realised what he’d just said. Out of her hair meant—‘Are you telling me that once you’ve washed the smoke from the walls you’re going to leave?’
His face was pale but his eyes were no longer empty. They were haunted.
She’d taken part in regular fire safety drills, done all the right things. Switched off the power, thrown the damp tea towel he’d been using over the kettle and then doused it thoroughly with the extinguisher, but he was reliving what had happened to Rachel. Their baby.
‘Cleve—’
‘You’re right, Miranda,’ he said. ‘Your family will be there for you and your baby.’
‘My baby?’
‘The last thing you need is me messing up your life any more than I have done. I’ll sort out financial support when I get back.’
Financial...?
An hour ago she would have sworn that nothing would have shifted him. Now, because of a stupid accident, he was staring into the past, reliving the horror. He wasn’t just pale, he was grey, but she didn’t need a degree in psychology to know that leaving now would be the very worst thing he could do.
Behaving like a pathetic little diva was totally alien to her nature but needs must; she had to stop him any way she could and she grabbed at the first excuse that came to mind.
‘What will I do if there’s another of those horrible spiders?’
‘I’ve brought you something to deter the spiders.’
He had? ‘I’m not using some dangerous poisonous spray.’
‘It’s peppermint oil. I asked the woman in the grocery store and she recommended it.’
‘Peppermint oil?’
‘Apparently vinegar is just as good but I thought the smell of peppermint would be easier to live with. You add a few drops to water and spray in the cracks.’
‘Oh...’ Without warning her throat filled up and her eyes began to sting.
He frowned, took a step towards her. ‘Are you crying?’
If that was what it took...
‘It happens all the time,’ she said, flapping a hand in front of her face. ‘It’s the hormones.’
He was wearing that helpless look of a man faced with a woman having emotional collywobbles and she took pitiless advantage. ‘It’s not just the spiders. There are storms at this time of year. Or a tremor might bring the rest of the roof down and there’ll be no one to dig me out,’ she said, piling on the drama.
His jaw tightened and the forward momentum stopped.
‘I have no doubt that Matt Stark will leap on his scooter and come racing to your rescue.’
Without warning she lost it. ‘I’m not having Matthew Stark’s baby!’ she yelled. ‘I’m having yours!’
Andie heard the words leaving her mouth but it was like listening to a stranger. Not her but some mouthy, out-of-control character in a television soap opera.
She’d poked the hormone genie and, let loose, it was having the time of its life. Unfortunately, it had overdone the drama because Cleve’s response was to retreat, not physically but mentally. The flash of concern that had momentarily lit up his eyes had gone. There was nothing coming back from him and in the silence that followed her outburst there was only the sound of a throat being cleared.
‘I’ll, um, just leave this here.’
Matt very carefully placed two carriers and a petrol can just inside the side gate before backing out and closing it behind him.
CLEVE LOOKED AT the bags then, as if nothing had happened, he looked back at her.
‘You don’t have to stay here,’ he said. ‘You can come back with me in the Lear.’
Andie shook her head. ‘That’s not going to happen.’
All that waited for her at home was an ending. Putting her flat on the market, saying goodbye to the people she’d worked with, to the job she loved. Saying hello to a direct-debit relationship with Cleve.
‘Have you any idea how long it’s been since I’ve had a holiday?’ she demanded. ‘More to the point, how long is it since you’ve had a holiday?’
He glanced up at the roof with its missing tiles. ‘I don’t know about you but I’m pretty sure that the last time I booked a holiday there wasn’t a hole in the roof.
‘It was thatch, as I recall.’
Rachel had been full of the exotic spa resort in the Far East but at the last minute some crisis had blown up that only Cleve could handle. Rather than cancel and rebook, she’d gone on her own.
How he must regret that now.
‘I wasn’t looking forward to the mud baths, steam wraps and heaven knows what other tortures were lined up for me,’ he said, his face devoid of expression. ‘Rachel had a much better time without me.’
She’d certainly come back glowing and then, just weeks later, she was dead.
‘Yes, well, all that lounging about in the sun and swilling cocktails is so yesterday,’ she said, as whatever demon had been driving her disappeared like early morning mist rising from a valley, leaving nothing but embarrassment. ‘These days smart people go to Cumbria and pay for the privilege of repairing footpaths and building dry stone walls in the pouring rain.’
‘No risk of fire, then.’
‘Forget the stupid fire. What happened was nothing more than a minor drama.’ Okay, if she hadn’t smelt the smoke the house could have burned down, but she had and it didn’t. ‘The roof didn’t collapse, no one was hurt. It will be one of those “Do you remember when...?” stories that we’ll all be laughing about years from now.’
‘Laughing?’
‘Yes.’ Laughing as they embroidered the story for a little boy who was the image of Cleve. ‘Idiot Daddy, brave Mama, comic-opera firefighters...’
For a moment she saw them all at some family gathering: her parents and her sisters, sitting around a table, the children wide-eyed, the adults laughing at stories that had grown with the telling. The image was so real that a chill whispered through her, the realisation that unless she did something, something truly brave, it was about to slip away from them, be lost for ever.
Cleve would eventually get past his grief, marry someone else, have a family...while the bundle of cells, the promise of life within her, would become an awkward adjunct to his real life. Someone they would make an effort to include but who would always be on the outside looking in.
‘Laughing?’ he repeated furiously, bringing her back to reality. ‘You could have died!’
His angry words echoed around the courtyard.
She could have died. Like Rachel.
As if a switch had tripped in her brain she was no longer playing the role. Rachel was dead but she was alive and this was for real. Her own feelings didn’t matter; this wasn’t just about her. This was for Cleve and their baby, and she’d fight tooth and nail, make a complete fool of herself if that was what it took to make him let go of the past, look to the future.
‘Could have but didn’t. I’m right here and so is our baby. What happened to your offer to be there for our child, Cleve? To make a home? A family?’
He seemed shocked by her sudden switch, her attack, and his blank expression was replaced by confusion; hardly surprising since she’d made it clear that she didn’t need his sacrifice on the altar