The Army Doc's Baby Secret

‘Why are we going this way?’ she snapped out, as though she couldn’t bear it any longer. ‘Is this some kind of trip down memory lane intended to make me feel guiltier than I already do?’

‘Do you?’ he challenged, wishing that a part of him didn’t revel in the fact that his Tia was still as astute as ever. ‘Feel guilty?’

‘What kind of a question is that, Zeke? Of course I do. I never wanted you to find out like this. And I certainly never intended...what happened between us in the lifeboat station this afternoon.’

Any thawing he’d begun feeling towards her disappeared in an instant.

So she didn’t regret hiding the truth about his son from him all these years. Just the fact that he’d found out. And that he and Tia had been intimate again.

When the hell was he ever going to learn to stay away from this woman?

‘But instead of raking up the past, don’t you think we should be looking to the future? Working out where we go from here?’

He battled to harden his heart against her.

‘You’ve had over four years with our son,’ he ground out bitterly. ‘Forgive me if I need a few more minutes to adjust to this revelation.’

‘Right,’ she murmured, lapsing back into silence.

Along the promenade the grey seas churned and frothed, every now and then smashing against the sea wall and showering their vehicle with a loud, heavy salt shower.

He might have known she wouldn’t be able to stay quiet for long.

‘It’s just that the only thing at this end of the parade is the old lighthouse and...that old piece of waste ground.’

The old waste ground set up from a section of quiet, rocky beach, where the two of them had often gone to be alone when they had finally got together. Where they’d often imagined buying and building a dream home of their own. When we grow up.

Well, they’d grown up now. It was just a shame they had never grown up when they’d still been together.

Zeke didn’t answer. He just kept going, waiting for the moment when she would be able to see it for herself. The extent of the new life he had managed to build for himself these past few years. His unexpected success—as hollow as it had felt at times, without her to share it with.

The anticipation clung to him like a sodden T-shirt.

And then, beside him, he could sense her sit forward, taking note.

‘What the heck is that?’ she whispered at length.

The indignation in her tone was only half supressed. He couldn’t help but smile, despite everything.

‘You don’t like it?’

‘It’s...’ She scowled as though the right adjective wouldn’t come. Finally she was forced to concede the truth. ‘It’s stunning. Gallingly so, really. But still, someone really built here?’

‘Someone did,’ he agreed.

The sheets of curved, tinted glass that made up the entire frontage of the house mirrored the foaming seas and rolling grey clouds flawlessly. The renovated lighthouse just behind.

‘Someone who has a lot of money, by the looks of it.’ Tia sniffed.

Was it fanciful to imagine he knew exactly what was running through her head right at this moment?

‘You begrudge them living here?’

She paused.

‘I don’t begrudge them, exactly. It’s just that...a location this special deserv

ed to have gone to someone who would really love it and cherish it, not just someone with enough money to have bought off our historically entrenched council.’