Читать книгу The Swallow's Nest - Emilie Richards - Страница 10

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The baby was screaming now, a shrieking siren that seemed incompatible with the featherweight human being in Lilia’s arms.

After one examination she didn’t want to look at him. Early in their marriage she and Graham had put off having children, certain they had all the time in the world to start a family. Later when she’d been ready, he had still wanted to wait. Then Burkitt’s had entered their lives. He’d frozen sperm before chemo so that someday, when he recovered so completely they no longer had to worry about his future, they might be able to conceive through artificial insemination. But no baby birds would be hatching in this nest anytime soon, something she had tried hard not to think about.

Now she had no choice.

Instinct told her to set the child down and never pick him up again. Before she hurt him. Before the betrayal washing through her washed over him, too, and caused irreparable harm. But there was no place to lay him, no carrier or car seat. He had arrived in his mother’s arms, and now he was in hers, the only place on the porch even halfway acceptable for an infant.

She’d been raised with other people’s babies. Cousins, nieces and nephews, neighbors. As a teenager, she’d been in demand as a babysitter because she always seemed to know what to do. Yet she had no inclination to rock this one in her arms, to snuggle him against her shoulder or pat his tiny back. She was so angry that every ounce of goodness inside her had already been summoned. She was struggling just to remember that no matter the circumstances of little Toby’s birth, he had not asked for this moment any more than she.

But quite likely his father had.

She knew then what she had to do. Suddenly it seemed simple. She held the infant against her shoulder so she could open the door with her other hand and walk inside, walk through the house she and Graham had so lovingly renovated together, walk through the kitchen where Regan was piling her carefully marinated chicken wings on a platter.

Her friend looked up and smiled. “Hey, who’s that?”

“Where’s Graham, do you know?”

They’d been friends so long that Lilia’s tone wilted Regan’s smile. “Still out back, I think. Mingling. But—”

“He may be calling on you tonight for help. Say no.”

“Lilia, what—”

She stalked into the sunroom and threw open the door to the patio. The music was so loud that even the baby’s screams were muffled. She was aware enough of her own feelings to be sorry that was true. Everybody should get the full benefit of Toby’s misery.

At first she didn’t see her husband, but somehow a path cleared. Friends who had smiled at the sight of her with the baby quickly sensed all was not well and stepped away. She wasn’t surprised. She had learned to cover her despair in the past year, but fury was a different matter. Since she’d never been this angry, not in her entire life, she made no attempt to hide it.

Graham was in the far corner of their yard. He’d set up a dartboard against their tiny garage, and he, Carrick and several others, including Carrick’s date, were playing. She should have gloried in the sight, one that at times, she had worried she would never see again. At the moment her husband was up, darts in hand, and carefully, one after the other, he was aiming at the board. She watched as he scored a bull’s-eye.

Carrick moved to join her, but she waved him away. He paused. “Whose baby is that?” He looked completely baffled, and she wondered if Graham had kept Toby’s presence in the world a secret, not just from her, but from his best friend and attorney, too. Carrick usually saved his acting skills for the courtroom, but until now, she’d never had reason to doubt her husband, either.

She watched as Carrick floundered toward the truth. At that moment Graham finished his turn and turned away from the board. His smile of satisfaction died. His gaze flicked to the baby screaming against her chest, and suddenly, he looked as unwell and frightened as he had during the worst moments of his illness.

If she’d had lingering doubts that Marina had been telling the truth, they fled forever. She expelled a long, harsh breath, and then she lowered Toby until he rested in the crook of her arm, moved closer and held him out to Graham.

“All your best friends are here. I’m sure they want to meet your son, and they’ll want all the juicy details. I suggest you practice telling the truth for once and explain how this happened. They’ll be dying to know.”

When he didn’t step forward, she did, until there was nothing between them except one wailing infant.

“Lilia—”

“Don’t even try to explain. Take your son.”

He was frozen in place, as if the horror of the moment had stripped him of the ability to move.

She spoke through gritted teeth, and only for his ears. “I have managed to carry this baby all the way through the house, but if you don’t take him right this minute, I can’t say that either of you are going to survive unscathed.”

He reached out and grabbed Toby, holding him awkwardly.

“Just confirm Marina’s story,” she said. “This is your son? And all the months I was taking care of you, working to support us and doing everything I could to make sure you survived, another woman was pregnant with your child? Were you just waiting to tell me until you didn’t need my help anymore?”

“It wasn’t like that.”

“He’s yours?”

Graham looked down. If possible Toby was screaming louder, his tiny face screwed up in misery. “Yes.”

“Then I suggest you get used to taking care of him. His mother left and didn’t look back. She doesn’t want him, and as you probably figured out a year ago, neither do I.”

Then she turned and walked back through a parting Red Sea of guests who looked as if they would rather be slaves in Pharaoh’s Egypt than at this party to celebrate Graham’s good fortune.