The Lost Wife (5 page)

Stowing the box of decorations by the tree, she crossed to the discreetly placed music centre on one of the bookshelves to switch on the CD that was already in there. As an orchestral rendition of ‘Silent Night’ filled the air, accompanied by a cathedral choir, she breathed a satisfied sigh and then returned to the elegant Norwegian Pine to start decorating …

Sitting on the bed with his arms around his knees, Jake
couldn’t summon the slightest interest in working. The urgent mail his secretary had handed to him before he’d left Copenhagen would just have to wait. Right then he didn’t care about the consequences.

He turned very still when he heard the notes of his favourite Christmas carol drift up the stairs. Positioning his arm behind his head, he lay back against the stack of plumped up pillows. The poignant music invited him to turn to more peaceful contemplation, but it wasn’t easy. He’d been so angry with Ailsa just now, for all but pushing him away and rejecting him, that he’d allowed his hurt to consume him.
Steamy grope indeed!
He hadn’t intended to kiss her, but the feelings that had been building inside him ever since he saw her yesterday morning had been growing more and more difficult to contain. Like a dam about to burst.

The kiss he’d stolen had been inevitable, the gesture totally spontaneous … spontaneous and
wonderful.
Even now Jake’s body was in a heightened state of painful readiness to make love to her. For a long time after they’d parted his clothes had smelled of Ailsa. It had been a slow, sweet torture to scent her body and not be able to reach out and touch her. Every day had been an agony to him because he couldn’t be with her … No other woman since had even come
close
to making him feel like she did.
So much for peaceful contemplation …

Groaning, he turned over on his side and for a long while just watched the glittering white flakes drifting down outside the window. Then long-held fatigue—both physical and psychological—finally got the better of him and he fell asleep …

The third CD of carols had almost come to an end when Ailsa stepped back to take a proper look at her handiwork.

The handmade decorations that she and Saskia had been creating throughout the year looked a treat. At last the tree was dressed. Along with the glittering coloured baubles and bells, the twinkling white lights gave it the essential magical finish. As soon as daylight started to fade the full, enchanting effect would be apparent.

More than pleased with her efforts, she hummed along to the final track on the CD. It was ‘In the Bleak Midwinter’. Not exactly the most uplifting of carols, but she loved it nonetheless. The head carer at the children’s home she’d grown up in had always teased her that it was probably the Irish predilection for tragedy in her blood that made her love it so.

The only thing Ailsa knew about her mother was that she had been just sixteen when she gave birth to her and was Irish.
Years later, when she’d tried to trace her whereabouts, all she had got was several dead-ends. Many times during her marriage to Jake he had suggested they hire a first-class detective to try and find her, but Ailsa had always declined. After trying to locate her for a while and having no luck she’d decided it wouldn’t help her to dwell on the woman who was her mother. It was enough to know that she’d been abandoned—ergo
unwanted.
If her mother had wanted to find her then she would surely have tried years ago, she’d told Jake.
The truth was Ailsa was scared to find her in case she was rejected all over again.
She couldn’t have borne that.

Shaking off the unhappy reflection, she started to gather up the odds and ends she hadn’t used and began piling them neatly back into the cardboard container.

‘Personally I much prefer “The Holly and the Ivy” or “Silent Night”. This one is too much like its title …
bleak.’

Her back to him as she stood up with the box in her arms, Ailsa jolted at the sound of Jake’s voice coming
from the doorway behind her. She swung round. The first thing she noticed was that his hair was more than a little bit awry, making him appear as if he’d just got out of bed. The second thing she realised was that his compelling deep voice was friendly—as if he wanted to make amends for his earlier irritation with her. Her heart skipped a beat at the mere idea.

‘I was playing “Silent Night” earlier,’ she replied.

‘I know. I heard it. It sent me to sleep.’

‘You must have needed the rest. Do you like the tree?’

He studied it for a few moments then smiled …
warmly.
‘It’s magnificent. I wish Saskia was here to see it.’

As soon as the words were out of his mouth there was something in his expression that suggested he regretted them. Ailsa wondered if it was because he feared an emotional backlash. But for once, instead of allowing her emotions to get the better of her, she made herself smile.

‘She’ll see it when she gets home on Christmas Eve. Besides, I’m sure your mother will make her own tree equally if not more beautiful.’

‘You’re right—she will. If only because her granddaughter is there.’

‘It’s going to be tough for her … her first Christmas without your dad.’

Jake came right into the room. ‘For sure,’ he agreed readily, his blue eyes far away for a moment. ‘But having Saskia there until the day before will make all the difference.’

Ailsa’s disappointment and hurt that he hadn’t brought Saskia home when he’d said he would dissipated. She almost couldn’t bear the thought of the warm and gracious Tilda Larsen being on her own at Christmas without the man she’d loved since she was a girl beside her, and suddenly
she was genuinely glad that her daughter was with her grandmother.

‘Are you going to be with your mum on Christmas Day?’ she asked.

‘That’s the plan—if this arctic weather ever clears.’

The box in her arms started to get a little heavy, and she put it down on the rug in front of her. Just as she was about to straighten up again she caught a glimpse of some spangled gold material. Reaching inside the colourful contents of the box, she retrieved the small figure of an angel that Saskia had lovingly made a dress for. A flood of warmth suffusing her chest, she smilingly held it up so that Jake could see it.

‘The fairy that goes on the top of the tree … I know you only have a star in Denmark, but here we always have a fairy. Saskia spent ages choosing the material to make her dress with. It’s a bit ostentatious, I know—but, hey … it’s Christmas.’

‘Do you think our little girl has pretensions of grandeur?’ Jake suggested wryly.

Smiling fondly in agreement, Ailsa shrugged. ‘She’s a “girly” girl … She loves dressing up and adores anything pretty. Not like me as a child at all. I was a real tomboy—never happier than when I was dressed in jeans and tee shirt and covered in mud and dirt from the bottom of the garden, where I’d usually be found closely studying the population of worms.’

‘And after you’d studied them … what did you do?’

‘I took them back into the house to show everyone, of course!’

‘You must have been a real handful for those who raised you.’

‘The carers at the home, you mean? I certainly can’t have been easy for them. I was never a “sit in the corner”
type of child. I was always into something I shouldn’t have been … a real rebel. I got a prospective adoption placement once, but I kept running away. The people who wanted to adopt me were good and kind, but by then I was so used to the home that I kept trying to break out of the house … even at night. Eventually they decided they simply couldn’t handle a girl who rejected every bit of love they tried to give her.’

Saying nothing, Jake rubbed his hand over his chest.

Twisting a long silken strand of chestnut hair round her finger, Ailsa allowed her gaze to fall into his.
It was like diving into a bottomless blue lake.
‘That’s probably why it wasn’t easy to find anybody else to adopt me. I was a regular tearaway, by all accounts—not the sweet, malleable little girl everybody wanted me to be.’

‘No doubt you had a lot of anger inside… It’s understandable under the circumstances.’

‘Who knows? It’s in the past, isn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ Jake agreed soberly. ‘It’s in the past. Do you want me to put that fairy on the top of the tree?’

‘Would you?’

He was tall enough not to need a chair to stand on, and as he reached up to position the bright little figure on the central branch his sweater and tee shirt rode up his muscle-ridged torso. Ailsa gawked. He’d always taken care of himself, but he looked even leaner and fitter than before. She almost had to bite back a groan. His taste still lingered on her lips, in her mouth and on her tongue … The memory of their passionate kiss taunted her. Now her whole body was suddenly taken over by a deep carnal ache.

As Jake turned round again she strove hard to keep her expression neutral. ‘That’s great,’ she told him. ‘Just perfect. Saskia’s going to love it.’

‘Anything else you’d like me to do to help add to the festive atmosphere?’

‘No.’ She gritted her teeth and smiled. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘What about stringing some lights up in front of the house? We always used to do that … remember?’

The memory was so bittersweet that tears immediately sprang to her eyes. Seeking refuge from his knowing glance, she gathered up the box of discarded decorations and moved to the door. Realising she was starting to distance herself from him again, she stopped to glance back over her shoulder. ‘I remember. But it’s freezing out there. Do you really want to go outside and do that?’

‘I think it would be a nice welcome home for Saskia … don’t you?’

That was enough to make Ailsa believe it was a good idea—a
very
good idea. When they’d been married they could easily have hired professional interior designers or decorators to make the house look stunningly festive, but each year, when the most magical season of all had come round, Jake had always insisted on stringing the lights outside the house himself.

‘I’ll go outside to my workroom and get some extra lights, then,’ she told him.

‘No, you stay here. Tell me where they are and I’ll go get them.’

Her arms were still around the cardboard container, and her heart started to bump hard when Jake came to stand in front of her, smiling down with that ever so slightly crooked smile of his … It affected her so much that somehow she lost her grip on the box and it dropped to the floor, its contents spilling in a kaleidoscope of colours at her feet.

‘I’m so clumsy!’ she exclaimed, dismayed, instantly dropping down to her haunches to pick them up.

‘Don’t say that. You’re not clumsy at all.’ Helping her gently but firmly to her feet, Jake’s hands were like a burning brand round the tops of her arms, and Ailsa was so captivated by his nearness, along with the blazing need she saw reflected in his brilliant blue eyes, that she was powerless to free herself …

‘Y
OU’RE
beautiful and graceful.’

It was almost too hard for her to hear a compliment from him when they had seemed to be at war for so long. ‘Don’t say such nice things to me.’

‘Why not, in God’s name?’ Looking perturbed that her amber eyes were awash with tears, Jake slid his hand beneath her jaw.

‘Because if you say nice things then I can’t stay mad at you,’ Ailsa whispered back brokenly.

Almost unconsciously she’d been leaning towards him, and she didn’t know or care right then who made the first inflammatory move but as soon as their lips met she knew she was lost … swept up in a maelstrom that she didn’t have a prayer of resisting. Allowing the power of it to suck her under, she didn’t protest when Jake held her face so that he could plunder and ravish as she ached for him to do. There was no doubt in her mind about letting desire have its way. She supped and drank him in with equally passionate ardour, hardly noticing that his beard-roughened jaw scraped her skin and would probably leave it feeling tender. Winding her arms round his lean, hard middle, she secretly thrilled at his indomitable male strength … the rock-solid physicality of him, the rugged warmth and scent that made her want to jump right
inside him. It was, perhaps, the aspect of his presence that she’d missed the most.

It was actually Jake who regained his sanity first. With his hands still cupping her face he lifted his lips away from hers, his head making a rueful motion. ‘You know where this is going to end if we don’t call a halt to it right now, don’t you? Are you ready for that, Ailsa? Is that what you want?’

She hadn’t wanted him to give her a choice.
If he had just continued kissing her until her lips were numb and she was too weak with desire to stand then she would have definitely succumbed to being seduced by him. But Jake
had
given her a choice, and now that sanity had prevailed she was moved to act on it.

‘I’m sorry,’ she murmured. Her face burned with guilt and embarrassment as she shakily stepped out of his embrace. ‘Call it a weak moment.’

‘What we had between us was never weak or halfhearted, baby. It was always like a lightning storm. It seems that some things haven’t changed as much as we thought they had.’

‘I can’t deny it.’ Regret was like a heavy blanket smothering her—regret that Jake had stopped kissing her and regret that an accident had destroyed all their hopes and dreams and torn them apart. Ailsa wished she knew a way to throw off that smothering blanket for ever. Unfortunately she didn’t. ‘But I know that if we give in to it,’ she continued across the ache in her throat, ‘it might satisfy a momentary urge but it’s not going to mend anything. How can it? We’ve built separate lives Jake. They may not be perfect, but living apart has kept us from blaming each other for what happened and being angry all the time. Towards the end we were so bad to each other, and I really regret that. We added to our suffering by making each
ther feel guilty. At least we both get a little peace now, and so does our daughter.’

‘Peace? Is that what you call it?’ His mouth twisting with derision, Jake muttered a curse. ‘The memory of that accident is like being hunted day and night by a pack of rabid wolves. No matter what I do, no matter where I go, I’m never free of the darkness it brings. I’m glad that you feel peace sometimes, Ailsa. I really am. But I can’t say that I ever do. I was going to string the lights. I’ll go and get them.’

He was out through the door before Ailsa could call him back …

Adding another sweet-smelling applewood log to the wood-burner, Ailsa sat back on her heels. Glancing up at the clock on the mantelpiece, she noted that Jake had been outside stringing lights in freezing temperatures for at least a couple of hours now. Earlier, remembering that he didn’t touch alcohol these days, Ailsa had taken him a warming mug of non-alcoholic mulled wine. He’d reached down from the ladder he’d rested against the cottage’s sturdy stone walls, murmured ‘thanks’, then climbed back up the ladder without so much as a backward glance.

The chasm of hurt and tension between them was like an icy splinter embedded in her heart. By the time the weather let up sufficiently for him to be able to travel home would that chasm have grown even wider? Swallowing down her concern that it might, and worrying about the implications for their daughter, she impatiently rose to her feet and headed for the kitchen. Somehow they had to make peace with each other—for Saskia’s sake if not their own.As she entered, the back door opened and Jake put his head round the door. ‘I’ve finished. Do you want to come outside and take a look?’

As his wary glance scanned her, she was struck near-speechless by the dazzling glitter of his piercing blue eyes. It was so easy to fall into a trance looking into them sometimes.

‘Give me a minute. I’ll just get my coat.’

At the front of the house sparkling white lights dropped in concentric arcs just like a stunning diamond necklace. Even though she was good at crafts and had an eye for design Ailsa knew she could never have come up with anything nearly as beautiful or exquisitely elegant. She was touched that Jake had taken so much time and trouble—and in weather that would have driven most people to hurry back indoors just as soon as they could.

Turning round to study him, she saw how the icy wind had seared his cheeks red raw and felt a leap of concern. ‘You’ve done a wonderful job. Saskia will be over the moon when she sees it.’

‘They’ll look even better when we switch them on later.’

‘They will. But you should come inside now and get warm. You look half frozen. Are you hungry? I’ll make some sandwiches and coffee.’

‘That sounds great.’

Shucking off his boots on the mat inside the door, Jake hung up his fur-lined jacket and made a cursory attempt to dislodge some of the ice and snow that clung to it. Shivering hard, he clapped his freezing hands together to try and restore his circulation. It was hard to remember when he had last felt so deathly cold. Fixing the lights had been intricate work, and gloves would have rendered the task impossible so he hadn’t bothered with them. But it had been worth enduring the stinging snow and icy wind to hear the pleasure in Ailsa’s voice at what he had done—to imagine his daughter’s delight when she saw the sparkling display.

God, how he missed his little girl
… All he wanted to do at Christmas was watch her tear open her presents and then sit with her and hug her tight. Sadly, that wasn’t going to be possible, when she would be here in England with her mother and he would be back in Copenhagen. Jake had spent the last four Christmases alone. He’d even declined the usual loving invitations from his mother to spend the holiday with her and his father. The relationship between the two men had become more and more strained due to Jake’s desire to bring new innovation into the company—not just to stick to the traditional Larsen way of doing business. Instead of being pleased at his son’s ideas, his father had seen his efforts as a bid to somehow usurp him. It seemed that no matter what he’d done Jake had never managed to gain the older man’s approval. Spending Christmas with his family would only have exacerbated his unease and pain.

He sighed. It had become a tradition for Ailsa to have Saskia with her over Christmas … especially on Christmas Day … and because of his guilt about past wrongs he’d simply allowed the tradition to continue. But the truth was he didn’t want to be with anyone else but his child at that time, and if he couldn’t be with her then he would rather be alone.

As he stepped into the warm and cosy kitchen, to find Ailsa humming another familiar carol beneath her breath as she stood at the counter slicing bread, he suddenly knew that it wasn’t just his daughter that he wanted to spend that day with. Knowing the very
idea
would just exacerbate the heartache he already endured daily, he quickly jettisoned the thought to the furthermost corners of his mind.

‘I’ll make the coffee, shall I?’

‘Could you?’ She threw him an absent-minded smile that all but cut him off at the knees. Even though he’d just
spent a freezing couple of hours outside, putting up the lights, his body still ached with the kind of heat that could spark a forest fire—to hold her close and make love to her again one last time …

‘Jake? Are you okay?’

‘Loaded question.’ Grimacing, he moved towards the other end of the counter to switch on the kettle. ‘Where do you keep the coffee?’

‘I bought a new Colombian blend. Do you want to give it a try? It’s in the white porcelain jar … the one from Denmark that your mother gave me our first Christmas together.’

Wincing at the bittersweet memory of his mother’s gift, Jake lifted the lid on the aforementioned jar and appreciatively sniffed the coffee grounds contained inside. ‘Smells good. Are you going to join me in a cup, or would you prefer your usual tea?’

‘I’ll have a cup of coffee with you. You can make it in the large cafetière, if you like.’

‘Breaking routine, I see?’

As she paused in her careful spreading of butter on the bread, Ailsa’s glance was prickly. ‘I do occasionally enjoy a cup of coffee, you know. I don’t always have tea. You make me sound very boring and predictable.’

Amused by her tetchy defence of her choice, Jake stretched his lips into a grin. ‘I wasn’t suggesting you were boring or predictable. That’s not something I would ever accuse you of. In fact, your unpredictability definitely kept me on my toes during our marriage.’

‘That sounds very much like I was unreliable. Anyway,
how
did it keep you on your toes?’ Her amber gaze was both quizzical and slightly irritated.

‘I didn’t mean to suggest you were unreliable. I just meant that sometimes you said you were going to do one
thing and then at the last minute you preferred to do something else. Do we have to go over the details?’ Carefully he measured out two generous scoops of coffee into the cafetière. ‘Isn’t it enough that I was charmed by your maverick nature? I wasn’t complaining about it.’

‘That’s all right, then.’ With a sniff, she turned back to making their sandwiches.

He didn’t know why, but on some level Jake was encouraged that Ailsa still minded what he thought of her. He might be grasping at straws, but right then he didn’t care.

‘Did you warm the pot before you put the grounds in?’ Waving a vague hand, she cut the sandwiches into triangles, then arranged them on two daintily scalloped white plates and carried them across to the table.

Staring at the grounds he’d already scooped into the cafetière, Jake ruefully dropped his hands to his hips. ‘No, I didn’t.’

‘Never mind. I don’t always remember to do it either.’ She flashed him a genuinely warm smile, and suddenly the winter inside him was supplanted by tantalising summer.

‘Thank the Lord for that. I thought you were about to throw me out into the snow in disgust!’ he returned jokingly.

‘I would never do—Come and eat your sandwiches.’ Colouring a little, and looking discomfited, she sat down at the table.

‘I’ll make the coffee first.’

When he finally sat down opposite Ailsa, Jake rested his elbows on the table and linked his hands, making no move to touch either the food or the coffee—not when he’d much rather contemplate the exquisite features in front of him that made his heart jump every time he gazed at them.

‘You’re miles away. What are you thinking about?’

She’d always used to ask him that,
he remembered, and usually he’d have been thinking about
her …
How lovely she was, how lucky he was to have found her and married her, and how much he adored her.
It was a shame he hadn’t spoken those thoughts out loud,
he thought now.
Especially when he’d since learned that she hadn’t felt good enough.

‘I was thinking how much Saskia resembles you,’ he said instead. It wasn’t a lie. Sometimes his daughter’s smile stole his breath because it reminded him of Ailsa so much …

‘She has your amazing eyes,’ she replied softly, following the comment up with a self-conscious shrug.

The warmth in Jake’s belly increased tenfold. ‘Blue eyes are ten a penny where I come from.’

‘But there are many shades of blue … yours is particularly unusual. The colour is like the blue you get at dusk.’

Silence fell between them as their glances met and clung—magnetised by a longing that had somehow miraculously escaped untarnished from the ashes of the past. He hardly dared inhale a breath in case he somehow caused it to vanish.

‘Shall I pour the coffee?’

Already lifting the cafetière, Ailsa deposited some into the two slim scarlet mugs Jake had brought to the table. He noticed that her hand shook slightly as it curled round the handle.

‘I’m afraid I need some milk and sugar. I can’t drink it without.’ She rose up quickly from her chair, leaving the hauntingly rich and melancholy trail of her own particular fragrance behind.

His stomach clenched so tight that Jake covered the clutch of iron hard muscles with his hand in a bid to ease the ache.

‘Has Saskia told you what she’d like from Father Christmas this year? I suppose we ought to compare notes in case we double up.’ Returning to the table, she stirred milk and sugar into her coffee, then took a tentative sip. ‘Mmm, that’s good.’ She smiled.

With a guilty pang, Jake remembered the envelope he’d thrown into his overnight bag. His daughter had given it to him just before he’d left. ‘I’ve got a few things I thought she might like, but before I left she scribbled down some of her own recommendations in a letter addressed to both of us. We could look at it together later on, if you like?’

‘Good idea … although she never asks for much.’ Ailsa’s amber eyes seemed faintly troubled for a moment. ‘I know children are resilient … God knows they have to be sometimes, with the things they have to endure … bereavement, illness, divorce … But I worry that Saskia doesn’t always tell me if something is bothering her. Do you ever get that impression?’

Because her observation echoed his own feelings about his daughter sometimes, Jake breathed out a long, considered breath before replying. ‘I do. In fact, that was why I thought it was a good idea for her to spend some extra time with my mother. I think it’s more likely that if she’s troubled about anything she might find it easier confiding in her grandmother than telling us.’