‘Forget it,’ he said roughly, and then looked contrite. ‘Sorry. ‘It’s okay, though. Just forget the sorry and think of it as one colleague helping another. You look like you need far more help than I can possibly give, but one night out of my life isn’t much.’
Put like that, it even sounded reasonable that he stayed, she thought. And there was no way she was arguing any more. Not when she wanted him to stay so much.
For all the right reasons, she told herself hastily. For very sensible reasons, which had nothing to do with the way her insides did this queer little lurch when he looked at her.
“You want to use Gran’s settee?’ she managed.
‘You want me to stay here with you?’
She did. It sounded wimpy and she had no right to ask him. There were plenty of spare bedrooms. But…
‘This room’s warm.’
‘So it is,’ he said, and suddenly he was smiling.
‘I-it seems a waste to heat another.’
‘It does,’ he agreed. ‘And it’ll mean I can check your vital signs during the night without getting up. Also it’ll mean I don’t need to get my sleeping bag from the car.’
‘You don’t need to check my vital signs.’ But the night was getting fuzzier and she was getting past arguing. ‘You have a sleeping bag?’
‘For camping. At the music festival. Not that I needed to. My friends organised us a camp that’d make a Bedouin sheikh jealous.’
‘Your friends?’
‘Fiona did most of the organising. She’s a radiologist and she’s a very organising person.’
Fiona. He had a girlfriend, then. Of course he did. Anyone with a smile like that would have a partner. There was no reason then why her somersaulting insides would suddenly somersault in a different direction.
It was too much. She was too tired. She needed to sleep and not think of problems and how she was going to manage with an injured knee and how she could check Gran through the night when she was so tired and what she was going to do tomorrow.
Without Max. Who had a girlfriend.
‘Do you need help with the bathroom?’ he asked, and she had to think about it before answering.
‘I can manage,’ she said with another of her dumb attempts at dignity.
‘Really?’
‘Really.’
‘Very well,’ he said, and smiled and lifted her eiderdown and tucked it up under her chin. And then, before she knew what he intended-before she could even guess he’d thought of such a gesture-he bent and kissed her.
It was a feather kiss, maybe a kiss of reassurance, of warmth and of comfort. But surely such a kiss should be on the forehead. Not on the lips.
But on her lips it was.
His mouth brushed hers, and it was as if the heat of the room was suddenly centred right there, and it was a surge of warmth so great it was all she could do not to reach out and hold him and lock the kiss to her.
Only her hands were under the eiderdown. Thankfully. Because to hold this man…
To hold him would be a shout that she needed him, that she was alone, she was bereft and he was everything she most wanted but could never have.
William…
She made herself say her husband’s name in her head but it didn’t work. There was nothing there.
William. Gone.
Max. Here. All male.
‘Goodnight, Maggie,’ he whispered, and she could have wept as he drew away.
‘Goodnight,’ she made herself whisper back.
She closed her eyes. She didn’t want to, but she did.
William, William, William.
As a mantra it had no strength at all.
Max. She wanted him to stay. Right here. Right now.
For ever.
CHAPTER FIVE
SHE woke and sun was streaming in the windows. Max was kneeling in front of the fire and it was morning.
It was well into morning. Her eyes flew open, she stared at the sunlight flooding the room and thought this was no dawn light.
Her eyes flew to the grandfather clock in the corner and as if on cue it started to boom.
Nine booms. Nine o’clock!
‘And how any of you ever sleep with that thing is a mystery,’ Max murmured, kneeling to blow on the embers as she stared at the clock as if it had betrayed her. The embers leapt to life-of course. Would they dare not if this man ordered?
He looked…He looked…
Much cleaner than last night, for a start. He looked like he’d showered. He was wearing clean jeans and a clean shirt, though he had the sleeves rolled up as if he meant business.
He looked like he should always be here. Making her fire in the mornings. Living in her house. Just being here.
But then he turned to her and she saw the strain on his face and inappropriate thoughts went right out the window.
‘Betty died at six o’clock this morning,’ he told her, and her world stilled.
‘Died…’
‘You were sleeping so soundly that short of a bucket of cold water I couldn’t rouse you. I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I’m sorry.’
‘Betty,’ she whispered, and she felt a wave of grief for the old lady, a grief so strong it threatened to overwhelm her.
Though she’d known Betty by her correspondence and via William for longer, she’d only known Betty personally for a few months. For most of those months she’d been angry. Betty had conned her into coming, had trapped her. But despite her anger she’d never doubted Betty’s motives. She’d manoeuvred Maggie into coming for love of a son, for love of her son she had no other way to protect.
Maggie’s hands went instinctively to her own belly as her baby gave a fluttery kick inside her. Who knew what she’d do to protect this little one?
When did a mother’s love die?
‘Angus…’ she whispered.
‘Angus was with his mother when she died.’
‘Angus was!’ She stared at him, incredulous. In the whole time she’d been here Angus had never been in the house. It was almost as if he was afraid of it.
‘I thought they’d both want it,’ he told her, squatting back on his heels and meeting her gaze with steadiness and truth. ‘I thought if Angus has been farming for years he’ll understand what death is.’
‘But how did you make him come?’
‘I told him what was happening. I told him what I thought he should do and he agreed.’
‘But to make him listen…’
‘I know. I went over to the haystack, he backed away so I simply said his mother was dying and needed him to sit with her. Then I came back and sat on one of his tractors until he came. It took him half an hour to work up the courage, but he came. I stayed on the tractor and told him what Betty’s condition was, and finally he decided he could come into the house. Betty woke, just for a moment, as he arrived. He held her hand until she died.’
