2. Buy a gorgeous two-carat diamond ring.
3. Go on a trip to Monte Carlo and take a photograph outside the Hotel de Paris.
4. Learn to surf.
5. Learn to salsa.
6. Go to a Star Trek convention.
7. Travel on the cable cars in San Francisco.
8. Go back on the Amazon Aid Boat.
9. Join one of the social networking sites and find old friends.
10. Learn how to crochet and crochet a baby blanket.
A higgledy-piggledy, jumbled-up list. No priorities, just everything down there on paper.
The list looked a little well worn—rough around the edges—as if she’d pulled it from her bag on many occasions to read it. The red paper was still bright and the silver ink still glistened in the sun. It should be a happy, sunny list.
But it terrified him. Because for him it was evidence that at some point Amy had actually thought she was going to die. She’d actually put pen to paper and written a list of things she still wanted to do. She may have said the list was to make her feel better, but Linc was no fool. People didn’t just write these lists to plan ahead—they wrote these lists as things to do before they died. And the thought made him feel physically sick. The sun was shining in the sky above him but the hairs on his arms were standing on end—as if he’d just walked through a chilly morgue.
He tried to push his thoughts away. He couldn’t think about this. It was making him question everything about himself and his relationship with Amy. They’d been skirting around things. Playing at being friends—when they both knew there was a huge potential for more.
Did he want to have a relationship with Amy? Was it sensible? What if this pregnancy made her cancer come back? How would he feel then? And what about Amy’s baby? Sure, he’d considered all the clinical aspects of a premature baby, but he hadn’t considered the emotional aspects. The emotional aspects of having a relationship with a woman who had another man’s baby. At least he had the satisfaction of knowing that the sperm donor would never appear. But that was little consolation if something happened to Amy. Would he be prepared to take on another man’s child? Could he even consider bringing a baby up himself—one he had no genetic relationship with—if something happened to Amy?
Lincoln gave himself a shake. The sun was getting to him. He tried to focus on the list again and found his heart beating furiously in his chest. He looked at the items again. It couldn’t be a coincidence—the boat and finding old friends. She’d produced a list when she’d been at her lowest ebb and two of the references on it could be about him.
Okay, so the list didn’t say ‘Find Lincoln Adams’. But why would she want to go back to the Amazon aid boat? And why would she decide to look up old friends? Was it really all just some strange coincidence, or was he making a mountain out of a molehill?
He cleared his throat, readying himself to ask the obvious question. ‘So how many of these have you actually done?’
Amy gave up on the sandwich and picked one of peaches he’d unpacked from the picnic basket, taking a big bite and letting the juice trickle down her chin. ‘From the list?’ He nodded. She was licking the juice from her fingers now. ‘Just two.’ Her voice sounded bright and breezy, as if she were discussing the latest episode of her favourite TV drama, instead of the ‘try before you die’ list.
He gave a little laugh. ‘You’re joking, right? Two? In five years?’
A wicked smile stole across her face. ‘Let’s just say I had a bit of a slow start,’ she teased. Her hands rubbed her bump. ‘And, anyway, this is a pretty big one. It’s taken up a lot of my time.’
Lincoln leaned backwards. ‘Okay, I’ll give you that.’ He watched as she discarded the half-eaten peach, wrapping it in a napkin and pulling out a lemon cupcake. ‘Do you finish anything you eat these days?’
Amy peeled the case from the cupcake, tapping her stomach again. ‘Not much room in here these days. I tend to eat little and often at the moment. I only really finish anything if it’s the middle of the night—for some reason I’m always starving then.’
‘So what was number two?’
‘What?’ Amy was lost in the land of lemon cupcake.
‘You said you’d done two things on your list. Number one is obvious so what’s number two?’
Amy waved her hand. ‘Oh, that was easy. I made myself a page on one of those social networking sites so I could track down some old friends.’
And with that wave of her hand Lincoln felt his insides plummet. She’d done the social networking, she’d tracked down ‘old friends’ and he obviously wasn’t among them.
He shifted uncomfortably on the sand. ‘Which one did you use?’
She named the most popular one around, one where he had a page posted.
He bit his bottom lip. ‘So did you track down your old friends?’
Amy picked up a can of soda. ‘Yeah, loads of them. All my old classmates from high school, old nursing friends from college, and people from some of the towns we stayed in as a kid—we moved about a lot.’
Lincoln asked the next question with a sinking feeling. ‘So how many friends have you got, then?’
‘Eight hundred and forty-two.’ Eight hundred and forty-two. As if it were the easiest thing in the world. Pushing his paltry twenty-six ‘friends’ into oblivion. Amy changed position on the blanket. Moving up on to her knees and digging deep in the basket, she lifted her eyes, giving him an innocent smile. ‘You know I reconnected with loads of people from the Amazon aid boat—Lily Carter, John Rhodes, Frank Kelly, Gene Hunt, Milly Johnson…’ She finally found what she was looking for, a bunch of green grapes, and pulled them out from the basket. ‘You know—you should join.’
For the first time in years Lincoln could feel the flush of colour in his cheeks. ‘I’ve got a page,’ he murmured.
‘You have?’ Her eyes were that bright, sparkly way again. ‘You should send me a friend request, then—I’ll accept.’ A definite twinkle had appeared in her eye. She was teasing him again.
He roll
ed over on the blanket, groaning and putting his head in his hands. ‘Okay, spill. How come you never sent me a friend request? You seem to have sent…’ he waved his arms in front of him, out toward the ocean ‘…everyone else in the world one but me.’
Amy lay down next to him, resting her head in her hands, her hat flopping over her eyes. She was so close the length of her body was touching his, her bare legs next to his, the brim of her hat almost touching his head. She looked out toward the ocean, back at the surfers, and gave a little sigh.
‘It just didn’t feel right.’
His face was shadowed under her hat, his blue eyes even darker than normal. ‘What do you mean, it didn’t feel right?’
She looked downwards, towards the sand that was now trickling through her fingers. ‘Some people knew that I’d been sick. They might have asked me how I was doing. I didn’t want you to read it online.’
Lincoln opened his mouth and then stopped. It was time to use his head, not blurt out the first thing that came to mind. He pushed the thoughts of why she hadn’t sent a private message to one side—along with the quip about whether it was more appropriate for her to turn up unannounced as his pregnant wife.
‘I tried to find you, you know.’ His fingers delved in the sand next to hers, pulling tiny pieces of a million years ago and rubbing them between his finger and thumb.
Her hand had stopped in mid-air. Her face turned to his. ‘You did?’ She looked shocked—surprised—as if it was the last thing she’d expected. Her green eyes were fixed on his, as if she was holding her breath, waiting for his response.
He moved his fingers from the sand and brushed them off, putting his hand over hers. ‘Of course I did.’ He was looking directly at her. Something he hadn’t done much in the last few days. Last time he’d looked at her like this had been when they’d kissed.