Chapter 2
2
On the movie screen of her sleeping mind, Courtney’s dreams flashed and thundered, replaying a montage of clips from the past eight months of her life and mixing fact with fiction until nothing made any sense.
Images of Oliver Redman, the father of her child, melted into photograph images of her own father, Steven Austin, a man she’d never met and who died when she was no more than a toddler.
Images of Courtney’s swelling stomach and her stunned discovery that she was pregnant shuffled amongst images of Oliver turning his back on her and leaving her to deal with parenthood alone.
Images of her mother, Sharon, laughing as she cooked dinner in their tiny kitchen in the compact terrace house where they’d lived in Southampton, melted into images of Sharon unconscious in hospital following the massive stroke that cut her down and from which she never recovered.
Images from Sharon’s funeral, held on a dark, wet January afternoon, merged with images of Courtney leaving the home they’d shared after the landlord evicted her in order to squeeze more rent from the property with new tenants.
Images of the bedsit where Courtney ended up living spliced with dark memories of the mentally ill resident at the facility who’d broken into her room the previous morning and almost scared her half to death, grabbing her and yanking her and attacking her and…
Courtney woke with a gasp, soaked in sweat, to find Rosie leaning over her and shaking her arm, the expression on her face one of undisguised alarm.
“Courtney! Are you okay?”
Gulping air into her lungs, Courtney blinked fully awake as the remnants of the nightmare scuttled back into the recesses of her mind. A long moment passed as she yet again found herself wondering where she was.
It wasn’t the guest room upstairs in which she’d woken this time. Instead, she was sprawled on the living room sofa while the television murmured in the corner and her cousin peered into her face with mounting concern.
This was Rosie’s house on Foxglove Street, Courtney grasped at last as her surroundings clicked into place. She’d fallen asleep on the sofa of her sweet new cousin’s house on Foxglove Street in the pretty little town of Hamblehurst. She’d fallen asleep after dinner. She hadn’t meant to sleep again, but had been helpless to resist succumbing to oblivion.
And now she was awake and staring up at her cousin, who looked more alarmed with every passing second.
“Courtney! Are you okay?”
Rosie was crouched down beside her now, holding her hand in hers, her brow furrowed with worry.
“I’m fine,” Courtney croaked, then cleared her throat to get rid of the sleepiness. “I fell asleep again. I can’t seem to keep my eyes open.”
“You were crying when I came in. Crying and shouting, and you’re soaked in sweat.”
“I was crying?” Courtney touched her fingers to her cheeks and found them wet with tears. And sure enough, when she ran her hands over her forehead, she realised her skin was damp there too, clammy with cold sweat.
“Do you feel sick?” Rosie asked, pressing the back of her hand to her forehead. “Do you have a fever? Maybe we should phone the doctor?”
“No, I’m fine, I don’t feel ill. I think…” A flash of images inside her mind reminded her of her nightmares. “I just had a bad dream, that’s all.”
“You were shouting something when I came through the front door,” Rosie said. “I rushed in, thinking you’d fallen over or hurt yourself. When I saw you lying here on the sofa, I realised you were asleep, but it must have been a nasty dream to make you shout like that and make you cry, too. Are you sure you don’t feel like you’re coming down with something?”
Courtney shook her head. Now that she was coming fully awake, she knew she wasn’t ill and wasn’t coming down with some virus or other that would make her sweat and appear feverish.
It was the nightmare that had done those things.
So far, since arriving at Rosie’s house, her sleep had been dreamless. Bone-deep exhaustion had made sure of that. Now, though, the rest she’d enjoyed over the last twenty-four hours had allowed her brain to start revisiting everything that had hurt her so badly over these last months.
“I feel fine, honestly,” Courtney said, offering her concerned cousin a smile. “It was just a nasty dream, that’s all.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
She shook her head. “The bad dream is already disappearing,” she lied. “I can hardly remember it already.”
Rosie didn’t look convinced, but Courtney wasn’t about to start unearthing her traumas yet again. Poor Rosie had already heard enough about those to last a lifetime since Courtney had landed on her doorstep.
Instead, she offered a bright smile. “How was your date? I can’t wait to hear all about it.”
A beat passed as Rosie debated pursuing the matter further, her concern still obvious in her expression. Courtney was relieved when she instead squeezed her hand and let the matter drop.
“The date was lovely. The pizza was wonderful, the wine was delicious, and Adrian was amazing. We’re planning on seeing each other again during the week.”
“That’s wonderful. I’m so pleased for you.”
Rosie smiled and then frowned. “Are you sure you feel okay?”
“I feel fine. Stop worrying about me. I don’t want to be responsible for taking the shine off your lovely night out and your fantastic date. Stop thinking about me and start thinking about your wonderful Adrian.”
“I can do both. I’m fetching you a glass of water and a soft towel for your face.”
Before she could stop her, Rosie darted off to the kitchen and returned a minute later with the items. Courtney drank down the water gratefully, then used the hand towel to dab away the cooling sweat on her face.
“I think we ought to get you up to bed,” Rosie said.
“I’m starting to think I have some sort of sleep disorder,” Courtney laughed.
“You do. It’s called third trimester pregnancy.”
Laughing, Courtney climbed the stairs. After brushing her teeth, she found Rosie turning down the covers on the guest bed. A fresh glass of water sat on the bedside table and the lamplight cast a warm glow around the room.
She climbed into bed and gave her cousin a smile. “Thank you, Rosie. Thank you for being so sweet and looking after me like this.”
“Everyone needs some TLC from time to time. You need it right now, and I’m here to provide it.”
“I wish we’d known each other before this. I wish we’d always known we were family.”
“Me too. But we know each other now and what matters is the future, right?”
Courtney nodded, and Rosie turned for the door.
“Goodnight, Courtney. Sleep tight.”
“Goodnight, Rosie.”
With a smile and a kiss blown across the room, Rosie closed the door behind her. Courtney lay in bed, feeling her muscles relax into the mattress. Despite lazing around on the sofa all evening, it still felt good to stretch out again in the comfortable bed. The mattress she’d had to put up with at the awful bedsit was about as far from comfortable as it was possible to imagine and did nothing for her stretched and aching muscles.
Being so heavily pregnant wasn’t easy. With six weeks still to go, she could only wonder what state she’d be in by the time the baby arrived.
She’d meant what she’d said about wishing she’d known Rosie before now. They’d only met for the first time yesterday, but Courtney had quickly felt a connection with the cousin she never knew she had.
The same sort of connection she’d felt with Colin Austin, Rosie’s father, a man she’d known for only a few weeks but who already felt like a beloved uncle to her.
Courtney thought about the other members of the Austin family. Colin’s wife, Lorraine, was naturally guarded about the strange young female who’d suddenly appeared in her husband’s life, but was obviously a generous and loving woman and someone Courtney hoped would feel like a proper aunt soon. Rosie’s sister, Zara, was a successful doctor and a little more reserved than her heart-on-her-sleeve younger sister, but had shown Courtney nothing but kindness when they met yesterday. Courtney had even met Rosie’s maternal grandmother, Janet Barker, a whirling force of nature despite being in her eighties and who, just like her daughter and granddaughters, had welcomed Courtney and helped her feel at ease when she’d appeared on Foxglove Street out of the blue.
It hurt her to think that these members of her family had lived only a few dozen miles away for her entire life and yet she’d never known them until now. Her father, Steven, had died when Courtney was tiny and her mother had never known his family. The relationship between her parents had been short and ended unhappily. Steven never even knew he had a child.
There were times when Courtney struggled with that knowledge. What might her life have been like if her mother had told Steven about his daughter? What if they’d connected with Steven’s family before he died? Might they have felt embraced by the Austin family back then? Might she have felt less alone when disaster struck?
What if things had been different?
What if?
It was a pointless question. The past couldn’t be changed. Courtney remembered Rosie’s wise words before she’d left the room.
What matters is the future, right?
Courtney spread her hands across her stomach. Her future was her child, a child she already loved so much it hurt.
But the future filled her with terror, too. How could she care for a new baby when she could barely care for herself? Her life was a mess.
And it was a mess because of what had happened in the past.
Rosie was right—what mattered was the future. But the past’s sharp talons held Courtney in their painful grip and wouldn’t let go.
She waited for sleep to come. It refused to oblige. Despite her exhaustion, perhaps she’d napped too much over the last twenty-four hours and was now paying the price.
Her mind began whirling, a maelstrom of spinning thoughts about her life and the hard knocks that had brought her down so low. The nightmare she’d had while napping downstairs on the sofa wasn’t far removed from the actual experiences she’d lived through, despite the morphing of fact and fiction that had happened while she slumbered.
Now, with sleep remaining elusive, Courtney couldn’t help but think about all that had happened to bring her to this place and to this moment…