Back In The Marriage Bed. PENNY JORDAN
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sexually, to make mistakes, errors of judgement, to indulge in all the youthful follies that people normally did on their journey through the turbulent years that led from one’s late teens to one’s mid-twenties.
Now it seemed that she preferred the fantasy of her dream lover rather than dating a real live man, that she was stubbornly determined to believe in fate rather than reality.
‘You do think I’m being silly, don’t you?’ Annie accused Helena flatly as she saw the hesitation in her friend’s eyes.
‘Not silly,’ Helena corrected quietly. ‘But perhaps…’ She stopped speaking, and then smiled ruefully at Annie before asking her gently, ‘Has it occurred to you that this man may have been so familiar to you simply because he is familiar?’
‘From my dreams, you mean?’ Annie checked, nonplussed.
‘No. Not from your dreams,’ Helena stopped, and then said quietly, ‘Annie, he may have been familiar to you because you do actually know him.’
‘Know him?’ Annie looked perplexed. ‘No, that’s impossible.’
Helena waited before reminding her softly, ‘There are still some gaps in your memory, my dear. The weeks leading up to the accident as well as the event itself, and those weeks after, when you were in a coma.’
‘Yes, I know.’ Annie’s forehead creased in a small frown of distress. ‘But I couldn’t have known him…not the way I feel about him…the way we are…If I had he would have…’ She stopped, shaking her head. ‘No. It isn’t possible,’ she told Helena immediately and positively. ‘I would have known if he…If I…If we…No,’ she reaffirmed.
‘Well, I must admit it does seem unlikely,’ Helena acknowledged slowly. ‘But I felt I ought to mention the possibility to you.’
‘I understand,’ Annie assured her, giving her a warm hug. ‘But if he had known me he would have come forward when you advertised, wouldn’t he? And besides…’ A small secret smile curled her mouth, her eyes suddenly glowing with private happiness. ‘I know that if he…if we…’ She stopped and shook her head again. ‘No. I would have known,’ she told Helena calmly. ‘I’m sorry I gave you such a shock by fainting like that last night,’ she added more prosaically. ‘I think it must have been the effect of seeing him so unexpectedly on top of the champagne.’
‘Well, it was a very emotional evening,’ Helena responded.
‘You’ve been so good to me,’ Annie told her, lovingly reaching out to cover the older woman’s hands with her own.
‘Everything I’ve given to you you’ve given me back a thousandfold, Annie,’ Helena told her lovingly. ‘And you are going to give Bob and me our grandchildren,’ Helena teased her, deliberately lightening the atmosphere before giving a small exclamation. ‘Heavens! Bob! I promised I’d help him with our packing for this conference we’re flying out to attend tomorrow. Never mind,’ she added with a naughty grin. ‘He’s so much better at it than I am!’
Annie laughed. ‘Four days in Rio de Janeiro…How wonderful.’
‘Not as wonderful as you’d think,’ Helena countered ruefully. ‘The conference goes on for three days, and when you’ve taken time out for recovering from jet lag and for being dragged all over the place by Bob to see the local ruins…’
‘Stop complaining,’ Annie teased. ‘You know you love it. When the three of us went to Rome last year I was the one who had to go back to the hotel for a rest!’
‘Yes, that was wonderful, wasn’t it?’ Helena agreed, getting up off the bed as she told Annie tenderly, ‘Don’t rush to get up. You might feel fine but your body’s still in shock.’
‘It was just a faint, Helena, that’s all,’ Annie assured her friend, but she wasn’t totally surprised when, later in the day, Helena insisted on driving her to the hospital so that she could be checked over.
‘Mothers!’ the junior house doctor wisecracked after he had given Annie the all-clear. ‘They do love to fuss.’
‘Don’t they just?’ Annie said with a grin, then blushed a little at the admiring looks the young man was giving her.
CHAPTER THREE
‘NOW, you’re sure you’re feeling all right?’ Helena checked as Annie dropped her and Bob off at the airport.
‘I’m fine. Stop fussing,’ Annie told her with a good-natured smile as she hugged them both and kissed them goodbye. ‘And to prove it I’m going to go home and make a start on that gardening I’ve been threatening to do for months.’
The garden of her small house was long and narrow, and enclosed at the back by a high brick wall which ensured her privacy but gave the garden a rather closed-in feel.
For Christmas, amongst the other gifts they had given her, Bob and Helena had given her a gardening book with some wonderful ideas plus a very generous gift voucher for a local garden centre, and Annie, who had been studying the book intently, had now come up with her own design for the garden based on the principles in the book.
The first thing she needed, she had decided, was some pretty coloured trellising to place against the walls, and so, after she had watched Bob and Helena’s plane take off, she headed back to her car and drove towards the garden centre.
Several happy and productive hours later Annie climbed back into her car again. She had chosen and ordered her trellising, and made arrangements for it to be delivered, as well as getting from the man in charge of the fencing department the telephone number of someone who would come out and fix it in place for her.
As she started her car engine Annie was humming happily to herself. It was a bright sunny day, a brisk breeze sending fluffy white clouds scudding across the sky, and on impulse, instead of taking the direct route back to her own home, Annie opted instead to head towards the river.
The prettily wooded countryside on the outskirts of the town was criss-crossed with narrow country lanes, confusingly so at times—especially when one descended down through the trees and lost sight of the river, as she had just done, Annie recognised as she came to an unmarked fork in the road and paused, not quite sure which road to take.
Instinctively she wanted to take the right-hand fork, even though logic told her the left must lead down towards the river. With a small mental shrug Annie gave in to instinct and then wondered just what she had done as the road she had chosen narrowed virtually to a single track, winding up a sharp steep hillside banked with hedges so thick and high it was impossible for her to gauge just where she was. And yet even though she knew she had never driven up it before Annie felt that the road was somehow familiar.
She gave a small gasp as she rounded a particularly sharp bend and saw in front of her the entrance to a large Victorian house. On the top of each brick gatepost was an odd metal sculpture. The sculptures were made from the harpoons used on the ships of the man who had built this house from the money he had made from his whaling fleet. And how had she known that? Annie wondered in bemusement as she stopped her car just inside the drive to the house and switched off the engine. She must have read it somewhere, she acknowledged. She had read avidly in the long months of her recovery, books on every subject under the sun, including some on the local history of the area.
And yet…Unsteadily she got out of her car, her heart starting to beat very fast as she walked towards the house. The rhododendrons flanking the drive obscured the sunlight, throwing out dark shadows so that when she actually stepped back into its full beam it dazzled and dizzied her, making her rock slightly on her feet and close her eyes, only to open them again as she felt something coming between her and the warmth of the sun.
‘You!’ she whispered, her whole body shivering in a mixture of shock and delight as she saw who was standing in front of her. ‘It’s you,’ she whispered a second time, her eyes glowing with bemusement and happiness as she stepped towards the man who had come out of the house to stand in front