‘So when did you lie?’
‘I was serious about Caitlin.’ The smile slid from her face when she didn’t get the answer she was expecting. ‘Not quite walking-up-the-aisle serious, but serious. And then Phil got sick and the thought of being married, having kids, leaving them behind?’ He was honest. ‘It just freaked me out.’
‘I do understand. It is scary to think of being responsible for another person,’ she admitted.
‘But you want it,’ Ethan said. ‘You’re brave enough to do it your own.’
‘Not on my own,’ Penny said, ‘because even if we fight I do have my sister and mum, and if something happened to me, they’d be there.’ She looked at him. ‘I thought you were about to tell me you had a son.’
He gave her a barking-mad look.
‘I saw you at the cinema.’
‘That was Justin.’
‘He looks like you,’ Penny said, smiling now at her own paranoia.
‘Phil looked like me,’ Ethan said, then changed the subject because she was getting too close to a place that hurt. ‘You do too much on your own.’
‘Better than not doing it at all.’ She smiled and nudged him, except Ethan didn’t smile, and to her horror she watched him swallow, watched him struggle to get a grip, saw him pinch his nose and it was her arm around him now.
‘Ethan?’
‘Sorry.’ He let out a slightly incredulous laugh, shocked how much was there just beneath the surface, how much he had just refused to let out.
‘Is it Phil?’
He shook his head and again he got how the patients liked her because she sort of went straight to the really painful bit rather than tiptoeing around it. ‘Justin?’
‘If you get famous and they name a perfume after you, it won’t be called Subtle, Penny.’
‘No, it will be called Pertinent,’ Penny said. ‘You need to be there for him, Ethan.’ And he nodded, rested his head in his hands, and Penny felt the tension in his shoulders, heard him struggle to keep his voice even as he gave a ragged apology. ‘This was supposed to be about you.’
‘How selfish of you.’ Penny smiled.
‘I don’t know what to do—I’ve been trying to stay out of it but I can’t. And it’s not just the family stuff and that Gina’s keeping him from his grandparents. The thing is, I know how he feels. It’s like I’m looking at a mini-me. I saw him at the hospital, heard my aunt saying the same things she did to me when my father died—to be brave, be strong. It’s not what he needs to hear right now.’
‘You can be there for him.’
‘I don’t want to go rushing in and make promises I might not keep,’ Ethan admitted. ‘I’ve never been able to commit myself to anything except work. Penny, I don’t want to let him down.’
‘You won’t.’ She saw him blink at the certainty in her voice. ‘I know you won’t let him down, precisely because you haven’t rushed in. Just take your time and you’ll work something out.’
‘I don’t know what, though.’ He looked to where she was sitting and pulled her onto his lap, and this time she didn’t resist when he pulled her in for a cuddle. ‘So much for cheering you up.’
‘You have, though.’ Penny smiled and he smiled too. ‘Thank you for everything,’ Penny said. ‘Not just the injections but...’ she looked at the man who was still there despite all that had gone on these past weeks ‘...thank you for being my friend through this.’
‘A bit more than a friend.’ And to confirm it gave her a kiss. A kiss that seemed at odds with the way she was feeling, because there was this well of happiness filling her at what should have been the saddest of times.
‘Are you wearing no knickers again?’ Ethan smiled again and he had possibly the nicest mouth a man could have, and she was looking into his hazel eyes and it hadn’t just been manufactured hormones that had been raging that time. Penny could fully see it now. It had been lust, all the flush of a new romance, the big one, because right now for Penny it was looking like something a lot bigger than lust.
Something she’d never really felt before—an L word that would probably be as shocking to Ethan as the F word had been to Jasmine, and if that mouth returned to hers now, she might be tempted later to say so, and again it was just too much and too soon.
‘You need to go,’ Penny said.
‘Do I?’
‘Yes,’ Penny said, ‘because I want to go to bed and have sex with you and I want to get up tomorrow and do it again, and then I want you to take me out tomorrow night, but I think I need to think about things properly. I need to work some stuff out.’
‘And you can’t do that with me?’
Penny looked at him and, no, she didn’t want to try to do this with Ethan—her fertility issues were conversations that should be had far later along in a relationship, dark places a couple might visit later that had instead been thrust on them at the beginning.
‘It’s a girl thing,’ Penny said, because with or without Ethan in her future she needed to properly know how she felt. And as to the other issue, the L one—well, she didn’t need him by her side to work that out.
Penny already knew.
So much for a wild fling—of all the times to go and fall in love with someone.
‘I could make love to you on the sofa and then leave,’ Ethan said, cupping her naked bottom and making her laugh.
‘I suppose that might be a compromise.’
He kissed her again, pulled her around on his lap so she was facing him, and his hands were everywhere and so too were hers. ‘I’m crazy about you, Penny.’
‘I know,’ she said, kissing him back and trying to hold on to a word he might not be ready to hear. ‘I’m crazy about you too.’
Her hand went to his back pocket, which gave him lovely access to her neck. She could feel his tongue, his mouth most definitely leaving evidence that hers hadn’t been about to, but it was bliss and she had a whole two weeks off, so she let him carry on, working her neck and his hands stroked her breasts as she slid the condom on him.
‘You’ll call me if you need me,’ Ethan said as she sank herself down onto him.
‘You’ll call me too,’ Penny said, locked in an erotic embrace, hardly able to breathe. ‘But not for this.’
‘Penny.’ He was lifting his hips and thrusting into her, protesting her impossible rules.
‘I mean it,’ Penny panted, because she could bury herself in Ethan and stay there forever, just as he was burying himself deep in her now.
Yes, a good cry and a good orgasm and Penny felt a whole lot better as she kissed him goodbye at her door. Still stuck on deuce but with play suspended.
Penny was going to sort herself out.
And so too would Ethan.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
‘PENNY!’ KATE SMILED as she walked past the café and ignored Penny’s burning cheeks.
‘Oh, hi,’ Penny said, as if she just happened to be sitting there at a quarter to nine in the morning, as if she hadn’t been looking up school times on the internet, as if she hadn’t spent forty minutes trying to cover the marks on her neck and her puffy eyes. ‘How are you?’
‘Good.’ Kate smiled. ‘Though I could do with one of them.’ She nodded to Penny’s coffee and, yes, she’d love to join her and, yes, Penny thought, it was another woman she needed for this and this link was thanks to Ethan.
‘How’s work?’ Kate asked, taking a seat.
‘I’m taking some time off.’ She told her why and Penny realised that Kate probably already knew.
‘Did Ethan tell you?’
‘Do I have to answer that?’
‘No.’ Penny shook her head.
‘Then I won’t.’
Kate had been there and knew, though she couldn’t have a second coffee, not at the café
anyway because the baby needed feeding. In truth, she shouldn’t really have stopped for the first, but she’d been where Penny was.
‘We could take a coffee back to mine,’ Kate suggested, ‘and talk there.’
It was another woman Penny needed, one who’d been there and knew—who knew it so well that she took phone calls for a support group.
‘Everyone was pregnant when I started trying,’ Kate said, making up bottles for Dillon a little while later as Penny sat at the kitchen table.
It was so nice to talk and to hold someone else’s baby and not feel guilty for shedding tears. She’d always tried to smile with Jasmine and friends, and say, no, no, she was fine. It was nice to hold one and have a little weep.
‘I think I’ve gone a bit mad,’ Penny admitted.
‘It’s par for the course.’
Penny looked at Dillon and though she’d never be disappointed with a boy, Penny admitted to herself that deep down she would have loved a girl too. Oh, a boy would be fantastic, but she’d have loved a mini-Penny. A little girl who she could do everything right by and fix the world for, who she could unashamedly show all the love that bubbled and fizzed inside.
But she could do it for herself too, Penny realised.
‘I’ve just had a text,’ Kate said a little while later. ‘My brother’s coming around.’
‘I’ll go, then.’
She thanked Kate for the morning and they had a hug and she handed back little Dillon. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to see Ethan, it was more there was something she was ready to face and she wanted to face it alone. Penny headed to the beach and walked for a while, adding up all the months, all the years, all the time she’d lost trying. She was ready to stop and so she said it out loud—but to herself first.
‘I’m not going to be a mum.’ She actually didn’t cry as she said it, just felt relief almost as she let go of something she had never had, anger shifting towards acceptance; sadness a constant ache but one she could now more readily wear.
Yes, times alone were needed for both of them, yet Kate was the strange conduit that linked them.
* * *
‘She’s been here.’ He could just tell, when about ten minutes after Penny left he was at his sister’s door and Kate was blushing and flustered when she answered.
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Because I can smell her perfume,’ Ethan said.
‘You really have got it bad,’ Kate said. ‘What did you do to her neck?’
Ethan wasn’t going to answer that one, so he asked a question instead. ‘What was she talking about?’
‘Not about you,’ Kate said, then added, ‘She’s really nice.’
Not seems, Ethan noted—finally, it would appear, Penny was letting people in.
‘She is.’
‘Well, I hate to chuck you out so soon, but I’ve got nothing done today and I’m on fruit duty at playgroup.’ Kate was putting sandals onto her daughter’s feet. The baby was asleep and instead of letting her wake him, as usually Ethan would, he offered to watch him instead.
‘Are you sure?’ Kate checked. ‘There’s a bottle in the fridge if he wakes up.’
‘Go.’
And later he sat with Dillon on his lap and stared at a very little man who would, God willing, grow up.
And, Ethan realised, taking out his phone, it was time for him to as well.
Just not yet.
He made every decision alone—it was simply the way he was, but instead of ringing who he meant to, he dialled Penny.
She probably wouldn’t pick up.
‘Hi.’
‘Hi, Penny,’ he said. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Sitting on the beach. What about you?’
‘Watching my nephew. Kate’s at playgroup.’ He took a deep breath. ‘I’m going to ring Gina.’
‘That’s good.’
‘I think I need to say sorry first, for how the family has been.’ He was really just thinking out loud.
‘Maybe,’ Penny said, ‘but are you ringing on behalf of the family?’
‘No.’
‘You could just keep it more about you,’ Penny said, and they chatted for a while about what he might say till the baby on his lap decided that a bottle might be a good idea, and Penny could hear his little whimpers in the background.
‘You’d better go,’ Penny said. ‘It sounds like the baby needs feeding.’
As he hung up the phone he sat for a moment, wondering if he’d upset her with the baby crying and everything, but she’d seemed fine. It had been their first full conversation without a mention of babies.
‘Apart from you,’ he said to Dillon as he headed to the fridge.
Ethan offered the baby his bottle but he spat out the cold milk so Ethan warmed it up. ‘It was worth a try.’ He grinned at his new friend and they settled back down on the sofa. There was no putting it off any longer and Ethan again picked up his phone.
‘Gina...’ He took a deep breath. ‘It’s Ethan.’ He was met with a very long silence. ‘I’m really sorry for all that the family has put you through.’
‘You didn’t.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘But I do know what happened and I know too what Jack and Vera can be like.’ He took a long breath. ‘But I’m not ringing about them, I’m ringing about Justin. I lost my dad around the same age.’
‘I know.’
They chatted for a bit and it was awkward at first and there was a long stretch of silence when he made his suggestion. ‘I was thinking, if it’s okay with you, I could get Justin his football membership. I can’t take him every week, it depends on the roster, but...’ He thought of Penny, because he so often did and, yes, she’d swap now and then and so too would the others.
This he could do.
Would do.
‘I would be able to take Justin to most games.’
‘He’d love that,’ Gina said. ‘But...’ She hesitated for a moment.
‘I’m not starting something I won’t see through,’ Ethan said. ‘I’m not saying I’m never going to move, but I will be there for him. I wouldn’t be offering otherwise.’
Only that wasn’t what Gina was hesitating about. ‘Maybe you could take him to his grandparents’ after the match, but not every week. Maybe he could stay over?’ Gina let out a sigh. ‘But I can’t face picking him up.’
‘I can do that,’ Ethan said. ‘We can work out times.’
‘Would you talk to Vera and Jack first?’ Gina said. ‘I don’t want Justin going there and being told what a terrible person I am.’
‘I’ll talk to them,’ Ethan said. ‘And if it’s not working out, I’ll talk to them again, but whatever happens there, I’ll be around for Justin.’
They chatted some more and it was agreed he would ring Justin and tell him the good news that night. When Ethan hung up the phone he looked into the solemn eyes of his nephew.
‘How did I do?’
He got no answer.
‘When you’re a bit bigger I might take you to the football too.’ He got a smile for that and again his mind tripped back to Penny. ‘I’ll be the mad uncle.’
And so the weekend came around and he picked up a six-year-old with a pinched, angry face. He knew that look only too well and sat where they always had, only this time without Phil.
And they shouted at the opposition and the umpire and let off a bit of a steam, but instead of talking about the game on the way to Justin’s grandparents’ they spoke about what mattered.
‘Well, if he wanted to live so much then he should have tried harder,’ Justin said, because he was tired of hearing that his dad had tried so hard to be there for him. And he got to be six and very angry instead of being told to be brave and strong. And maybe Penny has sprayed Ethan wi
th some Pertinence before he left because instead of being subtle, instead of dropping him off at his Vera and Jack’s and hoping for the best, Ethan warned him how things might be.
‘They’re upset,’ Ethan said, ‘and you remind them of your dad, and it’s just so hard on everyone.’ He blew out a breath because there was just so much hurt all around, but so much love too.
‘They hate my mum.’
‘They don’t,’ Ethan said, and then corrected himself, because it was Justin who was dealing with this. ‘Well, if they do, you shouldn’t have to hear it. You tell me if they say anything that hurts. And if they are less than nice about her, it’s because they don’t know your mum,’ Ethan said. ‘She’s great.’
He saw the smile lift the edge of Justin’s lips as finally someone in the Lewis family said something nice about his mum.
Yes, Ethan decided, having dropped Justin off—this he could do.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
‘MORNING, ETHAN.’ VANESSA was just coming on duty and smiled when she saw him, but then pulled a face. ‘I’m guessing, from the state of you, that you’re going off duty?’
Finishing up a week of nights, Ethan was aware that he probably wasn’t looking his best. He had meant to shave before he’d come on last night, and had also meant to shave the night before that too. ‘So, if you’re going off duty...’ Vanessa said, looking at the board that Lisa was filling in—it showed all the on-take doctors and who was on duty today. ‘Oh, no!’ Vanessa said as she watched Lisa write ‘Penny Masters’ in red. ‘She’s back.’
‘She will be soon,’ Lisa teased the nurses. ‘Party’s over for you lot.’
‘Tell me about it. Who knows what her problem is,’ Vanessa groaned, and Ethan wanted to tell them to give her a break, that the two of them had no idea what Penny was going through.
But Penny would hate that.
She was just this tough little thing choosing to go it alone, and for the last couple of weeks he’d had to force himself to respect that while trying to sort out how he felt about IVF and babies and things. Ethan still didn’t know. He couldn’t work out how he felt about dating someone who wanted a baby, oh, say, about nine months from now.
Secrets of a Career Girl Page 13
