Kissing Maggie Silver (14 page)

“Hello,” she sounded sleepy.

Belatedly he remembered the jetlag. “Sorry! Did I wake you?”

She laughed.
“Not a chance! I’ve slept so much today that I’m likely to be up all night.”

“You’re okay then?”

“I’m absolutely fine and I’m looking forward to seeing Maggie again tomorrow. You didn’t tell me what a sweetheart she is.”

“I guess I didn’t
.” His reply was deliberately dismissive. He would have to face up to whatever Maggie was beginning to mean to him soon enough now that he’d shown his hand, and when that happened he didn’t want advice or encouragement from anyone, not even Jo. The time he’d spent with the Silver family had already persuaded him that both could be the kiss of death in some situations.

“Well, what do you want?” Jo was waiting. She had known him a long time.
Ruairi never called to pass the time of day and although his dismissive remark hadn’t fooled her one little bit, she knew that if he didn’t want to discuss Maggie then they wouldn’t be discussing Maggie.

He took a deep breath, hardly able to believe what he was going to tell her.
“I’ve just received an email from Blake Wallis Productions.”

He removed the phone from his ear as her squeal of excitement nearly burst his eardrum. When he started listening again she was full of questions.

“They’ve bought it then, your documentary idea, with you presenting? When will it be shown? Where will it be shown?”

“Hang on!
It’s not quite so cut and dried as that. You know how it works Jo. Blake Wallis has expressed an interest and someone from the company wants to talk to me about my idea as soon as possible. I guess I just take it from there.”

“When do they want to see you?”

“As soon as I can manage it,” his voice dipped a bit as he told her that.

She heard it.
“Is that a problem? I know you’re on holiday but surely this is too important.”

“Of course it is.
I’ve already told them I’ll be there on Tuesday.”

“And…?”

“And nothing.”

“Hmm.
You wouldn’t want me to explain to Maggie about how important this is for your career would you?”

He sighed.
Was he really that transparent?

Before he decided how to reply Jo started talking again. “Don’t answer that.
Just do me a favor in return. I know you’ll be talking to Ollie about this so, when you do, would you remind him he needs to be over here in four weeks time latest unless he wants to risk his son being born without him.”

“Will do.” Glad to have escaped further questioning, Ruairi talked about Ollie and their forthcoming baby for a few more minutes and then, accepting her congratulations for a second time, finished the call.

Abandoning his computer he walked across the room to the minibar, poured a generous measure of whisky into a cut glass tumbler, and took it out onto the balcony. Directly above him a scatter of pale stars were strewn across the night sky. Below him the reflection of the pilot lights on the moored boats twinkled on the water. Further off he could hear the drone of traffic and see the faint orange glow where the street lamps faded out the stars altogether.

As he sipped his whisky he was suddenly seized with a fierce longing for the clear southern sky that had been so much a part of his life when he was working in New Zealand. He would love to show it to Maggie.
He knew just how she would look as she gazed up at it and saw the huge nebula of the Milky Way surrounded by the glitter of millions and trillions of stars. In his mind’s eye he could see her lying back on the sand and staring up at a sky untroubled by the sodium glare of street lamps, a sky that looked as it might have looked when earth was dawning. And he would lie back on the sand with her and when she had finished looking they would…abruptly he drained his glass and went back inside. It wouldn’t do to think about it, not now he’d heard from Blake Wallis Productions, because if his meeting with them was successful then it was going to turn his life upside down for weeks into the future. There would be no down time, no time for Maggie at all.

Closing
his email server he clicked on a file on his computer and opened it. A picture of a tiny blue penguin flashed on the screen. Without being able to help himself, he smiled. Henriqué! He’d given him his name the first time he saw him, unable to help himself because although all the penguins were amusing, Henriqué was the funniest of all with his exaggeratedly slouchy shoulders and a braying call that was so loud compared to the rest of the penguins that it sounded like a donkey in pain.

After looking at the image for a moment longer he scrolled down and started to read the accompanying text. It was full of details about the colony where Henriqu
é lived. It described the life cycle of the three hundred penguins, their breeding season, the days they spent at sea. He’d spent weeks researching everything about them and then he’d added the comic slant that he’d hoped would be the thing to fire the imagination of an editor looking for a new idea.

He finished forty minutes later, closed the file and the computer, and poured himself a second glass of whisky. Sipping it reflectively, he allowed himself a brief moment of congratulation.
His idea worked. It really worked. He’d found the little penguins so amusing every time he’d watched them that he’d eventually taken a chance with it and sent his idea to a film production company that specialized in wild life documentaries, hoping that what he was offering was just different enough to intrigue. Then he’d tried to forget about it because he knew it would be a while before he received a response. Now that someone in the company had expressed an interest he knew hoops would have to be jumped. There were no guarantees but at least he was halfway there.

Hopefully
he had found exactly the thing to move him on in his career. For a long time he’d been toying with the idea of making and presenting his own documentaries instead of just filming them for other people, and now it looked as if he was about the get the chance. It was the opportunity he had been striving for, or it had been until he met Maggie again and she had driven everything from his mind except the need to be with her whatever it took. She had taken over his thoughts to such an extent that when the email had arrived on his screen it had been like a message from a former life. His life before Maggie!

Now the two had converged, however, he was going to have to do something about it.
He frowned, abandoned his half empty glass on the coffee table, and made his way out to the balcony again. How could he make it fit?

Since this morning when, unable to help himself any longer, he had at last lowered his defenses and
kissed Maggie, he was in no doubt that she felt the same about him. Would it be enough though? She was so passionate about her own plans, so determined to take her teaching skills to where she thought they were needed, that it wouldn’t be fair to ask her to give them up. He couldn’t do it and live with himself, particularly when he knew that after a few months she would begin to resent the weeks he would have to spend away from her while he concentrated on his own career. Time away from family was something that was part and parcel of the life he had chosen and if Blake Wallis was truly interested in his documentary idea then it would quickly get a lot worse. He wouldn’t have a minute to call his own if he had to start travelling between England and New Zealand on a regular basis while also trying to fit in the work he had agreed to do in Mexico.

He had to face it.
His first thoughts about starting a relationship with Maggie had been the right ones after all. Working as he did didn’t fit with family life and he was not prepared to insult her by offering anything less. Maggie was forever or she wasn’t at all.

* * *

Maggie was clearing up the kitchen when Ruairi’s email arrived, and by the time he had finished his call to Jo she had moved on to the pile of ironing waiting in the laundry basket. That finished, she popped her head into the study where Mark was working and asked him if he needed anything.

He shook his head, too busy
at his computer screen to do more than mumble his thanks.

“I’m off to bed then,” she told him.
“And you should go too Mark. You need to sleep while you can. As soon as the baby comes home you’ll have disturbed nights for weeks.”

He shrugged impatiently. “It doesn’t work like that sis.
Work won’t go away just because we have a new baby. You’ll see, eventually!”

She didn’t bother to answer.
Nor did she slam the door behind her, although she wanted to, and it wasn’t because she didn’t want to upset Mark, it was because she didn’t want to wake Sophie and Amy.

Did he think she was a complete idiot?
Of course she knew life went on, new baby or not. But she also knew he was going to knock himself out from lack of sleep if he wasn’t careful and then what use would he be to June and the children. She just had to hope that her mother would make him see sense when she arrived home. In the meantime she was going to stop trying. It was enough that she was spending every minute of every day looking after his children and his house so he could be with June.

She
thought about her sister-in-law and wondered how she was feeling, all alone in the hospital, worrying about her baby. She hoped that June’s parents might come over this time. They had visited when Sophie was born but they hadn’t been able to manage another trip two years later for Amy, and there had never been any question of June and Mark being able to afford a trip to Australia to see them with the girls. Poor June must be so lonely. It must be the same for Jo too.

She stopped cleaning off her make-up and stared at herself in the mirror.
Why hadn’t she thought of it before? She would introduce them to one another. They had such a lot in common what with busy husbands, new babies and families far away. Besides Jo had told her she’d spent quite a lot of time in Australia before she moved on to New Zealand, so surely that would help them gel too. She would talk to Jo about it tomorrow, and then to June in the evening when she visited her to see her new nephew.

Satisfied she had made a good decision she finished getting ready for bed and then settled herself against her pillows and opened the book she had been reading on and off for the past week.
After five minutes she threw it down. She must have read the same page at least four times and she still didn’t know what it said. All she did know was that while the words danced up and down in front of her eyes, her brain insisted on thinking about Ruairi.

She sighed.
He had been so fed up when she left the park with Mark and the children and yet what had she been supposed to do? Mark was relying on her to feed him and Sophie and Amy and then put the girls to bed while he tackled his backlog of work. Nor could she let June down. For a moment she felt irritated with Ruairi. Why couldn’t he see what a difficult situation she was in?

Then she remembered how patient he’d been, how he had looked after her and the children and fitted his days around their needs, and she felt ashamed she could be so ungrateful.
She remembered, too, how he’d been there for her when June and the baby had been in such danger, and how he’d held her close. And now it had happened again and for just one moment this morning, when she was in his arms and his mouth was on hers, she had really believed he felt the same as she did. Then Sophie and Amy had charged into the room and disturbed them and they had never had a moment alone together again. She squeezed her eyes tight shut against the tears that were threatening, and refused to think about what had happened between them because she knew it wasn’t going to happen again, not after obvious irritation and his casual farewell at the park.

Not that she could blame him for not making a definite arrangement to meet up again. It would take the patience of a saint to put up with her family.
  She wondered what he was doing now. Probably meeting up with real friends, like Jo. People who shared his world instead of those who had closed the gap he had left behind when he started travelling.

She thought about his words, about how her own travel plans might make her susceptible to the same isolation when she returned; how situations and people would move on while she was away; and she wondered if it would upset her or whether she would just accept it as the price she had to pay for the freedom to make her own life.

With a sob of frustration she punched her pillow into a more comfortable shape, turned on her side and switched off the bedside light. She would go to sleep and forget about Ruairi because she needed all the sleep she could get before Sophie and Amy invaded her bed on the dot of six-thirty in the morning. He would either call her the day after tomorrow or he wouldn’t, and if he didn’t then she couldn’t really blame him.

Her plan didn’t work though. She was still awake when Mark finally finished his work and climbed the stairs to go to bed, and she was still awake an hour later when Amy woke up from a bad dream.
By the time she had soothed her back to sleep, dawn was already streaking the sky and she watched the clouds turn from grey to pink to orange as she waited for the day to begin.

* * *