Because she wasn’t in love withhim?
He couldn’t leave things like this. Oliver strode after Bella. His mother was coming out of the conservatory and he couldn’t ignore her expression.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘I forgot that the door was open. Bib ran away into the garden and she might get lost. Bella looked terribly upset.’
Bella was probably upset about a lot more than the cat. With good reason. He’d made a complete mess of trying to talk to her, hadn’t he? Oliver headed into the conservatory and towards the open French doors.
‘Stay here and don’t worry,’ he told his mother. ‘I’m going to see what I can do to fix things.’
13
It was hard to see through a mist of tears.
Bella blinked hard but the part of the garden that came into focus was the rose-covered summer house and, for a heartbeat, she was lying in Oliver’s arms again. Being made love to.
Beingloved.
It would never happen again.
Bella stumbled as the image was blurred by fresh tears. He’d spelt it out, hadn’t he? He had been going to offer to marry her because it was the expected thing to do in his world. Maybe the reasons for the expectations for his parents to marry had been different but the result would be the same.
A far from perfect result.
But Oliver was still prepared to go through with it?
Well,shewasn’t.
No way.
Even if it broke Lady Dorothy’s heart not to have potentially her only grandchild in the family.
Bella stopped in her tracks for a moment, gulping in the fresh, ocean-tinged air. Controlling her tears, because it was stupid to go charging down the steps when she couldn’t see properly. She’d end up falling and everybody knew how dangerous that was for pregnant women.
She’d told Lady Dorothy that she could take care of this baby, and she could. Starting now.
‘Bib?’ The cat’s name came out as little more than a whisper. Bella took another deep breath and cleared her throat. ‘Bib? Where are you?’
Her voice was stronger now. She was stronger. Shecouldcope. When she found Bib, she would go back to Kate and Connor’s house and then she’d have time to really pull herself together and get her head around what the future held. As much as she loved Lady Dorothy, she couldn’t keep working and living in the same house as Oliver. They would manage. They’d managed just fine yesterday without her.
She couldn’t go home without Bib, though. Kate might have been totally against having a fur child when the kitten had arrived in their lives, but Bella knew how much she loved her pet now. Imagine coming home from a honeymoon to be told that Bib had been lost. Washed out to sea or attacked by a seagull or something.
The steps that led down the cliff to the almost private beach were steep but perfectly manageable. After about a dozen of them, Bella paused and called again and this time she heard something. A mewing sound that was definitely that of a cat, but it sounded nothing like Bib.
It was a miserable and frightened sound, and it struck such a chord with how Bella was feeling that her breath came out in a sob.
The sound was coming from somewhere further up the cliff, but Bella couldn’t see a fluffy grey shape anywhere. Cautiously, she moved away from the steps onto a natural terrace that was supporting some shrubs around the base of an old Pohutukawa tree leaning out towards the sea at a precarious angle.
‘Bib? Come on, kitten. Where are you?’
And then Bella could finally pinpoint where the sad cry was coming from. Bib must have raced up the trunk of the Pohutukawa tree and then out onto one of the branches on the far side that hung straight out from the cliff. Maybe she’d looked down and seen the rocks on the beach far below and realised how much danger she was in.
There was no way Bella could climb up to fetch her. The only option to save Bib would be to coax her back towards the solid main trunk of the tree, but that wasn’t going to be easy. She could see the bottlebrush of a tail and the stiff posture of a terrified cat that wasn’t going anywhere in a hurry.
The roots of the tree were a twisted nest that seemed well anchored into the cliffside. Carefully, Bella climbed over some of them. If she could get close enough to the trunk, maybe Bib would respond to her calls. The roots were certainly sturdy enough but what Bella hadn’t taken account of was the dry, crumbly soil between them. Her foot went straight through what looked like a solid part of the ledge, and there was only air beneath it. She lost her balance and found herself falling.
And she could hear her name being shouted.
