“Why do I get this strange sense of déjà vu that you and I have met before?”
Because
you and I
spent the most incredible two hours in an elevator, and then the night in your hotel room
, her mind screamed to announce. Those precious hours meant everything to her and Chelsea drew on her memories of that magical night during the past year. Now they were ruined, a beautiful painting on a canvas that someone vandalized with splattered random blobs of colour. She decided then and there never to dwell on that night ever again, no matter how much her heart wished it.
“I uh, I guess I have one of those faces,” Chelsea replied with a shrug, pulling onto the highway.
“Hmm…” His eyes burned the side of her face as he studied her. “I could swear we’ve met.”
“…Need to concentrate,” she muttered, using her hair as a curtain to shield herself from his view.
The drive back to Mac and Hannah’s felt like it took days instead of just half an hour. As soon as she pulled into the driveway, Chelsea popped the trunk and ran inside, leaving Tiaan to his own devices. She fled past a stunned Mac holding Erik, rushing up the stairs of the newer part of the house to her bedroom. It was dark and silent when she entered, save for the gentle hum of her two month old son’s breathing.
How many times had she dreamed of finding the man from the elevator and telling him about his child?
Their
child. If only he had called her…
No dwelling on it!
Thanks to Hannah, she had a lot of stuff to pack. The suitcase from her closet would carry most of her own stuff which she started shoving into it, but all of Ruan’s things, that meant another trip or two. At least. Then there was the crib, and she had to find a place to go.
A deluge of hot, stinging tears dripped down her face. Everything had been going so well for her here. She had an amazing job where she could bring Ruan every day, a place to live and a great support system. With the arrival of one man, everything came crashing down around her.
“Chelsea, is everything okay? Hey, what’s up with the suitcase?”
She froze at the sound of Mac’s voice, a deep and soft growl from the doorway. Ruan woke, sending a piercing cry through the room and she welcomed the distraction so as not to have to answer his question.
“Jesus, man! Did you and Hannah have a second child already?” the South African man chuckled as he stepped through the doorway. “Come to Uncle Tiaan then.”
Chelsea held Ruan to her chest, backing up to the wall behind her.
“He’s not ours,” Mac offered with a laugh. “Ruan belongs to Chelsea.”
“Chelsea…Chelsea…” Tiaan spoke her name as if testing it on his tongue. “Chelsea?” The third time he said it, he sounded confused and she watched his eyes furiously snap from her, to Ruan and back again. “Son of a
bitch!”
At least they were on the same page now.
Four
Mind reeling, Tiaan stumbled backwards while the memory and this rather unexpected news assaulted him. That same memory was the one he called on during each interrogation to deliver him from the agony of torture. Now it was tainted. Bloody well ruined.
“Uh… Am I missing something?” Mac shifted his weight and moved Erik to his other hip.
“Hmm. I believe I need a moment alone with Chelsea, if you don’t mind.”
After a moment’s silence, Mac acquiesced. “Call for me if you need anything.”
“I don’t and won’t,” Tiaan snapped back.
A short pause, Mac then said, “I meant Chelsea.”
Once they were alone, his anger exploded. “Why did you not tell me that I had a bloody child?”
Her expression matched his, viciously irate. “Tell you?
Tell you?
I didn’t even know your damned name until I got you from the airport today! And don’t you
dare
chastise me here. I left you my number and you never called!” She backed into the far corner to sit on the bed, bouncing Ruan – his
son
for Christ’s sakes – in a gentle motion. “I went through all of this by myself; thankfully I had Hannah and Mac to help me though.”
She left her number? Tiaan thought back to the morning after, when he’d reached for that voluptuous woman he spent the night with, only to find a cold and empty space in the hotel room bed. Seconds later his phone rang and he had to leave on a mission straight away. If she did leave her phone number for him, he mustn’t have seen it in his haste to pack and get on the next flight out.
Too late to make amends on that note now, he crossed the distance between them and dropped onto her single bed. He could have sworn he’d told her his name, but they hadn’t done much talking that night. Then a thought crossed his mind. If she was so quick to jump into a man’s bed, one whose name she did not even know, this baby could belong to someone else. There was one way to find out.
“I want a paternity test done.”
Recoiling as if struck, Chelsea moved to the changing table, making sure to keep an eye on Ruan. Bloody hell, she’d even gone as far as to find an Afrikaans name for the baby. He observed her as she gently removed the soiled nappy – a cloth one, he noted – and cleaned the baby up before putting a fresh one on.
“I have no need or…I-I don’t want anything from you! I certainly don’t want your money. And no one is sticking a needle in my son. So whatever reason you have for demanding such a ridiculous thing, it’s unjustified and unwanted.” Her voice carried a hard edge to it, as if she had just this minute constructed an impenetrable wall around herself.
Tiaan opened his mouth to reply, though he didn’t quite know what to say, and was saved by Mac slipping into the room. Thank God for the man. Hopefully he would have a bit of advice on this particularly distressing situation. Just before he met Hannah, Mackenzie found out that he’d had a daughter for years and years. Kayla would be turning sixteen in a few months.
“Chelsea,” Mac began as he gently pushed her aside to take over dressing little Ruan, “I know this is a delicate situation, and I also should probably mind my own business, but since Hannah came into my life…” He grinned, as if recalling a memory. “Let’s just say I like things sorted, nice and neat, wrapped up with a bow nowadays. It keeps me up at night when there’s unfinished business in my house.”
Christ, but the baby looked a hell of a lot like the pictures of him at that age. A pang of something indefinable twisted in his chest. He had the urge to hold Ruan, to touch him, like it might make all the difference in the world. The fact that she managed to pull his grandfather’s name out of the thousands of Afrikaans male names out there also astonished him. Chelsea couldn’t have possibly known.
“What is your blood type, Chelsea?”
She was at Mac’s side to take Ruan who just started to cry, presumably for her since he ceased as soon as she held him. “O rh negative, why?”
“Hmm. And Ruan is…?”
“The same as me.”
Tiaan gripped his shirt and accidentally pressed too hard on a particularly tender area of his chest. If both mother and child were O type, that meant the father had to have O too, or at least O antigens in their system. He knew what was coming next, and answered without needing to be asked. “Myself as well.”
“I guess we have a fairly good idea now.” Mac raked his hand through his hair and, from the look on his face, Tiaan could tell his friend was attempting not to laugh.
It’s not bloody well funny!
he wanted to yell.
“Chelsea, they can take a saliva swab so there wouldn’t be any needles, but for both of your sakes – and my sanity too – we should go ahead with this. I’ll pay–”
“No, I will,” Tiaan interjected. “And if he’s not mine, she can reimburse me the cost.”
As soon as he’d spoken the words, Chelsea shot him a look that could have seared through his flesh and bone, causing his brain to explode, and all but ran from the room with Ruan in her arms. That little voice he shut off many times before emerged to the surface of his mind, telling him what a bastard he’d just been, but he ignored it.
Rather, he attempted to ignore his conscience, yet it kept on hounding him. Begging that he do the right thing and run after her, comfort her. That, deep down, he knew Ruan was his son and they needed him.
Persistent little bugger, his conscience was.
Thankfully, Mac cleared his throat, distracting him from his integrity or profound lack thereof.
“Try not to be
too
much of an asshole, Tiaan. Chelsea hasn’t exactly had it easy since she found out she was pregnant. If it wasn’t for Hannah, I honestly don’t know what would have happened to her. She spent a lot of her pregnancy in the hospital.”
Self-defenses raised, he turned to his friend, stunned. “So you are taking her side on this?”
“Relax, I’m not taking anyone’s side. Jesus, Tiaan, I know you’ve been through hell, but just think about how it must have been for her. A single twenty-four year old girl living thousands of miles from her family who disowned her when they she told them she was expecting. She had to drop out of university and put herself in debt, just to keep a baby she didn’t even know she was having. Hell, she didn’t know the damned guy’s name that got her pregnant!”
“And this is all my fault then, hmm? If she’s so damned promiscuous, she should learn to use some kind of protection!”
Suddenly, he was backed against a wall with a thick forearm pressed to his neck. “It takes two people to make a baby, Christiaan. Obviously you did not offer to use a condom or go buy any. And who gives a damn if she
was
promiscuous? Grow the fuck up already, you’re only two years younger than I am so act your age! If we men can go around adding notch after notch to our bedposts, why can’t women do the same without getting a shitty name for themselves? Are we the only ones who are allowed to enjoy physical pleasure?”
Mac released him and Tiaan greedily sucked a few breaths in while massaging his throat. Just being in a position where he was held down brought terrifying memories to the surface. Memories that he wished he could lock away forever, maybe even forget them altogether.
Then it hit him, square in the solar plexus like a damned wrecking ball. Twenty-four years old. That made her
twelve years
his junior. Was she truly so young? Why hadn’t he noticed that back when he’d been in the hotel lift with her?
He sat down on her bed to think, absorbing the information Mac just granted him. So, her parents disowned her. Big deal. His parents were deceased. At least hers were still alive somewhere. Eventually, they would realize their error and wish to reconnect with their daughter…right? Unless they were selfish bastards like his had been.
“This is a bloody mess,” Tiaan sighed into his hands. “Here I finally thought I might be getting some semblance of my life back and now… Now I might have the one damned thing I never wanted. A God damned kid.”
“Well no one asked you to demand a paternity test! And I don’t want you in his life anyways!”
Shit. Tiaan sat up just in time to see Chelsea swinging a bag over her shoulder and then she bolted from the room like it was on fire. A slew of curses slipped over his tongue. Mac laughed, he actually bloody well laughed.
“Bastard.” Tiaan threw a pillow at him.
That only made the other man grab his sides and howl even harder.
~~~
It probably wasn’t the best idea to be getting into her car and driving anywhere so Chelsea borrowed the smaller stroller that Hannah said she could use. The final buckles were clipped when she heard someone behind her at the entrance to the garage. Probably Christiaan, coming to fling some more degrading words at her. Steeling herself, she held her shoulders back and gripped the handles of the stroller.
“I don’t want you anywhere near my son,” Chelsea warned.
“Wow…okay…sorry.”
Darn, it was only Kayla. “No, honey, I’m sorry. I thought you were someone else.” Her eyes filled up and Chelsea rooted through the diaper bag in search of something to dry the tears before they fell.
“Does this have anything to do with my dad’s friend?” Kayla bent down in front of Ruan, offering her finger for him to drool on. “Whoa, wait, is he the father or something? ‘Cause now that I think about it, Ruan looks a lot like him.”
Why did she have to be so perceptive?
Tears that had simply been threatening now slipped fast and hard down her cheeks. Chelsea dropped to her butt right there on the unfinished garage floor. Screw him!
She
was the one attempting to regain some shred of semblance in her life. Losing her parents’ support, her placement in med school, the scholarship she worked so hard to achieve. She had nothing to show for that one night of passion except for Ruan.
Chelsea loved her little guy more than life itself and she’d continue giving up everything she had for him, but it was damn hard being so strong all the time when all she wanted to do was break down. Well, now she’d gotten her chance. The tears came and they just wouldn’t stop, like somehow, the Niagara Falls was pouring from her ducts.
Behind her, Kayla mumbled something and Chelsea heard the name Hannah being mentioned. Ruan’s gurgles, too. There was no time to be egotistical, wallowing in self-pity and regret. She had to get on with her day and finish running errands. This was her only day off this week. She needed to return a few things to the library and at four, she had to get to the bank to discuss her loan re-payments.
Plenty of women ended up in this very situation. Broke, in debt, single with a baby, and nowhere to go. Thanks to Hannah and Mac, she had a job and a place to stay, not to mention three responsible people to help her with Ruan. Without them, it pained her to imagine where she would be right now.
“Chels, I just heard.”
She looked up to see Hannah running through the open garage door, long hair flying wildly behind her. Hannah Magnus-Dunlop was easily the nicest person this world had ever known. Together, she and Mackenzie made the most incredible couple. Someday she hoped to have something even remotely similar to their love, but she wasn’t holding out for anyone now.
Besides, not many men were lining up to receive an instant family.
“I swear, if I’d known Christiaan was
that
guy, he wouldn’t be staying here.” Embracing Chelsea from behind, Hannah held her in a tight grip. If she meant for her actions to help put a stop to the rushing tears, it had the opposite effect.
“He said he doesn’t even want kids,” Chelsea sobbed, “but he wants a paternity test. Why can’t he just leave Ruan alone if he doesn’t want him? Do you think he’ll try and take him away from me? Oh God, I couldn’t bear it!”
Breaking away from Hannah, she crawled on her knees to where her baby slept peacefully in his stroller. Every little thing about him was absolutely perfect, from his lightly tanned skin, dark eyes with thick sable lashes, to his tiny button nose and miniature, drool-slicked ruby lips. If someone took him from her, Chelsea was sure that she would die.
“No, I don’t think he would. Look, I might not know him that well, but what I do know is…well, the past year hasn’t been a good one for him. I bet the last thing on his mind was what he discovered here.” She spoke with the wisdom far beyond her twenty-seven years and Hannah moved her hands through Chelsea’s hair in a continuous and comforting motion. Though only three years her senior, Chelsea often thought of Hannah as the prefect mother figure.
“Tensions are high and tempers are flaring. News like this is…well, it can be hard to take. Why don’t we all go inside, have some iced tea and maybe a nice slice of lemon glaze cake while we talk things through. How does that sound?”
The question was out of her head and past her lips before she fully understood what she was asking. “Will you help me though, if he does try to take him from me?”
“Of course I will. You are an amazing mother to Ruan and I promise I’ll do everything I can to make sure you get to stay together. Come on. Kayla, you bring little R inside, okay? I’ll give you your driving lesson later, I promise.”
“Sure, Hannah,” the teen replied, carefully guiding the stroller into the house.