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CHAPTER SIX

QUÉ diablos estás haciendo?

As Diego pushed through the waves, over and over he asked himself what on earth he was doing.

On leaving Izzy, he’d gone home to find Sally in the car outside his flat, with a bottle of wine and a dazzling smile, but instead of asking her in, he’d sent her on her way. The words ‘It’s been good, but...’ had hung in the air, as had the sound of her tears, but it had been the only outcome to their relationship, Diego had realised as he’d let himself into his flat.

It had been good.

Sencillo, Diego’s favourite word—straightforward, uncomplicated. Sally had been all those things and everything Diego had thought he wanted in a relationship. Only his life had suddenly become a touch more complicated.

He needed to think and he couldn’t do that with Sally. Wouldn’t do that to Sally and also he needed to be very sure himself.

Walking out of the water towards the beach, he wasn’t sure if he was even pleased that Izzy had taken his advice, for there she was, walking along the beach, her face flushing when she saw him.

‘I thought you were on an early...’

‘I’m on a management day, so I don’t have to be in till nine,’ Diego explained, then he teased, ‘Why? Were you trying to avoid me?’

‘Of course not!’ Izzy lied.

‘It’s good to see you out.’

‘It’s good to be out,’ Izzy admitted. ‘I used to walk on the beach each morning. I don’t know why I stopped.’

‘You’ve had a lot to deal with.’

Which she had, but Izzy hadn’t walked since her marriage, another little thing she’d given up in an attempt to please Henry, but she didn’t say anything.

‘Do you want company?’

And she looked into dark eyes that were squinting against the morning sun, his black hair dripping, unshaven, wet, and his toned body, way smoother than a name like Ramirez suggested, and she didn’t know what she wanted because, here was the thing, she’d spent the whole night in turmoil, telling herself she was being ridiculous, that it was impossible, that she should be sorting out herself instead of getting involved with someone.

She didn’t actually have to tell herself. The books said the same too, even Jess.

But here, on the beach, when she should be thinking alone, it was his company her heart required. Here in the lovely fresh start of morning it just seemed natural for them to talk.

They walked along the beach, admiring the rugged Cornish coastline. Despite the warmth of summer, the wind was up, making the beach the coolest place as the breeze skimmed off the ocean and stung her cheeks, and it was a relief to talk about him.

‘This beach is one of the reasons I choose to settle in St Piran. I love the beach.’

‘What about Madrid? Do you miss it?’

‘The nearest beach is Valencia. Over a hundred miles away...’ Perhaps he realised he was being evasive. ‘Sometimes I miss it. I have been away two years now...’ She glanced at him when his voice trailed off.

‘Go on.’

‘My family and I were rowing—we did not part on good terms,’ Diego admitted. ‘We get on a bit better now. I talk to my mother often on the telephone, but for a while there was no contact.’

He left it there, for now. But there was something about the ocean. It was so vast and endless that it made honesty easier, problems mere specks, which was perhaps why they found themselves there so often over the next few days. They would walk and talk and try to put on hold the chemistry between them and instead work on their history. They sat in the shallows, just enough for the cool water to wash around their ankles and up their calves, and they talked. It was absolutely, for Izzy, the best part of her day and she hoped Diego felt the same.

‘I told you it was expected that I would study medicine? It did not go down well when I chose to study nursing instead. Padre said it was women’s work...’

‘Not any more.’

‘He ridiculed it, my brothers too. I also studied partero, I’m a midwife too,’ Diego explained. ‘My mother said she understood, but she would prefer I study medicine to keep my father happy.’ He gave a wry smile. ‘That was the rule growing up and it is still the rule now—keeping him happy. Getting good grades, melting into the background, anything to keep him happy. I wish she had the guts to leave him.’ He looked over at Izzy. ‘I admire you for leaving.’

‘I didn’t have children,’ Izzy said. ‘And it was still a hard decision. Don’t judge her for staying, Diego. What made you want to do nursing?’

‘My elder sister had a baby when I was eighteen. He was very premature and my sister was ill afterwards. I used to sit with him and I watched the nurses. They were so skilled, so much more hands on than the doctors, and I knew it was what I wanted to do. Fernando was very sick—I was there night and day for ten days. My sister had a hysterectomy and was very sick too...’ There was a long silence. ‘She was at another hospital so she didn’t get over to see him—she was too ill.’ Diego suddenly grimaced. ‘I shouldn’t be telling you this...’

‘I’m not that precious.’ Izzy squeezed his hand.

‘He died at ten days old. It was tough. In those ten days I really did love him and even now sometimes my sister asks for details about him and I am glad that I can give them to her.’

‘What sort of details?’

‘He loved to have his feet stroked and he loved to be sing to.’ He gave a slight frown and Izzy just sat silent rather than correct his grammar. ‘My sister had always sung to him while she was pregnant and I taped her singing and played the songs.’

‘It must be hard,’ Izzy said. ‘Your work must bring it all back...’

‘No.’ His response surprised her. ‘It has certainly made me a better nurse. I know, as much as I can know, how helpless and scared the parents feel. How you constantly watch the monitors and become an armchair expert, but never, not even once, have I come close to the feelings I had for Fernando with a patient. I suppose I detach, of course there are stories and babies that touch you more than others, but you could not do this job and care so deeply at that level.’

And she looked at him and couldn’t see how his parents could be anything but proud. She had seen his work at first hand, the way his colleagues and all the parents respected him. There had been an almost audible sigh of relief that Diego had been around when Toby had been born and she told him that.

‘There is a managerial position at my father’s hospital—I am thinking of applying for it. Of course, it has not gone down well. He says it would be an embarrassment to the Ramirez name if I take it.’

They were only just getting to know each other, but still her breath caught at the impossibility of it all, of anything happening between them, and she tried to keep the needy note from her voice when she asked a question.

‘Why would you go back?’ Izzy asked, ‘After all that, if they don’t respect what you do...’

‘I respect what I do now,’ Diego said. ‘That is the difference. I would like to go back and be proud.’

He would go back.

They were sitting in the sand at the water’s edge. Izzy’s shorts were soaking, the water rushing in then dragging back out, as if taking all the debris of the past away. But the tide returned and bought with it fresh problems and Izzy told herself to slow down, to not even think about it, that his decisions didn’t affect her. They were friends, that was all—they hadn’t so much as kissed.

Except Diego discounted that theory before it had even properly formed.

She could feel his face near her cheek and knew if she turned her head their lips would meet.

It was six a.m. and the clearest her head would be all day, but she turned to him, to the sweet, confusing relief of his mouth. He tasted like a blast of morning, with the promise of night. It was a kiss that was tender on the outside—a mesh of lips, a slow, measured greeting, but there was raw promise beneath the surface, his tongue sliding in, offering a heady taste of more, and Izzy wanted more. She liked the press of him, the weight of him that pressed her body back to the sand. There was the tranquillity of escape she found as his kiss deepened and his hand moved naturally, sliding around her waist to caress her, and then even before Diego paused, Izzy’s lips were still.

She rested her head on his shoulder a moment to steady herself, the weight of her baby between them.

‘I think...’ Izzy pulled her head up and made herself look at him ‘...we should pretend that just didn’t happen.’

‘It did, though,’ Diego pointed out.

‘Well, it can’t again,’ Izzy said, and she hoisted herself to standing. ‘Let’s just keep it as friends,’ Izzy insisted, because that was surely all they could be for now, except her lips were tender from the claim of his kiss as she tried to talk about other things, and as they walked back her hand bunched in a fist so she didn’t reach out and take his.

* * *

They were back at her car, his apartment just a short walk away, and how he wanted to take her up there, to peel off her wet clothes and call in sick, spend the day getting to know her in the way he so badly wanted to.

And friends could kiss goodbye on the cheek, except they had passed that now and any contact between them was dangerous.

He faced her, but that only made him want to kiss her again so Diego looked down and saw the swell of her stomach, her belly button just starting to protrude, and his hand ached to capture it, only his mind wasn’t so sure.

‘We have a lot to think about,’ Diego said, ‘or maybe it’s better not to think about it, just...’ He looked up at her and his face was honest and it scared her, but somehow it made her smile as he offered her a very grown-up slant on words said in playgrounds the world over. ‘I don’t want to be your friend any more.’