One Hour to Midnight (36 page)

For a moment she leaned back against the door and closed her eyes as a soft, relieved sigh escaped.
I've come home.

Flynn was right. A laugh escaped her. Leon's life was a public one. If she remained here she needed to get used to it.
 

"You came back?" Jordan came skidding around the corner and into the hallway, dancing with excitement. "I told Dad and Cassie you'd come back."

"Did you?" Veronica smiled, crouched down, and put her hands on his shoulders. He had more faith in her than she'd had in herself. "And look at you, full of pepper."

Gone was the frail invalid, in his place a boy, still a little pale and still far too skinny, but his eyes were bright and his smile wide.
 

"Pepper?"
 

Jordan gave her such a puzzled look she couldn't help laughing. "It's just a saying, Jordan. It means you're full of life."
 

"I'm heaps better. Professor Carey says I can go back to school after the summer holidays if my blood stays right."

"Isn't that just the best news?"
 

"Will we be able to finish our book before then?"

"For sure." She laughed. "Did you tell?"

"Dad tried to tickle it out of me, but it's still our secret." Jordan's eyes sparkled.
 

Bored, and unable to follow his normal pursuits, Veronica had suggested Jordan write a book for Leon for his birthday. Together they'd researched taniwhas and written a story and were now half way through illustrating it.
 
Using a desktop publishing programme, they planned to print some copies for Leon as a birthday gift.
 

"We'll finish it soon and won't he be surprised?"
 

"It'll be his best birthday present ever."

Veronica laughed again and opened her arms and enveloped him in a big hug.

As she held him against her, she inhaled deeply. He smelled of sun, soap and sweaty little boy and so blessedly normal. She pushed him away and held his shoulders looking into his sea-blue eyes. She said a silent prayer that she would still be at Claremont when Leon celebrated his birthday and could share in his surprise present.
 

She lifted a hand and smoothed a lock of hair off Jordan's forehead. "Your hair is growing again."

"Yeah. I told Dad I needed a haircut but he said to wait awhile."

Veronica stood up, smiling, a smile that was suddenly a permanent fixture. "He's like me, pleased to see it growing again."

Mutley stalked into the hallway, yowling for attention.
 

"I looked after Mutley for you."

"So I see. And look how much Franklin has grown!"
 

Cassie joined them and she gripped the elderly woman's hands and kissed her cheek. "I've missed you."

"And we've missed you, child. You must want a cup of tea."
 

As she bustled off, Veronica grinned. Tea was Cassie's panacea of all ills.
 

Walking at her side, Jordan talked a mile a minute. For the first time Veronica related to him as the engaging child he was. Not Yannis's son. Not Leon's son or even her own.

He was just Jordan Karvasis, an engaging ten-year-old boy. One she loved more than life itself.

Chapter Twenty-Two

I
t was late when Leon returned.

Unable to sleep, Veronica leaned her elbows on the wide window sill, very uneasy. Earlier, Cassie let slip that until today Leon had only been putting in half days at the office. While Jordan had been so ill, he'd deputised the bulk of his workload so he could spend time at his son's bedside.

And as this worked so well, he'd eased back considerably.
 

Was he avoiding her?

Well, as I've spent the past month avoiding him, what else did I expect?
 

A breeze stirred the trees and the dancing shadows created an eerie sense of déjà vu. Once before, in what seemed like another lifetime, she'd waited here for Leon.

The whole house was brooding. Waiting.

A cooling night breeze tugged at her hair, the thick blonde curtain brushing her shoulders. A small sound alerted her and every nerve end tingled with anticipation and dread.
 

The moment was here and she was far from ready.
 

Leon crossed the flagstones and hesitated outside the open French doors.

"Come in," Veronica invited softly.

He slid the fly-screen aside and stepped into the room. The light from a single lamp warmed the room with a gentle glow. For long silent moments neither of them moved nor spoke the memory of their last meeting, thick in the air.

"So, you finally decided to come back?" Leon was first to break the silence.

"It was time." She winced. She'd known he would never make this easy. He was a man far too accustomed to taking charge to easily accept that she was the one who'd put the brakes on their relationship.
 

Would he understand why she'd needed the time alone? Or would he see it as a slap in the face? She had no way of knowing. His demeanour gave nothing of his thoughts away.

 
At first staying away had been a reaction.

Later, it became a desperate need. She'd needed to sort through so many conflicting emotions to see if she could find a way forward.
 

Now she was about to find out if she'd succeeded in putting the past into perspective and leaving it behind. She was ready to move forward, but as she looked at Leon she wondered if that was a vain hope.
 

Fear made her heart race and her body tremble. Longing, swift and sharp, made her ache. She wrapped her arms around her midriff unwilling to risk a brush off.

He leaned against the sill on the bay window, his stance weary. "Can I ask one question, Veronica?"

"Of course." She managed to get the words past the constriction on her throat.

"Are you pregnant?"

"No." The words created a spasm of grief. She'd wanted Leon's baby more than anything in her entire life. When her period came while she was at the chalet she'd cried for two days. Without the prospect of a baby did Leon want to end their marriage now?

"Perhaps that's just as well."

To her over sensitive ears that sounded like the beginning of farewell.

Over my dead body
.
 

Suddenly, all her doubts and uncertainties vanished. Everything came into sharp focus.
 

She loved Leon.

Once, her love had been little more than a girlish infatuation, a love that had little substance in reality. Now she loved him with a woman's heart, a heart that had been tried and tested in the cruellest of crucibles.

She wanted this marriage, and she intended to fight for it. Even if that meant she had to bare her very imperfect soul. "Why? What has changed?"

"Everything has changed." He stepped towards her and she tensed. "Jordan is well. To think a marriage between us would work was ridiculous in the first place."

Veronica shook her head, hands clenched tightly.
 

How can he so easily dismiss what we shared?

She looked at him but in the dim light could discern nothing of his thoughts.
 

In that one frightening moment, she watched her whole life swing in the balance. One wrong move and her heart would break. And this time she knew she'd never recover.

"But we did marry, Leon. We made vows to each other, in church. Vows I took seriously," she said, her voice trembling. Had her absence done irreparable damage to their relationship?
 

"Vows can be broken." He stood tall and stiff, as unbending as one of the ancient gum trees guarding the old house.
 

"No, you've got that all wrong. Promises and piecrusts were made to be broken." Veronica moved closer, so close she could see his chest rise and fall with each harsh breath. "Vows are forever."

He gripped her shoulders and the feel of his hands on her made the ache in her belly intensify. "What are you trying to say?"

"When we agreed to this marriage did you intend to stumble on the first hurdle, Leon? Or did you intend to make it work?" She lifted her chin and looked him in the eye as she issued the challenge.

His posture grew even more rigid. "Yes, damn you. I intended to make it work. But I didn't know then how deeply you loved Yannis, despite his sins. I can't and won't compete with my dead brother."

Veronica shook her head.
 

Is my hearing faulty? Leon thinks I still love Yannis? Is he crazy?
 

Well I think he still loves Julia. Am I crazy too?
 

Suddenly the humour of the situation hit her and she started to laugh. She slipped her arms around his waist and hugged him.

 
God, how she'd missed him, until this moment she'd not known how much.

For a moment, he remained unyielding. Veronica's heart stuttered in her chest. She was about to panic when his arms tightened about her, crushing her close.

She looked at him and what she saw in his eyes filled her with relief and a heady joy.
 

"What's so damned funny?" he growled softly, his breath feathering her hair.

"We are." She inhaled deeply, his woodsy scent filled her senses and a peace like she'd never known settled over her. "I don't love Yannis, Leon. Do you still love Julia?"

Veronica needed to slay this ghost now.

If they were to forge a future, she needed to know Leon's feelings for his first wife.
 

He held her away and tipped her chin up with one hand so he could see her face.
 

"Julia's dead, Veronica," he said quietly, seriously. "But she will always own a part of my heart."

As the soft words settled between them, she wanted to cry out…love me a little too. With an effort she pushed the ignoble thought aside.
 

"I wouldn't have it any other way," Veronica admitted. She knew Leon had loved his first wife and that was only right. She wouldn't love him so much if he wasn't a man of principle.

"But she can't kiss me back or warm my bed, Veronica," he said holding her shoulder in a grip that hurt.
 
"Any more than Yannis can warm yours."
 

She traced a finger over his chest. "Matt Yorke told me you visit Julia's grave every day."

"Matt Yorke is a weasel and a liar." He held her face between his palms. "I knew damn well he'd upset you.
 
I do take Julia flowers, on anniversaries."

"I know," she said simply. And after spending close on an hour in the graveyard she understood so much more. Could she make Leon understand?
 

"You visited Yannis today." It was not a question.

"It was time." Veronica sighed softly, not quite sure how she could explain the compulsion to see the place where Yannis rested.
 
"I needed to visit him, Leon. You see, I never have. I didn't even know where he was buried."

Too aware of his watchful gaze, she waited for his response.

"I'm sorry." Leon's grey eyes went dark. "I didn't realise."

She played with a button on his shirt. "I have always had the irrational fear that your family may have disowned him in death."
 

Leon's frown darkened and he drew her over to the window seat and they sat bolstered by her handcrafted tapestry cushions. "Why? Because he killed himself?"

She nodded.
 

"I hate what Yannis did to me and I've been so angry," she said quietly, "but I would have been devastated had he been disowned by the church and his family."

She glanced up at him to find him watching her with a puzzled frown. "I think you need to explain."
 

Veronica was silent as she gathered her thoughts. "As I sat there today, I tried to imagine what I could say to Jordan about his father—"

When Leon made an abrupt movement of repudiation, she held up a hand to stop him.

"Jordan is your son in every way that matters, Leon. He knows it, you know it and so do I." Veronica never dropped her gaze as she willed him to understand. "But there will come a time when he wants to understand his biological roots, when he
will
ask us both the hard questions. When he wants to know why he was adopted by you and Julia. He's already asked me why I gave him away."

She looked down at her lap, nervous fingers tracing the pattern in her skirt before she once more looked up at the man she'd married, a man who was still in many ways a stranger.