Grace closed her eyes for a heartbeat as she let her breath escape in a sigh. How good was this kind of weather, when she could snuggle beneath layers of warm clothes and a lovely, puffy jacket? Nobody would ever guess what she was hiding.
Charles was smiling again as he came back towards her. He hadn’t bothered with a hat or gloves and he was rubbing his hands together against the chill of the late autumn air. The breeze was ruffling his hair, which looked longer and more tousled than Grace remembered. Maybe he didn’t get much time for haircuts these days. Or maybe how he looked wasn’t a priority. It would be ironic if that was the reason, because the tousled look, along with that designer stubble, actually made him look way more attractive.
‘That’s my duty done. Now I get to watch them run around and climb things until they either get hungry or need to go to the toilet. Probably both at the same time.’
‘I should get going. Horse isn’t getting the exercise I promised him.’
‘Wait a bit? The boys won’t forgive me if you disappear before they’ve had a chance to show off a bit.’
‘Sure.’
With the bars of the fence between them and Charles’s attention back on his children, it felt curiously safe to be standing this close to him. It was safe anyway, Grace reminded herself. The last thing Charles Davenport would want would be another complication in his life and nobody could take the place of the twins’ mother, anyway. With another wash of that empathy, the words came out before Grace thought to filter them.
‘You must miss their mom so much...’
The beat of silence between them was surprisingly loud against the backdrop of happy shrieks and laughter from the small crowd of children swarming over the playground attractions. She couldn’t miss the way Charles swallowed so carefully.
‘So much,’ he agreed. ‘I can only be thankful that the boys will never feel that loss.’
Grace was silent but she could feel her brow furrowing as Charles slid a brief glance back in her direction.
‘Oh, they’ll know that something’s missing from their life as they get older and notice that all the other kids have moms but they never knew Nina. She didn’t even get to hold them.’
‘I’m so sorry, Charles,’ Grace said quietly. ‘I had no idea until Helena mentioned it the other day. I can’t even imagine how awful that must have been.’
‘We had no warning.’ His voice sounded raw. ‘The pregnancy had gone so well and we were both so excited about welcoming the twins. Twins run in the family, you know. My brother Elijah is my twin. And we knew they were boys.’
Grace was listening but didn’t say anything. She couldn’t say anything because her treacherous mind was racing down its own, private track. Picking the scab off an old, emotional wound. Imagining what it would be like to have an enormous belly sheltering not one but two babies. She could actually feel a wash of that excitement of waiting for the birth.
‘The birth was textbook perfect, too. Cameron arrived and then five minutes later Max did. They were a few weeks early but healthy enough not to need any intervention. I had just cut Max’s umbilical cord and was lifting him up to put him in Nina’s arms when it happened. She suddenly started gasping for breath and her blood pressure crashed. She was unconscious even before the massive haemorrhage started.’
‘Oh... God...’ Grace wasn’t distracted by any personal baggage now. She was in that room with Charles and his two newborn sons. Watching his wife die right in front of his eyes. Her own eyes filled with tears.
‘Sorry...’ Charles sucked in a deep breath. ‘It’s not something I ever talk about. I feel...guilty, you know?’
‘What? How could you possibly feel guilty? There was nothing you could have done.’
‘There should have been.’ There was an intensity to his voice that made the weight of the burden Charles carried very clear. ‘It was my job to protect her. I was a doctor, for God’s sake. I should have seen something. Some warning. She could have had a medically controlled birth. A Caesarean.’
‘It could still have happened.’ Grace could hear an odd intensity in her own voice now. Why did it seem so important to try and convince Charles that he had nothing to feel guilty about? ‘A C-section might not have made any difference. These things are rare but they happen—with no warning. Sometimes, you lose the babies as well.’ She glanced away from Charles, her gaze drawn to the two happy, healthy little boys running around in the playground. ‘Look at them,’ she said softly. ‘Feel blessed...not guilty...’
Charles nodded. ‘I do. Those boys are the most important thing in my life. They are my life. It’s just that it gets harder at this time of year. It sucks that the anniversary of losing Nina is also the twins’ birthday. They’re old enough to know about birthdays now and that they’re supposed to be happy. And it’s Halloween, for heaven’s sake. Every kid in the country is getting dressed up and having fun.’
‘That’s next week.’
‘Yeah.’ Charles pushed his fingers through his hair as he watched Max follow Cameron through a tunnel at the base of the wooden fort. ‘And, thanks to their little friends at nursery school, they’re determined to go trick or treating for the first time. And they all wear their costumes to school that day.’
Clearly, it was the last thing Charles wanted to think about. The urge to offer help of some kind was powerful but that might not be something Charles wanted, either. But, he’d opened up to her about the tragedy, hadn’t he? And he’d said that he never talked about it but he’d told her. Oddly, that felt remarkably special.
Grace bit her lip, absently scratching Houston’s ear as he leaned his head against her leg.
‘I wonder if they do Halloween costumes for dogs,’ she murmured.
Clearly, Charles picked up on this subtle offer to help make this time of year more fun. More of a celebration than a source of painful memories. His startled glance reminded her of the one she’d received the other day when she’d told him what a lucky man he was to have such gorgeous children. As if he was unexpectedly looking at something from a very different perspective.
If so, he obviously needed time to think about it and that was fine by Grace. Maybe she did, too. Offering to help—to become more involved in this little family—might very well be a mistake. So why did it feel so much like the right thing to do?
Charles was watching the boys again as they emerged from the other end of the tunnel and immediately ran back to do it all over again.
‘Enough about me,’ he said. ‘I was trying to remember the last time I heard about you and it was at a conference about ten years ago. I’m sure someone told me that you’d got married.’
‘Mmm.’
Charles was leaning against the wrought-iron rails between them, so that when he turned his head, he seemed very close. ‘But you’re not married now?’
‘No.’
He held her gaze. He’d just told her about the huge thing that had changed his life for ever. He wasn’t going to ask any more questions but he wanted to know her story, didn’t he?
He’d just told her about his personal catastrophe that he never normally told anyone. She wanted to tell him about hers. To tell him everything. To reveal that they had a connection in grief that others could never understand completely.
But it was the recognition of that connection that prevented her saying anything. Because it was a time warp. She was suddenly back in that blip of time that had connected them that first time. Outside, on a night that had been almost cold enough to freeze her tears.
She