The Marriage Replay (8 page)

‘Reece?'

Aware that he was miles away, Sorrel felt her heart skip a beat.
Was he regretting coming away with her when things between them had been so bad? Was he concluding that this whole excursion was probably futile?
Not wanting to travel down such horribly familiar highways of heartbreak on their first night away together, she dragged her gaze determinedly away from the preoccupied expression crossing his handsome face and instead registered the sumptuous spread of food laid out on the table before her.

‘Did Ines do all this?'

Snapping out of the trance he'd been in, Reece popped a fat glistening olive into his mouth and groaned appreciatively as the sublime taste and texture drowned his tastebuds in unadulterated pleasure.

‘Sure did. The woman's one of God's own angels!'

Sorrel loved it when he displayed his pleasure. He didn't hold back like some men did. Whether it was food, wine, a beautiful painting, or sex…Reece knew how to show his appreciation. Her head felt giddy at the thought.

‘Why don't we take the food outside?' she suggested, leaning over the square pine table to gather up a platter of fruit, cheese and olives.

‘Isn't it a little cool?' Reece asked, catching her eye. He couldn't help wondering why she suddenly appeared to be blushing, and he was immediately intrigued.

‘I can put my jacket on—or I've got a wrap in my shoulderbag.'

‘Fine. Let's do it.'

They sat in an unexpectedly companionable silence for almost an hour, watching the sun finally disappear and the strategically placed fairylights that Ricardo had arranged around the porch for their benefit automatically come on. Reece had wanted all-singing, all-dancing, high-tech everything when it came to the lighting in that area, but Sorrel had loved Ricardo's simple suggestion of fairylights, declaring them to lend a much more magical air of enchantment than anything more modern.

Now, as she sat sipping her wine, watching the changing light create new shadows and intriguing angles on her husband's compelling features, she noticed that some of the light grooves on his brow and round his mouth had definitely deepened. As though a troubled artist had taken his palette knife and gouged out more definite lines. A hollow, tight feeling cramped her stomach, and Sorrel couldn't help but feel mournful at the knowledge that Reece had suffered equally at the sad decline of their relationship as well as at the dreadful ensuing loss of the baby she'd been carrying. He'd told her as much but she hadn't really been listening at the time. She'd been too wrapped up in her own bruising pain.

If their marriage hadn't been at the point of no return when Sorrel had suffered the miscarriage, maybe they could have comforted each other more,
she reflected, sipping a little more wine to numb her hurt. Now they were both in the land of lost relationships—both desperately trying to find a way out of their shared misery and neither one of them willing to make the first move towards shattering the remembered bond of love that they had so delighted in at the beginning.

‘You didn't eat very much.' His voice broke into her
melancholy reverie as Reece glanced at the still nearly full platters of food on the table, then back at Sorrel.

‘Neither did you.'

‘I think I'd rather just drink some more wine right now,' he confessed, his mouth nowhere near a smile.

Sorrel swallowed hard. Was he drinking to numb his pain?

‘Now that we're here,' she questioned him bluntly, ‘do you regret coming?'

Reece's answering glance was equally if not more blunt. ‘Not at all. But, like you said before, Sorrel, it takes two to commit fully to a relationship. I don't intend on walking on eggshells around you while we try and work things out.'

‘I'm not asking you to “walk on eggshells” around me! And I can take criticism if I'm wrong, too. I'm tougher than I look, you know.'

Unable to prevent the speculative grin that broke loose from his lips, Reece lifted his feet onto another wrought-iron chair and glanced at her indignant expression with amusement.
‘Tough
is not a word I'd use to describe you, angel…at least not the way I see it. Right now you look like a child who's stayed up way past her bedtime. Want me to come and tuck you into bed?'

His mention of the one word which was loaded with all kinds of meaning that Sorrel would much prefer to shy away from—
bed
—had her spine going immediately rigid and her hand once more reaching for her wine glass. ‘No, thank you! In any case I'm
not
a child—and I'm perfectly capable of deciding what time I go to bed.'

‘Prickly as a porcupine as usual,' Reece taunted, smiling, but Sorrel glared right back at him.

‘No, I'm not!'

‘See?'

The sound of his husky-voiced laugh rippled over her nerve endings like rich maple syrup being poured over ice-cream and made her shiver. Seeing her rub her bare arms up and down, Reece was immediately contrite. ‘You're cold. Let's go inside.'

Feeling slightly guilty that he should interpret her trembling as the effects of cold, Sorrel turned round to collect her jacket from her chair, but rather than put it on draped it around her shoulders. ‘I'm fine now. I'd rather stay out here for a while than go inside.'

Her shivering didn't stop.
With Reece's unsettling heated gaze drifting intently over her features, then slowly, unashamedly moving down to the slight shadow between her breasts in the simple sleeveless white dress, Sorrel knew who had the upper hand in this little
tête-à tête
they were having. And it
wasn't
her.

‘You
are
cold, Sorrel…I can see the evidence for myself.'

Glancing down at her chest and seeing the clear outline of her peaked nipples pressing against the thin material of her lace bra and the even thinner material of her dress, she chewed down on her lip in genuine embarrassment.

‘Must you bring everything down to the lowest common denominator?' she demanded.

‘You're a beautiful, sexy woman, Sorrel…why do you think I was attracted to you in the first place? Am I supposed not to notice the intimate little things about you any more? Like the way your blue eyes turn dark and smoky when you're aroused…the way your body moves—so graceful you almost glide…or the way your
scent leaves a sexy trail behind you when you exit a room? Do you think that I'm dead from the waist down now that you've made me public enemy number one?'

‘I
DON'T
think of you as my enemy!' she retaliated, stung. But her indignation was due in part to the fact that his beguiling words had left her stranded all at sea, without a tow rope to guide her safely back to harbour.

To cover her confusion, she pushed to her feet and started to lift one of the abundant platters. ‘You're right—it
is
getting chilly out here. I think I'll clear these dishes away, then go and unpack my things.'

Biting back his undeniable and increasingly impatient need to have her demonstrate a little warmth towards him, Reece tried not to let his intense frustration with the situation spill over into another argument. Lifting his glass, he tipped it slightly from side to side to let the alcohol roll around inside rather than put it straight to his lips.

He knew that yet again Sorrel was running away from her discomfort with him. And if his anger made her uncomfortable, then his compliments seem to make her discomfort even
worse. What the hell was a guy supposed to do?
All Reece knew was that he would pay a lot of money to reverse the situation, because right now it honestly had him stumped.

‘Leave the dishes. I'm just going to sit out here for a while and come in when I'm ready.'

Exchanging one last heated glance with her slightly guilty blue gaze, Reece finally raised his glass to his lips and drank deeply of the robust little Portuguese red that Ines had so thoughtfully left them to enjoy with their meal.

 

Wrapped in her white towelling robe, Sorrel stepped out of the bathroom into the bedroom to find Reece hanging some linen shirts in the vast antique wardrobe. As he reached forward to position the wooden hangers the muscles in his back rippled underneath the plain black T-shirt he wore, and suddenly all the moisture in Sorrel's mouth seemed to dry up like an unused well.

‘What are you doing?' she asked, her heart beginning to pound.

He turned only briefly. ‘What do you
think
I'm doing? I'm hanging up my clothes in the closet.'

‘You're going to sleep in here—with me?' Her gaze went nervously to the big double bed with its traditional embroidered quilt.

‘That's right. You got any problems with that?'

They hadn't shared a bed in over three months…nearly four.
Was he really treating his return to their bedroom so casually? As if it had hardly any significance at all?

‘There are two other bedrooms in the house, and I'm sure Ines will have made up all the beds.'

That got his attention. Turning slowly, his hands on his hips, Reece looked at her hard. ‘So?'

‘I just don't think it's a very good idea to try and force the issue…do you?'

‘I'm not trying to
force
anything, dammit!'

After turning away briefly, to try and calm the fury that swirled in his chest, Reece swung his glance back to Sorrel and swept it up and down her robed figure almost with disdain. ‘I may not be your idea of the perfect gentleman, honey, but even
I
wouldn't try and force my wife into an intimacy she doesn't welcome. Please give me some credit! But this situation will soon be going way past the point where anything can be rescued if we don't do something to rectify it. All I want to do is share a bed together again. At least let's agree on that, shall we?'

Trying desperately hard to be objective in the midst of a sea of emotion that threatened to swamp her, Sorrel studied Reece's straight up and down muscular physique and arrestingly handsome features with the slow, insistent throb of sensual awareness creeping stealthily into her blood.

She knew that any other woman would probably be thrilled with the idea that such a man was apparently so determined to share her bed, and in her secret heart Sorrel was not immune to similar excitement either. But how
could
she be objective when she was so affected by practically
everything
this man did? When he sighed anxiety gripped her over what might be wrong. When he laughed in happiness and without restraint she knew joy unbounded. On the outside it shouldn't be so complicated to invite him back into her bed again. But on the
inside
…Sorrel saw nothing but difficulty ahead.

She wasn't ready.
She had nothing to give him, nothing to offer. How could she when inside her there was nothing but a big empty void since she had lost their baby?

‘Sorrel?'

‘You'll have to please yourself. I—I can't think straight right now. I'm tired and all I want to do is go to sleep.'

Watching in disbelief and bitter disappointment as she turned around and walked back into the bathroom, Reece stared down at the mosaic-tiled floor beneath his bare feet and for a long moment could see nothing but a red mist swirling in front of his eyes. Then—resigning himself to another cold, torturous lonely night—he yanked his shirts back out of the wardrobe, picked up his suitcase and slammed out of the room to go to another bedroom further down the hall.

At the sound of the door being practically slammed off its hinges, Sorrel stared at her pale, anxious reflection in the bathroom mirror and couldn't help but
despise
what she saw there….

 

In contrast to the cool of the previous evening, the following day the sun beat down on the cobbled pavements of the small Portuguese coastal town with—to Sorrel's mind, at least—the same burning intensity with which it blazed down on the pyramids of Egypt.

Wearing a straw hat with a yellow silk daffodil pinned to the side, white drawstring trousers and a cinnamon-coloured cotton camisole, she was forced to reduce her walk to a slow, leisurely amble whether she wanted to or not. In comparison, the heat hardly seemed to affect Reece at all. In dark sunglasses, khaki trousers and white linen shirt, his golden hair gleaming like an eye-catching halo, he strode around like a beautiful sun god who had touched down briefly on earthly soil to visit. It aggrieved Sorrel to notice the covetous glances
he received from the local girls and female tourists alike, and she tried to focus on the scenery instead.

Up ahead, at the end of the long narrow cobbled road they were walking, they came face to face with the most stunning church. Ornate and shining in the midday sun, its high roofs and bold edifice were set in such a position as to do nothing less than simply command the utmost and awed attention of any onlooker.

‘Can we go inside?' Sorrel asked Reece as he stopped and shielded a hand over the top of his sunglasses to take a look.

‘Sure. Why not?'

He was speaking to her…but only
just
. Last night he'd made another concerted effort to try and bring them closer together—and what had Sorrel done?
She'd rebuffed him again.
In light of that, she could hardly expect him to be overly pleasant or communicative. So now, even though she knew it was her fault, Sorrel couldn't find a lot of joy in either the beautiful day
or
the charming scenery. It was as though her mind and her heart were locked away inside a dark, narrow box and she couldn't find the key to open it and let in the daylight.

Watching him stride ahead, she saw a young slim Portuguese girl stand to one side of the wide narrow steps that led inside the church turn her head and make no secret of her admiration as Reece walked casually by. She didn't even acknowledge
her
. A little spurt of jealousy and pride throbbed inside Sorrel's chest as she moved to catch up with him, the sudden exertion drenching her back with heat.

Inside the imposing edifice it was blissfully cool, with the strong, pungent scent of incense hanging hypnoti
cally in the air. Standing at the beginning of the long narrow aisle that cut a swathe through the middle of the church, both Sorrel and Reece turned their heads this way and that to examine the awe-inspiring religious art that decorated the ancient walls. Then, moving towards a small side chapel, where candles were burning on a wrought-iron stand in front of a beautifully ornate statue of the Virgin Mary, Sorrel searched in her purse for some change and positioned one of the candles carefully in an empty holder to light.

Watching his wife through the gothic-style archway that led into the chapel as she lit the little candle, Reece was momentarily mesmerised by the sight of her. She had removed her straw hat on entering the church, and her bright blond hair was backlit by a ray of sunlight streaming in through a stained glass window—she looked almost heartstoppingly beautiful and very young.
Too young
, Reece thought as emotion welled up inside him. Too young to have lost a longed-for baby and to have suffered a night of terror as she had when she'd lost it.

Because he now knew with unequivocal doubt that Sorrel had wanted that baby more than anything else…
maybe even more than she wanted their marriage to continue.
He absorbed the stinging realisation with a deeply heavy sigh of profound regret. Another woman with the same wonderful opportunities to travel and have such a glamorous career as fashion modelling might have resented the looming curtailment of that career in lieu of taking care of a child…but not Sorrel. Motherhood would come naturally to her, and she wouldn't resent the responsibility one iota.

‘She looks like the Madonna, no?' A smiling Italian
tourist, his sunglasses on the top of his head and his bronzed tan evident even in the dim interior of the church, stopped next to Reece to gaze in mutual admiration at Sorrel as she stood in front of the several rows of flickering candles, her expression rapt.

Reece couldn't even find the words to answer him. But he did find a quickening of longing take an almost violent hold inside him as he shared the vision of his beautiful wife with the unknown tourist and desired nothing more than to take her home and keep her for nobody else's edification other than his own. Giving the other man a brief nod of acknowledgement, he moved into the little chapel to step up beside Sorrel. He already knew the answer to the question he was about to ask her, but somehow he was driven to hear confirmation of it from her own lips.

‘Who did you light the candle for?'

His voice was pitched low so that only she could hear. Turning to glance at him, Sorrel clutched her straw hat with the jaunty little silk daffodil to her chest and gave him the briefest glimpse of a tiny smile.

‘Our baby,' she whispered, and Reece saw her lovely blue eyes glaze over with unshed tears. Fighting back the wave of inconsolable sorrow that flooded his heart, he put his hand behind her waist, and as he did so the intoxicating scent of rose stirred the air—for a moment shutting out the more sonorous smell of incense that was everywhere.

It hit Reece right in the centre of his solar plexus and brought an immediate almost shockingly accurate vision of his mother to mind. He stopped still and didn't move.
His mother had always smelled of roses. They had been her favourite flowers.

‘Reece?'

Having turned and caught the shocked glance of surprise mirrored in her husband's stunning green eyes, Sorrel felt her heartbeat quicken with concern. ‘Is everything all right?'

‘What perfume are you wearing?' he asked huskily.

More than a little discomfited, Sorrel shrugged. ‘I'm not wearing any perfume today…why?'

Seemingly snapping out of the trance he appeared to have fallen into, Reece flashed her a genuinely warm smile. ‘It doesn't matter, honey. Let's go, shall we?'

Somehow feeling that he'd been given a rare gift, but not really understanding how or why, Reece led his wife gently away from the undoubted peace of the exquisite little chapel to the shimmering haze of the hot afternoon outside.

 

Ricardo and his plump, unashamedly expressive wife Ines were waiting for Reece and Sorrel on their return. When they drew up outside the house in their hire car Ines flew out of the kitchen, where she'd been working, and Ricardo appeared from one of the terraces to greet them. As tall and thin as his wife was short and round, with his face a deep bronze ingrained by the sun and his crinkling brown eyes, he looked as if he was a quintessential part of the earthy landscape surrounding them. He was also the kind of man who would willingly lend a hand or put his shoulder to the wheel for anybody in need and expect nothing in return.

With great enthusiasm and warmth he pumped Reece's hand, then embraced him, and did the same to Sorrel. But it was Ines's great motherly hug that almost
made Sorrel dissolve into tears. The woman had five grown-up children of her own and several grandchildren, and her stores of energy, enthusiasm and affection were seemingly boundless.

‘Minha crianca doce!
My sweet child!' she crooned, touching Sorrel's face and stroking her hair—as if indeed she really
were
a child. ‘But you have got so thin! What is this? You do not eat any more? Tell me?'

Catching Reece's eye across his wife's shoulder, Ines looked to him to give her an explanation for what she clearly concluded was Sorrel's unacceptable slenderness.

‘I can't get her to eat, Ines,' he confessed, with no small regret in his tone. ‘Perhaps you can do better and tempt her with your wonderful cooking while we are here?'

‘Yes, yes! She must eat! This is not good she is so thin! I have made one of my best dishes for you both tonight, and if you do not enjoy it you will break my heart!' she announced dramatically.

Ricardo nodded sagely. ‘She is right. Food is a great healer when you are having troubled times,' he added, exchanging a secret glance of mutual understanding.

His hands on his hips, Reece frowned for a moment. It seemed it was a day for strange happenings. First the strong sense of his mother's presence back in the little church, and now this. How Ricardo and Ines had intuited that he and Sorrel had been having ‘troubled times' he didn't rightly know, since he had not mentioned any such thing to the couple at all.