Lynsey Stevens - His Cousin's Wife

‘Aren’t you going to sit down, Shea?’ His words broke in on her unsettling thoughts and she moved forward to disguise the start of surprise his voice had caused her.

‘Yes. Of course. But if you’ll both excuse me for a moment. I’ll just, um, the bathroom,’ she muttered disjointedly and made her escape. Once she’d reached the safety of the hallway her step faltered, and she gulped shallow, calming breaths.

‘I’m sorry I haven’t managed to get home sooner,’ Shea heard Alex say and her hand went to the wall to steady herself. ‘Once Dad moved to the States I lost all contact apart from an occasional note from Jamie.’

‘Jamie wrote to you? I never knew that.’ Shea heard Norah say and her own lips tightened. Well, she, Shea, hadn’t known, either, and she felt a numbed surprise that Jamie had deceived her.

‘About the funeral, Norah,’ Alex was continuing. ‘I got the message you left about the accident and I was about to fly home but,’ he paused, ‘something came up.’

Shea didn’t stay to hear any more. She made herself hurry towards the bathroom.

So something had come up to prevent him attending Jamie’s funeral, Jamie who had been more than a brother to him. Some business deal no doubt, she thought bitterly. How could she think it would have been any other way? Alex hadn’t changed. He had been interested only in himself eleven years ago and he was still the same. Alex-oriented. Something she would never be again.

She automatically splashed her face and towelled it dry. Her reflection, face devoid of makeup, gazed back at her from the mirror above the vanity basin, and her frown deepened.

She rubbed at the slight indentation between her eyes. She looked—Well, she looked every bit of her twenty-eight years, and then some. She was definitely no longer the fresh-faced teenager Alex had left behind. He couldn’t help but notice the difference in her.

Shea shifted agitatedly, hanging up the towel and grasping her hairbrush. Did it matter what Alex Finlay thought? she asked herself derisively.

Her fingers loosened the knot of fair hair at the back of her head and she raked the brush through the tangles. Then she rewound it into its confining bob and rubbed at her throbbing temples.

There was nothing now to keep her from rejoining her mother-in-law and their guest so she walked back along the hallway. However, she hesitated again before she reached the kitchen doorway as she heard Norah’s words.

‘And is Patti with you?’

‘No.’ Shea thought she heard Alex sigh. ‘Patti and I aren’t together anymore. We divorced. It just didn’t work out.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that, Alex,’ Norah said softly as Shea’s entire body seemed to stiffen at Alex’s bombshell.

A tiny flicker of hope caught Shea unawares and she berated herself derisively.

‘We should never have married, Patti and I,’ Alex was saying.

‘That’s easy to say with hindsight,’ Norah put in sympathetically.

‘I suppose so,’ Alex agreed tiredly.

Realising she had been holding her breath Shea made herself exhale as her chest tightened painfully.

‘Our marriage lasted barely a year. We were finally divorced a couple of years ago and Patti’s remarried. She seems happy enough now.’ The chair creaked as Alex moved. ‘That’s the way things go sometimes.’

‘I suppose sometimes they do,’ Norah commiserated. ‘But I think it’s sad when young marriages break up. There seems to be so much of it these days.’

Alex made a noncommittal remark as Norah continued to decry the modern phenomena and Shea tried to analyse her own feelings at Alex’s revelation.

So Alex’s and Patti’s marriage hadn’t lasted. Shea could recall quite vividly the devastation she’d experienced when Alex’s father had told her of his son’s engagement to Joe Rosten’s daughter. And the pain of having to pretend to everyone that it meant nothing to her, for she had supposedly been a happily married woman herself at the time.

Donald Finlay had left for the States to attend his son’s wedding and when he eventually returned to Byron Bay he had packed up his belongings, rented out his cottage, and gone back to the States to marry a widow he’d met at the wedding. Shea had had no news of either Donald or Alex since that time. Neither Norah nor Jamie had spoken of them.

A tiny spark remaining inside Shea had died knowing Alex was married and only Jamie had known how badly the news of his cousin’s marriage had affected her.

Poor Jamie. He’d consoled her, knowing she could never feel for him what she had felt for his taller, smarter, more handsome cousin. Even though she’d tried so desperately for the six years of their marriage to do just that.

All things considered, she felt she could have been forgiven for feeling some delight at learning that Alex and Patti had parted. But she simply felt desensitised. Well, she could care less if Alex was married or single, she told herself and with a major clasp at her composure, Shea made herself re-enter the kitchen.

Alex immediately stood up and passed her her mug of coffee as she sat down on the opposite side of the table, as far from Alex as she could. But that was a strategic error, for now she only had to raise her eyes to look at him.

‘Coffee’s not cold, is it, love?’ Norah smiled at Shea and she shook her head, determinedly taking a placating sip.

She glanced across the rim of her coffee cup to find Alex’s hooded eyes resting on her and she stilled, her fingers tightening around the handle.

With precision timing the telephone jangled and Shea was hard put not to slosh her coffee into her lap.

‘I’ll get it.’ Norah was up and out the door before Shea or Alex could make a move.

And with Norah’s departure the tension recharged between them. Their eyes meshed and neither seemed able to break the hold.

How long they sat like that she couldn’t have told but she thought she saw a pulse beating erratically in Alex’s smoothly shaven jaw line. And was that his pain or simply a reflection of her own in the glittering darkness of his eyes?

Deep inside her she knew what she really wanted. She wanted, needed, yearned to throw herself into his strong arms, have his body mould itself to hers. She could almost feel him, smell the male scent of him, hear the murmur of the sea on the sand below them, see the moonlight dancing on their damp bodies.

Yes, she’d loved him then. Yet when she’d needed him most he had left her.

She dragged her gaze from his. Why, Alex? Why did you do it? Why did you leave me? The words echoed so loudly inside her head she thought she must have voiced them and she glanced quickly back at him. But he showed no sign that she had spoken.

His expression was guarded now, making him seem somewhat detached, light-years away from the Alex she had known so well, loved with such intensity and innocence.

Perhaps she had even imagined that earlier momentary fire. But her imagination wasn’t to blame for the remembered feel of him, the remembered taste of him...

Her hunger was a physical pain and she lowered her lashes in case he saw just how vulnerable to his nearness she really was. When she raised her eyes he had leaned forward in his chair and an entirely different anguish caught her, for all dispassion had left his face.

‘Shea!’

Her name seemed to be torn raggedly from him and his hand moved towards her. Shea felt herself drawn capriciously forward, only to check as Norah rejoined them, her quick glance going from her daughter-in-law to her nephew.

Shea hoped the telltale colour that had flooded her pale cheeks wouldn’t betray her previous lapse in control. Her nerves were jangling like mechanical puppets gone mad. If Norah hadn’t interrupted them Alex would have...

Would have what? she asked herself bitterly. Touched her? Kissed her? No! Never again. She couldn’t, wouldn’t, be able to bear it.

‘It was David,’ Norah said. ‘On the phone,’ she added, seeing the blank looks on both Shea’s and Alex’s faces. ‘He was just checking to see Shea got home all right.’

‘Oh.’ Shea swallowed. ‘That was thoughtful of him.’

‘Yes. Very thoughtful,’ Alex agreed drily, and Norah smiled.

‘It’s so kind of him to drive Shea to the meetings. David’s a pleasant young man.’ Norah beamed and Alex’s smile barely shadowed the corners of his mouth.

‘I’m sure he is,’ he said evenly, but before Norah could extol David Aston’s virtues any further a sound at the doorway drew their attention.

CHAPTER FOUR

‘MUM? Gran? What’s going on?’ Niall’s pyjama-clad body leant against the door jamb, fists rubbing at his sleepy eyes.

Panic gathered in a tight ball in Shea’s chest and she stood up, taking a couple of steps towards Niall, trying to put herself between Alex and her son. ‘It’s all right, love. Go on back to bed.’

But by now Niall was fully awake and he came forward to stand beside his mother.

‘You’re Cousin Alex, aren’t you?’ he said, obvious excitement in his young voice. ‘I’ve seen stacks of photos of you with my dad.’

Alex had pushed himself to his feet, too, and his expression was shadowed by his lashes as he looked down at Niall. Then he seemed to make himself relax and came around the table. ‘I am Alex. But you’re far too old to be young Niall,’ he teased with mock incredulity, and Niall grinned.

‘I’m ten,’ he said proudly.

‘Your father wrote to me about you,’ Alex continued, and Shea drew a sharp breath.

She had no idea Jamie had ever contacted his cousin to inform him of Niall’s birth. Another instance of Jamie’s secret letters. She reached out and clasped Niall’s thin shoulders, fighting an urge to push her son behind her, shield him with her body.

‘This is my son,’ she said unnecessarily, her slightly sharp voice betraying her total turmoil.

Niall slid a quick glance up at her before turning back to Alex. ‘I’m Niall James Alexander Finlay,’ he stated with a beam and, with obvious importance, took Alex’s outstretched hand. ‘The James is for my father and my grandfather and the Alexander is after you.’ His grin broadened. ‘The Niall bit’s just mine.’

Alex laughed easily and ran a hand over Niall’s tousled hair.

‘Do you think I look like you and Dad?’ Niall continued. ‘Gran says you could hardly tell you and Dad apart when you were boys and I’m supposed to look like him.’

‘You and Jamie did look like brothers when you were small,’ Norah put in quickly, not meeting her daughter-in-law’s eyes. ‘And Niall has the same colouring. But I can see a lot of Shea in him, too.’ With uncharacteristic nervousness her fingers played with the cord of her robe. ‘But I’m babbling. Would you like a glass of milk, Niall? And how about another cup of coffee, Alex?’

‘It’s a little late, Norah,’ Shea said, her hands still holding her son. ‘I’m sure Alex wants to get home.’

‘No. Unless it’s too late for you?’ He raised dark brows at his aunt who shook her head.

‘Did you know my dad died?’ Niall asked and Alex nodded solemnly. ‘He swam out to rescue a board rider and just when they were nearly safe a big wave picked up the board and knocked Dad out and he got drowned. He was a hero.’

‘He was that,’ Alex agreed.

‘So how come you haven’t been back home in so long, Cousin Alex?’ Niall asked then, as he sat down beside his mother who had reluctantly subsided into her chair.

Shea’s back stiffened and she swallowed, grasping the plate of Norah’s homemade cookies and offering them to Alex in an effort to disguise the inner chaos she suspected was visible on her face.