He sighed deeply and pondered for a moment on the vagaries of timing and coincidence. There were so many things that had brought him to this place with this woman, any one of which could have changed the course of his life.
If his sister hadn’t suffered from a Wilms’ tumour requiring chemotherapy and surgery he’d never have spent so much time in hospital, keeping her spirits up. Having decided on a career in medicine, it had been sheer chance that he and Jack had gained places at the same teaching hospital and become such close friends.
Had he never met Vicky, he would never have ended up coming to Denison Memorial, and if he hadn’t decided to call in one day early he would never have been sent to Frankie’s house.
And if he’d never got to know Frankie, he’d never have known what real soul-deep love felt like. The sort of love that moved mountains and changed the course of history.
The sort of love that he still had to find out if Frankie shared.
CHAPTER TEN
NICK sighed as he leant his head back in the corner of the settee. For the first time in years he was almost content in spite of the messy situation that surrounded him.
Hopefully, the custody matter would be resolved in a matter of hours, but the tangled relationship between Frankie and himself might take a little longer.
It had taken him enough time to realise what was going on. With his track record, taking things at face value wasn’t an option.
Oh, he’d known that Frankie was someone special right from their first meeting, and that had been before the mind-blowing sex.
It had been long overdue, but yesterday he’d finally sat down with Vicky to talk everything through. If only he hadn’t taken the easy way out when he’d met up with her again, how different the last month or two would have been for everyone…
He groaned aloud then froze when Frankie stirred, not wanting to wake her. She needed all the sleep she could get if she was going to cope with tomorrow.
But, having straightened everything out with Vicky, he needed to talk to Frankie—now. He needed to explain what had happened in the last twenty-four hours and that would mean going into all the things that had led up to them. He knew he didn’t come out of the tale very well, but he wasn’t going to settle for anything less than honesty.
This wasn’t the right time, though. He was impatient, but he was going to have to wait until the custody question was settled.
It had taken him long enough to see what had been right in front of his nose. A few more hours would be frustrating but ultimately the only thing that mattered was that Frankie gave him the chance to explain.
The course of the rest of his life depended on it.
Frankie began the slow rise towards wakefulness with a mixture of feelings.
There was an impression of security and warmth wrapped around her that she really didn’t want to leave, but there was also a hefty dose of apprehension and a feeling that there were dark shadows hovering just beyond her view.
‘Frankie,’ crooned a husky voice somewhere nearby, and she smiled lazily. Her imagination had come up with a pretty good impression of Nick’s voice. Good enough for her to be able to remember the scent of his skin and the hint of laundry soap in his shirt.
‘Frankie, love. It’s time to wake up,’ the voice murmured, more insistently this time, and she finally realised that it wasn’t all a figment of her imagination.
‘Nick?’ She opened her eyes just a tiny bit and found herself looking into the deep blue of his at extremely close quarters. ‘What are you doing h—? Oh!’ The memories of yesterday’s events returned with a crash.
‘Time to get ready,’ he said quietly, the way he tightened his arms around her showing that he understood only too well the reason why her eyes had instantly filled with tears. ‘I let you sleep as long as possible, but if we’re going to get there in time for the meeting…’
The meeting. Panic had her trying to sit up but Nick didn’t immediately open his arms to release her.
‘There’s just one thing before you go,’ he said quickly, then bent his head to press a gentle kiss to her mouth. ‘That’s for luck.’
Speechless, Frankie gazed into his caring blue eyes and wondered what she’d done to deserve this man in her life. He wasn’t hers to keep, but without his presence she certainly wouldn’t be coping with today’s events. In fact, without him she would probably be facing losing her daughters to her ex-husband’s machinations. She certainly wouldn’t have known who to go to for help, let alone at such short notice.
‘Nick…I might not have said it as often as I should, but you’ll probably never know just how grateful I’ve been for your…for your friendship and help since you came to Edenthwaite.’
‘You’re not going sloppy on me, are you, Dr Long?’ he teased, and shifted just far enough so that she could get her feet on the floor. ‘There isn’t time for that now. We’ll have to talk about it after we collect Laura and Katie. Now, do you need any help in the shower?’
Those eyebrows were going up and down again like a bad impression of Groucho Marx while he pretended to leer at her.
‘Idiot!’ She giggled and set off towards the bathroom.
‘Lovable idiot?’ he called after her, and she silently agreed with his alteration. He was a very lovable man. A man she would probably love the rest of her life, especially with his child to remind her of their time together.
That was another thing they were going to have to talk about when they finally found the time to start on the growing list of subjects. Not now, with his wedding approaching, but one day soon because he did have a right to know that he’d fathered her baby. How she was going to tell Laura and Katie was another matter entirely.
By eight-thirty terror was making her feel worse than morning sickness.
For some unknown reason, that form of nausea hadn’t struck this morning so she hadn’t been left with difficult explanations to make to Nick. As it was, her stomach was tied in knots at the prospect that if she gave a wrong answer, she could lose her daughters for all but alternate weekends and a share of school holidays. How would she know what was a wrong answer if she didn’t know what a right one was?
Simon was calm and very professional and had tried his best to reassure her but by the time they went into the chambers where the meeting was to be held, the only thing keeping her from hysteria was Nick’s hand holding hers tightly.
After one quick glance around the beautiful old oak-panelled walls the only thing she was interested in seeing was her precious girls.
‘Laura,’ she croaked as tears welled in her eyes. ‘Katie.’
‘Mum!’ Katie called, and pulled her hand out of her father’s grasp to run to her.
Such a precious little body, Frankie thought as she crouched down to hug her tightly, completely uncaring of the fact that she might crease her carefully chosen suit.
‘Don’t cry, Mum,’ Katie pleaded, her own eyes rapidly filling with tears. ‘We’re sorry we didn’t tell you where we were going but Dad said he’d let you know.’
Laura stood silently watching them. Frankie could see some unknown conflict clear on her daughter’s face. Her slender shoulders were stiff with hard-won control but there was nothing she could do about the silvery tracks of misery on her cheeks and Frankie’s heart went out to her. This was the thing she’d dreaded—that the children would end up playing piggy-in-the-middle between their parents.
‘Come and take a seat, Dr Long. Make yourself comfortable,’ invited the elderly gentleman ensconced in a comfortable wing chair with all the presence of a king on his throne. ‘I prefer to settle such matters in more informal surroundings for the sake of the children involved.’
Thank you,’ she murmured shakily, needing Nick’s help when her trembling legs wouldn’t let her straighten up. She glanced across at Martin and, as she’d expected, found him glaring daggers at her.
Frankie knew that every word of this meeting was vital but for several minutes the preliminaries
went straight over her head.
All she could see was the increasingly overweight, definitely pompous figure of the man she’d once loved enough to marry. All she could think was that she really hadn’t known him at all and she didn’t think he could really have loved her if he could do something like this to her.
‘So it’s in the best interests of the children for the custody arrangements to be reversed,’ Martin was saying. ‘Not only will they be taken away from undesirable influences but they’ll be part of a two-parent family again, with a mother willing to stay home to devote herself to them full time.’
In spite of the fact that she was feeling increasingly sick, Frankie had to admit that in full oratorical flow Martin could be quite impressive. Unfortunately, the person he most had to make an impact on looked less than pleased to be lectured at full volume.
Without comment, he turned to Simon and silently invited him to speak.
‘Frankie is at a total loss,’ he said simply. Tor the seven years since she divorced him for adultery, she has raised Laura and Katie to be loving, outgoing, confident children with very little input from their busy father. Suddenly, when he remarries, Mr Long decides to level unfounded accusations at his ex-wife in an attempt to have the custody agreement reversed, then compounds his perfidy by kidnapping them from school.’
Martin was nearly purple in the face and looked close to exploding with outrage by the time Simon finished.
‘They are not unfounded,’ he declared heatedly when he was permitted to speak. ‘And I only took the girls home with me for their own well-being.’
Frankie had been growing more and more concerned about the effect it was having on the girls as the level of acrimony went up. She’d been watching the way they turned from one speaker to the other almost as if they were watching a tennis match, their expressions a mixture of worry and fear.
Suddenly, Laura burst into tears, sobbing loudly.
‘Stop it, Daddy. Please!’ she wailed. ‘It’s my fault. It’s all my fault.’
‘Laura, sweetheart…’ Frankie was out of her chair and across the room in a flash, sinking to her knees again to wrap comforting arms around her weeping daughter.
‘I’m sorry, Mum. I didn’t m-mean for all this to happen. But you w-wouldn’t listen to what I w-wanted and—’
‘Shh! Shh!’ Frankie soothed, drawing the eleven-year-old onto her lap and rocking her as though she were still a toddler. ‘Calm down and catch your breath, sweetheart. Everything’s going to be all right.’
It took several minutes, the loan of Nick’s handkerchief and a glass of water, but eventually the storm subsided.
‘Now, young lady,’ began the eminent man who had waited without a hint of impatience for the crisis to subside. ‘I believe you can tell us something that will shed a bit of light on matters.’
Laura gulped and nodded wordlessly, shrinking back into the reassuring shelter of Frankie’s arms.
‘Supposing you tell me what’s been happening.’
‘Where shall I start?’ she began in a hesitant voice, sounding far younger than her usual confident self.
‘Wherever you like,’ he invited. ‘How about starting where it all began?’
Laura nodded again and thought for a minute.
‘That would be when Dad got married again and ’Licia said she wanted to give us a baby brother or sister.’
Martin started to interrupt but a fierce glare under bushy white eyebrows had him subsiding.
‘Oh, she didn’t tell Katie and me. She was talking to Dad when we were there one weekend and Dad told her he couldn’t have any children because he’d had a vasectomy when Katie was on the way.’
‘What?’ Frankie gasped, shocked into speech. ‘You had a vasectomy? While I was pregnant?’ She suddenly realised that she was speaking out of turn and put her hand over her mouth. ‘I’m sorry, sir…Your Honour…’ she mumbled with her cheeks on fire.
‘Am I to take it that you never told your wife that you’d taken permanent measures against any further children?’ he asked Martin, every word knife-edged in the sudden silence.
‘Ah…Well…’ Martin hesitated, his eyes darting around the room almost as if he was searching out an escape route. He certainly couldn’t meet Frankie’s eyes.
‘Speak up, man!’ he was ordered irritably, sharp grey eyes merciless.
‘Well, no, I didn’t,’ Martin admitted.
‘I see.’ He didn’t need to say any more for his feelings to be made obvious, then he turned back to Laura with an encouraging smile. ‘I’m sorry about that interruption, young lady. Please, continue.’
‘Well, then Dad told Katie and me that we were going to be living with him and ‘Licia soon, because Mum didn’t have time to look after us properly, but it’s not true. She does look after us. She loves us. But she’s a doctor and sometimes she has to work, but she always makes sure that we’ve got someone to stay with us when she’s on call.’
She broke off from her narrative a moment.
‘I don’t know if you know what that means,’ she said kindly. ‘But sometimes it’s her turn to go to the people who are ill in the night but she never leaves us alone.’
Frankie caught the gleam of humour in the elderly man’s eyes at the explanation, but he never betrayed it to Laura.
‘Anyway,’ she went on more soberly, ‘there was going to be a disco at school and I really, really wanted to go but Mum wouldn’t ask Dad if we could change the visitation weekend.’ She hung her head a moment. ‘I was so cross that I told Dad that Mum had men staying in our house at night.’
Martin wasn’t the only one to make a sound but where his was a subdued crow of triumph, Frankie’s was a moan of comprehension.
‘So, did your mother have men staying in your house at night?’ The bushy white eyebrows pulled together into a frown.
‘Well, yes and no,’ Laura admitted. ‘When our usual babysitter got sick, Dr Jack came to sit with us when Mum had to go to the patients, but then a baby was coming and something had gone wrong so they needed Dr Jack to go and help with a Caesarean. That’s when they have to cut the mother’s stomach to get the baby out,’ she added helpfully, before continuing her narrative. ‘Dr Jack asked Nick to sit with us until Mum came home because he knows that Nick collects us from school sometimes.’
‘I see.’ The white head nodded sagely. ‘Well, thank you for telling us, Laura. Is there anything else you want to add?’
‘Not really, except…’ She turned on Frankie’s lap to look up at her. ‘Except I’m really sorry, Mum. I was cross that I couldn’t go to the disco. I shouldn’t have told Dad those things but I didn’t know that he was going to take us away. Katie and me don’t want to go and live with him.’
‘Is this true, young lady?’ It was Katie’s turn to be in the spotlight but she didn’t seem to be in the least bit intimidated.
‘No. We’d rather live with Mum,’ she said with a big happy smile. ‘Especially if she’s going to have more babies.’
There were several seconds of stunned silence before pandemonium erupted with everybody speaking at once.
‘Katie! I told you not to tell,’ Laura wailed as she leapt to her feet.
‘Babies?’ Nick and Martin echoed each other in varying degrees of shock, but where Martin glared at her in complete horror, Nick’s face was wreathed in an inexplicable smile.
Simon didn’t say a word but he sent Nick a telling look.
‘Oh, Lord!’ Frankie groaned and covered her face. She’d never dreamed that Laura would put two and two together so fast. How was she ever going to be able to face Vicky? And why on earth was Nick smiling? This was the last thing he needed to find out.
The sound of a throat being very loudly cleared finally broke through the hubbub.
‘Well, people, if we could all be silent for a moment,’ he suggested firmly enough for it to be an outright order. ‘As far as I can see, there is absolutely no reason for any change to be made in the existing cus
tody order.’
‘But…’ Martin began, but got no further, silenced by nothing more than a glare.
‘In view of the nature of the misunderstanding and the fact that it has been so swiftly resolved,’ the eminent man continued heavily, pinning Martin as effectively as a bug on a pin, ‘there will be no kidnapping charge in spite of the fact that your actions were ill-advised and precipitate. Be advised that I would not easily tolerate any repetition.’
He turned to Frankie, still kneeling on the floor as she couldn’t find an ounce of energy to get to her feet.
‘As for you, young woman. Your devotion to your daughters is commendable and they are both a credit to you. It’s almost a shame that you didn’t have a few more,’ he added in a musing tone, a definite twinkle in his eye.
Frankie didn’t know whether to smile back or to wish for the floor to open up and swallow her. Nick’s hand at her elbow, urging her to her feet, didn’t help much in making the decision. She couldn’t even bring herself to look at him, knowing that her guilty secret had come out like that.
‘Mum, does that mean we can come home now?’ Katie demanded in a stage whisper.
‘Yes, young lady. That’s exactly what it means,’ he announced as he got up out of his chair and leant forward to offer his hand to each girl in turn. ‘I’m very pleased to have met you,’ he said. ‘Make sure you take good care of your mother.’
‘We will,’ Laura said.
‘Of course,’ Katie agreed pertly, then leant forward to add in a hoarse whisper, ‘And the baby. Do you want to know what it is when it arrives?’
‘I would love to know,’ he whispered back with a smile, then straightened to continue. ‘Now, off you people go and let me do some work.’
Martin was pale and tight-lipped as he led the way out of the chambers, not even glancing in their direction in his hurry to leave.
That didn’t bother Frankie nearly as much as the prospect of the next conversation she needed to have with Nick. So far he hadn’t said a word to her but she knew that couldn’t last.
Guilty Secret Page 15
