Love Islands…The Collection. Jane Porter

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СКАЧАТЬ but, whatever else she was, Lily was obviously a devoted mother.

      Her lips ghosted a faint smile as she lifted her face to him. She brushed the wisps of gold red hair from her face, leaving one free, which Ben fought a sudden urge to tuck behind her ear.

      ‘There will be plenty of time to sleep afterwards...’ As he watched a stricken expression spread across her face she rushed into explanatory speech. ‘I didn’t mean it like that...she will be all right, won’t she?’ She shook her head and murmured a soft, almost inaudible, ‘Sorry.’

      ‘For what?’

      ‘For asking you to tell me it will be all right.’ She lifted her chin; she knew it would be a massive mistake to fall into the habit of thinking they were a team. ‘You don’t know... I don’t know... We have to put our reliance in medical science and blind luck.’

      ‘Don’t knock luck and aren’t you forgetting a little girl’s fighting spirit?’

      ‘I wish I could do it for her...’

      ‘I know.’

      On the point of leaning into him, she pulled back. ‘I should go back...’ Behind her the door was caught by a gust of wind and slammed, rattling the glass. She turned her head at the sound and wondered how long it would take to find her way back to the ward.

      ‘Where are you staying?’

      She turned her head and looked at him, a frown of incomprehension forming between her feathery brows. ‘Staying?’ she echoed.

      ‘Sleeping.’

      ‘Oh, they recommended a nice B & B near the hospital.’ Her arm lifted in a vague directional gesture. ‘Mum booked us in there. She’s dropping off my bag on her way home, I think.’

      His mouth thinned into a critical line. ‘That hardly seems ideal.’

      ‘This situation is not ideal!’ she flared bitterly, then tacked on a weary, ‘Sorry.’ Immediately regretting venting her anger and frustration at him—she didn’t blame him, he was just there.

      Were there couples whose relationships were casualties of a situation like this? she wondered. Were there bleak statistics out there to confirm it? Well, one thing they couldn’t become was a statistic. They weren’t a couple; they were already apart.

      Suddenly very cold, she gave a shiver.

      ‘Do you want to go in?’

      She gave an absent nod, tucking her hair behind her ears as she tilted her head to look up at him. ‘They are very good here. They try their best. The unit has a purpose-built apartment block for parents and families, but it’s vastly oversubscribed and pretty much on a first-come-first-served basis. Anyway I actually prefer to sleep in the chair by Emmy at the moment—just in case...’ She gulped, her eyes falling from his, but not before he had seen the terror she struggled to ignore.

      He fought against the instinct to offer her comfort. ‘I understand.’

      Bracing her shoulders, she exhaled a gusty sigh. Her voice no longer quivered and was firm with conviction as she said, ‘She’ll be all right. I know she will. It was just seeing that couple—they were so happy yesterday...’ She shook her head as if to shake away the scene in the day room. ‘It was a good idea to get some fresh air.’

      ‘It helps. I hate being inside hospitals.’

      ‘Do you hate hospitals because of your accident?’ She encountered his blank expression and touched her own head.

      ‘Oh, that.’ He shrugged. ‘No one likes hospitals.’

      Suddenly Lily felt very angry, remembering what he’d told her about his mother. ‘I just don’t get... How could she?’

      Ben shook his head.

      ‘She was your mother. How could she leave you alone? Was your father there?’

      ‘He was in the middle of a project or affair, maybe both. He was good at multitasking, but I got the best medical care money could buy.’ Her empathy was beginning to make him uncomfortable. He did not think of himself as an object of pity. ‘This is the part where I normally bring out the violins.’ He cocked his head to his shoulder and pretended to play a violin.

      ‘It’s not funny!’ Maybe making a joke of it was his way of coping?

      ‘My grandfather came,’ he said, hoping this would stop her flow of indignation.

      ‘Was that when they sent you to live with him?’

      Ben shook his head, exasperated by her persistence. ‘No, that was a couple of years later and I sent myself.’

      ‘Sent?’

      ‘I packed my bags and told them I was going, end of story.’

      Her emerald eyes widened in astonishment. ‘And they let you?’

      ‘I didn’t ask permission and I imagine they were secretly relieved. So was I when my grandfather let me stay.’

      ‘Have you told him yet, your grandfather, about Emmy?’ She took his expression as a no. ‘I’ll give Mum a ring and ask her not to tell him before you’ve had a chance to speak to him. You can’t let him hear something like this from a stranger. He’s old.’

      ‘Old and as tough as old boots,’ Ben retorted, no inflection in his voice.

      ‘Maybe,’ she conceded. ‘But at his age something like flu can take a long time to get over.’

      The comment slid through his defences. ‘He had flu?’

      ‘You didn’t know?’ She was startled.

      Ben compressed his lips, his jaw hard as he turned and curved his hands around the cold metal rail he had been leaning against before admitting, ‘We had a ten-minute conversation last week. I hadn’t been home...well, since the last time and he threw me out.’

      ‘I assumed you’d had a falling out...’

      Ben opened his mouth to tell her that it was none of her business and instead found himself responding to her probing with an explanation.

      ‘My efforts to update the estate did not go down well. He accused me of being heartless and avaricious.’ An accusation that had left a bitter taste in his mouth because Ben was pretty sure that, even though he’d never mentioned it to his grandfather, the old man knew about the money Ben had surreptitiously sunk into various projects on the estate. Unless he thought the aged machinery in the saw mill renewed itself? ‘It appears he thinks forward planning involves selling off a painting or a piece of land to settle debts.’

      Lily felt a stab of sympathy for both men. ‘I suppose it’s hard for someone like your grandfather to relinquish control...young lion, old lion type of thing...?’ she suggested tentatively. ‘People need to feel needed.’

      ‘There’s just no talking to the man!’ The explosive complaint left his lips before he could censor it. He shrugged, moderating his tone СКАЧАТЬ