Marriage Reunited
‘She couldn’t cope, Mac. She used to babysit him when Becca went out, but he was really too much for her. And anyway—’ Georgia stopped as she felt her voice wobble treacherously.
Damn Mac. There was something about him that brought all her emotions to the surface and left her feeling raw and vulnerable. She hadn’t cried for ages, and she wasn’t about to start again in front of him.
Fiercely swallowing down the tears, she cleared her throat. ‘Anyway,’ she said again, more strongly this time, ‘Mum never got over the shock of Becca’s accident. She had a fatal stroke three months later.’
‘Oh, Georgia.’ Mac half rose out of the chair, then checked himself. Her father had died before they were married, and it was Georgia who had supported her mother and sister ever since.
He looked at her sitting behind her desk, her chin lifted defensively as if to ward off any attempts at sympathy for the fact that she had recently lost all her family. And he hadn’t been there to help her through any of it.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said inadequately.
Georgia gave a brief smile of acknowledgement, and then went on. ‘Mum did her best with Toby, and I came down every weekend, but it wasn’t really working, and the social services were suggesting that they tried to find him a foster family when she died. I was due to have a meeting with them after the funeral, but I just looked at Toby that morning and realised I couldn’t go through with it. I was the only family he had—and he was the only family I had.’
Her eyes darkened with the memory of those dreadful days. ‘I told them that I would take him.’
‘So that’s why you’re here in Askerby?’ said Mac after a moment.
She nodded. ‘I tried taking Toby to London, but he hated it. I had a super-cool loft apartment by the Thames, but no garden and there were no other children there. He was miserable at school and childcare arrangements were a nightmare…
‘Toby just closed down,’ she told him, shuddering at the very memory. ‘He stopped talking, and I realised I was either going to have to give up on him or give up on my career.’
She mustered a smile and looked at Mac. ‘I didn’t really have a choice. He’s been better ever since I brought him back. I’d sold Mum’s house, but I’ve bought a new one, and he’s back at his old school. I thought I might have to try freelancing, but then I got this job…and look at me now.’ She waved grandly around her tiny office, her expression ironic. ‘I always did want to be an editor.’
Of a national newspaper, maybe. Georgia’s plans had never included a dusty little local rag like this, Mac knew. She had given up a lot for Toby.
‘It can’t have been easy for you,’ he offered. ‘We all thought you were going far and that you would be editor of The Times at least by now!’
‘Oh, come now, why would I want The Times when I can have all this?’ said Georgia with a wry smile. Through the glass wall she could see the shabby newsroom whose only occupant, Kevin, the sports reporter, was leaning back in his chair reading a tabloid. God only knew where the others were. They seemed to drift in and out at will, as far as Georgia could make out.
The sense of torpor that hung over the place depressed her anew, and Mac’s presence only made the contrast with her previous life the crueller. He sat there exuding recklessness and an exotic mix of danger and glamour that belonged with breaking news and rush of adrenalin, the sense of being where important things were happening and news was being made, not just reported.
Mac looked as out of place in this dull, provincial office as she felt. He didn’t have to be here, though, and she did. It wasn’t about what she wanted any more. Toby came first now, she reminded herself fiercely.
But, oh, there were times when she longed to wake up and find that it was all a bad dream and that she was back at the newsdesk in London, two phones at each ear and emails from around the world bombarding her inbox, with the clock ticking towards the deadline and the whole office buzzing with excitement.
Georgia suppressed a sigh and focused on Mac once more. ‘This is my life now,’ she said, wishing she could sound more excited and positive about it. ‘I’ve accepted that I need to make a new life here in Askerby, and I can’t do that as long as I’m legally married to you.’
‘You’ve met someone else.’ It was a statement rather than a question.
She hesitated, although she couldn’t think why. ‘Yes,’ she said after the tiniest of pauses.
‘And you want to get married again?’ he asked in an abrasive voice.
‘No.’ She shook her head firmly, surprised at the way she had instinctively recoiled at the very idea of marrying anyone else.
Although, if she was honest, marriage was probably what Geoffrey had in mind. Georgia wasn’t prepared to go that far just yet, though.
‘There’s no question of marriage at the moment,’ she said. ‘It’s true that I’ve met someone…a nice man who cares for me and who I think can offer me what I need, but it doesn’t seem fair to embark on a serious relationship with him until I’ve resolved things with you. He’s made me realise that by always putting off the idea of divorce I’ve never really moved on, and that’s what I think I need to do now.’
Mac began to feel a little better. It didn’t sound as if this so-called ‘serious relationship’ had got very far. It was typical of Georgia to want to play fair and start a new relationship uncluttered by baggage from the old one—she always did like things tidy—but this man, whoever he was, couldn’t be that keen if he was prepared to hang around and wait until she had sorted everything out.
‘Who is this guy?’ he demanded, wondering why the man didn’t just sweep Georgia off her feet, the way he would do.
The way he had done, he remembered.
‘I don’t think he’s any of your business,’ said Georgia with a quelling look. Mac had met Geoffrey once, soon after they were married, and it couldn’t be said that the two of them had got on. It was hard to imagine two men more different from each other, in fact.
Typically, Mac wouldn’t let it go. ‘Do I know him? Who would you know in Askerby?’ He leant back in his chair once more, tipping dangerously, and pulled his upper lip down in an effort of memory, until it struck him. ‘Ah…I know! ‘It’s that guy who always pined after you, isn’t it? The one who came to dinner once when we were staying with your mother? Bit of a stuffed shirt?’
Georgia’s lips tightened, annoyed. Geoffrey could be a bit stuffy sometimes, but she had no intention of admitting that to Mac.
‘He’s a very nice man,’ she said defensively. ‘He’s been incredibly kind since I moved back here.’
‘What was his name again?’ asked Mac. ‘Gerald? Jeremy? Jim?’
‘Geoffrey,’ said Georgia coldly, knowing that if she didn’t tell him Mac was more than capable of going on speculating with more and more ridiculous names all night.
‘Geoffrey! That’s it.’ Mac seemed pleased to have had that little puzzle solved for him. He eyed Georgia narrowly. ‘Well, well…so Geoffrey’s your new man? You know, I wouldn’t have said that he was exactly your type, Georgia.’
‘Maybe I’ve changed,’ she said with a certain defiance. ‘I don’t see what it has to do with you, anyway. To be honest, I could just wait another year and the divorce would come through automatically, but I thought we could be civilized about the whole thing. I can’t believe you seriously want to stay married. You certainly never had any interest in being married before!’
Mac’s brows snapped together at that and he let the chair drop abruptly to the floor once more. ‘That’s not true!’
‘Isn’t it?’ Georgia met his look directly. ‘Oh, I dare say you didn’t mind having a wife who waited at home and dealt with things while you were away. It was easy for you to drop everything and go when there was someone there to pay the bills and get the boiler fixed and have some milk in the fridge when you came home, but you could get all that from a good housekeeping service. You weren’t interested in being married to me.’
The lazy humour had vanished from Mac’s face, to be replaced by a grimness she had never seen before. ‘Of course I was interested in you!’ he protested, rather white about the mouth. ‘I loved you!’
‘But what did you love, Mac? Oh, the sex was great, I’ll give you that, but the rest of the time I’m not sure you even saw me. How much did you know about what I thought and what I felt and what I wanted? It was wonderful when we were first married,’ she acknowledged, ‘but after a while you started to take me for granted, and you forgot about me.’
‘How could I forget you? You were my wife!’
‘Exactly, and that’s all I was. I was just your wife, someone who was always there, someone you could always rely on, who could see what needed to be done and got on and did it without making a fuss because what was the point? Someone had to do it, after all. I knew your job meant that you had to go away at a moment’s notice, but after a while it began to seem that my only role was to support you, and that wasn’t enough for me.’
She stopped and made herself breathe slowly, fighting down the old resentment. Mac had never understood this.
‘I needed you to look at me and see me, see how I’d changed and what I could do for myself, not just for you,’ she said quietly. ‘But you never did.’
‘I knew you better than anyone else,’ he said, a muscle jumping in his jaw.
‘You knew me as I was when we got married,’ Georgia agreed, ‘but you didn’t know me when we separated, and you don’t know me now. It’s not me that you want at all. You want the Georgia you married,’ she told him, ‘but you can’t have her. She doesn’t exist any more.’
CHAPTER TWO
‘YOU’RE just being a dog in the manger,’ Georgia went on, warming to her theme. ‘You haven’t wanted me for the past four years, but you don’t want anyone else to have me either. And please don’t try telling me that you’ve been faithful to my memory!’ She fixed Mac with a clear look. ‘Journalists are a gossipy lot, and I know all about your girlfriends.’
Faint colour tinged his cheekbones. ‘I’m not going to pretend I’ve been celibate for four years. Yes, there have been women, but I didn’t love any of them the way I loved you and, God knows, I tried.’
‘Oh, thanks, that’s very reassuring!’
‘I’m trying to be honest,’ said Mac with obvious restraint. ‘I know we both agreed we would be happier on our own, but that doesn’t mean that I didn’t feel hurt and bitter about the way things had ended. I wanted to meet someone else, someone I could love, someone who wanted children too, but the harder I tried to forget you, the more I found myself missing you. I’d meet someone young and beautiful and gentle, she’d be good with children and longing to have a family of her own, and all I could think about was you.’
He sounded almost angry about it.
‘I did everything I could to get you out of my head. Over and over again, I reminded myself about your annoying habits, the way you drove me mad with your lists and your routines and the way you always had to be at the airport four hours early.’
But then he would remember her sensuality and her intelligence and her honesty, the kindness she kept concealed behind that brisk façade.
And, more treacherously still, he would remember her perfume, her warmth and her softness and the tickle of that glorious hair as she leant over to kiss him. Even now the very thought of it could make his whole body clench with desire.
‘So you were always there, whether I wanted you or not,’ he went on, resigned. ‘I went a bit crazy after you left. I threw myself into work. The more dangerous the story was, the more I wanted to go. I got myself sent on a long assignment in Africa, but even that couldn’t dislodge you from my mind. The thought of you just wouldn’t go away. In the end I gave up,’ he said simply. ‘I decided it was always going to be you.’
Georgia bit her lip. She had been through the long, weary process of trying to shake off a haunting memory herself.
‘If you felt like that about me, why didn’t you do anything about it?’ she challenged him, her grey eyes bright and direct. The last thing she wanted was to start identifying with him!
‘I’ve only reached that conclusion recently,’ he said, picking his words with care now. ‘I could have come back, but I think part of me was afraid to change the balance of things. I used to hear about you occasionally. I knew you were doing well and I guess the fact that you never did anything about a divorce made me think it might be better to leave things as they were until I finished my assignment and could try and see if we could have another go.’
‘In fact, I’m fitting conveniently into your schedule,’ said Georgia in a withering voice.
That was typical! She had spent her whole marriage waiting for Mac’s attention, waiting for him to finish one assignment, waiting for him to shake off the memories of some bitter, dreadful conflict that consumed him when he came home, hoping for a moment when he could stop thinking about what he had seen and think about her instead. But the call to the next war, the next disaster, the next misery had always come first.
‘No.’ Mac’s jaw tightened. ‘I got your letter, and that changed everything. I can make a living as a freelance, so I resigned and came home to find you. There was no way I was going to stay in Africa and let you divorce me without a word of explanation.’
‘I have explained!’
‘Not in a way that I can understand,’ said Mac. ‘I want to talk.’
Georgia regarded him crossly. It never occurred to him to think about what she wanted!
This was her new life, and she didn’t want him here, reminding her of what she had left in London, reminding her of the kind of person she used to be, leaving memories and associations behind after he had gone. He changed things just by walking into a room. Now she would never be able to look at that stupid chair he kept tipping back in without thinking of him.
‘I can’t talk now,’ she said irritably. ‘I’m busy.’
Mac lifted a disbelieving eyebrow and looked into the newsroom where Kevin now had his feet on the desk while he checked his mobile phone.
Georgia gritted her teeth. ‘I’ve got a lot to do, even if no one else does!’
‘You were just staring out of the window when I came in,’ Mac pointed out unfairly.
‘I was thinking!’
‘Well, I’m not going to sign any papers until we have talked some more,’ he said, ‘so when do you suggest we meet?’
Georgia could feel her shoulders tighten with tension. It was just like Mac to go on and on and on until he got what he wanted. He just never gave up. His persistence had won him some fantastic pictures, but it was a less appealing quality on an emotional level.
Really, she had more than enough problems at the moment without Mac strolling in and unsettling her, Georgia thought with a mixture of exasperation and weariness. It had always been the same. He would turn her world upside down, make a mockery of her attempts to stay cool and calm, send her senses spinning. She had hated the way he could make her feel wild and abandoned and out of control.
She had loved it too, a small part of Georgia acknowledged.
But not any more. She had changed, she reminded herself sternly. She had other priorities now, and they didn’t include resurrecting a doomed relationship.
Georgia wished that Mac would just go, but she knew him well enough to know that he wouldn’t move until he got what he wanted. Well, let him talk if he wanted to. She had made the decision to move on and change her life, and she wasn’t about to change her mind now, no matter what he might have to say.
She might as well get it over and done with.
‘Come to supper tonight,’ she said with a sigh. It was lucky that she had already invited Geoffrey. Geoffrey was safe and solid and reliable. His very presence would remind her of all that was good about the new life she was choosing and all that was bad about her life with Mac.
Putting on her glasses, she pulled a pad of paper towards her and wrote out her address in her characteristically neat script.
‘As you’ve tracked me down this far, I’m sure you won’t have a problem finding your way,’ she said as she tore off the sheet and handed it to Mac.
‘Thanks,’ he said, and twirled the paper between his fingers with a smile that Georgia only just managed to steel herself against in time. ‘What time?’
He was always late. That was the one reliable thing about Mac, she thought, just as she could always rely on Geoffrey to be on time. She had asked Geoffrey for eight o’clock, when Toby went to bed, so they would have some time together before Mac turned up.
‘Come at eight,’ she said.
Mac got easily to his feet. ‘Shall I bring anything with me?’
‘Just the divorce papers,’ said Georgia coolly. ‘Preferably signed.’
She waited until the door had shut behind him before she groaned and dropped her head on to the desk with a thump. What was it with life at the moment? She’d no sooner struggle over one hurdle than another would be dropped in her way.
Ever since Becca had died, it had been one thing after another. Adjusting her life around a small boy. Giving up the job she loved so much. Leaving London. Dealing with hostility over her appointment as editor here. Staff walkouts. And now Mac, thinking that he could stroll in here and take up where he’d left off!
Well, he would learn that he was wrong, thought Georgia with grim determination. She had listened to ‘I will survive’ and now she could sing along with Gloria Gaynor with the best of them. She had survived, and she was going to go on surviving. She had enough to worry about without Mac.
Of course, it was typical of him to come back now, just when she was getting her life under control, she reflected bitterly. But he would find that she had changed. She was stronger now, more sure of herself, and she had learned to manage perfectly well without him.
It had taken her four long years to get to this stage, though, and it had been a hard process. There was no way she was going through all that again, no matter how tantalising his smile might be. She was a professional woman, with a career and a life of her own. She didn’t need him and she didn’t want him.
Now all she had to do was convince her treacherous body of that. Particularly her heart, springing around like a boisterous puppy, and those legs, whose bones had dissolved at the mere sound of his voice…They were just going to have to shape up, Georgia thought as she lifted her head from the desk.
And as for her stupid senses, who knew no better than to start throwing a ticker tape parade, cheering the good memories as they marched victoriously past Georgia’s puny defences—well, they could just pipe down too. Her head was in charge now.
Unconsciously, Georgia stiffened her spine. That was better. She was not going to let Mac cast her into confusion and turmoil the way he had before. She had other problems to deal with and more important things to consider, Toby chief among them. Let Mac have his say tonight, if that was what he wanted, but he would just have to accept that she had moved on and that her own need was for a very different life now.
Surely he would be able to accept it when he saw how much she relied on Geoffrey now?
Which reminded her; she ought to ring Geoffrey and warn him that Mac was coming for dinner. Geoffrey was about as different from Mac as it was possible to be. The Y chromosome was about all they had in common, Georgia thought ruefully, so while Mac might like surprises and living on the edge, Geoffrey most certainly didn’t. He would want to be prepared.
Georgia settled her glasses back on her nose and immediately felt more businesslike. Reaching for the phone, she braced herself to deal with Geoffrey’s PA, Ruth, who controlled access to her boss with a steely efficiency and a crisp manner that even Georgia found intimidating.
Sure enough, her attempt to speak to Geoffrey was immediately stonewalled by Ruth. ‘I’m afraid he’s with a client,’ she said, and Georgia knew better than to ask her to interrupt the meeting.
She had often thought that Ruth’s talents were wasted on a mere chartered surveyor. She should have been guarding the office of a Cabinet Minister at least. In fact, Rose could do with picking up a few tips from Ruth, Georgia reflected wryly. It might not be so easy then for the likes of Mac Henderson to stroll in and out of her office. No way would Mac have got past Ruth!
‘Can I take a message?’ Ruth was always polite, but Georgia sensed that she didn’t like her. Georgia wasn’t sure whether she was jealous of her relationship with Geoffrey or, in common with a good many other locals, resented her appointment as editor of the Askerby and District Gazette.
Probably both, thought Georgia wearily.
‘No, it’s all right, thanks, Ruth,’ she said, unwilling to launch into an explanation of the fact that someone who was technically her husband was coming to dinner. She could just imagine how Ruth would react to that little bit of information! ‘Just remind Geoffrey that I’m expecting him at eight tonight, would you?’
‘There won’t be any need for that,’ said Ruth primly. ‘He has eight written in his diary.’
In other words, dinner with Georgia was just another appointment for Geoffrey.
Biting back a retort, Georgia put down the phone and took off her glasses once more so that she could rub her eyes. She was fed up with today. She would write the leader tomorrow morning. It wasn’t as if it would change anything. People in Askerby knew what they thought, and they weren’t going to have any jumped-up journalist from London tell them any different.
It was hard to believe that she had grown up here sometimes. The ex-editor of the Gazette had been very popular locally, never mind that he had brought the paper to its knees, and few people were prepared to extend a welcome to Georgia when she was appointed in his place.
Geoffrey had been a notable exception, and she would always be grateful to him for that.
Although perhaps grateful wasn’t the best way to describe how you felt about a man you were seriously considering having a relationship with?
Georgia pushed that particular worry aside impatiently. Really, she had too much else to think about now. One thing about Mac’s reappearance—it would convince Geoffrey that she needed to finalise her divorce once and for all before she could contemplate embarking on another serious relationship.
She gave her email a final check and cast a quick eye over the agency reports in case anything dramatic had happened. Not that there would be much she could do about it if there were, she thought bitterly. Nobody in Askerby wanted news in their paper.
Her last job was to tidy her desk. She hated coming into a mess in the morning. Mac had used to call her a control freak but, if she was, she didn’t seem to be a very good one, Georgia had long ago decided. If she was so controlling, how come life so often seemed to be completely out of her control?
Shrugging on her coat, she went out into the outer office, aware, as always, of the tiny moment of silence that fell whenever she appeared.
‘I’m off now, Rose,’ she said, hating the way her voice sounded a little too hearty, a little too much as if she were trying too hard not to mind how long it was taking her to be accepted. ‘Don’t forget the editorial conference tomorrow morning. I want everyone there.’
‘I won’t.’ Rose looked important. She had been thrilled when Georgia had taken a chance on her and given her the job, and was even more pleased to find herself included in all the workings of the newspaper after being made to feel useless by her ex-husband for so long. ‘Have a good evening. Are you meeting your friend?’
‘My friend?’
‘Mr Henderson. He said he knew you,’ said Rose, suddenly anxious. She had made so many mistakes since she started, and she knew Georgia got impatient sometimes.
‘Oh…Mac,’ said Georgia. ‘Yes, we did know each other a long time ago.’