by Fiona Harper
Chloe shook her head. ‘Don’t be daft. I just meant that sometimes you put up some pretty thick walls.’
‘Last week you told me I’m the most open person you know.’
Chloe stood up and went to check on the dinner. She opened the oven door and a waft of chickeny steam escaped. Moments later it hit Kelly in the nostrils and her stomach contracted in hunger.
‘It’s not the same thing and you know it.’ She gave Kelly a hard stare as she looped the oven gloves back over the handle on the door. ‘There’s a difference between saying the first thing that comes into your head and being...guarded.’
‘I’m not guarded,’ Kelly said quietly. At least, she wasn’t anymore. She felt as if all those thick walls Chloe had accused her of having had crumbled into ash. She kept trying to gather them to herself, find some kind of refuge in them, but they disintegrated under her touch.
She shook her head and a single tear slid down her cheek. ‘I’m scared, Chloe. And I’m doing my best not to be, but I don’t know if I can do it all again!’
Chloe rushed over and put her arm round her. ‘It could be nothing... You said that yourself.’
Kelly nodded. Yes, she knew what she’d said. But wishing wouldn’t make it true.
‘But if it isn’t...’
‘You can’t think like that!’
Chloe sounded almost angry. Kelly wished she could summon up some of that fire herself. She needed it. For so long she’d lived with it burning away inside her and now, when it could really do some good, it had flickered out and died.
‘I know, I know....’
At that moment, her three-year-old came running into the room. He made a beeline for Kelly and launched himself at her. She hauled him into her lap and hugged him tight. He hid his face in her shoulder and only peeked out again when Dan came storming into the room. She hauled in some oxygen. She couldn’t be weak now, she couldn’t. She’d have to find that fire from somewhere. Find that fight.
And she could only think of one way to do that. Only one area of her life had changed.... Her boys needed her to be strong and she wouldn’t let them down.
She smoothed back Ben’s hair and kissed his forehead, made herself look and sound like the mother he recognised.
Dan brandished a red felt-tip pen. ‘I just found him with this,’ he told them, ‘and a guilty look on his face.’
Kelly’s insides dived and she looked down at her son. He’d been drawing on the wall? Again?
‘You’d just better hope I got to him before he went all Picasso on us,’ Dan said. ‘I’m going to check the downstairs cloakroom, seeing as that was the location of his last masterpiece.’ He stomped from the room.
Kelly shot Chloe an apologetic look, but held her son tighter. She knew she was supposed to discipline him at this moment, but now she was hugging him she couldn’t seem to stop. ‘I’ll repair the damage, if there is any.’
Chloe just looked heavenwards and let out a breath. ‘Ignore my husband. He knows perfectly well we repainted with washable paint and that pen will probably come off with a bit of elbow grease and a damp cloth.’
‘Ben?’ Her son looked up at her with unblinking, innocent eyes. Kelly stared back at him. She knew that look. He was going to be in big trouble when his uncle found where he’d decided to explore his artistic skills. She picked him up and set him on the floor, even though he tried to cling to her. ‘You’d better go and show Uncle Dan where you did the drawing.’
Ben bit his lip and shook his head.
‘The longer he spends looking the angrier he’ll be!’
Ben ran off in the direction of the lounge. Kelly closed her eyes and prayed that Chloe’s cream sofa was still as pristine as it had been when they’d arrived, then she turned to look at her sister-in-law. ‘What’s got my brother in such a grump today?’
Chloe sighed. ‘Aside from the fact the weather gods decreed he shalt not barbecue?’
Kelly nodded. Dan had lightened up a ton since he’d met Chloe. This bear-with-a-sore-head routine was reminding her of the ‘old’ him.
‘We had another argument about having a baby. He says it’s too soon, my mother says I’m almost too late and I...’ her eyes misted over ‘...I just want one so badly it hurts.’
Kelly nodded, even as the back of her nose started to feel thick and her eyes prickled. ‘You just leave him to me,’ she said with a grim face. ‘I’ll put him straight.’
Maybe after Ben’s latest artwork was found and erased, though. There was no point looking for trouble.
* * *
Jason arrived while the cleaning staff were still doing their rounds on Monday morning. Although dawn had been hours ago, London looked as grey and damp as it usually did on a winter afternoon.
He had to see Kelly at the earliest opportunity to know if she was okay. He’d sensed she needed space—from him, as well as everything else, unfortunately—and he’d given it to her, even though it had been agony.
After the accident that had changed his and Brad’s lives, people had flurried around him, saying the most inane things, as if their paltry attempts at cheering him up could make a difference. He’d wanted to tune them all out. And he’d learnt to. He’d learnt how to pull back inside himself and find space to heal on his own terms, and he’d showed Kelly the same respect by allowing her to do the same.
Didn’t mean he didn’t want to see her, though. Didn’t mean he wasn’t waiting for that moment when she’d burst through the office door, wiggle her way over to his desk, give him one of her long, flesh-stripping looks then open her mouth and finish the job with a choice phrase or two.
When he heard movement in the outer office, he couldn’t help himself. He rushed across his office and flung the door open. She was taking her raincoat off, shaking the drips off the shoulders before hanging it up, and he didn’t think he’d ever seen her look more beautiful. Gone was the casual travel wear of the previous Friday, replaced by her favourite pencil skirt and the same blouse she’d worn the first day they’d met.
He didn’t waste any time in closing the distance between them, but as he pulled her close, pressed his lips to the little space under her ear, Kelly went still in his arms.
‘Jason,’ she said in a warning voice. ‘Not here.’
He looked up and realised what she meant. The door to the ante-office was open and anyone walking past could have seen them. He ran his hand down her arm to catch her fingertips and then tugged her in the direction of his office. With two sturdy closed doors between them and the outside world, they could make up for lost time.
But Kelly slid her fingers out of his, then tidied an invisible strand of hair by tucking it behind her ear. ‘Give me a moment, will you? I’ll be right in.’
He nodded and backed up to his office door, not quite able to tear his eyes off her and look away. She looked well, didn’t she? And the greyness of whatever mood had settled on her on their return flight had gone. That had to be a good sign.
So he went back into his office and waited, resting his butt against the desk and crossing one foot over the other. Moments later Kelly appeared, pad in hand and walked towards him. She stopped when she was just out of touching distance. Jason deposited his weight back on his feet so he could rectify that.
Kelly folded her arms, hugging her notebook to her chest. ‘I...I don’t think we should get too...you know...at the office. People will talk.’
Frankly, Jason didn’t care if his staff wrote a musical about them and performed it on the street in front of the building. In fact, he might just audition for the role of leading man himself.
He let one side of his mouth hitch up. ‘One little kiss won’t hurt.’
Kelly glanced nervously over her shoulder at the closed door. That didn’t stop him from moving closer, from tugging the notebook and pen from her stif
f fingers and throwing them onto the desk behind him. It also didn’t stop him sliding his arms around her and teasing her soft lips with his own. She closed her eyes and let out a jagged sigh.
This was better. This was what he’d been dreaming about all weekend. Well, part of what he’d been dreaming about all weekend. The full-length version had a lot more skin-to-skin contact and nowhere near as many clothes.
She allowed him to kiss her and then she placed a hand on his chest and stepped back. ‘Not a word all weekend and now you’re all over me?’ Funnily enough, she didn’t seem to be angry. ‘I thought I’d scared you off.’
Ah, there it was. The hint of challenge in those last words, the tiny flash of something hot behind her placid expression.
‘No,’ he said. ‘You know that’s not true.’
She raised her eyebrows. ‘Do I?’
Yes, she did. She knew him better than that. He gave her a look that told her as much. She looked away.
‘Whatever it was we were starting, Jason...I think we should put it on hold.’
He blinked. The words made no sense to him, not at first. It took a while for them to shuffle themselves into the right order and sink in. ‘On hold?’ What did that mean?
She crossed her arms again and shot him a pleading look. ‘I don’t know what’s in my immediate future, let alone the long term.’ She broke eye contact and stared at her shoes before looking at him from under her lashes. ‘I need to concentrate on me and my boys at the moment. It’s just not the right time for a relationship...or whatever.’
Or whatever.
Jason didn’t lose his temper very often, too busy floating above any negative emotions for them to have any impact, but now he could feel his blood pressure climbing.
Or whatever?
Even his father had never damned him with such faint praise.
‘I’m not saying for ever. Just for now. I can’t...deal...with it right now. I’ve got too much else on my mind.’
And now he was a problem to be dealt with. That sounded like something his father would say. He’d just never thought he’d hear those kind of words coming out of Kelly’s mouth. She might tell it straight, but she was never usually that hard and judgemental.
He shook his head, walked back around his desk and sat down in his chair. ‘Fine,’ he said, his voice taut. ‘Whatever you want.’ And he picked up his basketball and shot it through the hoop without even lining it up.
FOURTEEN
The basketball rolled across the floor. Kelly watched it for a few moments then walked stiffly to pick it up before handing it back to Jason. ‘This has all happened so fast. It’s all so new. Too new.’
Too new for all she might have to face in the coming months. She didn’t even know if she had the strength to cope with it. Maybe because she understood what was coming. Jason might have good intentions, but he was clueless. She didn’t want to lean on him, trust him, then find it was all too much and she was on her own again, worse off than she would have been if she’d been standing on her own two feet.
She knew he was angry with her, but she had to make him see.
‘You haven’t thought this through,’ she told him. ‘If the tests come back positive, there’ll be chemo or radiation treatment—quite possibly surgery. I’ll be ill all the time, no energy to do anything. Not much fun in that. And, if it is the worst-case scenario, my chances of surviving and living a long and happy life might be slim. All treatment can do is extend the time I have left. Can you really handle that?’
She’d never seen Jason look so serious. He was completely still, staring back at her, and she watched the colour drain from his face. ‘Maybe.’
Maybe wasn’t good enough. Not now.
A few days ago she’d have taken maybe and run with it, but things had changed.
‘And what if I let you into my life? How close are we going to get? Are you going to move in and look after me when I’m throwing up and my hair is falling out in handfuls? Are you going to want me if I only have scar tissue where I once used to have breasts?’
She knew these were hard truths, but if he really wanted to be with her he was going to have to deal with them.
‘Will you take on my boys if one day I’m not here anymore?’
He opened his mouth and shut it again.
That was what she’d thought.
He shook his head, rested his elbows on his desk and put his head in his hands. A second later his whole body shuddered, and her heart went out to him. It wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. But he had to understand what he was asking her to gamble and why it was too much.
He peeled his hands from his face and looked up at her. ‘But I’m falling in love with you.’
Kelly closed her eyes. The hits just kept on coming. And here was another one: she knew the moment the words came out of his mouth that she could reply in kind. But it wasn’t enough. Cancer killed more than bodies; it killed relationships, hope, dreams. She and Jason would become just another set of casualties.
She walked over to him, slid onto his lap, put her arms round him and rested her forehead against his. Then she kissed him, slowly and sweetly, all the while feeling tears threaten at the backs of her eyes. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered. ‘Thank you for wanting to do this....’
He pulled her closer until their bodies were crushed against each other’s. ‘You don’t know anything for sure yet.’ He moved his head back to look at her. ‘Let me in, Kelly. Let me try...’
The earnestness in his eyes was more than she could handle. A tear slid down each cheek. ‘Maybe,’ she said hoarsely. ‘Maybe when the tests are done, if everything is looking good...’
But she knew she was lying. This was the kiss of death to whatever had started between them. There’d be no going back afterwards. Even though she understood how much of a step this was for him, a small part of her would always resent him for not being able to step up to the plate when the time had come. A larger part would fear for what would happen if he was faced with the same dilemma in the future.
He sighed. ‘Okay...good.’ And then he lifted her off his lap and set her on her feet. ‘But we’ve got a lot to do this week if we’re really going to knock McGrath’s socks off with our shoes. We can’t spend all day necking in my office chair.’ He smiled at her, his usual nothing-touches-me smile, but there was a dullness in his eyes and a tightness in his jaw. Kelly’s stomach rolled.
He knew she was lying too.
* * *
Jason slid into the lukewarm water, welcoming the familiar smell of chlorine, and began to swim. This was his fourth time in the pool this week and it was only Thursday morning. That was a hell of a lot of thinking he’d had to do, and he still hadn’t come up with any answers.
During those countless laps he’d thought a lot about what Kelly had said to him on Monday morning. He hadn’t been able to give her a definitive yes when she’d flung all those hard questions at him but, the more he thought about it, the more he wondered if anyone would have been able to give her the words she wanted. It had been a lot to deal with in one go. Like a cannon blast to the chest. No wonder he’d wobbled. That had definitely not been the moment for a quick, breezy, Sure! It’ll be fine! Those were some serious questions she’d asked him.
And she’d chickened out of giving him the time to seriously consider them.
He reached the far end of the pool, performed an effortless turn and relished the way his muscles knew exactly what to do, how natural it still was, even after all these years. This had always been his refuge when the people around him started driving him crazy. Swimming was pure, delightful simplicity.
He rolled over and changed to the backstroke, keeping his focus on the large fluorescent lights suspended from the ceiling on chains. His mind drifted back to Brad, to his father, to the accident.
It had done that a lot while he’d been swimming this week and he wasn’t sure why. What had that to do with Kelly and the mess he found himself in right now?
But, as he continued to swim, lap after lap, stroke after stroke, things began to sort themselves into an order inside his head. He started to be able to look back on his twenty-two-year-old self and work out what made him tick, how he’d coped with the guilt and pain his dumb stunt had caused. Or, how he hadn’t coped with it. How it had been too much to deal with so he’d just...checked out.
He’d taken a step back from life, from his relationships, from caring about anything. And maybe that had been selfish, but it had also been the only way he could claw his way through it. And he couldn’t bring himself to say he’d been wrong. Kelly had done the same thing after finding that lump in the shower. It was a natural reaction—to flinch away from the thing that hurt you.
He slowed his pace and changed to the breaststroke, needed the slower rhythm to help his thinking.
But a flinch was supposed to be a momentary thing—not a lifestyle. No, his mistake had been that he’d never checked back in again. He’d chosen to live his life on the margins, and now he looked back on a decade he’d thought had been filled with carefree fun and good times and saw nothing but alienation and emptiness.
He put his feet down and stood on the bottom of the pool, then he walked to the edge and used his arms to haul himself out of the water in one fluid motion. As he headed for the changing rooms, one of the swimming coaches for the kids’ classes sidled up to him. ‘You’re really good,’ she said. She might have even batted her lashes a little bit, but Jason didn’t really notice. ‘You should be a pro.’
Jason nodded absently and carried on his way.
Yes, maybe he should be a pro. But that was just another thing to add to the list of things he should be.
And top of that list?
He should be with Kelly.
* * *
He arrived at the office half an hour later with his hair still damp and the faint, and not altogether unpleasant, sting of chlorine in his eyes. Kelly was nowhere to be seen, but a quick check of his smart phone revealed she was running late due to childcare issues. He texted back and told her to take the rest of the day off. She could probably do with the break, and he knew he could too.