ANNABEL PARKED HER car outside Abe’s house and looked out of the window, a deep sigh leaving her as she steeled herself for this momentous event.
‘What’s wrong, Mummy?’ Aidan, sitting in the back seat with a pair of headphones half hanging off his ears, took off his seatbelt and wrapped his little arm around her shoulder. She could hear his favourite anime cartoons playing through the ear buds attached to his tablet. She turned and gave him her best ‘everything’s okay’ smile.
‘Nothing, kiddo, just a long day. You know I can’t stay tonight, right? I have a guy coming to the house to look at the back garden.’ She wanted to get it overhauled. It had been a lovely garden once, but it had got too much for the previous owner. Annabel had big plans. A patio so her station family could come for barbecues while the kids played on the play equipment she knew Aidan would love. She wanted a little vegetable patch so she and Aidan could grow their own food, something to do together. Her mother had always wanted one, and the balcony of their old flat had always had something growing, every bit of space used cleverly for home-grown fruit and vegetables. Doing it together, like she used to do with her own mum, would be family time well spent.
Aidan was so proud of his mum for the job she did; he was a great kid. Their quality time meant a lot, and having a garden was a huge plus to the house. The landscape gardener had been kind enough to meet her after work, though the timing could have been better. Leaving Aidan with Abe and Harry was so weird; she couldn’t get her head around it. After the call today though, with Diane and baby Izzy, she figured Aidan knowing Harry might be a good thing after all.
‘Listen, Granddad has someone living with him at the moment. Remember the photos of his son that you see around the house?’
Aidan nodded at her slowly, his eyes wide. ‘He came home from far away? Really?’
‘He did, so he’s going to be there tonight. That okay?’ She brushed his fringe away from his little face, the freckles across his nose matching her own. ‘He’s nice, and he works with me now, so you might be seeing him around for a bit.’
‘Because Uncle Tom is getting me some cousins?’
Aidan had always loved being around people. He’d asked for a baby brother or sister for the last three Christmases. She was hoping that once the house was done she could get him a pet, stop the awkward questions. Tom and Lloyd having babies around would be great too, and she was looking forward to babysitting for them. She’d loved being a mum to Aidan right from the start, even though it was hard and lonely at times.
She felt the old feelings of resentment towards Harry creep into her thoughts, and she pushed them away. The last thing she wanted was for Aidan to pick up on any tension, and she found that the anger wasn’t as strong as before. It helped that he’d told her he had only been on a couple of dates, but was that true? She had always wondered whether he had met someone over there. It had been a long time, and he was a hot single man. She could see what a catch he would have been over there, single and available. Was it really just a few dates?
‘That’s right, so Harry has come to work with me now, in Tom’s job.’
Aidan gave her a little side look. ‘Is he your best friend? Where has he been? What does he look like? Does he have a girlfriend? Is he staying forever?’
Annabel laughed, getting out of the car and opening Aidan’s door. ‘Wow, what’s with all the questions today? Let’s get you inside, I’m going to be late at this rate. I won’t be too long, and I’m on a day off soon. We can do something. Cinema, maybe?’
Aidan nodded distractedly, already running through the flowerbeds to Abe’s front door.
‘Hey, wait up!’
The door opened just as he reached it, and Aidan crashed straight into Harry’s legs.
‘Hey, hello!’ Harry caught him and righted him on his feet. ‘You must be Aidan. I’m Harry.’
Annabel saw the shake in Harry’s hand as he held it out to her son. Their son. Aidan stood frozen for a long minute before putting his hand into Harry’s. Annabel felt as if she was going to pass out, but she held it together. Aidan turned and beamed at her. She tried not to catch Harry’s eye, but they met anyway. She had half expected to see anger there, or fear, but all she saw was his happiness. He mouthed ‘Thank you’ to her, but she didn’t respond. She felt as though she was rooted to the spot.
‘Aidan, be good, okay? I’ll be back soon.’
‘Bye, Mum. Granddad, I’m here!’ He was off indoors, leaving the pair of them standing at opposite ends of the path.
‘Thanks for bringing him. Do you want some supper saving? I think we went a little overboard on the food.’
She opened her mouth to say no, but stopped herself. She needed to get on with him. She needed to squash down her feelings from the past, all of them. Good and bad.
‘You know what, that would actually be great. I haven’t eaten since lunch. I won’t be more than a couple of hours.’
Harry nodded, his lopsided grin making him look like the boy she’d once known. ‘Great. See you soon.’ She was about to open her car door when he called out to her, ‘Annie?’
She turned, leaning against her car door to face him. In the faded daylight, he was framed by the light coming from inside the house. She squashed down the feelings of attraction that stirred within her.
Why does he have to be so darned cute? I’m pretty sure that there should be some kind of rule for this kind of thing. Once someone stomps on your heart, they should suddenly lose all charm for the person who was left. He had to come back all put together and hot. Why can’t he be fat, or balding? An extra chin or two wouldn’t go amiss.
‘Will you meet me tomorrow? We’re both off shift.’
The fact that he now knew her timetable should have irked her, but they were working partners now, needing to be on the same shifts while his probationary period was ongoing. Annabel was torn over it. Did she want him to stay after? Would he want to stay after? It was exhausting trying to work out how she felt, to guess what the future might hold. So she did what she did best. She protected her heart.
‘I have a bit of a full day, Harry; you know what time off is like. I have a ton of stuff to do—’
‘At the dream house?’ He said it softly. Not an accusation, a soft question. Annabel felt her whole body deflate. She leaned against her car for a moment, steadying herself.
‘I don’t want to fight, Harry.’
‘You said you would listen to me. I just want to talk.’
He was heading down the path towards her before she could react, pulling the door shut behind him. He stopped right in front of her. The proximity of him made her heart flutter in her chest. She could just reach out and touch him, right now. Her hands tingled with the urge to touch her fingers to his chest. She used to love to run her fingers through his hair before pulling his mouth down to hers. She crossed her arms for lack of anything else to do with them. In the same moment, he shifted from one foot to the other and pushed his hands into his back pockets.
Was he feeling it too? It felt like a lot more than muscle memory.
She ached to bridge the gap between them, but it wasn’t her who had put it there in the first place.
‘I don’t want to fight either. You asked me to come home, remember?’
‘Six months ago, when I was tipsy and upset! Where were you then? Breaking some other girl’s heart?’
Wow, where did that come from? Aidan’s girlfriend question had obviously stuck in her mind.
‘What? No! I had a contract, I told you. I worked my notice and left the same day. I came back. We’ve been over this. I told you the truth. I didn’t want to do this over the phone. Why are you mad again?’ He ran his hand through his hair, pulling at it a little in frustration. ‘We need to talk about it all, about why I left.’
Annabel almost relented right there and then. He was offering to tell her why he’d left her that day, to raise his secret son alone and pick up the pieces of her life. She knew he hadn’t known about the baby—hell, she was a trained paramedic and she hadn’t even realised she was pregnant herself. She’d lain awake for so many nights, gazing down at her ever-expanding belly and wondering what Harry would have done if he’d known back then. If she’d called him on any of those nights.
The fact was, though, it was in the past. Some things you couldn’t just take back. She was glad he knew now. The knot in the pit of her stomach had almost fossilised over the last eight years, and now the secret was out she felt lighter. Stronger too. She wasn’t quite that panicked, worried mother she’d been six months ago. It had been a moment of weakness and, no matter what he said, she had spent all of Aidan’s life believing Harry to be an utter cad. Nothing he told her would change that, and it was yet another reason to keep him at arm’s length. She didn’t want to betray that girl at the airport, the sacrifices they had all had to make since. It was painful enough to remember those early days. She had blocked a lot of them out. She would never have survived otherwise. It had just been the three of them for so long. Her, Abe and Aidan. While Harry had lived it up on the other side of the world as a ghost to those who loved him, a breaker of hearts.
‘Tell me something first,’ she said quietly. He leaned in a little, and she found herself leaning further away from him, pushing herself against her car. He made her head swim even now, but she needed to get this out.
‘Anything,’ he breathed. She clenched her teeth and looked him square in the eye.
‘I did want to listen to what you have to say. I do. But answer this one thing for me. Whatever you have to tell me, will it erase what you did that day? Leaving me standing there like an idiot with my suitcases, and walking away from me? Making everyone we know wonder what they had done wrong.’
He reeled as though her words had slapped him across his chiselled features. ‘Well, no, but if you j—’
‘Then I don’t need to know. Aidan is your son, you wanted to meet him—well, here he is.’ She gestured with her hand towards the house, and spotted Abe watching them from behind the curtain. When he saw her looking he melted away and the curtains were pulled shut. ‘Go meet him. He’s a great kid. He will probably have a million questions for you. He’s always wanted to go and see other countries. With one thing and another, we’ve not had a lot of time for holidays.’ He winced, and she pushed down her sarcasm once more. ‘I’m sorry, I really have to go.’
‘To the dream house, yeah? You never answered me before.’
Great. Was everything about her life on show now, for him to comment on? She could tell he wasn’t about to let this drop.
‘Yes, the dream house. It’s part of a different dream now, though. One for me and Aidan. I’ll see you at work, okay?’
She left him standing by the kerb, hands on his hips. As she drove away, she willed herself not to look back at him in the mirror, but she found herself watching him as she drove away. When he was out of sight she brushed a tear away from her cheek and willed herself to pull it together. The way he’d looked at her was killing her.
Not for the first time, she found herself wondering if he would stay. What would London have to offer over Dubai for a man like him? Abe wasn’t sick; he was still as fit as a fiddle and as sharp as a drawer full of knives. He’d not come back through obligation.
He said he’d come back because of her, but whenever she thought about thawing enough to speak to him properly, to hash out the last few years, Aidan’s little face popped into her head. The way she’d felt in that airport. The years of people asking her about her son’s father. All the times she had covered for him, making herself look worse in order for the people in their lives not to hate Harry, to tell him about his son. Any one of them could have got in touch with Harry to tell him about Aidan, to berate him for leaving them both. She had never wanted that, nor had she wanted to be a charity case either. She knew him well enough to know that he would have come home to do the right thing. The right thing by her, the woman he said he loved—but not enough to treat her better in the first place.
She’d chosen her path, and even though Aidan had had tears over the years about not having a dad like most of his school friends, they’d done just fine. She wasn’t about to change that. Not on the strength of a few days, or because she knew how nostalgic she felt when Harry was around her. The thought of Aidan getting to know his father and then getting an airport goodbye like she did was enough to keep her driving away from him, and not driving back into his arms. What if he had run back home to hide from another woman he had left, back in Dubai? Could she trust him, really?
She had felt her resolve weakening when he was there right in front of her, but their compatibility had never been the problem. Him leaving her high and dry was the issue, and she just knew that she would never survive that again. When he told her the reason he’d left, and she knew he would, it would either make her hate him forever or make it that bit harder not to fall completely back in love with him. Given his eagerness to tell her and the way he’d looked at her, she was guessing it would be the latter. She needed a minute to prepare at least. She wasn’t a young girl any more. She had other people to consider.
By the time she pulled up outside her house, giving a wave to the waiting gardener, all her tears had been shed and she had composed herself once more. Yet another piece of gauze wrapped around her shattered heart.
* * *
She wanted to know.
As Harry watched the love of his life drive away he thought his heart would snap in two. She still didn’t fully trust him, and that thought was one that he could barely bear. Slapping his hand to his forehead the second her car turned out of sight, he kept his back to the house and willed himself to pull it together. He ran his hands down his face, surprised when they came away wet with his tears. He felt lower than a snake’s belly and, after the day he’d left her, he didn’t think it was possible to feel any worse. The light had gone out of his Annie, and he was the reason.
Pulling himself together, he turned back to the house. It was time to get to know his son and prove to his mother that he was still the man she’d once adored. He knew it would be a battle, but Harrison Carter was ready to stand and fight with everything he had.
‘Hey,’ he called when he walked back into the house. Aidan was playing a board game with Abe, rolling the dice as if his little life depended on it. Abe looked at him expectantly, and Harry shook his head. Abe scowled, his shoulders sagging.
‘Stubborn,’ he said to no one in particular. Harry’s mouth twitched.
‘Mum says I’m stubborn too.’ Aidan was looking straight at Harry now, and Abe stood up from his seat.
‘I’ll put the kettle on. I bought extra marshmallows for the hot chocolate too.’
‘Did she now?’ Harry went to sit on the couch next to his son, taking the opportunity to continue the conversation.
‘Yep. Are you really stubborn too?’
Grinning, Harry nodded, taking in every little detail of the child in front of him. ‘I’ve been told that before, so yes, I’m stubborn.’
Aidan grinned. ‘I knew it. Want to play?’
He offered Harry the dice, and he took them gratefully. ‘There’s nothing I’d like better.’