The Pregnancy Bond

But do I really want to forget? she asked herself wistfully. Would I wipe out the last eight years? I know they took a great deal away from me, but they gave me so much.

She remembered herself at seventeen, a schoolgirl, slightly overweight, shy, lonely, earnest, not laughing enough. She’d worked hard at school, driven by dreams of escape from the dreary little provincial town and the single mother who’d resented her. Mildred Harmon had still been in her thirties, ‘with my own life to live’, a phrase she’d used often and with meaning.

The last year at school had been punctuated by various lectures about career options. Kelly’s sights were set on a brilliant college career, but she’d attended the meeting about journalism, expecting to see Harry Buckworth, editor of the local rag, whom she knew slightly. But Harry had gone down with flu. Instead he’d sent Jake, who’d been on the paper a year.

And that was it. All over in a moment. The twenty-four-year-old Jake had been like a young god to the ultra-serious schoolgirl. Tall, lean, jeans-clad, spinning words like the devil. And such words: a fine yet powerful web of bright colours that turned the schoolroom into a magic cave. And he’d laughed. How he’d laughed! And how wonderfully rich and free it had sounded. She could have loved him for that alone.

Afterwards she’d strolled home in a dream, scheming how to meet him again, so oblivious to her surroundings that she’d collided with someone, and been halfway through her apology before she’d realised it was him.

He’d taken her for a milk shake and listened while she talked. She didn’t know what she’d said, but when they’d left the evening light had been fading and she’d returned home nervously, wondering how she would explain her absence. But the house had been empty and cold. On the kitchen table there had been a note from her mother, out with her latest boyfriend, telling her to microwave something for herself.

After that they’d seemed to bump into each other a lot, just by chance. The meetings had followed a pattern. Milk shake, talk, stroll home. Sometimes he’d helped with her school projects, looking up facts, guiding her to useful web sites, letting her bounce her ideas off him. Or he would discuss his assignments in a way that had made her feel very grown up.

Once they’d reached her home to find Mildred peering through the curtains and beckoning them in. She’d looked Jake up and down thoughtfully, and when he’d left, said to her daughter,

‘Watch out for him. You’re becoming a pretty girl.’

She didn’t know how to say that Jake had never so much as kissed her, but two weeks later, on her eighteenth birthday he finally did so, taking her into seventh heaven.

‘I was waiting for you to be old enough,’ he said.

Life was brilliant then. Mildred, evidently feeling she’d done her motherly duty, was out more than she was in, and Kelly was free to indulge her happiness.

Then Jake had lost his job.

‘I had to fire him,’ Harry explained when Kelly buttonholed him. ‘He’s a hard worker, I admit, but by golly he’s an opinionated young devil.’

‘A good journalist needs opinions,’ Kelly protested, parroting Jake. ‘And he shouldn’t be afraid to stand by them.’

‘Standing by them is one thing. Riding roughshod over everyone is another. There was this assignment, an important one—I told him how it should be handled, and he just went his own way, wouldn’t take advice. I had to be away for a day and when I came back the paper was nearly to bed. If it had gone in like that it would have offended our biggest advertiser—’

‘Advertisers!’ Kelly said scornfully.

‘That’s him talking,’ Harry said. ‘He’s brash, thoughtless, and he’s got more mouth than sense.’

And it was true, Kelly thought now, standing in her kitchen eight years later. Brash, opinionated, cocky, insufferable. When he got in front of a camera it all turned to gold, but we couldn’t have known that then. And I knew him when he wasn’t like that…

She forced herself back to reality. She’d promised herself not to hark back to the past, and it was time to be firm and drive Jake out. She returned to the living room, ready to deliver the speech that would send him away. But it died on her lips.

Jake was where she’d left him on the sofa. The jetlag had caught up with him again and he looked as if he’d passed out the moment she left him. That was how he’d always been, she reflected. He spun his web of words, he slept, he passed on. And she should have remembered that.

It was good that he’d slipped away from her yet again. It got things in perspective.

CHAPTER THREE

SHE fetched a blanket from the cupboard and gently draped it over him. Then she turned out the lights and made her way to her bedroom, but no sooner had she closed the door when a loud thump made her open it again. In the half-light from her bedroom she could see Jake on the floor.

‘Hell!’ he said, shaking his head. ‘What was that?’

‘You turned over too far and fell off the sofa,’ she said.

‘Uh-huh!’ He yawned and rubbed his eyes.

She rearranged the cushions and when he’d hoisted himself back up she began to take off his shoes. ‘Let’s get you comfortable,’ she said, swinging his legs back into position and drawing the blanket up.

‘Are you going to tuck me up?’ he asked with a grin.

In the near darkness she could discern little about his face except the mischievous gleam in his eyes. The likeness to a cheeky kid was so clear that she assumed a motherly, teasing tone. ‘Yes, I am, so you be good.’

‘I’m always good.’

‘Yeah. Sure. ’Night.’

She wasn’t sure how he did it, but one moment his arms were safely tucked under the blanket and the next they were around her waist.

‘Don’t I get a goodnight kiss?’

‘No,’ she said, although he was already pulling her near. ‘Jake, this isn’t just goodnight. It’s goodbye.’

‘A goodbye kiss, then.’

One last time couldn’t do any harm, she promised herself as he drew her closer. She was armoured against him now, and this was a good way to prove it.

The shape of his mouth was a shock. She knew it well, yet somehow it felt unfamiliar. It seemed such a long time since she’d last felt it against her own. There had been no kissing in the last weeks of their marriage. She’d seen his mouth tight with exasperation, and finally hard with anger. Now it was firmly purposeful, yet gentle, as she’d first loved it. She’d longed for that gentleness and had thought she would never know it again. Suddenly it was returned to her, like a present, and she couldn’t give it up just yet. She would enjoy it for a moment, and be strong later.

They kissed like strangers exploring new territory, intrigued, ready to be surprised, even more ready to follow the dancing light of desire. His mouth was eager against hers, even a little predatory in a way that thrilled her. Lips that were purposefully seductive, arms like steel bands, hands that were tender even as they imprisoned her: this was Jake at his most overwhelming.

Into her mind crept the unwanted memory of Craig—Craig somebody—who’d had the temerity to whisk a scoop from under Jake’s nose. He’d smiled pleasantly, stood Craig a drink, acted the good loser. But the following week he’d trumped him with a much bigger scoop that turned Craig’s story into small potatoes.

‘I’m not a good loser,’ he’d explained.

Kelly had divorced him, rejected him in the eyes of the world, made him look like a loser. No way was he going to leave without reclaiming her. Even if nobody else suspected, the two of them would know, and that would be enough for him.

So the moment to be strong was now. Not later, now. And she would manage it—in just a moment. Something in the movements of his lips was making her resolution slip away. His tongue teased her, flickering against her mouth, urging her not to be a spoilsport. It began to seem ridiculous not to do something she really wanted so much, and suddenly her mouth was open to him, inviting him to explore, for his own delight and hers.

The tip of his tongue, wickedly caressing her inner cheek, sent delicious tremors through her. Too late for caution now, she thought, challenging him back. Wherever this led, she had no choice but to follow. She moved in slowly, taking control of the kiss, surprising him. She could feel his astonishment in her flesh, in her bones.

After a few minutes of intense mutual enjoyment he drew away, regarding her. His eyebrows were raised, giving him a quizzical look.

‘Hmm,’ he said, considering. ‘Yvonne? Helena?’

She drew a swift breath. ‘Carlotta,’ she said, greatly daring.

‘Well, that’s what I thought—hoped—because she sounds such an interesting lady.’

‘You don’t know just how interesting,’ she murmured with a little chuckle. ‘Not that she lets everyone in on the secret.’

‘Always ready for a new experience,’ he repeated her words from earlier in the evening.