Now or Never. PENNY JORDAN

was much less than it actually was. She had been in her mid-forties then, and had Oliver been speaking the truth when he had claimed to be in his late thirties she could just about have persuaded herself that the difference between them was acceptable.

      Had she known then just how great it was she would never, ever have allowed a relationship to develop between them.

      ‘He’s how old?’ Nicki had demanded in disbelief when Maggie had finally, at Oliver’s insistence, told her friends about him.

      She had to admit that once they had got over their shock her friends had been very supportive.

      As she remembered that conversation a small secret smile curved Maggie’s mouth. They had teased her a little, asking her if it was true what was said about the sex between an older woman and a younger man, and mock primly she had refused to either encourage or answer them.

      They had laughed at her, of course, and she had laughed with them, knowing, as Nicki had openly told her, that the air of suppressed sensuality that surrounded her told its own story.

      ‘You positively glow with it,’ Nicki had remarked ruefully.

      ‘You were the same when you first met Kit!’ Maggie had reminded her friend.

      Suddenly Maggie longed to be able to talk to her friends. She, Nicki, Alice and Stella had been friends since their schooldays and their regular once-a-month evening out together to share a meal, a bottle of wine and their hopes and fears was so sacrosanct that only births and deaths had been allowed to interrupt them.

      Oliver had nicknamed them ‘The Club’ or sometimes ‘The Coven’, claiming that between the four of them they had both the talents and the power to make magic, and that she, his wonderful, wise, wicked Maggie, was the witchiest of all of them.

      The girls, her friends, Maggie knew, would understand all the things she had not been able to bring herself to admit to them before. All those feelings and fears she had experienced when, soon after her fortieth birthday, her doctor had had to explain that the cause of the health problems she had been suffering was the onset of a premature menopause. Nothing had prepared Maggie for the realisation that nature was closing certain doors against her; that shockingly an era of her life she had somehow believed would last for ever was over; or for the despair and anguish that realisation had so unexpectedly and uncontrollably brought her.

      At the time she had been too overwhelmed by her own feelings to admit them to anyone. But she could admit to them now just how awesomely miraculous it was for her that, because of Oliver, she had found a way to halt nature in its tracks. To snatch from its closing, grinding jaws that which it was relentlessly taking from her.

      Motherhood. She had told herself when she and Dan had split up that it just wasn’t meant to be for her, and she had believed truly that she had accepted that situation. It had taken Oliver to show her just how much she had lied to herself. And how very much a part of her still ached for that fulfilment. Why had she never realised until it had been all but too late just how important, how elemental, how essential such an experience would be to her?

      Silently Oliver watched her. Why couldn’t she accept that the difference in their ages meant nothing to him; that he loved her as she was and for what she was?

      He truly believed that in spirit Maggie was far younger than he was himself; she had the enthusiasm for life of a young girl and a rare kind of physical beauty that would never age.

      He had always been drawn to older women. He liked their emotional maturity; he felt at ease with them.

      Maggie’s achievements filled him with pride for her; he loved being able to claim her as his partner and he knew she was going to be a wonderful mother.

      Oliver loved children. And he loved even more knowing that Maggie was going to have his child … their child.

      So she was over fifty. What did that mean? Nothing as far as he was concerned! The specialist at the clinic had agreed with him that Maggie was in perfect health; he had even offered the information that had Maggie not experienced an early menopause she could have become pregnant naturally and that it was not unusual for women of her age to do so.

      ‘Maggie,’ he begged her now. ‘Please don’t make age an issue between us.’

      ‘I’m old enough to be your mother, never mind this baby’s!’ Maggie couldn’t help reminding him.

      ‘And I’m old enough to know that you are my love, the love of my life,’ Oliver told her softly.

      Cupping her face in his hands, he added, ‘I have waited for you a long time, Maggie. You are everything to me. You and our baby.’

      The tenderness with which he kissed her made Maggie’s throat ache with emotion.

      She had loved Dan passionately, too passionately and too intensely perhaps, but it was Oliver who had shown her just what a generous gift love could be.

      Here in the shared darkness of the bed as he drew her down against his side there was no age gap between them; here they were equals, partners, lovers.

      2

      ‘Alice, it’s Nicki. I’m just ringing to check that you’re still okay for tomorrow night?’

      Tucking the telephone receiver into her shoulder, Alice Palmer deftly retrieved the small toy the elder of her two small grandsons was trying to push into the ear of the younger.

      ‘Yes. I’m fine. Do you want me to ring Stella to make sure she’s still going?’ she volunteered.

      ‘If you would.’

      ‘I expect you’ve already spoken to Maggie?’

      ‘Yes. Yes, I have.’

      It was an accepted fact amongst the four of them that Maggie and Nicki shared an extra-special closeness, so Alice frowned as she registered the unexpected constraint in Nicki’s voice.

      ‘Nothing’s wrong, is it? Maggie’s okay, isn’t she?’ she asked in concern. ‘I mean, everything’s all right with her and Oliver?’

      ‘Oh, yes, they’re still totally besotted with one another,’ Nicki Young answered her wryly. Alice laughed.

      ‘Stella was saying the other day that it’s not so much that Maggie is behaving as though she’s still a young girl that makes her feel old, as the fact that she can actually get away with it!’

      ‘Well, I dare say a good helping of the right kind of genes, a size eight figure, and the kind of glow a woman gets from regular helpings of orgasmic sex have something to do with it, although in all fairness Maggie has always looked young.’

      ‘Mmm … well, you’re looking pretty good yourself,’ Alice told Nicki, adding ruefully, ‘I am at least ten pounds overweight, and Zoë refuses to believe that I could ever possibly have had a twenty-four inch waist. Actually what she said was, “Mother, are you sure you aren’t losing your memory along with your waistline?”

      ‘Being slightly plump suits you, Alice,’ Nicki offered comfortingly. ‘It makes you look …’

      ‘Grandmotherly?’ Alice supplied dryly. On the other end of the line she could hear Nicki laughing.

      ‘I’ve got to forewarn you that Maggie has some news … something she wants to tell us when we are all together. Whatever it is, she’s obviously very excited about it.’

      There was a note in her voice that Alice couldn’t identify. Nicki had always been the calmest of all of them, careful both with her opinions and her emotions. Unlike Maggie, who was always so wildly passionate about everything.

      ‘Perhaps she and Oliver have decided to get married,’ Alice suggested, hopefully.

      ‘I don’t know. She said that there was no point in me asking her any questions because she wasn’t going to say another word until we’re all together. Which reminds me, I’ve booked us into that new place that’s