Country Lovers Read Online Free

tap tap tapping his fingernails on the table, asking questions to which Dan couldn’t possibly have the answers, and generally behaving like someone on the brink of a breakdown.
    â€œHave a cup of tea, Lloyd. I’ll get one from the machine.”
    â€œTea? What good will that do. A glass of whisky, yes. Tea? No. I’ve nearly run out of whisky. Do they sell it here? No, of course not. Narrow pelvis they said. Big baby. God! If I’d known, I’d’ve had you castrated.”
    â€œThank God you didn’t. Rose wouldn’t have wanted that.”
    Lloyd gave Dan half a smile, which he smothered instantly by reminding himself that he should be ringing Rose’s mother. “I should, you know; she ought to know. She should be told. I’ll ring her.”
    Dan clamped his hand on Lloyd’s mobile phone. “Not here. It might interfere with the equipment. And…what’s more, it’s Rose’s decision. She’ll tell her if she wishes. Not you and not me.”
    â€œYou’re damn right. Of course. God! I’m tired. What the hell are they doing all this time?” Lloyd stood up and began prowling again. “I love that girl. Like she was my very own. She’s a gem. Gutsy, you know. I’ve tried to shield her from her mother’s more crass ideas, but…God! That woman’s something. She’s a hell of a woman to keep in check.”
    Wryly Dan said, “I know.”
    Lloyd looked at him. “Huh! You don’t need me to tell you that. I could have killed her when I found out she’d driven you away.”
    The door opened and the consultant came in smiling. Dan’s heart felt fit to burst. “All’s fine! A wonderful baby boy, four kilos exactly. Mother’s doing fine. Wonderful patient.”
    He shook Dan’s hand and offered his congratulations, and then Lloyd’s. “Mustn’t leave out Grandad!” He pumped Lloyd’s hand up and down vigorously.
    Lloyd asked, “What the hell’s four kilos? What does it mean in America?”
    Dan said, “About eight and a half pounds. Wait here and you can see her after me.”
    â€œBut I…”
    â€œAfter me.”
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â 
    D AN and Lloyd were completely enraptured by the baby. Lloyd was convinced he looked exactly like himself, though how he worked that out Dan couldn’t think. But everyone else said he was the spitting image of his father, and he was. The same nose and the same shaped face, but hair the color of Rose’s. He’d always imagined that all babies looked alike, but this one was his and no doubt about it. Rose was bone weary but immensely happy, and kept saying, “Isn’t he wonderful? Aren’t we clever? You and me?”
    She came home three days later to find that Lloyd had been to the supermarket and bought up what appeared to be half its stock. He’d also bought another freezer to put in the garage and filled that too. “Can’t have you running out of anything at all. There’s not a thing I haven’t thought of. There won’t be any need to shop for weeks. Now, let me have a hold of young Jonathan Daniel Franklin-Brown.”
    Dan got out his wallet. “Look! I must pay you for all that.”
    â€œNonsense.
He
is my reward and anyway money can’t buy him.” He sat in a chair where the sun couldn’t reach, holding Rose’s son, in a world of his own.
    Dan made coffee for the three of them, settled Rose in her favorite chair by the window, and gave her some mail to open. She flung the junk mail on the floor, then voiced her anger when she recognized her mother’s handwriting. “She’s written to me! She knows where I am.” Angry disappointment showed in her face. “I know it won’t be you, Danny. Is it you, Pa?”
    Lloyd, absorbed in delicately smoothing his fingers over the baby’s face and his tiny starlike