by Cara Colter
Too late, he knew this was something she’d always feel utterly alone with, just as he’d felt about Belinda’s disappearance. He could never fully understand her loss, having fathered three healthy children with ease.
He should have thought before he’d blundered in. Jennifer did nothing but give to him, and he’d thrown her impossible dream in her face as though he could make a miracle happen.
The look on her face had said it all. Jennifer loved him, far deeper than she’d shown him until that moment. He knew it now, just as she knew. She loved his kids, and they adored her.
No, love wasn’t the issue.
Acceptance was the real, core issue: Tim needed to accept his mother was gone, but the most incredible substitute already loved him, and the whole family. Jennifer had already accepted she couldn’t have the one dream of her life … but she’d blinded herself to a love that would be there for her for the rest of her life. She couldn’t see that the kind of love they shared was more than enough for them all.
They could become a family, if only she’d let it happen.
Changing a lifetime of thinking didn’t occur in an hour. He’d been a fool to bowl on in like that; but love and longing overcame good sense. Not needing her so much as wanting to make her happy, his beautiful, giving Jennifer.
He opened his mouth to say something to soothe the moment, to give her space and time. Then his phone bleeped—and he went cold. The bleeping sound was what he’d programmed for the police. Tim—Cilla—Rowdy—
He flipped the phone open. “Fred,” he greeted the sergeant tersely. “What is it? The kids?”
What he heard made him go cold all over.
She despised herself … but how could she change the person she was?
Lost in her thoughts, she’d vaguely realised Noah was on the phone to someone, and turned away to give him privacy.
Not thinking wasn’t an option, unless she gave herself amnesia—which sounded really tempting right now. To be able to forget all this pain …
You want to forget Noah? Forget the kids?
She knew she would never do that even if she could. The Brannigan family had changed her placid, uneventful, boring life forever. They’d challenged her, made her think and act in ways that she hadn’t known were part of her. They’d needed her so much, yet she’d been given so much more than she’d given to them. And Noah—
She closed her eyes, fighting the emotion threatening to overcome her. If only—
“Jennifer.”
The shock in Noah’s tone jerked her out of her thoughts. “Noah?” She looked up, shocked by his white face and blank, cold eyes. “What is it? Are the kids all right?”
He took his time answering, but it wasn’t deliberate. She wondered if he’d even heard her. Finally he spoke, slow, jerky—lost. “They’ve found Belinda.”
The ride back was tense and silent.
Noah felt physically ill. He didn’t know what to say to her after that one sentence. What else was there to say? He didn’t know anything else. Fred had said, “There’s been a positive identification this time, Noah. They’ve found your wife. I can’t say more on the phone—I wasn’t supposed to say that much, but I wanted you to be prepared. The Sydney people are here, but I convinced them to let me handle it first. I’ll be waiting at your place with all the details.”
They’ve found your wife.
The words he’d prayed so long and hard to hear, given in the same hour he’d proposed to Jennifer. When else would it happen?
Jennifer was barely holding on to him, her hands on his waist instead of around his chest as they’d been this morning. A minimal touch—just as she’d touch him if he were another woman’s husband …
What if he was?
He almost threw up at the thought. Oh, he’d be happy for her, for Peter and Jan and the kids; but though he was still fond of Belinda, he wasn’t the same man-child he’d been only three years ago. He’d grown up, and his heart changed with him—and now he’d given it to Jennifer.
But if Belinda was alive, and wanted their marriage and family back, he knew Jennifer would quietly withdraw, and disappear from his life.
Yet somehow he felt sure his wife wasn’t alive. Peter and Jan’s faith was the desperate blindness of parents who can’t face outliving their beloved daughter, and they’d passed it on to Tim. But Noah had always known. If there was one thing he knew about Belinda, it was that she’d never have left her kids.
She wouldn’t have left me either—not without a word.
They’d had their troubles, but he and Belinda had said “I love you” to each other the morning she’d disappeared. Tim’s testimony to the tender kiss between his parents—a ritual he’d seen every day—had slowed the momentum on police suspicions. He supposed the lack of evidence, and no other woman in his life, had helped as well.
It was almost in shock that he found himself pulling up outside his house. Lost in the past—in the final, tenuous links to his life with Belinda, apart from the kids—he’d ridden almost an hour without a word to Jennifer.
Her face, when she pulled off the helmet, was white—as if she’d been fighting the same sickness he had. “Jennifer—”
“Fred’s waiting,” she said softly.
“Come inside with me.” He spoke with a desperation he couldn’t hold in. “I need you.”
Her face slightly averted, she nodded, making a motion with her hand for him to go first.
Fred’s lined, honest face looked grim and sad, and Noah knew what he had to say before he said it.
“She’s dead, isn’t she, Fred?” The words were so damn flat. No emotional investment at all. Why was that, when suddenly he felt something breaking inside him?
Fred said, with a flicked glance at Jennifer, “Let’s go inside, Noah. There’s a lot to say.”
Jennifer followed the men in without a word or expression. She seemed to drift in, like a small boat listing on a river without its anchor, and sat at the other end of his long, wide living room, her gaze out the window.
She couldn’t have stated her protest at being here more clearly if she’d shouted it; but he didn’t let her off the hook and tell her to go. Whether she liked it or not she had an emotional investment in this.
Though he’d sat, Fred was twisting his hat in his hands. He looked at Noah, and away. “Yes, she’s dead. I’m sorry, Noah. They found her body a couple of weeks ago, but had to get definite DNA evidence to prove it was your wife.”
Translation: the body was too decomposed to be sure …
Noah’s head fell; his voice sounded strange even to his own ears. “Where was she found? Why did they think it was Belinda in the first place? Did—did she leave a letter?” The unspoken question hovered in the air. Did she kill herself? Did she hate her life that badly?
“No, she didn’t.” Fred sighed. “They were sent an anonymous letter by the person who killed her. The dates given and the locale made them pretty sure they’d find your wife.”
His head shot back up so fast it hurt his neck. Vaguely he felt Jennifer coming to him; he felt her arm come around his shoulder; but he couldn’t think of her now. “Killed? She—Belinda was—” He wanted to throw up again. Dear God. All these years he’d blamed her, resented her, and she’d been—
“No, son, it wasn’t deliberate,” Fred hastened to say. “According to the letter it was a hit-and-run, an accidental death—which is still manslaughter if we find the man or woman who did it. They may show up at a police station one day and confess. Their conscience has been working, that’s certain, or we wouldn’t have got the letter telling us where your wife was buried.”
“Buried?” Noah asked sharply.
Fred nodded. “She was found in the bushland southwest of Dural. She was wearing her wedding ring; dental records and DNA confirmed her identity. It’s definitely your wife.”
“Dural.” The word came out dull, stupid. “You mean …”
“According to the dates given by the driver, she wa
s killed the day she disappeared,” Fred said gently. “She never ran off, but according to the letter, she was farther west of the shopping mall than we expected. It seems she must have gone for a long walk instead of shopping. She stepped out onto a crossing as the driver rounded a corner—a young person, we think, and probably speeding. Your wife didn’t stand a chance.” Fred shook his head. “It was a fairly isolated area, but still, how they got the bod—your wife in the car and took her away without anyone hearing anything, or seeing it happen, is beyond me. There’d be noise, and blood all over the road—”
“Fred,” Jennifer interjected sharply.
Fred blinked, and the man re-emerged from the policeman. “I’m sorry, Noah,” he said awkwardly. “Stupid thing to say.”
Stupid? No, natural—Noah had thought the exact same thing. He guessed he’d never know how it was done, unless the person was caught.
Belinda hadn’t left; a damned stupid speeding driver had torn his family apart …
It was curious, the way he felt—everything was spinning slowly around him, yet he was breathing hard and fast, as if he couldn’t keep up. His mind felt blank and dizzy, yet the questions kept coming out of the darkness inside him. The only things touching him were the words Fred spoke, and the feel of Jennifer’s arm, her fingers caressing his shoulder, like an anchor in sudden storm.
But counterbalancing that, there was only one reality, and the weight of it made it hard to breathe: Belinda was guilty of nothing but a momentary lapse in judgment in leaving Cilla and Rowdy with a five-year-old Tim and a babysitter.
For so long he’d almost hated her for leaving him, but she hadn’t—she hadn’t. Someone had taken her from them all.
“Why do you think the person confessed now?” Jennifer asked from behind him, and he was grateful for it; the darkness had turned blank with the thought. All these years, he’d blamed Belinda, and she was dead.
Fred shrugged. “Who knows? The people from the Missing Persons Unit think it might have been a show recently on a Sydney station, a documentary on the families of missing people, and how there’s never any closure until the person, or their bodies, are found. If they saw that, perhaps your family in some way became real to them.”
Noah nodded. That made sense, he supposed. He didn’t know—he knew nothing at this point. “Thank you, Fred,” he said, very politely. “Thank you for coming. If you’ll excuse me now, I need to make some calls.”
“The people from Missing Persons contacted your parents-in-law, and said there was news on your wife. They’re on their way back with the kids. Did you want me here when you break it to them?”
Noah went cold all over, as if ice water had been tipped over him. He needed time to get his head together, and Peter and Jan would already be on the road. They took their damned caravan everywhere with them, like a stupid holy grail. It was always perfect, always ready to leave at a moment’s notice, even with the kids there. They’d be only an hour or so from here by now. “No, thanks,” he said quietly. “They’ll want to contact the Missing Persons Unit themselves if they have questions or doubts.” And they would. He knew that.
Not noticing his reaction, or tactfully overlooking it, Fred headed for the door. “Missing Persons said you know their number—they’ll be here for a day or two if you or any member of your family has any questions for them.” At the door, Fred turned back, twisting his hat in his hands before shoving it on his head. “I’m that sorry, Noah—for you, for the kids. I know you were hoping …” He turned to Jennifer, and nodded with obvious awkwardness. “Jennifer.”
A hell of a strange situation for all of them, to say the least, but he couldn’t hold onto the thought. Closure was finally here, just when he’d accepted it wouldn’t come. And now he had to tell the kids, tell Peter and Jan—
The police car revved up, and the taillights disappeared up the driveway toward town.
Silence descended on the house—but it was a cheat. He had to get his head together, and fast, because the kids were on their way here, and he had to know what to say.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“DO YOU want me to go?” Jennifer asked quietly after a few moments, feeling out of place here, with the man who’d proposed to her this day, the same day he found out his wife was dead.
Noah stared around at her, his eyes blank and unseeing. “No.”
The word was plain, stark in its raw emotion. She shivered with the intensity of it. “Are you sure, Noah? Your parents-in-law will hate me being here.”
There were many answers he could give to that, firstly that they weren’t his parents-in-law anymore, and had no place in his private life. What she didn’t expect was what he did say. “Don’t go. I need you.”
She shivered again, but came around the chair to face him, and slipped her hands into his. After a hesitation, she murmured, “How are you feeling?”
A moment passed, two … ten, twenty; then he finally said, “I don’t know. I don’t know.”
His honesty hurt her. She knew she should be his friend now, to explore his feelings about Belinda since he’d discovered she’d never left him; but Jennifer couldn’t make the words come. It was too much to ask of a woman in love.
Swallowing the hurting in her throat, blinking back the tears of pain and half-shame, she tried to smile: a grim travesty of her glowing smiles today. “What do you need?”
He pulled his hands from hers, rubbing his forehead with the weary gesture that had touched her soul the day they’d met. “The right words to say to Tim, and to Peter and Jan.”
Throwing up a brief, heartfelt prayer, she kept her distance: he didn’t need a lover now. The right he’d given her today had vanished; she must accept that. She must let him go, give him the right to grieve. “There are no right words, Noah,” she said gently. “You can’t make this better for Tim.”
He sighed and frowned—and she felt his withdrawal growing. She understood; she’d been there after Cody’s death, sharing her deepest loss with no one.
To understand is to forgive, or so people said—but it didn’t stop the heartache blossoming inside her like an evil vine. She moved back, physically and emotionally—slipping back to the role of friend she’d had only a few days ago, and accepted as right. “Would you like a coffee?”
He nodded, lost in his thoughts. “Thank you,” he added vaguely.
When she put the mug in front of him, he didn’t notice—and her nerves stretched to breaking point. What was she doing here? “You know what, the kids might need some comfort food when they get here. I think I’ll just nick home and get the chocolate cake and cookies—”
“No.”
It stopped her mid-stride; she turned back, half-inquiring, half-terrified. He was on his feet, staring wildly at her, half-seeing through a blur of tears, his arms wide-open and his face anguished. “Jennifer.”
It was all she needed. She ran to him, throwing her arms around his neck. “I’m here, Noah,” she whispered, holding him close, caressing his face, his shoulders and back.
“I can’t feel anything,” he whispered, shuddering. “I’m a widower about to bury my wife’s remains and I can’t even feel grief … I still resent her. She went for a walk, and was killed in a stupid accident. What right do I have to feel so much anger against her?”
Jennifer kissed his cheek, his lips: love without passion, giving all the love she had inside her. “I was angry with Cody, too. I wanted him to fight, to stay with me just one more day. But he looked up at me and whispered, ‘I’m tired, Mummy’—and he stopped breathing soon after,” she choked, feeling the grief swamp her over again in retelling it. “I almost hated him for that, a sick baby. He shouldn’t have left me alone!”
Her outburst seemed to calm him. He wrapped his arms tight around her. “Not me—I’m angry for the sake of the kids,” he rasped. “She shouldn’t have gone for a walk without the kids, or gone shopping without me—we’d arranged that the last time I found out about her debts. She coped with depression b
y spending money we didn’t have. She shouldn’t have left the kids, even with the babysitter … but if she’d taken them …” He shuddered and buried his face in her throat. “I don’t want to be angry with her, I don’t want to hate her—but the last three years of hell wouldn’t have happened if she’d kept her promise and waited for me!”
Finally she said it. “You’re angry for—for still loving her so much when she’s not here,” she murmured, her heart breaking. He had the right to grieve, to love the wife who hadn’t left him but died—but it didn’t stop the pain; it made it worse.
“Love or anger, I don’t know anymore. Everything’s jumbled in my head. All I know is, I have to explain this to a little boy who’s faithfully kept his promise to her for three years, and waited for her to keep hers and come home!”
“You’ll find the words. You’re his dad. He loves and trusts you more than you know,” she said, feeling helpless to say the right words.
“There’s nothing to say. You know that. You said it yourself.” He sighed against her throat. “What can you say when you have to shatter the dreams and hopes and faith of a little boy?”
The words, his warm breath, slid over her skin; his meaning touched her like a farewell.
Because it was. It was inevitable. There was too much between them, and yet not enough, not while he grieved and Tim would yet grieve; while she longed for the one thing she couldn’t have, even while loving the daily reminder of Noah’s love in the past.
Tim, Cilla, and Rowdy—she loved them so much; but she wasn’t and never would be their mother. They were Belinda’s children: Noah and Belinda’s children. A fact as stark as her own: her tainted genetics would always create terminally ill children, and it would be too damn painful to raise Noah’s kids. The first time she heard Tim say you’re not my mother, it would break her.
She had to walk away. There was no option.
But when he lifted his face and closed his tear-wet eyes, seeking her mouth in near desperate hunger, she couldn’t hold back. She knew this blind need, and let the kiss happen, allowed him to ravage her lips and crush her against him … and when his hands curved over her breasts, she moaned and arched into him. Celebrating life in the midst of grief and despair—oh, she knew that, too; but it didn’t matter, nothing mattered but the overwhelming rush of love for him and his need for her colliding.
