With This Baby...

‘Died?’ she echoed, and her hopes crumbled to dust. There was no way he’d pay for his brother’s child, and so she’d have to sell their home and move, or at least sell the barn, and Amy’s debts would eat up so much of that.

‘Tell me—what date were these taken?’

‘It’s on the back of the envelope,’ she said woodenly. ‘March, I believe.’

He turned the packet over, and nodded. ‘That fits. I wondered if it would. I was away—in Japan, on a contract. Will was using my flat for a week—and apparently masquerading as me. It must have been then. So, tell me, when was the baby born?’

‘Two weeks before Christmas.’

He nodded, then he turned his head slightly and studied Jess in the pram.

‘She doesn’t look like him.’

‘She’s very like Amy.’

He nodded again, and let out a quiet sigh. ‘I wish she’d looked more like him—a sort of reminder. That would have been nice.’

‘You could always look in the mirror,’ she said, and his mouth kicked up in a sad smile.

‘Not quite the same. Still.’

He stood up. ‘I’ve got something for you—I’ll just get my jacket,’ he said, and went out to the car.

She followed him, propping herself up in the doorway and watching as his long legs ate up the path. The dogs were playing now, having a tug of war with one of Pepper’s knotted bones, and he paused to ruffle their coats.

They wagged at him and carried on, growling and pretending to be fierce, and after one last pat he straightened up, pulled open her car door and reached in for his jacket.

As he closed the door, it bounced open again, as she’d known it would.

‘It does that,’ she told him, going over to yank the handle and bang the door. ‘It’s a knack you have to acquire.’

He flinched and muttered something along the lines of not in this lifetime, and she stifled a laugh. Poor baby, he’d really had to slum it! Oh, well, it would do him good—let him see what she was up against. She could do with all the sympathy she could get, the way things were panning out.

They walked back to the house, past the broken little tractor with its drooping cutting deck, past the barn with its door hanging half-open on rusty hinges to reveal the strimmer that had gone on strike over the winter and steadfastly refused to start.

She wondered what else could go wrong, and decided she didn’t want to think about it. She had more than enough to think about—like the fact that it seemed he wasn’t Jess’s father after all, although proving it could be tricky, because, of course, the DNA would match if he and his brother were identical twins. If that really was his brother in the photos and not him, then they were like two peas in a pod.

And, of course, because of that it would be the easiest thing in the world for him to pass off his child as his brother’s, now that Will and Amy weren’t there to argue the case. It would absolve him of all responsibility. How convenient.

And yet he didn’t seem dishonest.

She gave a silent snort. Like she was such a good judge of character! She’d let Amy hoodwink her for years, bleeding her dry in one way and another and now leaving her with Jess to bring up, safe in the knowledge that, of course, she, Claire, the sensible one, would do the right thing.

So he could be a liar and a smooth talker, quite easily, and how on earth would she know?

Oh, rats. It was too confusing, too involved, too difficult to deal with. She didn’t want to doubt him, but now it was there in the back of her consciousness, this insidious little doubt, niggling away and destroying her peace of mind.

Not that she had much of that these days.

‘Here,’ he said, pulling an envelope out of his jacket pocket and handing it to her as they went back into the kitchen. She eyed it warily.

A letter from a solicitor threatening her with legal action if she revealed the photos? A cheque—no, she didn’t get that lucky.

‘It’s the information about the DNA lab,’ he told her, putting her out of her suspense and puncturing the last little bubble of hope. ‘They’ve got my profile on record. The instructions are all in there. You just have to take the baby to the GP for a cheek swab, and get it sent off to them with the enclosed covering letter and the cheque that’s in there, and then they run the test. It should match if she’s Will’s daughter—and that’s definitely Will in the photos.’

‘How do I know that?’ she asked.

His brow pleated. ‘How do you know? Because we’re identical.’

‘Exactly. So how do I know it isn’t you?’

He stared at her, clearly taken aback. ‘Me? I’ve told you, I was out of the country.’

‘I’ve only got your word for that.’

‘It’s usually good enough,’ he said drily, and if she hadn’t known better, she would have said he sounded hurt. Then he went on, ‘Anyway, it’s easy. Apart from the passport stamps and minutes of the meetings I attended in Japan, I haven’t had my appendix out—unlike Will. And there’s a scar in the photos.’

And before she had a chance to say anything, before she could challenge him or express her scepticism, he tugged his shirt out of his trousers, hitched a thumb in the waistband and pushed it down, revealing a taut, board-flat abdomen without so much as a crease in it. ‘See? No scar.’

Her shoulders dropped. Well, at least she knew he was telling the truth. There was no way a surgeon’s knife had ever scored that skin. She dragged her eyes away from the line of dark hair that arrowed down under that dangerously low waistband, and looked back up at him.

‘OK, so it isn’t you in the photos,’ she agreed.

‘No—but it might as well be,’ he said quietly. ‘If the baby is Will’s, then she’d be as closely related to me as she would be if she were my own, and I would feel the same obligation towards her. I never thought I would, but it seems blood is thicker than water, after all, and if she’s Will’s child, then in his absence she’s mine, and I’ll do what’s right by her.’

He ground to a halt, the long speech seeming to open up more than he’d intended to reveal, and he firmed his lips together and looked away—at Jess, awake now and waving her arms and legs happily in the pram.

‘You don’t have to explain that to me,’ she reminded him. ‘Why do you think I’m looking after Jess instead of handing her over to Social Services for adoption?’

He nodded slowly. ‘Yes, of course you understand. You’re in the same boat. Lord, what a coil.’

His jacket was hanging over the back of his chair, and she could just see one pink ear sticking up against the rumpled grey-green linen.

She inclined her head towards it and smiled, deliberately lightening the tone. ‘So, Mr Cameron—is that a rabbit in your pocket, or are you pleased to see me?’

For a second of startled silence she wondered if she’d gone too far, but then he gave a soft huff of laughter and pulled it out.

‘I’d forgotten all about it. I found it in the lift. I didn’t know if she’d miss it—if she was old enough yet to have fixated on it. I gather babies can be funny like that.’

‘Not this young, not at four months, but she does like it. Thank you.’

He handed it to her and their fingers brushed, sending sparks up her arm. She snatched her hand away, feeling a little silly, and gave the rabbit to Jess, who grabbed it and stuffed one ear in her mouth.

‘Instant hit,’ she said with a smile, and scooped the baby up. ‘Here, it’s time to get to know her. Jess, this is your Uncle Patrick. Say hello.’

She dumped Jess on his lap, and for the first few seconds he looked dumbstruck and awkward.

‘She won’t break, you know,’ she told him, taking pity on him after a minute, and he shot her a slightly desperate smile.