Sharon Kendrick Collection. Sharon Kendrick

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СКАЧАТЬ don’t want your rotten, stinking money, Cormack Casey!’ she spat back at him proudly, and Simon lifted his head up, momentarily startled, before resuming his blissful glugging.

      ‘It might not be what you want, sweetheart,’ he declared, a half-smile threatening to curve his mouth as he took in her furious expression, ‘but maybe it’s what you need if it stops you farming out Simon to some child-minder!’

      ‘Oh!’ Simon had dozed off, so Triss gently eased him away from her, winded him, then put him into Cormack’s arms. ‘Only a man would have the nerve to use such an emotive phrase as “farming out” in connection with childcare! Millions of women go out to work every day and leave their babies—and those babies are thriving! And do you really think I would have someone sub-standard looking after my own son?’

      He grimaced, and had the grace to look repentant. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Point taken and noted.’

      Triss, who had been ready to launch into another animated defence of working mothers, quickly shut her mouth, the wind completely taken out of her sails by his apology.

      ‘What shall I do with him now?’ asked Cormack softly, glancing down at the warm, sleeping bundle in his arms.

      ‘You could put him down to sleep while I shower and dress,’ she suggested. ‘Then we can all have breakfast together, if you like.’

      ‘Do I have to put him down?’ he queried. ‘Couldn’t he sleep like this for a while?’

      Triss looked taken aback. ‘Of course he can—that’s if you don’t mind?’

      ‘Mind? I can’t think of anything I’d rather do.’ Then he grinned. ‘We—ll, on second thoughts...’

      And Triss found herself blushing as their eyes met.

      That was how she left them, with Cormack holding the baby in the classic rocking position. Now that was one for the family album, she thought wistfully.

      She took her jeans, shirt and underwear into the bathroom with her, since she did not want to get dressed in front of Cormack—and she didn’t want to disturb him and Simon by asking him to leave either.

      When she had dressed, Triss went and rescued him, taking the baby from him even though he made a half-serious sound of protest.

      ‘We’ll be down in the kitchen,’ she told him. ‘What would you like for breakfast?’ she asked, and then wished she hadn’t, for in the early days she had asked him that very question and the answer had always been the same—‘You!’

      The brief clouding of his eyes told her that he had remembered too, but the careless smile which followed drove all other thoughts from Triss’s mind.

      ‘What does Simon have?’ he murmured.

      ‘I thought I’d give him scrambled eggs this morning,’ she told him, feeling strangely shy. Something seemed to have happened between the two of them, and some of the old ease and magic was back. And she liked it. She liked it very much.

      Cormack gave a roguish smile. ‘Then I’ll have the same as Simon, please.’

      Triss went down and put Simon in his high chair, only her hands were shaking so much that she could barely crack the eggs into the bowl. As it was, some of the mixture plopped onto the shiny linoleum floor, and Triss moved to the sink to find a sponge to mop it up with.

      She was just rinsing out the sponge under the tap when Simon leaned right over his tray at such a precarious angle that Triss was certain he was going to go hurtling to the floor.

      ‘Simon!’ she yelled, and rushed from the sink towards the high chair, not seeing the egg white where it lay in an innocently transparent pool.

      Her foot went from under her as it collided with the sticky mess and Triss was caught off balance, too startled to have the presence of mind to put her hand out to save herself.

      Her last thought before she hit the floor was her baby—nothing must happen to her baby.

      ‘Cormack!’ she called out, in a thin, reedy voice. ‘Oh, please... Cormack...’ And then the whole world went black.

       CHAPTER ELEVEN

      WHEN Triss came to she was lying down. Not on the kitchen floor, but stretched out on one of the sofas in the sitting room with Cormack hovering over her, his ashen, worried face barely recognisable.

      At the sight of her eyelashes fluttering. open he heaved a huge sigh of relief.

      ‘Triss! Thank God! Oh, thank God!’

      ‘Wh-where’s Simon?’ came her automatic response.

      ‘In his pram. Outside.’

      ‘Outside where?’ she demanded in alarm. She tried to sit up, but with a firm, decisive hand he stopped her.

      ‘Just there. Look.’ He pointed out through the window. ‘In the sunshine. Babies need fresh air. He’s fine.’ He knitted his black brows together furiously and a look of sweet concern came over his face. ‘But it isn’t Simon I’m worried about—it’s you! Darling, how’s your head?’

      Darling? Triss wondered if hearing things was a well-known side-effect of banging your head. ‘What happened?’

      ‘You slipped on the kitchen floor. You must have spilt something—’

      ‘Egg,’ she put in, as if in a trance, and saw him frown at her rather dreamy response.

      ‘You were only out a couple of minutes,’ he continued, his gaze scanning her face closely. ‘But I called Michael and Martha immediately. Michael is on call at the hospital, but Martha is on her way over. She’ll be here shortly. She’s going to look after Simon while I take you to the hospital.’

      ‘Hospital?’ Triss protested. ‘But I don’t need to go to hospital!’ She tried to sit up again, but waves of nausea washed over her and she slumped back against the pile of cushions which Cormack must have built up into a small mountain behind her head.

      ‘Oh, yes, you do!’ he retorted swiftly. ‘Martha says that as you lost consciousness—’

      ‘Only for a few seconds!’ she pointed out.

      ‘A few seconds or a few hours—either way, you still need an X-ray.’

      ‘Rubbish!’

      ‘Beatrice—’ he began, and Triss could not remember seeing him look quite so stern. ‘I am not playing games here. Now, either you allow me to take you to the hospital when your sister-in-law arrives or I call an ambulance and we go there right now, with sirens blaring and lights flashing and a very confused little baby into the bargain!’

      Triss slumped back again, feeling weak and helpless but also oddly satisfied. She had been on her own with Simon for so long that she had forgotten what it was like to be able to lean on someone else for a change. And it was rather comforting, she realised, to have someone else to make the decisions—even СКАЧАТЬ