What the hell had he been thinking?
Of course it wasn’t a good idea to kiss her.
Ryan knew he’d come up with a pathetic excuse. Blame it on the Northern Lights, indeed. He knew precisely why he’d kissed Georgie. She’d switched from super-grouchy at being woken in the middle of the night to almost glowing with joy when she’d seen the display of lights dancing through the skies. He’d found her delight irresistible, to the point where his common sense had been completely bypassed by need and he’d held her close. She’d held him back. And then he’d kissed her, her mouth warm and soft and sweet under his. She’d kissed him back. He’d felt the kind of connection he hadn’t thought was possible for him.
And then she’d stopped kissing him and said it wasn’t a good idea.
She was right. Of course it wasn’t a good idea. It was stupid. She was still mourning her husband, Ryan wasn’t a good bet when it came to relationships, and they were only going to be in each other’s lives temporarily.
Utterly stupid.
But what was even more stupid was that he wouldn’t have changed a thing. If he could rewind time and go back to the second when he’d slid his arm round her shoulders... He would still have done it. He would still have touched her face like that. Still have kissed her.
And he’d lied—to both of them—when he’d said that they could just forget it had ever happened. Because he couldn’t forget it. That kiss just kept replaying in his head, in full Technicolor. When Ryan finally went to bed, he dreamed about kissing Georgie. He woke, aching, because he wasn’t kissing her; and then he thought about it all over again. Drifted back into a fitful doze. Dreamed again. Woke again, thinking of her.
What had the actor said in that Shakespeare play Zoe had taken him to, a couple of years back, the one with the magician standing on the top of the stage with his cloak billowing out like a stormy sky as he conjured up a tempest?
When I wak’d, I cried to dream again...
But dreams could be broken all too easily.
Giving up on sleep, Ryan went out for a long walk with Truffle. Thank God he and Georgie were on different shifts today. She’d be gone by the time he got back to the cottage, and he could have a cold shower—and hopefully some common sense would leach back into his head along with the water.
And then somehow he’d have to find his way back to a decent working relationship with her.
CHAPTER SIX
OVER THE NEXT few days, Georgie was pretty sure that Ryan was avoiding her. And it was her own fault, for kissing him. She shouldn’t have done it. When he’d slipped his arm round her shoulders, she should’ve found an excuse to step away, instead of leaning into him and sliding her arm round his waist. She should never have responded.
‘How am I going to convince him that it was a mistake and I’m not going to make life difficult for him?’ she asked Truffle.
The dog just gave a soft wuff, as if to say that she didn’t have a clue, either.
It was fine until the Friday morning. And then she made the mistake of flicking into her social media account and all the memories popped up from six years ago. Her wedding day. Pictures of herself and Charlie in the doorway of the tiny ancient church where they’d just pledged to love, honour and cherish each other.
Forsaking all others.
Had he meant it at the time?
She’d loved him so much. She’d thought they were so good together. They’d got on well with each other’s families, they’d got on well with each other’s friends, their jobs had complemented each other’s, and that day had been so bright and sparkly. The sun had shone all day, and she’d thought they were so lucky to spend such a perfect day with their family and their closest friends, sharing the love and the hope and the joy. She’d graduated and had been halfway through her foundation training, whereas Charlie was two years older and working in the Accident and Emergency Department.
They’d had such plans.
She’d finish her training, do three years in her specialty, and then they’d think about starting a family.
Except Charlie had found a reason to put off having children with her: a reason Georgie had had no idea about at the time. Trisha Hampson, the woman he’d had an affair with. A long-running affair that had started a good year before he’d died and had then continued through every disaster mission he’d gone to help with.
And, just before that last mission, according to what Trisha’s parents had told her later, Trisha had found out that she was pregnant.
Had she told Charlie straight away? Or had she wanted to wait until she could tell him face to face, and maybe they’d both been killed before she’d had a chance to tell him?
If they hadn’t been killed in the landslide, would he have told Georgie about Trisha and the baby when he came back to England? Would he have chosen to stay with her and give Trisha financial support for the baby, or would he have left Georgie and gone to live with his new family?
And why had he needed to have that affair in the first place? Hadn’t she made him happy? She’d never had any real fights with him, and she’d always agreed to whatever he wanted. She’d thought they were good together. What had been missing, for him, in their relationship? Where had she gone wrong?
All that potential, all that sparkle on their wedding day: now she looked at the photographs, and the day just felt tarnished. Her marriage had been a big, fat lie, and she’d been too stupid to realise it until it was too late.
She wasn’t even aware she was crying until the
