Читать книгу Long-Lost Father - Melissa James - Страница 10

SHE SOUNDS LIKE SAM in miniature…

Lost in a haze of passion, of need for Sam’s touch, Brett reacted with the instinct of a man who’d lived in a place where to move too slow could mean death. He slewed his gaze to the open door off the open-plan lounge, to where the lilting voice had asked the half-curious question.

And he saw a tiny, mussed angel in Winnie the Pooh pyjamas.

Feathery curls a touch brighter than Sam’s fell in tumbled disarray around little shoulders. A face as fine and spiritual as a Botticelli cherub was turned to him. Tiny features, a replica of her mother’s, in a pale heart-shaped face. A mouth of baby pink was unsmiling yet not angry.

This is my daughter.

A jolt of awareness filled him, a gentle awakening of some emotion he’d long buried beneath anger and denial. She was his daughter; he could see a pair of twitching dimples beside her mouth and the enormous golden-brown eyes gazing in his direction.

The photos he’d seen hadn’t done her beauty any justice at all. He couldn’t stop staring at this haunting, delicate, beautiful child.

My daughter.

“Hello?” Casey’s voice trembled with sudden uncertainty. “Mummy?”

He wanted to hit himself for being so stupid. Lesson number one in being a daddy to a special-needs child: always answer her when she talks to you.

“I’m here, sweetheart.” Sam’s voice was full of love.

Brett put a hand on her arm, willing her to stay where she was. After a short, searching glance, Sam nodded but held her ground.

“Hello, Casey.” Brett’s heart was beating fast. What would she think of him? Would she like him? Or—

“Hello.” A tentative smile flitted across her face, lifting dimples, before she repeated her initial question. “Are you my father?”

Her face held only a polite smile. Impassivity in a five-year-old unnerved Brett. There was nothing in her face to read. She was curious as to whether he was her father, that was all.

“Yes, Casey,” he said softly. “My name’s Brett Glennon. I’m your father.”

She nodded, slow and cautious, not moving toward him or moving away. He realised she was keeping her distance, almost as if she was afraid…

Afraid of him?

Keeping his features schooled, he absorbed the pain. Casey saw more than he would have thought with those imperfect eyes. Had she seen past his gentle facade to the anger in his heart that his child, his daughter, should have such a terrible burden to bear? Did she wonder if her daddy wouldn’t like her because she was blind?

This was a fear his daughter should never have had to go through—

And she wouldn’t if I hadn’t left for Africa.

And like that, the truth pounced on him, like a lion long crouched nearby, waiting to attack. Maybe he’d known all along. But he’d concentrated so much on where Sam had been, he’d forgotten what she’d borne alone in the years he’d been gone. If she’d stayed with his parents, he’d have known Casey the past two years—but he’d still have three years of unintentional neglect to make up for.

Not for the first time, he felt the knife-pang of regret for leaving Sam behind in the first place, for charging ahead with a dream despite the cost to others, for cementing a love that happened in the wrong time and place. By living his dream, he’d left her alone with a hard pregnancy, a new state and a special-needs child, and his parents with the consequences of an assumed death and his father’s strokes.

He’d been so damn-fool arrogant to think he had to save the world instead of keeping his own world together. Been so sure his choice was right, cocky and confident that everything would fall into place for everyone he loved.

It hadn’t worked out for anyone. Not for the refugees he’d gone to help—he’d been kidnapped too soon to be of use. It hadn’t worked for his parents—his father had been wheelchair-bound for years from the shock of losing his son and grandchild at once.

It didn’t work out for Sam, either. Not even for me.

He’d thought he’d been the victim in this scenario. Events tonight had shown him that he hadn’t been the only one to make sacrifices.

It seemed he had a lot to make up for.

“I came to meet you, Casey,” he said, hoping to start bridging a gap that should never have existed…but it did, and he had to deal with the reality of that. “I would have come a long time ago, but—” after a glance at Sam, he went on “—but I was living far away and I didn’t know where you and Mummy had gone.”

“Okay,” Casey said, accepting his words at face value. She stuck out her hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Mr.—” She groped for the name she’d already forgotten.

“My name’s Brett Glennon, Casey.” He limped forward and took her hand. Sam had trained their child in good manners—but then, blind children learned through hearing and touch, scent and instinct. Touching was Casey’s way of “seeing” him.

“I’m very glad to meet you,” he added, smiling at her even though he knew she couldn’t see it. Casey possessed her mother’s ability to send that piercing shaft of joy through him with the most simple of words and acts.

“You’re smiling,” Casey said. “I can hear it in your voice.”

“Yes, I am,” he replied, taken aback. “I’m just so happy to meet you, Casey—and to discover that I have such a beautiful daughter.”

“My name’s Holloway,” Casey said gravely, releasing his hand. “At school, the other kids who got a daddy and a mummy all got the same name.”

“Have, Casey,” Sam put in, her voice restrained. “The kids have a daddy and have the same name.”

“Yeah, that,” Casey agreed, her smile growing. “So why’s your name different?”

Brett grinned. So she’d also inherited his tendency to tease…and his bulldog tenacity to get answers.

Cautiously he gave her an edited version of the truth. “Like I said, I was far away. I was living in a place called Africa when you were born. I’m a doctor and I wanted to help people who were hungry and suffering.” With a flickered look at a withdrawn Sam, he added, “I was working where it was hard to get to a phone. I wish I had known about you, Casey. I would have come home to look after you both.”

He searched Casey’s face, wondering if she’d noticed his avoidance of her real question, but she’d veiled her reaction. Another wall of anguish slammed into him. That any five-year-old child, let alone his daughter, should know how to hide her emotions, struck his soul with a chilling feeling of wrongness.

Casey asked slowly, “Can I look at you?”

Sam said, “She means she’d like to—”

“I know, Sam.” With a difficulty so strong it was pitiful, he managed to bend his knee. Balancing with a hand on the chair, then the coffee table beside it, he lowered himself to the floor before the little girl. Again he took Casey’s hand—such a fragile thing—and lifted it to his face. “Go for it, kid,” he said in a gentle voice.

Casey’s fingers explored his face, walking along his skin in delicate pulses and strokes. She felt his closed eyes, tested the shape of his less-than-classic nose, his strongly defined cheekbones, the line of his brow. She learned the shape of his ears. Her fingers probed his mouth, feeling the indents of his dimples beside it.

Question number one answered: she wasn’t legally blind but profoundly blind. Legally blind children could see through thick glasses, make out blurry images by peering close enough. Casey must have no sight at all. What accident of birth or fate had caused it? Had the stress of her mother’s pregnancy all alone caused this?

Could he have prevented Casey’s disability if he’d been home and seen the signs of trouble before her optic nerve had become irreparably damaged?

“You have dimples, like me,” Casey commented, jerking him from his reverie.

“And we have the same colour eyes,” he added, without mentioning the actual shade. She wouldn’t understand, he thought, and the pang of wistfulness hit him harder than he believed it could. He’d thought he’d accepted this…

But that was before he’d met her, this lovely child with the woman’s mind.

Casey nodded thoughtfully. “Do I look like you?”

“A little bit,” he said, feeling a strong sense of pride. This tiny angel, so haunting and almost perfect, had sprung from his loins, his blood, his love for Sam. “You look more like your mummy, which means you’re very pretty.”

A tiny hand fell onto his chest—and a frown marred her translucent face. “Why are you sad?” she asked. Either she knew she was pretty or such things didn’t bother her.

Does she know what “pretty” is? She’s never seen one beautiful thing in her life…

And again that hurt far more than he’d thought it would.

Then her words penetrated and he blinked. “What?”

“You walked funny and have a stick to balance. You have a sore leg. And you have sad lines,” Casey said softly, “here—” she touched his mouth “—and here,” touching his forehead.

“I might be old,” he replied to gain time, stunned by what she’d said and how she’d reached her conclusions—and by the fact that she was right every time.

Casey’s mouth turned down. “Your hand hasn’t got any wrinkly bits. Your voice isn’t old.” She moved back, severing the fragile connection they’d been making.

Lesson number two: don’t underestimate her because she can’t see.

“Why were you fighting with Mummy?”

The way she put it wasn’t a question; she was stating a fact and demanding answers. No, Casey wasn’t a child to underestimate.

Sam jumped in before he could answer the child. “Casey—” she ordered in a no-nonsense, go-to-bed tone.

Brett frowned, surprising himself by siding with Casey. “She deserves to know, Sam.”

Sam glared at him. “She’s only five! She doesn’t need to—”

“She’s part of us,” he said, again surprising himself, and turned back to Casey. “I sort of startled Mummy. She wasn’t expecting me to come here. She thought I was still far away.”

“You were yelling at her,” Casey pointed out. “Don’t you like Mummy?”

He twisted around, looking at his wife with a serious, intent expression. “Yes, Casey, I like your mummy. I always have, from the moment I met her.”

He could see the rosy outline of Sam’s cheek as she turned away. But the denial implicit in her stiff back slammed into his gut—then he saw that she was shaking. This night, this reunion, was taking a higher toll on Sam than he’d believed it could.

And behind his wife’s turned back, on the sideboard, he saw it. A series of framed photos: a picture of them on their first date, holding hands and smiling, taken by a roving photographer; their engagement celebration, done at a professional studio, him seated, with Sam’s arms wrapped around him from behind; and their favourite wedding shot, a candid one taken by a friend, where Sam had tripped over something—he couldn’t remember what—and he’d grabbed her around the waist to steady her. Both of them were laughing with the joy of the day, her veil billowing around them like a benediction.

So she hadn’t forgotten. If there was a man in her life, she’d have put the visible reminders of her past in a drawer, where they belonged.

“So why were you talking cranky?”

Brett dragged his attention back to his daughter. All he wanted right now was to take Sam into his arms, to comfort and love her. But he wouldn’t even get to his feet without making a total fool of himself; reaching the floor for Casey had taken all the strength he’d had for now.