sorry. It’s just—I’ll move.’
‘No!’
The word was out before she could stop it, and he froze again. ‘Fran, please. I can’t do this. Can’t lie here night after night, wanting you like this, and—’
‘Wanting me?’ she breathed, stunned. Turning, she stared at him in the moonlight. ‘Do you want me? I thought you didn’t.’
‘Of course I want you,’ he whispered roughly. ‘I’ll always want you.’
‘But—you’ve been avoiding me. Going over to the farm office, telling me not to wait up, getting out of bed in the morning without waking me.’
‘I’ve always done that. I never wake you that early.’
‘Not like this, Mike. Not like this, so I thought you didn’t love me any more.’
‘Oh, Frankie, of course I love you.’ He sighed. ‘I just …’
‘Just can’t bring yourself to touch me?’ she said, her voice hollow to her ears—hollow and empty, like her heart.
‘No! How could you think that?’
‘Then why are you avoiding me?’ she wailed softly, ridiculously, all but inviting him to make love to her when she couldn’t even contemplate his intimate touch.
He sighed again, his hand coming up, the knuckles grazing her cheek with infinite tenderness. ‘It’s not that I can’t bring myself to touch you, Fran. It’s—oh, hell, much more complicated than that.’
‘Then tell me! Talk to me, Mike!’
He didn’t answer, but she could hear the cogs turning, feel the tension radiating out of him.
‘Mike?’
‘Frankie, I’m no good with words. I’m a farmer, for God’s sake. I don’t talk about my feelings.’
‘Why?’ she asked. ‘Why not? Dammit, I’m not enjoying this either, but we have to talk. Our marriage is in tatters, we’re falling apart and I’m trying here, really trying to get through to you, to sort it out, to find out if we’ve still got anything, and I can’t do that on my own! I can’t lay myself bare, wide open to you—not on my own! You have to do it too, Mike. You have to tell me how you feel. You have to share. Please …’
Her voice cracked, and with a ragged sigh he reached out and found her hands in the darkness, gripping them so tight she nearly cried out, but she wasn’t letting go, not now, when they were so close …
‘It’s not that I can’t bring myself to touch you,’ he said gruffly. ‘Far from it. It’s more that—I daren’t.’
‘Daren’t?’ she breathed. ‘Why ever not?’
He hesitated an age, then said, so softly she could hardly hear him, ‘In case you get pregnant.’
She froze with shock. So she was right, she thought numbly, her eyes searching his but unable to read them in the shadows. Her voice cracking, she said desperately, ‘I knew you didn’t want a child with me—’
‘Oh, Frankie, no!’ He reached out, wrapped her in his arms, dragged her against his chest with a groan of protest. ‘Of course I want a child with you. But every time you’re pregnant, every time you lose it—I just can’t bear to watch you go through that, sweetheart—not again. I can’t bear watching you fall apart, seeing what I’ve done to you destroying you—’
‘What you’ve done?’ She pushed away, tilting her head so she could look into his eyes, her hand cradling his face. ‘Mike, don’t be silly! You’ve done nothing to me.’
‘Except get you pregnant with dodgy sperm.’
‘We don’t know that. It could be my eggs. Maybe they’re dodgy. What makes you think it’s you? There’s nothing dodgy about Sophie.’
‘Maybe she was a one-off. My lucky break. And anyway, you’ve been avoiding me, too,’ he added softly. ‘Sometimes, when I’ve reached the end of my tether and I really, really needed you, you’ve turned away, reading a book or going to have a bath or—I don’t know, almost anything rather than be alone with me. I’ve even wondered …’
‘Wondered what?’ she asked, when the silence stretched on.
‘If there was someone else.’
‘Mike! You know I wouldn’t!’
‘I know. I do know. Or I know you wouldn’t have an affair, at least, but—you can’t stop yourself falling in love, Frankie. And if there’s someone else—someone you’d rather be with—I know you don’t want me to touch you. I’ve felt you recoil …’
‘When?’
‘The other night?’
‘Oh, Mike.’ She felt tears fill her eyes, felt the anguish in his voice cut through her like a knife. ‘It wasn’t that.’
‘What, then? What is it that makes you flinch away from me as if I’m somehow … repugnant to you?’
‘Oh, darling, you’re not. Not at all. It’s just—I feel like a medical investigation. As if so many people have looked at me there, touched me, talked about me—as if the part of me that had belonged to us is suddenly public property. And I don’t know if I could bear for you to touch me, or if it’ll just bring it all back—’ She broke off, biting her lip, then went on unsteadily, ‘Mike, I don’t know if I can respond to you any more. I don’t know if it hasn’t just killed it for me, and I’m scared to find out.’
His breath sighed against her face, warm and reassuring. ‘Oh, Frankie. Oh, my love—what’s happened to us?’ he whispered, folding her against his chest again and rocking her. She could still feel the brush of his erection, but softer now, less urgent, and as he cradled her so her confidence grew, her need to hold him, to touch him building until finally she found the courage to reach out.
‘Mike?’ Her voice was soft, gently questioning, and her hand stroked against his shadowed jaw, the rasp of stubble unbearably erotic against her palm. Leaning in to him, she brushed her lips lightly against his, tentatively, not sure of her reception or how she’d react if he took it further than this, but he wasn’t going to let her find out.
He drew back, taking her hand and turning his face into it, pressing a kiss against her palm. ‘No,’ he said softly. ‘Not tonight. Not when you’re still unsure—still not ready.’
‘I am,’ she lied, but he knew her better than that. So much better. And he was right, of course. She wasn’t ready, and maybe he wasn’t either. They still had a long way to go, a lot to unravel, much to talk through.
And for a man who didn’t talk and a woman usually too shy to reveal her inner self, it was going to be uphill all the way.
They slept in each other’s arms, only waking to the sound of his family in the kitchen at seven.
She groaned, and he chuckled and hugged her closer to
