he put his hand down and took hers.
She looked at his brown, manly fingers so much larger than the thin white ones they enclosed. Rayne was here. She could feel the warmth from his skin on hers. Really here.
He squeezed her fingers and then pulled steadily so she floated from the car like a feather from a bottle. She’d forgotten how strong he was. How easily he could move her body around. ‘I assume you caught me when everything went black?’
‘Thank goodness.’ She looked up at the shudder in his voice. ‘Imagine if I hadn’t.’
She instantly dropped her other hand to her stomach and the baby moved as if to reassure her. Her shoulders drooped again with relief.
‘You’re pregnant,’ he said again.
Now she looked at him. Saw the rampant confusion in a face she’d never seen confusion in before. ‘I told you that. In the letters.’
His face shuttered. A long pause. ‘I didn’t open your letters.’
Maeve was dumbstruck, temporarily unable to speak. He hadn’t opened her letters? The hours she’d spent composing and crunching and rewriting and weeping over them before she’d posted them. Wow!
That explained the lack of reply, she thought with a spurt of temper, but it also created huge questions as to just how important she’d been to him. Obviously not very. Not even being locked away in prison had been enough to tempt him to open her letters. She felt the nausea rise again.
He’d refused to talk to Simon too and she knew her brother had been hurt about that. He had hoped for some reassurance from Rayne that somewhere there was an explanation.
The guy was lower than she thought. She needed to protect Simon from being upset a day after his happiest day. That was a real worry. Or a diversion for her mind.
She tried to compose herself, get her thoughts together …
‘I don’t think you should see Simon until I can warn him you’re back.’
Rayne straightened. Lifted his chin. ‘I’m not going to hide.’
‘It’s not about you.’ She could feel the unfairness expand in her. This was not how she dreamed their first meeting would be. Why couldn’t he have warned her he was coming? Given her a chance to have her defences sorted? Dressed nicely? Put her make-up on, for goodness’ sake? She’d just walked out of the house in her expander jeans and a swing top. And trainers. She groaned.
‘Are you okay?’
She looked up. Saw the broad shoulders, bulging muscles in his arms, that chest she’d dreamt of for three quarters of a year. He was here and she wanted to be scooped up and cradled against that chest but he wasn’t saying the right things. ‘You can’t see Simon yet. He’s just got engaged. He’s happy. I won’t let you do that. You’ve upset him enough.’
He’d upset her too, though upset was an understatement. Hurt badly. Devastated. But then you reappeared at the right moment, a tiny voice whispered. The exact right moment. Just in time.
She saw a flicker of pain cross his face and she closed her eyes. What was she doing? Why was she being like this? Was she trying to drive him away?
She needed to think. It overwhelmed her that Rayne was here. As if she’d conjured up him by her need this morning and now she didn’t know what she should think. And he hadn’t known she was pregnant!
Rayne was having all sorts of problems keeping his thoughts straight. He could see she was at a loss too. ‘Maeve!’
‘What?’
He needed to know. Couldn’t believe it but didn’t want to believe it was someone else. ‘Are you pregnant with my baby?’
She hunched her shoulders as if to keep him out. ‘It’s my baby. You didn’t want to know about it.’
He pulled her in close to him and put both arms around her. Lifted her chin to look at him. ‘For God’s sake, woman.’ Resisted the urge to shake her. ‘Are you pregnant with my baby?’
‘Yes. Now let go of me, Rayne.’ His loosened his fingers. Felt her pull away coolly. Create distance between them like a crack from a beautiful glacier breaking away from its mountain, and his heart, a heart that had been a solid rock inside him, cracked too.
Maeve turned her back on him and climbed awkwardly into his car. The realisation that she couldn’t protect Simon from this shock forever hit her.
‘Come on. Let’s get it over with. You need to see Simon and then we need to talk.’
Simon came out of the house when the car pulled up and a petite blonde woman followed him. Rayne remembered now that Maeve had said Simon was engaged. This would be some first introduction.
Rayne climbed out and walked around to open the passenger door; he glanced at his old friend, who looked less than pleased, and then back at the woman’s hand he wanted to hold more than anything else in the world.
For an icy moment there he thought she wasn’t going to allow him that privilege—right when he needed her most—but then she uncurled her closed fist and allowed her fingers to slide in beside his. By the time Simon had arrived she was standing beside him. Solidarity he hadn’t expected.
‘They let you out?’ There was no Christmas spirit in that statement, Rayne thought sardonically to himself, though couldn’t say he could blame him, considering Maeve’s condition.
He stared into Simon’s face. Felt the coolness between them like an open wound. ‘I wanted to explain.’ He shrugged. ‘It just didn’t happen.’
‘Instead, you slept with my sister.’
‘There’s that.’ To hell with this.
He just wanted it over. Tell Simon the truth. Let Maeve know at least the father of her baby wasn’t a criminal. At the very least. Then get the hell away from here because these people didn’t deserve him to infect their live with the disaster that seemed to follow him around.
‘When my mother died there wasn’t a reason for me to be in there any more. She told them the truth before she overdosed and they dropped the charges.’
Maeve’s breath drew in beside him. ‘Your mother died?’ Felt her hand, a precious hand he’d forgotten he still held, tighten in his. She squeezed his fingers and he looked down at her. Saw the genuine sympathy and felt more upset than he had for the last horrific year. How could she be so quick to feel sorry for him when he’d ruined her life with his own selfishness? That thought hurt even more.
‘You took the rap for your mother!’ Simon’s curt statement wasn’t a question. ‘Of course you did.’ He slapped himself on the forehead. Repeated, ‘Of course you did.’
He didn’t want to talk about his mother. Didn’t want sympathy. He spoke to Simon. ‘I understand you not wanting me here.’
He forced himself to let go of Maeve’s hand. ‘Take Maeve inside. She fainted earlier, though she didn’t fall.’ He heard Simon’s swift intake of breath and saw the blonde woman, from hanging back, shift into
