by Annie Dyer
I joined in with his laughter. We both knew Julian who was a nice guy but was completely in the closet and liked to keep up appearances for his parents’ sake, unfortunately for him.
“Come on, bro,” Nick said. “Let’s go get some food. I’m fucking famished.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Claire
Making eye contact was not on my agenda as I almost ran through the reception at Callaghan Green straight into the female bathrooms. There were three cubicles, a large space near the sinks and several mirrors. When we’d renovated the building a year or so ago, Ava had made sure that there was a decent place for the girls to get ready for a night out straight from work. It was light, the mirrors were huge and the sinks had plenty of space to put down your make-up. Not that any of that was a factor right now.
I checked no one was in any of the cubicles and locked the door so I had all the space to myself. If anyone needed to bathroom, they’d have to use the accessible one or the men’s. Or even better, take an early finish and go to Whisky Ginger for a Tuesday night special.
The plastic carrier bag from the chain store chemist round the corner was heavy and I’d done my best to conceal its logo and what it had in it. I unpacked, spreading the contents on the floor. Two large two-litre bottles of water and six long, slim boxes.
My stomach churned. After the amount I’d thrown up when I made it into work this morning and again at eleven am and again after lunch, I was pretty sure I had nothing left inside me to chuck up. However, the body was a wonderful thing and I was half prepared to sprint to the nearest toilet.
I sat down and opened one of the bottles, starting to drink. I’d bought six of the boxes, each containing two tests. I was pretty sure I wouldn’t need all of them, but I’d definitely need more than two, just to be sure. And a lot of water.
It had only been when I walked down the feminine hygiene aisle in the supermarket that I realised I hadn’t bought any tampons or sanitary towels for ages. I hadn’t used any since I’d been staying – now living – at Killian’s. I was feeling nauseous, although today was the first day I’d actually been sick.
The conversation we’d had on the moor replayed through my brain. I’d been given antibiotics to make sure the cut I’d sustained when I’d been tackled to the ground didn’t get infected. They weren’t overly known for interfering with the pill, just that they could. I’d said it half in jest, but my words were coming back to haunt me.
If I was pregnant, and I was pretty sure those tests were going to come up positive, how would Killian react? What would it mean for us?
My career at this point wasn’t a consideration. I was established and successful and one of my main jobs was managing the department and overseeing other lawyers doing the work. Since the whole break in and vacation by the sea, I’d been less of a workaholic, leaving that honour to Maxwell, and more home centred. Not that I wanted to stop working, but there were always ways around things, weren’t there?
I felt my pulse thudding, my throat tight and then a strange sense of peace. I needed to know. Drinking water wasn’t necessary as I knew it took around ninety minutes to get to your bladder, but I did it anyway. Then I picked a stick and went to pee.
Two blue lines.
I managed a second, amazed at the ability of my pelvic floor to stop mid pee.
Two more blue lines.
Then there was a knock at the door.
“Claire?” It was Jackson’s voice. “Claire? Is that you in there?”
Then the knock became a bang.
“Claire, if you don’t respond I’m going to bust the door through. Seph’s saying you’ve been kidnapped. I think he’s talking out of his ass, but I’m worried you’ve fallen over and knocked yourself out or something. You’ve looked like shit all day.” I really hoped Jackson was more complimentary with Vanessa.
I stared at the rows of boxes and the two tests, both very positive, both very clear and touched my stomach tentatively. There was a baby in there. One I would meet and see and name and love and watch grow. One whose birthdays I would celebrate and have Christmas mornings with and take trick or treating at Halloween. One who would share pieces of me and Killian.
“Claire, for fuck’s sake! I’m coming in!”
I crashed back to reality, knowing that my brother would indeed break down that door if he thought I wasn’t alright. “Stop, Jacks, I’m fine.” I rummaged in my purse for my phone and then remembered leaving it on my desk. “Don’t come in. There’s nothing to worry about, but can you call Killian? I don’t have my phone on me.”
There was silence. I knew exactly what the look would be like on his face right know. “I don’t like it. I’d rather come in and see you myself, but if that’s what you want.”
“Tell him to come quickly,” I said, knowing it would elicit panic in Jackson but needing Killian to be there, help me comprehend the news and to see his face.
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Jackson, just fucking call Killian.”
“Doing it!” I knew the sharp tone in my voice had kicked him into action. It was one he associated with me when I was fourteen and brandishing sharp cutlery at him. I wouldn’t actually have harmed him in any way, but he didn’t know that, therefore he had stopped doing whatever dick thing it was at the time.
I managed four more pregnancy tests before there was a quieter knock at the door. Each one said the same thing, so I was think that it was pretty certain that I was pregnant. Whatever fears I had thirteen years ago weren’t present now. I felt excited, a little scared, elated and still slightly sick.
“Claire,” a voice said from behind the door. “It’s me.”
I opened the door slightly, peering through to make sure I wasn’t about to be ambushed by any of my siblings or, God forbid, Marie, who had been working in the office today.
“It’s just me. I’ve made everyone else clear off. I’m going out of my head here with worry. What’s going on?” He tried to peer further round the door. Fairies paraded in my stomach with more than a couple participating in a pole dancing competition. I opened the door wider and his eyes went straight to the line of tests, perfectly straight because my OCD did extend to out of the office.
“Claire?” His voice was quiet, but I heard a tremor in it. “What are those?”
I pointed to the wrapper. I was a great believer in actions speaking louder than words, especially when you were physically unable to get any words out.
“Okay. We’re playing guessing games. They’re pregnancy tests. Am I right? I haven’t seen one before.”
I nodded.
“You’ve done six. And they all look the same.” He looked at me, eyes wide, his face frozen with sheer awe and adoration. At me. There was no panic, no fear. Just wonderment. “Are you pregnant?”
I laughed loudly at his gaping mouth, emotion written clearer across his face than any book I’d ever read. He was happy.
I sat down on the floor, thankful for the plush carpet Ava had insisted on. My legs felt no longer able to hold me up, my brain needing the energy to process everything and I still felt sick. “I’m pregnant,” I said, confirming it. “You’re going to be a daddy.”
He sat behind me, a position that had become our usual it seemed. His arms went round me, palms on my stomach and I felt wetness on my neck. My big man who had been a marine was emitting tears. “The antibiotics?”
“Probably. And a lot of sex.”
“I’d better get Nick round to start converting the lofts.”
“There’s time,” I said. “Possibly around seven or eight months yet. Eight tops, I think.”
His lips stayed on the top of my head and he was quiet, thinking before he spoke as he always did. “Are you happy?”
I turned around in his arms. “I’ve never known I could be this happy. I’m scared, you know, I’m going to have to grow a baby and give birth, but I can’t wait.” And then the tears came in torrents and he held me and laughed and we talked
and predicted and both cried.
Outside had suddenly become dark and the building quiet. “Everyone’s gone,” I said. “How on earth did we manage to not be interrupted by anyone?”
“I might have made some threats,” Killian said. “Nothing violent, just that if they interrupted us I’d miss playing the game on Sunday.”
I smiled. “Make the most of those games, mister,” I said. “Your Sundays will be spent changing bottoms and making up bottles in a few months.”
He stood up, lifting me up with him and holding me steady. “I thought you might be pregnant,” he said. “You barely drank on Saturday when everyone was round and you started looking pale.”
“Why didn’t you say?”
He shrugged. “I’m male. It was a hunch. When did you suspect?”
I shook my head. “A week ago, maybe. And then I realised I’d missed my period. Possibly two periods.”
“The moor,” he said. “I bet it was when we were on the moor.”
I stood on my toes and kissed him. “We’ll be able to work it out soon enough. Now take your baby-mamma home. I think I deserve a foot rub.”
He shook his head, his hands tender on my skin. “And so, it begins…”
Epilogue
Killian
“We’re going to take you into the operating room now. I promise you that everything’s going to be okay, we just need to get your baby out,” the nurse said.
I watched as Claire closed her eyes and breathed deeply. “I know it will be fine,” she said.
For the past ten hours she had screamed at me as she contended with labour pains and the strange state she had fallen into where she was completely paranoid about everything and everyone. Our baby was ten days late, not unusual for a first child apparently, but things had been slow even when they’d started moving and now the baby was in distress.
We’d gone through possibilities around giving birth. We’d talked about a home one, and then Claire had decided that wasn’t such a good idea. There had been the choice of a caesarean, but she’d wanted to avoid the longer recovery time. A water birth had been the first choice, but as I’d said to her – clearly at the wrong time as she had responded with a lot of swear words – you don’t always get what you want.
As long as both Claire and our baby were okay I didn’t care. I’d gladly hand over my left nut, kidney and lung if it meant they’d be happy and healthy. Hell, I’d offer the rest of me, but I really wanted to be there to watch our child grow up.
I was handed scrubs and told to wash up, the nurse rightly more concerned with Claire than me. The bleeping in the background grew louder and louder and I steadied on to the sink for a moment, wondering how this situation right now was making me feel as if I was about to lose consciousness when I’d seen human torture first hand.
“It’s perfectly normal to feel a bit woozy,” the nurse said. “It’s your fiancée and child. But they’re in good hands.”
I turned around and saw Claire looking at me, her brown doe eyes wide, her lips curved into a soft smile. “I’m okay,” she said. “Come over here. But I don’t think you should look over the screen.”
There was a screen up so Claire, and me couldn’t see what was going on inside her right now. I took her hand and watched her face. “All your family’s outside, including someone who might be Payton’s boyfriend. They’ve had a bet on the gender and weight.”
“How much was it?” she said, tightening her hand around mine.
“You might feel a slight pulling,” the doctor said. “But everything’s doing well. Keep nice and calm and baby will be here very soon.”
“Twenty,” I said.
“If Seph wins make sure he buys champagne,” she said. “Killian – we’re about to be parents. What was Payton’s boyfriend like?”
“Parents very soon too,” the nurse said. “Everything’s doing fine.”
I didn’t look. I wanted to see what was happening but I knew Claire would never forgive me, or only after several thousand favours, and I wasn’t sure if this was the image I wanted as my first child came into the world. “He seems really decent. Tall. Not an idiot.”
There was a sound of water, then the voice of the doctor but the blood was pounding too much in my head to make out what he was saying.
“Go on,” Claire said, nudging me. “Cut the cord. Then I can hold her.”
Her
I had a daughter.
I walked round in a daze and followed the nurse’s instruction, a tiny, bloody, perfect human being there before me.
“We’ll weigh her and give her a little clean then mum can hold her. The doctor should be finished tidying everything up then too.”
Her. I was a father to a daughter.
“You’re amazing. She’s amazing.” I looked at Claire who seemed to be laughing at me, her eyes flitting between me and the nurse who was holding our baby girl.
“You sound like you’re on drugs,” she said. “Has the nurse given you something?”
There was a long cry and time seemed to blur as my eyes switched between Claire and our baby, then the nurse brought her to us, placing her on Claire’s chest. She’d undone the hospital gown, wanting the baby’s skin on hers. I watched as my whole world lay next to me and knew there wasn’t anything I wouldn’t do for either of them.
“Look at her,” Claire said. “She’s perfect. You’re beautiful, baby girl. I’m your mamma.” I watched her as she started to talk to our daughter, started to touch her. “This is your daddy.” Claire looked at me. “Have a hold.”
I reached down and picked her up, our tiny baby. “What are we going to call her?” We hadn’t found out the sex, preferring to wait to find out. But we had listed names.
“I think it’s Elizabeth,” Claire said. “For Edward. And us.”
We’d been back to the cottage in Cornwall several times, including for Edward’s ninetieth birthday. He’d even made it to London once, reminiscing about when he and Eliza had been there on holiday. It was when he returned home, Claire had suggested using Elizabeth as a name. We’d heard more stories about his wife and Claire had fallen for the woman Edward had described.
“Eliza for short?”
She nodded. “I need a photo of you holding Eliza.”
“And then I should go and tell our family.”
“Five more minutes. Let me have Eliza for a moment while we finish everything off.” I reluctantly handed her back to the nurse, watching every move she made and feeling like a guard dog. I suspected I’d be feeling like that for the next twenty or thirty years.
The recovery room was quieter, the rush from the emergency procedure finally abating. “You have a perfectly healthy baby girl,” the nurse said, discarding her gloves and apron in the bin. “Eight pounds three ounces and strong and healthy. I suggest you go and let the crowd outside know as there were some very worried people when I went out to let them know all was okay.”
I nodded, committing the image of Claire holding Eliza to memory. “Are you ready for the invasion?”
She smiled at me. “With you and Eliza, I think I’m ready for anything.”
The End
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Acknowledgements
It takes a village to write a book.
Thank you multiplied by 1000 to Elizabeth Welsh and Eliza Ames, my first ever writer friend. To Rosamund Derry, Sylvia Izzo Hunter, Julie Thompson – your support and reviews were always invaluable.
To the New Romantics – Kira Berger, Emery Rose and Jessica Ames: thank you. You make it fun.
Hugest thanks to Lisa Pearson (and yes, I realise that’s not your name!) for sharing your caesarean experiences and for being a fr
iend for too many years to count.
Table of Contents
Copyright
Dedication
White Night
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Epilogue
Acknowledgements