Melting the Argentine Doctor's Heart / Small Town Marriage Miracle (17 page)

Had he heard her sniff or felt the tears on her cheeks that he put his arms around her and held her to him, patting her shoulder, whispering to her in Spanish? Although her Spanish seemed to have deserted her because she didn’t understand the words.

‘It is all right,’ he finally said in English. ‘We married for our daughter, nothing more, so I do not expect more of you. We can share the bed without sex, or I will sleep on the couch tonight and tomorrow make arrangements for us to have separate rooms. This is a suite, there’s
another bedroom right next door. My father knows I sleep badly. He will accept the separate rooms.’

The spate of tears had passed. She’d lived with sadness before, she could do it again. Besides, now there was a diversion for her thoughts. Held close against Jorge’s body, the heated desire that had been building since they’d kissed in the library flared back to life.

Yet he was talking so dispassionately about them
not
having sex, she could hardly insist on it.

Maybe he didn’t want to.

Too bad?

Wasn’t she entitled to a say?

She moved against him, experimentally.

Felt him stiffen then his body responding.

Whether he wanted it to or not?

Caroline decided she didn’t care. She shifted so she could kiss his lips, moving her mouth against his until she felt his response.

‘It would be a pity to not use the foreplay of the tango, surely,’ she murmured, and his kiss deepened, his tongue probing into her mouth so she was tasting him, feeling his heat.

She slid her hands beneath his nightshirt, feeling the soft silk ruffle upwards as her fingers splayed against his body. Smooth skin, rough skin—she could feel both but this was Jorge and it didn’t matter. Brushing her fingers across his nipples, she felt his response, hardness pressed against her belly. His kisses slithered down her neck, licks and kisses, teasing her nerve endings, causing a shivery excitement in her skin.

Now she was trembling against him and through the
fine silk of her gown his mouth found her breasts, teasing first one nipple then the other, teasing, teasing, the rasp of the silk intensifying the sensation. His hands wandered lower, not through silk but under it, finding her moist and ready for him, so ready she gasped as he touched her and trembled some more.

She reached for him and guided him into her body, rising to meet him, opening to him, so full of love it was hard to hold back the words she longed to say.

But love could be a burden—and didn’t he have enough burdens to carry?

He was moving deep inside her now, and as she moved with him her thoughts were consumed by feeling, by the need and hunger and the race towards fulfilment.

‘Slow!’ he ordered, and though she wondered at his restraint—was the man made of steel?—she slowed her movements, letting him take control, driving their pace, teasing her towards orgasm then drawing back, until she flung all caution to the winds and moved again, her turn to take control as she worked towards the final moment when her body imploded, reverberations travelling to the tips of her toes, again and again until he cried out, too, and slumped against her, so she held his weight and blinked away more tears.

Different tears this time. Tears of joy that once again she was holding Jorge. That once again that had been joined in love.

Love?

Where had that come from?

It wasn’t love, it was attraction—the magnet with opposing poles.

As her mind got back into gear, the argument began.

You don’t need love, one side said.

And sex without it? queried the other.

Didn’t it count that she loved him? the first voice cried.

Not really, said the killjoy.

For his part, Jorge seemed unbothered by questions of love. By questions of anything judging by the soft, not-exactly-snoring but definitely snuffling sounds coming from him. He had rolled over on his side and gone straight to sleep.

Once they would have held each other and talked—really talked—but thinking about that time was a sure way to bring the stupid tears on again and she’d cried enough for Jorge. She turned so her back was to him and tried to sleep herself but the distraction of his body, so close, made sleep impossible.

It wasn’t going to work. For all he’d been the one to insist on a ‘real’ marriage—as if!—he’d obviously been reluctant to consummate it, first standing there half-undressed, later wearing his nightshirt to bed. Her heart ached at the thought that he feared her revulsion when she saw his scars. Surely they’d been close enough for him to know—

Go to sleep.

Ordering sleep didn’t work and after another fruitless hour, lying motionless because she was unwilling to toss and turn fearing she’d wake him, she got out of bed, slipped on a robe that matched her nightgown—a
second gift from Antoinette—and walked quietly out of the room, down the corridor to check on Ella.

The little girl was curled into one corner of the big four-poster and it took only seconds for Caroline to slip in beside her. Surely here, away from Jorge, she would sleep.

He knew before he was fully awake that she was gone. How had he slept so deeply that he didn’t hear her depart, he who slept in snatches of restless stupor these days? Jorge rolled over and felt the space beside him. The sheets were cold so she’d been gone for some time.

He thought back to the tears she’d shed and cursed himself for putting her in this situation. She’d agreed to marry him for his father’s sake, but
he’d
been the one to push the physical side of their union.

Why?

What had prompted him?

Surely more than the fact that his body ached for her and had since the day he’d cut her from his life, unwilling to burden her with a permanent invalid, yet perversely, in the present, he’d pushed for a ‘real’ marriage, then panicked when she’d suggested he get naked, afraid of what she’d think of the scarred shadow of the man she’d known.

Was it his obvious reluctance that had caused her tears?

His stupid pride in wearing that ridiculous nightshirt?

Or had she seen enough of his scarred body to be repulsed?

The rat was back in the maze.

And his wife was gone!

Knowing his father would accept it if neither of them appeared for breakfast but deciding he’d make the effort anyway, Jorge climbed out of bed, showered, shaved and dressed, then, knowing there’d be wondering looks and questions if he appeared alone, went in search of his wife.

She was wearing a robe over the beautiful nightgown but it didn’t conceal much more than the gown did and his body leapt in response to the pale shape of her beneath the layers of silk. Memories of the passion they’d shared the previous night—hard, heated sex—had desire stirring again.

Hardly appropriate thoughts in front of their child, who was bouncing up and down and making it very difficult for Caroline to drag a wide comb through the tangled curls.

‘I’m ready for breakfast, Hor-hay,’ Ella announced, ‘but Ablito says I can call you Papá. Do you want me to call you that?’

Papá!

Jorge felt as if his heart might break in two, while his throat tightened, making speech impossible.

He nodded at the little girl, who gave a cry of delight and flung herself into his arms, chanting, ‘Papá, Papá, Papá!’ in shrill, excited tones.

‘I’ll take her down to breakfast?’ he asked Caroline as Ella’s little arms fastened around his neck.

Caroline, still kneeling where she’d been while she’d dressed Ella and struggled to tame her hair, nodded.

‘And you?’ Jorge continued. ‘Would you like something sent up?’

Something like a miracle? Caroline thought, though what kind of miracle she needed she wasn’t sure.

Maybe the kind that turned back time—turned it back four years to before the accident so they could change the way their lives had played out.

Aloud she said, ‘No, I’ll be down in a few minutes,’ and she rose to her feet, aware of Jorge’s eyes on her—aware he was trying to read her thoughts.

But if she couldn’t work out what she was thinking, what hope did he have?

Jorge left the house after breakfast, something about an appointment muttered into the air above Carlos’s and Caroline’s heads.

‘I will take you and Ella to look at the kindergarten,’ Carlos told Caroline.

So, the honeymoon is over, she thought, sadness welling inside her once again as she thought of what might have been. In spite of all the fuss of the big wedding, nothing had changed.

And everything had changed.

The day played out, Ella delighted with the kindergarten and seemingly unconcerned that the children all chattered at her in Spanish, although, Caroline realised as she heard her daughter answer, Ella was picking it up amazingly quickly.

‘Do you wish to leave her here today to have a little play, perhaps until siesta time—one o’clock?’

Caroline asked Ella what she thought, although she
read the answer in her daughter’s excited face before Ella said, ‘Oh, yes, please, Mummy.’

‘I’ll walk back to the house from here,’ Caroline told Carlos, knowing he’d already given up a lot of his time to plan the wedding.

‘You are sure?’ he asked, his eyes searching her face as if the question might mean something more.

‘I’m sure,’ she told him, and wished she could give him other assurances—assurances about his son and promises to make Jorge happy, but as she couldn’t reach behind the mask with which Jorge faced the world she couldn’t hope to heal whatever torment that mask hid.

She walked along the boulevard, enjoying the shade of the spreading trees above her, drinking in the atmosphere of a place where even the air seemed to tingle with the liveliness of the people who lived here. She remembered Jorge describing his homeland and the city he swore was the most wonderful in the world, and, remembering, she knew she had to do something to break down the barriers that still existed between them.

Surely if she loved him enough, she could … not make him love her but at least find some place where they could live in harmony.

If she stopped expecting love from him, that would make things easier. And if she accepted that perhaps he’d never loved her, then she
could
stop expecting love.

Arriving back at the house, full of resolve, she went straight to the room that had been ‘hers’ since her arrival in Buenos Aires. Her apprehension about their marriage had meant she’d left all her belongings in this
room—seeing it as a refuge. But now she’d given herself permission to love Jorge, it was time for change.

There wasn’t much to move, and once she’d put what few clothes she had into Jorge’s wardrobe and her few toiletries into his en suite bathroom she decided more change was needed.

‘Where do I shop?’ she asked Antoinette. ‘You took me to that gorgeous boutique for my undies for the wedding, but where would I go for everyday clothes that aren’t jeans and trousers and T-shirts?’

Antoinette’s eyes lit up.

‘I know just the place,’ she said. ‘It’s a new boutique that has opened not far from here. I believe it has some beautiful clothes—one-off pieces that you won’t see everywhere.’

‘You’ll come with me?’ Caroline asked, and Antoinette beamed her agreement.

But when they reached the little mall that held the new boutique, Caroline had second thoughts. For so long she’d refused to think of clothes as anything but serviceable coverings for her body and although she splashed out on pretty things for Ella to wear, she’d never spent money on what she thought of as ‘tarting herself up’. Now, just looking at the colourful array of clothing in the window of the boutique, she felt a surge of panic.

‘Hmm.’

Antoinette’s doubt was reflected in the single syllable, and Caroline realised that the housekeeper was probably thinking exactly the same thing. Where she, Caroline, stuck to navy tops and trousers or jeans, Antoinette’s ‘uniform’ appeared to be black—though skirts and
shirts, or dresses, rather than the more casual trousers and jeans.

In the end it was the thought of seeing Antoinette dressed up in something different that made Caroline put her arm around the older woman and urge her through the door.

Once inside, she completely lost her reason.

‘We both need some beautiful clothes,’ she announced. ‘My friend here has been so good to me and given me some beautiful things so I want her to have whatever she wants—whatever looks good on her—and I need a whole new look as well.’

She turned to Antoinette and took both her hands.

‘You game?’ she asked, and was delighted when Antoinette’s face lit up and the woman gave a little skip of excitement.

‘Let’s do it,’ she said.

The two saleswomen entered into the spirit of the adventure and after two hours of trying on just about every garment in the shop and parading in the ones they liked, the two women departed, heavily laden with bags and both wearing bright skirts and matching tops, Antoinette in red and Caroline in an icy blue, the exact colour of her eyes.

‘We should go out to lunch to celebrate,’ Caroline said, ‘but I have to collect Ella from kindergarten.’

Antoinette looked stricken.

‘Lunch!’ she muttered. ‘I have done nothing about lunch. Carlos will be home soon and nothing is prepared.’

Caroline hugged her hard.

‘You have more food in your refrigerator and larder than most small hotels,’ she reminded Antoinette. ‘We’ll throw together a salad and maybe a quick onion and tomato tart. Anyway, he’ll be so stunned by how gorgeous you look he won’t notice what he’s eating.’

‘Oh, but I’ll have to change when I get home,’ Antoinette protested.

‘No way!’ Caroline told her. ‘Tomorrow, if you like, you can go back to your black for breakfast and lunch but for dinner every night I want to see you in your new clothes.
And
today for lunch! We’ll explain to Carlos we’ve been shopping and he’ll be as pleased as we are. You know he will.’

Caroline saw doubt and hope vying for victory in Antoinette’s eyes and knew exactly how the older woman felt. She, Caroline, had no doubt that her fine clothes weren’t going to make Jorge love her, but if they made him look at her more closely, that was enough to be going on with.