Twins On Her Doorstep. Alison Roberts

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ mop-haired statues.

      That hair…

      Clouds of tangled blonde ringlets. Impossible to comb without causing pain. Sophie knew what it was like to have hair like that.

      The sudden chill that ran down her spine almost made her shiver visibly. She swallowed carefully.

      ‘So who’s sick?’ she asked. ‘Or has there been an accident?’

      ‘Nobody’s sick,’ the man said quietly. ‘I…um…is there somewhere we could have a quiet word?’ The movement of his head, along with the expression in a pair of very dark eyes, was easy to interpret. This Finn Connelly wanted to talk to her somewhere the children couldn’t overhear.

      ‘There’s no one else here,’ Sophie said apologetically. ‘I can’t leave the children unattended in the waiting room.’

      She wasn’t sure she wanted to go somewhere private with this man, either. Again, her instinct was giving her a clear message, and this time it was warning her that she wasn’t going to like what she might hear. Had these children been abused in some way? Were they in danger?

      She actually jumped when a door behind her opened.

      ‘I forgot my bag.’ Judy hurried towards the reception desk and bent to retrieve it. ‘I was so worried about Dad that I just left it behind.’ She straightened up and then froze when she saw that Sophie was talking to someone.

      ‘Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt.’

      ‘It’s okay.’ Sophie straightened her back. Fate was giving her a push here and she had a moral obligation to comply. ‘Could you spare a minute, Mum?’

      ‘Of course.’ Judy came out from behind the counter.

      ‘Could you keep an eye on these children for a minute? Their dad wants to talk to me.’

      ‘Oh…’ The different note in her mother’s voice advertised that she was instantly aware that something a little odd was happening.

      ‘I’m not their father,’ Finn said. ‘I’m their uncle. This is Ellie. And that’s Emma.’

      Judy had stepped closer. She was staring at the little girls and Sophie watched in horror as the colour drained from her mother’s face. She moved fast as she saw her start to sway on her feet, but it was Finn who caught Judy before she crumpled completely.

      This was unbelievable. Both her parents having dizzy spells on the same day? Was there some horrible virus going around? That would be a catastrophe that could potentially close this health centre on which her community depended.

      But Judy seemed to be recovering quickly. She clung to Finn’s arm as he helped her towards the chair behind the reception desk, and then she sat, taking several deep breaths before raising her head.

      ‘Sorry,’ she murmured. ‘But it’s like seeing a ghost. Two ghosts…’

      ‘What do you mean?’ Sophie had followed them and now had her hand on her mother’s wrist, feeling for her pulse.

      Judy’s mouth opened. And then closed again. Her gaze slid away from Sophie’s, back to the other side of the waiting room to where the children were still sitting quietly, and then up, to the man who was towering above her.

      ‘Who are you?’ she asked.

      ‘And why are you here?’ Sophie added. Her words came out sharply. She’d been aware of her own anxiety about this situation but the fact that it had affected her mother so dramatically made it unacceptable. She wanted the truth. And she wanted it now.

      ‘I think you’ve guessed,’ Finn said slowly. ‘Or your mother has, anyway.’

      ‘Mum?’

      But Judy didn’t seem capable of finding any words. It was Finn who spoke.

      ‘It’s Ellie and Emma,’ he said, so quietly there was no chance of either of them hearing what he was saying. ‘They’re your daughters, Sophie.’

       CHAPTER TWO

      THIS COULDN’T BE HAPPENING.

      They had promised her that nothing like this could ever happen.

      And yet, here it was. Happening.

      The shock waves kept on rolling in. There was no point at all in trying to summon denial to deal with this. At some level, Sophie realised, she’d known from that first instant with that puzzling sense of recognition when she’d seen the twins. And her poor mother…

      No wonder Judy had almost fainted with the shock of feeling as if she’d stepped back three decades in time and was seeing not only her own young daughter again but seeing double.

      How could anyone think it was acceptable to shock people like this? Her mother could have had a heart attack. Sophie was already worried about her father’s state of health and now that anxiety had just increased exponentially to include her mother. As for her own state of mind… Well, she wasn’t even going to go there right now. This should not be happening. For this man to have tracked her down meant that somebody, somewhere—perhaps in the very IVF clinic she and Matthew had used themselves—had broken confidentiality.

      Had broken the law?

      Okay. Sophie knew how she felt now. Angry. Furious, in fact.

      ‘You shouldn’t be here,’ she hissed fiercely, keeping her voice as low as possible. ‘How did you even find out who I was?’

      Finn was still watching her intently after dropping that bombshell, so she couldn’t miss the flash of…guilt? Yes, that was what it was all right. He knew he’d done something he shouldn’t have. But it was gone as fast as it had appeared and what took its place looked disturbingly like defiance. Finn Connelly might know he’d done something that could get him into serious trouble but he was prepared to stand up for himself. He had a reason for doing this and he believed he could defend it.

      Judy took a gulp of air in. And then another. Sophie had to admire the way her mother was pulling herself together. She was staring at the two children on the other side of the room and she was also protecting them from hearing any of this conversation. Her voice was a whisper.

      ‘This has something to do with the eggs you donated, Sophie, doesn’t it? These girls are your biological children? My…’

      The whisper cracked and faded into silence but what she’d been about to say hung in the air as loudly as if it had been spoken.

       My grandchildren…

      This…this stunt…hadn’t just detonated an emotional bomb in her own life, it was going to affect other people. Her parents. They’d had to grieve the loss of their son-in-law and then the devastating extra loss of their unborn grandchild. It had taken years for them all to accept those losses and build a new version of their lives but they had done it. Together. With the help of a loyal and close community.

      This СКАЧАТЬ