Woman to Woman (57 page)

Jo smiled at him, feeling the warmth deep inside her spread onto her face.

She stretched one hand up and touched his cheek gently.

She stood on her toes and arched herself towards his lips, not easy in her condition. He slid one arm around her, supporting her back as he bent down to kiss her. This time, it was no gentle, platonic kiss: it was deep and passionate, yet somehow full of love and understanding.

Mark pulled away first.

“I should have done that a long time ago,” he said.

“I’ve wanted to for long enough.”

Jo couldn’t speak. She stood looking up at him, her eyes strangely filled with tears.

“Come on.” He took her by the hand and led her towards the pub’s front door.

“It’s starting to rain again. We can’t have you getting soaked twice in one day.”

He found a pew-style seat for her near the fireplace and banked up cushions behind her to protect her back. After months of looking after herself, this act of tenderness was nearly her undoing.

“Don’t cry, Jo,” Mark said softly, sitting beside her and kissing her on the cheek.

“I know you’re all emotional. But I’m here to look after you now.”

This finished her off completely.

“It’s so wonderful,” she sobbed, the tears finally racing down her cheeks.

“You’re being so nice, after I was such a bitch to you. I don’t deserve it.”

“Of course you do. It’s me who doesn’t deserve you.” He handed her his handkerchief.

“Blow.”

“I’m always stealing your handkerchiefs,” she snuffled tearily.

“Sorry.”

“My handkerchiefs are all yours, everything of mine is yours.”

He meant it too, she realised, looking up at his face through the tears.

“What about Eva?” she asked.

There’s been nothing going on between Eva and myself, not for a long time. Certainly not since I fell in love with you.”

“What about the Maldives?” asked Jo anxiously.

“You couldn’t go there on your own, could you?”

Mark’s look of amazement told her he hadn’t a clue what she was talking about.

“Your holiday she prompted.

“I went to Spain with some friends to play golf. Male friends, I should add. I couldn’t stand a beach holiday. Unless you were with me he added, planting a gentle kiss on her forehead. Think of the fun I could have rubbing sun lotion onto you.”

She drank hot tea and he fed her smoked salmon on homemade brown bread. He only started on his plate when hers was finished.

“You’re so good to me, Mark.” she said simply, leaning comfortably against his shoulder as he ate.

“I’ve wanted to be good to you for a long time but you wouldn’t let me he answered, taking a bite of bread.

“You’re very good at that “I’m an independent woman” thing, very good at scaring people off.”

Jo grimaced.

“I know, I’m sorry.”

“There’s no need to be sorry, I can understand exactly why you’d want to scare people off.”

“Can you?” she asked uncertainly. She desperately wanted him to understand everything.

“I was so lonely and on my own when Richard left. I felt like a one-woman disaster area. I couldn’t bear to let anyone close.”

“I can see that now he said with a low laugh.

“When you split up with him … I didn’t know if that was the right time to make my move. I was afraid you were still in love with him.”

Jo let her right hand rest on Mark’s neck, her fingers stroked the back of his head. She loved feeling the breadth of his shoulders, the sheer physical size of him. He made her feel petite, even now when she was as big as a whale.

“When I asked you to go to New York, it was a gamble. I hoped you’d go. I wanted to find out how you really felt about him despite the breakup.”

“You knew we’d split up?” she asked in astonishment.

He grinned and fed her a sliver of salmon drenched in lemon juice. “Yes I haf good informants, Frauline,” he said in a mock German accent.

“I needed to know if you could ever think of me. And I thought you could and maybe even did until you told me about the baby.” He shrugged.

“At that point, I felt like such a heel, as if I was trying to take advantage of you.”

“That’s why you started treating me like your long-lost little sister she said, finally understanding.

“I didn’t feel very brotherly towards you.” Mark stroked her thigh with one hand.

“Not at all.”

Jo felt a warmth in her belly at the thought of Mark harbouring unbrotherly desires for her. She remembered the dream she’d had about him that night in the Manhattan Fitzpatrick, the dream where they were naked and entangled in bed.

“I thought you were disgusted with me, that’s why we couldn’t talk except on the phone,” she explained, dragging her thoughts away from the picture of them in bed.

“Disgusted? Never. You’ve got to understand something, Jo,” Mark said, turning to face her, ‘the way I felt about you, I couldn’t bear to see you alone, alone and pregnant thanks to that bastard, when you should have been loved and your baby should have been loved.”

She loved hearing him talk this way, loved it.

“Christ, I couldn’t bear to see you facing everything on your own.” He tucked back a few damp strands of Jo’s hair behind one ear.

“So you mean you fancied me when you brought me out to lunch ages ago, before we went to New York?” Jo demanded.

“Yes.”

“And you fancied me when we went to New York?”

“Fancied you? I wanted to drag you into bed and never let you out again. When you wore that brown painted thing, I couldn’t take my eyes off you.”

“That’s my Mary Gregory dress, not some “thing”.” But you liked it?” she added, with an arch smile.

“I loved it.”

“Good. I was beginning to think I’d lost my touch,” she added triumphantly.

“And I love you too, Jo. I just needed the chance to tell you.

Today was it.”

“Oh Mark.” Jo leaned against him contentedly.

“I love you too. I thought I’d never be able to say that to your face, that is.” She sat up straight.

“Do you think we should ask the garage to keep the starting motor for us as a sort of memento?”

“One we can look at on our silver wedding and feel indebted to?” he asked, kissing her again.

“Exactly!”

“We should keep Rhona’s telephone as a memento as well,” he added.

“Why?”

“Because yesterday she told me that you weren’t really with Richard, that he hadn’t come back. Why the hell did you say he had?”

“I didn’t want you to think I was pining for you when you were obviously in love with Eva,” Jo said defensively.

“I

couldn’t bear you to pity me or think I was a foolish pregnant woman.”

“I’ve never met anyone as imaginative as you in my life,” Mark said.

“Does this mean that if I don’t ring you first thing tomorrow morning, you’ll suddenly decide that I’ve gone off to the South of France with someone else?”

Jo didn’t answer. She was thinking of the most important question of all, the one thing she had to ask.

“The baby. The baby is the most important thing in my life, Mark. I have to think of her first. Can you love my baby, even though she’s Richard’s?”

“She won’t be Richard’s baby,” he said simply.

“She’ll be our baby, our child. If I hadn’t wanted both mother and child, do you think I’d be here? I’m not like him. I don’t just want the beautiful journalist and nothing else, no ties, no commitments.

I want the woman, the mother, you.” Mark turned on the seat, held her hands and looked at her.

“I know you’ve been hurt, Jo, but you’ve got to trust me. I’ll never let anyone hurt you ever again. And as for that bastard …”

She placed a finger over his mouth.

“Don’t ruin it by even talking about him,” she said.

“He’s bad news, always has been, although I didn’t realise it for a long time. Let’s just forget about him.”

They sat in front of the fire for an hour. Jo warmed her toes after Mark had carefully taken off her ski boots.

“I can’t remember when I last saw my feet,” she said cheerfully, as the warmth of the fire sank into her bones.

“Was I always really horrible to you?” she asked, hating to think of how she’d been fatally drawn into disagreeing with every second word Mark had said at the editorial conferences.

“Brutal,” he replied.

“You were so argumentative, always determined to have your say because you had such strong opinions about ‘everything. But I liked that. You were never afraid to have your say. And if you were proved wrong, you always said so, which I like even more.”

“Like the posters with the three words wrongly spelled?”

she asked.

“Like the posters,” he agreed.

“You were so angry with yourself that day when you realised they’d nearly gone to the printers incorrectly. And you were twice as angry with me for mentioning it at the meeting. I remember you were wearing that pink cardigan thing, it was really quite see-through.”

Jo grimaced.

“I know, I only realised how transparent it was later.”

“I noticed,” he said with a small smile.

“You came back into the boardroom after the meeting to get your notebook, all barely concealed temper.” He paused and grinned.

“I was trying not to stare at your breasts because I could see the faint outline of your bra through the cardigan … It was quite a feat to talk at all.”

“I thought you were a pig and I was waiting for you to make a sarcastic comment!” Jo exclaimed.

“I was trying not to grab you and tell you I was crazy about you there and then,” Mark said.

“Really?” she asked in delight.

“I was going to throw that cardigan out.”

“Don’t you dare he murmured.

“Next time you wear it, I want to take it off.”

“I might not fit into it ever again,” Jo said ruefully, looking down at herself.

“It doesn’t matter. We’ll just have to find something else for me to rip off Mark said gently.

It was nearly four when Mark looked at his watch.

“I’m afraid that we have to go, darling he said, smiling down at her as if he couldn’t quite believe that she was his.

She knew how he felt.

“I’ve got to go to this business dinner in town at eight and I’ve got a meeting in Jurys beforehand.” He got to his feet.

“Oh.” Jo couldn’t hide her disappointment. She’d hoped that they could spend the evening together and now he was telling her about his plans, plans that had nothing to do with her.

“You’re invited, my pet, so don’t get upset. I’ll pick you up at half six he added, tickling her under the chin.

Jo beamed at him.

“You’ve certainly got me figured out.”

“I’ve been doing research for over three years he said.

“My God, are you all right? Is it the baby?” he asked suddenly, as Jo let out an anguished squeak.

“No. I’ve nothing to wear!” she wailed.

“Nothing glamorous that will fit me, anyway.”

“Is that all?” Mark gave her a hug.

“Rhona’s bound to have something glam from her three pregnancies and we’re not far from her house. We could drop in and pick something up.”

Rhona answered her mobile with her characteristically brusque, “Yes!”

“Hi, Rho, it’s Jo here. Where are you?”

“Stuck behind a bloody truck on the dual carriage way You sound as if you’re on a car phone, Jo.”

“I am. I’m with Mark.”

She was rewarded with a triumphant roar on the other end of the receiver.

“With Mark as in with him in the car, or with Mark?” Rhona demanded.

“With him answered Mark, who could hear his editor’s roars.

“Yahoo! Thank you for ringing me to tell me,” Rhona said in a quieter voice.

“Actually, I’m ringing because I need something sexy in the maternity-dress line for this dinner Mark is bringing me to tonight,” Jo said apologetically.

“We’re only a few miles away from your place …”

Typical. I personally coordinate the match of the decade and you just want to rifle through my wardrobe.” Rhona did her best to sound outraged but failed.

“I’ll be home in twenty minutes. Ted will be there so tell him to put the kettle on.

Better still, I’ll phone him myself.”

When Rhona swept, into her sitting room half an hour later, she brought a bottle of rose wine with her.

“We’ve got to celebrate,” she said, kissing Jo warmly on the cheek.

“It’s only sparkling wine but it’s better than tea. I’m so happy for you, Jo,” she whispered.

“You deserve him. He’s a wonderful man.”

Mark got up from his seat beside Jo and held Rhona in a bear hug.

“Thanks for everything.” He turned to face Jo.

“If it wasn’t for this lady, we’d still be freezing each other out every time we met.”

“My wife is a formidable woman,” Ted agreed, handing them all glasses of frothy pink wine.

A second bottle of rose had been consumed by the time Rhona and Jo finally made it upstairs to rummage through Rhona’s wardrobe with five-year-old Susie and eight-year-old Lynne eagerly accompanying them.

“Do you want to see our room?” inquired Susie, who was holding Jo’s hand.

“Of course. Will you show it to me?” asked Jo.

After five minutes admiring Susie’s teddies, her dolls and Lynne’s latest potato-print picture, she followed Rhona into the spare bedroom.

“I shouldn’t drink on an empty stomach hiccuped Rhona, heaving open the old pine wardrobe door.

“You had half a glass, and Mark only had one that means that Ted and I drank practically two bottles on our own.”

“Well, it’s not as if you’re going anywhere,” Jo pointed out sensibly.

“Oh Rhona, this is lovely she said, taking out a long cream silk dress with tiny buttons all the way from hem to neck.

“Lovely if you’re six foot and six stone said Rhona, sitting down on the bed.

“This is my spare wardrobe, the one the girls like best she added.

“And it’s where I keep all the stuff I should never have bought because I can’t fit into it. Lynne, show Jo the stuff at the back beside the sequin ned dress.- ?