Page 52 of Stranded with the Surgeon

‘Let’s go home.’ Guy appeared by her side and Jennifer knew that home with Guy was exactly where she wanted to go.

It was raining again quite heavily by the time they returned to Guy’s cottage.

‘You’d better stay,’ he told her. ‘It’s too late to be hunting down a motel, and this weather’s getting worse.’

‘Thanks.’ Jennifer was happy to accept the offer. She also accepted the offer of a cup of tea in front of the fire before heading off to the guest room. She relaxed on one side of the couch with the dogs at her feet.

‘This is lovely,’ she told Guy, letting her breath out in a contented sigh. ‘And I really enjoyed tonight as well.’

‘Really?’ Guy sounded sceptical.

‘Really.’ Jennifer nodded. She curled her legs beneath her and took a deep breath. ‘I’d forgotten what it was like. I have memories of evenings like that from when I was a teenager, and I thought it would be my worst nightmare to go to another one.’

‘Because of the food?’

Jennifer smiled, shaking her head. ‘Because of everyone knowing everyone else’s business, and it coming across like they wanted to interfere. I didn’t have a mother and every second woman wanted to step into that breach. I wasn’t having any of it.’

‘I’ll bet.’ Guy was smiling now but he was staring ahead into the fire rather than at Jennifer.

‘They only wanted to help, though. I can see that now. They cared and I just pushed them all away. I couldn’t wait to escape.’ She hesitated only briefly. ‘Bit like your mother, I suppose. Or your ex-wife.’

‘Yeah.’ Guy still wasn’t making eye contact.

‘I don’t feel like that anymore,’ Jennifer said quietly. ‘I feel drawn back. I can’t replace what I lost, but being here makes me realise just how much I did throw away.’

She raised her gaze to where a small jar of water sat on the mantelpiece above the fire. She had put the wilted buttercups into it before they’d gone out, and now their stems had straightened and the furled petals were waiting for daylight to open again.

‘And…’ Jennifer added, a shade desperately. ‘I want it again.’

‘What?’

‘That feeling of belonging. Of… of being, I don’t know… important.’

‘You’re far more important where you are.’

‘Not in the way it matters the most. I think that’s why I want this baby so much. It feels more real, more important than anything else I have in my life.’

It was a long moment before Guy spoke again. ‘You’ll be a great mother, Jenna.’

‘I hope so. I can’t remember much about my own mother. I feel like I grew up without one really.’

‘You and me both. Only I was missing a father as well.’

‘You’d be a great father, Guy,’ Jennifer said shyly.

The silence was even longer this time. ‘I can’t do that, Jenna,’ Guy said finally. ‘Don’t you understand? I… I have feelings for you, and if I go there I’d end up like Digger, mooning after a woman whose standards he could never hope to meet.’

‘That’s not true.’

Guy ignored her. ‘Or it would end up like my first marriage with the love I thought I’d found whittled away until there was only bitterness left. I can’t change who I am, Jenna, and I’m not going to try. Not again.’

‘I’m not asking you to.’ Jennifer reached out and caught Guy’s hand, the little squeeze she gave finally prompting him to meet her gaze. ‘What I feel for you has nothing to do with where you live or how much money you make.’ She paused and then gave her head an imperceptible shake as she tried to arrange her thoughts coherently enough to impart her message. ‘Well, it does have something to do with where you live, I suppose.’

‘Of course it does. We’re on different planets, Jenna.’

It was Jennifer’s turn to ignore Guy’s comment. ‘You remember when you left me by that lake? When you went off to find firewood?’

Guy nodded slowly.

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