The Fiancé He Can't Forget (5 page)

Ben closed his eyes and let his breath out on a harsh sigh. For an age he said nothing, then he opened his eyes
again and nodded. ‘OK. I don't agree with you, and I think he should know, but I won't tell him yet—but you
have
to tell him at some point, Amy. He has the right to know—and the sooner the better.'

She opened her mouth to argue, but then shut it. She had the pregnancy to get through yet, and that was by no means a foregone conclusion.

‘I'll tell him when it's over,' she said woodenly. ‘Either way.'

‘Amy, just because you've lost a baby in the past doesn't mean you're going to lose this one,' Ben said firmly, but he didn't understand. He hadn't been there, and even if he had…

‘You can't say that. We didn't know why it happened, it could have been anything,' she told him, not sure what Matt had told him but needing to explain, to him and to Daisy, too, because she'd never really told her what had happened. ‘I was eighteen weeks pregnant, I was fit and well, there was no bleeding, no pain, nothing, and the baby was…'

She shut her eyes tight. Perfect. Beautiful. And just too small, too frail, too unready for the world. She couldn't say it, couldn't let herself picture him, couldn't go back there.

As if he understood, Ben took her hands in his and held them firmly. ‘We'll look after you. I'll get your old notes sent, and we'll make sure you're OK. We'll watch you like a hawk.'

‘I was in Harrogate,' she said, her voice clogged with tears. ‘With Matt—planning the wedding…'

He nodded. ‘I know. Don't worry, Amy. We'll take care of you—but there's one condition.'

‘I
can't
tell him yet!'

‘It's not that, it's about you. You stay next door, so we can look after you properly and be there for you, or I
will
tell him. That's the deal,' he said flatly, and she looked into his eyes—Matt's eyes—and gave in. There was no arguing with the Walker men when they had that look in their eyes. And anyway, the last thing she wanted was to be alone in this, whatever she might have said.

‘OK,' she agreed shakily. ‘And I will tell him, but in my own way, in my own time. He'll smother me, and I can't cope with it yet. I just need to get through the next few weeks.'

Just until the baby was viable.

She couldn't say the words, but they understood, and Ben hugged her briefly and pulled her to her feet.

‘I'll let you tell him. And I'll look after you. We'll look after you. It'll be OK.'

She smiled at him, feeling some of the terror dissipating in the friendly face of their support. She wasn't alone. And Ben and Daisy wouldn't desert her. So maybe she could do this, after all…

 

‘So how are things?'

‘Oh, you know how it is,' Ben said. ‘How about you?'

Matt frowned. His brother sounded evasive. Odd, in only a handful of words over the telephone, but there was something there, something guarded. Something he wasn't telling him.

‘Ditto. How's Daisy?'

‘Better. Growing,' he said. ‘She's finally stopped being sick and she's looking well. We did her twenty-week scan and everything's fine.'

‘And Amy?' he asked carefully, and there was a pause.

‘Amy's fine,' Ben replied, and he definitely sounded guarded now. So it wasn't that Ben was walking round him on eggshells because of Daisy being pregnant. It was Amy who was the problem.

‘She—uh—she didn't want to see me again,' he admitted softly.

Matt heard Ben let out a soft sigh. ‘Yeah. Well, she doesn't seem to have changed her mind. I'm sorry.'

Well, that was him told. He swallowed hard, staring sightlessly out of his sitting room window at the bleak winter garden of his small mews cottage. It had taken a bit of winding himself up to ask after her, and he wished he hadn't bothered.

Hell, he should just forget about her and move on, as she'd said, but…

‘Look af—' His voice cracked a little, and he cleared his throat. ‘Look after her for me.'

‘We are. She's moved in next door, actually, into Daisy's house. Her boiler broke and it seemed to make sense.'

He had the totally irrational urge to jump in the car and come up and visit them. She'd be next door, just through the wall, and if he listened he'd hear her moving around—

Idiot. ‘Give her my love,' he said gruffly. ‘And Daisy and Florence. I'll try and see you sometime in the next couple of weeks. What are you doing over Christmas?'

‘I don't know. I had thought we might go to Yorkshire, but I'm working. What about you?'

‘I'm working Christmas Day and Boxing Day,' he said, and had a sudden longing for his mother's home
cooking and his father's quiet, sage advice. But in the absence of that… ‘Look, I've got to go, but I might try and get up between Christmas and New Year. Maybe on the twenty-seventh.'

‘That'd be good. Let's see how it goes.'

‘OK. You take care.'

‘And you.'

He ended the call and watched a blackbird scratching in the fallen leaves under the bird feeder. Winter was setting in, the nights cold and frosty, even here in London.

He turned the television on and put his feet up, but he couldn't rest. Talking about Amy had unsettled him, and he'd suggested going up there—to see her?

Idiot. Idiot! It had taken him weeks to get over seeing her last time, so why on earth did he think it would be a good idea to go up to Yoxburgh in the hope of seeing her again?

He must be nuts. What the hell did he hope to achieve?

Maybe she's pregnant
.

He stamped on that one hard. If she was pregnant, she would have told him weeks ago. Or Ben would. Yeah, Ben definitely would. Anyway, she was on the Pill, and she'd probably moved on, got herself another lover. He ignored the burn of acid at the thought. Maybe he should do the same, he told himself firmly. There was a new midwife who'd been flirting with him the past few weeks. He could take her out for dinner, see where it went.

But she's not Amy
.

‘You've lost Amy, get over it,' he growled. He had work he could do at the hospital, and anything was better than sitting here going over this again and again and
again, so he turned the television off again, pulled on his coat and headed out of the door.

 

‘Matt sends you his love.'

Amy felt herself stiffen. ‘You didn't tell him?'

‘No, of course I didn't tell him. I promised you I wouldn't.'

She let her breath out, and asked the question she'd been longing to ask. ‘How is he?'

‘OK, I think. We didn't talk for long. He asked how you were.'

‘And what did you say?'

He smiled wryly. ‘I told him you were fine and didn't want to see him again.'

It wasn't quite true. She'd been thinking about little else for the past two days, but he was right, she didn't want to see him again at the moment, because if she did, she'd have to tell him, and then…

‘We were talking about Christmas,' Ben went on. ‘We're both working on Christmas Day and we've got Florence on Boxing Day, but he might come up afterwards. What are you doing?'

He might come up afterwards…

‘I haven't decided. They want me to work, so I'll probably do the day shift—'

‘So spend Christmas night with us,' Daisy urged. ‘We'll have a great time.'

It was tempting, but she shook her head. ‘You want to be on your own—it's the last time you'll be able to. I'll be fine, really. Christmas Day is usually a lovely shift.'

And it would stop her worrying about her baby.

 

Ben scanned her the next day. They'd gone down to the big scanner in a quiet moment, and for the first time she
actually acknowledged her baby's existence, dared to think about it, to see it as a real baby.

She watched the beating heart, saw the little arms and legs flailing around wildly, counted hands and feet, saw the fine, delicate column of its spine, the bridge of its nose, the placenta firmly fixed near the top of her uterus.

My baby
, she thought, reaching out her hand and touching the image tenderly, and through her tears, she smiled at it and fell in love.

She pressed her hand to her mouth and closed her eyes as Ben turned off the scanner. ‘Thank you,' she murmured.

‘My pleasure,' he said, his voice roughened, and she realised he was moved, too, because this was his brother's baby, and he must have felt the loss of their first one keenly for Matt.

‘Did you take a photo?' she asked, not sure she could bear to look at it. She still had the photo—

‘Of course I did. I took one for us, as well, and one for Matt. To give him later,' he added hastily when she frowned.

She nodded. ‘Thank you,' she said again, and took the tissue from him to wipe the gloop off her tummy. She'd started to show already, she realised. No wonder her jeans were tight.

Just eleven more days to go…

‘You aren't going to lose this baby, Amy,' Ben said firmly, as if he'd read her mind. ‘I'm not going to let you.'

‘You may not be able to stop it.'

‘I'd like to scan your cervix weekly from now on. Matt seemed to think—'

‘Have you been talking to him?' she asked, horrified, but he shook his head.

‘No. No, of course not. I promised I wouldn't. This was years ago, the only time we've talked about it. It was right after you lost the baby, and he was distraught. He thought it was your cervix. He was talking about monitoring you much more closely for the next pregnancy.'

She swung her legs down off the edge of the couch and stood up, straightening her clothes automatically. ‘What next pregnancy?' she asked—fairly ridiculously, under the circumstances, she thought with a touch of hysteria, but if it hadn't been for the wedding she wouldn't have seen him again. ‘He walked away, Ben. I told him I couldn't cope, that I needed time to get over it, and he walked away. He almost seemed relieved.'

‘Amy, you're wrong,' he said, frowning, but she knew she wasn't. He'd been cold, remote. He'd hardly talked to her. He'd grieved for the baby, but he hadn't been able to support her, and he had rebuffed any attempt by her to support him.

‘Ben, drop it. Please. You weren't there, you didn't see him. You can monitor me as closely as you like, but if it's all the same with you I'll take it one day at a time. I refuse to get my hopes up.'

‘Because you feel guilty?'

She stared at him. Did she? Was that the reason she'd been so slow to realise that she was pregnant, and so reluctant to recognise this child? Because she didn't feel she deserved it? Because she'd gone for that walk with Matt the day before, and got overtired and then—?

‘Ben, can we leave this?' she asked a little desperately, shutting the memories away before they could swamp her.

‘Sure. I'm sorry. Here, your photo.' He handed her the little image in its white card mount, and she slipped it into her bag.

‘I'd better get back to work. And—thank you, Ben. I really do appreciate all you're doing for me.'

‘Don't mention it.'

She was doing fine.

There was nothing—nothing at all, from any test or examination—to indicate that she might lose this baby. Just as there hadn't been last time.

She put it out of her mind, and carried on as if nothing was any different. Apart from taking the usual precautions and supplements, she carried on as normal and tried not to think about it—or Matt—too much.

She worked the day shift on Christmas Day, and in the end she went round to Ben and Daisy's in the evening, just to eat. She didn't stay long, though. Daisy was looking tired, and it was their last Christmas alone together, so she left them to it after they'd eaten, and went home and thought about Matt.

Was he alone? It was all right for her, she'd had a great day at work, and she'd had a lovely dinner with Ben and Daisy. But Matt—who did he have?

She could phone him. Say Happy Christmas, and tell him he was going to be a father.

No. It was still too early, but she would tell him soon.

She would.

H
E STOOD
on the pavement outside, staring at the front door of Daisy's house and fighting indecision.

Amy was in. He could see the light from the kitchen shining down the hall, and he saw a shadow move across as if she'd walked into the dining room. She wasn't expecting him—none of them were, and he could see from the lack of lights that Ben and Daisy were out. So—to knock, or not to knock?

Instinct told him he wouldn't be welcome. Need told him to knock on the door anyway, to give her the benefit of the doubt, to try again, just one more time, to see if he could convince her to give their relationship another go.

He still hesitated, then with a sharp shake of his head, he walked firmly up the path and rapped on the door.

‘Amy, it's Matt.'

Why had he done that? If he'd kept quiet, she would have come to the door, but instead there was silence. He resisted the urge to bend down and peer through the letter box. She was entitled to ignore him if she wanted to, and anyway there was a holly wreath hanging over it and it would probably stab him in the eye.

But she didn't ignore him. The porch light came on,
and he heard footsteps and the door swung inwards to reveal her standing there unsmiling.

‘Hello, Matt,' she said quietly, and his heart turned over.

She looked—gorgeous. Her grey eyes were wary, her fair hair scrunched back in a ponytail as if she'd only just finished work and she was dressed in some shapeless rag of a jumper, but she looked warm and cosy and very, very dear, and he wanted to haul her into his arms and hold her.

As if she knew it, she hugged her arms defensively, so he forced himself to make do with a smile. ‘Hi, there. Happy Christmas—or should that be Happy New Year?'

She ignored both. ‘I didn't think Ben and Daisy were expecting you,' she said, her voice a little tight. ‘You hadn't rung to confirm.'

‘No. It was only tentative—a spur-of-the-moment thing.' Very spur of the moment. Two hours ago he'd been sitting in his house staring at the bird feeder and trying to talk himself out of it. He probably should have done.

‘Oh. Well, they're out.'

‘Will they be long?' Hell, they were talking like strangers.

‘I don't know—why don't you come in? You can't stand out there for hours.'

‘Will they be hours?' he asked, following her down the hall and eyeing her bottom thoughtfully. Had she put on a little weight? He thought so. It suited her.

‘I don't know. Possibly. They're looking at baby stuff in the sales.'

Why had she said that? Why bring it up?
She could have kicked herself, because absolutely the
last
thing
she wanted to talk about with Matt was babies, although she knew that conversation was coming sometime soon.

‘I was just making tea. Do you want some?'

‘Yeah, that would be good. Thank you.'

So formal. So polite and distant. If he had any idea…

‘You look well.'

She felt heat climb her cheeks. ‘I am well.'
Very well, and pregnant with your child.
‘Have you eaten?'

‘Yes—I had lunch, but don't mind me if you haven't.'

The stilted conversation was going to make her scream, but what was the alternative?
‘Oh, incidentally, while I think of it, I'm having your baby'
didn't seem quite the right opener!

And anyway, she wasn't past the danger point yet. A few more days, maybe weeks—perhaps then.

She set a mug of tea down in front of him at the table, and finished making herself a sandwich. She was still starving, still eating anything she could lay her hands on—

‘I thought you hated peanut butter?'

Damn. Trust him to notice. The only time she'd eaten it had been when she was pregnant, and any second now he'd guess.

‘It goes in phases,' she said truthfully, and sat in a chair across the table and up from him, so she didn't have to look straight at him, didn't have to meet those searching blue eyes and risk blurting out the truth.

He gave a soft sigh and leant back. ‘I'm sorry, I should have called you, but I thought you'd probably tell me to go to hell.'

‘So why come?'

His smile was wry and rather sad. ‘Why do you think, Amy?' he asked softly, and she swallowed.

‘I don't— Matt, I told you before…'

He sighed softly. ‘I know. That night was just for old times' sake. Laying our love to rest, I guess. I'd hoped it might turn out to be more than that. Might still turn out to be more.'

Oh, so much more. You have no idea.

‘Matt, we've talked about this. We clearly didn't have what it takes, and if—'

She broke off, wary of straying into dangerous territory, but Matt had no such fear.

‘If you hadn't got pregnant, our relationship would have fizzled out?'

Fizzled out? She'd said she couldn't cope with the wedding so soon after she'd lost her baby, and he'd heaved a sigh of relief and cancelled their entire relationship, so—yes, clearly he would have lost interest sooner or later, if he hadn't already done so.

She shrugged, and he shook his head slowly and gave a rueful smile.

‘OK. I get that you think that, even if I don't agree, but—you seemed keen enough at the wedding, so what changed?' What changed?

What changed?
She nearly laughed out loud at that. ‘At the wedding I'd had a bit too much to drink,' she said bluntly, ‘or I wouldn't have done anything so stupid. I would have thought better of it.'

‘I've thought about very little since,' he said softly, and her heart contracted.

Oh, Matt.

She opened her mouth to tell him, but bottled out and changed the subject, asking instead how his parents were.

He gave a knowing little smile and let it go. ‘Fine.
They've got snow up there at the moment, but they're OK, they've got plenty of food in and Dad can still get to the farms for emergencies, but it's supposed to be thawing this week.'

Oh, for God's sake, just tell her you love her! Tell her you want her! Tell her you want to try again, and this time you'll make it work. She's said we didn't have what it takes, but does anybody? For what happened to us, does anybody have what it takes?

He was opening his mouth when there was a sharp knock on the door. She got up and opened it, and he heard her murmur his name as Ben strode in.

‘You were going to phone!' he said, hugging him and slapping his back. ‘Come on, let's get you out of Amy's hair and you can give me a hand to unload the car. Daisy's been shopping with a vengeance.'

Maybe he didn't want to go? Maybe Amy was happy with him there? Maybe he hadn't finished what he'd come for?

But then he looked at her, composed, controlled but not exactly overjoyed, and he let out his breath on a quiet sigh and moved towards the door.

‘Sure. Thanks for the tea, Amy. It was good to see you again.'

She smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes. ‘Happy New Year, Matt.'

And she shut the door gently but firmly behind them, and went back to the table, her hands shaking.

She had to tell him sometime. Why not now? Why on earth hadn't she taken the opportunity?

She sighed. She knew why—knew that until this week was over, at least, she couldn't share it with him, but she would tell him. Ben was right, he needed to
know, and she wanted their child to have him in its life. He was a good man, and he'd be a wonderful father.

What she couldn't deal with again, if anything went wrong, was his grief on top of her own.

No. Better not to have told him yet—and Ben had promised not to. She just hoped she could rely on him.

 

He was there until the following evening, and she spent as much time as possible at the hospital.

It wasn't hard. They were busy and short-staffed, and delighted to have her.

She'd put herself down for the night shift on New Year's Eve—better to keep busy, because she was eighteen weeks on that day, and if she hadn't been busy she would have gone out of her mind.

Her phone beeped a couple of times—Happy New Year messages from people, she thought, but she was too busy to check it, so she carried on filling in the notes and went back to her mums to check on them.

But when her night shift finished and she went home in the cold, bright crisp air of the morning, she finally checked her phone and found a text from a friend and a voicemail message.

From Matt.

‘Hi, Amy, it's Matt. Sorry to miss you, I expect you're working. I just wanted to say Happy New Year, and it was good to see you again the other day. I'm sorry it was so brief. Maybe next time…' There was a pause, then he added, ‘Well, you know where I am if you want me.'

If she wanted him?

She sat down on the sofa in her sitting room, and
played his hesitant, reluctant message again and again and again.

Of course she wanted him. She wanted him so much it was unbearable, today of all days, the exact stage to the day that she'd lost their first baby. She laid her hand over the tidy little bump—hardly a bump at all. If you didn't know, you wouldn't guess, but assuming it made it, and it was a big assumption, this baby was going to cause havoc in her life.

And in Matt's.

She had to tell him. Ben was right, she couldn't just keep relying on them, and he had the right to know about his child. She took the two-week-old scan photo out of her bag and stared at it, tracing the tiny face with her finger. It would be bigger now. As big as Samuel…

Lord, even the name hurt. She sucked in a breath, the images crowding in on her—the midwife's eyes so full of compassion as she wrapped his tiny body in a blanket and placed it in Matt's arms. The tears in his eyes, the searing agony she could see in every line of his body as he stared down at his son.

He'd lifted the baby to his lips, kissed his tiny head, shuddered with grief. It had broken him—broken both of them—and their relationship, like their son, had been too fragile, too young to survive.

She almost rang him. Her finger hovered over the call button, but then she turned the phone off and told herself to stop being so ridiculous. She'd decided not to tell him until after the twenty-week scan. Maybe longer. Maybe not until it was viable. He'd been so gutted last time, so deeply distressed, that he'd been unreachable, and she knew—she just
knew
—he'd be a nightmare if she told him. He'd probably have her admitted so he could scan
her three times a day, but she wasn't having any of it. It was utterly unnecessary, and thinking about it all the time just made it all so much worse.

So she didn't ring him, and then she was past the time of the miscarriage, into the nineteenth week. Then the twentieth, and the big scan, which she could hardly bear to look at she was so nervous.

But it was normal, and it looked much more like a baby now, every feature clearly defined. It was sucking its thumb, and Amy felt a huge tug of love towards this tiny, vulnerable child—Matt's child. ‘Do you want to know what it is?' the ultrasonographer asked her, but she shook her head.

‘No.' Knowing would make it harder to remain detached, and she'd been careful not to look—but the baby was moving vigorously, and she could feel it all the time now, so real, so alive, so very, very strong that finally, at last, she began to allow a tiny glimmer of hope to emerge.

Was it possible that this baby would be all right?

She wanted to share it, to tell everyone in the world, but she was still a little afraid she might jinx it, so she took the photo home, propped it up on the bedside table next to her so she could see it when she woke, and fell asleep with a smile on her face and her hand curved protectively over her child…

 

She went shopping the following week with Daisy, and she talked Amy into getting some pretty clothes.

‘You can't just wear scrubs and jog bottoms and baggy jumpers for the rest of your pregnancy,' she scolded, and handed her all sorts of things, all of which Amy thought made her look shockingly pregnant.

Shockingly, because she'd still not really taken it on board. It was still too early, the baby wasn't yet viable, and she felt a little quiver of nerves.

‘Daisy, I really don't think—'

‘No. Don't think. You think altogether too much. You're fine, Amy. You're well. Everything's OK.'

‘I was well last time,' she said woodenly, and Daisy dropped the clothes she was carrying and hugged her.

‘Oh, sweetheart, you'll be fine. Come on, Ben says everything's looking really good. It's time to be happy.'

Happy? Maybe, she thought, as Daisy took her to a café and plied her with hot chocolate and common sense, and gradually she relaxed. She was being silly. She could buy a few clothes—just enough. That wasn't tempting fate, was it? And her bras
were
strangling her. They finished their hot chocolate and went back to the shops.

And gradually, as the weeks passed and she got nearer to her due date, she began to dare to believe it might all be all right. She was beginning to feel excited, to look forward to the birth—except, of course, she'd be alone.

Unless she told Matt.

She felt her stomach knot at the thought. It was the beginning of April and Daisy had just started her maternity leave, five weeks before her baby was due, and nine weeks before Amy's. Gosh, 31 weeks, Amy thought, stunned, and bit her lip. There was no excuse now not to tell him and she was being unfair. He'd need time to get his head round it, and he was going to give her hell for keeping it quiet, but it had gone on for so long now that she wasn't sure how to broach the subject.

The baby was kicking her vigorously all night now.
She'd never felt Samuel move—well, maybe a flutter, just before the end, but not like this, not so you could see it from the outside.