can trust me, Grace. I’ll look after your interests. You’ll be better occupied at the craft centre.’
‘But…’
‘As soon as I’m done, I’ll join you. Once we know what we’re faced with, we can talk it through. Make decisions.’
It made sense, she supposed. Then, as another thought struck her, ‘Will you tell him? About Posie? About…’ She swallowed. There was something so intimate about the fact that they’d created a baby together—even though they had been at opposite ends of the earth when it had happened—that she couldn’t quite bring herself to say the words. Couldn’t bring herself to say us.
‘About our involvement in Posie’s conception?’ he filled in for her.
Involvement.
Good word. If you wanted to eradicate any suggestion of intimacy. And why not? There had only been one night of us and while for her it had been the only night, he had been the only one, she had no illusions that he’d spent the last ten years dreaming of her. That dream had been shattered the day he’d turned up with a beautiful young woman and announced they’d stopped over in Bali on their way to England and got married.
‘That would be the involvement you just announced to a street full of people?’
Her hand flew to her mouth. ‘I didn’t!’
‘I’m paraphrasing, but “… there’s a baby that you and I made…” just about covers it.’
She groaned.
‘Relax. Most people just wanted to get away from the mad woman as fast as they could.’
‘You’re just saying that to make me feel better.’
‘No. I swear. At least three people crossed the street.’
‘Only three?’ She shook her head, but she was smiling.
‘That’s better. And, to answer your question, I don’t think there’s anything to be gained by telling him about us and robbing Phoebe and Michael of something they’d longed for with such a passion. It’s nobody’s business but ours, Grace.’
Ours. Us.
Josh savoured the words, drinking them in like a man who’d been wandering in the desert.
He’d locked himself out of Grace’s life a long time ago. He hadn’t fully understood why she’d been trapped like a fledgling, too scared to fly the nest that Phoebe and Michael had made for her. He’d accepted that it was somehow mixed up with her childhood, but he’d never pushed her to explain. Maybe he hadn’t wanted to, preferring to tell himself that it was for the best, that she’d have slowed him down, instead of being honest with himself. Facing his own demons.
But those two tiny words—ours, us—like the infant who’d dropped off to sleep in the buggy, joined them in a unique alliance that set them apart from the rest of the world. They were a family.
He was a father and that was a responsibility he couldn’t run away from.
They reached the corner where their ways divided but, instead of parting, they stood, her hand linking them together, and for a moment it seemed that she was as reluctant as him to break the connection.
He was on the point of suggesting that perhaps, after all, she should go with him to talk to Michael’s lawyer, when she finally took her arm from his and said, ‘I’d better let you go.’
He caught her hand. ‘We’re in this together, Grace.’
‘Are we?’
‘I’ll do whatever it takes to protect Phoebe and Michael. I owe them that.’
‘And Posie?’
‘I’ll protect her with my life.’
As he would Grace. He couldn’t begin to guess how hard this was going to be for her. Desperate with worry about the future of a child who she had never, whether she’d admit it or not, truly given up, when she should be left in peace to grieve for her sister.
‘This is all my fault,’ she said. ‘If I hadn’t—’
‘Don’t!’ He’d done everything he could to prevent her from having this baby, prevent himself from becoming a father, but he couldn’t bear to hear her put what he’d wished into words. Not now he’d held Posie, seen her smile. ‘Please, don’t do that to yourself.’
Or to him.
She lifted her stricken face.
‘But it’s true. I wanted them to go away for the weekend, planned it, gave it to them as my treat because I wanted to have Posie to myself. Just for the weekend. Only for the weekend…’
Oh, dear God. It wasn’t colluding with Phoebe that was tormenting her. She was blaming herself for the accident.
‘No,’ he said. And, when she would have argued, he said it again. ‘No. It’s always like this when someone dies,’ he said. ‘The guilt kicks in. You can only think of the things you did wrong. Or didn’t do at all,’ he added, thinking of his own miserable, selfish response to something that had made his brother so happy. ‘They can overwhelm you, take on an importance completely out of proportion to their true meaning.’
She shook her head.
‘You have to remember the good things. Remember how happy you made them both.’ He squeezed her arm reassuringly, then touched the sleeping baby’s head. ‘I’ll see you both later,’ he said, taking a step back, saving the picture of the two of them in his mind before tearing himself away.
Grace unlocked the door to her workshop, kicking aside the mail so that she could get the buggy in, turning on the lights.
She’d expanded from her original tiny workroom, moving into this wonderful airy space when it had become vacant a couple of years ago.
She’d kept the walls and furnishings a stark black and white to accentuate the vivid colours of her jewellery. At one end there was a secure walk-in storage space for the basic tools of her trade and a tiny office. There was her working area, with her drawing board and the workbench where she put together her designs.
The centre of the room offered a display area for photographs of some of the special pieces she’d made, as well as the dramatic spiral stands that Toby had designed and made to display examples of her work.
There was a comfortable seating area for clients who came to discuss special commissions and at the far end was another long workbench where she worked with the students who took her classes.
She didn’t waste time going through the mail, but put it to one side to take home with her. Instead, she made the most of the fact that Posie was asleep to download and pack up the Internet orders for beads, findings, the jewellery kits that kept the cash flow ticking over.
After that she called Abby, a stay-at-home mum who’d taken one of her classes and proved to be one of her most talented students. She was happy to come in for a few hours a day for the next
