Nine Month Countdown

by Leah Ashton

  But it was something she’d glimpsed, however briefly, that meant she kept on walking in silence. For the first time since she’d met him he’d looked...

  Ivy wouldn’t have said vulnerable, because that wasn’t even close to true. But something like that, something she’d never expected to see in Angus Barlow.

  Angus had made it to the top of the falls, and he stood there, waiting for her.

  He studied her as she approached, his gaze sweeping over her, the motion not all that dissimilar to the water as it rushed across the ancient, angular, straight-edged rocks, tracing the shape and lines of her.

  But Ivy forgot to be annoyed or embarrassed by his attention, because she’d just worked it out—worked out what she’d seen.

  Just for a moment, the shortest of moments, Angus had looked exposed.

  * * *

  Fortescue Falls was unusual. When Angus thought of waterfalls, he thought of a sheer pane of water, tumbling from a cliff. But here, the falls surged along a gradual series of steps and benches—like an elegantly curved stairway from amongst the trees down to the clear green pool below.

  Ivy was playing tour guide, telling him that the waterfall flowed—miraculously—year round. She pointed out some of the vegetation and talked of local birds and bats. She was nervous, although Angus wasn’t entirely sure why.

  One moment she was so, so self-assured, the next self-conscious and talking too quickly, her gaze skittering away.

  He didn’t know what to make of her questioning his single status. Part of him liked it—liked that she’d wondered, liked that she’d been so appalled that she’d actually voiced the question. But another part of him—a big part—shied away from even such an oblique reference to a relationship between them. Ivy had been absolutely right to stop them both last night. Another night in bed together was not going to aid the relaxed, shared—and lawyer-free—parenting arrangement he kept telling Ivy he wanted.

  Although of course it didn’t mean he had to stop checking her out. She’d stepped away from him now to head down the track to Fern Pool, their true destination today. So of course he took the opportunity to have a good old look at her very nice view from behind.

  It wasn’t as if he hadn’t noticed Ivy have a pretty thorough look at him at times.

  Sex might be unwise. But looking didn’t hurt anyone.

  EIGHT

  Exactly what a terrible idea this had been only became clear to Ivy when she stepped onto the man-made wooden boardwalk that provided the only access to Fern Pool.

  No one else was here, of course. Ivy had been here dozens of time with her family over the years, and not once had they had the pool to themselves. Even out here, more than a five-hour drive from the nearest major regional centre, tourists made sure they got to the Karijini. And they certainly made sure they got to Fern Pool.

  Just not today.

  Angus dumped his backpack onto the wooden boards, and Ivy looked determinedly across the crystal-clear water as he tugged off his T-shirt. Above them stretched a remarkable fig tree, and, of course, ferns were everywhere. It was lush, it was green, it was wet—everything that the desert-like Pilbara shouldn’t be.

  But it was also supposed to be full of tourists—a handful of lily-white British backpackers, a posse of raucous kids up here camping with their parents, or at least a pair of retired grey nomads.

  Someone. Anyone.

  Because without them, this place—this place with its mirror-flat water; its pair of tumbling waterfalls; its surrounding, towering layers and slabs of rock in reds and browns and purples was just...was just...

  Undeniably, terribly and completely...romantic.

  Dammit.

  ‘You coming in?’

  Angus stood directly in front of her, so of course she had to look at him. She made an attempt to stare only at his face, but almost immediately failed, her attention sliding rapidly downwards.

  She’d felt that chest beneath her fingertips, felt it pressed hard against her.

  But she hadn’t had a chance to look at it—the moonlight in Bali had certainly not been as generous as the Karijini sun.

  So she’d known he was broad, and hard, and ridiculously strong. But seeing him made it all new again. He was muscular, of course, but not in a stupid, body-builder way. There was still a leanness to him, a practicality—this man didn’t just lift weights, he was fit, agile, supple.

  He had a smattering of black hairs along his chest, but otherwise his skin was smooth. The occasional freckle dotted his lovely olive skin. His nipples were somehow darker than she expected. The ridges of his abdominal muscles deeper.

  His board shorts sat low on his hips. He had that muscular V thing going on, and her eyes followed in the direction it was pointing...

  Before she finally came to her senses and snapped her gaze back to his.

  His grin was broad, and his eyes sparkled.

  ‘So, Ivy—are you coming in?’

  It was the same question, but also different. Was his voice lower? More intimate?

  She took a deliberate step backwards, and promptly stepped onto his backpack, and the beach towels that Angus had pulled out for them.

  It was the pool. The damned pool’s fault for being so intimate and dreamily secluded.

  Still grinning, Angus walked to the metal ladder that provided access to the pool, although Ivy finally managed to drag her gaze away as he climbed in.

  Instead she turned her back, as pointless as that was, to pull off her top and shorts. She liked that Angus had bothered to read the sign beside the pool, and he hadn’t jumped in, as many others did. Ivy hadn’t read it today, but she knew what the first line said: Fern Pool is a special place.

  A place where you didn’t make loud noises or jump off the waterfalls. Where you respected your surroundings and the traditional owners of the land.

  It certainly shouldn’t be a place where she ogled a half-naked man.

  Her clothes neatly folded on top of Angus’s backpack, Ivy rolled her shoulders back, and took a handful of long, deep breaths.

  She told herself not to be self-conscious, although of course that was pointless. She could’ve been underwear-model thin and she still would’ve felt insecure around all of Angus’s bronzed perfection.

  And she certainly wasn’t underwear-model thin. But she was in her favourite black and white striped bikini, and if she breathed in her stomach was almost flat.

  Her hand rested on her still-normal-sized tummy.

  She’d forgotten again.

  Although this time, remembering that she was pregnant didn’t trigger a spiralling panic, or make her want to squeeze her eyes shut and wish just about everything away if she could just find a way to fix what she’d done.

  In fact, all it did was cause her to turn around, and to search for Angus in the water.

  The pool wasn’t large, but Ivy didn’t have to search far anyway. His forearms rested on the edge of the boardwalk as he floated in the water, watching her.

  ‘How long until the baby starts to move?’ he asked.

  ‘Ages,’ Ivy said. ‘Eighteen to twenty weeks, I think?’ Her lips quirked upwards. ‘I thought you were full bottle on all this pregnancy stuff?’

  He pushed away from the boardwalk, his eyes still on her. ‘Haven’t got to that chapter yet,’ he said. He flicked his hand through the water, sending a light spray of water in her direction. ‘I’ve noticed you’re still not swimming.’

  The drops of water that now decorated her feet were surprisingly cool, given the heat of the day. But then, down here, beneath the shade of the great fig, the light was diluted.

  ‘Although I’m not really complaining,’ Angus continued. He was treading water only metres from the ladder. Close enough that Ivy knew he was—and had been—checking her
out.

  She blushed, which was just about her default reaction to Angus it seemed, but also found herself smiling. Almost as if she was enjoying his attention.

  Fern Pool romanticism was getting to her.

  That was enough to get her into the water quick smart.

  And it was cold. Cold enough that she gasped.

  But just as she had as a kid, she immediately ducked beneath the water to soak her hair.

  Better to get it over with quickly.

  Ivy and Mila had always agreed on that approach. While April had swum around shrieking about not getting her hair wet yet, which had been pretty much an engraved invitation for her sisters to splash her with as much water as possible.

  ‘What are you smiling about?’ Angus asked, treading water beside her as she tucked her hair behind her ears.

  ‘A nice memory,’ she said, and then filled him in.

  Angus rolled onto his back as she spoke, so he floated, staring up at the sky. ‘It doesn’t surprise me at all that you’ve always got straight to the point,’ he said.

  Except around Angus. Somehow, and sometimes, around Angus, being direct seemed impossible. Her words escaped her. Her brain seemed to escape her.

  ‘Do you have any brothers or sisters?’ Ivy asked.

  ‘No,’ Angus said. ‘Just Dad, and Mum, and me. We didn’t really travel as a family all that much. You’re lucky.’

  Ivy laughed. ‘We didn’t always think that coming up here was all that great. But Mum was all for multitasking on a holiday—coming up here meant a business trip and a family getaway. Although my sisters and I did go to the US a few times to visit my dad.’

  ‘The actor?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Ivy said, not surprised Angus knew that detail. Most people in Western Australia did—but then, a mining heiress didn’t elope with a handsome, if small-time, Hollywood actor and have nobody notice. ‘He left when I was pretty young, and we’ve never been close. He calls me on my birthday.’

  She followed Angus’s lead and stuck her legs and arms out so she could float on her back. Water lapped against her ears and she closed her eyes, enjoying the sensation of weightlessness.

  ‘Are you close to your parents?’ Ivy asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Angus said. ‘And no. I mean—’

  Ivy tilted her head so she could see him. He floated so close to her that if she reached out just a little bit further, their fingers would touch.

  ‘I was very close to my father, but he...died. And my mother has early-onset dementia, which is pretty awful really.’

  ‘Oh, that is awful,’ Ivy said, jackknifing from her back to swim to him. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  He’d done the same thing, but he didn’t wait for Ivy. Instead he swam away, in big, generous breast strokes, to the pair of tumbling waterfalls.

  But he stopped just short of where the falls hit the pool, and turned as he treaded water. ‘I wish we had travelled together as a family more. But my dad worked too hard. Every weekend he was at the shop. He had to be at the shop—at the furniture shop we owned. Even when he didn’t really need to be, he still thought he had to.’

  Angus wasn’t looking at her. His chin was tilted upwards, as if he was examining the thick, ropey branches of the fig tree that stretched towards the sky.

  ‘My mum’s like that,’ Ivy said.

  Now he looked at her. ‘You’re like that,’ he said.

  ‘I am not!’

  He simply raised an eyebrow.

  Ivy opened her mouth to argue, but realised it was pointless. The fact was she wasn’t very good at holidays. When she did go away, she kept one eye on her smartphone, and made damn sure she always had access to a Wi-Fi network.

  But she’d hated how her mother had never truly been present on family holidays. She couldn’t do that to her own child.

  ‘I’d like to take our baby on holidays when he or she is older,’ Angus said.

  ‘Me too,’ Ivy said. Then quickly added, ‘Not with you, of course.’

  ‘Of course,’ he said, glancing at her with a smile. But there was a sadness to it, as if he was thinking of the family holidays he never had. Or the father he had lost.

  ‘How old were you?’ Ivy asked, ‘I mean, when your dad died?’

  ‘Seventeen,’ he said. ‘It was very sudden. I’d always thought I’d follow in his footsteps, continuing to run the family business or something. Although to be honest I hadn’t worried too much about it. I was at an age where all I cared about was playing footy on the weekend. Or hanging out with my mates. I’d never had to deal with the future before.’

  ‘So the army wasn’t a lifelong dream?’

  Another smile, but still without humour. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Part of it was the physical aspect of the job. When dad died, I started to really get into my weights, and fitness. It was a distraction, I guess. A focus. As mum started to get unwell not long after. So the sense of achievement from lifting heavier weights or running further, or faster...it was... I don’t know. Something. Something that wasn’t thinking about what I’d lost, and what I was losing.’ Angus wasn’t looking at Ivy now, his gaze again focused somewhere in the giant fig’s branches. ‘But now I think it was a lot about the structure. The formality. With my dad gone and mum not really my mum any more—it was kind of a relief to have a schedule and orders to work to. Later, I fell in love with the job, with the mateship, the teamwork, the tactics. But early on the job was like an anchor for me, something I could rely on.’

  ‘That’s a heck of a lot for a young man to deal with,’ Ivy said, her heart aching for a lost and grieving teenage Angus.

  He nodded. ‘Yeah,’ he agreed. ‘It was. Sometimes I wonder if—’ But his words trailed off, and he turned back to the cascading water. ‘Did you ever climb up behind the waterfall?’

  Ivy blinked at the abrupt change of subject, but didn’t push. Somehow she knew that Angus didn’t share that story easily. If at all. ‘All the time,’ Ivy said, her tone consciously upbeat. ‘It’s slippery, though.’

  He threw her an amused look, that sadness erased from his gaze.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ Ivy said, deadpan, as she swam up to the rocks. ‘I should’ve realised you did slippery-rock training in the SAS.’

  ‘Honey, you’d be amazed at what I can do,’ he replied, and then, right on cue, slipped a little as he hoisted his legs onto the lowest, moss-slick rocks.

  Ivy giggled, and Angus glared—but couldn’t hide his grin.

  The falls here were delicate in comparison to Fortescue, falling gently only about three metres from the protruding ledge of red rock above where they swam. Beyond the curtain of water, slabs of rock provided tiered seating of sorts, decorated with clumps of ferns.

  It had been a while, but Ivy remembered which rocks provided the best grip, and it only took her a few seconds to clamber past Angus and to settle into her favourite spot—directly behind the waterfall, the tumbling water blurring and distorting the world around her into indistinct reds, blues and greens.

  It didn’t take long for Angus to join her, seated to her right. He stretched his longer legs out in front of him, just as Ivy had, although his toes also touched the falls. The sound of the water echoed back here, but it would still be easy to hold a conversation.

  But they didn’t say a word.

  Instead, they both just sat silently together, not quite touching, looking through the waterfall.

  At first, Ivy itched to speak. To say something. Anything.

  But she couldn’t.

  Back here, on the other side of a blurry world, Ivy somehow knew that to talk would break this. Would break this moment, would destroy this unexpected sanctuary.

  So while at first she’d wanted to shatter the silence, to pop the bubble of this special place, in the end she couldn’t.

>   All she could do was sit here, and breathe in the scent of ferns and moss, and lick drops of water from her lips.

  She’d propped her hands behind her, to balance herself on the rocks. Angus had done the same, but now he twisted slightly. Ivy turned to look at him, and his gaze locked with hers.

  The light was different back here, and his eyes seemed different too. The flecks of green more emerald, the hazel base more gold.

  As he looked at her he reached across his body, and skimmed the side of her thigh with his fingertips. His touch was impossibly, tinglingly light—and then it was gone.

  There wasn’t so much a question in his gaze. It was more he was simply waiting.

  Because he knew, as she knew, where this was going to end.

  But he needed to wait, because Ivy needed to wait.

  Ivy needed to hold onto whatever tatty remnants of control she might still have when it came to Angus for as long as possible. He’d said, last night, that she couldn’t control him.

  Well, she couldn’t control anything around Angus.

  And now, just like last night, she really didn’t want to. Despite everything.

  She let go of a breath she’d been unaware she was holding, and something in Angus’s expression shifted.

  His gaze dropped to her lips, and his hand went back to her thigh.

  But again, his touch was light.

  Ivy didn’t move. She couldn’t really, without the possibility of sliding back into the pool. But again, she really didn’t want to.

  Her gaze followed the trail of his fingers.

  Along the outside edge of her thigh, leaving a smattering of goose bumps.

  Up, over her hip, and around the knot on the side of her bikini bottoms.

  She was leaning back against her hands, so she was looking down her own body as his hand slid from her hip to lie, momentarily, flat against her belly.

  Her gaze darted to his face, but his attention remained on her stomach, his expression unreadable.

  Then he was on the move again, moving even more slowly now, tracing loops and circles along her ribs, beneath her breasts.