Abbey frowned. ‘I like the marriage idea,’ she said slowly. ‘I don’t agree with the if part of the deal. It doesn’t make sense.’
‘That’s what I told her,’ Sam said, ‘but she won’t leave you by yourself.’
‘I’m not by myself.’ Abbey took a deep breath. ‘So… you two love each other?’
‘Yes,’ Sam said firmly, and put his arm around Janet’s waist. ‘We do.’
‘Then I’m walking out of here right now and announcing it to the world,’ Abbey told them. ‘Sam and Janet are getting married. And there’s no conditions applying. Not one!’
She hugged them both. ‘And don’t you dare stuff this up by stupid quibbles, Janet Wittner,’ she ordered. ‘You’ve got your Sam. And I have my little Jack. I won’t be lonely.’
Only it wasn’t quite true. Jack was here, but anywhere without Ryan was lonely.
Where was he? He’d been away for five days. Why didn’t he return?
Half of her was starting to think that the next thing they’d hear from Ryan would be a phone call from New York to say that his career had reclaimed him, and it was time to get on with his life.
At two the next morning someone knocked hard on Abbey’s door.
Abbey flicked on her bedside light and looked blearily at the clock. Two?
People telephoned in an emergency. They didn’t come here.
For a moment she felt a pang of alarm. This little cottage was set back far from the road and, apart from Jack, she was alone. Still, if it was an emergency…
She hauled a wrap around her flimsy nightgown, went to the door and opened it a crack.
Ryan.
She shut it again. For the life of her, she couldn’t think of anything else to do.
‘Abbey!’
‘Go away, Ryan Henry,’ she said breathlessly. ‘It’s two in the morning. I’m not… I’m not dressed to receive visitors.’
‘I’m not a visitor. I’m me.’
‘Ryan…’
‘Twenty years ago, when I came at midnight to take you turtle-hunting, you never had maidenly quibbles.’
‘You want to go turtle-hunting?’ she demanded with her back to the door, and Ryan laughed.
‘No, Abbey, I don’t. I’m looking for something much more precious. Let me in.’
‘Why should I?’
‘Because I love you.’
Silence.
The words echoed round and round Abbey’s little living room.
This was dangerous.
‘Ryan…’
‘Abbey, I’m not here to demand you leave everything you love,’ Ryan pleaded. ‘I promise. Let me in.’
Abbey took a deep breath. This was mad. Crazy. But there was nothing else to do but let him in.
She’d expected to open the door and have him sedately step inside. No such thing. She opened the door an inch, it was shoved wide with ruthless force and she was swept right up into Ryan’s arms and kissed so thoroughly that there was no possible way she could protest.
And after the first millisecond she didn’t try.
Abbey wound her arms around his neck and kissed him right back.
Crazy, crazy, crazy.
But sense was for tomorrow. Crazy was for now.
Ryan was for now.
He swung her round and round the room, his kiss intensifying as he whirled. Abbey was laughing and dizzy and so madly in love her feet wouldn’t have touched the ground even if she’d been standing.
There was only Ryan. There was only this love.
And finally-somehow-they were in her bedroom, falling onto the soft covers. And Ryan’s mouth left off claiming hers. He lay with Abbey in his arms and he pulled away so he could see her. His hand reached up and switched off the bedlight and there was only the light from the full moon, glimmering onto the land and through the open window from the sea.
‘Woman, you are driving me crazy,’ Ryan groaned. ‘You know that? Five days… Five days since I’ve seen you and I haven’t had you out of my head for one minute. Abbey, you must marry me. To save my sanity, you must… ’ And he hauled her tighter to him, tighter-until his need was her need and the world was fusing in a mist of love and desire and the coming together of two people who were right for each other.
But they weren’t. They couldn’t be.
Somehow Abbey made herself push away. She held Ryan at arm’s length and she looked into his eyes in the dim light. And what she saw there told her that she was truly loved.
But it wasn’t enough.
In the next bedroom lay her little boy. And there was a hospital five minutes down the road that depended on her. And Janet?
No. Janet had sorted out her own loneliness. But there was no way Abbey could find the same happiness.
‘Ryan, this is crazy. We can’t…’ Her breath broke on a sob. ‘I can’t…’
‘You can.’ Ryan’s hand held her and he smiled-a smile that made her heart do crazy things inside her breast. ‘Abbey, for the past five days I’ve been thinking. Really thinking. Leith’s injury…’
‘Leith…’
‘It’s touch and go whether she’ll walk again.’ Ryan told her. ‘She needs expert rehabilitation. More than just swimming lessons now. And I thought, if I went back to the States I’d never know that it was done properly. I’d walk away and it would be up to others to see that she had the right treatment.’
‘But-’
‘Hush,’ he told her. ‘Listen. Over the past five days, I’ve been seeing Sapphire Cove at its best. I’ve watched how surrounded Leith’s parents have been.
‘And Steve… He’s down there in Brisbane and he has no family at all but I don’t think there’s a family in Sapphire Cove who haven’t sent him flowers or chocolates or fruit or something! The local primary-school children have sent him pictures to decorate his walls. His bedroom’s packed, he’s touched to the core and he wants to come back.
‘Steve’s been a loner all his life, trying to find roots, and he’s found them here. He wants to work here.’
‘What-permanently?’
‘Yes. He wants to marry Caroline and stay here.’
‘Are you saying I could go because of that?’ Abbey asked slowly. ‘Go with you? To the States?’
‘No.’ He kissed her then, lightly, on the nose. ‘I’m not. At first that’s what I thought but then… the more I thought about it the more jealous I grew. Jealous of Steve. His decision seemed so right. To stay here with the woman he loved. To live long term in a community like this. To bring his kids up where they could hunt for turtles.’
‘S-so?’
‘So, if it’s OK with you, I’ll rearrange my life,’ Ryan said seriously. ‘Steve and I have it figured.’
‘Steve and you…’
‘Steve and I. And my co-researchers in the States. The reason I’ve come here so late is that this is the only reasonable time I can talk to New York and I’ve been trying to organise everything so I can hand you a deal on a platter.’ He hauled her close again and kissed her.
‘A deal, Abbey Rhodes. Abbey Wittner. Abbey soon-to-be-Henry. You want to hear my deal? It’s taken me days and days to organise it so it’s worth a listen.’
And he kissed her again, so deeply that there was no way in the wide world that she could hear anything at all.
Then he managed to pull away. Ryan was laughing down at her in the moonlight, triumphant and loving. And Abbey’s heart was turning somersault after somersault, so fast she could hardly breathe.
‘Want to hear?’ he demanded again, and Abbey managed a shaken laugh.
‘Oh, Ryan, of course I want to hear. Of course.’
‘My plan is this.’ He held her at arm’s length and groaned. ‘Hell, Abbey, stop looking so damned beautiful. I can’t make myself think here.’
‘Think,’ she told him severely. ‘You need a bucket of cold water, Ryan Henry.’ Then she reached out and touched him on the lips with her finger. And laughed with joy. ‘I need a bucket of cold water myself. Tell me fast, Ryan,’ she begged. ‘Fast.’
‘I’m moving here to live. Permanently.’