Page 47 of New Dreams for the Village Nurse
He didn’t answer, and that was enough to tell her the truth. She watched him swim back to the shallow end.
It didn’t matter. He’d had a life before her, in exactly the same way she’d had a life before him. He’d had Mila and she’d had Josh. It didn’t matter, did it? He was bringing her to a place he already knew about. But why not tell her that? Why the secrecy? And why this place? She’d never take him to a placeshe’d been with Josh, not deliberately. Yes, there’d been that one restaurant in Manchester, but that had been his suggestion and she’d not had the heart to rain on his parade. And they hadn’t ended up eating there anyway because Mila had turned up.
Mila – the queen of raining on parades, it seemed, because, try as she might not to let it bother her, Ottilie suddenly hated that Heath had brought Mila here long before he’d brought her. And perhaps she could have forgiven it if he’d been upfront. Was she being unreasonable for feeling this way?
She swam back along the length of the pool, trying to shake her doubt and irritation. He’d done a lovely thing for her – that was the only thing that mattered, wasn’t it? It wouldn’t be fair to ruin it over some petty, irrational jealousy that made absolutely no sense. It wouldn’t be fair to either of them, because until this point, she’d been having a great time.
‘I’m hungry,’ Heath said as she reached him for the second time. ‘Let’s go and eat, eh?’
Ottilie wanted to argue. She wanted to talk more about what had just happened between them. She wanted to let it go. She wanted to forget it had ever been said, and that she’d ever had these feelings. She didn’t know what she wanted or how to feel. She could only nod.
‘OK.’
But she knew she’d sit across from him in the dining room and she’d look at the menu and wonder how much of it he’d tasted with Mila in her seat. How many times had they been there together? Was it a regular thing or a one-off? Was it significant? Did it hold special meaning for them? Had he proposed there? Had they rented a suite and made love there when they hadn’t been able to contain themselves? Ottilie hated herself for dwelling on things that she knew didn’t matter. He wasn’t there with Mila now; he was there with her. He’d parted from Mila and she knew there was no love left, so why did shefeel this way about her discovery? There was no reason or logic to it, but still she couldn’t help it.
As she watched him go to retrieve his robe from the lounger, she had a sudden yearning to go home. The shine had gone from the day and she didn’t know how she was going to get through the rest of it. But she was afraid to ask, because she knew where that would lead and she didn’t want to go there. He’d be hurt, and she’d seem unreasonable, and they wouldn’t be able to understand each other’s points of view and it would get horribly messy. It might even be their first full argument. It might even be the beginning of the end. Despite this, she cared for Heath and she didn’t want to lose him before they’d even had a chance. No matter what it took, she had to make this right somehow.
She climbed the steps to get her own robe, a sudden chill and goosebumps on her dripping skin. Heath watched her, his own robe now wrapped around him. As she pulled hers on too, he reached for her.
‘Listen…I’m sorry. I should have told you.’
‘It doesn’t matter?—’
‘I can see it does. I didn’t think it was a big deal but I was wrong. I only brought you here because I knew it was a nice place and I knew you’d like it. I should have searched for somewhere else.’
‘It’s lovely…’ Ottilie was shivering.
‘You’re cold?’ He frowned.
‘I’m fine. Must be all the in and out of the water and whatnot.’
He pulled her into an embrace, her cheek pressed against the softness of his robe. It smelled of the outdoors, though Ottilie suspected that was the soap powder because there was a faint tinge of the unnatural about it, not like when she dried washing on her line in her little garden in Thimblebury, where it was all fresh air and mountains.
‘Forgive me?’
‘There’s nothing to forgive.’
‘Why do I feel as if that’s not true?’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘You have nothing to be sorry for. I’m the idiot. It never occurred to me until now that it might even be an issue me coming here with Mila.’
‘That only makes me feel worse.’ Ottilie looked up at him. ‘It makes me feel stupid for my reaction, like it’s totally out of proportion. If it didn’t even occur to you then that means I overreacted to something that meant nothing.’
‘You didn’t!’ He let out a sigh. ‘Ottilie, if it matters to you then it matters. I should have seen it – I’m the stupid one, not you.’
‘If I ask you something, promise it won’t…’ Ottilie shook her head. ‘Never mind.’
‘What? You can’t start that conversation and then just drop it.’
‘I can because it’s silly, and I already know the answer.’
‘What did I just say? If it matters to you then it matters. That applies to anything, no matter how small or silly you’re afraid it might be. So ask me.’
‘I don’t want to. It’s insulting and you’d have every right to be annoyed. I’d rather leave it.’
He bent to kiss her again. There was no lust this time, only confusion and worry and sadness and an attempt to reassure her that he clearly wasn’t convinced he could pull off. All the sudden uncertainty and doubt they now both felt was in that kiss. It was almost a kiss to gauge her reaction, to see how far she was willing to forgive the huge mistake he must have now felt he’d made. Ottilie had done that, and in the kiss she offered in return there was remorse.
