blew a bubble.
Grace put the feeding bottles in the fridge, laid the table for breakfast and then, since Josh and Posie had still not appeared, she went looking for them.
They weren’t in the living room—the most obvious ‘rolling’ territory—or anywhere else on the ground floor.
The internal door to the basement flat was still open.
She crossed to it, but hesitated on the threshold. It wasn’t that she never went down there. She had always volunteered to prepare it for him when he’d been expected home, whisking through it with vacuum cleaner and duster, checking the bathroom was stocked with everything he might need, the fridge contained the essentials. Smoothing Phoebe’s best linen sheets over the mattress, fluffing up the pillows.
She had always avoided going down there when he had actually been in residence.
She’d even weaned herself off going down there once he’d gone, wallowing in the scent of him clinging to sheets, towels.
It had been years since she’d taken a pillowcase he’d slept on to tuck beneath her own pillow. Her own comfort blanket.
As she hovered at the head of the stairs, the rich, deep sound of his laughter drifted upwards and, drawn by this unexpected, wonderfully heart-lifting sound, she took one step, then another and then she was standing in the small lobby, looking through the open door into Josh’s bedroom.
Unaware of her presence, he was lying face down on the floor, his back to her, playing peekaboo with Posie. Lifting the hem of the sweater he’d thrown on, hiding his face and then popping out with a, ‘Boo.’ Posie responded by throwing up her legs and wriggling with pleasure.
Josh laughed. ‘Again?’
Posie waved her arms excitedly.
The two of them were locked in their own intimate little bubble, totally focused on each other. It was touching, beautiful, unutterably sad, and Grace was torn in her emotions, wanting to laugh with Josh and Posie and weep for Michael and Phoebe.
She did neither.
Instead, determined not to disturb father and daughter as they discovered each other, she clamped her lips together, took a step back, then turned and, as silently as possible, went back upstairs.
CHAPTER FIVE
JOSH couldn’t have said whether it was a movement of air, some almost imperceptible sound or something else, but he looked over his shoulder, certain that he’d just missed something.
‘I think we’d better go and see if your mummy is ready for us,’ he said, scooping up the baby and heading for the stairs, dodging as she grabbed for his beard, catching her hands.
‘No, you don’t, miss.’ She stuck out her bottom lip and he laughed. ‘You’re going to be a handful.’
His handful…
Then, catching a faint whiff of the faintest scent, he let go of her hands and didn’t stop her when she grabbed hold of his ear, distracted by a familiar combination of soap, shampoo, something more that was uniquely Grace, and he knew exactly what had disturbed him.
It was this scent that had always been the first thing to greet him when he’d unlocked the basement door and walked in, usually at some unearthly hour in the morning after a non-stop flight from Sydney.
It was on the sheets when he’d stretched out to sleep, but had instead lain awake, imagining her leaning over to pull them tight, tuck them in, smooth the pillowcases into place.
Leaning over him, her long hair trailing over his skin, the scent of her shampoo—everything about her so familiar and yet completely new.
It had been so real that he had almost fooled himself that this time it would be all right, almost believed that this time she would look at him and the intervening years would be wiped out.
Instead, when he saw her, he’d get a quick, surprised smile as if his arrival was the last thing on her mind and he’d know that she hadn’t given him a single thought since the last time he had been home. An impression confirmed when she’d appear at dinner with some decent, straightforward man in tow. A man who’d get the real smile. And he’d be certain that this time she’d found what she was looking for. Not him. Never him.
And he’d tell himself that he’d always known this was how it would be. Tell himself that it was right, that he was glad for her because he was the last man on earth she needed in her life.
Tell himself that he’d imagined the scent.
But he hadn’t imagined the scent on his sheets, his pillows. She’d been there time after time in his basement flat, preparing things for his arrival, just as she’d been there a minute ago, watching him with Posie.
As he walked into the kitchen she turned from the stove where, apron wrapped around her, she was laying strips of bacon in a pan as casually as if it were the only thing on her mind.
‘I thought you’d be hungry,’ she said brightly enough and, if he hadn’t known that a minute earlier she’d been down in the basement, he might have been fooled.
‘Why didn’t you say something?’ he challenged. ‘When you came downstairs.’
‘Peekaboo?’ she offered, not looking at him.
‘That would have done.’
‘You two were having such a good time I didn’t want to butt in and spoil your game.’
‘Three wouldn’t have been a crowd.’
‘Peekaboo is a game for two.’ She half turned. ‘What gave me away?’
‘Your scent.’
She frowned. ‘I’m not wearing any scent.’
Posie, tired from her games, was falling asleep against his shoulder and he gently lowered her into her crib, held his breath as her eyes flew open, felt something inside him melt as they slowly drifted shut. Awake, playing, she’d been a bundle of energy, but lying asleep he could see just how fragile, how vulnerable she was. Being a parent wasn’t just a full-time job, it was a twenty-four/seven responsibility. There was no time off. No putting the job first.
Phoebe hadn’t worked since the day she had married Michael. With two tricky teenagers and a large house to run, she hadn’t had time. Grace was different. She had her own business, small by his standards, but it had taken years of hard work to build it up from that first market stall and it was her life. Had been her life. Now there was Posie and she couldn’t do it on her own. Maybe she wouldn’t get that chance.
He’d tried to lay it out in words of one syllable, warn her what might happen, but he knew he could never let anyone take Posie from her mother. His mother could be bought. His father worked in a politically sensitive environment and he wouldn’t want his personal life plastered over the tabloids. But that wasn’t the end of it. Grace was going to need help, support. And Posie would need a father. Not just a reluctant sperm donation, but someone like Michael.
He felt his chest tighten painfully.
Not him.
He wasn’t like Michael. He didn’t take in strays. Wasn’t a nest-builder. His apartment had been decorated by a professional, looked like a show house rather than a home. He still had worlds to conquer. She needed someone like Toby Makepeace…
He looked up and realised that while he’d been thinking about her, she’d been watching him standing over the baby. She wasn’t exactly smiling, but there was a softness about her eyes, her mouth…
He straightened. ‘No scent?’ he said, stepping back from the abyss yawning at his feet.
‘None,’ she said, turning away to lift a basket of eggs from a hook.
‘I beg to differ,’ he said.
‘Oh?’ She looked