‘Wonderful memories,’ he said softly. ‘Em, we both know this is transient-I have a world to go back to when I know Anna has recovered-but we can make it so good for now. We can give the kids a really good time. And…’
‘And?’ But she knew what he was about to say before he said it.
He said it, just the same. ‘Em, I think you’re one special lady. Sure, I’m not a man who puts down roots-I never will be-but that doesn’t stop me forming relationships if the lady’s special enough. And I really would like to sleep with you.’
She flinched. ‘I suppose I should feel flattered.’
‘No.’ He was watching her dispassionately. ‘Because you want the same thing. I can feel it.’
‘No!’
‘Go on.’ His eyes mocked her. ‘Say you don’t want it.’
‘I don’t want it.’
‘Liar.’ His hold tightened and suddenly there was a link between them that was growing stronger by the minute. It was the silence, she thought desperately. It was the warmth of the big, old house. The knowledge that there were four children sleeping in their care…
It was a setting that felt so sweet it made Em want to weep, and the more she looked up at this man the more she found it impossible to pull away.
‘Em…’ His eyes were searching hers, seeking an answer which she didn’t have the strength to give.
She should pull away. She should whisk herself back to her bedroom and lock the door behind her, leaving Jonas to watch her go.
But she could no sooner do it than fly. The link between them was way, way too strong.
He released her shoulders and his hands cupped her face. His fingers were tracing the paleness of her throat, pushing her face gently up to meet his.
And then there was a long, long silence-a silence where things were built and not broken. Where things were said that could never be said aloud.
Where things were joined that couldn’t lightly be put asunder.
Their eyes stayed locked. There was confusion in both of them-uncertainty-a lack of knowledge of the future- but for now, right at this moment, there was only each other.
And then he kissed her.
Em had been kissed before.
Of course she’d been kissed before. She was twenty-nine, she’d had a normal fun life as a medical student and even after she’d come back to Bay Beach there’d been men who’d fancied their chances with Dr Emily. They hadn’t wanted the baggage of the workload that went with her but, intermittently, they’d wanted her.
So she’d been kissed.
But not like this!
This was a kiss that she hadn’t believed was possible. It was the joining of two halves of a whole, she thought desperately as the warmth from Jonas’s mouth flooded through her body, warming her from the tip of her toes to the top of her head.
Warming her?
It was the wrong description. This was like resuscitation, she thought dazedly. It was like bringing the dead back to life.
Until this moment she’d never known she could feel like this, and the sensation was indescribable.
His lips claimed hers. Their mouths held and locked. Jonas’s arms were around her, crushing her breasts to his chest, and she was melting into him like this was her natural home.
Man and woman-meeting and merging. Becoming one.
The sweetness was indescribable. It was threatening to overwhelm her. The feeling that here at last was her place in the sun. Her man…
Only he wasn’t her man. He was Jonas Lunn, city surgeon, and in a few weeks he’d be away from here for good. He’d love her and leave her, and she’d have to get on with her dreary existence without him.
Her hair would have to stay braided.
So when his hand went to the base of her braid and she felt him twist the tie, wanting to free her mass of hair, the sensation made her pull away in instinctive self-defence.
‘No!’
‘Yes,’ he said, and his gorgeous eyes mocked hers. ‘You want this, Emily Mainwaring. You know it. You want this as much as I do.’
‘Maybe I do,’ she said honestly, meeting his eyes with candour. ‘But maybe I have enough sense to see where it would lead.’
‘It would lead to two people taking comfort in each other-that’s all.’
‘And then you’d walk away?’
‘Yes,’ he said honestly. ‘Of course I would. And life would keep going, but it’d be the richer for our joining.’
‘No, it wouldn’t, Jonas,’ she said, and her voice was tight with strain and bleakness. ‘It’d be dreadful. Like me losing Robby now. I’d break my heart.’
‘You don’t lose your heart by going to bed with someone.’
‘No?’ She glared at him. Men! Were they all this insensitive? ‘How else do you lose it?’
‘I guess you don’t lose it at all,’ he said uneasily. ‘At least, I don’t.’
‘Lucky you.’
‘Em, this is hardly World War Three. Do you have to be so dramatic?’
‘I’m not being dramatic.’ She was really angry now. What had he said?
How many
Well, one of them wasn’t going to be her, she decided, and it was her anger that finally pulled her through. It gave her strength. Heavens, she had enough on her plate, worrying about Robby and the medical needs of Bay Beach, without tying herself in knots over this man.
‘Go to bed, Jonas,’ she told him.
‘With you?’
‘Your bedroom door’s thataway. And my bedroom’s in the other direction. So take yourself off and leave me alone. I don’t want you.’
‘Liar.’
‘I may be a liar but I’m lying for the best,’ she told him bluntly. ‘Whereas your way wreaks havoc for everyone. And I’m starting to see why Anna holds herself back from you. You’re detached and independent and you don’t give yourself at all.’
‘I give-’
‘You give your time, your money and your work. But not yourself, Jonas. And it’s not enough. You want to be needed, but you won’t need in return. It’s not enough for Anna, and it’s not enough for me. Goodnight!’
She walked into her bedroom and slammed the door behind her. Hard.
How could she sleep after that?
She lay in the dark and listened to Robby’s gentle snuffling, and her heart cried out for what could never be.
A baby and a man. A man and a baby.
Her two impossible loves.
In the adjoining room, Jonas did the same. He lay in the dark and let the events of the last twenty-four hours unfold around him.
Anna. Anna pushing him away. ‘I don’t need you. I don’t need anyone,’ she’d said as he’d offered to stay into the night.
And Em…
‘You give your time, your money and your work. But not yourself…’
What was a man to do?
He was just trying to do what was right, he told himself bleakly. He’d come down here because Anna needed
