Australia: Handsome Heroes: His Secret Love-Child. Lilian Darcy

had to fight an almost overwhelming compulsion to reach out to him. But no way. No way! ‘These last few years have been hell.’

      ‘But not enough to reach out now and say let’s be a family. Not enough to even want me to stay in the same town as you.’

      ‘I don’t do—’

      ‘You don’t do commitment,’ she finished for him, almost cordially. ‘So what’s new?’

      ‘You know as well as I do what happens down that road,’ he told her, and he was drawing away from her now. ‘Look at what happened tonight. One minute these people had loving, laughing teenagers, the next they had nothing. You had Paul and he’s dead. And me…I learned that lesson over and over again. The only way of sanity is independence. You can love someone and stay independent. You must.’

      ‘Can you? Can you really love them?’

      ‘That’s what I’m saying,’ he told her, as if explaining something to a child.

      ‘Then you’re talking nonsense,’ she managed. ‘I can love CJ and stay independent? I don’t think so.’

      ‘That’s what I mean,’ he said wearily. ‘You’re caught. If anything happened to CJ, you’d break your heart, and why put yourself there?’ His eyes grew bleak and distant. ‘Of all the stupid, irresponsible acts. Stuffing up birth control. Us! Two doctors. We should never have messed up like that. For me to have put you through that…’

      And that was the limit. Her anger had boiled straight over to full-blown fury, a fury mixed with desolation, rejection and loss.

      She stared at him for a long, baffled minute—and then she reached out and hit him.

      A wave caught her just as she did, knocking her sideways into the surf. She’d hit his face but her slap had been deflected, much of its force lost. But she no longer cared. She lay where she’d been knocked, letting the water wash over her, thinking about not even bothering to surface, and when Cal’s hand reached down to grab her and haul her up she reacted as if his touch burned.

      She kicked out, a futile act in three feet of water, smacked his hands away from her and backed out of the waves. Dumb, useless tears were mixing with the salt water.

      ‘You low-life! Get away from me.’

      ‘Hell, Gina, I didn’t mean to say…’ Cal sounded horrified.

      ‘You did say,’ she spluttered, backing further away from him. ‘Get lost, Cal Jamieson. You say you loved me. That’s ridiculous. You don’t know the meaning of the word. Leave me be. I’m going back to the hospital. I’m going to check on our baby in the morning and the minute he doesn’t need me I’m out of here. I’m out of your life. I’ll send you a photo of CJ every year on his birthday. I’m sure that’s all you want, Cal Jamieson, and it’s all you deserve. Get lost.’

      Three hundred miles away another drama was being played out. Another consequence of loving.

       ‘Megan?’

       ‘Go away.’ The girl’s voice dragged as though there was no strength left in it and her mother’s surge of fear grew even stronger. What was happening?

      Honey had hoped this day could be different. When she’d persuaded her husband and daughter to go to the rodeo she’d almost allowed herself to be optimistic. She’d hoped it could be time out from the depression that draped this sad old farmhouse and the people in it.

      But Megan had been silent and sullen all the way to the rodeo, and as soon as they’d arrived she’d disappeared to be by herself in the bush. Well, what was new? Honey had wondered sadly. For the last few months Megan had glumped round the house in her oversized men’s clothes, she’d worked in sullen silence, she’d eaten like there was no stopping her, not caring care how much weight she put on…

      Honey Cooper had been concerned about her nineteen-year-old daughter for months, but then she’d also been terrified about her husband’s failing health. More. She’d been terrified that the bank would finally foreclose on the farm. She’d been terrified that Jim would kill himself. There was only so much terror one woman could hold, and Megan’s depression had seemed the least of it.

      But today there’d been something new. Worse. On the way home from the rodeo Megan had huddled into the back of the car like a wounded animal. She’d stayed there until Honey had got Jim inside and then Megan had scuttled into her bedroom and locked the door behind her.

      Now she’d been in the bathroom for an hour and as Honey had lain beside Jim she’d heard searing, racking sobs that had terrified her past all the rest.

      And things she’d been trying hard to ignore had suddenly refused to be ignored a moment longer.

      ‘What the hell’s going on with Megan?’Jim asked, and she laid a hand on her husband’s arm to stop him getting up. His heart was so bad. He mustn’t get upset.

       ‘Hush. I’ll go and see.’

       ‘It’s not that boy?’ Jim rolled over in the dark and stared bleakly at his wife in the moonlight streaming in through the dust-streaked window. ‘He wasn’t at the rodeo, was he? If he’s been seeing her again…If he’s hurt her…’

       ‘I’m sure he wasn’t there,’ Honey said soothingly. ‘You know Megan promised she wouldn’t see him again. I’m sure she meant it and I’m sure he hasn’t tried to see her. Hush. I’ll go and see what’s wrong.’

       But now she stood outside the locked bathroom door and she knew that there was no quick fix available here. Megan’s sobs were truly frightening. Megan, who’d held the family together. She’d leaned on her far too much, Honey thought as she asked again that her daughter unlock the door. But what choice did she have?

       Megan was nineteen and clever and she’d ached to go to university—but if she’d gone then the hard work here would have killed Jim. So Honey had pressured her to stay. Megan had worked and worked, even after that boy…

       ‘Megan, love, you need to unlock the door.’

       ‘I’m fine.’The words were spoken on a hiccuping sob. ‘Go away. I’m fine.’

       ‘You’re not fine and I’m not going away until you open the door. Please, Megan. Your father’s worried.’

      Your father’s worried. Your father’s sick. Your father needs you. Here it was again, Honey thought. Emotional blackmail. But it was all she had.

      And it worked now as it had worked before. There was a ragged gasp, a scuffle—sounds of cleaning up?—and then the door was opened a crack.

       ‘I’m fine,’ Megan said again, harshly into the stillness of the darkened house. ‘Tell Dad he doesn’t have to worry.’

      ‘Come into your room and we’ll talk about it.’She was still whispering. Jim mustn’t hear.

       ‘Why?’ Megan whispered back, just as fiercely. ‘There’s nothing to talk about.’

      She turned, and as she did, Honey gasped.

      Megan was wearing a faded chenille dressing-gown, the sort of shapeless garment she’d been wearing for months. But as she turned against the moonlight streaming in from the window at the end of the passage, Honey had caught her profile.

      For months she’d been looking at that profile, thinking no, surely not, that would be the one thing that would kill Jim, please no. It was just weight gain. Megan had been overeating. It had to be the reason.

       And now…

       ‘Oh, God, you’ve lost it,’ she whispered.