of her distress, she would have sent him packing without Gabriel knowing anything about it and it would have been the end of the incident.
But Gabriel’s timing had been all wrong and so had Jeremy’s for that matter. They had all paid a high price for what had happened in the moment when his self-control had snapped. She could hear the engines of another passenger launch approaching and she sighed. It had stopped, and the peace she craved would be gone if others had the same thought in mind that she’d had.
Calling Sophie and Josh to her, she began to pour the cold drinks that she’d brought and almost dropped the flask when a shadow fell across her and the children came to a halt as if they’d seen a ghost.
She turned slowly with a tingling down her spine and when she looked up Gabriel was there, observing her gravely, and it was as if the four of them had been turned to stone, until Sophie broke the silence by crying ‘Daddy!’ and began running towards him, with Josh not far behind. As he scooped them up into his arms Laura saw the wetness of tears on his cheeks and thought achingly that this was a moment that none of them should ever have had to endure, but it had been thrust upon them. Where did they go from here?
Desperate to get away from the place where her life had been shattered, she’d spent the time that Gabriel had been away from her and the children picking up the pieces by moving to a new home in a beautiful Lakeland paradise, and although it had only been half a life without him there, she’d coped and would continue to do so whatever the outcome of his coming back to them.
When the children had calmed down after lots of hugs and kisses and were tucking into the food, she asked in a low voice, ‘How did you know where to find us?’
‘I didn’t. I was parking the car by the lakeside when I saw the three of you in the distance boarding one of the launches, but it had sailed by the time I got there. I asked the girl in the ticket office if she knew where you were bound for. She said the island, so I caught the next boat.’
‘I see. So you decided to come earlier?’
‘Yes, but I’m not staying.’
‘Oh, fine!’ she said coolly. ‘The children won’t like that! Don’t you think they’ve waited long enough to be with you?’
‘Yes, I do, but, Laura, my life has been on hold for long enough. I have things to sort out at the hospital, matters that have accumulated while I’ve been in prison. I want the way ahead to be clear with regard to my career, so that I know my position, what I’m doing.’
The hurt inside her was beyond bearing as she listened to what he was saying and it came forth in anger as she said tightly, ‘So nothing changes Gabriel? It’s still career first and family second.’ She glanced at the children, who were out of earshot. ‘Well, don’t let us stop you. Do dash off to wherever it is you prefer to be.’
‘Would it be all right to stay the night?’ he asked, with no answer forthcoming to her protest.
‘You shouldn’t need to ask!’
The vestige of a smile was tugging at the corners of the mouth that had kissed her a thousand times in what seemed like another life.
‘All right, then,’ he said, adding with grim humour, ‘Just as long as the sheets are of Egyptian cotton. My bedding of recent months has hardly been luxurious, and if the house has a spare room, that will do fine’
She turned away. How could he joke about something like that and at the same time make it clear that he didn’t want to sleep with her? With a change of subject she pointed to the food and said stiffly, ‘There is plenty to eat. What would you like to drink?’
As he squatted down on the grass, with the children chattering one on either side, it seemed so normal that she could hardly believe that for what had seemed like for ever the only man she had ever loved had been serving a custodial sentence for grievous bodily harm because of what had been the worst day of her life.
‘I hope you’ll like the house,’ she said uncomfortably when they arrived at Swallows Barn with the children still on a high, having been driven home in Gabriel’s car.
‘If you are happy with it, that is all that matters,’ he said levelly.
Sophie urged, ‘Come and see my room, Daddy!’
‘And mine!’ Josh said, and as the three of them went upstairs together Laura thought that Gabriel could tell the children that he wasn’t staying. She wasn’t going to be responsible for causing them any upset.
When they were asleep after receiving a promise from their father that he would take them to school the next morning, an awkward silence fell upon the house until it was broken by Gabriel asking casually, ‘So what is the medical centre like in this place, Laura?’
Was that all he could talk about, health care? But she answered civilly enough, explaining who was who and outlining her responsibilities.
They’d passed the practice on the way home and he’d noticed that a new building was being erected on the large plot of land next to it and had wanted to know what it was going to be.
‘It is going to be a clinic that will be an offshoot of the main oncology unit at the local hospital,’ she told him. ‘All the staff at the surgery are very excited about it.’
‘Hmm, impressive forward thinking,’ he commented. ‘When is it due to open?’
‘Some time in the autumn if all goes according to plan.’
But she had questions of her own to ask and they weren’t about health care. It was the first time she’d had the opportunity to ask him what it had been like being shut away from his life’s work at the hospital and his family, and was hoping that his reply would give her some degree of understanding of the stranger that he had become.
‘So what was it like in there?’ she asked gently, and watched his face close up.
‘It was a piece of cake.’
‘I’m not asking for mockery,’ she told him. ‘I want the truth.’
It had been hell on earth being away from them, but he had brought it on himself. He must have been insane to think that Laura would have anything to do with the low life from next door, but seeing that creep with his arms around her had ignited a fury like he’d never known. Perhaps in hindsight his uncharacteristic behaviour had been amplified by his feelings of guilt over neglecting Laura.
He’d flung himself at the man like a coiled spring and since that moment life had been totally unreal, but Laura was waiting for an answer and so, referring to the lighter side of his sentence, he said, ‘I worked in the prison hospital for most of the time, which provided some degree of job satisfaction, and had a constant stream of inmates queuing up outside my cell for advice regarding their health problems, true or imaginary, but the nights were long.’
How long he couldn’t bear to tell her, with visions of her coping with the children on her own, and in the middle of it all moving house, which showed clearly that by the time he was released she wanted to have made a new life for herself.
There had been indications that Laura wanted him to join her and the children in their new home, but he didn’t want to rush into anything. Things had been going wrong between them even before that terrible incident. There was no
