The Cattleman, The Baby and Me

by Michelle Douglas

  He couldn’t have made it plainer if he’d tried—he didn’t want Harry anywhere near her. The pain hit her so hard she buckled at the waist, bending over as if someone had landed a punch to her stomach. Liam didn’t think her a fit person for Harry to know. He now knew—just as she’d always known—that she had no right being around children.

  She limped over to a chair and lowered herself into it.

  Liam was right, but even after seven years she found the truth hard to accept. She didn’t deserve to have any children. She didn’t deserve to have any dealings with children. She deserved this. But Liam hadn’t even let her kiss Harry goodbye!

  ‘Tears, Sapphie?’

  She jumped. Liam stood silhouetted in the back door. She brushed her hands across her face. ‘Tears aren’t necessarily a bad thing. Considering the losses you’ve suffered in your life, you’d be a very hard man indeed if you hadn’t shed a few yourself.’ He didn’t say anything, so she forced herself to glance around the kitchen. ‘What did you forget?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  She frowned. ‘Where’s Harry?’

  ‘He’s having breakfast with Rob today.’ He moved into the room, hooked out a chair and planted himself in it. ‘We need to talk without interruptions. And it is okay,’ he added when she opened her mouth. ‘Harry has his toys, and Rob has the know-how.’

  She swallowed, then nodded. It was Liam who was adopting Harry, not her. It was Liam’s responsibility to decide what was best for him.

  ‘What have you lost, Sapphie, to make you cry?’

  ‘Harry.’ And you, she added silently, though she couldn’t say those words out loud. They hadn’t made any promises to each other. Liam had never been hers to lose.

  ‘You are still Harry’s aunt. You and Harry love each other and share a bond. I’m not going to stop you seeing him.’

  Her breath caught. He wasn’t? ‘Even knowing what you now know?’

  ‘Tell me about your abortion.’

  Exhaustion swept over her. She rested her elbows on the table and her face in her hands. Eventually she pulled them away to find Liam watching her closely. ‘What’s the point? You already have me tried and condemned.’ Rightly so.

  Was he really still prepared to let her see Harry?

  ‘I have no right to judge you, Sapphie. I’ve made mistakes in my life. I’m not perfect. It struck me at about four o’clock this morning that I have no right to expect you to be perfect either.’

  Her mouth dropped open. ‘But…’

  ‘Yesterday afternoon I was shocked and angry. Angry because all I could think about was what Belinda and I had gone through. Shocked because I couldn’t make an abortion fit with everything else I know about you.’

  She sensed then the betrayal he’d felt at her revelation.

  ‘I’d like the opportunity to try and understand.’

  She avoided talking about her abortion more than she did about the rape. She hadn’t told anyone about the abortion, but perhaps she owed Liam that much.

  ‘How old were you? Why did you think an abortion was better than another option?’

  ‘I was eighteen.’ She had to pause to swallow. ‘I was an emotional mess. My mother had just died, and then there was the rape—not to mention the fact that I was in charge of a twelve-year-old girl. I didn’t have room in my life for a baby. I mean, it was going to be a struggle to make enough money to support Emmy and me, but a tiny baby that would need around-the-clock care—I didn’t know how I’d manage that too.’

  She bit her lip, remembering how her fear and panic had driven her decision seven years ago. She’d felt as if some nameless destructive force had backed her into a corner. She hadn’t been able to see any way out.

  ‘You were so young,’ Liam murmured.

  ‘But that’s not even the worst of it.’ She forced herself to press on. ‘I was so afraid I’d hate the child. That I wouldn’t be able to get over the way it had been conceived and—’

  Liam reached over to grab her hand. ‘You fell pregnant as a result of your rape?’

  She nodded. ‘And you want to know something awful? One of the things that went over and over in my mind was what if the man who raped me sued for custody of the child?’ She shook Liam’s hand free, to leap up and pace in front of the table. ‘A man like that shouldn’t be allowed to have custody of a child.’

  Liam leapt to his feet too, but she waved a hand at him to tell him to stay where he was.

  ‘That’s not even the very worst thing, though.’ He might as well know everything. She halted, gripped the back of a chair. ‘I couldn’t help wondering—what if the child grew up to be a rapist, like its father?’ She’d woken at nights in a cold sweat with that thought circling round and round in her head, tormenting her. ‘How wicked is that? To project that kind of history and…and hatred onto an innocent child?’

  She remembered the darkness, the fear…the locking of herself in the bathroom so Emmy wouldn’t see her cry. She remembered the despair that, whichever way she’d turned, had threatened to close over her head and suffocate her. The sickening realisation that if she couldn’t even keep herself safe, how could she possibly keep Emmy safe…or anyone else? And for a moment it all threatened to reach out and encompass her again.

  ‘Sapphie?’

  Something in Liam’s voice hauled her back. He moved around the table to take her shoulders in his hands, to turn her to face him.

  ‘What happened to you, Sapphie, it’s…I’m sorry!’ His voice was low and fierce. ‘I shouldn’t have walked away from you yesterday. I should’ve known better.’

  A bubble of hysteria left her lips. ‘Don’t apologise to me, Liam. I don’t deserve it!’

  His hands tightened about her shoulders. ‘There isn’t a soul I know who’d blame you for what you did.’

  ‘Why not?’ She pulled free as an unfamiliar anger surged through her. ‘I should be condemned for what I did. Don’t you see? I did what was best for me—not what was best for the child.’

  She hadn’t deserved that child. She didn’t deserve any children.

  She wheeled away. ‘Oh, I was right about one thing. I wasn’t the right person to raise it.’ She swung back. ‘But that doesn’t mean someone else wasn’t! I should’ve given birth to the baby and had it adopted by someone who would love it with a whole heart. I should’ve given the baby its chance.’

  She stared at Liam and all her anger drained away, leaving her shaking and limp. She eased back down to her chair, hunched into it, hoping to make herself so small she might disappear altogether.

  Liam knelt down in front of her, gripped her hands. ‘Sapphie, didn’t you get counselling at the time? Didn’t one of your friends insist on—?’

  ‘I didn’t tell anyone I was pregnant.’

  Shock reflected in his eyes. ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because I was so ashamed.’

  He cupped her face. ‘Of what?’

  ‘Of getting myself into a situation where I had been raped. Of trusting a man I thought a friend. Of not being able to bring him to justice so he couldn’t do it again. If I’d fought harder… But I couldn’t. There was Emmy. But all I achieved was to bring more upheaval and pain into her life anyway.’

  The gentleness reflected in his eyes made her tears fall. ‘I didn’t know how to explain any of it to her. I didn’t want to. She’d been through enough.’ A sob shook her. ‘I just wanted to make all the badness go away. I know I wasn’t thinking straight, but at the time I thought having an abortion would make everything go back to how it was before I was raped… But I was wrong. I didn’t know it would make me feel so bad. I didn’t know I’d regret it for the rest of my life.’

  She covered her face with her hands then, and let the sobs overtake her. She didn’t have the strength to fight them any more.

  With a muffled oath he pulled her against his chest. She’d been right—he’d let the badness win. The man he’d been before Belinda—that man would never have walked away from Sapphie
yesterday.

  Lifting her, he carried her through to the living room and sank down on the sofa. He held her on his lap, stroked her hair and let her sob.

  Eighteen, practically alone in the world, and desperately trying to do the right thing by Emmy. He doubted he could have managed it all with half the grace Sapphie had. It would have left him bitter and twisted.

  It had left her racked with guilt.

  He set his shoulders. He would find some way to help her allay that guilt, to help her move on. Sapphie only ever wanted what was best for others. It was time she stopped punishing herself.

  Finally she quietened and her sobs eased. Although she didn’t lift her head, he sensed she hadn’t fallen asleep. He kept stroking her hair until a strange kind of peace descended over them. Only then did he speak. ‘Sapphie, do you really believe the abortion was a mistake?’

  She lifted her head. The sadness in her eyes clenched at his heart. ‘Yes, I do.’

  He traced the curve of her cheek with his finger. ‘Don’t you think it’s time to forgive yourself for that mistake?’

  She shook her head. ‘It’s too big to forgive.’

  ‘No, it’s not.’ He said the words gently. He moved his finger from her cheek to her lips to prevent all the words he saw trembling there from tumbling out. ‘You have a big heart, Sapphie. You give a lot to others. You’ve done so much for Emmy, for Harry, for me. You’ve made sacrifices I’m in awe of.’

  ‘None of those things change the fact that what I did was wrong,’ she whispered against his finger.

  He had to pull it away. The warmth of her breath on his bare flesh was too much to take. ‘Maybe,’ he agreed, ‘but you refuse to take into account your state of mind at the time. You’d just lost your mother. You’d been raped. And you were so young. You had no one to help you. That’s a recipe for disaster in anybody’s book. And, Sapphie, you seem to have forgotten it wasn’t your fault that you fell pregnant in the first place.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘You would never judge a friend—Anna or Lea, for example—as harshly as you’ve judged yourself.’

  Her mouth closed. She frowned.

  ‘Answer me honestly. What would you do if Anna was sitting here telling you this story now? Would you condemn her?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Then why should you condemn yourself?’

  ‘I don’t have the right to judge anyone else. And it’s harder to forgive yourself than it is to forgive somebody else.’

  ‘But it’s not impossible. You taught me that. I never thought I’d forgive myself for not getting Lucas the help he needed, for not seeing that he needed it.’

  She stared at him for a moment. ‘But you have?’

  He searched inside himself. ‘Yes,’ he finally said. ‘It seems I have.’

  Their gazes caught and held. He reached out and pushed a strand of hair out of her face. ‘I know these things aren’t mended overnight, but promise me you’ll think about all I’ve said. Sapphie, don’t let the badness win.’

  She blinked. Very slowly, she nodded. ‘Okay.’

  All of sudden it seemed to hit her where she sat—squarely in his lap. ‘Oh!’ She scrambled off to sit on the sofa beside him. If he hadn’t missed the warm weight of her so much he’d have grinned at the foot of space she’d put between them.

  She clenched her hands in her lap. ‘Liam, when you were gone last night I came to a decision.’

  He stared at her clenched hands and the hairs at his nape stood on end. ‘A decision?’

  ‘I’ve decided to leave on the next mail plane. I think it’s for the best.’

  ‘But…’ He shot to his feet. ‘That’s tomorrow!’

  ‘There’s no conceivable reason for me to stay here any longer.’

  ‘Harry—’

  ‘Will be just fine. You and he belong together.’

  Perspiration gathered beneath his collar, trickled down his back. ‘But—’

  ‘It’s time I returned to my real life. And, Liam, I want to see Anna and Lea.’

  The sheer straightforward simplicity of her argument stole his breath. He couldn’t argue with her wanting to see her half-sisters. But… ‘Harry will always need you.’

  Sadness filtered through the smile she sent him. ‘I hope so. But he doesn’t need me now as his full-time carer. He has you, and Beattie and Rob, and all your family.’

  All his family? Suddenly that didn’t seem enough.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  SAPPHIE said her goodbyes to Harry. She nuzzled her face against Harry’s cheek, then blew raspberries against his neck until his laughter filled the air. From the way Rob’s eyebrows rose, Liam figured his scowl must have taken over his whole face.

  Sapphie handed Harry to Rob, and reached up to kiss Rob’s cheek. The young ringer went bright red, and for some reason Liam felt a jolt of jealousy run through him.

  ‘I’ll be seeing you, then, Miss Sapphie.’

  ‘Goodbye, Rob. Bye-bye, Harry.’

  Harry grinned and opened and closed his hand in his version of a wave. It made Liam’s stomach clench. How would he console Harry when the little boy finally realised Sapphie wasn’t coming back?

  Sapphie dived into the ute Liam had waiting for her. ‘Be back soon,’ he grunted to Rob, sliding into the driver’s seat and gunning the engine.

  He glanced across at her as they headed towards the airstrip. Her nose had gone bright red—a sign that told him she was fighting tears. If she cried he’d hold her.

  He didn’t want her to cry, he didn’t want her hurting…but he did want to hold her.

  He pulled the ute to a halt by the airstrip. According to the satellite radio, the mail plane would be here some time within the next ten minutes.

  Silence, except for the occasional birdcall, filled the car. Liam unclenched his hands from around the steering wheel. ‘When will you come and visit?’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about that. When I come to the Kimberley I want to take Harry to Jarndirri.’

  She didn’t want to stay at Newarra? Every muscle froze solid. With a superhuman effort he turned his head to look at her. She stared directly out through the windscreen. ‘Why?’ he croaked.

  ‘I want him to know my family too. I want him surrounded by people who will love him and support him. Do you have a problem with that?’

  Yes! Who would fill his homestead with ridiculous pop tunes? Who would make the walls ring with laughter? Who would make caramel milkshakes and crack silly jokes and—?

  The sound of Sapphie’s car door closing slammed him back to the present. He realised then that the sound filling his ears was the mail plane coming in to land.

  Sapphie was leaving.

  He shot out of the car, gripped the door for support as he watched her unload her suitcase from the tray of the ute. ‘Sapphie, you and Harry belong together as much as Harry and I do. Stay and make your home here. I swear to you we can make it work.’

  She lowered her suitcase to the ground. ‘Stay here as what?’

  His mouth went dry. ‘Stay as a part of the extended family. Work and live with us. Make Newarra your home.’

  She glanced about at the red dirt and low scrub. His heart thudded against the walls of his chest. She had to say yes.

  Her gaze returned to his. ‘Liam, you’ve made me believe it’s time to stop punishing myself for all the mistakes I’ve made in my life. You’ve made me believe my dreams can come true. A week ago I might’ve said yes to your offer, but now…’

  Ice trickled down his back. ‘Now?’

  ‘Now I want more. I don’t want to be considered part of your extended family. I’m not related to you, Liam.’

  She pushed away from the back of the car and moved towards him. His blood fired to life in response to the desire that smoked up her eyes. He should back up, move away…stop her.

  ‘Uh, Sapphie—’

  ‘Liam, I don’t feel the least bit related to you. And what I feel certainly isn’t platonic.’
>
  She stopped in front of him and ran her hands up his chest to lace her fingers behind his head. Standing on tiptoe, she leant in and touched her lips to his.

  He tried to remain impassive, unmoved, but his hands went to her waist. He told himself it was to steady her, only he found he drew her closer. Her lips moved against his more firmly and his fingers curved against her flesh. With a superhuman effort he managed not to crush her to him. He did open his mouth to her. He couldn’t help it. But he let her maintain the lead and set the pace.

  Thick, hot need flooded him as she deepened the kiss, her tongue tangling with his, and overlaying it all was a deep, rich sweetness. It took him over, carried him along as if he drifted on a lazily running river and she was all he needed to stay afloat.

  He groaned when she stepped back. She pulled in a breath and met his gaze head on. ‘I love you, Liam, and I want it all—you, me and Harry, as a family for ever.’

  Fear hit him in the chest, the stomach. He locked his knees against it and backed up a step, tried to shake off the effects of that kiss. He wanted her, but…

  A light went out in her brilliant green eyes. ‘That’s what I figured,’ she whispered, reading the answer in his face. ‘I’m sorry, Liam. I have to go.’

  Sid shuffled up to them. ‘I hear the little lady wants to hitch a ride to Broome?’

  ‘You hear right,’ Sapphie said. ‘And I am nobody’s little lady!’

  ‘Right.’ Sid straightened. ‘I’ll, umm, take your bag, then. Oh, and here’s Newarra’s mail.’ He tossed a bag to Liam then caught the one Liam, threw back to him. ‘I’ll be seeing you.’

  ‘Bye, Sid.’ Liam pulled in a breath, then thrust his hand out towards Sapphie. ‘Goodbye, Sapphie.’

  She ignored the hand. She reached up on tiptoe and kissed his cheek. ‘Take care of yourself, Liam.’

  She turned and disappeared inside the plane. Liam stumbled to the car, dropped down into the driver’s seat, and lifted a hand to touch the spot where Sapphie’s lips had rested so briefly. Even now she was more generous than—