don’t you?’ Nick murmured, and Mike nodded.
‘Can’t imagine doing anything else, but it’s a constant reminder of our own failure. With a dairy herd, all you do all the time is monitor their pregnancies and deliver their calves and manage their lactation. And it’s impossible not to draw parallels.’ He smiled, but he could feel it was off kilter. ‘If we were livestock, Fran and I would be shot. It seems we’re useless together. Giant pandas have more success.’
‘That’s not true. Fran’s been pregnant before, and you achieved a pregnancy on your first cycle of IVF.’
‘Yeah—which we also lost. We can’t afford another cycle at the moment, and we’ve run out of NHS funding, so where do we go from here? It wouldn’t be so damned frustrating if they could find anything wrong with us! But they can’t, Nick. We’re both well, there are no physical problems, we just can’t seem to get it right. And right now I’m not sure I even want to, the way we are. Well, the way Fran is, anyway. I just can’t get through to her at all.’
‘But that’s probably just a reaction to the miscarriage. Perhaps she needs to talk it through. Will she come to see me?’
Mike snorted again and shook his head. ‘Not a chance. She might talk to Kate—woman to woman and all that.’
Nick’s mouth tightened, and then he nodded. ‘That could work. She knows Kate. It’s an idea.’
One that was growing on Mike by the second. Kate was working as a midwife again now, and Fran had known her for years because of her son, Jem, who was at the school. Maybe she’d be able to get through to her. ‘She could catch her at school,’ he suggested, but Nick shook his head.
‘Not really the place. But she could call in—maybe one day after school? On her way to see Ben and Lucy? Kate does drop by from time to time to cuddle the baby. I could make sure she doesn’t have Jeremiah with her, and maybe you could make yourself unavailable?’
He laughed shortly. ‘That won’t be hard. I don’t have a lot of time to hang around. By the time Fran’s home, I’m usually milking so Kate should be able to talk to her undisturbed between four-thirty and six, and if I know she’s going to be here, I can always drag it out.’
‘Sure. Give me your mobile number. I’ll let you know what she’s planning so you’re forewarned.’
He pulled out his phone and they swapped numbers, and then Mike turned his back on the cattle and stared out over the sea, which was flat and smooth and sparkling, the lazy swell scarcely visible. The surfers wouldn’t be happy today, but the families with little children would be having a great time, just as they themselves had had with Sophie last weekend—just as they might one day be doing with another child of their own. His chest tightened with longing and he hauled in a breath and turned back to the GP.
‘Thanks, Nick,’ he said gruffly. ‘I don’t know if it’ll do any good, but thanks for trying.’
‘You’re welcome. And you can call me whenever you want a chat, you know. Any time.’
Mike nodded, and they strolled back to the house in thoughtful silence. Nick went in, lifting his hand in farewell, and Mike nodded and set off back across the fields to the farm.
Fran would kill him for interfering, but he couldn’t watch her falling apart any longer. He just hoped that Kate was able to reach her, because frankly he was at a loss, and if something didn’t happen soon, the remains of their marriage would be unsalvageable.
He tried a little salvage that night.
They’d had supper, and for once they were sitting down together in front of the television. There was nothing on that either of them really seemed to want to watch, though, so he turned it off, found an easy-listening CD, soft and lazy and romantic, and instead of going back to his chair he went over to the sofa and sat down beside her, giving her shoulder an affectionate little rub.
‘You OK, my love?’
She nodded, but she didn’t meet his eyes and there wasn’t a trace of a smile. ‘Just tired. I’ll be glad when the holidays come.’
‘So will I. You can give me a hand—we’ll try that new fresh curd cheese you’ve been talking about.’
Beneath his hand her shoulder drooped a little, then she straightened up. ‘Yes, we can do that. I might give Sarah a hand with the ice cream as well. See if we can get the raspberry one smoother. It’s a bit too juicy and it tends to get ice crystals.’
‘It’s gorgeous. Maybe it just needs stirring for longer as it cools, and agitating more often. You’ve got it cracked with the strawberry, doing that. Maybe it just needs more of the same.’
‘Maybe. We’ll try a few things, see how we do.’
She stood up, moving away from him, and went out, coming back a moment later with a book. So much for cuddling up together on the sofa. He peered at the cover.
‘Anything interesting?’ he asked, and she lifted the book so he could see it.
‘CBT—cognitive behaviour therapy. One of my pupils is having it, so I thought I’d read up a bit.’
And she curled up in the corner of the sofa again, opened the book and shut him out as effectively as if she’d left the room.
So he did.
He went upstairs, had a shower for the second time that day and came back down in a clean pair of jeans. He hadn’t bothered with a T-shirt. It was still hot and, anyway, she’d never been able to keep her hands off him when he took his shirt off. All that rippling muscle, she’d say with a smoky laugh, and grab him.
But she didn’t even look up.
The CD had finished, so he put the television back on and settled down to watch a repeat of something he hadn’t enjoyed a lot the first time round.
Anything rather than be ignored.
What was happening to them?
She raised her eyes slightly from the book and let them dwell on his body. Long, lean and rangy, his muscles sleek and strong, not the muscles of a weightlifter but of a man who worked hard with his body, and it showed.
Lord, it showed, and there’d been a time not so very long ago when she would have got up and gone over to him and run her hand over that bare, deep chest with its scattering of dark hair, teasing the flat copper coins of his nipples until they were tight and pebbled under her fingertips. Then she’d run her hands down his ribcage, feeling the bones, the muscles, the heat of his body radiating out, warming her to her heart.
He would have pulled her onto his lap, his eyes laughing, and then the laughter would fade, and he’d kiss her, his hands exploring her body, searching out its secret places, driving her crazy with his sure, gentle touch.
What was that song about a lover with a slow hand? That was Mike—or it had been. Just lately he didn’t seem to be interested, and if he had been, she wouldn’t have. Just the thought of him touching her so intimately made her shrink away. She didn’t think she could cope with the intimacy, baring her soul to him as well as her body. Not when her soul was hurting so much and her body had become public property with all the investigations. Even the idea of being touched there …
