Page 9 of Best Laid Plans

Hell, was it really eight years? He could still feel the shock of that December day when he’d been skiing in Norway and he’d received the news that Lucy and his brother were engaged to be married. He’d jumped on the first plane home.

With a groan, Will flung aside the sheet and swung out of bed, desperate to throw off the memories and the sickening guilt and anger that always accompanied his thoughts of that terrible summer.

But with the benefit of hindsight, Will knew he’d been unreasonably angry with Josh for moving in on his best friend while his back was turned. He’d had no claim on Lucy. She’d never been his girlfriend. He’d gone overseas with Cara Howard, and although their relationship hadn’t lasted, he’d allowed himself to be distracted by new sights, new people, new adventures.

He’d let life take him by the hand, happy to go with the flow, finding it easier than settling down.

The news that Josh was going to marry Lucy shouldn’t have upset him, but perhaps he might have coped more easily if Lucy had chosen to marry a stranger. As it was, he’d never been able to shake off the feeling that Josh had moved in on her just to prove to his little brother that he could have whatever he desired.

Unfortunately, Will had chosen the very worst time to have it out with Josh.

He would never, to the end of his days, forget the early morning argument at the airfield, or Josh’s stubbornness, or thesight of that tiny plane tumbling out of the sky like an autumn leaf.

If only that had been the worst of it, but it was Gina who’d told him that the shock of Josh’s death had caused Lucy to have a miscarriage.

A miscarriage??

Will had been plagued by endless questions – questions he’d had no right to ask. Which had come first – the engagement or the pregnancy? Had Josh truly loved Lucy?

A week after the funeral, he’d tried to speak to her, but Dr. McKenty had been fiercely protective of his daughter and he’d turned Will away.

So the only certainties that he’d been left with were Josh’s death and Lucy’s loss, and he’d found it pitifully easy to take the blame for both.

To make amends, he’d actually tried to stay on at Tambaroora after Josh’s death. But he couldn’t replace Josh in his father’s eyes and he’d soon known that he didn’t fit in any more. He was a piece from a flashy foreign jigsaw trying to fit into a homemade puzzle.

For Will, it made sense to leave again and to stay away longer. In time, he’d trained himself to stop dwelling on the worst of it. But of course he couldn’t stay away from his home and family forever and there were always going to be times, like now, when everything came back to haunt him.

CHAPTER FOUR

LUCY dreamed about Will.

In her dream they were back at Sydney University and they’d met in the refectory for coffee and to compare notes after a chemistry prac.

It was an incredibly simple but companionable scene. She and Will had always enjoyed hanging out together, and in her dream they were sitting at one of the little tables overlooking the courtyard, chatting and smiling and discussing the results of their latest experiments.

When it was time to leave for separate lectures, Lucy announced calmly, as if it was a normal extension of their everyday conversation, ‘Oh, by the way, Will, I’m pregnant.’

Will’s face broke into a beautiful smile and he drew her into his arms and hugged her, and Lucy knew that her pregnancy was the perfect and natural expression of their love.

She felt the special protection of his arms about her and she was filled with a sense of perfect happiness, of wellbeing, of everything being right in her world.

When she woke, she lay very still with her eyes closed, lingering for as long as she could in the happy afterglow of the dream, clinging to the impossible fantasy that she was pregnant.

Better than that, she was pregnant with Will’s baby. Not his brother’s…

The dream began to fade, and she could no longer ignore the fact that morning sunlight was pulsing on the other side of her closed eyelids.

Reality reared its unwelcome head.

Damn.

Not that dream again. How stupid.

Actually, it was more like a recurring nightmare, so far divorced from Lucy’s real life that she always felt sick when she woke. She hated to think that her subconscious could still, after all this time, play such cruel tricks on her.

In truth, she’d never been brave enough to let her friendship with Will progress into anything deeper. At university, she’d seen all the other girls who’d fallen for him. She’d watched Will date them for a while and then move on, and she’d decided it was safer to simply be his buddy. His friend.

As his girlfriend, she’d risked losing him and she couldn’t have coped with that. If they remained good friends, she could keep him forever.

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