Her Pregnancy Surprise (23 page)

If Nicholas couldn’t remain the friend he’d always been she still had other friends she could count on…and she would make new ones too. But at the same time she couldn’t keep looking
outside
for the source of her happiness…it simply
had
to come from within, or else she’d for ever be at the mercy of external forces. When she next saw Jack…
if
she saw him again…and her pulse raced a little at the idea she might not…Caroline was determined to tell him about the decision she had reached. He could continue to blame her for as long as he liked, but he would have to understand that she was no longer going to be a willing victim of that blame. She was steering the ship of her own life and would not let anyone knock her off course again, no matter
who
they were.

Having finished her drink, Caroline put down her mug and snuggled up into the chair with her feet drawn up beneath her. Continuing to stare into the hypnotic flames that danced across the coals in the grate, before she knew it sleep had seductively beckoned.

Into her dreams intruded the incongruous chimes of the doorbell. Jolting upright with shock, Caroline opened her eyes wide and glanced frantically up at the
clock on the mantel. It was almost half-past one in the morning…hardly a sensible time for callers of any description…so who could it be?

Uncurling her legs from beneath her, and rising anxiously, she yelped in pain when the arch of her foot almost bent double with cramp. Falling back into the chair, she quickly rubbed at the offending area, praying that the doorbell would not chime again—hoping that whoever it was who had rung it had mistakenly stopped outside the wrong door and had now realised his or her mistake and moved on.
No such luck.
As the echo of the ringing chimes demonstrated her caller’s persistence, Caroline got slowly to her feet, her cramp now gone and her skin clammily cold with fright.

Glancing at the iron poker in the brass stand beside the grate, she did seriously wonder about taking it with her—but then an obstinate refusal to believe that she wasn’t safe in her own home suddenly collared her fear by the throat and sent her striding confidently out to the front door…
without
the poker.

When she saw the definite shadow of a man’s figure outside the stained glass panels in the door, Caroline almost breathed a sigh of relief, thinking it must be Nicholas. He’d probably been called out to see a patient and, driving home again, had seen some of her house lights on because she had fallen asleep in the chair and hadn’t turned them out yet. Hoping that he didn’t hold a grudge against her because she’d earlier refused his
request to get engaged, Caroline undid the locks and pulled open the door.

‘Jack!’

Her legs trembled hard at the sight of her ex-lover. Grasping the fleece lapels of her robe together in her hand across her chest, Caroline simply stared at him as he shrugged inside his raincoat, his dark hair sheened by the rain and the starkly defined planes and angles of his amazing face disturbingly highlighted by the illumination from inside the house.

‘What is it? Has something happened?’

She had the most unnatural feeling that she was speaking in slow motion. But, even though Jack’s appearance was a total mystery and a shock to her, something inside Caroline couldn’t help but foolishly grasp at the most impossible hope.

‘I needed to see you. I realise it’s very late, but can I come in?’

As logic briefly superseded her impossible hope, she wanted to say no. This man was like a broken arrow embedded in her heart. Inviting him over her threshold would be like inviting him to deepen that wound even more. Already her throat was constricting with anguish at the sight of him.

In the end, because words simply deserted her, Caroline just watched with a mounting sense of unreality as Jack came inside, shucked off his raincoat, hung it on the coatstand, then came back to her—his ardent gaze studying her in a way that made her bones turn to
liquid silk. Without saying a word he cupped the side of her face with his hand, the startling touch of his cool skin acquainting her with the chill of the rainy night outside. He kept his palm there with a gentleness that ripped the breath from Caroline’s lungs. As her wary and captivated gaze examined the arresting features and sharply drawn jawline before her—that jawline denoted he was wilful as well as meeting life on his own terms, with little regard for anyone else’s
modus operandi
—she found herself wondering if they would still be together now if she hadn’t fallen pregnant and her father hadn’t made her have a termination. God knew she’d been crazy about him…crazy enough to jump ship and elope with him to the States or anywhere else he suggested if he had but asked.
He never had.

She knew this was dangerous thinking.
What Jack was doing here in the middle of the night she had no idea, but one thing Caroline
was
certain of—she wasn’t going to let him make her feel bad about herself ever again.

She broke free of his touch, unconsciously pursing her dry lips to moisten them as he watched her, his brooding gaze still cleaving to her face as though he couldn’t bear to look anywhere else but at
her.

‘What do you want, Jack?’

‘Isn’t that obvious?’

‘I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t—’

‘You,’ he came back, before she’d even finished the sentence, his lips unsmiling and for once without mockery.

A high-voltage charge of heat bolted through
Caroline’s middle, making her hips soft and the rest of her body feel as if she could climb out of her very skin with the seductive promise his disturbing reply created.

‘That’s a very bad joke, under the circumstances,’ she returned huskily, feeling as if she really was losing her hold on reality. ‘I think you’d better just go.’

‘What if I don’t want to?’ Jack asked, moving purposefully towards her even as he registered the distress on her face. ‘What if…deep down…you don’t
want
me to go either, Caroline?’

‘Y
OU
must be delusional!’ Her dark eyes flashed her indignant denial even as, terrifyingly, she registered his hand sliding expertly behind her neck beneath the soft tousled fall of her hair, and his mouth moving threateningly closer to hers. ‘I don’t want you to stay…I want you to go! Do you think I
enjoy
being hurt by you? When I saw you last you left me under no illusion as to what you thought of me and your words cut me in two! What we had was finished a long time ago, Jack. Why not just accept that and walk away now? Just forget me and go!’

Jack was struck by the ragged truth of Caroline’s impassioned words. He
should
just walk away and forget her, as she’d advised, and spare them both further agony. But even as his lips stilled, scant inches from hers, he knew that trying to curtail his increasing desire for her was like hoping to douse an inferno with a mere thimbleful of water. His senses were held in thrall by her.

In the gently dimmed light that flooded out into the hall from the living room, she looked like the impossibly
beautiful heroine from a fairy tale. Her dark gaze was sleepily soft, even though her eyes danced with anger, and her hair felt like gossamer as it glanced against the back of his hand. God help him, but Jack had dreamed of holding her like this so many times over the years! But then usually, after he’d surrendered to the impulse to think about Caroline, he’d be infused with agonising hurt about her having the abortion and betraying both him
and
their unborn child. He’d
hate
her then, and the impulse—the tormenting, feverish longing to recall how she had felt in his arms—would abruptly leave him.

But right now it wasn’t hatred that was dominating Jack’s senses but a ravenous, almost obsessive compulsion to know her again in the most libidinous and intimate way. Everything about her put him under a spell of longing.

‘I know what we had is long over,’ he intonated throatily, his compelling blue irises darkening as he stared into Caroline’s startled gaze. ‘But what if—what if I asked you to share just one more night with me? What then, Caroline? Would you turn me away out into the rain again when right now I need to hold you more than anything else I need in this entire world?’

He didn’t play fair. He found her most vulnerable spot and ruthlessly exploited it.
Right from that very first moment, when he’d arrested her curious, aroused gaze with his lazy and bold examination of her when she was with her schoolfriends, Jack had assumed an early and definitely
powerful
advantage over Caroline’s captivated
senses. Now she was once again besieged by his blatantly sensual masculinity, and the incessant throbbing yearning that surged through her heart at his seductive words made her realise that she was too weak to deny him…to deny
herself.

Feeling herself sway, all the strength in her legs seemed to treacherously desert her as Jack caught her feverishly in his arms and with devastating thoroughness laid voracious claim to her lips. Drenching heat and exquisitely male flavours burst over her mouth, and Caroline heard herself making small betraying sounds of shameless longing. Jack swept her mouth with his tongue, stroking and teasing hers with unbelievably erotic torment as he gathered a fistful of her soft silken hair in his hand and massaged her scalp with his fingers. His lean hips increased the torment he was delivering as he pressed them demandingly into hers, hinting at a wild white-water ride of incalculable pleasure and rediscovery that made Caroline breathless.

‘Jack…’

Every ounce of longing she had in her entire being was in the soft, heartfelt whisper of his name.
She had lost so much…her baby
and
Jack…How could she pass up the chance for them to be together again for even a short while, she asked herself desperately, when she ached so hard for him that it was
unthinkable
to ask him to leave?

‘Have mercy,’ he replied, his warm breath caressing the side of her neck, closely followed by his lips. ‘Please
don’t tell me you’ve changed your mind…I want you so badly I’m shaking. Can you feel it?’

She could.
Although there was humour in his wry remark, there was an underlying fear and desperation there too. Extricating herself firmly from his ardent embrace, Caroline swept back her dishevelled golden hair with her fingers and glanced nervously towards the open door that led into the living room.

‘There’s a fire…it needs—it needs building up, but the embers are still burning.’
She could have been talking about their relationship and the irony was not lost on her.

Jack’s piercing gaze examined her for so long that Caroline momentarily feared that
he
was the one who had changed his mind about making love to
her.
Glancing anxiously away, she felt her breath catch in her throat when he suddenly moved closer and slipped his arm possessively around her waist, bestowing a smile so dangerously beguiling that she was reminded of the eager, devil-may-care, youthful Jack—who had so determinedly and doggedly pursued her in spite of the dire warnings and threats from Caroline’s father. There was a big part of her that still grieved for the innocent passion they had lost so cruelly…

He made up the fire again while Caroline watched, silently begging him to finish quickly and join her again. When he did, he drew her down to the patterned colourful rug, with its tones of burnished copper and warm reds, that adorned the space in front of the fire. Then,
lifting his dark green lambswool sweater over his head, he carelessly discarded it before slowly undoing the tie-belt of Caroline’s dressing-gown that was fastened around her small hourglass waist.

She couldn’t stop shivering as his hands first touched her clothing, then her skin—his intensely blue eyes making her a slave to his increasingly heated glance.
When she did manage to tear her gaze free, it was only for it to linger on the taut, well-formed display of muscle at the tops of his arms, so temptingly revealed by his fitted T-shirt.

A hot, melting flurry of acute awareness dispersed through Caroline’s insides when she saw the dark tattoo of a raven carved into his left bicep. He must have acquired it after he had left her, she realized, curious as to what it was supposed to symbolise.
And there was no doubt in her mind that it meant something.
Something that very few people would know outright. That was one of the things about Jack that had been such a magnet for Caroline.
He’d always been almost frighteningly inscrutable and unpredictable—had always left her with the sense that he knew things about life that no one else knew…

‘Let’s take this off, shall we?’

Relieving her of her dressing-gown, Jack directed his attention to the perfectly beautiful delineation of her slender shoulders in the flimsily strapped white cotton nightgown, to the temptingly bountiful swell of her full breasts and the noticeable imprint of her puckered nipples behind the pristine cotton. With her hair
tumbling and curling like golden flame down her back, highlighted by the vivid colours reflected from the fire, her expression was focused totally on him and entirely serious.
Jack guessed how King Solomon must have felt when the Queen of Sheba had revealed herself to him from a rolled-up carpet.
Her incandescent beauty stunned him.

A powerful memory surfaced inside Jack from long ago, when they had made love for the very first time. Her loveliness had left him dry-mouthed in awe then too.

The venue for the occasion had been a cheap hotel on the outskirts of town where no one would know them, and when Jack had eagerly helped Caroline undress he had finally seen her the way he’d been hungering to see her since the day they’d met. She’d been the most breathtakingly beautiful girl he’d ever set eyes on, and she had wanted to be with him—not some ‘upper class aspiring doctor’ that her father picked out for her. That very gratifying realisation alone had helped cement Jack’s already strong feelings for her. His spirits had soared to the sky at the knowledge that she wanted to share her beautiful body with
him…that he was going to be her very first lover and, if Jack had his way, her only lover.

Now the denial of that fervent wish twisted his heart with unbelievable hurt. To imagine her giving herself in that way to somebody else…
Caroline was his.

Faced with the extraordinarily jealous urge that swept him, Jack could no longer pretend even to himself that
his possessive feelings towards her had grown less passionate or intense throughout all the years of separation.

‘What’s this?’ With a shy smile that caught him completely off guard, Caroline gently touched the outline of his tattoo.

Capturing her slender, fine-boned wrist between his fingers, Jack made a gruff noise in his throat, then smiled. ‘It’s a raven. The Native Americans believe that it has the power to shape-shift—to move from one dimension to another. It can also symbolise visiting the darker parts of your soul.’

She detected the minutest flicker of a shadow in his fascinating blue eyes that left her in no doubt that he was well acquainted with the darker parts of his own soul.

Shivering as he raised her hand to his lips and gently kissed it, Caroline longed to be able to convey to him how desperately she regretted perpetrating the act that had finally forced them apart. In that moment she realised that Jack was still harbouring a wealth of animosity and pain in his soul because of her. And, although she definitely intended to let him know that she was no longer going to be a willing victim of that animosity and pain—no matter
how
regretful she was—Caroline also experienced an overwhelming urge to demonstrate to him her intense sadness that their love had been dashed to the rocks and splintered for ever…

‘I’ve done that too, Jack,’ she whispered, studying him intently. ‘Visited the darker part of my soul. But despising what I found there didn’t help me. We have to
learn to forgive, don’t we? I mean…even ourselves. Then we can move on and hopefully make something of our lives. I’m so sorry about what happened between us. If I could turn back time and undo all the dreadful hurt I would.’

Learn to forgive?
For a moment his jaw tightened with overwhelming emotion. Jack didn’t know if he would
ever
be able to do that. Because of what Caroline had done, he had not sought to father another child with a woman. He had been far too fearful of a repetition of the past. But—deep in the far reaches of his soul—Jack still
longed
to experience fatherhood. Else what had all his hard work and driving ambition been
for?
Having a child of his own would help make up for every excruciating splinter of hurt that his own disastrous family life had driven into his heart…

‘I think you’ve grown even more lovely over the years.’ Deliberately diverting the conversation from things that were too painful to reflect upon, Jack kissed Caroline softly on the mouth, contact with her moist, sultry lips fuelling his desire once more into restless burning flame.

How could she do anything
other
than dissolve in his arms at such a heartwarming statement? Even though she was crushingly disappointed that he hadn’t responded positively to her suggestion of forgiveness, Caroline nonetheless couldn’t deny the increasingly restless need that was building inexorably inside her body at Jack’s closeness.

His kiss deepened devastatingly. The pleasure it wrought inside her took Caroline to such heights of unimaginable joy that she knew that when Jack was long gone she would remember the intensity of those feelings for the rest of her life.

Feeling his hands drop to her shoulders to guide her gently onto the rug beneath them, she watched him undress—her mind registering his undoubted masculine perfection with growing anticipation, seeing for herself that her girlhood lover had definitely turned into the most awesome man. Yanking his T-shirt over his dark head, Jack let it drop where it fell. Then, kneeling down, he joined Caroline on the rug.

As he bent towards her, she was taken aback by the slender ridged scar she saw on his chest. Glancing up into his unfathomable blue eyes, she felt her stomach tighten as a bump of fear pulsed through it. If he saw that she was curious, Jack chose to ignore it. Instead his warm breath fanned across her mouth as he lowered his head to kiss her again.

‘What happened? How did you get this?’

Her words interrupted his all too clear intention. As the firelight flickered across her illuminated and concerned features, Jack silently cursed. ‘It’s nothing,’ he answered dismissively.

When he would have touched his lips to hers, Caroline put her fingers haltingly across his mouth. ‘Tell me. I know it’s not nothing,’ she said astutely.

Sighing, and unable to conceal his frustration, Jack
felt his own expression harden a little as he scanned her anxious, expressive eyes. To admit his heart attack to
Caroline,
of all people, would be tantamount to admitting that he wasn’t the great success he’d gone out of his way to prove himself to be. Having always striven to keep himself in A1 physical condition, he would expose the kind of vulnerability that he deliberately guarded against, and it would drag him right back to being the boy her father had so despised from the wrong side of the tracks who in other people’s eyes, was ‘destined to fail’.

‘Do you mind if we
don’t
discuss my physical defects right now?’ he replied somewhat bitterly, and he watched surprise and hurt infiltrate her lovely face.

‘A scar isn’t a defect,’ Caroline protested softly, her fingers curling into her palm to stop herself from reaching out and gently inspecting the so-called ‘defect’ that clearly engendered such strong emotion in him. Of course she wanted to know how he had acquired it—was frightened at the idea that it had been caused by something serious—but right now all she could do…all she
longed
to do…was bring him comfort in whatever way she could.

Underneath the outward show of undoubted success, elements of the angry young man Caroline had met and fallen in love with still existed, and it still clearly haunted him.
She sensed it deep down in her very bones.