Soon to be children.
Hannah put her hand on her belly and told herself and her unborn baby that they needed to cross their fingers.
Get it right, she pleaded. This was so important.
Josh was standing well back. It was clear to everyone that Oscar was completely unaided. The big kid grinned and let the silence hang. He had a sense of the dramatic did Oscar.
Finally, very slowly, his hand reached out for a glass of water on the tray beside his chair. His fingers grasped the glass. There was a moment’s pause as he tested his grip before lifting, then he raised the glass and drank. And put the glass back on the tray.
He grinned again. Then, seemingly almost involuntarily, his hand moved upward.
He scratched the side of his neck.
There were gasps, and then a roar of laughing approval from the audience. This conference was for medical scientists from around the world, doctors and technicians who’d know that to scratch an itch was such a basic human need...
Oscar was laughing with them. Then, with supreme concentration because this was still incredibly hard—there was a way to go with this technology yet—Oscar slowly, slowly rose to his feet. He stood for a moment, steadied, and then took a step forward.
Another. A third.
And then Josh was moving across the stage to meet him. They stood silent, as if assessing each other, then both raised their right hands.
It was a handshake between friends.
It was a small thing.
It was huge.
The audience erupted but Hannah didn’t clap. She’d subsided into her handkerchief.
Her Josh. Her wonderful, magical Josh.
No longer a loner.
A friend for so many.
What was happening on the stage seemed a medical miracle, but it wasn’t merely a medical miracle. She emerged from a sob as Josh sought out her face in the crowd, as Josh smiled out at her.
He was her friend. He was her love.
This was their happy-ever-after.
Coming next month
THE VET’S SECRET SON
Annie O’Neil
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.
He felt Ellie’s eye boring into him throughout the short interlude.
When he looked up at her, she was shaking her head, No, no, no—don’t you dare tell him.
So what was he meant to do? Leave?
Not a chance.
Emotions assaulted him like knife wounds. Elation. Pride. Loss at having missed so many precious moments. His birth. His first word. His first tooth. Disbelief that Ellie had kept Maverick a secret all these years.
He knew things hadn’t ended with any sort of grace between them but hiding a child? His child? What the hell had she been thinking? This gorgeous little boy was his flesh and blood. More than any of their shared hopes and dreams, Ellie knew he’d wanted a family of his own. With her! But life had ripped that possibility away from him.
And now, thanks to her, he’d missed the first five years of his son’s life.
He forced his raging thoughts into a cage as he reminded himself, thanks to Ellie, he had a son. A beautiful, healthy, happy little boy. But at this moment? The gratitude ended there. She should have told him.
He rose and looked her straight in the eye. ‘You and I need to talk.
Continue reading
THE VET’S SECRET SON
Annie O’Neil
Available next month
Copyright © 2020 Annie O’Neil
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Pregnant Midwife On His Doorstep Page 18