Sarah Morgan - Brides of Penhally Bay - Vol 1

‘So why not tell me, then?’ he said, his voice softening. ‘Why, in all these months, didn’t you tell me that I’m going to be a father?’

‘I was going to,’ she said, her voice little more than a whisper. ‘But after everything—I didn’t know how to. It’s just all so difficult…’

‘But it is mine.’

She nodded, her hair falling over her face and obscuring it from him. ‘Yes. Yes, it’s yours.’

His heart soared, and for a ridiculous moment he felt like punching the air, but then he pulled himself together. Plenty of time for that later, once he’d got all the facts. Down to the nitty-gritty, he thought, and asked the question that came to the top of the heap.

‘Does your father know it’s mine?’

She shook her head, and he winced. ‘So—when’s it due?’

‘The end of January.’

‘So you’re—’

‘Thirty weeks. And two days.’

He nodded. That made sense, but there was another question that needed answering. ‘You told me you were on the Pill.’

She bent her head. ‘I was, but because it was only to regulate my periods I probably hadn’t been as punctual all the time as I should have been. I used to take it in the morning, but I didn’t remember till the Tuesday, by then it was too late.’ Because she’d been crying since the moment she’d closed her front door behind her on Sunday morning and retreated into the sanctuary of her little home, wearing his shirt day and night until she’d had to take it off to shower and dress to come to work after the bank holiday, and then she’d found the pills…

‘So why not take the morning-after pill just to be safe?’

Why not, indeed? She shook her head. ‘I didn’t have any, and by the time I was able to get them from the pharmacy it would have been too late. And anyway, I thought I was safe,’ she told him, and wondered, as she’d wondered over and over again, if there’d been a little bit of her that had secretly wanted to have his baby. And when her periods had continued for the next two months, she’d put it out of her mind.

Not for long, though. Eventually it had dawned on her that things were different, that the lighter-than-usual periods had been due to the hormones, and she’d kept it a secret as long as she could. Eventually, though, the changes to her body had become obvious, and her father had been shocked and then bossily supportive.

And he hadn’t asked about the father, not once she’d told him that he was out of her life for good and she didn’t want to think about him any more. Not that she had wanted Ben out of her life, but he was, to her sorrow and regret, and she didn’t want to think about him any more. She’d been sick of crying herself to sleep, missing him endlessly, wishing he could be with her and share this amazing and fantastic thing that was happening to her body.

Her stomach rumbled, and she gave the biscuits a disinterested glance. OK, she could eat them, but she really, really wanted something healthy, and if Dragan was held up…

‘Have you had lunch?’ she said suddenly.

‘ Lunch? ’ he said, his tone disbelieving. ‘No. I got held up in Resus. There wasn’t time.’

‘Fancy coming back to my house and having something to eat? Dragan can ring when he’s on his way back and we can meet him here. Only I’m starving, and I’m trying to eat properly, and biscuits and cakes and rubbish like that just won’t cut the mustard.’

‘Sounds good,’ he said, not in the least bit hungry but desperate to be away from there and somewhere private while he assimilated this stunning bit of news.

She opened the door, grabbed her coat out of the staffroom as they passed it and led him down the stairs. ‘Kate, we’re going to get some lunch. Can you get Dragan to ring me when he’s back?’

‘Sure,’ Kate said, and if Lucy hadn’t thought she was being paranoid, she would have sworn Kate gave her and Ben a curiously speculative look.

No. She couldn’t have guessed. It had been months since she’d seen them together.

Six months, one week and two days, to be exact. And Kate, before she’d become practice manager, had been a midwife.

Damn.

They walked to her flat, along Harbour Road and up Bridge Street, the road that ran alongside the river and up out of the old town towards St Piran, the road he’d come in on. It was over a gift shop, in a steep little terrace typical of Cornish coastal towns and villages, and he wondered how she’d manage when she’d had the baby.

Not here, was the answer, especially when she led him through a door into a narrow little hallway and up the precipitous stairs to her flat. ‘Make yourself at home, I’ll find some food,’ she said, a little breathless after her climb, and left him in the small living room. If he got close to the window he could see the sea, but apart from that it had no real charm. It was homely, though, and comfortable, and he wandered round it, picking up things and putting them down, measuring her life.

A book on pregnancy, a mother-and-baby magazine, a book of names, lying in a neat pile on the end of an old leather trunk in front of the sofa. More books in a bookcase, a cosy fleece blanket draped over the arm of the sofa, some flowers in a vase lending a little cheer.

He could see her through the kitchen door, pottering about and making sandwiches, and he went and propped himself in the doorway and watched her.

‘I’d offer to help, but the room’s too small for three of us,’ he murmured, and she gave him a slightly nervous smile.

Why nervous? he wondered, and then realised that of course she was nervous. She had no idea what his attitude would be, whether he’d be pleased or angry, if he’d want to be involved in his child’s life—any of it.

When he’d worked it out himself, he’d tell her. The only thing he did know, absolutely with total certainty, was that if, as she had said, this baby was his, he was going to be a part of its life for ever.

And that was non-negotiable.

What on earth was she supposed to say to him?

She had no idea, and didn’t know how it could be so hard. When they’d worked together, he’d been so easy to talk to, such a good friend, and they’d never had any tension between them. Well, that was a lie, but not this sort of tension.

The other sort, yes—the sort that had got her in this mess.

No. Not a mess. Her baby wasn’t a mess, and she wasn’t ever going to think of it as one.

She put the sandwiches on plates, put the plates on a tray with their two cups of tea and carried them through to her little living room. ‘Sit down, Ben, you’re cluttering the place up,’ she said softly, and with a rueful little huff of laughter he sat, angled slightly towards her so he could study her.

Which he did, with that disconcertingly piercing gaze, the entire time she was eating her sandwich.

‘We could get married,’ he said out of the blue, and she choked on a crumb and started to cough. He took the plate and rubbed her back, but she flapped him away, standing up and going into the kitchen to get a glass of water.

And when she turned he was right behind her, so close that she brushed against him, her bump making firm and intimate contact with his body. For a moment he froze, and then his eyes dropped and he lifted a hand and then glanced back up at her, as if he was asking her permission.

She swallowed slowly and nodded, and he laid his hand oh, so tenderly over the taut curve that was his child. Something fierce and primitive flickered in his eyes, and then he closed them, and as the baby shifted and stretched she watched a muscle jump in his jaw.

His hand moved, the softest caress, and he opened his eyes, lifted his head and met her eyes.

‘I felt it move,’ he said, and there was wonder in his voice, and joy, and pride.