and the fish almost spontaneously exploded. Bits of fish went everywhere.
Oliver grabbed the remaining parcel, scooping it up before the scraps of flying fish hit, and shooed the gulls away. They were now down to half their chips and only one piece of fish, but he’d saved the day. The crowd hooted their delight, and Oliver grinned, but Em wasn’t thinking about fish and chips, no matter how funny the drama.
How had that happened? It was like they’d been teenagers again, young lovers, so caught up in each other that the world hadn’t existed.
But the world did exist.
‘I believe I’ve saved most of our feast,’ Oliver said ruefully, and she smiled, but her smile was forced. The world was steady again, her real world. For just a moment she’d let herself be drawn into history, into fantasy. Time to move on …
‘We need to concentrate on what’s happening now,’ she said.
‘We do.’ He was watching her, his lovely brown eyes questioning. He always could read her, Em thought, suddenly resentful. He could see things about her she didn’t know herself.
But he’d kept himself to himself. She’d been married to him for five years and she hadn’t known the depth of feeling he’d had about his childhood until the question of adoption had come up. She’d met his adoptive parents, she’d known they were awful, but Oliver had treated them—and his childhood—with light dismissal.
‘They raised me, they gave me a decent start, I got to be a doctor and I’m grateful.’
But he wasn’t. In those awful few weeks after losing Josh, when she’d finally raised adoption as an option, his anger and his grief had shocked them both. It had resonated with such depth and fury it had torn them apart.
So, no, she didn’t know this man. Not then. Not now.
And kissing him wasn’t going to make it one whit better.
He’d said he still loved her. Ten years ago he’d said that, too, and yet he’d walked away, telling her to move on. Telling her to find someone else who could fit in with her dreams.
‘Em, I’d like to—’
‘Have your fish before it gets cold or gets snaffled by another bird?’ She spoke too fast, rushing in before he could say anything serious, anything that matched the look on his face that said his emotions were all over the place. That said the kiss had done something for him that matched the emotions she was feeling. That said their marriage wasn’t over?
But it was over, she told herself fiercely. She’d gone through the pain of separation once and there was no way she was going down that path again. Love? The word itself was cheap, she thought. Their love had been tested, and found wanting. ‘That’s what I need to do,’ she added, still too fast, and took a chip and ate it, even though hunger was the last thing on her mind right now. ‘I need to eat fast and get back to the kids. Oliver, that kiss was an aberration. We need to forget it and move on.’
‘Really?’
‘Really. Have a chip before we lose the lot.’
The kids were asleep when she got home, and so was Adrianna. The house was in darkness. Oliver swung out of the driver’s seat as if he meant to accompany her to the door, but she practically ran.
‘I need my bed, Oliver. Goodnight.’
He was still watching her as she closed the front door. She’d been rude, she admitted as she headed for the children’s bedroom. He’d given her a day out, a day off. If he’d been a stranger she would have spent time thanking him.
She should still thank him.
Except … he’d kissed her. He’d said he loved her.
She stood in the kids’ bedroom, between the two cots, watching them sleeping in the dim light cast by a Humpty Dumpty figure that glowed a soft pink to blue and then back again.
She had to work with him, she reminded herself. She needed to get things back to a formal footing, fast.
Resolute, she grabbed her phone and texted.
Thank you for today. It was really generous. The kiss was a mistake but I dare say the gulls are grateful. And Mum and I are grateful, too.
That’s what was needed, she thought. Make it light. Put the gratitude back to the plural—herself and her mother—and the seagulls? She was thanking someone she’d once known for a generous gesture.
Only … was it more than that? Surely.
He’d kissed her. Her fingers crept involuntarily to her mouth. She could still feel him, she thought. She could still taste him.
After five years, her body hadn’t forgotten him.
Her body still wanted him.
He’d said he still loved her.
Had she been crazy to walk away from him all those years ago? Her body said yes, but here in this silent house, listening to the breathing of two children who’d become her own, knowing clearly and bleakly where they’d be if she hadn’t taken them in, she could have no regrets. Her mind didn’t.
It was only her heart and her body that said something else entirely.
What he wanted to do was stand outside and watch the house for a while. Why? Because it felt like his family was in there.
That was a dumb thought. He’d laid down his ultimatum five years ago and he’d moved on. He’d had five professionally satisfying years getting the skills he needed to be one of the world’s top in-utero surgeons. Babies lived now because of him. He’d never have had that chance if he’d stayed here—if he’d become part of Em’s menagerie.
He couldn’t stay standing outside the house, like a stalker, like someone creepy. What he’d like was to take his little Morgan for a long drive along the coast. The car was like his balm, his escape.
Em had smashed his car. She’d also smashed … something else.
She’d destroyed the equilibrium he’d built around himself over the last few years. She’d destroyed the fallacy that said he was a loner; that said he didn’t need anyone.
He wanted her. Fiercely, he wanted her. He’d kissed her tonight and it would have been worth all the fish.
It had felt right.
It had felt like he’d been coming home.
His phone pinged and he flipped it open. Em’s polite thank-you note greeted him, and he snapped it shut.
She was making light of the kiss. Maybe that was wise.
Dammit, he couldn’t keep standing here. Any moment now she’d look out the window and see him. Ex-husband loitering …
He headed back to the hire car. He had an apartment at the hospital but he wasn’t ready for sleep yet. Instead, he headed back to the beach. He parked, got rid of his shoes and walked along the sand.
The
