Long-Lost Father. Melissa James

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      It seemed that everything he’d ever dreamed of had been relegated to the past. His shattered knee would heal eventually, and the moment it did, he’d accept the surgical residency he’d been offered in Melbourne’s top hospital. But his African dream had exploded in his face within weeks. He already had a child, but she was a stranger to him. And he didn’t know his wife anymore. His Sam lived for him, made his life hers; his Sam would have moved heaven and earth to reach Africa and find him.

      This Sam watched him like a hawk, didn’t rush into his arms, didn’t cry joyful tears to know he was alive. This Sam didn’t need him, and he didn’t have a clue where to go from here.

      Give her time…give yourself some, too. Trouble was, he felt he’d been marking time for years. He might need time, but he couldn’t convince his heart and body of that need—others were crowding it out with their long-denied demands.

      “Here.” A soft voice, a gentle touch, and he looked up to see her standing above him, holding a steaming cup. Her face held question…and just for a moment, her luminous eyes, the colour of a spring sky, were touched with caring. She smelled fresh and clean, like the pool. Her voice was still sweet, almost singsong; she finished every sentence with a tiny lilt, as though she was asking an unconscious question.

      So some things hadn’t changed. He shook himself and smiled at her. “Thanks, Sam.” Testing the boundaries, he let his fingers brush hers as he took the cup from her.

      Her eyes darkened; her lids fluttered down, tender and languorous. Her lips parted—then she bit the lower one and came back to reality. “You’re welcome. You look tired,” she added with a gruffness that covered the husky tone she always used when he touched her.

      Does that mean she hasn’t gotten over me?

      She moved back to the lounge opposite his, her face shuttered again. She didn’t know what he wanted and wasn’t giving an inch until she knew.

      Obviously it was time to cut to the chase. “I’d like to meet my daughter.”

      She gripped her hands together so tight he could see the bone through the knuckles…and for the first time noted how thin, how delicate she’d become. Her skin, once pale and translucent, now seemed transparent.

      “She’ll be thrilled to find out she has a father. Most of her friends have families. She started asking about you a few months ago.” Her hesitation was palpable. “Brett, you need to know something about Casey—”

      “That she’s blind?” he asked bluntly. “That’s why you aren’t working as a secretary anymore. It’s why you only work on reception two days a week at the Deaf and Blind Children’s Centre. So you can take her. You can stay with her.”

      Sam ran her tongue over her top lip before she nodded. “She’s not at school full-time until the end of summer. I need to work, but I want to be with her as much as possible.”

      “How strong is her disability? What percentage of sight does she have?” The question had been in his mind since the detective had first told him. “Is she legally or profoundly blind? Is there any chance of optic regeneration through surgical procedure?”

      Sam’s eyes flashed. “This isn’t a preliminary examination, Dr. Glennon. You’re not her doctor, you’re her father.”

      Stung, he retorted, “Pardon me, but since my daughter is five and I’ve never met her, it’s hard for me to be emotional about this. I didn’t see her birth or change her nappy, do a night feed or hold her when she cried.” He shrugged. “Maybe I’d have been more emotional if I’d known her the past two years. She and I could have shared a lot—like our physical therapy classes.”

      Like a balloon pricked, the fight went out of Sam. “You’re right.” Her eyes closed over tears; she looked lost, defeated…and he remembered the reports from the detective. If he’d gone through hell in Mbuka and during recuperation, her life hadn’t been anyone’s picnic. Yet she’d not only survived, she’d adapted, changed her life for their child’s sake and made a success of it.

      He sighed, rubbing his brow. “I’m having a hard time with this. I thought you’d at least be glad that I’m alive.”

      “I am. I am!” she cried, looking wretched. “But I feel like a mouse that can’t get off one of those treadmills. I didn’t expect this. I had no notice you were coming—”

      “Would you still be here if I’d given you notice?” he asked with all the force of the cynicism he felt welling inside.

      She drew in a quick breath. “I don’t know,” she admitted with all the frankness he’d once loved in her. “I don’t know why you’re here. What do you want from me, Brett?”

      Everything. But he’d be an idiot to say it now; he wasn’t even sure if it was true. What he’d planned for and dreamed of for so many years had been coming home to his Sam. But while this woman looked like his Sam, sounded like her, she sure as hell didn’t act like her. He wanted his wife, the life and family he’d dreamed of sharing with her.

      So he chose the easy option. “I want to see my daughter, Sam. I want to spend time with her, to go places with her—”

      But stark terror flashed through her eyes. “You can’t take her anywhere without me. She—she doesn’t know you. She doesn’t take well to strangers. You have to see her with me here.”

      He frowned, feeling the emotional undercurrents pulling him into unknown waters. “For now, I just want to meet her, Sam.”

      “So long as you know,” she muttered.

      “That’s fine—for now,” he said, refusing to pull his punches. “But Casey has a family she’s never met. I want to take her to Melbourne and let my parents and sister spend time with her. My parents are really anxious to meet her. She has cousins, too—”

      “No!”

      The gritted snarl jolted him.

      Brett stared at her white face, her burning eyes, and knew that whatever Sam’s problem was, they were near the heart of it. “You can’t deny Casey’s right to a relationship with her family. You know how badly that could affect the rest of her life.”

      Sam strode over to him, her face almost completely white and her eyes almost black with an emotion he hadn’t been able to define until now. It was panic—blind panic. “You’re not taking her from me, Brett.”

      It was obvious that by her intense reaction to his request, something was missing in this scenario. “I never said I wanted to take her from you, Sam. I only want her to meet her family. Is that such an unreasonable thing to ask?”

      “M-maybe not,” she said, her voice throbbing with hidden fear. “But you can’t take her anywhere without me. Where she goes, I go.”

      Wishing he could shake the confusion right out of his head, he frowned at her. “Why are you talking about this? I haven’t even met Casey.”

      Sam, so pale moments before, flushed again, soft and rosy. With her curls drying around her face, she looked so much—so damn much—like the angelic Sam he’d fallen in love with all those years ago, he ached.

      “I СКАЧАТЬ