A Special Kind of Woman (8 page)

‘No—I don’t, either. It was the first time since Jill died. It just didn’t seem right before, but somehow, with you—’ He broke off, staring down into his glass again, and she wondered if he had a script concealed in it, little flashcards with key words on.

Oh, lord.

‘I wasn’t expecting it to be so beautiful,’ he said softly, and his words nearly reduced her to tears. ‘I thought it would be messy and difficult and I’d feel bad afterwards, but it wasn’t and I didn’t, and if we had to conceive a child, then to have done it that night seems somehow right.’

He put his glass down and took hers away, moving closer to her and taking her hand in his.

‘Cait, I know this isn’t what you wanted from your life, but it’s happening, and we have to make the best of it. I don’t know what you want to do, but if there’s any way I can help, I will. If you want to go away and take a degree, I’ll get a nanny to look after the baby and you can come home at weekends and in the holidays, and we’ll manage somehow, if it’s what you want.

‘Or if you just want to carry on running your shop, you could let the flat and run it from here, or expand it upstairs into the flat, or move to another shop nearer—whatever. And Milly—there’ll always be room for Milly here with you, you know that, don’t you? Or if you just want to stop work and stay at home with the baby—whatever you want, whatever would make you happy.’

Owen trailed off, and she realised his eyes were glazed with tears. Oh, lord, she thought, he really wants this baby. If he and Jill never had any more and he wanted them, no wonder he’s so desperate to have it here.

‘You could even have the spare room, if you’d rather. We could divide off one end of it to make a nursery, and you and the baby could share it. Or you could have Josh’s rooms and be even more separate, if you would rather.’

‘What do you want?’ she asked. ‘Apart from the baby?’

‘You,’ he said after a long pause. ‘I want you, Cait. I love you. I was going to ask you to marry me tonight, when I came back from Italy. I’d got a ring and everything. Then you started talking about going away, and I suddenly wasn’t sure if you would want me.’

His voice cracked slightly, and Cait felt a great well of love building up inside her.’ Owen, of course I want you!’ she said raggedly. ‘I don’t care about my course! It’s boring. I just thought—I don’t know, I’d thought about it for such a long time, and there it was. I was only doing it because I’d been planning it for years, but I don’t want to go away. I don’t want to do anything except have your baby and live here with you. I just didn’t think you’d want me.’

‘Not want you?’ he said, stunned. ‘Cait, how could I not want you? You’re warm and funny and brave and beautiful—what is there about you not to want?’

‘I can’t cook,’ she said, laughing tearfully. ‘And I’m a lousy housewife.’

‘That’s fine. So am I. I have a housekeeper for that very reason.’

‘And I’m an unmarried mother, and in your position in the community—’

‘What position?’ he said, his voice disgusted. ‘People don’t care about that sort of thing any more. Anyway, if I have anything to say about it you won’t be an unmarried mother for very much longer.’

He slipped his hand into his pocket and pulled out a little ring, diamonds and sapphires in a very old setting,
the light sparkling off the stones and dazzling her through her tears. ‘I got it from Gilda next door. I told her it was for you. I didn’t tell her why, but I think she guessed.’

Cait remembered Gilda that morning, staring at her hand and mumbling something about a dress. ‘That’s what she was on about,’ she said slowly. ‘I saw her this morning. She obviously expected that I’d be wearing it, but I wasn’t. I was crying over a list of pros and cons—well, pros, actually. There was only one con, and I don’t think it applies.’

‘What was it?’ he asked.

She took a deep breath. ‘I thought you’d hate me, after a while. I’d be in your house, untidying everything, the baby would be screaming, you’d be tired and fed up with us all, and I thought you’d start to wonder why on earth you’d agreed to it. But maybe you won’t.’

‘Not a chance,’ he said, taking her hand and slipping the ring onto her finger. It was a perfect fit, a tiny bit on the loose side if anything, but that was probably as well as she was pregnant and her fingers might swell.

‘You haven’t actually asked me to marry you yet,’ she reminded him. ‘Not properly. Not for the right reasons.’

‘I haven’t? How remiss.’

He slid off the sofa onto his knees, took her hand in his and stared deep into her eyes. ‘I love you, Cait,’ he said carefully, every word clear so she couldn’t possibly mistake it. ‘I think I’ve loved you since I found you crying over your steering-wheel in the car park the day we took the kids to uni. I don’t know if you love me. I hope you do, or that you’ll learn to, because I know I’ll love you till the day I die. Marry me, Cait. Let’s be a family—a real family, all five of us. God knows, we all deserve it.’

Owen reached out a hand and brushed the tears
from her cheeks with his knuckles. ‘Marry me, my darling. Please?’

She nodded, unable to speak, and then she swallowed hard and took a steadying breath. ‘Of course I’ll marry you—and of course I love you, you idiot!’ she said, and then she was in his arms, wrapped hard against his chest, her mascara ruining the front of his beautiful cashmere sweater. ‘Oh, look what I’ve done,’ she said wretchedly when he straightened up.

‘Forget it. You can cry all over everything I own for all I care. It’s all yours anyway.’ He pulled her to her feet, tutted and pushed her down again, then took off her ridiculous shoes. ‘You can’t walk in these, you’ll mess your back up,’ he said crossly, and lifted her into his arms.

‘Where are you taking me?’ she said curiously.

‘Bed,’ he replied. ‘I’m tired. I want to lie down somewhere comfortable and hold you and listen to you telling me you love me until I fall asleep in your arms.’

‘What a lovely idea. What about supper?’

‘You want to eat, too?’ he said, and put her down again. ‘You’re pregnant, aren’t you, of course.’

She nodded.

‘Pregnant women are always unreasonable. I should have remembered that.’ He made a detour into the kitchen, picked up the biscuit tin and a bottle of mineral water and handed them to her, then scooped all of them up into his arms and carried her up to bed.

‘You’re looking very smug,’ she remarked as he put her down in the middle of the bed.

‘Am I?’ Owen sat down beside her, his face suddenly serious. ‘I don’t mean to be. When Jill died, I thought I’d lost everything, and when Josh went away I felt as if I’d come to the end of the road. I was just thirty-nine, and there was nothing left for me except my career—
and then I met you. You’ve given me my life back, Cait. You’ve given me love and laughter, and another family to look forward to—a baby I thought I’d never have, a teenage daughter to test my patience and a beautiful woman to walk beside me through our lives. Can you blame me for looking just a tiny bit smug?’

His smile was gentle and a little sad, and she swallowed hard and hugged him.

‘No. No, I can’t. I feel the same.’

His eyes darkened and, taking the biscuits and the water away from her, he lay down beside her and took her into his arms. ‘I love you,’ he said softly, and kissed her…