And Baby Makes Three

Jared was long gone from Brent, and was now only mentioned when he won yet another Grand Prix, and then another.

‘Not that things are looking so good for him this year,’ Duncan observed. ‘He was rushed to hospital after a crash just before the season started, and nobody knows why. They say he spun off for no apparent reason. The press have gone mad trying to find out, but there’s a big mystery there somewhere. Luckily it’s working to our advantage, because his reactions seem a bit slower. This season he hasn’t won races that he’d have won before. Now, that’s enough about him. Where did I put that-?’

She got to know the other drivers, especially Hal, a pleasant man, whose wife, Stella, dropped in one day. Through their children, Stella and Kaye immediately established a bond.

It was a contented, even sometimes a happy life. In the dead of night she would creep into Mike’s room to watch her darling son sleeping, and she would know that, whatever trophies came Jared’s way, it was she who was the real winner.

And yet…

The air was filled with shouting, cheers and laughter. The noise surrounded Jared, battering him. But at the same time it came from outer space, taunting, threatening his sanity.

The winner’s podium was his natural place. He turned this way and that, spurting champagne, stretching his mouth in a pretence of a smile, waving at the crowd, struggling to make it all feel natural, as it once had. But the echoing distance seemed to fill him with darkness.

This was his first win in four races, and should have been a triumph-the moment when he recovered everything that had been his before the nightmare. But that was impossible. He might recover much, but not everything.

He forced himself to give the performance of a hero celebrating his victory, secretly thinking, If only they knew!

They knew a little about the accident he’d had just before the start of the season, three months earlier. He’d been testing out Cannonball’s new car when he’d swerved suddenly, overturned, and come to a shuddering halt.

Onlookers had been baffled. There were no barriers on the track, no other driver had been near him and the car was perfect. Nobody knew that Jared had been feeling ill when he started, and had soon been swamped by sickness.

At the hospital he’d been shut away from visitors. The press had speculated on the ‘terrible injuries’ he must have suffered, and cheered him when he’d returned quickly to racing. Nobody suspected the truth.

And nobody must ever suspect, lest he die of shame.

Outwardly he seemed to have it all: just approaching thirty, at the peak of looks ability, health. That was what people thought, and what they must go on thinking.

He headed for the airport as soon as possible. There, booked on the same flight back to England, he found Hal, the driver from the Brent Team that he’d beaten into second place.

‘Sorry,’ he said wryly.

‘Oh, sure-if you had it to do again you’d let me win?’ Hal grinned. ‘I don’t think so.’

He was in his thirties, with an innate good nature that stopped him being hostile to Jared, despite their rivalry. He even managed to say, ‘It’s good to see you back on top form after your recent troubles.’

‘Thanks. They’re in the past,’ Jared said airily. ‘I’m my old self again.’

The words if only echoed in his mind again before he could avoid them.

Stern resolution! Banish those thoughts! Work at it! Be strong!

‘But I’m still behind in the championship,’ he continued with a shrug. ‘The title will probably be yours.’

‘Well, it’ll be nice to go out on a high,’ Hal agreed.

‘You’re really retiring?’

‘This is my last season as a driver. I’ll stay with the team, working behind the scenes, but I can spend more time at home with the wife and kids.’

Jared quickly went blank inside, as he’d trained himself to do at the mention of children.

Damn the illness that had attacked him without warning. Damn every man who could become a father when he himself couldn’t!

Hal had pulled out a small leather folder, flipping it open to reveal a picture of his family.

‘I never go anywhere without this,’ he said proudly. ‘I’m not like you, chased by sexy dollybirds.’

Jared gave a fixed smile, diverting attention by taking the folder and flipping through it. Suddenly he grew still.

‘Who’s that?’ he asked quietly.

‘Who? Oh, her. That’s Kaye. She used to work for Brent, left when she had a baby, and came back a few weeks ago. Stella and I got to know her because her son is the same age as our youngest and they go to the same school.’

‘Her-son?’

‘Yes, little Mike. Look.’ He flipped over some pages. ‘I took these at his birthday party recently.’

There was Kaye, a little older, but still recognisable as the eager girl he’d known way back then. She was sitting with her arms around a little boy who seemed to be consumed with laughter. She too was laughing, as though all happiness was to be found in the child.

‘What about her husband?’ Jared asked.

‘She’s not married. I don’t think she ever was.’ He looked back at the picture, adding, ‘They had the party the day before his fifth birthday. I had to dash off for the Turkish Grand Prix next day. We were on the same plane, remember?’

‘I remember.’ Jared’s voice gave nothing away.

Suddenly he was back in the hospital, horrified at the illness that had attacked him.

‘Mumps?’ he’d said, aghast. ‘That’s a kids’ illness.’

‘Adults can catch it too.’ The doctor sighed. ‘And you’ve got it badly.’

The sight of his face, swollen out of recognition, had horrified him. But worse had been the discovery of the side effects.

‘In a grown man mumps can cause sterility,’ the doctor warned. ‘We’ll do tests to be sure.’

Until the last minute he’d refused to believe that the worst could happen. But the tests showed that it had.

‘Are you telling me,’ Jared asked, appalled, ‘that when I’m with a woman I won’t be able to-?’

‘Your sexual skill will be unimpaired,’ the doctor said clinically. ‘But that’s all. Your sperm count is down to about two or three percent, maybe less, and your chance of fathering a child is virtually nil.’

Hal was flipping through the pictures again. Jared took a quick glance at the one showing Kaye and her son. The day before the flight to Turkey, Hal had said, thus revealing the date of the