The Far Side of Paradise (20 page)

Relations with his mother were still strained. She’d made her wheelchair the reason for not attending their wedding, and she wouldn’t stay with them or visit them in the house they’d bought in Buckinghamshire, but Taryn hoped that time would ease Isabel Cooper’s reservations.

‘Our darling daughter is going to have your nose,’ Taryn said happily, turning so Cade could look at the baby’s face. ‘It’s stopped being snub and is turning into a definite aquiline.’

He laughed, scooping the baby from her arms. ‘My poor little treasure,’ he said in the voice he reserved for
his daughter. ‘Not that it isn’t a perfectly efficient nose, but it’s going to look a trifle odd in that beautiful face you’ve inherited from your mother.’

‘It will give it character,’ Taryn said firmly.

He laid the baby in her crib and came across and kissed his wife. ‘My mother is coming up to London next week and asked if she could stay here a couple of nights,’ he said, watching her keenly.

Elation filled her. ‘I’m glad,’ she said, hugging him. ‘It’s the first step, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, I think so,’ he said without hesitation. ‘She knows you a little better now, and she’s accepted that whatever happened between you and Peter was not your fault.’

‘I’m so glad.’ It seemed inadequate to describe the relief she felt, but a glance at his face told her he understood.

He said, ‘She’d been worried about him for some time, but he wouldn’t confide in her. And she suspected drugs—that you might have introduced him to them. But when it came out at the trial that he’d been sleeping with that Brown woman, she accepted that your reaction to Peter’s proposal wasn’t as cruel as it seemed.’

Andrée Brown and the man who’d supplied her with drugs were both in prison.

Taryn glanced across at the sleeping baby. ‘Even if we take Teresa to see my parents often, a child needs at least one grandparent close by. And your mother made such a brilliant job with you, I’m sure she can teach me a lot.’

He laughed and kissed her again, and they left the nursery for their own room. As he started to change out of his business clothes, Cade said, ‘Ready for next week?’

‘Just about,’ she said cheerfully.

Next week they were visiting her parents in Vanuatu. It would be the first time they’d seen their granddaughter, and she was excited.

‘I thought you might like to drop in on the Chapmans,’ he said. ‘They’ve offered us the
fale
in Fala’isi.’

Where they’d first made love, where they’d married and spent their honeymoon …

‘Lovely,’ Taryn said, and hugged him exuberantly. Happiness expanded inside her, filling her with delight, but she said a little wistfully, ‘It’s a pity everyone can’t have an ending like ours, isn’t it.’

‘Happy ever after?’ he teased. ‘My romantic love … ‘

‘Only it’s not an ending, is it,’ she said soberly. ‘It’s a series of beginnings too, and they won’t all be happy ones.’

‘We’ll deal with anything.’ They exchanged a long look, one of perfect trust.

Heart swelling, Taryn nodded. ‘Yes,’ she said, smiling at his beloved arrogant face with perfect confidence. ‘Whatever happens, we’ll cope because we love each other. It really
is
that simple.’