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  ‘That doesn’t make sense,’ Lauren said, wondering if it was her muddled mind or if he really was talking in riddles.

  ‘Let’s start with Therese. We married young—too young—both of us just out of school. I was studying and she felt neglected and in the end we separated. She wasn’t happy in our marriage but she wasn’t happy about that either, and it was one of the reasons I went to India—to put some distance between us so we could both sort things out. Then at St Catherine’s I met you and I discovered what love was all about. I fell in love with a gangly, freckled, wonderful young woman who radiated kindness and compassion and love for all who met her. How could I not fall in love?’

  Lauren wasn’t sure if she was supposed to answer that question but as his words had made a lump form in her throat she couldn’t speak so she sat and waited to see where this was going.

  ‘I wrote to Therese straight away. I told her all about you and how much I loved you and said I knew she’d meet someone she could love the same way one day, which was why we should both be free. I was confirming our marriage was over, saying again what I’d said before, but this time, because I loved you, I thought she’d understand. Of course it must have hurt her, and that’s why she wrote back—the letter you saw that day—and said it didn’t matter because she knew I’d come back to her eventually.’

  ‘And did you?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘She wanted that, but although I thought you were dead it still seemed wrong. I would have been cheating Therese if I’d gone back to her—and cheating your memory as well. So we divorced as soon as possible.’

  He paused, sighing at his memories.

  ‘Later, thinking parents of young children would feel easier if I were married, I became engaged to Justine but still, in my heart, I felt it was wrong. In the end, she broke off our engagement, blaming my preoccupation with my work. I didn’t know it at the time—didn’t know it, in fact, until I met you again and suddenly my work, though still extremely important, wasn’t the most important thing in my life. But you were right, I had betrayed both of them. Betrayed them because somewhere deep inside me you were still my one true love.’

  Lauren let the words sink in. Could this really be? Could he have loved her in his heart all this time?

  And if so, why had he made such a production of telling her their love-making wouldn’t lead to marriage?

  She had to ask, but how?

  There was only one way—blurt it out!

  ‘Why marriage now, when you were so insistent earlier there’d be no marriage? Is it because of Joe? Is it just for him you want to marry me now?’

  He set the brandy balloon down on the table and came towards her, settling on the couch beside her but not touching her.

  ‘You must understand I had made a…hash of two serious relationships and blamed the failure for both on my work. I had decided if I was made that way—in such a way that work would always come first—then I could not hurt another woman by marrying her then letting her down. It is only in this last week that I’ve realised there’s a work Lauren ratio. With no Lauren there was something in my subconscious that prompted me to work all the hours possible in order to forget you, but now I’ve found you again, I don’t need to do that. I would not marry you for Joe, although I do want to live with him as my son, but I would marry you because I love you, Lauren. The big question is, do you love me?’

  She studied his face, pale, tired and anxious, then finally gave in to the impulse to cradle his cheeks in her hands, and once she held him captive it seemed only natural to kiss him.

  ‘I do love you,’ she whispered into the kiss. ‘I fell in love with you almost from the start—this time around. It frightened me, because I’d never felt that way before—well, not that I could remember—but I wonder if it was because you were always there, just lost somewhere in my mind that I couldn’t get to. Then I remembered the letter and it brought back not only the good memories but the bad ones as well and I began to wonder if I could trust you.’

  ‘And trust—you have trust now?’ he asked, easing away from her.

  ‘I do, because that’s what love’s about after all! Without that as a foundation even the deepest love could falter.’

  ‘So I should be saying I trust you, not I love you, ma biche?’ Jean-Luc teased—now teasing her with kisses as well as words.

  Lauren kissed him back while she thought about it.

  ‘No,’ she said, after a long time, ‘we have to know the trust is there, as the basis of our love—that’s part of trust—so we can stick to “I love you” when we say it, and I do love you, Jean-Luc, though before we get too involved here, I’d like to know what a “biche” is. I don’t want you calling me “my donkey” or something like that.’

  He laughed again, and held her tightly in his arms.

  ‘It means a deer—a little deer—and is an endearment I have only ever used for you—in my mind only, this last week, but now I am able to say it, and will continue to say it.’

  ‘My little deer—I like that—partly, I suppose, because it’s like our English dear, spelt d-e-a-r.’

  He stopped her with another kiss.

  ‘Are we to translate our languages to each other all night or should we instead communicate in ways that need no words?’

  Lauren gave him her answer without words….

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  THEY had the big world atlas open on the kitchen table, Joe poring over it. He already knew where France was—or at least could pick out the coloured shape that was the country which was to be his home. He even knew Marseilles was down the bottom and by sliding his chubby finger towards the centre of the page he could come to Cassis.

  ‘Here!’ he said, showing Lauren for perhaps the thousandth time. ‘This is where we’re going to live. And Lucy, too. She will have to learn to bark in French so other dogs will understand her. I know French. I know bonjour.’

  Lauren heard the flat door open and, knowing it was Jean-Luc, went to greet him, giving him a kiss then leaning against him in the doorway, as Joe practised his bonjour on Lucy. She and Jean-Luc both smiled at the strangled pronunciation, but Joe was right—he did already know some French words, Jean-Luc having proved a very patient teacher and Joe a far more adept learner than Lauren herself.

  Although she blamed her lack of improvement on the fact that Jean-Luc was her teacher, and just being near him made her think of things far removed from French lessons.

  ‘He seems happy enough about going to live in France, but the father thing?’ Jean-Luc asked, and Lauren, knowing how anxious Jean-Luc was about being accepted as Joe’s father, gave him a quick hug.

  ‘Wait here,’ she said, and disappeared into Joe’s room, returning with his school workbook. She handed it to Joe.

  ‘Do you want to show us the picture you drew at school today?’ she said, and Joe eagerly opened up the book, leafing through the pages. And there, towards the back, he found his drawing.

  ‘Who’s in the picture, Joe?’ Lauren prompted.

  Joe held it up.

  ‘My family,’ he said proudly. ‘This is my dad—that’s you, John—and Mum, and me, and that’s Lucy near my feet.’

  Lauren felt Jean-Luc stiffen then he stepped forward and picked up the book, staring down at the picture his son had drawn. ‘My Family’, it said at the top and if the ‘a’ was backwards, that was of no account. No, what held his attention, what had his finger rubbing gently over the page, was the three-letter word beneath the stick drawing of a man.

  ‘Dad!’ he whispered, the word strangled on its way out by the lump in his throat. ‘Is that OK with you, Joe? Having me for a dad?’

  Joe left his chair and came to stand beside his father. He put his arms around Jean-Luc’s waist and hugged him.

  ‘It’s what I wished, blowing out my candles,’ he said simply. ‘For you to be my dad. But I couldn’t tell or the wish wouldn’t come true.’

  Lauren saw the joy in her son’s face a
nd the tears in her lover’s eyes, and the emotion of the moment was so overwhelming there was nothing she could do but hug them both.

  Her family!

  ISBN: 978-1-4268-2930-7

  THE HEART SURGEON’S SECRET CHILD

  First North American Publication 2009

  Copyright © 2008 by Meredith Webber

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

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