by Jane Lark
I’m Keeping You
JANE LARK
A division of HarperCollinsPublishers
www.harpercollins.co.uk
HarperImpulse an imprint of
HarperCollinsPublishers
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk
First published in Great Britain by HarperImpulse 2016
Copyright © Jane Lark 2016
Cover images © Shutterstock.com
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2016
Cover design by Zoe Jackson
Jane Lark asserts the moral right to
be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library
This novel is entirely a work of fiction.
The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are
the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to
actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is
entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International
and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.
By payment of the required fees, you have been granted
the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access
and read the text of this e-book on screen.
No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted,
downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or
stored in or introduced into any information storage and
retrieval system, in any form or by any means,
whether electronic or mechanical, now known or
hereinafter invented, without the express
written permission of HarperCollins.
Ebook Edition © April 2016 ISBN: 9780008142438
Version 2016-03-30
PRAISE FOR JANE LARK
“Jane Lark has proved what a writing talent she really is. This is an engrossing and telling read…Be prepared to have your heart squeezed”
BestChicklit.com
“An amazing book. It is dark and edgy yet flirtatious and even made me laugh. It’s such a combination that made me not want to put my kindle down at all”
After the Final Chapters
“Dark, gritty and wholly mesmerizing…a haunting and compelling read you will not easily forget”
Bookish Jottings
“Emotional, romantic, and heartbreaking”
Imagine a World
Thank you to my wonderful editor, Charlotte Ledger, who has worked with me for the last two years, for believing in my work, seeing the potential in Jason and putting a romance book out about a good guy, which turned into the Starting Out series full of good guys. Thank you, Charlotte, for giving me the freedom to write the stories I want to tell and helping me to make them stronger.
Also I’m sure you’ll all want to join me in thanking the cover artists, Alexandra Allden and Zoe Jackson, for giving you some wonderful images to look at as you read the stories.
Then there’s one more thank you, to you all, for reading the series, and taking the time to share and post reviews and message me on Facebook and through Twitter, to tell me how much you love the books. I love hearing from you, and it’s great to know that people really understand and enjoy getting caught up in the stories and characters. Thank you.
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Praise For Jane Lark
Dedication
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
Author Note
About the Author
Also by Jane Lark
About HarperImpulse
About the Publisher
CHAPTER ONE
Rachel
I drifted from sleep to dreams to being half awake. The things Jason and I had talked about at the party the other night were stopping me from sleeping, plus the conversation we’d had with our solicitor.
Thoughts swept through my head, about my ex, Declan, and New York and meeting the guy I’d been meant to find—Jason.
I rolled on to my back. My forearm lifted to my forehead as an image of Saint came into my mind. I slid back into sleep.
I picked him up out of his buggy. My beautiful son.
We were standing on a bridge, looking at the river in the park. I showed him the clear water as we leaned over the railing. “Look, you can see the fish.” I could see them. The water wasn’t like the Hudson. It was a narrow, shallow river. I could see right to the bottom. The weeds waved, making patterns in the flow of the current as the water headed on out to join a bigger river and make its way to the coast.
The heat of the sun warmed the skin on my face and my arms. I felt superhuman, like I had a super-power. I was the best mom in the world. I was high, full of energy and charged up. Ideas fizzed around in my head. We were going to go back and paint, and bake.
A play-dough recipe—I should Google a play-dough recipe.
“Maybe I should ask Grampy to build you a sandpit. You need a sandpit, don’t you, Saint…” I looked down at the fish. Their tails swished at the water as they swam against the current.
“And you need a fishing rod, to go fishing, and a little net. But I guess a net first. Maybe we should go get a net now, so we can catch a fish.”
I lifted Saint up high, holding him above my head, above the railing. Not Lion-King style but so he looked down at me as I looked up at him. The sun shone behind him, giving my little Saint a halo. He made his three-month-old gurgling sound.
I felt like Mufasa, though, or perhaps more like Sarabi; like I was the queen lioness. I’d only just discovered Disney. Disney movies were one of the new exciting mommy things in my life. My mom had never done being a mom. I’d never stepped inside a cinema when I was a kid, or watched a movie on TV.
Since Saint was born, I’d sat down and watched more than a dozen movies with him, loads of times. I was different from Mom. I was a good mom. The best. And Saint was going to be the President, because I was going to bring him up so well, and he’d stand up before Congress and tell everyone he owed it all to his amazing mommy.
I brought him down and hugged him tight. I loved hugging him the most. Squeezing my little, solid, happy human being. My body had made him; this perfect little boy.
Sunshine heated my hair and face. I looked down at the water. It looked so cool. Jason used to swim here when he’d been a kid. He’d told me. It looked refreshing. I’d never swum in a river. I could have hardly gone for a dip in the Hudson back in New York, or dived into the Delaware when I’d lived in Philadelphia as a kid. But here, this was only a little, narrow river. “Saint, you oughta learn to swim. I bet you’d love it. Daddy said it was always fun… He liked it.”
I held Saint against my chest and walked off the bridge, leaving his buggy behind. “I bet the water’s refreshing. It’ll be nice on a hot day like this.”
There was an area where the bank sloped down toward the water. It was flat by the water’s edge.
I walked down there. “We’re gonna swim, Saint.”
I walked to the edge and kept walking, the cool water washing over my sneakers. It was a lovely sensation. I could see me teachin
g Saint to swim, holding his hands as he kicked out. I’d seen babies swimming in ads. Saint could do that. He was a clever baby. The water came up to my knees, getting the hem of my skirt wet, but I didn’t stop walking. I loved the cool sensation pushing against my legs and caressing my skin as the water ran around me and flowed on downstream. It was exciting to be in a river—to do what Jason had done as a kid. I was the best mom.
The water came up to my waist and surged against me, swirling around me, creating little eddies. Saint’s toes dipped into the river, they were bare, it was a warm day; I hadn’t put socks on his feet. He made a gurgling sound.
“Does the water tickle?”
My clothes were soaked and clinging to my body, but even that was nice—a good feeling—because they were cool—and I was manically happy.
The water spun in whirlpools just in front of us. It was dancing. The sunlight caught on the surface, making it sparkle. The world was magic. I imagined us swimming with the fish. I knew the whirlpools implied the current was stronger, but I was supermom—so that didn’t matter to me. My mind was full of images of me teaching Saint to swim; there was no space in my head for other thoughts. I took another step out. The water was up to my shoulders and up to his shoulders, and it was so good. The current and the pressure of the flowing water pulled at my feet. I fought to keep my balance, but it didn’t disturb me. Saint was just looking at me, with wide eyes, bemused by the new sensations. I laughed. I was going to let him go—I was going to let him swim.
“Hey! Hey! What the fuck are you doing?” A strange guy called out from the bank. He was yelling at me.
“Hey! You! Get back! You’ll drown the kid!”
I hugged Saint tight as the guy waded into the water. He was trying to steal Saint. Another guy ran in and between them they got a hold of me and dragged me out. I fought against them, hanging on to Saint. But then the second guy growled into my ear. “What are you trying to do, kill him?”
The words punched me. Kill him… No. “No. I’m teaching him to swim!”
“He’s a baby!”
One of the guys took Saint from my arms and began looking at him, all over, like he might be hurt. I sat on the bank shivering. The guys fussed over Saint, and they wouldn’t give him back. Other people came.
The water hadn’t been cool, it had been cold. But I was just teaching Saint to swim.
“Hi. Yeah. Cops.”
One of the guys had his cell to his ear.
“Yeah, some woman in the park just tried to drown her kid.”
I stood up. “I didn’t. I was teaching him to swim. Kids need to swim. His daddy used to swim here. We were just swimming.” I hit the guy’s arm and tried to take his cell.
“You weren’t teaching him to swim…” the guy who held Saint growled at me.
I held out my hands. I wanted to go home now. “Let me have him.”
The guy held on to him.
“Let me have him!” Panic pulled tight around my chest, solidifying in my lungs, as euphoria spun into fear. The guy’s face became Declan’s face.
“Let me have him!”
The guy wouldn’t let me take him back. My baby. “He’s mine! Let me have him! He’s mine!” My screams became louder and louder.
“Hey. You okay?” Jason’s hand ran over my shoulder. When I opened my eyes, I escaped the dream, but every muscle in my body trembled from the shock and fear. It hadn’t been a dream. I’d walked into that river for real with my three-month-old baby, and it had changed our lives, maybe forever.
“You alright? You were dreaming…” Jason’s arm wrapped around my shoulders then pulled me against his chest. We were in bed. The room was dark.
My forehead pressed into his shoulder and I shook my head. I wasn’t alright. The cops had picked me up but they hadn’t arrested me, they’d taken me to Jason’s parents and explained what had happened. His mom had looked at me with pity, and his dad with confusion, and then they’d called Jason. He’d been working in the store. He’d closed the store that day. It was the only time I’d ever known him close the store.
But I hadn’t waited for Jason to come home. I hadn’t needed him to tell me I was a failure. I knew I was a failure. My mood had crashed, hurtling down. I’d walked out of his parents’ house. I hadn’t wanted to face Jason, and I hadn’t wanted to see Saint.
I’d failed.
I didn’t see how I could be a mom anymore—or a wife.
Jason had found me in a park, on a swing, hours later, I’d been lost in despair, it had been agony, a heavy, dense pain—too intense for words. I’d been too ill to even talk.
He’d called for an ambulance. It had taken me to the hospital. The doctors there had started me on a heavy dose of mood-controlling meds.
I didn’t remember much about my days in the hospital.
“What were you dreaming of?”
“The river,” I breathed against his skin.
His other hand stroked over my hair.
It was my stupid, distorted bipolar view of the world that had given my ex, Declan, Saint’s biological father, a chance to take Saint. He was saying I was unfit to care for Saint because I’d walked into the river. But I didn’t understand why Declan wanted Saint. He had kids already and he hardly had anything to do with them. He didn’t like kids. He was a shitty dad.
“It’s going to be okay,” Jason said over my head.
Jason was a good dad, but that didn’t seem to matter, and it wasn’t okay, nothing was okay, and that’s why we were flying out to New York tomorrow and I was leaving Saint. Because I was a bad mom. I’d failed him.
My arm slipped about Jason’s waist and I held on to him. His fingers gripped my shoulder and he pressed a kiss on to the crown of my head.
He’d never judged me for my error, just loved me. He understood me. He’d taken time to learn about my illness since we’d gotten married last year and he’d said a hundred times he knew it hadn’t been a choice, I’d just been sick.
The anxiety that had clasped at my lungs and sent my pulse soaring into a manic dance rhythm in the dream swept back in. Terror. I was terrified of losing Jason. As terrified as I was of losing Saint. Maybe because Jason was so special, and I’d done nothing to deserve a good guy, so how could he keep loving me? But he still did. He’d spent hours in the last few days reassuring me he did and that him leaving me would never happen.
I fell asleep again, holding him, and being held by him… I belonged with him… and Saint belonged with him.
When I woke sunlight shone into our room in Jason’s parents’ house.
Jason wasn’t in bed, or in the room, but I could hear Saint in his crib. I got up, picked him up, and held him tight, breathing in the smell of his hair as his breath stirred the tiny, fine hairs on my neck. Love was a great, deep well and it filled me up. The room became a shimmering blur. I’d die if I lost him as much as I’d die if I lost Jason. I wouldn’t want to be alive without either of them. Before I’d met Jason and had Saint, I didn’t even know if I could love a child, especially a child of Declan’s. But I didn’t think of Saint as Declan’s, he wasn’t. Saint was Jason’s son, in every way that mattered. Jason had been around for Saint and me right from the get go, from the moment I’d discovered I was pregnant, not just when Saint was born.
He was still here. I hoped he always would be. That’s what I wanted.
I brushed Saint’s hair back and kissed his head, wiped away my tears, then walked over to the door, turned the handle and went to find Jason.
Saint babbled away in his baby language. He’d laughed the other day. On Halloween. At the silly Halloween trick Jason had bought him. That had been the best sound I’d ever heard.
I heard Jason talking to his mom in the kitchen. I walked in there, wearing one of his old tees and just my panties, my legs bare. I hugged Saint against my chest. Jason turned around, a smile broke his lips apart immediately. I loved it when he smiled like that—he hardly ever smiled like that now.
“Hey
, honey.” He walked across the room to us, and his fingers stroked over Saint’s head as he leaned over to kiss my lips. “You okay?”
I nodded.
But we both knew I wasn’t.
I’d been terrified for ages that he didn’t love me anymore, I’d gotten so lost. I didn’t know how to be me anymore since I’d gone on to this last batch of meds. But the other day, over Halloween, we’d talked stuff out, and he’d gotten cross that I even doubted it. He did still love me—us. I’d been telling myself that as much as he had in the last few days, trying to convince my head what my heart knew.
When we’d talked stuff out, we’d kind of found each other again—that’s what he’d said. But I hadn’t found my old self and he’d admitted that he missed the me I’d been before I’d started on the strong meds. I missed that person too—desperately. She used to laugh a lot, and she’d felt free. This me… felt trapped, lost, and afraid.
“I love you,” he whispered in my ear, before he pulled away. I smiled.
He winked at me.
We’d had a lot of sex this week. It had been another of his ways of reassuring me, we hadn’t done it much for a while before that.
“Morning, Rachel,” his mom called. She was cooking pancakes. The scent of them filled the kitchen.
I didn’t want to leave here, or Saint. This was home. But Jason and I had to go. If we didn’t, Saint would leave us.
Maybe I’d explode, suddenly, the weight pressing down on me was so heavy. Jason took Saint from my arms and hugged him. I didn’t know if I was well enough to go to New York. I didn’t know if I’d cope.
But I knew some things; I didn’t want to have to deal with Declan when the doctors had me all drugged up and knocked out like a zombie, I couldn’t carry on as I was, and I couldn’t let Declan take Saint.
Those things had to change.