CHASING TROUBLE

Another nod. He cleared his throat. “Where are you going?”

“Poker night.” Frank replied. “We’re having food first. I tried to find Caroline to say bye but I couldn’t find her. I’ll talk to her tomorrow.” He put the car back into gear. “Got to go-I’m already late. Don’t wait up,” he added with a cackle, then drove off in the same direction Caroline had not long traveled..Contentt bel0ngs to N0ve/lDrâ/ma.O(r)g!

His father had a remarkable social life. A string of women. Raucous nights out with good company. The kind of social life Nicholas had looked forward to at some point in his life. The kind he would have if he hadn’t learned about his son. He blinked. What was he thinking? Hadn’t he stayed out of the spotlight and avoided any kind of socializing until he’d seen Caroline again? Hadn’t he embedded himself back into her life? The only times he’d enjoyed himself after his return had been with her because the vacuous social scene he’d once reveled in no longer meant anything to him. His isolation had changed him. Caroline had changed him. His son had changed him.

And how had he learned about his son? By following the mother. Why had he followed the mother? Because the compulsion to see her again had been too strong to resist… Fighting the direction of his thoughts and unable to look a moment longer at the road on which she’d traveled away from him, Nicholas dragged himself to his feet and walked back into his home.

The emptiness was stark. The silence was deafening. He held tight to the bannister and climbed both flights of stairs without any thought of where he was heading. Shuffling along the corridor on the second floor, the nausea in his stomach rose up like a wave. He doubled over, pressing his hands to the sill of the window he was passing to support himself, and closed his eyes.

When the sickness passed, he opened his eyes and found his gaze drawn back to the winding road in the distance. His father’s car had disappeared. He straightened sharply as clarity exploded into his thoughts.

If he’d not walked away from her because he was too afraid of commitment, then they wouldn’t have been in their current situation. If he’d opened up about the way she made him feel. But he hadn’t opened up. He couldn’t change that. Couldn’t change who he was. Couldn’t change that he never opened up to anyone… But hadn’t he opened up to Caroline? It had been forced on him but he had opened up to her, about virtually everything.

She knew him better than anyone else. She always tried to understand him, and every time she’d given him that same soft smile of love.

Yes, love.

Whatever kind of man he was, it hadn’t stopped Caroline from placing her cheek to his chest and listening to the beats of his heart… The beats of his heart picked up speed and he looked at his bedroom door. That’s where he’d been heading, he now realized, but what he’d intended to do in there he didn’t know, just knew it no longer mattered. If he wanted a future then he had to free himself from the shackles of the past. Free himself properly. In his heart.

Having his child growing inside Caroline had given her comfort. When she’d once described grief as being a bruise that hurts with every breath you take, she’d been speaking about her grief for him. How had he not seen that?

Because he’d never thought for a second that he could inspire such feelings in anyone. When he’d walked away for months, hers had been the face he’d seen before falling asleep. He saw it so clearly now. Understood so clearly.

Patting his pockets, he found his phone and, fighting the panic threatening to overwhelm him, quickly scrolled through the contacts and called his driver.

_____________

Charlie had been amazingly well behaved on the drive back to her house, but for some reason after they arrived he started bawling. He was still bawling as she tried to pack the things they’d need for their trip to her parents house. Caroline soothed him as much as she could but all her bribes of food and drink-she kept emergency ready-made baby food and baby milk in the change-bag-went to waste.

Picking him up and pacing while rubbing his back didn’t work so she sat down again and made another attempt at giving him milk. This time he accepted it and quietened.

Exhausted mentally, emotionally and physically, Caroline rested her head back against the couch. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to banish Nicholas’ face from her mind. Tried to ignore the unbearable pain in her heart. Tried to banish the tempest of emotions swelling inside her. Tried to stop the force of the painful ragged rise and fall of her chest from pushing out the tears forming behind her eyes.

It would have been easier to stop the sun from rising. They fell down her face like a burning stream. Her hands full with feeding Charlie, she couldn’t wipe the tears away, and she turned her face away to stop them falling onto him and tried her hardest to get control of herself. She didn’t want her devastation to feed into Charlie’s developing emotions.

She must keep hold of herself until she was in the security of her parents home and the privacy of her bedroom. She could rest and fall apart then, just as she’d done during those desolate months and months spent after Nicholas left. Pack her emotions back inside her.

She heard something and turning back to look out of the window, she saw through the film of tears clouding her vision something large and black approaching. She blinked vigorously then found herself freezing when her vision cleared enough to recognise the object. It was a car. One of Nicholas’ cars.

She blinked again to see him jump out of the front passenger seat before the car had even come to a stop. His long legs sped in a blur towards the house.