didn’t take all that much,’ she said, ‘but, yes, I think that would be best.’
‘And Chelsea? Has she planned anything beyond escaping to Maytown for the period of her pregnancy?’
Ellie shrugged.
‘We barely talked, and right now she’s confused, and lost, and really needs to know she’s safe and loved and cared for. I do wonder about Jill going off like that when Chelsea is still so young. Do you think because her husband is always off somewhere, she felt it was her turn?’
Andy grinned at her.
‘Who knows what goes on in other people’s relationships?’ he said, and she responded with a small smile, turning her fingers so she could squeeze his hand.
‘Too true. Look at ours!’ she said with a smile.
The smile and something in her tone of voice suggested there was more hope than defeat in the words but before he could pursue it, Ellie was talking again.
‘Well, all we can do is be there for her. I can only help her with her pregnancy at the moment, and perhaps you and I can both talk with her about the future. About the baby, maybe—’
‘No!’
The word seemed to echo around the park, far too loud, far too strong, far too emotionally charged...
Andy breathed deeply, counted to ten then another five, and regained a semblance of control over the dark fear that had seized him.
‘I know she’s family and I’m happy to take her in, but just what is going to happen to the baby when it arrives? Will you want to keep it, too? Is this your way of getting back at me for refusing more IVF? How long before you start thinking of it as your baby?’
Obviously, the counting hadn’t helped because he was shouting now. Ellie’s face looked white and strained in the gloom.
The silence that fell between them was somehow louder than his words, broken only when Ellie stood up and said quietly, ‘I was only thinking we might help her. Yes, take her in, she’s family. It’s up to her to decide about the baby but while she’s with us we might both be able to help her find a path ahead—at least begin to plan for her future.’
She stepped backwards away from the bench she’d been sitting on, and turned away, pausing only to say, ‘And it was our baby I wanted, Andy, not someone else’s.’
HOW HAD THEY gone from hand-holding to being back at war? From what had felt almost like old times to cold apartness?
Andy caught up with her as she stormed away, his long strides easily covering the ground he’d lost.
But getting past his careless words wouldn’t be as easy. There’d been no mistaking the raw pain in her voice, even months after they’d lost their baby.
‘I’m sorry,’ he began, wondering why the words sounded less meaningful than they would have if his arms had been around her, holding her as he whispered them into her ear.
But he did touch her shoulder, draw her closer, so he could look into her eyes.
‘Of course we’ll help Chelsea decide what she wants to do.’ He ploughed on, realising this wasn’t such a great idea as Ellie’s lips were right there in front of him, and so damn kissable.
He needed to take a deep breath and walk on.
He needed to walk and talk, not stop and kiss...
‘I imagine she’ll be at school during the day, and hopefully she can make some friends before the end of term.’
But Ellie, he realised, was no longer by his side. This time she’d stopped several paces back and was muttering to herself.
‘You okay?’ he asked.
‘Yes!’ Ellie caught up with him. ‘I just hadn’t thought about school. Chelsea’s only sixteen so of course she should still be at school.’
She hesitated again.
‘Although maybe sixteen is an acceptable age to leave school—I’ll have to find out. And will going to school, being pregnant in a place full of strangers, be frightening for her?’
Andy imagined a pregnant Chelsea having to brave it up in front of a room full of teenage strangers. Guilt at his earlier reaction ate into him. Wasn’t their profession meant to be a caring one?
Then he smiled as the answer came to him.
‘Well, if she’s with us for the weekend, she can join in the soccer barbecue. Most of the team are at the high school. They’re all good kids, they’ll look after her.’
‘Oh, Andy! That’s a wonderful idea,’ the woman he loved replied, with such enthusiasm that she threw her arms around him and gave him a hug.
It was just a quick hug, and maybe it was the shock of it that stopped him returning it, or the thought of it turning it into something longer, more intimate. There was that kiss idea again...
The mere thought of kissing Ellie made his head spin.
But it was not to be. Although it did seem to Andy that maybe they could make their way back to being friends—something that had seemed impossible when the emotion-driven arguments had sent her off to sleep downstairs two long months ago.
Back then, he hadn’t realised just how broken things had become between them, possibly because his mother had often sought refuge from her loud and boisterous family by escaping to the downstairs flat. Even when they had both been upstairs, his parents, in his memory, had never shared a bedroom, his mother being a light sleeper and his father often being called out in the middle of the night.
After a while he’d accepted it was easier this way—easier to have Ellie in a separate space even if he lay awake at night wondering if she, too, was awake.
Wondering if she, too, was thinking of their first night together, of their wedding night...
Sharing a bed and not sharing love, that would have been impossible...
‘You’re really okay about having Chelsea to stay?’ Ellie asked, linking her arm through Andy’s as they walked through their gate, down the path, and stopped at the bottom of the steps that led up to the veranda.
‘Of course I am. Though we should do something about one of the girls’ rooms to make it comfortable for her.’
‘Or let her do it up how she wants it. It will give her something to do over the holidays and I think she’d probably enjoy it.’
‘You’re a good woman, Ellie Fraser,’ Andy said, his voice curling into her ears, the deep tone finding its way into her heart.
‘You’re
