Christmas in Bluebell Cove (5 page)

‘When are you intending moving into Thimble Cottage?' he asked.

‘Some time during the next few days, but I think the children should stay here until your parents have been. I'll pop across to see them, of course, but won't get in the way now that I've somewhere to—er—'

‘Escape to?'

She nodded. ‘I've asked for that, I suppose. How about calling it a place where I can keep a low profile?'

‘Not in Bluebell Cove,' he said with a dry laugh. ‘There will be lots of folk going past to get a look at the doctor's French wife's new home once the bush telegraph gets going.'

‘I'm sure I'm not so interesting.'

‘You'd be surprised.'

‘So
do
you approve of what I've arranged for us all?' she questioned again.

‘Shall we say that it's better than what we've had for the past few months and leave it at that,' he suggested, and went upstairs to bed with the thought in mind that at least he wouldn't be lying awake at night knowing that Francine was in the spare room and having to fight the longing to go in there, pick her up in his arms, take her to the bed where she belonged and wipe out the long lonely months he'd existed without her by making love to her.

It was going to be a strange set-up that she'd been arranging while he'd been at the practice, but Kirstie and Ben seemed to welcome the novelty of living in
Thimble Cottage, Francine was more relaxed, and as for himself at least she would be where he could see her, know that she was safe and well, which would do for now, but the future felt as if it was shrouded in mist.

F
RANCINE
had taken Kirstie and Ben to see the inside of one of the prettiest thatched properties in the village the next morning and they'd loved it, which was one worry off her mind.

The fact that it was just across from the home where they'd been brought up suited them fine. They didn't see their mother moving into it in the same light as Ethan did. To him it was a relief that Francine was going to spend most of each week in Bluebell Cove on the children's behalf, but he also felt it was farcical.

He was torn between hope and anger at the latest turn of events. Hope because he thought that maybe Francine was being forced to take a fresh look at her priorities, and anger because by taking the children to live virtually on their own doorstep, another move for them, she was going to cause more disruption in their lives.

Had she so little love left for him that she couldn't stay in the same house? That she'd had to find somewhere away from him to keep a low profile, as she'd described it, for the time she was going to be in Bluebell Cove before jetting off to her dream home in Paris every weekend?

She'd been devastated to learn that the children weren't happy there and had been quick to find a solution, but there had been no consideration for
him
in it, just
their
welfare and what was most convenient for
her.

 

Aware of Ethan's feelings, she'd left moving in until the morning of New Year's Eve, and as he'd been on the point of leaving for the surgery on the last day of the old year she'd asked if he minded if she took some sheets and towels with her.

‘For goodness' sake, Francine, you can take whatever you like, they belong to you as much as me,' he'd said, adding with dry irony, ‘I'm sorry I won't be available to carry you over the threshold. If I don't see you again today, just a reminder that Mum and Dad are coming tomorrow and
they
haven't committed any crime as far as you are concerned.'

‘I'll call round for a chat.' She'd promised without meeting his glance, ‘and, Ethan, I'll make a casserole and a dessert for lunch if you like.'

He'd managed a smile. ‘I would appreciate that. It will allow me more time with them. I feel that I don't get to see them often enough.'

She'd turned away, but not before he'd seen tears on her lashes, and he'd cursed himself for being a tactless fool. Francine would never again have any prime time with
her
parents. They'd been taken from her in the worst possible way.

He'd stepped forward, wanting to hold her close and wipe away her tears, but she'd moved out of his reach and said flatly, ‘You didn't understand then and you still don't. I can tell by the way you look at me, Ethan,'
and leaving him to start his day with those comments ringing in his ears she'd gone upstairs to continue her preparations for the move across the way.

 

In spite of how she was feeling, Francine was smiling for the children's sake as they helped her move into the cottage. They thought it was going to be great having two homes where they could keep swapping from one to the other.

Ben and Kirstie would catch the school bus each morning as they'd always done while in Devon, and then on Friday nights would move in with Ethan for the weekend. Soon she would have to get in touch with the school where she'd enrolled them in France and explain the situation.

How Ethan was going to feel about the arrangement long term she didn't know, but ever since their separation ‘long term' with regard to anything had ceased to have any meaning.

She'd asked for a divorce out of a need to clear the air, expecting him to flatly refuse. When he'd agreed without argument she'd been devastated. So he really didn't care any more, she'd thought bleakly. Yet he'd been just as responsible as she was for the stalemate situation they'd found themselves in. Maybe he'd been looking for a loophole to give him his freedom and unknowingly she'd provided it.

From that moment on she'd put all the idyllic years they'd spent together out of her mind, and after that last rejection had concentrated on the divorce with just one thought in mind, the desire to bring back some life to the sad and empty house that had once been her home—

All her plans were falling apart, she reflected as she
concentrated on the process of moving in. She'd just moved into one house and now she was moving into another because she couldn't bear to think of how wrong she'd been in taking the feelings of Kirstie and Ben for granted to such an extent.

While the children had been with her in Paris she'd been happy enough. They were her one remaining bond with Ethan, but being alone over Christmas had been more than she could bear and she'd put pride to one side and come back to the place she'd been so anxious to leave because without Ethan, Kirstie and Ben, the French house had been losing its appeal as a permanent home.

She'd told him that it was because of the children that she'd come over for Christmas, but she'd needed to be near him more than words could say, even though she'd known it wasn't going to be a ‘merry' Christmas for ether of them.

 

During the rest of the day she moved the children's school clothes and their books into the cottage, ready for the start of the new term early in January, and made up the beds. Then went to do some food shopping on the main street of the village with top of her list what she'd promised Ethan she would make for lunch when his parents came the following day.

After tomorrow it would be time for her first weekend in Paris, which meant a flight to book, so after she'd been to the butcher's she went into the travel agent's next door and made a reservation for the first flight out on the Saturday morning, hoping that she would be leaving the children content and Ethan maybe mellowing a little.

 

She slept better that first night in Thimble Cottage. Maybe it was because she wasn't achingly aware of Ethan just a few feet away in the main bedroom of the house where she'd lived happily with him since they'd married.

Here there would be no awkwardness at mealtimes, or surging desires of the night as it had once been when the slightest caress would kindle the magical chemistry that had been one of the foundations of their marriage.

She would be near him in presence during the coming months, but far away in everything else, and if she hadn't discovered the children's true feelings about what might end up as living with each of them in turn once the divorce came through, she would have been far away from Ethan long term.

As matters stood now, with Kirstie and Ben living with her part of the time in the cottage and Ethan just across the way, she had the best of both worlds, or had she?

They were growing up fast. One day they would leave the two nests that their parents had provided for them and what of Ethan and her then? Maybe one day he would turn to Phoebe Howard, while she vegetated back in France.

 

It was New Year's Day and in the middle of the morning Francine saw the car pull up on the drive across the way announcing that Ethan's parents had arrived for what had always been a regular family get-together. After checking that the food she was preparing for lunch was cooking according to plan, she went across to greet them.

Jean Lomax was her usual delightful self without
turning the meeting into a farce by wishing her a happy new year. Her mother-in-law would have grave doubts about the possibility of that for any of them, Francine considered.

Her down-to-earth husband's only comment was to the effect that he was expecting a cream tea. That he hadn't driven all the way from Bournemouth for something and nothing.

‘Yes, we are having a cream tea,
Grandpère
,' Francine told him mildly, relieved that his mind was on food instead of
her sins
as he saw them, ‘but first we are having lunch, which is going to be chicken casserole, and to tempt
Grandmère
's northern palate, her favourite steamed suet pudding for dessert.'

‘Sounds good,' he admitted. ‘The right thing for a cold day.'

Ethan had just come in from checking that his father had enough petrol in the tank to get them home as Lawrence had been known to overlook such essentials on occasion, and he'd picked up the gist of the conversation.

He gave a half-smile as his glance met Francine's. The thought was there that if it hadn't been for the fact that the food was cooking across the way in Thimble Cottage instead of in their kitchen, he could almost believe that nothing had changed.

That it was another New Year's Day, another happy family gathering, but his frail-looking, yet never more beautiful French wife must be acutely aware that it was far from that. Unbelievably they were on the point of divorcing, and worse even than that, if anything could be, there were two faces missing and always would be because of a tragic mistake on someone else's part.

Kirstie and Ben appeared at that moment and created a diversion, having seen the car go past while they were sledging, and Francine asked them to lay the table once they'd got cleaned up while she went to check on the food.

As she got up to go Ethan said, ‘I'll come across with you and help carry it when it's ready.'

‘Are you sure?' she questioned.

‘Of course I'm sure. What's the problem?'

‘There isn't one. I just thought that—'

They were in the hall. She had her hand on the doorhandle, and turning she said in a low voice, ‘I thought it might spoil your day, that's all.'

‘It would have been more spoilt if you'd been in France,' he said levelly. ‘At least in the cottage you're about as near as you can be without being where you really belong. But what about
your
day, Francine? You're with the children, which was what you wanted, but your parents aren't here and the pain of that must be beyond all telling.'

‘It is,' she said still in the same quiet tone, ‘but it is something I can't do anything about. I have to live with it.' And in that moment of truth the voice of reason spoke in the far reaches of her mind.

Yes, you do, it said, but you don't have to live with a failed marriage. You
can
do something about
that
, so why don't you climb down off your high horse and tell Ethan that you still love him?
Or is it perhaps that you don't, because he made you choose between here and there?

She opened the door quickly and with him beside her crossed over the road.

As she was putting her key in the lock he scooped up
a handful of untouched snow off the window sill and, cupping it in his hands, quickly made a snowball.

‘Catch!' he cried, but she didn't turn fast enough and it landed on her shoulder.

All her hurts and worries were forgotten for a moment as she retaliated laughingly, then he threw another and in minutes they were having the snowball fight of their lives until, breathless, she pushed wide the door and ran inside to escape.

He followed and as they stood panting in the hallway like a couple of kids he said, ‘If Kirstie and Ben have seen us out there, they will think we are out of our minds.'

‘Mmm, but it was fun, wasn't it?' she replied, and as they observed each other it was there, out of the blue, the desire that could bring them into each other's arms in seconds. But the oven in the kitchen had other ideas about that and Francine cried, ‘the food, Ethan, we came to check the food and the smell coming from out of there says that it needs to be removed from the heat without delay!'

He followed her into the kitchen and as she bent to take the casserole out of the oven he was close behind, so close he could have pressed his lips against the smooth skin at the back of her neck, but he knew that having just behaved as if they hadn't a care in the world it didn't give him the right to touch her, if only fleetingly. Francine was still his wife, but in name only. The days were gone when after something like the playfight they had just had they would have gone upstairs, showered together, then made love.

Unaware of the direction that his thoughts were taking, she was checking that the food hadn't dried up.
That the casserole was still moist and succulent and that the water in the steamer was still bubbling beneath the suet pudding.

She was already in trouble with her father-in-law and if lunch wasn't up to scratch she would plummet even lower in his esteem. But all was well and as Ethan quirked an enquiring eyebrow in her direction she said, ‘It's fine, so let's go and feed your parents and the two young sledge fanatics.'

While she was covering the dishes with foil he'd been looking around the cottage that was going to be her temporary home and she asked warily, ‘So what do you think, Ethan?'

‘Seems OK,' was the less than enthusiastic reply and they carried the food across in silence, as if the fun and laughter they'd just shared had never happened.

 

Ethan's parents left in the early evening after partaking of the cream tea that Lawrence had demanded, and as the car disappeared from sight Francine gave a sigh of relief, and Ethan heard it.

‘Surely it wasn't that bad?' he questioned. ‘You stayed longer than I expected.'

‘It wasn't,' she assured him, ‘but I think your father let me off lightly compared to last time.'

‘His bark is worse than his bite, you know that. Don't take any notice. He's been discovering that what is happening is difficult to cope with, and who is to say that he isn't the only one.'

He was presenting an opportunity for them to talk about it, but she didn't take him up on it. Instead she told him, ‘I've got an early flight in the morning and will see you some time on Monday. The new school
term doesn't start until Wednesday so there's no panic for a couple of days.'