Secret Baby, Surprise Parents

But nothing he had done, nothing he had achieved, not even a hastily conceived and swiftly regretted marriage, had ever dulled the memory of that one night they’d spent together and still, in his dreams, his younger self reached out for her.

It had been unbearably worse during the last twelve months. Sleep had been elusive and when he did manage an hour he woke with an almost desperate yearning for something precious, something that was lost for ever.

This. This woman clinging to him, this child…

He brushed his lips against her temple and then, his head full of the warm, milky scent of baby, he kissed Posie and for one perfect moment all the pain, all the agony of the last twenty-four hours fell away.

Grace floated towards consciousness in slow, confused stages. She had no idea where she was, or why there was a weight against her shoulder, pinning her down. Why Michael was there, watching her. Knowing on some untapped level of consciousness that it couldn’t be him.

Then, as she slowly, unwillingly surfaced, he said her name. Just that.

‘Grace…’

Exactly as he had once, years and years ago, before gathering her up in his arms. And she knew that it wasn’t Michael, it was Josh. Josh who had his arms around her, was holding her as if he’d never let her go. A rerun of every dream she’d had since he’d walked out of her life, gone away ten years ago without a word, leaving a vast, gaping hole in her world. And she clung to him, needing the comfort of his physical closeness. Just needing him.

She felt the touch of his lips against her hair as he kissed her. The warmth of his mouth, his breath against her temple. And then she was looking up at him and he was kissing her as he had done every night of her life in dreams that gave her no peace.

There was the same shocked surprise that had them drawing back to stare at one another ten years ago, as if suddenly everything made sense, before they had come together with a sudden desperate urgency, his mouth branding her as his own, the heat of their passion fusing them forever as one. A heat that had been followed by ten years of ice….

Now, as then, it was the only thing in the world that she wanted.

It was so long since he’d held her.

Not since he’d left her sleeping. Gone away without a word. No, ‘wait for me’. Nothing to give her hope that he’d return for her. Not even a simple goodbye.

He had come back, of course, full of what he’d seen, done, his plans. Always cutting his visits short, impatient to be somewhere else, with someone else.

But she’d never let her guard down again, had never let him see how much he’d hurt her, never let him get that close again. She’d avoided the hugs and kisses so freely bestowed on the prodigal on his increasingly rare visits home, keeping away until all the excitement was over. Making sure she had a date for the celebratory family dinner that had always been a feature of his homecoming—because there had always been some new achievement to celebrate. His own company. His first international contract. His marriage…

Yet now, weakly, she clung to him, drinking in the tender touch of his lips, the never-to-be-forgotten scent of his skin.

Needing him as he’d never needed her. Knowing that even now, in his grief, he would be self-contained, in control, his head somewhere else.

He was holding her now, not because he needed comfort, but because he knew that she did. Just as she had all those years ago.

He’d hold her, kiss her, lie with her even if that was what she wanted. It was how men gave closeness, comfort to women.

That was all it had ever been, even then. When, after years of keeping her feelings to herself, doing a pretty good job of being the teasing friend who criticised his choice in clothes, girls, music, she’d finally broken down the night before he’d gone away—not to university this time, or on some backpacking gap year adventure with his friends—but to the other side of the world to start a new life.

Distraught, unable to express her loss in mere words, she’d thrown herself at him and maybe, facing the risk of the unknown, he’d been feeling a little uncertain, too.

She didn’t blame him for taking what she’d so freely offered, so freely given. It was what she had wanted, after all. Had always wanted. Her mistake had been in believing that once he understood that, he’d stay.

He couldn’t do it then and he wouldn’t now.

He’d comfort her. He’d deal with the legal stuff and then, once everything had been settled, made tidy, the tears dried away, he’d fly off to Sydney or Hong Kong, China or South America. Wherever the life he’d made for himself out there in the big wide world took him. He’d go without a backward glance.

Leave her without a backward glance.

At eighteen she’d been so sure she could change him, that once she’d shown him how much she loved him he would never leave her.

At twenty-eight she knew better and, gathering herself, she pulled back, straightened legs that, curled up beneath her, had gone to sleep so that Josh was forced to move, sit back on his heels.

But, try as she might, she couldn’t look away.

It was as if she were seeing him for the first time in years. Maybe she was. Or maybe she was looking at him for the first time in years instead of just glancing at him as if he was someone to be remembered only when he passed through on his way to somewhere else, forgotten again the minute he was out of sight.

She’d perfected that glance over the years.

Now she was really looking at him.

He seemed to have grown, she thought. Not physically. He’d always been a larger-than-life figure. Clever, with a touch of recklessness that lent an edge to everything he did, he’d not only dominated the school sports field but stood head and shoulders above the crowd academically, too.

He’d had those broad shoulders even then, but he’d grown harder over the years and these days he carried himself with the confidence of a man who’d taken on the world and won. And the close-clipped beard that darkened his cheeks—new since his last brief, terrible visit—added an edge of strangeness to a face that had once been as familiar to her as her own.

But this Josh Kingsley was a stranger.

She’d known him—or thought she had—and for one shining moment he had been entirely hers. But dawn had come and she’d woken alone, her illusions shattered beyond repair.

Older, wiser, she understood why he’d gone. That it had been the only thing he could do because if he’d stayed ten years ago, he would, sooner or later, have blamed her for his lost dreams. It was so easy for love to turn to hate. And nothing had changed.

He was home now, but once everything was settled, tidied away, he’d go away again because Maybridge was—always had been—too small for Josh Kingsley.

CHAPTER TWO

‘GRACE,’ he said, repeating her name. Calling her back from her thoughts, her memories. That was all. Just her name. Well, what else could he say? That he was sorry about his last visit? Sorry he’d got it all so wrong?

It was far too late for that and, without warning, she found herself wanting to slap him, yell at him for being such a fool. For staying away when coming home would have made his brother so happy. When it would have meant something.

‘Where were you?’ she demanded.

Josh shook his head. ‘In the mountains. Everest. I was so close that I took a few days to go to a place with no work, no phone…’

He looked so desolate that she wanted to reach out and gather him close. Comfort him. Instead, she turned to the baby at her shoulder, kissed her precious head.

How two brothers could be so different—one gentle, caring, the other so completely cut off from emotional involvement—was a total mystery to her and falling in love with him had been the biggest mistake of her life. But, too young to know better, how could she have done anything else?

He had been her white knight.

Fourteen years old, in a strange town, faced with yet another school—when school had only ever been a place of torment—it could have been, would have been a nightmare if Josh hadn’t ridden to her rescue that first terrifying day.

He’d seen her fear and, by the simple action of tossing her a spare crash helmet and taking her into school on the back of his motorbike, he’d turned her life around. He’d made everything all right by giving her instant street cred, an immediate ‘in’ with the cool girls in her class, who’d all wanted to know Josh Kingsley. And with the cool guys, who’d wanted to be him. At this school there had been no shortage of girls who’d wanted to be her friend.

Not that she’d been stupid enough to believe that she was the attraction.

She’d known it was Josh they all wanted to be near, but that had never bothered her. Why would it when she’d understood exactly how they felt? Not that she had worn her heart on her sleeve. A ride was one thing, but a sixth-form god like Josh Kingsley was never going to stoop to taking a fourth-year girl to a school dance.

She’s almost felt sorry for the girls he did date. Each one had thought that her dreams had come true, but she’d known better. He’d shared his dreams with her and she’d always known that he couldn’t wait to escape the small-town confines of Maybridge. Discover the life waiting for him beyond the horizon.