Guardians Of The Haunted Moor (6 page)

She had
managed to stop crying. Her voice was still raw, her face swollen.
“No. I was never sure.”

“
Are you kidding? You practically threw your foetus into my
arms the first time you saw me.”

Michel
and Zeke had positioned themselves on the sofa, a pair of unhappy
bookends. One guardian each, Gideon supposed, or possibly two to
deal with him if he lost his rag again. He was already deeply
ashamed of the first time. And he’d been right in his assessment of
Michel as a decent man: he got up now and came to stand by Elowen’s
chair. “This is in a great part my fault,” he said, his accent
heightening the flawlessness of his English. “When Elowen became
pregnant, I didn’t make clear to her my feelings. And I hadn’t
anticipated having a child. So she made her own arrangements, and I
must ask you to speak to her civilly, Gideon, even though you are
so distraught.”

“
All right. Yes. I’m sorry, Elowen.”

She
sniffed and gave a miserable shudder. “Call me what you like. I
don’t blame you.”

“
I don’t want to call you anything. Just... explain to me,
please. Why are you taking Tamsyn away from us?”

“
Because I’m her mother. I love her—far more than I’d ever
thought I could, and now Michel wants to be with me, things are
different. She’ll have a father too.”

“
What about this amazing bloody job you were so desperate to
have?”

“
He’s holding it for me. I can start when Tamsyn goes to
nursery school.”

Her nursery school’s in Dark, just down the road so she won’t
ever feel too far from home.
Gideon could
have recited chapter and verse of such small arrangements, but
Elowen already knew them. He swallowed the taste of helpless
misery. “You’re really going to do it, aren’t you?”

“
I have to. You and Lee can adopt another baby. It’ll be easier
for you this time—you’ve already been through all the checks. But
Tamsyn’s mine.”

“
I wish you’d thought of that before you’d let us start to love
her.”

“
Gideon, you’re killing me, okay? You can say as many
heartbreaking, bitter things as you want—and I deserve them all—but
I’m not about to change my mind.”

“
I can’t accept that. Look, you’ve only known me for a few
months, and we’ve got on well enough together, but... Please,
Elowen, think about Lee. Tamsyn’s his whole life.”

“
Oh, bollocks!” Michel laid a restraining hand on her shoulder,
but she swung on him impatiently. “Well? He doesn’t mince his words
to me, does he? I didn’t live in that flat with those two for all
that time and not work out who Lee’s
whole
life
is. He has you, Gideon. I’m not
talking about this anymore, all right? I’m going to fetch my
baby.”

She left
the room. Ezekiel got up, but Gideon didn’t need the move he made
to prevent him from following. A terrible passivity had taken hold
of him. “Okay,” he said faintly. “You can say it if you want,
Zeke.”

“
Say what?”

“
I told you so
.”

Ezekiel
sat down on the arm of the chair. “About what?”

“
Bless you for pretending to forget. The adoption papers. We
never did get them signed.”

“
Shame on me, if I were to lay such a burden on my brother’s
wounded heart!”

Gideon
looked at him in astonishment. The Methodist chapel at Dark must be
a very different place these days. He rested his brow against
Zeke’s shoulder. It would have been nice to give it all up right
here. He had a big brother, restored to him after all these years,
and not half so much of a po-faced bastard as he looked. But
Gideon’s two Tyacks—the mother of his child, and his own poor
Lee—were already somewhere upstairs in tears, and it was just too
ridiculous for him to break down too. In a world where small
mercies had suddenly loomed large, he was grateful that Ma Frayne
was off with her bridge club today and not here to add her wail to
the chorus. He sat up, awkwardly patting Zeke’s arm. “I’m all
right. Jesus, though, Michel—I still can’t believe
this.”

Michel’s eyes were red too. “
Je suis
vraiment desolé
, Gideon.”

“
Not half as fucking desolate as we are. Can’t you talk to
her?”

“
How can I? When I came over in December, it was to tell her
that I wanted to be with her, to keep the child if we could. She
said no at the time, but...”

“
But she’s obviously given it plenty of thought since.” Gideon
rested his elbows on his knees and sat listening to the shattered
world around him. Zeke’s breathing was unsteady. Michel turned away
towards the window. To cap it all, the poor dog, forgotten in the
fuss, crawled out from beneath the sideboard, crept to Gideon’s
feet and began a low, miserable whine.

Not a
dry eye in the house, apart from Gideon’s. Anger had carried him
this far. Perhaps it would bring him out the other side. Someone
had to stay calm around here, and it had better be the copper.
Wishing he was in uniform—his armour, his outer carapace—he got to
his feet. “I’d better go and check on Lee.”

But a
door clicked on the floor above. Lee appeared at the top of the
stairs. He had Tamsyn’s rucksack over his arm, and the baby—quiet
now at last, looking around her with wide green-silver eyes—cradled
against his shoulder. Elowen followed him anxiously down into the
hall, the carrycot in her hand.

Gideon
resisted the impulse to snatch it from her. He went to intercept
Lee. “What are you doing?”

“
I’m handing Tamsyn over to Elowen and Michel. And they’d
better take her now, because...” He swallowed hard and turned away
from Gideon to face them. “Because otherwise you’ll have a fight on
your hands, and this time I won’t hold Gideon back. I’ll help
him.”

“
Lee, we can’t let her go like this.”

“
Think about the options. Think about them.”

Gideon
did. A living-room brawl, the baby shrieking in terror as the
adults around her erupted like volcanoes. Police called, arrests
made for domestic affray. Even the best option—Gideon’s fantasy,
flashing through his brain in vivid colours—a farce, bundling the
child into the back of Lee’s Escort and driving her away from here,
tearing up the singletrack lanes to escape. Abduction in the eyes
of the law, because Tamsyn wasn’t theirs and never had been. “Oh,
God.”

“
It’s all right.” Lee sacrificed one hand from his hold on the
baby and took Gideon’s, drawing him close. “Do you see how calm she
is now? This isn’t the end.”

“
You... You
saw
that? You told her?”

“
No. I didn’t foresee any of this—possibly because I’d have
gone batshit crazy. She told
me
.”

He put
Tamsyn into Gideon’s arms. How awkwardly Gideon had handled her at
first! His hands had looked massive beside her tiny limbs, and his
terror of breaking her had only ebbed through the constant daily
routines of care and love. Now she felt like a piece of himself
coming back to him. Her strange gaze focussed on him, and she made
a solemn grab for his nose. “But we’ll have to go back to the flat
first,” he said dully, capturing the little fist and kissing it.
“To Dark. All her things are there.”

“
That’s all right,” Michel said. He was crying outright, as if
all this hadn’t come about because of him. “We’ve bought everything
she needs. We thought it would be easier on you and Lee if we did
this here, rather than taking her out of your home.”

“
Oh, yeah. It’s a piece of piss this way.” Gideon studied the
rosy face turned up to him. His heart was beating too fast, and a
cold, racing nausea like an underground stream was chilling his
guts. “How am I meant to say goodbye to her?”

“
Give her here,” Lee said softly. “This is just for now,
love.”

“
I can’t let her go.”

But
Lee’s arms were outstretched for her, and it was such a habit to
transfer the solid little weight that he did it unthinkingly now.
Lee planted one kiss—silent, eyes closed tight—on her brow, then
handed her straight on to Elowen, who shot Gideon a look of pure
fear at having got her desire. “We should go,” she whispered to
Michel. “Come on. Now.”

Gideon
walked away. He slumped down on the window seat in the living room,
the lovely broad space looking out over the cliffs. It was
cushioned in faded green velvet. One of the house rules was that
Isolde wasn’t allowed onto it, a prohibition she steadfastly
ignored. Gideon curled forward and laced his fingers around the
back of his head. The dog’s scrabbling, plumping weight promptly
landed beside him. He was distantly aware of her warmth.

The porch door opened, then the outer one. By pressing his
wrists to his ears, Gideon could block out most of the
conversation. He didn’t have to hear whatever words Elowen had
chosen to end his brief experience of fatherhood and take the child
away. Then Lee’s voice cut softly though his self-imposed deafness.
“I don’t think I ever had a really bad word for you, Elowen—not
even when we were squabbling kids. But you
bitch
, for hurting him
now.”

“
Lee, don’t.” That was Ezekiel, sounding less reproachful than
tired. “Just look after him. He’s devastated.”

“
I will. I promise.”

Gideon
wasn’t devastated. He was the only calm one. That was the whole
point of him: he was stronger, calmer than anyone else. That was
why he was a policeman. Always the last man standing. But the outer
door closed, and Lee came to sit beside him on the faded green
cushions not occupied by the dog. Lee said, “Come here, you. Come
here,” and Gideon proved himself no better or worse than anyone
else by bursting into tears in his arms.

Chapter Two

“
I can’t get down the hallway. I’m sorry, Gid.”

The days of their orderly two-man flat were long gone. Lee was
a good stay-at-home dad but he’d been working on the scripts for a
new season of
Spirits of Cornwall
at the same time, and their rush to leave for
Drift had left a trail of devastation, Tamsyn’s toys scattered over
the carpet, the heated clothes-rail on its side where Gideon had
tripped over it and hopped out of the house, swearing under his
breath. None of this was the problem. What had brought Lee to a
halt was the sight of the open nursery door. Isolde, who’d been a
distraction and a comfort on the way home, gave a whine of outraged
herding instincts and abruptly made matters much worse, picking up
a discarded stuffed rabbit and trotting hopefully through with it
into the empty room.

“
It’s all right. Close your eyes.” Gideon steered Lee straight
past. He took a deep diver’s breath and half-pushed, half-guided
him through all the silent relics, all the way to their bedroom
door. He slammed it shut behind him with his foot, gently shoved
him in the direction of the bed, then went to draw the curtains.
The afternoon was changing to a beautiful summer’s evening on the
moors—the last day of July, he remembered in an irrelevant
flash—but the outside world could do no good to him today, and he
shut it out angrily. Folded up Tamsyn’s extra cot for good measure
and packed it into the closet. He turned to the bed, where Lee was
watching him wide-eyed, already unfastening his shirt in a gesture
of comprehension and welcome. “We always did everything too fast,
didn’t we?”

Lee
nodded. He was pale, the marks of grief still fresh on him, his
cock rising hard in his jeans. “Yes. Moved in together way too
soon...”

“
Got married five minutes later.”

“
Started our family five minutes after that. Yes.”

“
But none of it
was
too soon, was it? It was all bloody perfect.”
Gideon went to kneel over him, and he went down flat on the bed in
passionate surrender. “We made it perfect. We can make anything
good, love—even this.”

“
That’s right. We can just be together by ourselves again. Can
we get under the duvet, Gid? I know it’s hot, but...”

“
Yes.” Gideon didn’t want to see daylight either. Wanted to
burrow and hide. “We didn’t get Tamsie because our lives were
empty. They were full to overflowing, and she just came along. Oh
God, Lee, I feel like I’m dying.”

“
I know. Get in here and fuck me. Bury yourself in
me.”

Gideon
dragged the quilt up over both of them. Lee struggled over onto his
side, snatched the lube out of the bedside drawer and passed it
back. He pushed his jeans down with an impatient movement that
would have turned Gideon on at a funeral. “Don’t undress,” he
whispered. “Just unzip and do it.”

“
I should shower. I even
smell
pissed off and miserable.”

“
You smell like home.” Lee buried his face in the pillow. A
silent sob racked him, and all Gideon could do was obey—untangle
himself from jeans and underwear, coat his cock quickly with lube
and thrust up and in. Lee gave a shattered moan and tried to draw
his knees to his chest, Gideon reaching quickly to aid the
movement, the impulse to curl and disappear. He could help with
that: be his lover’s refuge, his cave, just as Lee was offering him
this last-ditch comfort of the flesh. They rocked together in the
hot dark. They tried to make it last but the pang of this collision
was too bittersweet. Gideon’s movements became fast and urgent. He
fought a terrible fear of pitching too soon and bailing out—cried
out in relief as Lee shuddered in the grip of a hammer-blow climax,
releasing him.