‘Vanessa’s got some teddies just like mine,’ she confided to her aunt. ‘And she’s going to let me see them…’
‘Not today though, I’m afraid.’ Vanessa smiled wanly. ‘Today I’m taking your daddy to the hospital.’
Watching from the sidelines, Sara saw that Vanessa made no attempt to help Sam into the car, refraining from doing anything that would have brought her in physical contact with him, and yet despite Vanessa’s aloofness, she was aware of how much the other girl was suffering.
All women who loved were open to the same pain, all of her sex sharing a deep in-bred awareness of just how devastating it could be, Sara thought. It was an awareness that was seldom mentioned or talked about, but it was there. She had loved once and known that pain when tragedy wrenched Rick away from her. And that was why she was determined never to fall in love again.
Determined? She stopped with one foot on the stairs. It wasn’t by an effort of will that she couldn’t fall in love, it was because she still loved Rick. Wasn’t it?
When Sam and Vanessa returned from the hospital, both of them seemed in much happier spirits. Sam asked Sara if she would mind babysitting Carly for him so that he could take Vanessa out to dinner.
Observing their happiness as they drove away together several hours later, Sara told herself that it wasn’t envy that made her own heart heavy with pain. How could she envy Sam and Vanessa what she had sworn she could never experience again?
It was late when they got back, and over supper Sara couldn’t help noticing how often they exchanged brief glances and touches. As soon as she decently could she excused herself, fibbing that she was feeling tired.
In fact, she had never felt less like sleep. She was buoyed up by a restless nervy energy that she couldn’t seem to dispel. It seemed a long time before she finally heard Vanessa leave. Had Vanessa and her brother been making love?
A shudder of sensation gripped her body, her frantic attempts to summon the protection of Rick’s familiar features vanquished by their refusal to form. Instead it was Jonas who filled her thoughts and senses, his mental image tormenting her until she was forced to bury her head beneath her pillows in an attempt to push his intrusive image away.
As the week wore on, Sara found that her mood of nervous tension didn’t abate. Whenever she tried to calm herself by thinking of Rick, Jonas’s strong features came between her and her memories of her dead love.
Illogically, it was Jonas she blamed for her inability to remember Rick in exact detail. She was alternately torn between the feeling that she never wanted to see him again and the burning need to do so, so that she could demand that he stop torturing her.
On the Friday evening she babysat for Carly once again, allowing Vanessa and Sam to go out together.
The thundery weather, which had grown oppressive, drove her to bed early with the beginnings of a bad headache. The tablets she took beforehand ensured that she fell asleep almost immediately, but the physical intensity of her dreams woke her abruptly within an hour of going to bed.
Her dream had been so real that it was minutes after she had come awake before she realised that she was alone in her own bed, that Jonas was not beside her. Jonas… Even though she was alone her body burned, her skin scorched with heat.
Her dream had been so real that even now she could hardly comprehend that Jonas wasn’t there with her, that that touch against her skin had not been his but merely part of her dream.
With returning consciousness came the awareness of how much her body ached. Pressing her hands to her breasts, she felt their hard arousal, her throat suddenly thickening with uncryable tears.
Her headache was even worse than it had been before, its pounding mirroring the heavy thud of her pulses. With a tormented cry she got out of bed and pulled on her wrap, going over to her open casement window.
Outside the night air was hot and still with the tension that presages a thunderstorm. After the thunder would come the relief of rain to freshen the air and release the tension. But there seemed to be no escape for her own tension.
This hectic, almost frantic desire to abandon herself to the physical act of sex was unfamiliar to her. And yet surely she must have experienced this same driving need with Rick? After all, they hadn’t been lovers…and she had loved him. The fact that she was young and still a virgin had made him very protective and tender towards her, never permitting them to get in a situatio
n that offered too much temptation.
Perhaps it was because she was older that she felt this burning need—or perhaps it was fuelled by the fact that Rick was now lost to her for ever.
As she looked out of her window, she saw a light go on in one of Jonas’s greenhouses, and instinctively she withdrew from sight, even though she knew it would be impossible for anyone to see her. Vanessa had said earlier in the week that Jonas was away seeing customers, but now he must be back.
An unwelcome quiver of sensation tormented her skin, raising goosebumps and making her shiver. Why had she dreamed about Jonas—and in such an explicitly sexual way?
Feeling her skin burn once more, she stumbled back to her bed, telling herself that it must have been something to do with the drug she had taken for her headache.
Overnight it rained, the crash of thunder waking Sara briefly in the early hours. When she finally woke it was with the instinctive sensation of having overslept. Quickly showering and dressing, she went downstairs, checking on the threshold of the kitchen when she saw Vanessa deep in conversation with Sam.
‘Morning, sleepyhead,’ Sam teased, grinning at her. ‘Want some coffee?’
‘At least a gallon,’ Sara confirmed wryly. ‘Did you have a good time last night?’
She turned round just in time to see the look her brother and Vanessa exchanged, and was instantly pierced by the most illogical and painful jealousy.
‘You could say so,’ Sam drawled, fighting to keep the excitement out of his voice and not succeeding at all. ‘We’re engaged,’ he added proudly, lifting Vanessa’s hand to his mouth in a gesture so tender and loving that Sara felt her throat almost close up.