LITMIR.BIZ

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woman. It had just been a kiss.

      Yes, but what a kiss. If a kiss could wipe a woman’s logic away as this one had… If a kiss could make her feel beautiful…

      She wasn’t beautiful. She had to get her bearings. She had to be sensible.

      ‘We don’t want anything to happen?’ Charles queried, and she bit her lip.

      ‘Certainly not.’

      ‘Any particular reason?’

      ‘We’re too old.’

      ‘Hey! Speak for yourself.’

      ‘I didn’t mean…’ She swallowed. ‘Charles, maybe I need to say… I just don’t want…’ Another swallow. Another attempt. ‘I’m not going to be what you might call a jealous wife. I don’t know what you do now…’

      ‘For sex, you mean?’ he asked, and affront had given way to bemusement.

      ‘I don’t need to know,’ she said hurriedly. ‘I mean… I don’t even know…’

      ‘If I can?’ he said, still bemused. ‘I can.’ Damn him, he was enjoying her discomfiture.

      ‘That’s…that’s good. I guess. So if you want to…’

      ‘If I want to then you’ll permit it? But not with you?’

      ‘Just because you kissed me doesn’t mean I’m expecting…’

      ‘What if I want to?’

      ‘You don’t want to,’ she said flatly. ‘Or, at least, I don’t. Look, it was a very romantic evening, for which I thank you. I love my ring.’ She glanced down at it, a moonbeam caught it at just the right angle and she saw fire. ‘I really love my ring. But what we’re doing is practical.’

      ‘You don’t find me—’

      ‘Don’t ask,’ she snapped. ‘It’s ludicrous.’

      ‘Of course it’s ludicrous,’ he said, and the trace of laughter died from his voice as if it had never been.

      What…? Oh, God. ‘I didn’t mean that,’ she whispered, mortified.

      ‘Of course you didn’t.’ He turned back to the wheel and flicked the engine into life. ‘Don’t worry. I won’t touch you again. It’s time we were home.’

      ‘Charles…’

      ‘It’s OK,’ he said wearily. ‘As you say, we’re too old. Let’s go and pick up Lily and tell her she has two very respectable prospective parents.’

      Jill shrank back into the passenger seat and felt about six inches tall. She’d never meant to infer she found Charles’s disability offensive. Or even a bar to…well, to anything.

      It was just that she didn’t want anything. She didn’t want contact at all.

      She surely didn’t want to risk those sensations coursing through her that threatened to undermine the control she’d fought like a wildcat to regain after her marriage. She never wanted to be exposed again.

      She should apologise to Charles. His face was set and grim, and she could lighten it. She could make him smile.

      But…but…

      Did she want him to smile? Not when they were alone, she thought frantically. Not when she was dressed like this, when she was wearing his ring. Not when his smile made her feel vulnerable and exposed and terrified.

      No. Better to sit here, rigid, on the far side of the car, to school her expression into passive nothingness.

      Like a cold fish.

      She’d heard one of the younger nurses call her that once, and she’d thought, Good. That was how she wanted to be thought of. Emotional nothingness.

      But she had a daughter. Or she’d have a daughter once this marriage took place. How could she be a cold fish with a daughter?

      ‘Keeping ourselves only unto ourselves except for when we’re with Lily,’ Charles said.

      ‘You understand,’ she whispered, humbled.

      ‘We’re birds of a feather,’ he said.

      ‘Charles, I am sorry.’

      ‘Don’t be sorry,’ he said. ‘It was me who kissed you. I was overstepping the boundaries. It won’t happen again.’

      Lily was asleep when they arrived at Cal and Gina’s. Cal heard the car and brought her out to them. She was slight for her age, a wiry, freckled imp with a tangle of brown-gold curls and a smattering of freckles, just like Jill’s. She woke as Jill buckled her into her car seat but she made no demur. She was accustomed to this. Even when her parents had been alive, their love affair with rodeos meant she was very adaptable.

      ‘Goodnight, sleepyhead,’ Cal said, ruffling her tousled curls before he stepped back from the car. Then he smiled at Jill. He lifted her ring hand and whistled.

      ‘Congratulations.’ He hugged her and kissed her on the cheek. Jill found herself flushing.

      ‘It’s nothing.’

      ‘It’s fabulous,’ he said. He looked into the car at Charles and grinned. ‘Congratulations to you, too.’

      ‘Thanks,’ Charles said. ‘But we’re only doing it for Lily.’

      ‘Right,’ Cal said, sounding dubious. He looked back into the car at their sleepy little daughter. She was wearing her favourite pink pyjamas with blue moons and stars, her curls were tied up—or they had been tied up—with a huge, silver bow and there was a smudge of green paint on her nose.

      ‘We did give her a bath,’ he said ruefully. ‘With CJ. And Gina did her hair.’

      ‘I’ll give her another one before she leaves tomorrow,’ Jill said.

      ‘You’re not coming across to the island for the opening?’

      ‘I’m in charge here.’

      ‘Alistair can take over. You know he’d like—’

      ‘I’m in charge here,’ she said flatly.

      ‘But you’re telling Lily tonight, right?’

      ‘Telling me what?’ Lily asked sleepily.

      ‘What we’ve been doing tonight,’ Charles said bluntly from inside the car. ‘Come on, Jill. I need to go back to the hospital before I go to bed. I have two patients I want to see tonight and there’s packing to do afterwards. We need to move.’

      So move they did. They took Lily home and tucked her in as they’d done a score of times before this night and Jill thought, Where do we start?

      Lily started for them. She snuggled into her little bed, checked that her toys—two teddies, one giraffe, a bull like her favourite real bull, Oscar, one duck and a doll with no hair—were all lined up in their appropriate places. Then she said, ‘It’s a really pretty ring. Did Charles give it to you?’

      ‘Yes,’ Jill said, and felt helpless.

      ‘Why?’

      ‘We’ve decided to get married,’ Charles said. ‘You know your uncle came today? He says he wants you to live with a real mother and father. For some reason your Uncle Tom thinks that we can only be a real mother and father if we’re married. Jill and I want to look after you until you’re old enough to take care of yourself. So we’ve decided to get married so your Uncle Tom will let us keep you.’

      She regarded them both, her eyes wide and interested.

      ‘So you’ll look after me all the time?’

      ‘Yes,’ Jill said firmly. ‘If it’s OK with you we’ll sign papers that say no one can take you away from

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