‘Oh, I don’t want him back,’ she added quickly. ‘But it’s hard, you know.’ She glanced at the kitchen ceiling, which also happened to be the underside of Cal’s bedroom. ‘Hard on the boys and hard to feel so...alone.’
He nodded. He’d felt that way once, but then he’d become so used to it he hadn’t been able to remember a time when it was easier not to be that way. And now? Now he just wanted...
Chloe.
He wanted to be with Chloe.
But she didn’t want to be with him—and he had to admit she might have some very good reasons for that. He sighed.
Kelly slugged back the last of her champagne. ‘Oh, and I ought to tell you that I think the boys and I should move out when you get back from the jungle. Late April, maybe.’
He sat up, almost snorted bubbles out of his left nostril. ‘What?’ he half said, half coughed.
Kelly gave him a rueful smile. ‘It’s not that the boys and I don’t love living here,’ she said, ‘but it’s time I stood on my own two feet, faced the world.’
‘Kells, you don’t have to! Think of the money...!’
She laid a firm hand on his arm. ‘I know. But I need to do this. For me.’
He shrugged. Kelly had made up her mind. And when a Bradford made up their mind there was no budging them.
‘Then I’ll help any way I can,’ he said.
That was when his sister burst into tears.
She crawled up to him, buried her head in his shoulder and sobbed until there was no more moisture left in her body, it seemed. Daniel didn’t quite know what to do. If she were a plant he’d stand her in a bucket of water to rehydrate her, but if there was one thing he’d learnt this year it was that people were a heck of a lot more complicated than plants.
She peeled herself from him, blew her nose and went to refill her glass from the bottle on the table. As she crossed the room she fixed him with those beady eyes of hers.
‘So...’ she said as she sat down ‘...we know all about me, but what’s got you looking as joyful as a turkey at Christmas?’
He aimed for humour and ended up with disgruntled. ‘Chloe thinks I’m stalking her.’
Kelly threw back her head and laughed. When she’d finished wiping a fresh batch of tears from her eyes she said, ‘Thanks, I needed that.’
‘Your sympathy is duly noted and appreciated.’
Kelly just grinned at him. ‘Why does she think that?’
‘It’s stupid,’ he said, and he was just about to tell her how stupid when he could hear his own voice in his head, laying out his case. But instead he started to think about all those women who’d turned up at Kew just to see him. Had they not been able to think about anything else for more than five minutes at a time? Had they had the same urge to get as close to him as possible, for as long as they could? Was this what obsession felt like?
Oh, hell. It was, wasn’t it?
Maybe he needed psychiatric help.
‘Oh, I’ve been saying that for years,’ his sister said over the top of her champagne glass.
Daniel glared at her. Had he actually said that out loud? Things were worse than he thought.
And then she reached over and ruffled his hair. ‘It needs a cut,’ she said as she put her glass down and stood up. ‘And I need some shut-eye.’
She walked over to the table, retrieved the bottle and topped his glass up. ‘And, for what it’s worth, I don’t think you’re crazy. In fact, this is the most sensible I’ve seen you in years.’
She dumped her empty glass in the dishwasher. ‘If you like, Dr Kelly will give you her diagnosis.’
Daniel made a face that said she’d better not try, but as Kelly walked across the room and kissed him on the cheek she whispered in his ear, ‘I’d say the problem is this—you’ve got it bad.’
TWELVE
‘Daniel?’ It was Kelly’s voice on the other end of the line, but not her usual sarcastic drawl. His little sister sounded really panicked.
It was the first day of the orchid festival, and Daniel and Chloe and the whole team had arrived early and were working hard to make all the finishing touches before the grand opening later that morning. The Princess of Wales Conservatory was looking amazing, dripping with colour and unusual displays. Next to the other-worldly shapes of some of the pitchers and other carnivores, the orchids only seemed more delicate and fragile.
Daniel ducked into the Temperate Carnivores section, letting the door close behind him, cutting off the noise of the work party. ‘What is it?’
‘It’s Ben,’ she whimpered. ‘He fell off the climbing frame at pre-school and cracked his head.’ There was a pause while she took a great, snuffling breath. ‘We’re in the hospital. He’s unconscious, Dan.’
Daniel didn’t waste any time joining his sister in panicking. He got the name of the A&E department they were in, explained the situation to the nearest person with a Kew T-shirt and sprinted off in the direction of the staff car park. Within fifteen minutes he was at the hospital, haranguing the young guy on Reception into telling him where his sister and nephew were.
He found Kelly, sitting quietly and composed in a cubicle, with her son drowsy on the trolley beside her. Her body was rigid, her knees clamped together and her knuckles white as she gripped onto herself for comfort.
‘He came round,’ she said in a tight voice. ‘The doctor says that’s a good sign, but they did scans and they want to keep him in for observation.’
Daniel just walked over to his sister and pulled her up out of the chair and into his arms. He was angry. Really angry. Angry this had happened to Ben. Angry Kelly had to face something like this all on her own. Angry at Ben’s father...just because. And he decided he’d like to stay angry, because angry was a lot better than scared witless.
‘You’re cutting off my air supply,’ Kelly said hoarsely and poked him in the ribs.
‘Sorry,’ he said, standing her back from him and holding her at arm’s length, his hands on her shoulders. He looked her up and down. ‘Are you okay?’
‘I am now,’ she said, and he saw a hint of the old Kelly in her thin smile. She was a fighter, his sister. The strongest person he knew.
He walked over to Ben’s trolley. The little boy’s eyelids were fluttering and he hauled them open. ‘Uncle Daniel,’ he said, and his chubby fingers made a grasping motion. Daniel stuck his index finger in Ben’s palm, as he had done when Ben had been a baby, and the boy grabbed onto it tightly. His lids drifted closed.
He couldn’t go anywhere now without disturbing his nephew. A throb of panic set itself inside Daniel’s temple. He wasn’t sure if he could do this. Even though he hadn’t been there when Joshua had—
He couldn’t finish that thought.
Even though he hadn’t been there, something about seeing this tiny body curled up on the pristine white of a hospital sheet was bringing all those feelings flooding back. He glanced at the gap in the cubicle curtain. The urge to dart through it was overpowering, but with Ben holding tightly onto his finger he was trapped.
He looked at Ben, his almost-translucent lids closed and his mouth relaxed into an ‘o’ shape, and something inside Daniel’s chest cramped. Since Kelly had moved in, he’d really let himself get attached to his nephews. He wanted to scold himself for being reckless, but how could he? That was what families were supposed to do—care about each other. That was what people were supposed to do in general.
But if Daniel tried to count on one hand the number of people that he’d truly let himself care about since the end of his marriage, he realised he still had a couple of fingers left. Even Kelly and the boys had to worm their way in slowly. What kind of brother did that make him?
What kind of man did that make him?
Kelly came to stand by the trolley and rhythmically smoothed her son
’s hair from his forehead, then she reached out and circled Daniel’s other thumb with her smaller hand, mirroring her son’s gesture, and the three of them stayed like that in silence for a moment, joined like a circle.
‘This,’ he said croakily, ‘is why I can’t do it again.’
She nodded and a tear dripped from the corner of one eye. She couldn’t wipe it away without breaking contact, so she let it run down her cheek, the overhang of her jaw and onto her neck.
‘I get that, Dan,’ she said softly—far too softly for his ballsy little sister. ‘But tell me this: would you rather have had those six months with Joshua or would you rather that he hadn’t existed at all?’
Daniel flinched at the mention of his son’s name. He realised he hadn’t said it out loud for years. It was just as well it wasn’t him hooked up to one of those heart monitors, because the little cubicle would’ve been filled with the sound of a galloping electronic horse.
Thankfully, he was rescued from answering Kelly’s question by the arrival of a doctor. He prised his finger from Ben’s hand, shot a quick look at Kelly, then went to wait outside while the doctor delivered her news.
Kelly opened her mouth and reached a hand in his direction, and he knew she was going to say it was fine for him to stay, but he needed to get out of there. If it was going to be bad news, he didn’t know if he could take it.
Inside, deep down in his core, he was shaking and cold. And as he searched for a free plastic chair to perch on his conscience began to nibble away at him too, adding a dash of nausea to the already uncomfortable internal cocktail.
He glanced at Ben’s pale blue cubicle curtain, knowing that inside Kelly was probably feeling worse than he was, that he’d left her there alone to deal with whatever was coming.
He’d told himself that he was brave because he liked climbing high walls and tramped through rain forests and knew how to deal with leeches and ticks, but this was where it counted. Here. In this drab city hospital. This was where he would prove he was a man or not.
Brave? Don’t make him laugh.
So Daniel paused for a moment, rubbed his face with both hands, then he marched back over to the curtain, pulled it aside and went to join his sister.
* * *
That evening, after Ben had been discharged from the hospital, the doctors assuring his mother he’d be fine, Daniel travelled halfway across London to go climbing. Even though this centre had a wall thirty feet taller than the one at his local climbing place, it still wasn’t high enough.
Never mind, a sarcastic little voice in his head said. You’ll be in reach of a real mountain in a week’s time. You’ll be happy then.
He grabbed for another handhold, pulled himself up and searched for the next place to put his foot. Maybe this wall wasn’t tall enough, but he could climb it more than once, couldn’t he?
But now there was a second voice inside his head. Most annoyingly, it belonged to his sister. And he realised he’d been doing a pretty good job of ignoring it since the night they’d toasted her divorce papers.
He decided he was under the wrong bit of the overhang to make his way past it, so he backtracked a bit and chose another route. As he groped sideways for a handhold he noticed a lean, dark-haired guy about his own age looking at him, studying him.
Daniel scowled at him briefly before continuing his climb. What was his problem?
As he climbed he considered the question Kelly had posed to him in the hospital. Would he, given the chance, erase his wife and son from his life completely, make it as if they had never existed? Would he choose freedom over pain?
He cracked the door of his memory open and saw Josh’s gummy smile, how his face had lit up every time Daniel had come home from work. He remembered how his son had smelled after a bath, and how, as a newborn, he’d clung monkey-like to his shoulder as Daniel had paced and sung to him in the small hours of the night.
Would he want to erase those memories if he could? Maybe he would. He’d tried his hardest to pretend they weren’t there for so long.
But when he tried to stuff the images he’d let loose away, they refused to go. Instead, they settled themselves into a corner of his consciousness, and when he let his mind wander in that direction he found, not necessarily joy, but warmth. Comfort. Not the screaming six-headed black dragon he’d expected to find. It seemed odd he’d run from them for so long.
Daniel stopped where he was on the wall, arrested by that thought. A couple of other climbers had to work their way round him while he hung there.
Running.
Not like a hunter chasing something, but like something being hunted. Had he really, all these years, had it all back to front?
And running from what? What was it that terrified him? He took a deep breath and mentally turned round to face it.
Love.
That was what it was. In any shape or any form. He’d even run from his family until circumstances had caused him to let Kelly and her boys into his life. But that was understandable, because love wasn’t a pretty thing full of hearts and flowers and rose petals. No, love was the six-headed monster, viciously devouring everything in its path, mincing it up and spitting it out to bleed.
He almost closed his eyes to block out the image, but then those memories that had been sitting quietly in the corner tapped him on the shoulder. They replayed themselves for him, and then they introduced him to a few more.
Daniel hauled in a shuddering breath.
Just like plants, human beings needed certain things to thrive. Oh, it would be so easy if those things were just light and water and good manure. So easy. But, no, humans needed more complicated things. Things like closeness and connection. Otherwise they could be healthy specimens on the outside, but they’d be dried up and withered inside. Human beings needed love.
He started climbing again, more slowly this time. He’d always be hunted by it until the last of his days. And he was so tired of running. He didn’t want to do it any more. It didn’t bring peace. It didn’t bring safety. All it brought was the promise that the next day would be another sprint. And the next. And the next...
And, really, there was no point in him running anyway. He was already in that trap, with no escape. Just like the fly that stupidly buzzed and exhausted itself trying to get out of the pitcher he was exhausting himself for nothing.
There was no point in struggling. It only made things worse.
He thought about Kelly, how she’d smoothed Ben’s hair in the hospital, a look of fierce determination on her face. She didn’t run. She chose to stay and fight, no matter what. Over the last couple of years she’d shown a strength and courage that put him to shame.
And that knowledge stirred something inside him.
They were made of the same stuff, him and Kelly. And, maybe, just maybe, if she could do this, so could he.
* * *
Oh, how Chloe hated Valentine’s Day.
It seemed the whole twenty-four hours had decided to gang up and make a mockery of her. Not only was it the last day of the orchid festival—the one packed with all the PR events, meaning she was forced to stay close to Daniel—but in the back of her head was a clock, counting down to the following morning, when he would leave.
It was torture.
If only...a little part of her kept saying. If only he was ready... If only he felt the same way about you that you feel about him...
A camera flash went off, hitting the back of her eyeballs with searing force. She blinked and tried to maintain the smile the PR woman had insisted they paste on, all the while trying to ignore the prickling of her skin because he was near.
She was worrying herself. Mainly because she was having recurrent fantasies where she invited him back to her houseboat for one last hot night before he disappeared from her life. Possibly for good.
It was a bad, bad idea.
Because she’d fallen in love with him anyway. And, if she felt as if something were ripping her insides out piece by piece now, what would it be like if she truly removed every last barrier and gave herself completely to him? She had to hang onto something, some piece of herself she wouldn’t lose. And, while she mourned Daniel’s inability to let himself love anything or anyone, she totally, totally understood it. If only she could achieve that nirvana of numbness herself.
She was standing beside him at the edge of the lily pad pool, in front of the brightly coloured rainbow of flowers she’d designed, but shortly everyone would move along to the Nash Conservatory, another of Kew’s old glasshouses, where the auction itself would be held.
‘That’s all for now,’ the photographer yelled as she checked her display, and Chloe started to leave. She saw Daniel move towards her, but after a second of eye contact that made her almost dizzy holding everything she was feeling back, she looked away, allowed herself to be bustled along to the next event. As much as she didn’t want to see him go, she was pretty sure she would fall apart completely if she had to talk to him.
As she’d said—torture.
The rest of the afternoon went in a bit of a blur. Before she knew it the sun was low in the sky, painting gold squares through the windows onto the wall of the Nash Conservatory, and she was sitting on a low platform near the auctioneer’s lectern with a few other select members of the team, ready to give a brief description of each specimen on sale that night. At least Daniel was at the other end of the row, giving her a vague chance of breathing.
However, the fact she knew he was looking at her, even though she refused to meet his gaze, was counteracting that completely.
The place was packed. Full of orchid and carnivorous plant enthusiasts as well as fervent Kew supporters, the general public and quite a few reporters and TV cameras. More than once she saw them zoom in on Daniel, who was looking wonderfully gruff and brooding with his arms crossed over his front as he slouched in his chair.
She closed her eyes and sent up a silent prayer.
The Guy To Be Seen With (Valentine's Day Survival Guide) Page 16
