Falling for Her Wounded Hero

by Marion Lennox

  He pulled to a halt under the veranda and saw the table was set outside. A mass of candles formed a centrepiece to the table. A huge spray of wildflowers trailed under the candlelight.

  Tasha was in the doorway.

  His breath caught in his throat. She was wearing a sliver of a shimmering, silver dress, a dress that accentuated every luscious curve. Her curls were loose around her shoulders and her face looked almost luminescent.

  She was smiling out at him as his car drew to a halt and he’d never seen anyone look more beautiful.

  ‘Hi,’ she called, and heaven knew the effort it cost to get his voice to work to call back.

  ‘Hi.’ He climbed from the car and glanced at the table, the crystal, the silver cutlery, the best dinner set, his grandmother’s finest stuff he never used even for his more elaborate dinners. ‘You’re expecting company?’

  ‘I’m expecting you.’ She waved an airy hand towards the table. ‘Rhonda said you were on your way back. Have I forgotten anything?’

  He made his way cautiously up the veranda steps, feeling it behoved a man to be cautious. The look of her... He’d only ever seen her in casual and work clothes. This dress... He wanted to put his hands on her waist and hold.

  She was stunning.

  He was stunned.

  ‘This looks a bit overkill for my usual dinners,’ he said cautiously, and she smiled, a smile that lit her whole face.

  ‘It’s not a usual dinner,’ she told him. ‘Your seduction settings are for your trail of assorted women...’

  ‘I do not have a trail...’

  ‘You do have a trail,’ she told him, lovingly though, as if she finally understood him, as if she wanted him just the way he was. ‘They’re very assorted. Rhonda tells me you’ve had fun and the women you’ve dined here have had fun as well. So I thought...maybe we could have fun, too.’

  ‘You’re offering to be...a part of my trail?’

  She shook her head. She still stood in the doorway and he hadn’t made it further than the top step. There seemed a vast distance. A distance he wasn’t sure he could cross.

  ‘Not a part of your trail,’ she said softly, and for the first time she sounded a bit unsure. As if it was taking courage to say what she had to say. ‘The end of your trail. And even though my trail hasn’t been candles and flowers, I’m hoping it’s the end of my trail, too. If you want me.’

  The words took his breath away. He should step forward and sweep her into his arms right now, but somehow he forced himself to stay where he was. There were things he needed to sort. There were things he needed to know.

  ‘You don’t trust me,’ he said at last.

  ‘Past tense. That’s my blindness and I’m sorry.’ She wasn’t moving either. She was leaning against the doorjamb as if she needed its support. ‘I’ve never been very brave, you see.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  She shrugged and tried for a smile that didn’t quite come off. ‘My parents were adventurers,’ she told him. They were both in the army, and they put their hands up for any exciting conflict going. There were dramas all through my childhood—one or the other of them was always getting injured. That was practically the only time I saw them, when they were recuperating. When I grew up I thought I’d be a doctor. It was a nice, safe profession, filled with good, dependable people.

  ‘Only I must have had some of my parents’ drive for adventure because I joined Médicins Sans Frontières and I met Paul. I fell for him. Heaven help me, I even tried to keep up with him. There were so many attempts at brave there, and every one of them was a disaster. After Paul I went back to being safe but then I thought I’d really like a baby. That felt huge. It felt totally unsafe but I did it anyway. My final brave.’

  ‘And then Emily died,’ he said softly, and she closed her eyes for a moment.

  ‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘And I thought that’s the end. But there was a niggle that had me wanting another baby. Aching for another baby. Maybe I could summon enough courage to try one more time. But then...then I fell in love with you and I thought how like Paul you were. And I realised that I couldn’t trust myself. The whole idea of a baby, of a future seemed to disintegrate and I thought, I don’t have enough courage for anything.’

  ‘Tasha, you’re the bravest—’

  But she shook her head. ‘Wait. Please.’ She took a deep breath and forced herself to go on. ‘Tom, brave or not, I’ve finally figured...today I figured...I’ve had the definition wrong. Somehow in my muddle of a mind I equated brave with stupid. I thought you were like my parents. Like Paul. Like your dad. Taking risks for risks’ sake.’

  ‘It’s not like that.’

  ‘I know it’s not,’ she whispered. ‘This morning when I thought you were climbing down the cliff, I was as terrified as I’d ever been. There you go, being brave again. Being stupid. And then Rhonda told me about your surfing accident. You went onto the reef deliberately to save Rowan. And on the cliff today... If you’d been Paul, there’d have been no way you’d have let me go down in your stead. So I went there expecting to be terrified while you did your foolhardy thing. Instead, you accepted facts, you weighed risks and you let me go.’

  ‘And I was terrified instead.’

  ‘I know you were,’ she whispered. ‘And that’s when I realised there’s brave and brave. Brave isn’t always about putting your life on the line. Brave’s also about watching from the sidelines, letting the man you love take the risks he has to take, knowing he’ll do the same for you.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Brave is also saying what’s past is past and shouldn’t affect the future. Brave might also be about saying I want a family. I want Pollywig to have a dad and I want to love her dad. And... And brave’s saying I do love you.’

  She stopped and the whole world seemed to hold its breath. Tom didn’t speak. He couldn’t. He couldn’t begin to understand the surge of emotion in his chest. He could hardly begin to hope.

  ‘Tom...’ Tasha whispered, and he wanted to go to her but still he couldn’t. He held out a hand as if to reach her but his body seemed frozen.

  ‘So I thought I’d leave a proposal for after main course,’ she said unsteadily. ‘How do they do it in the movies? A ring in the chocolate mousse and then a comedy routine where our hero proposes while our heroine gets her stomach pumped to retrieve her diamond? But I’m not that brave.’

  ‘You’re brave enough for anything,’ he managed, and finally he got his feet to work, finally he strode forward and took her waist in his hands and drew her to him. ‘Love, what are you saying?’

  ‘I’m asking whether this seduction scene has finally worked like it’s supposed to,’ she whispered, her voice muffled now against his chest. But then she pulled back. He held her at arm’s length, gazing down into her gorgeous eyes, and she managed to smile up at him. And all the love in the world was in her eyes.

  ‘I’m saying that finally I get this brave thing,’ she whispered. ‘And I’m going with it. So, Tom Blake, here’s the thing.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I love you and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I want to carry your child and I want to share. I want to be brave with you and occasionally I want to be a coward with you. I love you just the way you are, Tom Blake, and I can’t wait until after the main course and I don’t have a ring anyway so therefore...’

  But he wouldn’t let her go any further. He put his finger on her lips and shushed her and then he smiled, a smile that felt like it was turning him into a different person. A man who could walk forward from this moment.

  ‘Allow me some pride, my love,’ he told her. ‘Damn, where’s a diamond when you need one?’ He glanced around at the ornate table, at his grandmother’s silver napkin rings. He seized one and dropped to his knee.

  ‘Tom...’ Tasha was half laughing, half crying.

  ‘Shh,’ he told
her. ‘This is important.’ And he took both her hands in his and gazed up at her. ‘Tasha Raymond, it’s my turn to be brave,’ he told her. ‘So I’m risking everything here, including the messing up of one heirloom napkin ring set. But what the heck. Tasha, will you do me the honour of becoming my wife?’

  And what was a woman to say to that?

  There was nothing to say. She dropped to her knees as well. He put the crazy, too-big ring on her finger and it almost fitted her fist. He smiled down at it and then he smiled at her.

  He drew her into his arms and kissed her.

  Tasha had gone to some trouble with the dinner. She’d made a casserole, with expensive steak and wine.

  The casserole burned, for taking the casserole from the oven when the timer went meant risking breaking the moment, and who were Tasha and Tom to take risks?

  They weren’t risk-takers.

  They were very safe indeed.

  * * *

  There was no hospital at Cray Point. There was one at Summer Bay, though. With Adam Myers in charge, it had good obstetric care, so with all the scans showing normal, Tom and Tasha decided that’s where their daughter would be born.

  One beautiful autumn day Tasha went into natural labour.

  For some reason Tasha had woken thinking the weeds had to be dealt with immediately. Tom had his way first, though, and they’d had a gentle morning’s surf.

  Tom had taught Tasha to surf on their honeymoon, but now it was as much as she could do to lie in the shallows and let the sun play on her bump. But that had felt pretty good.

  They’d come home. She’d had a nap while Tom had started on the weeds and then she’d joined him. There were no medical imperatives. The soil was damp and still warm, so weeding was easy. Tasha finally confessed her contractions to Tom but she didn’t want to stop.

  ‘Let’s get this bed done first,’ she told him. ‘I fancy sweet peas and cornflowers in spring.’

  So—reluctantly on Tom’s part—they weeded on, and Tasha grew quieter but more and more adamant that she wanted to stay where she was.

  Finally she straightened and stretched and winced and gave in to what her body was telling her. ‘Maybe it’s time to go,’ she admitted.

  Tom needed no second telling. He’d packed the car the moment Tasha had admitted to her first contraction, and had taken Rambo, their six-month-old cocker spaniel, to Iris for safekeeping. Keeping on weeding had been a superhuman effort on his part.

  ‘We’ll wait until the contractions are ten minutes apart and regular before we head for hospital,’ Tasha had reminded him.

  How many times had he told his patients that? Yet when it was his own he wanted to break every rule in the book.

  But finally she was agreeing. She went inside to wash—and he found her at the sink, bent double with the force of the next contraction.

  Tom practically carried her to the car, but as he helped her in, another contraction hit.

  ‘That’s less than two minutes,’ he said blankly.

  ‘I told you it was time,’ Tasha managed when she could catch her breath. She was trying to sound serene but not quite managing it.

  He practically ran to the driver’s side. As he hit the ignition Tasha moaned with yet another contraction.

  ‘You’ve got to be kidding!’ The contractions seemed to be rolling into one.

  ‘It’s okay,’ she muttered. ‘There’s plenty...of time.’

  ‘Tasha...’

  ‘Just drive.’

  He turned out of the driveway, up along the headland towards the road to Summer Bay but he knew before he’d gone five hundred yards that they weren’t going to make it.

  ‘Um...’ Tasha was arching back, moaning. ‘Oh, Tom... Oh, whoops...I can feel... Tom, sorry, I might have mistimed...I thought we might...’ She moaned through another contraction and then: ‘Tom, stop!’

  They were high on the headland. The land here sloped gently down to the sea in a vast sweep of lush autumnal green pasture. The view was breathtaking. How many times had they walked up here to lay flowers on Emily’s grave, or to sit and talk, or simply be?

  It was their favourite place in the world.

  ‘Tom, stop this minute. Stop! Oh-h-h-h...’

  There was nothing for him to do but pull to a halt.

  Their baby was coming.

  Help. He had obstetric supplies in the trunk—of course he did—but he didn’t want supplies. He wanted a fully equipped hospital, specialist care, someone other than him...

  There was no one. The sun was low on the horizon, sending a silver shimmer on the ocean that would soon turn to tangerine. It was late Sunday afternoon and the day trippers had long gone. The road was deserted, and Tasha was unmistakably moving into the second stage of labour.

  ‘I think I need to push,’ she said, quite conversationally, and Tom decided to panic. He was feeling as cowardly as he’d ever felt in his life.

  ‘Hey, Tom, we can do this,’ Tasha breathed. ‘We’ve been brave before.’

  ‘We take turns, remember?’ It was a dumb thing to say but it was all he could think of.

  ‘This time we share.’

  He had no choice. He hauled himself together—somehow—grabbed a resus blanket from the trunk and laid it on the lush grass under a stand of gumtrees. He folded his jacket for a pillow.

  He rang for the ambulance.

  ‘Sure, Doc.’ The paramedic sounded almost as if he’d expected the call. ‘We’re on our way. Keep us on speaker phone if you’re worried. We’ll talk you through it if you need us but you know what to do better than us.’

  Strangely Tasha looked almost peaceful. The grass was long and soft underneath the blanket. A couple of cows were hanging their heads over the roadside fence, looking on with interest. The surf was a faint hush-hush below them and, now she was settled on her blanket, Tasha was riding each contraction with determination.

  In between she seemed almost relaxed.

  Tom wasn’t.

  ‘We’ve rehearsed this,’ she managed, as the next contraction passed.

  ‘We rehearsed me being up at your end with an obstetrician being at the business end.’

  ‘Tom...’

  ‘Tasha?’

  ‘This is good,’ she told him, but then another contraction hit, stronger than those before. Her serenity slipped and he heard the edge of panic. ‘Okay. Maybe...maybe this wasn’t a good idea,’ she whispered. ‘I think...I’m losing it.’

  What wasn’t a good idea? Had she planned this type of birth?

  But it was too late to worry about that now. She needed him.

  And wasn’t that the whole truth? he thought as he gripped her hands while she rode out the next contraction. Tasha needed Tom. Tom needed Tasha.

  Family...

  And somehow things settled. Somehow the world righted on its axis.

  He and Tasha were together and they were about to welcome the next addition to their family. All indications were that this birth was completely normal. What did he have to be brave about?

  And finally he moved into medical mode.

  ‘Small breaths,’ he told her. ‘Let’s see if we can take this labour off the boil for a bit. The ambulance should be here soon. Pant.’

  Tasha told him where he could put his panting.

  ‘Tasha...’

  ‘Let’s...have...our...baby...’ she managed. ‘Oh...’

  And two minutes later a perfect baby girl slithered out into the arms of her waiting father.

  Tom sat back on his heels and gazed down in incredulity at the miracle in his arms. A daughter. He and Tasha had a daughter.

  ‘Is she okay?’ It was a whisper, a feather breath.

  ‘She’s perfect.’ And then he caught himself. Skin to skin was almos
t the first rule of obstetrics. Now their baby was born, he needed to get her onto her mother’s breast, and here he was, staring down like an idiot.

  At his daughter.

  She wasn’t crying. She was wide-eyed, as if she was gazing straight at him.

  He wanted to weep. Instead, he managed to be a tiny bit professional. He covered his daughter in his sweater and placed her on her Tasha’s breast.

  And then he forgot for a moment that he was the doctor in charge. This was his wife. This was his daughter. Who could stay professional?

  He gathered them both into his arms and he held them as if they were the most precious creatures in the world.

  As they were. His wife. His daughter.

  ‘Rosamund?’ Tasha whispered. ‘After your grandma, right?’

  ‘If that’s okay...’

  ‘It’s perfect,’ Tasha breathed, and her smile was so cat-that-got-the-cream that he pulled back a little.

  ‘Did you plan this?’

  ‘No,’ she whispered. ‘Or...I might have hidden a couple of contractions. I sort of wanted...’

  To deliver her baby here, in peace, away from the clinical efficiency of the hospital, from anywhere that would have brought back memories of past pain. High on the headland where she could see all the way to the Antarctic. Where she could see the tiny township of Cray Point—their home. Where she could even see the graveyard where Emily had been laid to rest.

  He’d never have agreed, but it was too late to protest now, and indeed it was perfect.

  They lay on the blanket, Rosamund warmly wrapped, enclosed between her mother and father.

  Family.

  They lay as the sun slipped further towards the horizon and started losing its warmth.

  ‘We need to move,’ Tom told her. ‘Love...’

  ‘Maybe we do.’ She sighed and she wriggled a bit and found her phone, which was lying by her side. It was still showing a current call. Speaker phone was on.

  ‘Maybe we do,’ she said again. ‘I think we’re ready, guys.’ And then she grinned at Tom, a smile that contained cheek as well as joy. ‘You think I took a risk?’ she said serenely. ‘I never would, not with our family. I might be brave, but I’m not stupid.’