Читать книгу The Wedding Party Collection - Кейт Хьюит, Aimee Carson - Страница 21
ОглавлениеFive days later, Lena was back at Damon’s beach house by the sea and Poppy—who’d escorted her there—had headed back to Darwin and the delicious Sebastian who’d claimed Poppy’s heart. Poppy hadn’t pried, when it came to what had happened between Lena and Trig in Turkey. Poppy had been relieved to know that Jared was alive, and more relieved still when the doctor had discharged Lena and given her the all-clear to travel. Jared was busy doing whatever it was he was doing, and that was his idiot decision and no one else’s, as far as Poppy was concerned.
‘Now will you let it go and concentrate on living your life?’ Poppy had said as they’d packed their bags for home. ‘Because it’s right there in front of you and it’s ready when you are.’
Five days since Lena had told Trig to go.
And the loneliness and sense of wrong ate away at her soul.
She had everything she needed here at Damon’s house. Comfort and space and a gorgeous indoor pool. So many pools in her life, only now she remembered why. The countless hours of water-based rehab. The agonising stretches as she regained the use of her left leg, one millimetre at a time, refusing to admit defeat. Damon had practically given over this house to her—no wonder she’d thought of it as hers. Hers and Trig’s, because he’d spent almost as much time here as she had these past nineteen months. Babysitting her, she’d always thought. Encouraging her with his silence when others had told her to stop. Adding his strength of will to hers. Sometimes he’d even gone away when she’d yelled at him to leave her alone, but he’d never stayed gone for long. It wasn’t his way. This time, though...
All bets were off.
Her mobile rang and Lena found it on the little table beside Damon’s front door and looked at the screen in sudden trepidation, swiftly followed by a stab of disappointment. Not Trig. Ruby. Lena tapped the screen to answer the call and stood a little straighter because Ruby had that effect on people.
‘I hear congratulations are in order,’ she said lightly, for she hadn’t yet congratulated Ruby on her pregnancy, and that was an oversight she wanted to fix. ‘Congratulations.’
‘Thank you. I told Damon I wanted to tell you in person but boys will be boys. Apparently he and Trig had nothing else to talk about on the phone the other day besides the fact that Trig was setting up a meeting with your brother and that somewhere along the line he’d fake married you. Which is, in fact, why I’m calling you. I hear you’re still at odds with my second favourite man on the planet.’
‘Ruby, are you cross examining me?’
‘Would you like me to rephrase the question? What’s going on, Lena? It’s not like you to hold a grudge.’
‘He let me think that we were on our honeymoon, Ruby. He lied to me. Over and over again. Who does that? To someone they supposedly care about?’
‘You need to examine the event carefully,’ said Ruby. ‘Did he at any time tell you that you were on your honeymoon? Or did you assume it? Because maybe what happened was that you assumed it and Trig simply failed to correct you. Maybe the doctor had ordered rest for you. No strenuous activity or thinking too hard. Maybe Trig thought you’d sleep on it and wake up the next morning with your memories intact.’
‘You’re his defence lawyer, aren’t you?’
‘If I was I wouldn’t be calling you. Your partial memory loss placed Trig in an extremely awkward situation. He did his best. He always does his best for you.’
‘He lied to me. He let me make a fool out of myself. Ruby...’ Lena bit back a sob ‘...I was so happy. I was planning all sorts of rubbish.’
‘Like what?’
‘A big old house for us to live in. Christmas decorations. Kids. I can’t have kids. Didn’t stop me saying yes to them. Adopted kids. Surrogate kids. I’m pretty sure we made plans to borrow your kids every now and again. We had it all worked out. I thought it was real. I bedded him. I thought it was real.’
‘Trig slept with you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Poor Trig.’
‘Poor Trig? What about poor me?’
‘He knew you’d find out that you weren’t married to him sooner or later. He figured that as long as the marriage sham didn’t go too far and that you got to see Jared, everything would work out for the best in the long run. Your needs before his, and all that. How did you get him to bed you, by the way? Because the last time I spoke to him that was definitely not part of the plan. On pain of death not part of the plan.’
‘Oh, you know me.’ Lena closed her eyes and rubbed at her temple. ‘I badger and bully and prey on people’s weaknesses and generally don’t take no for an answer.’
‘I’m relatively sure that’s not true,’ said Ruby carefully.
‘You weren’t there.’
‘So you’re not blaming Trig for that part of the mess.’
‘Oh, no. I still am. He’s a great target for anger. I think it’s those broad shoulders. It’s just...maybe I’m okay with blaming me too. Doesn’t make anything right.’
‘No, but it’s a start,’ Ruby offered gently. ‘Here’s what you’re going to do. You’re going to make a coffee or a tea, and then you’re going to sit down and draw up two columns. The first column is what happened in Turkey. Stick to the facts. The second column is what you want to happen now.’
‘What about what Trig wants to happen?’
‘Add another column. Get him to fill it out. You do know that he’s stupidly in love with you? You’re not second-guessing that?’
‘I am second-guessing that. I look in the mirror and there’s so much of me there that’s not pretty. Inside and out. I don’t know what he sees in me.’
‘Soul mate, kindred spirit, partner in crime...’
‘I can’t do those things that we used to do.’
‘May I draw your attention back to column two?’ Ruby said patiently. ‘In it you put all the things that you can do, want to do and dream of doing with the man you call Trig.’
‘That’s another three columns.’
‘Have it your way. Call me tomorrow if you get stuck. Call Trig tomorrow too. Don’t blame yourself, or him, for a situation that neither of you had much control over. Do take control of the situation you’re in now.’
‘Are you sure you’re a lawyer and not a psychotherapist?’
‘Sometimes you have to be both.’
Lena paused. Ruby was part of this family now. A strong and savvy woman with a lot of good times and bad behind her. The kind of woman a person could rely on. ‘May I really call you if I need more help with this?’
‘Any time.’
‘Thanks. Tell Damon hello.’
‘Will do.’ Ruby hung up. Lena put her phone back on the table. Weariness washed over her as she made her way to the couch. Being off her feet and horizontal beckoned. Memories of Trig beckoned too. Of him in a Turkish bath house, valiantly trying to preserve her modesty. Of him talking starry nights and turtles. Of Lena dancing in his arms while a pianola played softly in the background. Of Trig stripped naked and loving her.
Say it.
Trig loves me.
Again.
You do know that he’s stupidly in love with you.
Trig loves me.
Again.
Two minutes later, she was asleep.
* * *
Adrian Sinclair had never been one for inactivity. Waiting drove him crazy. Waiting for word from a woman who’d already driven him crazy merely doubled the crazy. He couldn’t sit still. He couldn’t sleep. Work didn’t hold his interest. Physical activity leading to exhaustion couldn’t stem his agitation. For the last three nights he’d gone to bed exhausted and woken up dreaming of Lena. Replaying in his head what he should have done or could have done.
And hadn’t.
He knew Lena was home now. She’d arrived home with Poppy the day before yesterday. Poppy had called. Lena hadn’t. Ruby had called. Lena hadn’t. Trig’s father had called, and Trig had asked him what kind of price old farmhouses on the banks of a lazy river were going for.
His father had asked him what he’d been drinking, but he’d been drinking nothing, nothing at all.
And Lena still hadn’t called.
Adrian Sinclair had always gone after what he wanted, sometimes with excruciating single-mindedness. Unless one was talking about the indomitable Lena West. Trig had barely gone after Lena at all. He’d been waiting for the right time, the right place, the right blasted moon in the sky.
He was done waiting. He needed a plan of attack, a plan to make Lena respond to him again the way she’d responded to him in Turkey. She’d been happy with him once. All he had to do was make that happen again. He could fight dirty. He could fight hard. Why wait?
He hated waiting.
By the time Trig arrived home from work that afternoon he had a plan. By the time he’d opened his emails and seen the picture of the old homestead that his father had sent him, he had a better plan. He dialled Lena’s number but she didn’t pick up. Half an hour later he dialled it again. This time she must have had it with her, because she answered on the third ring.
‘Do you remember what I made you repeat back to me when we were making love in the crazy room?’ he began without preamble.
‘What?’
‘Say it. Say Trig loves me and always will.’
‘I’m not a parrot.’
She sounded frustrated. He could handle a frustrated Lena. He’d been doing so for the past two years. It wasn’t as if he’d been expecting a declaration of undying devotion from her or even a simple ‘I’ve missed you’. But she had told him she’d loved him not so long ago, and he held to that the way a free soloing climber so often held to a rock face.
By his fingertips.
‘Okay, so I lied to you about us being married. I should have come clean and I didn’t and I ended up with one foot in heaven and the other one in hell. You gave me a glimpse of what we could have if we dropped the barriers and simply let ourselves be what we wanted to be. Like married, for example. We could make that happen. Everything we talked about we could make happen if we wanted it to.’
She had no comeback for him beyond a strangled sound that he hoped to hell wasn’t a sob.
‘I love you, Lena. I always will. Check your emails.’
He hung up on her after that. He sent her the picture of the old homestead his father had sent him and the links to the ‘For Sale’ information. He attached his father’s rough estimate of what it would cost to make it habitable.
‘Where’s the river?’ she emailed back, some ten minutes later.
He didn’t wait ten minutes to reply. ‘Below the hill. It’s a mostly lazy river prone to brief yet frenzied flooding. That’s why the house is on the hill.’
She didn’t write back.
Trig decided not to think of her lack of response as defeat. She’d answered his call and she’d answered his email and it was a start. He’d never thought that winning Lena’s forgiveness was going to be easy. He didn’t want easy. He’d never courted that.
He wanted Lena.
The next morning, before work, he emailed her links to a bunch of mosaic tile manufacturers. For the bath-house floor, he wrote. And left it at that.
She called him that evening when he was on his way home from work.
‘I need help filling out a form,’ she said.
‘What kind of form?’
‘There’s three columns. Column one is what happened to us in Turkey, otherwise known as “The Facts” column. Column two is what I want to happen from here on in. Column three is what you want to happen. It was Ruby’s idea.’
‘I love that woman.’
‘You say that a lot. You can understand my confusion.’
‘I love you more.’
Lena sighed. ‘May I send you the form?’
‘Have you filled out your column yet?’
‘I filled out the first two columns. It took me two days.’
‘What if I don’t agree with The Facts?’
‘Feel free to amend them. Ruby said you might want to. Something about reframing.’
‘Smart woman.’
Silence filled the car.
‘You’re smart too,’ he added hastily. ‘I know that.’
‘It’s probably better if you don’t talk,’ she said, and hung up.
* * *
Trig made it home in record time and only marginally exceeded the speed limit. He grabbed his personal laptop from the floor beside the couch, carried it through to the kitchen and sat it next to last night’s empty pizza box. He opened it up and switched it on. He grabbed a cola from the fridge and waited for his computer to wake up completely. He grabbed a stool, sat on it and started jiggling his leg. He vowed to get a faster computer along with a speedier Internet service. He hated waiting. Finally, he found Lena’s email and opened it up. She hadn’t bothered with an introduction. She’d started with column one.
The Facts:
1)Lena loves Trig (and not like a brother). Romantically. Inescapably. No one else has ever measured up to him. Not even close.
Trig hadn’t been aware of this fact until now and snorted cola up his nose and then all over the counter on account of it. But he was totally on board with this fact. He read it again, just to make sure he’d read it right before moving on to fact number two.
2)Trig loves Lena.
No surprises there.
3)Everyone but Lena and Trig knows that Lena loves Trig and that Trig loves Lena (this fact has been substantiated by Ruby, Poppy, Poppy’s Seb, Damon and Damon on Jared’s behalf).
Some people were so smug.
4)Lena and Trig went to Istanbul to find Jared. They found him.
Nothing but the facts.
5)Lena fell and hit her head, lost her memory and thought she was married to Trig.
True.
6)Trig let her believe that she was married to him.
Loaded word, ‘let’. It implied some semblance of control.
7)Lena wanted to bed Trig.
Trig grinned in spite of himself and downed half a can of cola, this time without getting it up his nose.
8)Trig resisted.
‘Yes, I did. And it wasn’t exactly easy.’
9)Lena still wanted to bed Trig.
Trig liked these facts.
10) Trig resisted. Some might call that chivalrous. Lena found it frustrating.
‘Try being me.’
11)Lena seduced Trig.
That was one interpretation.
12)Trig let her.
He really thought she was misusing the word ‘let’. He wanted a new word. One that described active participation.
13)Lena saw Jared, regained her memory, realised she wasn’t married to Trig and got confused and angry.
Succinct.
14)Lena thought she might have coerced Trig into something he didn’t want.
‘What?’ When had he ever given her the impression that he didn’t know exactly what he wanted? Namely her. Unless she was talking about those times during those first few nights when she’d wanted him to be cosy with her and he hadn’t...and then later when she’d wanted a wedding night to remember and he’d developed a fondness for long showers and a predilection for performance anxiety... Okay, so maybe she had a point. But surely proclaiming his love for her before, during and after her memory loss had to count for something?
15)Lena thought Trig might have coerced her into something she didn’t want. She didn’t know what to think and she didn’t know what was real.
‘Figure it out,’ he begged her. ‘Believe.’
16)Lena temporarily ignored the fact that she loves Trig and Trig loves her and that they could probably work something out.
That was the end of The Facts according to Lena. Trig ran a shaky hand across his face. There were some high points, sure. The first two points and the last. Love. Remarkable things could happen in the presence of love. But there’d been some low points too. Sighing, Trig moved on to the next column.
What Lena Wants:
1)Lena has never really thought about what she wants.
Not helpful, Lena.
2)She followed Trig and Jared into the special intelligence service because it seemed like a good fit for her and because she wanted to maintain her connection with them. Her heart wasn’t always in the job but she was with Jared and Trig so she was mostly happy.
Trig frowned. Thinking that Lena needed to reconsider her options on account of her recent physical limitations was one thing. Having Lena admit that she’d never been completely on board with a career in special intelligence was quite another. Sure, it was good news in the overall scheme of things now, but you’d think he might have noticed. Or that Jared might have noticed. Why the hell hadn’t anyone noticed that her heart wasn’t in it? Mostly happy. What the hell was that?
3)Working for ASIS doesn’t seem like such a good fit for Lena any more.
Trig agreed. She could do a lot better than mostly happy.
4)Lena needs a new career. She’s considering becoming a physiotherapist to people with mobility issues, or a psychotherapist to people with mobility issues, or both.
He could see her doing that.
5)She has the money to go back to school and study. Lena likes study, even if study doesn’t always like her.
Lena was smart. Maybe not as smart as her siblings, Jared excluded, but few people were. Trig had no doubt that Lena would accomplish whatever she set out to do. She never gave up. Even when the odds were stacked against her. He loved that about her. He always had.
6)In her spare time, Lena will race speedboats. Should Lena and Trig acquire two speedboats, Lena will race the red one.
Trig laughed.
7)Lena wants to marry Trig.
Trig’s heart kicked hard against his chest.
8)And live in a farmhouse high on a hill above the banks of a lazy and occasionally crazy river. And help raise his babies, adopted babies and possibly a couple of puppies. Lena wants the children to call her Mum and the dogs to think she’s the boss.
Trig ran a rough hand across his face. Everything he’d ever wanted was right here in column two. Mainly because everything he’d ever wanted had always led back to Lena.
9)She also wants a Turkish bathing pool built somewhere inside the farmhouse. This pool will have water spouts, waterfalls and marble ledges to lie on.
Fortunately she didn’t want a eunuch with that.
10)Lena still wants Jared home so that she can kick his arse for not keeping in touch—but that can wait.
11)Lena wants to work around her physical limitations rather than resent them. She may need to be reminded of this from time to time.
Damn, but he loved this woman.
12)Lena wants Trig. Repeat: Lena wants Trig and wants to know what he wants so that she can adjust her plans accordingly. Compromise is in her vocabulary. She looked it up in the Wiktionary.
The third column, ‘What Trig Wants’, stood ominously blank. The cut and paste option had never been more tempting. Instead, Trig opened up a new file and prepared to give his future some serious thought.
Half an hour and half a dozen words later, Trig decided that he was a man of action rather than words. Fifteen minutes after that he was in the car, heading for Damon’s beach house and Lena.
Lena woke to the sound of someone pounding impatiently on Damon’s front door. She squinted at the bedside clock and groaned. Five twenty-two a.m. She’d waited up last night until almost one a.m. Waiting for a reply from Trig that had never come. He hadn’t emailed or called. She’d finally caved and called him, only to find that his phone was out of range or turned off. Why hadn’t he called? Because he wasn’t mean like that. Thoughtless on occasion, yes, but never mean. Lena’s eyes drifted closed.
And the pounding started again and this time her brain kicked into gear and she sat bolt upright. Who else would be at her door at five-something a.m.?
Her body didn’t want to hurry down Damon’s long hallway but where there was a will there was a way and Lena made it to the door in record time. She unbolted it and opened it and there stood Trig, his smile brighter than the sun. The dark stubble on his face and the rumpled business shirt minus tie only added to his appeal.
‘I brought croissants,’ he said. ‘They’re still hot.’
Lena had to move to see past him, but eventually she spotted his car. ‘You drove here overnight?’
‘It’s not that far.’
‘How much coffee did you have?’
‘I lost count,’ he murmured and dropped a kiss on her unprotesting lips as he sailed past her. ‘Consider me wide awake.’
He headed for the kitchen, Lena followed. ‘You drove here,’ she said again.
‘The planes were too slow.’
‘So you drove here.’
‘You’re not quite as awake as me, are you?’
Guess not.
‘You said you loved me. In an email,’ he continued as if she’d just shredded his favourite kite sail. ‘I’ve decided to forgive you for that, by the way, but I needed to be here in person to give you my reply. Because that’s how it’s done. In person.’
‘Oh.’ Lena tried to hide her smile. She leaned against the kitchen counter with her hands trapped between her back and the counter, because if she reached for him they wouldn’t talk and he sounded like he needed to talk. ‘I thought I’d already told you that I loved you in person,’ she offered dulcetly. ‘I remember it distinctly. It was right after you proposed the second time. Or was it the first? Or does that time not count because I thought we were already married and you knew we weren’t.’
‘It counts.’ Trig scowled.
Lena smiled.
‘For someone who looks so angelic, you’re really good at torture,’ he muttered.
‘You love it,’ she said. ‘You love me.’
‘I do.’ Trig reached behind him and pulled from his pocket a crumpled sheet of paper. He unfolded it and it turned into two crumpled sheets of paper. ‘It’s your list of what you want.’
‘Where’s yours?’
In my head. He scanned the paper. Nodded a couple of times.
‘I don’t want to quit ASIS,’ he said. ‘I may even want to take the occasional field job. When the kids arrive I aim to retire from fieldwork and carve out a place for myself in operations review. Turns out I’m good at it. That okay by you?’
‘Yes.’ Just because she didn’t want a man as careless with his life as Jared was, didn’t mean she wanted a placid man who played everything safe. ‘That’ll work.’
‘Good.’ He returned his attention to the paper in his hand. ‘I have a couple of adjustments to make to the poolside plans. I want Turkish tile trim, a retractable roof and a marble mermaid on the steps. And fairy lights.’
‘Because, why not?’ she murmured.
‘Exactly. And much as I want Jared at my wedding, I’m not going to wait another nineteen months for him to come home. I say we send him an invite to our June wedding and see if he turns up.’
‘June, you say. Okay.’ She could be a winter bride. ‘Give him an exit date to aspire to.’
‘Puppies,’ Trig said next, and Lena smiled at his priorities. ‘I want to get them from the pound and they must, when grown, stand at least knee high. I will train the puppies not to crush the children. All children and puppies will think I’m the boss.’
‘You always did like a challenge.’
‘So true. I want to honeymoon at Saul’s Caravan, and this time we’ll do it right.’
‘Perfect,’ said Lena.
Trig tossed the paper on the counter and stepped in close, his hands either side of her, his eyes smiling as he pressed his lips to the curve of her mouth. ‘Do I need to propose to you again?’
‘I think you do.’
‘You want the moon and the stars again?’
‘And the turtles. And Saturn’s rings.’
‘I knew you liked that one best.’
‘Well, you always remember your first.’
She wound her arms around his neck and kissed him, then. Savouring him. Loving him. She reached for the topmost button of his shirt and undid it. She undid the second button for him too.
‘I love you, Lena.’
‘I know,’ she whispered and brought her hands up to frame his face. ‘And you’re right. Saying it to the person in person is better, so... Adrian Trig Sinclair, I love you too.’
