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‘You were thinking of your ex-husband. Perhaps I should clear the knives out of the cutlery drawer.’
‘You don’t need to worry about me. I’m fine.’
‘Obviously not, or your hand wouldn’t be bleeding now. And no one emerges from divorce completely unscathed.’
‘I didn’t say I was unscathed, Dr McKinley. I said I was fine.’
‘Ryan—’ He handed her another piece of kitchen roll for her finger. ‘Call me Ryan. Round here we tend to be pretty informal. Do you always pretend everything is OK when it isn’t?’
‘I’m just starting a new job. I don’t want everyone knowing I have baggage.’ She pressed her finger hard, trying to stop the bleeding, exasperated with herself. ‘It won’t affect my work.’
‘No one is suggesting that it would. Everyone has baggage, Jenna. You don’t have to wrap it up and hide it.’
‘Yes, I do. For Lexi’s sake. I’ve seen couples let rip at each other through their kids and there is no way I’m going to let that happen. I refused to let it be acrimonious. I refuse to be a bitter ex-wife.’
‘So you grit your teeth and shed your tears in private?’ Ryan took her hand and strapped a plaster to her finger.
‘Something like that.’ She’d bottled up the humiliation, the devastation, the sense of betrayal—the sense of failure. All those years people had been waiting for her to fail. And she’d failed in spectacular style.
Feeling the familiar sickness inside her, Jenna snatched her hand away from his. ‘Sorry. I’m talking too much. If you’re sure you still want it, I’ll make you that coffee.’
‘I’ll make it. You press on that finger.’
Watching him perform that simple task with swift efficiency, Jenna couldn’t help comparing him with Clive, who had never made her a cup of coffee in all the years they’d been together. ‘Do you live far from the practice, Dr Mc—Ryan?’
‘In the old lighthouse, three bays round from this one. You can walk there in twenty minutes along the coast path.’
Jenna remembered what Mrs Parker had said about him living like a hermit. ‘The views must be fantastic. If I had a lighthouse, I’d have my bedroom right in the top so that I could look at the view.’
‘Then we think alike.’ He poured fresh coffee into two mugs. ‘Because I have a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view from my bedroom.’
For some reason Jenna had a vision of Ryan sprawled in bed, and she felt a strange flutter behind her ribs, like butterflies trying to escape from a net.
‘Lucky you.’ Her image of leaning against his shoulder for comfort morphed into something entirely different. Different and dangerous.
She stood up quickly. ‘Why don’t we drink this in the garden?’ The fresh air would do her good, and the kitchen suddenly seemed far too small. Or maybe he seemed too big. Something was definitely out of proportion.
‘Why did you have to leave your home?’ He followed her outside and put the coffee down on the wooden table. ‘Couldn’t you have bought him out?’
‘He sold the house.’ She felt her hair lift in the breeze and breathed in deeply, smelling the sea. ‘He put it on the market without even telling me. I was living there with Lexi, and then one morning I woke up to find three estate agents on my doorstep.’
‘Did you get yourself a good lawyer?’
‘Clive is a lawyer,’ Jenna said wearily. ‘And I didn’t want Lexi seeing her parents fighting. I wanted it to be as civilised as possible.’
‘Civilised isn’t sending round estate agents with no warning.’
‘I know. But if I’d created a scene it would have been worse for Lexi. Apparently what he did was legal. I was only eighteen when we married—I didn’t check whose name the house was in. I didn’t check a lot of things.’
‘Legal, maybe—decent, definitely not.’ His tone was hard and there was a dangerous glint in his eyes. ‘Does Lexi know he made you sell?’
‘Yes. I told her the truth about that. I’m not sure if that was the right thing to do or not. She was already very angry with Clive for going off with another woman. And furious with me for choosing to relocate to Scotland.’
‘Why did you choose Scotland?’
‘Because it’s a long way from London…’ Jenna hesitated. ‘Clive doesn’t want Lexi around at the moment. He’s living the single life and he sees her as a hindrance. I thought it would damage their relationship for ever if she found out he doesn’
t want her there, so I picked somewhere so far away it would be a logistical nightmare for her to spend time with him. I didn’t want her having another reason to hate him.’
