‘I am. Why?’
‘Well, Mrs Cooper asked after you when her friends had left. Said she had a message for you. She said to tell you’—the nurse squinted at her notes—‘that “they’re up to something”. Mean anything to you?’
‘Beats me. Did she say anything else?’
‘No, only that. Anyway, I’m glad I caught you because I’m about to finish my shift and would probably have missed you.’
‘Mind if I look in on her?’ Jason asked. ‘I won’t be long.’
The nurse smiled. ‘I don’t suppose that’ll do any harm.’
He thanked her and found the room where Fay lay, still as death, he thought, although the monitors told him differently. He felt a pang of conscience that his first thought had been to confront his father, not Fay’s well-being, but he was calmer now. Everything would be all right. He would make sure of it.
Sighing, he smoothed back a wisp of white hair, adjusted the covers, and left, wondering what Fay had meant by that cryptic message.
Helen was alone in her room when he got back. She let him in without a word, and he drew her close. The words died in his throat when she tilted her head and met his kiss. Only now did he realise how much she meant to him.
‘I love you,’ he whispered into her hair. ‘So much.’
She went rigid, began to pull back, and he stopped her by holding her closer. With a sigh she gave up fighting and leaned her head against his shoulder. It was a relief not to see the expression he expected to find in her eyes, the kind of regret and pity which spoke of appreciation but not reciprocation.
‘I’m no good for you,’ she said.
‘We’re not having this argument again.’
‘But it’s true.’
‘Why don’t you let me be the judge of that? Do you think you could, perhaps just once in your life, try not to take everything on your own shoulders? Show a little faith?’
‘Faith?’ she repeated with a hint of amusement and looked up at him, back to her inscrutable self, although he read a certain amount of contrition too. ‘I’ll try. But you know what they say about old habits.’
Laughing quietly, he cupped her face and planted little kisses on her nose, cheeks, lips, eyebrows.
They made love on Helen’s bed without bothering to get under the covers. Jason wanted her with an urgency he didn’t stop to consider. To feel her under him and believe in an ownership he didn’t quite have. She responded without hesitation, opening up to him, and they shared the wonder and mystery as they came together.
Afterwards, as she lay in the crook of his arm, he put his hand on her waist and curled one leg over hers, tying her to him as they slept.
But Helen wasn’t asleep. She rested her head on his chest, enjoyed the sound of his steady heartbeat. She’d heard something once, that if you placed a ticking clock in the dog basket of a young pup which had been taken away from his mother, he would calm down because it was the closest thing to the sound of his mother’s heart.
The regular rhythm from Jason’s chest had a similar effect on her. Just knowing that he lay next to her, warm, alive, and half-draped over her, was reassuring.
After a while he shifted his position and rolled over on his stomach, still fast asleep. Helen rested on her elbow and studied him in the moonlight, took in the thick, dark hair, a little messy now, his shoulder blades curved like angel wings, his spine ending in a dip at the waist, then rose again in two firm and perfectly sculpted mounds. The strong thighs, downy with fine hairs, long legs, and soft, slightly pinkish feet.
Did men moisturise? she wondered. Every inch of Jason looked as if he did, but maybe he was just lucky to have such good skin.
Without touching him, she traced the profile of his back, then on impulse placed a light kiss in the soft hollow at the base of his spine. He stirred slightly but didn’t wake, and she breathed a sigh of relief. She’d wanted to kiss him just there, in that spot halfway along his body, but without him knowing.
He loved her, he said, and an incredible sense of pride and warmth spread in her chest as her lips pressed against his soft skin.
‘I love you too,’ she whispered. There, she’d said it, and it was true even if he wasn’t awake to hear it. It seemed simple enough, but for her to ever appreciate him as an important part of her life she had to let go of the past, and that was easier said than done. The need for revenge – or justice perhaps – still burned inside her.
She might not be able to prove Jason’s father had anything to do with her mother’s death, but she and Charlie were going to find out what sort of hold he had over Letitia, and how that might link him to Mimi’s death. What the next step would be after that, she didn’t know, but she suspected she’d have tough choices to make.