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‘Ed’s mother made that and gave it to us last Thanksgiving,’ she said, feeling a need to explain.
She sat stiffly, twisting the coffee mug back and forth and not looking at him, aware that they would very quickly run out of safe topics to discuss. ‘How is your Nonna?’ she asked. ‘I hope she’s still alive.’
Fresh smile creases showed around his eyes and at the corners of his mouth. ‘You bet she is. I think nonna’s organised a special deal with God. No doubt she’s promised him that when she gets to heaven she’ll cook gnocchi gorgonzola on a regular basis, if he’ll let her stay here till she’s good and ready.’
‘You’ve always loved your nonna’s gnocchi gorgonzola, haven’t you?’
‘I’m surprised you remember.’
‘Of course I remember.’ I remember everything about you, Tom. ‘Your nonna’s very special.’
‘Yeah.’ Tom released a long sigh. ‘It’s too damn long since I’ve seen her.’
‘Are you going back to Australia now?’
‘Definitely. Soon as I can.’
The awkwardness returned and this time Tom must have decided he’d had enough. He jumped to his feet. ‘Thanks for the coffee. I’d better get going.’
‘Yes,’ she said, jumping up just as quickly.
Was he happy to be leaving? Was that relief in his eyes? She remembered the way he used to smile whenever he saw her. The way his whole face would light up and his dark eyes would glow—and how she used to cling to him when it was time for them to part, begging for one more kiss—for him to hold her just a little longer.
And now they were both relieved to be parting.
He walked to the front door and she followed.
They said simple, unsatisfactory goodbyes without mentioning Ed again…Or their shared past.
Apart from the cold ache in her heart, there was nothing in the formal way they shook hands that suggested they had ever been lovers—nothing in the way she slipped her hand just a little too quickly from his that indicated that they had planned to marry.
Any second now, Tom would be turning away, walking out of her life. She knew this was best. His mission was accomplished. He’d brought the McBride family watch for Ethan and there was no more to do. Already she could sense his next move; he would execute a sharp about-turn and get the hell out of her home.
But he didn’t move.
Instead, he stood on her front step and looked at her for ages. The muscles in his throat worked. ‘Have you been happy, Mary?’
Oh, help! This was the one question in the world she didn’t want to answer. And Tom was watching her so intently she feared he must see her sudden dismay. Had it shown in her eyes? Had it twisted her mouth downwards? She couldn’t be disloyal to Ed now. He’d been a good husband. There was no one better. In a flash she recovered and sent Tom a bright smile.
‘Of course I’ve been happy,’ she said. ‘You’ve met Ed, Tom. You know what a great guy he is. He’s a very good man.’
‘Sure,’ Tom grunted. ‘Ed’s top shelf—he must have been a prize catch.’
He gave a curt nod and spun on his heel, at last eager to get away. Mary watched him and told herself she was glad he was leaving. It was best that they hadn’t made any attempt to rake up the past. What was the point? They couldn’t go back. Parting without regret or recrimination was the adult way to behave.
But as Tom’s foot touched the bottom step she felt the cruel weight of finality sink into her bones. Tom Pirelli was walking out of her life. A picture flashed before her of the last time she’d seen him, waiting on the corner, waiting to run away with her, to marry her.
And she heard herself calling suddenly, softly. ‘What about you, Tom? Have you been happy?’
CHAPTER FOUR
THE fear came the very moment Mary asked the question.
Have you been happy? As soon as the words were out she felt a dreadful quaking terror deep inside. Why? Why couldn’t she ask the question as easily as he had? And why was Tom staring at her with such a dark, accusing shadow in his eyes, as if he were angered by her question?
Was she imagining that sense of deep resentment that seemed to cling to him—as if it were a menacing presence that haunted him?
Was it guilt that made her so scared?
She had no cause to feel guilty. Eight years ago, on that night they’d tried to elope, Sonia had gone to Tom to explain why she couldn’t meet him and Mary had waited for his answer. And waited…But there had been no word. And he’d never tried to contact her afterwards.
He hadn’t suffered the agonies of disappointment that had made her so ill. He hadn’t suffered in silent, lovesick misery the way she had. And he hadn’t been left with a terrible, frightening secret. He knew nothing of the burden he had left her with, and he’d gone off to play heroes in the SAS without a backward glance in her direction.
Of course he’d been happy.
‘I haven’t been as happy as I should have been,’ he said.
‘Why?’
‘How can you ask that, Mary?’
Her hand flew to her chest and her heart knocked. ‘I don’t understand. You can’t be suggesting…’
Tom waited for her to finish. Mary couldn’t breathe. This was a nightmare. He couldn’t be telling her that he’d been unhappy all these years. Not because of her.
‘You’re not blaming me, are you?’ she whispered.
‘Why shouldn’t I?’
‘But, Tom, I didn’t think you minded that I didn’t go away with you. You just vanished without contacting me.’
His upper lip curled into a cold smile. ‘Because that was what you wanted.’
‘What?’
‘Don’t pretend you can’t remember. You sent your cousin.’
‘Yes, she went to tell you what happened. My father—’
‘She came with the message that you didn’t want to marry me.’
‘No, she can’t have.’
‘You changed your mind, Mary-Mary.’
‘No!’
‘No?’ Tom whispered.
‘No way. You must have known. My father caught me and wouldn’t let me out of the house. Of course I didn’t change my mind. How could you think that?’
They stared at each other—the woman in the doorway, clutching the door handle to keep herself from falling; the soldier on the bottom step with a face so still it might have been carved from dark granite.
Mary’s head swam and in the next heartbeat Tom was leaping up the steps, clasping her hands in his and drawing her back into the house.
‘We have to talk,’ he insisted, his voice choked, breathless.
‘Not now, Tom,’ Mary protested weakly. ‘There’s no point.’
The intensity in his eyes and the strength of his grip on her wrists frightened her. Talking to Tom about the past was dangerous.
Having him hold her like this was dangerous. She’d always been so susceptible to his touch.
No matter how hard she’d tried to forget, she remembered so much about Tom’s touch. Heavens, she could even remember the first night she’d felt it—when she’d danced with him and the music had slowed and he’d drawn her close. She’d rested her head on his shoulder and she’d felt the whisper-soft brush of his lips on her temple just near her hairline.
How crazy that she’d remembered the electric thrill of that tiny caress through all these years. She mustn’t think about it now.
‘We have to talk. You owe me this, Mary,’ he said quietly.
It was useless to pretend she didn’t understand. The moment she’d asked Tom if he was happy she’d begun a conversation that had to be completed. She’d asked the first in a series of questions that had to be asked. And answered.
But what could they achieve besides heartache? There was no way they could go back. They couldn’t undo the past eight years. And she was afraid of Tom, afraid of the power he’d always had over her.
Afraid he might somehow learn the truth about Ethan.
But, without another word, Tom led her back into the kitchen. They stepped around Ethan’s castle and the scattered knights and he pushed her gently into a chair. Their empty coffee mugs were still sitting on the table where they’d left them. From the family room came the sounds of canned laughter and Mary thought guiltily that she mustn’t let Ethan spend the whole morning watching television.
Tom sat opposite her with his elbows on the tabletop and his clenched fists pressed together. His dark eyes seemed to pierce her.
She took a deep breath. Best to get this over with. ‘What did Sonia tell you that night my parents stopped me from going to you?’
‘She said that you’d changed your mind, that at the last minute you’d hadn’t been able to dredge up the courage to elope with me.’
‘But that’s not true. You didn’t believe her, did you?’
Tom’s gaze held hers for the longest time. She could see the way his eyes were searching her face, trying to gauge how honestly she was answering.
‘No,’ he said at last. ‘I didn’t believe her. I told her that I would be in touch with you, that we needed to talk it through and come up with a better plan.’
Mary pressed a hand against the pulse beating wildly at the base of her throat. ‘Sonia didn’t tell me that, Tom. She told me you were angry with me for chickening out—that you called me a tease.’
‘The witch. I’d like to wring her scrawny neck.’
Mary sighed. ‘It might cost you a packet. She’s a lawyer these days and quite good at pressing charges.’
‘That figures.’
‘But, Sonia aside, what about your move to Perth? You never told me you’d applied for a transfer.’
‘I didn’t!’ Tom shouted, then looked a little shame-faced and lowered his voice. ‘Your father had me transferred. I had no choice.’
Mary stared at him as she came to grips with his news and the total injustice of what had happened. ‘Dad convinced me that you were only pretending you wanted to marry me. He said it was some kind of payback because he refused your promotion. He said you’d already applied for a transfer to Perth.’
‘Every word was a bloody lie. Your father had me transferred.’
‘Oh, Tom. If only we’d been able to talk.’
‘I tried to phone you.’
‘My mobile phone mysteriously disappeared around that time.’
‘Damn it, I tried everything, Mary. I hung around your house waiting to see you. I wrote letters. After I was transferred to Western Australia I even telephoned your house using a disguised voice, but I was told you wouldn’t take my call. And when I tried to call again a few weeks later I was told that your father had been posted overseas and you’d moved to the States.’
‘Dad managed to wangle a kind of exchange position at the Pentagon.’ Mary hugged her arms over her chest. ‘But you—you got on with your life, didn’t you, Tom?’
‘Yeah, I guess so.’ He sent her a grimacing smile. ‘I went out of my way to stop thinking about you. I disciplined my mind to cancel out thoughts of you. I just put you out of my mind.’
Was it easy, Tom? Mary’s eyes and throat stung. Did she have the right to ask that question? On the surface it must look as if she’d had no trouble turning her back on Tom and creating a new life.
‘I was so mad at my parents,’ she said, needing to change the subject.
‘But then you found Ed,’ Tom said quietly. It wasn’t an accusation, just a plain statement of fact.
‘Yes.’
She’d been a single mother in a foreign country—surrounded by military families. She’d been so lonely and Ed’s smile had been so warm. He’d been like a lighthouse—a friendly beacon for a shipwrecked sailor. And, as it turned out, he’d needed her and Ethan as much as they had needed him.
‘And what about you, Tom?’
‘I told you I haven’t been married.’ He scratched his head and smiled sheepishly. ‘I was engaged once, for twenty-four hours, but I was drunk when I proposed.’
Mary rolled her eyes. ‘How come you’ve always had a reputation as a bad boy, and yet I’ve never seen that side of you?’
He cocked his head to one side and sent her a crooked, quizzical smile. ‘Funny about that, isn’t it?’
Mary looked away. Was he suggesting that she had the power to transform him?
‘To be honest,’ Tom said, ‘I was a bit of a problem in your father’s unit. There were things about the regular Army that drove me nuts—guard duty, drill parades, admin book work. But when I got to Perth, and they discovered I had good grades, was good at languages, but had a bit of a wild record, the SAS snapped me up. That suited me better—action all the time, interesting people—important projects like Afghanistan—Iraq.’
The telephone rang, startling Mary, and she jumped to answer it.
‘Hi, honey,’ came her mother-in-law’s warm voice.
‘Oh, Susan, hi.’
‘I wasn’t sure if I’d catch you before tennis.’
Oh, heavens. Mary glanced at the clock and remembered that she still hadn’t rung to excuse herself from tennis this morning. ‘I have Ethan at home with a cold,’ she said.
She was aware of Tom standing, gathering up their coffee mugs. They made a slight rattling sound as he put them in the sink. Then came the sound of water running as he rinsed them.
‘Do you have company?’ Ed’s mother asked.
‘Actually, I have a visitor here who knows Ed,’ Mary said as calmly as she could. ‘He’s from Ed’s Special Squad.’
‘Fancy that.’ Susan McBride’s voice quavered. ‘Does he have any—any news?’
‘He brought Ed’s watch, Mom.’
‘Oh, Mary. Oh, dear Lord. Does that mean…?’
‘Tom doesn’t know where Ed is. Ed gave him the watch just before their last mission.’
‘Oh.’
During the stretch of silence that followed, Mary twisted the phone cord with nervous fingers.
‘Will this man be here for long?’ Susan asked. ‘You must bring him down our way. How about coming to lunch on Sunday? Or perhaps tomorrow would be better if he’s only here for a short stay. Frank and I would love to meet him.’
Mary hesitated. Clutching the phone receiver against her shoulder, she turned to Tom. ‘Ed’s mother has invited you to lunch on Sunday,’ she said as casually as she could manage, trying to hide her reluctance to have him more deeply involved in her life. ‘Or perhaps you’d prefer tomorrow.’
She prayed that he would refuse. How could she cope with the complication of Tom meeting Ed’s parents? Every minute with Tom stirred the deep hidden feelings she’d worked so hard to bury, and she didn’t know if she could hide her confusion with Ed’s parents watching her.
Tom must be as anxious as she was to leave the past dead and buried behind them.
‘Sure,’ he surprised her by answering readily. ‘Please tell Mrs McBride thank you. I’d like to meet Ed’s parents. Tomorrow would be great.’
CHAPTER FIVE
AS TOM strode down the hill away from Mary’s apartment the undulating green parkland of Arlington National Cemetery stretched beyond the trees to his right. In the distance ahead of him he caught a glimpse of the slow, dignified curve of the Potomac River.
The sun was warm on his back and it was a relief to be walking. The way he felt right now he needed to walk all the way from Arlington right on to downtown Washington DC. Hell, finding Mary had him so wired with pent-up energy and angst he could walk clear across Virginia to Chesapeake Bay without stopping.
What a whacko world they lived in.
How could fate be so crazy that it led him to Mary Cameron again after eight long years, only to reveal that she was married to one of his best mates? And, damn it, she was a mother as well. Mother of his mate’s son.
And the hell of it was, she was still able to cause him heartache. Mary had an extra aura of womanliness about her now, a Madonna-like softness and a mysterious, sensuous depth to her beauty that pierced him like a bayonet.
Ramming his hands into his trouser pockets, he flexed his shoulders and tried to release some of the building tension. Mary—his Mary. It shocked him to realise that he still thought of her as his. Damn fool that he was.
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