by Annie O'Neil
CHAPTER TWO
ELLIE DIDN’T THINK her heart had ever hammered so hard.
She pictured the village defibrillator in the old-fashioned phone box outside her parents’ pub just in case her heart decided to fly straight out of her chest and directly into Lucas’s very lovely surgeon’s hands.
Err...no! Her heart would stay precisely where it was, thank you very much.
Then why was her hand shaking as she reached out to close the exam-room door?
She’d known Lucas was coming. For an entire twenty-four hours.
Time in which she’d steeled herself to see him. Made plans even.
She had decided to be cool, calm, collected, introduce him to his son, make it clear he’d never ever have custody and then send him on his merry way.
So what had she done instead?
Not prepped her son at all. Made a panicked phone call to her parents then hung up before she could take any of their advice, paced and paced and paced in between trying to sleep, which had worked for about...oh, sixty seconds.
Only to go berserk and all but bare her soul in front of the entire village.
Well.
A bit of her soul in front of two villagers and one visitor who wanted his pet to be seen by Lucas and not her. Still. Talk about heaping one humiliation on another.
As the exam-room door clicked shut, she turned round, only to find herself face to chest with the chest she had once been so familiar with that it was pure instinct to reach out and touch it. As she stood, hand raised between them, Lucas asked, ‘Where do you want me?’
Their eyes caught and locked. Electricity buzzed between them, just as it had the night of their very first kiss all those years ago. His clear blue eyes bored into her, asking about a hundred questions all at once.
Am I forgiven? Do you mind that I’m not leaving even if I’m not? What have you been up to for the past six years?
Uh...having and raising the son I still have to tell you about.
‘I’ll just put Audrey here, shall I?’ Caspian’s plaintive tone mercifully pulled Lucas’s attention away from her. Her nerve endings crackled with discomfort as he settled in front of the exam table as naturally as if he’d worked in this room for years. He’d always had that knack. Putting people instantly at ease. The Lucas Effect, she’d called it. No one was immune. Even a young Cornish girl who’d never been to London or had sushi or a million other things life in Dolphin Cove hadn’t prepared her for.
One glimpse of that warm smile of his and...swoon!
And look at him now. Taking over her patients as easily as he’d stepped in front of the cameras and won Britain’s heart over as the Uber-Vet.
Uber-Jerk, more like.
She gave him a sidelong glance as she washed her hands and popped on a pair of gloves. Where was the goofy, nerdy funster she’d fallen in love with?
The glasses had been replaced by contacts. Laser surgery?
The short haircut complete with cowlick was gone.
Even the usual glob of jam or spaghetti on his shirt was nowhere to be seen. Just an immaculately kitted out ‘smart casual’ ensemble, which he filled to perfection.
Nope. The twenty-something veterinary science geek was gone and in his place was the suave, sophisticated and properly grown-up Uber-Vet.
Lucas gave the Pekingese a scratch on the head and an admiring look. Owners loved that and Caspian was no exception.
If Caspian looked at him any more adoringly, sugar cubes would start popping out of his eyes.
In fairness, it was difficult not to be sucked into the Lucas Williams vortex of lust. His dark blond hair was combed back in a wavy invitation to run your fingers through it. His sea-blue eyes spoke volumes, darkening when he saw an injured or abused animal, flashing with a jewel-bright brilliance when he did things like, oh, propose to a woman with a puppy only to take it back the next day. A few freckles. A crooked front tooth that made his dazzling smile just a tiny bit mortal.
Water under the bridge, love. You’ve put it off long enough. Find a way to have him in your life for Maverick. Your boy deserves to know the truth. So does Lucas.
Ellie could hear her mother’s earlier counsel as clearly as if she was in the room. Even so, she hoped her mother had seen that Lucas had arrived and had steered Mav straight to the ‘puppy wing’, as her son had taken to calling the purpose-built whelping and puppy-rearing pens at the far end of the clinic when she’d dropped him off. He loved it there. Seeing the puppies born and raised before being given to the various families who fostered them until they were old enough for training at specialised centres around the country.
As they all shifted into place around the exam table, a waft of Lucas’s man scent enveloped her. How a Londoner managed to smell of warm summer air, freshly chopped wood and oranges was beyond her. She began to mouth-breathe, asking herself on a loop why she hadn’t given him his marching papers the instant she’d laid eyes on him.
She’d known this moment was coming ever since she’d seen that smiley face on the pregnancy test. You’d have thought six years would’ve given her enough time to prepare herself and her son, but...nope! No such luck.
‘Ellie?’
‘Hmm?’
Lucas gave her a look. The kind that meant she’d been staring at him but not actually speaking words.
‘Mind if I get started?’
‘Not at all.’ Why would she? Just because the father of her child had re-entered her life seemingly out of nowhere was absolutely no reason to get all tetchy about when he started a canine exam.
Smile and nod.
She should call Drew. Drew would know what to do. He’d been the one to tape her together all of those years ago when her life had fallen apart and come back together in a totally different shape. Drew, who was still in hospital healing from all sorts of injuries—emotional and physical—himself. No. She should not call Drew. She was a grown woman perfectly capable of handling herself in this entirely unnatural situation.
Work!
That was something she knew how to do.
She grabbed her tablet and began tapping in Audrey’s details. She pulled up her chart from a previous visit and placed it on the exam table so Lucas could see it.
‘About three years, is she?’ Lucas asked.
Caspian all but swooned. ‘Oh, my goodness, me. Yes! How did you know? Are you, like, an animal whisperer as well?’
‘Erm, no... Ellie’s just pulled up her chart.’
‘Oh, right, well, I’m sure it doesn’t have all of the details because we’ve only been here once before, when poor little Aud had a sliver. We live in London, where you are based if I’m not mistaken?’ Caspian didn’t pause for breath, launching into a long story about how he was down for the weekend, visiting his Aunt Viola.
Ellie tuned in. Her hunch in the reception area had been right. Caspian was one of Viola Smythe-Bingham’s great-nephews. Viola had five cats, a pair of wolfhounds, a herd of alpacas and a nineteen-year-old pony called Arthur, all of which were under Ellie’s care.
Caspian must be down on one of his annual ‘make sure I’m listed in the will trips’ Viola frequently complained about. Viola was very rich, very single and had no children of her own. And her family never let her forget it. What they didn’t know was that Viola had made an incredibly generous donation towards the construction of their new clinic after they had saved her favourite alpaca, Starburst, from certain death. She had also promised a substantial donation to the Dolphin Cove Veterinary Clinic when she passed away. At ninety-two Viola showed few signs of slowing down. Ellie hoped she never died. Viola was far more fun than any stack of money would be. So were her alpacas.
As Caspian wittered on about Audrey’s pedigree, her agility classes, her specialised diet and grooming routine, Ellie’s gaze drifted back to Lucas, who was nodding along whilst deftly exa
mining the dog who, although looking a bit wan and listless, was also gazing up at him as if he were a Greek god.
Traitors. The lot of them.
She wondered when Drew came back if he would go all googly-eyed, too. Ask his advice on everything. Treat him like the superstar he was and always would be.
Audrey yelped when Lucas palpated her tummy, then tried to climb into his arms. For comforting, no doubt. Arms that had failed to comfort her when he’d explained he wasn’t breaking up with her because he didn’t love her but because he didn’t want to ‘drag her down’. Drag her into the limelight more like. She wasn’t nearly as camera ready as the women she saw on his arm at all those star-studded charity events he attended. The swine. He made it very, very difficult to hate him seeing as he had single-handedly quadrupled the amount of donations Britons gave to animal charities.
Wasn’t life just great?
Her heart softened as she pictured her gorgeous boy. She wouldn’t have him without Lucas. So for that alone she owed him a thank you.
‘Her gums are a bit pale and her tummy does seem sore. Ellie, sorry, where do you keep your stethoscopes?’
‘My what?’
Caspian and Lucas were both looking at her expectantly.
‘Stethoscope?’ Lucas took one of his lovely, beautiful surgeon’s hands—hands she’d traced again and again with her own fingertips—and put it to his broad expanse of chest as if explaining it to a five-year-old.
She did a weird ha-ha-ha laugh. ‘I know what a stethoscope is.’
‘I know.’ He gave her a funny look and put his hand on the small of her back just as he used to whenever her nerves had got the better of her.
She lurched backwards, then gave him a wide-eyed look, pretending his touch hadn’t just swept through her body in a honeyed spray of heated sparkles. ‘I would’ve thought the Uber-Vet would have his own, super-special stethoscope.’
Everything at the Uber-Vet’s was ‘super special’.
Not that she’d watched the show.
Much.
The comment hung in the air like a discordant note.
It had been a low blow. And not really her style. She wasn’t a sniper.
‘As you know, I’m not the Uber-Vet any more.’
Caspian gasped and asked for details. Ellie pulled out the stethoscope she always kept stuffed in her front scrubs pocket and handed it to him with what she hoped was an apologetic look.
Lucas popped the ear tips in and pressed the chest piece to Audrey’s tiny frame.
Caspian lowered his head in a reverent silence as Lucas’s features shifted into a deeply attractive expression of studied concentration.
No, she chided herself. It was not attractive. And he probably wasn’t even listening.
The Lucas Williams she’d once believed he was didn’t exist. That Lucas Williams had been the kindest, most generous, gentle, intelligent, capable, loving man she had ever had the privilege to meet.
This one?
This one was a stranger to her.
We’ll start our own practice, we’ll get married, we’ll have a family of our own.
Urgh. Why did it still hurt so much?
Because all of his reasons had felt like lies in the end.
It had been a Grand Canyon-sized break-up and just like the river that ran through it, she could already feel the self-loathing, disbelief and hurt wash back into her system.
The air in the exam room suddenly felt stifling. She had to get out.
‘May I...?’ She scooched round the examination table, trying not to brush up against him. All six feet two of his gorgeously fit body. The body she’d once thought would be the one that, at the end of a long day at the clinic, would curl round her in bed, tugging her into his perfect arms. Kiss her with his perfect lips.
Tingles began blossoming in a most inconvenient area at the memory of their kisses.
Anyway.
Lucas looked up, unhooking the stethoscope from his ears. ‘You’re not leaving, are you?’
Ha-ha-ha. ‘No. I was just...erm...finding the scale.’ She slipped a small scale onto the exam table and lowered her voice an octave, trying to sound soft and demure and, more to the point, like the owner of the veterinarian surgery they were standing in as she addressed Caspian. ‘So, Audrey here has been under the weather?’
Caspian gave her a quick glance then poured all his attention on Lucas, explaining how Audrey had gone off her food and he was ever so worried.
As he rattled through Audrey’s diet, Ellie noticed the dog constantly trying to nuzzle into Caspian. More specifically, into Caspian’s pocket.
‘What have you got in there? Cheese?’
Caspian went deadly serious. ‘No. It’s her treat food.’
‘Which is...?’
‘Foie gras. It’s not normally foie gras, but Audrey does hate car travel so I fed her a bowlful last night and then again this morning...but since we’ve arrived...’ He threw up his hands in despair. ‘She’s been vomiting and exhausted and plodding around as if the weight of the world is around her neck. I’ve tried and tried to give her more to cheer her up. She likes the scent but won’t eat it!’
Ellie tried to keep the judgement out of her voice when she said, ‘Perhaps that’s because foie gras is effectively poisonous to dogs.’ Grapes, onions, garlic and almost pure fat? A classic recipe for a good old-fashioned case of pancreatitis.
Lucas took a step back from the exam table. He knew the rule and, astonishingly, was adhering to it. One vet gave the news, the other vet nodded along unless vet number one was floundering and even then...you had to wait for the signal. Theirs had been a tug on an earlobe.
The blood had drained from Caspian’s face. ‘You mean I’ve poisoned my precious Audrey?’ He clutched the dog to him, her mournful eyes meeting his as if to say, yes, you have.
Lucas and Ellie flew into action. If it was indeed pancreatitis and poor Audrey’s distended belly meant a severe, potentially lethal infection was underway, they needed to act and fast.
Ellie swiftly put a drip into her little leg after Lucas had shaved a small spot, despite Caspian’s cries of despair. ‘It’s critical that if she’s lost any fluids they be replaced.’
They spent the next few minutes with Ellie doing a more studied examination of Audrey and, after escorting Caspian to the kennel area of the clinic and assuring him he could visit Audrey as often as he liked, they finally convinced him that what she really needed was a good rest and monitoring by their team of vet nurses.
‘And you’ll call me if anything goes...you know...’ Caspian’s voice caught in his throat, unable to voice his worst fear. She got it. She felt the same way about her pets.
‘I promise we’ll ring. Well done for noticing she needed care.’ She gave his shoulder a squeeze then added, ‘Do give my best to your Aunt Viola, won’t you?’
‘Course, darling.’ Caspian leant in for a kiss on first one cheek and then the other. ‘And sorry about, you know, earlier.’
She smirked a ‘yeah right’ after he’d left, only to have her expression freeze when she saw her son running towards the front door. ‘Maverick?’ Her heart leapt into her throat as she rushed out to meet him. ‘What are you doing there?’
He held out a notebook and pen in his hands. ‘I wanted to get the Uber-Vet’s autograph. Torky told me he was in here. Can I, Mum?’
His little forehead, high like his father’s, was crinkled all the way up his brow. She swept a hand through his dark blond hair, his bright blue eyes looking up at her with such hope. Such expectation.
How could she say no to that face? How could she explain that what he was asking was so much more complicated than asking for a celebrity’s autograph? Lucas Williams wasn’t just the man who’d broken her heart. He was also Maverick’s father. The fear that had haunted her ever since she d
iscovered that she was carrying this little boy swept through her afresh. The fear that Lucas would take him away from her.
* * *
‘Ah! There you are, Ellie. I thought maybe we should sit down and—’ Lucas stopped. Ellie was kneeling in front of a little boy who was holding a notebook and pen. His little forehead was screwed up as if he was trying to digest some very complicated information. When he saw Lucas, his eyes brightened and his big ear-to-ear smile instantly made Lucas smile, too.
‘Mum, look! It’s him! He’s still here!’
Ellie stood up so fast she wobbled.
Lucas reached out a hand to steady her, but she pulled back as if his touch burnt her.
‘I’m Maverick.’ The little boy stepped forward, his hands holding out his notebook. ‘I wanted to get your autograph, but my mum said you’d gone back to London.’
‘Lucas is very busy, love. He’s got a patient.’ She nodded towards the elderly woman sitting patiently with her cat.
Lucas threw Ellie a confused look and caught a flare of guilt lance through her green eyes. She looked pale, her hands shaking as she feebly tried to wave away her white lie. He looked back at the little boy, registered his hair colour, his eye colour, the way they sloped a bit, like his mother’s...and his. Almond shaped, he called them. Sleepy sexy, Ellie had called them. He had the strangest feeling of déjà vu. As if he was looking at a photo of himself from when he had been a little boy.
He tried to estimate the little boy’s age and then, with the power of a lightning strike, he got it.
Maverick was his son.
His heart crashed against his ribcage with a ferocity he wouldn’t have believed possible.
One look at Ellie, eyes bright with a sheen of tears, and he knew he was right.
Trying his best not to frighten the boy, who quite clearly did not know Lucas was his father, he knelt down in front of him, took the paper and signed it, drawing in his signature pawprint at the end of the ‘s’ in Williams.
This was not the way he’d expected to meet his son. Not even close.