Not on your life,she thought with a smile, thinking how icy cold that lake must be.
When she was sitting down again, Keith said, ‘Are you going to tell me all about it, then?’
‘About what?’
He tutted. ‘You and Jakob, of course. I know your natural inclination is to keep things to yourself, and I respect that, but the thing is, Nina, I feel I owe it to Hugh to encourage you to move on with your life, whether that’s taking a risk on finding love again, or just throwing yourself into having some fun.’
‘It was always about the risk for Hugh,’ she said with a faint smile. ‘The riskier the better. But I’m not like him. That said, though,’ she added cautiously, deciding to confirm what Keith clearly suspected, ‘I have decided to take a risk and Jakob and I are’ – she mentally took a deep breath – ‘seeing each other; well, you know, we’re in a relationship. Sort of.’Why sort of?she asked herself. Who was ever in a sort of relationship?
Keith’s face lit up with a smile of pleasure. ‘I’m so pleased for you,’ he said. ‘I’ve never forgotten how radiant you looked at Fabian’s wedding when you were dancing with Jakob. You looked so happy. Obviously,’ he added with a grimace, ‘that was before it all went horribly wrong.’
Not wanting to dwell on the latter, and keen to stress how things were between her and Jakob, she said, ‘For now we’re at the very low-key-taking-it-steadily stage,’ she said. ‘More importantly, we haven’t gone public yet. I need to find my way around being in a relationship again. Didn’t you feel like that with Diane?’
‘To be honest, we’re both still finding our way. And that’s perfectly normal, that’s how every relationship works, isn’t it? Every day is a new discovery. That’s part of the fun.’
‘You’re right,’ she said, ‘that’s how it should be. I’m afraid I spend far too much time analysing how I feel about Jakob and the logistics of a relationship with him, as well as the age gap. Whereas I should be letting myself enjoy the moment like I did when I danced with him.’ She frowned. ‘I never used to be like this.’
‘But you’d never been widowed before. For what it’s worth, Ithink you should forget about the age difference and focus on the fact that you like Jakob, and he likes you. What does it matter if a relationship with him comes unstuck, and for whatever reason; better to have tried than not. My advice is to throw yourself in at the deep end and see how it feels.’
Later, when Keith had gone, and she was changing into her running gear, Nina thought of what he’d said and although it probably wasn’t the kind of thing that he’d been thinking of, Nina looked again at the photo of Jakob swimming in the freezing cold lake and tried to imagine throwing herself into doing that with him.
Hmmm …
She could think of other things she’d rather do with him, and it didn’t involve any snow!
Amused at the thought, she smiled. And by the very fact that such a thought could amuse her, she knew that she was slowly moving in the right direction. Whether it was just her hormones getting the better of her, or the prolonged period of celibacy now yearning to be vanquished, her physical desire for Jakob was definitely hotting up.
It was the one thing she’d thought she would struggle to do, or even imagine doing, and that was to make love to a man who wasn’t Hugh. But the physical need she now experienced for Jakob was so acute she knew that she was ready to take their relationship to the next level. She had feared he might push that side of things, but he hadn’t. Maybe he’d held back out of respect for her need to go slowly, or perhaps because he was worried she would compare him to Hugh. She was trying more and more to see things from both sides, not just her own.
Looking again at the photo of Jakob, Nina thought of Cassie asking her if distance was making her heart grow fonder, and she had to admit that it was.
After adding a gilet to her running outfit, along with a short scarf which she wrapped around her neck, she took a selfie and sent it to Jakob with the words –Wishing you were here!
She then sent another.
I miss you. X
Chapter Forty-Seven
‘You did what?’ demanded Rosalyn.
The air in the kitchen had already been charged with a dangerously electric force, but now it was positively crackling, and Cassie felt like she was caught in the eye of a storm. But she held her nerve.
‘I just explained to you what I did. I spoke to Finlay about what happened that night and he told me everything, that he threw Bon-Bon into the river.’
‘You mean youinterrogatedmy son while my back was turned,’ Rosalyn shouted harshly, ‘and put words into his mouth. Then you have the nerve, the absolute nerve, to twist whatever he might have innocently said into some kind of sick, malicious accusation? My God, I knew you resented me and could never forgive Drew for leaving you, but to harbour so much bitterness and jealousy that you would stoop to this is a whole other level of vindictive hatred. You’re pathetic!’
Cassie had prepared herself for Rosalyn to be angry and go on the attack to refute what Cassie had heard with her own ears, but foolishly she hadn’t expected the attack to be so personal and made with such virulence.
A long and very difficult week had passed since Finlay’s admission to Cassie of what he had done, and she had felt weighed down by the burden of the knowledge she’d been given.
She had thought that by sharing what she knew with Ben and unintentionally with Emily, that the burden would be lightened, but the reverse had happened. For the last few nights, she’d had nightmares with her frantically searching for Bon-Bon and then hearing the sound of barking coming from the river. In the dream she would wade into the scarily dark water only to find herself being pulled under by slippery weeds while Finlay looked on from the bank. She would wake with a heart-thumping start and with Venetia’s cry of anguish ringing in her ears, only to realise it was her own cry that she could hear, and it was Ben’s comforting arms wrapped around her and not deadly weeds trying to drown her.
She became convinced that the only way to stop the nightmares was to talk to Rosalyn, to tell her what Finlay had done. To have the matter out in the open, the weight of the unwanted knowledge taken from her. This should be Rosalyn’s problem, not hers.
Ben had warned her to be careful and said that perhaps he should be with her if she was going to broach the subject with Rosalyn, but Cassie had said it would be too confrontational for the two of them to tackle her, that it would be much better if she did it alone. Woman to woman. Mother to mother.
Emily had wanted nothing to do with it. Although in fairness, she had offered to take Finlay for a walk so that the boy wouldn’t hear the conversation which Cassie had been determined to instigate. ‘It’s really none of your business,’ Emily had said, ‘so why can’t you just let it go?’
