‘It’s me who should be sorry. This is no night to be talking about work.’
‘We don’t have a lot more in common,’ she said bluntly, and then bit her lip. She hadn’t meant to sound so…tart.
Maybe she was tart. Maybe that was how she always sounded. She’d stop pretences years ago.
One of the reasons she’d relaxed with Charles over the years had been that he seemed to appreciate blunt talking. He asked for her opinion and he got it.
She needed to soften, though, she thought. He wouldn’t want a wife who shot her mouth off.
‘We have Lily in common,’ he reminded her, and she nodded.
Of course. But… ‘I’m not sure why you want her,’ she said cautiously. ‘I know your reaction when her parents died was the same as mine—overwhelming sadness. But you do already have a daughter.’
‘I have Kate,’ he said. ‘A twenty-seven-year-old daughter I’ve only known for the last few months.’
‘You must have loved her mother.’
‘We all did,’ he said ruefully. ‘Maryanne was gorgeous. She was wild and loving and did what she pleased. I wasn’t the only one in love with her. You know that’s what caused the rift in my family? Philip, my brother, shot me by accident, but he put the blame on a mate of mine who also loved Maryanne. The repercussions of that can still be felt today. Anyway, that’s what happened. I was injured and was sent to the city. Apparently Maryanne was in the early stages of pregnancy but didn’t tell anyone. Certainly not me. A rushed marriage to a young man who was little more than a boy, and who was facing a life of paraplegia…that would never be Maryanne’s style.
‘By the time I was well enough to return here she’d disappeared down south. Apparently she had Kate adopted and then proceeded to have a very good life. The first I knew of it was when Kate arrived on the scene just before the cyclone.’
He said it lightly. He said it almost as if it didn’t hurt, but there was enough in those few words to let Jill see underneath. A young man wildly in love, deserted seemingly because of his paraplegia. Knowing later he’d fathered a child, but Maryanne had not deemed it worth telling him. It was more of the same, she thought. More of the treatment meted out by the jeweller.
Charles as a young man would have been gorgeous. She knew enough of his family background to know he was also rich. Maryanne might well have chosen another course altogether if she hadn’t classified the father of her child as something…
Well, it was all conjecture, Jill thought harshly. Charles must have done his own agonising. It wasn’t for her to do his agonising for him.
‘But it does mean you have a daughter,’ she said gently into the silence.
‘I do,’ he said. ‘But I missed out on the whole damned lot. With Lily it’s a bit like being given the chance again.’ He hesitated. ‘OK. Enough. What about you?’
‘Me?’ she said, startled.
‘All I know of your background is from other people,’ he said. ‘Maybe if we’re to be married I ought to know a bit more.’
‘You don’t want to know about Kelvin.’
‘Harry told me he was in jail.’
‘He had a five-year sentence for…for hurting me. I’m still…’
‘Afraid of him?’
‘He used to say he’d kill me if I left him,’ she whispered. ‘He demonstrated it enough for me to believe him.’
‘You think he’s still a threat?’
‘He doesn’t know I’m here. You know that. You know I’ve changed my name. Judy Standford, dumb, bashed wife of a fisherman down south, to Jill Shaw, director of nursing at Croc Creek. But he’ll still be looking.’
‘Surely after so many years…’
‘What Kelvin owns he’ll believe he owns to the end,’ she said bleakly. ‘He’d want me dead rather than see me free.’
‘Why the hell did you marry him?’ he asked savagely.
‘The oldest reason in the world,’ she said. ‘Like you and Maryanne, only maybe without the passion. I was sixteen. A kid. Kelvin was a biker, a mate of my oldest brother, Rick. Rick agreed I could go with them to a music festival. I was way out of my depth and I ended up pregnant. My dad…well, my dad was as violent in his way as Kelvin. Kelvin agreed to marry me and I was terrified enough to do it. Only then I lost the baby. And when I tried to leave… It just…’ She stopped, seeming too distressed to go on.
‘You don’t have to explain to me,’ Charles said gently. ‘But, even after you left, you never thought you’d marry again? You never thought you’d like a child?’
‘Of course I’d like a child,’ she said explosively. ‘I was seven months pregnant when I lost my little girl. I hadn’t realised…until I held Lily…’
‘So Lily’s a second chance for both of us.’ He reached over the table and took her ring hand, folding it between both of his. The warmth and strength of his hold gave her pause.
She’d been close to tears. Close to fury. His hold grounded her, settled her. Made her feel she had roots. But it also left her feeling out of her depth.
‘D-don’t,’ she said, and tugged back.
‘We need to show a bit of affection,’ Charles said wryly. ‘If we’re to pull off a marriage that doesn’t look like a sham.’
‘It doesn’t matter if it is a sham.’
‘You see, I’m thinking that’s where you might be wrong,’ he said. ‘We’ve been given Lily. It’s a huge gift.’
‘We should be home with her now.’
‘She doesn’t need us now,’ Charles said. ‘That’s the problem. Oh, she needs us in that we’re providing security whether she knows it or not. But if we said she was to live with Gina and Cal…’
‘She’d be upset,’ Jill said. She tugged her hand away and stared down into the depths of her ring. ‘Or she’d be more upset,’ she amended. ‘She’s traumatised.’
‘She won’t let the psychologists near.’ Charles sighed. ‘Well, you know the problems as well as I do. Do we tell her tonight that we’re getting married? That she can stay with us for ever?’
‘Cal knows. Gina knows. Sophia Poulos knows. We’d better do it or she’ll be the last in Croc Creek to find out.’
CHAPTER THREE
CHARLES settled the bill and they went out into the balmy night. On another occasion they might have walked here—or wheeled here, Jill corrected herself. Charles never let being in a chair stop him going places. The strength in his arms was colossal and he could push his chair long after those around him were tired from walking.
But there was packing to do tonight and they needed to collect Lily before it got too late. So they’d driven. Or Charles had driven. He was almost as fast getting into the car as a normal driver, opening the door, sliding into the driver seat, clipping his chair closed and swinging it into the rear seat behind him. By the time Jill had adjusted the drapes of her dress they were already moving out onto the road.
He was a normal guy, Jill thought as she tried to focus on the road ahead, and she swallowed. A normal husband. Did he realise what that did to her?
It terrified her.
She’d agreed to this marriage why? Because she loved Lily. Because she couldn’t bear that Lily be further dislocated.
Because Charles was in a wheelchair and would make no demands on her as a wife?
Maybe