by Penny Jordan
Automatically her hand dropped to her stomach and rested there.
So far as Sean’s accident was concerned, the consultant had told her cheerfully that she was worrying for nothing, that Sean was a fit, healthy man with a skull thick enough to protect him from its contact with the road and a broken leg that was healing extremely well. But Kate knew that as long as Sean was here in this hospital she would continue to feel that he was vulnerable and needed to be treated with care.
* * *
Dry-eyed, Sean watched Kate leave. He had had time and more to spare during these last few days to think. And he’d had plenty to think about. The past and the future.
The present situation was a warning to him of how the people who mattered most to him were precious and yet so vulnerable. All that mattered to him, Sean acknowledged fiercely, was Oliver, the child he had come to love with a true father’s love, and Kate, the girl he had loved, the woman he still loved, beyond and above anything and everything that had happened or might happen.
Oliver and Kate. He couldn’t bear the thought of losing either of them. Even in that half-second as he’d recognised Oliver’s danger he had known that it didn’t really matter that he hadn’t fathered him, or even that there had been another man for Kate. That was the past. He had their present, and he wanted their future.
* * *
‘So, no playing football with that leg, and come back for your check-up in six weeks,’ the consultant told Sean breezily as he gave him his final examination before discharging him. ‘You’ll be looking forward to getting home to your wife and son,’ he added easily, but he was watching Sean as he spoke.
Following Kate’s request, he had sent for and checked all Sean’s medical records. One of them recorded a specialist’s opinion that it would be a miracle if Sean ever managed to father a child.
‘You were damn lucky not to be much more seriously injured, you know,’ he commented. ‘But then, as we in the medical profession are often forced to accept, miracles do happen!’
Sean closed his eyes. He wasn’t going to dispute what the consultant was saying; after all, he had his own private, secret miracle to rejoice in.
Five years ago, if someone had told him that there would come a day when he would not only accept another man’s child as his son but he would love that child more deeply than he had ever imagined he could or would love anyone, apart from Kate, he would have denied it fiercely and immediately. But that was how he felt about Oliver.
When he had seen the little boy standing in the path of the lorry he had known that he loved Oliver as fiercely and protectively, as deeply and instinctively as though he were his biological father. Oliver was his son, and he loved him as his son. But legally Oliver was not his son, and if for any reason she chose to do so Kate could simply take Oliver and walk out of Sean’s life with him.
Any reason? Sean’s mouth compressed. Kate had a very good reason to want to leave him, and he had given her that reason that night they’d made love...
It made no difference to Sean’s contempt and disgust for himself that ultimately mutual passion had flared between them. His only excuse was that his pent-up jealousy had overwhelmed him, and that was no real excuse at all. He loathed himself for what he had done, and he knew that Kate must loathe him as well—for all that she was concealing it.
The door to his room was opening. A smiling nurse came in, and behind her were Kate and Oliver.
When Oliver broke free of Kate’s hold and ran towards him Sean bent his head over Oliver’s to conceal his emotions.
‘He refused to wait at home for you,’ Kate explained as Sean picked up the crutches he would need to use.
Immediately Kate was at his side, but Sean refused to let her help, turning away from her.
White-faced, Kate watched as the nurse went to Sean’s aid...Sean’s side...taking the role which should have been hers. Sean might have remarried her, but he didn’t want her as his wife, Kate acknowledged bleakly.
* * *
‘I’ve asked Mrs Hargreaves to move my things into one of the other bedrooms.’
Kate was glad she had her back to Sean, so that he couldn’t see her reaction to his words, although she couldn’t stop herself from demanding, ‘But what about Oliver? You said—’
‘I’ve told him that it’s because of my leg,’ Sean answered her curtly.
But of course that was just an excuse, and Kate knew it! He didn’t want to share a room with her, a bed with her, any longer—because he didn’t want her!
They were standing in the hallway, Sean leaning on his crutches whilst Oliver chased his puppy around the room, trying to catch him so that he could show him to his father.
‘I see you changed your mind,’ Sean commented sardonically as he looked at her.
‘I’m a woman. I’m entitled to,’ Kate replied as lightly as she could. There was, though, another reason she had decided that this was the optimum time to allow Oliver to have his puppy.
Had Sean recognised the pup as being the one he himself had picked for Oliver? she wondered. If he had he didn’t make any mention of it, and ridiculously, after everything else that told her how he felt about her, she felt absurdly disappointed and hurt.
‘I’ll help you upstairs,’ she offered, going to his side. But immediately Sean stepped back from her in such an obvious gesture of repudiation that Kate froze, then turned round so that Sean wouldn’t see the humiliating tears burning her eyes.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
NAUSEOUSLY KATE PUT her head back on the pillow and closed her eyes. Perhaps it was just as well that Sean was not sharing the room with her.
Sean!
It was Sean’s birthday today. She reached for the packet of dry biscuits she had bought herself earlier in the week, when she had bought his birthday card.
She took her time getting up, waiting for the nausea to subside before going in to Oliver.
He was as excited as though it was his own birthday, Kate acknowledged ruefully as he collected the present they had wrapped together so carefully the previous day.
Sean was already sitting in the breakfast room when they went in, and immediately Oliver ran over to his father and scrambled onto his knee, shouting, ‘Happy birthday, Daddy!’
Bending her head to hide her own emotion, Kate picked up the card Oliver had dropped in his excitement, reflecting that it was just as well she had carried the present for him.
‘Happy birthday, Sean,’ Kate echoed more sedately, adding, ‘and it’s a double celebration now that your plaster cast is off!’
He had had the plaster cast removed the previous day, and the consultant had expressed himself totally satisfied with the way the leg had healed.
‘I’ve got you a card and a present!’ Oliver exclaimed importantly, still sitting on Sean’s lap.
Obediently Kate handed over the card and the present.
‘You’ve got to open this one first—it’s my card,’ Oliver instructed. ‘Mummy has a card for you, too, and so does Rusty. He’s put his own paw mark on it,’ Oliver told him excitedly. ‘Mummy made some special mud, and we put his paw in it, and then we put it on the card!’
‘Some special mud? That sounds clever!’
Was that really a gleam of amusement she could see in Sean’s eyes as he looked at her? Kate’s heart somersaulted inside her chest.
‘That explains the odd marks on Mummy’s jeans yesterday, then, does it?’ he added dulcetly.
‘We did have a couple of aborted attempts.’ Kate laughed, but when she looked at him Sean wasn’t sharing her laughter. Instead he was looking at Oliver’s card. And he continued to look at it for a several seconds, before lifting his head and looking at Kate.
‘Do you like it, Daddy?’ Oliver demanded, tugging on his arm.
‘I love it, Ollie!
’ Sean assured him gruffly. ‘But I love you even more.’
As he hugged him he put the card down and Kate reached for it, standing it up on the table. Oliver’s writing wasn’t very good as yet, but his message to his father was: ‘I love you lots, Daddy.’
‘And you’ve got to open my present now,’ Oliver insisted.
Kate watched as Sean unwrapped the photograph she had taken of the two of them and had framed. As Sean studied it she held her breath. Could he see, as she had, the likeness between them?
If he could he obviously wasn’t going to say so.
The rest of the cards were opened, including the one from Rusty. Then Sean assured Oliver gravely that he was indeed looking forward to his birthday tea, and eating the cake Oliver and Kate had made for him.
Kate said nothing.
‘Mummy, you haven’t got a present for Daddy,’ Oliver piped up suddenly.
‘Yes, she has, Ollie,’ Sean told him, before Kate could say anything. ‘Your mummy has given me a very, very special present—the best present in the world.’
‘Where is it?’ Oliver asked him, bewildered.
Over his head, Sean looked at Kate. ‘You are it,’ he answered. ‘Your mummy has given me you.’
Kate knew that she should have been thrilled to hear Sean’s words of love for Oliver, and of course she was, but a part of her ached with pain because she knew that they confirmed what she didn’t want to hear: that Sean only wanted her because he wanted Oliver.
That was not the kind of relationship she wanted with the man she loved, the man who—
Abruptly, she got up.
She had left her gift for Sean in the room he used as an office. When he found it he would realise that in order to have Oliver he did not need to have her as well.
‘Kate, where are you going? You haven’t eaten any breakfast.’
She didn’t turn round.
‘I’m not hungry,’ she answered, and instinctively her hand went to her stomach.
Not hungry? Sean wondered bitterly as she walked away. Or not able to endure his company?
As soon as they had finished their breakfast, Sean took Oliver out into the garden, along with the puppy. Did Kate even realise she had picked the same pup he had chosen?
As they walked side by side Oliver chattered happily to him, and when he looked down at him Sean felt a stab of pain for the years of his life he had missed, for not being there at his birth. His large hand tightened around Oliver’s smaller one. Oliver was his son, but he had not been entirely truthful when he had said that Oliver was the most precious gift he could have been given.
He was precious, very precious, but Kate’s love was just as precious. There hadn’t been a night since it had happened when he had not lain awake, hating himself for the way he had treated Kate. No wonder she couldn’t bear to be in the same room as him.
* * *
It was lunchtime before he went into his office and saw the large white envelope lying on his desk.
Frowning, he picked it up, recognising Kate’s handwriting on it,
‘For you,’ she had written, ‘and for Oliver.’
Still frowning, Sean opened it. Removing the contents, he read them, and then read them again. And then again, trying to focus through the blur of his own shocked emotions.
He had fathered Oliver. It was here in black and white. The incontrovertible proof in their DNA records.
He read them again, and then again, over and over, until finally it sank in that there was no mistake.
Miracles do happen, the consultant had told him, and now Sean knew that it was true! But his miracle had come at a dreadful price, he recognised as the reality of what the results meant sank in.
He had refused to believe that Kate had not slept with another man. He had done so much more than refuse to believe her...
He heard the office door open.
Kate walked in and closed the door. She looked at the desk, and then at him.
‘So you’ve opened it?’
‘Yes. But I wish to hell that I hadn’t!’
Kate felt sick. What was he trying to say? ‘But it proves that Oliver is your son!’ she protested.
‘Oliver was already my son!’ Sean told her harshly. ‘Here in my heart was all the proof that I needed or wanted—even if it took a near tragedy to make me realise that. Kate! This—’ he told her, furiously picking up the results, ‘means nothing!’
Kate was too shocked to speak.
‘I want Oliver to grow up knowing that my love for him comes from here,’ he told her, as he touched his own heart, ‘and not from this!’ Angrily he threw down the piece of paper. ‘I had a lot of time on my hands to think whilst I was in hospital, Kate, and what I thought, what I learned, and what I finally accepted was that love—real love—should and can transcend all our weaker human emotions. Jealousy, doubt, fear. I love you as I have always loved you,’ he continued thickly. ‘As the only woman for me. My other half, who I need to complete me...my soul mate. Nothing can change that. Nothing and no one. And I love Oliver as the child of my heart.
‘This...’ he gestured towards the test results ‘...underlines the fact that I haven’t just abused you and your trust once, but twice. That I have created yet another barrier between us with my own selfishness and stupidity.’
Dizzily Kate looked at him. ‘You love me?’
Sean frowned, caught off guard not just by her question but by the exultant pleasure that lightened her voice.
‘You want me to?’ he demanded.
‘Oh, Sean!’ Tears blurred her vision as she took a step towards him, and then another, until she was close enough to wrap her arms around him. ‘Always and for ever. You and your love.’ Emotion choked her voice and she shook her head. ‘If you love me, why have you been rejecting me? Why have you—?’
A tide of colour began to creep up under Sean’s tan.
‘I thought—I felt... That night when we made love... God, Kate, do I have to spell it out for you? I lost control and I—’
Gently Kate placed her fingers against his lips to silence him.
‘We both lost control, Sean, and as a result of that...’ She paused. ‘Do you really mean this, Sean? Do you really love me?’
‘How could you even ask?’ Sean groaned as he pulled her closer and kissed her downbent head.
‘Well, it isn’t just for myself that I have to ask,’ Kate answered slowly, trying to pick her words as carefully as she could.
It was obvious to her when he put his hand under her chin and tilted her face up towards his own so that he could look into her eyes that he hadn’t grasped what she was trying to say.
‘You mean because of Oliver?’ he asked her, puzzled. ‘You know I love him.’
‘No, not because of Oliver,’ she told him. ‘But you’re on the right track.’
Encouragingly she looked at him, until he made a smothered sound and bent his head to take the softness of the half-parted lips she was offering to him.
Their kiss lasted a long time and said a great deal, promising love and commitment and sharing sadness and regret, but eventually it ended, and Sean demanded rawly, ‘You can’t mean that you’re pregnant?’
Kate gave him a quizzical look. ‘Who says I can’t?’ she teased flippantly, before giving a small shrug that didn’t quite manage to conceal her excitement.
‘Apparently modern research has shown that a woman’s body has the capability to fight hard to receive and cherish the sperm of the man she loves—and after all, Sean, it only takes one!’
Tenderly Sean drew his fingertip down the curve of her cheek. ‘Well, this is certainly not a birthday I’m going to forget.’
‘Mmm, and it isn’t over yet,’ Kate reminded him softly, adding naughtily, ‘You know how women get crav
ings for things when they’re pregnant...?’
Dutifully, Sean nodded his head.
‘Well, my craving is for you, Sean,’ she told him gently. ‘And besides, you don’t want your baby to think you don’t love her mother, do you?’
* * *
‘Her mother?’ Sean questioned softly, several hours later, as he propped his head on his hand and looked down into Kate’s face.
Her mouth was curved in a smile of warm, sensual satisfaction whilst her eyes glowed with love and happiness.
‘Well, I think she’s a girl,’ she answered him lovingly, before adding, ‘it’s because of the pregnancy that I got Ollie his puppy now. One baby at a time is enough for any household!’
‘Oh, God, when I think of what I could have lost. What I did lose in those hellish years without you,’ Sean said, drawing her back into his arms and nestling her against his body. ‘Thank you for forgiving me for what I did, for making it possible to have you and Oliver in my life.’
‘Once I understood why you had done what you did, it changed everything—especially when I saw the way you were bonding with Ollie. Of course I hated the fact that you were refusing to accept that Oliver was your child, but from a logical point of view I understood why you’d refused to believe it. And I never stopped loving you, even if I didn’t like admitting it!’
‘Well, from now you aren’t going to be allowed to stop loving me,’ Sean told her softly. ‘And I am certainly never going to stop loving you.’
EPILOGUE
‘I THOUGHT YOU SAID that one baby at a time was enough?’
Kate gave Sean a rueful look and they both looked at the two perfect and identical babies sharing the same hospital cot.
Their daughters had been born within ten minutes of one another earlier in the day, and after bringing Oliver to see his new sisters Sean had taken him home and put him in the care of Mrs Hargreaves before returning to the hospital to be with Kate.
‘I thought you said it was impossible for this to happen!’ Kate responded, and then felt her eyes moisten with ridiculous emotional tears as she saw the male pride in Sean’s eyes battling with the awareness that Kate had done the hard work of carrying and giving birth to them.