Reunited By A Baby Bombshell

Griff’s cool smile warned her not to play games. ‘I suspect we’d both benefit from laying a few ghosts.’

She couldn’t think how to respond to this. ‘I...guess.’

‘Let’s go outside. You can bring your coffee with you.’

Eva was struggling with her hip and the high heels and she didn’t trust herself to carry a cup of hot liquid. ‘I’d prefer to drink it here.’

His expression remained unruffled. ‘As you wish. There’s no rush.’

‘Well, no, I guess not.’ In an attempt to banish her nervousness, she tried for lightness. ‘Not after twenty years.’

But with Griff standing there, waiting for their ‘talk’, she was suddenly so tense the coffee curdled in her stomach. After three sips she set the cup down.

He frowned. ‘You’re finished?’

‘Yes, thanks. Where would you like to go?’

He nodded towards a pair of glass doors that led to another, smaller, balcony. ‘We should have more privacy out there.’

Privacy with this man. Great. Just what she didn’t need, but she knew she shouldn’t refuse him. From the moment she’d decided to come back to the Bay, she’d been aware that this encounter was a possibility.

Perhaps it was time.

If only she felt ready.

As Griff opened the door for her to precede him, the only light on the balcony came from an almost full moon. They were facing the sea now and a breeze brought a flurry of salty spray. The moon shone over the surf, highlighting the silvery curl of the waves and the white froth of foam as it crashed on the pale sand.

Eva gripped the balcony railing, grateful for its support. Now, in the moonlit darkness, Griff seemed to loom larger than ever.

‘So,’ she said, turning bravely to face him. ‘What would you like to discuss?’

‘I’m sure you must know, Eva. Perhaps you’re hoping that after twenty years I’d simply overlook the way we broke up, but I’m afraid I’d like to know why you took off like that.’

She nodded, drew a deep breath. Of course she’d guessed this would be Griff’s question and she knew she must tell him the truth. If only it wasn’t so difficult, after all this time. When they were young they’d been able to talk endlessly, with an easy, trusting intimacy that would be impossible now. They’d shared everything.

Well, almost everything.

Now, they were virtually strangers.

She was tempted to use her mother as her excuse, but that would be cowardly. Although it had been her mum’s idea to take off, leaving no word.

‘I know you, Eva,’ her mother had said on that fateful night before they’d left Emerald Bay under cover of darkness, as Eva had wept and begged to go to Griff. ‘Be sensible, darling. If you try to explain what we’re doing, you’ll end up telling him everything. He might make demands and it will become way too complicated.’

Eva had tried to protest, but her mother had insisted. ‘You need to make a clean break now. You have to think of your dancing career. You have so much promise, darling. Everybody says so—your teacher, the examiners, the Eisteddfod judges. You can’t throw that away. I won’t let you.’

There had been tears in her mother’s eyes. Eva’s potential career was incredibly important to her. She’d started dressing Eva in ballet tutus when she was three years old. By the time she was eighteen, Eva’s ballet career had probably been more important to Lizzie Hennessey than it had been to Eva.

It was only much later, with the benefit of distance and maturity, that Eva had understood that her struggling single mother had been desperate to ensure that her daughter wasn’t trapped and held back, as she had been.

Eva hadn’t allowed herself to question whether she’d been wrong to listen to her mother. Of necessity, she’d clung to the belief that she had done the right thing. And her career had repaid her a thousandfold.

The wind swept her hair over her face. With shaking fingers, she brushed it away. ‘I know it was bad of us to take off like that,’ she told Griff. ‘I’ve always felt guilty about it.’

‘You were my first girlfriend,’ he said. ‘But you were also the first girl to dump me.’ He sounded less aggressive, closer to the friendly Griff of old. ‘I admit my ego took a blow.’

He stepped up to the railing, standing beside her now, with his hands deep in his trouser pockets as he looked out to sea. Eva could see his profile: his broad, intelligent forehead, his strong nose, his lips that she’d once explored with such excitement and daring.

‘I thought I must have upset you,’ he said quietly. ‘We were both virgins. At the time, you seemed keen. I know you were keen, but I’ve often wondered if... I don’t know...if I’d scared you.’

Oh, Griff, never. Tears stung Eva’s eyes. ‘That wasn’t the problem, honestly. It was—’

‘Excuse me.’

A voice brought them both swinging round. It was a girl—the waitress with the purple streaks in her hair.

Had she been sent to summon them inside? Eva wasn’t sure if she was annoyed or relieved by the interruption.

‘What is it?’ Griff snapped, making his own reaction quite clear.

‘I was hoping to speak to you both,’ the girl said, but she seemed less confident now. She was wearing a white shirt and black skirt and she fiddled with the buckle at her waist.

Eva glanced Griff’s way and saw his eyes narrow as he frowned at the girl. ‘Well?’ he demanded impatiently.

‘I wanted to introduce myself.’ Her grey eyes were huge with an emotion that might have been overwhelming excitement or fear. ‘You see,’ she added, lifting her hands from her sides, palms facing up in a gesture that was both nervous and helpless, ‘I’m your daughter.’

CHAPTER THREE

GRIFF FELT AS if he’d been king-hit, knocked to the ground, left in a gutter, bruised and battered. He stared at the girl in appalled disbelief. Surely he hadn’t heard her correctly.

Their daughter?

Impossible.

And yet, as he slowly gathered his wits, he had to ask himself if this wasn’t also entirely possible. He’d used precautions back then, but heaven knew he’d been inexperienced and overexcited at the time. Hell. There was evidence enough in what had followed—Eva’s rapid departure and silence.

And now, twenty years later, this creature, this attractive young woman, tall and dark-haired, with clear pale skin and shiny grey eyes and an air of familiarity that had nagged at Griff from the moment he’d seen her.

Their daughter?

Emotions tumbled through him like the pounding surf. Shock. Anger. Sadness. Regret. And then another thumping wave of anger.

All this time, all these years—Eva had kept their child a secret? His first impulse now was to round on her, to demand a full explanation.

A quick glance Eva’s way, however, showed her sagged against the railing, white and trembling, possibly even more shocked than he was. Unfortunately, she wasn’t denying the girl’s claim.

‘I’m sorry,’ the girl said. ‘I know this must be a huge surprise. A shock, I expect. But I was so anxious to meet you both. That’s why I took this waitressing job as soon as I heard about the reunion. I was so excited when I saw the list of names and realised that you were both going to be here.’

Dazed, Griff rubbed at his temple. Could this girl, this unique, vibrant being, really be an amalgam of his and Eva’s genes? A life they’d created?

He still couldn’t quite believe he was a father. He didn’t want to believe he’d been a father all this time. Bloody hell.

A thousand questions demanded answers, but he wasn’t prepared to expose his total ignorance in front of the girl. At this point, there was no way of verifying her outrageous claim.

‘What’s your name?’ Eva asked in a whisper, while she kept a white-knuckled grip on the railing, as if it were the only thing keeping her upright.

‘Laine,’ the girl said. ‘That’s the name you gave me, isn’t it? Laine Elizabeth?’

Tears shone in Eva’s eyes as she gave a sad, slow nod. ‘Yes,’ she said and, with a single syllable, she answered Griff’s biggest question.

‘I’m Laine Templeton now,’ the girl said. ‘Or sometimes Lettie to my closest friends, because my initials are L.E.T. The people who adopted me—the Templetons—live in Brisbane.’

‘And they told you about me?’ Eva sent a frightened glance Griff’s way. ‘About...us?’

Laine shook her head. ‘No, I didn’t want to upset them, so I went straight to the adoption agency. I’m over eighteen, so I was perfectly entitled to find out the names of my birth parents.’ Her gaze met Griff’s. ‘I’m studying law at UQ. I was intrigued to look you up on the Internet and discover you’re a barrister.’

Griff felt as if he’d swallowed glass. He supposed he should feel some kind of fatherly connection to this girl. He wanted to feel sympathy for Eva, but he was too busy dealing with his own roiling emotions.

Eva shouldn’t have kept this from him. She shouldn’t have carried this burden alone. Damn it, she should have shared the news of her pregnancy.

Sure, they’d been young at the time, only just out of school, and both of them with big career dreams with absolutely no plans to start a family. He hadn’t been anywhere near ready for parenthood, but it cut deep to realise he’d been denied the chance to face up to this challenge, to at least be part of the decision-making.

‘Look, I know this is a bolt out of the blue,’ Laine said, and she was already taking a step backwards as she looked carefully from Griff to Eva. ‘I just wanted to introduce myself initially, but I guess you need time to...adjust.’

‘Yes, we do,’ Griff told her more sternly than he’d meant to.

She smiled shyly, awkwardly.

‘I’m sorry,’ Eva said through trembling lips. ‘I...I...’

Clearly, Eva was struggling to say anything coherent.

Laine lifted her hand then and gave a shy, shining-eyed smile and a stiff wave. ‘OK,’ she said. ‘I dare say my timing hasn’t been great.’

Griff felt torn. This was his daughter, after all. It felt totally inadequate to just greet her with Hi and ’bye. But he was too shocked to think straight. ‘Look, this really is a shock,’ he said. Maybe—’

Eva spoke up. ‘Maybe tomorrow.’

‘Yes, sure,’ said Laine. ‘I’m sorry if I’ve upset you. I...I...’

‘We can at least exchange contact details tomorrow,’ Griff suggested. That would be a start, and about all they could manage under the circumstances. Eva looked as if she was about to collapse.

‘Thanks,’ said Laine. ‘I’ll see you then.’

She backed away quickly and as she left via the glass doors Eva opened her mouth as if she wanted to say goodbye, but no sound emerged and she looked as if she was about to collapse.

Griff stepped towards Eva again, torn between wanting to tear strips off her and feeling desperately sorry for her. What must it be like for a mother to be reunited with her baby after nineteen long years?

‘Are you OK?’ he asked.

Eva shook her head. ‘Not really.’

She was still clinging to the railing as if it were a life raft. Clearly, she needed to sit down and Griff was wondering where he could take her so that they could be private.

‘Would you mind walking me back to my motel?’ Eva asked, as if her mind had been on a similar track.

It was the perfect option. ‘No, of course not.’

Griff slipped his arm around Eva’s shoulders. He felt the softness of her bare skin, sensed the supple strength of her slender frame, toned by years of dancing. But now he knew that her magnificent career had come with a huge price tag. He wasn’t sure he could forgive her.

* * *

It was a relief to lean into Griff’s massive shoulder and to have his strong arm firmly around her as they walked the short distance across the lawn to the beachfront motel where Eva was staying.

She should have been terribly self-conscious about this sudden proximity to the man she’d avoided for so many years, but now her thoughts were filled to the brim with Laine. For so long, that beautiful girl had lived in Eva’s head and heart as a tiny newborn.

Such a shock to see her baby now. Out of the blue. So astonishingly alive and grown-up and beautiful, and wanting to get to know her and Griff.

And Griff. She still hadn’t come to terms with seeing him again. In one night, the love of her life and the daughter she had given up were both suddenly back in her life. It was too much. Too unreal. Too overwhelming.

Eva couldn’t quite take it all in. She’d never felt such see-sawing emotions, teetering between joy and sorrow and guilt. Huge guilt.

‘There hasn’t been a day when I haven’t thought about her, haven’t wondered.’ She only realised she’d spoken this out loud when she felt Griff’s arm tighten around her.

He didn’t say anything, however, and Eva couldn’t imagine what he must be thinking. He would be terribly angry with her of course.

Keeping secrets was dangerous. They were usually exposed sooner or later, and the longer the secret was kept in the dark, the more likely it was that people would be hurt. Deeply hurt.

Would Griff ever forgive her?

* * *

It wasn’t long before they reached the motel. Griff dropped his arm from Eva’s shoulders and she fished in her bag for the room key.

‘Would you like to come in?’ she asked him, knowing she couldn’t reasonably send him away like this, with so many unasked and unanswered questions.

‘Yes, of course. We need to talk.’

Eva nodded, pushed the door open and slipped the key-card into the slot that turned on the lights. The motel room was large and comfortable, with a small sitting area comprising a couple of armchairs, a coffee table and a shaded table lamp.

She quickly switched off the lamps by the king-sized bed. A silly reaction, no doubt, but she didn’t want to draw attention to the seductive banks of pillows, the soft throw rug arranged artistically across the grey silk quilt. She kicked off her shoes. Her hip was screaming and for a moment she had no choice but to stand there with her eyes closed, massaging the inflamed joint with her thumb.

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