Reunited by a Baby Bombshell Page 2

  Such stoicism wasn’t unusual in ballet circles. A culture of secrecy about injury was a given. Every dancer was terrified of being branded as fragile. They all understood it was a euphemism for on the way out—the end of a career.

  This time, however, Eva found it too difficult to keep hiding her pain. Even if she faked her way through class and rehearsals, by the time she got home she could barely walk. So she’d seen an osteopath. But now, to her horror, the doctor had shown her disturbing results from her MRI scan.

  She’d never dreamed the damage could be so bad.

  ‘You’ve torn the labrum,’ the doctor told her solemnly as he pointed to the scan. ‘That’s the ring of cartilage around your left hip joint. Normally, the labrum helps with shock absorption and lubrication of the joint, but now—’ He shook his head. ‘The tear on its own wouldn’t be such a great problem, but there are other degenerative changes as well.’ He waved his hand over the scan. ‘Extensive arthritic inflammation of the whole joint.’

  Arthritis? A chill washed over Eva. Wasn’t that something that happened to elderly people?

  ‘I strongly recommend a complete hip replacement. Otherwise—’ the doctor sighed expressively ‘—I don’t really see how you can avoid it.’

  No, please no.

  On a page from his writing pad, he wrote the names of two consultant orthopaedic and trauma surgeons. He handed the paper to Eva.

  Sweat broke out on her skin and she swayed a little dizzily in her chair. A hip replacement was a death knell, the end of her career. The prospect filled her with such desolation that it didn’t bear imagining.

  It would be the end of my life.

  ‘Aren’t there other things I can try?’ she asked in desperation. ‘Besides surgery?’

  The doctor gave a shrug. ‘We can talk about physiotherapy and painkillers and diet. And rest,’ he added, giving her a dark look. ‘But I think you’ll find that the pain will still be too severe, certainly if you want to continue dancing. Ballet requires movements that are very unnatural.’

  Eva knew this all too well, of course. She’d spent a lifetime perfecting the demanding movements most people never even tried. Pirouettes and adagios and grand allegros en pointe all made exacting demands on her limbs and joints, and she knew she was only human. She was at the wrong end of her thirties and there was a limit to what she could expect from her body. But she couldn’t give up dancing.

  Not yet! She’d worked too hard, had sacrificed too much. Sure, she’d known that her career couldn’t last for ever, but she’d hoped for at least five more years.

  Dancing was her life. Without it, she would drown, would completely lose her identity.

  She was in no way ready for this.

  The osteopath was staring at her a little impatiently now. He had no more advice to offer.

  In a daze, Eva rose from her chair, thanked him and bade him goodbye. As the door to his office closed behind her, she walked through reception without seeing anyone, trying not to limp, to prove to herself that the doctor must have been wrong, but even walking was painful.

  Glass doors led to a long empty corridor. What could she do now?

  She tried to think clearly, but her mind kept spinning. If she gave in and had the surgery, she was sure the company wouldn’t want her back—certainly not as their prima ballerina—and she couldn’t conscience the idea of going back into the corps de ballet.

  The worst of it was, this wasn’t a problem she dared discuss with her colleagues. She didn’t want anyone in the dancing world to know. The news would spread like wildfire. It would be in the press by lunchtime. By supper time, her career would be over.

  As she made her way carefully down a short flight of stairs and onto the Parisian pavement outside, Eva, who had always been strong and independent, valuing her privacy, had never felt more vulnerable and alone. On the wrong side of the world.

  * * *

  ‘Hello, this is Jane. How can I help you?’

  Griff grimaced. He couldn’t believe he was tense about speaking to Jane Simpson. In their school days, Jane had been the Emerald Bay baker’s daughter. Since then she’d married a cane farmer and was now convening the class reunion.

  ‘Hi, there, Jane.’ He cleared his throat nervously and was immediately annoyed with himself. ‘Griff Fletcher, here. I’m ringing about the school reunion weekend.’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ Jane sounded excited. ‘It’s great to hear from you after all this time, Griff. I hope you’ll be able to come.’

  ‘Well, I’m still trying to see if I can...er...fit it into my schedule. But I was curious—how are the...er...numbers shaping up?’

  ‘They’re great, actually. We have about thirty-five coming so far—and that’s not counting partners. It’s really exciting,’ Jane enthused. ‘I do hope you can make it.’

  ‘Yeah, thanks.’

  Since the barbecue with Tim and Barney, Griff had been warming to the idea of going back to the Bay. But he wanted to ask about Eva. The thought of running into her in front of everyone from their school days completely ruined the picture. There was too much unfinished business between them. There was bound to be tension. And friction. It would be unavoidable.

  If Eva was going to be there—which Griff very much doubted—he would stay well clear of the place.

  The simple question should have been easy to put to Jane. Griff couldn’t believe he was uptight.

  It wasn’t as if he’d spent the past twenty years pining for his high school sweetheart. Many of the relationships he’d enjoyed since then had been fabulously passionate and borderline serious.

  Admittedly, Griff’s relationships did have a habit of petering out. While almost all of his friends and colleagues had tied the knot and were starting families, Griff didn’t seem to have the staying power. He either tired of his girlfriends, or they got tired of waiting for him to commit to something more permanent.

  At least he and Amanda were still hanging together. So far.

  Now, he braced himself to get to the point of this phone call. Every day in court he faced criminals, judges and juries, and he prided himself on posing the most searching and intimate of questions. It should be a cinch to ask Jane Simpson a quick, straightforward question about Eva.

  ‘I don’t suppose...’ Griff began and stopped, as memories of Eva’s smile flashed before him. The view of her pale neck as she’d leaned over her books in class. The fresh taste of her kisses. Her slim, lithe body pressing temptingly close.

  ‘Have you heard from Eva?’ Jane asked, mercifully cutting into his thoughts.

  Jane had been one of Eva’s closest friends at school, so she knew that he and Eva had once been an item.

  Griff grabbed the opening now offered. ‘No, I haven’t heard from her in ages. We’re...not in contact these days. Has she been in touch with you?’

  ‘Yes, and I’m afraid she’s not coming,’ Jane said. ‘It’s such a pity she can’t make it.’

  OK. So now he knew without having to ask. Relief and disappointment slugged Griff in equal parts.

  ‘I’m not at all surprised,’ he said.

  ‘No, I’m sure Eva’s incredibly busy with her dancing. It’s wonderful how amazingly well she’s done, though, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes—amazing.’

  ‘Anyway, Griff, let me know if you do decide you can come. It should be a fun get-together. Do you have my email address?’

  Jane dictated the address while Griff jotted it down. He would leave it a few days before he emailed her. In the meantime, he would swing by Tim’s favourite lunching hangout and let him know he was free to join him and Barney on a nostalgic trip back to their schoolboy haunts. And if he did happen to see Eva again, of course he wouldn’t lose his cool.

  * * *

  Eva sat beneath the red awning of a pavement café, clutching a cup of blissfully decadent hot chocolate as she watched the rainy Paris streetscape. Beyond the awning’s protection, raindrops danced in little splashes in the gutter. Across the street, the lights of another café glowed, yellow beacons of warmth in the bleak grey day.

  Even in the rain Paris looked beautiful but, for the first time in ages, Eva felt like a tourist rather than a resident. She could no longer dance here and everything had changed.

  She’d come to Paris to work, to further her career. Until now she’d been a professional with a full and busy life. Her days had a rhythm—limbering and stretching, promotions and interviews, rehearsals and performances.

  If she lost all that, what would she do?

  She hadn’t felt this low since she’d broken up with Vasily, her Russian boyfriend, who had left her for a lovely blonde dancer from the Netherlands.

  Such a dreadful blow that had been.

  For eight years, Eva had loved good-looking Vasily Stepanov and his sinfully magnificent body. They had danced together and lived and loved together, and she had looked on him as her partner in every sense. Her dancing had never been more assured, more sensitive. Her life had never been happier.

  She’d learned to cook Vasily’s favourite Russian dishes—borsch and blini and potato salad with crunchy pickles, and she’d put up with his outbursts of temper. She’d even taken classes to learn his language, and she’d hoped they would marry, have a baby or two.

  Getting over him had been the second hardest lesson of her life—after that other terrible lesson in her distant past. But now the devastating news about her hip was an even worse blow for Eva.

  Sipping her rich, thick chocolat chaud, watching car tyres swish past on the shiny wet street, s
he found herself longing for sunshine and she remembered how easily the sun was taken for granted in Australia. A beat later, she was remembering the beach at Emerald Bay, the smooth curve of sand and the frothy blue and white surf.

  And, out of nowhere, came the sudden suggestion that it made perfect sense to go back home to Australia for her surgery.

  She could ask for leave from the company. Pierre was already rehearsing a new Clara for The Nutcracker, and the understudy was shaping up well. Eva was, to all intents and purposes, free. She found herself smiling at the prospect of going home.

  She would make up some excuse about needing to see her mother. It wasn’t a total lie. It was years since she’d taken extended leave and it was at least two years since she’d been home, and her mum wasn’t getting any younger. If she had the surgery in an Australian city hospital, she’d have a much better chance of flying under the radar than she would here in ballet-mad Paris.

  There might even be a chance—just a minuscule chance—that she could come back here to Paris as good as new. She’d been researching on the Internet and had read about a leading dancer in America who was performing again after a hip replacement. The girl was younger than Eva, but still, the story had given her hope.

  And, Eva thought, as she drained the last of the creamy rich chocolate, if she was returning to Australia, she might as well go to that school reunion. She’d had an email from Jane Simpson telling her that Griff was undecided so, if she went, she was unlikely to have the ordeal of facing him.

  She would love to catch up with everyone else. It felt suddenly important to her to chat with people who lived ‘normal’ lives.

  Yes, she decided. She would go.

  As soon as this thought was born, Eva was hit by a burst of exhilaration. This was swiftly followed by a shiver of fear when she thought about Griff, but she shook it off.

  It was time to be positive and brave about her future. Perhaps it was also time to lay to rest the ghosts of her past.

  CHAPTER TWO

  THE BAY HAD changed a great deal. Griff and Tim were surprised and impressed by the new suburbs and shopping centres that had sprung up in their home town. The school was almost unrecognisable, with a host of extra buildings, including a big new gymnasium and performing arts centre.

  At least the fish and chip shop looked much the same, painted white with a blue trim and with big blue pots spilling with red geraniums. And the natural features of sea, sky and beach were as alluring as ever. Now, though, smart cafés graced the prime spots along the seafront, and there were neatly mown parks with landscaped gardens.

  The guys remembered paddocks of prickly bindi-eye weeds that they’d had to run across to get to the beach, but now there were very civilised paved walking paths, and carefully planted vines crawled over the sand dunes to hold them in place.

  Nevertheless, the three friends had a great afternoon trying to recapture the fun of their youth, falling off surfboards, getting sunburnt, donning snorkels, goggles and flippers to explore the striped and colourful fish and coral on the inshore reefs that rimmed the headland.

  Griff was certainly glad that he’d come. It was refreshing to spend some quality time with friends whose links stretched way back. Despite his high-powered job, or perhaps because of it, he’d lately found himself going to too many dinner parties and concerts with the same snooty circle, rehashing the same old conversations, the same narrow views of politics, the same tired jokes.

  Now, as the sun slid towards the west, washing the sky with a bright pink blush that lent gold tints to the sea, the trio returned to their hotel to shower and change for the reunion.

  Griff, changed into pale chinos and a white open-necked shirt with long sleeves rolled back to the elbows, checked his phone, half expecting a message from Amanda, even though they’d broken up. He was sure she would be still keeping tabs on him. She’d had plenty to say about his ‘boys’ weekend’.

  They’d had another row, of course. He’d accused her of not trusting him. She’d claimed she would trust him if he put a ring on her finger.

  In the end, she’d walked out and the next day she’d sent a taxi to collect her belongings.

  Unfortunately, she wasn’t the first girlfriend to leave in this manner, but his love life was a hassle Griff didn’t want to think about now. After an afternoon of sun, sea and mateship, he was feeling more relaxed than he had in ages. He wanted to keep it that way.

  * * *

  The trio were crossing the wide stretch of mown lawn in front the Emerald Bay Golf Club when Griff came to a sudden halt, as if he’d slammed into an invisible glass wall.

  He’d caught just the merest glimpse of a slim, dark-haired woman on the side balcony overlooking the golf course and he’d known immediately that it was Eva.

  Hell, she wasn’t supposed to be here.

  But here she was—wearing a sleeveless white dress, and laughing and chatting with a group. Even at a distance, Griff recognised her. No other woman was so slim and toned and poised. No one else had such perfect deportment, was so naturally elegant.

  Hell. Now Griff knew he’d been fooling himself. His confidence that he could see Eva again and remain indifferent was shattered.

  He was back in the past, remembering it all—helping her to adjust a pair of goggles and then teaching her to skin dive, helping her with her maths homework, dancing with her at the school formal. She’d worn a long silky dress in an aqua colour that exactly matched her eyes, and she’d made him feel like a prince.

  He’d been saving for a surfboard, but he’d spent all his carefully hoarded pocket money on Eva’s birthday, buying her an aquamarine pendant on a silver chain.

  ‘What’s the matter, Griff?’ Barney’s voice intruded his thoughts.

  Both Tim and Barney were staring at him.

  ‘Nothing,’ Griff responded quickly.

  The guys frowned at him, then shrugged and walked on. Griff, grim-faced, kept pace with them.

  Hell. He gave himself a mental shakedown. Of course he could do this. He was used to hiding his feelings. He did it every day in court. Sure, he could play the role of an old friend, who’d barely given his high school sweetheart a second thought during the past twenty years. Sure, he could grit his teeth and sweat this scene out. For an entire weekend.

  * * *

  Jane had only warned Eva at the very last minute that Griff was coming. Actually, Jane hadn’t couched the news as a warning. She had passed it on in high excitement, certain that Eva would be totally delighted.

  By then, Eva had already arrived in the Bay and was settled into a pleasant motel room with ocean views, so it had been too late to change her mind. Just the same, when Jane shared this news, Eva found it devilish hard to grin and pretend to be pleased.

  ‘He’s not bringing his girlfriend, though,’ Jane had added.

  The existence of a girlfriend was good news at least. The possibility that Griff was still single and at a loose end had bothered Eva for all sorts of ridiculous reasons. Instead, he was safely in a relationship, which meant there were no loose ends.

  Great. Their past was a closed door and that was how it would remain.

  Eva had told herself she was stupid to fret. After all these years, Griff would have forgotten all about her. There was absolutely no reason he’d still be interested. After she’d left town, he’d studied for years at university and since then he’d been fighting the good fight in the justice system. Griffin Fletcher was a top drawer barrister these days, totally brilliant. Such a lofty and noble pursuit.

  No doubt he would look down on a ballerina who spent her days pirouetting and leaping about, and see her as someone fluffy and inconsequential.

  At least Eva was used to keeping her emotions under wraps and remaining composed in public, and now, with the reunion well underway, she tried to ignore any stirrings of tension as she chatted with old school friends. Everyone was eager to hear all about her dancing career and her life in Europe, but she tried to keep her story low-key.