comforting life that had abruptly changed beyond all recognition when her mother and father had separated.
He didn’t realise Ailsa had returned until she stood in front of him, holding out a steaming mug of aromatic black coffee. Gratefully Jake took it. ‘Just what the doctor ordered.’ He tried for a smile but knew it was a poor effort.
‘How is your mother coping since she lost your dad?’
He watched his pretty ex-wife walk across the room in that graceful, mesmerising way she had that made her look as if she glided. She’d always had that balletic quality about her, and the blue denim jeans she was wearing highlighted her slender thighs and tiny waist—especially with the broad leather belt she wore around her sweater. As she sat down on the other couch he tried to curtail his irrational disappointment that she’d chosen not to sit beside him. Her slender ringless fingers wrapped themselves around a mug of tea. From memory, Jake knew it was rare that Ailsa drank coffee. But he didn’t dwell long on that. Inside he was reeling at the unexpected sight of the missing wedding band on her finger—another painful demonstration that their marriage had well and truly ended.
Clearing his throat, he garnered the defences that he’d fine-honed during the past four years without her. ‘Outwardly she seems to be coping well,’ he replied. ‘Inwardly is another matter.’ He could have been talking about himself …
‘Well, then, perhaps it’s a good thing that Saskia stays with her for a bit longer. It’s been, what …? Six months since your dad died?’
‘About that.’ Sipping the too-hot coffee, he grimaced as the beverage scalded his tongue. If it was Ailsa’s aim to hold out an olive branch by not making a fuss about their daughter staying with her grandmother and spoiling her plans for the lead-up to Christmas, then he didn’t intend to take it. He couldn’t seem to help resenting the fact that she was clearly getting on with her life quite well without him.
‘And how about you?’ she persisted, low-voiced, leaning slightly forward, amber gaze concerned.
‘What about me?’
‘How are you coping with the loss of your dad?’
‘I’m a busy man, with a worldwide property business to run … I don’t have time to dwell on anything other than my work and my daughter.’
‘You mean you don’t have time to mourn your father? That can’t be good.’
‘Sometimes we all have to be pragmatic.’ His spine stiffening, Jake put the ceramic mug down on a nearby side-table then flattened his palms over his knees. Ailsa had always wanted to get to the heart of things and it seemed that nothing had changed there. Except that he didn’t feel like spilling his guts to her about his feelings any more … been there, done that. He had the bruises on his heart to prove it.
‘I remember that you and he had your differences, and I just thought that his passing might be an opportunity for you to reflect on the good things about your relationship, that’s all.’
‘Like I said … I’ve been too busy. He’s gone, and it’s sad, but one of the things he taught me himself was to rise above my emotions and simply get on with whatever is in front of me. At the end of the day that’s helped me cope with the “slings and arrows” of life far more than wallowing in my pain. If you don’t agree with such a strategy then I’m sorry, but that’s how it is.’
He sensed his temper and his unreasonableness rising. Privately he had nothing but contempt for such a tack. Leaving his father’s death and his regret that they hadn’t found a way to communicate more healthily aside, he reminded himself that he wasn’t the only one in this one-time marriage who had been to the depths of hell and back. In the four years since their divorce Ailsa had grown noticeably thinner, and there were faint new lines around her sweetly shaped mouth. Perhaps she wasn’t getting on with her life that well? He yearned to know how she was really coping. Saskia had told him that her mother worked long hours at her arts and crafts business, even at the weekends. There was no need for her to work at all. The divorce settlement he’d made for her was substantial, and that was the way he wanted it.
Jake frowned. ‘Why are you working so hard?’ he demanded, before he’d realised he intended to ask.
‘What?’
‘Saskia told me that you work day and night at this arts and crafts thing.’
‘Arts and crafts thing?’ She was immediately offended. ‘I run a thriving local business that keeps me busy when I’m not doing the school run or tending to Saskia, and I love it. What did you expect me to do when we broke up, Jake? Sit around twiddling my thumbs? Or perhaps you expected me to spend my divorce settlement on a chic new wardrobe every season? Or the latest sports car? Or get interior designers in with pointless regularity to remodel the house?’
Wearily he rubbed his hand round his jaw. At the same time her words made him sit up straight. When he’d met her and married her he had never envisaged Ailsa as a businesswoman in the making. ‘It’s good to hear that your business is going well. And as regards the settlement, it’s entirely up to you what you do with the money. As long as you take proper care of Saskia when she’s with you—that’s all I care about. I’ve noticed that you look tired, as well as the fact you’ve clearly lost weight … that’s why I asked. I don’t want you wearing yourself out when you don’t have to.’
Her expression pained, Ailsa tightened her hands round her mug of tea. ‘I’m not wearing myself out. I look tired because sometimes I don’t sleep very well, that’s all. It’s a bit of a legacy from the accident, I’m afraid. But it’s okay … I try and catch up with some rest whenever I can—even if it’s during the day.’
If a heavyweight boxer had slammed his fist into his gut right then Jake couldn’t have been more winded. It took him a few moments to get the words teeming in his brain to travel to his mouth. ‘I told you years ago that you should get some help from the doctor to help you sleep better. Why haven’t you?’
As she shook her head, her long chestnut hair glanced against the sides of her face. ‘I’ve seen enough doctors to make me weary of ever seeing another one again. Besides … I don’t want to take sleeping pills and walk round like a zombie. And unless the medical profession has found an infallible method for eradicating hurtful memories—because it’s those that keep me awake at night—then I’ll just have to get on with it. Isn’t that what you advocate yourself?’
‘Dear God!’ Jake pushed to his feet. How was he supposed to endure the pain he heard in her voice? The pain he held himself responsible for?
Yes, they’d been hit by a drunk driver that dark, rainy night when their world had come to an end, but he still should have been able to do something to avert the accident. Sometimes at night, deep in the midst of troubled sleep, he still heard his wife’s heartrending moans of pain and shock in the car beside him … He’d promised in their marriage vows to love and protect her always and that cruel December night he hadn’t … He hadn’t. He just thanked God that Saskia had been staying with his parents at the time and hadn’t been in the car with them. It didn’t bear thinking about that his child might have been hurt as badly as her mother.
He must be a masochist, he reflected. Why had he come here to tell Ailsa himself that Saskia was prolonging her stay with his mother? He could so easily have got his chauffeur Alain to do the deed. Wasn’t that what he’d done for the past four years, so he wouldn’t have to come face to face with the woman he’d once loved beyond imagining? Wasn’t
