The whistle on the electric kettle went off like a siren, jolting Elena back to the present, and for a few minutes she busied herself making a small pot of tea, but the memories of the past came rushing back to the fore when she sat down at the well scrubbed wooden table with her cup of coffee in front of her.She did not think that she would ever forget the day, when she was told her grandmother had cancer. The doctor had given Lucy Landry a year to live, and, with special treatment, perhaps two or three. Elena had suddenly found herself in a position where she had to make the most difficult decision of her life. She had loved Stephan with her life, and she desperately wanted to marry him, but she could not go away with him and leave the woman who had raised her since she was six after the tragic death of her parents. Her parents had been killed by a drunk driver at a traffic intersection on their way to pick her up from her granny’s. Since then, her life changed, and Lucy became her
There was nothing strange about Stephan’s buying a farm. Many professional men possessed farms these days, and they used them as a retreat from their pressurized lives in the city, but life had in some co-incidental way guided Stephan to choose Mystic Falls to buy a farm. Why? Oh, God, why? It had to be sheer coincidence. No one would have told him where she lived; Damien would have kept her secret, and there was also no reason to suspect that Stephan would go to any great length to meet her again. Not after what she had done to him.Dear God, she had no choice! Stephan did not know that, and she wondered what his feelings were when he thought of her. If he ever thought of her.Elena changed into an old pair of jeans and a faded polo. Her headache was subsiding, and she had always found it therapeutic to work in her small garden. Barefoot, and with a dilapidated old straw hat planted firmly on her head, she went down on her knees in her flower garden to loosen the soil between the see
‘What’s happening on Sunday? She asked warily.‘You’re invited to lunch.’ His green gaze sparkled with amusement when she relaxed visibly. ‘ Rosalyn is in the mood to roast a leg of lamb, and we need someone to help us eat it.’‘Rosalyn always does a marvelous roast, and nothing on this earth is going to prevent me from sharing it with you.’ Elena smiled at him and shifted her fears and problems aside for the moment. ‘Thank you for the invitation, and tell Rosalyn that I gladly accept.’The shrill ringing of the telephone interrupted them, and Dr Cleave got up to follow Elena when she went into the waiting room to answer it.‘It’s Roxanne from the Maternity,’ she informed him with her hand over the mouthpiece. ‘ Mrs Charlotte is in the final stages of labor.’‘Tell her l’m on my way, ‘he said, striding briskly into his consulting room to collect his stethoscope and car keys.Elena passed on Dr Cleave’s message, and he had already left the building when she replaced the receiver.The r
Elena had not dared to ask herself that question during all the restless hours she had spent fretting about the possibility of meeting Stephan again, but suddenly she was startled into taking a moment to reflect on her feelings. Was she still in love with Stephan?‘I wish I could give you a precise "yes" or "no" answer, but I can’t,’ she confessed at length, rising to place her cup in the tray and walking towards the window to stare blindly across the sun-washed garden with its colorful array of shrubs and flowers.‘I knew five years ago that I had to shut him out of my life, and I’ve been working at it ever since then. I would be lying if I said I’ve never thought about him. I’ve thought about him often, but always with the knowledge that he belonged to my past, and to have him suddenly thrust into my present is something that really frightens me.’Are you afraid that you might find out that you still love him? Rosalyn asked.‘I’m not sure what I am afraid of,’ Elena replied candidly
Children played in the park alongside the municipal offices. Elena could hear the shrill, excited voices as she drove past, and she could not help wishing that she was a child again. Childhood had been such a carefree time for her, but growing up had meant facing problems, making decisions, and she had not always found solace in the conviction that she had made the right choice.Elena drove on through the quiet streets. There was no sense in speculating about what she might have done if she had to have her life again, and she sighed heavily when she finally turned off on to the narrow lane which led to the river.She reduced her speed and changed down to a low gear to drive slowly past the row of familiar cottages. She was nearing the final bend in the lane when a red, low-slung vehicle appeared as if from nowhere directly ahead of her, and it was bearing down on her at a breakneck speed. There was no time for contemplation, she had to avoid a collision, and she reacted instinctively
Elena glanced over her shoulder at the sound of that feminine voice, and her insides jolted savagely when she saw a dark-haired woman emerge from the driver’s seat of the Ferrari which had been packed a short distance away. Was this Stephan’s wife? Elena wondered as she watched the woman walk towards them in her baggy yellow trousers and equally baggy red top which had been girded in at her slender waist with a red and yellow polka-dot sash. This woman was dressed youthfully, but Elena guessed that she was not as young as she intended everyone to believe.‘Everything is under control,’ Stephan replied, and Elena was suffused with the desire to laugh out loud.Everything is under control! Oh God, if only that were true! Shock was suddenly taking its toll. Her emotions were in a frantic, unrecognizable turmoil, and she was shaking so much that she had no idea how she was going to drive the short distance to her cottage. She also had a dreadful feeling that she was going to burst into hy
Elena could not recall afterwards how she had succeeded in garaging her car without a mishap when she arrived at her cottage. She was shaken to the core, and she had entered her bedroom like an automaton to lie face-down on her bed. It had taken a long time for those terrible tremors to subside inside her, and afterwards she had been left with an uneasy feeling that she had not seen the last of Stephan Lynch. She had know that meeting him again after all this time might be an ordeal, but the shock of their near collision in the lane had shattered her calm, and it had very nearly snapped her rigid control. She forced herself to eat and drink something before she went to bed, but she slept very little that night, and she awoke the following day with a head that felt twice it’s normal size. She had wondered for weeks how she would feel if she had to see Stephan again, but when she analyzed her feelings that morning she could recall only the shock and the near-hysteria.‘You’ve been look
My grandmother died three years ago,’ Elena informed him matter-of-factly, stepping past him to walk along the concrete path to her front door, and her nerves coiled into a knot at the pit of her stomach at the knowledge that he was following her.‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ he was saying. ‘I remember her as a strong, robust woman who was seldom ill, and I find it difficult to believe that she isn’t still alive.Elena’s thoughts were chaotic to speak, and she needed those few moments to control her features as well as her erratic heart-beats while she unlocked the door, but Stephan was observing her with a faintly sardonic expression in his blue eyes when she turned to face him.May I come in, Elena?She hesitated nervously. She did not welcome the thought of being alone with him, but common sense warned that he might suspect she was afraid of him, so she pushed open the door, entering the small cottage ahead of him with a cool, ‘ You may come in, if you wish.’Elena led the way into he