After the Loving
Page 15
‘I loved you like a brother, Court,’ Raff groaned his pain.
‘I loved you the same way,’ the other man nodded. ‘But as soon as I saw Josey I fell in love with her. Remember the first time we saw her, Raff?’ he smiled. ‘It was at a party given by my parents. I thought she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. But she only saw you,’ he added flatly.
‘I had no idea you felt that way about her …!’ Raff shook his head.
‘Why should you?’ Court gave a self-derisive smile. ‘You couldn’t help the fact that women always preferred you. And with the others it never mattered,’ he added grimly. ‘I thought your relationship with her would run its usual course and then I could help her pick up the pieces, only she became pregnant before that happened, and I had to resign myself to just being a friend to you all. But the marriage never worked, did it, Raff, and after a couple of years you were both looking around for other people. I hung around until Josey eventually turned to me. But I couldn’t give her the children she so desperately wanted!’
‘Maybe if the two of you had come to me, talked to me about taking Kate and Paul——’
‘What?’ challenged Court. ‘You would have let us have them?’ he scorned.
Raff drew in a ragged breath. ‘Maybe,’ he breathed huskily.
‘You would never have agreed——’
‘I might have done,’ Raff protested. ‘It would have been hard for me, but I knew how much Josey loved them, and that you loved them too.’
Court looked at him angrily. ‘You can’t bring yourself to hate me even now, can you?’ he choked.
‘I could try, if you really want me to,’ Raff told him raggedly.
‘I nearly drove you and Bryna apart, nearly killed your baby!’
Raff nodded. ‘And if you’d succeeded in doing either of those things maybe I could hate you. But I’ve loved you as a brother too long to hate you for what might have been.’
Bryna loved Raff more in that moment than ever before, as she went to his side to clutch his hand tightly. They had both suffered because of Court, but Raff had suffered much more than she, would probably always suffer for the loss of a man he had felt so close to.
Court stood up in controlled movements. ‘Since I went to see Bryna in hospital I’ve spent the time moving my head office to New York,’ he told them tautly. ‘I intended telling you what I’d done before I left, but as soon as my move has been completed I’ll be going to the States myself. Unless you have other plans for me?’ He looked enquiringly at Raff.
Raff’s arm moved about Bryna’s waist as he drew her close to his side. ‘You’ve done nothing illegal. And even if you had I doubt I would want to do anything about it.’
Court sighed. ‘Then I’ll say goodbye; I doubt we’ll meet again.’ He looked regretfully at Bryna. ‘I really am sorry you almost lost the baby.’
‘I know you are,’ she nodded.
As soon as the front door had closed behind him Bryna felt Raff sag weakly against her, turning towards him as he sobbed in her arms.
‘If you don’t stop picking him up every time he so much as squeaks he’s going to be thoroughly spoilt!’ Bryna scolded as she walked into the nursery.
Raff turned guiltily, the tiny baby held securely in his arms. ‘I thought he was choking.’
Bryna firmly took the baby away from him and put him back in his crib, ignoring the indignant wails that followed them as she pulled Raff from the room. ‘Correction,’ she said sternly. ‘He’s already spoilt!’
James Rafferty Gallagher—the reversal of the two first names Bryna had originally chosen had come about because Raff had decided they couldn’t have two Raffertys in the house—was almost seven weeks old, but he had known from the day Bryna brought him home five weeks ago that he was going to be master in this house. With his thickly curling dark hair and purple eyes he charmed on sight!
‘He was crying——’
‘He’s been changed, fed, cuddled, and now he needs to sleep. He just doesn’t think he does,’ she added firmly as Raff went to protest. ‘Honestly, I sometimes wish that new assistant of yours wasn’t so good at his job that you don’t feel the need to put in more than the odd day or so at your office!’
But they both knew she wished nothing of the sort. She and Raff were together almost continuously, and they loved it. Raff’s new assistant really was very good, and after taking over again during the latter part of Bryna’s pregnancy, Alyson was running the agency very smoothly too.
‘Between you, Kate and Paul, I hardly ever get to hold James myself,’ Bryna complained, knowing she was really pleased by the acceptance of all the family of the baby that could have been an intrusion. But Kate and Paul were always here to see James, and on the odd occasion when Bryna and Raff went out for the evening they usually argued over which one of them was going to come over and babysit. Kate had moved during the summer to share a flat with another girl from college, and fortunately it seemed to be working out this time.
Both Kate and Paul had been upset by their ‘uncle’s’ move to America, and Bryna knew that Raff often thought of Court too. But from pieces of information Raff received Court seemed to be doing well in the States, and now that their own happiness was so overflowing they wished him well. Maybe one day he would even find a woman he could love as much as he had Josey.
‘Stop trying to find reasons to pick an argument with me and tell me what the doctor said this morning,’ Raff encouraged throatily.
After the way he had been storming frustratedly about the house the last couple of months she had been deeply disappointed at his lack of interest earlier in her visit to the doctor for her post-natal check-up. Looking at him now, his eagerness barely contained, she realised he had been trying to be tactful, not wanting to pressure her.
She gave him a seductive smile. ‘As soon as your son is asleep I’ll tell you,’ she ran caressing fingers down his cheek, his face softened with love for her.
He listened in the direction of the nursery, giving her a triumphant look as silence greeted them. ‘Who said he was spoilt?’ he drawled pointedly.
She laughed softly, moving into his arms. ‘Who insisted he be put back in his crib?’
‘You planned this,’ Raff groaned. ‘Oh God, Bryna, I’ve missed your closeness, missed being a part of you!’
‘You’ll always be a part of me,’ she looked at him lovingly. ‘I love you.’
‘I love you too!’
They told each other of their feelings all the time now, not just after the loving but before and during too. It would always be that way for them now.
ISBN: 978-1-474-02965-0
AFTER THE LOVING
© 1987 Carole Mortimer
Published in Great Britain 2015
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of Harlequin (UK) Limited
Eton House, 18-24 Paradise Road, Richmond, Surrey TW9 1SR
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.
By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introdu
ced 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 publisher.
® and ™ are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ®are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries.
www.millsandboon.co.uk