Winter Wishes (22 page)

“Or Catullus for his Clodia?” Caspar said, a note of excitement creeping into his voice. “Yeats and Maud Gonne!”

“Err, yes,” said Jules, who was really wishing she’d listened harder at school. “Or Peter Parker and MJ!”

“Pip and Estella?”

“Them too!”

“
I grant I never saw a goddess go; My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground
,” Caspar breathed. “Of course! Jules, you are a genius! I shall love her from afar! Once I find her, of course.”

“You can take your pick now,” Jules pointed out. “Maybe they don’t need to reciprocate as long as they inspire you.”

At that exact moment, Tara Tremaine just happened to pass the window. As she did so, the sun peeked out from behind a cloud and the light caught her chestnut hair, turning it to pure flame. Haloed and unearthly, she could have stepped straight out of one of St Wenn’s stained-glass windows. Jules heard Caspar gasp.

“My God! There she is!”

A greyhound after a rabbit couldn’t have moved faster than Caspar did to grab his laptop. Within seconds, his fingers were flying across the keyboard and the document was filling with words. Tea, scones and cakes were all forgotten.

Jules’s work here was done. She slipped out of the cottage and left him to it, laughing to herself that even curing writer’s block was all in a day’s work for the vicar of Polwenna Bay.

If only it were as easy to cure broken hearts.

Chapter 14

“How is it possible that three nine-year-old boys have so much energy? I’m shattered after just ten minutes, so God knows how you must feel having had them here all evening!”

Danny leaned against the Rayburn in the tiny cottage kitchen, a bottle of J2O held loosely in his hand, and smiled at Tara. The room was lit by lamps and the string of red heart-shaped LEDs she’d pinned across one of the beams; in the soft glow he didn’t look a day older than when they’d got married. He certainly didn’t look like a man who was celebrating his son’s ninth birthday.

Tara smiled. “I think they were high as kites on pizza and fizzy drinks. Or maybe we’re just getting old?”

Danny shook his blond head. “Never! You didn’t see me thrash one of them on the Xbox earlier. I’ve still got it, even with one hand.”

“I don’t doubt it for a moment.” Tara opened the fridge and poured herself another glass of wine. After the whirl of the last few days – which had included moving into the cottage, working two shifts at The Plump Seagull and hosting a birthday party for a very excited nine-year-old – she figured that a drink was the least she deserved.

She raised her glass. “To Morgan.”

Danny chinked his bottle against her wine glass. “Morgan, his ninth birthday and seeing him being so settled.”

Tara smiled. “He does seem settled, doesn’t he? I was thrilled he wanted to invite friends over this evening.”

“The new camera was a hit too. I think he’s fallen asleep with it in his hand,” Danny told her.

“Sounds about right to me,” Tara replied. “After losing the last one there’s no way he’s going to let the new camera out of his sight. I spoke to Tess, his teacher, and she says they’re going to set up a photography club at the school next term. Morgan’s in charge apparently.”

“So you’re staying here then?”

“I’ve got a job and I’m renting this house, aren’t I?” Tara couldn’t help it if she sounded defensive. She was painfully sensitive to any implied criticism that she might do something to unsettle their son.

“At the moment, yes, and you’ve made a fantastic home for him,” Danny said. Although he spoke quietly there was an edge to his voice, an edge that she had put there. He didn’t need to say any more; Tara knew what he was thinking.

“But you think I’m going to get bored and take off again, don’t you?” she asked bitterly.

“Will you? It wasn’t so long ago that the village was too small for you and you needed to get away.” Danny’s steady blue gaze met hers across the kitchen. “You’ve uprooted Morgan once before, which we both know isn’t great for a kid with his needs. Before he gets too settled here, don’t you think you ought to make absolutely sure it isn’t going to happen again?”

Tara’s hands curled into fists, her nails scoring little half-moons into her palms. She felt guilty enough about having moved Morgan to Plymouth, without Danny making her feel even worse.

“It isn’t going to happen again,” she promised him. “Dan, I don’t know what I can say to make you believe me.”

Her ex shrugged his broad shoulders. “I don’t think there is anything you can say, T. You just have to prove it, I guess.”

Tara raised her chin. So far she’d been insulted in the village shop, snubbed by most of Danny’s siblings and let down by one of her oldest friends. Clearly, she was the subject of some very juicy village gossip. And yet she was still here, wasn’t she? In spite of everything she’d found a house to rent, moved herself and Morgan in and started earning some money. Just how much proof did Danny need?

Then she remembered what it was that had made him doubt her so much in the first place, and regret knifed her. She’d do whatever it took to show her husband that he could trust her. She bit back her protestations and put her wine glass down on the counter.

“I’ll just check on Morgan,” was all she said. “Why don’t you take your drink through to the sitting room? The fire’s lit and I won’t be long.”

Danny glanced at the kitchen clock. “It’s getting on.”

“It’s only half past nine. What’s going to happen? You’ll turn into a pumpkin?”

There was no way Tara was letting Danny out of her sight now that she finally had him alone. She’d been waiting for this moment all day long. Through the pizzas and ice creams and the loud computer games she’d been counting down the minutes until it was just them. Her hair was freshly washed and teased into loose ringlets that softened her face, and her skinny jeans and fleecy pink sweater showed off her curves in an almost accidental way, while the tan knee boots with spiky heels suggested there might be more to her than just the wholesome girl next door. Tara had agonised over what to wear, changing her outfit several times until she was satisfied she was just the right combination of sexy and sweet. There had once been a time when Danny couldn’t keep his hands off her. Hopefully, if she’d played all her cards right tonight, he might remember the magic they’d once shared.

Before he could make his excuses Tara turned and climbed the steep flight of stairs up to the small room under the eaves, knowing full well that, as she did so, Danny was treated to a view of her backside snugly clad in tight denim. She’d pulled a muscle in her neck trying to check that view in her bedroom mirror, but what she’d seen had suggested than the pain was worth it. By the time she’d kissed Morgan goodnight, her heart melting as always at the sight of him fast asleep, Danny was sitting on the sofa by the wood burner and looking quite at home.

This
could
be home for them, she realised with a jolt. They’d got on well today, hadn’t they? For a few hours it had felt just as though they were a family again.

“Nice place,” Danny remarked once she was sitting beside him, her boots kicked off and a glass of Chablis in her hand. “It was good of Richard to move out and let you have it.”

“He’s just a nice guy. He’s helping out his mother by staying with her to pay the bills,” Tara said, curling her legs beneath her and smiling up at him from under mascaraed lashes. Danny was so close she could smell his skin, and as she inhaled Tara felt a stab of nostalgic longing. Maybe this was the moment she should tell him that she was sorry and wanted to try again. Playing all these games was far too exhausting and she wasn’t sure she could keep it up much longer.

But Danny was laughing.

“Come on, T! You don’t really believe that do you? Richard’s let the house out to you because he fancies you!”

Tara shook her head. “That’s utter rubbish. I told you, Kursa can’t afford the bills in her place so Richard’s moved in for the winter.”

“So that’s why she was in the pub last night having a right old moan about her style being cramped because her son’s suddenly moved in?” Danny was so amused that his sexy smile even lifted the injured side of his mouth. “Apparently she’s going to ask for a refund on her online dating membership.”

“But he was adamant!”

“Guys always are when they want to impress a woman,” said Danny sagely. “Trust me on that. Richard wants to impress you.”

Tara wasn’t convinced about this – but maybe Danny was jealous? That was a positive sign surely? Feeling encouraged, she shifted a little closer to him until her knees were resting against his thigh.

“Never mind Richard,” she said. “I’m more interested in us.”

“Us?”

“Yes, us. You and me and Morgan. We’re a family, Danny. That means a lot.”

There was a silence after she said this. A log slipped in the wood burner. In the kitchen the dishwasher thrummed and swished. There was a drumming in Tara’s ears as her heart began to race. This was it. The moment she’d been waiting for. What happened next was going to alter the course of their lives.

Then Danny sighed wearily, like a man who’d been holding his breath for a long time.

“Yes it does,” he said quietly. “Our family used to mean everything to me, Tara, absolutely everything – and you know that. It meant everything until the moment you decided to take it away.”

She did know it, and not a day went by when she didn’t hate herself for putting it all into jeopardy. She wanted to say that she was sorry, that she wished she’d never done the thing she’d done. But how could she when, if not for that one selfish, careless mistake on a drunken night nine years and nine months ago, Morgan might never have been born at all? How could she regret something that had ultimately brought her more happiness and joy than she could ever have imagined?

No, the words she wanted to say were that she was sorry for opening her mouth and telling Danny the truth. That was her biggest regret. If she had only been able to keep the secret, to live with the constant dread of being discovered… That gnawing guilt was nothing, nothing in comparison to the horror of the destruction she’d caused by one desperate bedside confession in the hospital. The irony was that it hadn’t even been a full confession, because Danny hadn’t wanted to hear what she’d had to say. He’d not even let her finish. Instead he’d turned his bandaged face to the wall and from that point on had refused to see her.

“Danny, I—”

He held up his hand.

“Please, T, don’t make it worse. There’s nothing I wouldn’t have done for you or Morgan. I loved both of you so bloody much, Tara. You were my world. You meant everything to me. Morgan’s my son. Mine. I didn’t want to know anything else. Christ, do you really think I never guessed? That I never suspected?”

Tara couldn’t look him in the face. That was
exactly
what she’d thought, until she’d tried to confess her dreadful, appalling secret. To discover that Danny had suspected for all those years had shocked her to the core.

“But you never said a word,” she whispered. “Not one word. Why, Danny?”

He turned to face her and the grief etched on his face was worse than all the scars. With a growing horror Tara realised that the damage she had done to Danny was worse than anything a roadside bomb could ever have inflicted on him. He was a man with the courage to fight his country’s enemies and live with the consequences – but he’d thought she was on his side.

“Do you really not know?” He reached out and touched her face, and she felt his sadness trembling through his fingertips. “Can’t you guess?”

Tears spilled onto her cheeks. “You didn’t want it to be true.”

“Because I loved you Tara, so damn much, and I loved Morgan too. It didn’t matter what had happened because I loved you and I loved him. Love him. He’s my son and that’s all I ever cared about.”

Outside the thick harbour wall, waves rose and fell like sobs.

“I knew you’d had a fling,” Danny continued, looking away from her now and staring into the glowing fire. “I’d always known.”

“It didn’t mean anything,” she whispered. “It was stupid. I was lonely and flattered and I hated myself as soon as it happened. I never wanted to hurt you.”

“You might not have wanted to, but you did.”

“And now you hate me.” She looked downwards in shame. It was no more than she deserved.

Danny shook his head. “Oh, Tara, I don’t hate you anymore. I did for a long time, especially when you tried to blurt it all out in the hospital. But it’s history now, isn’t it? And I’ve had a lot of time to think about it all and make my peace.” He paused and then sighed. “Besides, there was blame on my part too. I neglected you, which doesn’t excuse what you did, but I know it does explain it. My career came first and you were lonely. I’m not stupid; I’ve been in the army long enough to see how these things go. As for not knowing? Christ! It’s the bloody army and gossip’s always rife. Did you really think that the rumours about you wouldn’t reach my ears? Or that people wouldn’t love dropping sly hints my way?”

Tara was cold from head to foot. She really had thought that Danny had been oblivious.

“It was just the once,” she whispered. “It didn’t mean anything.”

“Maybe not to you, but it does to me. I loved you, Tara. I wanted things to work and I blamed myself. I knew how lonely it was for you stuck in those godforsaken barracks in Germany. I knew the other wives gave you a hard time but I hoped that we could make it work. When you said you were pregnant I hoped with all my heart that it was the fresh start we needed. I prayed that Morgan was my son.”

“I swear I thought he was yours,” Tara whispered. “I so wanted him to be.”

Danny’s blond head nodded slowly. “But when I was away on that last tour he had the appendix operation and needed blood, didn’t he? Then I came home injured and needed gallons of the stuff and that was when you realised the truth.”

It wasn’t a question.

“I didn’t know for sure until then.” Tara still recalled the horror of having to acknowledge it. Funny how just with a quick Google search and a few clicks of the mouse you could change your world forever. She reached for her drink and took a huge gulp. A pointless exercise. All the booze in the world wouldn’t make this go away. “I didn’t know what to do.”