Long-Lost Son Read online

  ‘Sounds great.’

  ‘It was.’ She made a face at him. ‘If you don’t mind getting a few leeches.’

  ‘City kids can be too squeamish about things like that. Look at him now!’

  ‘Rowdy! Gold-medal twister bomb there, mate!’ Joe exclaimed. He’d left Christina’s hospital bedside to come and eat, looking tired but content. Little Isabella Jane was in perfect health, he’d reported, and she was a natural at breast-feeding. Christina still felt pretty sore, but had insisted she’d be well enough to leave the hospital in time to get to Cal and Gina’s beach wedding in two days’ time, if someone could push a wheelchair onto the sand.

  ‘Dynamite!’ Cal agreed.

  Rowdy pulled himself out of the pool, streaming with water, hair plastered down on his head, grinning from ear to ear. He looked around for Max, as if wanting to make sure Max had seen the twister bomb, too. He took in a giant breath and opened his mouth. Janey clutched Luke’s arm.

  ‘He’s going to speak! He’s going to yell for Max to watch him. He…’ She stopped.

  Rowdy seemed to freeze where he stood. His wet hands clapped over his mouth and he seemed stricken and terrified out of nowhere. Cal, Gina and Alistair were all watching him as he stood there still streaming wet, looking suddenly so thin and small and alone in the middle of the barbecue crowd. Max and CJ took no notice of what was happening. Most of the adults were talking and hadn’t stopped to watch three little boys playing an ordinary water game.

  ‘Watch this one, CJ!’ Max said.

  ‘No, let’s do it together!’ Both boys made enormous leaps into the water.

  ‘What’s wrong with him?’ Janey murmured. She made a move to get up and go to Rowdy, but Luke held her back with a hand planted on her shoulder, which meant they were both holding onto each other now, because for some reason she hadn’t yet let go of his arm. ‘Luke?’

  ‘Let’s give him a minute. I’m not sure what’s happening.’

  ‘I just want to hold him. He’s upset.’

  ‘But what’s going on in that little head? If we watch, maybe we can work something out.’

  So she sat back down and they watched, half-expecting that he’d forget whatever had troubled him and would be back in the water in another few seconds.

  But he didn’t forget. He crept forlornly over to the remaining piece of fence, where he’d hung his towel. He wrapped it around himself and began to pick his way towards the house in his bare feet. He gave off the impression that he was sending himself into exile.

  CHAPTER SIX

  ‘I WANT to go after him,’ Janey said.

  ‘No.’ Luke still wouldn’t let her move.

  She made another attempt to shake him off, but he only slid his arm around to her other shoulder and held her more firmly where she sat. He felt warm and strong, and she was very glad he was there, very glad they didn’t drive each other crazy any more.

  Far too glad, probably. Their blossoming connection was undeniably powerful, because it concerned a child who was linked to each of them by blood and heart and history, and whom they both cared so much about. But Luke Bresciano was Alice’s ex-husband, and that made it feel wrong. He’d loved Alice first.

  She had to shake off this aching need.

  ‘I’m thinking, Janey,’ he said, sounding as tense as she felt. ‘I looked up some stuff at the hospital today about mute children and post-traumatic stress disorder, but it didn’t seem to fit.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘It’s depressive mostly in those kinds of cases. It’s associated with generalised apathy and night terrors, and it often comes on gradually. I don’t know. Maybe it’s pointless trying to work this out.’

  ‘I want to hear it, Luke.’

  ‘A lot of the stuff I found related to refugee children in detention centres. It’s horrible and this country needs to make some big changes in how it handles those cases, but it just didn’t seem relevant to Rowdy. He wanted to speak just now.’

  ‘Yes, desperately. You could see it, feel it. I really thought he would.’

  ‘You’re right, he was on the point of it, and it was probably to get CJ and Max’s attention, to say, “Watch this!” just the way the two bigger boys are doing with each other.’

  ‘But then he stopped himself.’

  ‘Exactly. Because he remembered that he wasn’t allowed to. But why does he think he’s not allowed to?’ His thigh pressed against hers and she let the contact stay, despite all her reluctance and doubt. ‘What does he think is going to happen if he does?’

  ‘I don’t know. I have no idea.’

  ‘Surely we’ve all made it clear to him that he’s welcome and wanted and loved and has the right to say anything he wants!’

  ‘I’ve tried. And I’ve tried not to scare him with too much at once. Kids don’t always need high emotion.’

  ‘Georgie reminded me of that. Just to take it moment by moment, just to do the ordinary things together. And yet he seemed terrified.’

  ‘I want to go and find him. He’s disappeared into the house and I need to know that he’s safe, Luke.’ She gripped his hand, and then his strong wrists. ‘That he won’t just let himself out of another door onto the far veranda, wander down the steps and disappear.’

  ‘Yes. All right.’ He squeezed her shoulders again, then they both stood. He ran his hand down her bare arm as if he didn’t want to let her go, and she felt the same. No matter how hard she tried to keep rational about this, keep a safe cushion of distance, fight its deeper implications, she felt so close to him, linked by what they both felt for Rowdy and utterly safe in sharing all her fears. She belonged by his side, at least when they were following his son.

  ‘Situation in hand?’ Alistair asked as they went past him. Gina and Cal were still covertly watching, and Janey caught glances from a couple of others also.

  ‘Leave it to us,’ Luke answered. ‘Whatever’s going on, he doesn’t need a crowd.’

  They found him easily enough—in the kitchen, eating the leftover cubes of watermelon that hadn’t been used in the watermelon salad. He looked up at the sound of the screen door opening, then turned away deliberately, as if it wasn’t even safe to look at them.

  Because then he might be tricked out of his self-imposed silence?

  ‘Sweetheart, what’s wrong?’ Janey asked, coming close.

  Nothing.

  Luke pulled out a kitchen chair and sat in it back to front, leaning his forearms over the chair back and hunching down so he was almost at eye level with Rowdy. In the one light that someone had left on above the stove, his dark hair gleamed and his tanned arms looked like dusty teak.

  ‘Listen, little mate,’ he said, ‘something is making you scared to talk, and we want to help. People need to talk, you know. That’s how we understand each other, and we want to understand you. We really do. It’s not wrong. If someone’s told you that something bad is going to happen if you talk…That’s wrong, OK? That’s not true.’

  He waited.

  Silence.

  ‘Luke’s right, sweetheart,’ Janey said. ‘Nothing bad is going to happen if you talk.’

  But he said nothing, and he didn’t look as if he believed them. Still frozen to the spot, so little and tightly held in, he blinked, squeezing his eyes shut until moisture appeared at the corners. That struggle was still going on inside him. Should they push? Should they try to get him over that edge of control somehow? Make him speak?

  But it was getting late. She looked at Luke and they reached a silent agreement not to push him any more tonight. They still didn’t understand enough about what was going on. ‘For now?’ he murmured.

  ‘Yes.’

  They gave each other a wry smile. At least their communication with each other was working, and that was worth a lot.

  ‘Bedtime,’ Luke announced. ‘How about another Thomas the Tank story?’

  Rowdy nodded. He wasn’t yet ready to smile.

  ‘Teeth first,’ Janey said. ‘And a go
od night’s sleep because we’re going on that picnic tomorrow, remember?’

  He nodded again. Still no smile.

  Twenty minutes later, Janey put on the electric jug for a cup of tea and Luke came back from Rowdy’s bedroom to report, ‘Almost asleep before the end of the story. I think he’s exhausting himself with whatever’s going on inside him. It’s not just the physical effect of everything he’s been through. What time did he wake up this morning?’

  ‘Eight-thirty.’

  ‘And he had a two-hour nap, and now it’s only eight-fifteen.’

  ‘I know. But maybe lots of sleep is the best thing for him.’

  ‘I think so. I think we just have to let all of this go at its own pace. Have to tell you, it’s very good that you and I are not at odds over this. A huge plus.’

  ‘I think so, too. Do you want tea?’ The electric jug had begun to sing.

  Luke glanced out the kitchen window in the direction of the pool. ‘People are still in the water, and a few have headed back to the hospital. It’s much quieter in here, isn’t it? Yes, let’s sit for a while.’

  Janey poured the tea and they both sat at the kitchen table, sharing many of the same thoughts, no doubt, but not many words. The refrigerator hummed. Laughter and conversation drifted up from beside the pool. The peace in here wouldn’t last. Soon, people would start bringing in the leftovers and the dirty dishes. CJ and Max would be ready for bed, too. But for now…

  ‘I’m trying to think how it would have been if I hadn’t found your address amongst Alice’s things,’ Janey said.

  He took in a quick breath. ‘Don’t.’

  ‘No, I know, it’s too hard to contemplate.’

  ‘Those maybes and what-ifs. I used to torture myself with them in London after Alice disappeared with him. You can’t think about the what-ifs.’

  ‘But I wanted to tell you that I’m glad I brought him here. Because it means there’s someone else who cares about him in the same way I do, and that’s so good.’

  ‘Yes. It is.’

  ‘I—I really need it, Luke. Whatever happens, I want you to know that I’m not going to be heading out of here on the next plane. I’m giving this some time.’

  ‘I appreciate it. You always were…’ He paused and fished around for a word. Came up with ‘sensible.’

  She made a face. ‘Gee, thanks!’

  He threw back his head and laughed, something he hadn’t done very often over the past two days. ‘Want to give me another shot at that?’

  ‘Not sure I’m prepared to take that much of a risk.’

  ‘You’re good, Janey, OK? You’ve been bloody great every single minute since our first talk on Tuesday afternoon…’

  ‘Our first fight, you mean.’

  ‘I like fighting with you. It clears the air. And I need you every bit as much as you need me.’

  They looked at each other over their mugs of steaming tea and teetered on the edge of saying more. Or doing more. The fridge stopped humming. Janey heard someone call out, ‘Bring in the bread.’

  Good. They’d be interrupted any second. It was the only thing that would save her from doing something really, really impossible and dumb with the man her sister had been so cruel to.

  But even the interruption didn’t save her in the end, because when most people had gone to bed a couple of hours later, and Janey herself couldn’t sleep, she went along to Rowdy’s room to check on him and there was Luke, in a white T-shirt and a pair of dark blue cotton boxer shorts, doing the same thing.

  Rowdy was breathing peacefullly beneath his light cotton sheet, lying on his back with his head turned to one side. It was a trusting position and he looked so relaxed and still, his skin as tender as a baby’s and his lashes dark on his cheeks.

  He didn’t need anything right now.

  ‘But how about you?’ Luke asked Janey softly. Now they stood just outside Rowdy’s door. It was the right moment to wish each other good night and just…just leave, head in opposite directions down the corridor. It shouldn’t be so hard!

  ‘I’m not expecting to sleep for a while,’ she said. ‘I had that big nap this afternoon, just like Rowdy did.’

  ‘Want to go for a walk or something?’ He shifted, and a floorboard creaked.

  ‘In bare feet and my nightie?’ Which had been in the overnight bag that had survived the bus crash, and was just a short, strappy bit of blue, lace-edged silk that kept her cool during Darwin’s hot nights.

  ‘I’ll lend you a T-shirt to put over it, and some thongs. Come on. I can’t stay in the house.’

  ‘All right.’ His almost impatient assumption that she would join him drew her in.

  He wasn’t being arrogant or pushy, he was just, oh, counting on her.

  Trusting her.

  Acknowledging this strong, rock-solid foundation they both seemed to be standing on together. She somehow knew that if she’d spoken the same words to him—Come on, I can’t stay in the house—he would have responded with the same agreement.

  She followed him to his room and stood inside the doorway, watching him dig through his T-shirt drawer in the dark, because he hadn’t wanted to blind both of them with a sudden flood of light. ‘This one’s pretty new.’ He held it out.

  ‘Because I couldn’t possibly wear one of your old T-shirts, could I?’ She stepped further into the room and took it from him. ‘Yuck! They must be disgusting!’ She realised too late how flirty she sounded, teasing him like that.

  His body went still as she took the shirt, and he didn’t let it go. ‘Don’t tease me,’ he said.

  ‘I’m sorry…’

  ‘No, damn it, do tease me! Do anything you want with me!’ He pulled suddenly on the T-shirt, reeling her close. ‘I don’t care, I just…’ He didn’t bother to finish. His body said the words instead.

  Want you.

  And he knew she felt the same. He had to know. The same strength. The same rightness. Everything.

  He bent and rolled his forehead across hers, dropped the T-shirt, curved his palms over her bare shoulders, bent lower and kissed her collarbone and her neck, and then the slope of one breast where the lace ended. She stood motionless and let her eyes drift shut, pretending to herself for one more moment that this wasn’t her decision, that it was all coming from him.

  But it wasn’t. It was in her just as much. All through her.

  She lifted her face in search of a kiss and felt the light brush of his mouth against her parted lips. He took it achingly slowly and sweetly, still holding her shoulders with his warm hands, tasting her lightly and then going deeper, making her lips part further to receive him, drawing her tongue into a dance.

  He stepped close against her, and she discovered how aroused he was. Mmm. Oh. Delicious. She grabbed his hips and pulled him as close as he could get, and he wrapped his arms hard around her, then ran his hands everywhere. Down her back. Into the soft creases at the tops of her thighs. Over her tingling breasts.

  He slid the straps off her shoulders, and kissed his way down to one nipple and then the other, and that was fine, it was perfect. Oh, it was so good, it made her gasp. He lavished her breasts with the touch of his mouth, ran the tip of his tongue around her nipples, cupped her and buried his face in the valley he’d made.

  ‘You have such a beautiful body…’

  ‘So do you. I want you so much.’ She curled her fingers in his dark hair, needing him to anchor her in a universe that had become unsteady down to its very foundations. She twisted her head back, breathless and desperate for more.

  There was too much fabric in the way. She lifted the hem of his T-shirt and helped him pull it over his head, and then her silk slip slid down between their bodies and pooled around her feet, and all there was left was skin.

  Skin and a fairly ineffective pair of boxer shorts, which he soon got rid of. They came together again and he felt like warm satin against her breasts and her stomach and her legs. Holding her upper thighs, he lifted her and she wrapped her legs a
round him while he carried her to the bed.

  ‘Do you want this?’ he demanded.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Are you using birth control?’

  ‘No…’

  ‘Then I will.’

  But he kissed her first, kneeling beside the bed and reaching for her, kissing her everywhere, everywhere, bringing her gasping to the brink, so that she began to beg him, ‘Don’t stop yet. Not yet.’

  ‘Ten seconds. I have to.’

  ‘Yes. OK. Yes.’

  And then he was inside her, with one effortless thrust. She held him, pushed her hips against him and drew them back, bringing them closer, bringing him deeper. He rolled, sliding her whole body on top of his, and buried his face between her breasts again, tightened his arms around her and rocked.

  The world exploded, a shattering of stars behind her closed lids, panting breath. They squeezed each other and clung and she heard a groan tear from his body, while she was almost sobbing with the power of her release.

  When she laid her head against his chest a few moments later, she heard his heart pounding, and could have stayed in his arms listening to it all night. All night, tomorrow night, for ever.

  ‘Janey…’ he said, after a few minutes.

  ‘I’m still here.’

  ‘I know you are. Happy?’

  ‘Yes.’ She slid to lie beside him, and he tangled his legs with hers and rested a hand on her breast.

  ‘I wish you could stay all night,’ he said.

  ‘Me, too.’ She thought about it for a moment. ‘I guess I can’t. Rowdy might come looking for me.’

  And if he found her in the wrong bed, with Luke, he wouldn’t even be able to ask the funny little five-year-old questions that would give them their cue for tackling the subject in the right way. She didn’t want Rowdy finding her in Luke’s bed.

  Not yet.

  ‘We probably—’ he began.

  ‘Don’t say that it shouldn’t have happened,’ she cut in. It might be true, but she didn’t want to hear it. Didn’t want him to spell it out for her, speaking gently in case she didn’t realise.