LITMIR.BIZ

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a tight knot of fear that was making it difficult to draw in a new breath. This couldn’t be happening. A friendship like this couldn’t just evaporate because of something that hadn’t even been her fault. Not after all they’d been through together and especially not with what they were going through right now.

      ‘I didn’t encourage him, Ava. You know that, don’t you? I was just as horrified as you were that he tried to kiss me.’

      ‘It wasn’t just you.’ Ava had stopped crying and there was anger in her low, fierce tone. ‘He’s been cheating on me the whole time. He admitted it. Said I would never have been enough for a man like him. That our marriage had been a huge mistake because I couldn’t accept that.’ The tears were obviously flowing again and her next words were totally broken. ‘...that trying to have a baby was just putting a Band-Aid on a wound that was already fatal.’

      Ellie could hear an odd humming and there were bright specks in front of her eyes. Oh, yeah...

      Breathe...

      ‘You’re not trying to have a baby.’ Her words came out in a voice she hardly recognised as her own. ‘You are having a baby. In about four weeks.’

      ‘But don’t you see? I can’t do it now. My world’s fallen apart, Ellie and I can’t hang on to anything. It’s not even my baby...’

      Technically, this was true. Technically, this was Ellie’s baby. Ellie and Marco’s. The gift that was the one thing that could make life perfect for Ava. It had been such a huge decision, offering to be a surrogate, but Ellie hadn’t really hesitated. This was something she could do for the most important person in her life—the only real family she had left.

      Fear was morphing into anger, which was a relief because it made it easier to breathe again.

      ‘I’m thirty-six weeks pregnant, Ava. With your baby. Yours and Marco’s. A baby I would never have dreamed of having otherwise. I’m single, remember? I don’t have any family to support me. I don’t even have a boyfriend, as you well know. I’m supposed to go back to work in six weeks and if I don’t, I won’t be able to pay my rent. And you’re sorry?’

      The silence against the background noise was astonishingly loud. Time seemed to be standing still. It could have been seconds but it felt like minutes or even hours. And when it was finally broken, the words Ellie could hear were almost too strangled to understand.

      ‘Got to go...last call...can’t miss my plane...’

      Fear was strong enough to feel like pain, now.

      ‘Plane? Where are you going? Ava...? Ava?’

      The beeping of a disconnected line said it all but Ellie couldn’t hang up. She lowered the phone and stared at it. Any moment now, the dropped line would be abandoned and she would see the image that was on the screen of her locked phone. The picture of herself and Ava, with their arms around each other, Ava pressing a kiss to her cheek and the smile on Ellie’s face making it clear that she was the happiest person in the world.

      And there it was...

      Ellie dropped the phone on the floor. She wrapped her arms around the huge bump that was her belly now and bent her head to try and deal with the wave of fear and pain that was threatening to wash her over the edge of an unimaginably high cliff.

      A pain that was an overwhelming swirl of loss and anger and bewilderment and terror.

      It wasn’t going to ebb any time soon, either. It filled her chest and made it impossible to breathe again but then it seemed to move to her back as well. And then to her belly, where it gripped harder and harder...

      Ellie could feel the muscles under her hands tightening with the strength of a vice. This wasn’t just emotional—it was becoming very, very physical.

      She was an emergency department nurse, for heaven’s sake. She knew what this was but it took another five minutes and the start of another contraction to admit it. When she saw the blood trickling down her leg fast enough to be pooling on the worn linoleum of her floor, she realised just how much trouble she might be in.

      Gripping the armrest of her chair, she managed to lower herself onto her knees on the floor and reach for her phone. The call was answered instantly.

      ‘Ambulance... What is your location...?’

      * * *

      Lucas Gilmore was getting used to pushing through the overgrown shrubs on the front path. He’d find time to trim them soon but there had been more important things to do. Like making the house habitable.

      The man walking behind him stopped beside the front steps and brushed pollen and spider webs off the dark trousers of his dress suit. The smile was a little forced but an aspiring leader in local real estate like Mike knew how to disguise distaste.

      His smile faded, however, as he turned his head to look at the rambling garden and the exterior of the huge, old wooden villa with its rusting, corrugated iron roof.

      ‘Bit run down, isn’t it, Dr Gilmore?’

      ‘Yes. My mother’s been in a rest home for several years and the house has been rented out. The agency clearly wasn’t doing the job they led me to believe they were doing. The last tenants left nearly a year ago and no maintenance was done, unfortunately. And the inside of the place looked like a bunch of possums had got in through a broken window and had a party.’

      ‘Hmm. You would have done better to use our firm. We’re into rentals now.’ Mike climbed the steps onto the veranda and a board creaked ominously beneath his feet. ‘Hope the inside of the place is in better shape as far as maintenance goes or it’s going to be a bit hard to get a good price.’

      The smile reappeared. It was almost a grin. ‘Having said that, Auckland prices are going completely crazy and it’s the land that’s going to sell this place. You’ve got access to an almost private beach and acres of native forest. This is an amazing property. Ripe for redevelopment.’

      Lucas could feel a scowl emerging. Redevelopment was a dirty word for him right now. The house was important. Okay, it might be run down but it was a glorious example of an early nineteenth century New Zealand villa—with return verandas and even a turret, for heaven’s sake.

      ‘I’m working on fixing the house. I got commercial cleaners in as soon as I arrived back in the country three weeks ago. The garden’s next on the list but I’ve been a bit busy.’

      ‘Did you say you’re working at North Shore General hospital?’

      ‘Yes.’ Lucas pushed open a front door in need of a new paint job. ‘I took a locum position for three months. I figured that would give me plenty of time to sort things out here.’

      And to decide where he wanted to go next to take his career as an emergency specialist to even greater heights.

      ‘And you’re sure you want to sell?’

      Lucas covered his silence by ushering Mike into the house and walking down the wide hallway with its polished wooden floorboards towards the kitchen at the back. Beams of light made mottled red and green coloured shadows on the wall, thanks to the stained glass window over the door behind him.

      Did he want to sell the only house that had ever been a home for him?

      No. Of course he didn’t. This had been the first place he’d felt wanted. When he was a troubled young teen on the verge of being too old to find another foster home, the Gilmores had taken him in.

      And loved him.

      It didn’t make any difference that he’d kicked off to accelerate the abandonment process before he could get to like the place. And man, there’d been so much to like. The beach with its tempting surf, the secret silence of the beech forest. The generous home-cooked meals. Even having to take a country bus to the nearest high school had been different enough to be fun. It would have been the biggest wrench ever when the inevitable happened and he wasn’t wanted any longer.

      The

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