Читать книгу Mills & Boon Showcase - Christy McKellen - Страница 21

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

THE NEXT AFTERNOON Sandy trudged towards the hospital entrance. Fed up with the muggy atmosphere in Bay Books, and the rattling, useless air-conditioner, she’d shut up shop on the dot of five o’clock. To heck with going through more of Ida’s files. She’d talk to Ida in person.

Whether or not she’d be able to have a sensible business conversation was debatable. She was too churned up with anxiety about the reality that a long-term relationship with Ben meant giving up her dream of having children. She tried summoning the techniques Ben had taught her to overcome her fear of monster waves but without any luck.

Her anxiety was like a dark shadow, diminishing the brilliance of her rediscovered love for Ben. Even memories of their heavenly lovemaking the night before, the joy of waking again in his arms, was not enough.

It felt like that long-ago summer day when she had been snorkelling with Ben at Big Ray Beach, out in the calm waters of the headland. It had been a perfect day, the sun shimmering through the water to the white sand beneath them, illuminating shoals of brightly coloured little fish darting in and out of the rocks. She and Ben had dived to follow some particularly cute orange and white clown fish.

Then suddenly everything had gone dark. Terrified, she’d gripped Ben’s arm. He’d pointed upwards and she’d seen one of the big black manta rays that had given its name to the beach swim directly above them. She’d panicked, thinking she didn’t have enough air to swim around it and up to the surface. But the ray had cruised along surprisingly quickly and she and Ben had been in sunshine again. They’d burst through to the top, spluttering and laughing and hugging each other.

Right now she felt the way she had when the light had been suddenly cut off.

She couldn’t ignore Ben’s stricken reaction when Amy had reached out to him yesterday. Her niece was discerning when it came to the adults she liked. She’d obviously picked Ben as a good guy and homed in like a heat-seeking missile. But all it had done was bring back painful memories for Ben.

If Sandy had held on to any remnant of hope that Ben might change his mind about having a child she’d lost it when she’d seen the fear and panic in his eyes.

And it hadn’t got any better during dinner. She’d seen what an enormous effort it had been for Ben to take part in Amy’s childish conversation. Amy, bless her, hadn’t noticed. Her little niece had been too pleased she’d managed to get a toy girl white lion for her Auntie Ex and a boy one for Ben.

It must be so painful for Ben to endure—every child he encountered a reminder to him of what he had lost.

But it was painful for her, too, to know that Amy would be the only child she would ever have to love if she and Ben became a long-term couple.

Could she really do this? Put all her hopes of a family aside?

Would she be doomed to spend the next ten years or so hoping Ben might change his mind? Counting down the fertile years she had left? Becoming embittered and resentful?

She loved Ben; she didn’t want to grow to hate him.

If she had any thought that her relationship with Ben might founder over the children issue should she think seriously of breaking it off now, to save them both future pain? Her heart shrivelled to a hard, painful knot at the thought of leaving him.

She couldn’t mention her fears to Lizzie—now back home in Sydney. Lizzie would tell her to run, not walk, away from Dolphin Bay. Her sister had often said giving birth to Amy was the best thing that had ever happened to her. She wouldn’t want Sandy to miss out on motherhood.

Ben’s decision not to have more children really could be a deal-breaker. Tomorrow was Wednesday and their future beyond tonight had become the elephant in the room. No. Not just an elephant but a giant-sized woolly mammoth.

As she neared the big glass doors of the hospital entrance she knew she had to tell Ida to take her out of the Bay Books equation. She couldn’t consider her offer while she had any doubt at all about staying in Dolphin Bay.

But almost as soon as she was inside the hospital doors she was waylaid by the bank manager’s wife, a hospital administrator, who wanted to chat.

By the time she got to Ida’s bedside it was to find Ben’s aunt in a highly agitated state.

‘Why haven’t you answered your mobile? There’s smoke pouring out of Bay Books. Ben’s there, investigating.’

* * *

It was nothing Ben could put his finger on, but he could swear Sandy had distanced herself from him last night. Especially through that awkward dinner. At any time he’d expected outspoken Lizzie to demand to know what his intentions were towards Sandy. And Sandy’s obvious deep love for Amy had made him question again the fairness of depriving her of her own children.

But tomorrow was Wednesday. He had to talk with Sandy about her expectations—and his—if they were to go beyond these four awesome days.

She wasn’t picking up her mobile. Seeing her would be better. He headed to Bay Books.

Ben smelled the smoke before he saw it—pungent, acrid, burning the back of his throat. Sweat broke out on his forehead, dampened his shirt to his back. His legs felt like lead weights. Terror seized his gut.

Sandy. Was she in there?

He was plunged back into the nightmare of the guesthouse fire. The flames. The doorknob searing the flesh of his hands. His voice raw from screaming Jodi’s name.

His heart thudded so hard it made him breathless. He forced his paralysed legs to run down the laneway at the side of the shop, around to the back entrance. Dark grey smoke billowed out through a broken pane in the back window.

The wooden carvings. The books. So much fuel for the fire. A potential inferno.

Sandy could be sprawled on the floor. Injured. Asphyxiated. He had to go in. Find her.

Save her.

He shrugged off his jacket, used it to cover his face, leaving only a slit for his eyes. He pushed in his key to the back door and shoved. The door gave. He plunged into the smoke.

‘Sandy!’ he screamed until his voice was hoarse.

No response.

Straight away he saw the source of the smoke. The old air-conditioning unit on the wall that Ida had refused to let him replace. Smouldering, distorted by heat, but as yet with no visible flames.

The smoke appeared to be contained in the small back area.

But no Sandy.

Heart in his mouth, he shouldered open the door that led through into the shop. No smoke or flames.

No Sandy there either.

All the old pain he’d thought he’d got under control gripped him so hard he doubled over. What if it had been a different story and Sandy had died? By opening up to Sandy he’d exposed himself again to the agony of loss.

He fought against the thought that made him wish Sandy had never driven so blithely back into Dolphin Bay. Making him question the safe half-life that had protected him for so long.

Like prison gates clanging shut, the old barriers against pain and loss and anguish slammed back into place. He felt numb, drained.

How could he have thought he could deal with loving another woman?

A high-pitched pop song ringtone rang out, startling him. It was so out of place in this place of near disaster. He grabbed Sandy’s mobile phone from next to the register and shoved it in his pocket without answering it. Why the hell didn’t she have it with her?

He headed back to the smouldering air-conditioning unit, grabbed the fire extinguisher canister from the nearby wall bracket and sprayed fire retardant all over it.

Then he staggered out into the car park behind the shop.

He coughed and spluttered and gulped in huge breaths of fresh air.

And then Sandy was there, her face anguished and wet with tears.

‘Ben. Thank heaven. Ben.’

* * *

Sandy never wanted to experience again the torment of the last ten minutes. All sorts of hideous scenarios had played over and over in her head.

She scarcely remembered how she’d got from the hospital to Bay Books, her heart pounding with terror, to find horrible black smoke and Ben inside the shop.

But Ben was safe.

His face was drawn and stark and smeared with soot. His clothes were filthy and he stank of acrid smoke. But she didn’t care. She flung herself into his arms. Pressed herself to his big, solid, blessedly alive body. Rejoiced in the pounding of his heart, the reassuring rise and fall of his chest as he gulped in clean air.

‘You’re okay...’ That was all she could choke out.

He held her so tightly she thought he would bruise her ribs.

‘It wasn’t as bad as it looked. There’s just smoke damage out the back. It didn’t reach the books.’

He coughed. Dear heaven, had the smoke burned his throat?

Relief that he was alive morphed into anger that he’d put himself in such danger. She pulled back and pounded on his chest with her fists. ‘Why did you go in there? Why take the risk? Ida must have insurance. All that wood, all that paper... If it had ignited you could have been killed.’ Her voice hiccupped and she dissolved into tears again.

He caught her wrists with his damaged hands. ‘Because I thought you were in there.’

She stilled. ‘Me?’

‘You weren’t answering your phone. I was worried.’

The implication of his words slammed into her like the kind of fast, hard wave that knocked you down, leaving you to tumble over and over in the surf. His wife and son had been trapped inside a fire-ravaged building. What cruel fate had forced him to face such a scenario again? Suffer the fear that someone he cared for was inside?

She sniffed back her tears so she was able to speak. ‘I’d gone to visit Ida. To talk...to talk business with her.’ And to mull over what a future without kids might mean. ‘I’m so sorry. It was my fault you—’

‘It was my choice to go in there. I had to.’

His grip on her hands was so tight it hurt.

‘All I could think about was how it would be if I lost you.’

He let go her hands and stepped back.

Something was wrong with this scenario. His eyes, bluer than ever in the dark, smoke-dirtied frame of his face, were tense and unreadable. He fisted his hands by his sides.

She felt her stomach sink low with trepidation. ‘But you didn’t lose me, Ben. I’m here. I’m fine.’

‘But what if you hadn’t been? What if—?’

She fought to control the tremor in her voice. ‘I thought we’d decided not to play the “what-if?” game.’

Beads of sweat stood out on his forehead. ‘It was a shock.’

She heard the distant wail of a fire engine and was aware of people gathering at a distance from the shop.

Ben waved and called over to them. ‘Nothing to worry about. Just smoke—no fire.’

He wiped his hand over his face in a gesture of weariness and resignation that tore at her. A dark smear of soot swept right across his cheek.

‘Sandy, I need to let the fire department know they’re not needed. Then go get cleaned up.’

‘I’ll come with you,’ she said immediately.

This could be their last evening together.

He hesitated for just a second too long. ‘Why don’t you go back to the hotel and I’ll meet you there?’ he said.

One step forward and two steps back? Try ten steps forward and a hundred steps back.

‘Sure,’ she said, forcing the fear out of her voice.

He went to drop a kiss on her cheek but she averted it so the kiss landed on her mouth. She wound her arms around his neck, clung to him, willing him with her kiss to know how much she cared for him. How much she wanted it to work out.

‘Woo-hoo! Why don’t you guys get a room?’

The call—friendly, well-meant—came from one of the onlookers. She laughed, but Ben glared. She dropped her arms; he turned away.

So she wasn’t imagining the change in him.

She forced her voice to sound Sunny-Sandy-positive. ‘Okay. So I’ll see you back at the hotel.’

She headed back towards Hotel Harbourside, disorientated by a haunting sense of dread.

* * *

Ben hated the confusion and hurt on Sandy’s face. Hated that he was the cause of it. But he felt paralysed by the fear of losing her. He needed time to think without her distracting presence.

Thanks to this special woman he’d come a long way in the last few days. But what came next? Sandy deserved commitment. Certainty. But there were big issues to consider. Most of all the make-or-break question of children. He’d been used to managing only his own life. Now Sandy was here. And she’d want answers.

Answers he wasn’t sure he could give right now.