Secrets and Lies (Sequel to Your Lying Eyes)

Secrets and Lies Chapter 20

The light was fading outside as the rain continued to pour down against the windows of the bedroom.  Anna lay warm and content in Howard's arms.  Not wanting to move from where she was, she sighed blissfully.  All her worries forgotten as they shared time together.

"We've got Catherine to thank for this," he told her as he ran his fingers down her back.  "If she hadn't recognised you on the webcam, you would still have been out there, at Dee Why.  Forgetting all about me."

"Oh I don't think so!  There were too many reminders of you for me to ever do that," she laughed as she remembered the names of the places around her.  "Besides," she continued, her voice becoming serious.  "I'd been thinking and I was ready to come home.  I'd been away long enough.  Away from you," she admitted, curling back into him, nestling against his chest.

"Been missing me then?" he teased her gently, kissing her neck.  She shivered and he pulled the cover up, to keep them warm.

"You bet.  Australia was only temporary while I thought things through.  I'd had a couple of big shocks and I couldn't think straight.  I needed to get right away and think without anyone trying to advise me."

"What shocks do you mean?" he asked her, his fingers stroking down the side of her face.

"Well one of them was seeing you with Catherine at the hotel.   That was awful.  You with someone else.  And she was pregnant."  She pressed herself closer to him.  "That hurt so badly How.  I thought that we'd no chance of ever getting back together again.  Not if she were pregnant."

"But we weren't together.  You assumed it," he told her softly.  "I should have told you that night, but everyone was talking and excited.  Every time I tried to catch your eye, you looked away.  I'm sorry hun, I should have told you."

"I just couldn't cope with it.  I really thought that I'd lost you for good that night. That there was no way we could get back together. Gary had been trying to reach you for weeks with no luck, then when you came back you were with someone."

"Yeah he told me about that.  How you'd asked him to find me and see if I was coming home.  He told me about your accident too.  I'm so sorry that you lost Thomas.  It must have been hard for you.  For you both.  I wish I'd been here for you."

"Gary was so good to me. All the time you've been away not just then.   He was the only one I could really talk to.  Right from when you first left."  She looked up at him and lowered her eyes as they filled with tears.  "I knew I'd done the wrong thing as soon as you'd gone.  He told me that too.  I'm sorry How.  I should have gone with you that night.  It would have saved us so much pain. All of us.  Maybe Thomas would still have been alive too."

"Hey you can't think like that.  No one will ever know will they?" he scolded her gently. " We're together aren't we?" he said softly, brushing her tears away.  "I love you.  And you love me.  That's all that matters."  

"I'm never letting you go again," she said, kissing his chest, and running her hands along it.

"Good, but I don't intend to be going anywhere."  He kissed her deeply, holding her tight against him.  She curled into him as they broke the kiss, her arms around him and smiled happily.

"Now what was the other shock?" he asked her.  "You said there were a couple of things."

This was it, what she'd been dreading having to tell him the most.  That he had another child, one he knew nothing about.

Anna sat up in the bed, bringing her knees up under her chin.  She looked at him lying on his side, his hand supporting his head waiting for her to carry on.