is Daisy,’ he said, introducing her to the sleepy and gentle black Labrador who ambled to her feet and came towards her, tail wagging, and while she said hello he put some milk to heat on the ancient range. She could feel its warmth, and if he hadn’t been standing beside it she would have gone over to it, leant on the rail on the front and let it thaw the ice that seemed to be encasing her. But he was there, so she just stood where she was and tried to hold it all together while Daisy nuzzled her hand and pressed against her.
‘Sit down and eat that sandwich before you keel over,’ he instructed firmly, and so she sat at the old pine table and ate, the dog leaning on her leg and watching her carefully in case she dropped a bit, while he melted chocolate and whisked milk and filled the mugs with more calories than she usually ate in a week.
She fed Daisy the crusts, making Sam tut gently, and then he took her through to another room where, even though it was April, there was a log fire blazing in the grate.
The fireplace was bracketed by a pair of battered leather sofas, homely and welcoming, and Daisy hopped up on one and snuggled down in the corner, so she sat on the other, and Sam threw another log on the fire, sat next to Daisy and propped his feet on the old pine box between the sofas, next to the tray of hot chocolate and scrumptious golden oat cookies, and lifted a brow.
‘So—I take it things didn’t go too well?’ he said as she settled back to take her first sip.
She gave a slightly strangled laugh and licked froth off her top lip. ‘You could say that,’ she agreed after a moment. ‘They were devastated, of course. Julia was wondering how much it would cost to get the other woman to give up James’ baby. When I told her there wasn’t one, she fell apart, and I went to pack up the annexe, and when I went back to tell them I was leaving, they were arguing. It seems Julia had talked James into signing the consent form for posthumous IVF while he was on morphine. They lied to him, told him it was what I wanted.’
He frowned, her words shocking him and dragging his mind back from the inappropriate fantasy he’d been plunged into when she’d licked her lip. ‘But surely you’d talked about it with him?’
She shook her head. ‘No. I only knew about it after he’d died. They’d told me he’d been desperate for me to have his child, but he couldn’t speak to me about it because he knew it would distress me to think about what I’d be doing after he was gone.’
Sam frowned again. ‘Did you think that was likely, that he wouldn’t have talked to you about something so significant?’
‘No. Not at all, and there was no mention of it in his diary. He put everything in his diary. But I was so shocked I just believed them, and it was there in black and white, giving his consent. And it was definitely his signature, for all that it was shaky. It never occurred to me that they’d coerced him—he was their son. They adored him. Why would they do that?’
Her voice cracked, and he felt a surge of anger on her behalf—and for James. The anger deepened. He hated duplicity, with good reason. ‘So they tricked you both?’ ‘It would seem so.’
‘And you’d never talked about it with James?’
She shook her head. ‘Not this aspect. The idea was to freeze some sperm so that if he survived and was left sterile by the treatment, we could still have children. Once we knew he wasn’t going to make it, nothing more was ever said. Until Julia broached it after the funeral.’
After the funeral? Surely not right after? Although looking at her, Sam had a sickening feeling it was what she meant. He leant back, cradling his hot chocolate and studying her bleak expression. She looked awful. Shocked and exhausted and utterly lost. She’d dragged a cushion onto her lap and was hugging it as she sipped her drink, and he wanted to take the cushion away and pull her onto his lap and hug her himself. And there was more froth on her lip—
Stupid. So, so stupid! This was complicated enough as it was and the last thing he needed was to get involved with a grieving widow. He didn’t do emotion—avoided it whenever possible. And she was carrying his child. That was emotion enough for him to cope with—too much. And anyway, it was just a misplaced sexual attraction. Usually pregnant women simply brought out the nurturer in him.
But not Emelia. Oh, no. There was just something about her, about the luscious ripeness of her body that did crazy things to his libido too. Because she was carrying his child? No. He’d felt like it when he’d hugged her in the car park at the clinic earlier today, before he’d known it was his baby. It was just that she was pregnant, he told himself, and conveniently ignored the fact that he’d felt this way about Emelia since the first time he’d seen her…
‘So what did they say when you told them you were leaving?’ he asked, getting back to the point in a hurry.
She shrugged. ‘Very little. I think to be honest I saved them the bother of asking me to go.’
‘So—if you hadn’t got hold of me, where were you going to stay tonight?’
She shrugged again, her slight shoulders lifting in another helpless little gesture that tugged at his heartstrings. ‘I have no idea. As I said, I didn’t really give it any thought, I just knew I had to get out. I’d have found somewhere. And I didn’t have any choice, so it doesn’t really matter, does it, where else I might have gone?’
Oddly, he discovered, it mattered to him. It mattered far more than was comfortable, but he told himself it was because she was Emily’s friend—and a vulnerable pregnant woman. That again. Of course that was all it was. Anybody would care about her, it was nothing to do with the fact that this delicate, fragile-looking woman, with the bruised look in her olive green eyes and a mouth that kept trying to firm itself to stop that little tremor, was swollen with his child. That was just a technicality. It had to be. He couldn’t allow it to be anything else—and he certainly wasn’t following up on the bizarre attraction he was feeling for her right this minute.
‘You’re done in,’ he said gruffly, getting to his feet. ‘Come on, I’ll show you to your room. We can talk tomorrow.’
He led her up the broad, easing-rising staircase with its graceful curved banister rail, across the landing and into a bedroom.
Not just any bedroom, though. It had silk curtains at the windows, a beautiful old rug on the floor, and a creampainted iron and brass bed straight out of her fantasies, piled high with pillows and looking so inviting she could have wept.
Well, she could have wept anyway, what with one thing and another, but the bed was just the last straw.
He put her case on a padded ottoman at the foot of the bed, and opened a door and showed her the bathroom on the other side.
‘It communicates with the room I’m using at the moment, but there’s a lock on each door. Just remember to undo it when you leave.’
‘I will.’
‘And if there’s anything you need, just yell. I won’t be far away.’
Not far at all, she thought, her eyes flicking to the bathroom door.
‘I’ll be fine. Thank you, Sam. For everything.’
He gave a curt nod and left her alone then, the door closing with a soft click, and she hugged her arms and stared at the room. It was beautiful, the furnishings expensive and yet welcoming. Not in the least intimidating, and as the sound of his footfalls died away, the
