by Kate Hardy
‘I’ll pick you up at the café at ten?’ he asked.
‘See you then,’ she said, kissing him goodbye.
She could hardly wait to see him again. And she loved the gardens of the house he’d discovered that only opened to the public four times a year; it was full of specimen trees, and early summer was the perfect time to show it off. They wandered through the gardens hand in hand, and Abigail gasped when they went down to the lake and saw the hundreds of azaleas there reflected in the water.
‘I’ve never seen anything like this in my life. Our mums would both love it here.’ She took a photograph.
‘And with that bridge over the lake—it’s stunning.’ He squeezed her hand. ‘I always meant to take you to Giverny to see Monet’s gardens. I know you love that picture of the bridge and the lily pond.’
‘And all the tulips in his spring garden,’ she said. ‘I’d love to see that.’
‘I had so many plans for us,’ he said. ‘I wanted to make all your dreams come true.’
‘All I wanted was to be with you.’ And maybe it was time she took a risk and told him how she really felt about what had happened. ‘I loved you, Brad. I thought you loved me. I had a few doubts when you asked me to elope, but I was so sure you loved me as much as I loved you. And then, when I realised you didn’t, it was too late.’
‘I loved you,’ he said. ‘But I admit I asked you to elope for the wrong reasons.’
It felt as if he’d slapped her, and her recoil was involuntary. As were the tears she had to blink away fast.
Clearly he’d noticed, because he said, ‘That came out wrong. I meant every word of my wedding vows. I just...’ He blew out a breath. ‘I’ve never really talked about this to anyone, but Dad and I had a bit of a strained relationship.’
‘What? But your dad adored you.’
‘He wanted me to follow in his footsteps,’ Brad said. ‘Our fights weren’t in public. But it was all the little comments he made. He never once criticised Ruby about her choice of career—I guess he could see that she lived for her art and that she was really good at it—but he didn’t think much of my choice. “You’ll never make a proper living. Lab technicians are ten a penny.” He said that to me so many times.’
‘You’re not a technician. You’re a researcher,’ she said. ‘Actually, I think you would have made a good lawyer, because you pay attention to detail and you pride yourself on doing a job properly—but your heart wouldn’t have been in it. You did the right thing, choosing the subject you love.’
He looked at her. ‘That’s not how Dad saw it.’
And then she realised why Brad had really stayed away. Why he’d reacted so very badly to his father’s death. This was the unfinished business. ‘And you never got your chance to show him that you’d made the right choice because he died while you were still a student.’
Brad said nothing, but she saw the muscle clench in his cheek.
‘Your dad,’ she said, ‘loved you very much. And if he’d wanted you to read law—well, yes, of course he’d be disappointed that you didn’t. But, as I’ve said to you before, your dad was stubborn and wouldn’t listen to anyone. It would have choked him to say, “Brad, you did the right thing.” Even if you won the Nobel prize for chemistry, and you made the biggest scientific discovery of the century, he would probably still say that he was proud of you but you should have been a lawyer.’
Brad looked at her as if the whole weight of the world were on his shoulders.
‘And then at his chambers he would have been telling everyone within earshot—and that would include the set of chambers three buildings away—how his clever son was a brilliant chemist and he was going to change the world.’
‘You really think so?’
‘I’ve got no reason to lie to you, Brad. He loved you and he was proud of you. Telling you to your face would have meant admitting he was wrong about your career choice, and that isn’t what your dad did. But ask your mum. Ask Ruby. I bet they’ll tell you the same thing.’
He sighed. ‘I just wish I’d had the chance to show him I did the right thing for me.’
She hugged him. ‘I reckon he knows. He’s watching you right now, huffing about how his boy’s gone soft in the head and of course he loves you. But then he’d add there was still time for you to do another degree and maybe specialise in science law.’
Brad was shaking.
Oh, dear God. She’d just sent him into another meltdown. ‘Brad, it’s OK,’ she said, desperately wanting to reassure him.
But when he pulled back, she could see that he was laughing.
‘What?’ she asked, puzzled.
‘What you just said... That’s exactly what he would have said.’
‘So I’m right about the rest of it, too.’
‘I guess.’
‘I loved your dad. I thought he might be a bit of a nightmare to live with—so full-on hearty, the whole time, it must have been a bit wearing—but I never realised he gave you such a hard time about your studies. I wish you’d told me. I could’ve...’ She sighed. ‘Maybe not.’
‘Made it better? I think I needed to grow up and see it for myself,’ he said. ‘Which, thanks to you, I have, and I’m sorry I didn’t trust you enough to tell you years ago.’
‘Is that why you asked me to elope? So you’d be living with me instead of having to come back here and be nagged about your degree?’
He shook his head. ‘It was a fit of rebellion. We had a big fight, that night. And it wasn’t just the usual stuff about my career; he started on about you. He said we were too young even to be engaged. And I wanted to prove him wrong.’
She bit her lip. ‘So you didn’t actually want to marry me.’
‘I always wanted to marry you,’ he said. ‘Dad was wrong about some of it—I never met anyone who even began to match up to how I felt about you—but he was right about us being too young to get married. I still had a lot of growing up to do. The fact I pushed you into eloping instead of having a wedding like Ruby’s was proof of that.’
‘I really thought you loved me. And when your solicitor sent me that letter...’ Her throat felt as if it had closed up.
‘More proof that I needed to grow up,’ he said. ‘I really loved you, Abby. But I was a mess and I really thought setting you free to find happiness with someone else was the right thing to do.’
‘I never wanted anyone else.’ She swallowed hard. ‘I think you broke me for a while. I cried so much I couldn’t see, my eyes were so swollen. And you wouldn’t even speak to me.’
He held her close. ‘I’m so sorry I hurt you. I’m not going to ask you to forgive me, because I can’t ask for that. But I’ve learnt a lot about myself over the last few weeks and I know I’d react differently in the future.’
The future. The thing they were meant to be discussing tomorrow.
Did they have a future?
‘I felt as if I wasn’t enough for you,’ she said. ‘And it made me wary of dating again. In case whoever I started seeing felt like that about me—that I wasn’t enough.’
‘Any man who had you in his life would count himself the luckiest man in the world.’
‘You didn’t,’ she pointed out.
‘Because I was young, I was hurting, and I was very, very stupid.’ He stroked her hair. ‘I can’t change the past, Abby. I wish I could. And, if I could, I would never...’
‘...have married me?’ she finished.
‘Have let you go,’ he corrected.
‘So are you saying you want to try again?’
‘I’m saying,’ he said carefully, ‘we might both need a bit more time to think. We’ve told each other things we maybe weren’t expecting to hear.’
She certainly hadn’t had a clue about what he’d told her.
‘We need to make the right decision for both of us,’ he said, ‘for the right reasons. And at this precise moment I feel as if someone’s just put me on one of those loop-the-loop rollercoasters at triple speed.�
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‘So you want to go back to the Bay Tree on your own?’
‘No. I want to walk through this garden with you, hand in hand,’ he said.
Now she got it. ‘And not talk.’
‘Not talk for a little while,’ he agreed. ‘But I want to be with you.’
Walking in the sheer beauty of the gardens helped to clear her head. Maybe his, too, because finally he tightened his fingers round hers. ‘I’m sorry.’ He grimaced. ‘I seem to be saying that a lot, today.’
‘Maybe we need to put it all behind us,’ she said. ‘We can’t change the past,’ she said. ‘But know that not all of it was bad.’
‘Agreed.’ He looked at her. ‘Right now, I really want to kiss you. But it kind of feels—I don’t know. Insensitive. And I’m trying to be sensitive.’
‘You might be thinking too much,’ she said.
‘How?’
‘This,’ she said, and reached up to kiss him. ‘That’s better.’
He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her back. ‘You’re right. Much better. So here’s the plan. I take you somewhere nice for dinner, we watch the stars come out over the sea—and then, if I’m not being too pushy, I want to fall asleep with you in my arms.’
‘That,’ she said, ‘sounds like an excellent plan.’
CHAPTER TEN
BRAD STAYED WITH Abigail at the cottage that night, and it was good to wake in his arms. To wake and make love—except, when she got out of the shower, she realised that she was going to be late for work.
‘I know I’m the boss, so technically speaking I can walk in any time I choose, but I need to set an example,’ she said. ‘I don’t want anyone to think I’m slacking off.’
‘Nobody thinks you’re slacking off. I’ll drive you in,’ he said.
In the end, she was only ten minutes late, though it was enough to fill her with guilt.
He kissed her lightly. ‘Go. I need to get back to the hotel, pack and check out. I’ll see you at seven and I’ll book a table somewhere tonight for dinner.’
‘See you at seven,’ she echoed.
But when Abigail walked into the café and smelled the bacon grilling, the scent made her feel queasy.
Maybe it was something she’d eaten at dinner last night. Something that hadn’t agreed with her.
When her usual mid-morning mug of coffee made her stomach turn as well, to the point where she couldn’t even take a mouthful of the stuff, she started to wonder. Was she being paranoid, or was she...?
She did a quick mental calculation and realised that her period was late. It should have started a week ago.
Panic skittered through her. Had they even used a condom, that first night—the night of Ruby’s wedding? They’d definitely used protection since then, but that first time... Her mind was horrifyingly blank on the subject. She’d been so swept away by Brad that she couldn’t think straight. She simply couldn’t remember.
Could she really be pregnant? The dates would tie in. Friends who’d had a baby had talked about a super-enhanced sense of smell in the very early days of pregnancy and feeling sick, being tired, going off coffee, and their breasts feeling tender. And every one of those symptoms applied to her right now. She’d felt sick at the smell of cooking bacon, she didn’t want coffee, and her bra felt too tight...
She pushed the thought away. How utterly ridiculous. The nausea could be anything, and not fancying coffee could be down to that too; she was tired because she was still putting in all the hours at work and seeing Brad every night; the tightness of her bra was purely psychosomatic because now she was half convinced that she was pregnant; and the date of her period was probably a bit off kilter because her emotions had been turned upside down over the last couple of weeks. The dates had nothing to do with it. Of course she wasn’t pregnant.
But the thought kept nagging at her, along with the fact they’d seen those magpies in the woods the other day. Three for a girl, four for a boy... For pity’s sake, it was just an old superstition. She wasn’t pregnant.
By mid-morning, Abigail had had enough. There was only one way to find out the truth.
It was her admin day in the office at the café, so if she went out for a bit it wouldn’t cause any problems with the staff at the counter. She made an excuse that she needed to go and see a supplier, and walked back to her cottage to pick up the car. She could’ve gone to the pharmacy in town or even the supermarket, but everyone knew her in Great Crowmell and she didn’t want even the faintest bit of gossip to start. Instead, she drove to a supermarket in one of the bigger market towns where nobody knew her and bought a pregnancy test kit. A digital one, so there would be no margin of error.
She didn’t want to wait and do the test at her cottage, so she went into the nearest café and ordered a cheese scone and a mug of hot chocolate.
She was probably being ridiculous. Of course she wasn’t pregnant by her ex. She couldn’t be. Though the test felt as if it were burning a hole in her bag.
How pathetic was that? She was twenty-seven, not seventeen.
But what if she was pregnant? What if? What if? The question ran round and round in her head.
She gritted her teeth, forced herself to eat the scone and drink the hot chocolate, then headed for the bathroom.
Thankfully it was empty and there were three cubicles, so she didn’t feel guilty about causing any kind of queue. She did the test and stared at the little white stick.
One blue line, to show it was working...
And there it was. In stark black text, so she couldn’t pretend she’d make a mistake and misread the result.
Pregnant.
She swallowed hard.
What was she going to do now?
Last time she and Brad had done something reckless—eloping to Gretna Green—they’d kept their castle in the air going for a few years... And then it had all come crashing down and she’d realised how naive and foolish they’d been.
Nearly ten years later, they hadn’t learned a thing, had they? They’d been reckless and stupid, and had a crazy affair. Something that both of them had known deep down could never last. Abigail didn’t expect Brad to give up his job for her—and, even though the other day she’d thought that maybe she could follow him to London, now it came down to it she wasn’t so sure that she could. Her life was here. Her family was here. In London, she’d be isolated.
Or would Brad offer to give up the job she knew he loved and come back to Great Crowmell? Would he consider taking a job that maybe he didn’t love so much? Would he want to make a life here with her?
And then the doubts came slamming in. What if he didn’t? What if Brad did expect her to give up everything for him and move to London? What if she put a manager into the café and ran the business from a distance, so she wasn’t letting her parents down—would things really work out between them? Because, the last time they’d been together and life had thrown up a major change, their marriage had disintegrated. Brad hadn’t coped with the shock of his father’s death and he’d frozen her out.
What if he did the same if things went wrong this time round?
OK, so she’d had the confidence to push him when he’d gone quiet on her at the lighthouse, and he’d opened up to her. But that was over something relatively small. What about something bigger? What if—God forbid—something happened to his mum, or to Ruby? What if he was made redundant and it was difficult to find another job? Would he talk to her and let her help him through it, or would he shut himself off again?
And a baby would be a huge, huge change to both their lives. They hadn’t discussed having children; she had no idea how he felt. Was it too soon for him? Or didn’t he want children at all?
Plus she knew that a baby was never the answer to a sticky patch in a relationship. Those early days, with all the broken nights and worry and stress, would put extra strain on them and would widen any rifts between them, to the point where those rifts couldn’t be bridged any more. What if the baby made him f
eel trapped? What if he froze her out again? Because this time it wouldn’t just be her, it would be the baby as well.
But could she do this on her own? Could she have a baby and keep running her family’s business as a single mum?
There was another option, but she pushed it away. She’d made a choice that had led to a pregnancy, and getting rid of a baby just because it wasn’t convenient felt wrong. Not that she’d ever judge anyone else for making that decision, but for her that wasn’t the right option.
OK. She knew her parents would stand by her. So would Ruby, and Brad’s mum. They’d all be supportive. But Brad himself...
She had absolutely no idea how he was going to react. Or how she was going to tell him. The only thing she knew was that they had to talk about it. Tonight. And only then could they decide if they wanted to move on together—or apart.
And until then she just had to keep going. Pretend that everything was just fine and she’d had a business meeting.
She splashed water on her face, then drove back to the café and buried herself in all the admin tasks she hadn’t done that morning. And please, please, let her find the right words to tell Brad.
* * *
The Abby Brad had dropped off at the café that morning had been laughing and bubbly, a little flustered and cross with herself, but happy.
The Abby he met at seven was quiet. Too quiet.
‘Is everything all right?’ he asked.
‘Of course. Why wouldn’t it be?’
But he’d seen a flicker of panic in her eyes. Which were grey, not green, another tell-tale sign that she was upset.
‘Abby. Talk to me. Tell me what’s wrong.’
‘There’s nothing wrong.’ Her tone was light, but he could tell it was deliberately so; and it increased his conviction that something had happened.
He waited until they were seated at the quiet table he’d booked in a pub and had ordered their meal before tackling her again. Maybe something had happened to the business. ‘Something’s wrong,’ he said gently. ‘I’m guessing it’s work. What’s happened? Someone’s gone bust, owing you a lot of money and you need a temporary loan to keep on track?’