I’m Keeping You
JANE LARK

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First published in Great Britain by HarperImpulse 2016

Copyright © Jane Lark 2016

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Cover design by Zoe Jackson

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be identified as the author of this work

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is available from the British Library

This novel is entirely a work of fiction.

The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are

the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to

actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is

entirely coincidental.

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Ebook Edition © April 2016 ISBN: 9780008142438

Version 2016-03-30

PRAISE FOR JANE LARK

“Jane Lark has proved what a writing talent she really is. This is an engrossing and telling read…Be prepared to have your heart squeezed”

BestChicklit.com

“An amazing book. It is dark and edgy yet flirtatious and even made me laugh. It’s such a combination that made me not want to put my kindle down at all”

After the Final Chapters

“Dark, gritty and wholly mesmerizing…a haunting and compelling read you will not easily forget”

Bookish Jottings

“Emotional, romantic, and heartbreaking”

Imagine a World

Thank you to my wonderful editor, Charlotte Ledger, who has worked with me for the last two years, for believing in my work, seeing the potential in Jason and putting a romance book out about a good guy, which turned into the Starting Out series full of good guys. Thank you, Charlotte, for giving me the freedom to write the stories I want to tell and helping me to make them stronger.

Also I’m sure you’ll all want to join me in thanking the cover artists, Alexandra Allden and Zoe Jackson, for giving you some wonderful images to look at as you read the stories.

Then there’s one more thank you, to you all, for reading the series, and taking the time to share and post reviews and message me on Facebook and through Twitter, to tell me how much you love the books. I love hearing from you, and it’s great to know that people really understand and enjoy getting caught up in the stories and characters. Thank you.

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Praise For Jane Lark

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Author Note

About the Author

Also by Jane Lark

About HarperImpulse

About the Publisher

CHAPTER ONE

Rachel

I drifted from sleep to dreams to being half awake. The things Jason and I had talked about at the party the other night were stopping me from sleeping, plus the conversation we’d had with our solicitor.

Thoughts swept through my head, about my ex, Declan, and New York and meeting the guy I’d been meant to find—Jason.

I rolled on to my back. My forearm lifted to my forehead as an image of Saint came into my mind. I slid back into sleep.

I picked him up out of his buggy. My beautiful son.

We were standing on a bridge, looking at the river in the park. I showed him the clear water as we leaned over the railing. “Look, you can see the fish.” I could see them. The water wasn’t like the Hudson. It was a narrow, shallow river. I could see right to the bottom. The weeds waved, making patterns in the flow of the current as the water headed on out to join a bigger river and make its way to the coast.

The heat of the sun warmed the skin on my face and my arms. I felt superhuman, like I had a super-power. I was the best mom in the world. I was high, full of energy and charged up. Ideas fizzed around in my head. We were going to go back and paint, and bake.

A play-dough recipe—I should Google a play-dough recipe.

“Maybe I should ask Grampy to build you a sandpit. You need a sandpit, don’t you, Saint…” I looked down at the fish. Their tails swished at the water as they swam against the current.

“And you need a fishing rod, to go fishing, and a little net. But I guess a net first. Maybe we should go get a net now, so we can catch a fish.”

I lifted Saint up high, holding him above my head, above the railing. Not Lion-King style but so he looked down at me as I looked up at him. The sun shone behind him, giving my little Saint a halo. He made his three-month-old gurgling sound.

I felt like Mufasa, though, or perhaps more like Sarabi; like I was the queen lioness. I’d only just discovered Disney. Disney movies were one of the new exciting mommy things in my life. My mom had never done being a mom. I’d never stepped inside a cinema when I was a kid, or watched a movie on TV.

Since Saint was born, I’d sat down and watched more than a dozen movies with him, loads of times. I was different from Mom. I was a good mom. The best. And Saint was going to be the President, because I was going to bring him up so well, and he’d stand up before Congress and tell everyone he owed it all to his amazing mommy.

I brought him down and hugged him tight. I loved hugging him the most. Squeezing my little, solid, happy human being. My body had made him; this perfect little boy.

Sunshine heated my hair and face. I looked down at the water. It looked so cool. Jason used to swim here when he’d been a kid. He’d told me. It looked refreshing. I’d never swum in a river. I could have hardly gone for a dip in the Hudson back in New York, or dived into the Delaware when I’d lived in Philadelphia as a kid. But here, this was only a little, narrow river. “Saint, you oughta learn to swim. I bet you’d love it. Daddy said it was always fun… He liked it.”

I held Saint against my chest and walked off the bridge, leaving his buggy behind. “I bet the water’s refreshing. It’ll be nice on a hot day like this.”

There was an area where the bank sloped down toward the water. It was flat by the water’s edge.

I walked down there. “We’re gonna swim, Saint.”

I walked to the edge and kept walking, the cool water washing over my sneakers. It was a lovely sensation. I could see me teaching Saint to swim, holding his hands as he kicked out. I’d seen babies swimming in ads. Saint could do that. He was a clever baby. The water came up to my knees, getting the hem of my skirt wet, but I didn’t stop walking. I loved the cool sensation pushing against my legs and caressing my skin as the water ran around me and flowed on downstream. It was exciting to be in a river—to do what Jason had done as a kid. I was the best mom.

The water came up to my waist and surged against me, swirling around me, creating little eddies. Saint’s toes dipped into the river, they were bare, it was a warm day; I hadn’t put socks on his feet. He made a gurgling sound.

“Does the water tickle?”

My clothes were soaked and clinging to my body, but even that was nice—a good feeling—because they were cool—and I was manically happy.

The water spun in whirlpools just in front of us. It was dancing. The sunlight caught on the surface, making it sparkle. The world was magic. I imagined us swimming with the fish. I knew the whirlpools implied the current was stronger, but I was supermom—so that didn’t matter to me. My mind was full of images of me teaching Saint to swim; there was no space in my head for other thoughts. I took another step out. The water was up to my shoulders and up to his shoulders, and it was so good. The current and the pressure of the flowing water pulled at my feet. I fought to keep my balance, but it didn’t disturb me. Saint was just looking at me, with wide eyes, bemused by the new sensations. I laughed. I was going to let him go—I was going to let him swim.

“Hey! Hey! What the fuck are you doing?” A strange guy called out from the bank. He was yelling at me.

“Hey! You! Get back! You’ll drown the kid!”

I hugged Saint tight as the guy waded into the water. He was trying to steal Saint. Another guy ran in and between them they got a hold of me and dragged me out. I fought against them, hanging on to Saint. But then the second guy growled into my ear. “What are you trying to do, kill him?”

The words punched me. Kill him… No. “No. I’m teaching him to swim!”

“He’s a baby!”

One of the guys took Saint from my arms and began looking at him, all over, like he might be hurt. I sat on the bank shivering. The guys fussed over Saint, and they wouldn’t give him back. Other people came.

The water hadn’t been cool, it had been cold. But I was just teaching Saint to swim.

“Hi. Yeah. Cops.”

One of the guys had his cell to his ear.

“Yeah, some woman in the park just tried to drown her kid.”

I stood up. “I didn’t. I was teaching him to swim. Kids need to swim. His daddy used to swim here. We were just swimming.” I hit the guy’s arm and tried to take his cell.

“You weren’t teaching him to swim…” the guy who held Saint growled at me.

I held out my hands. I wanted to go home now. “Let me have him.”

The guy held on to him.

“Let me have him!” Panic pulled tight around my chest, solidifying in my lungs, as euphoria spun into fear. The guy’s face became Declan’s face.

“Let me have him!”

The guy wouldn’t let me take him back. My baby. “He’s mine! Let me have him! He’s mine!” My screams became louder and louder.

“Hey. You okay?” Jason’s hand ran over my shoulder. When I opened my eyes, I escaped the dream, but every muscle in my body trembled from the shock and fear. It hadn’t been a dream. I’d walked into that river for real with my three-month-old baby, and it had changed our lives, maybe forever.

“You alright? You were dreaming…” Jason’s arm wrapped around my shoulders then pulled me against his chest. We were in bed. The room was dark.

My forehead pressed into his shoulder and I shook my head. I wasn’t alright. The cops had picked me up but they hadn’t arrested me, they’d taken me to Jason’s parents and explained what had happened. His mom had looked at me with pity, and his dad with confusion, and then they’d called Jason. He’d been working in the store. He’d closed the store that day. It was the only time I’d ever known him close the store.

But I hadn’t waited for Jason to come home. I hadn’t needed him to tell me I was a failure. I knew I was a failure. My mood had crashed, hurtling down. I’d walked out of his parents’ house. I hadn’t wanted to face Jason, and I hadn’t wanted to see Saint.

I’d failed.

I didn’t see how I could be a mom anymore—or a wife.

Jason had found me in a park, on a swing, hours later, I’d been lost in despair, it had been agony, a heavy, dense pain—too intense for words. I’d been too ill to even talk.

He’d called for an ambulance. It had taken me to the hospital. The doctors there had started me on a heavy dose of mood-controlling meds.

I didn’t remember much about my days in the hospital.

“What were you dreaming of?”

“The river,” I breathed against his skin.

His other hand stroked over my hair.

It was my stupid, distorted bipolar view of the world that had given my ex, Declan, Saint’s biological father, a chance to take Saint. He was saying I was unfit to care for Saint because I’d walked into the river. But I didn’t understand why Declan wanted Saint. He had kids already and he hardly had anything to do with them. He didn’t like kids. He was a shitty dad.

“It’s going to be okay,” Jason said over my head.

Jason was a good dad, but that didn’t seem to matter, and it wasn’t okay, nothing was okay, and that’s why we were flying out to New York tomorrow and I was leaving Saint. Because I was a bad mom. I’d failed him.

My arm slipped about Jason’s waist and I held on to him. His fingers gripped my shoulder and he pressed a kiss on to the crown of my head.

He’d never judged me for my error, just loved me. He understood me. He’d taken time to learn about my illness since we’d gotten married last year and he’d said a hundred times he knew it hadn’t been a choice, I’d just been sick.

The anxiety that had clasped at my lungs and sent my pulse soaring into a manic dance rhythm in the dream swept back in. Terror. I was terrified of losing Jason. As terrified as I was of losing Saint. Maybe because Jason was so special, and I’d done nothing to deserve a good guy, so how could he keep loving me? But he still did. He’d spent hours in the last few days reassuring me he did and that him leaving me would never happen.

I fell asleep again, holding him, and being held by him… I belonged with him… and Saint belonged with him.

When I woke sunlight shone into our room in Jason’s parents’ house.

Jason wasn’t in bed, or in the room, but I could hear Saint in his crib. I got up, picked him up, and held him tight, breathing in the smell of his hair as his breath stirred the tiny, fine hairs on my neck. Love was a great, deep well and it filled me up. The room became a shimmering blur. I’d die if I lost him as much as I’d die if I lost Jason. I wouldn’t want to be alive without either of them. Before I’d met Jason and had Saint, I didn’t even know if I could love a child, especially a child of Declan’s. But I didn’t think of Saint as Declan’s, he wasn’t. Saint was Jason’s son, in every way that mattered. Jason had been around for Saint and me right from the get go, from the moment I’d discovered I was pregnant, not just when Saint was born.

He was still here. I hoped he always would be. That’s what I wanted.

I brushed Saint’s hair back and kissed his head, wiped away my tears, then walked over to the door, turned the handle and went to find Jason.

Saint babbled away in his baby language. He’d laughed the other day. On Halloween. At the silly Halloween trick Jason had bought him. That had been the best sound I’d ever heard.

I heard Jason talking to his mom in the kitchen. I walked in there, wearing one of his old tees and just my panties, my legs bare. I hugged Saint against my chest. Jason turned around, a smile broke his lips apart immediately. I loved it when he smiled like that—he hardly ever smiled like that now.

“Hey, honey.” He walked across the room to us, and his fingers stroked over Saint’s head as he leaned over to kiss my lips. “You okay?”

I nodded.

But we both knew I wasn’t.

I’d been terrified for ages that he didn’t love me anymore, I’d gotten so lost. I didn’t know how to be me anymore since I’d gone on to this last batch of meds. But the other day, over Halloween, we’d talked stuff out, and he’d gotten cross that I even doubted it. He did still love me—us. I’d been telling myself that as much as he had in the last few days, trying to convince my head what my heart knew.

When we’d talked stuff out, we’d kind of found each other again—that’s what he’d said. But I hadn’t found my old self and he’d admitted that he missed the me I’d been before I’d started on the strong meds. I missed that person too—desperately. She used to laugh a lot, and she’d felt free. This me… felt trapped, lost, and afraid.

“I love you,” he whispered in my ear, before he pulled away. I smiled.

He winked at me.

We’d had a lot of sex this week. It had been another of his ways of reassuring me, we hadn’t done it much for a while before that.

“Morning, Rachel,” his mom called. She was cooking pancakes. The scent of them filled the kitchen.

I didn’t want to leave here, or Saint. This was home. But Jason and I had to go. If we didn’t, Saint would leave us.

Maybe I’d explode, suddenly, the weight pressing down on me was so heavy. Jason took Saint from my arms and hugged him. I didn’t know if I was well enough to go to New York. I didn’t know if I’d cope.

But I knew some things; I didn’t want to have to deal with Declan when the doctors had me all drugged up and knocked out like a zombie, I couldn’t carry on as I was, and I couldn’t let Declan take Saint.

Those things had to change.

I had to stop them happening.

CHAPTER TWO

Rachel

My fingers held on to the arm of the seat as I stared out the window of the small United Airlines plane. It was taxiing out to the runway. My body was so heavy with fear it felt like I’d been tied down to the seat with iron chains. They held me in place. I wanted to run. I could see Saint, in my head, reaching out his hands for me when I’d walked away with Jason. My heart hadn’t beaten in a normal pattern since.

But I was doing this for Saint. To protect him. To keep him.

Jason could have gone alone. But I didn’t want him to go alone. I didn’t want Jason to leave me. I wanted to be with him—but I wanted to be with Saint too. I was breaking in half. The two guys in my life were ripping me in half.

I sighed out. My breath became moisture on the small oval window. My teeth sank into my lower lip, holding in the emotion threatening to well over in a flood of tears as I lifted a hand and wiped the moisture away.

“Are you okay?” Jason’s hand rested over mine on the seat arm.

I didn’t look at him, just turned my hand up the other way and clasped his, clinging to any connection that held me closer to normal.

“Rach…” He pushed, worry catching in his voice

“Yeah.” No. I was a fucked-up mess. But he knew that already.

The plane taxied around, turning on to the runway, then stopped.

I breathed in deep and held the air in my lungs. The image in my head became the packet of meds I’d left in the drawer in our room. The meds I’d stopped taking a week ago. I couldn’t be the zombie I was when I took them. I needed my brain to be working. Declan was clever. I needed to be able to think when I faced him. The meds made me feel like I was drowning all the time, trapped under an ocean and looking at the world through a fog; I couldn’t breathe through it, or reach through it. I needed to be alive and awake to cope with Declan and New York.

My head was full of memories, memories that said the meds would make everything too hard to deal with—and there was the memory of Jason telling me at the Halloween party the other day that he missed the me who’d had crazy moments. He’d liked my crazy moments. The meds stomped on all my crazy—I wanted to be able to be crazy sometimes. I wanted to make him laugh and smile wide. I wanted to make sure he wouldn’t stop loving me.

“It’ll be okay,” Jason said as the pilot switched up the engine and the plane started speeding along the asphalt highway to the sky. G-force pulled at my stomach, making it queasy.

“Don’t worry,” Jason reassured again. “It’s going to be alright.”

I looked at him and tried to smile. He smiled back, closed lipped, but considerate. It wasn’t the smile I longed for. Nothing was right. Not now.

I wanted it to be right.

“Sorry, I’m missing Saint.”

“I miss him too, so we’ll get to New York, sort everything out as fast as we can, and get back. Two weeks. That’s what I’m giving us. We have to have this fixed by Thanksgiving.”

I nodded.

The nose of the plane lifted, pressing us back into the seats, and then we were off the ground and rising, climbing through the air, up into the sky. I wanted to climb like that in spirit. I wanted my bipolar, spinning-top of a brain to whiz up. I hated the swamp of middle road. I wanted to feel high. I wanted to be buzzing with happiness.

Jason’s fingers squeezed mine.

I looked back out the window, down at the earth, at the city beneath us, as Portland became like a toy town. Saint was miles away from us already, but soon he’d be hundreds of miles away from us. There was a hook in my heart trying to pull me back. The pain of it became sharper the higher the plane climbed.

We breached the clouds and flew above an ocean of glistening vapor, caught in the brightest sunlight.

“Saint will never remember this, you know. I bet you don’t have any memories before you were one… So don’t worry about what he’s thinking, he’s fine with Mom and Dad. They’re going to feed him and cuddle him loads, and he’s going to be okay.”

I was learning to hate the word okay, but I nodded as tears slipped from my eyes while I watched the swirling clouds making patterns below us.

“Hey…” Jason’s fingertips touched my cheek and turned my head, then he kissed a tear away. “It’s going to be okay.” I think he thought if he used the word enough he’d make it happen.

I nodded, then looked back out the window. I didn’t feel that in my heart, and he didn’t know my ex like I did. Declan had been Jason’s boss for a year, but I’d lived with Declan and I knew the darkness that was in him. Jason had only glimpsed it.

I didn’t see how we could win; Declan had money and contacts and influence. We had us, love for Saint, a sense of right and wrong, and a small-time solicitor in Portland.

The tears tightened into a lump in my throat. If I hadn’t messed up we wouldn’t be on this flight, we’d be at home with Saint.

Jason lifted my hand and kissed my fingers.

I looked back at him. I was such hard work. I felt sorry for him.

“Hey, we’re nearly there. We’re over New York.”

My eyelids were heavy as I opened them and lifted my head to look at Jason. I’d slept on his shoulder. I was drowsy and there was a density in my body that made my limbs feel like stone. It could be the meds lingering or my mood falling. The meds had made me feel asleep even when I was awake.

Jason gave me a subdued smile. It said what he wouldn’t: I keep telling you it’ll all be okay because I know that’s what you want to hear, but I’m not convinced.

I smiled back. He was looking out for me. That’s what Jason did, he cared, with a heart that was as big as an ocean.

But our smiles hadn’t used to say it’ll be alright or I’m sorry—we used to smile because we were happy together.

The seatbelt light was on. I looked down. He’d buckled mine back up while I’d been out of it. I looked out the window. The plane was banking around, flying in over the Upper Bay of the Hudson. I leaned over to look down at the city that had been my home for a large part of my miserable life. I had so many bad memories, memories of me being crazy and stupid, but then I saw the Brooklyn Bridge, and behind it, Manhattan Bridge, as the river’s path split. I’d met Jason on Manhattan Bridge, on a night I’d cracked up entirely and decided I’d had enough. Jason had found me there and saved me from myself.

“Brooklyn, Manhattan Bridge, and DUMBO,” he said in a low husky voice.

I glanced back at him. He’d remembered the moment I’d met him too. He’d taken me to his apartment in DUMBO that night; we hadn’t left each other since. He pressed a quick kiss on my lips, then we both leaned over and looked down, watching the plane come around, following the Hudson, rather than the East river.

I took a breath, a part of me was terrified about coming back and facing Declan, and yet, with my distorted bipolar brain, another part of me experienced a sudden fizz of excitement. New York.

CHAPTER THREE

Jason

I walked out of JFK airport, pulling our suitcase on its wheels and gripping Rach’s hand like I was hanging on to her as luggage too. But I felt protective. This trip was scary. Saint’s life was hanging on a line, and the other end of it was wrapped around Mr. Rees’s finger, and he kept jerking it, messing us around.

I’d worked for him for a year, and thought him an asshole, but then I’d met the side of him Rach knew, when he’d tried to drag her into his car with three other guys, like it was okay to snatch a woman when she didn’t want to go. No way did I want him to take Saint. Saint was my son and he might have Mr. Rees’s DNA, but that was the only tie he should ever have to that asshole.

We were booked on the SuperShuttle to get out to the hotel. There was a van waiting. I handed over our tickets and stashed our luggage in the back while Rachel waited on the sidewalk. Then we got in. I made sure she was by the window so she didn’t have to cope with any strangers too close.

We sat in silence as the van filled up, and stayed silent as it drove through the city. New York. The Big Apple. Rachel looked at the streets as the van dropped people off at the Manhattan hotels. She had more history with New York than I did. I’d never really settled here, my roots and soul had always been back in Oregon. But Rachel had tamed this place and played it for the years she’d lived here. She’d taken a massive bite out of the apple. I’d left it to go rotten. It had never tasted good to me.

Our hotel was in Brooklyn, near the area where I used to live, DUMBO, Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass. The hotel was a narrow, sky-scraping building. It stood out, tall amongst the lower-story buildings surrounding it. We unloaded our stuff and walked into the place.

I guess its whole theme was tall and narrow; the welcome desk area was the same.

I checked us in as Rach stood near me, her arms crossed defensively in front of her chest and her hands clasping either elbow.

The last time I’d checked us into a hotel it had been in Las Vegas, when we’d gotten married.

We were up on the fifteenth floor. Rach pressed the button for the elevator, then stood staring at the numbers above the elevator doors. The doors opened. I lifted a hand encouraging her to go in first. I followed, with the suitcase.

She leaned her shoulders against the wall, so I stood next to her, slid a hand around her and gave her ass a pat to make her smile. She did smile—slightly.

Everything was ruined. She never gave me bright smiles anymore, and it was all Mr. Rees’s fault. She’d been fine until he’d started messing us around over Saint. First off, before all of this, he wouldn’t do the DNA test and I’d needed him to do it so I could start the adoption process. That was about the time she’d walked into the river with Saint. So then I’d come to New York, alone, and forced him into doing the fucking DNA test. Only since then he’d stopped not wanting Saint and started sharpening fucking knives to chuck at us.

Our room was alright, nothing special. It had a desk in front of a mirror outside the en suite, a chest of drawers, a king-sized bed with a nightstand either side and a long window which looked out across the city. Rach walked over to the window as I lifted the suitcase up on to a stool.

“This reminds me of your apartment.” She turned back and looked at me.

“Yeah.” It did a little. I’d had a floor-length window like that; it had looked out over DUMBO.

She looked back out.

I walked up behind her, slid my hands over her belly and kissed her neck. “What do you want to do, go out?”

Her head fell back on to my shoulder. “I don’t know.”

I missed my Rachel, the vibrant, half-crazy girl I’d met. She was smothered by her meds. But she’d been vulnerable then too, and lonely, and easily hurt behind all her bravado. She had crashed down into sad moods as fast as she’d gotten happy and dragged me into doing something I’d have avoided like hell if it hadn’t been for her.

I’d been reading up on bipolar on the internet, though, and she might need to be on her strong meds right now, but people didn’t have to stay on heavy doses forever, they reduced them. She’d get back to herself one day. Soon, I hoped. “Then let’s walk down to the Brooklyn Bridge Park?”

She turned around and pressed her face into my neck. Her lips touched my skin when she said, “I’d like that.”

“I thought you might.” It was one of our old haunts. We had memories there.

I pressed her back against the window and kissed her properly. Her arms lifted up on to my shoulders and rested there as her tongue wove about mine slowly. My hands slid to grip her butt and I pulled her hips against mine.

Many things had gone wrong in our marriage in the last few months, but the one thing we’d recently managed to fix was the sex. We’d been to a party a week ago, for Halloween, and gone outside in the dark. But then she’d told me about this threat from Mr. Rees.

I broke away from her. “Come on, let’s go to the park.”

I got the first proper smile I’d had out of her all day. Those smiles were way too rare.

We walked through Brooklyn holding hands. Then headed into the park and looked up at the massive bridge, with Manhattan Bridge as its shadow. I let go of her hand and slung my arm around her shoulders.

The Brooklyn Bridge was a giant. It dwarfed us. I’d forgotten how dominating the New York skyline was. It put you in your place, made you realize how much of a nothing you were in the world. That’s how I’d always felt in New York.

We walked along the path by the river.

This park was so familiar and yet we’d been different people when we’d been here last. She’d poured out her sordid past to me here, the night I’d found out about Saint. But that had been in the dark. We’d generally come here in the dark after I’d picked her up from work, when all the lights were reflected on the water, swaying with the rock of the waves. It was a different place in the daylight and there were more people here, tourists as well as locals.

When we were far enough away from the main tourist area, I stopped and held the railing, looking down at the water as it washed up against the bank.

Rach gripped the rail too.

I looked at her.

Her gaze stretched to the far bank. “When will we go and see Declan?”

“Monday, so we can have tomorrow to do normal stuff before we face him.”

She turned around and looked at me. “What will you say?”

“I have no idea. It depends on what he says… and what he’s like.”

“An asshole.” A smile parted her lips as she quoted back what I’d called him for the year he was my boss.

I chucked her under the chin. “That I can guarantee. He’s always that. Shall we walk up to Manhattan Bridge?” Where I’d found her, alone, destitute, and desperate. “Then I thought we could go and eat at Joe’s, where you used to work.”

She leaned forward and kissed my cheek. “Thanks, I’d like that.”

It was nearly a year since I’d found her in a tee and jeans, she’d had nothing else on but her sneakers, on a freezing night in New York.

A subway train passed as we reached the DUMBO end of the Manhattan Bridge’s path. It rattled along on the rails, making a racket. I’d used to deaden the sound with the music in my earphones when I’d jogged along here. We didn’t walk out very far on to the bridge, but we walked along the path until we saw where she’d been the night I met her. She caught hold my fingers and turned away from it. “Can we walk back past where you used to live? Some of those days were my happiest.”

Her words cut, but she hadn’t meant them to cut—it’s just—I wished she was happy now. She should be happy now. I needed to make her happy again.

Joe, the restaurant owner, her old boss, made a fuss of her when we went in there. Rach was really pretty and one of those girls that when you met her you didn’t forget her; so even though she’d only worked there for a few weeks, Joe and the others remembered her. But the thing was, that when we’d lived here, what had made her memorable had been the light of joy and mischief that had shone out of her. That light had gotten snuffed out by her meds.

Sitting in the restaurant, remembering how she used to be, made me miss that girl more than ever. But then, maybe this was who she was really—the person who wasn’t sick—and I had to just suck it up and get used to it.

She’d have to get used to it too, though, and she wasn’t coping so well with it either. She was scared I’d stop loving her now that she was different.

I’d spent the last seven days proving to her just how much in love with her I still was. I still was… But it was painful loving her now, not an exciting rush. My heart hurt and my head was a mess—and I hoped when everything was fixed with Mr. Rees it would all calm down, and she and I, we could just be us again.

When we got back to the room, Rach dropped her purse on the bed, then bent over and took out her cell. “I’m gonna call Mom and speak to Saint.”

“It’s too late.”

She looked at the clock by the bed. It showed eleven-thirty in red digits.

Her expression crumbled in distress.

Ah shit. Now she’d kick herself that she hadn’t called earlier. She’d be telling herself she was a bad mom.

Tears flooded her eyes, making the unusual soft mossy green sharpen and sparkle in the electric light. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Because I’d thought about it and decided it was best to let her settle in here and do normal stuff for an afternoon and we hadn’t eaten dinner alone since Saint had been born.

I caught hold of her hands before they could lift and clasp her hair. I hated that pose. She’d been in that pose for all the days she’d been in the hospital, when they’d put her on the shitty meds she was taking now. “Hey. It’s okay not to speak to him for a day. We’ll call first thing in the morning.”

“But why didn’t I think to call earlier?”

“Because you’ve got a ton of stuff going on in your head. You were thinking about facing Declan and coming back to New York.”

“But I should think of Saint first. Why don’t I think of him first?”

“Because you’re on a load of meds…” and your bipolar brain just doesn’t work like that, sweetheart.

Rach had always been scared she’d turn out like her mom, who’d been so crap at motherhood Rach had run away at fifteen, and since Rach had walked into the river she didn’t trust herself at all. She challenged everything she thought, and why she thought it, or more frequently didn’t think it. She was trying to make her brain work like normal. But Rach wasn’t normal, and that was one of the reasons I’d fallen for her.

She hadn’t tried to drown Saint anyway, she’d been thinking of him and trying to teach him to swim. She’d walked into the water with him to swim with him. Fully clothed, yeah. But she’d just lost her hold on reality in a moment of distorted euphoria. That happened with bipolar. It wasn’t because she was a bad mom.

Rach started to cry. I pulled her into a hug and stroked a hand over her hair. “He’s okay.”

“Why didn’t you remind me? You aren’t on meds!” She pushed me away and smacked my shoulder.

“Because he’s with Mom and Dad. He’s fine.”

Her eyes accused me of not loving Saint enough.

She challenged me as much as herself. She challenged everything lately. She’d been bruised inside by her error. But she was really sick and the meds they’d given her to make her better were making her judgments even more distorted. So I was letting her get away with insecurity and accusations against me, but I wouldn’t lie, they cut.

She broke away from me, turned, moved her purse over on to a shelf beside the bed, then collected her stuff from the suitcase and disappeared into the bathroom. Her movements had been hurried and twitchy with anger. When she came back in she was wearing a t-shirt only and she’d wiped off her make-up, ready to get into bed.

I went into the bathroom and got ready too. I washed my face and stared at myself in the mirror. It had been a long year. My life had turned around completely.

When I went back into the bedroom, I stripped off my jeans and my tee, but left my boxers on. I switched off the main light, then got into bed, and switched off the lamp on the nightstand. “Do I get a cuddle?” I said into the darkness.

“Yeah.”

I lifted my arm and she shuffled over and leaned on my shoulder. But I figured it wasn’t a night for sex. I wasn’t getting that vibe from her.

CHAPTER FOUR

Rachel

Sunlight poured through the transparent curtains. Jason was sitting on the bed, looking at me, and the TV was on. “What?” I breathed from a croaky throat.

“It’s eleven-thirty; you’ve had twelve hours’ sleep.”

He knew what that meant. It meant my mood had dropped. I was morose and tired when my mood was low—but it didn’t have to mean the meds were wearing off, the meds made me sleepy anyway.

“Do you want to call Saint, then go for a run?” He also knew that running was a good trigger for helping me lift my mood.

I sat up. “I’d like to call Mom and speak to Saint.” Jason was fully clothed in running gear, he looked like he’d been up for ages waiting for me to wake up. He got up and walked over to pick my cell up from the nightstand, then threw it on to the bed next to me.

My heart raced as I looked up Mom and Dad’s number. An image of Saint hovered in my head, the one of him laughing for the first time last week. I touched the call icon for their home number. It rang about five times as my heart pounded out the seconds.

“Hello. This is Mrs. Macinlay.”

“Hi, Mom.”

“Rachel. How are you?”

“We’re okay. We walked around where Jason used to live last night. Is Saint okay?”

“Yes, dear, he’s fine.”

“Did he sleep okay?”

“Yes, all through the night. We’ve put him in our room as he’s used to sleeping in with you and Jason.”

“Thanks…” I sighed the word out in relief. Saint was okay. Yet… What if he didn’t miss me because I was such a crappy mom? That thought made me want him not to be okay, but that made me feel more of a shitty mom. “Could you put the phone to his ear?”

“He’s with Grampy, wait a moment, I’ll take the phone to them.” The line was silent for a while then she said, “Here you are.”

I heard breathing. “Saint, it’s Mommy. Hello, sweetheart.” There was a slight catch in his breath, that said he knew my voice.

Jason came over to the bed and bent down near my cell. “It’s Daddy too.”

“I miss you. I love you,” I whispered into the cell.

“We miss you and we love you,” Jason said loudly, before he straightened up.

Why did I keep judging Jason badly? He was here to fight for Saint. He wanted to adopt Saint. Of course he loved him too. If I kept doubting him, I was going to push him away. I had to stop my head from doubting him.

His mom came back on. “Saint was smiling and listening like he was trying to work out where you were in the room.”

“Give him lots of cuddles and kisses from us. I’ll call again tonight.”

“Okay, call as often as you want, and we’re going to cuddle him all day long.” Jason’s mom had become my mom too. She was really patient with my weirdness and paranoia.

“Thank you. Bye.”

“Goodbye, Rachel, give our love to Jason.” The call went dead.

I looked up at him. “She sends you their love. Saint smiled.”

Jason smiled at me, with his mouth shut. I wanted him to give me a big full-on broad smile. I wanted to smile like that too—I wanted my meds to wear off so that I could smile like that again.

“I’ll get up and go running with you.” I threw the comforter back. I had to walk past him because the room wasn’t very wide. He smacked my ass.

“Good girl.”

I glanced at him over my shoulder. The smile pulling at my lips had a warmth that came from my belly. Maybe my meds had started wearing off.

I turned around and looked at him. “I’m sorry I shouted at you last night.”

“It’s okay, you’re forgiven.” He shrugged it off.

We ran down to Prospect Park, one of the places we used to run when I’d lived with him here. I hadn’t run with him for weeks and it meant he had to go a lot slower, but Jason had never cared about that, he’d always made it clear he liked running with me.

Just by living with him, I held him back—but he kept saying he didn’t care.

Blood pulsed in my arteries and my muscles flooded with energy, as the sounds of the city absorbed and consumed me while we ran: cars, cabs, people. Jason had his earphones in, but I hadn’t put any music on, I was just running to the heartbeat of New York.

When we got into the park, the noisy sounds of the city drifted into the distance and the closer noise became the birds amidst the jewel-like colors of the leaves on the trees that had changed for the fall, and there were kids and some guys playing a game of baseball. We ran a circuit around the park, then ran back to the hotel, I was breathing hard when we arrived and I doubled over in the elevator trying to get my breath back, but it was a good sort of breathless.

Jason had pulled out his earphones and they dangled from his neck, still playing music.

“What are you listening to?”

He gave me a smile that was a little wider than any other smile I’d had from him today. “The compilation you gave me last Christmas.”

I straightened up as a sound of humor slipped out of my throat. I smiled at him with parted lips. I loved him so much, it gripped in my belly as well as my chest and sent a tingle through my nerves into my muscles, that were warm from running.

When we reached our room and shut the door behind us it was like we shut out the world.

He’d said on Halloween we’d become us again because we’d had risky sex in the garden.

Now I felt like we’d become us again.

He took his cell out of his pocket and put it on the nightstand, then stripped off his sweaty top and tee. He was good to look at, his body did stuff to my belly too, and what it did to my belly was as powerful as what his love did to my heart, but this feeling didn’t touch my heart. I smiled even wider at him when he turned around and flashed his sinewy, sculpted abdomen at me.

“What?” he asked of my smile.

“Nothing. Are you gonna have a shower?”

“Yeah.”

“Can I get in with you?”

“Yeah.” He sent a smile, like mine, right back at me.

I pulled off my top as he stripped off his jogging pants and walked into the bathroom naked. I heard the shower turn on as I undid my bra. I took my panties off, then headed for the bathroom.

He’d pulled the shower curtain halfway across the bath, so I could still get in around it. He was standing under the stream of water, with his back to me, letting the water run over his short hair. His hand lifted and brushed across his head. I stepped over the side of the bath and moved forward. My hands settled on his lean hips, then slid down, my thumbs following the curve of his tight butt.

He turned and then his hand was at the back of my head and his lips came down on to mine. I opened my mouth to press my tongue into his, but he beat me to it, his tongue passing through my lips. I sucked it slightly then bit it gently. A growl left his throat, then his hands were at the back of my thighs, just below my bottom. My arms wrapped around his neck so he could lift me.

He pressed me against the tiles as he slid into me, filling me up with a hard, slow pressure.

I kissed his temple and he bit my neck when he withdrew and pressed back in.

His palms held under my thighs, his fingertips pressing into my muscle.

One of my hands clasped the back of his neck, while the other grasped at his shoulder. “Jason,” I said into his ear. All the sex we’d been having in the last week made me feel as though we were clinging to sex, trying to reclaim what had been normal between us. If we had nothing else right between us—we had gotten the sex back to being right.

He shoved into me, over and over, working hard. Working like he loved sex with me, not just loved me.

My orgasm exploded in a swell of sensation, and I cried out. Jason growled and bit my shoulder. I laughed. He just thrust into me harder, glancing down to watch, then he looked back up, right into my eyes.

From the moment I’d met him, I’d had a weird connection to him—or maybe I’d just fancied the hell out of him. But I’d always known we were meant to be together.

My butt and my back bumped against the tiles as the water fell on our sides. I laughed—but it was strange—fake. It came from my throat not my belly.

He kissed my lips. My hand slid up and cradled the back of his head, holding his mouth to mine so we kept kissing as he pressed hard into me over and over until I came again. Then he came with a deep, long sigh that released into my mouth.

He smiled at me, with his lips closed. But, this smile, softened the look of his eyes too and his gaze said, I love you. He was the fixer, he was working hard to fix us, and he was doing it the only way he probably knew how, with sex. I loved him more for trying to heal what had broken in me. He could have chosen to walk away.

He could still choose to walk away. Most guys would.

He withdrew from me, then lowered my legs. “Shall we go to Times Square after we’ve showered?”

“Yeah. I’d like that.” It was where he’d proposed to me, after Christmas, last year. In a few weeks we’d have been married a year.

We washed each other’s hair, ran soapy hands over each other’s bodies, then washed ourselves off under the stream of water, switched it off and stepped out.

While Jason was drying himself with one towel, I wrapped mine around me and picked up my cell.

“Hey, don’t tell me you’re going to call Mom because you didn’t think about Saint while we were having sex?”

A blush flooded my skin. Because that was why.

“He’s okay, and it’s okay not to think about him for half an hour, it doesn’t make you a bad mom.”

But the fear that I was, was part of the one-ton weight pushing me down, and the iron chains holding me there.

I pressed the call icon to ring Mom and Dad.

I didn’t sleep so well, I was drifting in and out of dreams again tonight. Declan was in them, and Jason, and we were in New York with Saint.

Saint was in the river with me, in the deep water of the Hudson. Then I was on Manhattan Bridge in the dark, watching the lights on the shifting water and gripping the grill, getting ready to climb it so I could jump.

I’d have drowned in that water, if I’d jumped from Manhattan Bridge.

The water was cold and dirty, it sucked me under, dragging me down, and then Saint was in my arms, and it was dragging us both down, and trying to pull him away. Declan’s face jeered at me in the murky cold.

“Rach…” Jason’s hand touched my back.

My eyes opened on a moment of another memory, of his hand touching my back the night I’d been climbing the grill, to jump off the bridge. He’d talked me out of it and taken me home with him. “I was dreaming,” I whispered without lifting my head off the pillow I’d made of his chest.

“I know, and it didn’t sound all that good.”

“Nope.”

“The river…”

“Yeah, that and Declan.”

His arm came around me and his hand squeezed my shoulder. “It’ll be okay.”

That was what he kept saying. But it was Declan we were going up against. Declan didn’t do okay. He did nasty, mean, and cruel. Never okay. Okay as an aim, or a desire, was mediocre. It was losing to Declan. He didn’t do anything without putting all his influence behind it. He didn’t lose. I wanted things to be awesome.

My palm settled on Jason’s bare belly as his breathing slowed and shifted into the soft rhythm of sleep.

I couldn’t sleep.

Maybe my meds were wearing off.

CHAPTER FIVE

Jason

I ran a finger along Rach’s forearm as it rested on top of the covers, to wake her. “Hey, someone wants to say hi to you.”

Her eyes opened, looking at me. She’d been in a deep sleep even though it was already eleven a.m.

“I face-timed Dad, it’s Saint.” I held my iPhone out so she could see him and he’d be able to see her.

She lifted up on to her elbows, smiling instantly. “Saint.”

“He says, good morning, Mommy.”

“Good morning, sweetheart. What are you doing?”

“Playing with Grampy, he’s had his second bottle of milk today and he’s full of beans.” Dad’s voice came through the cell.

Saint was making sweet, babbling, I’m-full-up, happy sounds and he was laying on his back while his legs and arms kicked out like he was doing a little kickboxing routine.

She took the cell out of my hand. “Did Grampy change your diaper?”

“Grampy did not, that is Granny’s task.”

She’d been teasing him about his dislike of diapers since Saint had been born. It was good to hear the humor in her voice. She’d been lacking humor since she’d been on her meds. It was a ray of the Rachel I’d fallen for in the beginning, shining through the gray clouds of the last couple of months.

“So you let Grampy do all the fun bits and leave all the nasty sick and poo to Granny… That’s not fair, Saint, Granny wants playtime too.”

I laughed and tumbled down on the bed beside her, so Saint could see me. But really Rach had to get up, we needed to go. “Dad, we need to get into the office, so I’m going to have to chase Rach out of bed. Saint, say goodbye to Mommy.” Dad’s hand came into view and lifted Saint’s hand to wave at us. Saint made the cutest baby face, with a toothless smile.

I loved my kid. His blood might not be mine, but it didn’t matter, he was my son. I wanted to adopt him, but if I hadn’t been pushing to make him legally mine then maybe we could’ve lived together forever in peace and avoided Mr. Rees paying any attention to us. He wouldn’t have had any reason for this custody fight.

I reckoned this mess was my fault.

“Bye.” Rach pressed a kiss on to her fingertips then blew it off them toward the screen.

I pursed my lips and blew Saint a smacker. “Bye, Saint. Bye, Dad. We’ll call you later.”

“Yes, bye, Rachel. Goodbye, son.”

I pressed the end-call icon, then took the cell out of her hand. “Okay, Rachel Macinlay, you need to get up and we need to go and fight for our kid.”

She gave me a smile, which was not the reaction I’d expected.

“What time did you get up?”

“Two hours ago.” I’d washed, dressed, and just been looking out the window playing games on my cell ever since, leaving her to sleep because I knew she’d had a bad night, dreaming. Off meds Rach had two extremes: never sleeping and sleeping nearly all day and night, but on the meds she was just always a little bit doped up. I hated her meds more than she did, probably, and that was saying something, but I felt like they were crushing her. She wasn’t anything close to normal on her meds.

I sighed—remembering again that, maybe, who she was now was normal for the not-mentally-sick Rach.

But that was why I’d made another call this morning, before I’d called Mom and Dad, because I needed to know what was right and what was wrong, and so many things didn’t feel right at the moment.

I got up off the bed when she walked into the bathroom. “I called the hospital here this morning!”

She reappeared, holding the door jamb and looking at me, her eyes questioning. “Why?”

“Because, first of all, it would be good for you to have two psychologists to make a statement for you if we end up in a courtroom before a judge fighting to keep Saint and, second of all, because I thought the guy here talked a lot of sense when we saw him last year, and I want you to have a second opinion on the best treatment for you. You don’t feel good on the meds you’re taking, and maybe there’s some other choice.”

“You made an appointment already…”

“Yeah, for the end of next week.”

She turned away and walked into the bathroom, not giving me a clue what she thought about what I’d done. There’d been nothing in her body language and I hadn’t seen her expression.

I sighed and turned around, there was no point in following her in there to push her for a response. Rachel shared things when she wanted, and not when she didn’t. I left her to get her head around the idea. My head was full anyhow. I was getting my brain around what the hell to say to Mr. Rees to stop him pushing for custody. No ideas had come to me yet.

How did I win against a rich guy who could afford billion-dollar lawyers?

I didn’t even really get why he was fighting… He hadn’t wanted Saint to be born. He’d wanted Rach to have an abortion. I still had his stupid scribbled note saying he didn’t want anything to do with the kid if she had it.

So why had he changed his mind?

Because I wanted Saint…

That’s what I thought, that this was between him and me and had nothing to do with Rach or Saint. They’d just gotten caught up in it. When I’d worked for him he’d seen me as a nobody and neither of us had known about our connection when I’d found Rach and she’d moved in with me. It wasn’t until the party he’d had when I saw her picture in his penthouse that I found out who Rach’s abusive ex had been—my boss.

I’d quit work. I’d heard enough about her ex from Rach to know there was no way I could work for him knowing that, especially when we were going to raise his kid.

But after I’d walked out of work, he’d come after Rach. He’d turned up at my place, late at night, off his head on something, with a group of guys. That hadn’t been just about Rach. He’d wanted to take her away from me, not just take her. I’d been the guy he’d deemed a worthless piece of shit. He had loads of money. Several businesses. Friends in powerful places. Massive houses. The best of everything. Everything I could never hope for. But I’d kicked his ego that night I’d blackened his eye and probably broken his rib, and he’d gone away. I’d won that night.

But Mr. Rees was the sort of guy who didn’t like losing.

Shit.

So how did I persuade a man like that to let us keep Saint and stop fighting?

I didn’t know. But I was trying to convince Rach I did. I’d told her everything was going to be okay. That we’d get this fixed. But the problem was—I looked at my watch and remembered how long it used to take me to get to the office, about forty-five minutes—in forty-five minutes she was going to discover that I’d lied.

Nausea twisted around in my gut and I rubbed my hands on the seat of my pants.

I’d hated the asshole a year ago, but that feeling then had been a shallow dislike. Now it was a violent distaste. But the cutting thing was, that underneath every feeling I had, I still had this shitty sense he was better than me, because he had so much more than I did.

“What do you want to wear?” I shouted into the bathroom. I had to do something other than stand here, otherwise I was going to blow like a volcano of nervous energy. I would’ve run while Rach was sleeping but I didn’t want to leave her to wake up alone.

“My light jeans, my dark-blue long-sleeved tee and my pale-blue sweater!”

“Okay, I’ll get them out of the suitcase.”

“You can pick my underwear!”

The first day we’d been out together, nearly a year ago, the first trip we’d made was shopping for clothes for her. She’d left Mr. Rees with nothing but the clothes she’d had on at the time, which hadn’t included underwear. She’d waved the underwear at me as she’d picked it, with a laugh. I wanted to hear that laugh right now.

I chose blue underwear, to go with the clothes she’d picked, and then laid all her clothes out on the bed. She came out of the bathroom, naked and smiling at me.

I hadn’t expected her to be smiling this morning, and it may not be a wide smile, just a lifting at the corner of her lips, but she was definitely smiling.

She dressed while I sat on the bed watching, with my palms on my thighs, trying to restrain the anxiety that whipped at my back. I didn’t want to let it show. When she turned and slipped her cell into her purse, I stood up. “Are you ready?” I wasn’t, but there was no running from this standoff, it had to happen.

She turned and gave me another slight smile. “Yeah.”

What was with her smiling today?

We put our coats on, ready for the cold walk to the subway, then went out the door. My hand settled at her waist and I kept my arm around her as we travelled down in the elevator, and when we walked out the door of the hotel her arm came around me and her hand slipped into the back pocket of my pants.

We were tight together—right. Declan and Rachel… they’d been so wrong.

We had to stand in the subway car. I grasped the bar over my head as she leaned back against an upright one with her hands behind her, her body rocking with the sway of the car. She didn’t look like she was scared at all. But I knew she was scared of Mr. Rees, of what he’d done to her, and what he might do yet. Maybe she was hiding her fear like I was.

When we got off the subway I held her hand through her woolen glove. Her hand hung on tightly to mine as we made our way out of the station, and then walked to the office where I used to work. For months I’d walked this route, and I’d only been glad to be walking it for about the first two weeks, when I’d still had hopes it would be the dream job I’d wanted. It had never been that. I hadn’t been sorry at all to leave it behind for Rach.

When we got nearer the office, my nerves ratcheted up ten notches. I couldn’t take her in there. What if it went badly? It was better if I did this alone.

There was a Starbucks near the office. I stopped in front of it. “Do me a favor, Rach, wait here, please? I don’t want to take you in there.”

Her hand slipped out of mine and she faced me, clasping the sleeves of my leather jacket instead and trying to shake me. “Why?”

My hands settled at her hips. “Because the man is unpredictable, nasty, and violent.”

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