All The King's Horses: A Tale Of Eternal Love (19 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

As Kent stopped walking Christy noticed the look of shock that had conquered his face. The happy smile that had dominated his handsome features only seconds before had been chased away, and his eyes were riveted on a spot up ahead.

She followed his line of sight until her own eyes came to rest on a tall attractive woman in a pretty blue dress. Kent obviously knew her judging by his stunned reaction, and the smile she was giving him left Christy in no doubt that they were old acquaintances.

As the woman came closer Christy noticed with a certain degree of alarm that she was much more than just attractive, she had pretty much everything going for her in the looks department, and the fact that Kent’s breathing was becoming more audible the closer she came set her alarm bells ringing.

“Hello, Kent,” the woman said, with an unusually soft and pleasingly feminine voice. “I wondered if you’d still be living in Paihia. I’d glad to see that you are.”

Kent stared ashen-faced at her. “Hello, Jocelyn,” he said, in a trembling voice.

Christy looked from Kent to Jocelyn and back to Kent again. “Are you going to introduce us, Kent?”

“Jocelyn…this is my wife…Christy,” he said, not taking his eyes off Jocelyn once during the introduction.

Jocelyn held out her hand. “Hello, Christy.”

“Hello, Jocelyn.” Christy took a good look at her face for as long as etiquette allowed. She had stunning blue eyes that drew Christy’s attention to them immediately, and it was only afterwards that she noticed the flawless skin and perfect bone structure that could classify her as a beauty.

Jocelyn’s attention returned to Kent. “It is wonderful to see you after all this time. I had hoped I would run into you but didn’t know if you’d still be in town after all these years.”

Christy could tell Kent was affected by the chance encounter with his old lover and was struggling to maintain his composure.

“You are the last person I expected to see on the beach this morning,” he said quietly, his voice still a little shaky. “How long have you been in town?”

“I only arrived last night.” She smiled sweetly at him. “You are looking fantastic, Kent, you haven’t aged at all.”

“I have been very happy,” he confessed, glancing briefly at Christy, “that helps to keep a person young.”

Christy fancied she saw Jocelyn’s smile fade a little at Kent’s revelation.

“So you are married,” she looked down at Talitha who was clinging to Christy’s leg and peering up shyly at her, “and I take it this little one is your daughter?”

“Yes, Talitha is our only child. And you…do you have children?”

“No, sadly I don’t. I discovered that I am unable to have a baby.” Her face went from smiling to sad in a matter of seconds, and it wasn’t difficult to see that the subject caused her pain.

“I’m sorry to hear that.” Kent said sincerely. “That must be difficult for you and your husband to accept.”

“I am no longer with Roger,” Jocelyn said quickly, a little too quickly for Christy’s liking. It was as if she wanted him to know she was available. “It seems I am a failure at relationships, Kent.”

“I can’t comment on your relationship with Roger, but I wouldn’t say you failed in our relationship, Jocelyn. I didn’t pay you the attention you deserved.”

Christy was rapidly becoming uncomfortable with the way this was playing out.

“I should have been more understanding than I was, Kent. The boat was your business and I should have respected that.”

“I neglected you, Jocelyn. I should have worked out a compromise with you so that we were both happy.”

Christy had been relegated to a silent spectator in this reunion and it was making her very uneasy. Kent had overcome his initial shock at coming face to face with the woman who had broken his heart and was playing the opposite to the blame game, he was taking it all on himself.

“We were very young.” Christy fancied she could see a few tears come into Jocelyn’s eyes. “I was too selfish to make a go of it. I had to grow up fast while I was married to Roger. Being his wife put a lot of things into perspective for me.”

Talitha was tugging at the hem of Christy’s dress. Who’s the lady Daddy’s talking to, Mummy?”

Christy bent down. “Hush, Sweetheart, Daddy’s talking,” she whispered.

“But who is she?” Talitha whispered back.

“I’ll tell you later. But we have to be polite now and let Daddy talk to her.”

Kent frowned. “Did he treat you badly?”

“He wasn’t an understanding man, quite emotionally abusive really. I left him after I discovered he was having an affair with a young woman living next door. We’ve been divorced for the past eighteen months.”

“I’m sorry you were put through that, Jocelyn.”

“It served me right for giving you up, Kent. When you’ve got what I had with you but walk away from it, then you deserve everything that life throws at you.”

“That’s being a bit harsh.”

“Is it? Sometimes you don’t realize how good you had something until you no longer have it.”

This was getting very intimate very fast, and Christy wasn’t sure whether she should feel threatened by it or relieved.

Was Jocelyn back in Paihia to try and win Kent back or was it a chance meeting? Was this encounter good for Kent or bad? On the one hand it may help him to come to terms with his unresolved feelings over the breakup with Jocelyn, but on the other hand it may reopen old wounds that had never quite healed.

“Jocelyn,” Christy said suddenly, “would you like to come to dinner tonight?”

Jocelyn’s gorgeous eyes widened for a moment. “Yes…yes I would like that very much.”

“That was very kind of you,” Kent said as they continued on their walk down the beach.

“I think it is important for the two of you to bring about some sort of closure to your breakup. It’s obvious that neither of you have ever really got over it.”

“You are a remarkable woman, Christy London. There aren’t too many wives who would invite their husband’s ex partner to dinner.”

She thought about some advice her mother had given her many years ago about keeping ones friends close but ones enemies even closer. She would study Jocelyn closely tonight and see if she had anything to fear from this woman who had burst suddenly back into her husband’s life.

♥

“She’s a bit of alright,” Jack said to Christy as he helped her in the kitchen with the meal. Kent has great taste in women.

“You just remember to be on your best behavior tonight,” she warned him, “I noticed how you were ogling her when Kent introduced her to you.”

“Well she’s a good-looking woman, Christy, and I am only human.”

“You’re also twice her age.”

He looked a little offended by the remark. “I may be old but I’m not dead yet, and I know a beautiful woman when I see one.”

“Beautiful or not she’s a guest in our house, so I expect you to treat her with courtesy.”

“What did you say her name was?” he asked, sneaking a peak through the crack in the door at her.

“Oh you’re not going to try and use her name are you?”

“Of course I am. I want to make a good impression.”

“Well I can promise you that you won’t achieve it like that. You’re bound to make a mess of it and come up with something that embarrasses everyone.”

“Kent doesn’t get embarrassed when I get it wrong.”

“That’s because he’s laughing too hard to be embarrassed.”

“So what’s her name?”

“It’s Jocelyn.”

“Hmm, there’s nothing that rhymes with Jocelyn.”

“Thank goodness for that.”

“I’ll come up with something to remind me,” he said. “That’s one woman whose name I don’t want to forget.”

“Forget about her for a moment and give me a hand will you,” she said, not making any attempt to conceal her annoyance. “Carry those dishes through to the dining room.”

Jack did as he was told, and when Christy joined him with the others five minutes later she found the old man talking and laughing with Jocelyn as if they were old friends.

“I hope he’s not been making a nuisance of himself,” Christy said, as she seated herself at the table.

“Not at all, he’s been a perfect gentleman,” Jocelyn said graciously.

The meal proceeded with the usual dinner party chit-chat and Kent and Jocelyn catching up on what had been happening in each other’s lives in the intervening years.

Christy watched her rival closely. Her facial expressions and body language during dinner told her that Jocelyn was still very much in love with Kent. The woman wasn’t in Paihia by chance; she was here to rekindle her relationship with an old lover.

Kent was harder to read. She could tell he was pleased to see Jocelyn, but if he was still in love with her he wasn’t giving anything away.

“Well I’ll be off now,” Jack said, standing up and pushing his chair noisily under the table. “I’m supposed to be watching the rugby at Bob’s place at half seven and it’s almost that time now.”

“It was a pleasure to meet you,” Jack,” Jocelyn said sweetly.

“And you too, Jocelyn. I hope we see you again.”

Kent and Christy looked at him in astonishment. “You got her name right,” Christy said, “and without any of that word association nonsense.”

“Ah well, there’s some people’s names a man just can’t forget,” Jack said, winking at Jocelyn.

“Daddy…mind your manners,” Christy scolded.

Jocelyn laughed. “You’re as big a scamp as your son, Jack. He was always coming out with something cheeky too.”

Christy waited until Jack had gone before turning to Talitha. “I think it’s your bedtime young lady.”

“Can Daddy tuck me up and sing me to sleep, Mummy?”

“Of course, Princess,” Kent said, scooping her out of her chair and slinging her over his shoulder. “What will it be tonight?”

“Humpty Dumpty, Daddy.”

“Don’t you get sick of that one?”

“No, cos you sing it so goodly and I like it.”

“He sings her nursery rhymes at night to put her to sleep,” Christy explained as father and daughter disappeared through the door.

“He always had a beautiful singing voice,” Jocelyn recalled. “I can remember a new years eve party we were at once when he sang Auld Lang Syne. Kent’s voice started up and everyone else just stopped singing and listened in awe. When he’d finished everyone broke out in spontaneous applause.”

Jocelyn’s story drove the fact home to Christy that Kent had lived a full life before she had come along. He had a history with this woman sitting opposite her, and it felt strange to hear things about her husband that she didn’t know from a complete stranger.

“We don’t have much time before Kent comes back so I won’t beat around the bush,” Christy said bluntly. “Did you come back to Paihia with the hope of getting back with Kent?”

Jocelyn’s mouth opened a little as if she were going to say something and then it closed.

“Go on,” Christy gently urged, “say what you were going to say.”

“You are very astute. I came to Paihia hoping to find him still here. I had no idea that he was married or I would never have come.”

“You are still in love with him I take it?”

“Yes. I had hoped that marrying Roger would push Kent from my mind but it merely had the opposite effect. Roger was nothing like Kent. Kent was everything a woman could possibly want. I realized the mistake I’d made but it was too late by then.”

“I didn’t make that same mistake, Jocelyn. When I met Kent I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him.” She paused to give the other woman a chance to take in what she had said. “I do feel sorry for you. To love a man like Kent and lose him must haunt you every day of your life. But he is mine now and I’m not prepared to give him up.”

“I didn’t come here to try and take him away from anyone,” Jocelyn said. “If I found him to be single I was determined to pick up where we had left off. But he isn’t single, and although it’s been wonderful to see him again I will be leaving for Auckland tomorrow. I won’t be giving you any trouble.”

“You like children don’t you, Jocelyn? I couldn’t help noticing the way you watched Talitha throughout dinner.”

Jocelyn looked slightly puzzled. Christy knew she would be wondering what children had to do with their conversation about her being back in Paihia to see Kent.

“Yes, I like children very much. But as I told you and Kent on the beach this morning I can’t have any of my own.”

“Did you and Roger never consider adopting?”

“We did, but the relationship ended before anything went through, which was for the best as it turned out.”

“But you wouldn’t have any problem being a mother to someone else’s child?”

“These are very strange questions you are asking me, Christy. Is there some reason for them?”

“Please…just humor me. Would you have a problem being a mother to someone else’s child?” she asked again.

“No. I wouldn’t have a problem with it at all. It is the worst thing in the world to want a child and not be able to have one.”