Their Newborn Gift

by Nikki Logan

  Worry? Now why had she told him that?

  He was on his feet in an instant, crossing to her with a fierce scowl on his handsome face. ‘What kind of movement?’

  ‘The best kind. The kind that just says, “Hey, I’m here”.’

  An intense focus sharpened his expression. She forgot he had a professional interest in pregnancy, but had very little opportunity to ask his equine mothers what it felt like.

  ‘Do you…Would you like me to describe it?’

  ‘Can you? I mean, will that be difficult for you?’

  Probably, given that she tried to not think about it at all. But the deep longing that glowed in his eyes was added incentive. She wanted to give him this, even if it meant opening the emotional box she’d sealed shut. She slid both hands under her T-shirt to frame the slightly hardened roundness. She hadn’t really thought about how to describe it before. She closed her eyes a moment to get it right. ‘It’s like…ripples. Deep inside. Some people feel it as butterflies, but for me it’s kind of a tide. A pulling. I know it’s shifting. Maybe that causes the fluid to swirl.’

  ‘Do you feel it on the outside?’

  She lifted her lashes. His gaze was fixated on where her hands rubbed over her stomach.

  He really is interested. As unexpected as that was, she felt no reason to hold the knowledge to herself. She’d been doing that so long, the chance to share it with someone, anyone, was enticing. Even if he was the last man on the planet she’d have expected to be sharing with. The only man on the planet who had the right.

  She took a breath. ‘Sometimes. Would you like to feel?’

  He just about stumbled over the kitchen chair in his haste to back off. But he pulled up on the other side of it and watched avidly.

  ‘Come on, Reilly. You’ve already compared me to one of your horses. Just pretend I’m on all fours and wearing a bridle.’

  The heat that flared in his eyes then had nothing to do with embarrassment, and it was Lea’s turn to blush. That expression was more the Reilly she expected. She’d been seeing less of him, lately, and more of his quiet, sensitive twin. She stepped towards him; he stiffened immediately. There was the slightest power rush in watching his reaction to her advancing body. Big, bad Reilly Martin was nervous.

  Because of her.

  ‘Just one feel.’ She spoke to him like he spoke to God’s Gift: confident; soothing. She took his left hand and placed it surely onto her skin near where she could still feel some residual activity. Her warm skin blazed with remembrance at his touch. Five years had done nothing to dilute her flesh’s memory. His fingers were large and just slightly work-roughened and Lea had to clamp her jaw to prevent the sensation of pleasure.

  Just man hands; nothing special.

  She shifted his fingers like a stethoscope, closer to one hip. ‘Can you feel anything?’ Her question was more of a breath. Her eyes darted up to his, where they locked on what his fingers were doing.

  He shook his head, so close to hers.

  Damn. She was suddenly burning for someone else to feel it, to make this all real. She shifted his hand lower, into the curve of her pelvis.

  His eyes widened, met hers. ‘Was that the baby?’

  She laughed. ‘I don’t know. What did it feel like?’

  ‘A hand waving.’

  She closed her fingers over his consolingly. ‘No; it’s still too small. That might have been the fluttering?’

  And with her disappointing words the magic of the moment evaporated, leaving a man and a woman in a kitchen, with his big man-hands closer to her panty line than anyone had been in years. In fact, the last hands had been his, too.

  His eyes locked on hers; his thumb slid tenderly across her hip. She drowned in their intensity.

  God, Lea. What are you doing?

  She shifted sideways out of his reach, striving for casualness. Her suddenly rapid heartbeat thumped out through her laugh. ‘So, similar to horses after all?’

  He didn’t answer directly, but he stepped back and gave her the space she needed. ‘Horses. Humans. Either way, it’s a miracle.’

  She stared at him. ‘I imagine this is not something you expected would ever happen in your life?’

  His laugh was bitter. ‘Not exactly.’

  ‘Were you planning a family before it happened?’

  ‘It?’

  His glower and single arched eyebrow didn’t frighten her off. Not this time. ‘Before your injuries.’

  ‘Did I have plans for a loving wife and a house full of kids?’ He had to think about it. ‘Not consciously, but, yeah. I always imagined myself sharing this place with someone. Handing it over to someone when I got old.’

  His pain was visible. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Why? You didn’t cause the damage. Rodeo was my choice. Besides, as it turns out, I have a child and a second one on the way. That’s a heck of a lot more than I was expecting out of life. I think I can survive not having the loving wife to come home to.’

  Lea’s eyes fell away. What would that be like, coming home to this man? Being loved by him? His body heat seemed to reach out to her.

  Conversation…conversation…She cleared her throat. ‘So, how long has Mrs Dawes worked here?’

  He leaned casually onto the kitchen table, crossing his booted feet. ‘My whole life. She and her husband were hired when my parents bought Minamurra.’

  ‘Did I meet her husband?’

  Reilly shook his dark head. ‘He lives out with the ringers.’

  That got her attention. ‘Isn’t that a bit…unconventional?’

  He smiled, the first look of affection she’d seen him give for anything other than a horse. And Molly. ‘This coming from you?’ He chuckled. ‘I think it keeps the romance alive for them. They sneak around like clandestine lovers to spend time together, and when they’re not they have their own space, their own interests. Plus, I’m not convinced they’re actually married.’

  ‘Really? How scandalous. Good on you, Mrs Dawes.’ Her laugh was too loud for the quiet kitchen.

  Reilly suddenly realised how few laughs this whole house had absorbed into its serious walls. ‘You don’t mind a bit of scandal?’

  She sat in the chair closest to his crossed legs and tipped her head up to him. ‘Not if it paves the way for true love.’

  ‘You don’t strike me as someone who’d put much stock in true love.’

  Lea’s face shuttered over. ‘Really? Why’s that?’

  ‘I had you pegged more as a “love the one you’re with” type.’

  Her eyes darkened. ‘Appearances can be deceptive. But, as it happens, that’s what I had you pegged as.’

  ‘You’d be right.’ To a point.

  ‘So, tell me about your first love,’ she asked.

  Whoa. Unexpected turn, and no good way to answer that. ‘I have. Grita, the Swedish backpacker.’

  She rolled her eyes. ‘First love, Reilly, not first lover.’

  ‘There’s a difference?’ He knew that would earn him one of her tight smiles. ‘Why so interested?’

  ‘I’m not interested.’ Colour streaked up the ridge of her cheekbone. It suited her. ‘We’re going to be in each other’s lives for months. I thought we could get to know each other a little bit. You know…pass the time.’

  It was too easy to slip back when she kept handing him openings like that. ‘I can think of better ways of passing the time…’

  Her eyes glittered. ‘No doubt. But, as we’ve established, I’m over four months’ pregnant.’

  She thought that was the slightest deterrent? It only made her more attractive.

  Her pink lips twisted and she changed tack. ‘Okay, first kiss, then.’

  If not for her determined expression—that face said conver-sation-or-death—he’d think she was working up to a proposition. Who talked first kisses with a man they had once slept with? Near midnight. Alone in the middle of nowhere.

  Lea Curran did, apparently.

  He smiled and s
huffled his feet so the other one was on top. ‘Same answer, as it happens. Grita was a great few weeks.’

  She tossed her head and went to stand. ‘Okay, forget it—’

  He met her on her feet and pushed her by the shoulders gently back down into the seat, taking the opportunity to sink back down onto the table edge much closer than before. ‘This conversation was your idea, there’s no bailing now. What about you? First kiss.’

  She glared up at him. Almost didn’t answer. ‘Jared.’

  His stomach hit the floor. ‘You shared your first kiss with Jared? As in, your brother-in-law?’

  Her chin lifted. ‘Get your mind out of the gutter, Martin. We were sixteen. Friends. Curious. He was pretty much the only decent boy my age for two-hundred kilometres.’

  ‘How was it?’ A question like that should have earned him a slap. But there was something about this night, this conversation.

  ‘With Jared?’ She smiled. ‘Wet. Gross. Pretty sure he agreed. I gather my sister’s a better kisser.’

  Hard to imagine. He still remembered the shape of her mouth from those years ago. He swallowed hard. ‘I wouldn’t take it personally. Kissing’s all about science.’

  She snorted. ‘Science? Not very romantic.’

  He slid an inch closer. Their bodies were almost touching, the heat from his extended legs merging with the kiln of her body. A body burning from more than just incubating a baby, if he wasn’t mistaken.

  ‘Kisses aren’t about romance,’ he said, ‘They’re about sex. A good kiss is about chemistry. Or don’t you remember?’

  Her voice dropped slightly, and the blaze in her eyes told him she remembered very well. Was she thinking about that motel? He certainly was. There’d been a lot of kissing then, bold, brave kisses. But nothing like the chemistry pinging between them now. Yet they weren’t even touching. This woman should come with a caution sign for the residual current running through her.

  His entire lower half pulsed erotically in synch.

  ‘I beg to differ,’ she said softly, exciting his body with promise. ‘A good kiss is about timing, anticipation, connection.’

  He bent forward, closer to her face. ‘Show me.’ Her pupils widened, marginalising the flecks of green, blue and brown to the very rims of her irises. But she didn’t move away. ‘Show me how a kiss is about more than sex.’

  For the life of him, he really wanted to know.

  She wavered, her enormous eyes locked fast on him, and then invisible threads lifted her face towards his. She looked one-hundred-percent woman now and completely awake. His heart started to hammer against his chest wall, wanting out.

  Their entire conversation since she’d unwittingly stumbled on him in the kitchen had led to this moment. And they both knew it.

  ‘If a kiss was just about sex…’ Lea breathed the words against his lips, tipping her face so that her forehead almost rested against his, a sweet, trusting little move that roused every primal instinct lurking deep in his body. ‘Then we’d be kissing now.’

  Reilly snatched forward with his lips to prove his point. She avoided him with a quick twist that put her mouth perilously close to his throat. His ear. Awareness shivered down his neck as her hot breath danced around him. Her hair brushed against his hypersensitive flesh.

  ‘But what makes a kiss romantic, about so much more than sex…’ she drew his face like a magnet, curling towards those pink, ripe lips ‘…is the question mark. How will it taste?’ She rubbed his stubbled cheek with her own soft one, dragging the corner of that delicious mouth closer to his. ‘How will it feel?’

  His eyes fluttered shut as she traced the lids lightly with her lips.

  God above, she was going to kill him. Five-year-old memories surged around the room, practically crashing into the furniture. His mouth was at once dry with anticipation and wet with desire as her lips returned to hover just millimetres from his.

  ‘And, most importantly…’ She raised smoky eyes, a tiny smile shaping her mouth. Her hands were braced either side of his hips on the kitchen table and he closed his eyes as she leaned that final inch forward. Thank God. ‘How will I possibly survive never knowing?’

  She pushed herself to her feet and away from him, and crossed back to the hob to see to the bubbling kettle. His eyes opened in disbelief, his body screaming with the denial. ‘Never knowing’ was no longer an option.

  And it had nothing to do with romance.

  Lea gasped as strong, masculine hands spun her back just as the simmering kettle started to sing. Its mounting pitch matched her fever exactly. Reilly folded her into strong arms and tipped her half off her feet before she could even suck in a breath to protest. Her hard, pregnant midsection pressed against his hard, flat one.

  His blazing mouth—soft and powerful, familiar and new—slid over hers, demanding a response she was gasping to give. Hot and wet and urgent. Exactly as she’d remembered in her dreams. Her little lesson in romance had sapped her of resistance, and she literally panted for a kissing lesson from someone she was fast considering to be the sexiest man alive.

  Never mind that he held such a low opinion of her; he kissed like a god. Her breath ached in her tight, trembling chest.

  He consumed her, feasting on her lips and pressing her body perfectly into his, his tongue burning the inner reaches of the mouth she helplessly opened to him. The heady lip-work seemed to strengthen him everywhere she was weakening, and he held her up as her legs gave out.

  The oxygen that should have been surging through her body pooled into her core, prioritising her vital organs as though her life was in danger.

  In danger of being kissed out of her, perhaps.

  The kettle was piping now, spewing steam out of its angry top and forming a layer of sweat on the overhead cabinets that rivalled the rapidly forming dampness on her own skin. Some desperate, distant part of her consciousness ordered her hands to remain clenched, not to join the fray. But the roaring thunder of her blood drowned out the request, and her hands did what she suddenly realised she’d wanted to do since that first day at Yurraji. They fought their way under the layers of his clothing and spread out against the furnace of his muscular back.

  She knew those muscles like Braille. Every dip. Every rise. Every sinew.

  God, how she’d missed them.

  Her mind screamed a protest at her body but it came out as a choked mix of fury, frustration and desire. Reilly must have felt it more than heard it over the protesting kettle, but he righted her up onto her feet and let his hands slip up into her hair. Her shirt rode up against him as she swayed to her feet, and she realised she was stretching up to prevent their lips from breaking apart.

  She was kissing him.

  He closed his fists in her hair and gentled his mouth. Slower, wetter, more rubbing, more heavy breathing. Lea rubbed her body against his as the kettle kept up its piercing aria. Undeniable, one-hundred-proof sex.

  The man had made his point.

  She pushed away, gasping and dragging her wrist across her throbbing mouth. With trembling hands she turned and put the kettle out of its misery, and the ear-splitting crescendo died away instantly.

  In the new silence, her chest heaved. His chest heaved. Tortured breathing filled the air. It was a tiny comfort that Reilly looked as stunned as she felt. His molten eyes assessed her warily as she backed towards the door. But he didn’t stop her leaving.

  ‘I’m just…I think I’ll…Bed.’ Words just would not form on her swollen lips. ‘Alone,’ she added hastily as a dangerous gleam sparked in his eyes.

  Again, silence.

  She turned and wobbled to the doorway on jelly legs. But as she disappeared through it she heard Reilly’s voice as he cursed, thick and low.

  Chapter Nine

  THE more she learned, the stranger it became. There was no end to the ramifications of her decision to create a life that could also save Molly’s. For example, learning that her daughter’s blood type would eventually change to match the baby’s
.

  Lea shook her head, frowning. ‘Did you know that Molly will end up with two types of DNA? Her flesh will be her own but her blood will match the new baby’s.’

  Reilly looked up from a sheath of accounts spread across his desk and considered that. He wasn’t startled enough; it must have already occurred to him. ‘Handy if she wants to become an arch criminal, I guess.’

  Lea chuckled and conceded the point from her comfortable position on the sofa. Molly slept stretched out the length of it with her head on Lea’s rapidly diminishing lap as the rain drummed hypnotically on Minamurra’s tin roof.

  It felt like it had been raining the best part of the month.

  She sobered. ‘The more I learn, the more I realise how many lives could be affected by this decision.’

  Reilly glanced back up at her, leaving his figures again. ‘You hadn’t thought about all of that?’

  She’d never been much good at hiding her blushes and one broke free right now. ‘I…Yes, of course. But I hadn’t…The long-term implications weren’t…’ She took a deep breath, then looked at Molly. Then back at Reilly. She sighed. ‘Actually, no. At least, not for long. I figured that all of those things would be surmountable. None of them had much impact against the chance to save Molly’s life.’

  He regarded her steadily. She held her breath. This was where the inevitable criticism would come, the preaching and speechifying, Bryce Curran style.

  He lowered his eyes carefully back to his desk. ‘Gotta say, I’d just be happy to make some impact on this spreadsheet.’

  Lea blinked. ‘That’s it—no sermon? You don’t have an opinion to share about how irresponsible that was? How I should have thought about it longer? How careless I’ve been?’

  He looked back up and shrugged. ‘I’m sure you don’t need my condemnation stacking up on top of your own.’

  Lea drew in a tight breath. He was right.

  ‘Why the frown?’ he asked.

  Lea forced the furrows away and answered carefully. ‘I’m more used to people using the ammunition I give them.’

  He lowered the spreadsheet to the desk. ‘Someone else might have lied about not having given the ramifications due thought. Covered their butt.’