The Lost Wife. Maggie Cox

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      CHAPTER ONE

      SHE ran to the window when she heard the muffled engine sound of the car coming up the drive. When it pulled up in front of the cottage, the smart silver-grey SUV that belonged to her ex-husband looked like a snowmobile, blanketed in several layers of thick white frosting. And still the crystalline flakes fell relentlessly from the sky, as if poured through some divine sieve.

      The snowy display hadn’t let up all day. Ailsa would have succumbed to the magic of it if she hadn’t been so concerned about Jake returning their daughter safely home. Living in an English country idyll had lots to commend it, but when severe winter weather kicked in the hilly narrow roads could be utterly treacherous. She stood waiting with the front door open as the driver of the vehicle stepped out and walked across the snow-laden path towards her.

      It wasn’t Alain—the slim, smart-suited chauffeur she’d been expecting. Usually it was Jake’s French driver that brought Saskia home from her fortnightly trips to London to visit her father, or from the airport when Jake was working in Copenhagen and she stayed with him there. When Ailsa saw the once familiar diamond-chipped blue eyes staring back at her through the relentlessly falling snow, her heart stalled.

      ‘Hi,’ he said.

      She hadn’t seen her ex-husband face to face in a long time … not since his chauffeur had become a reliable go-between. The impact of confronting those carved, unforgettable features hadn’t lessened one iota, she discovered. He’d always had the kind of effortlessly handsome looks that guaranteed major female interest wherever he went. Even with the cruel scar that ran down his cheekbone. In truth, it made his already compelling visage utterly and disturbingly memorable—and not just because his beautiful face carried such a vivid wound. But the sight of that wound now made Ailsa’s heart pound and her stomach clench with remembered sorrow at how it had occurred.

      For a long moment she got lost in the dark cavern of memory, then realised that Jake was staring at her, waiting for her greeting. ‘Hello … it’s been a long time, Jake.’

      Even as she spoke, she was thinking he should have warned her that there’d been a change of plan.

      Her insides jolted. ‘Where’s Saskia?’

      ‘I’ve been trying to ring you all day but there’s been no damn signal! Why in God’s name you would choose to live out here in the middle of nowhere is beyond me.’

      Ignoring the irritation in his voice, which bisected her heart with knives, Ailsa pushed back her hair and crossed her arms over her thick Arran sweater. Just standing on the doorstep inside the peg-tiled porch, she was already freezing from the blast of icy air that had hit her when she’d opened the door.

      ‘Has something happened? Why isn’t Saskia with you?’ Peering over his shoulder at the snow-covered vehicle, she willed herself to see her daughter’s pretty heart-shaped face staring back at her through a window—any window so long as she was there. When she realised the car was empty the bones in her legs morphed into limp spaghetti.

      ‘That’s what I’ve been trying to call you about. She wanted to stay with her grandmother in Copenhagen for a while … she pleaded with me to let her stay until Christmas Eve. I agreed. Because she was worried that you might be upset about that I agreed to travel here myself and give you the news. I’d heard the weather was bad but I had no idea it was as grim as this.’

      His hand impatiently swept the snow from his champagne-blond hair, but the white flakes quickly settled again to render the gesture pointless. For a long moment Ailsa couldn’t summon the words to reply. Shock and disappointment rolled through her in a sickening hurtful wave as she thought of all the plans she’d made for the lead-up to Christmas Day with Saskia. The plans that now wouldn’t be materialising.

      They’d been going to make a special trip to London for shopping, then stay at a nice hotel for the night so they could go to the theatre and out to dinner. Only yesterday the Norwegian pine she’d ordered had arrived, and was standing bare and alone in the living room just waiting for the shiny baubles that would transform it into a magical seasonal emblem. Mother and daughter were going to decorate it together, with carols playing joyfully in the background either on a CD or from the radio. It was inconceivable that her beloved child wouldn’t be home again until Christmas Eve.

      In Ailsa’s mind the days leading up to that date would only serve to remind her of how lonely she could feel without the family she had once counted upon … Jake and Saskia … She’d barely got through the past week without Saskia as it was.

      ‘How could you do this to me? How? You and your mother have already had her staying with you for a week! You must know that I was counting on you bringing her back today.’

      The broad shoulders beneath the stylish black overcoat now smothered in snow shrugged laconically. ‘Would you deny our daughter the chance to be with her grandmother when she’s so recently lost my father? Saskia lifts her spirits like no other human being can.’

      Knowing her daughter’s warm, bubbly nature, Ailsa didn’t doubt her ex-husband’s words. But it didn’t make her absence any easier to bear. And underneath her frustration her heart constricted at the thought that Jake’s father was gone. The senior Jacob Larsen had been imposing, and even a little intimidating, but he had always treated her with the utmost respect. When Saskia had arrived in the world he hadn’t stinted on his praise, proclaiming his new granddaughter to be the most beautiful baby in the world.

      How sad for his son that he was gone. Their relationship had had its challenges, but there was no doubt in her mind that Jake had loved his father.

      The swirling snow that was rapidly turning into a blizzard added to her misery and distress. ‘I’m sorry you lost your dad … he was a good man. But I’ve already endured Saskia not being here for too long.