by Nicola Marsh
Whatever had brought this amazing woman into his life, he couldn’t believe his luck, and he’d make sure she knew it every day.
‘Whoa!’ Her fingers relaxed from their death-grip and her palms splayed across his chest as she pulled back slightly, her lips rosily plumped and her sparkling eyes wide with shock. ‘What was that all about?’
‘Would you believe I thought you needed mouth-to-mouth?’
She smiled. ‘Try again, wise guy.’
‘Would you believe I’ve just eaten a jelly bean and thought you could use the sugar boost?’
She arched an eyebrow. ‘Come on, you can do better than that.’
‘Would you believe I love you, I want to marry you and I want us to be a real family—you, me and our daughter?’
Her face fell, her eyes hardening to icy blue as she dropped her hands into her lap.
‘That’s not funny.’
‘It’s not a joke,’ he said, desperate to make her see how genuine he was, how much she meant to him. ‘I want us to be together.’
He’d known she’d be a hard sell, but her frigid expression could have frozen him solid if he’d been wet.
‘You’d do anything to protect this baby, wouldn’t you?’
‘No…yes…Hell.’
He rubbed a hand over his face, wishing this were a bad dream and he’d wake up to find Kris nestled in his bed, smiling up at him with love and affection.
‘Yes, I’d do anything to protect our baby, but this isn’t about that. This is about us. This is about me first falling under your spell in Singapore. This is about me being unable to sleep at night for thinking about you, for missing you, for wanting more for us but being too scared to grab it, too scared to face up to my feelings.’
Her glacial expression thawed to semi-cold. ‘I don’t get it. Why didn’t you tell me any of this before? Why did you let me walk away after I knocked back your last proposal?’
He sighed, having known it would come to this.
Having known he’d have to tell her the whole truth if he wanted to win her love.
‘You know that suitcase you had when I first met you? Well, I carry around enough baggage which would make that look like a thimble.’
Sadness flickered in her eyes. ‘This has to do with Julia, doesn’t it?’
He nodded, regret filling him that he hadn’t told Kris everything. It would’ve saved him a lot of trouble and a lot of heartache. He’d loved Julia with all his heart, but what he felt for Kris went way beyond that.
In a way the depth of his feelings for her had scared him beyond belief, but now that he’d come to his senses he couldn’t stand for them to be apart a second longer.
Before he could speak, she placed a finger on his lips and shushed him.
‘You don’t have to say it. I know she was the love of your life. I know you’ll never get over her. You say you love me, but can you look me in the eye and say it’s the same love you had for her?’
‘No, it’s—’
‘Aaahh!’
Her groan filled the air, chilling his blood as she doubled over and gripped under her belly, all colour draining from her face.
‘The baby?’
She nodded, her lips turning blue from being compressed so hard, before another guttural groan tore from her throat.
‘Damn it, I wish those paramedics had stuck around,’ he muttered, kneeling in front of her and capturing her face in his hands. ‘Kris, look at me. Is your hospital bag upstairs in your bedroom?’
‘Yesss,’ she gritted out, pain contorting her features while he attempted to smooth away the lines.
‘Okay, I’ll grab it and then we’ll head to the hospital. I need you to breathe through the contractions and try to relax.’
‘Just get the bloody bag,’ she said, every ounce of her pain concentrated into the killer look she sent him.
He ran up the stairs, knowing her language might get a lot more expressive before the birth was over.
The birth…He was going to be a dad…hell!
Sprinting into her room, he grabbed the small wheelie-suitcase near the door and headed down the stairs, taking two at a time.
Not surprisingly, she hadn’t moved, gripping onto the arms of the chair so hard her knuckles stood out.
‘How far apart are they?’
‘I don’t know! I’m not wearing my watch,’ she said, her petrified gaze locking with his, and he dropped a quick kiss on her head before bolting to his car, shoving her case in the back and running back to the house.
It was the damnedest thing, almost as if he were having an out-of-body experience, watching this crazy man running all over the place, yet totally focussed on the woman waddling down the path, leaning heavily on his arm and doubling over as they reached the car.
‘Come on, sweetheart. We’ll be at the hospital in five minutes,’ he said, handing her into the car as another contraction hit and she almost broke his wrist with her grip.
‘Make it two,’ she said, resting her head back and closing her eyes, one hand rubbing the top of her belly while the other circled beneath.
Nate considered himself a careful driver, but when Kris let out the loudest groan yet he floored it, cutting lanes, copping two-finger salutes and tooting horns left, right and centre as he screeched into the hospital and pulled up in front of Emergency.
‘Hurry!’ she moaned, her head thrashing side to side and he made a dash for the entrance, grabbing the first nurse he could find and pointing to his car. ‘The baby’s coming! Now! Do something!’
To the nurse’s credit, she made efficient hand-signals at the receptionist, who summoned an orderly with a wheelchair and a doctor within two seconds.
‘Calm down, sir. Everything’s going to be all right.’
Was it?
He had no idea.
Everything was happening so fast, and he hadn’t even had a chance to tell Kris how much she meant to him. What if something happened to her? What if she went through this daunting experience thinking he loved her less than Julia?
‘Naaate!’
Kris’s ear-piercing scream had him sprinting after the wheelchair and into a small room off the emergency room.
The next five minutes happened in a blur as a grim-looking doctor bustled in, checked Kris’s dilation and pronounced her two-centimetres dilated.
Only two? Two?
A little piece of Nate curled up and died deep inside as he held her hand, watching her grunt and sweat and moan her way through the next contraction, knowing there would be many more before their daughter was born, as the stuff he’d absorbed in pre-natal class came back.
The cervix needs to be dilated ten centimetres before the next phase begins.
He distinctly remembered the midwife conducting the classes teaching them that, the figure particularly sticking in his head because ten centimetres had sounded awfully big to him.
Kris whimpered and he squeezed her hand, wishing he could do more, wishing he could take away her pain, wishing he could do something other than sit here like a big, useless dummy.
As if reading his mind, she fixed him with an angry stare. ‘You being here is enough, so don’t go getting any ideas to bolt on me, you hear?’
He smiled, trying not to wince as pain contorted her beautiful features. ‘I’m not going anywhere, even if you call me every name under the sun.’
She gritted her teeth and gripped his hand tight as another contraction rippled through her belly, her pallor and perspiration-covered face combining to leave him feeling like he’d been kicked in the gut.
‘You better remember that,’ she bit out, relaxing back onto the pillows and easing her death grip on his hand as the contraction passed. ‘If this is only the beginning, I feel a lot of swearing coming on—most of it directed at you for getting me into this predicament in the first place.’
There was no malice behind her words. If anything, the cheeky glint in her eyes surprised him.
‘As I recall, we were bot
h pretty involved at the time.’
Their gazes locked and held as memories of their night in Singapore washed over them, notching up the temperature in the birthing suite in an instant.
‘We never got to finish our talk,’ she said, a small, serene smile playing about her lips, begging him to reach forward and cover them with his own.
However another ripping contraction vanquished that urge in an instant, and their shared moment of intimacy was lost.
Nate had never been a clock watcher, putting in the required hours at work without giving it a second thought. But over the next eight hours he couldn’t tear his gaze away from the large, ugly kitchen-clock stuck on the wall in front of him as he rubbed Kris’s back, offered her ice chips to suck and bore the brunt of her increasingly fraying temper.
‘Nate, I don’t think I can do this any more…’
Her whispered plea for reassurance slammed into him, and his gut turned over as he leaned forward and stroked her forehead, needing the physical contact for reassurance as much as she did.
‘You’re doing great, sweetheart. You’re amazing. Hang in there. Our daughter is on her way.’
He hated how inadequate he sounded, how totally pathetic, and he turned in desperation to the midwife as she entered the room, silently imploring her to give them good news.
The midwife, way too calm and cheery, bustled about with ferocious efficiency, pronounced Kris ten-centimetres dilated and instructed her to push.
‘There is a slight problem, dear.’
Nate’s heart stopped as he stared in open-mouthed horror at the midwife, who so casually delivered news that could be catastrophic. As he’d already learned, there were no ‘slight’ problems with birthing; they tended to be major ones, and he hoped to God this wasn’t anything serious.
‘Though the baby is head down, her head is facing the wrong way. In these cases, usually with a bit of pushing, the little mite will automatically turn and come out quickly. So we’ll give it a go, shall we?’
‘What’s with the “we” business?’ Kris muttered, sending the midwife one of the dangerous looks she’d been reserving for Nate up till that point.
In the midst of his anxiety she managed to ellicit a smile out of him, albeit a weak one, and he copped an angry glare for his trouble too.
‘You’re almost there, sweetheart.’
He leaned over and kissed her on the cheek, half expecting her to push him away or whack him for his trouble. Instead, she surprised him by cupping his cheek for an all-too-brief instant before the next contraction took her breath away and the roller-coaster of pain began again.
And again…And again…
Minutes stretched into hours, hours into an interminable stretch of moans and groans as he helplessly watched the woman he loved go through unbearable agony.
He barely remembered the midwife hooking up a foetal monitor over Kris’s belly; he barely remembered passing Kris the nitrous oxide to help with the crest of the increasingly painful contractions. But when the baby’s heartbeat started to slow with every push he rocked out of the chair and marched across to the worried midwife, who was in deep conversation with the obstetrician who’d just entered the room.
‘You’ve got to do something now!’ he said, casting frantic glances back at Kris lying in a sweaty, pale heap on the bed, hating his helpless frustration more than anything.
‘We’re taking her to Theatre shortly,’ the obstetrician said, giving him a comforting pat on the arm which came across decidedly condescending. ‘An anaesthetist is on their way up.’
‘What’s going on?’
Kris’s shout made them both jump, and he followed the obstetrician back to the bed, his eyes glued to the foetal monitor, petrified when the heartbeat slowed yet again.
‘We’re taking you to Theatre shortly. We don’t let our mums go longer than twenty-four hours, and you’ve done a mighty job, Kris. However, this little girl of yours isn’t turning, so I’ll try forceps, and if that doesn’t work we’ll be doing a Caesarean, okay?’
Nate expected Kris to protest, remembering how pro-natural she’d been about the birth throughout the ante-natal classes, but she merely nodded and slumped back, exhaustion rendering her speechless.
‘Let’s do it, Doc,’ he said, grateful for some positive action, not quite believing Kris had been in labour for almost a day.
The rest happened in a blur: the trip down to Theatre, gowning-up himself, the obstetrician smiling when the forceps worked, and asking Kris to give one last, almighty push.
Suddenly, his breath caught as the doctor held up a red-faced, screaming little girl covered in white gunk, and he would’ve forgotten how to breathe if Kris hadn’t burst into noisy tears at that moment.
‘She’s beautiful, just like her mother,’ he whispered, tears filling his eyes as he pushed away the damp strands of hair stuck to Kris’s face and kissed her on the mouth.
‘Oh, Nate.’
Her sobs subsided but the tears continued, flowing down her cheeks and plopping softly on the bed, as their bundled daughter was placed in her arms and he found his own tears falling softly on the baby’s blanket. ‘She’s incredible.’
Leaning forward, he cuddled them close, filled with an indescribable love for his girls.
‘We never did get around to choosing a name,’ Kris said, nuzzling the top of the baby’s head with her nose, while he traced the soft curve of his daughter’s cheek.
‘Later,’ he said, wanting to capture this moment in time for ever. ‘I love you both so much.’
Thankfully, Kris didn’t argue as they formed a protective circle around the baby with their linked hands.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
KRIS pretended to sleep as Nate crept into her room and over to the cot, his voice barely a whisper as he greeted his daughter.
‘Hey, little one. Hope you’re being good for Mummy. She needs her rest, and so do you.’
He had that right.
She hadn’t had a moment’s peace since the birth, what with midwives teaching her to breastfeed, trying to express a nonexistent milk supply and learning how to bathe her gorgeous girl.
Then there was Nate—always hanging around, doting over her and the baby, reminding her of how amazing he was and of what she couldn’t have.
‘You know, I bet your half-brother is looking down on you right now. He’s your guardian angel.’
She stiffened, wondering if the analgesia they’d given her for the episiotomy stitches had affected her comprehension.
‘I never got to hold him like I have you. Guess I was too scared, but I’ve regretted it every day since. Babies need to be held, and I promise to cuddle you every single day.’
Kris opened her eyes, unable to lie there and pretend she hadn’t heard the gut-wrenching pain in Nate’s voice.
‘You had a son?’
Nate jumped and swivelled to face her, his face cloaked in shadows.
‘I never got to that part, did I?’
He sat on the edge of the bed and took hold of her hand, glancing across at the cot with love radiating from his eyes.
‘Tell me now,’ she said, happy to have her hand held, enthralled by the emotional bond created from having had the man she loved stand by her every second of the labour ordeal.
Meeting her eyes directly, he said, ‘You know Julia was pregnant when she died. I wanted to tell you the rest, but I didn’t want to scare you, what with the way she died. I’d been away with work and came home to find her bleeding on the kitchen floor. She’d had a placental abruption, where the baby dies and she haemorrhaged quickly. They were both dead.’
‘Oh, my God. I’d assumed it was a brain haemorrhage.’
Now she understood the stricken look on his face when he’d hovered over her after she’d passed out on the stairs. He’d probably thought he was walking in on the same tragic scenario all over again.
He shook his head. ‘I blamed myself. If I’d been there for her, hadn’t gone to work that day
, maybe I could’ve done something, prevented their senseless deaths in some way—but I wasn’t, and I’ll never forgive myself for that.’
He looked away, his glassy stare fixed on some point over her left shoulder, and she remained silent, unsure what to say, knowing whatever words she mumbled out loud would sound trite and inadequate.
‘I’ve lived with the guilt for a long time, shutting myself off from everything but work, focussing all my energy on business, numbing the pain of feeling. Then you came along.’
She shook her head, dread creeping through her exhausted body. He’d said he’d loved her before the birth, and now she finally understood.
Nate had shut down emotionally since losing Julia and their child. Kris had given him what he wanted most, another child, and he’d confused his awakening emotions with love.
He didn’t love her—he couldn’t.
How could he love her when he was still grieving? He’d just said he could never forgive himself; how did he expect to move on?
‘You don’t have to explain anything to me, Nate. I get it.’
‘No, you don’t. Sure, I’ve been battling the daily guilt of not being there for Julia, but I’ve been fighting an added guilt too. The guilt of moving on, of letting Julia go, of possibly loving another woman, of acknowledging that I love you more than I loved her.’
Kris’s jaw dropped, and she didn’t resist when he reached up and tipped a finger under her chin to close it.
‘I already told you, Jules and I were high-school sweethearts. It’s only now I realise that our love was based on friendship, rather than the inexplicable connection you and I’ve had since we first met. What I feel for you is richer, deeper, more profound than anything I felt for Julia, and I’ve been beating myself up over it till I realised something. It’s okay to love you, to feel good again, to start living my life, rather than using my guilt as an excuse to push you away.’
Hope unfurled in her heart, uncertain and fluttering and making her head feel lighter than any pain relief could have.
‘I love you, Kris. You’re everything to me.’
His kiss slanted across her lips, a gentle kiss of persuasion, and she responded as if someone had lit a rocket under her, sliding her hands around his neck and pulling him up the bed, desperate to get closer, throwing all her pent-up emotions into the kiss she’d been awaiting for ever, the incredibly special, once-in-a-lifetime kiss of a man who truly loved her.