She searched his eyes—those gorgeous, penetrating, honest eyes—and she could read them clearly, could see the genuine worry he felt for his unknown children, the responsibility he felt for their happiness over which he had no control.
‘You’re a good man, do you know that?’ she said softly, and he laughed and turned away, making a production of spooning out the froth onto her new coffee.
‘Chocolate sprinkles?’
‘Is it powder?’
‘No, it’s flakes of real chocolate.’
‘Oh, yes, please. I love those.’
‘Me, too. Here.’
He handed it to her, and she went up on tiptoe and brushed a kiss against his cheek.
‘Thank you.’
He looked slightly startled. ‘It’s only a coffee.’
‘It’s not for the coffee, it’s for caring—about the children you don’t know, about me—just—for caring.’
He hesitated, staring down into her eyes, and then he gave a fleeting smile.
‘You’re welcome. I didn’t mean to interfere, but I can’t stand by and watch a friend sleepwalk into potential unhappiness without saying anything.’
‘Am I a friend?’ she asked, and he gave her a thoughtful half-smile.
‘I think you could be. I’m not in the habit of spilling my guts to people who aren’t.’
He turned back to the coffee maker, and she perched on a chair at the big old table, a funny warm feeling inside, and watched him make his own coffee, his movements as deft and sure as they’d been in Resus. He rinsed out the milk frother, sat down opposite her and met her eyes.
‘Talking about spilling my guts, it’s a bit late to worry about this, but you’re the only person outside my family who I’ve ever told about any of this stuff, so I’d be grateful if you’d keep it to yourself.’
She nodded, surprised that he’d even felt he had to ask her. ‘Of course I will. I’m amazed you told me. It’s not the sort of thing people talk about—and snap, by the way. Only my sister and brother-in-law know. We haven’t even told the rest of the family.’
‘Yes, I can understand that.’ He gave a wry chuckle. ‘I didn’t mean to tell you, by the way, it just sort of came out, but—Iona, please be careful, and if you do decide to do it, do it properly? Don’t go and have some unpremeditated random one-night stand with someone just because they’re tall and blond and have good bone structure.’
That made her laugh. ‘I was sort of joking, but it’s what my brother-in-law looks like, and we’ve been trying to find a sperm donor who at least has some of his physical characteristics. They tried IVF and got a few live embryos, but the quality wasn’t great and none of them implanted, although nobody could say why for certain. Steve’s sperm quality isn’t good, so she’s tried AI with a tall, blue-eyed blond donor, which didn’t work, and I’ve tried AI three times with Steve’s semen and not got pregnant.’
A little frown appeared fleetingly between his brows. ‘I didn’t realise you’d got that far down the line,’ he said slowly.
‘Oh, yes. This isn’t a spur-of-the-moment thing, Joe. We’ve been talking about it for ages. That’s part of the reason I took this job, to be nearer to them. So, anyway, it needs to be another sperm donor since the one she tried has reached his limit of donations, and we can’t find another one that ticks all the boxes on any of the donor sites, at least not the physical appearance boxes. And, yes, I know that’s the least important thing in a way, but it’s tough enough for them without the child looking like a cuckoo in the nest. Maybe I need to go on a cruise up the fjords and try and find a Viking,’ she added lightly, winding him up again, and he spluttered into his coffee and wiped the froth off his lip, his eyes brimming with laughter.
‘Do you know who goes on fjord cruises? Tourists, Iona. People like my parents. And, believe me, they don’t look like Vikings.’
‘Oh, well, there goes that idea, then.’ She laughed, then sat back, cradling her coffee. ‘Tell me about them—your parents.’
‘My parents? What can I tell you? My dad’s called Bill, my mother’s Mary, they’re in their late sixties. Dad’s an ex-army officer, invalided out after an explosives accident that left him with—well, let’s call them life-changing injuries, for want of a better description. And as if that wasn’t enough, my mother, who was pregnant at the time, lost her baby.’
‘Oh, Joe, that’s awful. That’s so sad.’
He nodded. ‘They think it was probably the shock of the severity of his injuries that caused her miscarriage. It might have been, or it might not, but because of his injuries it was their last chance and they lost it. Hence why I’m an only child. And despite his best efforts to get rid of her, my mother’s stuck by him and they have a great relationship, but underlying it all is this sadness, a sort of grief I guess for the baby they lost and the children they never had.’
‘Hence why you were a sperm donor,’ she said slowly, understanding him now at last. ‘To help people like them.’
‘Yes. Or at least partly. I was four when the accident happened, and I spent a lot of that year living with my aunt and uncle here, and it was the nearest they got to having their own children and we’re still really close. Elizabeth, my aunt, is my father’s much older sister, and she’s widowed now, but she and her husband built this house in their thirties as their family home, and the family never happened. She’s never got over that.’
‘Does she know what you’ve done?’
‘Oh, yes. She was the first person I told and she’s been hugely supportive.’ He smiled fondly. ‘Oddly, I can talk to her about things I could never tell my parents.’
‘I don’t think that’s odd. I feel the same. There are things I can tell my aunt I’d never tell my mother.’ She looked up at him again, watching his face carefully as she spoke because she’d just had a crazy idea and she didn’t know how it was going to land.
‘Talking of families—are you busy this weekend?’
‘Why?’ he asked warily, turning his head slightly to the side and eyeing her suspiciously.
‘Because I need a plus one. My baby brother’s getting married tomorrow, and I have to go to his wedding, and I really, really don’t want to go on my own.’
He frowned. ‘Are you suggesting I should come with you? Because there’s no way in hell I’m going to another wedding as long as I live, not after my catastrophic car crash of a marriage.’
She laughed wryly, even though it wasn’t funny. ‘I can understand that. It’s exactly why I don’t want to go, except I never got to the altar. I found out three days before my wedding that he’d slept with the stripper on his stag weekend, and when I challenged him he said something about it just being drunken high spirits, so when I asked him if he’d still been drunk on the subsequent four occasions he started grovelling, but I’d had enough so I called it off, and then he went round slagging me off to all our friends, saying I’d dumped him without hearing his side of it.’
‘What side? It sounds to me like you’re well off out of it.’
‘Oh, tell me about it, but I still don’t want to go to Johnnie’s wedding on my own with all the friends and relatives who would have been at mine, who’ll feel morally obliged to come and tell me how sorry they were and try and get all the juicy details. Especially not since it’s also the same church I should have got married in less than two years ago.’
‘Where is it?’ he asked, surprising her.
‘Where? Norfolk. A village just west of Norwich, not all that different