Reacting on instinct, he ran after her, grabbed her by the shoulder and hauled her into his arms, holding her close, leaning down to kiss her. Willing her to see what he couldn’t say, to feel that he was giving her everything he had left…
She lifted her face to his, and for a moment he exulted in the sensuality he could draw from her with a touch; but then he saw the truth. The look in her eyes wasn’t feminine arousal. Laila’s face reflected the look he saw in his dreams every night in Jenny’s dying face, and in the faces of the family he hadn’t dared to visit since the funerals of his wife and daughter.
Utter betrayal.
“I’m not her,” was all she said, simple, finite and damning. “I’ll never be her.”
Shame seared him, knowing what she thought, but his throat wouldn’t work to tell her the truth. Every time he tried to tell her anything about Jenny and Annabel, the pain burst inside him until he thought his heart would stop.
“I know,” he said, hearing his voice sounding like a rock on sandpaper. Suddenly realizing that she hadn’t used his name once today.
The cracks between them were widening.
“Then don’t use me. This is your baby, but I’m not your woman,” she said quietly enough, but it was hard. She was hardening her heart against him.
“I deserved that,” he muttered. His hands fell from her.
She nodded. “I don’t belong to you.”
When she walked away, the definition and decision were still there. She wasn’t just walking away from this conversation. She was leaving.
Leaving him.
It came down to here and now. If he didn’t force himself to tell her, if he couldn’t find a way to reach her, he’d lose this last, amazing chance at life, love and happiness.
Until today, losing his child hadn’t been an option. Now, he had to factor Laila into the most basic equation: Laila as a woman, as a person, with needs he could no longer overlook; but he had no idea how to give her what she needed from him without betraying Jenny and Annabel’s trust, and breaking his sacred vow to them both.
The strangest sense of deep calm had overtaken Laila the moment she’d realized Jake would never stop loving the woman from his past. The depth of hopeless love only just realized, moments before it was lost: knowing she could have the man who held her heart in his grasp, without ever truly having him. Living a lifetime beside a man in chains, forever loving a soul too damaged to give her what she needed was all she’d ever have, and that could never be enough.
Laila walked through Marcie’s lavender garden and reached the back veranda and opened the door without thinking, without preparing for the inquisition about to begin.
Glenn waited at the other side of the door. “Dar wants you, Lai,” he said gently, and led her over to their father.
Like Glenn, Dar and Marcie both saw the look on her face, and softened. Marcie touched her face. “Jimmy and the boys stopped anyone following you out there.”
Laila nodded, unable to speak.
Marcie drew her close. “He’s a good man, Laila. A good friend to you.”
Dar said quietly, “Yes, a very good friend.” It was a statement, but the question lingered in his weathered face, in the eyes that blazed like an afternoon sky.
Laila couldn’t answer what her father wanted to know. She’d never betray Jimmy’s love for her.
She’d long known she was crazy to not love him back, but she loved him like she loved Glenn and Andrew, and all the wanting in the world couldn’t make that change. Marrying Jimmy would only cheat and hurt a man who’d only given her love and support, and they both knew it.
That didn’t mean she didn’t hate the memory of Jimmy’s pain when he’d guessed her pregnancy in a quiet, neutral tone, and knew nothing had changed for him when he offered to stand by her. He’d said his parents had started out on a similar footing, and they now had six kids and were very happy.
Saying no had been one of the hardest things she’d ever had to do.
Her gaze sought him out now, but he was already on his way over. His gaze was calm, his face without expression; he moved with a quiet dignity he rarely used in everyday life. When he reached her side, he held out his hand; she put hers into it, and ignoring the curious onlookers, he led her to the big, old-fashioned ballroom her grandfather had built forty-five years before.
The lively boot-scootin’ music had just given way to something softer, mellower; lines had melted into couples. Jimmy drew her close, but not too close. No claim made or accepted. She flowed into him, feeling warm and loved, grateful and sad.
“So you made your decision, huh,” he said quietly, after a sudden dip that made her smile.
She nodded. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“Nothing to apologize for,” he whispered back. “It was always in the cards. You wouldn’t have this little bun growing in your oven if you didn’t feel strongly for him.” He hugged her, making her feel warm and cherished. “I reckon you loved him from the start.”
Laila’s head drooped to his shoulder. “Doesn’t matter what I feel, Jimmy. The point is, he doesn’t love me. He never will.”
“As my old granddad says, ‘never’ is too long to be sure of anything—and you’re a pretty lovable character.” He lifted her face, smiled down at her and kissed her forehead. “Just be yourself. Whatever’s got him bound will untie itself in time.”
When he spoke again, it was without anger or bitterness. “We’re still mates, right?”
Fighting the urge to cry, she nodded. “I couldn’t survive without you.”
“Indispensable, that’s me.” He dipped her again, following her body until they seemed in danger of falling down. She laughed as he rectified the overbalance. “That’s better. You haven’t been laughing enough. Don’t forget to be who you are,” he intoned solemnly.
She laughed again, and hugged him.
“I’ve been watching him tonight,” he went on, his eyes intent on hers. “He may not love you yet, but he can’t leave you alone.”
She shrugged. “That’s the baby.”
His brows lifted, even as he led her into another clumsy twirl. “Right. And that’s why he’s watching us now, with a face that tells me he doesn’t know whether to kill me or you.”
Frowning, she almost turned her head, but restrained herself; she knew the thunder-look too well. Sick of repeating herself, she just shrugged. “I’ve given up trying to work him out.”
Jimmy bent to her ear and said softly, “No man claims a woman and child as his own unless he wants them pretty badly—unless he has strong feelings about them both.”
“May I cut in?”
He sounded like he’d swallowed gravel, yet still he was straining for politeness.
Laila turned her face from him. She wasn’t ready to touch him, not now, while Jimmy’s words were still taking effect. Believing Jake could have feelings for her would only make her weak, and she had to be strong, to be—
Jimmy’s arm fell from her waist. “Be yourself, Your Worship,” he whispered, and backed off.
Feeling unsteady, and almost unable to bear his arms around her, she felt the quivering begin when his firm hand touched her waist. She didn’t look up for almost a minute. The rhythm had changed with his first touch, from warm and comfortable to a glorious pain: too much color and brightness. She had transformed from the warm darkness to cold light, and though it was beautiful, it was unbearably beautiful, as if the promise of heaven lay just beyond her grasp.
It was always that way with Jake.
Time seemed to dance with them as they moved together. He was all around her, within her, filling her with all that might have been, and what was, no matter how she longed to change it. When she was with Jake she was alive…
“You’ve made your point,” he said quietly after a minute.
She looked up then. His face was as it had been the night she’d gone to him: white and ravaged. He was in the grip of excruciating darkness—yet his eyes weren’t
blinded now, but burning with purpose. Somehow she sensed he was fighting with all his strength to break free from what lay in his past.
Should she ask? Could she reach out yet again, only to find ridicule, rejection and hurt?
She drew a deep breath, to cleanse herself of the fears that were hurting them both, praying for the right words. “You took my family from me,” she said finally, speaking right from the heart. “You made them your allies in your fears and wishes. I needed a friend.”
Night covered his soul, darkening his face. “You’re not stupid, Laila. He loves you.”
“That’s not your business,” she said quietly. “His feelings are his own.”
He gave a short nod. “True—unless you’re planning to leave with him when he goes. Then it’s my business.”
She lifted her chin. “I wouldn’t use him for my own ends. That’s not what love is about.”
His gaze lingered on her face for a moment before he answered. “But you wish you could. You’re wondering if you’re making a mistake.”
Slowly she nodded. “I’m tired,” was all she could think to say; but he nodded, and moved his fingers, a soft pull, asking without demanding. Come to me.
“Maybe it’s time we pulled together?” he asked after a while, as if reading her mind.
Laila longed to run, but she found herself unable to do it. It seemed as if she’d just existed for so long, drifting through the days, deprived of the joy of living for so long—because until now he hadn’t asked, or reached out from the heart.
Now she was seeing him, feeling him…
She took the step forward, moving into him, moving with him, around the floor in beauty and light. Unbearable sweetness, vibrant and strong. Jake and Laila together.
Rightness flooded her being. This story couldn’t end any other way. How could she know nothing about him, and yet know that, somewhere deep inside, he needed her? The calling was inside her soul, from his to hers, imperative, undeniable, terrifying and enthralling her.
“Maybe it is,” she said softly, but she knew he’d heard when his hand moved over the small of her back, not in sensuality but gentle…almost tender.
The sweetest pain she’d ever know. He seemed so close now, yet she knew she couldn’t keep living like this, hoping, giving him what he needed while he held back all she must know about him to give him her trust, her life. Strength coursed through her.
“Did you dance with her like this? Was it like this when she touched you?” she blurted out, and didn’t know if she said it because she wanted to hear it, or to break the unseen hold he commanded over her.
Or to force him to talk, to say something to her about his life.
Midway through the backward step he stumbled, pulling her with him. She gave an involuntary cry of pain as her back wrenched with the movement, making everyone look at them. He righted her quickly, but something snapped, like a current shut down. The life was gone from his face and body, leaving only the tautness of unspoken suffering, endless and unconquerable.
Suddenly, with the horrifying clarity that comes when blinders of jealousy and insecurity come off, she saw the truth. There could only be one reason for this bottomless well of grief. The woman he couldn’t forget hadn’t walked out on him, nor he on her.
The woman he loved was dead, and in her jealousy, she, Laila, had taunted him about it.
“I’m sorry,” she cried. Stupid…why, why had she been so needlessly cruel?
“I know,” he said quietly. “I know what you want, what you need, but I can’t do it, Laila. I can’t start a new life, act as if she never existed—” He covered his face with his hands. “I tried, for you, for the baby. I want to make you happy.” He shuddered, and she felt sick with the pain she’d thrust back on him, when he’d been trying so hard to connect with her, to make things right. “Don’t ask again. Please.”
Silent with shame, she nodded, knowing what he needed. “Go,” she whispered.
He left the ballroom and the house in moments, his very private demons hounding him from behind.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“SHE looks much happier now,” Andrew remarked to Jimmy as they stood shoulder to shoulder outside the stables a week later, watching Laila ride off on her pretty, lively Starfire, at a sedate pace, but riding. Old Blue loped along with the horse, barking at the stray sheep around the home paddock. Jake rode beside Laila on Red, the big gelding he’d brought with him to Wallaby Station.
Jimmy shaded his eyes with a hand against the late-morning sun, looking at her. “Yeah, she does.” He smiled as Laila said something, and Jake nodded before they broke into a light canter, heading for the scrubby hills to the west. “My work here is done,” he intoned in a mock-solemn voice that had the serious, quiet Andrew grinning.
“You did do it, you know. You made us all see what we were doing to her.”
Jimmy shrugged, watching Jake’s ease and grace in the saddle, compared to his lack of it with humans, especially Laila. “What friends are for…but it still might not work.”
In the week since the party, Jake and Laila had done a polite dance of avoidance and brief greetings. Jake had only gone on the ride with Laila today when everyone, on Jimmy’s instruction, had somewhere else they had to be. Jake couldn’t bear for her to ride alone—and they all knew she’d go alone if she had to. She’d been denied the joy of riding for too long.
Jimmy and Andrew hid out in the back of the stables until Jake and Laila headed out. Jake wasn’t stupid: if he saw them the setup he’d sensed would be confirmed.
The silence between the two men stretched out, until Jimmy said it first. “Reckon it’s time for me to be heading back to Bathurst.”
“You’re welcome to stay,” Andrew said, in all sincerity. “You’re good for Laila.”
“I was due back in lectures today, and practicals start Thursday.” Jimmy turned to Laila’s brother with a wry smile. “Besides, I make your Dar and Jake nervous. Probably everyone but Laila, but then she’s used to how I feel about her.”
The silence was uncomfortable for a few moments, before Andrew spoke, again in awkward sincerity. “She really does love you, you know.”
“It’s okay, Andrew,” Jimmy said quietly. “Laila’s put off life and love for my sake for long enough. Maybe if this works out, and she’s unavailable, I might get out there as well.”
He turned back to the house to pack his things, whistling as if he didn’t have a care, but he was fooling no one, least of all himself. The whole Robbins family knew he loved Laila, just as his family knew.
This had probably been the hardest week of his life, but he’d done what he could to ensure Laila’s happiness, as well as to give an unspoken farewell to his hopes of turning best friends to lovers, and winning the woman he’d loved for five years.
She’d have done the same for him: the push for happiness…and the goodbye.
Laila sighed. Even knowing it wouldn’t last too long, she reveled in every moment she was on Starfire’s back, with the stark and ochre-red Outback all around her in its busyness and its silence, and the pulsing of dry heat that lasted from midspring until late autumn.
“Every time I’m home, out here, I wonder how I could ever go back to Bathurst.” She sighed. “I love my course, but the land just takes you somehow. It’s like you don’t belong to yourself anymore, but to this, to here.”
“I went back home as soon as I’d done the course my dad expected of me,” Jake agreed, frowning out over the hills and sunlight. “You can breathe out here.”
She turned her head to look fully at him, then away: the yearning hurt her deep inside. When he was on a horse, it was almost more than she could bear. The fulfilment of every girlish dream she’d ever had was only four feet from her, the father of her child, who was probably wishing he was anywhere but here with her.
Blowing out a breath, she swung off Starfire and down to the ground. “I’ll be back in ten minutes.”
Jake was out of his saddle almos
t before she was. “Where are you going?”
She lifted a brow with a half smile. “Come on, Outback boy, do the math. It’s been ninety minutes since we left. I’m five months pregnant, squashed in a saddle and I’ve been drinking all the water you push into my hand.”
He grinned at her as he removed his hat, and wiped the sweat from his face. “A good reason to stay closer to the house from now on, maybe?”
She snorted inelegantly. “I’m a country girl, Connors. As if I care.”
About to move away, she found herself held back by a firm hand. “Let me find a safe spot for you.”
“Why?” she laughed at him, knowing her eyes must reflect her happiness that they were having something approaching a normal conversation, and that his touch didn’t feel laden with the burdens of the past.
He lifted a brow. “You don’t want to get comfortable on a snake’s burrow and provoke him into attacking you by flooding it, do you?”
She had to laugh again at the mental vision of that. “King, brown or tiger snake—it doesn’t really matter. I’m fifty times their size—they’re not going to fight me. Don’t you do your Outback creatures research?”
He frowned at her. “Why would I? Australian snakes are the deadliest in the world.”
Laila rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah, if we believe the results of tests performed on mice. And the poor snakes were provoked to attack because the researchers didn’t feed them and then put their natural food right in front of them. Our snakes are very shy. You have to step right on one to make them bite—and any Outback boy should know that. Our snakes are mostly nonaggressive—and I’m wearing jeans and boots.”
“A real country girl, prepared for anything,” he mocked, but without malice. “What about green ants?”
“I promise to keep any exposed parts well out of the reach of any biting creatures.” She moved out from under his hand, but loving the fact that he’d kept his contact with her without even thinking about it. “Now, unless you want me to embarrass both of us, stop arguing and let me get private.”
He grinned again, and swept a hand toward the belt of trees just below the hill.
Harlequin Romance Bundle: Crowns and Cowboys Page 25