And Mother Makes Three. Liz Fielding

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      Until the moment when he’d finally realised that Brooke had meant it when she’d said she would have her baby adopted, Fitz had never given much thought to what that would involve. He had never thought of himself as a man wanting a child of his own, but the unseen, unknown life that had been so carelessly created had, with the threat of rejection, become so real to him, so precious that he had been overtaken with the longing to protect her. And with her lying, hours old, in his arms, he’d known he could never bear to let her go.

      He would have promised Brooke anything at that moment and he had never once doubted that he’d had the better of the deal. He’d supported her through her pregnancy, looked after her, certain that once the baby was in her arms she would love her. Then after Lucy was born, when Brooke had calmly announced that she was going to give her baby away, she’d seen his reaction and she’d made her bargain with him.

      What had been so galling, so unforgivable, had been her amusement...her callous assurance that within weeks he would see it her way and hand the child over to some anonymous couple and be glad to do it. The truth was she really hadn’t cared what he’d done with her baby as long as she hadn’t been the one kept awake at night, hadn’t been the one changing nappies. She hadn’t had time for such mundane nonsense, she’d been going to make something of her life and in return for her baby he’d been going to help her do that. Well, he had to admit that she hadn’t wasted her opportunity.

      Maybe somewhere, hidden in the untrodden byways of his mind, he had nursed a secret hope that one day she would realise what she was missing, would come back. Eight years should have been long enough for him to come to terms with the truth, but perhaps Lucy was not the only one with a penchant for fantasy.

      Maybe that was why he had found it so hard to tell Lucy the truth; maybe he hadn’t wanted to believe that any mother could be so callous. Well, he could no longer fool himself. Lucy had taken the matter out of his hands, chosen the moment.

      But now he was here, parked outside a house which until this moment had simply been an address on the document which gave him sole custody of Lucy, it occurred to Fitz that he was almost certainly on a wildgoose chase.

      This had been Brooke’s family home. It was highly unlikely that she had lived here since university, but it was the only address he had. She’d long since left the television natural history unit where he’d got her that first job, easily finding a backer to start her own film company, but no one there would give him an address, advising him to write in and his letter would be passed on. There wasn’t time for that. And his contacts in the business who could have told him what he needed to know would have been just too damned interested.

      He watched the postman making his way down the street, dropping letters through the boxes. The man reached The Lodge, turned in at the gate, but he had more than letters—he had something that needed signing for, or wouldn’t fit the box, because he rang the bell. Who would answer? Her mother, a middle-aged version of Brooke? Her father...

      ‘Brooke...’ Her name escaped him on a breath. It was the last thing on earth he had expected. But she was there, she had opened the door, was talking with the postman, giving the man one of those blazing smiles as she pushed back her hair in an achingly familiar gesture before taking the pen he offered and signing for a letter. Before he knew what he was doing he was out of the Range Rover and across the street. The postman saw him coming, held the gate for him, but halfway up the path he stopped.

      Suppose she refused to speak to him, this spectre coming back from the past to haunt her, determined to remind her of something she had chosen to forget? Suppose she shut the door on him? Refused even to discuss Lucy? She had every right to. He had promised he would never contact her, never betray her secret. But then he had never expected to have to keep that promise. And Lucy’s happiness was more important than any promise.

      He stepped off the path, followed the lawn around to the back of the house.

      

      Bron put the registered letter from her mother’s insurance company on the kitchen table unopened. Her mother was dead and nothing would change that, but Lucy was alive and needing help now. She picked up the telephone again, pressed redial. She would leave a message, ask James Fitzpatrick to call her. It rang once, twice. A shadow passed the kitchen window, someone coming round to the back of the house, no doubt Mrs Marsh checking up on her, making sure she was coping...

      ‘Come along,’ she muttered impatiently. And then the voice again. Except it wasn’t the answering machine.

      ‘Brooke...’ he said and as she spun around, saw the shadowed figure in the doorway, she knew exactly who he was.

      ‘James Fitzpatrick,’ she said. And as if to confirm it his voice repeated the name in her ear.

      For a moment he didn’t move, stayed in the open doorway with the sun streaming in around him. ‘That’s a little formal under the circumstances, Brooke. I still answer to Fitz.’

      ‘Fitz,’ she repeated dully, while the cogs in her brain freewheeled, trying to catch up with what was happening. Apparently taking this as an invitation, he stepped into the room, into the light. Oh, God, the voice was perfect, the man was perfect. More than perfect, he was beautiful. Tall, broad-shouldered, lean as a whippet beneath a white linen shirt that draped loosely about his torso, beneath old faded denims that stretched tight across narrow masculine hips, clinging to his thighs as though moulded to them. His hair was black, a dishevelled mass of thick dark curls that flowed over his shirt collar, his mouth was sinfully sensuous, his eyes the colour of ripe blueberries. No man had the right to be that good-looking, that sexy, that... ‘I—I was just trying to call you,’ she said.

      ‘Then that answers my question. You did get Lucy’s letter.’

      Bron tore her gaze away from this apparition of manly perfection long enough to glance at the crumpled, slightly grubby envelope lying on the kitchen table. Unfortunately she tried to replace the telephone receiver at the same time. She missed. It swung down and hit the wall, jerking the telephone from its bracket. The whole lot landed on the floor with a crash.

      James Fitzpatrick crossed the room, bent to retrieve the instrument. ‘It’s cracked,’ he said, straightening beside her.

      ‘It was already cracked.’ A bit like her voice.

      ‘I see.’ He checked the dialling tone, replaced it on the wall before turning to her, his forehead creased in a thoughtful frown. ‘I’ve often wondered where Lucy gets that from.’

      Lucy was clumsy? ‘You made me jump,’ she said defensively. ‘Why did you come to the back door?’

      ‘I thought it might be a good idea to take you by surprise—’ he’d certainly done that ‘—before you had time to put the chain up.’

      Close up to him, Bron was finding it difficult to breathe. This was Lucy’s father? Brooke had walked away from this man to film monkeys and spiders and frogs and any number of unspeakable creatures in mosquito infested swamps? If anyone had ever doubted her dedication... His words suddenly got through to her. ‘Why would I do that?’

      ‘I made a promise. The fact that I’m here must tell you that I’m about to break it.’

      What promise? His right hand was against the wall, trapping her in the corner, but it made no difference, her legs weren’t planning on taking her anywhere. She swallowed. ‘Because of Lucy? How is she—?’

      ‘You’ve had nearly nine years to ask that question,’ he said, cutting off her concern, refusing to acknowledge it.

      ‘I didn’t mean—’ She hadn’t meant it in that meaningless, ‘How are you?’, kind of way. She meant, What kind of child is she? What are her dreams? Is she happy? But his left hand, the fingers loosely curled, was rubbing mesmerisingly against her cheek, stealing her wits. ‘You don’t have to pretend you care, Brooke, not for me. Save that for your daughter.’

      Brooke?

      Brooke was looking at him as if she had been knocked sideways and it gave