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‘Anyway he did it, saying that, in time, he fully expected me to find someone else to love and marry. That was what he really wanted for me, he said, but if that didn’t happen, then he’d like me to have the option of having his baby. I could have someone of his—some part of him—to give me the love I deserved. That was how he put it. And it’s been there, in the back of my mind, ever since. Then last year I thought I can’t keep the sperm forever. If I don’t do it now …’ She shrugged. ‘Anyway, I just did. I wanted to and I did. But now … what have I done? A baby that’s not David’s …’
She rested her head back on the arm of the couch and closed her eyes, as if telling this tragic story had stolen her last reserves of energy, leaving her too exhausted to wipe away the tears that leaked, slow and full, from beneath her eyelids.
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_59622be4-501d-5a5a-a2d1-b2c6686e6da0)
HIS FINGERS ACHED to wipe those tears away, but she was a stranger—a stranger he’d just hurt beyond any understanding, which meant touching her was out of the question.
And particularly out of the question given how previous touches—casual, helpful touches—had affected him.
Be practical. Practical was good. He could do practical!
Food—she undoubtedly needed food.
Max stood up and went in search of the kitchen, not hard to find as it was right at the end of the hall. A tall, walkin pantry offered a packet of crackers and the refrigerator cheese, grapes and tiny tomatoes. He sliced some cheese, found a plate and set out his offerings. He took a bottle of mineral water from the refrigerator and poured a glass, added ice, and carried the plate and glass into the living room, setting it down on a small table beside the couch.
‘Eat!’ he ordered, and to his surprise she opened her eyes and smiled at him. It was a wan smile, but it was still a smile.
He definitely liked her smile.
‘Only if we share,’ she said, waving her hand towards the plate, so he took a cracker, and a chunk of cheese and a grape, but knew he wouldn’t eat them, his tension over the conversation that lay ahead making his body so uptight he doubted it would accept anything in the way of food.
‘So!’ she said, after she’d demolished half the plate of food while he’d surreptitiously wrapped his morsels in his handkerchief and poked it in his pocket. ‘Tell me what makes you think this is your baby.’
She patted her belly protectively but in a matter-of-fact way, and Max guessed if she spoke to the unborn child at all, it would be as an adult—in a normal conversation. A sensible, intelligent woman, as well as being beautiful.
But he had a tale to tell …
‘I went to the lab this morning—’
‘Brilliant Babies, or whatever silly name they’re calling themselves now?’ she queried.
‘Babies First,’ Max corrected. ‘Yes.’
He stalled again.
‘And you went because …?’
Joey asked the question and sighed inside. Was she going to have to drag every syllable of the story out of this man? She hoped not. She’d been tired before he’d dropped his unbelievable bombshell—now she was exhausted.
She ate another couple of grapes, hoping their sugar content might help.
‘I wanted to have my sperm destroyed,’ he said finally. ‘The frozen stuff. It’s been stored there now for seven years and they’d sent a bill recently or I’d have forgotten about it altogether. The quality of the frozen sperm probably deteriorates with time, but it wasn’t all that. I guess it was an acceptance that I wasn’t cut out to be a family man. It’s probably genetic. My father thought he could be, but my sisters tell me he was never happy when he was at home. But when he finally cut and ran, well, to me it was so hurtful that I realised I’d have been better off never having had a father.’
Joey knew she was frowning again. No wonder, considering he was telling her his life story, rather than explaining what had happened at the clinic.
‘But if that’s how you felt,’ she said, ‘why freeze your sperm in the first place? It can’t have been a donation because that clinic doesn’t take donations and, anyway, in places where they do, they’re stored separately. Did you think you were ill?’
She stopped, because it had suddenly struck her that she was having a conversation with a virtual stranger about his sperm.
Beyond weird!
‘Well?’ she demanded when he still didn’t answer.
‘I’d been diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma. And I had a fiancée at the time. I was young and optimistic enough to think I could make a go of marriage and family.’
He paused for a moment, then added, with more irony than bitterness, ‘I was still optimistic, or perhaps foolish, to think the same thing the second time I became engaged.’
The second time?
She had to ask!
‘I can perhaps understand losing one fiancée—particularly if she couldn’t handle your being ill—but two? Or were there more?’
He didn’t answer for a moment. Why should he when his love life really wasn’t any of her business? But he didn’t look stricken by pain at the loss of these women, but more thoughtful than anything else.
Until he frowned.
‘No, you’re wrong. My first fiancée did stick around—for quite a lot of my treatment. But I was treated very aggressively and being around someone who’s sick all the time isn’t much fun. Plus I was a terrible patient. We were both young. When she decided to move on, it was the right decision for both of us.’
Good for him, defending her, Joey thought, although she was well aware this conversation was nothing more than a delaying tactic.
A delay she needed right now …
‘And the second?’
‘She was a stunner,’ he said simply. ‘I was over illness, over everything and I fell hard. But maybe I’m not cut out for marriage. She was planning the wedding, planning babies, planning life and suddenly things started to close in. So I went to climb Everest,’ he said, startling Joey so much she had to straighten up from her comfy slump.
‘You went off to climb Everest? So Meryl’s right, you are a little mad!’
She shook her head, trying to clear the vision of a huge snow-capped mountain so she could concentrate on what really mattered in the conversation.
But mountains that big were hard to shift.
‘So did you?’
‘Yep. I managed to annoy my fiancée enough for her to call it off. I thought she’d understand because she knew climbing Everest had always been a dream, it was just that after—’
‘Forget the fiancée! Did you climb the mountain? Did you make it to the top?’
Even the idea of such a feat sent a thrill down her spine and she looked at the attractive stranger with new eyes. Not that she hadn’t been looking at him fairly closely since he’d first appeared …
Hormones—it had to be hormones …
He smiled, but the faraway look in his eyes told her he was back there again—back in those mighty mountains.
‘No, but I knew all along I wouldn’t be going to the top. I was support crew, and for me it was enough to be there—to be on the mountain right up to the last camp, before the final assault. It was magic.’
‘And hard and tough and dangerous as well?’
He smiled.
‘So’s beating cancer,’ he said. ‘But for me, right from the diagnosis, it was a goal to work towards. I had a friend planning a climb and that gave me the motivation not only to get through the treatment but after it to do the training and build myself up to peak physical fitness—the kind that was needed if I wanted to be included in the team.’
‘But the second fiancée?’
‘I’d thought I could settle down, build a general practice here. It almost happened.’
Joey studied the man who’d catapulted into her life while she tried to make sense of all he was telling her. There were loose ends everywhere and she wasn’t even up to the mistake part.
Although she wasn’t in that much of a hurry to get to the mistake part. She’d rather go on thinking the baby inside her was David’s—sweet, gentle David’s—for as long as possible.
‘But it didn’t happen?’ she asked, before she could get melancholy over David again.
Green eyes studied her in turn and she knew he was tossing up whether to tell the truth or offer a vague evasion.
‘Hmm,’ he finally said, ‘well …’
‘Spit it out,’ she ordered. ‘It can’t be any worse than the “you’re having my baby” line you used earlier.’
‘It was definitely my fault,’ he began, and she knew he’d decided on the truth. ‘I was due to be back in Australia a month before the wedding but, coming down, before we’d reached base camp where we were to fly out from, we had news of an avalanche on another part of the mountain—’
‘Involving other climbers?’
The man nodded.
‘We were closest, I’m a doctor, it was a fair climb to reach them. The snow and ice around them were so unstable we couldn’t risk a helicopter rescue so getting the survivors out was tricky. Once they were handed over to the professionals we went back.’
The look on his face told her why. There’d been fatalities and he and his fellow climbers had brought out the bodies as well.
‘Some people find it’s easier to accept if they can bury their loved ones.’
The quiet sentence confirmed her guess. But the wedding?
‘So just how long was it before you returned to your fiancée?’ Joey asked, as the meaning of this rambling excuse became clear.
‘I was in touch whenever I could be,’ he said defensively. ‘Emails, texts, phone calls, you know how easy it is these days.’
‘So what happened?’ she asked, deciding to get back on track, although she’d really have liked to ask more about the mountain—both climbing and mountain-rescue work.
Rescue work.
Meryl had mentioned that. It sounded … intriguing.
‘I was dumped by text,’ Max replied. ‘It was waiting when we brought the survivors down, only weeks after leaving the base of Everest, about the time I should have been home. She’d met someone who loved her more than mountains, someone who wasn’t the most selfish person ever put on earth.’
‘She put all that in a text?’
Her visitor grinned.
‘Not quite. That’s just what I took “Gt stfd am kpg ring” to mean. She’d told me the most selfish man on earth part many times and I’ve since heard her version of the story. Anyway, I went on another rescue mission to heal my broken heart—or maybe in the hope of breaking my neck because of my broken heart—and I’ve been … wandering since. Involving myself more and more with the problems of remote communities. Seeing how infectious diseases can decimate them. Trying to do something about it.’
‘And your lymphoma?’
His smile lit up the room.
‘All clear!’
Yes, non-Hodgkin lymphoma was like that—not like aggressive brain tumours, Joey thought sadly, remembering back. Remembering David insisting on freezing sperm in case she ever wanted it—telling her the best option would be her finding someone else to love, to make a family with. He’d been so sure she would …
Max watched the shadows chase across her face and knew she’d been thinking about her husband, who hadn’t left her for his own selfish reasons but had been snatched from her by death.
Why hadn’t she found someone else? he wondered. She was a lovely-looking woman, obviously intelligent and interested in things outside her own world—hadn’t she shown interest in the mountains?
But ‘Yes,’ was all he said, and let the silence settle between them.
She picked up a cracker and used it to push a piece of cheese around the plate, then poked at a grape, before looking up at him.
‘We’re down to the nitty-gritty now, aren’t we?’ There was so much sadness in her voice; he wanted to go and sit beside her, to put his arms around her and hold her tight—to assure her everything would be all right, although he knew full well nothing would ever be the same for her again.
Or him, if the strange stuff going on inside him was any indication …
He sighed. Holding her wasn’t an option, so he’d best get on with it.
‘Do you remember anything of the day your husband went to the clinic?’
She looked at him, a little frown forming between her eyebrows.
‘Not really. I would have been angry—I was always angry back then—although …’
He waited, seeing the frown deepen as she dug back in her memory to a time she’d rather forget.
‘Something happened. I do remember. It was at the clinic. Some kind of fuss?’
He waited and she shook her head.
‘I can’t remember details—I’ve blanked out as much as I can of that part of my life. But there was a fuss of some kind. I remember thinking—furiously—that I might have lost him five weeks earlier than I needed to have and all because of the stupid sperm.’
She gave her belly another pat as if to excuse her words, while Max recalled the events of the morning only too clearly.
‘There was a fuss,’ he told her, although the word ‘fuss’ hardly covered the magnitude of it. ‘A man came in with a gun. Apparently he and his wife had frozen four embryos some time earlier—there was some hereditary disease in one or other of their families and these had been tested and found free of whatever gene could cause the problem.’
‘And his wife had left him?’ Joey put in. ‘Of course! I remember David telling me the story.’
‘Exactly! Left him for another man, so the deserted husband wanted the embryos destroyed but apparently she was listed as the owner so the clinic couldn’t destroy them without her say-so. He pulled out a gun, grabbed one of the laboratory staff and demanded action.’
‘Just as you and David had done your thing in your discreetly curtained cubicles and come out clutching your little jars?’
She half smiled and all the attraction stuff started up in his body again. This was beyond bizarre. He had to concentrate on the story, then help this woman—who was the real victim of the clinic’s mistake—in any way he could.
