The sound of a text arriving in the inbox of my mobile phone woke me the next morning. I’d tossed and turned all night after Steve had left, trying to work out what I wanted and if we could make a real go of things between us again.
‘Police coming this a.m. Come over. Mum’
My stomach lurched and I called her straight back. Nothing like someone else’s problems to clear away the fog in my brain.
“What’s happened? Did they say why they were coming?”
“I don’t know why. They obviously have some news to tell me but I honestly don’t know if it’s going to be good or bad. Though what could be good, apart from that they’d recovered some of my money, I don’t know.” She sighed down the phone.
Poor Mum. “I’ll get Steve and we’ll be right over,” I promised.
My response had been automatic. Was that it? Was that my answer? After everything that had happened between us I still loved him. He was the man I wanted to be beside me if the police had bad news. He was the man I wanted to be beside me for ever. He’d indicated last night that he felt the same way about me. Could I be brave enough to try again?
As soon as Mum had rung off my mobile rang again. This time it was Lou.
“Has Mum just rung you?”
“Yes, I spoke to her a few seconds ago. She said the police are calling round.”
Lou was silent for a minute, “I hope they’ve got some of her money back.”
“I hope so too, but I think that might be a long shot. Do you want a lift over there?”
She laughed. “How did you guess? By the way, what’s happening with you and Steve? Did you sort things out?”
“Not exactly. There are a lot of things we need to talk about.”
“But you love him, and he loves you. Blimey Kate, what more do you want from a bloke?”
“It’s not as simple as that.” Was it?
A heavy sigh gusted down the phone. It didn’t sound as if my sister was impressed by my argument. “Bloody Gary turned up here late last night.”
“What did you do?” I hoped he hadn’t been serenading her again. The neighbours had threatened to complain to the council the last time he’d done it.
“I told him to sod off. When the baby's born then if he’s the dad and he’s prepared to make a regular commitment to the baby then that’s fine. But it’s over between me and him and has been for ages.”
“What about Jamie?” I’d warmed to Jamie now I’d got to know him a little better. He’d certainly appeared to have changed from the womanising chauvinist I remembered from a few years ago.
“I dunno with Jamie. Maybe if I wasn’t pregnant we could take more time to see where that was going, but if the baby turns out to be Gary’s then it’s asking a lot to take on someone else’s baby.”
“And if it’s his?” I asked.
“Then he would have to make a commitment to the baby, not necessarily to me. Let’s face it: I’m going to be looking like the side of a house in a couple of months time so he’s not likely to be fancying me much is he? I’ve done a lot of thinking and assuming I’ll be going it alone as a parent seems to be the sensible option.” Her tone sounded rueful.
I said goodbye to Lou and scrambled to get washed and dressed before hurrying down the garden to knock on the door of Steve’s caravan.
He opened the door half-dressed in just his faded Levi’s and my heart flip-flopped with desire.
“We need to go to Mum’s. The police are coming, I said we’d call for Lou on the way.” It suddenly hit me that it had never occurred to me that Steve wouldn’t come with me. Despite everything that had happened between us he was always there for me.
“Did she say why the police were coming?” He reached behind him to pick up a pale blue tee shirt and began to pull it over his head.
“No, she doesn’t know.”
“Okay, got my keys, lets go.” He jumped down the steps and pulled the door shut behind him before locking it with the key.
“Are you okay?” He halted beside his truck to look at me.
I nodded. “Thanks for coming with me.”
He dropped a brief kiss on my hair before crossing round the front of the cab to climb into the driver’s seat. I followed after him, my pulse racing from his sudden show of tenderness.
The traffic was light as it was Sunday morning and it only took a few minutes to collect Lou and drive to Mum’s.
We’d barely had time to install ourselves on Mum’s sofa when the police arrived. A young female police officer and her male colleague. The police woman took the spare armchair while Mum sat on the other one. The much larger policeman perched on one of Mum’s dining room chairs. They both refused Mum’s offer of a cup of tea as the policeman took out a notepad and pen.
“We have received word from our colleagues in Nevada that they apprehended a man answering the description you provided of your husband, Chuck Delgado. They emailed this to us this morning.” The police woman produced a picture from the pocket of her tunic. “Could we ask you to confirm if this is the man you know as Chuck Delgado.” She passed it across to Mum.
It was a shot like the ones you see on American TV crime shows of a full face and side profile picture with a number board.
Mum paled but nodded. “Yes, that’s Chuck. Where did they find him?”
The police woman took the picture back and returned it to her pocket. “The man you have identified as Chuck Delgado is also known as Charles Mount, Chuck Branscome and Chuck Martinelli. He’s wanted in three US states for bigamy, fraud and obtaining money by deception.”
We all gasped. I caught hold of Mum’s hand as her eyes filled with tears. “He seemed such a nice man.”
The policewoman looked uncomfortable and her colleague fidgeted on his chair.
“Then he is this Silver Fox character?” Steve asked.
The policewoman nodded. “He was apprehended in Las Vegas. Unfortunately for him he decided to ‘marry’ his latest victim at the same wedding chapel where he married you.” She looked at Mum. “The Elvis singer was the same one who sang at your wedding and recognised Chuck. He tipped off the authorities there.”
“Will Mum get any of her money back?” Lou asked.
“It’s too early to say at the moment. There is quite a complicated financial trail to unravel,” the policewoman said. At least no one else would be tricked out of their savings now Chuck was in custody.
The police officers stayed for a while longer filling us all in on what would be likely to happen next, signing statements and the possibility of having to travel to Las Vegas, if necessary, for the trial.
Steve and I didn’t stay at Mum’s for long after the police had gone. Lou stayed to have Sunday lunch with Mum while we headed back to the cottage. We pulled into the space next to the skip and looked at the cottage.
“Kate, if I ask you something, will you be honest with me?” Steve’s tone was serious.
My mouth dried as I nodded my head. “I’ve never lied to you.”
The corner of his mouth quirked. “I know.” He shuffled his feet awkwardly, catching the edges of the foot pedals. “I’ve been thinking a lot over the last few months and especially since we, you know, slept together. I’d begun to lose hope until then. I thought that with Mike on the scene that I’d left it to late.”
He paused for a moment while I blinked back my tears and tried not to cry.
“I was at your mum’s on Friday and we were talking. She gives good advice, your mum. I needed to know what I could do to make things right again between us, Kate. I love you, I’ve always loved you and when we first split I thought maybe, given some space where we could both think things through, we’d work out a way to get back together again.” His dark eyes met mine.
My heart hammered against the wall of my chest. “You said you loved me before. Words are easy, Steve. I know you think I overreacted about the barn and this cottage but it wasn’t just that. I thought we were together and that we wanted the same things and then it became clear to me that we didn’t. I love you too, but maybe love isn’t enough for us.”
I’d explained badly, I knew that, but I couldn’t find a way to say exactly what I meant. I wanted to be with Steve so much but I was scared. What if it went wrong again? I didn’t think I could bear the heartbreak a second time.
Hurt showed in his eyes but he made no move towards me. “Does that mean we’re over?”
“No, I’m making a mess of this. I….” Tears rolled down my face, my voice choked and I couldn’t finish what I wanted to say.
He smoothed the wetness from my face with the pads of his thumbs. “I know we can’t go back, but we can go forwards. I love you, Kate. I know you saw the barn as a forever house but here, in this cottage, is the place I envisaged us staying. From the moment I first came to see this house, before the sale, even with the damp and rotten boards I felt a sense of belonging here. I thought you would feel that too.”
I looked up at him. “I hated it.”
“I know. You told me often enough. I was gutted, I thought at first the ghost thing was just another way of you telling me how much you hated this place..”
“I think it showed how far apart we’d grown and hadn’t realised.”
“I was so jealous when you started to see Mike,” he confessed.
“How do you think I felt when Nasreen told me about Chloe?”
“I thought after we’d made love that perhaps you might have had a change of heart and there was some hope for me again.”
“And then I told you we should forget it ever happened.” I’d been so stupid and so blind. I’d been such an idiot, Steve was right. We could go forwards if we really wanted to. I could learn to stop being an ostrich, refusing to face up to things that bothered me, if Steve was willing to communicate with me more.
A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Marry me, Kate. Let’s listen to Mary Ann and make Myrtle Cottage our forever home.”
I stared at him, seeing the love he had for me written in his face. Deep inside, for the first time in months, I felt the faint flutterings of real hope.
The events of last night began to fade. It was as if they had happened a lifetime ago to someone else. I stared out through the window of the truck at the strimmed brambles and partly rotovated ground in front of us. I tried, as I’d done many times before, to visualise it fully restored. Suddenly I could see the herb garden, the formal knot garden, the flower borders and the wide expanse of lawn leading to the fruit trees beyond the outbuildings at the side of the house. I could see a swing set and a climbing frame and children playing. If I tried I could almost hear them laughing.
“You know I want a baby? A dog? Kittens? The whole domestic kit and caboodle?” Next to the house I could have sworn I saw Mary Ann smiling at me.
Steve kissed me, his mouth tender on mine. “Sounds okay to me.”
The ache around my heart diminished and a sense of peace filled me for the first time in months.
“Then, yes, I’ll marry you.”
Steve’s mouth closed on mine once more and I gave myself up to his kiss while the soft fragrant scent of lavender tickled my senses and I took that as Mary Ann’s seal of approval.
“There is one more thing; I think we should change the name of the house back to Walnut Cottage.” I looked at Steve.
He grinned. “To make Mary Ann happy?”
I smiled back at him. “No, just because it seems right.”
He gave a small shrug of his shoulders. “Walnut Cottage it is.”
“A forever house?”
His lips brushed mine as he corrected me. “Our forever house.”