Lucy Gordon - The Pregnancy Bond

‘Because I don’t have your number. You’re not down as his next of kin. Nobody is. He went back to wherever he calls home, and that night one of his neighbours heard him groaning and called an ambulance. It wasn’t very bad, and he’s OK now. But if he’s that determined to get out of here, he may do it again.’

‘But surely he still needs nursing?’

‘Yes, but not intensive nursing. Just rest and feeding, with a nurse calling in every day to see to the medical side. If he had anyone living with him I’d send him home to them like a shot, but he hasn’t. And he has no family, as you told me. Oddly, for such a popular man, he’s very much alone.’

Jake was back in bed, looking as though his escape and return to captivity had exhausted him. Kelly didn’t speak at first, but went and sat beside him, his hand in hers.

After a while he said, ‘I’ve been an idiot.’

‘No change there, then,’ she said, trying to keep her voice steady. The sight of him looking pale and defeated made her heart ache. ‘Whatever possessed you to do such a daft thing?’

He shrugged. ‘I was going stir crazy. You know me better than anyone. Can you imagine me settling in here? I know you want to see the back of me, and I don’t blame you. It’s just that all that brother and sister stuff the doc was handing out sounded pretty good for a while. But you were right to say no. If it doesn’t work for you, it doesn’t work.’

She could feel herself teetering on the edge of giving in, and made a last desperate attempt to fend off disaster. ‘Olympia’s really the right person to be looking after you, Jake.’

‘She’s out networking from dawn to dusk. Besides, I haven’t got enough energy for Olympia just now.’

‘Well, I don’t suppose she’ll be expecting you to- I mean, for a while-’

‘Oddly enough, I didn’t mean that. I meant the whole romantic thing. It makes me feel tired just to think of it.’

‘Jake Lindley, whose appearance on the box is enough to make strong women swoon?’ she teased.

‘Yeah, right,’ he agreed without enthusiasm.

‘Oh Jake,’ she sighed, ‘what am I going to do?’

‘Whatever you want. It’s your call.’

She gave a snort of indignation. ‘Oh, please! You must think I have a short memory. That was what you always said when you’d just tricked me into giving you your own way.’

‘No change there, then,’ he said, echoing her.

‘But it doesn’t work any more. Besides, you saw my spare room. It isn’t even furnished.’

‘I’ve thought of that.’ He reached into his bedside cabinet and pulled out a slip of paper, which he put into her hand. ‘This should cover furniture and paying workmen to install everything for you. You mustn’t try to do any of it yourself.’

The amount of the cheque shocked her. ‘But this is far more than it’ll take to-’

‘Put it to the first month’s rent, then.’ He made a sudden grimace, as if in pain. ‘Let me do something for you, Kelly. Let me give as well as take.’ When she was still silent he said huskily, ‘Please.’

It wasn’t Jake’s way to say please. Whatever he wanted he charmed people into offering. She told herself it was a trick to fool her. But, looking into his eyes, she saw an anxiety that she’d never seen before, and heard again Dr Ainsley saying, ‘For such a popular man, he’s very much alone.’

‘All right,’ she said slowly. ‘Just until you get back on your feet.’

‘You mean, get back on my feet without falling straight off them?’ he quipped.

‘Until you’re better, you can be my lodger.’

‘No, I’ll be your brother. Now, let’s be practical. Have you given in your notice at that café?’

‘No, but-’

He lifted the phone. ‘Do it now.’

It took precisely five minutes to free her from the café, partly because the boss was glad to be rid of her. She was a good employee, but his niece needed a job. He let this fact slip, making Kelly wonder just how long she would have been employed there anyway. It was almost enough to make a person believe in fate.

But she couldn’t see Jake as fate. Jake was Henry VIII.

On second thoughts, forget Henry VIII. He was the devil. But the devil with charm.

IT WAS another week before Jake had recovered from his escape sufficiently to be allowed out of the hospital. In that time Kelly had his room furnished and redecorated by experts. It made quite a hole in the cheque, but still left her enough to ease her money concerns. When she tried to thank him he changed the subject.

‘All right, let’s be practical,’ she said. ‘You’ll need some more clothes. If you’ll give me your key I’ll collect some for you.’

‘Thanks, but there’s no need,’ he said quickly.

‘I don’t mind.’ After their separation they had both vacated their old home, and secretly she was curious to see Jake’s new apartment. ‘Give me the key.’

‘You don’t have to bother,’ he said stiffly. ‘I’ve arranged all that.’

She suddenly felt very foolish. Of course Olympia would have done it for him. She probably had the key anyway. How could she have forgotten the real situation?

She made an excuse to leave, and bid him a bright, edgy goodbye.

The evening before he was due she concentrated hard on the chapter of a book she’d been set to read, knowing that her time would be much taken up next day. When her doorbell rang she didn’t hear it the first time. At last she answered it and found Olympia standing outside. As always she looked glorious, her mane of blonde hair tousled to perfection. Her gracious smile widened when she saw Kelly, and she enveloped her in a scented embrace that almost made her gag.

‘Kelly, dear, you don’t mind my dropping in, do you?’

‘Not at all,’ Kelly lied.

‘I was so glad to hear that you’d been helping Jake. It’s so wonderful the way all his old friends have remembered him. I suppose we should call you an old friend now, shouldn’t we?’

‘Not as old as some,’ Kelly observed with a touch of pardonable malice. Olympia had a good five years over her.

She would have liked to throw this smiling woman out, but somehow Olympia was inside the apartment, looking it over as though she owned it, and throwing open the door to the room that was to be Jake’s.

‘Very nice,’ she said in a neutral voice. ‘Although I must say I’m a little surprised-well, no matter.’

‘You mean you’re surprised that Jake wanted to stay with me?’ Kelly asked coolly.

‘If you like to put it that way. I don’t think anything about the present position is exactly what Jake would have chosen, but let’s not split hairs. We know how he hates to hurt people’s feelings.’

‘He does if he thinks about it,’ Kelly observed with gentle irony. ‘Jake’s kind-hearted and he means well, but mostly people’s feelings are things he stubs his toe on, and says sorry without really understanding what the fuss was about. You’ll find that out eventually.’

Olympia gave a tolerant smile. ‘Perhaps he’s like that with some people, but I-well, you don’t want to hear about that.’

‘No, I don’t,’ Kelly retorted with spirit. ‘Because if you’re saying what I think you are, I wouldn’t believe it. You have to take him as he is. He doesn’t change.’

Olympia gave the hint of a simper. ‘But a man does change-when he’s in love.’

‘Oh, cut it out, Olympia,’ Kelly said, exasperated. ‘You’re not playing to camera now.’ She spoke sharply to cover the little pain this glamorous woman’s words gave her.

Olympia descended from her pedestal. ‘Then, in plain words, it’s no use clinging to the past. I’m sorry, Kelly, dear. But the truth is the truth, even when it hurts.’

‘You seem to forget that I divorced him,’ Kelly said crisply.

‘But of course. Nothing else would have been dignified after he’d shown so clearly that he loved someone else.’

‘Which you denied.’

‘Certainly I denied it. Neither Jake nor I wanted my name bandied about. But the truth is the truth, whatever clever fictions he invented to protect me. Let him go, Kelly. We both know your marriage ended because he wanted to move on.’

Kelly drew a sharp breath. Out of the turmoil of bitter emotion only one thought was clear. Thank goodness she hadn’t told Jake her baby was his.

‘You won’t mind if I come to see him?’ Olympia continued sweetly. ‘Or, once you’ve got him here-’ her voice became teasingly theatrical ‘-are you going to bar the door and patrol the perimeter fence with dogs?’

‘The only dog in the building is my neighbour’s poodle, and he’s fifteen and spends most of his time asleep,’ Kelly said, refusing to be provoked. ‘Come any time you like, stay as long as you like, just try not to disturb me when I’m working.’

‘Ah, yes, you’ve gone back to school,’ Olympia said, wisely not rising to the bait.

‘College,’ Kelly said. ‘I’m taking a degree.’

‘Jake told me all about it. There are so many varied courses on offer these days, aren’t there? You can even get a degree in soap operas, I believe.’

‘I wouldn’t know. I’m studying archaeology, and just now I’m reading a particularly interesting book on ancient burial practices. There was this king who used to dispose of his surplus concubines by drugging their wine. They passed out, and when they awoke they were swathed in burial bandages and lying in a sarcophagus in a chamber deep underground. Apparently their cries used to echo for a week before they finally died into silence. I think it was a very ingenious way of getting rid of people. Can I offer you a glass of wine?’

Olympia declined, made her excuses and left.

Carl had agreed that she could skip his final lecture the following afternoon, to be at home for Jake’s arrival.

‘I’ll give you the notes, and we’ll have lunch in a day or so to chat about them,’ he said easily. But then his face became concerned. ‘Kelly, are you sure you’re up to looking after a sick man in your condition?’

‘Does the whole world know?’ she demanded, aghast. ‘I haven’t told anyone.’

‘The others won’t have noticed, but I have a sixth sense. Actually a seventh sense. I’m the third of seven children. All through my childhood my mother was having babies, and by the time I was seventeen my two elder sisters had married and gone into production. By then I was an experienced baby-sitter so they hired me. That’s how I earned money to take out girls.’

‘Too many girls, according to Marianne,’ Kelly said, smiling.

He grinned. ‘All those babies have marked me for life. I love them, and I’m great with them, if I say it myself. So-’ he took her hand and spoke solemnly ‘-if there’s anything you want to know, my dear, just call on Uncle Carl. Seriously-’ he reverted to normal ‘-if you need time off, trust me to understand.’

‘Thanks, but this time off is to see Jake settled. I’m hoping not to take any for myself. I’m not going to let this pregnancy make any difference to my normal life. Now what?’

Carl had let out a hoot of laughter. ‘Not make any difference? Oh, boy, have you got a lot to learn! Get out of here, and take as long as you need.’

On the day of Jake’s arrival Kelly was home by mid-afternoon, a little breathless from climbing stairs as the building’s lift was under repair. The phone rang as soon as she entered. It was Dr Ainsley.

‘The ambulance has just left,’ he said, ‘so Jake will be with you any minute.’

‘Actually, I’m a bit worried. The lift’s broken down and I’m three floors up.’

‘No sweat. The paramedics will bring him up in a wheelchair. I just called to warn you about what could be lying in wait. It wouldn’t surprise me if he went into a deep depression quite soon.’

‘But I thought that had already happened.’

‘Kelly, I have to tell you-you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. The way he’s been isn’t so much depression as shock, and the fact that he’s miserable in the hospital. Being in home surroundings will do him a world of good. He’ll perk up, and you’ll think everything’s fine. So will he. That’s the moment of danger. If I’ve judged him right it’ll hit without warning, and he’ll need you as never before.’

‘As never before is right,’ she said wryly. ‘He never really has needed me, or anyone. And you’re wrong about Jake. He’s a very strong-minded person.’

‘They’re the worst,’ Dr Ainsley told her, and hung up.

She had a cup of tea and tried to think logically. In a few minutes she would be sharing a home with Jake, while carrying his child. To all appearances their divorce had never happened.

That was what she had to fight, and she must do it by keeping her thoughts clear. She was not a wife, but a divorcée, a free woman, answerable to no man. The baby was off limits, and she was no longer in love with Jake. The slightly heightened heartbeat that she could sense was apprehension about what lay ahead.