Caroline Anderson, Josie Metcalfe, Maggie Kingsley, Margaret McDonagh

by Brides of Penhally Bay Vol. 03 (li

  Fran smiled, not knowing quite where to start and what to say. ‘Um—good,’ she said in the end, because it was true. She felt good—a bit sick with nerves, because now they’d decided to go for this, she was having to face all her demons all over again, but she could do it.

  She reached out, and Mike took her hand, folding it in his and holding it tight. ‘Um…we wanted to talk to you about the IVF. Trying again. We’ve spent a lot of time talking…’ Her voice faltered, but she could feel Mike’s fingers tightening on hers, and out of the corner of her eye she could see his reassuring smile.

  ‘Anyway,’ she said, firming her voice, ‘we’ve been talking and thinking and we’ve been sticking to the diet and all the other things you said—the boxers and the showers and so on—and—’

  ‘Boxers?’ Mike said, frowning in puzzlement, then the light dawned. ‘I thought they were because of the cast,’ he murmured, but she could see a smile lurking in his eyes, and she smiled back.

  ‘Sorry. And the coffee and alcohol and so on have all been strictly rationed.’

  ‘And are you feeling better?’ Kate asked, looking at them both.

  ‘Probably, yes,’ Mike said, looking thoughtful. ‘I’m sleeping better, but that could be all sorts of things. Less pressure, we’re talking again—all sorts. And I feel energetic and optimistic, but again that could be because I’m not killing myself on the farm.’

  ‘Looks like your broken leg’s been quite useful, then,’ Kate said with a smile, and turned to Fran. ‘How do you feel?’

  ‘Scared. Sick. Dreading the injections and all the intrusive stuff, but…’ She shrugged and tried for a smile. ‘Generally better. Like Mike. Sleeping better, more energy, happier—but there are lots of reasons for that.’

  Kate smiled again. ‘I’m so glad you’re both happier,’ she said quietly. ‘An unhappy relationship is never a good start to this journey, and I must say from my point of view you both look light years better.’

  ‘We feel it, and we were wondering if you could check us over,’ Mike said. ‘You know, run a ruler over us and make sure everything’s up to scratch before we start again.’

  ‘Of course. You probably haven’t given the diet and the other changes long enough yet, but if you really feel you can’t wait, we can start getting ready for the process of referral. You’ll have to go to a different centre for private treatment, but we can run a lot of the preliminary checks from here, to rule out anything that’s going to make them send you away. I’ll need blood from both of you, so can you roll your sleeves up? That’s great.’

  She put a strap round Fran’s arm, slid a needle into the vein and took several vials of blood from it, then, giving Fran the swab to press down on the vein, she repeated the process with Mike. ‘You aren’t still on painkillers or anything, are you?’ she asked him, and he shook his head.

  ‘I’m not on anything at the moment. Neither of us are.’

  ‘Not even caffeine,’ Fran said, giving him a rueful smile. ‘I think that’s probably been the hardest for him.’

  ‘It’s nothing,’ he said, pressing down on the swab. ‘Not compared to what’s at stake.’

  ‘Indeed. Right, let’s weigh you both.’

  She noted down their weights, commenting on the fact that Fran had put on three much-needed kilos, and took their blood pressure.

  ‘OK. That’s that. And I’ll need a urine sample from each of you to make sure you haven’t got diabetes or any subclinical infections, and you know what we’re going to want from you,’ she said, sliding a little pot across the desk to Mike with a smile.

  He gave a wry laugh. ‘Oh, yes. Do I ever. My favourite bit.’ He pushed the ominous little pot around, picked it up and tossed it in the air, then said, with a tension in his voice that probably only Fran would have noticed, ‘Will they be able to check for damaged sperm? Because if there’s any likelihood that it was my sperm quality that caused Fran to miscarry, I want to do something about it before we try again.’

  Kate’s smile was reassuring. ‘Of course. If there’s a significant number of non-swimmers or sluggish ones, they’ll have a closer look. It might be that you have to persevere with the diet for longer, or there might be something more significant wrong, although I doubt it. That would have been spotted before, I’m sure, and if you remember they never did find anything significantly wrong with either of you last time. But let’s get the first tests out of the way and see what they come up with before we worry about what’s next.’

  ‘And then if everything comes back all right?’ Fran asked, feeling the tension ratchet up a notch.

  ‘Then we refer you to the clinic in Exeter, and they take over from us.’ She finished labelling all the bottles of blood, slipped them into the plastic sleeves, filled in the various request forms and looked up. ‘The semen sample needs to be as fresh as possible, so I would do it at the hospital, Mike, preferably near the beginning of the working day,’ she said. ‘Would you have time to do it this morning?’

  He nodded, and Fran’s heart hitched.

  ‘Then I’ll give you all this stuff to take to the lab as well,’ she said, handing over all the blood samples and request envelopes, together with the urine sample bottles. ‘The sooner they get them, the better the results. And I’ll see you next week when they’re all back—I’ll give you a call when they’re in.’

  She smiled and pushed back her chair, stood up and shook their hands and opened the door. ‘Good luck. I’ll see you next week.’

  ‘I can’t believe I’ve got to go into that ghastly room again,’ Mike muttered as they walked down the corridor towards the path lab. ‘It’s just awful, Fran—even thinking about it’s enough to put me off. The girly magazines and the smutty videos—it’s just horrible.’ He suppressed a shudder, and then without warning she got hold of his arm and yanked him through a doorway.

  ‘What the hell are you doing?’ he asked as she shut the door and turned on the light. ‘Fran? Why are we in the loo?’

  She pushed him against the wall, took the pot out of her handbag and put in on the basin, then reached for his zip. He grabbed it and held her away from him, unable to stop the splutter of laughter that rose in his chest.

  ‘Fran, stop it! We can’t do this here!’ he hissed.

  ‘Why not? Why ever not?’

  ‘Because it’s a public toilet!’

  ‘Don’t be silly, it’s a single cubicle off the corridor and it’s a lot more private than that dreadful room. Now, stop fighting.’

  She pinned his hands out of the way, grabbed his zip and slid it down, reaching inside and curling her fingers round him.

  Dear God. He was already hard, the thought of her touching him enough to bring him to the edge even though they were both still laughing. But then she moved her hand, the firm, rhythmic strokes enough to bring him to his knees, and he dropped his head forwards on his chest and stared down at her, her hand curled round him, her lip caught between her teeth, her pupils darkening as she looked up and met his eyes.

  ‘God, you are so sexy, Trevellyan,’ she muttered, flicking her nail across the tip of his penis, and he fisted his hands in her T-shirt and closed his eyes.

  ‘I’m going to come any second if you do that,’ he said through gritted teeth, and she gave a sexy little chuckle.

  ‘I thought that was the general idea,’ she said, and reached for the pot…

  ‘Kate? It’s Jan, at the fertility clinic. We’ve got a lot of results here from some patients of yours, Francesca and Michael Trevellyan. I think they were probably for you and I’ll send them through to you straight away, but I thought you’d want to know the results anyway.’

  ‘Of course,’ Kate said, surprised to feel a little kick of apprehension. ‘I was going to chase them up, it’s been over a week now. OK, fire away. I’ve got a pen.’ She listened, frowned, raised her eyebrows and jotted down all the information. ‘Really? Thanks, Jan. I’ll pass all that on,’ she said. Cutting the connection, she dialled the Trevel
lyans’ number.

  ‘Fran? It’s Kate. Are you both in? I’ve got your results, and I was just about to leave the surgery. I thought I might drop by on my way to collect Jem from my mother and have a chat about what happens next.’

  ‘Oh. Um…yes, sure,’ Fran said, sounding instantly worried. ‘We’ll be here. Mike’s in the office. I’ll get him.’

  ‘I’ll be with you in ten minutes,’ Kate said, and replaced the phone in its cradle.

  ‘Mike?’

  He glanced up at Fran and got straight to his feet, one look enough to know something was going on. ‘What is it?’ he asked, his chest tight with dread.

  ‘I don’t know. Kate’s coming to see us. She’s got our results.’

  He felt his heart lurch and went over to her, gathering her in his arms and hugging her tight.

  ‘We can handle this, Frankie,’ he said softly. ‘Whatever it is. Come on, let’s go into the house and wait for her. I take it she’s coming here now?’

  ‘Yes. She said she’d be ten minutes. Mike, I feel sick.’

  ‘Me, too,’ he said. ‘Come on.’

  ***

  She would have fallen down without his support. They left the door open, standing there in the kitchen facing it, him behind her, his hands on her shoulders, steadying her, and so when Kate came in they couldn’t see her face because the light was behind her.

  ‘Well, I’ll get straight to the point,’ Kate said. ‘It wasn’t the news I was expecting to give you, but we aren’t going to be referring you for the IVF programme.’

  ‘No!’ Fran wailed, her knees threatening to buckle, and she felt Mike’s arms tighten round her.

  ‘Fran, no,’ Kate said hurriedly, and Fran couldn’t work out why on earth she was smiling. ‘It’s not bad news! You can’t have the IVF because you don’t need it. You’re pregnant, Fran,’ she said, and her smile widened. ‘Congratulations, both of you. You’re going to have a baby.’

  Fran stared at her for an age, numb with shock, and then with a fractured little sob she turned and fell into Mike’s waiting arms…

  They talked for hours.

  Once Fran had stopped crying, of course, and they realised that Kate had left.

  She was sitting on Mike’s lap, one arm round his neck and his hand resting lightly over their baby, and she said softly, ‘It’s going to be OK this time, Mike. I feel so different. Much sicker. I thought it was just fright, but of course it isn’t. My period is two days overdue, and I feel really different. And tired, but I thought that was just you keeping me awake half the night.’

  He chuckled and tilted his head back, smiling up at her tenderly. ‘You’re to take care of yourself,’ he said. ‘Nothing silly. No unpasteurised milk or soft cheese or any of the other things—and no cheesemaking either. I can do that with a bin bag on my foot. And I’m sure Kate will give you a huge list of dos and don’ts.’

  ‘I’m sure she will.’ His hair had flopped forwards, and she lifted it back with her fingers and smoothed it out of the way so she could see his eyes. ‘I don’t want to tell Sophie yet, though,’ she said, not wanting to acknowledge the possibility of failure but all too aware that it might lurk round the corner for them. After all it had before, twice.

  ‘It’ll be fine. Third time lucky, Fran,’ he murmured. ‘But I agree, we won’t tell her yet. We won’t tell anyone. Not till you’re past the three-month mark.’

  ‘I lost both the others at eight weeks,’ she reminded him sadly.

  His arm tightened. ‘I know.’

  ‘Three weeks and five days to go.’

  ‘We’ll make it,’ he assured her, his voice quietly confident. ‘And even if we don’t, we’ve still got each other. As far as I’m concerned, that makes me the luckiest man alive. The rest is just the icing on the cake.’

  She rested her head against his and sighed. ‘I’m so lucky to have you,’ she said softly. ‘Have I told you recently how much I love you?’

  He chuckled. ‘Only about ten times today, but feel free to do it again.’

  The phone rang, and she hung on to his neck and reached over, grabbing it from the charger without leaving Mike’s lap. ‘Hello? Oh, hi, Ben. Yes, he’s here. I’ll hand you over.’

  She gave Mike the phone, and after a brief conversation he hung up and smiled at her. ‘The valuer’s been.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘If we’d ended up having to go the IVF route, we’d have had more than enough, but Joe and Sarah can do their kitchen, and Mum and Dad can change the car. And we can put the money on one side and spend it on something later. We’re going to make it this time, Fran,’ he said with conviction. ‘I know we will.’

  ‘We can spend it on the nursery,’ she said, allowing a little bloom of hope. ‘The house could do with a bit of decorating, and the heating’s not great.’

  He laughed. ‘Don’t get too carried away,’ he said, and then kissed her. ‘Time for bed?’

  ‘Sounds good,’ she said.

  He lay watching her sleep, a little knot of fear in his chest. They had to make it. If she lost this baby…

  Then he’d cope, he told himself firmly. If Fran had the courage to do this, then he had to find the courage to support her if it all went wrong. And they’d have the money put on one side for the IVF, should they need it. Please, God, it wouldn’t be necessary…

  Fran thought The Day would never come.

  That was how she’d started thinking about it—with capital letters, because it seemed so huge, so important, so very far away that somehow nothing else would do.

  Her pregnancy was a nightmare. Not because anything went wrong, because it didn’t. She got through it, day by day, hour by hour, focusing on the end, planning for the magical day when she could bring her baby home, but somehow not daring to believe that it would ever happen.

  The eight-week deadline passed.

  Safely.

  She gave a shaky sigh of relief when she reached nine weeks and realised she was probably over that hurdle. The next danger point was twelve weeks, and she got through that, too.

  Then she had a scan—an image of her baby, just a tiny curl of a thing, but with an unwavering heartbeat.

  ‘Oh, Mike,’ she said, clinging to him and staring mesmerised at the screen, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. So she did both, and so did Mike, and they were given a photo to keep.

  Their first, in the album she started with a trembling hope.

  Then at twenty weeks she had her second scan, and another photo for the album.

  ‘Do you want to know what sex it is?’

  She looked at Mike for guidance, and he shrugged, passing the ball back to her.

  ‘I don’t care, so long as everything’s all right,’ he said, and she smiled.

  ‘No, then,’ she said. ‘We’ll wait and see.’

  And then she kicked herself, because they started decorating the nursery, the little room off their bedroom that had always been the nursery, where Mike and Joe had slept for the first year of their lives, where their father, Russell, had slept, and so on back for generations. And because they didn’t know the sex of the baby, they didn’t know what colour to paint it.

  ‘Yellow?’ Mike offered. ‘That’s sunny and sort of neutral.’

  ‘It makes them look jaundiced,’ Fran said doubtfully, and he chuckled.

  ‘Not daffodil yellow. Something softer. A pale creamy primrose?’

  So that was how it ended up, a lovely soft colour, and when she was thirty-six weeks, they bought a cot. They didn’t assemble it, though. It was as if, by tacit agreement, they didn’t want to push their luck. So it stayed in the room, propped up behind the door, and for the next three weeks they didn’t look at it.

  It was as if they were holding their breath, but every night Mike would hold her in his arms, cuddled together like spoons in a drawer, with his big, strong hand splayed tenderly over the baby, soothing it with gentle strokes when it kicked and squirmed.

  It had hiccups, too, which made
them chuckle once they realised it was nothing to worry about.

  And then Fran woke one morning tired and grumpy, and the house was a tip. So she cleaned it, furiously, from end to end, which frankly would have been stupidly ambitious when she hadn’t been pregnant, she thought in a rare pause when she’d changed their sheets and vacuumed the bedroom floor, but she just had to do it, because the baby was coming soon and it couldn’t be brought back to a place hanging with cobwebs.

  Well, one cobweb, and it wasn’t exactly hanging, but it was soon banished with a flick of the feather duster, and after another half-hour the dining table was gleaming, the old mahogany nourished within an inch of its life.

  And she ached. Lord, how she ached! She straightened up, the beeswax in her hand, and arched her back. She’d done too much, she thought. Much too much. Time to sit down for a while.

  Except she couldn’t sit down, because it was so horrendously uncomfortable suddenly, and then she had one of those lightbulb moments and couldn’t believe she’d been so stupid. She’d watched Brodie do just the same thing only two weeks ago, dragging her bedding round and round to get it comfortable, before finally settling down and giving birth to three puppies.

  And she hadn’t even realised she was doing the same thing!

  She phoned Mike on his mobile. ‘Um, can you come?’

  ‘Sure—is supper ready?’

  ‘Not exactly.’

  He must have picked up on the tone of her voice, because he swore softly and she could hear him running. ‘I’m on my way,’ he said, and five minutes later he burst into the kitchen and found her standing leaning over the sink, a pool at her feet, panting.

  ‘Fran?’

  ‘Mind the floor,’ she warned, worried he’d slip.

  ‘What have you spilt?’

  ‘I haven’t. My waters have broken.’

  ‘Oh, God.’ He went pale, then lifted her out of the way and scrubbed his hands. ‘I’d better take you to hospital now. Are you having contractions?’

  ‘Um, sort of—Ah-h-h!’