No, Sean decided. He’d always been impetuous, making choices on the spur of the moment. Whether or not his dad were here to reprimand, there was a large chance he would have married Cherry quickly. It was how he lived his life. Not to mention, he’d never met any woman who made him think beyond next week, never mind the rest of his life, like Cherry had.
Still did.
And that was the thing – when he thought about his future, he thought about her. Saw the two of them happy, years down the line. He saw them with children too. What did that mean? Was it a premonition, or was it his brain in a pattern because that’s how he’d always seen things? His parents had seven kids; why would he have none? Sean had never considered an alternative. How did you do that?There sure as fuck weren’t any support groups for men in his situation within a hundred-mile radius of here.
Unless Cherry’s mind can be changed, it doesn’t matter, anyway.
The focus now was raising as much money for charity and making his mum feel that her husband’s death wasn’t entirely in vain. Some things took precedence over others. Charity money trumped the frustration of living under the same roof as his untouchable fox of a wife.
Integrity alone would have to be the thing to get Sean through the next couple of months.
Chapter 11
Cherry
On Monday, Cherry showered and dressed and applied some light make-up. She was about to head downstairs to grab a coffee when she noticed Sean’s bedroom door was open. Moving to the doorway, she scanned the room. This was the first time she’d seen it properly, everything else being a quick glimpse in the passing.
The room was spacious with smoky blue walls, oak floorboards, a jute rug and an expansive window framing the ocean. Scottish landscapes were represented in hanging artwork. Books, framed photos and a couple of plants filled the shelves along the back wall, and two vintage surfboards reclined in the corner. A large king-size bed commanded the centre of the space. Cherry stepped into the room, closed her eyes and inhaled the scent – clean, fresh wood, salty sea air and hints of a warm oakiness that she recognised as her husband.
The bed was made – badly, but made. She smiled. Dale had never made the bed which, for a grown man, was pathetic.
Perching on the edge of the bed, she ran her hands over the rumpled cotton of the light charcoal-coloured duvet and imagined Sean sleeping here. Did he sleep well? There was nothing to suggest that he didn’t. Just a lamp by the bed, a curled set of earphones and a selection of books – commercial thrillers and some well-thumbed on Motor Neurone Disease.
The pain he must have gone through hoping to understand it, to fix it. I wish the outcome had been different.
This could have been her room, too. Their room. The place they shared as husband and wife. Heat coiled deep in Cherry’s core as she imagined Sean’s weight pinning her down, him moving inside her. What was that beautiful face like when he was thick and hard and chasing release? Would he growl as he rode her? Grunt with every possessive thrust? Talk filth about how much he loved fucking her? Loved her.
She bet he would. All of it.
Reaching for the pillow nearest the bedside cabinet, Cherry pulled it to her chest and sunk her face into it. Moaned at the intoxicating smell of her husband. What the hell was he doing to her? She’d never met a man who made her crazy like this, where the merest scent of the pillow he slept on sent a tsunami of hormones through her. She groaned into the cotton.
‘Fuck, Seany, I want you so bad.’
You could have him. Phone him up now and ask him to come home from work.
I can’t. I can’t do no-strings with Sean. And strings would be a tangled mess. I need to take a cold shower and get a hold of myself.
Cherry extricated herself from the pillow and returnedit to its place on the bed. Time to get clean and to give herself the release she so badly needed.
An hour later, Cherry was rapping her fingers on the kitchen table and chewing her gum hard. ‘Come on.’ She took her impatience out on the computer screen. ‘We don’t all have all day.’
This wasn’t strictly true; she had all the time in the world, but even playing four low-stakes poker games concurrently wasn’t enough of a distraction.
After the games, she dealt with a few emails about the charity tournament,one of which involved flagging up Dale – a regular on the pro-am circuit but unwanted at this event. Then she printed off some home-made flyers for the village.
The clock on her laptop told that it was nearly noon. The morning had disappeared faster than the sun had burned off the coastal haar enrobing the village. She jumped up. It was a crime to sit at a computer when the Scottish sun was shining. Why not take a walk along the beach, grab a coffee and explore? Make a sandwich to eat in the park.
As she was pulling ingredients from the fridge, another idea hit Cherry. She could make Sean a sandwich and take it to him. It was time she saw the cooperage. And a ‘madly in love’ wife turning up with a packed lunch would be great for his pride.
While bacon sizzled furiously in the frying pan, she swiped butter across the inside of a pillowy morning roll. Slicing a generous amount of lettuce and cutting four cherry tomatoes, she layered the sandwich. It might be more lettuce and tomato with bacon giving a guestappearance, but Sean had said he was trying to eat healthily.
Sandwich wrapped in greaseproof paper and popped into a brown paper bag, alongside the tournament flyers, Cherry pulled on a baseball cap, laced up her trainers and made her way into the village to surprise her unsuspecting husband.
Along the way, she stopped in with her flyers at as many businesses as possible. Everyone – from the butcher to the florist, to the fish and chip shop – was happy to take some. Many mentioned Jimmy Butler’s name when they saw funds were being raised for MND. ‘Incredible man,’ they said. ‘Left a gaping hole in the community.’
‘Which of his sons is organising this?’ someone asked. When she said it was Sean and that she was his wife, the welcome was even warmer. Cherry understood now what he meant about his family being like minor Scottish royalty. And today’s reception was so much friendlier than her interaction with Shona and Elaine.
In small-town Scotland, everyone might know your business, but they also know your name. On the road, from one city to the next, no one knows your business. Or your name.
