It wasn’t perfect, but it was the kind of heaven she’d never let herself imagine having. And if she squinted just the right way it almost looked like love.
Unsatisfying, unconsummated, unrequited love.
But that was as much her doing as his. While she’d never had a fastidious bone in her body when it came to her appearance, suddenly she didn’t want Flynn seeing her puffing and ungainly lurching around when he was still as solid and gorgeous as ever. And for him, holding back on that one final intimacy had grown to mean something important, something beyond the preservation of the annulment that hovered on the horizon. A deep and paranoid part of her feared that—for Flynn—as long as her body remained inviolate, so did his heart. After all … despite the many joys and comforts of living as Mrs Flynn Bradley, neither one of them had said a word about love. Or the future. Or about what was going to happen when the Crown’s decree finally came in. Some days it was almost possible to forget entirely that the dispute even existed and just enjoy life on the tablelands. The happy family illusion. Bel knew that day would be hard enough without obsessing over it in advance.
Flynn was a very practical man. And, apparently, a very disciplined one. There was no way in the world that a man as careful as he was would ever have impregnated a girl accidentally. The more she got to know him, the more surprised she was that his family bought that. It just wasn’t him.
She frowned.
Another thing she’d almost forgotten about. All the lies. Marrying Flynn had effectively rendered everything that came before it rather void. And the lies had started to roll all too comfortably off her tongue. She actually felt like Belinda Bradley. The old Belinda and all her troubles were virtually gone from her mind.
Maybe if you said something enough times it really did start to be truth?
‘Sugar.’ Over in the corner Denise ranted one of her more moderate curse words.
Bel looked up from the book she was reading. For the past six weeks she’d been barred from all but the lightest of chores and was officially on wait-duty, confined to the main homestead until Flynn returned from whatever task he was doing. Going mad with boredom.
And not the best time to be without something to keep her hands and mind busy, given the custody hearing had been incourt since the start of the month.
‘Problem?’ she asked Denise.
‘Internet is down again. It’s this weather. One good storm and we’re out for days.’
‘Something you need particularly?’
She laughed. ‘Just contact with the outside world. I have a pile of emails in my outbox just waiting for a decent connection.’
Another thing she’d prefer not to think about. The outside world was so not welcome right now. Like King Oberon’s mythical subjects, she had no interest in knowing what was happening outside the forest. Reality had a way of messing with fantasy. The white-out could go on for ever as far as she was concerned, just as long as she had Flynn’s arms to crawl into at night and the Bradley clan to hang out with by day. And a belly-full of babies.
Yep, denial was more than comfortable enough, thanks very much.
‘I’ll have to send Flynn and Bill into town to see if they have better luck with signal there. You should put in an order.’
There was almost no point. Anything she needed she could get in Sydney next month when she went in to have the twins. Not that she’d have a long list. Everything she needed she had. Healthy children, a warm, welcoming home and if not the love of a good man then at least his affection and attention.
Denise’s frustrated sigh disguised her own.
She’d spent a lifetime mining what hints of affection she could from people, surviving off them. Suppressing her emotions was virtually second nature now—not that it hurt any less in the middle of the night when the shifting babies woke her and she thought about leaving the man whose arms she lay in—but it had become an easy habit with practice. Easy and necessary. She’d long since accepted that Flynn’s heart was nowhere near as deep into this temporary marriage as his body was, and that it was going to be one-sided—her side—until the day it was over.
And that day had to be coming soon. Bel did her very best to ignore it. Because ignoring it meant she could have Flynn.
And she wanted him very much.
Decision day—D-Day—hung over everything, ominous and looming. Any time now Flynn’s petition would be decided and they’d have a binding outcome and she’d be leaving Australia either empty-handed or with very full hands indeed.
Scarily full hands.
Not for the first time, she reminded herself that she’d let just about everyone in her life down. Why would the twins be any different? Just because she wanted it to be? What if she wasn’t cut out to be a single mother? What if she failed? This wouldn’t be like bailing out of school or moving out of home, things that only impacted on her.
Her hand slid to her belly. If she failed these two little people then they would be at risk. And assuring their future was the point of all of this.
But what other option did she have? She knew the drill when she first came to Bunyip’s Reach and, despite everything, nothing had really changed. Flynn had never once said what if or spoken of other ways they might proceed with this. If she stayed. How that could work …
She wrapped her arms more tightly around herself in the window seat. God, she couldn’t even think the words …
If he wanted her to stay and be a family, he would have asked.
Just because they were sharing a bed didn’t mean he’d changed his mind about anything else. They were just working it out of their systems.
Well, he was. She was taking whatever she could get while it lasted.
Any day now she was going to confess all to the people who loved her, hurt them, and take two children from the arms of the man she loved and leave him for ever. Or … it was still possible … walk away from here with nothing. Just when she thought her life couldn’t get any emptier than it had been.
A chill as arctic as the wind outside rattled through her body.
She suspected there were depths of empty she’d not even begun to plumb.
‘Nothing for me, thanks.’ Bel smiled at Flynn as three generations of Bradley men piled into Bill’s old utility. They’d decided it would take all three of them to retrieve the long list of supplies Alice had given them, but Bel figured a few quiet ones with mates at the Oberon tavern was probably more on the agenda.
Some time amongst friends. Away from the women-folk. She didn’t begrudge them that at all. A little separation was healthy in a relationship.
She snorted inwardly at her own presumption. Since when was she the expert on relationships? She was probably the most under-qualified one on the whole farm to make statements like that. Just because the time she spent with Flynn after a number of hours apart were the sweetest of her day …
‘Give me your phone, then,’ he said. ‘I’ll find some signal and download your mail for you.’
Email. Outside world. There was only one particular email he was thinking about … And Bel didn’t want to think about it at all. But she handed over her phone politely, every move she made these days a kind of deception, every moment she didn’t tell him how she felt about him. ‘Thanks, Flynn. I’ll see you when you get back.’
I’ll miss you while you’re gone.
Flynn tucked her phone into his pocket with one hand and pulled her close with the other, planting a gentle kiss on her lips, lingering, enjoying. Reading her silent thought as clearly as if she’d spoken—which, given her history, was a distinct possibility. As always, his touch caused a riot amongst the tiny hairs along her arms, and they prickled to attention.
And as always she stood grinning like an idiot when he stepped away and slid into the crowded back seat of his father’s old extra-cab utility, loaded up with ecoshopping bags and every mobile phone in the place.
All three women hurried back into the warmth of the house after losing sight of the men-
folk around the Reach’s long drive.
‘Tea, Bel?’
‘I’m English, aren’t I?’ she quipped, inexplicably out of sorts. Maybe her disrupted sleep was finally getting to her. Or Flynn was. Whatever, she didn’t feel quite right.
Please don’t let it be because Flynn’s not here. Please don’t let me have become that bad …
Alice lit the stove and filled the kettle with fresh rainwater from the tank. ‘The last Brit we had here didn’t drink tea at all. Only coffee. Short black. Was most disconcerting, culturally.’
Bel froze.
Gwen. They were talking about Gwen. After how many months? She’d truly believed they would never, ever speak of her sister and now that they had she wished they’d stop. But the opportunity to find out, first-hand, what they’d so objected to about her flesh and blood was too good to walk away from.
‘Was she one of your chalet customers?’ she asked casually, her voice unnaturally tight, even to her own ears.
Alice laughed. ‘Far from it, love. She was our daughter-in-law.’
Daughter. In law. Just like Bel was. Unless it was possible to be a daughter-against-the-law? Because what she was didn’t really count.
She knew Alice and Denise would expect her surprise so she did her best to fake it. ‘Flynn’s brother was married to an English girl?’ It was more croak than voice. How could some lies seem so much worse than others? Was it too late to back out of the discussion?
‘She was such an elegant thing. Very European. So different to everyone on the Tablelands.’
Not if you’d seen her lounging around the house in training pants and socks, shovelling pizza into her mouth. In her comfort zone. She was just a normal Chelsea girl then.
‘Was?’ Bel risked.
Alice’s eyes grew hooded. Denise averted hers entirely. ‘She died in the same accident as our Andrew.’
Pain surprised her, sharp and low. Even though she knew how this story ended. Her body reacted with a shaft of biting misery hard across her mid-section. ‘Oh. I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be sorry for us. It’s not like we lost two of our own. Though I’m sure her own family mourned her.’
You have no idea. ‘She wasn’t a daughter to you?’ The unfairness of that really lodged in Bel’s gut.
Alice smiled sadly. ‘Not the way you are, love. We barely knew her.’
‘Why not?’
‘We only met her the once, face to face.’ Alice glanced at Denise. Neither woman looked comfortable about it. ‘She didn’t … fit. She didn’t belong here.’
No. She belonged at home in Chelsea with the people who loved her. Defensiveness crowded in. ‘Maybe she sensed she didn’t belong. Wasn’t welcome.’
‘Oh, don’t get me wrong, Bel. She was always welcome, regardless. She loved our Andrew. She just wasn’t happy here. Her loyalty was with Drew. Rightfully.’
Bel frowned. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Things were strained between our two boys,’ Alice said. ‘It wasn’t comfortable for anyone when they were together back then. We all tried not to take sides, but Gwendoline was fiercely loyal to Drew, we could see that. Actually, I respected that even if I didn’t like it.’
Denise snorted. ‘We’re not having this argument again.’
Alice rolled her eyes kindly and heaved the kettle off the hob to pour boiling water into three mugs. ‘Andrew did not leave us because of Gwendoline Rochester, and well you know it,’ she said to her daughter. She tightened her lips and then turned back to Bel and addressed the rest of the story to her. ‘But I’ll grant you she was the reason he stayed away. He loved that girl beyond compare.’
Beyond compare. Alice understood what her living grandson didn’t. That some loves just didn’t tarnish.
‘Sounds like he was lucky to have found that in life,’ Bel murmured.
Alice looked at her strangely. ‘You sound almost wistful. Don’t tell me the newly-wed shine is wearing off already?’
A love beyond compare—with Flynn? Bel couldn’t see it happening, no matter what she felt. There were too many secrets and lies between them. And a honking great court case.
As if recognising the shadows in Bel’s gaze, Alice rushed on past her own insensitivity. ‘Well, regardless, suffice to say that despite having an identical accent to our other daughter-in-law, your character has restored our faith in the people of Britain.’
Her smile was weak. Her accent must bring Gwen to mind every day for them. She waved an imaginary flag. ‘Bully for me.’
‘Not to mention making Flynn the happiest I’ve seen him.’
Bel narrowed her eyes. While the past few weeks were most definitely the happiest she’d seen him, it said a lot about his usual demeanour if he was achieving some kind of lifetime personal best in the happiness stakes.
She took a deep breath and stuck her nose firmly into her husband’s business, rubbing a twinge low along her hip. ‘What happened between Flynn and his brother?’
‘Anyone who says hell hath no fury like a woman scorned has clearly never met Flynn Douglas Bradley,’ Alice said chuckling.
Bel frowned. ‘But … didn’t Drew trigger it? By leaving?’
‘I’m sure Flynn would have you believe so, but no … Drew ended it by leaving. And not a moment too soon before they did some permanent damage to their relationship.’ Her eyes grew sad. ‘Although no one could have foreseen what was going to happen on his travels.’
‘Can you tell me the story?’
Denise snorted. ‘Oh, we’d need a white-out longer than this one to tell the whole sorry saga, Bel …’
She looked around them and shrugged. ‘I’ve got nowhere to be.’
And so it came out. The whole hurtful mess. Flynn, the young boy with a borderline learning disability who’d idolised his older brother, who followed him around like a puppy when he was younger. Flynn, the awkward adolescent having trouble fitting into his mismatched thirteen-year-old body parts, who was never quite as bright, quite as talented or quite as popular as his big brother—the brother who hit high school two years ahead of him and whose life grew too busy to have a kid tag along. Flynn, the boy who finally found acceptance and even adulation amongst a ratbag group of boys from troubled homes in the Sydney suburbs and finally found a way of getting noticed. Getting some spotlight.
The good boy turned bad.
Immediately Flynn’s words months ago made more sense. He must have felt sub-standard his whole life because of the slow start he got on his education. And Bel could most definitely relate to the self-worth issue. Flynn’s troubles with Drew were not because he hated him, they were because he loved him. Too much.
‘Everything he did was to get Drew’s attention,’ Bel whispered, her heart aching for the hurting young boy he must have been.
‘Oh, he got it,’ Alice murmured. ‘Just not the way he’d hoped.’
Such a promising little boy had become a damaged young man, despite having the best parents a kid could want. It brought her own life journey into sharp relief. If she’d had the love of her parents, would she have chosen to resent Gwen for being the favoured child instead of clinging desperately to her love? Building a life around hers? Were her life decisions all that different from Flynn’s?
Leaving home. Dropping out of school. The fashion. The sullen determination to go her own way.
Had they just been a cry to be noticed by her—heartbreakingly oblivious—family?
She lifted damp eyes. ‘And they never got past it? Drew and Flynn?’ She knew the answer. But was desperate for a hint of light in the dark tale.
‘Drew becoming such a global success was the final nail in Flynn’s emotional coffin,’ Alice whispered. ‘He felt he’d been left far, far behind. Like he didn’t cut it.’
‘But he’s so good at what he does. So capable.’ And his kind of capable was insanely attractive whether it was at a computer or in a paddock …
‘Flynn developed a different kind of smarts to his brother,’ Deni
se said.
‘I know which brother I’d want with me in a crisis,’ Bel agreed automatically. And it was true. For all Drew’s brilliance and corporate smarts and talent, he’d hired in others to take care of life’s more practical or unpleasant necessities.
If Flynn had been on that Thai ferry he would have saved Gwen.
The thought came out of nowhere and shook her. Hard. Her heart pulsed in her chest and started to gallop as old loyalties battled with new. She’d never in a million years imagined herself thinking something like that about Drew. She didn’t blame him for Gwen’s death—she didn’t! So where had it come from?
You know where …
It didn’t matter how important Drew had been to her before, it was Flynn who was important to her now. It was Flynn she loved. And respected. And honoured. Just like the vows they’d never said.
‘You say that like you knew him,’ Denise cut in, offended, and Bel realised how dangerous this whole conversation was becoming. ‘But Drew was a wonderful, loving boy who never caused us a moment of grief growing up.’
Alice smiled sadly, sliding a fresh brew towards her. ‘I’m glad Flynn talks to you about him. He needs to let go of some of his old feelings.’
Bel stretched across the kitchen counter to take the mug of hot tea and as she did her body crumpled in on itself as a vicious spasm hit her mid-section. It managed to be sharp, dull, heavy and laser-precise all at the same time. Her mug knocked and spilled hot tea across the kitchen benchtop.
Oh, God …
‘Bel?’ Denise got there first, supporting her lest she tumble from the stool she was perched on.
‘Get her onto the sofa.’
Distantly she realised that all the acrimony of just moments before was lost as Alice went straight into midwife mode and Denise willingly complied. Alice glanced at her watch. Then at Denise. Bel caught the look they exchanged.
Beauty and the Wolf / Their Miracle Twins Page 29