Not Just for Christmas Ch. 10-13

"And when I was ill on Thursday you came running!" she said reflectively. "You slept on the sofa. Why not in my bed with me?"

"You are with Bob," he said. "I have no right to share your bed."

"How can I convince you I've never slept with Bob?" She was exasperated. "He came round, he didn't try anything. I know now he was feeding me a line. But every time he came round he just talked, said how much he liked me, how little appearances mattered. After a few visits he asked to kiss me good-bye and I let him. He never made a move on me until we were at the club."

"And you let him then?"

"Yes," she said resignedly, "but I would never have let him have me. You don't believe me, but I'll say it anyway, it's you I love. No one else. God! D'you think I'd be interested in dating men I don't really know after Gary? I love you because you are the best man I've ever met.

"Mike, I was misled. I was lied to. Please don't punish me for loving you. I was misguided. I'm sorry."

She stopped talking and sat still. She looked lost and forlorn. Then she suddenly sat forward.

"I'll prove to you that Bob never got anywhere." She became animated. "Be at the house on Monday when he comes. Hide. I'll get him to admit the truth. I need you there anyway, I don't know how he'll react to me dumping him."

"You don't need to prove it," he said. "I believe you, but I'll be there if you need me."

He paused, and then it hit him, the reason he was so puzzled, why he was puzzled even though everything else made sense. Something was wrong.

"What I can't understand is why you cut me off so completely. Why be so cruel to me after all the love I'd shown you?"

She did not need to think about it.

"I love you so much, I knew I'd weaken and let you back into my life. I was in such agony about losing you, I wouldn't have been able to resist, and from what I thought I knew then, I wanted the best for you. I was sure from what they told me that you were getting back with Cheryl--"

"But--"

"Yes, I know, she was never coming back. But don't you see?

"If I'd let you argue with me, you would have convinced me to stay with you, and I thought that this would destroy everything. I wasn't cutting you out; I was cutting myself out. Do you understand? I was misguided, stupid if you like, but I did it all out of love for you."

Now it all made sense. A sense of intense relief swept over him. "You're telling me that you've loved me all along. You love me now?"

"Yes. More than ever. After what you said when you saw me with Bob, your disgust, I was astounded at your selflessness when you came and looked after me. You even undressed me and put me to bed. All the while thinking I was with someone else. I can see why your 'friends' at the Home love you."

"I put you on the loo as well!" he smiled. She coloured up. "You wiped your own bum." He grinned more broadly.

Then she smiled, but it was gone in a flash, replaced by a worried frown.

"Mike," she asked at length. "Where do we go from here?"

"Where do you want to go?" he asked. He knew how much he loved her. It came as a moment of supreme clarity. He understood why she had cut him off. He knew he wanted this woman more than his own life.

"After all," he added, "I didn't break us up."

"Can you ever forgive my stupidity?" she asked. "Can you ever forgive me for the hurt I caused you?"

"It was never a question of whether I forgave you," he responded. "It was a matter of understanding. I just couldn't understand why you rejected me so completely. I understand that now. It makes sense. So, where do you want to go from here?"

"Would you consider dating me again?" she looked uncertain, as well she might.

"I don't think so."

This confused her and her shoulders sagged.

"No," he said after a moment's thought, "I couldn't do that. If you want us to start again, you'll have to do a few things." He held back a smile: poker face.

"What?" she asked. "I'll do anything."

"One: you have to move back here with the children. Two: you'll have to move from your suite to mine. And," here he paused for effect. "Three: you have to agree to marry me."

He waited. There was silence. She looked puzzled as the conditions sank in. Then her face was lit by a radiant smile and she leapt to her feet and threw herself onto his knee, kissing his face all over, all the while making little sounds of pleasure.

"So?" he asked as sternly as he could muster. "I'm waiting for an answer."

She sat up, smiling.

"Would I move back? Yes! Would I move from my suite to yours? Wouldn't it be better for you to move into mine? Nearer the kids? We could use yours if we wanted to make some noise."

She paused. Then she said with a coquetish smile, "What was the last condition?"

"You know perfectly well what it was," he said, po-faced.

"I think you should ask me properly. Out there, in front of the children."

"OK."

At that moment he knew what the answer would be.

She kissed him intensely, her soft mouth opening and her agile tongue raping his mouth.

"I love you so much!" she said, coming up for air. "I never thought it would end this way today!"

"Neither did I," he said laughing, "and it isn't ending, it's beginning. Come on then, let's talk to the children."

They disentangled themselves and walked out of the room together. They went into the living room where Ginny and Ryan were playing. Mike called up to Siobhán to come down. When they were all assembled, sitting in a row on the same sofa they'd sat on the first day they arrived that Christmas Eve. Claire sat in 'Mike's' chair. He stood before her, then went down on one knee and said the words.

"Claire Connors, I love you more than my own life. Will you marry me?"

Claire looked at her family with a wicked smile.

"Shall I?" she asked.

The girls nodded, while Ryan looked confused, after all he was a little boy.

"Mike is going to marry Mummy," Siobhán explained t him and he smiled happily.

"Are we coming home? he asked.

"I think so," said Siobhán casting a glance at Mike.

Mike was choked with emotion, not at the proposal he had made, but at little Ryan calling Mike's house 'home'. He nodded, and the children's smiles broadened with satisfaction.

Claire made her response, "Then Mike Stewart, yes, please. I want more than anything in my life to marry you."

They stood and kissed long and hard. The children laughed and clapped, then they came to the couple and there was a family hug.

"Does that mean you really are going to be our Daddy?" asked Ryan.

"Yes, my little one," he was eventually able to say.

"So we are going to live--" Siobhán, began to ask, ever practical.

"Here," said Claire. "We're moving back today."

"Thank God!" said the teenager. "I so hate that house. Can we go and pack now?"

Now Mike had had a different idea, which involved him and Claire, his bedroom, and the bed, but that would have to wait. The enthusiasm of all the children for an immediate move overrode everything.

However, there was one thing he wanted to do. He ran upstairs, got the necklace she had worn that first time they made love, the one his Grandmother gave him, the earrings, and one item he had not brought out before, her engagement ring. For a ring made in the last decade of the nineteenth century. It looked quite modern: it was a large diamond with a cluster of smaller ones around it on a gold ring. He put it in his pocket.

He brought the set down, to find the girls still sitting on the sofa. Ryan, now everything was settled in his eyes, had gone off to play. Mike stood before Claire, opening the box and showing her the set.

"My Grandmother told me to give this to the woman I married," he said to her. "I never gave it to Cheryl, and never understood why. I do now. Please accept it."

She gasped and took the box. "I loved wearing it before. And now!" she showed the set to the girls, and as she did so, he took the ring out and waited for her to turn back to him.

He held the ring out. "This will make our engagement official."

She gasped. "It's beautiful!" she whispered. She held out her hand and he slipped it onto her ring finger. Amazingly it fitted, if a little tightly. It could be stretched. Now they were really engaged, he thought with satisfaction. The girls swarmed around exclaiming over the ring. A success!

Once again he was struck by the total absorption of the female of any age in engagement rings. Ryan was not interested, and Mike realised that with the average man, he'd look and say, if he had any sense, "Wow, that's nice!" But women? It seemed to be a whole body, soul and spirit experience. It so happened he was choked with emotion and he left them. The womenfolk did not notice.

The rest of the afternoon and evening was taken up with removing Mike's new family's clothing and other personal possessions from Claire's house to Mike's. There was a good deal more this time than before, since everything had to be moved and it took three journeys in both cars to accomplish the mission to their satisfaction.

He noticed a certain amount of hurried and hushed conversation between Claire and the two older children. Eventually, when the final journey had been made, it was Ginny who approached him as he was carrying the last cardboard box into Claire's room.

"Mike?" she said tentatively; she had never got round to calling him 'Dad' like Siobhán and Ryan. "Are you going to move your things into Mummy's room as well?"

He was taken aback, but covered it.

"Well, darling," he said, "I think Mum needs to sort her things out before we think of that, don't you?"

"But now you're engaged," she persisted, "you are going to come down this end, to be with us?"

He caught Claire's eye, and she was smiling broadly. She nodded vigorously and Ginny caught the movement and giggled.

"Seems I'll have to!" he said with as much resignation as he could muster, which wasn't much. Ginny moved off, satisfied with the success of her mission and Claire came into his arms.

"You're sleeping here tonight," she said after they came up for air after a long kiss. It was not a question.

That night, after the children had gone to their rooms and beds with big smiles and clear satisfaction, as if they felt they had truly come home, amid boxes and suitcases, Mike's fiancée and he made slow, peaceful and above all quiet love in her bed in her room, which had become theirs.

Mike was worried about her reaction to having sex with a man after Gary's violence, but she came to him artlessly, pushing her body against his as a flagrant invitation. She took his penis and put it into her body, and he pushed it in the rest of the way. In that position, fully within her, he stayed still, until she moved against him from beneath him, inviting him to thrust.

"Give it to me!" she whispered.

"You haven't come," he said.

"Not tonight," she replied into his ear. "I'm too tired. But I want your seed in me, I want your swimmers inside my womb."

And so he completed their love-making, after which she hugged him to herself, wrapping her legs round him in case he withdrew.

"Stay!" she commanded and they kissed and cuddled as his erect member gradually lost its rigidity and rather apologetically, Mike thought, slipped from her. She smiled.

"Now you are really mine," she whispered, "and I am completely yours."

"Mike," she continued as they relaxed, "have you time to come with me on Monday? I'll prove there was nothing between Bob and me."

"You don't need to prove anything to me," he said, idly tracing the scar down her cheek. The surgeon had done a good job and it was now fainter, though the corner of her lip still sagged slightly. Not that it bothered him; it made kissing unique.

"No," she said, "but I don't know how he'll react. I'm afraid of being alone and telling him to stay away from me."

He understood. After her encounter with Gary, she was justifiably worried for her safety alone with a man.

"I'll be there," he said, and got a hug for his answer.

Sunday was full of unpacking, and another journey to the other house for extras, the things Claire wanted with her, the things of sentimental value. That was fine. He wanted his house to become truly her home. Now it was. There would be other articles to bring, but they would wait.

-----

"Hi, Claire, feeling better?"

The voice came from the front door, which Claire had answered.

"Yes thank you Bob," she replied. "Come through."

Mike was upstairs on the landing and Claire was leaving the doors open so he could hear.

"Sorry our evening turned out as it did," he said.

"I'm not, I learned a lot about you that night Bob, and I didn't like any of it." Her voice was cold and distant.

"He made all that stuff up and got his friends to back him up."

He sounded earnest. Mike had to admire his style, and his barefaced lies.

"Well Bob," Claire said firmly, "I can't really believe you because I know you are a liar."

"What d'you mean?"

"When you came here last week, you told Mike we'd been sleeping together. Why?"

"He got up my nose! He was acting like a prat; you know he wouldn't let me in?"

"Yes I know. He was right too. I was feeling very bad. So you lied to him."

"Only to put him off. I love you Claire, you know what they say, 'all's fair in love--'"

She interrupted him, "Bob, you're a selfish man through and through! You know, because I told you often enough when you came to visit, that I wanted Mike. Yet you tried to turn him away with lies. And you say you love me? You're a liar Bob. It won't matter if Mike never wants me again after what I did to him, you haven't got a chance with me, I don't date liars."

"Oh, don't give me that!"

Mike tensed as Bob began to sound aggressive. "You would have shagged me that night if he and his friends hadn't arrived, and once you'd experienced what I could do for you, you wouldn't want a limp dick like Mike ever again."

Smug bastard, Mike thought.

"Bob you're such a fool!" she crowed. "You haven't a clue have you? You know the saying 'Size isn't everything, it's what you do with it'? Well, it's not size, or what you do with it, it's the love that counts.

"Your women have sex with you because of your big willy, but they stay with their husbands, don't they? I bet when their husbands find out, and they will Bob, those women will cry and say it was only sex! And then the cliche will follow: 'it didn't mean anything'. That's you Bob, you don't mean anything beyond a bit of fun."

"Claire it's not true! I do love you. I've never felt like this about anyone. I'll give up these other women if only I can have you. Please give me a chance."

"Sorry Bob, I can't believe what you say. If you're going to level with me, tell me about Cheryl and her part in this seduction you're trying. You are with her at the moment aren't you?"

"Only for her convenience," he was gabbling. "She doesn't really want me, she wants Mike. She told me that Mike really loves her and she's never stopped loving him. She made a big mistake when she had that fling with Gordon. And she told me all about Mike's hatred for ugliness of any sort, everything has to be perfect, so she said it would be best for you and for him if I got you and she got Mike.

"That's why I came to the hospital. I will level with you Claire, I just wanted to bed you at first but now I've fallen in love with you. You've no chance with Mike now he knows about us so how about giving it a go? I'll be good for you; you'll not be sorry."

"Um," said Claire. "I did well out of Mike, I made good money looking after him. You're saying you want me for keeps?"

"Yes of course."

"Just me? No others on the side?"

"Yes, truly."

"So what do you do for a living? How much do you make? You won't just have me to keep, there are three children and they come expensive. What exactly do you do, Bob?"

Mike realised she was playing with Bob. She knew Bob was unemployed and work-shy.

The woman was strong. All the repeated beatings, and the attempted murder hadn't made her weak; the very opposite. She had confidence in herself, and she was leading the conversation the way she wanted it to go. Mike felt elation. That self-confident, intelligent, efficient woman was his fiancée. Mike felt he couldn't say she was his, but he was definitely hers.

"Bits and pieces, I do some good deals here and there."

"You're unemployed you mean."

"Well, officially, yes, but I get by doing some unofficial deals."

"So you defraud the Social Security?"

"Not really, just a little extra here and there."

"So you're living on Cheryl's earnings really, she's paying the bills?"

Silence.

"Sorry Bob," she said. "Not good enough. For your women you're OK for a fling but a non-starter for a real relationship, and personally I don't do flings. Time for you to go."

"But," he tried one last play. "Even just for a fling I could give you a good time. You're on your own; no one wants a woman with three children. You must be getting horny. I can give you mind-blowing sex, these other women don't keep dating me just because my cock is big, they get blown away by my technique as well. Come on, come to bed, I'll show you."

"No Bob, you're just not my type. Go now. Goodbye."

He left without another word.

Mike started to go downstairs and she was grinning up at him, when the doorbell went again. He disappeared and she opened the door.

"Cheryl!" she gasped. "What brings you here? Did you bring Bob?"

"Can I come in?"

Once again the journey to the living room was made.

"Listen, Claire," she started, "I came to save you a lot of heartache. I thought Bob would be the ideal person for you. He's very good in bed and it would take your mind off Mike. You know you'll never have Mike, don't you?"

"Really?" Claire sounded really worried. Mike almost applauded.

"All his friends know he loves beautiful things and attractive, fit women, like Tracy and Bryony. That's why he had that affair with you. You were very pretty. But now? Well, it's just not on.

"It's not your fault, but that ex-husband of yours finished your chances with Mike. Bob told me Mike's been here when you were ill. I don't want to get your hopes up, that's all. He's full of compassion and pity you know, but I think you also know that's not enough for a relationship."

"It's very kind of you," said Claire. That girl was some actress!

"That's why I thought Bob might be ideal for you."

"That's very thoughtful of you, but he's just not my type. Even if he were my type he's not got a job. I've got three children to bring up. So I'm grateful for your concern, but I can lead my own life."

"But you lost your job with Mike."

"Yes, but before that he put me through college and I got three "A" levels all "A" grades after six months' work. I also got my driving license. I've got a few irons in the fire, and I don't need a work-shy layabout living off me as well. So once again, thanks for your concern but I can look out for myself."

There was a shuffling of chairs and they came into the hallway. The door opened. Mike went to the window of the front bedroom.

"Well," said Cheryl. "Thanks for your time. 'Bye."

"'Bye,"

Then Claire raised her voice to reach Cheryl as Mike watched her go down the path. "By the way, did you find Gary a good fuck?" and she slammed the door.

"Gotcha!" she shouted.

Mike heard her giggle.

Cheryl stopped and turned. She looked aghast, her mouth hanging open. The realisation that Claire knew a lot more than Cheryl had thought came home to her. She realised that the whole interview had been a farce. Then she turned and hurried back to her car.

Mike went downstairs. Claire was looking very pleased with herself. He smiled.

"Remind me never to get on the wrong side of you!" he laughed. She looked smug and hugged him.