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      ‘Ruby’s pregnant.’

      ‘Oh.’ She refused to feel envy. She refused to feel longing. Those emotions had no place in the presence of Ruby’s good news. ‘That’s good, isn’t it? I get to be an auntie. Ruby gets to buy headbands for a baby. You can’t tell me you’re not looking forward to that.’

      Trig’s eyes warmed ever so slightly. ‘Maybe. And it’s babies. Plural. She’s having twins.’

      ‘Seriously?’ Lena laughed. ‘That is awesome. You think they’d let us borrow them?’

      ‘I want children, Lena.’

      Lena’s laughter stuck in her throat. They hadn’t talked about this; she knew it instinctively. Why hadn’t they ever talked about this?

      ‘No can do. I do know my limitations in that regard. You’ll get no biological children from me.’

      ‘We could adopt,’ her husband said gruffly.

      ‘We could.’ That was one option. ‘Or you could have a biological child with someone else. We could explore surrogacy.’

      ‘You’d consider that?’

      ‘You might have to get me a good shrink, but, yes. I could get on board with that. Could you?’

      ‘I’d probably have to share your shrink for a while.’

      ‘I could probably be your shrink for a while. These past couple of years I’ve become intimately acquainted with helplessness, hopelessness, anger, envy and old-fashioned irrational behaviour. I can show you round.’

      Trig smiled at that and she reached forward and covered his hand with her own. ‘Don’t give up on me.’

      ‘Never.’

      This was why she’d married this man.

      ‘I feel as if I’m in a place where I don’t have to run to keep up any more,’ she confessed. ‘I can’t run any more. Best I can do is hold my ground and stumble along, and you know what? You’re still there for me, and my family is still there, because it was never about me keeping up. It was about me believing that I belonged and I do believe that now. I’m happy now. I married you, which I have to say is probably the smartest thing I’ve ever done.’

      ‘About that...’ His gaze flickered to the bed.

      ‘Yes, about that. No pressure.’

      ‘Right,’ said Trig faintly and Lena smiled and cut him a break.

      ‘How’s your food?’

      ‘Good.’ Trig loaded up his fork and looked at it as if he couldn’t quite remember where it should go.

      Lena smiled and took a quick bite of the fragrant lamb stew. Tasty.

      ‘Forget the bed,’ she said, although she hadn’t. ‘We still have several more courses to get through, and dancing still to go. I have my dancing frock on and everything.’

      ‘But no shoes.’

      ‘I don’t need shoes. You’re not wearing any either,’ she felt obliged to point out.

      ‘There’s no music.’

      ‘I found some pianola rolls. I put one in. Want to see if it plays?’

      ‘You love this room,’ he said with a crooked smile as she rose from the table, caught hold of his hand and tugged him towards the pianola.

      ‘I really do. It’s a little bit beautiful, a whole lot fascinating, and kind of cracked when you look up close. I’m hoping it might be the way you see me. Because, newfound sense of belonging or not, I’m still trying to figure out what you see in me.’

      She fiddled with the pianola settings and the machine began to play a bright and jazzy tune that put her in mind of Gershwin and New York.

      ‘I should have packed the red lampshade dress.’

      ‘Or you could sit this one out.’

      ‘Good idea.’ She reached for another of the scrolls crammed into the shelving beside the pianola. ‘Hey, I remember this one from my mother’s jewellery box! Open the lid and music played and the little ballerina went round and round and round.’

      ‘I don’t want to go round and round,’ said Trig.

      She pulled out another roll. ‘ABBA?’

      ‘Don’t make me shoot you.’

      ‘You do realise you’re not going to be able to threaten our children or our nephews and nieces with a shotgun every time they don’t share your taste?’

      ‘I’ll figure something out.’

      ‘What about this one?’ she said, holding up a pianola roll for his inspection. ‘I think it’s French.’ It was also something she could sway to—her dancing skills hadn’t exactly improved with age. ‘Bear with me,’ she said as she went to swap the rolls, only now Trig had decided to figure out how pianolas worked too. ‘Focus.’

      ‘I am focused.’

      ‘On me.’

      He poked his head back out of the old machine’s innards. ‘But I can focus on you any time.’

      He looked sincere. He sounded sincere. He set the pianola roll to rolling and the first few notes of gentle piano music flowed into the room.

      ‘Seems a little slow,’ he murmured.

      ‘It’s perfect. Which carpet would you like to dance on?’

      He smiled at that. ‘The blue one by the end of the bed.’

      ‘That’s your favourite? Because I’m thinking of buying one just like it for the farmhouse on the banks of the lazy river.’

      ‘I do like the idea of a farmhouse on the banks of a lazy river,’ he admitted. Moments later he surrendered a wry smile and held out his hand for hers. When they reached the blue carpet he swung her gently around and into his arms and she put her hand to his chest, deeply satisfied when he drew a swift breath. His nipples had tightened and wasn’t that a pretty sight against the cotton of his shirt? She swiped her thumb across one well-defined little bump and he bit back a whimper. ‘You like that?’

      He nodded.

      She pressed a gentle kiss to his jaw next. ‘And that?’

      ‘Not complaining.’

      ‘Not encouraging me either.’

      ‘About that—’

      She kissed his throat next and slid her hands beneath his shirt as he stood there and trembled beneath her touch. Heady business, seducing this husband of hers.

      ‘We СКАЧАТЬ