The Cattleman, The Baby and Me

by Michelle Douglas

  Just as Emmy had said. But…

  She stared at Liam, at the credit card statement he held, and her mouth suddenly went dry. ‘Liam, where is Lucas?’

  He stared back at her with eyes as dark as tar. ‘Lucas is dead. He died eight months ago.’

  All the strength drained from Sapphie’s arms and legs. She stared at his white-lipped face. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she whispered.

  He gave a curt nod.

  She found it hard to bear witness to such naked grief. She knew Liam would resent the fact that she’d seen it, and would reject any attempt at comfort she made, so she turned to stare at Harry. Her throat went tight and her eyes burned

  Poor Harry!

  No! She refused to believe it.

  ‘The resemblance—it could be a coincidence! It doesn’t mean—’

  ‘We’ll have a DNA test done to make sure. It’ll put everyone’s minds at rest.’

  ‘But if Lucas was Harry’s father…’ She let the sentence trail off because she couldn’t bear to finish it.

  ‘They’ll be able to tell from my DNA how closely related I am to Harry.’

  ‘No! It doesn’t make sense.’ She had to find Harry’s father. She had to!

  ‘Emmy said you were Harry’s father, not Lucas. Why would she say that if…?’

  He rested his head in his hands, suddenly looking as old as the ranges on the horizon.

  Her fingers curled into her palms. ‘What?’ she whispered.

  ‘Lucas had me on a bit of a pedestal.’ The word ground out of him as if he loathed it. ‘He was only twenty-three when he died—fourteen years my junior. Our mother always called him her happy accident.’

  A mother who had lost her son. For a moment Sapphie could barely see Liam through the sheen of her tears. She gulped them back.

  ‘After his accident, when we were at the hospital, I did hear that when Lucas went out on the town he’d sometimes introduce himself as me.’

  She stared. ‘But why?’

  He lifted one shoulder. ‘I never asked him. At the time there were more important things to worry about.’ He scowled, dragged his fingers back through his hair. ‘At the time I figured he was play-acting at being the manager of Newarra—it was what he wanted more than anything. If it’s any consolation, I don’t think he deliberately set out to deceive your sister.’

  ‘But it still doesn’t mean he’s Harry’s father! This could all be a mistake.’

  ‘For the last four years Lucas was the family’s representative at the Perth Agricultural Show. He was definitely on Rottnest Island at the time you claim Harry was conceived.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘I know this isn’t the scenario you were expecting, or hoping for, but taken all together the facts tell their own story.’

  All she could do was stare at him—this man who spoke such hard, unrelenting words. A tremble ran through her. Her fingers started to shake, and then her hands, her arms, her shoulders—she couldn’t stop them. The postcard fluttered to the floor. Harry’s father was dead.

  No!

  She stared at Liam and shook her head. ‘No,’ she whispered. Harry’s father was supposed to step forward and claim him, love him.

  ‘I’m sorry, Sapphie.’

  Her shaking grew so violent she thought it might shake her bones from her skin. She’d failed Emmy. She’d failed Harry. She’d change places with Lucas in an instant if…

  She dropped her head to her knees and let the shaking overtake her. Liam leapt to his feet, but she held up a hand to ward him off. With a muttered oath, he fell back into his chair.

  Finally, when the trembling had subsided, she lifted her head. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘You’re exhausted!’

  His words came out harsh, almost angry. She didn’t blame him. She and Harry being here had raked up the most painful memories for him.

  They were both silent for a moment. Liam finally roused himself. ‘Is Harry an orphan?’

  It took her a moment to realise what he was asking. She stiffened. ‘No!’

  ‘Then where is his mother? Why isn’t she here with the child?’

  She wasn’t quite ready to tell him that. ‘She’s…indisposed at the moment.’

  He surveyed her for a long moment. ‘What does she want? Why are you here, Sapphie?’

  Sapphie’s mouth went dry. She wanted to pick Harry up and cuddle him close. ‘Emmy wanted Harry’s father to take over full custody of him.’ But that was an impossible dream now.

  Liam’s head shot up. ‘Why?’

  The single word reverberated around the room. That wasn’t a question she was prepared to answer yet either, so she just shook her head.

  Liam shot to his feet. ‘I need to water the horses.’ The words left him abrupt and hard. ‘I’ll see you at dinner.’ He started for the door.

  ‘Liam?’

  He stopped. Turned.

  She swallowed at the grim cast of his mouth. ‘What happened to Lucas?’

  His face shuttered closed. ‘He died.’ Without another word he disappeared through the door at the far end of the room.

  Sapphie closed her eyes. She opened them a moment later to stare down at the child sleeping beside her. Nausea rose through her. She’d just run out of options for this innocent child and there was nothing she could do about it. She pressed a hand to her mouth. Oh, Harry, I’m so sorry.

  Sapphie surged out of bed and into the nursery the moment Harry’s wails broke through the sleep fog of her brain.

  ‘Oh, Harry!’

  She picked him up and tried to cuddle him, but he wouldn’t let her. Any momentary sense of connection or trust he’d felt towards her earlier was gone.

  She bounced him in her arms, rubbed his back and tried to soothe him, but he refused to be soothed. ‘Did you have a nightmare, beautiful boy?’

  She had to gulp then because his waking, daytime world must seem the real nightmare to him—missing his mum, in the care of a virtual stranger, with any routine he’d had tossed out of the proverbial window.

  She changed his nappy—no easy feat when he kept trying to twist away. Especially when she was no expert at nappy-changing. She checked his temperature, checked him over for rashes…for anything that might be causing him pain or discomfort.

  She came up with a blank. Just as she had last night. Just as she had the night before that.

  He could be teething…

  She glanced at the clock—eleven p.m.

  She tried playing silly games with Horsie to distract him, singing nursery rhymes, walking to and fro with him in her arms and rubbing his back.

  He screamed through all of it.

  Finally Sapphie sat him in the middle of the queen-sized bed and dragged her hands through her hair. Think! She didn’t know what to do. She didn’t know how to help him, how to comfort him. A mother would know what to do.

  She swung away to wring her hands. She didn’t deserve to be a mother. She’d known that for the last seven years. If there were anyone else…

  How did she make amends for what she’d done?

  It suddenly hit her. That was exactly what she was trying to do now. She hadn’t done right by her own child, the child she’d aborted, but she’d make sure she did right by Emmy’s. It wasn’t enough, it would never be enough, but it was something.

  She stared at Harry. His cheeks were hot and red with crying, misery and bewilderment were leaking down his face, and her throat thickened. She deserved all this. But Harry—he didn’t!

  Food. The thought slammed into her and her back straightened. He’d had a bottle this evening, but he hadn’t kept much else down throughout the rest of the day. Could that be it? ‘Are you hungry, Harry?’

  She picked him up and raced down the hallway to the kitchen. She heated his bottle. She grabbed a tin of chocolate custard.

  He refused both.

  She even tried giving him his bottle on the same sofa he’d curled up on earlier in the day, hoping it would hold some familiarity or pos
itive association for him.

  Nothing doing.

  Fighting back tears of her own, she walked him up and down the length of the living room. ‘Oh, Harry, Auntie Sapphie wishes she could make things right for you. She’d do anything to make it right for you.’

  He kept right on crying. His screams tore at her. If she were a different kind of person, a better person, he wouldn’t have to go through this. She was inadequate, pathetic, worse than useless—all she could do was stay awake and bear witness to his distress.

  ‘What’s wrong with him?’

  The voice from the doorway didn’t even make her jump, which was testament to her exhaustion and her growing sense of desperation. But when she cast a glance back over her shoulder her host’s bulk, outlined by the light of the lamp, made her swallow. She automatically checked the neckline of her shirt.

  Stop it! She didn’t own anything with a plunging neckline. This shirt, teamed with a pair of baggy tracksuit pants, could hardly be called beguiling in anyone’s language.

  ‘Is he ill?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’ She couldn’t keep the tremor out of her voice. ‘He doesn’t have a temperature or a rash or…or anything that I can see.’

  Liam took a step into the room, then another. He shoved his hands into the back pockets of his jeans. He obviously hadn’t gone to bed yet.

  ‘How long has he been crying?’

  ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Just gone midnight.’

  She stifled a sigh. ‘About an hour.’

  ‘An hour!’ Liam jerked and stiffened to his full height. It made her aware of just how tall he was…how broad. ‘Something must be wrong with him.’ He started for the door at the far end of the room. ‘I’ll radio the flying doctor service.’

  ‘No.’ Sapphie shook her head. It felt unutterably heavy on her shoulders.

  He swung back. ‘But an hour. It’s—’

  ‘It’s nothing. We did this for four hours last night. Then we had a three-hour break before doing it all over again for another two hours.’

  He stared at her, visibly appalled. ‘But… Have you tried giving him his bottle?’

  Frustration hit her, low and hard. ‘What do you think?’ she all but growled. ‘I’ve tried everything!’ She held Harry out towards him. ‘You want to give it a go?’

  Liam backed up, raised his hands. ‘He doesn’t know me. I’ll frighten him.’

  ‘So? He’s only known me for two days!’

  As if to prove Liam’s point, Harry screamed louder. Sapphie pulled him back in close. ‘Oh, Harry, Auntie Sapphie’s sorry. She didn’t mean to scare you.’

  Harry did his best to twist away from her. She swallowed down a lump. It bruised her throat and lodged as a dead weight in her chest. He didn’t want her touching him. He knew what she was. What further proof did she need that as a mother substitute she was the worst?

  She tried to fight the blackness that threatened to descend around her, the tears that clogged her throat. And then, amazingly, Liam moved forward and lifted Harry from her arms. And suddenly she could breathe again.

  Harry didn’t stop crying, but his sobs no longer tore at her chest or rang so loudly in her ears. She fell into the nearest chair—Liam’s armchair—and just stared at man and child.

  Liam didn’t know what to do with the squirming, screaming bundle he held. It was just he hadn’t been able to bear the look on Sapphie’s face any longer. She’d looked as if she’d been about to break. And if she’d had to deal with this for six hours last night…

  He couldn’t regret trying to ease her burden, but now that he’d taken the child he didn’t know what to do with it. He glanced at her. Maybe she’d give him a hint?

  She smiled. He marvelled that, given her exhaustion and her concern for the child—not to mention how upset she’d been earlier to learn of Lucas’s death—she’d found the strength for even the smallest of smiles.

  ‘Your arms are going to get dreadfully tired, holding Harry like that,’ she observed.

  His arms were held out at a straight ninety-degrees from the rest of his body. Harry dangled at their ends, securely clamped beneath his armpits. Gingerly, Liam pulled the child in close against his chest. Harry didn’t stop crying. As he had with Sapphie, he tried to twist away. For something so small, he sure had some strength in that little body of his.

  Don’t drop him!

  Liam promptly sat. In the very middle of the sofa. Shored up by the plump softness of cushions on all sides.

  He tried jiggling Harry on his knee. Harry would have none of it. The volume of his cries had tension coiling tight in Liam’s stomach and knotted his shoulders. Sapphie had done this for six hours last night? He’d held his nephew for less than two minutes and—

  Don’t panic. You’re a grown man. Harry is just a baby and—

  Just a baby? He had to clamp down on the harsh laugh that threatened to burst from him. Five years ago he’d have done anything for a baby, and now here he was holding one in his arms—admittedly it was his nephew, not his son—and he didn’t have a clue what to do.

  As if she sensed his growing sense of inadequacy, Sapphie slid off her seat, collected a soft toy from the floor and knelt down in front of him and Harry.

  ‘Hey, Harry,’ she crooned, prancing the toy from one end of the sofa to the other, dancing it across Harry’s feet and Liam’s legs along the way. It seemed strangely intimate, though he knew she hadn’t meant it to be. ‘Horsie hates to see you so sad.’

  Harry didn’t stop crying, but he did stop squirming. And then he leant forward and seized the stuffed horse and buried his face in it. Liam’s gut twisted and turned. Poor little kid. He was tired and out of sorts, and Liam didn’t know how, but he wanted to make things better for him.

  ‘It gets under your skin, doesn’t it?’ Sapphie whispered.

  As his nephew’s warm weight filtered into his consciousness, Liam found he couldn’t speak. All he could do was nod.

  Sapphie gulped, her eyes suspiciously bright. ‘Okay, so far we’ve tried his toys, his bottle, and walking up and down. We’ve changed his nappy, changed his clothes. We’ve tried cuddles, silly faces, silly voices…chocolate custard. If there’s anything else you can think of…?’

  Liam went to drag a hand down his face and then thought better of it, kept it anchored around Harry instead. ‘Have you tried singing to him?’

  ‘I tried nursery rhymes.’

  She pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes, and for a moment Liam was tempted to haul her up onto the sofa beside him and order her to rest.

  ‘Oh, Harry…’ She pulled her hands away. ‘You know what your Grandma Dana used to do when I was sad?’

  Harry barely paused for breath between wails. Liam hadn’t known a baby could cry for so long without pause.

  ‘Your Grandma Dana, she’d sing ABBA songs to me and your mum.’

  At the word ABBA, Harry stopped mid-wail. Sapphie’s jaw dropped. Liam straightened. He stared down at Harry. Harry’s face screwed up again. ‘Sing an ABBA song,’ Liam ordered.

  Sapphie launched into a seriously off-key rendition of ‘Mamma Mia’. Harry stopped crying. Just like that. Liam couldn’t believe it. And with the cessation of the crying came an easing of the tension in that little body. Harry didn’t rest back against Liam, but he did stop fighting him.

  An ache gripped Liam’s gut and split open a canyon of longing.

  The song came to an end. Harry didn’t start crying again. Sapphie stared at Harry, then at Liam with wide, excited eyes, and then she smiled—really smiled. Like the smile she’d sent him when she’d climbed out of the mail plane, the smile that had accompanied her words: ‘Mr Stapleton, I’ve brought you your son.’

  But Harry wasn’t his son.

  That ache gripped him with greater purchase. A fierce protectiveness seized hold of him…and other emotions beat at him—emotions he had no hope of deciphering for as long as the scent of talcum powder, warm milk and soft baby inv
aded his senses.

  ‘Ooh, Harry, you know what?’

  Like Harry, Liam focussed on Sapphie. It was easier than trying to deal with the confusion raging through him. The scent of peaches reached out and soothed him.

  She touched Harry’s knee. He didn’t recoil. ‘Your Grandma Dana taught your mum and me this special dance. Your mum loved it, and I bet you know it!’

  She leapt to her feet. ‘You so much as laugh…’ she shot at Liam out of the corner of her mouth.

  ‘I wouldn’t dream of it. I swear.’ He meant it too. This woman—she deserved a medal.

  She started to hum the introduction to another song. Liam’s gut clenched when Harry’s eyes went wide. And then she launched into the most bizarre song-and-dance routine Liam had ever seen. It involved a combination of the Twist and the Stomp, with a grand finale that included the Mash-Potato. It was a fifties-inspired, bouncy piece of nonsense, and Harry loved it. His eyes went even wider, and when he started clapping Liam wanted to clap too.

  When the song came to an end, she dropped to her knees in front of them, breathless. Liam found his own breath suddenly hard to catch too. She clapped her hands and beamed at Harry. ‘Ooh, that was a bit of fun, wasn’t it?’

  Harry clapped his hands some more. He stared at her for what seemed like a lifetime, then leant forward and placed one plump hand against her cheek. And then he smiled.

  ‘Oh!’ She sank back on her heels as if her leg muscles had dissolved beneath her. Her eyes filled with tears, and that ache gripped Liam all the fiercer.

  He wanted Harry to smile at him like that!

  ‘Do you think I should sing that again?’ she asked.

  Lines of exhaustion fanned out from her eyes. He shook his head. ‘Rest, Sapphie.’

  ‘But what if he starts crying again?’

  Liam settled back against the sofa. And then he opened his mouth and started to sing—‘Fernando’.

  Sapphie’s jaw dropped, but only for the briefest moment. She showed Harry his bottle and he took it. She brushed the baby curls from his face and whispered, ‘Auntie Sapphie loves you.’ Then she eased back to rest against the armchair opposite, curling her arms on the seat and resting her head on them.