by Sue MacKay
A bitter laugh huffed from his mouth. How could he think that about Holly when he’d only seen her unconscious? What about that small smile and the word ‘Mummy’ whispering across her lips? Not so out of it then. And that’s why he felt she was just like her mother. How could she not be?
Sipping his whisky, he stared out the window into the night lit by streetlamps. Rain slapped the pavement, glistening in the light. It was cosy in here, yet he shivered. He was teetering on a cliff edge. He wanted to grab Anastasia and Holly, hold them to him for ever and make the most of everything. He wanted to go back to early that morning when he had been climbing out of bed and heading to the bathroom for a shave, and when he hadn’t known about this child who’d turned the world as he knew it upside down.
Hell, he didn’t know what he wanted—except not to make a bigger mess of everything than it already was.
It’s only a mess because you’re overthinking everything.
He wanted to get this right. For Holly. For Anastasia and, yes, for himself. Then ‘how’ was the next big question. That had to be decided by talking to Anastasia, not just to himself.
There was a warmth in his gut and touching his heart. If it was true and Holly was his, he’d become a father in the time it had taken Anastasia to say, ‘Holly was conceived the night we were together. It’s true, Noah. Holly is your daughter.’ No planning, no nine months to get used to the idea, no agreeing it was a good thing to start a family when he wasn’t in a relationship. A matter of seconds and he’d become a father. Whether he’d wanted to or not.
He could walk away. Except he’d never do that. He knew the pain of losing parents, the pain of not being taken in by other family to share their love and camaraderie. It wasn’t something he’d ever impose on his daughter. Holly would be well cared for and loved by the Wainwright family and have everything important to grow up into a wonderful woman.
Could he do any better? Did he want to? Yes, damn it, he did. She would be loved by him as well, with all that entailed. But to trust Anastasia completely was a big ask. Despite her reassurances about being happy with her lot, she might change when she fully understood his background and all that was on offer.
Another sip of his drink and he thought about Christine. His wife had hurt him, but she hadn’t wrecked him. She’d let him down by not meeting his love with hers. He’d wanted a family, like the one he’d known for the first ten years of his life. She’d never had that herself so didn’t believe in it.
Anastasia came from a loving environment and gave love out without thought. Love was a part of her. Did she have any for him?
His head was going round and round, and getting nowhere. Shoving the almost full glass aside, he straightened up and headed for the door and the wet weather. He was not making any decisions about any damned thing tonight. He was going back to the hospital to sit with Anastasia and Holly, watching over them as they waited out the time it took for Holly to get well enough to go home.
CHAPTER SEVEN
STACEY OPENED HER eyes slowly and looked around the darkened room from the bed she was sprawled over. Shock rippled through her at the man standing at the end of Holly’s bed, hands in pockets, a poignant look on his face as he gazed down at his daughter. ‘Noah?’ she whispered.
Slowly he turned to face her, sadness radiating out at her. ‘How hard did you try to find me?’
He was regretting missing out on the early years of Holly’s life. ‘On the train heading home that morning I wished I’d taken a moment to ask when you were coming back from wherever it was you were headed. I didn’t know if you were going on holiday or off to a permanent job in Britain or another country.
‘You mentioned staying at the hotel since you’d packed up your house so your move seemed long term. I wanted to see you again.’ She paused, hoping for a response, got none. ‘At work on Monday I asked my friends to check around at London General to see if anyone knew you and they came up blank. Most people didn’t even know me, let alone who I was dancing with.’
Another pause while she thought back to those frantic days when she’d almost begged people to give her a name for the man no one had known. ‘Now I know you’d never worked at London General it makes sense.’
‘And that was it?’
‘No. A few weeks later I found I was pregnant. At first it was scary. I was single, still getting over my broken relationship.’ Tell him how he’d made Angus start sliding into the background? Maybe not. Noah didn’t look as though he’d want to hear that. ‘But as the days turned to weeks I began to get excited. I was going to be a mother, and even if I had to raise my child on my own, it was wonderful.’
‘So you gave up looking for me?’
Her chest ached for him. And her. She’d told him this already. He was looking for reasons to be angry with her while he accepted the truth in front of him. ‘No, Noah, I didn’t. I began a methodical search of the hospital, checking out all the medical staff, and then anyone else working there who might’ve known you. You didn’t exist. That was the only blight on my pregnancy. Like I said before, I never stopped looking for you.’
Lifting her hands and turning them palms upwards, she asked, ‘What else was I supposed to do? There’s more than one Noah out there, believe me.’ And none that she’d seen were a patch on this one.
To give him his due, he was trying to deal with the situation in a cautious but non-aggressive way. No surprise really. She’d shocked the living daylights out of him, and that would take time to absorb and decide how he’d deal with Holly. And her. He’d probably never felt more for her than like and care, which wasn’t enough. He wouldn’t’ve been stupid enough to fall for her in a few hours when they’d been making love. For him that had probably been sex, not making love, and he’d got as much as he could. Sex that they’d repeated already this week. Sex that to her was making love and made her feel happy. ‘You said you only tried once to find me.’
‘I don’t think that’s important right now, Anastasia.’
Sudden anger burst from her. ‘Anastasia. What’s with not using Stacey like everyone else, huh?’ She’d liked how he’d used her full name, but tonight it made her feel he was putting her in a bubble, to be looked at and thought about without the hindrance of others who knew and loved her.
‘Stacey it is, then. Not that it changes a thing. We have a problem, and I’m trying to understand it all. Starting with the fact that three years have gone by when I didn’t know you’d become pregnant. Allegedly with my child.’ Noah glared at her, then sighed. ‘Sorry, that doesn’t help. I owe you better than that.’
Swallowing her own anger, she nodded. ‘It’s okay. Really. I expected denial in the beginning.’ And withdrawal. Even disinterest. Though, no, not that. She’d watched Noah gazing at Holly earlier with something like hope and a tentative love growing in his eyes. Maybe he wasn’t aware of those emotions, but they’d been there, she’d swear. ‘I’m not going to make a scene, Noah. Holly’s yours. There was no one else in my life at the time. Not even another one-night stand,’ she added with unexpected bitterness. So much for not making a scene.
Getting off the chair, she crossed to her girl, and reached over the guard rail to touch her. To make sure she was real. To feel that soft skin and the warmth that was Holly inside and out. ‘Love you, baby,’ she whispered.
Your father is the only man I ever slept with for one night.
He was still the only man other than Angus, and he’d made a greater impact in one night than Angus had in a lifetime. She’d loved Angus, but after Noah she’d realised how much of her relationship with Angus had been about friendship. She’d loved him, totally, with all she had to offer. It just hadn’t held the passion she’d found with Noah. Passion that still woke her, that had begun twisting her heart every time she saw him, whether at work, in the street, or here when he was struggling to trust her honesty.
Standing at the e
nd of the bed, Noah said nothing, but she could feel his eyes boring into her. Looking for what? Warning signs that said she was a liar? That she was looking for any man to be her daughter’s father? That she’d use him to get what she wanted?
The anger was back, increasing as though it had been waiting for months, if not years, for this moment to express itself. Anger over not being able to find Noah. Over not having told him who she was apart from Anastasia, which no one would have recognised as her name. Over having a child and not being able to tell her who her father was and why he wasn’t around. Whipping around, she snapped in a low voice, ‘Go away. Leave us alone. I don’t want toxic vibes to disturb Holly. She doesn’t need anything but love at the moment.’
Steely grey eyes locked on her.
She waited, cool on the outside, seething internally. He didn’t believe anything she said. He was going to walk away. From his daughter. Maybe for the time it took to get his head around the fact he was a parent, like it or not. He hadn’t had enough time to think it all through, yet he was going to leave. She sensed it in his stance, in those eyes and the grim tightness of his usually kind mouth. Not knowing what to say to change his mind, she waited, and waited.
‘Mummy.’
Stacey’s shoulders drooped forward, her knees softened, and her heart rate increased. Gripping the rail, she turned to her daughter. ‘Hey, baby, Mummy’s here.’ She dropped the rail and sank onto the bed to lift Holly into her arms, and lay her chin on her head, breathed deeply to absorb her girl’s smell. Noah could go do whatever he liked. So long as he didn’t upset Holly.
* * *
‘That went well,’ Noah muttered as he stood in the lift taking him to the bottom level and his car outside after talking to a nurse about Holly’s condition since Anastasia hadn’t taken back her permission for him to ask the staff.
He’d been going to sit with An—with Stacey and Holly while he thought about his new life. It was new. If nothing else, he was now a father. He wouldn’t be a remote dad, only turning up for birthdays and Christmas, adding to Stacey’s bank account to make sure Holly never went without.
So he did believe the child was his? Actually... He sighed. He did. Holly’s eyes were replicas of those he saw in the mirror every morning while shaving. The truth was in her mother’s voice, face, stance. Stacey hadn’t lied. Holly was his daughter. Hadn’t he admitted that to himself already? He should’ve told Stacey. Instead, he’d pushed her hard about how she hadn’t found him when he’d known the odds had been stacked against them from the beginning. He tipped his head back to stare at the lift ceiling. He wasn’t playing fair. Being blindsided was not an excuse. He was human?
So is Anastasia. Stacey.
He’d been looking for hidden meanings behind her reactions, and had got an earful of disappointment in him instead. Which only showed she was the woman he hoped, and not one who lied to get what she wanted.
The lift jerked to a halt and the doors slid open. Two women in nurses’ uniforms joined him, one pressing the button for the third floor.
He made a decision. Reaching around the nurse, he pressed four—Paediatrics. And Stacey.
In the ward he found a nurse to ask if he could use their kitchen to make a coffee for Stacey and was told yes, and to take her a piece of the fruit cake on the bench.
‘Here, thought you might want something to drink.’ He placed the mug and plate with cake on the table beside her. ‘You haven’t eaten at all.’
‘Mum brought me some sandwiches earlier, but I’m not hungry.’ She was sitting with her knees under her chin and her arms wound tightly around her legs.
‘Try something.’ When he’d walked in she’d been watching Holly with such tenderness it had torn his heart in two. He knew that look from his childhood. It meant everything to him, then and now. Holly didn’t know how lucky she was. He pulled up the chair and sat down. ‘I’m sorry for being a prat.’ He wasn’t going to come out with things like he was still in shock, no matter how true they were. Excuses didn’t solve any of what lay between them.
Her gaze still on Holly, she shrugged. ‘It’s all right.’
It wasn’t. There was hurt in her voice, put there by him. ‘She’s doing fine, Stacey.’ Noah sat back quietly and watched the two females dominating his life as though he was guarding them, which he was in a way, though what from was another question with no answer.
‘Sure.’ Finally Stacey stretched her legs out, and reached for the mug. ‘Thanks for this. I wanted a coffee but couldn’t bear to leave Holly even for a few minutes. She might wake and panic if I’m not here.’
‘Your parents have gone home?’
‘Yes. They didn’t want to, but I insisted.’
‘You’re all so close.’
Finally she looked at him. ‘Yes, we are. Always have been.’
And I’d be a fool to forget that.
‘Feel free to ask me anything you need to know to make this real,’ she added, then she went back to watching over her daughter.
And he went back to watching over them both, with a lot of questions making themselves known in his head.
Stacey yawned and leaned back, closing her eyes.
Noah fought the urge to go across and kiss her cheek. Instead, he stood to gaze down at the beautiful girl lying in the bed attached to the monitor on the stand behind her. A weight settled over his heart. Not a painful one but sadness for the two years of her life he’d missed. He hadn’t been there to hold her when she’d arrived in the world, hadn’t kissed her or promised to love and care for her for the rest of his life. Hadn’t heard her first word or seen her first steps. Her giggles didn’t ring in his skull. He didn’t know what her favourite food was, if she slept all night or woke on and off.
‘Her favourite toy is Goggy, a well-worn teddy bear that has to go to bed with her every night or there’s hell to pay. Mum’s bringing Goggy in with her tomorrow.’
Noah smiled. ‘Goggy, eh?’
‘There’s a doll named Jack after her best friend at day care.’
He laughed. ‘Does Jack know that?’
‘Yes, but I don’t think he realises what it means or their friendship might be off.’ Stacey sat up straighter.
Noah turned to look at Stacey. For the first time since they’d caught up no reminiscing smile came his way. But at least she continued giving him snippets about their girl. ‘Holly loves butterflies and frogs, hates cornflakes and eggs.’
Returning to his chair, he waited for more as the heaviness inside him lightened.
‘I can push her on the swing for half an hour and it’s nowhere near long enough. Brushing her hair is an ordeal for everyone. Though a couple of months ago she found the kitchen scissors and cut off large hunks.’ Stacey’s mouth twisted into a cute smile filled with reverence for Holly. ‘She’s a little minx. Uncle Toby is fair game for having his clothes hidden in the same place behind the couch every day, while Granddad is a sucker for cuddles and sweets whenever I’m not looking. Grandma is the kiss-it-better go-to when I’m not around.’
‘It must be hard going off to work every day, not knowing what you might miss.’
‘It is.’
‘Is Holly the reason you asked to spend time with me today?’
Her eyes met his. ‘Yes. I was going to tell you about her.’
Convenient. Or truthful. Judging by that steady look she was giving him, definitely truthful. ‘I see.’
‘I don’t think you do, Noah. When I saw you on Monday for the first time since all this started, I’ve known what I had to do, and that there was no reason to wait. As it wasn’t something to say at work or in a noisy café I thought meeting up at the weekend would be best.’
‘True. But—’
Her hand was up. ‘Stop right there. I always intended telling you. I don’t have the right to decide if Holly knows her father or not.’ She breath
ed in. ‘I was nervous, to say the least.’ Shaking her head, her lips curved into a small wry smile. ‘Here, with Holly injured and floating in and out of consciousness, I wanted you to learn your relationship to her so you could be here for her.’ Stray tears slipped down her cheeks and she brushed them away angrily.
It would be too easy to go to her, lift her into his arms and kiss away the distress darkening those beautiful eyes. He wanted to make her smile, and be happy again, and take away all her fears—especially those concerning him and what he wanted for the future with Holly. He wasn’t ready for that.
There was a lot to consider. Especially Anastasia and his feelings for her. He had to get everything right, not make half-baked decisions they might all regret later. Putting the past away for ever was proving difficult now he was faced with taking a giant step forward without any guarantees it would work out.
‘Tell me about your family.’ Her words cut through his turmoil.
‘Which one? My devoted, loving parents I still miss? Or my aunt and uncle who believe life is about being aloof and proper, and not falling head over heels in love, like my father did? According to Robert, if Dad hadn’t married Mum he’d still be here. It was her love of life and friends and family that had them on that road the night they were killed.’
He sounded bitter, because he still was whenever he saw friends falling in love and being so happy. Now Anastasia wound him up with hope, something he wasn’t certain if she reciprocated even in the smallest way. Yet whenever they touched, they fell together, no hesitation on her part.
‘You have a cousin in Auckland?’
‘His mother is my mother’s sister. Another happy soul.’
Stacey was watching him, a small smile lightening her face for the first time in hours.
‘What?’
‘You’ve got it in you to be like that too.’
Surprise hit. ‘You think?’ She was right, only he’d thought he had to find the right person to help him bring it out. Could it be he should’ve got on with being happy with his lot and let his relatives get on with theirs? Then he said something stupid. ‘I’ll take you to meet Robert and Alice next weekend. I have to sign some documents for them.’ That would certainly test Stacey. Hard to be cheerful around those two, and she’d get to see the mansion he’d spent time in growing up. That’d tell if she suddenly thought being rich might be a good idea.