by MacKay, Sue
‘You could have, and it would’ve hurt.’ That was such a doctor tone.
She tried glaring at him. ‘You have all the answers, don’t you?’ Then a smile broke over her mouth. It was impossible to be mad at him when he was being so kind and downright appealing.
‘You’d better believe it.’ Finally, those lips lifted into a return smile.
This time, thankfully, those hormones stayed in their cave. But warmth trickled through her. When Cam smiled it was like a light in a blackout. Even though he didn’t do full-blown, face-crinkling smiles, what he did give was rare and special, making her feel special. Which, of course, she wasn’t. Not to Cam anyway.
She headed for the deck, carefully manoeuvring around furniture. No way was she tipping onto her face and giving him more to deal with.
*
‘Goodnight, you two. No talking once the light’s out.’ As if they’d take the slightest bit of notice. Cam tried to pull on a serious face but how could he when Marcus and Andrew looked so darned cute—make that cool—lying in their beds pretending to be ready for sleep. He knew the moment he closed the bedroom door they’d roll over to face each other and yack their heads off for as long as he pretended not to know.
‘Goodnight, Dad.’ They both giggled.
How could Margaret have left them? He still couldn’t get his head around that. Leave him? Yes, fine, if that was what she wanted. That particular pain had finally begun ebbing away. Shame the distrust couldn’t do the same. But these guys deserved so much better from their mother. Bile rose in his throat.
It had been as if the bond that mothers presumably had from the moment they knew they were carrying a child had been missing in Margaret. Sure, the pregnancy had been unplanned. He should’ve seen the warning signs then. While he’d been ecstatic, she’d been upset. Unfortunately his belief that she’d get past that and fall in love with her babies when she held them for the first time hadn’t eventuated. Instead, she’d focused more and more on her career until finally that had attracted her more than her children or her husband.
‘Goodnight, Dad,’ Marcus repeated. ‘We want to go to sleep,’ the little imp added, with eyes wide and the sheet already half off his skinny body.
‘Dad?’ Andrew sounded worried.
Three strides and he stood between the beds. Bending down, he scooped first Marcus then Andrew into his arms for a family hug. The scent of small boys filtered up his nose, warming him deep inside. ‘I love you guys so much,’ he whispered around the lump suddenly clogging his throat. How long since he’d last told them? These days he did more telling off than offering endearments. Something he really needed to work on.
Wriggle, wriggle. The boys slipped down and climbed back into bed. ‘We love you, too.’
‘Do you think Jenny’s got anyone to love her?’ asked Andrew.
Not if that desolation that tripped into her eyes at unexpected moments was anything to go by. ‘I’m sure she has,’ he lied. ‘But it’s not something you can ask her.’
‘Why not?’ The inevitable question hung between them all.
How to shut this down without upsetting the boys? ‘When you don’t know someone very well you can’t ask a question like that. It’s personal.’ That goes for you, too, Cam. As Andrew’s mouth opened Cam held up his hand. ‘Wait. You don’t want to make Jenny unhappy, and asking who loves her might make her very sad if there isn’t anyone special.’
‘We make her happy. She laughs with us.’
‘You’re right. She does that a lot when she’s with you.’ But not as much with him. Which might be a good thing. Too much laughter between them might lead to complications neither of them needed. He had his life mapped out: get these two through to adulthood as unscathed as possible. That meant focusing entirely on their needs and not his own.
Huh? What needs do I have anyway? I have food, warmth, shelter. I’ve a job that provides all those and helps towards keeping me sane. I’m the father of the greatest, coolest, funniest two kids ever born. It would be greedy to want more.
But when he stepped into the lounge and spied Jenny in the big old rocking chair Grandma had left him, the question repeated in his head. Do I have other needs? Loneliness surfaced, knocking the breath from his lungs. Strange because he was usually surrounded by people. But when was the last time he’d told anyone his dreams? Or made plans to go on a holiday with another adult to share everything with?
At the moment there was no one around to discuss decisions with about what to buy the boys for Christmas, or whether to apply for a partnership in the medical centre. Cam grimaced. Some people would tell him he was lucky not having to take on board another person’s ideas.
Glancing at Jenny, he wondered what it was about her that stirred up these pointless emotions and questions. Her chin rested on her gently rising and falling sternum, her eyes were firmly shut, those long, slim hands lying in her lap: the picture of abandonment. She’d finally succumbed to the exhaustion plaguing her all evening, which she’d been fighting with the tenacity of a bull terrier.
The sound of a small snore reached him. He grinned. She even sounded like a bull terrier. Kind of cute.
Smack. His palm banged his forehead. Cute? His boys were cute. Not this woman, who’d be gone within a day or two.
He might know next to nothing about Jenny Bostosk, but only a blind man wouldn’t see that she moved on all the time. It was there in her eyes as they roved the horizon, in her short, sharp movements as if her body couldn’t handle staying in one place for very long.
Which was just as well. Despite inviting Jenny into his home, he was not getting involved. It had taken a long time to get over Margaret dumping him. Even now he could feel the disbelief that had slammed through him when she’d announced she was leaving him and the boys. So, no, cute as Jenny was, he wasn’t getting involved.
As his eyes scoped over her it dawned on him that at this very moment she was completely, and unusually, still. Her mind had obviously closed up shop for the night. Bet that didn’t happen often.
Jenny needed to be in bed, not scrunched up in a chair. He headed for the bedroom he’d made hers for now and folded back the covers on the bed, closed the curtains and turned on the bedside light. Returning to the living area, he drew a deep, steadying breath and bent down to slide his arms under her. Straightening his back, he lifted her warm body and headed for the bedroom as fast as possible without disturbing her. Having an antsy woman wake up in this situation would probably get his head beaten in.
But she didn’t wake up. No, instead she snuggled in closer, causing his lungs to stall and his muscles to tighten. All of them. Yeah, even that one. Now, there was a surprise. It did still work. Even when it shouldn’t.
Why did the spare bedroom have to be furthest from the lounge? His strides lengthened. Another of those cute little snores and warm air touched his chest through his shirt. Oh, hell. How was a man supposed to remain sane and responsible? How was his libido supposed to behave? There was a question he’d be wise not to dwell on. What was it about Jenny that had him waking up when he hadn’t been the slightest bit interested in sex since before Margaret had left?
Almost dropping Jenny onto the bed, he dragged the covers over her, not bothering to remove any outer clothes—he didn’t do stepping into lions’ dens—and backed out of the room so fast he nearly tripped. Closing the door, he sagged against the wall and berated himself for a full five minutes. Thankfully swearing silently didn’t count in the house rules. Not when the boys weren’t in the same room as him anyway. If they had been he’d be coughing up buckets of cash in fines, not banking every spare dollar for their university fees in ten years’ time.
Note to self: check how those investment funds he’d started for the boys were doing. And tell his hormones to take a hike. Jenny was off limits.
*
The next morning Cam watched the boys place a plate of toast and a cup of tea on the bedside table with all the finesse of a calf wallowing in mud. ‘
Okay, say goodbye and go get your school bags, you two.’
Jenny gave each boy the benefit of her big smile. ‘Breakfast in bed. How decadent. Thank you so much, Andrew. Thank you so much, Marcus.’
She never roped both boys into the one thanks or compliment. No, she singled each of them out. The boys’ biggest gripe about being twins was that everyone spoke to them as though they were one unit. Everyone except Jenny. ‘Are you a twin?’
Instantly the light in her eyes snapped off. Her hands clenched into fists before she slid them under the covers. Her bottom lip trembled.
Every swear word he could think of slammed into his brain. Now what had he started? It had seemed an innocuous question.
Marcus’s eyes lit up. ‘Are you like us? Where’s your sister? Or brother? Doesn’t she want to be with you?’
Ice entered the room. Cam could feel his skin chilling and goosebumps rising. If he thought he’d seen desolation in her eyes yesterday, he didn’t have a word to describe the shock, agony and the bewilderment darkening that summer green of her eyes to winter’s darkest day.
‘Out. Go get your bags and wait on the deck.’ With a hand on their backs he nudged the boys towards the door, holding back the urge to rush them away before they added to his monumental blunder—whatever that was. ‘Go. Now,’ he growled, knowing this was his fault, not theirs, but needing them to do as he said quickly and quietly.
Maybe the frozen atmosphere of the bedroom had touched them, too, because they tiptoed away, glancing back over their shoulders with worried expressions on their faces. He gave a wave, hopefully reassuring, and turned back to the woman he’d obviously just knocked for a six.
‘I apologise for putting my size elevens in my mouth, but you’re so good with the boys the way you treat them as individuals and not as a double package that I figured you might know what it’s like to be a twin. I never meant to upset you, but it seems I’ve done so in a big way.’ Stop burbling on and on. But he needed to see that tension ease, to raise the tiniest of smiles on those now white lips. ‘You are really, really good with my boys. It comes naturally to you.’
Her chest rose and fell sharply, quickly, continuously.
And finally he shut up except to say, ‘Take a deep breath.’
It took a few attempts but eventually Jenny had her lungs under control. But not her eyes. They hadn’t lightened, or met his gaze, or even blinked.
Leaning down, he tugged one of her hands free of the cover and wrapped it in both of his. It was cold. And shaking. Cam sat on the edge of the bed and held tight, his thumb rubbing gentle circles over the back of her hand. Slowly, slowly the quivering slowed, but didn’t stop entirely.
Then Jenny pulled free and sat back against the pillows. ‘Alison.’
Did he acknowledge her? Or would that start another episode of what he’d just witnessed? If he remained silent she might think he was deliberately ignoring her. He spoke as softly as he could manage. ‘Your twin?’
Her head dipped. ‘She died.’
He’d been getting to that. Her reaction had to have meant more than a sisterly fallout. ‘I’m sorry. I can’t begin to imagine how that must feel.’
‘Stop apologising.’
‘What?’
‘You’ve been saying sorry ever since we met on the footpath. You don’t need to.’
That had nothing to do with her sister. Probably her coping mechanism kicking into force. Jenny could relax about that. He wasn’t about to jump in and ask the big questions about how, why, where. Hell, he wasn’t going ask what she wanted sent from the bakery for her lunch. He’d bring something of his choice. ‘Deal. No more apologies. Now drink your tea before it’s totally cold.’
‘Anyone ever tell you you’re bossy?’
‘The tw—’ Swallow. ‘Marcus and Andrew. All the time.’ He handed her the cup and tried not to notice how much it shook in her two-handed grasp.
‘Go. They’ll be wondering why you’re taking so long.’ Colour was returning to her face at last.
Note to self: do not mention her twin sister at all ever again.
CHAPTER FIVE
JENNY WANTED TO throw up. No one in all the months she’d spent on the road had asked if she had a family, let alone if she was a twin.
She sipped the lukewarm tea and bit into the heavily buttered toast the boys had made her. Hopefully that would settle her stomach faster than holding her breath or plain old wishing the nausea away could.
If her foot hadn’t been aching and throbbing and difficult to manoeuvre she’d have been tempted to catch a bus out of town, away from intrusive questions and prying eyes. Cam missed nothing. He’d seen each and every one of her emotions when he’d asked that question. He’d known instantly he’d made a big mistake, probably even had an inkling as to why. At least he hadn’t gone all effusive on her. That would’ve caused her stomach to do what she was so far managing to prevent.
‘Yes, I am a twin, who failed her other half. Yes, I totally get what it’s like to have people put me and my twin into the same pigeonhole. We were born identical, shared a birth date and parents, had the same passion for hiking in the bush, but that’s where the similarities ended.’
Just like Marcus and Andrew. Already she could see differences. They both liked playing cricket in the yard, but Marcus preferred bowling, concentrating with everything he had to bowl the perfect ball, while Andrew just wanted to slog the ball as far as possible with no thought to where it might land in relation to the lone fieldsman, being their dad, or to the house windows.
Their dad. Cam, or Cameron Roberts, as he’d introduced himself. An enigma. He loved his kids massively yet often seemed to be cross with them for very little reason. The guy needed to loosen up.
Ha! Like she could talk. Loose did not describe her at all. In any connotation. A wound-up rubber band was getting close. Wind it too tight and it might snap.
Not only had her life come to a crashing halt in Havelock, having time on her hands was already forcing her to face things she’d had no intention of facing. There’d been some fun moments on this journey—like the beach at Whangamata where she and Alison had once given surfing a go. Neither of them had had the aptitude required to stay on a board long enough to ride a wave. This time she’d taken a surfing lesson, but had still bombed out. No doubt Alison had been laughing down at her.
Throwing the covers aside, she gingerly lowered her feet to the floor and stood up. Sucked in a breath and held onto it until the sharp jolt of pain faded.
After trying to juggle the cup and plate and use the crutches, she gave up, headed for the bathroom instead. She’d think of a way to take the cup and plate out to the kitchen later. Right now a shower was on the menu.
With Cam’s usual thoughtfulness a large plastic bin liner and a roll of tape were on the sink top, and a stool had been placed strategically by the shower, with a towel folded neatly on top. He’d also placed her bathroom bag with her shampoo and conditioner beside the shower door.
She could get used to this. Cam was so caring. She wondered what had gone wrong with his marriage.
With her leg in the tightly taped bag, she hobbled under the jets of hot water and luxuriated in the heat pummelling her. Her body ached from top to toe from the thumping it had received when she’d hit the ground like a sack of spuds. Tipping her head back, she let the water saturate her hair then lathered in shampoo, at last returning the tangled mess to its silky texture. Now she felt half-human again. If only everything else needed to fix her problems came in a plastic bottle with a squeeze top.
*
Who knew that having a shower, getting dressed and making the bed could take so long? It was nearly lunchtime and Jenny stood at the kitchen bench with a cup of tea and pulled a face at the enticing sun-drenched deck. She wanted to be out there, drinking this, not standing here unable to move without her crutches.
Instead she turned to focus on the cork board next to the fridge. Covered in photos, school messages, party invitati
ons and sports timetables, it gave her an insight into the Roberts family’s day-to-day life. In a word—busy. And happy. In every photo one or all three of the males who lived in this house beamed out at the world.
‘Big tick for you, Cam. You’re obviously doing lots of things right with those two.’
Her heart squeezed. He was a great dad. His doctoring skills weren’t shabby either. He’d been gentle and careful with her ankle, had asked the right questions. As for anything else, his long, lean body was pretty good, too, in great shape, if she dared to think about it.
Then there was that astute mind that picked up on vibes far too quickly. He didn’t miss a trick. All in all, he added up to a very intriguing package. She hugged herself.
Don’t go there, insisted a very familiar little voice in her head.
Finishing her tea, she carefully made her way out to the deck and dropped onto a wooden chair, breathed in the warmth and quiet.
Now what? She should’ve checked out that bookshelf to see if there was anything she could read. Even a mechanic’s manual would be better than having nothing to distract her. Except she couldn’t see Cam with his head under a bonnet. Though why not, she had no idea. Understanding men hadn’t been one of her strong points.
‘Hey, you’re up and about.’ Cam stepped onto the deck and stopped, his throat working overtime.
When the moment had stretched out too long and he obviously hadn’t found his voice she asked, ‘Has a bird left its calling card on my head?’ Couldn’t be food on her face. She hadn’t eaten since her shower.
He swallowed hard. ‘Yep, must’ve been a turkey from the size of the mess.’
Instinctively she ran her hand over her head and felt stupid for doing it, knowing he’d been teasing, or hiding something.
Cam held up two bulging paper bags. ‘Lunch courtesy of the bakery.’
‘Yum. I looked in their window on Saturday and everything looked very enticing.’
‘Your hair is beautiful.’ Then he disappeared inside to the kitchen.