She pretended not to have heard, in case commenting on the admission embarrassed Lady Josephine. ‘I’ll bring your dinner up on a tray,’ she said. ‘Maybe some for both of us. And, after that, maybe we could have a game of Scrabble?’
Lady Josephine caught her gaze then and her voice was much stronger. ‘I knew you were brave the first time I met you. Feisty. I liked that about you right from the start.’ Her smile softened her face so that she looked like a very different woman from the one Flick had first met. ‘You’ve changed something in this house,’ she added. ‘You’ve brought life back into it. Even some music and dancing and I don’t want to lose that again. I want Lachlan to forgive me one day. Do you think that might be even possible?’
‘He loves you,’ Flick told her. ‘That’s why it hurt so much to be told he hadn’t been wanted. But, I also think, if you love someone enough, then anything’s possible.’
It was probably the thing that Lady Josephine had said that she might not have intended to have been overheard that punctured the safe, numb cocoon Flick had wrapped around her heart.
I’m lonely...
The words came back in the middle of another sleepless night to echo in the silence of her room. More than echo—they resonated deep within Flick because she was lonely too. She had been ever since she’d lost Patrick but she’d never stayed still long enough to let herself think about it. She’d run away from the realisation just as effectively as she’d run from getting involved with someone. And, okay, she’d talked to Julia today about moving on from this position in the McKendry household but she couldn’t run this time, could she?
Her hand moved to lie gently on top of her belly.
How could she run when she’d be taking something so precious away from someone she cared about so much?
There was nothing more precious than a baby.
A new life.
Something to live for.
Tears were streaming down Flick’s cheeks now. If nothing else, Lachlan had the right to know that he was going to be a father. That, even if he didn’t win this battle, there was a part of him who would still be in the world. Being cherished.
But, oh...the pain that was seeping in as the numbness lifted was unbearable. She’d have to pull herself together before she went to see Lachlan. He had more than enough to deal with without her making things worse.
Without knowing she was doing it, Mrs Tillman backed her up.
‘The world hasn’t ended, lovey,’ she told Flick the next morning as she put a cup of coffee in front of her. ‘Goodness me, I think Lachlan looked happier when I went to visit him than you do at the moment.’
‘How was he feeling?’
‘He said nothing hurt, he was just very, very tired. He’d had some extraordinary thing done to him where they take out all your blood and spin it around so fast all the cells separate and they take out the bad ones and then put all the blood back. I really didn’t understand how they could do that. He’s going to start on the chemotherapy next and I expect that will be harder. Are you going to visit him?’
Flick nodded. ‘I’ll ring and see if he’s allowed visitors.’
Apparently, the only visiting hours allowed were mid-afternoon and early evening. Flick picked up her car keys to head into town in the afternoon but ended up sitting in her car, having not even turned on the engine, as she tried, and failed, to decide how she was going to tell Lachlan what he needed to know and how he might react. When she tried, she failed not to let herself be totally overcome by fear. And grief. Old, remembered grief but worse—this new one that was so sharp it was threatening to shred her heart into ribbons.
She sat in her car for so long she could see that the sun was sinking below the canopy of the tallest trees in the woodlands as she walked from the garage back to the entrance to the house. Without thinking, she changed direction, her shoes crunching on the pebbled paths and then silent on the grass lawns as she made her way into the woods, retracing the path that Lachlan had taken her on when he’d introduced her to the magic of the bluebells.
The flowers were past their best now, weeks later, but there were still enough to be a soft haze of blue covering the ground between the dark trunks of the trees, lit up by shafts of sunshine that pushed their way through small branches and clouds of leaves. Flick found the exact spot that Lachlan had taken her to and she had to close her eyes and stand very still as the scent surrounded her and memories crowded in with the deep breath she took.
Like that first time in many years that she’d encountered this scent, when she’d buried her nose in those flowers in the jam jar that Lachlan had picked as a gift for her after they’d made love for the first time.
The night their baby had most likely been conceived...
The time Flick had realised that things were changing. That her body was coming back to life and, with the benefit of hindsight, that it was possible that she could risk her heart and fall in love again.
Opening her eyes, she could almost see Lachlan here with her as she remembered telling him about the baby she’d lost and how losing the man she loved as well had broken her too much to ever be able to put those pieces back together again. But then he’d held her and, while she might not have recognised it at the time, that had been when the distance between those broken pieces had begun to shrink.
Flick was barely aware of the tears still rolling slowly down her face as she stooped and picked a flower and then another. By the time she had three blooms between her fingers, she was remembering seeing a tiny bouquet like this on Lady Josephine’s table and that had been the moment she’d realised that those pieces had been put back together. That she was totally in love with Lachlan and that she couldn’t run away. She could hear an echo of Lady Josephine’s words, too, about those flowers.
‘They smelt like tears...’
But to Flick they still smelt like a new beginning. Still holding those few blooms, she wrapped her arms around herself as she took another deep breath, soaking in the scent.
And that reminded her of that night in the ballroom and the way Lachlan had been looking at her after that magical, barefoot dance together with Lachlan’s shirt unbuttoned and her wearing that gloriously swirly blue dress.
You could only look at someone you loved like that.
He did love her, didn’t he? Had he pushed her away because he was trying to protect her from the possibility of having to relive the devastation of losing Patrick? The experience she’d told him had been so unbearable she had learned to run from getting that close to anyone ever again?
But surely that was her choice to make?
What if the shoe had been on the other foot and she was the one who’d been given a scary diagnosis? How much worse would it be to face something like that without someone who cared by your side? She remembered how helpless it had made her feel not being able to change the outcome with Patrick but why hadn’t she thought about the gift she’d given by being there with him for every possible moment and loving him until the very end?
Would she want Lachlan to be with her—to hold her in his arms—even if she knew he’d been through heartbreak like that before? Of course she would—but only if he wanted to be there and if he felt strong enough to stay, and that would have to be entirely his own choice. She would never have put pressure on him by asking.
That was what Lachlan was doing, she realised. He had given her a way out. A chance to run. The space to make that choice for herself. Flick brushed away the last tears on her face and could feel her strength gathering. Perhaps she’d already made that choice when she’d come here to a place that was always going to be filled with memories of this new love in her life. Or perhaps that should be simply a new life...
Along with the strength came a new resolution. Lachlan couldn’t be allowed to assume that the worst was going to happen, either. Life was full of unexpected twists and turns. For heav
en’s sake, he’d discovered that he had an identical twin brother and it was already obvious that they had formed a strong bond. There was also a very real possibility that Josh could be a perfect match for a stem cell transplant and a complete cure for Lachlan. And it could be that she and Lachlan had a future ahead of them that they could dream about like any other couple in love.
If she was right, that was, and he was in love with her.
She had to find that out for sure, mind you, but she knew she’d know the moment she walked into that hospital room and caught his gaze because there were so many things they could say to each other without actually speaking any words. Flick found herself smiling as she crouched down again to pick a few more flowers to add to the ones in her hand. Maybe it was a bit of a cliché to take a bouquet as a gift when you went to visit someone in hospital but this was different.
It was personal.
Some couples had a special song that was deeply significant to them both. She and Lachlan McKendry had a flower...
* * *
Sometimes, success was not something that you could celebrate at all.
Who knew?
Lachlan lay in his bed, alone in his private hospital room, feeling more alone than he had ever felt in his entire life. It had been another long day and he’d had doctors and nurses and technicians around him as they planned and then started a chemotherapy regime that would hopefully put him into remission in the shortest possible time, but now he was alone.
Because he’d been so successful in pushing the people that really mattered out of his life.
Visiting hours this afternoon had come and gone with nobody arriving. Evening hours had started a while back now and, again, there was nobody. He’d tried calling Josh a little while ago, with the intention of apologising for what he’d said last night, but his brother hadn’t picked up. He hadn’t even had a text message from Josh, which he couldn’t really be surprised by since he’d told him to go away and get on with his own life. He didn’t have any right to expect that Flick would front up, either, when he’d basically told her that she wasn’t needed. Or wanted.
And these were good things, Lachlan tried to reassure himself. It was what he’d wanted, wasn’t it? That he could handle this on his own. That he wouldn’t drag anyone else along on what could potentially be a rough journey. The only downside of being left with nothing but his own thoughts to distract him was...well...he was thinking too much.
About what life had been like only a matter of weeks ago. About how his professional life had been exactly what he’d always dreamed of it being and the only major worries in his personal life had been that his mother had kept antagonising and then dismissing her carers and that his current female companion had made the fatal mistake of wanting to talk about their ‘future’. Good grief...he had to think for a moment before he could remember her name. Sharon? Cheryl? No... Shayna.
Lachlan sent a silent apology out into the universe but then he found his mouth twisting into a wry kind of smile. What wouldn’t he give to be able to talk about a ‘future’ with someone now? Or ‘family’, which was another one of the ‘F’ words he’d believed he never wanted to apply to his own personal life. He could still count the hours since that final, dramatic twist in his life and the shock had stripped everything irrelevant away, leaving him with a perspective on life that was stunningly simple in its clarity.
The work that he loved so much mattered, of course. He could change lives and do amazing things for others but...what really mattered when you were faced with something this huge was who actually cared about you and not just about what you had done with your life.
How many times had he heard or read about people losing their battle with a terminal illness where there was comfort to be found in the simple sentence that they’d been surrounded by their friends and family.
More ‘F’ words. And what was even more ironic was that there was another one that simply wouldn’t be silenced. One that he could feel, even more than he could hear echoing in the back of his head, especially when he was alone like this and when he closed his eyes.
Flick... Felicity... Flick...
Maybe he’d whispered her name out loud without realising it but the last thing he’d expected to hear was her voice, unless that was also in his imagination?
‘I’m here, Lachlan.’
His eyes flew open but, because he was lying down, the first thing he saw was a bunch of slightly bedraggled bluebells. They looked as if they were almost ready to drop their petals. As if their stalks had been clutched a little too tightly for a little too long. They were also the most beautiful things Lachlan had ever seen. Because he couldn’t see them without remembering the way he’d held Flick in his arms that day in the woods. About the way she’d climbed into his heart and pulled the door closed behind her so that there was no way she would ever leave it.
No... Maybe that had been when the door had been pulled tightly shut but she had reached a space in his heart and soul well before that. When she’d seen him for exactly who he was—a man who’d been so damaged by never feeling loved—and she had taken him into her arms and he’d known that he could never truly give up on wanting to be loved.
He’d believed that he never wanted a family.
But the truth was the complete opposite. It had been the only thing he’d ever truly wanted.
Lachlan raised his eyes to meet Flick’s and realised they were almost the same colour as the flowers she held in her hands. They were also shining very brightly with unshed tears.
‘I had to come,’ she said softly. ‘And I’m not leaving you again. I love you too much to do that.’
‘Oh...thank God,’ Lachlan breathed. He couldn’t look away from those eyes. He wanted to soak in the love he could see there until it filled every cell in his body. ‘I only told you to go because it was the only way I could think to show you how much I love you.’
‘I can think of a much better way.’ The tears were escaping from Flick’s eyes but she was smiling.
Those bluebells somehow got scattered over the covers as Flick found space to squeeze in beside Lachlan on his bed so that they could just lie there and hold each other, their heads so close together on his pillows that their foreheads were touching.
‘You’re right.’ Lachlan felt too weak to do anything other than accept Flick’s gentle kiss but he could keep his arms around her and feel the way she was holding him. ‘This is a much better way.’
‘That’s not what I meant.’ He could feel Flick’s breasts push against his arm as she took a deep breath. ‘I’ve got something to tell you.’
‘You just told me the most important thing you could ever say.’ Not that Lachlan would ever tire of hearing her tell him how much she loved him. In fact, he needed to hear it again. ‘But don’t stop,’ he added. ‘Don’t ever stop. I promise I won’t, either. I love you, Flick. I love you so much.’
‘I’m pregnant,’ Flick whispered. ‘You’re going to be a father, Lachlan.’
Oh...man... He hadn’t seen that coming. An ‘F’ word that hadn’t even entered his head. One that eclipsed all others but included them, as well. Father. Family. Future...
A future that was more than worth fighting for.
‘That’s what I meant.’ Flick’s voice wobbled. ‘We’re going to win this battle. Because I need you. Our baby needs you.’
* * *
This was breaking her heart—in a good way.
That they wouldn’t win the battle ahead of them was not going to be allowed any head space right now but what was making her heart full enough to burst was the realisation that these were exactly the kind of moments that mattered. That made life so worth living.
Flick hadn’t been embracing moments like this in too long but she wasn’t going to miss any more of them. She was going to make the most of every single one. Lachlan was still in a stunned silence. Or
maybe he just needed to rest? Flick touched his face with a gentle stroke of her fingers.
‘So, there I was, in the bluebells,’ she said, so softly that only the man she loved could hear her words. ‘And I’m thinking about you meeting our baby. Seeing his—or her—first smile and taking their first step. About taking them to school on their first day. Being part of a family. The way you and Josh should have been, with parents who loved you so much you’d always know how wanted you were.’
Flick could feel Lachlan’s arm tighten around her. She could feel, rather than see, the tear that escaped his eye because she still had her forehead resting against his and her nose touching his. She was too close to see what the expression was in his eyes, but that didn’t matter because she could feel exactly how he felt. She could feel them exchanging strength. Making silent vows to do whatever it took to make sure they were both there to welcome that new life and nurture it with the kind of love they had found in each other.
‘We’ll celebrate everything,’ she added. ‘Birthdays and weddings. Christmas and...and...’
‘Bluebells?’
‘Yes...’ A huff of laughter escaped Flick. ‘We’ll celebrate bluebell season. Every year.’ She had her own tears escaping again now and she knew they were mingling with Lachlan’s. ‘I said something to your mother yesterday when she asked me if I thought it might be possible that you could forgive her one day.’
She paused for a heartbeat, worried that Lachlan might pull away at the reminder of past hurts, but, to her surprise, she felt his muscles soften a little.
‘What was that?’
‘That if you love someone enough, then anything’s possible.’
‘You make anything possible, Felicity Stephens,’ Lachlan said quietly. ‘You make life something that I never even imagined it could be. Not for me, anyway.’
Flick had to swallow hard. If only she could do the one thing Lachlan needed more than anything at this point in his life—give him the one thing that could mean he would be around to celebrate all the things that she was dreaming of sharing with him.
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