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He glanced across at her.
‘Could you take Ava for me? She’s finished, she just needs to burp. Could you walk round with her? Oh, and you’d better have this; she might bring up some milk on you.’
She handed him a soft white cloth—a muslin nappy; how did he know that?—and then his daughter. His precious, precious daughter. God, that was going to take some getting used to. She was sunny now, all smiles again, but then she burped and giggled, and he wiped her mouth with the corner of the cloth and smiled at her.
‘Lager lout,’ he said with an unaccustomed wave of affection, and she giggled again and grabbed his nose. ‘Hey, gently,’ he murmured, removing her hand, and, lifting his tea to his mouth, he was about to take a sip when her hand flew up and caught the mug and sent it all over him.
Without thinking he swung her out of the way, but there was nothing he could do to save himself from it and it was hot—hot enough to make him yelp with shock—and Ava screwed up her face and screamed. Oh, lord. Water. Cold water. He carried her to the tap and sloshed cold water over her, holding her hand under the dribbling tap just in case, while Julia put Libby down and ran over.
‘Give her to me,’ she said, and quickly laid her on the table and stripped off her clothes. The muslin nappy had caught most of it, and there wasn’t a mark on her, but it could so easily have been a disaster, and he felt sick. Sick and stupid and irresponsible.
‘What the hell did you think you were doing? You don’t hold a cup of boiling tea over a child!’ Julia raged, and he stepped back, devastated that he might so easily have caused his tiny daughter harm.
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t think—Is she all right? Does she need to go to hospital?’
‘No, you must have missed her, she’s fine—no thanks to you.’
‘You gave her to me.’
‘I didn’t expect you to pour tea over her!’
‘It missed her.’
‘Only by the grace of God! It could have gone all over her! Of all the stupid, stupid—’
‘You were holding your tea over them!’
‘It had cold water in it! What do you think that was for? Shush, sweetheart, it’s OK.’ But the babies were both screaming now, upset by the shouting and the whining of the dog, and he stepped back again, shaking his head.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said roughly. ‘Jules, I’m so sorry—’
He scrubbed his hand through his hair and turned away, furious with himself for his stupidity, but he wasn’t to be allowed to wallow.
‘Here, hold her. I need to change her. I’ll get her some clean, dry clothes.’ And then she paused and looked up at him, her lashes spiked with tears, and her voice softened. ‘She’s all right, Max. It was just the shock. I’m sorry I yelled at you.’
‘She could have been—’ He broke off, and Julia’s face contorted.
‘Don’t. It was an accident. Just hold her. I’ll only be a moment.’
He didn’t move a muscle. Just stood there, motionless, until she came back into the room armed with nappies and tiny clothes, and took the screaming baby out of his arms. Then he sat down, buried his face in his hands and sucked in a breath.
‘Can you cuddle Libby, please?’
He pulled himself together and sat up. ‘Do you trust me?’ he asked tersely, and she gave him a grim smile.
‘I have to, don’t I? You’re their father.’
‘Am I?’
‘Max, of course you are! Who else?’
‘I don’t know, but perhaps we should get a DNA test.’
Her face went white. ‘Whatever for? I wouldn’t lie to you about that. And I’m not about to start asking you for money to support us, either.’
‘I wasn’t thinking about money, I was thinking about paternity. And I wouldn’t have thought you would lie about it, but then I wouldn’t have thought you’d leave me without warning, shack up with another man and have two children without bothering to share the information with me. So clearly I don’t know you nearly as well as I thought I did and, yes, I want a DNA test,’ he said, his anger rising to the surface again. ‘Because, apart from anything else, it might be handy in court.’
‘Court?’ She looked aghast. ‘Why court? I’m not going to do anything to obstruct your access.’
‘I don’t know that. You might move again—go into hiding somewhere else. I know you’ve got your passport with you. But on the other hand, if you decide to go for maintenance, I want to be damn sure it’s my kids I’m paying for.’
She gasped, her eyes wounded, and he felt a total heel.
‘Don’t bother to turn the tears on,’ he growled, hating it—because he thought she was going to cry and Jules never, ever cried—but his words rallied her and she straightened up and glared at him.
‘I’d forgotten what a bastard you are, Max. You don’t need a test to prove you’re the father! You were with me every minute of the day and night when they were conceived. Who else could it possibly have been?’
He shrugged. ‘John Blake?’
She stared at him, then started to laugh. ‘John? No. No, John’s not a threat to you. Trust me. Apart from the fact that he’s in his late fifties and definitely not my type, he’s gay.’
The surge of relief was so great it took his breath away. She hadn’t had an affair—and the babies were his. Definitely.
And one of them was still screaming for attention.
He picked Libby up, moving almost on auto-pilot, and went over to where Julia was dressing Ava. She ran her eyes over his chest. ‘Your shirt’s soaked. Are you all right?’ she asked, without a flicker of compassion, and he told himself he didn’t deserve it anyway.
‘I’m sure I’ll live,’ he replied tersely. ‘Is she really OK?’
‘She’s fine, Max,’ Julia said, her voice grudging but fair as ever. ‘It was an accident. Don’t worry about it.’
Easy to say, not so easy to do. Especially when, some time later, after they’d been fed little pots of disgusting-smelling goo—how lamb and vegetables could possibly smell so vile he had no idea—Julia put the babies down in their cots for a sleep and made him take off his shirt, and he saw the reddened skin over his chest and shoulder. If that had been Ava…
He nearly retched with the thought, but Julia’s soft sound of dismay stopped him in his tracks.
‘Idiot. You told me you were all right!’ she scolded softly, guilt in her eyes, and then spread something green and cool over his skin with infinite gentleness.
‘What’s that?’ he asked, his voice a little hoarse, because it was so long since she’d touched him that the feel of her fingers on his skin was enough to take the legs out from under him.
‘It’s aloe vera gel,’ she murmured. ‘It’s good for burns.’
And then she looked up and met his eyes, and time stopped. He couldn’t breathe, his heart was lodged in his throat, and for the life of him he couldn’t look away.
He wanted her.
He was still furious with her for keeping the babies from him, for leaving him without warning and dropping off the face of the earth, but he’d never stopped loving her, and he loved her now.
‘Jules—’
She stepped back, the spell broken by the whispered word, and screwed the lid back on the gel, but her fingers were trembling, and for some crazy reason that gave him hope.
‘You need a clean shirt. Have you got anything with you?’
‘Yes, in the car. I’ve got a case with me.’
She looked back at him, her eyes widening. ‘You’re planning on staying?’ she said in a breathless whisper, and he gave a short huff of laughter.
‘Oh yes. Yes, Jules, I’m staying, because, now I’ve found you, I’m not losing sight of you or my children again.’
CHAPTER TWO (#u84e047e6-da8f-5526-9d27-56ec7ca0d6c1)
HE WENT out to his car to get a dry shirt, and she watched him through the window, her hand over her mouth.
He was staying?
Oh, lord. Staying here? No! No, he couldn’t stay here, not with her! She couldn’t let him get that close, because she knew him, knew that look in his eyes, knew just how vulnerable she was to his potent sexual charm. He’d only have to touch her and she’d crumple like a wet tissue.
She was shocked at the change in him, though.
He’d lost weight; she’d been right. He was thinner, the taut muscles right there under her fingers as she’d smoothed the gel on his reddened skin. His hair was touched with grey at the temples, and he looked every one of his thirty-eight years. He’d aged in the last year more than he’d aged in all the years she’d known him, and she felt another stab of guilt.
She told herself it wasn’t her fault he didn’t look after himself, but she hadn’t expected him to look so—so ravaged. His ribs had been clearly visible in the kitchen light, but so, too, had every muscle and sinew, and she realised that, although he was thinner and looked driven, he was fit.
Fit and lean and hard, and she felt her mouth dry as he got his case out of the boot, plipped the remote control and headed back towards the door, showing her the firm definition of those muscles and ribs in the harsh security lighting. He’d been working out, she thought. Or running. Or both. He often did, usually when things were tricky and he needed to think.
Or to stop himself thinking.
Was that her fault? Possibly. Probably. Oh hell, it was such a mess, and just to make things worse he’d scalded himself when Ava had lunged at him. He must be freezing, she thought, with that wet gel over his burn. It wasn’t bad really, but he’d looked so stricken when he’d seen the pink mark across his skin, as if he’d been thinking that it could have been Ava, and she felt dreadful for shouting at him.
She’d just been so tense, and it had been the last straw.
‘Is there a pub or somewhere I can stay?’ he asked, coming back into the kitchen and crouching down to open his case, pulling out a soft sweater and dragging it over his head in place of the shirt.
She opened her mouth to say yes, but some demon in his pay had control of it, because all that came out was, ‘Don’t be silly, you can stay here. There are plenty of rooms.’
‘Really?’ he asked, studying her with concern, and something else that might have been mockery in his eyes. ‘Aren’t you worried that I’ll compromise your position in the village?’
She laughed at that. ‘It’s a bit late to worry about compromising me, Max,’ she said softly. ‘You did that when you got me pregnant. And frankly the village can take a running jump.’
He frowned, and turned his attention back to his case, zipping it shut and standing it in the corner. ‘What about Blake?’ he asked, his mouth taut.
‘What about him? I’m caretaking. I’m allowed visitors, it’s in my agreement.’
‘You have an agreement?’
‘Well, of course I have an agreement!’ she said. ‘What did you think, I was just shacked up with some random man? He’s a friend of Jane and Peter’s, and he was looking for someone to house-sit. Don’t worry, it’s all above board.’
‘The woman in the post office seemed to think otherwise.’
‘The woman in the post office needs to get a life,’ she said briskly. ‘Anyway, as I’ve already told you, he’s gay. Are you hungry?’
He frowned. ‘Hungry?’
‘Max, you need to eat,’ she said, feeling another stab of guilt over who if anyone fed him these days, who told him when he’d worked late enough and that it was too early to get up, who stopped him burning the candle at both ends and in the middle.
Nobody, she realised in dismay, looking at him really closely. Nobody at all, and least of all himself. He was exhausted, dark hollows round his eyes, his mouth drawn, that lovely ready smile gone without trace.
She felt tears filling her eyes, and turned away.
‘There’s some chicken in the fridge, or I’ve got all sorts of things in the freezer.’
‘Can’t we go out?’
‘Where, with the twins?’
His face was a picture, and she shook her head and stifled a laugh. ‘I can’t just go out, Max. It’s a military operation, and I don’t have instant access to a babysitter.’
‘Does the pub do food?’
‘Yes. It’s good, too. You could go over there.’
‘Would they deliver?’
‘I doubt it.’
‘I could offer them an incentive.’
‘I’m sure you could,’ she said drily. ‘Why don’t you go down there and sweet-talk them? It’s only just the other side of the river. It’ll take you two minutes to walk it. Or you could just eat there if you’re worried I’ll poison you.’
He ignored that. ‘Do they have a menu?’
‘They do. They’re very good. It’s a sort of gastro-pub. You could choose something and have a drink while they cook it. It’ll take about twenty minutes, probably.’
And she could have a shower and change into something that didn’t smell of baby sick and nappy cream, and brush her hair and put on some make-up—No, no make-up, she didn’t want to look too desperate, but she could call Jane.
‘It’s a bit early. I could go later.’
‘Except the babies may wake later, and it’s easier to eat when they’re asleep. Besides, they only serve until nine, and anyway I’m starving. I forgot about lunch.’
Still he hesitated, but then he gave a curt nod, shrugged on his jacket and headed for the door. ‘What do you fancy?’
‘Anything. You know what I like.’
He sipped his beer morosely and stared at the menu.
Did he know what she liked? He used to think so. Skinny sugar-free vanilla lattes, bacon rolls, almond croissants, really bitter dark chocolate, steamed vegetables, pan-fried sea bass, a well-chilled Chablis, sticky-toffee pudding with thick double cream—and waking up on Sunday morning at home in their apartment and making love until lunchtime.
He’d known how to wring every last sigh and whimper out of her, how to make her beg and plead for more, for that one last touch, the final stroke that would drive her screaming over the edge.
