Free The Lost Wife by Maggie Cox

by then I was so used to the home that I kept trying to break out of the house … even at night. Eventually they decided they simply couldn’t handle a girl who rejected every bit of love they tried to give her.’
    Saying nothing, Jake rubbed his hand over his chest.
    Twisting a long silken strand of chestnut hair round her finger, Ailsa allowed her gaze to fall into his.
It was like diving into a bottomless blue lake.
‘That’s probably why it wasn’t easy to find anybody else to adopt me. I was a regular tearaway, by all accounts—not the sweet, malleable little girl everybody wanted me to be.’
    ‘No doubt you had a lot of anger inside… It’s understandable under the circumstances.’
    ‘Who knows? It’s in the past, isn’t it?’
    ‘Yes,’ Jake agreed soberly. ‘It’s in the past. Do you want me to put that fairy on the top of the tree?’
    ‘Would you?’
    He was tall enough not to need a chair to stand on, and as he reached up to position the bright little figure on the central branch his sweater and tee shirt rode up his muscle-ridged torso. Ailsa gawked. He’d always taken care of himself, but he looked even leaner and fitter than before. She almost had to bite back a groan. His taste still lingered on her lips, in her mouth and on her tongue … The memory of their passionate kiss taunted her. Now her whole body was suddenly taken over by a deep carnal ache.
    As Jake turned round again she strove hard to keep her expression neutral. ‘That’s great,’ she told him. ‘Just perfect. Saskia’s going to love it.’
    ‘Anything else you’d like me to do to help add to the festive atmosphere?’
    ‘No.’ She gritted her teeth and smiled. ‘I don’t think so.’
    ‘What about stringing some lights up in front of the house? We always used to do that … remember?’
    The memory was so bittersweet that tears immediately sprang to her eyes. Seeking refuge from his knowing glance, she gathered up the box of discarded decorations and moved to the door. Realising she was starting to distance herself from him again, she stopped to glance back over her shoulder. ‘I remember. But it’s freezing out there. Do you really want to go outside and do that?’
    ‘I think it would be a nice welcome home for Saskia … don’t you?’
    That was enough to make Ailsa believe it was a good idea—a
very
good idea. When they’d been married they could easily have hired professional interior designers or decorators to make the house look stunningly festive, but each year, when the most magical season of all had come round, Jake had always insisted on stringing the lights outside the house himself.
    ‘I’ll go outside to my workroom and get some extra lights, then,’ she told him.
    ‘No, you stay here. Tell me where they are and I’ll go get them.’
    Her arms were still around the cardboard container, and her heart started to bump hard when Jake came to stand in front of her, smiling down with that ever so slightly crooked smile of his … It affected her so much that somehow she lost her grip on the box and it dropped to the floor, its contents spilling in a kaleidoscope of colours at her feet.
    ‘I’m so clumsy!’ she exclaimed, dismayed, instantly dropping down to her haunches to pick them up.
    ‘Don’t say that. You’re not clumsy at all.’ Helping her gently but firmly to her feet, Jake’s hands were like a burning brand round the tops of her arms, and Ailsa was so captivated by his nearness, along with the blazing need she saw reflected in his brilliant blue eyes, that she was powerless to free herself …

CHAPTER FIVE
    ‘Y OU’RE beautiful and graceful.’
    It was almost too hard for her to hear a compliment from him when they had seemed to be at war for so long. ‘Don’t say such nice things to me.’
    ‘Why not, in God’s name?’ Looking perturbed that her amber eyes were awash with tears, Jake slid his hand beneath her jaw.
    ‘Because if you say nice things then I can’t stay