Chapter 38 - Love is a strange thing.

Louisa's heart skipped a beat, she hardly believed what happened to her! Kissed in public by her husband! Holidays certainly have a positive effect on him, flashed through her mind. Before Martin could start to think that he did something wrong, she leaned in to him and threw her arms around his neck and answered his kiss passionately.

Martin pulled her even more closely to him, when Louisa looked up into his adoring eyes and said,

' I love you too, Martin!'

They stayed embraced for a few moments, quietly enjoying each other's presence, the large deserted beach and the continous rythmic sound of the waves breaking on the sand. Each wave brought new shells upon the shore and took others back to the sea. Martin and Louisa didn't exchange further words at that moment.

Louisa looked around and smiled. She had called it a public space, but at this rather early moment of the day, there was nobody else.

Reluctantly, Martin let her go. They were about an hour away from their cottage now. They could see a building near the dunes that seemed to be about another mile away. Martin asked

'Do you want to continue through the next beach restaurant over there, or do you want to go back to the cottage?'

Louisa took the last option. She didn't want to interrupt the good harmony between them. Exposing Martin to a strange environment with the chance that any local would choke in a piece of meat or just simply spoil Martin's good humour by presenting them food that wouldn't meet his standards of hygiene or caloric value didn't seem to be a good idea. Not today, where he seemed so relaxed. So even if she was tired, she preferred going back to the cottage strait away.

So Martin turned the beach wagon with the still peacefully sleeping todler and they headed back to Wijk aan zee.

Oblivious to the thoughts Martin had had on their way to this turning point and inspired by Martin's kiss on the beach, Louisa's own thoughts meandered in a similar direction.

What on earth made her deserve his unconditional adoration? It couldn't have been their first meeting in the plane from London to Newquay, when at a certain moment she had hissed to him "you've got a problem!", because he was staring at her and she took him for a pervert,

in stead of recognizing who he really was, the candidate for the job as the new GP of Portwenn. Someone who appeared to be a brilliant diagnostician able to diagnose an accute glaucoma whitout even using a medical torch... She preferred not to think too much about that interview. She had made it particularly difficult for him. And after that, in his first years in Portwenn, she didn't help him much to get integrated into the community. She srealized that in some situations, she made it even worse for him. In such situations, she was really spiky and hard to him. Of course, in most of the moments they were about to come closer to eachother, there was always something that spoiled that moment.. Someone who interfered or an emergency he had to attend to. But if she was really honest with herself, she let that happen sometimes unnecessarely. Like with the Oakwoods. That was really stupid, she could have told them to go away and to bother the people across the street. Who knows what would have happened if she'd kept them out. She blushed at the thought.

Yet, Martin had never been bothered by her unkind behaviour. As he told her once, he had tried to get a glimpse of her wherever he went in the village and whatever occasion brought them in the same place. She believed that now, he still looked at her with this longing gaze when he thought she didn't see it, always.

Love was a strange thing. Despite their different upbringing. His being posh, expensive, but totally unloved and her's... Well she didn't even have much of an upbringing. At the age of ten, she was all alone taking care of the household, always trying to knot the ends of two. One could say that money was never a problem, there was never any, so way making a fuss of it. They couldn't even afford a school uniform that fitted. Meaning that she had to go to school in a uniform that was either too way big or far to small.

And to be honest, her parents didn't do much better than Martin's when it concerned love and child care. Her's were most of the time having rows or just selfishly busy with their own things, like gambling in the pub, or daydreaming about opening a lobster restaurant in Spain. Leaving Louisa at home, looking after herself.

Would that have made her the person she was now? Always wishing everything to be normal? Wishing to have a normal, sociable GP with good bedside manners as a husband? And a perfectly normal baby, theething at the right moment, starting to crawl at the right moment and so on? Was that the reason why she always worried when James started things like theething later than what was considered to be normal for his age?

Would that have made her so insecure and uncertain of important choices? She thought so.

She always tried to hide that behind a mask, pretending to be the all knowing woman of the world. Most of the villagers considered her as a person who knew what she wanted, who organised things to the perfection and who helped everybody solve problems of any kind. Someone who stood her ground. But deep down, she sometimes still felt like the ten year old shy girl left alone by her parents, not knowing what to choose or what to do.

She had come to the conclusion that that was why she was always so fascinated by anything Martin would do in situations where he had to solve a medical problem or an emergency. That was what attracted her in Martin: he was so self conscious and so sure about which actions to take at those moments. It made her aware of the fact that she could always rely on him. That thought made her feel happy and it made her love him even more. She remembered Morwenna's question and the discussion that followed on the fact that she started to stand up for him, no matter how rude or blunt he had been. She had explained that once she realized that, she knew that she loved him, unconditionally and for ever.

That didn't answer the question why he would love her. Was it the way she cared about people? More in particular, the way she cared about children? Their son? Except for the few summers spent in Portwenn with Auntie Joan and his uncle Phil, he had never experienced warm caring love that every child needs. So yes, that must have been one of the reasons. He obviously had thought about her competences as a mother before they were a couple. Oherwise his words 'You'll make a lovely mother' wouldn't have slipped of his tongue, on the day he diagnozed Sam Oakwood with tuberculosis... Well anyway, whatever his other reasons were, she felt really happy that he really started to communicate with her and showed her that he loved her. It didn't matter that he didn't do that with much words. A hug, a kiss, his thumb striking her cheek said so much more than words. She didn't a normal person, she realized that now..

'Louisa, are you OK? Is something bothering you?'

Martin interrupted the flow of thoughts running through her mind, but it was fine. Louisa looked at him and gave him one of her smiles. Then she said,

'I am fine Martin. Look, James is awake. I suggest we take a rest and give him something to drink. And maybe give him the opportunity to move a bit, crawl along the beach and let him play a while, what do you think?'

'Hmm', he grumbled, but gave in. After all, she was right, the boy should start to use some of his muscles and they, especially Louisa, could use some rest.

James was really happy that his father lifted him from the beach wagon. Louisa spread out the blanket on the dry sand and sat down on it, bidding Martin to join her. He was glad that he had put the casual clothes on. He had to admit, it was much more comfortable in situations like this. Louisa handed him the sipcup with special fruit juice for babies and he helped his son, who appeared to be really thirsty. Louisa and Martin shared a bottle of fresh water that Louisa had also packed in the nappybag. Martin lifted James from his lap and put him down in the sand. Louisa gave him some plastic sandmolds to play with. He was too young to understand what to do with it, but clacking them together and scooping dry sand in them was really funny.

'It surprises me that he doesn't eat the sand', Martin said somewhat sarcastically.

'Don't forget that Mike took him to the beach nearly every day. Given his preference for order and regularity, he probably wouldn't allow James to eat sand...', Louisa replied, stroking Martin's sleeve.

Louisa crept close to Martin, using his firm body as a support for her back. He pulled her closer to make it even more comfortable for her. He stroke her cheek softly, but kept his eyes focussed on James.

'James is lucky to have you as his mother, you know that? You always know what's best for him. He'll probably think of me that I'm a lousy father, not able of doing things other fathers do... Playing football...or even worse.. Windsurfing...' Martin's face showed a deep frown.

'Nonsense Martin, I told you before that you are a wonderful father. You'll probably not yell alongside the football field when he is playing, but who cares? Fathers that do so, usually yell ugly things most of the time anyway! And indeed, maybe you won't go windsurfing with him'. She inwardly smiled at the idea.

'But you read to him and you'll teach him everything you know.. take him to beautiful countries like this..look for fossiles and then explain everything about them. You can't count the number of times I dreamed about a daddy like that!'

She sat upright and gave him a kiss. As another couple passed by exactly at that moment, Martin blushed and hissed

'Louisa, not in public!'

Louisa giggled and somehow felt a bit relieved. Her husband, the one and only person she could always rely on, behaved like his usual grumpy self again!

James, that 'enfant terrible', crawled towards them, pulled himself up by grabbing his daddy's pullover with his chubby, now very sandy hands, and gave his father a baby hug, leaving a trail of drool on his father's sleeves and giggling out loud, just like his mummy..

The sight of it was too much for Louisa, she laughed out loud and then put her arms around both father and son. Martin, who didn't want to loose his balance, couldn't do anything else then firmly put his arms around both of them. The passing couple looked back at the sound of Louisa's and James's laughs. The woman saw what looked like a big family hug, smiled and said 'look what a happy little family!'

What the woman didn't see was Martin's deep frown...

To be continued.