‘Okay. Name the place and I’ll be there.’
‘The bandstand in the park? Say this Saturday, if you’re not doing anything? Twelve-ish?’
He nodded. It was a strange place to go to talk, but okay... ‘I’ll be there.’
She stood up abruptly. Awkwardly. Clearly she was uncomfortable. What was going on that he didn’t know about? Perhaps that was what wanted to tell him? He hoped so. He wanted to help.
‘I’ll see you later, then,’ she said. And she went.
He sat there, staring at the door, wondering...
CHAPTER THREE
THE CLOUD COVER was thick as Lane walked towards the park on Saturday. She’d hoped for a better day. A day of sunshine and flowers in which she could drop the news she’d been holding so tightly against her chest and then make a quick getaway.
The last two weeks had proved to her that all her assumptions about Dr Cole Branagh had been wrong. He was a good man. A good doctor. Respected and kind and with a tragic past of his own. He could even have been a father already! But his wife had died and his baby with her. How did you get through something like that and still come out smiling?
Each night she’d gone home and cuddled Tori and played with her, sat with her, read to her at bedtime, and wondered just how much Cole would love to be doing this? How he ought to be doing this and how she was robbing him of precious moments with his child!
But wasn’t Tori her child too? Legally anyway. For the last six months Lane had been there—for the first smile, the first laugh, the first tooth...
She was glad she’d made the decision to tell him, because not doing so had started to eat her alive and she couldn’t continue that way. Hiding something so monumental. Hiding something that would change Cole’s life. The more she kept Tori from him, the more time he lost with his daughter, and she didn’t want him to blame her for that. She had always tried to do the right thing. Skye had asked her to decide if he would make a good daddy, and her brain was telling her that he would.
She knew Cole now. Or thought she knew him enough, anyway. He didn’t seem the type of man who would take this news lightly and then walk away. He wasn’t the Lothario or the charmer she’d imagined. He was just a man. A man she was starting to like. And it hurt to know that she was keeping this secret from him. But parents put their children first, and Tori deserved the right to know her father.
The bandstand was empty when she got there. Clearly the overcast weather was keeping people away from the park. She stood beneath its roof and looked out at the ducks on the pond, noting that on the far side there was a swan. A solitary swan, gliding across the dark surface. She thought about how swans mated for life and wondered where its mate was...
‘Good morning.’
Her heart pounded as she heard his voice and she turned to look at him, glad that she’d left Tori with her mother. This conversation could go many ways, and she didn’t want to have to worry about what Tori was doing as they talked. She wanted to be present. To explain everything to him.
Would he feel deceived? Would he feel she’d made a fool out of him because she’d arrived in his life under false pretences?
She turned, managed a weak smile. ‘Hi...’
He looked good. But he always looked good. He had a frame that made all clothes look good on him. He could have worn a potato sack and carried it off with panache and style. Was it too late to call this off and just pretend she didn’t have to do it?
‘How are you?’
‘I’m good. A little puzzled as to why I’m here, though, if I’m honest.’
He stood away from her and waited. Unsure.
The bandstand had seats around its edge. She went to one and sat down, looking up at him and telling him with her eyes that he should sit next to her.
He did so, and then he reached out with his hand and covered her fidgeting fingers. ‘Whatever it is you have to tell me, it’s okay.’
He was comforting her. When it should have been the other way around. But she was grateful for his touch and she laid her other hand on top of his. It was trembling. Could he feel that?
‘I hope so. I hope you’ll understand.’
‘Whatever it is, I’m here for you. I know we’re colleagues, but I’d like to think we’re friends too. We’ve saved a life, you and me, and that binds us together for ever.’
She smiled at the thought. Mr Jameson was still in hospital, but apparently he was doing very well and was expected to go home on Monday.
‘What I have to tell you is...huge. Life-changing, in fact. And I want you to know that I didn’t come here to deceive you. I came to...’
She couldn’t think of the right words. The words that would be perfect and not hurt him. Because she cared about how he was feeling. He’d been through tough times, too. He’d loved and lost the way she had. And she’d seen how his face had changed, almost imperceptibly when she’d said deceive.
She tried to keep back the tears. ‘I had to do it. I made a promise.’
‘A promise? To whom?’
Soft rain was beginning to fall. She could hear it hitting the roof of the bandstand and she watched as droplets bounced off the leaves of the plants in the flowerbeds close by. She looked out at the park around them, as if it would give her strength to get through the next part. Saw the odd parent scurrying to put up an umbrella or get their kids off the play equipment so they could go home.
‘To my best friend Skye. Tori’s mother.’
He frowned, clearly not understanding what this was about, or why she felt the need to tell him about it.
She’d practised telling him. She’d stood in front of her bathroom mirror every day this week trying to have this conversation in different variations.
She’d blurt it out—You’re Tori’s father!
She’d say it gently. Angrily.
She’d tried saying it without blame, without expectation, and none of it had seemed right.
How did you tell a man he was the father of a child?
‘We grew up together, Skye and I. We met at infants’ school and instantly clicked. We had one of those friendships where we could finish each other’s sentences, and many people thought that we could be twins.’
He smiled at her, encouraging her to keep going.
His hand was still holding hers. She liked that. His strong fingers were wrapped around her smaller hand. It felt right. Comforting. Supportive. But his being so close, looking at her so intently, was making her heart pound for many different reasons. Some of which she didn’t want to examine right now, because nothing would come of her attraction to him. It couldn’t possibly.
‘She’d been feeling tired for a while. Listless. Lethargic. I’d been telling her to go to the doctor for ages, but she never went. She was scared of doctors. She was an orphan, you see. Had been raised in a care home where every time she saw a doctor he was sticking a needle in her. She said she’d felt like an animal being experimented on. I kept telling her they were only doing their job, but you know how it is... Some people just don’t like doctors.’
He nodded. Just listening. Not urging her to hurry in her story. Patient. That was what made him a good doctor. He listened.
‘She’d been thinking a lot about who her real parents were. Why they’d given her up. She kept saying the reason she felt ill was because she was a little stressed about tracking them down. Finding out the reason she’d been given away. Then she found her mother, who wanted absolutely nothing to do with her, so Skye went out and got drunk. She ended up going home with a guy but she never wanted to discuss it. Then her sickness got worse.’
‘She was pregnant?’
Lane nodded. ‘She was shocked at first—but then she was over the moon! She would have someone. A blood relation. Someone who would love her who she was related to. A baby girl or boy she could spoil. But when she went for her sca
n they discovered the real reason for her sickness.’
‘What was it?’ Cole’s voice was gentle.
‘Ovarian cancer.’
She remembered the moment Skye had told her. The way she had broken down into sobs and sunk to the floor. How Lane had tried to hold her and comfort her, telling her not to worry, that there were things the doctors could do.
Her eyes burned with unshed tears. She looked at Cole through blurry eyes.
‘The doctors told her they would try chemotherapy and surgery to treat her, but that her pregnancy complicated matters. The hormones created by the pregnancy were causing rapid growth in the tumour and they were worried that it would spread elsewhere. They told her that if she had a termination they would be able to try to save her life.’
She swallowed. Terrified of the part that came next. The part that angered her the most. She didn’t want him to hear the anger in her voice in case he thought she was angry with him. This was her own frustration. Her own issue to deal with.
‘She refused all treatment so that she could carry her baby to term. She’d never had a blood relative; she wanted her child so much. The doctors warned her not to wait. The cancer had been there for some time. They told her to abort the child. but she refused. I was angry with her for taking such a risk with her life. But I understood why she did it. She knew she wouldn’t get to spend much time with her daughter, but she wanted her child to know how much she was loved from the very beginning. That she would never have given her up even for life itself.’
Her turbulent thoughts turned to what had happened afterwards. How much Skye had needed her and how that had torn apart her own relationship with Simon, who’d been so selfish that he hadn’t been able to share his own girlfriend!
Cole squeezed her hand tight and brought her back to the present.
‘By the time Tori was born, Skye’s cancer had progressed so much there was only palliative treatment left. Skye didn’t seem to mind. She’d said she’d done the right thing. Her only regret was that she’d never told Tori’s father, but she hadn’t wanted a stranger to watch her carrying his child while she was effectively dying and feel guilty about it.’
That was one of the things she had loved about her best friend. She had always thought of others first.
Cole’s face had changed somewhat. Was he guessing at what she was about to say? Did he know? Did he suspect? Was he afraid of the next words that would come out of her mouth?
‘So, Skye tasked me with finding Tori’s father and letting him know about his daughter...’
She looked at him hesitantly. Her eyes confirmed what he had to be suspecting.
He let go of her hand and sat back.
Her hand became cool. Wet in the morning rain drifting in on an easterly breeze.
‘It’s you, Cole. You’re the father.’
* * *
He sat there. Stunned. Lane’s words whirling around his head like a storm.
A daughter? How could that be?
But already his brain was convincing him that it was true. There’d been that one night, what would have been his wife’s birthday, just after she’d died. He’d not been able to sit alone in their house and he’d gone out to that bar for one drink—which had turned into two or three. Maybe four...
He’d been raging at the world. For its cruelty. Its unkindness. For taking away someone he had loved so much and with whom he’d had so little time. And in the midst of his despair there’d been a woman who had looked just as sad as he had. She’d sat at the bar, her hands wrapped around a whisky glass, staring into its depths, and she’d appeared to have the weight of the world upon her shoulders.
Her pain had drawn him towards her, and he’d asked her if she was okay. The doctor part of him had seen someone in pain and despite his own pain he’d still wanted to help. Her eyes had welled up and his heart had ached for her. And when she’d begun to cry he’d taken her outside for some fresh air. And when they’d got outside they’d begun to talk. And then he’d known the bar was not the safest place for her and had offered to take her home.
‘She didn’t want to go home,’ he said quietly.
Lane looked at him.
‘I told her I’d take her home, but she said she didn’t want to go. That it wasn’t a home—just a house. I didn’t intend...’ He rubbed at his face, disbelieving, then ran his hands through his hair. ‘I took her to my place...got fresh pillows and blankets for the bed. I said I’d sleep downstairs. But somehow we got talking as we sat there, on the edge of the bed, and one thing led to another and...’
He felt his cheeks suffuse with colour as he remembered the guilt he had felt for sleeping with another woman.
‘I thought we’d taken precautions, but clearly they didn’t work. When I woke she’d gone. I never even knew her name. She left a note, thanking me for looking after her, for keeping her safe and making her feel she was worth something to someone, even if I was a stranger. She signed it with an “S”. I guess now I know her name.’
Lane took her phone from her pocket and pulled up a picture of Skye. ‘Is this her?’
He took the phone from her, stared at it for a moment. ‘Yes. It is. You must think terribly of me. But I didn’t take advantage of her, Lane. We were both grieving. I was feeling awful. My wife had been dead for only a few months, it was her birthday and...’
‘It’s okay. I understand that people deal with things in different ways.’
‘I swear I never knew about Tori... I have a daughter?’
He suddenly got a flashback to that moment at the bird park, when the woman had said she thought Tori had his eyes, and now he understood the look on Lane’s face when that had happened.
So she’d come here to find him? To decide what?
‘You’re her godmother?’ he checked.
‘And her legal guardian, as stated in Skye’s will. It’s all official.’
It was all so much! He was a father? To a little girl? ‘So she’s eight months old?’
Lane nodded, tears dripping down her face. And he knew how fearful she must have been to tell him the truth. He reached up to wipe away her tears and her hand caught at his, as if to stop him.
His breath seemed to catch in his throat. He realised how intimate an act it was and he dropped his hand away fearfully. Did he really want to stray into that territory? He’d just had some incredible news broken to him! Did he really want to stir the pot even further? He couldn’t act on his attraction to Lane.
‘I’d like to see her. Spend time with her, if I may?’
She nodded. ‘Of course.’
‘Could I see her today?’
Lane frowned and wiped her eyes. ‘Right now?’
‘I’ve already lost eight months. I don’t think I want to lose any more.’
CHAPTER FOUR
LANE UNLOCKED HER mum’s front door. ‘I’m back!’
She could hear Tori chuckling and then there she was, the apple of her eye, being carried in Lane’s mother’s arms as she came into the hallway.
‘This little munchkin has been... Oh, hello. You didn’t say we had a guest.’
Cole stood on the doorstep behind her. Lane turned to him, invited him in and closed the door behind him.
‘Mum? This is Cole. Tori’s father.’
Her mother stared at him for a moment, then nodded. ‘Big day for you.’ She smiled. ‘I best make us all a cup of tea! How do you take yours, Cole?’
‘Er...white, please.’
‘I’ll bring it through. Lane, why don’t you take Tori and Cole into the living room?’ And she heaved Tori into Lane’s arms.
Lane felt the reassuring weight of the little girl and happily nuzzled into her, inhaling her familiar scent and giving her a kiss on one cheek before turning her to face her father.
‘Tori? This is your daddy—say hello.’
Tori blew a raspberry and then grabbed hold of Lane’s collar and began pulling.
Lane entered the living room and put Tori down on the carpet, near to a box of toys. ‘Take a seat,’ she said.
Cole seemed to be in another world. As if he were far away and unable to hear. As if he was mesmerised by Tori, watching her.
Lane reached for his hand and squeezed it. ‘You okay?’
He seemed to notice her then. Blinked rapidly. ‘Yes, I’m fine. It’s just...’
‘Overwhelming?’ She smiled at him to show him that she understood.
‘You could say that. Is it okay if I...?’ He pointed at the floor and she nodded, looking on as he got down on his hands and knees and sat on the floor next to his daughter. ‘Hey, Tori. What’s this?’ He grabbed a pink brick with a cat painted onto it and tried to get Tori’s attention.
Lane watched him for a moment. Had he had any idea when he got up that morning that his world was about to change? To expand? That he would be hit with news so great he would struggle to process his thoughts and understand how he was feeling? That by the end of the day he would have a child? A daughter?
She didn’t envy him his turmoil. She knew how she’d felt when Skye had first asked her to be Tori’s legal guardian.
She’d always wanted a child of her own, but she’d thought that dream had been put on hold when Simon left her. To be asked to look after Tori had been just what she’d needed to keep her smiling. To give her a reason to get up in the morning and carry on. Especially in the early days after Skye’s death, when she had also still been reeling from Simon’s desertion. This little girl meant everything to Lane.
Suddenly becoming a mother whilst going through the grieving process had been a huge adjustment. She’d had to adapt quickly, with long days becoming long nights, often with no sleep. There’d been days when she’d just cried, but thankfully on those days, she had been able to turn to her mum for help, and she’d often taken Tori to give her a day to recover—to get her thoughts in order, come back stronger.
Healed by His Secret Baby Page 4
