A Valentine Kiss. Christy McKellen

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СКАЧАТЬ fading from the bright green of summer to the warm hues of autumn. From where he stood he could see the chapel where he’d married Mila just three months after they’d met.

      He shook his head. He wouldn’t think about that now.

      Instead he looked under the potted plants that lined the pathway to the front door for the key he knew his father had kept there. When he found it he began to walk to his father’s house—except that wasn’t true any more. He clenched his jaw at the reminder of the new ownership of the house—the house he had grown up in—and the reason he was back, and turned the key in the lock.

      He heard it first—the crackling sound of fire blazing—and he set his bags down and hurried to the living room where he was sure he would find the house burning. And slowed when he realised that the fire was safely in the fireplace.

      He turned his head to the couch in front of the fire, and his heart stopped when he saw his ex-wife sitting in front of it.

      ‘What are you doing here?’ he demanded before he could think, the shock of seeing her here, in his childhood home, forcing him to speak before he could think it through.

      She jumped when she heard him, and shame poured through him as the glass of wine in her hand dropped to the ground and the colour seeped from her face.

      ‘Jordan... What...? I...’

      In another world, at another time, he might have found her stammering amusing. Now, though, he clamped down the emotions that filled him and asked again, ‘What are you doing here, Mila?’

      Her fingers curled at her sides—the only indication that she was fighting to gain her composure. He waited, giving her time to do so, perhaps to make up for startling her earlier.

      ‘What are you doing here?’ she asked him instead, crossing her arms and briefly drawing his attention to her chest. He shook his head and remembered how long it had taken him to realise that she took that stance whenever she felt threatened.

      ‘You want to know why I’m here? In my father’s home?’

      ‘It’s not your father’s home any more, Jordan.’

      His heart thudded. ‘Is that why you’re here? Because you’ll own part of this house soon?’

      She winced, and it made him think that maybe he wasn’t the only one unhappy with his father’s will.

      ‘No, of course not. But I do live here.’

      ‘What?’

      The little colour she had left in her face faded, but her eyes never left his. If he hadn’t been so shocked he might have been impressed at her guts. But his mind was still very much focused on her revelation.

      ‘I live here,’ she repeated. The shakiness in her voice wasn’t completely gone, but the silken tone of it came through stronger. The tone that sounded like music when she laughed. That had once caressed his skin when she said, ‘I love you.’ The tone that had said ‘I do!’ two years ago as though nothing could touch them or their love.

      How little they had known then...

      He pushed the memories away.

      ‘I heard that. I want to know why,’ he said through clenched teeth, his temper precariously close to snapping.

      ‘Because your father asked me to move in with him after...after everything that happened.’

      The reminder of the past threatened to gut him, but he ignored it. ‘So after we got divorced you thought it would be a good idea to move in with my father?’

      ‘No, he did,’ she said coldly, and again shame nudged him for reasons he didn’t understand. ‘He wanted—he needed someone around when you left.’

      ‘And you agreed?’

      ‘After his first heart attack, yes.’

      Her words cut right through to his heart, and he asked the question despite the fact that everything inside him wanted to ignore it. ‘His first? You mean his only.’

      Something flashed through her eyes, and he wondered if it was sympathy. ‘No, I mean his first. The one that killed him was his third.’

      Jordan resisted the urge to close his eyes, to absorb the pain her words brought. He wondered how he had gone to his father’s funeral, how he had spoken to the few friends Greg had had left, and was only hearing about this now.

      But then, was it any wonder? a voice asked him. His father had always kept his feelings to himself, not wanting to burden Jordan with them. An after-effect of that night, Jordan thought. But there was a part of him that wondered if Greg hadn’t told him as punishment for Jordan leaving, even after his father had warned him that it would destroy his marriage—which it had. After Jordan had decided that limited contact with his father during the year he’d been gone—grief snapped at him when he thought that it had actually been the year before his father’s death—was the only way he would be able to forget about what had happened...

      ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ he asked, determined not to get sucked in by his thoughts.

      ‘He didn’t want you to know.’

      It was like a punch to the gut—and it told him that his father wanting to punish him might not have been such a farfetched conclusion.

      ‘He told you that, or you decided it?’

      Mila’s face was clear, but when she spoke her voice was ice. ‘It was Greg’s decision. Do you think your father’s friends would have kept quiet about it for me?’

      She waited for his answer, but it didn’t come. He was too busy processing her words.

      ‘He didn’t want you to come home until you’d decided to.’

      ‘You should have called me,’ he said, his voice low, dangerous.

      ‘If you hadn’t been so determined to put as much distance between us as possible—if you hadn’t let it cloud your judgement—you would have known that you should have come home even though I didn’t call you.’

      Her voice was a mirror of his own thoughts, and if her words hadn’t pierced his heart Jordan might have taken a moment to enjoy—perhaps a better word was admire—this new edge to Mila. But he was too distracted by the emotion that what she’d said had awoken in him.

      Had his desire to escape the pain of his marriage blinded him to what he should have known? That he should have come home?

      ‘So you’re back because of the will?’

      Her question drew him out of his thoughts—drew his attention to her. He took a moment before he answered her.

      ‘Yes, that sped up my return to Cape Town. But I’m here for good.’

      Jordan watched as her left hand groped behind her, and he moved when he realised she was looking for something to keep her standing. He caught her as she staggered back, his arm curved around her waist. His heartbeat was faster than it had been in a long time, and somewhere in the back of his mind he wondered СКАЧАТЬ