She’d lain in the dark, staring at the moonlit ceiling, her mind almost blank. She’d gone past thinking.
Once upon a time she’d made a conscious decision not to hurt these people. She remembered the time she’d spent on Grant’s family farm, so long ago. Grant had take her there for Christmas. Until then her relationship with Grant had been light, and she’d had little intention of taking it further. But when he’d discovered she had nowhere to go for Christmas-her dysfunctional family hadn’t celebrated Christmas for years-he’d insisted that she come.
‘You’ll be bored to snores,’ he’d told her. ‘Mum and Dad are simple farmers and Alistair’s not much better-a country doctor, for heaven’s sake. But they do a good Christmas dinner and you’ll keep me entertained.’
She hadn’t kept Grant entertained. How could she have? He’d been bored with the farm-with his family-but whereas Grant had been bored, the farm had entranced Sarah. The family had entranced her. The warmth of Grant’s parents, the laughter, the love, the ease with which they accepted each other. Alistair had been there the whole time. They had been raking hay, and she remembered that summer harvest and Christmas time as being one of the happiest of her life.
Grant had come and gone-he’d made two trips back to the city while she’d been there-but she’d stayed on. She’d relished every minute of her stay and afterwards, when Grant had asked her to marry him, she’d said yes.
Of course she’d said yes. For Sarah, who’d never known such a family, the thought had been irresistible. She’d loved them. She could never have hurt them.
She’d hurt Alistair now. Hurt him beyond bearing.
She stared at the ceiling some more and tried to get her thoughts to focus. They wouldn’t, and when the door opened just a crack she almost welcomed it.
‘Sarah? Are you asleep?’
‘What do you think?’ She pushed herself up on the pillows and swiped her hair behind her ears. Her cheeks were wet, she noticed with an almost dispassionate interest. Had she been crying?
The door was wide then. Alistair stood there, as if uncertain. He was still in his day gear-maybe he hadn’t been to bed.
‘I’ve been walking.’
‘That’s a stupid thing to do,’ she told him. ‘The night’s for sleeping.’
‘So I’m stupid. What else is new?’
‘Go to bed, Alistair,’ she told him.
But he wasn’t listening. He was a dark shadow in the doorway. Motionless. Almost formless.
‘Do you know,’ he said softly, as if he hadn’t heard her. ‘If Grant hadn’t died then I wouldn’t have believed him. I wouldn’t have accepted his word that the accident was your fault. Believe it or not, I’d stopped believing Grant a long time before he died. And I shouldn’t have believed him even then. I saw the car. The wrecker rang and said there were things left in the trunk. I went round to collect them and I saw the thing. But I was so shocked. I saw the passenger side was damaged and I saw the driver’s side was fine. But Grant was dead. My father had collapsed. My head didn’t do the sums. My head didn’t even think about doing the sums.’
‘Go to bed, Alistair,’ she said again. ‘Don’t do this to yourself. I shouldn’t have told you. I’m sorry.’
‘No,’ he told her, and then more forcibly, ‘No!’ He walked forward, the formless shadow became the man, and before she knew what he was about he’d taken her shoulders in his hands, gripping hard. She could feel his anger now, as well as hear it.
‘Don’t you dare be sorry,’ he told her. ‘Don’t you think about it for a minute longer. You didn’t do this to me. Grant did this. He lied and he cheated and he risked your life. This was Grant’s doing and I can’t help that you loved him. You have to see… Sarah, you have to see that he’s not worth protecting. He’s dead, Sarah. He’s gone. Don’t you dare apologise to me for what he did to you.’
She didn’t know what to say. His hands shifted to grip her hands. Urgent with the need to convince. His words echoed around her head.
And inside her she felt a knot unfasten. Loosen. Release. It was a knot of pain so great and so hard that she could hardly believe it was going. It was as if half of her was being torn away.
And, confusingly, she felt naked without it-exposed. For so long she’d lived with this thing.
‘Alistair…’
‘You let my parents die thinking ill of you,’ he said, and the fury was still there. ‘I can’t bear it.’
‘Your parents-’
‘My parents loved you. You stayed with us a week and in that week you became part of our lives. And then… nothing. You and Grant didn’t go near them for months. How do you think they felt? Thinking that they’d misjudged you so badly? Thinking that you’d killed Grant?’
‘I-’
But he hadn’t finished. ‘They hated it. They’d hoped, like I had, that at last Grant had found himself something beautiful, something worthwhile, someone worth loving. And he had. We all had. And you gave us that gift. The gift of thinking Grant wasn’t as worthless as we’d feared.’
‘He wasn’t-’
‘He was.’ His grip tightened. ‘I can’t bear it,’ he said again, in a voice that was thick with anger-and more. Thick with…passion? ‘I can’t bear that you did this thing to yourself. I can’t bear that you protected him.’ And then, more softly, ‘I can’t bear it that you loved him.’
He couldn’t bear it? How could
‘How can I leave it?’
‘It’s over,’ she said, her voice flat and dead. Trying to kill something, she was starting to learn, was capable of hurting even more than the pain she felt for Grant.
‘How can it be over?’ he demanded. ‘How can it be over when I feel for you as I feel? When I feel for you like this?’
Like…?
But she didn’t have to ask like what. It was a stupid question, only half formed in her mind and never voiced.
She knew what he felt. Because she felt it, too.
As if they were two halves of a whole.
This man…
She remembered the first time she’d seen him, walking into the ward at the children’s hospital. The next minute he’d been down on the floor, being a crab with her and with the children who’d so desperately needed to laugh. Losing his dignity as Grant never, ever would have.
She’d fallen in love right there. She hadn’t realised it. She’d thought it was an extension of what she’d felt for Grant.
Grant. She had loved him. She’d loved his family.
She couldn’t have his family. She’d have Grant.
No. She couldn’t have Alistair. She’d have Grant.
How long ago had she realised that it was love for Alistair that was keeping her tied to Grant? How long before she’d accepted the truth and given Grant back his ring?
Not very long, she thought bleakly. She’d broken off the engagement well before that awful night, but he had still been interested, still persistent, and
But it was Alistair she’d wanted. Alistair-who’d been going out with someone else, who didn’t have a clue how she felt…
This man.
This man who was sitting before her in the moonlight. He was gripping her hands so tightly they hurt. He was so close…
He was pulling her into his arms where she belonged…
She was so lovely. She was everything he wanted in a woman. She was Sarah.
Sarah.
She was melting into his arms. Her face was turning up to his. Her lips were against his and he could feel the soft sweetness of her. He could taste the loveliness of her.
