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  She even contemplated keeping the girls home for the rest of the day but that would just have been delaying the inevitable.

  The journey back towards Edenthwaite was strangely subdued. She’d expected both girls to have been full of recent events but even the normally ebullient Katie was sitting quietly in the back of Nick’s four-by-four. Perhaps they were growing old enough to recognise the tension building up in the front of the vehicle.

  Finally, just when she was beginning to think she couldn’t stand it any more, Nick cleared his throat and broke the fraught silence.

  ‘I’ve been waiting for the chance to tell you how much you all mean to me,’ he began quietly, his deep voice travelling easily over the hushed efficiency of the powerful engine. ‘I know I only met you a few weeks ago but in some ways it feels as if I’ve known you for years, and today…’ He broke off to clear his throat again and Frankie realised that he had almost let his emotions get the better of him.

  She glanced over her shoulder and found Laura and Katie completely spellbound by Nick’s words, their eyes fixed on the rearview mirror so that they could watch his face.

  Today,’ he continued, ‘I couldn’t have been more proud of all of you if you had been my own family.’

  ‘Nick?’ Katie piped up tentatively. ‘Does that mean you love us?’

  ‘Yes, squirt,’ he said with a rusty chuckle. ‘It means that I love you.’

  ‘Enough to marry us?’ she added eagerly, but Frankie hastily broke in before he had a chance to answer. She shouldn’t have him put on the spot like that. It just wasn’t fair.

  ‘Enough questions, Katie,’ she declared. ‘I think it would be a good idea if we looked for somewhere to have something to eat and then you can go straight to school when we get back to Edenthwaite.’

  ‘Oh, Mu-u-m!’ both girls exclaimed in disgust.

  ‘Can’t we go back tomorrow?’ Laura pleaded. ‘We want to ask Nick—’

  ‘You’ll have to go to school this afternoon because Nick and I won’t be free to look after you. This isn’t a holiday, you know,’ she added sternly, and was grateful to find that she’d squashed any sign of rebellion.

  She was glad they hadn’t continued the argument because she’d actually stretched the truth somewhat. The phone call last night to Mark Fletcher, manager at Denison Memorial, to inform him of the hastily arranged meeting this morning, had actually been met with the instruction to take as long as they needed. He would monitor the situation in the GP unit to organise cover if necessary.

  Frankie fully realised that it meant that once Laura and Katie had been delivered to their teachers, she and Nick would have the time to sit down and clear the air.

  Her stomach clenched uneasily at the idea but there was no alternative. She couldn’t live with guilty secrets weighing her down any more.

  ‘Coffee?’ Nick offered when Frankie sank uneasily onto one of the chairs at the kitchen table. ‘Or are you one of those women who can’t bear the smell even of decaffeinated when she’s pregnant?’

  With that question Frankie knew the gloves were off but, instead of apprehension, suddenly all she felt was relief that they were finally going to get things straightened out.

  ‘Nick, I was going to tell you,’ she began placatingly when she saw the tension in his jaw.

  ‘When? Today? This week? Next?’

  ‘Well, later,’ she admitted with a return of the guilt that had plagued her for weeks. ‘After you and Vicky—’

  ‘Frankie, there is no me and Vicky any more, as of the night before last.’

  ‘What! But the wedding—’

  ‘Is off,’ he finished firmly, sitting down on the chair at right angles to her. In that position he couldn’t help but see every expression that crossed her face but he was also close enough to take possession of her hand. The fact that the contact between them completely scrambled her thought processes and made her pulse race wasn’t something that had changed, guilty or not.

  ‘So,’ he began again, ‘I think it’s time to start putting our cards on the table, and as most of the guilt is mine, I’ll go first.’

  ‘But…’ She subsided when he briefly pressed a silencing finger to her lips.

  ‘I was engaged to marry a fellow doctor,’ he announced suddenly, and shock robbed her of any desire to speak. ‘I thought we were two of a kind until I discovered that she was being paid money under the counter to massage the data on some drugs trials we were doing. It was hard to shop her because I couldn’t really believe that I’d misjudged her so badly, but if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself. Never mind the possibility that I might have been tarred with the same brush, the prospect of drugs being licensed for use based on falsified safety data was…’ He shook his head.

  ‘I decided to change direction and chose to train as a GP. When I met up with Vicky again, I suppose it was her transparent air of…of innocence that attracted me more than anything else. I’m not proud of it,’ he admitted candidly. ‘In fact, that’s part of the guilt I’ve been hauling around for months. I knew when she was a kid that she’d had a massive crush on me and when I realised she still had feelings for me I knew she was someone who wouldn’t cheat, wouldn’t lie. It just didn’t occur to me that she deserved something better than the affection I felt for her…until I met you.’

  ‘But, Nick. She loves you,’ Frankie insisted, empathising with the caring young woman she’d last seen taking care of Joe Faraday. ‘You can’t hurt her by cancelling the wedding.’

  ‘You would rather our baby was born a bastard?’ he challenged, but there was no heat in it.

  ‘Of course not, but…’ Frustrated that she couldn’t find the words she needed when she wanted them, Frankie retrieved her hand to rake the fingers through her hair. ‘I didn’t do it on purpose, you know. Get pregnant, I mean.’

  ‘I’d already worked that out, sweetheart, as soon as I heard about the vasectomy,’ he said with a smile, capturing her hand again. ‘But I’m not sorry.’

  ‘You’re not? But what about Vicky?’

  ‘Don’t worry about Vicky,’ he said seriously. ‘I finally managed to pin her down yesterday and we had a long talk about the difference between infatuation and love and the fact that one can become such a habit that you think it’s the real thing.’

  ‘And?’ she prompted when he stopped there. ‘I’m not good at solving cryptic clues.’

  ‘And we both admitted that we’d been having serious doubts about what we were doing, and feeling so dreadfully guilty that we didn’t want to see each other. Anyway, she seems to have someone else in her sights these days and I was having far too much fun going on horseback rides and sleeping on lumpy couches.’

  ‘It is not lumpy,’ she argued just for the sake of it, her heart seeming to float as the guilty weight was lifted.

  ‘When did you last try sleeping on it?’ he countered. ‘Or perhaps it only seemed so uncomfortable because I couldn’t ignore the fact that your very comfortable bed was just up those stairs.’

  The memories of what they’d done in that bed was there in his darkening blue eyes but she couldn’t let her thoughts drift in that direction. Not yet.

  ‘So, you’re not getting married any more,’ she said doggedly, needing to get everything clear in her head before she could banish the guilt still hovering over her.

  ‘Well, that depends,’ he said and her heart took a dive towards her neatly shod feet. Had he and Vicky called a halt to their relationship or not?

  Suddenly, to her surprise, he’d pulled her chair round to face towards him and she watched him go down on one knee in the prosaic surrounds of her kitchen.

  ‘Frankie, I love you,’ he declared in a husky voice that bore not a trace of teasing. ‘Would you do me the honour of becoming my wife?’

  ‘You love me?’ she squeaked in disbelief as she stared into the face of the man she’d grown to love so much. ‘But you can’t. I’m older than you are and I’ve got so many responsib
ilities…Laura and Katie…and you’re so…so…’

  She couldn’t find the words. How could she tell him that he was too handsome, too sexy, too everything to tie himself to someone who knew she was already past her prime?

  ‘What I am is in love with you,’ he said firmly, and this time she caught sight of a wicked twinkle. ‘I think I fell in love with you when I saw you cleaning your car. Then you turned round with that hose in your hand and I saw the proof that you weren’t wearing a bra under that wet T-shirt, and I knew I was in love.’

  ‘Nick…!’ She felt the heat searing her cheeks.

  ‘Frankie, trust me. I love you and I love Laura and Katie and I love the idea that you’re already carrying our first child. Please, say you’ll—’

  ‘First?’ she spluttered. ‘How many are you thinking of?’

  ‘As many as you want, love,’ he promised with his heart in his eyes. ‘Just tell me you love me and that you’ll marry me, soon.’

  ‘Oh, Nick, of course I love you,’ she capitulated, finally realising that the impossible seemed to be coming true. ‘I fell in love with you before I knew you belonged to someone else and I’ve spent every day since feeling so guilty.’

  ‘So you’ll marry me?’ he persisted. ‘Before rheumatism sets in my knee?’

  ‘Idiot! Oh, Nick, are you sure?’

  ‘That’s lovable idiot, if you remember, and as soon as you say yes I’ll take a great deal of delight in showing you exactly how sure I am,’ he promised, and drew her closer so that he could press a gentle kiss to her lips. ‘Say yes,’ he whispered, and feathered another tantalising kiss to follow the first. ‘Say it, Frankie.’

  ‘Yes,’ she moaned, and he took full advantage of her parted lips, pulling her down into his arms to initiate caresses that could have only one result.

  Frankie’s last coherent thought before ecstasy overtook them was that she felt almost guilty for feeling so happy.

  ISBN: 978-1-4603-5687-6

  GUILTY SECRET

  First published in Great Britain 2001

  © Josie Metcalfe 2001

  All Rights Reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Enterprises II B. V. The text of this publication or any part thereof may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, storage in an information retrieval system, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.

  All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author, and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all the incidents are pure invention.

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