Mills and Boon Christmas Joy Collection. Liz Fielding

was saying.

      He came back to the present and his frown deepened. She was talking about his wedding ring?

      “I understand you can’t wear it during the week,” she went on. “I know how you like to keep your hand in at the factory and accidents can happen. Rings can get caught. But on the weekends…” She bounced up and snatched a kiss from his cheek. “It’s only you and me.”

      Over a year ago, he’d left his wedding band here. Actually, he’d thrown it in the fireplace before he’d stomped off. He’d always imagined that she’d built a roaring fire and had happily watched the gold circle melt into a shapeless blob. So how was he supposed to assure her that he’d wear it now?

      But then her other hand came out, fist closed, palm up. When her fingers peeled back, the gold band he’d tossed into the fireplace a year ago gleamed up.

      His heart lurched up the back of his throat. Dumbfounded, he shook his head. It couldn’t be.

      Carefully, he collected the ring and inspected the inscription inside. Always and Forever.

      His voice sounded as if it’d been dragged through molasses. “Where did you find them?”

      “Where I always put them,” she said, studying both her rings and the gold band lying in the centre of her palm. “In my jewelry box.”

      His stunned gaze went from the ring to his wife’s—his ex-wife’s face. Her jewelry box? Had she dug the ring out of the fireplace after he’d gone? There was no other explanation. And yet whenever he thought about the hurt and frustration, how he’d believed every loaded word that she’d said—

      “Aren’t you going to put it on?” she asked.

      Bishop opened his mouth, ready to say no way. The divorce was done and dusted, no matter what she might think. But for the life of him, he couldn’t come up with a way out. He could hedge but what would that accomplish? Only suspicion on her part. Agitation on his.

      She’d remember soon enough. Until then…

      He gave a stilted nod, lifted his left hand and Laura held the band over his fingertip, ready to push it on. For a moment his thoughts wavered. What does it matter? Then, This has gone far enough. But then the ring pushed up over his knuckle and Laura’s eyes were sparkling all the more.

      Grace had implied this might be a second chance. The idea had seemed absurd yesterday, particularly coming from his arch nemesis. And yet this morning, being back in this house, spending the night in that bed, having this ring on his finger…

      Bishop shook himself.

      No. It was crazy. Not possible. Not happening.

      “What would you like to do today?”

      His gaze jumped from his finger to her beautiful animated face. The lilac-colored top she wore was cut tastefully but, to his current way of thinking, provocatively low.

      He swallowed deeply. “What did you have in mind?”

      “Want to teach me to play chess? You said you would.”

      He’d already taught her and she’d proven a quick study. He’d thought about letting her win a couple of times, but she was too clever to fool that way. She’d vowed that she’d beat him fair and square one day. If they sat down at that chessboard now, would she remember the moves he’d taught her, or had that part of her memory been wiped clean, too?

      He ushered her into his office, to the chess set he’d left behind. “What do you know about the game?”

      “There are bishops.”

      He gave a soft laugh. “Right.”

      “White moves first.”

      “Right again.”

      Maybe she did subconsciously remember their lessons, which, most likely, meant she would remember more. And that was good, right?

      He twirled that band around his finger—still a perfect fit—and sat behind the black. She took the chair behind the white.

      He tapped the piece sitting directly in front of the black king. “This is a pawn.”

      “They move one space at a time.”

      “Only forward.”

      “Except when taking a piece, then they move diagonally.”

      “Perhaps we should do away with the lesson and start a game.”

      She laughed and the sound tinkled through him. “Oh, Bishop, everyone knows that.”

      “What else do you know?”

      “I know the castle—”

      “Rook.”

      “—gets to move across and up and down. That the horse is the prettiest piece and the queen is the most powerful.”

      He relaxed back in his seat. That was more like it. “That doesn’t sound very technical.”

      “Tell me…is it as difficult to play as everyone says?”

      “Only if you can’t guess the other person’s move before they make it.”

      He knew what came next in their game…every step, every misfire, after she’d let him know she’d changed her mind and wanted to conceive their own child, irrespective of any health concerns.

      No matter the challenge he’d met it head-on, strategized, worked out the kinks and had always stayed one step ahead. Except where their marriage had been concerned. And that black mark had always stung. Always would.

      Unless…

      Puzzled, Laura was looking over the board. “Know the person’s move before they make it? How are you supposed to do that?”

      He shaped two fingers down the sides of the black queen. “By skill,” he said, “and luck. And sometimes even by accident.”

      When Bishop had to take a phone call midway through their first chess lesson, Laura decided to stretch her legs. She headed off to the kitchen, poured a drink and told herself that getting a handle on the basics of the game shouldn’t be too difficult. And once she was up to speed, no doubt Bishop would enjoy the competition.

      She’d spent time playing cards whenever she’d been in the hospital in the cardio ward—sometimes with the nurses if she couldn’t sleep, more often with the other kids. But, before yesterday’s incident, she hadn’t spent time in a hospital bed in years. She’d had a defibrillator fitted and was on a low dosage medication, which kept her well.

      The condition had been passed on through her mother’s side. An aunt had died unexpectedly in her teens and that’s when the family had been tested and the condition diagnosed. But Laura suspected that Bishop’s own family history had as much, if not more, to do with his pro-adoption stand.

      He’d been the twin who’d survived and she didn’t need to ask if he felt guilty about it. Bishop had told her briefly about the story surrounding his birth and the subsequent death of his baby brother. When she’d tried to delve deeper, he’d withdrawn, other than to say he’d heard enough about it from his parents growing up. Laura had envisaged a boy fighting not to be overshadowed by his mother’s and father’s ongoing grief. But Arlene and George Bishop had seemed pleasant enough, even welcoming, at their wedding. They’d said how proud they were of their only son and that they wished they lived closer; they’d moved clear across the country to Perth five years ago. But they intended to keep in touch and had asked that the newlyweds do the same. Laura got the impression there wasn’t so much of a rift between parents and son as a gradual drifting apart that had, over time, come to be accepted.

      Conversely, she and Grace had been so very close, to each other and to their parents. The sisters were devastated when first their father had died in a vehicle accident then cancer had taken their mum—a melanoma discovered too late. But as much as the sisters still