You want the list? Unbearably tempted to let it all out now that somebody was listening, she opened her mouth—then she made a fatal error.
She looked in his eyes…the eyes that had been holding her captive from the first day; and only saw guilt. The totally self-contained, responsible man thinking I did this to her and I have to fix it. He wasn’t even trying to manipulate her now; he really did care. But he didn’t even know that his guilt was standing between him and everything he wanted from her, like the ancient cherubs with flaming swords forever barring the way to Eden.
What was the point?
“Nothing,” she said dully. She jerked at the chains until he released them; then she got to her feet and walked on unsteady feet past him and into the house. “It’s time to get ready.”
Her pretty, rounded form was bathed in the falling sun, her hair on fire, her skin warmed by its touch—and yet it was a lie, for while she was beautiful, she was cold, so cold.
Jake watched her go, a strange, hot ache filling him. He hated seeing her so unhappy all the time. Making her smile had lately become his obsession; but he didn’t know what else to do to help her. Laila was locking him out—and it wasn’t payback. She wasn’t built that way.
It was merely that she’d learned about putting up barriers from the best teacher in the entire Outback—and he didn’t have a clue how to lower them for her, when in five years he’d never found a way to lower his own.
CHAPTER SIX
THE curious had turned out in force tonight.
She’d counted about two hundred in the crush inside the house and spilling out over the verandas and backyard. The kegs of beer out the back were emptying rapidly, and the usual suspects were going for it in the sculling contest. The yard-glass was being passed from one guy to the next, getting a real workout. Half the local boys were unsteady on their feet already.
Meanwhile the women were getting their fill—of gossip and speculation. The local girls were unable to hide their glee.
The Princess had fallen off her pedestal…and with a common jackaroo, of all people!
Let’s see the boys race after her now!
Laila pasted on a smile for the fiftieth time in the past hour as another couple came up for conversation, an introduction to Jake, who’d been hovering behind her every time someone asked to meet him—and to find out what news they could.
“The baby’s due in late January or early February, Aunt Ellen,” she said a minute later to her mother’s old friend’s brilliant opening gambit, one she’d heard dozens of times tonight: You’re pregnant!
She answered the questions on the ultrasound results, but refused to say if the child was boy or girl. That knowledge belonged only to the immediate family for now. There was no certain confirmation of the baby’s sex, anyway, except within her own heart.
“And this is the baby’s father?” Ellen smiled, stretching her neck so she could get a clear view of the infamous jackaroo who’d destroyed the Princess’s reputation.
“Yes, this is Jake Connors.” Laila stepped aside for Jake to come forward. He shook hands with Ellen and her husband, Tom, smiling a little and saying all the right things.
Until Ellen asked the one question he couldn’t answer: the same question everyone over the age of forty had been asking all night.
“So when is the wedding?”
No matter how much she’d prepared for it, the smile still froze on her face. “Have you heard any news about a wedding, Aunt Ellen?”
“If I had, I wouldn’t need to ask,” the square-built lady with a kind face chided gently.
It took all her willpower not to gulp at the kind of rebuke her mother might have made, or Marcie. “Then you know as much as we do. We’re in the twenty-first century, Aunt Ellen. Have a lovely night. The cheesecake is really good.”
She made her way through the crowd, nodding and smiling, continuing to answer the same questions in the same way, a silent, stoic Jake by her side. And if tears stung her eyes, it was only at the back of them; she didn’t let the emotion gather. If it hurt to have her second-deepest wish repeated every five minutes, she wasn’t going to show it.
Even the utter joy that was an Outback wedding wasn’t worth it. Not without love.
Never without love.
“So much for your grand plan,” Marcie said softly to Brian.
He growled something indistinct as he watched the night unfold, and to none of his expectations. Laila was dressed in a pretty maternity dress, hair pulled back in a braid, and seemed happy to share her baby news with any interested friend or avid gossip he’d invited tonight. She introduced Jake to everyone as the father—but so far she’d refused to give in to any hinted or even open speculation regarding their wedding plans; and it seemed that Jake was taking care of all her needs without throwing the spanner into the works Brian had expected. “She’s as stubborn as her mother was.”
Marcie smiled and squeezed her husband’s hand. “Her mother? Oh…”
Distracted, Brian grinned at his wife. “Are you calling me stubborn, woman?”
“If the hat fits,” she replied, laughing.
Laila heard floating snatches of their conversation as she walked by, but felt little urge to smile. Dar enjoyed a battle with a worthy opponent—but he wasn’t used to losing against his daughter. Dar wasn’t exactly a chauvinist, but Outback life was tough and the men tougher. Women out here fought their battles and won, just as the men did—but they stuck together against the odds. Families stuck together. The extremes of weather, the recurring droughts and crop failures, hospital, school, town and bank closures made all Outback people band together against common enemies. In that harsh yet old-fashioned world, a son—or, in particular, a daughter—didn’t stand against a father’s will.
Well, people said new experiences were nourishment for the soul. Dar should be feeling very filled by now.
A low growl drifted into her ear as soon as they were out of earshot. “Proud of yourself?”
She should have known Jake wouldn’t let it pass. She kept walking toward the front of the house, her current refuge now that the stables were out of bounds, knowing he’d follow her out. “There’s nothing to be proud about. We Robbinses don’t take well to manipulation—or outright coercion. Dar should have expected this.” She turned her head to look at him, lifting a brow. “Maybe you found it surprising, though.”
He gave her the lopsided grin that twisted her belly in knots. “I’m not a steer to be roped in by your dad, Laila.”
“I’m well aware of that,” she retorted in her driest tone. “I almost felt sorry for him when he was trying to get you to invite your family here for tonight.”
At that he chuckled, and touched her chin. “I never thanked you for that.”
She didn’t ask for what. She knew he’d been surprised by her discretion, in keeping her knowledge that he did have a family to invite. “No need. I believe in a person’s right to privacy—and personal choice,” she added softly as she opened the old, painted door to the veranda.
She sat down on the padded, canopied double swing, looking out into the night.
The swing creaked as he sat beside her…close, too close, yet the distance seemed stronger. “Was that shot aimed at me?”
If he didn’t know, she wasn’t about to enlighten him; she was tired of doing all the emotional work for him. “It’s so dark and still tonight. The air is sad…full of ghosts.”
“Don’t say that!”
The sharp tone unnerved her. “Oh, good, another order to add to my growing list of don’ts and do’s. I was wondering when it would come. It’s been at least four hours since my last one.” She got to her feet. “It’s not as nice out here as I’d hoped. Can you tell them I’m tired? Since everyone wants me to rest, I’ll take advantage of it.”
He jerked to his feet, and put a hand on her arm. “Laila, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
She turned to look up at him. “I give you your privacy. I’ve done
everything you’ve told me to do—” apart from marrying you, or going anywhere to live with you on our own, and breaking my heart “—so please do the same for me,” she uttered with more emotion than she’d felt in days. “I realize I’m the carrier of your child, all right? I know you want the baby safe. But for once can you please think about me, and what I want or need?”
He moved closer to her. His head bent to hers. Low, intense, he muttered, “Tell me.”
If she gave in to his kiss now, she’d only lose again: lose another part of herself to this man who had everything she could ever want, but withheld the one thing she needed. “What’s the point?” she asked wearily. “I speak, and instead of listening, you look at my belly. That’s all that matters to you.”
His face stilled. Something raw washed over his features for a moment. He held her shoulders, slowly caressing her, and she shivered.
His gaze darkened. Then he muttered, low and intense, “It’s not all that matters. Tell me what you want, Laila, what you need. I swear I’ll find a way for you to have it.”
“I want,” she stated clearly, stepping out from under his hands, “for everyone to leave me be. Give me a few hours to be Laila, not just the vessel carrying this child.”
His hand dropped.
Laila pushed through the crowd, but saw none of them. She had to escape—she needed—
“Hey, Your Worship, I’m getting tired of your not noticing my presence, after I risked life and limb all the way from Bathurst in the poor ol’ Valiant, to surprise you.”
Laila stopped in her tracks, blinking to make the mists clear from her eyes. Your Worship? Only one person called her that, a gentle joke against the other students’ sarcastic Princess Laila tag. Surely it couldn’t be—
She looked up. Blocking her path was a young man with a dark, handsome face, messy dark curls, a grin as wide as the Simpson Desert, and liquid black eyes with sooty lashes…“Jimmy!” she squealed, and jumped into the big man’s open arms. “You came.” And then she burst into tears.
“Hey, hey.” Her best friend from university, and coworker at the steakhouse, patted her on the back, holding her gently. “What up, Your Worship? What they been doing to you? Want me to hit anyone?”
“Get me out of here,” she whispered. “Please…”
Jake stood frozen not five feet behind, watching the young man he’d absently noticed but taken to be a new jackaroo somewhere, shepherd Laila out of the house.
Laila didn’t notice that she passed within inches of him. All the awareness—the amazing feeling of knowing that Laila always knew when he was near her, and her rich femininity came surging into her eyes, her face, and her touch—wasn’t in evidence. All her concentration was for the man she’d hailed with such joy. Her arm was wrapped around him as if she was terrified he’d vanish if she let go for a moment.
Who was the guy? What was he to Laila? Why didn’t he know anything about him? And why did he touch Laila as if he had the right to come within a mile of the woman who was carrying his child?
When the two had left the house, Jake flicked a glance at her family. They knew who the guy was, by the grim looks on their faces. Brian looked fit to burst a vein in his forehead.
And everyone invited to the party watched the tableau in a deep interest that told him the bush telegraph would be buzzing before the night was over.
“I have to get out of here, Jimmy. They’re driving me crazy…”
They sat at the edge of the dam; the light from the full moon, reflected on the water, lit them up with soft, ghostly radiance. Standing behind a tree about twelve feet away, about to crash their party of two, Jake felt himself freeze again.
The desperation in her voice arrested him. Everything Laila said lately had been so controlled, so restrained—giving nothing away. He’d become more and more frustrated at the walls she’d put up to protect herself from hurt—and felt unwilling empathy, knowing how she must have felt during all these months she’d been trying to break through to him.
Curiosity overcame scruples. He needed to know—he had to know what he’d done to make her turn from him.
“What’s wrong, babe?”
“Everything.” Laila’s voice held a sob. “Everything’s wrong, Jimmy.”
“Go on.” The man she’d called Jimmy had his arm around her shoulders; her head was resting against his chest, safe, warm—trusting. “I’m here. Get it all off your chest.”
How many times in the past two weeks had Jake all but begged her to trust him, to talk to him about what was upsetting her, and received nothing in return?
But there was no hesitation now; she spoke to the guy with complete trust. “They all know me, Jimmy—I’m an outdoor girl. I always have been. But they’ve confined me to the house—no horses, no animals at all. I can’t even take old Blue for a good walk—I get no exercise apart from two slow, careful walks every day. I have nothing to do but cook, sleep and watch TV. I can’t even read—all I want to read is my uni readers, and that hurts.”
“Well, surely they understand that?” Jimmy asked gently. “All you ever wanted was to become a vet, and you can’t finish your final year. The reminders make you feel bad.”
“Jake’s offered for me to go back next year—but then I wouldn’t have you, or Danni and Jodie…” Her words were thick with tears. “No friends, no one to talk to…”
“Surely he talks to you?” Jimmy said after a few moments.
“No,” Laila gulped. “He talks at me. Barks orders at me. Yells at me.”
Jimmy said, rich with laughter, “And he doesn’t know yet that when anyone tells you to go right, you go left just to prove you can, after your dad ordering you around all your life?”
Laila chuckled, and buried her face in the guy’s chest.
Jake closed his eyes and sighed. Hadn’t she noticed his softened attitude the past week or more? Couldn’t she see his “barked orders” were only to give the baby a good start in life?
“What about the family? They’re with you, right? They know you’ve always wanted to be a vet.”
She sighed. “They’re too excited about the baby to think of me. To them it’s like, well, I got pregnant and I want the baby, right, so the sacrifice is normal. This is what women do—we cook and clean, wash and have babies. And after one incident of cramps, I’m locked in the house! I feel like Rapunzel!” The tears were flowing now, judging by her hiccups. “I can’t stand being cooped up doing nothing all the time—it’s driving me nuts. And he’s always there.”
“Your boyfriend?” Jimmy asked quietly enough…but Jake heard the timbre of his voice change. Whatever Laila believed, this man’s feelings for her ran deep. Very deep.
“He’s not my anything, Jimmy,” she said, so soft he had to strain to hear her. “I always knew he didn’t love me, but I feel like I’m just a body bearing a child. Even when he kisses me, he’s so cold—because he doesn’t feel anything. He only talks nicely to me, or kisses me, as a means to the end he wants—and I have the only thing he wants. His child, bearing his name.”
Jimmy’s expletive was short, to the point—and one hundred percent accurate.
Oh God, help me. Help me…Jake hung on to the tree he stood behind. A savage pain ripped through him, as if she’d taken his heart and dissected it.
Stupid, stupid! He’d known of her obvious intelligence and deep sensitivity long before the night she’d come to him, but that night, seeing his pain and braving rejection to help him, he’d thanked God for her. For Laila.
Yet from the moment she’d told him about the pregnancy, terrified of history repeating and of losing another woman and baby, he’d done his dead level best to distance himself from all he felt for her. He’d blinded himself to the woman, looking for the Princess in her every act. Yet from the time she’d come to him in his time of desperate need, to not forcing the knowledge of her pregnancy on him, and her discretion in keeping the knowledge of his family quiet, everything she did, everything she was put the
truth in letters of fire. Laila was an exceptional woman—and the greater danger he was in of falling in too deep, the greater a distance he’d put between them. Even when she’d needed him most, he’d given her attention and worry, but not caring, always so determined to protect himself from the possibility of—
Loss. Grief.
Love.
The kind of love that led to the rip-your-soul-from-its-body grief he’d give his life to never have felt…the kind of love he knew he could feel for Laila, if he let himself.
He refused to feel any part of it. He’d made his life plans after he’d lost Jen and Annabel, and he was sticking to them with the tenacity of a man terrified of—
“What are you still doing here?” Jimmy’s words reflected the sudden wonder in Jake’s mind. Why was a woman like Laila still here? Why hadn’t she walked?
Another soft hiccup. “Until recently, I thought that beneath his coldness he needed me—that he’d looked past the reputation to see me. But he won’t—and I’m becoming someone I don’t recognize, Jimmy, always on guard, unhappy day and night. I can’t live like this…”
Every single part of Jake was hurting. Laila, beautiful, strong, wise Laila had seen through him, just as she always had…but not knowing why he chose to withdraw, why he kept hurting her day after day, she’d begun to do the same to him.
Why wouldn’t she? You’ve taken away everything that means anything to her. Her studies, her career prospects—even her one remaining joy: the outdoor life, and her beloved horses. You took everything from her to calm your own fears, and never once told her why.
It’s for the baby’s life, Laila—and for yours. I can’t stand the thought of losing you both, now that I’ve finally got a chance to—
But every time he took one step forward, he leaped back two—and now Laila saw him as her enemy. In this moment of ruthless honesty, he couldn’t blame her for that.
“Come here.” Jimmy held out his other arm to her. “Seems to me you’re in desperate need of a cuddle, Your Worship—and some fun, and in that order. Let’s go for a night swim in the dam, eat something wild and irresponsible like the chocolate stash I have in the Valiant, and after this thing they call a party, we’ll do some more talking. As much talking as you need, Laila. I’ll sit and listen all night if you need to…and let’s just see any of ’em try to stop us.”
Harlequin Romance Bundle: Crowns and Cowboys Page 23