Beauty and the Wolf / Their Miracle Twins (37 page)

Flynn tucked her phone into his pocket with one hand and pulled her close with the other, planting a gentle kiss on her lips, lingering, enjoying. Reading her silent thought as clearly as if she’d spoken—which, given her history, was a distinct possibility. As always, his touch caused a riot amongst the tiny hairs along her arms, and they prickled to attention.

And as always she stood grinning like an idiot when he stepped away and slid into the crowded back seat of his father’s old extra-cab utility, loaded up with ecoshopping bags and every mobile phone in the place.

All three women hurried back into the warmth of the house after losing sight of the men-folk around the Reach’s long drive.

‘Tea, Bel?’

‘I’m English, aren’t I?’ she quipped, inexplicably out of sorts. Maybe her disrupted sleep was finally getting to her. Or Flynn was. Whatever, she didn’t feel quite right.

Please don’t let it be because Flynn’s not here. Please don’t let me have become that bad …

Alice lit the stove and filled the kettle with fresh rainwater from the tank. ‘The last Brit we had here didn’t drink tea at all. Only coffee. Short black. Was most disconcerting, culturally.’

Bel froze.

Gwen.
They were talking about Gwen. After how many months? She’d truly believed they would never, ever speak of her sister and now that they had she wished they’d stop. But the opportunity to find out, first-hand, what they’d so objected to about her flesh and blood was too good to walk away from.

‘Was she one of your chalet customers?’ she asked casually, her voice unnaturally tight, even to her own ears.

Alice laughed. ‘Far from it, love. She was our daughter-in-law.’

Daughter. In law. Just like Bel was. Unless it was possible to be a daughter-against-the-law? Because what she was didn’t really count.

She knew Alice and Denise would expect her surprise so she did her best to fake it. ‘Flynn’s brother was married to an English girl?’ It was more croak than voice. How could some lies seem so much worse than others? Was it too late to back out of the discussion?

‘She was such an elegant thing. Very European. So different to everyone on the Tablelands.’

Not if you’d seen her lounging around the house in training pants and socks, shovelling pizza into her mouth. In her comfort zone. She was just a normal Chelsea girl then.

‘Was?’ Bel risked.

Alice’s eyes grew hooded. Denise averted hers entirely. ‘She died in the same accident as our Andrew.’

Pain surprised her, sharp and low. Even though she knew how this story ended. Her body reacted with a shaft of biting misery hard across her mid-section. ‘Oh. I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be sorry for us. It’s not like we lost two of our own. Though I’m sure her own family mourned her.’

You have no idea.
‘She wasn’t a daughter to you?’ The unfairness of that really lodged in Bel’s gut.

Alice smiled sadly. ‘Not the way you are, love. We barely knew her.’

‘Why not?’

‘We only met her the once, face to face.’ Alice glanced at Denise. Neither woman looked comfortable about it. ‘She didn’t … fit. She didn’t belong here.’

No. She belonged at home in Chelsea with the people who loved her. Defensiveness crowded in. ‘Maybe she sensed she didn’t belong. Wasn’t welcome.’

‘Oh, don’t get me wrong, Bel. She was always welcome, regardless. She loved our Andrew. She just wasn’t happy here. Her loyalty was with Drew. Rightfully.’

Bel frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Things were strained between our two boys,’ Alice said. ‘It wasn’t comfortable for anyone when they were together back then. We all tried not to take sides, but Gwendoline was fiercely loyal to Drew, we could see that. Actually, I respected that even if I didn’t like it.’

Denise snorted. ‘We’re not having this argument again.’

Alice rolled her eyes kindly and heaved the kettle off the hob to pour boiling water into three mugs. ‘Andrew did not leave us because of Gwendoline Rochester, and well you know it,’ she said to her daughter. She tightened her lips and then turned back to Bel and addressed the rest of the story to her. ‘But I’ll grant you she was the reason he stayed away. He loved that girl beyond compare.’

Beyond compare.
Alice understood what her living grandson didn’t. That some loves just didn’t tarnish.

‘Sounds like he was lucky to have found that in life,’ Bel murmured.

Alice looked at her strangely. ‘You sound almost wistful. Don’t tell me the newly-wed shine is wearing off already?’

A love beyond compare—with Flynn? Bel couldn’t see it
happening, no matter what
she
felt. There were too many secrets and lies between them. And a honking great court case.

As if recognising the shadows in Bel’s gaze, Alice rushed on past her own insensitivity. ‘Well, regardless, suffice to say that despite having an identical accent to our other daughter-in-law, your character has restored our faith in the people of Britain.’

Her smile was weak. Her accent must bring Gwen to mind every day for them. She waved an imaginary flag. ‘Bully for me.’

‘Not to mention making Flynn the happiest I’ve seen him.’

Bel narrowed her eyes. While the past few weeks were most definitely the happiest
she’d
seen him, it said a lot about his usual demeanour if he was achieving some kind of lifetime personal best in the happiness stakes.

She took a deep breath and stuck her nose firmly into her husband’s business, rubbing a twinge low along her hip. ‘What happened between Flynn and his brother?’

‘Anyone who says hell hath no fury like a
woman
scorned has clearly never met Flynn Douglas Bradley,’ Alice said chuckling.

Bel frowned. ‘But … didn’t Drew trigger it? By leaving?’

‘I’m sure Flynn would have you believe so, but no … Drew
ended
it by leaving. And not a moment too soon before they did some permanent damage to their relationship.’ Her eyes grew sad. ‘Although no one could have foreseen what was going to happen on his travels.’

‘Can you tell me the story?’

Denise snorted. ‘Oh, we’d need a white-out longer than this one to tell the whole sorry saga, Bel …’

She looked around them and shrugged. ‘I’ve got nowhere to be.’

And so it came out. The whole hurtful mess. Flynn, the young boy with a borderline learning disability who’d idolised his older brother, who followed him around like a puppy when
he was younger. Flynn, the awkward adolescent having trouble fitting into his mismatched thirteen-year-old body parts, who was never quite as bright, quite as talented or quite as popular as his big brother—the brother who hit high school two years ahead of him and whose life grew too busy to have a kid tag along. Flynn, the boy who finally found acceptance and even adulation amongst a ratbag group of boys from troubled homes in the Sydney suburbs and finally found a way of getting noticed. Getting some spotlight.

The good boy turned bad.

Immediately Flynn’s words months ago made more sense. He must have felt sub-standard his whole life because of the slow start he got on his education. And Bel could most definitely relate to the self-worth issue. Flynn’s troubles with Drew were not because he hated him, they were because he loved him. Too much.

‘Everything he did was to get Drew’s attention,’ Bel whispered, her heart aching for the hurting young boy he must have been.

‘Oh, he got it,’ Alice murmured. ‘Just not the way he’d hoped.’

Such a promising little boy had become a damaged young man, despite having the best parents a kid could want. It brought her own life journey into sharp relief. If she’d had the love of her parents, would she have chosen to resent Gwen for being the favoured child instead of clinging desperately to her love? Building a life around hers? Were her life decisions all that different from Flynn’s?

Leaving home. Dropping out of school. The fashion. The sullen determination to go her own way.

Had they just been a cry to be noticed by her—heartbreakingly oblivious—family?

She lifted damp eyes. ‘And they never got past it? Drew and Flynn?’ She knew the answer. But was desperate for a hint of light in the dark tale.

‘Drew becoming such a global success was the final nail in Flynn’s emotional coffin,’ Alice whispered. ‘He felt he’d been left far, far behind. Like he didn’t cut it.’

‘But he’s so good at what he does. So capable.’ And his kind of capable was insanely attractive whether it was at a computer or in a paddock …

‘Flynn developed a different kind of smarts to his brother,’ Denise said.

‘I know which brother I’d want with me in a crisis,’ Bel agreed automatically. And it was true. For all Drew’s brilliance and corporate smarts and talent, he’d hired in others to take care of life’s more practical or unpleasant necessities.

If Flynn had been on that Thai ferry he would have saved Gwen.

The thought came out of nowhere and shook her. Hard. Her heart pulsed in her chest and started to gallop as old loyalties battled with new. She’d never in a million years imagined herself thinking something like that about Drew. She didn’t blame him for Gwen’s death—she didn’t! So where had it come from?

You know where …

It didn’t matter how important Drew had been to her before, it was Flynn who was important to her now. It was Flynn she loved. And respected. And honoured. Just like the vows they’d never said.

‘You say that like you knew him,’ Denise cut in, offended, and Bel realised how dangerous this whole conversation was becoming. ‘But Drew was a wonderful, loving boy who never caused us a moment of grief growing up.’

Alice smiled sadly, sliding a fresh brew towards her. ‘I’m glad Flynn talks to you about him. He needs to let go of some of his old feelings.’

Bel stretched across the kitchen counter to take the mug of hot tea and as she did her body crumpled in on itself as a vicious spasm hit her mid-section. It managed to be sharp, dull,
heavy and laser-precise all at the same time. Her mug knocked and spilled hot tea across the kitchen benchtop.

Oh, God …

‘Bel?’ Denise got there first, supporting her lest she tumble from the stool she was perched on.

‘Get her onto the sofa.’

Distantly she realised that all the acrimony of just moments before was lost as Alice went straight into midwife mode and Denise willingly complied. Alice glanced at her watch. Then at Denise. Bel caught the look they exchanged.

The funny moments of earlier today made sudden, awful sense. The weird offish feeling, the sharp pains low below her bump, the racing heart, the tight gut …

‘No …’

‘Don’t panic, love,’ Alice said, patting her shoulder as she sank into the sofa. ‘It’s probably just Braxton Hicks. Very common. But I’ll keep time just in case.’

The landline was out. Their mobile phones were jostling their way towards Oberon township in Bill’s utility. There was always Flynn’s car but Alice didn’t drive and Denise couldn’t safely without her glasses, which were also in Oberon being repaired. And there was no way Bel could have squeezed her enormous belly behind a steering wheel even if she wasn’t doubled over in pain. They were just going to have to make do until the men returned.

‘Flynn …’ she whispered under her breath. She’d never wanted someone by her side more in her life. Capable, sensible Flynn.

‘He’ll be home soon,’ Denise crooned reassuringly. But the second glance the two older women exchanged when they thought she wasn’t looking told a different story.

‘It’s too early,’ Bel gritted as the wave of ache slowly eased off.

Alice stroked strands of hair from Bel’s suddenly clammy
forehead. ‘Not for twins, love. Now, you just relax and I’ll make you a fresh cuppa. You may not have a single twinge more all day.’

Or not.

Bel lay stretched out on the living room rug with the now-drenched quilt from the spare room under her and a pile of sofa cushions propping her into a half sitting position, the only position she’d been able to find in five hours of labour that was vaguely comfortable.

Labour.
Several weeks early but otherwise progressing quite by the book which was probably the only good news as far as she was concerned. She fell back against the pillows following another contraction and took a sip from the lukewarm water Denise offered her.

‘God, I’m so glad you’re both here,’ she said to the women who she was lying to every minute of every day. Along with everyone else. Including Flynn, now that she had to hide her true feelings from him twenty-four-seven.

Alice clucked. ‘There are much worse people to be stranded in labour with than a midwife and a woman who’s birthed two healthy babies of her own.’ But she still glanced at the wall clock and, though her expression didn’t change much, it added another wrinkle to the corner of her carefully neutral eyes. ‘And much worse places in this weather than a comfortable house with electricity and hot running water.’

Bel nodded. It was true. What if she’d been out walking or alone in Flynn’s cottage? But knowing that didn’t help much—she was still absolutely terrified. Not for herself—for her children. At absolute worst, if she died from the excruciating pain that had started to feel as if it would never end, then at least the babies would have two willing, warm breasts to be pressed against and a whole family to rally behind them. They’d barely even know what they were missing.

And if she didn’t die …

She flexed her aching back. She’d cross that bridge if and when she came to it. Right now, surviving this just didn’t seem that likely. ‘Is it supposed to hurt this much?’ she gritted.

Alice sank back onto her haunches and stared at her seriously. ‘Honestly? You’re only getting warmed up, Bel. I think it’s time that I did a physical exam, not just a visual. We’re getting much closer.’

Her stomach sank. Not a good time to be prudish, she knew, but she’d been uncomfortable enough adding the aged Alice Bradley to the very short list of people who’d ever
seen
down there without shortening the odds even further by having her
feel
down there. Up there, presumably. But she was going to be getting very familiar with Bel’s body soon enough … She just had to start thinking of Alice as medical personnel and not family.