Escape for New Year. Shirley Jump

baby close and brushed her cheek along the pale gold fur. The puppy turned her head and nudged her nose against Laura’s.

      “Oh, my.” Her sigh was heartfelt. “She smells so … puppyish.”

      Standing again, Sandra laughed. “Would you like me to put her aside for you?”

      “Not yet.” Bishop stepped forward.

      And Laura’s head snapped up.

      “Why not?” Hearing her own tone, more a bark, she bit her lip.

      She’d only meant that she knew this puppy was the one. They could look at a dozen more, but she would always come back to this darling. If they didn’t put something down to keep her, she’d be snapped up by someone else. She even had a name picked out.

      Looking to Sandra, Bishop rolled back his shoulders. “We’d like to discuss it.”

      “It’s a big decision,” Sandra agreed. “All the relevant information is on the website where you found me. But feel free to call if you have any questions.”

      Hating to leave, Laura kissed her puppy between her floppy ears. “You stay put, little one,” she murmured against the downy fur. “I don’t want to lose you.”

      Two minutes later they were back in the car, buckling up. So happy and anxious and excited, Laura felt as if she could burst. She gave her thighs a hyped up little drum. “She’s totally perfect, isn’t she?”

      He put on sunglasses. “She’s a cute pup.”

      “So we can get her?”

      “I’d like to be thorough. We want to make sure.”

      Laura clenched her jaw and held back a groan. Why must everything be put through the Samuel Bishop tenth degree decision sieve? For once, couldn’t he say, “Yeah. Let’s do it!”

      “I don’t care if she isn’t from a long line of champions or if she’ll need a hip replaced when she’s twelve,” she told him. “I’d want her anyway.”

      “And you wouldn’t be crushed if down the road we found out she had a problem … that we might lose her?”

      “Of course I’d be crushed. But I wouldn’t love her any less, and I wouldn’t blame anyone. I certainly wouldn’t blame you.”

      “You wouldn’t, huh?”

      “I know you want to protect me, Bishop. You don’t want anything bad to ever happen. And I love you all the more for it. We can plan and hope and dream our lives will turn out a certain way. We can care for each other and pray that nothing goes wrong. But no one’s immune. If we put ourselves out there, sometimes we’re going to get hurt. The alternative is to hide away. Wrap ourselves in cotton wool. I would never hold you back from your dreams. If you want to build Bishop Scaffolds into a multinational corporation, I’m one hundred percent behind you. If you want to sell to pursue another venture, I’ll support you there. I know you’ll support me in my dreams, too.”

      She was talking about more than buying a puppy, and he knew it.

      He searched her eyes for the longest time. She saw the battle going on inside of him. Bishop was a man who made precise moves. He needed to anticipate, to strategize and arrive at the best possible solution to advance. As a wife, his process could be frustrating; impulsiveness didn’t feature in Bishop’s personal dictionary. But he wasn’t indecisive. Quite the opposite. When he made up his mind, that conviction was set in cement. But he had to be sure … as sure as he’d been when he’d asked her to be his partner in life.

      A deep line formed between his brows as he frowned and he thought. Behind his sunglasses, he was looking deeply into her eyes, but she knew he was envisaging the future …. Her concern if the puppy developed joint problems, her misery should she be struck by a snake or get lost in the bush. He wanted to shield her from pain. That was noble. But Laura wanted to feel, to love, and if that meant a possibility she might lose, then she was prepared to accept that, too.

      He flicked a glance back at Sandra’s house and, after another long moment, nodded once.

      “It’ll be two weeks before we can collect her.”

      A yip of happiness escaped and Laura flung her arms around him. He’d agreed they should get a puppy, this puppy, but in her heart she suspected she’d broken down a wall and he was agreeing to more.

      At least she prayed that he was.

      Nine

      Bishop put a deposit down on the pup and Laura gave her furry baby another big cuddle goodbye. She spoke of little else all the way to the Darling Harbor apartment or on the way home to the Blue Mountains. Bishop couldn’t decide if he felt relieved or ridden with guilt that he’d agreed to her getting a dog.

      This time two years ago they’d had very near the same conversation. He’d stuck to his guns about checking out potential pets yet had agreed a short time later to Laura falling pregnant. He knew why he’d made that call. Laura would be able to abide by the logic behind checking out a dog’s pedigree, but despite his own reservations, in his heart he understood, now more than ever, that Laura would never forget about conceiving and having her own child. Clearly, regardless of everything they’d gone through—everything she’d gone through—Laura hadn’t put aside her deeper feelings.

      Had he been wrong to expect such a sacrifice on her part in the first place? Had his insecurities been more important than her desire to be a mother in the truest sense? He’d thought he was merely being cautious, a responsible parent-to-be, but perhaps he’d simply been selfish putting his wishes above hers.

      After he swung the Land Rover into the garage, he removed the luggage from the trunk, recalling how he’d rationalized this all the first time, when they’d been three months married. If Laura was willing to take the risk, he’d come to the conclusion that he could do little other than support her choice. It wasn’t about courage or recklessness or defeat on his part. Back then it had been about love and, initially, she’d understood that. The here and now was about seeing if there was any chance they might get that love back.

      When he’d married Laura he’d believed to his soul that she would be his wife for life. Divorce papers and living apart hadn’t changed that ingrained perception, which was only one of the reasons he would never marry again. Beneath all the murk of the breakup, behind the smoke and mirrors of her amnesia, did Laura feel the same way? Reasonably, why else would her mind wind back to this precise point in her life, in their relationship, if not for some deep desire to change the misfortune that had come before? Statistics said her memory would return over time. When it did, she could tell him whether he’d taken advantage of the situation or if this time he’d been the one who’d taken a risk that might pay off.

      When Bishop moved inside with their luggage, Laura was standing in front of the fireplace, peering up at their wedding portrait, her head tilted to one side as if something wasn’t quite right.

      While she’d chatted to Grace Saturday morning, he’d found their wedding photograph stashed at the back of a wardrobe in the adjacent guest room. His heart had thudded the entire time he’d perched atop a stepladder and rehung the print, but he had an excuse handy should she walk in. A spider’s web had spread across one corner, he’d decided to say, and he’d taken the print down to see if the culprit was living behind the frame.

      But she’d stayed on the phone a half hour and hadn’t noticed the portrait either way after that. As he watched her now, inching closer to the fireplace, examining the print as though it were a newly discovered Picasso, he considered the other discrepancies she might wonder about now that they were home again. Things that didn’t quite fit.

      He’d bat the questions back as they came and tomorrow he’d get her into a general practitioner who could give them a referral to a specialist. Until then he’d wing it and let the pieces fall as they may.

      Still engrossed in the photograph, she tapped