Last Chance Proposal (Entangled Bliss)

by DeLeo, Barbara

  Jonty lifted his eyes as he chewed his mouthful. His little brow crumpled as he shook his head.

  “Eeling then. Down at the creek. We could go and find some eels.” He took a mouthful of water.

  Jonty’s eyes moved back to his bowl.

  “We could finish polishing up the paua shell we got snorkeling.”

  At the sound of the gate to the beach being unlatched, Jonty dropped his bowl and spoon, then scrambled to his feet. He rounded the corner of the house in a second, his dinosaur T-shirt flapping. It would be Louis coming to find his friend. Memories of Ellie doing the exact same thing a decade ago ate at him.

  “Hey, Jonty.” Ellie’s sweetly singsong voice tugged at him and the sweat that had begun to cool on his skin fired again. He stood still, listening.

  “I just took a look at your little pukeko. He’s doing great this morning.”

  “Looks like his foot’s all better.” It was Louis’s voice. There was silence for a moment, and Cy imagined the smile on his son’s little face that the bird was better.

  “Are you ready to come to the hall? It’s a full practice today.” Her voice was softer and he could imagine her smiling. “Louis’s mum will meet us down at the hall ’cause she’s got a few phone calls to make. Have you got your hat? I’ll look around for your dad.”

  “Let’s get your terror sword, too, and we can show the other kids,” Louis said.

  Thundering feet raced through the house and Cy pulled his shoulders back as he rounded the corner.

  “Morning.” He was afraid of what she might see in his eyes, but without his sunglasses, he had no choice but to look directly at her and the smile he found almost unbuckled him. Perfect crescents dimpled her cheeks. Why hadn’t he noticed that about her before? His mouth dried as his eyes drifted to hers and the memory of her kissing him and holding him close sent warmth feathering through his veins.

  “Hi.” She rubbed the side of her neck.

  He took a mouthful of water from the bottle and let the liquid cool every heated part of him. Her reaction was no different to any of the other days she’d stood on his front lawn, as if what they’d shared last night was nothing more than a cup of tea and a cookie between old friends. Man, if only he still felt that way about her. Everything was different now. He’d changed the rules of their agreement.

  White shorts outlined her tan legs and a green top hugged her body, revealing the perfect plane of skin below her neck… He dragged the towel across the back of his shoulders.

  Louis jumped from the doorway, struck a pose, and thrust out his tongue like a Maori warrior. “Is it okay if Jonty comes to pageant practice?”

  Jonty raced back onto the deck, his hat sitting lopsided on his curls. Cy swallowed. “Ah, we’re going… Sure. I guess we can come and watch. Give me a second to rinse off.” He turned to walk up the steps.

  “You don’t need to come.” Ellie’s voice was light but distant. He turned back as she swung a bag over her shoulder “It’ll take a while today and I’ve got some sandwiches in here so Jonty can stay with us for lunch. You take a break. I’ll bring him back later.”

  All three of them stared at him and the tug-of-war inside reached breaking point. His body wanted more of her and his brain told him to back right off.

  He smiled at his son. “I’d prefer to come too if that’s all right. Are you okay with that, Jonty?”

  His little boy nodded as he played with the scarf around his neck.

  “Perhaps you boys could run along ahead then.” He didn’t need to tell them twice. The boys raced on, kicking up sand behind them.

  Ellie pulled the sunglasses from her face. Her caramel eyes drew him in, but tiny lines dug into her forehead. “Is everything all right, Cy?” An uncertain smile traced her lips.

  He folded his arms and looked up the beach at the boys. “Sure. Let’s walk.”

  The skin between her eyes furrowed deeper but she picked up her bag and started walking. “What’s wrong? Is it about last night?”

  Words scooted around his brain, and he fought to get them in the right order. He should probably do this face-to-face but there was something soothing about walking beside her on the beach with the sun on his shoulders, looking straight ahead. “Yes. Last night.” The words came out like speeding bullets. “I don’t think we should let it happen again.”

  She stopped for a second but then looked straight ahead and resumed walking.

  “When I asked you to come into our lives, it was to help me show I had some stability in my life. What happened last night didn’t feel stable. It felt wild and a little bit out of control. That’s not the way I want to feel right now. I shouldn’t have made love to you.”

  “Then why did you?”

  He stopped and waited while she turned. “Because I’m selfish. Just as I explained to you yesterday, I’ve always put myself first and if I keep doing that when Jonty needs me, I could lose him.”

  “I see.”

  “None of this is about you, Ellie. It’s not that I regret what happened last night… God, I feel anything but regret. But I lay awake the rest of the night wondering if things are just too complicated between us now. That maybe Jonty and I shouldn’t just leave. Before you and I get in any deeper, maybe I should take him back to the States and continue this fight on my own.”

  The perfect skin on her cheeks sagged the tiniest fraction. “You can’t be serious. After all the progress Jonty has made here in the last two weeks, you’d consider walking away because you don’t know how to deal with what happened between us last night?”

  He turned his face away to the gently rolling waves. The strength in her tone galvanized him. “I don’t want anything to jeopardize what we’re going to do. All our energy has to be put into getting Jonty back. There’s no space in my life for anything or anyone but him. Not now. Maybe not ever. I don’t have room in my heart left for anything but my fight to be with my son.”

  “And in my deluded, optimistic world I thought you’d changed.” A shadow crossed her face like a storm cloud across the sun.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I thought you’d learned some things about facing life’s challenges, but I see I was wrong. You’re prepared to use Jonty as an excuse for feelings you’re too scared to look at and you’ll hurt whomever you need to in the process, Jonty included, to make that happen. It would be an enormous mistake to leave now.”

  She began to walk. The anger in her tone told him one thing, that he’d hurt her again. For a few moments of pleasure, he’d hurt her. They were silent for a moment, the only sound the scream of a seagull above them and Louis whooping up ahead. Was she right? Was he hurting Jonty, too?

  She stopped and turned to face him again. “I told you right from the start that all I could offer you was a year of my life. I don’t want anything from you in return, Cy, and if you think getting custody of Jonty will be compromised by a physical relationship with me, then there won’t be one.”

  He stood there, dumbfounded, and watched her walk away. Part of him silently screamed in denial, despite this being what he’d asked for. That part of him wanted it all—Jonty being stable and emotionally healthy, full custody of his son, Ellie in his bed and in his life for good. But she was right, it was past time to stop being selfish and to do what he knew was right, despite the cost to himself.

  …

  “So did you manage to get some fresh air last night? Or at least the fresh bit?” Fleur faced the tumble of children onstage but a grin tugged at her mouth as Ellie turned beside her on one of the hard wooden seats in the hall.

  A secret, sad heat curled through her as she looked down and dug a needle and thread into the ponga tree costume she was sewing for Jonty. Cy had gone back to the house to make some calls about the wedding, which meant Jonty could be involved in everything.

  Fleur twisted to face her and lowered her voice. “When will you tell me what’s going on between you and Cy? There’s more to this engagement than meets the eye,
isn’t there?”

  The needle pushed through the fabric into the flesh of Ellie’s finger. “Ow!” She trapped the stinging spot in her mouth and sucked off the blood.

  Fleur’s eyes narrowed. “Good deflection, but not convincing.” Her sister was silent for a minute as she took a mouthful of tea from the mug in her hands.

  “He’s going through a lot, with Jonty, the custody case.” Ellie peered closer at a felt leaf she’d just finished creating.

  “Something’s happened, hasn’t it?”

  Broad silence hung between them before she turned to her sister. No more half-truths. “Is it that obvious?”

  “If I hadn’t been lying awake wondering what was taking you so long at Cy’s, then the wide-eyed look you’ve been wearing all day would’ve given it away.”

  Ellie threw her fabulously intuitive sister her warmest smile. “I’m not wide-eyed. And it’s complicated.”

  “Isn’t it always?” Fleur huffed out a giggle.

  “No, this time it really is.” Ellie smiled softly and stopped her sewing. “Cy and I slept together last night, but it won’t be happening again.”

  “Really?” she asked, her head tilted to the side.

  Ellie pointed the needle and grinned. “I have weapons.”

  “How do you know it won’t happen again?” She wriggled closer.

  “Cy’s very focused on Jonty right now, not our pretend engagement. He can’t afford anything to unsettle what they’re about to go through. He’s having second thoughts about getting married.” She forced breeziness into her voice, knowing these were Cy’s words, but she didn’t want her sister to worry.

  “Doesn’t that complicate things, though, having made a pass at him? It’s going to be hard pretending for a whole year that it didn’t happen.”

  “Cy was my first love. I won’t deny it. And I got my heart broken. I won’t deny that either. But I’ve moved on and…” She paused. “He was never in the same place as me anyway. And I knew what I was doing last night. It’s better that it happened now than when we’re living together.”

  Cyndi called the children up onstage and they began to run through the finale. Ellie couldn’t drag her gaze away from the little boy with the golden curls moving to the center of the stage. His scarf was tied around his wrist as usual and her heart swelled with joy.

  “Gosh, that little boy’s changed. Remember when he got here and his head was always down and he shuffled his feet?” Fleur lifted the mug to her lips.

  “Which is exactly why we can’t let what happened last night happen again. There’s too much at stake.” Ellie laid the costume on her lap and turned to her sister. “Too many emotions tied up and they’re bound to affect Jonty’s progress.”

  “That’s all fine and well, but last thing I remember, Cy walked out on you ten years ago and broke your heart. And I hope he hasn’t just replayed his old record. Jonty’s emotions might be important, but so are yours.”

  “I was eighteen. Cy’s right in that I needed space to focus on my own family back then, not him. I would’ve had my heart broken no matter who it had been. I know that now.”

  Fleur nodded. “But he was with you when William died. She laid her fingers on the bare skin of Ellie’s arm. “Maybe this is what’s happening here. You turning yourself inside out trying to save another little boy.”

  “It’s not.” Ellie covered her sister’s hand with her own, her chin lifting. “Truly. I can help Jonty and Cy. By doing this one thing, something that doesn’t cost me anything, I can avert this tragedy.”

  Fleur’s gaze became more intense. “And if it’s successful and Cy gets his son, what then?”

  “Then after a reasonable amount of time—”

  “You walk out of Jonty’s life?”

  Ellie sighed and nodded. “I know it’s not ideal, but what other option is there? I’ll be a friend to Jonty so I’ll go on seeing him, especially when they come back to the cove for holidays. Like an adopted aunt or something. I can see him as much as I see Louis. The break won’t be sudden and it won’t be permanent. And we can manage it with his therapist.”

  “And what about your feelings for Cy and his feelings for you?”

  “If I keep my relationship with him as friends, it will guarantee I’m never out of Jonty’s life. Imagine how completely devastating it would be if I started something with Cy and then it all fell to pieces. Then I’d never get to see Jonty again.” She gripped the fabric harder. “And besides, I’m big enough to look after myself.”

  Ellie turned back to the stage to focus on the little boy at the center. It sounded hollow even in her own voice, but she wanted to make herself believe this as much as Fleur.

  “I’m doing this for a friend who’s done a lot for me and a little boy who deserves to be with his dad.”

  No matter what she said out loud, her inner voice spoke a completely different way. She did care. And she did possibly love him all over again…

  Chapter Nine

  “Crazy, useless…”

  Ellie stood at Cy’s back door the morning of the twenty-ninth, ready to knock. Curses followed by a roar of laughter made her hesitate. She hadn’t seen him or Jonty much except for pickups and drop-offs for pageant practice. Cy was busy making wedding and flight plans so he’d been happy for Ellie and Fleur to take Jonty. The distance hurt, but it was for the best. When they went into Auckland today to make more wedding arrangements it would be as friends, the way Ellie wanted it to be from now on.

  Cy’s chuckle carried through the door. “What is this thing, Jonty? It looks like something from my Nana Doris’s coal range. Like the ones they used in the olden days. I don’t even know which way up it goes.”

  She knocked loudly and small feet drummed across the floor.

  She grinned at Jonty as he peeked around the door. “Hi, I’m ready to go to Auckland to see Nana Pat.” The smile he aimed back went straight to her heart. He wore nothing but jeans, his little bare-chested torso showing tan lines from his T-shirt. And no scarf. She ruffled his hair as the significance of it burned like the sun in her chest.

  She smiled at Jonty and pulled out the squishy bundle she’d been holding behind her back and gave it to him. “This is for you.”

  His eyes grew huge as he stood staring at the bright blue-and-green toy pukeko. “I thought you might like to have a pukeko to take to America with you.” She lowered her voice and leaned in to his ear, smelling sunshine and shampoo. “And you can use him when you’re onstage.”

  Jonty’s eyebrows shot up and he beamed.

  “Hasn’t he got lovely red legs and a beautiful red beak? When we take your chick to the sanctuary before we leave, we’ll see lots of mum and dad pukekos that look just like that.”

  Jonty squeezed the toy tight and her heart melted.

  She stepped around a suitcase lying on the floor, clothes spilling from its corners. Jonty led her into the kitchen and the second she saw Cy, her pulse spiked. He leaned over a rickety-looking ironing board, an ancient iron in his hand and, if it were humanly possible, looked more handsome than she’d ever seen him before.

  He looked up and his gaze danced over her, leaving a flush on her skin. “You look nice,” he said.

  “What, this old thing?” She grinned as she smoothed down the black cotton sundress that fitted tight around her waist and fell loose to her knees. “I haven’t seen your mum in ages. I didn’t want to wear my old shorts.”

  His eyes softened. “Are you worried about us telling her we’re getting married?”

  Ellie dragged her palm across her forehead and dropped her voice. “Do we really have to lie to her as well? Fleur knows the truth and she’s not going to tell anyone. Why don’t we just be honest with your mum? I know she wouldn’t tell anyone if she thought it would affect your chances of being with Jonty.”

  He lifted a shoulder and let it drop. “I know she wouldn’t tell anyone, but it wouldn’t be fair to her. She’s in a well- known law firm in Auckland now and if
they somehow found out she’d known about something that’s potentially illegal, she could lose her job.”

  Ellie nodded. “Okay. I’ll be glad when today’s over, though.” She pointed to the iron. “What on earth is that?”

  Cy rolled his eyes. “Good question. I wanted J to wear his dress shirt for when he goes to visit his nana today. I washed it but it looks a bit…”

  He held up a bright orange shirt that could’ve been trampled by a herd of water buffalo. He shrugged. “I don’t own an iron. And if I did, it wouldn’t be one of these things. It looks like it’s come from the Bronze Age.”

  Ellie winked at Jonty. “It’s a very handsome shirt. I bet Nana Pat will love it.”

  Jonty reached into the suitcase, pulled out a T-shirt with a rocket on the front, and held it up. He looked at the orange mess Cy wrestled with and frowned.

  “That’s a good T-shirt, too,” Cy said, “but it’ll be nice to look your best for Nan.” He grinned at his son who shrugged and dropped the T-shirt back into the suitcase. “I’m gonna have to learn to iron your clothes for school anyway, J, so I’d better start getting it right.”

  Deep, hot pride flared inside her. Wanting to do things right, be a dad to his son in every way, was still new to Cy and he was diving headlong into it. Over the course of these few short weeks he’d become someone so new to her, so determined and focused, so loving and so giving and it made her heart burst.

  “Hey, look what you’ve got, J!” Cy said as Jonty squeezed the toy pukeko and it gave a squawk. Cy bent down as Jonty’s mouth blossomed into a grin. “That sure was lovely of Ellie to give him to you.” He smiled at her. “Thank you.” The words wrapped softly around her heart.

  “So, what are you up to here?” she asked, trying to regain her composure as she nodded at the ironing board. “I’d like to say I’d help out but that thing looks like it needs a license to drive it.”