by Emily Forbes
‘It’s Harry’s birthday—he’s marrying my friend Esther—and Carly, my other best friend, and her fiancé, Adem, will be there too. Harry and Adem are both doctors. I guess there will be a few doctors there so you’ll have plenty to talk about besides weddings.’
‘Your two best friends are both engaged? What about you? No serious relationships in the past four years?’
She shook her head. ‘I’ve been too busy.’
‘Doing what?’
‘Doing everything I needed to get into the air ambulance service. I’ve been working at the Queen Victoria since I got back from Australia with the goal of becoming one of the midwives for the air ambulance. It took me a few years but I’ve been working with them now for the past twelve months. I love it but that has been my focus.’
That, and raising a child.
She was slightly relieved to see the pub ahead of them; intimate conversations were unlikely to be had once they were amongst her friends. She had almost mentioned Lily twice. She was such a big part of her life—she was her life—and outside of work Lily was her number one focus and, she realised, her number one topic of conversation. She’d have to be careful or she’d need to avoid Xander until she worked out what to say and how to tell him or, alternatively, she’d need to tell him about Lily pronto.
She didn’t want to avoid him—she longed to spend more time with him—but that meant she would have to tell him her news. She couldn’t, in good conscience, keep it from him any longer. She’d tell him tonight, she decided, after the drinks. She’d delayed the inevitable long enough and all this secrecy was becoming stressful. She’d go with him back to his flat after drinks and talk to him then.
She breathed out and relaxed, relieved to have made the decision.
‘Is everything all right?’ Xander asked as they reached the pub. ‘You’ve gone very quiet.’
She looked up at him, into his grey eyes that were a reflection of Lily’s. ‘Yes.’ She nodded. He wanted children. She had to believe that everything would be all right. She needed to stop worrying about things that were out of her control.
She stepped inside, followed by Xander. She could see her friends standing together near the fireplace at the far end of the bar. Harry, Esther, Raphael and Adem were chatting. Carly was on the phone. Chloe made the introductions while Carly finished her conversation.
Carly was buzzing with excitement when she ended her call and, while she let Chloe introduce her to Xander, Chloe could tell she had other things on her mind.
‘Guess who’s coming back in time for my wedding?’ Carly said.
‘Whose wedding?’ Adem teased her.
‘Our wedding,’ Carly said as she tucked her arm through the crook of his elbow and beamed at him, placating him.
‘Who?’
‘Izzy!’
‘Really! That’s brilliant,’ Chloe said.
‘I wish she could be here for ours,’ Esther chimed in, ‘but this is the next best thing.’
‘You’ve just gone from triple trouble to quadruple trouble, my friend,’ Harry said to Adem.
Chloe noticed that Raphael, who was also a close friend of Izzy’s, was the only one in the group who didn’t seem surprised. ‘Izzy is the fourth musketeer,’ Chloe explained to Xander. ‘Carly, Esther, Izzy and I all studied midwifery together but Izzy has been gone for a while. She’s a Kiwi originally but her father was in the diplomatic core so she grew up all around the world.’
‘Is her husband coming too?’ Esther asked.
‘I’m not sure.’ Carly frowned. ‘It didn’t sound like it but I didn’t specifically ask that. I was too excited. I said I’ll call her tomorrow so I’ll get some more details.’
‘It will be so good to see her again. I hope she can stay for a while.’ Chloe missed having all four of them together. They had been such a tight unit and it had been hard to get used to being one friend short.
‘And I hope she makes it in time for some of the pre-wedding celebrations,’ Carly said.
‘If she misses too many we’ll just have to have more.’ Esther laughed.
‘That’s our cue, gentlemen,’ Harry interrupted. ‘I feel wedding talk coming on. Let’s organise some drinks.’
‘A G&T?’ Xander asked Chloe.
‘Thanks.’ She smiled. ‘Are you okay with the men?’
‘No worries.’ He winked at her. ‘Ladies.’ He nodded towards Esther and Carly as he excused himself.
‘Oh, my,’ Carly said with a wicked grin as she fanned herself with her hand. ‘He’s seriously sexy. If only I wasn’t engaged.’
‘And pregnant,’ Esther said.
‘Maybe I can blame those pregnancy hormones.’
Chloe looked at Xander. He was wearing dark indigo jeans, black Australian stockman’s boots and a plain grey T-shirt. A simple enough outfit, but when the T-shirt hugged his chest and hinted at the taut abdominals she’d glimpsed earlier and his jeans showcased his firm behind and the whole outfit was further highlighted by his blond Norse-god features she had to agree he looked good.
In Xander’s case it wasn’t so much the clothes making the man as the man making the clothes.
‘You never said he was Australian,’ Esther said.
‘Didn’t I?’
‘No. You didn’t. You said he was from Wales.’
‘I might have said he came here from Wales.’
‘What else haven’t you told us?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You seem very comfortable together considering you’ve only just met—’ Carly paused when Xander returned with Chloe’s drink and turned to question him instead. ‘You’re Australian?’
‘You’re not going to hold that against me, are you? I have an English grandmother if that helps.’
‘And you’re here working with the air ambulance?’
‘I’m on a sort of sabbatical.’
‘A sabbatical?’
Xander nodded. ‘I’ve been in Wales, Canada and South Africa working with their first response teams, their air ambulance services, which is their version of our flying doctor.’
‘You’re a flying doctor?’
‘I am.’
‘That job sounds amazing. The outback sounds so romantic.’ Carly sighed.
‘Is it like the movies, full of gorgeous men?’ Esther wanted to know.
‘Who ride horses and wrestle crocodiles?’ Chloe laughed. ‘Don’t believe everything you see in the movies. There weren’t that many gorgeous men.’
‘Hey, I’m right here and I can hear you,’ Xander protested. ‘Should I be offended?’ he asked, but he was smiling, clearly not offended.
‘No, there were a few exceptions.’ Chloe smiled back at him. His smile was impossible for her to resist. ‘You were one.’ She put her hand on his arm. It was a reflex and when she realised what she’d done she got flustered but she couldn’t take it back, not immediately—that would just draw everyone’s attention.
‘Thank you.’ Xander grinned and then answered Esther. ‘Chloe’s right, it’s not exactly like the movies. Nothing ever is. But the landscape can be incredible if you can ignore the heat and the dust and the flies.’
‘It must be exciting though? Flying around the country saving lives.’
‘It’s not like the air ambulance, it’s not all emergencies. It can be routine. We do a lot of clinic runs, normal general practice type work.’
‘Chloe did a study exchange with the flying doctor, didn’t you, Chloe?’ Esther said. ‘The two of you didn’t happen to meet while she was there?’
‘We did. In Broken Hill.’
‘Is that where you grew up?’
‘No. I’m a city boy. But I love the flying doctor work. I’ll be back in Adelaide when I go home.’
‘When is that?’
‘Soon, I think.
I’m starting to miss the sun and the space. It’s nearly time to go home.’
He looked at Chloe and she grew nervous. Not about him going but she knew she’d miss him. It would take her some time to adjust again to him not being part of her life.
But that wasn’t going to be the case this time, was it? It was likely that he would be, if not a part of her life, of Lily’s. She really did need to have those conversations. She needed to start making plans and she needed to know his position before she could move forward.
‘Xander!’ Harry called to him from the other side of the room. ‘How are you at pool? We need a fourth.’
‘What are the stakes?’ he asked before he raised one eyebrow and winked at Chloe.
‘Don’t embarrass them,’ she said. She recalled one evening around the billiard table in the Palace Hotel in Broken Hill when Xander had thoroughly trounced all challengers.
‘I promise to miss a few,’ he told her before excusing himself.
‘You already knew him!’ Carly accused Chloe once Xander had left them to join the men.
‘The question is how well?’ Esther said.
‘Pretty well, judging by the heat between you,’ Carly added.
‘What do you mean?’
‘He looks at you like it’s Christmas Eve and you’re his present under the tree, just waiting to be unwrapped.’
‘And you kept touching his arm and every time you did he’d look at you like he just wanted to throw you over his shoulder and carry you out of here.’
‘My God, Carly, your hormones really are addling your senses. Not everything is about sex.’
‘I think Xander might disagree with me there.’ Carly laughed. ‘The sparks were flying.’
‘There’s something familiar about him.’ Esther was looking at him.
‘Stop staring!’ Chloe hissed.
‘Oh, my God.’
‘What?’
‘It’s his eyes.’
Chloe panicked. ‘Esther! Stop!’ She hadn’t even considered that her girlfriends would figure it out. She couldn’t believe she’d been so stupid. Even if they hadn’t put two and two together what if they’d said something about Lily in front of Xander?
‘What is it?’ Carly repeated.
‘I’ve just figured it out.’
Chloe interrupted. She knew she had to say something and at least if she admitted the truth she could choose the decibel level. She was about to admit to something she did not want the whole world to hear. At least not yet.
‘You have to promise me you won’t say anything.’ She eyeballed her girlfriends and waited until they kept quiet and nodded.
‘Xander is Lily’s father,’ Chloe admitted in a whisper.
‘He’s your mystery man? Your wild weekend of hot Australian sex was with Xander?’
‘Keep your voice down, Carly!’
Chloe had never pretended she didn’t know who Lily’s father was; she’d just chosen not to share the information. She’d told her girlfriends she’d had a brief fling and had never expected it to have any consequences.
‘Wow.’ Esther was looking in Xander’s direction. ‘Lily’s father.’
‘You can’t say anything,’ Chloe insisted. ‘He doesn’t know.’
‘What do you mean he doesn’t know?’
‘I tried to find him when I found out I was pregnant but he’d left the flying doctor service and no one would tell me where he’d gone. Our relationship hadn’t been serious—we hadn’t made any promises about keeping in touch when I left. It was simply a holiday romance.’
‘I thought you said it was one weekend?’
‘It was a bit longer than a weekend,’ she admitted now.
‘How much longer?’
‘Four weeks.’
‘That sounds a bit more serious than a couple of nights?’
‘It was never serious.’ It wasn’t meant to be serious but it couldn’t be helped that she’d fallen for him anyway.
‘Is that why you’ve never told us who Lily’s father is? Because it wasn’t serious?’
‘No. Because I couldn’t find him and I didn’t think I should tell the world until I’d told him.’
‘But you still haven’t told him.’
She shook her head. ‘I was waiting for the right time.’
‘I don’t think there is such a thing when the news is as big as this.’
‘I know.’ Chloe sighed. She had no choice now; she would definitely have to tell him tonight. It was going to be impossible to keep Lily a secret any longer. ‘I’ve already decided I need to tell him tonight. I nearly mentioned Lily twice before we got here. I can’t keep her a secret.’
Carly clapped her hands together. ‘This is fabulous. You’ll get your happily ever after as well.’
‘I don’t know about that. I have no idea how he feels about fatherhood, commitment, any of those things. He might want nothing to do with Lily. Or me.’ Despite the brief conversations where he’d implied he wanted those things Chloe knew that talking the talk was very different to discovering that he was already a father.
‘The way he was looking at you just before I don’t think you have any worries there,’ Carly said.
‘You make such a cute couple,’ Esther added. ‘I’m going to invite him to my wedding.’
‘You don’t need to do that! I’m not even sure if he’ll still be in London.’
‘We’ll see. I want things to work out for you.’
‘I get that and I appreciate it. I’d like things to work out for me too.’ But she still wasn’t sure exactly what that would look like.
* * *
Xander lined up the number thirteen ball, sinking it into the corner pocket. He missed his next shot but he and Adem only had two balls left to pot compared to Harry and Raphael’s five, before they would win their second game. He stepped back, allowing Raphael to take his turn.
‘Chloe tells me you and Carly are expecting a baby,’ he said to Adem as he watched Raphael’s ball hit the cushion and ricochet away from the pocket.
‘Yes. I’m getting used to the idea,’ he replied as Raphael’s ball spun away and dropped into a pocket on the opposite side of the table. A lucky shot.
‘It wasn’t planned?’
‘No. It was definitely a surprise but it’s turned out to be a good one.’
Xander had always been slightly envious both of people who had children and of those for whom it happened so easily. His own plans for a family had derailed six years ago and he wondered now if he’d missed his opportunity.
Adem lined up to take his shot after Raphael missed the next ball. ‘Have you got kids?’ he asked.
‘No.’
‘Pity. I could use some advice,’ Adem replied as the twelve ball dropped into a pocket.
‘Don’t you deal with babies all the time? You’re an obstetrician, aren’t you?’
‘No, not me. Rafe is the obstetrician. I’m a neurosurgeon. I’m completely clueless when it comes to kids.’ He potted the black ball, ending the game. ‘Drinks on you,’ he said to Harry and Raphael as they shook hands. ‘Carly tells me we should be ready to be completely out of our depths, which I must say I don’t find very reassuring,’ he said as Raphael and Harry headed to the bar. ‘I guess we’ll be asking Chloe for a lot of advice.’
‘Chloe? Why Chloe?’ Xander wasn’t following.
‘She’s the only one who’s done this before.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘She’s got a daughter.’
Xander’s jaw fell open and he could feel the surprise written in his expression.
‘You didn’t know?’ Adem asked.
Xander shook his head. He was at a complete loss, unable to think straight. He was glad the game was over. His head was full of white noise. Adem sounded as though he was t
alking under water.
Xander could feel himself sweating but he felt hot and cold at the same time.
‘How old is she? The daughter.’
‘I’m not sure. Little. Maybe two?’
Somehow he managed to get through one more drink before he escaped. He knew he was behaving badly but his head was reeling and he couldn’t continue to stand at the bar and make polite conversation. He had to leave.
He ducked into the men’s toilets and, from there, headed home. He didn’t say goodnight to anyone. He sent Chloe a brief text with an excuse he suspected wouldn’t hold up under examination but he couldn’t think of anything substantial. He imagined she’d be upset but so was he. He’d deal with any repercussions of his early departure later. Right now he had other things on his mind.
Starting with, why hadn’t Chloe said anything to him about her daughter? Lord knows, she’d had plenty of opportunity. Just a couple of hours ago they were talking about her experience with babies and she still didn’t mention she had one of her own.
Why not?
It was only in hindsight as he marched along the footpath, constantly dodging and weaving to avoid other pedestrians—why couldn’t these people stay out of his way?—that he realised he should have asked Adem some questions. Any information might have been useful.
He wondered who the father was. Where the father was? Was he still involved with Chloe?
Of course he’d have to be. They had a child together.
Did this complicate things between them?
He suspected it would. It changed the dynamics of getting to know her again. She was part of a package now.
Was that something he was prepared for?
He didn’t know. It was certainly not something he’d anticipated having to deal with.
Was that why she’d been quiet, introspective? Had she been worried he would find out? Concerned about what he’d think? How he’d feel? What he’d say?
She had reason to be, although at this stage he wasn’t entirely sure how he felt.
He knew he didn’t want to think of her with another man. He didn’t want to think that she would be tied to someone else for ever through a child. That connection would continue and there was no way he could compete with that.
