Orange Blossom Days Read online

  Sleep well both of u. Rest and take it easy. See u tomorrow. XXX he texted back, hoping that would be enough. He knew he should say I love you back, but for tonight the kisses would have to suffice. He wasn’t going to be emotionally blackmailed into saying I love you when he didn’t feel it.

  Can you call me? I’m lonely for u, came the plaintive response.

  Not now. With the girls. Doing their lessons, he fibbed. He wanted to remind Lenora he already had two children and they were entitled to his time too.

  Cal turned off his phone. Lenora would be texting back and forth until he rang her and he wasn’t in the mood for it. He wasn’t going to be at anyone’s beck and call tonight. He needed to gather his reserves for what was to come.

  Lenora felt a boiling rage race through her like molten hot lava when she read and reread the text in front of her.

  Was Cal Cooper for real? She’d just endured the most horrific twenty-four hours of her life, after nine months of puking, and heartburn, and aching hips and sciatica and pelvic pain, and getting as fat as a walrus, and having her boobs dripping with milk, and drenching her panties in a drugstore line in front of half a dozen strangers when her waters broke, before delivering his son, after being prodded and poked and told to push by absolute strangers, with her nether regions bared to the world? And he had the absolute nerve to tell her he couldn’t call because he was doing schoolwork with his girls.

  I need ur support, Cal. I’ve just given birth to ur . . .OUR SON! I need u to ring me.

  She pressed send and waited. And waited . . . and waited. Incensed, she checked to see if the text had been read. It hadn’t even been delivered. Fuming she rang Cal’s number and got his voicemail. The bastard had turned off his phone.

  ‘How can you turn off your phone, Cal?’ she demanded. ‘Aren’t you at all concerned for me after what I went through? I could develop an infection or a clot or any number of things. Don’t you CARE?’ Her voice got higher and higher and she burst into tears before hanging up. She was sobbing into her pillow when the nurse arrived with that dreaded instrument of torture, the breast pump. Her beautiful pert breasts that Cal had so enjoyed were bursting, sore, blue-veined, stretch-marked globes that she couldn’t bear to look at. When the midwife had asked was she breast-feeding Lenora had given an emphatic no! The idea of it made her shudder. Hell, she didn’t even want to bottle-feed. She just wanted to hand over that squawking little bundle that was making strange snuffling little noises to a nurse, take a painkiller that would numb the soreness where she was stitched, and sleep and then wake up and find out that it had all been a nightmare and she was not a mother and her life was entirely her own again. Tears slid down her cheeks.

  ‘Aw, is poor little Momma overwrought? It’s natural, honey; your hormones are all over the place. Now let’s pump some of that milk out of you. Then you can change and feed baby and settle down for the night,’ the nurse soothed. Lenora felt a wave of dismay. Change a diaper! Give a bottle! Oh God! OH MY GOOD GOD! Lenora thought in horror. This was no nightmare. This was for REAL!

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  SALLY-ANN / CAL / LENORA

  ‘I hardly slept a wink, he won’t stop crying and they’re making me feed him and bath him and all that stuff and I’m exhausted and you aren’t even here. I bet you didn’t abandon Sally-Ann when she had her kids,’ Lenora wailed down the phone at Cal.

  ‘I haven’t abandoned you, Lenora. I’ll be with you tonight. I’ve meetings to go to, I have responsibilities to the twins, and you know all that. I can’t be sitting at your bedside all day. Don’t you want your friends to come visit? Your parents? You’ve just become a mother. Don’t you want to show off your new baby?’ Cal couldn’t hide his bewilderment.

  ‘Are you crazy, Cal? Mom will be moaning about her latest ailment, Dad will use it as an excuse to go and get tanked. I’ll never get rid of them out of the apartment and as for seeing my friends, haven’t you seen how I look? Miss Piggy looks like a twig compared to me,’ she wept. ‘I don’t want to be looking at them and remembering that I looked like they do, once.’

  ‘You’ll get your figure back. You can use the gym, walk, swim. I’ll get a nanny for you.’ Cal tried his best to be positive and encouraging when all he wanted to do was to tell Lenora to stop her silly nonsense and get on with it. He could hardly believe that the feisty, fun, competent young woman he’d fallen for could turn into this needy, weepy, female who seemed unable to deal with becoming a first-time mother. And a last-time one, if they stayed together, he vowed silently.

  ‘I think I’ve got postnatal depression,’ Lenora sobbed.

  ‘Well then, let’s get you checked out by the doctors. Look, you’re just feeling overwhelmed by it all. I’ll be back down tonight and I can feed the baby and diaper him and you can have a rest,’ he promised.

  ‘OK,’ Lenora whimpered as Jake began to cry in the background.

  ‘What’s wrong with him now? He’s only just been fed,’ Lenora sniffed irritably.

  ‘Perhaps he’s got gas,’ Cal suggested patiently wishing he was down in Galveston to pick up his little son and cuddle him, seeing it was clear he wouldn’t be getting too many of those from his mother. ‘I’ll be down as soon as I can. See ya,’ he said and hung up, feeling even more heavy-hearted than when he’d first picked up the phone.

  This was one of the worst times of his life, bar none, he thought grimly, looking out his office window at Wells Fargo Plaza opposite. The early morning sun was flashing on the windows of the tall, all-glass building. Normally it was a view he never tired of, but he was completely distracted by the dramas in his private life. He couldn’t run away from it anymore. Sally-Ann was right, the girls would have to be told about the baby; because he was going to have to spend more time than he’d planned in Galveston, for the first few months of Jake’s life, until Lenora got on an even keel again. His wife was right, too, about Thanksgiving and Christmas. Lenora would expect him to be at her side.

  If only she hadn’t gone and got pregnant. That was unforeseen and unexpected. Had Lenora stitched him up like Sally-Ann claimed? He’d made it very clear to the younger woman when they began their relationship that his children were his priority and he wouldn’t be getting a divorce for the foreseeable future. Lenora had totally accepted it, as far as he could see. In fact, not long before she got pregnant he’d felt the relationship was drifting towards splitsville. Her pregnancy had changed everything.

  All the lives that were being impacted because Lenora had possibly lied to him, Cal thought ruefully. No wonder he wasn’t feeling very loving towards her right now. He’d been clear, very, very clear that either she or he should use protection and she’d assured him she’d take care of it. He’d trusted her to keep her word.

  ‘It was one of those things,’ she’d said nonchalantly when he’d asked how she could have gotten pregnant. Sally-Ann didn’t seem to think it was an accident, but whether it was or it wasn’t, they were in the situation they were in, a situation he’d never envisaged.

  Up until now he and Sally-Ann had managed their separation in a manner that gave them both freedom and still kept the family unit whole. It had suited him very well, and he felt his wife had been OK with it too. And the girls were none the wiser that anything untoward was up. No wonder Sally-Ann was furious with him. He was pissed off with himself.

  He walked over to his desk and sat on his leather chair. His gaze alighted on a card Madison had given to him for Father’s Day.

  To the best daddy in the whole wide world. I love you to the sun and back, she’d written beneath a picture of a noble black stallion, against a backdrop of Guadalupe Peak, that she’d painted for him. She was talented at art, whereas Savannah excelled in science subjects.

  He was going to have to tell his two precious girls that he was breaking up their family and he felt sick to his stomach. He flipped open his phone and texted his wife.

  I’ll be in G for a couple of days, L not doing too good. If u want me to te
ll the girls next weekend let me know what day is best for u. C

  He took a deep breath and pressed send and had never felt so sad in his life.

  Sally-Ann read her husband’s text and burst into tears, blinding her from her computer screen where she was working on a presentation. Fortunately she was alone in her office, her PA having left five minutes previously to buy coffee and bagels for their coffee-break. Now that the time had come – even though she’d pressed for it to happen – it all seemed very final and she knew things would change radically for her daughters. Real life would have an impact for the first time in their relatively sheltered lives. Their carefree existence would be shaken. They’d have to face issues that hadn’t ever troubled them up to now and she would be in the middle trying to balance their hurt, dismay, anger and grief. If only that calculating little bitch hadn’t got pregnant, their family unit would have survived intact for another few years, leaving the twins free to negotiate the difficulties of teen years without the added burden of the break-up of their parents’ marriage.

  Sally-Ann wiped her eyes and stared at Cal’s text. She wondered what was up with Lenora. Panic, she thought wryly. Panic was the chief emotion she remembered in those early days when the twins had come home from their snug incubators and she’d felt quite overwhelmed at the constant and never-ending attention they required. Panic was Lenora’s and Cal’s problem, not hers. She had her own burdens to carry. ‘Not my circus,’ she muttered angrily.

  What she needed to focus on was making sure the girls knew that they were still loved and cherished by Cal. He was a good father. She couldn’t take that from him. It was important that Savannah and Madison recognized that, when he broke his news to them. She didn’t want the bombshell delivered in their home, she decided. But where could they go for the denouement? A hotel would be too public, so would a restaurant. A brainwave struck.

  They could go camping! Up to Lake Conroe. It would take just under an hour if they took the 1-45N. If things went badly belly up they could get home easily and Cal could carry on to Galveston. Her mind raced, working out a plan that would make hearing the news easier on the girls.

  How about we take a cottage up at Bishop’s’ Landing on Conroe? It means we don’t have to break the news at home. They can see that we can still do ‘family stuff’ together and if things get too rough we can split and u can carry on down to G.

  Two minutes later an answering text came back.

  Perfect plan. Book it. Fri afternoon to Sunday. We can tell ’em Sunday morning.

  Sally-Ann was sorely tempted to write back YOU can tell them and YOU book it, I’m busy at WORK, but she refrained. There was no point in being petty. The cooler and calmer she and her husband were the better for all of them.

  ‘Sshhh, there’s a good little boy,’ Cal murmured, gently rubbing Jake’s back and being rewarded with a burp. ‘Good fella, there’s a great boy,’ he approved. ‘Isn’t he amazing?’ He glanced over at Lenora who was flicking through the latest copy of Vanity Fair.

  ‘Wonderful,’ she sighed with a degree of apathy that concerned him.

  ‘He is, Lenora,’ he said firmly. ‘He’s strong, hardy, a good grubber, and he sleeps well, we should be grateful for all those things. There are babies down there in ICU that are in pretty bad shape.’

  ‘I suppose,’ she shrugged, barely looking at him.

  ‘I’m telling the twins about Jake, and that Sally-Ann and I are divorcing, at the weekend.’ He sat on the side of the bed with the baby in his arms.

  Lenora sat bolt upright. Although she would never agree, he thought she looked at her most beautiful with no make-up on her pretty face, and her full breasts with their marks of motherhood spilling out from her nightie, her chestnut hair tousled, tumbling over her shoulders.

  ‘What does Sally-Ann think, or does she know you’re gonna do it?’ she demanded.

  ‘She was the one who was pushing for it,’ Cal said carefully. Just because he was divorcing his wife, he had no intention of rushing into another marriage.

  ‘Oh! Has she got someone else?’ Lenora’s eyes brightened. This was music to her ears.

  ‘Not that I know of. It’s because of Jake. She feels the girls should get to know their half-brother.’

  ‘Really? So she wants us all to play happy families?’ Lenora drawled, unimpressed at this piece of news. She didn’t want to have anything to do with Cal’s other children.

  ‘She just wants everything out in the open. I guess she’s right. We’re taking the twins camping up to Conroe at the weekend and—’

  ‘For the whole weekend? I’m going to be home from hospital with a new baby and you’re going to be gone for the whole weekend,’ she ranted.

  ‘It won’t be for the whole weekend, I’ll be back Sunday afternoon. Ask your sister to come and stay. Or I’ll hire a nurse,’ he retorted. ‘Look, I can’t just waltz in and say to my kids, “Dad and Mom are divorcin’, I love ya, see ya, bye.” I have to play fair with them and with Sally-Ann too.’

  ‘Well your timing’s crap, Cal,’ Lenora exclaimed heatedly.

  ‘There is no good time to break that kind of news, Lenora. Trust me,’ he snapped. ‘And the sooner I do it the sooner we can sort out our times together.’

  ‘What do you mean our times together? Aren’t you going to live with me now that you’re getting a divorce?’

  ‘Not for a while. I expect the girls will need a bit of time to get over the news and adjust to the idea of their mother and I being divorced, before I go introducing them to you. And then we’re going to have to work out custody arrangements and all of that. And Lenora, before this goes any further, you knew I was married and had kids when you started dating me and I’ve always told you that they’re a big part of my life. Just as this little guy is, now,’ he added, kissing his son’s downy little head that was nestled against his shoulder.

  ‘I suppose,’ Lenora said sulkily. ‘I just expected you to be around more after he was born.’

  ‘I’m here aren’t I? Why don’t you try and go asleep. I’m gonna take him for a walk so you can rest.’ Cal stood up and took a blanket out of Jake’s cot and wrapped it tenderly around the now sleeping infant.

  ‘Can’t get away from me quick enough,’ Lenora said bitterly.

  ‘Lenora, I’m trying to give you a break. Stop being like that,’ Cal glared at her.

  ‘Whatever,’ she retorted, turning her back on him.

  ‘Your momma is one contrary woman, Jake,’ Cal muttered closing the door behind him and heading for the ground-floor café to drown his sorrows in a cappuccino while his new son slept in his arms.

  ‘Mom, I can’t go camping next weekend, it’s Elsa-May’s birthday party on Saturday,’ Savannah informed her mother loftily when Sally-Ann told the twins that they were going on a camping weekend up at Lake Conroe the following Friday.

  ‘Now hold on, missy, did you not specifically tell me that you were not invited to Elsa-May’s party? And were you not very upset about it? How come you’ve been invited at such short notice?’ Sally-Ann handed her daughter a glass of fresh orange juice to have with her breakfast.

  ‘Yeah, well at first I wasn’t invited, and neither was Lola, but yesterday after school Elsa-May came over to us and said we could go ’cos she’d a fight with Céline Wade and Bailey Farmington and they’re not coming.’ Savannah poured maple syrup over her oatmeal.

  ‘Honey’s better for you than maple syrup,’ Sally-Ann said, as she did every morning.

  ‘So I’m sorry, I just can’t come.’ Savannah eyed her mother sternly.

  ‘Is that so? And you’re happy to be a second-best invitee because Elsa-May Jackson had a fight with two other girls, and wants to use you and Lola to make them feel bad. And is inviting you to this party just to use you?’

  ‘Mom, it’s not like that,’ her daughter said indignantly.

  ‘Isn’t it? Have we not had this discussion before about Elsa-May and her not very nice habit of using you and Lola when
it suits her?’ Sally-Ann buttered her toast and took a gulp of hot coffee.

  ‘This is the thing, Mom: she’s the coolest girl in the class. Everybody wants to be invited to her party. And if I don’t go everyone will think I’m plumb loco.’ Savannah leaned her elbows on the table and stared earnestly at her mother.

  ‘She’s not a cool girl, darlin’, she’s a mean girl. And have we not had the discussion about self-respect and not worrying about what other people think? For all you know Elsa-May will make it up with those two other girls and you will be dropped like a hot potato again, because that’s the way she operates. You can’t allow yourself to be dangled this way and that just to suit someone else.’

  ‘Mom, I just can’t go camping and that’s all,’ Savannah said stubbornly.

  ‘I’m sorry, Savannah, but your dad and I have made an arrangement and booked a cabin for us to be together as a family, and that’s the way it is. I had nothing pencilled up on the board for you and Madison next weekend. You need to update me on your social diary. I’ve told you that before,’ Sally-Ann said firmly.

  ‘Well my self-respect says to stand up for myself and do what I want to do for myself, and I want to go to that party,’ Savannah raged. ‘I can’t allow myself to be dangled this way and that just to suit you and Dad,’ she retorted triumphantly.

  Madison paused from eating her oatmeal; spoon held in mid air, eyes like saucers as she studied her mother with interest to see what her response to Savannah’s latest challenge would be.

  Oh crap, now what do I say, thought Sally-Ann, hoist as she often was by her own petard, particularly in regards to Savannah who would argue the hind legs off a donkey.

  ‘Your father and I do not dangle you this way and that, Savannah. There’s no need to be sassy. Now you tell Elsa-May very politely that you have other plans made – and let her see that you aren’t waiting on her to dangle you around,’ she added slyly. ‘And again, I remind you to let me know well in advance so I can put it up on the board if you have social events to go to.’ Sally-Ann did her best to sound as authoritative as possible.