The Virgin Bride (The Australians) (4 page)

‘You look very nice yourself,' she was saying. ‘Very…handsome.'

At least she hadn't said rich.

‘Thank you. Shall we go? My car's out in the street. There again,' he added, smiling a wry smile, ‘my car's always parked out in the street.'

That was one thing his new house didn't have. A garage. There was room in the back yard, but no access down the side.

You can't have everything in life, son…

Jason glanced over at Emma, and his smile softened.

Maybe not, Mum. But I'm getting closer.

‘W
HAT
happened to your ring?'

Jason was about to fork a honeyed prawn into his mouth when Emma posed the unexpected query. Slowly, he lowered his fork to the plate, and looked across the table into her big, luminous green eyes.

Her asking such a question was telling, he thought, for it revealed she'd noticed his always wearing the ring in the first place. He reasoned that you wouldn't notice such a thing—or its absence—if you hadn't been watching a person fairly closely.

The thought flattered his ego.

He was also grateful that their conversation had finally become a little more personal. During the drive over to Bateman's Bay, Emma had been quiet and tense. Jason had had the awful feeling she was regretting coming with him, regretting having anything to do with him at all. Sensing her mood, he hadn't pressed her with any questions of his own, keeping the conversation light and inconsequential. He'd tried amusing her with an account of his relationship with Nancy so far, but, whilst she'd laughed at the right moments, he'd suspected her mind was elsewhere. Ratchitt, probably.

Now he wasn't so sure. Her eyes were focused on
his
face with a concentration which was total and ex
clusive. He almost preened under the triumphant and very male feelings her intense gaze evoked.

‘I took it off,' he said. ‘And left it off.'

‘But why?' she asked, perplexed. ‘It was a beautiful ring.'

‘Adele gave it to me.'

‘Oh,' she murmured, and looked down at her largely untouched Mongolian lamb.

‘She gave me this watch too,' he added matter-of-factly. ‘And it's going to be replaced in the morning as well.'

Her eyes lifted, confusion in their depths. ‘You sound so calm about it.'

‘I
am
calm about it. They have no meaning for me any more. I don't want anything of hers around me,' he finished with a betraying burst of emotion.

Her smile was rueful. ‘You still love her.'

‘Maybe. But I certainly won't for ever. Time cures all wounds, Emma.'

‘That's a simplistic statement for a doctor to make, Jason. Time doesn't always cure. Some wounds fester further. Some become ulcers. Some turn into gangrene, and ultimately kill.'

There was a moment's stark silence between them. Jason was horrified at the depth of her pain over that creep. God, how she must have loved him! Was he foolish in thinking she would ever get over him, that they could be happy together? Was his ego overriding reality?

‘What are you going to do with them?' she asked abruptly. ‘The ring and the watch.'

‘I'll post them to one of my brothers. Jerry, I think. He'll love them.'

‘One of your brothers,' she repeated slowly, and shook her head. ‘I'd forgotten you would have a family somewhere. I'm used to being alone, you see. I forget other people have parents and brothers and sisters.'

‘Actually, I don't have any parents any more. My mother's dead and my father's God knows where. He ran out on Mum the year I was born. I don't have any sisters, either, but I do have five older brothers. I had six till Jack was killed in a motorbike accident, which leaves James, Josh, Jake, Jude and Jerry, working from the eldest down. I'm the youngest. Mum liked boy's names starting with J, as you can see.'

She smiled at that. ‘And where are they, your brothers? What are they doing?'

‘Scattered to the four corners of the earth. Since Mum died we don't keep in touch much. Typical boys, I guess. But Jerry's closest to me in age and I have a soft spot for him. He's not too bright, works in a clothing factory in Sydney and doesn't earn much. He's not married and lives in a boarding house. I send him some money sometimes. And clothes and things.' Actually he hadn't sent Jerry anything for ages, not since his break-up with Adele. His mind had been elsewhere. He vowed to do something about that, come Monday.

‘I would have liked a big brother,' she said wistfully. ‘But I was an only child. My parents were getting on when they had me. Aunt Ivy was my Dad's sister.'

‘Ivy mentioned your parents were killed in a helicopter crash.'

‘Yes. A joy flight. Ironic term, don't you think?'

‘Tragic.'

‘We were holidaying at this resort on the Gold Coast. I was ten. I was going to go up in the helicopter with them, but I'd eaten too much rubbish earlier, which hadn't agreed with me, and they left me behind because they thought I might be sick all over them. I actually saw the helicopter crash. It clipped the top of a tree as it was taking off and just tipped head-first into the ground.'

‘What a dreadful thing for you to witness,' he sympathised.

‘It was, I suppose. But, to be honest, I wasn't as devastated at some children might have been. I never felt my parents really loved me. I was an unwanted pregnancy, you see. Totally unexpected. Mum often said to Dad in my presence that they were too old to have a child, that I was a nuisance and she should have had an abortion.'

Jason didn't know what to say to that. He'd never felt his father's rejection because his father had never been around. To be constantly told you weren't wanted must have been awful. And not too good for your self-esteem. He might have been dirt-poor, but he'd always known he'd been the apple of his mother's eye.

‘Anyway, when Aunt Ivy took me in,' Emma went on, ‘I finally knew what it was to be loved and wanted. She was so good to me. So very, very good…'

Tears welled up in her eyes, but she staunchly blinked them away and wiped her eyes with the red serviette from her lap. ‘Sorry,' she muttered, scrunching up the serviette and lowering it to her lap again. ‘I promised myself I would be good company for you tonight. But I haven't been, have I? I won't blame you if you never ask me out again, let alone ask me to marry you again.'

He stared at her. What was that odd note in her voice? Had she had second thoughts since refusing him last night? Had she decided she was a fool to wait any longer for Ratchitt's return?

‘I wouldn't worry about that, if I were you, Emma,' Jason said. ‘I
will
ask you out again. And I
will
ask you to marry me again. Again
and
again. I intend asking you till the answer is yes.'

Her intake of breath was deep, but she let it out slowly. Her eyes never left his, as though she could plumb the depths of his soul if she looked long enough and hard enough. ‘You're very strong-minded, aren't you?' she said.

‘I know what I want. And I want you, Emma.'

Her face twisted into a tight grimace and he thought she might cry again. But she didn't. ‘I…I don't think I'd make you a wonderful wife at all,' she said in a wretched voice.

‘Why's that?'

‘I… I…' She shook her head again and fell silent, her eyes dropping. But not before Jason glimpsed something that looked like guilt.

‘Tell me why, Emma?' he demanded to know. If there was one thing he could not stand, it was being
kept in the dark about something. He always needed to know the truth, no matter how unpalatable. He could cope with the truth. What he could not cope with was deception and evasion.

‘Emma, look at me,' he ordered, and she obeyed, however reluctantly. ‘Now, tell me why you said that. And be honest. Don't be afraid. Nothing you say will shock me, or make me angry.'

‘You won't want to hear
this
.'

‘Try me, Emma.'

She remained silent.

‘
Trust
me.'

‘Even if I agree to marry you,' she confessed on a whisper, ‘I know I'll never forget Dean. And I'll never love
you
while Dean's here in my heart, no matter how much I might want to.'

Jason sucked in a sharp breath. He had guessed that was what might be troubling her. But still…hearing her say the words hurt far more than he could ever have imagined. He supposed at the back of his mind he'd hoped that eventually she would learn to love him, as he was sure he would learn to love her. He might still be in love with Adele at the moment, but he believed time would definitely cure
that
particular wound.

Time…

Of course! That was the crux of all his problems with Emma, he realised on a wave of relief. Time.

She might believe with all her heart in what she was saying, but that was now, this very minute, tonight, not tomorrow, or next month, or next year. Young love could be very intense, but young love,
like a young plant, didn't survive indefinitely without being fed and watered. In the end it withered and died.

When Ratchitt didn't come back, Emma's love for him would wither and die as well, replaced by a new love, for her husband. Emma was too sweet and caring a person to deny affection if he was kind and attentive to her.

When she placed her crumpled serviette beside her plate on the table, he reached across and took her hand in his. She immediately stiffened under his touch, but he persisted, stroking the length of her fingers with gentle fingertips. ‘You let me worry about what kind of wife you'll be to me,' he said softly. ‘It's my job to make you happy, Emma. I think I can do that. In fact, I—'

He was startled when she snatched her hand away and put it back in her lap. ‘I don't want you touching me like that,' she snapped, but would not look at him. There was a high colour in her cheeks which he found encouraging.

‘I'm sorry,' he said, though he wasn't sorry at all.

Perhaps his lack of sincerity echoed in his voice, for her eyes swung back to glower at him. ‘Don't ever say sorry to me when you're not! And don't ever,
ever
say you love me when you don't!'

He was stunned by her attack. He hadn't known she had that kind of spirit. Or such a temper!

‘All right,' he agreed, still a bit shell-shocked.

Her fierce expression suddenly sagged, as did her shoulders. ‘I'm sorry,' she said. ‘I'm being a right bitch.'

He almost smiled. She had no idea what a ‘right
bitch' was really like. Adele would eat her for breakfast.

‘Why don't we stop apologising to each other,' he said, ‘and eat up our dinner? You said you liked Chinese, remember? That's why we came here, and not that nice little Italian restaurant down the road.'

‘I should have let you have your way,' she said as she toyed with her meal. ‘I don't have much of an appetite lately. Do you like Italian food an awful lot?'

‘Love it. But I also like Chinese, as well as German, French, Asian, Thai and Japanese. Fact is, I like food, period. As long as I don't have to cook it.'

‘Normally, I love to cook,' she said.

‘That's good.'

Her glance was sharp. ‘I haven't said I'm going to marry you yet, Jason,' she reprimanded rather primly.

‘I can live in hope, can't I?'

Her face clouded. ‘They might be false hopes.'

‘I'm willing to risk it.'

She stiffened in her chair. ‘You don't think he'll ever come back, do you?'

‘If he loved you, nothing would have kept him away. There again, if he loved you, he would not have done what he did in the first place.'

‘You're so black and white,' she said, and sighed. ‘I know what Dean did was wrong. And I can't condone it. But I also know he loved me. That's what makes everything so hard. Knowing that.'

‘I see.' And he did.

When he'd told Adele he was leaving her, she'd been angrier than he'd ever seen her. How could he leave her when they loved each other so much? When
she loved
him
so much? She'd tried everything to persuade him differently. She'd appealed to every weakness she thought he had. His ambition. His greed. His supposed love of city life.

And sex, of course. She'd thrown everything at him in that regard, tried everything, done everything.

And he'd let her, to his discredit. But he'd still walked away in the end. No, he'd run, before she could persuade him differently.

What would he have done, he wondered now, if she'd come after him? If she'd shown up during his first few weeks here in Tindley, when he'd thought he'd made the biggest mistake in his life, before he'd got used to the slower pace, before the town and the people and the peace and quiet had seeped into his soul.

Maybe—just maybe—he'd have allowed himself to be seduced back to Sydney, despite his better judgement.

So he
did
understand how Emma felt.

But people like Adele and Ratchitt didn't love as deeply or as long as others. Adele hadn't run after him, and Ratchitt had not come back.

He looked at Emma's depressed face and decided a change of subject was called for.

‘Do you want dessert, perhaps?' he asked. ‘I can see you're not going to eat that. But something sweet usually goes down easily.'

‘All right,' she agreed, brightening. ‘I wouldn't mind some ice-cream.'

‘Is that all?'

‘Yes, but with lots of flavouring.'

‘Your wish is my command.' And he signalled the waitress.

He kept the conversation off lost loves for the rest of the night, and the drive back to Tindley was much more relaxed than the drive over. He regaled her with tales of his days at university, including some of the jobs he'd done to pay his way through.

By the time he eased his car into the kerb outside the sweet shop, Emma was laughing. ‘You really worked in a gay bar?'

‘For one evening only,' he returned drily as he switched off the engine and unclicked his seat belt. ‘I didn't know it was a gay bar when I applied. I was walking past and saw a sign in the window saying ‘Drinks Waiter Wanted'. I went right in and was hired on the spot.'

‘When did the penny drop?'

‘I realised my mistake pretty quickly that night, but I decided I could cope when I saw the size of my tips.'