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‘And now you’re not sure?’
‘How can you love someone you don’t even know?’ Her voice cracked slightly and Ryan crossed the kitchen and dragged her into his arms.
‘The guy is clearly deranged.’ Dropping a kiss on her hair, he eased her away from him. ‘So now I understand why you asked me that question. You must find it impossible to trust another man.’
‘No.’ She said the word fiercely. ‘Clive lied to me, but I know all men aren’t like that—just as not all teenage mothers are inept and not all boys wearing hoodies are carrying knives. I won’t generalise. I don’t trust him, that’s true, but I don’t want Lexi growing up thinking the whole male race is bad. I won’t do that to her.’
Her answer surprised him. He’d met plenty of people with trust issues.
He had a few of his own.
‘You’re a surprising person, Jenna Richards.’ Young in many ways, and yet in others more mature than many people older than her.
‘I’m an ordinary person.’
He thought about the way she loved her child, the way she was determined to be as good a mother as she could be. He thought about the fact that she’d been with the same man since she was sixteen. ‘There’s nothing ordinary about you. I’m intrigued about something, though.’ He stroked her hair away from her face, loving the feel of it. ‘If you were at home with Lexi, when did you train as a nurse?’
‘Once Lexi started school. I had a network of friends—many of them working mothers. We helped each other out. Sisterhood. They’d take Lexi for me when I was working, I’d take their children on my days off. Sometimes I had a house full of kids.’
He could imagine her with children everywhere. ‘Can I ask you something else? Why didn’t you ever have more children? You obviously love them.’
‘Clive didn’t want more. He decided Lexi was enough.’
‘Like he decided that you weren’t going to have a dog or eat fish?’
She gave a
shaky smile. ‘Are you suggesting my final act of rebellion should be to have a baby? I think that might be taking it a bit far. And anyway, I couldn’t do that now.’
‘Why not?’
‘Well, for a start, I’m too old.’
‘You’re thirty-three. Plenty of women don’t have their first child until that age.’
She looked at him, and he knew she was wondering why he was dwelling on the subject. ‘And then there’s Lexi. If I had a baby now, it would be difficult for her.’
‘Why?’
‘Because there have been enough changes in her life. I suspect that at some point, probably soon, her father is going to have another child. I don’t want to add to the confusion. I want her relationship with me to be as stable as possible. Why are you asking?’
Why was he asking? Unsettled by his own thoughts, Ryan turned his attention back to his breakfast. ‘I’m just saying you’re not too old to have a child.’ He kept his voice even. ‘Put your sunglasses on. You’re right about it being sunny outside.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
IT WAS an affair full of snatched moments and secret assignations, all tinged with the bittersweet knowledge that it couldn’t possibly last.
At times Jenna felt guilty that she was keeping her relationship with Ryan from Lexi, but her daughter was finally settled and happy and she was afraid to do or say anything that might change that.
She just couldn’t give Ryan up.
They’d meet at the lighthouse at lunchtime, make love until they were both exhausted, and then part company and arrive back at the surgery at different times.
And, despite the subterfuge, she’d never been happier in her life.
‘I actually feel grateful to Clive,’ she murmured one afternoon as they lay on his cliffs, staring at the sea. Her hand was wrapped in his and she felt his warm fingers tighten. ‘If he hadn’t done what he did, I wouldn’t be here now. I wouldn’t have known it was possible to feel like this. It’s scary, isn’t it? You’re in a relationship, and you have nothing to compare it to, so you say to yourself this is it. This is how it’s supposed to feel. But you always have a sense that something is missing.’
‘Did you?’
