IZZY MOVED AWAY, totally befuddled—by the conversation, by her body’s traitorous reaction to Mac’s closeness, and by the ridiculous proposal.
Possibly the ridiculous proposal should have come first.
‘I’m going back,’ she said. ‘I need to run, to clear my head.’
And she set off at a brisk jog, pausing only to turn back.
‘We should check,’ she said. ‘Steve had Nikki’s DNA taken when she was a baby, wanting to be sure the sleaze bag Liane hooked up with for drugs wasn’t the father. If I get a copy to you, can you ask someone to compare them?’
Mac frowned at her.
Had he been serious when he’d said testing didn’t matter—that he was happy to accept Nikki as his child?
‘Well, could you?’ she demanded, as tiredness, confusion and being close to him combined to make standing there any longer almost impossible.
He nodded, nothing more, and she jogged away, turning back a second time.
‘You won’t say anything to anyone?’
She’d meant to sound firm, in control, but knew it had come out as a wimpy, pathetic plea.
‘As if I would,’ Mac muttered at her, and she turned back to her run, racing now, as if demons snapped at her heels.
She had to talk it through with someone, try to get her head around it all.
Hallie would be the ideal listener, and would probably offer sage advice, but to tell her about Mac’s business—well, about his part in it, if he’d had a part in it—when she’d asked him not to say anything...?
She’d sleep on it, then maybe talk to Mac again, be sensible about the test, so they could decide together how to go forward with it.
But being within a two-metre radius of Mac—forget that, being in the same postcode as him—caused so many physical reactions that battling them left little brain space for common-sense discussions.
Except she’d have to do it.
Maybe after a sleep she’d feel better, think better...
* * *
Mac walked slowly back to town, still taking in the fact he was a father, maybe, still obsessing that he should have done something earlier, kept in touch with Liane for all she’d kept reminding him that it would only ever be a holiday fling—a dalliance.
Had she used that word?
Was that where he’d picked it up?
Surely not! He’d moved on, worked, met and married Lauren, been divorced and worked some more.
Then Izzy!
He sighed and walked up to the hospital. Roger was on duty but Mac wanted to see Ahmed, and check on Rhia, and the pregnant woman they’d admitted with pre-eclampsia. For some reason seeing her safely through the rest of her pregnancy was suddenly very important.
Because he was a father?
Might be a father?
Nonsense!
Anyway, being a father was far more than the accident of conception. Being a father was a whole new world of learning.
He stopped at the bottom of the ramp leading into the hospital and turned to look out at the ocean, the revelation so strong it had stolen his breath.
It was what he wanted!
He wanted to be a father, to learn to be a father to Nikki—at least Nikki first. Somehow he and Izzy had to sort this out.
And he and Nikki?
Izzy was right, he had to compare their DNAs, to know for certain, for Nikki’s sake as much as his.
He turned back towards the hospital, the exhilaration of his revelation leaving a far more frightening question in his head.
What if Nikki didn’t want a father—or want him as a father?
Hell’s teeth, no wonder Izzy was in a muddle...
* * *
Sleep brought no answers for Izzy, if anything it made her feel more woolly-headed than ever. She made a cup of tea and stared at her much-changed roster on the door of the refrigerator. Next to it was Nikki’s monthly calendar of the school and social events.
Rehearsals seemed to figure large in after-school activities for Nikki and it took a moment for Izzy to recall they must be coming up to the school concert. This was Nikki’s first year in the high-school concert, held every second year, the primary school having a similar event in between.
But what was Nikki’s group doing? A music video? Well, an onstage performance of a music video, all the year seven students involved either singing and dancing on stage, or making and shifting props around.
Nikki was singing, but then she always did, right from her first year at school.
Could Mac sing?
The thought stopped Izzy dead.
She had to do something and do it now!
Not right now as she had to go to work, but today, or tomorrow.
But right now she could contact Steve, get him to email a copy of the DNA results. Until they knew for sure, there was no point in upsetting Nikki with all of this.
But once they knew?
‘Oh, help!’
She hadn’t realised she’d said the words aloud until Hallie walked in, a tin of freshly baked biscuits in her hands.
‘Help what?’ Hallie demanded. ‘I did knock and when you didn’t answer, I thought you’d gone to work.’
‘On my way,’ Izzy said, grabbing a couple of biscuits.
‘And the help?’ Hallie asked gently.
‘Oh, Hallie, I don’t know if anyone can help.’
And with that she departed.
Although maybe Mac and she could talk to Hallie together. Her mother had seen the best and worst that people could do to each other, and had wisdom that Izzy could never hope to acquire. And Hallie knew children, and relationships, and a lot of psychology...
Fortunately Mac wasn’t at the hospital when she arrived, having gone in the ambulance to Braxton with the pre-eclampsia patient whose blood pressure had failed to stabilise and who would probably need a Caesar.
But tomorrow Mac was off, Nikki had early rehearsals, she’d ask Hallie to have a late breakfast with her and Mac in the flat, make pancakes—
She got that far in the planning before panic set in so maybe that was a good thing. The panic usually came much earlier in her plans.
Mac returned as she finished giving out evening medications and the hospital was quietening down for the night.
‘We should have DNA results in a couple of days. I forwarded that copy you emailed me of Nikki’s along with mine—I had mine done when I joined the army—to a mate who’ll fast-track it.’
* * *
The couple of days turned into a week, a week of sleepless nights and tortured days as far as Izzy was concerned. Her mind refused to function when it came to anything personal—Nikki, her, Mac—so she changed the hospital rosters yet again, putting herself on night duty to avoid at least one of the problems as much as possible.
But eventually the results came back, positive as she’d been sure they would be, and another weekend lay before them.
‘It’s Nikki we have to think about,’ Mac said, slipping into a chair across the desk where she was writing up the night report, sliding the confirmation email across the desk towards her.
Izzy looked up at the man she’d been avoiding so assiduously, into the clear blue eyes, and felt her heart weep.
‘I know,’ she whispered. ‘And it terrifies me!’
‘Should we find someone to talk to first—a child psychologist?’ Mac suggested, and Izzy realised he was as anxious about Nikki as she was.
‘I was thinking Hallie,’ she said. ‘If anyone knows children, it’s her. And Pop of course, but he’s not one for words, but I thought if we talked to Hallie...’
Mac reached out and took her hand, squeezing her fingers gently.
‘We’ll work it out,’ he said.
She gave a little huff that was half despair, half laughter.
‘Will we?’
Mac left her to finish her shift, walking downtown to the promenade where he sat, looking out to sea, soothed by the sound of the surf.
And the answer came to him, so suddenly he was suspicious of it. He turned it this way and that, studying it from all directions, from his, Nikki’s and Izzy’s points of view and decided, yes, he was right.
Excited now, he hurried back to the hospital to catch Izzy as she came off duty.
‘Walk you home?’ he said, and whether it was the lightness of his words, or the smile that followed them, Izzy stopped dead and stared at him.
‘What is it?’ she demanded. ‘You’ve won lotto?’
He shook his head and took her hand.
‘No, far better. I’ve thought of how to do it.’
He probably shouldn’t have taken her hand as it had set all the nerves in his body atwitch, registering this was Izzy he was touching, reminding him just how attracted to her he was.
But he held tight and they walked together up the hill, bodies touching, hers bombarding his with silent messages that almost made him forget the purpose of the walk.
‘You’ve thought of how to do it?’ she finally prompted, no doubt battling her own awareness of him.
Remembering them naked together, as he’d been?
‘I’ll talk to Nikki,’ he announced, then wondered why this brilliant solution didn’t seem to have affected Izzy as much as he’d thought it would.
‘Why? What about?’
He stopped, turned to face her, and took her face between his palms so he could look into her dark eyes, run his thumb across her soft lips.
‘I’ll talk to her about Liane, about our holiday together, tell her about the Liane I knew, explain why we parted—different life paths for each of us—and how I didn’t know about the pregnancy, didn’t know I had a child, a daughter.’
He felt the smile as her cheeks moved in his hands.
‘And then?’
He dropped his hands and drew her close, slipping his arms around her to hold her loosely in front of him.
‘I haven’t quite got that far, but she’ll have stuff to say, questions, opinions. I thought we’d take a walk, maybe to the lighthouse, and you’d come, too, but be a bit apart, but she’ll need you, I know she will.’
He leaned forward and kissed her lightly on the lips.
‘What do you think?’
How could she think?
Standing here so close to Mac, his words whirling in her head while emotion whirled in her body.
Instinctively, it felt right what he’d said, or what she’d understood of what he’d said.
And outside, walking, that was good, less formal and more relaxed.
Well, Nikki might be relaxed, at least to start with, but Izzy could feel tension building in her body just thinking about the situation.
She leaned into Mac, and his arms tightened about her.
‘We’ll work it out, you’ll see,’ he said, and he sounded so convinced she almost believed him.
Almost because even fuzzy-headed, she could imagine so many scenarios that wouldn’t be right—
Or was she over-thinking?
Mac was rubbing his hands up and down her arms, warming and reassuring at once.
‘It will be a start,’ he finally said. ‘We both know this will be a huge emotional mess to dump on Nikki, but together, all three of us, I’m sure we can work through it.’
Izzy nodded, wanting nothing more than to stay there in his arms—for the moment to continue for ever.
‘Go get some sleep,’ Mac whispered. ‘We’ll talk later, maybe go out, the three of us, tomorrow afternoon.’
And maybe tomorrow wouldn’t come...
But tomorrow did come, and the rush to get Nikki off to another rehearsal with the necessary props meant there was little time for explanations, although Izzy did mention Mac had asked if they’d both like to walk up to the lighthouse with him later in the day.
‘Can Shan come?’
Izzy shook her head. She should have expected the question. Since the pair had first met in primary school, Shan had been included in most of their excursions, trips and even holidays.
‘Not today.’
Izzy hoped her tone was light enough for Nikki not to ask the inevitable why, but apparently Nikki had already put her own interpretation on the outing.
‘Is he going to ask my permission to marry you?’ Nikki teased, and Izzy chased her out the door.
But he had asked, Izzy remembered, only because of Nikki and family, though, not because he loved her.
Before the thought could settle in her heart, she got busy, doing the spring clean she’d been promising to do, decluttering and cleaning the little flat with ferocious energy.
Anything to stop her thinking about what lay ahead.
About Nikki and how she would take it, what it would mean to her, and the big one—where did they all go from there...?
Mac had arranged to meet them at three, and with no little trepidation Izzy walked with Nikki down to his house.
‘I thought we’d drive to the parking area at the bottom of the hill,’ he said, stowing a backpack into the boot of the car.
‘Is that food?’ Nikki asked, and Mac laughed.
‘Food and drink—all kinds of stuff that’s bad for you, like chips, and cake, and soft drink.’
‘So we’ll have a picnic, that’s great. We haven’t been up there for ages, have we, Mum?’
Which was when Izzy realised that her nerves were so taut she was beyond even the simplest conversation. She made a noise she hoped would be taken for agreement and climbed into the car, where Mac’s presence was nearly as overwhelming as her tension.
But once walking up through the coastal scrub towards the top of the hill, she relaxed. Mac, with his loaded backpack, was walking with Nikki, asking her about the concert, about her singing, whether she enjoyed it.
Seeing the two of them together, there was no way Izzy couldn’t ask herself about what might have been, although she knew it was time to look to the future, not dwell on the past.
But a tear for Liane slid down her cheek.
* * *
Finding a sheltered spot where they’d be out of the wind but still able to look out at the ocean, Mac spread the picnic blanket he’d purchased that morning, then brought out his goodies.
As they settled down, drinks in hand, Nikki raised her glass to him, grinned, and said, ‘Well, if we’re not here so you can ask my permission to marry Mum, why are we here?’
‘Nikki!’ Izzy protested, but Mac had to laugh. The cheeky question had broken the tension that had been building in him all day.
‘No, I’ve already asked her that and she didn’t think it a good idea, but this is a family thing, Nikki, and something that’s hard for me to tell and maybe going to be even harder for you to hear. I want to talk to you about Liane, your birth mother. You see, I knew her once, a long time ago.’
‘You knew Liane! But that’s amazing, and it’s not hard to hear at all. I’m always asking the family about her, poor woman. What chance did she have after such an appalling childhood? And even when she came to live with Hallie she was never happy—running away, getting into trouble, on and off drugs.’
‘Exactly,’ Mac said, ‘but I didn’t know about that—she never talked about it—never mentioned the past at all. We were both on holiday, I’d just finished at university and she—well, Izzy tells me Liane had been in detox and the holiday was her reward for being off the drugs.’
‘Was this in Bali?’
Mac hesitated. Somehow Nikki was leaping ahead of all his carefully prepared sentences. Had she already guessed where this was going? He looked at Izzy who was looking steadfastly out to sea—no help at all.
‘It was,’ he told Nikki, and he took her hand. ‘And it was magical! The beautiful place, the smiling people, the beaches and the surf, we had such fun. We went up into the mountains, climbing to the very top of a peak that looked out over all the island, we wandered around temples where monkeys played, and bought flowers to weave in Liane’s hair—hair like yours, that golden-brown colour.’
He paused, uncertain how this was going, Nikki’s eager face suggesting she was taking it all in.
‘Go on,’ she whispered, so he did.
‘She was special, your mother. She laughed and sang—that must be where you get it—and everywhere she went people smiled at her. She was like a beautiful bird or a brilliant butterfly, you had to look at her all the time, to watch her for the extra shine she seemed to bring to everything around her.’
He hesitated, but then added, ‘And I loved her.’
Nikki was sitting very still, Izzy apparently turned to stone, but once he’d started, he knew he had to keep going.
‘The trouble was it was a holiday—two weeks—and at the end we both knew we’d be parting. I was in the army—they’d trained me as a doctor and I’d been posted to Townsville way up in North Queensland—and she had a fabulous job waiting for her in Sydney. So we’d told ourselves all along it was just for now, and living for the moment, for the day, probably what made it so special.’
He paused, remembering that fateful moment in the hotel.
‘As it turned out, we didn’t even get two weeks!’ he said. ‘Two days before our holiday finished I had a message from home. My father was seriously ill and I had to go home. The army gave me leave but it was weeks before he was out of danger, and by then I had to get to Townsville.’
‘You didn’t keep in touch, didn’t email, text, even read each other’s social media pages?’
Mac took a deep breath.
‘We’d agreed not to, but leaving the way I did, I tried to get in contact with her, but it was as if she’d been nothing but a dream. When she didn’t return my calls or emails, I understood she’d meant what she’d said but I cannot tell you how deeply I regret not persevering. I should have contacted her, if only to make sure she’d got to Sydney safely—but we’d promised not to spoil what we’d had by trying to make it last long distance.’
He took Nikki’s other hand and waited until she looked up at him.
‘I’m sure you’ve guessed where this is going, and I know this must be terribly hard for you, but I had no idea. Liane said she had been told by doctors that she could never have children. We lived and loved and laughed because we knew our time together was so limited. If I’d known, if I’d even suspected—but I didn’t, and what happened happened, and I cannot say how sorry I am.’
The silence was so loud it hammered in Mac’s ears as he waited for a reaction.
‘So you’re my dad?’ Nikki said at last, studying his face as if she might recognise it. ‘Are you sorry about that?’
‘Good grief, no, it’s the most amazing thing that’s ever happened to me, apart from meeting Liane. Izzy worked it out kind of by accident, but we’ve checked and it’s true. I’m still getting used to it and I don’t know if I can be called a dad when you’ve gone all this time without me to do dad things with you, but I’d like to start, if that’s okay with you, and maybe if we start small and get to know each other, eventually it will seem right to both of us.’
‘You can walk me down the aisle when I get married!’
The remark was so unexpected that Mac could only gape, but Izzy burst out laughing and reached out to hug her daughter.
‘Oh, Nikki, you do bring everything back to basics.’
She pushed the long golden-brown hair off Nikki’s face and looked into her eyes.
‘I know this is all a huge thing for you to take in. It’s been pretty huge for Mac and me as well, but we’ll both be there for you, to answer questions or talk about the situation. As Mac said, he can’t become an instant father but I think he’s a good man and he’ll soon learn the job.’
‘It’s really weird,’ Nikki responded, shaking her head as if that might help all the information settle. ‘To think I’ve got a dad. Just wait till I tell Shan and the girls at school.’
And hearing that, Izzy relaxed, smiling at Mac across what was suddenly their daughter.
Silence fell between them, punctuated occasionally by a question or remark.
‘You really loved her?’ Nikki asked.
‘I really did,’ Mac said, with such conviction Izzy knew it was true.
More silence, then, ‘Does this mean we can shift into the doctor’s house with Mac? It’s a great house, I’ve always loved it.’
‘It does not,’ Izzy said firmly.
‘But you could come for sleepovers,’ Mac replied.
‘But if we moved in, then you and I would get to know each other better. You said we’d have to do that before we could love each other like a dad and daughter, and if we were living there you and Mum could grow to love each other, too, and then get married and we’d be a family.’
‘Pushing things, Nikki!’ Izzy warned, well aware of how the girl could tease, and embarrassed that Mac should be put in such a delicate position.
But she’d underestimated Mac.
‘It’s a great idea, but we needn’t rush things,’ he told Nikki. ‘And I don’t need your mother living in my house to fall in love with her because that’s already happened.’
Izzy simply stared at him, her lips moving in protest but no sound coming out, and when they did come out they made no sense.
‘You can’t—you don’t—that’s silly—’
Nikki, however, was ignoring her, her gaze riveted on Mac.
‘You’re kidding me, right? You’ve come down here, found a daughter and fallen in love with her mother—that’s fairy-tale stuff, not real life.’
Mac smiled.
‘Sounds like it, doesn’t it, but it wasn’t entirely magical. I had some rough times in the army and needed somewhere peaceful, and I remembered Liane mentioning Wetherby, just once. It was a place, she said, where nothing ever happened. That was exactly what I was looking for so, really, it was your birth mother who brought me here and that’s how I found you.’
‘Shan will never believe this!’
Izzy smiled at Mac and said, ‘It’s okay, that’s a normal reaction from a nearly thirteen-year-old. And I think the days of nothing ever happening in Wetherby are over—if you think Nikki’s excited about talking to her friends, wait until the town gossips get hold of this.’
Mac groaned, but he was smiling, and somehow the awkwardness that had stopped the conversation with his love declaration was gone.
Fortunately!
Gone but not forgotten. They lingered on the hill until the sun began to sink over the rolling hills to the west, then packed up their picnic and walked back to the car.
‘Can you drop me at the restaurant so I can tell Shan?’ Nikki asked, excitement shimmering in her voice.
Mac looked at Izzy who shrugged, and said, ‘Might as well get it over and done with,’ she told him. ‘The sooner the story starts on the rounds, the sooner it will die. But I need to go home and talk to Hallie and Pop before they hear it from someone else.’
‘I’ll come with you,’ Mac said quietly, and Izzy groaned, but inwardly.
It was the right thing to do, but what she really needed was time away from him.
Not that she believed the love thing he’d said. How could he be in love with her, he who dallied rather than loved?
But having him with her to see Hallie and Pop was a good idea so she’d think about the love business later.
* * *
The couple she considered her parents were in the kitchen, sharing a rare bottle of wine.
‘Good,’ Hallie said, ‘you can each have a glass. Pop and I don’t ever finish the bottle. It always seems like a nice idea but one glass does us.’
Izzy and Mac joined them at the kitchen table, accepted their wine from Pop, sipped and—
‘Something you want to tell us?’ Hallie asked.
‘Yes, but it’s more Nikki than us. Well, us in some ways, or more precisely Mac, but—’
‘Perhaps you should let Mac tell us,’ Pop said gently, moving his chair closer to Izzy and putting his arm around her shoulders.
So Mac did, leaving little out, explaining that they’d told Nikki, and she was already spreading the news.
‘How did she take it?’ Hallie asked, and Mac looked to Izzy to answer.
‘Okay so far, but there’ll be questions and it will take time for it all to sink in. It’s not every day you find your father.’
‘Nor every day a father finds his daughter either,’ Hallie reminded her, looking at Mac with raised eyebrows.
‘In truth, I’m lost,’ he said, ‘so many conflicting emotions churning inside me. Regret I wasn’t there for Liane, that I wasn’t there for Nikki when she was born, then worry—or more probably terror—that I might not be any good at this dad business. And now I’ve found her, what if she decides she doesn’t want me? Not immediately—there’ll be novelty value for a while, I imagine—but down the track. What if she blames me for her mother going back onto drugs? For her mother’s death?’
Hallie smiled and poured him another drink.
‘Do you think all parents don’t go through that list of doubts and many, many more, every day of their lives? You just hang in there, do your best, be yourself, be as truthful as you can, and hope it all works out.’
‘You make it sound so easy,’ he said, and Pop shook his head.
‘We all know it’s not, but worrying about what might be never got anyone anywhere. It’s like the holiday you took with Liane, take each day as it comes and get as much joy as you can from it. That’s how Hallie and I always worked. Yes, there’ll be tears and probably tantrums and you’ll do or say the wrong thing, but with love, and patience, things usually come right at the end.’
Having made a speech far longer than she could remember ever hearing from Pop, Izzy was surprised when he turned to her.
‘Are you all right with all of this, lass?’ he asked, and Izzy felt tears prick at her eyelids.
‘Just about,’ she admitted. ‘Though it will take time for all of us. I think it’s the most wonderful thing for Nikki and, really, that’s all that matters.’
‘Humph!’ Pop said. ‘That’s the way you always think, but it’s time you put yourself first, Izzy. Think of what you want and how you would like this to work for you.’
‘Pop’s right,’ Hallie put in, and Izzy held up her hands in surrender.
‘Okay, but like we’ve all been saying it’ll take time. It’s a big change in all our lives, a huge change for Nikki and Mac—so we all need time to work out where we fit.’
And suddenly the energy that expectation and concern had built in her all day drained away, leaving her in a state of total exhaustion.
‘In fact, if you’ll all excuse me, I really need to have a hot shower and a wee rest before I can even begin to think about the future.’
Mac was on his feet immediately.
‘I’ll walk you up to the flat,’ he said, but Hallie held up her hand.
‘Let her go, Mac,’ she said gently. ‘It’s been a lot for her to handle as well, and do you think she doesn’t have a list of doubts and what-ifs as long as yours?’
Mac subsided into his chair once more, and Izzy beat a hasty retreat.
Her mind was blank—overloaded, she knew—and much as she’d have liked to have Mac’s arms around her, she was so emotional she knew where it would lead.
Which was another complication she’d think about later, along with that strange declaration.
How could he love her when he didn’t do love?