Twins for Christmas by Alison Roberts Read Free Book Online

of the redness that had been due to her high fever and her skin felt much cooler and drier. Her pulse, while still erratic, felt stronger beneath his fingertips.
    Rory’s fingers trailed up from his mother’s wrist to touch the heavily bandaged splint that was protecting her IV line. She needed fluids to correct the dehydration her fever had brought, and antibiotics to fight the cause, but how sad was it that she had to be treated like a baby who might pull the line free at any time?
    Would she still be so distressingly agitated when she woke? Hopefully she would be back to her normal level of confusion, where she recognised nobody—including himself. Not that calling him by his twin’s name was due to recognition. How could it be, when Jamie had died at the age of seven?
    Michael’s age.
    The cry for her lost child was coming from her heart. It was a cry that had always been there, but it had been silent for twenty years. Until the anchor his father had provided had been lost with his death and his mother had simply allowed oblivion to take his place.
    She was—most of the time—in a peaceful state, and Rory prayed that she would be again when this illness was dealt with.
    Could he find such a state for himself?
    He thought he had. In a far corner of the world where no one knew him, where physical strength and sheer determination and guts were the only things a man was judged on.
    He hadn’t bar gained on revisiting the past like this.
    It was tempting to stay by Marcella’s side for longer than the time needed to check her condition. This was his first chance to get his head around what was happening tonight. Too manythings to know where to start, in fact.
    His conviction that he would never again put himself in a position where a child’s life was dependent on him had just been blown out of the water. And it had happened in the wake of being pulled back to the origin of his fear, thanks to both his mother’s presence and her confusion. But he’d done it. He’d coped. And part of him knew that he would have coped even if the outcome had not been a success—because Kate had been there.
    His touchstone.
    His angel.
    Who would have thought that the idea of her being pregnant by another man could have been so intensely painful? Had he really thought that she was some kind of saint? That she hadn’t had—or wouldn’t have—a relationship with another man? It wasn’t as if she’d had anything like a relationship with   him   anyway. It had been a one-off. Because she’d felt sorry for him.
    But she was carrying   his   baby.
    Babies , he corrected himself.
    And there was another conviction he’d had no intention of overturning. He’d never wanted to be a father. Why would he, when he’d lived through the dark side of what parental love could do? He’d always taken great care to ensure an accident would never happen, but he hadn’t taken care that night, had he? He’d been offered something he’d needed so badly he hadn’t stopped to think at all.
    Comfort.
    Kate hadn’t even known what she was comforting him for, which was a testament to his lifelong ability to disguise his demons no matter how much influence they might have in every choice he’d made. But Kate had found him at a point when he’d been as vulnerable and afraid as he’d been when he was seven years old.
    When he’d had to watch his brother die and know that it had been   his   fault.
    Rory drew in a breath that felt as if it was inflating his lungs for the first time. Painfully. He touched his mother’s forehead with a gentle finger and then turned away.
    Kate hadn’t known, but it hadn’t mattered because of who she was. She had given him the only thing that could have made a difference—her touch. The feeling of being loved. An affirmation of life. And she had done so with a sweetness and generosity that made his heartache every time he remembered it.
    She deserved better than what he’d given her in return. A shameful