Barefoot by the Sea (Barefoot Bay)

by Roxanne St Claire

  “She’s hung up on stability. I told you it would have been better to wave a marriage certificate.”

  Ian gave a derisive snort. That was one decision he did not regret in the least. “A fake, meaningless piece of paper that’s going to be annulled before this board convenes again? Why bother?”

  “It makes them feel better,” Henry said, hustling to keep up with Ian’s long and furious strides. “They’re bureaucrats and you need to appeal to their love of red tape.” They stopped at a closed door. “Her name is Sarah Banks and she’s got an agenda. I don’t have any idea what it is.”

  “Well, fuck Sarah Banks and—” Ian’s words halted when the door opened. “Oh. I already have.”

  Bloody hell. It was only a matter of time until one of those many, many one-night stands would come back to bite him in the ass.

  Sandy hair, blue eyes, and a smile he’d pronounced “pretty” the night he’d met her in Singapore. She’d probably been a government plant to see if he could stick to his story. And now she’d been promoted to a position in Canada.

  He didn’t bother averting his eyes, but held her cold gaze as Henry made a brief round of introductions around a long conference table. He didn’t bother to listen to the names of the two men; they weren’t why he was in this room.

  Oh, bollocks. Sarah. It all came back to him now. She’d approached him in a dive in Geylang and he’d been drunk enough to believe she was a British tourist who’d ended up in the wrong part of Singapore. Her accent had sounded like home and her hair reminded him of…

  “We’ve met,” she said icily. “Unless you don’t remember.”

  He ignored the comment, narrowing his eyes to remind her that even though she’d been a plant sent to test his ability to keep his identity secret, she’d also been a willing and eager sex partner. No doubt that wasn’t in her job description.

  “I want my children,” he said softly. “And I’m here to find out exactly what I need to do to get them short of taking them, which I will do if forced.”

  One of the men leaned forward. “We take threats like that very seriously.”

  You ought to, Ian said with his glare.

  “Your unstable lifestyle concerns me,” Sarah said, turning a page in a file he assumed was a blow-by-blow description of his many instabilities. “We have no issue how you choose to live in your government-granted identity when you are on your own, Mr. Browning, but bringing children into the mix is an entirely different equation.”

  “Henry gave us the impression you were settling down, even marrying,” the other man said. “That would go a long way to assuaging our issues.”

  He practically curled his lip and fought the urge to make a fist to assuage his issues. “You expect me to marry someone and not tell them my life story?”

  Sarah shrugged. “It’s been done, and, frankly, we think that encourages you to fully embrace your identity, forcing you to become the new person we say you are.”

  He managed not to spit or leap over the table and throttle her skinny neck, but only thanks to a superhuman effort. “I’ll never be the person you say I am.”

  “Then you can’t have your children.” She leveled him with a look that sent his blood pressure soaring. “Unless and until you prove your stability.”

  He closed his eyes, drawing in a slow breath, mining every drop of composure he had. “I assume you don’t have children, Ms. Banks.”

  “My life is not on the table.”

  “My life”—he clenched his jaw and leaned closer—“isn’t a life. Do you have any idea what it’s like to live in the personal hell you condemn people to every day?”

  She launched one well-drawn brow. “You’d perhaps prefer a slow death at the hands of some London gang member?”

  Just his bloody luck to have his fate in the hands of a woman he’d screwed every way possible. “I’d perhaps prefer to live exactly as I did before some maniac murdered my wife, left my children screaming, and stole any semblance of normalcy I’ve ever had.”

  “It’s that semblance of normalcy we’re looking for, Mr. Browning. Get it and we’ll see what we can do about your kids. But you’ll have to hurry. They turn four in a few months.”

  Next to him, Henry’s phone hummed and he checked it, pushed back his chair, and left.

  After a moment, Ian pinned her with a long look. “What exactly do you want from me?”

  “We need to believe those children will live in a secure and stable environment,” one of the men said.

  “My children are on the third family in as many years,” he fired back. “They’re about to be separated after my son was hospitalized. What is stable and secure about that?”

  It was the other man’s turn as Sarah flipped through the file without looking at him. “We need to see a record that shows you are prepared to raise and rear those children.”

  “They’re mine. I was prepared to raise and rear them the day they were born. Before.”

  Sarah fluttered the file. “Until we know you are completely safe, the children stay in Canada, in two different families. As you know, when they are four, you can no longer move them, so—”

  He launched toward the table, ripped the file out of her hand, and stuck his face right in front of hers, eliciting a soft cry as she pushed backward.

  “How many times do I have to die for you people to be satisfied?” He ground out the words. “Because I died in London, I died in Singapore, I died in Florida, and I’m dying here.” He balled the papers in fisted hands. “I want to live. I finally want to live so, for God’s sake, lady, let me do that.”

  She closed her eyes and shook her head.

  The door popped open, startling all of them. Henry held his phone, his eyes sparking as he seized the shoulder of Ian’s jacket and pulled him off the table. “Save your breath, mate. The game changed. This meeting’s over.”

  Tessa gingerly set the plastic stick on the bathroom counter, washed her hands, and closed the door as she walked out.

  A watched test never reveals two lines.

  Exhaling softly, she went into the living room, paced from one side to the other, then closed her eyes. Time for the same prayer she’d said every single time she’d gone through this exercise in fertility-futility, as Billy once called her obsessive test-taking when her period was about four minutes late.

  “Please, God, let this be the—No…” She shook her head, letting her voice trail off.

  That wasn’t the plea she wanted to make. Deep inside, Tessa wanted to pray for something else. This time, the negative result was for the better.

  Stunned, she unfolded her prayer-hands and pressed them to her burning cheeks.

  Was it possible she was hoping for a negative test? How could that be?

  Of course she wanted to be pregnant! That desire was as much a part of her as gardening or breathing. She’d wanted a baby for as long as she could remember. In front of the bookcase, she crouched down to her secret infertility shelf, remembering how John had discovered the books and pulled one out.

  Five Hundred Ways to Get Pregnant. She could still hear the humor in his voice. Who knew there were more than one? She’d died a little that moment. Because he was funny and sweet and honest and—

  Not honest.

  She straightened. She’d forgiven him the lies in the beginning because during their last days and nights together, she’d shared more with him than she ever had with Billy. And he’d told her every minute detail of his life, his childhood, his education, his marriage, his hopes and dreams.

  And with each revelation, she’d fallen deeper and deeper in love. In love enough that she didn’t want John’s baby…not without John. Where was the joy in that? What did that leave her for a future?

  She wanted a family, not a baby. A child didn’t make a family; love did.

  For one thing, she’d merely ache for him for the rest of her life. And what would she tell her child? The same pack of lies her mother had told her? She’d have no hope of bein
g honest with her child and her life would be like her mother’s—buried in secrets and lies, all motivated and rationalized and carried on generation after generation.

  The overpowering realization of that made her head spin.

  No, something else made her head spin. How could she have ignored that dizziness all these weeks?

  Because the sensation wasn’t distinct or long-lasting enough to make her stop and think about it, but now she realized that at least once or twice a day she’d been feeling a distant humming in her brain, the sense that, for one flash of a second, her head wasn’t quite connected to the rest of her.

  Truth was, she’d thought she was lovesick until Ashley described her symptoms. But Ashley had been wrong about being pregnant, and Tessa might be, too.

  She squeezed her hands and started another prayer. “Please, God. Not this time. Not this time. Not this time.”

  The whispered words were like a mantra, relieving her and calming her and reassuring her that this was nothing but a false alarm, like she’d had other times in her life. Still, they didn’t erase the irony of how much she didn’t want to be pregnant.

  But it was time to find out. On a slow breath, she walked into the bathroom and closed her eyes, letting her pulse hammer a good five or six beats before she dared to look.

  And there were the hard cold facts that couldn’t be denied.

  She grabbed the counter and let the impact wash over her, her fingers brushing the bright pink box and knocking it to the floor. Another test slipped out, still sealed in its pouch.

  The backup, she used to call it. Should she? It wouldn’t be the first time she refused to believe the results. Once she’d taken five tests because her period was ten days late.

  Because all she wanted was a child of her own.

  Wrong. She wanted a family. And there was a difference, at least to her. She didn’t want a child of her own, and that was probably why she’d been dragging her heels on adopting or surrogacy or even foster parenting. She wanted the whole package: a father, a mother, kids.

  Everything she’d never had. Everything she’d never get.

  She turned her back on the extra test, certain this one was accurate enough, slowly sinking to the floor with burning eyelids and a heavy heart.

  Why had she let him go? John was what she wanted, John was the man who could give her a family and a life. But she’d let him go. Stubborn, unwilling to lie and leave, now she’d live without him.

  Why hadn’t she run after him like in the movies? Why couldn’t she profess her love and jump into that car and whisk off to a fairy-tale ending? Because her fairy tale included the people she’d have to give up forever. Without her friends—her family—there was no happy ending.

  But without him, there was no happy beginning.

  If you ever need anything, absolutely anything, or if you want to get a message to me, call Henry.

  She did want to get a message to him. She had to tell him: I know what I want now. Not a baby, but you. You and your family, our family, any family. All I want is you.

  Leaning against the wall, she pulled out her phone with a shaky hand. She carefully dialed the extra-long number, including an international code. Taking a breath, she pressed the phone to her ear and imagined Henry’s face as he looked at the screen and realized his job just got more complicated.

  The first ring startled her, it was so loud. The second one seemed to last forever. The third one matched the flutter of her heart as she slowly sank to the floor.

  In the middle of the seventeenth ring, she hung up and stared at the two pink lines. They weren’t nearly as beautiful as she’d always dreamed they’d be.

  Chapter Thirty-three

  The Red Russian was more than ready to harvest. Tessa kneeled before the long row, examining the largest leaves, the red veins like lifeblood to the brilliant green.

  “Best kale yet,” she whispered, breaking the best leaf close to the stem to enjoy a good sniff of the gorgeous smell of earth and vegetable. After the kale, she’d tackle the citrus crop, since those trees were heavy with fruit.

  She started to pick the kale, kneeling, humming, letting the sun warm her head and air clear her thoughts. Every day had gotten a little easier. With the farming and friends to occupy her mind and a tiny life inside her to occupy her body, she hardly thought about the man who’d left four weeks ago. And five days. And seventeen hours.

  The cell phone she now carried everywhere—just in case—vibrated with a welcome message. Yanking off a gardening glove, Tessa pulled the phone from the pocket of her cargo shorts, tapping the screen and trying not to let Zoe’s name give her a punch of disappointment. Maybe another week and she’d stop hoping. Another month, surely. She squinted at the message.

  Visitors on the way to garden. Brace yourself for cuteness overload.

  Cuteness overload? With Zoe that could mean a hot guy or a sweet baby or some starry-eyed honeymooners on their way to tour the gardens. All her friends were being overly protective of Tessa’s wild emotional swings these days.

  No need. She was fine.

  You sure are.

  She snapped a few more leaves and heard his voice. The American voice that made her laugh. The British voice that made her sigh. And now silence just made her cry. She’d never tried that number again, certain he must have not wanted her to find him. Of course, it was safer this way.

  But that didn’t stop her from wondering where Ian was right now. Hopefully setting up his new life in New Zealand, kids by his side. Sighing, she crawled deeper into the bed of greens and cracked off kale leaves with a crisp, spare movement, getting a whole row finished before a childlike giggle floated over the fields, making Tessa look up.

  By the rockrose hedges, she saw two children snagging blooms. So the cute overload was kids. Shielding the sun with one hand, she peered toward them, sizing up the guests. Usually garden tours were for the organic moms interested in growing all their food in their own backyards. But there were no adults in sight, only two tots plucking at the irresistibly bright flowers.

  Tessa pushed up. Any minute a young mother would appear to limit the rockrose theft, so she wanted to assure them they could take all they wanted. The blooms were plentiful, doubling sometimes overnight, and the pink flowers made lovely little hair decorations for the girls.

  But no mother came around from the villa side, so Tessa set down her basket and took off one gardening glove, using her bare hand to brush the dirt from her knees as she eyed the tiny tourists. Very tiny, if she could tell from this distance. Mere toddlers, scampering around, snagging more flowers, the music of their high-pitched voices ringing across the open fields.

  She took a few steps, waiting until she got closer to call out to them, careful not to startle them.

  As she got about twenty feet away, she could see they were not even five, a boy and a girl whispering as they picked the lower half of one hedge completely clean of fuchsia flowers.

  “We have about five million!” the little boy called out. “Is that enough?”

  Tessa laughed softly. “That’s probably enough.”

  The girl turned then, her eyes widening as Tessa approached. Suddenly, she shook her head ferociously and grabbed the boy’s arm, turning him so he could see Tessa.

  “It’s all right, honey,” Tessa assured her, holding up her hand in greeting. “I’m the gardener and you can take some flowers.”

  They both stared at her.

  “Is your mommy here?”

  The girl’s eyes widened and the boy shook his head.

  “Daddy?”

  Another shake.

  Tessa reached them, taking in their porcelain white skin, free of a single freckle. Snowbird babies, she thought, on a winter Florida vacation.

  “Are you with a grown-up?” she asked gently.

  The little girl turned to the other boy, clearly a brother, and whispered in his ear. He nodded, listening before meeting Tessa’s gaze. “Can she have the flowers?”

>   Tessa’s heart folded a little. “Of course.”

  The girl shook her head, blue eyes flashing, and then whispered again, clutching his arm.

  “Okay,” he said, calming her. Looking at Tessa, he said, “She wants you to know they’re a gift.”

  “For your mom?” she asked.

  “For you.” The man’s voice, soft and low, came from behind the hedge, startling her and making the children turn.

  “Is this our lady, Ian?” the boy called out.

  The words jumbled for a moment, not making any sense.

  Had he said…Tessa put a hand over her chest, as if that could contain her heart and catch her breath. Ian?

  “I believe it is our lady.” He stepped out from behind the thick hedge, slowly enough so the sunshine poured over him and highlighted his tentative smile. His hair was cut much shorter, his face shaved clean, but his eyes were as blue as—as the two sets staring at her.

  “Oh, yeah. This is most definitely our lady.”

  She was dreaming. Dizzy, dazed, and dumbstruck.

  The boy elbowed the girl. “Em! Now, like we practiced?”

  She took a slow step forward, lifting a fistful of flowers, her creamy cheeks deepening with color as she looked right at the ground.

  “Hello, pretty Tessa.” Her voice was little more than a breath of sweet air, but it was enough to practically do Tessa in.

  “Oh…” With shaking hands, Tessa reached for the offering with her ungloved hand, all blood and reason draining from her head. “Hello.”

  The boy got next to her. “She’s Emma. I’m Edward.”

  And I’m speechless. Tessa blinked and finally let her gaze settle on the man, who walked up behind them, putting his hands on their shoulders.

  “I’m Ian Browning,” he said softly, the British accent as mesmerizing as the smile on his lips.

  She couldn’t speak. Her mouth opened, but nothing would come out.

  The little girl leaned over to whisper to her brother again.

  “She wants to pick those yellow flowers,” he said, pointing at a row of hibiscus.