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‘That good?’ he asked, his voice sounding rusty, and she nodded.
‘Oh, yes,’ she said, a little more intelligibly, and he laughed again, set his own coffee down on the breakfast bar and joined her on the other stool, shifting it away from her a little after he’d taken a cookie from the bag.
Her eyes were open again, and she was pulling another one apart, dissecting it slowly and savouring every bit, and he almost whimpered.
He did whimper. Did he? Really?
‘Saffy, don’t beg,’ she said through a mouthful of cookie, and he realised it was the dog. He heaved a quiet sigh of relief and grabbed the last cookie, as much as anything so he wouldn’t have to watch her eat it.
And then, just because they had to talk about something and anyway, the suspense was killing him, he asked, ‘So, what did you want to talk to me about?’
Connie felt her heart thump.
This was it, her chance to ask him, and yet now she was here she had no idea—no idea—how to do it. Her carefully rehearsed speech had deserted her, and her mind flailed. Start at the beginning, she told herself, and took a deep breath.
‘Um—did you realise Joe and I were having problems?’ she asked tentatively.
‘Problems?’
James stared at her, stunned by that. Problems were the last thing he would have associated with them. They’d always seemed really happy together, and Joe, certainly, had loved Connie to bits. Had it not been mutual? No, Joe would have said—wouldn’t he? Maybe not.
‘What sort of problems?’ he asked warily, not at all sure he wanted to know.
‘Only one—well, two, if you count the fact that I spent our entire marriage waiting for the doorbell to ring and someone in uniform to tell me he was dead.’
‘I’d count that,’ he said gruffly. He’d felt it himself, every time Joe had been deployed on active service—and it didn’t get much more active than being a bomb disposal officer. But still, he’d never really expected it to happen. Maybe Connie had been more realistic.
‘And the other problem?’
She looked away, her expression suddenly bleak. ‘We couldn’t have children.’
He frowned, speechless for a second as it sank in. He set his cup down carefully and closed his eyes. When he opened them she was watching him again, her bottom lip caught between her teeth, waiting for him to say the right thing.
Whatever the hell that was. He let out a long, slow sigh and shook his head.
‘Ah, Connie. I’m so sorry. I didn’t realise there was anything wrong. I always thought it was by choice, something you’d get round to when he’d finished that last tour.’
… except he never had …
‘It was.’ She smiled a little unsteadily, and looked away again. ‘Actually, he was going to come and see you about it when he got home.’
‘Me?’ he asked, puzzled by that. ‘I don’t know anything about infertility. You’re a doctor, you probably know as much about it as I do, if not more. You needed to see a specialist.’
‘We had. It wasn’t for that. We’d had the tests, and he was the one with the problem. Firing blanks, as he put it.’ She grimaced a little awkwardly, uncomfortable revealing what Joe had considered a weakness, a failure, something to be ashamed of. ‘I wanted him to tell you, but he wouldn’t, not for ages. He was psyching himself up to do it when he got home, but it was so hard for him, even though you were so close.’
‘We were, but—guys don’t talk about that kind of thing, Connie, especially when they’re like Joe.’
‘I know. It’s stupid, I feel so disloyal telling you because he just wouldn’t talk about it. I would have told you ages ago, but he couldn’t, and so nor could I because it wasn’t my secret to tell.’
He sighed and reached out a hand, laying it over her arm and squeezing gently. ‘Don’t feel disloyal. I loved him, too, remember. You can tell me anything you need to, and you know it won’t go any further.’
She nodded. ‘I know. I just wish he’d felt he could tell you.’
‘Me, too.’ He sighed again and withdrew his hand. ‘I’m really sorry, Connie. That must have been so tough to deal with.’
She looked down at her coffee, poking at the foam with the teaspoon, drawing little trails absently through the rosetta, and he noticed her cheeks had coloured a little.
She sucked in a slightly shaky breath. ‘He was going to tell you, as soon as he got back. He wanted to ask you …’ Oh, just spit it out, woman! He can only say no!
She sat up straighter and made herself look him in the eye, her heart pounding. ‘He was going to ask you if you’d consider being a sperm donor for us.’
He stared at her blankly, the shock robbing him of his breath for a moment. He hauled it back in and frowned.
‘Me?’
They’d wanted him to give them a child?
‘Why me?’ he asked, his voice sounding strangely distant. Of all the people in the world, why me?
She shrugged. ‘Why not? I would have thought it was obvious. He doesn’t have a brother, you were his best friend, he loved and respected you. Plus you’re not exactly ugly or stupid. Who better?’ She paused for a second, fiddled with her spoon, then met his eyes again, her own a little wary. ‘Would you have said yes?’
He shook his head to clear it, still reeling a little from the shock.
‘Hell, I don’t know, Connie. I have no idea.’
‘But—possibly?’
He shrugged. ‘Maybe.’
A baby? Maybe not. Most likely not.
‘Definitely maybe? Like, probably?’
Would he? He tried to think, but he was still trying to come to terms with it and thinking seemed too hard right then.
‘I don’t know. I really don’t know. I might have considered it, I suppose, but it’s irrelevant now, so it’s hard to know how I would have reacted. But you would have been brilliant parents. I’m just so sorry you never had the chance. That really sucks.’
She’d shifted her attention to the cookie crumbs on the breakfast bar, pushing them around with her fingertip, and he saw her swallow. Then she lifted her head and met his eyes. Her whole body seemed to go still, as if every cell was holding its breath. And then she spoke.
‘What if it wasn’t irrelevant now?’
CHAPTER TWO
WAS THIS WHY she’d wanted to see him? To ask him this?
He searched her eyes, and they didn’t waver.
‘What are you saying, Connie?’ he asked quietly, but he knew already, could feel the cold reality of it curling around him like freezing fog.
He saw her swallow again. ‘I wondered—I don’t know how you’ll feel about it, and I know Joe’s not here now, but—James, I still really want a baby.’
He stared at her, saw the pleading in her eyes, and he felt suddenly drenched with icy sweat. She meant it. She really, really meant it—
He shoved the stool back abruptly and stood up, taking a step away on legs that felt like rubber. ‘No. I’m sorry, Connie. I can’t do it.’
He walked away, going out onto the veranda and curling his fingers round the rail, his hands gripping it so hard his knuckles were bleached white while the memories poured through him.
Cathy, coming into their bedroom, her eyes bright with joy in her pale face, a little white wand in her hand.
‘I might’ve worked out why I’ve been feeling rough …’
He heard Connie’s footsteps on the boards behind him, could feel her just inches away, feel her warmth, hear the soft sigh of her breath. Her voice, when she spoke, was hesitant.
‘James? I’m sorry. I know it’s a bit weird, coming out of the blue like that, but please don’t just say no without considering it—’
Her voice cracked slightly, and she broke off. Her hand was light on his shoulder, tentative, trembling slightly. It burned him all the way through to his soul.
‘James? Talk to me?’
‘There’s nothing to talk about,’ he said, his voice hollow. ‘Joe’s dead, Connie. He’s gone.’ They’re all gone …
Her breath sucked in softly. ‘Do you think I don’t know that? Do you really think that in the last two years I haven’t noticed? But I’m still here, and I’m alive, and I’m trying to move on with my life, to rescue something from the wreckage. And you could help me do that. Give me something to live for. Please. At least think about it.’
He turned his head slightly and stared at her, then looked away again. ‘Hell, Connie, you know how to push a guy’s buttons.’ His voice was raw now, rasping, and he swallowed hard, shaking his head again to clear it, but it didn’t work this time any more than it had the last.
‘I’m sorry. I know it’s a bit sudden and unexpected, but—you said you would have considered it.’
‘No, I said I might have considered it, for you and Joe. Not just for you! I can’t do that, Connie! I can’t just hand you a little pot of my genetic material and walk away and leave you on your own. What kind of person would that make me?’
‘Generous? I’d still be the mother, still be the primary carer, whatever. What’s the difference?’
‘The difference? The difference is that you’re on your own, and children need two parents. There’s no way I could be responsible for a child coming into the world that I wasn’t involved with on a daily basis—’
‘So—what? You want to be involved? You can be involved—’
‘What? No! Connie, no. Absolutely not. I don’t want to be a father! It’s not anywhere, anyhow, on my agenda.’
Not any more.
‘Joe said you might say that. I mean, if you’d wanted kids you would have got married again, wouldn’t you? But he said you’d always said you wouldn’t, and he thought that might be the very reason you’d agree, because you might see it as the only way you’d ever have a child …’
She trailed off, as if she knew she’d gone too far, and he stared down at his stark white knuckles, his fingers burning with the tension. One by one he made them relax so that he could let go of the rail and walk away. Away from Connie, away from the memories that were breaking through his carefully erected defences and flaying him to shreds.
Cathy’s face, her eyes alight with joy. The first scan, that amazing picture of their baby. And then, just weeks later …
‘No, Connie. I’m sorry, but—no. You don’t know what you’re asking. I can’t. I just can’t …’
The last finger peeled away from the railing and he spun on his heel and walked off, down the steps, across the garden, out of the gate.
She watched him go, her eyes filling, her last hope of having the child she and Joe had longed for so desperately fading with every step he took, and she put her hand over her mouth to hold in the sob and went back to the kitchen to a scene of utter chaos.
‘Oh, Saffy, no!’ she wailed as the dog shot past her, a slab of meat dangling from her jaws.
It was the last straw. Sinking down on the floor next to the ravaged shopping bags, Connie pulled up her knees, rested her head on them and sobbed her heart out as all the hopes and dreams she and Joe had cherished crumbled into dust.
It took him a while to realise the dog was at his side.
He was sitting on the sea wall, hugging one knee and staring blindly out over the water. He couldn’t see anything but Connie.
Not the boats, not the sea—not even the face of the wife he’d loved and lost. He struggled to pull up the image, but he couldn’t, not now, when he wanted to. All he could see was Connie’s face, the hope and pleading in her eyes as she’d asked him the impossible, the agonising disappointment when he’d turned her down, and it was tearing him apart.
Finally aware of Saffy’s presence, he turned his head and met her eyes. She was sitting beside him, the tip of her tail flickering tentatively, and he lifted his hand and stroked her.
‘I can’t do it, Saffy,’ he said, his voice scraping like the shingle on the beach. ‘I want to help her, I promised to look after her, but I can’t do that, I just can’t. She doesn’t know what she’s asking, and I can’t tell her. I can’t explain. I can’t say it out loud.’
Saffy shifted slightly, leaning on him, and he put his arm over her back and rested his hand on her chest, rubbing it gently; after a moment she sank down to the ground with a soft grunt and laid her head on her paws, her weight against him somehow comforting and reassuring.
How many times had Joe sat like this with her, in the heat and dust and horror of Helmand? He stroked her side, and she shifted again, so that his hand fell naturally onto the soft, unguarded belly, offered with such trust.
He ran his fingers over it and stilled, feeling the ridges of scars under his fingertips. It shocked him out of his grief.
‘Oh, Saffy, what happened to you, sweetheart?’ he murmured. He turned his head to study the scars, and saw feet.
Two feet, long and slim, slightly dusty, clad in sandals, the nails painted fire-engine-red. He hadn’t heard her approaching over the sound of the sea, but there she was, and he couldn’t help staring at those nails. They seemed so cheerful and jolly, so totally out of kilter with his despair.
He glanced up at her and saw that she’d been crying, her eyes red-rimmed and bloodshot, her cheeks smudged with tears. His throat closed a little, but he said nothing, and after a second she sat down on the other side of the dog, her legs dangling over the wall as she stared out to sea.
‘She was injured when he found her,’ she said softly, answering his question. ‘They did a controlled explosion of an IED, and Saffy must have got caught in the blast. She had wounds all over her. He should have shot her, really, but he was racked with guilt and felt responsible, and the wounds were only superficial, so he fed her and put antiseptic on them, and bit by bit she got better, and she adored him. I’ve got photos of them together with his arm round her in the compound. His commanding officer would have flayed the skin off him if he’d known, especially as Joe was the officer in charge of the little outpost, but he couldn’t have done anything else. He broke all the rules for her, and nobody ever said a word.’
‘And you brought her home for him.’
She tried to smile. ‘I had to. I owed it to her, and anyway, he’d already arranged it. There’s a charity run by an ex-serviceman to help soldiers bring home the dogs that they’ve adopted over there, and it was all set up, but when Joe died the arrangements ground to a halt. Then a year later, just before I went out to Afghanistan, someone from the charity contacted me and said the dog was still hanging around the compound and did I still want to go ahead.’
‘And of course you did.’ He smiled at her, his eyes creasing with a gentle understanding that brought a lump to her throat. She swallowed.
‘Yeah. Well. Anyway, they were so helpful. The money wasn’t the issue because Joe had already paid them, it was the red tape, and they knew just how to cut through it, and she was flown home a month later, just after I left for Afghanistan. She was waiting for me in the quarantine kennels when I got home at the end of December, and she’s been with me ever since, but it hasn’t been easy.’
‘No, I’m sure it hasn’t. Poor Saffy,’ he said, his hand gentle on her side, and Connie reached out and put her hand over his, stilling it.
‘James, I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. I just—it was the last piece of the puzzle, really, the last thing we’d planned apart from bringing Saffy home. We’d talked about it for so long, and he was so excited about the idea that maybe at last we could have a baby. He didn’t know what you’d say, which way you’d go, but he was hoping he could talk you into it.’
And maybe he could have done, she thought, if James had meant what he’d said about considering it. But now, because Joe was dead, James had flatly refused to help her because she’d be alone and that was different, apparently.
‘You know,’ she said softly, going on because she couldn’t just give up on this at the first hurdle, ‘if you’d said yes to him and then he’d been killed in some accident, for instance, I would still have had to bring the baby up alone. What would you have done then, if I’d already had a child?’
‘I would have looked after you both,’ he said instantly, ‘but you haven’t had a child, and Joe’s gone, and I don’t want that responsibility.’
‘There is no responsibility.’
He stared at her. ‘Of course there is, Connie. I can’t just give you a child and let you walk off into the sunset with it and forget about it. Get real. This is my flesh and blood you’re talking about. My child. I could never forget my child.’
Ever …
‘But you would have done it for us?’
He shook his head slowly. ‘I don’t know. Maybe, maybe not, but Joe’s not here any more, and a stable, happily married couple who desperately want a baby isn’t the same as a grieving widow clinging to the remnants of a dream.’
‘But that’s not what I’m doing, not what this is about.’
‘Are you sure? Have you really analysed your motives, Connie? I don’t think so. And what if you meet someone?’ he asked her, that nagging fear suddenly rising again unbidden and sickening him. ‘What if, a couple of years down the line, another man comes into your life? What then? Would you expect me to sit back and watch a total stranger bringing up my child, with no say in how they do it?’
She shook her head vehemently. ‘That won’t happen—and anyway, I’m getting older. I’m thirty-six now. Time’s ebbing away. I don’t know if I’ll ever be truly over Joe, and by the time I am, and I’ve met someone and trust him enough to fall in love, it’ll be too late for me and I really, really want this. It’s now or never, James.’
It was. He could see that, knew that her fertility was declining with every year that passed, but that wasn’t his problem. Nothing about this was his problem. Until she spoke again.
‘I don’t want to put pressure on you, and I respect your decision. I just—I would much rather it was someone Joe had loved and respected, someone I loved and respected, than an anonymous donor.’
‘Anonymous donor?’ he said, his voice sounding rough and gritty to his ears.
‘Well, what else? If it can’t be you, I don’t know who else it would be. There’s nobody else I could ask, but if I go for a donor how do I know what they’re like? How do I know if they’ve got a sense of humour, or any brains or integrity—I might as well go and pull someone in a nightclub and have a random—’
‘Connie, for God’s sake!’
She gave a wry, twisted little smile.
‘Don’t worry, James. It’s OK. I’m not that crazy. I won’t do anything stupid.’
‘Good,’ he said tautly. ‘And for the record, I don’t like emotional blackmail.’
‘It wasn’t!’ she protested, her eyes filling with tears.
‘Really, James, it wasn’t, I wouldn’t do that to you. I wasn’t serious. I’m really not that nuts.’
He wasn’t sure. Not nuts, maybe, but—desperate?
‘When it happens—promise me you’ll take care of her.’
‘Of course I will, you daft bastard. It won’t happen. It’s your last tour. You’ll be fine.’
But he hadn’t been fine, and now Connie was here, making hideous jokes about doing something utterly repugnant, and he felt the weight of responsibility crush him.
‘Promise me you won’t do anything stupid,’ he said gruffly.
‘I won’t.’
‘Nothing. Don’t do anything. Not yet.’
She tilted her head and searched his eyes, her brows pleating together thoughtfully. ‘Not yet?’
Not ever, because I can’t bear the thought of you giving your body to a total stranger in some random, drunken encounter, and because if anybody’s going to give you a baby, it’s me—
The thought shocked him rigid. He jack-knifed to his feet and strode back to the house, his heart pounding, and after a few moments he heard the crunch of gravel behind him on the path.
Saffy was already there at his side, glued to his leg, and as he walked into the kitchen and stared at the wreckage of his shopping bags, she wagged her tail sheepishly, guilt written all over her.
A shadow fell across the room.
‘Ah. Sorry. I was coming to tell you—she stole the steak.’
He gave a soft, slightly unsteady laugh and shook his head. ‘Oh, Saffy. You are such a bad dog,’ he murmured, with so much affection in his voice it brought a lump to her throat. He seemed to be doing that a lot today.
‘She was starving when Joe found her. She steals because it’s all she knows, the only way she could survive. And it really is her only vice. I’ll replace the steak—’
‘To hell with the steak,’ he said gruffly. ‘She’s welcome to it. We’ll just have to go to the pub tonight.’
Better that way than sitting alone together in his house trying to have a civilised conversation over dinner and picking their way through this minefield. Perhaps Saffy had inadvertently done them both a favour.
‘Well, I could have handled that better, couldn’t I, Saff?’
Saffy just wagged her tail lazily and stretched. James had gone shopping again because it turned out it was more than just the steak that needed replacing, so Connie was sitting on a bench in the garden basking in the lovely warm June sunshine and contemplating the mess she’d made of all this.
He’d refused her offer of company, saying the dog had spent long enough in the car, and to be honest she was glad he’d gone without her because it had all become really awkward and uncomfortable, and if it hadn’t mattered so much she would have packed up the dog and her luggage and left.
But then he’d said ‘yet’.
Don’t do anything yet.
She dropped her head back against the wall of the cabin behind her and closed her eyes and wondered what he’d really meant by ‘yet’.
She had no idea.
None that she dared to contemplate, anyway, in case a ray of hope sneaked back in and she had to face having it dashed all over again, but he’d had a strange look about him, and then he’d stalked off.
Run away?
‘No! Stop it! Stop thinking about it. He didn’t mean anything, it was just a turn of phrase.’
Maybe …
She opened her eyes and looked up at the house, trying to distract herself. It was set up slightly above the level of the garden, possibly because of the threat of flooding before the sea wall had been built, but the result was that even from the ground floor there were lovely views out to sea across the mouth of the estuary and across the marshes behind, and from the bedrooms the views would be even better.
She wondered where she’d be sleeping. He hadn’t shown her to her room yet, but it wasn’t a big house so she wouldn’t be far away from him, and she felt suddenly, ridiculously uneasy about being alone in the house with him for the night.
Crazy. There was nothing to feel uneasy about. He’d stayed with them loads of times, and he’d stayed the night after Joe’s funeral, too, refusing to leave her until he was sure she was all right.
And anyway, what was he going to do, jump her bones? Hardly, James just wasn’t like that. He’d never so much as looked at her sideways, never mind made her feel uncomfortable like some of Joe’s other friends had.
If he had, there was no way she would have broached the sperm donor subject. Way too intimate. It had been hard enough as it was, and maybe that was why she felt uneasy. The whole subject was necessarily very personal and intimate, and she’d gone wading in there without any warning and shocked his socks off.
It dawned on her belatedly that she hadn’t even asked if there was anyone else who might have been a consideration in this, but that was so stupid. He was a fit, healthy and presumably sexual active man who was entitled to have a relationship with anyone he chose. She’d just assumed he wasn’t in a relationship, assumed that just because he’d never mentioned anyone, there wasn’t anyone.
OK, so he probably wasn’t getting married to her, whoever she might be, but that didn’t stop him having a lover. Several, if he chose. Did he bring them back here?