by Fiona Harper
‘But I won’t!’
‘You’re saying you won’t ever push me away? I thought you didn’t do for ever any more.’
Daniel stuttered, and she knew he’d just reacted to her words without thinking them through.
‘We both know you’re not in the market for that. If it’s not going to end in wedding rings and honeymoons then, one day, someone will leave, and I have the feeling it would be you.’
‘Why? Why would it be me?’
He just kept coming, didn’t he? Batting away her arguments one by one, because that was his way: he set his mind to a goal and he pursued it relentlessly, no matter what. But he’d set his heart on the wrong goal this time. She wasn’t something to be won; she was something to be treasured. Kept. And he just couldn’t promise her that. So she stepped forward, looked him straight in the eye and said the one thing she knew would scare him away for good.
‘Because I’m falling in love with you,’ she said simply, and watched the colour drain from his face as her words hit home. She’d known it would happen, but it hadn’t made it any easier to watch.
‘I … I …’
‘Please!’ She held up a palm. ‘Don’t try to say it back. You’d be insulting both of us.’
He closed his mouth and it became a grim line.
She walked back into the living room. ‘You can go now.’
‘Chloe …’
‘I know you want to,’ she said. ‘I can see it in your eyes.’
He didn’t deny it, damn him. He didn’t deny it.
She pulled herself up straight, put her best professional face on. ‘No need for any more meetings. Next week we’ll be revealing the plans to our team and starting work. We’ve done as much as we can do, you and I. “Calm and professional”—that was what we said, didn’t we?’ She stopped and looked at her shoes. ‘Maybe we should have just stuck to that.’
And then she turned and walked back indoors, because she couldn’t watch him leave. Not one more time.
Daniel hated himself for walking away from Chloe’s houseboat. But he’d had that sudden reality check that only one fly in ten got when it was hovering above one of his plants. The future promised to be bright and sweet and full of everything he secretly wanted, but he knew that once he gave into that feeling, once he climbed down inside it and let go, there would be no going back, even if he realised it had been a terrible mistake.
He tried to make up for it in little ways over the following weeks. One morning he brought her a cup of her favourite coffee and put it in her nursery just minutes before she arrived for work. Another day he left a copy of an article he’d seen in a magazine that she’d find interesting. Chloe didn’t say anything about it at all. In fact, she seemed to have gone back to being that strange robot she’d been after that unfortunate night in the summer. But she seemed to manage to smile and laugh and talk with the other staff as they prepared for the Beauty and the Beast Festival.
He knew he couldn’t give her what she really wanted, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t be friends, right? He missed her. Missed hearing her laugh, or seeing her deep in conversation about something she was excited about, her hands moving rapidly as she spoke with both body and voice.
They had to work together for the next couple of weeks and he’d much prefer they left it on a good footing. Then he could leave on the expedition to Borneo knowing he’d done as much as he could, and he’d be free, no longer weighed down by the guilt that had been steadily solidifying in him since he’d seen that hurt look in her eyes.
So, at the end of the working day, as everyone was packing up, preparing to go home, he made his way to her part of the nursery.
‘Hi,’ he said as he walked in the door.
She looked up from what she was doing. ‘Hi.’ And then she just stared at him.
He held out a square object wrapped in a supermarket carrier bag. A peace offering. Not one for gift-wrapping, was Daniel.
Her features pinched together, but she took it from him. The rustling of the thin plastic seemed unnaturally loud in the deserted greenhouse. She pulled the square object out and looked at it. For a long time she was very still, and then, just moving her eyes and leaving her head bowed, she looked at him. ‘What is this?’
‘It’s a print of the slipper orchid from my book. I thought you’d like it.’
She stared back at the picture. What? Was it out of focus? Had he put it in backwards?
‘Is there something wrong?’ he asked, not liking the frown that was bunching up her forehead.
She took a step forward. ‘Yes, there is. I want you to stop being nice to me.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘It’s just making it all that much harder,’ she said.
‘I was just trying to … I don’t know … apologise.’
‘What for?’ She folded her arms across her chest. ‘For not being in love with me? As much as I love a good moccachino or a pretty picture, even I don’t think they’re quite going to cover that one.’
When she put it like that, maybe …
‘I wasn’t trying to upset you,’ he said. ‘But I leave on the fifteenth of next month. I just didn’t want things to be weird between us up until then.’
The frown melted and her features sagged. ‘The fifteenth? That’s the day after the festival.’
‘I know.’
She nodded, looked away. ‘Okay. Maybe that’s a good thing.’ The way her jaw was clamped together made him believe otherwise. She met his gaze again. ‘So we just have to last another three weeks and then you’ll be gone.’
Last another three weeks? That sounded very ominous. Very final.
‘I’m not going for good,’ he reminded her.
‘For long enough, though,’ she replied. ‘Almost two months.’
He nodded, and he realised that the thought of the trip no longer filled him with the same restless energy that he’d experienced when he’d set it all up. Somehow, it felt like running away, even though it seemed Chloe was quite keen for him to put on his shoes and sprint.
He hadn’t wanted it to end like this. Awkward. Sad.
‘Is bringing you a coffee now and then really that bad?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ she said and her eyes began to shimmer.
He walked towards her but she held up a hand. ‘Don’t … Please …’
‘But—’
She shook her head and suddenly that shimmer in her eyes turned to anger.
‘I know you’re not meaning to, but you’re just playing games with me. It’s the whole “want what you can’t have” thing. You can’t help yourself.’
That wasn’t it at all. He opened his mouth to tell her as much, but she cut in before the words had left his mouth.
‘It’s got to stop, Daniel! You’re not being fair. Please …’ That little waver in her voice, right there, got him right down in his gut. Her lip wobbled and the next word was barely a whisper. ‘Please, just leave me alone.’
And then she turned and walked out of the door, leaving the framed print on the bench.
When Daniel got home he found his sister waiting for him. She met him at the kitchen door with a bottle of chilled champagne in her hand.
He really didn’t feel like celebrating. ‘What’s this in aid of?’ he asked her.
Kelly nodded to an open manila envelope on the kitchen table. ‘Papers arrived. As of today, I am officially divorced.’ She waved the bottle at him. ‘But I didn’t want to drink this on my own, because that would just be … you know … sad.’ And then she grinned at him, just to prove how elated she was.
Daniel walked over to her, took the bottle out of her hand, placed it on the table and pulled her into a fierce hug.
After a moment, she pushed herself away, exhaling hard. ‘Just don’t be too nice to me, okay?’
Daniel threw his hands in the air in mock surrender. What was wrong with the womankind today? Seriously?
He opened the champagne while Kelly got two flutes
from the cupboard and when their glasses were filled they both went to sit on the sofa at the end of the conservatory.
‘So, how does it feel to be finally free?’ he asked, slightly elated himself that her rat of an ex-husband was out of his life also. Kelly had moaned long and hard about the process of eradicating that scum from her life.
‘Bloody terrible,’ she said and downed almost the whole glass in one go.
‘But—’
‘Oh, I don’t want him back,’ she added quickly. ‘But it’s hard, you know.’ She glanced at the kitchen ceiling, which also happened to be the underside of Cal’s bedroom. ‘Hard on the boys and hard to feel so … alone.’
He nodded. He’d felt that way once, but then he’d become so used to it he hadn’t been able to remember a time when it was easier not to be that way. And now? Now he just wanted …
Chloe.
He wanted to be with Chloe.
But she didn’t want to be with him—and he had to admit she might have some very good reasons for that. He sighed.
Kelly slugged back the last of her champagne. ‘Oh, and I ought to tell you that I think the boys and I should move out when you get back from the jungle. Late April, maybe.’
He sat up, almost snorted bubbles out of his left nostril. ‘What?’ he half said, half coughed.
Kelly gave him a rueful smile. ‘It’s not that the boys and I don’t love living here,’ she said, ‘but it’s time I stood on my own two feet, faced the world.’
‘Kells, you don’t have to! Think of the money …!’
She laid a firm hand on his arm. ‘I know. But I need to do this. For me.’
He shrugged. Kelly had made up her mind. And when a Bradford made up their mind there was no budging them.
‘Then I’ll help any way I can,’ he said.
That was when his sister burst into tears.
She crawled up to him, buried her head in his shoulder and sobbed until there was no more moisture left in her body, it seemed. Daniel didn’t quite know what to do. If she were a plant he’d stand her in a bucket of water to rehydrate her, but if there was one thing he’d learnt this year it was that people were a heck of a lot more complicated than plants.
She peeled herself from him, blew her nose and went to refill her glass from the bottle on the table. As she crossed the room she fixed him with those beady eyes of hers.
‘So …’ she said as she sat down ‘… we know all about me, but what’s got you looking as joyful as a turkey at Christmas?’
He aimed for humour and ended up with disgruntled. ‘Chloe thinks I’m stalking her.’
Kelly threw back her head and laughed. When she’d finished wiping a fresh batch of tears from her eyes she said, ‘Thanks, I needed that.’
‘Your sympathy is duly noted and appreciated.’
Kelly just grinned at him. ‘Why does she think that?’
‘It’s stupid,’ he said, and he was just about to tell her how stupid when he could hear his own voice in his head, laying out his case. But instead he started to think about all those women who’d turned up at Kew just to see him. Had they not been able to think about anything else for more than five minutes at a time? Had they had the same urge to get as close to him as possible, for as long as they could? Was this what obsession felt like?
Oh, hell. It was, wasn’t it?
Maybe he needed psychiatric help.
‘Oh, I’ve been saying that for years,’ his sister said over the top of her champagne glass.
Daniel glared at her. Had he actually said that out loud? Things were worse than he thought.
And then she reached over and ruffled his hair. ‘It needs a cut,’ she said as she put her glass down and stood up. ‘And I need some shut-eye.’
She walked over to the table, retrieved the bottle and topped his glass up. ‘And, for what it’s worth, I don’t think you’re crazy. In fact, this is the most sensible I’ve seen you in years.’
She dumped her empty glass in the dishwasher. ‘If you like, Dr Kelly will give you her diagnosis.’
Daniel made a face that said she’d better not try, but as Kelly walked across the room and kissed him on the cheek she whispered in his ear, ‘I’d say the problem is this—you’ve got it bad.’
CHAPTER TWELVE
‘DANIEL?’ IT WAS Kelly’s voice on the other end of the line, but not her usual sarcastic drawl. His little sister sounded really panicked.
It was the first day of the orchid festival, and Daniel and Chloe and the whole team had arrived early and were working hard to make all the finishing touches before the grand opening later that morning. The Princess of Wales Conservatory was looking amazing, dripping with colour and unusual displays. Next to the otherworldly shapes of some of the pitchers and other carnivores, the orchids only seemed more delicate and fragile.
Daniel ducked into the Temperate Carnivores section, letting the door close behind him, cutting off the noise of the work party. ‘What is it?’
‘It’s Ben,’ she whimpered. ‘He fell off the climbing frame at pre-school and cracked his head.’ There was a pause while she took a great, snuffling breath. ‘We’re in the hospital. He’s unconscious, Dan.’
Daniel didn’t waste any time joining his sister in panicking. He got the name of the A&E department they were in, explained the situation to the nearest person with a Kew T-shirt and sprinted off in the direction of the staff car park. Within fifteen minutes he was at the hospital, haranguing the young guy on Reception into telling him where his sister and nephew were.
He found Kelly, sitting quietly and composed in a cubicle, with her son drowsy on the trolley beside her. Her body was rigid, her knees clamped together and her knuckles white as she gripped onto herself for comfort.
‘He came round,’ she said in a tight voice. ‘The doctor says that’s a good sign, but they did scans and they want to keep him in for observation.’
Daniel just walked over to his sister and pulled her up out of the chair and into his arms. He was angry. Really angry. Angry this had happened to Ben. Angry Kelly had to face something like this all on her own. Angry at Ben’s father … just because. And he decided he’d like to stay angry, because angry was a lot better than scared witless.
‘You’re cutting off my air supply,’ Kelly said hoarsely and poked him in the ribs.
‘Sorry,’ he said, standing her back from him and holding her at arm’s length, his hands on her shoulders. He looked her up and down. ‘Are you okay?’
‘I am now,’ she said, and he saw a hint of the old Kelly in her thin smile. She was a fighter, his sister. The strongest person he knew.
He walked over to Ben’s trolley. The little boy’s eyelids were fluttering and he hauled them open. ‘Uncle Daniel,’ he said, and his chubby fingers made a grasping motion. Daniel stuck his index finger in Ben’s palm, as he had done when Ben had been a baby, and the boy grabbed onto it tightly. His lids drifted closed.
He couldn’t go anywhere now without disturbing his nephew. A throb of panic set itself inside Daniel’s temple. He wasn’t sure if he could do this. Even though he hadn’t been there when Joshua had—
He couldn’t finish that thought.
Even though he hadn’t been there, something about seeing this tiny body curled up on the pristine white of a hospital sheet was bringing all those feelings flooding back. He glanced at the gap in the cubicle curtain. The urge to dart through it was overpowering, but with Ben holding tightly onto his finger he was trapped.
He looked at Ben, his almost-translucent lids closed and his mouth relaxed into an ‘o’ shape, and something inside Daniel’s chest cramped. Since Kelly had moved in, he’d really let himself get attached to his nephews. He wanted to scold himself for being reckless, but how could he? That was what families were supposed to do—care about each other. That was what people were supposed to do in general.
But if Daniel tried to count on one hand the number of people that he’d truly let himself care about since the end of
his marriage, he realised he still had a couple of fingers left. Even Kelly and the boys had to worm their way in slowly. What kind of brother did that make him?
What kind of man did that make him?
Kelly came to stand by the trolley and rhythmically smoothed her son’s hair from his forehead, then she reached out and circled Daniel’s other thumb with her smaller hand, mirroring her son’s gesture, and the three of them stayed like that in silence for a moment, joined like a circle.
‘This,’ he said croakily, ‘is why I can’t do it again.’
She nodded and a tear dripped from the corner of one eye. She couldn’t wipe it away without breaking contact, so she let it run down her cheek, the overhang of her jaw and onto her neck.
‘I get that, Dan,’ she said softly—far too softly for his ballsy little sister. ‘But tell me this: would you rather have had those six months with Joshua or would you rather that he hadn’t existed at all?’
Daniel flinched at the mention of his son’s name. He realised he hadn’t said it out loud for years. It was just as well it wasn’t him hooked up to one of those heart monitors, because the little cubicle would’ve been filled with the sound of a galloping electronic horse.
Thankfully, he was rescued from answering Kelly’s question by the arrival of a doctor. He prised his finger from Ben’s hand, shot a quick look at Kelly, then went to wait outside while the doctor delivered her news.
Kelly opened her mouth and reached a hand in his direction, and he knew she was going to say it was fine for him to stay, but he needed to get out of there. If it was going to be bad news, he didn’t know if he could take it.
Inside, deep down in his core, he was shaking and cold. And as he searched for a free plastic chair to perch on his conscience began to nibble away at him too, adding a dash of nausea to the already uncomfortable internal cocktail.
He glanced at Ben’s pale blue cubicle curtain, knowing that inside Kelly was probably feeling worse than he was, that he’d left her there alone to deal with whatever was coming.
He’d told himself that he was brave because he liked climbing high walls and tramped through rain forests and knew how to deal with leeches and ticks, but this was where it counted. Here. In this drab city hospital. This was where he would prove he was a man or not.