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Great. Money wasn’t exactly known to uncomplicate situations—and what was he going to make of her less than glamorous lifestyle? The nineteen-fifties bungalow that she shared with her mother and her sister? Was his money a part of him that she would ever understand, or would it always be a gulf between them? A part of one another that would always be alien.
It didn’t matter, she reminded herself. She didn’t want to date him. All she needed from him was to be a good father to their child.
‘Are you okay?’ Fraser asked, looking at her with concern.
Elspeth waved away his worries and looked out at the view. ‘Fine,’ she said. ‘Just need a breather for a moment.’
She stood looking out over the city and realised how close Fraser was behind her. So close she could practically feel the heat radiating from his chest and his torso. Those tight abs that she’d explored, and then owned, the night of the wedding.
It would be too easy to lean back into him, to let the chemistry that had led them astray that night be back in charge. But it would only lead to trouble, she reminded herself. She was taking on enough with this baby, the baby that was making its presence known by literally stealing the oxygen from her lungs, without trying to make space in her life for a relationship as well.
No, it didn’t matter how attracted she was to Fraser. Falling for him meant devoting less of herself to her mother and her sister, and that wasn’t an option. Sarah needed her, and Elspeth’s feelings came a distant second to that.
She let the breath go and started walking again, determined to reach the top of the hill before they had to turn around, looking for a change of subject. ‘Have you told your family about me? About the baby?’ she asked, not sure where she wanted this conversation to go, but aware that she needed a change of subject.
‘I told my mum,’ Fraser said, with a nod and a smile. ‘She was pretty shocked, but she’s excited about being a grandmother. And desperate to meet you.’
Elspeth grimaced nervously. ‘Mine too. My mum, I mean. And my sister. Well, once the shock wore off and they regained the power of speech. What about your dad?’ she asked as an afterthought, remembering, as she did sometimes, that most people had more than one parent to consider.
‘I’ve not told my dad, actually,’ Fraser said. ‘We’re not in touch.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Elspeth said, slipping without thinking about it into her sympathetic doctor’s voice. ‘Do you want to talk about it?’
‘No.’ Fraser’s tone made it clear that the topic was not up for discussion, and he turned back to the path, picking up his pace. ‘What about you?’ he asked. ‘You mentioned your mum and your sister. Is your dad around?’
She shook her head. ‘He never has been.’
Fraser’s expression told her exactly what he thought about a father who abandoned his children, and she wondered about his relationship with his dad. How long had it been since they had spoken? What had happened to drive them apart? Was he the reason Fraser bristled as much as she did every time that chemistry sparked between them?
‘Probably better that way,’ Fraser said.
Well, that was one way to look at it, she thought, surprised at his reaction. But was it really better to have been abandoned by one of her parents? And did she really want to raise a child with someone who thought that way? If she had the choice, two parents seemed like a pretty good deal.
‘You know,’ Fraser said, his tone still brusque, ‘we haven’t spoken at all about how this is going to work. I mean, where I’m working now—it’s not quite the Highlands, but it’s more than an hour from the city. I don’t even know where you live. Do you live with your mother?’
Elspeth bristled, wondering whether that was a criticism. ‘And my sister. It’s not like we have a choice. We all rely on each other.’
‘Right. So we’re both stuck where we are, and somehow we have to come up with how we give this baby the family that it deserves. And we’ve got six months—more or less—to figure this out. Shouldn’t we be concentrating on that?’
He said it as if it hadn’t occupied just about every free moment that she’d had in the last three months. Her shoulders rose as she prepared to defend herself against his implied criticism.
‘Brilliant. If you’ve got this sussed, then I’m all ears.’
‘I didn’t say that I had the answers,’ Fraser snapped. ‘Just that we need to start thinking about it.’
‘Start thinking about it?’ Well, if he wasn’t going to hold his temper in check, she wasn’t either. ‘Fraser, I’ve thought about nothing else since I took that pregnancy test. The fact that I haven’t come up with an answer doesn’t reflect the amount of effort I’ve put in.’
‘I’m sure you’ve been thinking about it.’ Fraser said, stopping and grabbing her hand so she had no choice but to look him in the eye. ‘I have too. But we’ve not been talking about it. Thinking about this separately isn’t the same as thinking about this together.’
He squeezed the hand he was still holding and a jolt of electricity went up her arm—a warning of the danger that still existed just from being close to him. A reminder that if she wanted to keep her head she couldn’t get too close.
The sun was behind her. She could feel it warm on the back of her head as the gentle breeze caught at her hair. The sun gleamed off Fraser’s hair too, and fine lines appeared around his eyes as he squinted in the bright light. High above the city, in the quiet they had found up here, it was harder to ignore that insistent nagging feeling, the reminder of everything she had felt for him that night. Of how hot their chemistry had been. Of how easily the conversation and the laughs had come.
‘I’m not going to be an absent dad,’ Fraser said, and the like my own was so clear it didn’t need to be said out loud.
Elspeth shook her head, glad that he had brought her thoughts back to the baby, where they should be. Not on that night.
‘I’m not going to be some bit-part player in my child’s life.’
