The Lawson Boys: Alex Read online

  “I don’t know.” Liar again. Foreboding filled her, but she was so rattled, so uncertain as to his motive, that she allowed him to lead her up the steps of the veranda and into the house. Of only one thing was she certain and that was that Alex wouldn’t physically hurt her. That sure knowledge was the only reason why she followed him inside.

  Buffy met her just inside the doorway and Harly’s taut nerves eased when Alex released her hand to kneel done and stroke the old dog. Buffy’s wagging tail and trusting gaze tracked from Alex to Harly and back again.

  Speaking softly to Buffy, Alex rubbed her gently behind her ears and she leaned into him.

  Oh yeah, Harly knew for sure then that Alex wouldn’t physically hurt her. She relied on animal instincts and Buffy’s acceptance helped bolster her own decision.

  Moving past the man and dog, she checked the lounge to see the three cats still sprawled on the furniture. They opened their eyes to look at her. Chuckie jumped down and walked up to her yowling, winding around her legs until she picked him up and cuddled him.

  He stiffened and Harly felt warmth at her back, her nerves almost prickling at the closeness of Alex behind her.

  Slowly his hand appeared over her shoulder so that Chuckie could cautiously sniff him, and then he tickled the big cat under the chin. Immediately a loud, sputtering purr broke the quiet.

  “You’ve made a friend.” Harly laughed.

  “You can trust animals,” Alex replied.

  He didn’t move from behind her, continuing to tickle under Chuckie’s chin. Turning her head slightly, Harly looked back and up to find him standing directly behind her, his broad shoulders right behind her head as he looked easily over her to study the room.

  “You like animals,” he stated. “That hasn’t changed.”

  “Buffy and Pepper belonged to Grandma.” She looked back at the room, wondering what he thought of it. She hadn’t changed the old furniture, loving the feel and look of the old times. Cosier times. “Chuckie and Sunny are mine. Now they’re all mine.”

  “Nice little family.” His tone didn’t change, but there was a definite undertone to it now.

  “Yes. They’re my family.” Bending to place Chuckie on the floor, she stiffened as her bottom bumped into his thighs. Abruptly she straightened. “Sorry.”

  “No need.” But he didn’t step back, keeping them in close contact.

  The only way she could turn around without brushing against him was to step forward and then turn around, to find him looking down at her.

  She hadn’t imagined it, there was a fire burning in his eyes. Banked anger. Oh shit. Was he nuts after all? The war? The fighting?

  The past?

  He couldn’t bloody know! There was no way he could know!

  “Ummm…” Swiftly she moved past him into the hallway and heading for the door. “Thanks for the lift. I’ll see you around, okay? That cup of coffee, maybe tomorrow? I-”

  His hand on her arm swung her around and before she knew what had happened, he’d pressed her back against the wall with his big hands on her shoulders. Leaning down, he looked her directly in the eyes and growled, “When were you going to tell me, Harly? When were you going to bloody tell me?”

  “I don’t-” she began, trying to pretend she didn’t know while the realisation that he’d somehow, somehow, found out came crashing down.

  “When,” he asked through gritted teeth, “Were you going to tell me that you were pregnant with my baby?”

  Three

  Her breath caught and he could see the panic in her eyes right before she denied it. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I-”

  “Don’t lie to me.” Fury lashed through him, anger that she could lie about this, now, while he was standing directly in front of her.

  “I’m not, I-”

  “I deserve to know!” The words exploded out of him.

  He hadn’t meant to ask her, not yet. He’d been going to give her a chance to tell him, to explain, but seeing her tonight, watching her laughing and talking with her friends while knowing all the while that she kept everything a secret from him - he couldn’t take it.

  No more. Not after all this time, all these months of knowing.

  Gazing down at her, he watched as a myriad of emotions crossed her pretty face. Sadness, fear, panic and shame. It was the shame that hurt the most.

  His fingers tightened a fraction on her arms. “Were you so ashamed to be carrying my baby, Harly? Was it so bad that you couldn’t tell me?”

  “It wasn’t like that.” Her eyes flashed angrily.

  He welcomed that anger because perversely, he couldn’t take the sadness that had briefly filled her eyes. And that weakness he felt made him angrier.

  Her hands came up, breaking his hold, and she shoved him back a couple of steps. “It wasn’t like that,” she repeated, her eyes narrowed and her round cheeks flushed. “You have no idea what it was like.”

  “And isn’t that the kicker,” he said from between clenched teeth, “because I should have known what it was like, Harly. I should have know.”

  Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath, her breasts swelling with the movement.

  Jaw clenched, he didn’t take his gaze from her face, waiting in silence as she collected her thoughts. That was a tactical error, allowing her to get over the shock of his verbal ambush. An error he couldn’t allow. “Why did you get rid of the baby, Harly?”

  Her eyes snapped open in shock before dawning fury made them literally blaze. “I never got rid of my baby!”

  “Our baby,” he corrected harshly. “It was mine, too, don’t you forget that.”

  “I never forgot it!” Reaching out, she stabbed her finger hard into his chest. “Not once, Alex, did I forget it!”

  “So if you didn’t forget that I was the father, Harly, tell me why the bloody hell you didn’t tell me, and what happened?” Crowding close, he placed one hand above her head and lowered his head so that their faces were mere inches apart while he glared down at her. “Tell me what happened, and I mean everything. Everything.”

  She matched him glare for glare, her cheeks flushed and eyes glittering with fury.

  The house was silent around them, he could hear every breath she drew, his entire attention focussed solely upon her.

  “Tell me everything,” he demanded harshly. “Tell me what happened to my baby, Harly. I deserve that, and a hell of a lot more.”

  The ticking of the grandfather clock in the hall was suddenly loud, marking away every silent second that passed between them. He refused to look away, refused to soften, feeling once again the mingled anger, shock and then sadness that had first hit him when he’d heard.

  But it wasn’t enough, he needed to hear it from her, from Harly, from her very mouth.

  The silence stretched between them, longer and longer, and the anger in her eyes burned bright, then she blinked and he saw the anger dim, felt her relax back against the wall, her shoulders slumping.

  “Okay,” she said softly. “You’re right, you deserve to be told.”

  He didn’t move, waiting for her to speak, but instead she placed one hand on his shoulder and pushed slightly. “Let me put the kettle on.”

  “The kettle? I don’t want a cup of tea, Harly-”

  “Maybe you don’t, but I do.” This time her gaze was steady as she met his. “I’m not going to talk about it shoved up against my own wall.”

  Taking a deep breath, he studied her, recognising the quiet acceptance in her expression and tone, as well as the determination.

  Harly had always had a quiet determination, he remembered, and it was the memory of a softer, younger Harly that made him step back to give her room to move.

  Once they’d been friends of sorts. Then one time of being lovers, brief, silly… And now they were what? Adversaries? He didn’t know. All he knew was that their actions that one night had changed their lives, and he hadn’t even known about it.

  Sliding past him, she walk
ed down the hallway and into the kitchen, crossing the room to fill the kettle and plug it into the socket. “Sit at the table.” She nodded to the round, wooden table.

  Slowly Alex moved into the kitchen, watching as she took a caddy of tea bags from the cupboard and set it on the bench. A glance around the kitchen showed that it hadn’t changed much from his memory of years before, it still had the same old-fashioned warmth. The table was the same, the chairs, the dainty doily in the middle upon which stood a heavy, crystal vase of roses.

  Modern touches were here and there, but it retained the feel of an era long passed.

  Returning his gaze to Harly, he watched as she got out two mugs and placed a tea bag in each. Taking a small plate from the cupboard, she placed a dainty paper doily upon it and topped it with some biscuits from a tin. Picking up the plate, she crossed to the table and placed it in the middle, leaning over to shift the roses to the side. As she did so, her scent drifted to his nose, a mixture of BBQ smoke and floral.

  Returning to stand at the kitchen bench, she poured the hot water into the mugs, dunked the tea bags several times, and looked up at him. “Milk?” she asked calmly.

  “Black. Thanks.”

  She poured some milk into her mug, then placed a teaspoon in each mug before bringing them over to the table, placing one mug down before Alex and the other directly opposite. Back to the sink and she returned with a little ceramic pot and placed it in the centre of the table.

  Harly glanced around before nodding slightly and sitting down in the chair opposite him. With deliberate movements, she dunked her tea bag several more times before wringing it out with the teaspoon and dropping it into the ceramic pot. A stir with her teaspoon, and she placed it, too, in the little pot.

  Alex found himself dunking his own tea bag, the sound of his teaspoon clinking against the thick china of the mug loud in the quietness. Dropping both the tea bag and the teaspoon into the ceramic pot, he folded his arms on the tabletop and looked across at her. “Tell me,” he demanded quietly.

  She stared at his mug in silence for several seconds, clearly gathering her thoughts. “It’s hard to know where to start.”

  “No, it’s not.”

  Her gaze lifted to meet his. “You have no idea.”

  He arched one brow.

  Cradling her hands around the mug, Harly rubbed her thumbs against the sides of it. “Do you remember the night you found me crying behind the PCYC?”

  He nodded. Yeah, he remembered, all right. Sixteen year old Harly Bentley, dressed in a pretty party frock, crying her heart out because no one danced with her.

  “You took me home.”

  “You refused to let me get Paul, and I wasn’t going to let you walk home by yourself.”

  “Gentleman that you were.” She smiled a little before catching sight of his sober expression and losing the smile. “You took me home. Mum and Dad weren’t there, they were still at the movies and having dinner.”

  “I made us hot Milo and we sat on the sofa.” Alex looked directly at her. “You were crying still, and after I pressed you enough, you finally admitted that no one had ever kissed you, and the boy of your dreams had called you a fat tart and laughed in your face when you’d finally got enough courage up to ask him to dance.”

  “Yes. And then you said I was too pretty to cry, and…” Her cheeks flushed slightly and she glanced away.

  “And I gave you your first kiss.”

  “And we got carried away.”

  That was putting it mildly. He took a sip of the hot tea. Yeah, they’d certainly got carried away. One little kiss, he’d looked into her eyes, another kiss, she’d been so soft, and those pretty grey eyes like rainy clouds. And she’d smelled good, too, sweet and floral, and her breasts had pressed against him. Another kiss, a caress, his hand under her blouse touching warm, silken flesh. Another kiss, deeper, hotter, him leaning into her, she tipping back slowly as he lowered her to the sofa cushions…

  She looked at him and his stomach dropped a little. Yeah, he sure as hell remembered as clear as day how Harly had felt beneath him. “Teenage hormones,” he stated.

  Her smile was a touch derisive. “Yeah. Teenage hormones.” The expression in her eyes was a little bleak. “I remember afterwards how we were trying to get properly dressed, not really looking at each other…it was awkward.”

  “You were my best friend’s cousin.” Alex shook his head. “And I’d just taken your virginity. I could hardly think clearly.”

  “Then we heard my parents’ car in the driveway, you got out of the house through my bedroom window, and you left the next day.” Harly looked down at the tea in her mug.

  “Don’t stop now.” Finally, he was going to know what had happened, why she hadn’t told him.

  “I didn’t know I was pregnant until I missed my second period.” Harly sighed. “I didn’t tell anyone, not even my parents, but it’s kind of hard to hide it when you miscarry at the dinner table...with the doctor who is also a friend attending.”

  Alex leaned back in the chair, feeling in parts both relief and sadness. “You didn’t terminate the pregnancy?”

  “No.” Her gaze was as steady as his own. “I may have been shit scared, Alex, but I was going to keep my baby.”

  “You didn’t tell your parents who the baby belonged to, obviously, because I never got a phone call.”

  “My parents were horrified that I got pregnant in the first place.” Harly shook her head. “They love me, no doubt about it, but my pregnancy was a family secret, an embarrassment to be dealt with quietly. Basically, I had an appointment with a gynaecologist in the city - God forbid anyone in our hospital should find out - and I was put in hospital for a D & C.”

  “Dilation and curette.”

  “Yeah.”

  A shy sixteen year old girl, a shame to her family, going to the city for a secret D & C. That had to have been terrible. But it didn’t change one thing. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I didn’t want to spoil your future.”

  “Spoil my future?” Anger mingled with disbelief. “I’d have taken care of you, Harly. That baby was mine as well.”

  “Alex, you were a seventeen year old boy planning to go into the Army as soon as you could. You spoke of your dreams, said nothing would ever hold you back. I wasn’t going to intrude on that. I wasn’t going to make you have me in your life.”

  “You think that’s a reasonable explanation?” Angrily, he leaned forward. “If that baby had survived, would you have ever told me? Or would you have denied me the pleasure of watching my baby grow?”

  Stiffening in her chair, a spark of anger showed in her eyes. “I was sixteen years old, Alex. Sixteen, scared, and reliant on my parents. You were Paul’s best friend who I saw once a year, I didn’t really know you. You never even contacted me again after that episode. How could I face you when you couldn’t even contact me again?”

  “It wasn’t like you tried to contact me. I never saw you after that. You never came near me.” He shoved his mug away. “Damn it, Harly! I didn’t know!”

  “Damn it, nothing!” She slashed her hand in the air. “I’d had enough humiliation that night, then I had pity sex from you, and you think I was in any frame of mind to tell you that I was pregnant and hand you the responsibility?”

  “Yes!”

  “No! I made the decision to tell no one who the father was, and I made the decision to let you go free.”

  “Free?” Alex fisted one hand. “You would have denied me my child.”

  “That child never lived!”

  The words fell between them, harsh and sad at the same time.

  Sitting back, she folded her arms across her chest and looked at the table. “I lost the baby.”

  For a few seconds, Alex didn’t know what to say. His anger still burned, the unfairness of not knowing that his baby had existed for even a short time. The fear that if it had existed, he’d never have known. That last thought made him stand up, shoving the chair b
ack as he did so. “And if you hadn’t lost the baby? Would you have bothered to tell me later, or would you have enjoyed its life while leaving me ignorant?”

  “I never thought about it.” She looked up at him.

  “Well, that’s bloody lovely, Harly.” He pointed at her, his anger riding high again. Anger and something else he couldn’t pinpoint right then, he only knew that he’d been kept in the dark. “But you could have told me at any time over the years. Any time. Regardless of what happened, that baby was mine as well, and I had a right to know.” Too furious to be near her any longer, needing to distance himself, he turned and stormed from the room and down the hallway.

  God damn it, he should have known.

  “Alex! Wait!” He heard her call out but he didn’t stop, swinging the wooden door open and reaching for the security screen.

  The security screen was jerked out of his hold and slammed shut.

  Turning around, he looked narrowly down at her. “I can’t speak to you right now, Harly, I’m so bloody furious and disappointed.”

  As the words sounded she paled, her eyes widening.

  For a second he thought she was going to faint, and even in his anger he felt a spark of concern. Without thought he reached out.

  She slapped his hand away, then wrapped her arms around herself and stood there, her lips trembling and eyes filling with tears as she whispered, “That’s what Mum and Dad said. Right after I miscarried, as soon as we found out what had happened, they said they were so disappointed in me. I’d just lost the baby, and all they could say was that they were so disappointed in me.” A tear slipped free, rolling down her cheek, and utter misery filled her eyes. “I lost the baby, Alex.” And she started to cry.

  “I could have been with you,” Alex replied bitterly. “I could have been here to support you, Harly, but you made your decision to stand alone. I guess you’re having second thoughts now, but it’s too late.” Turning on his heel, he walked through the doorway, out onto the veranda and across the yard to the Jeep.