‘Lachlan, I told you not to worry about Serena.’ She looked tranquilly into his eyes.
He paused. ‘But—’
‘No.’ She put a finger on his lips. ‘I feel so remarkably well today, anyway—did the fire do much damage?’
He sank back. ‘Half the shed will have to be rebuilt but we managed to save all the nuts.’
‘How did it start?’
‘Don’t know yet. It could have been an electrical overload or a surge of some kind. One of the machines has also been playing up and overheating but I thought we’d fixed it. No one was actually in the shed when it started but it’s going to put us back a fair bit.’
‘Are you insured?’
‘Yes,’ he said a shade grimly. ‘When one gets down to the fine print, however, you can be in for some unpleasant surprises.’
‘You seem to forget,’ she said humorously.
‘What?’
‘That you have your own tame lawyer who even goes to bed with you.’ Her eyes danced but her demeanour was decorous.
‘So I did,’ he said slowly. ‘You’re not only my legal wife, you’re a very legal kind of wife!’
‘Which is not to say that I can get you more than you’re entitled to—’
‘Perish the thought!’
‘On the other hand, I can interpret the fine print when a mere layman is often overwhelmed by it.’
‘Mere?’
‘Well, you know what I mean!’
‘I know you’re very full of yourself this morning, Mrs Hewitt.’
‘Not only that,’ she said gravely, ‘fully occupied within myself. There doesn’t seem a corner to spare.’
He put his hand on her stomach and laughed down at her. ‘If that’s the cause of all this, then I forgive you. Wow! A bit of activity going on in here.’
‘They had such a peaceful night they could be making up for it. By the way, I’m starving.’
‘Now you mention it so am I. Shall we breakfast royally?’
‘Why not?’
Her feeling of well-being lasted through the day and into the next. Valerie paid her daily visit and said to Clare and Lachlan the following morning, ‘You know, this is all looking so good, I’m inclined to think you will go full term, Clare. Which is all the better for the babies—but don’t take any chances, of course! So—what have we got? About three weeks?’
Clare groaned.
‘Rest,’ Valerie and Lachlan said in unison.
‘I know, I know. And I will! Bring me your insurance policies, Mr Hewitt. I might as well be useful even while I’m resting.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE next morning Lachlan came pounding up the veranda steps. Then Clare, who was in the lounge that opened onto the veranda, saw him stop abruptly, take a deep breath and walk along the veranda more normally.
She went out to greet him anxiously and saw that he was pale. ‘What is it?’
‘Clare…’ he hesitated ‘…come and sit down.’
‘But something’s happened. I saw you—not another fire?’
‘No.’ He led her to a chair. ‘It’s—well, I got a call from Bruce, I gave them my mobile number. Apparently they were anchored at Jumpinpin on the Broadwater last night and this morning some unlicensed idiot in an out-of-control aluminium dinghy rammed and holed their boat—’
‘Oh, no!’ she whispered, going white herself. ‘Sean?’
‘Hang on. Their boat started to sink, it’s a fibreglass hull, and in the drama that followed Serena broke her leg and Sean banged his head and knocked himself out. Now, they think he’s OK but to be on the safe side they’re airlifting them all to the Gold Coast Hospital and they’re going to do some tests on Sean.’
‘You must go,’ she said immediately.
Lachlan looked supremely frustrated and swore beneath his breath. ‘How can I leave you? It couldn’t have happened at a worse possible time.’
‘Lachlan—’ she took his hands in hers, ‘—you heard what Valerie said yesterday and it’s only a two-hour drive to Southport and the Gold Coast Hospital. I’ll be fine and I won’t be alone anyway—not that anything is going to happen today. Please, I couldn’t bear it if Sean was asking for you and you weren’t there.’
Still he hesitated. ‘You can’t know anything isn’t going to happen today.’
‘Well, no, but my intuition tells me it won’t. I feel so well, I even feel reconciled to this whale-like version of me so I guess I am going to go full term.’
He cupped her face suddenly and kissed her. ‘You’re a brick, but don’t forget if there’s the slightest twinge ring me. I’ll be back by this evening, anyway.’
She and her mother ate lunch; there was no news yet. Then Clare stood up to start clearing the table—and frowned.
‘What is it, dear?’
Clare looked at her watch.
‘Clare!’ Jane stood up, clutching her napkin.
‘I think,’ her daughter said dazedly, ‘that may have been a contraction.’
‘Not a Braxton Hicks contraction?’
‘It felt different.’ She swallowed and sat down again then immediately stood up. ‘If it is, standing upright is better for the cervix or something, but how can we tell the difference? I know, the real contractions are regular,’ she answered herself, and discovered that she was trembling from head to toe. ‘But I was feeling so fine!’
‘Oh, I wondered about that,’ Jane said distractedly as she reached for the phone. ‘I washed every curtain in the house the day before you were born but I’ve never been sure whether it was an old wives’ tale.’
Clare held onto the back of her chair. ‘Who are you ringing?’
‘Lachlan, of course.’
‘Mum, hang on a moment, please, this may be a false alarm—’
‘But he made me promise—’
‘Just let’s wait a bit, please,’ Clare begged.
Jane hesitated. ‘Then let me ring Valerie.’
‘All right…’
Clare had had another contraction by the time Valerie came on the phone, fifteen minutes after the first, but she said to Valerie, ‘I can’t help wondering if it’s a false alarm, I’ve read that it’s really common, especially with first babies, but it is different from all the other aches and pains—’
‘Clare, get yourself into the hospital on the double; I’ll meet you there,’ Valerie said authoritatively.
‘I’m ringing him first, I don’t care what you say.’ Jane also became authoritative. But, to her dismay, Lachlan’s mobile was either switched off or in a non-mobile area. ‘Damn!’ she said. ‘He could be in the hospital. They don’t allow mobiles in the wards, I remember from when your father was there. Never mind, I’ll try again when we get there. Now, have we got everything?’
She looked around the colourful chaos of Clare’s bedroom—they’d been tidying out Clare’s wardrobe before lunch—and grimaced. ‘Never mind, it can all wait. Let’s go, darling! But first let me hug you and tell you how much I love and admire you!’
‘Clare, you’re definitely in labour, the cervix is dilating, but there’s no way of knowing at this stage how long it’s going to take. Because it’s twins we’re going to put you in a labour ward so we can monitor them continually. How are you feeling?’
‘Not too bad, if it doesn’t get worse than this I’ll be OK.’
Valerie glanced at the obstetrician over Clare’s head then said to her, ‘You try to rest and relax. Sure you’re warm enough? I’ll get the sister to bring you a heating pad for your poor feet, they’re icy! Oh, and your mother is trying to get hold of Lachlan. His phone’s still out so she’s ringing the Gold Coast Hospital.’
They wheeled her into the labour ward and made her as comfortable as possible. There was some discussion about hooking her up to an EFM machine but they decided to wait for a while because both babies’ heartbeats were normal, and it would restrict her from moving around.
The truth be told, she thought, she couldn’t believe this was
finally happening to her and she didn’t know whether she was scared witless or in shock.
She had on a hospital nightgown that opened down the back, a pair of socks, and was covered by a white cotton blanket. She also had a name tag on her wrist and they’d tied her hair back in a ponytail. There were two humidicribs lined up against one wall.
For a short time she rested comfortably, feeling the rhythmic surge of her contractions and wondering where Lachlan was, how Sean was.
They came and checked the babies’ heartbeats frequently and asked her once whether she would be more comfortable standing or walking around—perhaps she’d like a warm shower?—but she told them she was quite comfortable as she was.
Then her mother came and sat with her for a while and imparted the news that she still hadn’t reached Lachlan himself but she’d left messages everywhere she could think of for him.
‘But I finally managed to speak to Bruce,’ she went on, ‘and the good news is that Sean is suffering from a mild concussion, that’s all. Serena does have a broken leg but it’s a simple fracture.’
‘Doesn’t Bruce know where Lachlan is?’ Clare asked drowsily.
‘He was with them but Bruce thinks he tried to ring home and when he got no answer decided to drive down straight away. In which case he’ll be here pretty soon, darling!’
Not soon enough as it turned out. Because barely had her mother spoken those words than a severe contraction gripped Clare and the pain almost made her feel like fainting.
‘Mum—’
‘It’s OK, I’ll get them.’
‘Oh-ho!’ the obstetrician said as he examined her a few minutes later. ‘No fooling around for the Hewitt twins. Clare, you’re fully dilated, my dear, and you’ll be feeling like pushing very shortly—we’re with you every inch of the way!’
The labour ward suddenly became a hive of activity. A nurse stood beside her wiping her brow and with a nitrous oxide mask ready. Another attended to the cribs. Valerie was there holding her hand and talking to her all the time.
But all Clare could think was that she’d been right: nothing fully prepared you for labour; the pain was crushing and when it let you go you prayed for it not to come back but it always did. Then she told them hoarsely that she wanted to push and they said that was wonderful, fine, just to do as they said and not to forget to pant like a dog when they told her; they needed to take this gently…
Gently? she thought as her face contorted. They must be kidding! But she alternately pushed and panted and felt as if she was about to split open.
‘Way to go!’ the obstetrician finally said gleefully. ‘We have a touch-down. A boy! What did I tell you about little slips of girls?’
‘Oh! Oh!’ was all Clare could say, because after the briefest respite it started again.
‘Honey, you’re doing a treat,’ the nurse beside her said as Valerie went to the baby, ‘and by the look of it here comes Dad!’
‘Lachlan,’ Clare wept as he loomed up beside her in a gown and a cap. ‘Oh, thank heavens! But I’ve done it once, I can do it again.’
And she did. Ten minutes later, with his arms around her and saying things to her he’d never said before, a little girl entered the world.
‘How are they—are they all right? Oh, look at them!’ She was crying, but they were tears of joy and relief. ‘Are they all right?’
They put them into her arms. ‘They’re fine, Clare, as far as we can tell. Not big babies but they look to be perfect.’
‘Were we ever wrong about you, Clare!’ Valerie said, laughing. ‘That was about three and a half hours from start to finish!’
Several hours later Clare was resting comfortably in her pretty room although her babies were in the nursery in humidicribs. At five and five and a half pounds respectively and with some indications that they were slightly premature—peeling skin, for example—it had been decided to do that just to be on the safe side. But the obstetrician had assured Clare and Lachlan they were fine.
She and Lachlan were alone, for her mother had tactfully gone home. And Clare was still on an incredible high. ‘I just can’t stop smiling,’ she said to Lachlan. ‘I feel like telling the whole world I did it!’
‘You did,’ he said. ‘All on your own.’
She grimaced. ‘So much for my intuition!’
He explained how he’d had to switch his mobile off while he was with Sean and then, once he’d got out of the ward, how all he’d got when he’d rung home was the phone ringing out.
‘We forgot to put on the answering machine, we could have put another message on it. I just didn’t think,’ Clare said ruefully.
‘I’m not surprised, but my thumbs started to prickle immediately,’ he said. ‘I kept telling myself you’d probably just gone out to do some shopping and forgotten about the answering machine but I couldn’t quite believe it.’
Clare had spoken to Sean on the phone as well as Bruce—they were going to release Sean the next day and Lachlan would pick him up. Bruce had said that Serena was resting as comfortably as possible, and he’d congratulated Clare enthusiastically.
‘Now all we’ve got to do is work out names,’ Clare said to Lachlan. ‘I’m so glad one is a girl, I’d have been pretty heavily outnumbered otherwise.’
He smiled at her. ‘I love you.’
She stared into his eyes, suddenly arrested. ‘You said that…you said it while…’
‘I know.’ He closed his eyes briefly then looked at her with clear pain etched in them. ‘If you only knew—I’ll never forgive myself for not saying it sooner.’
‘Did…was it the birth?’ she asked shakily.
‘No. It was because I was never sure how you felt—until I found this.’ He pulled something out of the inside pocket of his tweed sports coat.
Clare gasped as she recognized it—her letter. ‘I…I was going to tear that up.’
‘Thank God you didn’t.’
‘How did you find it?’
‘As soon as I arrived home I went tearing into our bedroom. For a moment I thought you’d decided to leave me—there were clothes everywhere. The drawer this was in was open and it caught my eye.’
Clare sighed. ‘We were sorting through everything, Mum and I, putting away things I mightn’t be able to wear for a while.’
‘Can I answer the questions you raised in here, Clare?’
After a moment, she nodded.
‘There is nothing unfinished between me and Serena, not on my side—but yes, she did leave me with some dark waters to cope with.’
He looked into the distance then back into her eyes. ‘It’s particularly hard to have to admit that you got taken in by a face and a body but that’s what happened to me. It was as if she’d cast a spell over me so that I ignored all the warning signs. The little signs that told me I might not be able to transform this glamorous creature, so used to the high life and all the adulation of being a top model, into a country wife.’
Clare moved a little then subsided.
‘But as the marriage progressed I learnt that wasn’t all that I’d misjudged. I told you once that when the chips were down the only thing that mattered to Serena was Serena—that’s true but it was worse. She used her body to get her own way. She played on my infatuation and even when it began to fade she traded herself—I can only call it that—in a way that eventually nauseated me. And a few days ago she was still trying to do it.’
Clare stared at him wide-eyed. ‘I thought—I mean, I saw it with my own eyes but I thought—’
‘You thought she’d got to me?’ he supplied.
‘You went so still,’ Clare whispered.
‘I know. Still with the effort not to tell her that she was a slut and a whore, that I’d never loved her as I loved you, and that I now knew the difference between a good woman and the type she was.’
Clare blinked and licked her lips. ‘That was part of the…dark waters?’ she asked.
‘I’m afraid so. Once a fool, always a fool, perhaps,
but when you’ve been manipulated by a beautiful woman you become wary. I’m sorry. But you put that theory—that all women are the same—to rest when you got so blazingly angry with me one night. Do you remember?’
‘I…oh, yes,’ she breathed, her mind racing back to the row they’d had over May leaving. ‘It was as if you were waiting for something. Then, the next morning, you were—’
‘Playful and sweet?’ he suggested ruefully.
‘You thought…?’ She stopped.
‘I was waiting to see whether you would use the kind of tricks Serena used to get your own way.’ He frowned frustratedly. ‘Not really consciously but when I thought about it I knew damn well what I’d been doing.’
‘Oh,’ Clare said hoarsely. ‘Why didn’t you tell me then?’
‘My darling—’ he picked up her hand and kissed her knuckles ‘—there’s more. Are you feeling OK, though? This might not be the best time—’
‘Lachlan, there’s never going to be a better time.’
He flinched visibly. ‘If only I could have told you this before but…’ he paused ‘…the thing is, from the time I first met you, Clare, I was attracted to you, and as I got to know you I realized—except for insane moments like that night—that there was no way I could compare you to Serena except in one respect.’
‘Go on,’ she said huskily. ‘But I think I know what you mean.’
‘I kept asking myself if I’d done it again—made an unsuitable choice, fallen for someone who would no more fit in or want to fit in with my life-style and Rosemont than she had.’
‘I…I probably didn’t help. I did genuinely think my career was all-important at that stage of my life,’ she said with a stricken little look.
‘No, you didn’t help,’ he said slowly. ‘You seemed so perfectly satisfied with that “no strings attached” kind of relationship—’
‘Secretly I wasn’t, though. As the months passed I—but I didn’t think you wanted to be pinned down.’
He fiddled with her wedding ring. ‘It’s crazy, isn’t it? I did but I didn’t. Can you forgive me?’
She sniffed and blinked.
‘But when the opportunity came to—pin you down, Clare, I couldn’t resist it and I began to realize why. I couldn’t begin to think of living without you even though I had grave fears of how it was going to turn out. It was a compulsion that even overrode my fears of what a second unsuccessful marriage would do to Sean. So, no, it wasn’t because of him that I did it.’
Having His Babies (Harlequin Presents) Page 14