Adam’s Boys

by Anna Clifton

  The thing was, she’d accepted Nick’s invitation before Adam had come back into her life. And even though the invitation was strictly business, she was suffering from a distinct lack of enthusiasm about spending a whole evening in the company of any man who wasn’t Adam. “You weren’t going out tonight, were you?”

  “Of course Adam can look after the boys, Abbie,” Justin interjected in good-humoured officiousness. “Anytime General Counsel of large banking corporations asks you to dinner Adam will commit to being home with the boys, won’t you, Adam?”

  “The answer to your question, Abbie, is that I’m not going out because you’ve just come out of hospital,” Adam replied, ignoring Justin’s urgings. “And I thought the four of us might have a quiet night at home seeing as we haven’t done that in a while.”

  “You can have family night tomorrow,” Justin interjected again, but Adam didn’t look at him. In fact, he was still unable to drag his eyes from her.

  She was so much better than when he’d arrived home on Tuesday night, but she still looked very fragile. The makeup she had on wasn’t quite concealing the dark circles under her eyes.

  “Justin’s right, Adam,” Abbie replied, her gaze resting on him. “Nick told me he wants to start sending the firm some work. He wants me there tonight so that we can discuss that further. You must see that it’s a great opportunity for the firm.”

  “Of course it is,” Justin agreed readily.

  “Justin, do you mind if I talk to Abbie—alone?” Adam commanded rather than requested, swinging around to face his friend.

  Justin looked reluctant to leave, as though fearing Adam may have the power to talk Abbie out of going. He needn’t have worried. Adam knew he didn’t have the power to talk Abbie out of anything anymore.

  “Okay,” Justin relented finally. “But, Abbie, I want you to text me tonight when you get home and let me know how it went.”

  “I will, Justin. Relax,” Abbie reassured, smiling at his anxious expression as he left the room, closing the door behind him.

  Adam perched on the side of the conference table and crossed his arms. “Do you really have to go? Tonight’s the first night you’ve been well enough to spend with the boys and me … they’ve been looking forward to it.”

  “I know that, and if this function weren’t so important for the firm then of course I wouldn’t be going anywhere. But this is a great opportunity. Justin can see that. Surely you can too.”

  “I know it is,” he agreed. “It’s just that …” He pressed his lips together and didn’t say another word. He was looking down at his shoes thoughtfully, debating silently whether or not to tell her how he felt.

  “It’s just what?” Abbie prompted.

  “It’s just that after I spoke to Nick Peyton I was left with the strong feeling that he was interested in you as well as your legal skills. I’ll be honest, Abbie, I’m not comfortable about you spending time with him,” he finished in a quiet rush, lifting his eyes to gauge her reaction, knowing she wouldn’t receive it well.

  She didn’t.

  “You’re imagining things,” she began with a chilly tone. “Nick is not interested in me, he’s interested in working with our firm. And anyway, you have no right …”

  “I know I have no right,” he cut her off. “I have no right at all. But that doesn’t stop me feeling the way I do about you spending time with him.”

  “You can’t say those things,” Abbie retorted heatedly. “You can’t pretend that the relationship we flirted with in England didn’t fall apart at the first obstacle. Anyway, the bottom line is we have to put ourselves to one side and focus on Henry and Pete—can’t you see that?”

  “But that’s just it. We can’t talk about the boys’ best interests without talking about you and me—they’re inseparable.” Adam knew he was being pig-headedly persistent, but he couldn’t help himself. Because even though he’d felt at a loss as to how he could win Abbie back, other truths had been jumping out at him over the last two weeks with breathtaking clarity.

  The most important of all was his growing conviction that Pete’s sadness had been no more than a mirror image of his own. And his own sadness had begun upon Ellen’s death, when in a lather of self-recrimination over his fateful part in her illness he’d pulled the emotional drawbridge up on himself for good. Since then, no one had come along who’d made him want to lower it again. Not until Abbie.

  But was he too late?

  He’d started the ball rolling on his permanent move to Australia by talking to JP, but that wouldn’t be enough. There were many more obstacles in their way than just the logistics of caring for Henry.

  But the one thing he did know for sure was that he had to keep Abbie engaged and distracted until he could work out a way to gain her trust again. And that wouldn’t be easy, because for Abbie trust was everything. How could it be otherwise when the most important man in her life—her father—had failed her completely when she hadn’t been old enough to know it could be any other way?

  But the sight of Abbie putting her hands to her ears and shaking her head broke into his tormented reverie.

  “No, Adam,” she began in a stern voice, “please don’t talk about what happened in England. I can’t get my head around it, and I certainly can’t deal with it when I’m about to leave for this function.”

  Adam put his hand up and nodded. “Okay, okay,” he said quickly, “I won’t say another word.”

  Abbie dropped her hands and looked at him. She sighed, so quietly that if he hadn’t seen the slight lift and drop of her shoulders he would never have known it had happened.

  “I’m going now,” she said more calmly. “But we need to sit down and talk about arrangements for Henry—soon.”

  “I’ll wait up for you tonight,” he suggested, knowing it would enrage her but unable to suppress the teasing smile that seemed to rise up on a wave of feeling from a part of himself that had been buried below a mountain of guilt and regret for years.

  “No, you won’t wait up!” she replied firmly, ignoring his levity. “Tomorrow will be soon enough to talk.”

  But Adam had no intention of going to bed before she came home that night. And even if he had he wouldn’t have been able to sleep.

  In the end he let the boys stay up and watch television until late, suspecting the main reason was that he wanted their company for as long as possible to distract him from thinking about Abbie. When they both fell asleep on the lounge, he had no choice but to carry them upstairs and put them into their own beds. He then watched endless highlights of American ice hockey on the sports channel, but was barely aware of what was going on in the games.

  All he could think about was Abbie, what she was doing, who she was talking to and when she would be home.

  And in between his brooding he cursed Paddington streets—a hive of activity on a Friday night. There were countless false alarms of her arrival home as cars pulled up outside and doors opened and closed, but Abbie didn’t appear. Finally, well after midnight, he heard the low rumble of a sports car outside his front window and with a rush of relief he sensed rather than knew that she was home.

  Within moments he was at the window. Looking through a gap in the curtain, he could see a late model Mercedes-Benz double parked outside. It was a little way up the street and he had no hope of seeing the people within, but then the passenger door opened and a sensationally gorgeous female leg emerged.

  With a jolt he headed back to the dark lounge room and threw himself onto the sofa to feign sleep. The last thing he wanted was a showdown with Abbie when she walked through the door and discovered he’d ignored her request and waited up for her.

  It seemed like an eternity passed as he lay in the darkened room, but then finally he heard her key in the door, her heels clicking on the parquet floor of the hallway and the door close again.

  He guessed she slipped off her shoes because he could hear her padding quietly through the house so that she wouldn’t wake anyone. The foo
tsteps stopped and he sensed her standing close to his sofa and watching him. Then he felt a warm weight as a blanket was spread across him and tucked around his shoulders.

  He could stand it no longer.

  Opening his eyes in time to see her turn away he caught hold of the bottom of her dress and quick as a flash tugged her backwards. She lost her balance and fell with a small squeal of fright onto his legs. With one more quick movement he slipped one of his legs out from underneath her and pinned her down by locking it across her lap like a staple—she couldn’t budge in any direction.

  “You were awake all that time!” she protested indignantly, picking up a cushion and hitting him with it over and over again.

  He laughed as he tried to shield his face with his arms but she had a whole lot of irritation to sharpen her accuracy and fuel her blows.

  “I couldn’t get to sleep. Abbie, please stop!” he begged, helpless with laughter now as the tiny virago pinned down by his leg laid into him. But then she threw the pillow furiously across the room where it landed neatly on the other sofa.

  “I suppose you were peeking out the window when I arrived back too,” she shot at him accusingly, but there was an ever-so-tiny twinkle in her eye.

  “Would I do that?”

  “Yes you would. And I suppose that while you were there you made some assumptions about Nick because he drives a flashy BMW.”

  “It’s a Mercedes,” he corrected her before he could stop himself, distracted momentarily by wondering how women didn’t know stuff like that.

  “I know,” she smirked in satisfaction. “I was testing to see if you were lying about looking out the window too.”

  “Well did you have a lovely night?” he asked in a baiting voice, hoping to change the subject. “Would you like me to make you a nice cup of hot cocoa to help you off to sleep?”

  Abbie laughed and Adam rejoiced inwardly at his breakthrough. If they were able to laugh at one another there had to be some hope left.

  “Nothing is going to keep me awake tonight,” she admitted. “I’ve had it. How are the boys?”

  “They’re great. I let them stay up and watch the end of ‘The Cat in the Hat’ so they should sleep late in the morning.”

  “That would be lovely. I wouldn’t mind a sleep-in.”

  “If they get up early I’ll walk them up to the bakery for breakfast so that you can rest.”

  At that point Abbie was watching him through narrowed eyes.

  “Can you stop being so nice?” she complained suddenly. “Why are you being so nice, Adam?” she demanded with an edge to her voice.

  “Because to be honest, you’re freaking me out. I don’t know what you’re going to do or say to me next. I feel like I’m on death row and that any minute someone’s going to ask me what I want for my last meal.”

  “I’m not going to do or say anything to freak you out tonight. I’m too tired,” she explained and he could hear the weariness in her voice. “Oh, by the way, Nick wants to have lunch with you, me and Justin next week. He wants to talk about our future business relationship,” she finished with a satisfied grin.

  “Justin’s going to be a happy boy this weekend.”

  “Yes, won’t he.”

  “So he doesn’t want to talk to Justin and me about his future personal relationship with one of our partners?”

  “Stop it,” she scolded but gave him a flicker of a smile as she rested her head back against the sofa and closed her eyes.

  Lifting his leg off her lap Adam shifted over to sit closer to her. As he watched her he felt that incredible feeling of optimistic lightness rising up within him again, just like earlier that day, and that morning in England when he’d been wandering down to the fete and looking forward to seeing her after their time in front of the fire the night before. It was a feeling that at that moment he knew had been a part of his life before Ellen’s illness but not since. It was a feeling of … happiness.

  Adam swallowed and picked up a loose strand of Abbie’s hair lying on the sofa. He rubbed its silky softness between his fingertips, wondering what it was exactly that was making him happy. After all, there was still every chance this incredible woman would keep him at bay forever. But then again, she’d been able to smile at him just then. And she still hadn’t said anything about moving out—surely they had to be two reasons to hope. Surely they were reasons to believe that today was good, and tomorrow would be better.

  “Do you want me to carry you up to bed?” he offered teasingly. “I’m getting used to carrying you around.”

  Abbie’s eyes opened slowly. She turned her head a little so that she could look at him, unaware that his heart had begun a wild, unbridled pounding within his chest. And as she looked at him he watched her back, transfixed by the radiant golden-brown eyes drifting across him like a skillfully held paintbrush putting the final touches to a portrait.

  “I missed you when you stayed behind in London,” she whispered finally and Adam’s heart soared, a rushing noise filling his ears like a wild wind of cataclysmic proportions. Could he have heard right?

  “I missed you too,” he whispered huskily. “Please let’s talk. We’re miserable, the boys are miserable—it’s the pits.”

  “I’ve made so many mistakes,” she said quietly, searching his eyes with hers. “I don’t know where to start fixing them. Even Henry …” she added but then stopped.

  “You’re a wonderful mother,” he reassured her.

  “Maybe in some ways, but in others I’ve failed him completely. You should have seen him the morning I told him I was leaving the village. He was devastated, Adam. He felt I was making him choose between us. I’m supposed to be the adult in the relationship and I should never, ever have put him through that ordeal.”

  “If he was upset when you left then it’s because he’s attached to you. All three-year-old boys are attached to their mother.”

  But Abbie was shaking her head in strident refusal of his comforting assurances. “No, it’s more than that. Henry has an unhealthily protective relationship with me. He feels an obligation—at three—to look after me. I should be locked up for imposing my own childhood traumas on him.”

  Adam scoffed. “Do you really believe you’re the first parent to do that? What do you think Pete’s anxiety disorder is all about? The absurdity is that I’ve spent years trying to make him feel better, completely unaware that every single day I was dragging him down with my own melancholy.”

  “Depression after losing someone you love can be very hard to shake,” Abbie offered gently. “And as for visiting troubles on children, I doubt there’s a single important decision I’ve made about Henry that hasn’t been sifted through my hang-ups about what my father did first.”

  Abbie twisted around to face him, resting her cheek pensively on the open palm of her hand. Adam lifted his hand to stroke her silky-smooth hair and then wrap its ends around his fingertips. It was a small gesture, but his spirits soared when she didn’t pull away.

  “Do you know what, Abbie? There is one thing that you and I have in common that we’ve never deviated from.”

  “What’s that?”

  “We both want what’s best for the boys.”

  “That’s true,” she agreed quietly.

  “You said it yourself this afternoon—we should focus on Pete and Henry. Maybe that’s where we’ve gone wrong right from the start. Instead of focusing on the boys we’ve focused on them through the lenses of our own lives, including all the baggage we’ve been dragging in tow from the first day we met.”

  “So what do we do? Have a breath holding session like the boys do when they begin to feel out of control?”

  “I think we should settle for talking and listening to one another and keeping Henry and Pete front and centre of our minds at all times.”

  “What do Pete and Henry need then?” Abbie asked more seriously. “Paring their lives back to essentials, what’s best for them?”

  “That’s easy,” he replied wit
hout hesitation. “You and me—raising them together.”

  Abbie averted her eyes to stare off into the distance. Would she be able to search her heart for the same truth for Henry’s future?

  “And what do you think?” he pressed. “What does Henry need?”

  “In an ideal world, the same thing.”

  “Then isn’t that what we should do?” he declared in quiet triumph.

  “If only it were that simple,” Abbie sighed.

  “We have to make it that simple,” Adam replied insistently and then repeated compellingly, “You and I have to raise these boys together.”

  “In the UK?”

  “I don’t give a damn about geography anymore. The UK? Australia? Timbuktu? Toss a coin if you want. Abbie, what are you frightened of?”

  “Being hurt by you,” she threw at him in a moment of reckless honesty as she sat back in the lounge and covered her face with her hands before muttering into them warningly, “Don’t ever underestimate the power of that fear in me.”

  “And you think I don’t feel the same way about you sometimes?” Adam retorted, prising her hands away and cupping her jaw to turn her face towards his. “I want to spend the rest of my life with a woman who’s convinced I’ll let her down no matter what I do to prove myself to her. How would you feel if you were me?”

  “Probably exactly the same because I have to put up with a man who thinks of everything he does in a global context and puts me last, who makes crucial decisions that affect my life without consulting me first, and who left me once before and hasn’t given me any reason to think it won’t happen again.”

  “And do you think you’ll get a guarantee from any man that life will always be dandy? No guy will give you that. He doesn’t exist. But even though I bring loads of uncertainties into your life that doesn’t mean I don’t have a whole swag of redeeming features to make me the perfect guy for you.”

  Abbie looked at him askance, then smirked when she noticed the ironic lift to his left eyebrow. She twisted her body around to face him again.

  “You and I must raise these boys together,” she said in heavy confirmation, raising her eyebrows doubtfully.