Long-Lost Father

A distance as emotional as it was physical. A distance she seemed determined to keep there.

So his parents were right: she’d escaped from him; she’d been glad he was dead. She’d found a new life in Sydney, leaving a trail so faint that it took almost two years to get a handle on her whereabouts.

Was the memory of what they’d been to each other so insignificant in her eyes? Was he so unimportant to her?

The child was definitely his; he’d seen the pictures of their child, a girl named Casey. The eyes were his, as were the dimples. There was no way Sam could claim her daughter was another man’s. He’d get DNA tests if he had to.

But, damn it, he shouldn’t have to—not with Sam, his Sam, whom he’d once trusted with his life, his heart and his entire future. Never in his vilest dreams had he believed that Sam could be this hard, so selfish as to disappear without trace, to take his child away from his parents, to deny them the comfort of his only child when they believed he was dead.

“What happened?” she broke into his reverie, sounding as if she was driven to ask. “To your leg, I mean.”

Funny that he’d been the one so long in a war zone, facing life and death every day, fighting death more than once; yet the real question wasn’t about him. What happened, Sam? What changed you?

He shrugged, feeling the shadows fall down on him. If he was going to break through Sam’s barriers, he had to lower some of his own. But the memories of Mbuka—oh, God help him, would he ever forget? Just getting through each night without taking something to kill the dreams—dreams of what he’d lived through left him a shaking mass of pain, waking from fevered dreams drenched in sweat, screaming Sam’s name like a prayer—seemed a victory.

“Brett?” Her voice sounded tentative, and he knew she’d seen him shaking.

“Sniper shot.” If he didn’t keep details to the bare minimum, the dreams would be worse tonight. “A splinter tribe near the Congo needed a doctor. But this time the cruciate ligament shredded into strips, stabbed the cartilage and got infected. I was no use to the warlords sick, so they left me out on the road to die. I was picked up by a tribe on the run with some compassion. They dosed me up with traditional healing cures and left me with some UN volunteers, who got me to a camp hospital.”

“This time?” she whispered, her eyes filled with horror. “Is that what happened to you when you…disappeared.”

He nodded; she deserved to know that much, to know why he hadn’t phoned or come home to her. “It’s an occupational hazard of being a doctor working in war zones. It took two years to escape from the first warlord, but I was captured again on the road south.”

“Why didn’t it hit the news?” she whispered, those amazing blue eyes of hers enormous with disbelief. “Your father has power and influence. Why didn’t your disappearance hit the world media? Why didn’t they look for you?”

“I signed the contract with my eyes open, knowing I could be shot or taken. It wasn’t anyone’s fault.” He shrugged. “Everyone assumed I was dead.” Funny, he knew that should mean that it wasn’t Sam’s fault, either, and he couldn’t blame her for believing he was dead—but he did blame her. She’d loved him, damn it. Why hadn’t she believed, as Mum and Dad had? Why had she just packed up and left?

“They didn’t check to see if you were there? How fair is that on families?” she cried.

“They had the living to save. The boundaries change in war zones every day, Sam. There is no way to check, to be sure.” He gave her a tired smile. “I’m sure they gave you the standard patter. ‘There is a very slim chance he could be alive, but please get on with your lives. You may never know.’”

She gulped, bit her lip and nodded. Her eyes were dark with emotion. “I—I believed them. I had to get out. Your parents were so—so…”

He nodded. “If Dad could have gone there and throttled someone, he would. But he’s in a wheelchair. He had a series of strokes.” He looked at her. “He had the first a week after you left.”

Her lashes fluttered down; she bit her lip. “I’m sorry, Brett. I didn’t know.”

“If you’d stayed, you would have known, Sam. Would it have changed anything for you?” he asked, unable to hide the fury. “Would you have stayed to help them through the nightmare? Would you have given the gift of their grandchild, my only child, to my sick parents? Maybe you wouldn’t have turned into a human shadow, changing your name and hiding my daughter from my family—her family, who only wanted to know and love her?”

She stood still, unmoving, her pallor even more strongly marked. She either couldn’t or wouldn’t answer him.

He watched and waited. From experience he knew Sam would rush into speech and say whatever was on her mind if he kept his peace. He’d always learned a lot about her that way—but then, that had been when she’d loved and trusted him. Back when he’d held her in his arms as he’d waited for her to purge her pain. But in the lengthening silence, he knew how far he’d have to go to regain her trust.

That goes both ways, Sam, he thought grimly. Like it or not, they had to deal with each other. If she thought he’d walk out on his daughter, she’d better think again.

It seemed they both had some thinking to do. The one thing he’d banked on in this living nightmare was that Sam would be the girl he’d fallen in love with, loved so hard and deep that he’d married her after only eight weeks. But she had changed, so profoundly he found it difficult to recognize her. At this moment he didn’t know if the Sam he’d loved and would have trusted with his life still existed inside the lovely yet withdrawn woman in front of him.

“Coffee?” she asked when the quiet stretched out to unbearable proportions.

“If you have decaf.” At this time of night caffeine kept his mind active and led to the kind of visions that made him reach for the tranquilisers.

“Okay.” With relief in her eyes, she left—no doubt to gather her thoughts. Her legs and hands were shaking. She held on to pieces of furniture as she walked.

She was still in shock. As a doctor, he knew he needed to go easy on her and wait before he made any judgments. Anything else was unfair to Sam.

To his surprise, he found he needed time, as well. He thought he’d known exactly what he was going to say to her, but his mind had emptied the moment he’d seen her in the pool, as lithe and beautiful as he remembered.

He sighed and rubbed his knee; it was aching badly. He’d have to take a painkiller soon, but he wanted to be coherent for what was coming.

He’d never felt so lost or alone in his life, as if he was still missing in action…

Or maybe it was his world that had gone missing. His tunnel-vision focus for so many years had been getting home to Sam, his light and life. But that particular tunnel had been blasted out of existence, as if he’d stepped on an emotional land mine. He didn’t know what to do or say to get his life back, the only life he’d ever wanted apart from spending a few years serving his fellow man in Africa. He’d had it all planned…living in his beloved Melbourne, a heart surgeon, with Sam by his side. Starting a family when they returned to Australia, satisfied they’d done their part for humanity.

It seemed that everything he’d ever dreamed of had been relegated to the past. His shattered knee would heal eventually, and the moment it did, he’d accept the surgical residency he’d been offered in Melbourne’s top hospital. But his African dream had exploded in his face within weeks. He already had a child, but she was a stranger to him. And he didn’t know his wife anymore. His Sam lived for him, made his life hers; his Sam would have moved heaven and earth to reach Africa and find him.

This Sam watched him like a hawk, didn’t rush into his arms, didn’t cry joyful tears to know he was alive. This Sam didn’t need him, and he didn’t have a clue where to go from here.

Give her time…give yourself some, too. Trouble was, he felt he’d been marking time for years. He might need time, but he couldn’t convince his heart and body of that need—others were crowding it out with their long-denied demands.

“Here.” A soft voice, a gentle touch, and he looked up to see her standing above him, holding a steaming cup. Her face held question…and just for a moment, her luminous eyes, the colour of a spring sky, were touched with caring. She smelled fresh and clean, like the pool. Her voice was still sweet, almost singsong; she finished every sentence with a tiny lilt, as though she was asking an unconscious question.

So some things hadn’t changed. He shook himself and smiled at her. “Thanks, Sam.” Testing the boundaries, he let his fingers brush hers as he took the cup from her.

Her eyes darkened; her lids fluttered down, tender and languorous. Her lips parted—then she bit the lower one and came back to reality. “You’re welcome. You look tired,” she added with a gruffness that covered the husky tone she always used when he touched her.

Does that mean she hasn’t gotten over me?

She moved back to the lounge opposite his, her face shuttered again. She didn’t know what he wanted and wasn’t giving an inch until she knew.

Obviously it was time to cut to the chase. “I’d like to meet my daughter.”

She gripped her hands together so tight he could see the bone through the knuckles…and for the first time noted how thin, how delicate she’d become. Her skin, once pale and translucent, now seemed transparent.

“She’ll be thrilled to find out she has a father. Most of her friends have families. She started asking about you a few months ago.” Her hesitation was palpable. “Brett, you need to know something about Casey—”

“That she’s blind?” he asked bluntly. “That’s why you aren’t working as a secretary anymore. It’s why you only work on reception two days a week at the Deaf and Blind Children’s Centre. So you can take her. You can stay with her.”

Sam ran her tongue over her top lip before she nodded. “She’s not at school full-time until the end of summer. I need to work, but I want to be with her as much as possible.”

“How strong is her disability? What percentage of sight does she have?” The question had been in his mind since the detective had first told him. “Is she legally or profoundly blind? Is there any chance of optic regeneration through surgical procedure?”

Sam’s eyes flashed. “This isn’t a preliminary examination, Dr. Glennon. You’re not her doctor, you’re her father.”

Stung, he retorted, “Pardon me, but since my daughter is five and I’ve never met her, it’s hard for me to be emotional about this. I didn’t see her birth or change her nappy, do a night feed or hold her when she cried.” He shrugged. “Maybe I’d have been more emotional if I’d known her the past two years. She and I could have shared a lot—like our physical therapy classes.”

Like a balloon pricked, the fight went out of Sam. “You’re right.” Her eyes closed over tears; she looked lost, defeated…and he remembered the reports from the detective. If he’d gone through hell in Mbuka and during recuperation, her life hadn’t been anyone’s picnic. Yet she’d not only survived, she’d adapted, changed her life for their child’s sake and made a success of it.

He sighed, rubbing his brow. “I’m having a hard time with this. I thought you’d at least be glad that I’m alive.”