âTwo babies at once! Iâll never have time to go to bed!â she wailed.
Dan began to worry as reality kicked in. It would be unbelievably tough on her. Sheâd need a lot of support. Now what?
âI can be here with you from now on,â he offered, before he could stop himself.
She froze. âWhat?â
And then she looked up with such an unhappy face that he found himself saying, âI mean it, Helen. I helped get you into this. I think I ought to be here with you, whenever you need me.â
Shining eyed, she stared at him with such naked trust that it made his heart turn over.
âYouâyou mean youâre coming back to live hereâ¦now?â she breathed.
âUh-huh.â
âOh, Dan!â she sighed. She seemed to wiggle and stretch with pleasure. Whatever it was, it had a startling effect on his hungry body.
WAS her husband having an affair?
Pale with horror, Helen stood motionless in the hall, so shocked that she didnât notice the mud oozing from her sopping wet suit or the dirty puddle of water that was soaking into the new carpet.
Slowly she closed the front door, her appalled eyes fixed on the very pink, very minimal pair of briefs, resting on the first step of the stairs. She felt too scared to move, in case other intimate items of underwear decorated the rest of the stairs, which disappeared from view in a curving sweep of highly polished oak.
Helenâs heart pounded. The briefs were very feminine, and definitely not hers. It was the sort of underwear worn by well-endowed women on the front of saucy magazines. Somehow it had fetched up in her home. But how?
Grey eyes wide, she stared blankly at the ridiculous fringe that decorated the scrap of silky material. Who could own something so uncomfortable and impractical? And what was it doing there in the first place?
Suspicions crowded in on her. Too many things were adding up. She found herself almost incapable of breathing at all. Each gasp of air only increased the choking, bruised sensation in her chest.
Heck, she felt awful. With a small moan, she squeezed her eyes shut, fighting the nausea and weakness of the flu which had plagued her all morning.
Cocking her head on one side, she listened nervously for the tell-tale sounds of an orgyâor female giggles at the very least. Yet with the builders absent for the next two weeks, there was nothing to be heard except the torrential rain, mercilessly battering away at the porch roof. Was this silence good or bad?
Helen shivered and raised a shaking hand to pluck the saturated clothes away from her body. It wasnât the flu that was making her feel so wretched, but a sense of dread. It was sending icy fingers crawling over her skin and chilling her to the marrow.
The facts were beginning to frighten her. One. A sexually active female had dropped those briefs. Helen bit her lip, realising why sheâd come to that conclusion. She wasnât sexually active. She and Dan were so exhausted from working so hard that they rarely saw one another, let alone found time for making love. And so she wore practical underwear, cotton knickers not menâs magazine stuff.
Two. Sheâd been struggling to put on her wellington boots in the carâa Must Have item with all the rain theyâd had that Juneâwhen sheâd seen that the curtains of the master bedroom had been drawn, even though it was the middle of the day.
Sheâd been so startled by this that sheâd jumped out in disbelief, leaving her umbrella on the passenger seat. The torrential rain had beaten down on her unprotected head while sheâd stood looking at the window like an idiot, trying to understand what was going on.
Burglars! sheâd thought. And then sheâd grinned wryly at her wild imagination because surely burglars wouldnât bother to draw the curtains in one room only while they ransacked the house.
That had led her to fact three. Just one other person had a key to the house. Her husband. Almost in slow motion, sheâd turned to look at the barn, where Dan usually parked his car. It was a relief to see it there, rather than a burglarsâ getaway van with a burly type in a balaclava riding shotgun.
Then sheâd realised that Dan must have come home because heâd caught the same flu bug that had laid her low. That was why she had rushed to the house, recklessly scrambling over the huge lumps of soil that had been churned up by the buildersâ trucks and lorries during the renovations.
Her haste to comfort him had made her careless and sheâd fallen flat on her face in the mud, cursing the day theyâd moved into the country. Nothing new there. But of course sheâd hauled herself up, anxious to provide a bit of TLC, dreaming of cuddles by the fire and nose-blowing in unison.