The Baby Question

The Baby Question

Caroline Anderson

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Epilogue

Copyright

PROLOGUE

LAURIE felt the first twinges of failure with dismay.

Not again, she thought despairingly. We can’t have failed again. I can’t have failed again.

An hour later she was curled up on the sofa with the dog at her side, a low, gnawing ache eating at her, waiting for the phone to ring, for Rob to ask how she was.

Meaning that, of course.

Oh, well, she’d get through it. She always did. Month after month she braved his disappointment—and the same old arguments. He’d had a test, which proved he was fine. Why didn’t she have a test? At least then they’d know what they were dealing with, and there was so much they could do these days. Why not give it a try?

Because she didn’t want to know it was her fault. She didn’t want to go down the route of IVF and all that palaver. She was only twenty-six, and they hadn’t been trying that long. There was plenty of time.

Wasn’t there?

But she couldn’t spend it like this. She couldn’t spend yet another month waiting with bated breath for failure to strike.

There must be something else she could do with her life. Something more productive, less soul-destroying than sitting around being serviced fruitlessly like a barren cow.

She scrubbed the tears from her cheeks with the back of an angry hand, and stood up, unravelling her long legs and wandering through to the study with the dog at her heels. She’d look on the Internet. Maybe that would offer some suggestions—and, if not, fiddling on the computer would at least pass the time.

She found a website address that looked interesting, and clicked on it, but it was boring and badly put together. The material was interesting enough, but the presentation was rubbish.

She found another, and another, and they were all the same. Then she found a brilliant one, easy to use, obvious, interesting.

And an idea dawned, edging over the horizon of her consciousness and flooding her with enthusiasm. But how?

She wanted it to be a secret, wanted to keep this to herself, so he didn’t laugh at her or tease her or patronise her. She wasn’t sure it would work—wasn’t sure she could do it, although she couldn’t be worse than some. But how? And where? She couldn’t use his computer, he’d notice she’d been at his desk and want to know why.

No, she needed her own machine, but where? An office somewhere? Too expensive and, anyway, there was the dog to consider. She needed her own study here. If only there was a room she could use that Rob never went into …

Then she remembered the attic.

CHAPTER ONE

LAURIE felt the first twinges of failure with dismay.

Not again, she thought despairingly. We can’t have failed again. I can’t have failed again.

An hour later she was curled up on the sofa with the dog at her side, a low, gnawing ache eating at her, waiting for the phone to ring, for Rob to ask how she was.

Meaning that, of course.

She couldn’t tell him again. She couldn’t go through that same old ritual—are you all right? Do you want me to come home? I’ll take you out for dinner tonight.

Why? To celebrate another wasted month?

She gave a humourless little laugh, just as the phone rang right on cue. She answered it on the second ring, injecting sparkle into her voice.

‘How are you?’ he asked without preamble. Pregnant yet?

‘Fine. How are you?’ she asked, ignoring the unspoken question. ‘How’s New York?’

‘Cold and tedious. I’m stuck here for another week or two—problems. Can you manage?’

She almost laughed aloud. ‘I expect so,’ she said drily. God knows she was getting enough practice these days; he was hardly ever at home.

‘I’ll come back for the weekend if you like.’

‘Why bother? Just press on and get home when you can,’ she said, trying not to sound too unwelcoming. ‘I’ll be fine. I’ve got the dog for company.’

A man with less ego would have been offended, she thought, but Rob just chuckled. ‘I’ll speak to you tomorrow. You take care, now.’

Take care, just in case she might be pregnant.

Well, she wasn’t—again.

She sighed and went up to the attic. Work called. She was over-run, too much to do, too little time. In the last year her secret business as a web designer had gone from nothing to an astonishing success. She worked from the moment Rob left the house to the moment he returned—well, a few moments before, if she could manage it, so she could slip into something elegant and create a little havoc in the kitchen so he’d think she’d been cooking all afternoon. It was amazing how many things she could produce now in less than half an hour.

She had no time to herself any longer, no time at all. Her friends had all but given up on her, because she kept fobbing them off with excuses, and one by one they’d drifted away. That was fine. She didn’t need time for anything except this, the challenge she’d created for herself. The other challenge, the one she kept failing to meet, was harder because it was out of her control. Out of Rob’s, too, and for the first time in his life he’d discovered something that money couldn’t buy.

Well, it could, in a way. It could pay for expensive testing in private clinics, and IVF and other treatments till the cows came home, but in the end it might still be the same answer.

And anyway, as busy as she was, perhaps it was just as well. She wasn’t sure how a baby would fit in, and she wasn’t even sure she wanted one.

She stopped, her fingers coming to rest with a bump on the keys of the computer. A line of Xs appeared in front of her, and she lifted her hands and dropped them in her lap, stunned.

She didn’t want a baby? Good grief. What a realisation. She thought about it, analysing the random thought that had dropped into her head as if from nowhere, and realised it was true. She didn’t—not now, and maybe not ever. Not yet, at least. Not like this, with all the hassle of taking her temperature and phoning him at the office and having him drive home—he’d even flown back from Paris one time, to make love to her—make love? Huh, that was a joke.

They hadn’t made real love in ages. More than a year. It had to be the right time, the right position—the right angle, for heaven’s sake!—to maximise her chances of conceiving.

Well, she couldn’t do it any more, and she wouldn’t. Another realisation dawned. Not only did she not want a baby, she didn’t want Rob’s baby. She didn’t want to be that tied to him, not now, when their marriage seemed to be a thing of habit rather than the joy it had been at first.

When had the gloss gone off? This year? Last?

When she’d failed to get pregnant immediately, she realised. A chill seemed to have crept in, a disappointment in each other, a sense of failure and perhaps reality. Their golden world had come to an end, and maybe there was nothing structural underneath to support them now.

She needed to think. Needed space and time to consider their relationship and their future—if they had such a thing. And she couldn’t do that here.

Reaching for the keyboard again, she scrubbed what she’d been doing for the past few minutes, found a property website and clicked on Scotland. She loved Scotland. She’d always loved it, ever since her childhood. Maybe she could think up there. Two estate agents came up. She chose the one in Inverness. It was further away than Edinburgh.

She jotted the phone number down on a Post-it note, then dialled with shaking fingers.

‘I’m in a hurry to move to Scotland,’ she told them. ‘I don’t need a mortgage—just somewhere small for me and the dog, with a home office if possible. Remote, if you can, and as cheap as possible but civilised. It must have heating and plumbing, though, and it needs a phone line.’

‘Do you want to buy or rent?’ the young lady asked. ‘Only we’ve got a property that’s just come on the books which sounds ideal, but they want to rent it just for a few months until they decide what to do.’

‘Furnished or unfurnished?’ Laurie asked, suddenly thinking of all the things she’d have to buy to equip a new home, and wondering if she was quite mad.

‘Oh, furnished,’ the agent told her. ‘It’s fully equipped and really lovely—two bedrooms, although at the moment you’d only have the use of one because they’ve put a lot of personal stuff in the second, but there’s a room over the garage you could use as an office. They’ve gone to France and won’t be back unless things don’t work out, but it won’t be very expensive even if they do sell it, not that far north. The only thing is, there’s no guarantee it’ll come up for sale.’

‘That’s no problem. It would help me now, at least. How far north?’ she asked, her curiosity aroused.

‘About an hour from here—near where Madonna was married. Near Tain, on the Dornock Firth. It’s got wonderful distant sea and mountain views, if you don’t mind the isolation.’

Mind? Just then she’d die for it. ‘I’ll take it,’ she said instantly. ‘When could I move?’ Excitement was fizzing in her like champagne, the bubbles forming on the walls of her veins and tingling through them, bringing her to life.

‘You haven’t even seen the details!’ the lady exclaimed, but Laurie had heard enough.

‘What’s it called?’ she asked.

‘Little Gluich.’ She spelt it, and Laurie wrote it on the Post-it note next to the agent’s number and stuck it on the wall over her desk.

‘Can you fax me all the details?’ she asked then, and within two hours it was set up, and she’d arranged to call in for the keys in two days’ time.

All she had to do now was get there …

The house was empty.

Odd, how he knew that the moment he set foot over the threshold. The dog was missing, of course. That was a bit of a giveaway.

She must be walking him. At four-thirty, just barely into February? It was dark, or it would be soon. Not really safe on the roads. She’d probably gone over the fields instead, but it was very wet. In fact, he thought, remembering his drive home, it was pouring with rain.

She must be mad.

Unless she’d just found out she wasn’t pregnant again. That made her do crazy things sometimes. Oh, lord, not again, he thought heavily. Poor Laurie.

He put the kettle on. She’d want tea when she got in. Tea and sympathy. Hell. He wasn’t very good with the sympathy thing. He never seemed to hit the right note. In the meantime, he’d go and change out of his suit and put on something more relaxed. He’d been in a suit day in, day out for days. Weeks. Years?

The bedroom was very tidy. He’d obviously been away too long, he thought, unless Mrs Prewett had been today. Friday—or was it Thursday? He couldn’t remember, and he wasn’t sure now which days their cleaning lady came. He didn’t think he could even remember what she looked like.

He scrubbed a hand tiredly through his hair and dropped onto the edge of the bed to pull off his shoes. Where was Laurie? It was dark now, the fingers of night creeping across the sky. Surely she wasn’t walking the dog still? It would be dangerous in the wet and inky blackness.

He stood up and crossed to the window, peering down into the garden, but he couldn’t see a thing. Could she have taken shelter in the summer house?

Unlikely. She would surely have run back to the house if she’d been caught in the rain.

Maybe she was in but hadn’t heard him. The garage? No, he’d put his car away on the way in, and the electric zapper for the door also turned on the interior lights. He would have seen her, and anyway, why on earth would she be lurking in there in the dark, for heaven’s sake? Besides, there was the dog. If he was here, he would have barked by now.

Unless she was at the vet with him, or staying with a friend. Maybe that was it. Maybe she’d been lonely and thought he wasn’t coming back yet. He’d said he wasn’t, in the end.

No. Her car was in the garage, what was he thinking about? She didn’t go anywhere on foot, except to walk the dog, because there was nowhere to go that was near enough.

So where was she?

He changed quickly and went downstairs, still puzzled. She should have left him a note, for heaven’s sake.

Even though she wasn’t expecting him? ‘You’re being ridiculous,’ he muttered, conscious of a gnawing disappointment that she wasn’t here to greet him. So much for surprising her!

Then common sense reared its mocking head, and he rang her mobile number.

He got the message service, and irritation edged into concern. He left a message, trying to sound casual.

‘Darling, I’m home. Just wondered where you are. Ring me.’

He hung up, feeling a little aimless and lost. She was always here when he came home, and the house was dead and empty without her. He’d make tea. Maybe she’d be home by the time it was brewed. She might have gone out in a friend’s car—perhaps to walk dogs together, and then back to the friend’s for tea? They were probably out of range of the phone.

In Hertfordshire?

He paced to the window, glowering out into the impenetrable blackness of the wet night. It was truly foul out there. What if she was lying somewhere hurt?

Oh, God. Panic surged through him, and he pulled on his dogwalking coat and some wellies and went out into the garden, noting as he did that her coat and boots were missing. He called her as he tromped over the sodden grass, scanning round with the torch he’d taken with him. It hardly penetrated the gloom, and he didn’t know where to start. The garden was more of a mini-wilderness, ten acres, many of them rough and wild and boggy, with lots of places where she could be lying out of sight.

The woodland? Oh, lord, the lake?

He crushed the panic and told himself not to over-react, and concentrated on calling the dog, over and over again, but there was nothing. After an hour he gave up and went back inside, ready to phone the police, and that was when he spotted the note.

It was stuck on the front of the fridge door, held by a magnet, and he pulled it off and opened the envelope with fingers numb with cold and wet.

‘I’ve gone away for a while. I need to think. Don’t worry, I’m fine. I’ll ring. Laurie. PS. I have the dog.’

Rob stared at the paper, stunned. Gone away? To think? Think? About what, for God’s sake?

The baby, he thought with a wave of sadness. The baby they couldn’t seem to have. Oh, Laurie.

A lump formed in his throat and he swallowed it, hard. Where had she gone? What was she doing? She shouldn’t be alone—

The phone rang, and he snatched it up and barked, ‘Hello?’

‘Rob, it’s me. I just got your message. I didn’t realise you were coming home yet.’

He stabbed a hand through his wet hair. ‘Where the hell are you?’ he snapped, his relief releasing his anger. ‘I’ve been worried sick. I’ve been out in the rain and the dark scouring the garden with a torch—I’ve only just found your note. How come you haven’t got the car—and what do you mean, think?’

‘I’ve got another car.’

‘What?’ He sat down abruptly, stunned. ‘What do you mean, you’ve got another car? That one’s almost new!’

‘I know. This is mine.’

Mine. Something about that word rang alarm bells in his head and he stared at the phone cautiously. ‘The other one’s yours.’

‘Not in the same way. I don’t want to talk about it. Anyway, I just wanted you to know I’m all right. I’ll be in touch.’ There was a soft click, and the burr of the dialling tone sounded in his ear.

‘Laurie? Laurie, damn you, don’t do this to me!’ he yelled, and slammed the phone down, frustrated by his impotence.

Where was she? What was she doing?

Thinking.

What the hell did that mean, when it was at home? He phoned her again, and bombarded her with text messages, but to no avail. He was met by a relentless silence that nearly drove him crazy.

He paced round all evening, throwing together a scratch meal of bacon and eggs—about the only thing he could cook—and channel-hopped for a while, but the television couldn’t hold his interest, so he had a hot shower and got ready for bed, but he was wide awake because it was still only five in the evening New York time, so he went into the study and went through some paperwork that was waiting for him.

And all the time he could see Laurie’s face, a pale, perfect oval framed by that glorious soft, thick, shiny hair the colour of dark, moist peat. Her eyes were hazel, but when she was angry they fired gold and green sparks, and when she was aroused they went a wonderful soft smudgy green, and her mouth would yield to his touch, her lips swelling slightly and becoming rosy from his kisses, and afterwards her smile would be gentle and mellow and loving—

He frowned. She hadn’t looked like that for a while. It had all lost its spontaneity, and the sparkle seemed to have gone out of their relationship.

What relationship? Apparently they didn’t have one any more, he thought bitterly, slamming down the report unread. Damn her, where was she?

He left the study, prowling round the house, his temper fraying at the edges. He made a drink—just tea, he’d had too much alcohol and coffee in the past few days and he was feeling jaded and rough around the edges.

If only he could sleep, but there was no way. Between Laurie and the jet lag, he was stuffed. Maybe a long, hot soak in the bath would help. He went upstairs, and as he turned off the landing light a chink of light under the attic door caught his eye.

Someone must have left the light on—Laurie, probably, searching for a suitcase. He opened the door at the bottom of the narrow little stairs and reached for the switch, but the stream of gold came from further up. He nearly didn’t bother, but something prompted him to go up.

There were three rooms up there, cluttered and untouched. The whole floor was filled with a load of old junk, really, things they’d bought and outgrown the need for, old family things they didn’t have the heart to throw out. He hadn’t been up here in months—years, probably. He never needed to.

But someone had, because everything had been cleared out of one of the rooms, and it was almost empty.

Empty, except for a desk, a chair, a filing cabinet and a telephone—and a dangling flex with a bare, glowing bulb on the end.

He stared round, utterly confused, and slowly crossed to the chair, running his fingers thoughtfully over the back of it. It was his old desk chair, too upright to sit at for long, but ideal for working at the computer. Better than the one he had now, in fact, although not as good looking.

Still, that wasn’t everything.

He looked around at the room, puzzled. It looked like an empty office after a business had moved out. Odd scraps of paper here and there, barren and lifeless, the heart gone out of it.

He sat down and went through the desk drawers, but they were empty. The filing cabinet?

Also empty. He checked the bin, but all there was in it was a bit of stamp edging and an old envelope with a frank mark on it—a frank of a firm in Scotland.

William Guthrie Estate Agents, Inverness.

Estate agents? Why was she corresponding with estate agents?

Unless it was a clue to her whereabouts—

He tore the place apart, searching every nook and cranny again, and then pulled the desk out from the wall. Nothing. Then, behind the filing cabinet, he saw a sheet of paper.

His hand wouldn’t fit, so he grasped the cabinet and shifted it, then plucked the paper from its hiding place. It was dusty and wrinkled, handwritten, a mass of jottings and calculations of figures. Figures that looked like the turnover of a business. Figures that made him blink.

Laurie’s business?

Doing what? Maybe she was working as a homefinder? Hence the letter from the estate agents. No. She’d never earn that much.

He glanced at the back of the desk, and there, suspended halfway down the back of it, hanging by a corner, was a yellow sticky note. He peeled it off, and sat down on the desk thoughtfully.

William Guthrie, it read, and a number, and jotted below were the words ‘Little Gluich’.

A house? Had she for God’s sake bought a house in Inverness?

With what?

He looked again at the figures on the sheet of paper, and shook his head slowly. With that, maybe. With her apparently very healthy income. Unless she was renting.

He looked at his watch. Ten minutes past midnight. Almost nine hours to kill before he could reasonably ring the estate agents and find out what the hell was going on.

If they’d tell him, of course, which was by no means a foregone conclusion. He’d have to play the guileless, rather daffy husband, and just see how much he could get out of them. He’d play it by ear.

Unless, of course, he made a personal visit. He glanced at his watch again. He wouldn’t sleep, not a chance, and by the time he’d phoned Luton and booked a flight, driven over there and hung around, then hired a car at the other end and driven to Inverness, it would be nearly as quick to drive.

He took the little yellow note and the envelope and the calculations, flicked off the lights and went into his room, tipping his suitcase out ruthlessly on the bed and repacking. He’d need wash things, a towel perhaps, and thick, warm clothes. Nothing too formal, and nothing much. He didn’t intend to be there long.

He left the house before twelve-thirty, wondering whether he was chasing about the countryside after a total red herring, but he couldn’t just sit there and twiddle his thumbs. He needed to see her, and he needed to see her now.

He hit the almost deserted Al within minutes, and headed north, pulling over at Scotch Corner for coffee at five, then pressing on again. It got much slower in the rush hour, and he reached the outskirts of Edinburgh and stopped briefly for a late breakfast, stocking up on enough coffee to keep him awake and making Inverness by one.

He parked the car in a multi-storey and asked someone the way to the estate agents, then wound his way through the streets until he found it.

He caught a glimpse of himself in the window as he entered the office. He looked shattered, his eyes red-rimmed, his mouth a grim line. Good grief. If he didn’t lighten up, they’d think he was an axe-murderer! He forced his shoulders to relax as he pushed the door open and went in.

The office was almost deserted. A young woman sitting behind a desk looked up with a friendly smile. ‘Good afternoon, sir. Can I help you?’

He dropped into the chair opposite her and treated her to his most persuasive confused-little-boy grin. ‘I hope so. I’ve driven all the way here from London to join my wife, and I can’t find the directions she left me. They must have fallen out of the car door pocket when I stopped for breakfast. She’s just taken on a property from you—at least, I hope it was you. Your name rings a bell. I hope I won’t have to trawl round all the agents.’