Single Dads Collection. Lynne Marshall

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      ‘You’re starting to make a real bond with her,’ she said to Will.

      Lily was in bed, the supper had been cleared away, and by tacit agreement she and Will had found themselves back on the verandah. She had thought about excusing herself and spending the evening reading in her room, but it was too hot, and anyway that would look as if she was trying to avoid him, which would be nonsense. They had cleared the air, and there was no reason for them to be awkward together.

      Besides, she liked it out here. It reminded her of being a child, when she would lie in bed and listen to the whirr and click and scrape of the insect orchestra overlaid by the comforting sound of her parents’ voices as they sat and talked in the dark outside her room.

      She had been thinking of her father a lot this evening. He used to read to her the way Will had read to Lily earlier. He would put on extraordinary voices and embellish the stories wildly as he went along, changing the ending every time, so that Alice had never been quite sure how it was going to turn out. No wonder she had grown up craving security, Alice thought with a rueful smile. She hadn’t even been able to count on books to stay the same until she could read them for herself!

      Funny how she kept thinking of her childhood here. Normally, she kept those memories firmly buried, but she was conscious that she was remembering it not with her usual bitterness and frustration, and not with nostalgia either, but, yes, with a certain affection. Perhaps she should have remembered more of the good times as well as the bad.

      ‘Lily’s learning to trust you,’ she went on, and Will leant back in his chair and stretched with a sigh that was part relief, part weariness.

      ‘I hope so,’ he said. ‘Just doing something simple like reading a story makes me realise how much time I’ve missed with her. I’ve got a lot of catching up to do.’

      Alice hesitated. ‘How come you’re such a stranger to her?’ she asked curiously, hoping that she wasn’t opening too raw a wound. ‘Didn’t you want a child?’

      Will glanced at her and then away. ‘Do you want the truth?’ he said. ‘When Nikki first told me that she was pregnant, I was appalled. Lily was the result of a doomed attempt to save a failing marriage. That’s not a good reason to bring a child into the world. Nikki had already made arrangements to leave when she found out she was pregnant. So, no, I didn’t want a child then.’

      ‘But Nikki decided to keep the baby?’

      ‘Yes. I don’t know why, to be honest,’ said Will. ‘She couldn’t wait to get back to her career, and as far as I could make out Lily spent more time with her grandparents than she did with her mother. Nikki made it very clear that it was her decision whether or not to keep the baby, and I had to respect that. I accepted my responsibility to support the child, but I couldn’t really imagine what it would be like to be a father,’ he admitted. ‘I hadn’t been involved in the pregnancy the way most fathers are. I didn’t get to see the first scan, or go to antenatal classes. I was just someone who would be handing over a certain sum of money every month.’

      ‘Would you rather Nikki had chosen not to have the baby?’ Alice asked curiously.

      ‘There was a time when I thought that would have been the best solution,’ said Will. ‘But then a funny thing happened. Nikki didn’t want me there at the birth, but she did let me see Lily a couple of days later.’

      ‘You cared enough to see her, anyway.’

      He looked out at the night. ‘I can’t honestly say I cared, not then,’ he said slowly. ‘I felt responsible, that’s all. Nikki was in London by then, and I was working in the Red Sea, but my child was being born. I couldn’t just pretend it wasn’t happening, could I?’

      Some men might have done, reflected Alice, but not Will.

      ‘So I went to visit,’ he went on, unaware of her mental interruption. ‘I guess Nikki thought that if she wanted me to pay maintenance she would have to let me see my own child, but she wasn’t exactly welcoming. Fortunately, there was a nice nurse there. I’m not sure whether she knew the situation, or just thought I was a typically nervous first-time father, but before I could say anything she picked Lily up and put her in my arms and—’

      He stopped, and in the dim light Alice could just see that his mouth was pressed into a straight line that was somehow more expressive of the feelings he was suppressing than a dramatic show of tears and emotion would have been.

      ‘…And I felt…’ he began again when he had himself under control, only to falter to a halt again. ‘I can’t really describe how I felt,’ he admitted after a moment. ‘I looked down at this tiny, perfect little thing and just stared and stared. She was so new and so strange, and yet I knew instantly—deep in my gut—that she was part of me.

      ‘I’ve never felt anything like it before,’ he said. ‘It was such a strong feeling, it was like a tight band around my chest, and I could hardly breathe with it. It was too painful to be happiness, and there was terror in there too, but it was a wonderful feeling too…I don’t know what it was.’

      Surprised at how moved she was, Alice managed a smile. ‘It sounds like love,’ she said, lightly enough, and Will turned his head to look at her for a long, intense moment.

      ‘Yes,’ he said after a moment. ‘I suppose that’s what it was. But not love the way—’

      He had so nearly said the way I loved you. Will caught himself up just in time.

      ‘It’s not the same as the love between a man and a woman,’ he finished smoothly.

      ‘Of course not,’ said Alice. ‘But it’s still love. I’ve never had a child, but I recognized the feeling you described straight away.’

      She remembered lying in bed next to Will and feeling just that mixture of terror and wonder, a feeling so intense that it was almost pain. Its power had seemed dangerous, overwhelming, uncontrollable, and in the end she had run away from it. She had been a coward, Alice knew, but at the time it had seemed the sensible thing to do.

      And now…Well, there was no point in looking back. No point in wondering what it would have been like if she had given in to that feeling instead of fighting it, if she had chosen love rather than security. She and Will might have had a child together. She would have discovered for herself how it felt to hold a child in her arms.

      She wouldn’t have been able to run away from that feeling.

      Aware that she was drifting perilously close to regret, Alice gave herself a mental shake. She had made her own choices, and she would have to live with the consequences.

      ‘I don’t think Lily knows that you love her that much,’ she said, breaking the silence.

      ‘How could she?’ said Will. ‘I’ve hardly seen her since she was a baby. Nikki had already started the divorce process before Lily was born.’

      ‘You’d think the baby would have brought you together,’ Alice commented.

      ‘I would have been prepared to give it another go for Lily’s sake, but СКАЧАТЬ