Diane’s arms tightened around her daughter. ‘We’ll keep the baby safe, too.’
Chapter Twenty-Five
Sleepless at midnight.
Diane’s mobile rang.James. She rubbed her thumb gently over his name on the illuminated screen. Should she answer? No, she shouldn’t. They should learn to deal with not being together.
If the phone rang unanswered seven times the call would be diverted to voicemail and she’d have to get her instruction book out and learn how to retrieve the message. Because she wouldn’t be able to leave it unheard.
She pressed the green button and put the phone to her ear without lifting her head from the pillow. ‘Hello.’
‘Hello.’ His voice was low.
Pause.
‘Am I disturbing you?’
‘I was awake.’ She ached to be holding him, drawing strength from his warm body. She swallowed. ‘How are you?’
‘Apart from having my guts drawn by a fine woman? I’m great.’ He sounded weary.
Tears began to leak from Diane’s eyes and slide down the sides of her head. She scrabbled in the drawer beside the bed for a tissue.
His sigh whistled in her ear. ‘Sorry. I wanted to know that you were OK. Even if you don’t think we can be together I can’t stop thinking about you and wondering if you’re coping and whether Gareth’s sprung any more nasty surprises.’
‘Nothing new,’ she managed. She tried to blow her nose quietly.
‘But you’re OK?’
How can I be? I’m in pieces. I can’t remember feeling like this before. I want to run to you, to feel safe. I hadn’t realised properly how I felt until hope was removed.‘As well as can be expected,’ she said, like an old-fashioned nurse.
‘I rang to tell you something.’
She swallowed tears with a little gasp. ‘What?’
‘That I love you. I want you to know. Just in case it makes you reconsider.’
She began to cry. ‘No. No, it doesn’t. But I love you, too.’
Chapter Twenty-Six
It was a solid month before James rang her mobile again.
They’d seen each other, of course they had, chance meetings in the hospital corridors or the car park, when Diane’s heart would do a hop, skip and jump. Occasionally, Valerie rang and begged Diane to call in to prevent her going stir crazy and once James had been there, making the visit bitter-sweet. Tamzin came to the house for fittings of the dresses, tops, skirts and cropped trousers that Diane made for her. She was swimming to the surface of her depression and Diane had even got her helping with some of the cutting-out for the Unity’s order. And she could pump her gently for precious news of James.
James had played fair. There had been no more midnight phone calls and only one text:I miss you. And so it was a surprise to see, when the phone rang,James. Her breathing quickened.
‘It’s me,’ he said.
‘Yes.’
‘I need to see you.’
She hesitated.It would be so easy.
‘It’s not … it’s to do with you rather than us.’
Her eyebrows rose. ‘Me? What?’
