle, she soothed something within him, filled and completed him. In so many ways she was his better half.
