The Vet's Secret Son

by Annie O'Neil

  ‘And here we are.’ Gordon carried their drinks over to a quiet table at the back of the pub. It was a gorgeous evening so most of the customers were sitting on the picnic benches outside or in the small but pretty garden area behind the pub.

  ‘So! Lucas,’ her mother began. ‘What brings you to town?’

  Ellie was tempted to jump in but thought she’d leave this one to Lucas.

  ‘The official reason is to replace Henry.’

  ‘Oh?’ Her mother threw her a questioning look.

  Ellie parried the look to Lucas.

  Lucas explained, ‘My contract was up for renewal with the Uber-Vet, but I felt it was the right time to pass on the baton.’

  Wyn spluttered her wine out. ‘I thought that’s what you wanted. The show.’

  Lucas shot Ellie a look. One that asked why on earth she hadn’t explained the situation with his family to them.

  Because her brain had pretty much exploded and been unable to receive more information when he’d told her he couldn’t marry her any more, that’s why. By the time she’d even begun to process what Lucas had been going through, she’d found out she was pregnant, and he had been appearing on the red carpet with another woman and...well...that was pretty much the story from then on.

  ‘The show was a means to an end,’ Lucas finally explained. ‘My father’s illness had put the clinic in a difficult financial position and my brother—’

  ‘He’s a vet, too, right?’ Ellie’s father asked.

  ‘Yes. He...’ A dark look shadowed Lucas’s bright eyes. ‘Jonty had his own problems to deal with, so...’ He leant back in the booth and swept his fingers through his hair. ‘Suffice it to say there were a lot of factors that led up to my decision to do the show and just as many to step away from it.’

  One of the bar staff called out to her parents for some assistance. Ellie barely noticed them leave as a wave of understanding crashed through her.

  Had Lucas been genuinely torn? She hadn’t been able to believe him. Proposing one day. Taking it back the next. Who did that?

  But...maybe it hadn’t been his decision at all. She desperately tried to remember exactly what Lucas had said to her that day.

  There’s been a change of plan. My priorities have changed. I don’t want to drag you down with me.

  She’d stopped listening then. The roar of blood blocking out everything else other than the fact that the love of her life had just dumped her.

  But...had he?

  There’s been a change of plan.

  She replayed the lines again.

  I don’t want to drag you down with me.

  Had Lucas done the show because he’d had to?

  The softening of her heart hardened. No. They’d been a couple. Deeply in love. When he’d proposed he had been prepared to announce to everyone they knew that he would be with her in sickness and in health, for richer, for poorer, all the terrible things—because weathering terrible things together made anything seem endurable. By pushing her to the side, he’d made it clear he hadn’t trusted her to stick with him. That...that was the pain she’d born through the years.

  Lucas scraped his crooked front tooth over his bottom lip, the blood draining from it as it dragged over the full, kissable mouth she’d never thought she’d lay eyes on again. Not in person anyway. The look he gave her said, Please. Please give me a chance to explain.

  She gestured for him to continue.

  ‘Since Dad died—’

  ‘Wait! Your father passed away?’

  ‘Didn’t you know?’ Lucas looked genuinely surprised.

  ‘No. How would I—?’ She stopped herself. It would’ve been in the papers. Or the veterinary magazines she subscribed to. ‘I’m sorry. That must’ve been very difficult.’

  Lucas nodded silently, his shoulders slumping as if reliving the weight of losing his father all over again.

  ‘Is your mother all right?’

  ‘She’s better now.’ His eyes shot to hers and in them she saw a wealth of pain.

  Instinct kicked in and she pulled him into a quick tight hug and just as quickly pulled away. His scent, the familiarity of how they fitted together, his touch...it was all too much. She took a gulp of her wine then said hoarsely, ‘How’re you going to tell her about Maverick?’ She dropped her head into her heads and moaned. ‘Don’t answer that. I don’t have the slightest clue how to tell Mav that his TV hero is his father.’

  ‘I’m his hero?’ Lucas’s expression lightened. The tension and pain dropped away from his features, leaving nothing but pure joy.

  ‘Well,’ she snipped. ‘On television anyway.’

  And then, completely unexpectedly, they shared a smile that reached into the very centre of her heart.

  Dangerous? Absolutely.

  Worth exploring?

  Her brain threw that one back and forth for a second. Maybe for Maverick’s sake. But only if Lucas were to meet about a hundred thousand criteria, including assuring her, beyond any reasonable doubt, that he would never, ever let her boy down.

  Ellie’s parents arrived back at the table just as Lucas took her hand in his and said, ‘We need to talk.’

  Wyn did an about face and turned her husband round with a cheeky smile. ‘Darling? I think we might be needed in the kitchen.’

  ‘Oh, right. Course.’ Gordon gave the thick-slabbed table a knock. ‘We’ll leave you two lovebirds...erm...um...we’ll leave you two to it. We’ll be right behind the bar if you need anything.’

  ‘What they need is to be alone, Gordo.’ Wyn tugged him away from the table, lowering her voice as her gentle chiding continued.

  Despite themselves, Ellie and Lucas both sniggered as Ellie’s parents very indiscreetly tiptoed back to the kitchen and parked themselves at the pass, pretending not to stare at them.

  ‘Excuse me.’ A pair of tween-aged girls approached the table with white paper napkins in their hands, their parents sending them encouraging smiles from the far end of the pub. ‘Would you mind signing our napkins? We just love your show.’

  Lucas smiled and signed their napkins. The girls giggled and told him the names of all their pets and how Uber-Vet was, like, totally their favourite show. He tried to introduce them to Ellie, but it was clear they didn’t really care who she was. They just wanted to talk to him, and it was easy to see why. He was warm, personable, and—ha!—he drew a little dog paw at the end of his signature. Adorable. Of course it was. Everything about him was perfect, except for the fact that when it had mattered most, he hadn’t wanted her.

  And just like that all the warm and fuzzy feelings percolating inside her evaporated. This wasn’t a fairy-tale ending. It was the beginning of what would be a long, complicated emotional mess she’d be unravelling for years to come.

  When they’d gone, Lucas leant in close to her. Goose-pimple close.

  ‘Ells, do you think we could go somewhere a bit more private?’

  Ellie arched an eyebrow. ‘What? And deny your adoring fans a chance to meet the one and only Uber-Vet?’

  Something hot fired in him and she knew she’d taken a step too far. Mocking him wasn’t like her and while she might think of Lucas as many things, vain was definitely not one of them.

  ‘I’d never begrudge the fans anything. The viewership kept my family from... I owe them a lot.’ His eyes darkened with something she couldn’t put a finger on and then that familiar smile softened them again as he rose from the bench seat. ‘C’mon. We need to talk about this without an audience.’

  She quickly told her parents they were going for a walk but that Lucas would need a room for the night. Her mum threw her one of those looks. You’d better not mess this up, young lady. Your son deserves his father.

  Her stomach churned as they left the pub. Her mother’s look was a blunt reminder that Ellie wasn’t entirely free to rais
e a flag on the moral high ground.

  When they’d reached the beach path at the edge of the village, she turned to him. ‘Why are you here, Lucas? Really?’

  ‘Don’t beat round the bush, Ells.’ He laughed, then quickly corrected himself. ‘Sorry. Ellie. Eleanor? Shall I call you Eleanor from now on?’

  ‘No.’ She gave him a play punch on the arm because after all the water under their particular bridge, using a formal name seemed ridiculous. ‘But c’mon. Answer the question. Why are you really here? I doubt it’s because you need the work.’

  ‘No,’ he said, much more seriously than she would’ve anticipated as their footsteps fell into a natural, matching stride. ‘I want the work.’

  She pursed her lips. ‘Oh, c’mon, you’re famous! You could work anywhere in the world. And you want to do a locum post in Dolphin Cove?’

  He stopped and turned her to him, the heat in his hands easily filtering through her light linen top. ‘I want to work with you. I never liked how we left things and a stupid part of me believed that if I came down...’ He lifted his hands away and held them between them before she could interrupt him, her shoulders already feeling the loss of his touch. ‘The plan wasn’t exactly fully formed, but when Henry told me he was working here when I rang him a month back—’

  ‘A month?’

  Lucas nodded, looking as confused as she felt. ‘Yeah. I rang him weeks ago to ask him to take over on the show. These things don’t happen overnight.’

  Ellie felt her jaw twitch. So it wasn’t just her parents who’d wanted her to tell Lucas the truth. It was Henry. She knew Drew thought the same, though he’d never dared say as much. Was this the universe telling her she’d been wrong all of these years?’

  ‘Ellie,’ Lucas focused on her with an intensity that roared through her bloodstream, ‘I am staying.’

  She glared at him. It wasn’t his call. It was hers!

  Wasn’t it?

  The memory of that day surged back to the fore.

  I don’t want you being dragged down with me.

  Had Lucas genuinely been trying to protect her from something? Ensuring she’d be free to follow her dreams? Why hadn’t he seen that her dreams had included him?

  He stood, silently, waiting. The man looked immovable. Gorgeously immovable. That. And he was the only vet in the country with enough skill to tackle the list of surgeries Henry had been scheduled to do.

  ‘Oh, hell.’ Her resistance faltered. ‘It would be very useful if you could stay and work, but we need to figure out a plan with Maverick.’

  ‘We?’ he said, hope lighting up his eyes.

  ‘Me,’ she corrected. ‘And your job will be to prove to me you respect my wishes. And my son’s.’

  * * *

  Lucas nearly corrected her. Nearly said ‘our son’, then thought better of it. He would have his son in his life, and he’d take every step to ensure nothing got in the way of it. Even Mav’s mama bear of a mum. She might be igniting all sorts of fires in him he’d long thought extinguished, but the one that burnt brightest... That flame burnt for his son.

  At a split in the path, Ellie pointed him towards a sandy path edged with tall grasses. ‘If we head off here, we can go to the beach in front of the clinic.’

  ‘Beachfront property. That’s quite a coup, Ellie.’ He was impressed. ‘I thought you and Drew were going to set up in the village. Renovate an old shop.’

  Ellie’s eyebrows shot up in exactly the way Mav’s had when he’d first spotted Lucas. ‘No. The plan was that you, Drew and I were going to set up in the village. Drew and I decided to aim higher. Go for more of a community outreach angle.’

  They rounded the corner into the idyllic cove where the veterinary clinic’s windows shone in the ever-darkening hues of the remaining sunlight.

  Ellie huffed out a sigh. ‘Sorry. I’m being a pedant. You did your thing, we did ours. There’s no need to stick the knife in.’

  ‘It’s me who owes you the apology, Ellie. Seriously. I know saying I left you in the lurch is a pretty massive understatement, but... I genuinely didn’t feel as though I had a choice.’

  ‘I got by,’ she said in a voice that didn’t sound entirely convinced.

  He had too. Just. The bright lights and constant need to be ‘in character’ had never sat well with him. He loved being a vet. Plain and simple. He’d also loved Ellie every bit as much, but...he’d made what he had thought was the best choice. The only choice. Leaving his parents to battle debt and his father’s debilitating disease on their own? He’d simply unable to do it. Not without dragging Ellie away from her dreams and her beloved Cornwall. The fact things had turned around so quickly with the Uber-Vet had seemed little short of divine intervention.

  He opened his mouth to explain but clamped it shut, knowing anything he said on that front would only be digging himself a deeper hole.

  What’s done was done. The only thing he could do now was to look forward and the one thing he knew he’d have in his future was his son. No matter what Ellie thought.

  Taking a step back from the heated emotions, Lucas opened his arms wide and turned away from the beach towards the clinic. ‘You’ve done more than get by, Ells. Look at what you’ve accomplished. You’ve set up this incredible clinic, a surgical unit—’

  ‘A petting zoo and a teaching centre,’ Ellie said, a flush colouring her lightly tanned cheeks. A sense of accomplishment she clearly hadn’t let herself feel added a couple more inches to her athletic five-foot-eight frame.

  Without thinking, he reached out and gave her shoulder a rub, feeling her pride by proxy. For a nanosecond he felt her lean into his touch and then, as if it had never happened, the only thing he felt was the distance between them. ‘You should be proud. You two have accomplished so much.’

  The dark laugh that was so unlike her surfaced again. ‘We probably would be in a crummy old shop if you hadn’t dumped me.’

  ‘What?’ He made a noise indicating he doubted it. Not the Ellie he’d known anyway.

  ‘We found a place in the village and it would’ve been perfectly fine, but when I found out about Mav there was no chance I was going to have him think he had a second-rate parent. If he ever found out about you, that is.’

  Wow. There was a lot to unload in there. The last thing he would’ve ever said to his son was that he’d got a second-rate parent. Ellie was in her own class. An exemplary one.

  Lucas felt as if she had reached inside his chest and crushed his own heart. He knew he’d hurt her. If he’d had any idea the pain had run this deep...

  They stared at one another, their eyes searching each other’s for answers to myriad questions until the atmosphere between them thickened. Lucas took a step forward. A bone-deep urge to pull her into his arms and promise her she’d never have to feel that harrowing pain again took hold of him, right up until a flat palm on the centre of his chest put a quick stop to that.

  ‘We are going to discuss Mav and what to do about the fact you’re his dad. And that’s it.’

  She was right. He had overstepped the mark but...hell’s teeth. He would’ve done everything in his power to be with Ellie and Maverick if he’d known. Which did beg the follow-up question...why hadn’t he wanted Ellie to be a part of his life as he’d untangled his family’s almighty mess?

  He’d thought he’d been protecting her. Plain and simple.

  From the tiny acorn...grows the mighty oak.

  After he’d proposed they’d gone on a walk. Soon enough they’d been laughing about all their hopes and dreams. Insane, considering they’d had no money, no clinic and zero clients. Oh, well, they’d said... From the tiny acorn... They’d stopped and kissed under an oak that must’ve been a good four hundred years old, vowing to leave a legacy of kindness and love in their wake that lasted as long as the tree.

  That evening his father had rung and ask
ed him to come home. Things, he’d said, weren’t quite tickety-boo.

  It had been the biggest understatement in the universe.

  When he’d got there and learnt of the debt, the struggling clinic, his father’s ever-increasing battle with Parkinson’s and his AWOL older brother, it had been too much. He’d needed to focus. He’d not wanted to test the limits of their relationship—not when Ellie had had all the opportunities in the world.

  As if reading his mind, she asked, ‘Why wasn’t I enough?’

  ‘It wasn’t you, honestly.’

  Her eyes widened. ‘You told me you loved me. You asked me to marry you. How could I have not taken it personally?’ Before he could answer, she pointed at a log further down the beach. ‘This isn’t about you and me anymore. C’mon. Let’s hash this out before I change my mind. Maverick is the priority here.’

  ‘Absolutely,’ Lucas said, swallowing down yet another lump of remorse into a gut already churning with discord. So much for a few weeks down in Cornwall making his peace then moving on with their lives. Ellie would be in his life for ever. It was up to the pair of them what form that relationship took. For his son’s sake, he prayed it would be amicable.

  ‘So!’ She sat down on the log and tugged a hand through her curls, the sun lighting them in shades of fire and gold as if she were a Hollywood starlet. ‘As you know from Henry, my loyal friend and colleague, Drew was in an awful car accident.’

  Lucas nodded. He’d be stopping by to see him when time allowed. But his priority was to be here for Ellie and, as soon as possible, Maverick. ‘I am happy to work all the hours you need.’

  Ellie smirked. ‘They’re a lot longer than your fancy telly vet hours.’

  He let that one slide. There was a lot more to it than swanning into an exam room, making a diagnosis then heading into surgery with a gaggle of nurses and vets in his wake. There had been planning meetings, research, actual vet work to ensure he was at the absolute top of his game, networking, scouting out difficult cases, media appearances with Katrina, and the list went on.