Baby on Board: Secret Baby, Surprise Parents / Her Baby Wish / Keeping Her Baby's Secret. Raye Morgan

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СКАЧАТЬ ground floor for sleeping, but there isn’t a shower on this floor.’

      ‘I’m going to need replacement joints sooner rather than later but I can just about cope with one flight. I’d like to make my call before I go up, though. I need to tell a friend that I arrived safely.’

      That was such an unexpected thing for her free-as-a-bird mother to say that Grace said, ‘A friend?’ Then, ‘You’ve met someone?’

      ‘You think I’m too old?’

      ‘No, Mum. I’m just jealous.’ Then, ‘Help yourself to the phone in Michael’s study. I’ll put your bag in the front bedroom on the right—it’s the one nearest to the stairs. Then I’ll get Posie ready for her outing.’

      ‘You’re taking her with you?’ She sounded disappointed. ‘I would have taken care of her.’

      ‘You need a rest and, to be honest, we could both do with some fresh air. I thought we’d come home through the park so that she can feed the ducks. You know how Phoebe loved to do that.’

      Her mother laughed. ‘Phoebe?’

      ‘Wasn’t it Phoebe who once gave all the bread we had to the greedy little beasts?’

      ‘No. She gave the bread to you and you gave it to the ducks.’

      ‘Are you sure?’

      ‘Oh, yes. She was supposed to be looking after you so that I could put together some stuff to sell at a craft market.’

      Grace had vivid memories of her mother bent over a table, working long into the night to put together her intricate necklaces and bracelets. Easy in hindsight to understand how hard it must have been for her, a single mother trying to make enough money to keep her girls fed and clothed as she lived the travelling lifestyle that she’d taken to with the man she’d loved. Had never left, even when he’d disappeared one day. How lonely it must have been.

      A scenario that she was now faced with. Not that Posie would ever be hungry or afraid. Not while she had breath in her body.

      ‘Leaving us all without supper was her way of letting me know that she had much more interesting things to do than babysit her little sister.’

      ‘No!’ Grace found that hard to believe. ‘Phoebe was always so protective. So caring.’ So… good. Or was that the grown-up Phoebe she was thinking of?

      ‘It was me she had a problem with, Grace. Not you. We both know that I would never have made the shortlist for greatest mother in the world. Something she made very clear when I came to fetch you after my twenty-eight days for vandalism and disturbing the peace.’

      ‘You came for me?’ Her mother hadn’t just abandoned her, taken the easy option, the get-out-of-jail-free card? ‘I never knew.’

      Phoebe had never told her. It seemed that her big sister was better at keeping secrets than she’d ever imagined.

      ‘We agreed that it was for the best. You didn’t have her rebelliousness, her toughness. You needed to feel safe. I loved you more than words could say and it was like cutting off my right arm to leave you, but I knew you’d be happier with her. That it would be easier for you if you weren’t torn by any foolish loyalty to me.’ She kissed Posie’s downy head and handed her over. ‘She would have been such a wonderful mother. But you will be, too. Much better than I ever was.’

      There was such a world of need in her eyes that Grace put an arm around her, held her and said, ‘You gave me up because you loved me. That’s the hardest, finest thing for a mother to do.’

      ‘Oh…’ There were tears in her eyes as she pushed her away, saying, ‘Go and pretty yourselves up. I’ve got a call to make.’

      CHAPTER SIX

      DRESSING Posie, putting together everything she’d need for the morning, took nearly all the time Grace had so that ‘prettying herself up’ consisted of little more than pulling a comb through her short hair.

      Then she fastened jade button earrings to her lobes and a matching necklace of overlapping disks of the same stone around her throat. Make-up she could live without, but jewellery was her business and she’d never been anywhere since she’d been a toddler without something fancy around her neck or wrist—her ‘sparklies’—and she’d feel naked without them.

      She settled the necklace into place, trying not to think about Josh, his hands on her shoulders as he’d leaned into her neck to hunt down some elusive scent. The feel of his beard brushing against her skin, sending gooseflesh shivering through her.

      The last time they’d been that close, that intimate, they’d been naked. This morning, when she’d felt the warmth of his breath against her ear, been swamped by the scent of a man still warm from his bed, she’d wanted to be naked again.

      She slipped on her suit jacket, buttoned it up and, without bothering to check her reflection, fetched Posie from the nursery and went downstairs.

      Josh looked up, said nothing, as she hurried into the kitchen ten minutes later than she’d promised. He just looked at her and she was convinced he could see every hot, wicked thought that had been running through her mind, distracting her, slowing her down.

      ‘Ready?’ she asked.

      Stupid question. He was showered, wearing faded jeans and a soft suede jacket that emphasized the width of his shoulders and brought out the amber flecks in his grey eyes. He had obviously been there for some time since all trace of the breakfast disaster had been removed and he was sitting at the table, looking through the local paper.

      He closed it, got up and said, ‘Can I do anything?’

      ‘G-get the buggy? It’s in the mud room,’ she said, opening the fridge, fitting a bottle into its own special little cold box, slipping it into the carrier that contained all Posie’s essentials, exactly as she’d seen Phoebe do dozens of times. Keeping her hands behind her back to hide fingers itching to help.

      What she wouldn’t have given for that yearning now. To see Michael instead of Josh setting up the buggy, take Posie and fasten her into the little pink nest. Put the carrier in the rack beneath it.

      ‘Not bad,’ she said. ‘For a first effort.’

      He didn’t answer but took the handle of the buggy, wheeled it into the hall.

      The steps weren’t exactly easy to navigate, as she knew from experience, and, having opened the door, she made a move to help. Unnecessary. Josh just lifted the buggy, with Posie and all her belongings in it, and carried them down the steps as if it weighed no more than a feather.

      A nice trick if you could manage it, she thought and, since possession was nine-tenths of the law, by the time she’d shut the door and reached the footpath he was already walking away from her, forcing her to trot to catch up.

      ‘Slow down,’ she said crossly. ‘This isn’t a race.’

      Without taking his hand off the buggy, he lifted his elbow and, glancing down at her, said, ‘Hang on. You can slow me down if I’m speeding.’

      He wanted her to put her arm through СКАЧАТЬ