She didn’t have the heart to argue, and back in her lonely house, instead of turning to the botanical work she had claimed that she had to do, she sat at the table, sipping hot, sweet coffee just the way Ryan always liked it, leafing through the wedding photos that she had found in the dusty satchel.
They were informal, not the self-consciously posed, airbrushed results of a conventional wedding photographer, but the casual artistry of one of Ryan’s friends, who regularly exhibited his off-beat photographic portraits at the Pacific Rim. He had captured, not just images on paper, but emotions, too.
It had been a gloriously hot day, but windy, and one of the photos showed Nina giggling outside the church as she tried to stop the little fly-away veil on her hat from literally flying away, and Ryan looked particularly devilish in another as he failed to prevent her gauzy cream skirts billowing up to flash her suspender-clad thighs at the blushing vicar.
It had been barely three years ago, and while Nina had been plumper, it was Ryan who had changed more. In one shot, taken across the top of the black Rolls-Royce, the two of them were caught in quiet discussion, and although Ryan’s face was unsmiling, it was also totally unguarded. There were no tiny lines of tension around his eyes, no controlled pull at the corners of his mouth, no shadows in the intent eyes.
In spite of his gravity, he looked carefree, contented, younger than his thirty years. It was the trusting face of a man who had put his faith in the future and was eager for anything it might bring. Ryan wasn’t fearless—he wasn’t that stupid—but he had always had the courage to admit his fears because, as he pointed out, it was difficult to fight an enemy you couldn’t see.
That’s what Nina was trying to do. She was fighting blind against an enemy that she refused to acknowledge even existed. It was a battle she could never win because in the end she was only fighting herself. The result must be an endless stalemate.
She looked at the ring on her finger, the symbol of love and fidelity. Of trust. Ryan had said that sometimes love wasn’t enough. But sometimes it was.
Sometimes all it took was a willingness to put your faith in that love.
Three days later, Nina was miserably clutching the rail of the Auckland-bound ferry as it dipped and rolled on a sullenly unpleasant sea. She didn’t know whether it was the toasted cheese she had had for breakfast, the ghastly apprehension that knotted her stomach or just a simple case of seasickness that was making her feel so queasy. She didn’t care; all she wanted to do was get off the boat!
She would have been travelling three days ago, when the sea had still been calm, if she had obeyed her first impulse. But Ray had persuaded her that, since she had missed her chance to catch Ryan before he left, she might as well take the time to do the whole thing right and proper.
So while the weather was blowing up, she had tied up all her flapping loose ends, closed up her house, packed her belongings, and here she was heading for a surprise visit to her husband. She hadn’t dared let him know that she was on her way. What if she lost her nerve and couldn’t make it? What if she couldn’t force herself to get off the boat once it docked in Auckland? Although the way she was currently feeling, she intended to be first onto dry land!
As the ferry chugged into calmer waters approaching the wharves that fringed the downtown area, Nina shakily stepped back from the rail and sat on the wooden bench running along the outside wall of the cabin. She fumbled in her shoulder-bag and drew out the photographs that had become her talisman.
She drew her thumb across the glossy surface, down the flighty flounces of the multilayered, silk chiffon dress. Her head was resting against Ryan’s shoulder as they both looked at the camera, the rest of her in profile, the wind pressing the thin, cream silk panels lovingly to her body below Ryan’s linking hands under her breasts and revealing an extra curvaceousness that only an artist’s finely discerning eye might notice.
A jolt ripped up Nina’s spine.
I didn’t marry you because I had to, but because I wanted to.
Her eyes narrowed on the photograph, fiercely blinked away the annoying fuzziness that was trying to encroach on her vision. Her face was a little fuller than it was now, and her breasts rounder…her belly…