She drove down to the sorting shed to find him and he must have sensed something from her expression because he immediately left the conveyor belt that was pouring a river of nuts into a small silo and led her outside to a wooden bench beneath a gnarled old fig tree.
It was a crisp, cool morning and the vista before them fled away in tones of blue and gold, blue sky, winter-gold grass bisected by the orderly rows of dark green macadamia trees.
‘What’s up, Slim?’ He threaded his fingers through hers. ‘You look very serious.’
She told him.
‘Ah. So he decided to tell you.’
She blinked at him. ‘Decided…do you mean you already knew?’
‘I—let’s say I had an inkling so I spoke to Valerie, and she already had these things on her mind. So we conferred with the obstetrician but decided not to worry you because there may be nothing to worry about anyway. And he suggested that he would only bring it up if he thought it was necessary at this consultation so you would be better prepared.’
‘I can’t believe it,’ Clare said ominously. ‘What am I—a sixteen-year-old kid?’
He looked at her in her enormous berry-red wool jumper and navy skirt. Then he laughed and kissed her knuckles. ‘No, although you don’t look much older sometimes, but you are a very pregnant lady with enough on her plate as it is.’
‘I suppose—I suppose you organized my mother as well!’
‘Believe me, when I rang her she said she’d been dying to do it anyway but she hadn’t wanted to interfere.’
Clare digested this. ‘And Valerie?’
‘She’s very fond of you, Clare. She offered to do it. Any more objections?’
All at once, Clare felt guilty. ‘No. I…no. Thanks. I just—’
‘Don’t like to be the one not making the decisions?’
She sighed. ‘It sounds churlish, doesn’t it?’
‘The thing is, whatever happens, my dear Slim, we’re all there behind you, and you’re not to worry.’
She laid her head on his shoulder and so badly wanted to say ‘I love you’, she had to bite her lip. She also slipped into the little world that had been her refuge at these times—she put her hands on her stomach and concentrated her thoughts on her babies. It worked and she didn’t notice Lachlan watching her bent head with a frown in his eyes.
She had a long rest after lunch but couldn’t sleep as she contemplated all sorts of things.
She’d discovered in the last weeks a tendency to be morbidly sensitive, and although she knew it was common to late pregnancy it wasn’t any less real. Anything violent or sad, especially to do with children, affected her far more than usual.
Strange dreams sometimes plagued her sleep but today it was thoughts about the coming birth that filled her mind. A Caesarean, for one, obviously less arduous than a natural birth but, from her reading and antenatal classes, not as easily recovered from because it was, after all, major surgery. Breech births—she’d read about the consequences of those. Babies with dislocated hips who had to wear a brace for months. She shivered involuntarily.
Her thoughts wandered on to natural births, and the often read comment that all the antenatal classes, all the exercises, practising breathing and measures you could take to relax didn’t really prepare you for the pain involved.
She moved restlessly and deliberately switched her thoughts to Lachlan. who couldn’t have been better in these last difficult weeks. He’d surrounded her with care, he knew instinctively when sex was the last thing she wanted although she loved the warmth and reassurance of his solid bulk behind her in bed.
Lachlan, who also had never said that he loved her—perhaps he didn’t think it needed saying, she mused.
But a strange compulsion grew within her to find some way of expressing her feelings. She wondered if it was prompted by dire thoughts of Caesareans or the ordeal of a natural birth.
She got up, found a writing pad and pen, sat in front of the fire in her bedroom, and started to write. She began conventionally enough:
Dear Lachlan,
How to tell you I love you? Perhaps I can only go back to the beginning. I think my love for you was always there. That’s why I had those strange bouts of uneasiness I couldn’t put a name to. It all seemed so suitable, our affair, while we made no demands on each other and were so adult and modern.
So when did it hit me that I loved you, rather than hovering in my subconscious? When I told you I was pregnant, although I had more than an inkling, I suspect, because it was extraordinarily hard to tell you about the baby. Why? I didn’t know where I stood, I didn’t know if I was your way of getting over Serena. I just knew there was a part of you that was a closed book to me.
And when I did tell you about the baby, although you offered to marry me straight away, I still couldn’t read your mind completely—and that’s when it really hit me that I loved you.
To be honest, the only reason I seemed determined then to be a single mum was because it hurt me to know that you didn’t love me as I loved you. It’s funny that, isn’t it? I mean, despite being so career-oriented, in hindsight, I don’t think I was cut out to be a single parent at all. or even much of a feminist—but that’s just by the way.
Why did you ask me to marry you? I’ve asked myself that a hundred times. Was it because of Sean? Was it out of a sense of duty because I was pregnant? Perhaps both—I still don’t know but I do sense that there’s something unfinished between you and Serena, like dark waters lapping silently, and that there’s some territory you may never be able to let me into. That’s why I haven’t told you this before and may never tell you.
Why do I love you? You always did take my breath away; you released a side of me I didn’t know existed but it’s like the ocean beneath my windows at Lennox now. It’s a vast source of pleasure, to be your lover, to laugh with you, to live with you, to know that my life would always be bleak and cheerless without you. To want these two babies for one simple reason—because they’re ours.
She put her pen down and rubbed her eyes. But the tears continued to fall. Then she took some deep breaths and discovered she felt better. As if she’d at least resolved her own feelings and could go forward to whatever was in front of her with a clearer mind.
She found an envelope, put the letter in it and sealed it, then wrote his name on it and slipped it beneath her underwear in a drawer.
And went out to welcome Sean home from school.
A few days later Lachlan told her that Serena had rung because the school holidays were almost upon them and because she and Bruce were again in the district they’d like to take Sean away for a while.
‘What does he think?’
‘He doesn’t seem to mind. Apparently Bruce maintains a unit and a boat on the Gold Coast and they’re planning a few days cruising in Moreton Bay. Sean’s seen pictures of the boat and is very impressed.’
‘Well, that’s good,’ Clare said. ‘I mean, that hunger strikes et cetera have faded from his mind,’ she added humorously, but she sobered almost immediately. ‘How do you feel about it?’
She was lying propped up on a settee in the den with her feet in his lap and he was massaging them. It was about nine in the evening and her mother and Sean were both in bed.
‘I don’t have much choice,’ he said after a moment. ‘But I’m still trusting to your judgement on the subject.’
She smiled faintly. ‘I think you may also be able to trust Bruce’s judgement on the subject. After all, no more exotic gifts have arrived but Sean obviously feels more comfortable with him now. And look how much pleasure he still gets out of his telescope.’
‘I’m looking. Do you realize I can almost identify every damn thing in the Milky Way?’
‘Well, there are compensations,’ she murmured, and sighed. ‘That’s lovely.’
‘I’m glad, but I don’t see the connection between your poor feet and the Milky Way.’
‘No—that just slipped in,’ she said with a grin. ‘I meant—the Nez
Percé stage was not only noisy and messy but a great trial to Paddy and Flynn.’
‘Ah, but I’m not Paddy or Flynn!’
‘You know what I mean.’
‘Yes.’ He laid his head back. ‘They want to come and pick him up the day after tomorrow.’
Clare was silent.
He raised his head. ‘But if you’d rather not I can—’
‘No. No. We might as well do all we can to make things easy for Sean. Ask them to come for lunch.’
‘Clare, you don’t have to do that and especially not now.’
She grimaced. ‘I can still cope with a luncheon. And if you’ve never seen my mother on her mettle, her domestic mettle, you’re in for a treat.’ She stopped and yawned.
‘If you say so,’ he said slowly, then, ‘Bedtime, Mrs Hewitt.’
‘I’m afraid so but you don’t have to come.’
He helped her up and stood with his hands resting lightly on her shoulders before he said, ‘Are you saying you don’t want me to come?’
‘No, of course not. I just know you don’t normally come to bed at these early hours and—’
‘Things have changed. And I want to make sure you get comfortable and get to sleep—for a while anyway,’ he said with a glint of amusement. ‘A back rub seems to do the trick.’
‘Lachlan,’ she said on a breath, ‘you’re…you’ve been so wonderful, I don’t know how to thank you.’
He looked down at her and was struck as Valerie had been by her fragility and the shadows under her eyes. And he found himself wondering how she’d borne this pregnancy, carried the heavy burden of twins, let alone all that had happened between them, and undertaken the change of life-style so bravely.
The question that was beginning to torment him more and more was—why? Was she, against all expectations, a born mother? Was that what sustained her? Or had she guessed the heart of his dilemma, the things that had held him back—the memories that still plagued him of his first marriage?
He said at last, ‘Don’t thank me, Clare. You’ve been brave and beautiful and it’s only a month at the most now. Come.’
It was a cold, wet day, the day Bruce and Serena were coming to pick up Sean, so Clare and Jane laid out lunch in the dining room.
‘I must say this seems a little odd but at the same time I think you’re doing the right thing by Sean,’ Jane said. ‘What’s she like?’
‘Very beautiful. But I don’t think she likes me. Still, it was their idea to come to pick up Sean—or perhaps it was Bruce’s idea? He’s pretty sane. How do I look?’
‘Darling…’ Jane paused and Clare started to laugh.
‘Don’t answer that—very pregnant!’
‘Actually I was going to say that you look fine. For a few days there you were looking a bit peaky but you’ve got your glow back again. And that outfit becomes you.’
The outfit in question was a fine black wool trouser suit with a tunic top and a little ruff around the neck edged with silver. Some judicious make-up had covered up the brown patches on her face and her hair, in its usual curly bob, was dark and shiny. Her nails were beautifully manicured and painted to match the berry-red of her lips. She wore black patent shoes with little silver heels.
‘You know, you’re lucky you’re tall, too,’ her mother continued. ‘You got ,that from your father. I’m only five feet two and by the time I was eight months pregnant I truly looked like a blob on the landscape, whereas you look quite regal.’
Clare regarded the large bulge of her stomach that was obscuring her feet, and came round the table to kiss her mother lightly on the brow. ‘You’re sweet.’
But Lachlan confirmed her mother’s words. ‘Why, Slim,’ he said, ‘you look like a million quid!’
‘One has to fight fire…the best way one knows how,’ she said honestly, and ignored his quizzical little look. ‘I think I heard a car.’
Clare was bemused because this Serena couldn’t have been more different from the Serena of their first encounter.
And she found herself remembering what May had said—how good Serena could be with people, how warm…
She was just that. She went out of her way to charm Jane Montrose, she was playful and affectionate with Sean, she exhibited proper wifely closeness towards Bruce—and she swapped pregnancy experiences with Clare as if she were a good friend.
As a potentially difficult lunch party, not to mention a minefield, it was neither. Conversation flowed, as did the good food and wine, and, to top it off, Serena was so exquisitely beautiful, so slim yet rounded in all the right places in a suede dress that matched her cornflower-blue eyes, it was hard to take one’s eyes off her.
Bruce was certainly unable to for long, although once Clare thought she detected a glint of something a little dry in his gaze.
And Lachlan did, a couple of times, allow his gaze to rest narrowly but enigmatically on his ex-wife.
Then it was time to leave, and it all suddenly fell into place for Clare.
Serena laid a light hand on her stomach and said sweetly, ‘You poor thing—I know what it’s like when you feel like a bean bag and wonder if you can ever return to normal. Good luck!’
She turned to Lachlan and simply stood quite still for a moment, inviting his gaze upon her slender figure, and when their eyes clashed she smiled a brief, secret little smile as she murmured goodbye, and went to put her arm through Bruce’s.
Go and find that letter and tear it up, was the thought that flooded Clare’s mind as Lachlan stood straight and tall beside her, almost as if he weren’t breathing.
Sean created a much needed diversion at that point by suddenly deciding he’d forgotten to pack his togs.
‘No, you haven’t,’ Clare said calmly. ‘We packed two pairs—remember?’
‘Gosh—you’re right, Slim!’ he said, and put his arms around her as far as they would go. ‘Listen, don’t have these babies before I get back! I want to be in on the ground floor.’
She patted his head, more grateful than he could ever know, and said gravely, ‘I’ll try not to. Have fun, kid.’
They watched them drive off and Lachlan turned to say something to Clare, but his foreman drove up with a squeal of tyres in the estate utility with the news that a fire had broken out in the sorting shed.
‘You’d better go,’ Clare said naturally. ‘It sounds pretty serious.’
He hesitated and watched her narrowly for a moment. Then a siren made itself heard, and he turned away with a muttered curse.
When he got back late that evening—he’d rung through a couple of times to let them know how it was going and reassure them he was in no danger—Jane greeted him with the news that Clare had gone to bed.
‘I think she was exhausted, poor thing. It might be an idea not to disturb her. Rest is really important for her now.’
Lachlan hesitated then looked down at the mess he was in. ‘I’ll sleep in a spare room.’
The next morning Clare was amazed to discover that she’d slept for hours, deeply and dreamlessly. She turned her head to discover she was alone and, from the unrumpled other side of the bed, realized she had been alone all night.
She lay back and thought about it. The commonsense answer was that he hadn’t wanted to disturb her, she reasoned. But the idea that he couldn’t get Serena out of his mind was also there.
Not that there was a thing she could do about it, she mused.
A few minutes later she got up, pulled on her robe and went to find him.
He was fast asleep in a spare bedroom but the opening of the door woke him, and as she stood there he stared at her, blinking sleepily, then he got up so fast he knocked over the bedside table complete with lamp and a couple of books as well as a phone.
‘Is it—Clare, are they coming?’ he said rapidly, and tripped over the phone cord to get himself tangled up in the frill of the bedcover. He was also stark naked.
She couldn’t help the gurgle of laughter that rose as he extricated himself from the fril
l and pushed his tawny hair out of his eyes impatiently. ‘No—sorry—no, it’s not. I thought I’d lost you, that’s all.’
He heaved a sigh of relief then looked at her severely. ‘I gather I made a bit of a spectacle of myself.’ He began to restore the table and its contents.
‘A bit,’ she agreed, still unable to keep a straight face. ‘Regrettably, the fact that you have no clothes on seems to heighten the comic aspect of it.’
He came over to her and stood with his hands on his hips. ‘I have no clothes on because I didn’t want to wake you last night, Mrs Hewitt, and even my underwear smelled of smoke. You may have forgotten that I was tending a fire?’
‘Mr Hewitt, my abject apologies.’ This time she managed to sound sober. ‘But you were also very sweet.’
‘Clare, I wish you wouldn’t do that!’
She raised an innocent eyebrow.
‘Call me sweet! It makes me feel entirely harmless—and cuddly.’
‘I do like to cuddle you,’ she murmured. ‘Shall I show you?’
‘It’ll have to be a pretty good demo because my feelings are very hurt.’ He looked at her with an entirely false expression of wounded pride—a little glint she knew well in his eyes gave him away.
‘Oh, I think I could manage that,’ she said, and undid her robe. ‘Come back to bed.’
‘Clare—’
‘I wouldn’t talk either, if I were you,’ she added.
‘No?’
‘No. Just relax and let me do all the…talking.’
Not many minutes later, he shuddered in release and she kissed him lightly on the lips and ran her fingers through his hair.
‘Why did you do that?’ he asked huskily. ‘Not that I’m complaining, it was wonderful, but…’
Why had she? Clare wondered. To lay the spectre of Serena? No, it had seemed to come quite naturally; Serena had never entered her mind.
‘I couldn’t help myself,’ she said softly. ‘And you deserve it, to make up for all the times I didn’t feel like it.’
‘You’re—’ he paused then grinned wickedly at her ‘—sweet.’
‘Then we’re even!’
‘I don’t know about that. Clare—’ the smile died out of his eyes ‘—about yesterday.’
Having His Babies (Harlequin Presents) Page 13