It didn’t even occur to him to pick the baby up. Comforting babies was not in his skill set. He was quite happy to deliver them or to examine and treat them when they were sick or injured. He could even tickle their tummies and make them smile occasionally but to pick them up and cuddle them?
No way. He avoided that like the plague.
Okay, he had picked Jamie up once but that had been because it had been too painful for Ellie to move much on that first night. It wasn’t as though he’d done it because he wanted to hold a baby himself.
It was just as well he hadn’t ever wanted a family of his own, wasn’t it?
He didn’t actually like babies when they weren’t presenting an interesting medical challenge.
Even Jamie? Even when he’d experienced that very odd moment of connection in the first minutes of this new life? A connection that had made holding him that first night feel different from any other infant he’d ever touched? He hadn’t put him down in a hurry, had he? Even when he’d stopped crying...
Luke joggled the pushchair in addition to its horizontal movement.
Especially Jamie, he decided. That was one boundary he had no intention of being forced to break. And that was a challenge that he knew would be no problem at all to meet.
* * *
It wasn’t just the change in working hours that made Luke’s life so different over the next week.
He’d always chosen to live alone as an adult. Because he liked his own company and the independence of his own space.
For someone that didn’t even like babies, this new arrangement should have been unbearable.
It was anything but...
He found himself looking forward to getting home at the end of the day. To grabbing a cold beer from the fridge and heading outside to admire the progress that Ellie was making. The courtyard had been cleared of weeds by the end of the first day. The lavender hedge had been clipped back the day after that and then Ellie had tackled the rose gardens, pruning bushes, pulling out weeds and uncovering an astonishing number of flowering plants that he’d had no idea were even there.
‘I wanted to mow the lawns,’ she told him. ‘But they need something with more grunt than the lawnmower, at least for the first cut.’
‘There should be a weed eater in the shed. That was one of my jobs, way back.’
‘Yeah...I found that. But it’s covered with cobwebs and I couldn’t get it started.’
‘I’ll sort it on my next day off. We’ll need some fresh two-stroke. The chainsaw will need that as well.’
Ellie’s eyes lit up. ‘You can use a chainsaw? That’s awesome... There’s a lot of branches that are too thick for the pruning shears. And you don’t have a rotary hoe, by any chance, do you?’
‘Don’t think so. Why?’
‘The veggie gardens are full of waist high weeds. It’s going to be a big job.’
‘Hmm... We’ll take a look at that when there’s more daylight.’
Did he really want to spend one of his precious days off working in a garden that wasn’t even going to be his in the near future? It should have irritated the hell out of him.
But, strangely, it did nothing of the sort.
Watching the garden he remembered so well emerge from the neglected wilderness was a poignant kind of magic. His parents had loved this garden. It might have been a chore having to help with weed eating and mowing grass and clipping hedges when he was a teenager but it had been part of the only family life he’d ever had.
Making things good again now felt like paying homage to that part of his own story. The part that had made him the person he was now instead of what...a prison inmate?
Or dead?
Yeah...either of those outcomes had been a real possibility the way his life had been heading before the Gilmores had taken him in.
He’d fully expected that having someone else in his house would have disturbed him a lot more than it did. Maybe it was because it was helpful having someone around most of the time. He’d been able to get people in to mend the windows and those dodgy boards on the veranda and now had painters booked to come and redo the exterior of the house. And maybe it was more than acceptable because Ellie had taken it upon herself to cook dinner every evening.
He had no idea where she got the level of energy she had from. She was a new mother, for heaven’s sake. Surely looking after the demands of an infant twenty-four hours a day was enough of a job? But Ellie seemed unstoppable. She had her own transport now and she’d even been out to view a couple of rental properties that had looked promising online—in between sessions in the garden, shopping for food and producing meals that meant Luke walked into a house that smelt as welcoming as this home had been to a starving teenager.
It felt...special.
Part of the paying homage thing?
Not that he was going to try and analyse those moments when something deep tugged at his heartstrings. He told himself that it was simply confirmation that this house needed a family. That he was right in having told Mike the real estate agent that this property was not going to be marketed as anything other than an idyllic family home. In telling his solicitor that he needed to do everything in his power to make sure that the distant cousin, Brian, couldn’t make any claim on this land and use it as a development opportunity. Some progress was being made on the contesting of the will issue apparently but Mike was still ringing every other day to try and get the nod to start the marketing process.
‘This is a property that needs to be marketed internationally. It takes time to book advertising space. Get a billboard made. Print brochures. At the very least we have to get the photo shoot done. I’ve got a guy with a drone who can do some spectacular aerial views. You won’t even see any weeds in the gardens.’
That had been irritating. Luke had finally told him that he had to wait until the garden had been sorted before any photographs could be taken. It didn’t matter that weeds wouldn’t show up in aerial photographs. It was important to him that this place looked its absolute best.
If that meant rolling up his sleeves and getting his hands dirty in the garden himself, then that was fine by him.
Like living here again, it would be a trip down memory lane. An opportunity to be thankful for the twist his life had taken all those years ago. A chance to say goodbye properly before he moved on?
Maybe the most disturbing thing about having Ellie here were the broken nights.
Not because his sleep was interrupted. He’d got more than used to that back in the days of being a junior doctor covering way too many night shifts. The cry of a hungry infant was no worse than a pager going off. A lot better, in fact, because he didn’t have to get up. He could just roll over and go back to sleep.
The disturbing part was that he found himself lying there listening for the sound of Ellie’s soothing voice. The sudden silence that meant she would be breastfeeding Jamie. It was easy to drift back to sleep then. What he couldn’t control were the images of Ellie’s breasts that haunted his dreams and meant waking, as often as not, in need of a cold shower to start his day.
But he was coping. Becoming more confident that he could meet a kind of physical challenge he’d never had to face before.
More than simply coping, in fact.
That it was Ellie Thomas he was sharing this time with was helping. They had shared memories of this area and the school they had both attended. They knew a lot of the same people. They had both stolen lollies from Mr Jenkins, for heaven’s sake. And gone sliding down the same sand dunes. She was part of the past but would also be a link in the future when he no longer had a place to call home, here. She would be that link because they were developing that real friendship more convincingly every day and that friendship was making it a lot easier to resist the powerful physical attraction that he was plagued with.
/> He wanted to keep this friendship.
He wanted to keep in touch and hear about Jamie’s milestones like his first tooth and first, wobbly steps. He wanted to see pictures of him blowing out candles on his birthday cakes and maybe a video clip of him jumping in puddles or kicking a ball. A proud smile on the first day of school...
He’d been there to feel the utter relief when this baby had taken his first breath and there would never be another child that he felt such a connection with.
Or another woman, for that matter.
Ellie had cooked a roast chicken for dinner tonight and the smell wafting through the house made Luke’s mouth water. He headed straight for the kitchen. The French doors were open and Jamie’s pram was positioned to catch the gentle warmth of the last sunbeams of the day. That light was also filtering through the grapevine outside, the dappled shadows shifting over the rustic table and long bench seats on either side, and dancing over the newly swept paving. Big terracotta urns had been freshly scrubbed, he noticed, and planted with bright red flowers. Geraniums?
He hadn’t realised he’d spoken aloud until Ellie rewarded him with a quick grin.
‘Wow...a man that can name a flower. I’m impressed. I picked them up when I went past the garden centre today. Do you like them?’
‘It all looks fantastic out there. You’ve even started doing things out the front, haven’t you? It was a lot easier to walk down the path.’
‘I’ve started. There’s some tree branches that will need your skill with the chainsaw when you finally get that day off. I’ve put them on the list.’ The wiggle of Ellie’s eyebrows suggested that the list was already quite long. ‘You hungry yet?’
‘Starving. Didn’t have time to stop for lunch.’
‘That’s not good.’ Ellie gave him a stern look. ‘You need to build your strength up for your gardening gig.’
He found a beer and watched as Ellie took the chicken out of the oven and put it on a carving dish. Then she scooped crispy looking vegetables out of the roasting pan and put them into a big bowl. It was when she put the pan onto the stove top, clicked the gas flame into life and sprinkled flour into the pan that Luke felt another one of those tugs on his heart that was powerful enough to feel like pain.
Dorothy Gilmore used to do exactly that.
‘Real gravy doesn’t come out of a packet, son,’ she’d say. ‘It takes time. And love...’
He had to step away from the memory. What would Ellie think if she looked up and saw tears in his eyes?
‘So what else did you do today?’
‘I got some more clothes. Look...real jeans...’ Ellie left the wooden spoon against the edge of the pan as she held her arms out and did a quick pirouette.
Luke frowned. They looked like perfectly normal jeans as far as he could see. A denim casing for a pair of very nice legs and a particularly shapely bottom.
Ellie had seen his puzzled frown. ‘They’re not maternity jeans,’ she explained. They don’t have a stretchy insert to fit my enormous belly.’ She patted that part of her anatomy. ‘Still a bit squishy, I have to say, but it’s definitely improving.’
‘You’ve got nothing to worry about. You look amazing.’
The words came out before Luke had time to consider any repercussions. Even if he had given it some thought, he wouldn’t have expected the startled look in Ellie’s eyes. Or the way time seemed to stop even as a flush of colour crept into her cheeks.
It was Ellie who broke that eye contact. So quickly he might have been able to convince himself that he hadn’t seen what he thought he’d seen.
Except that wouldn’t work, would it, because he recognised the intensity in that fleeting glance and he knew, beyond a shadow of doubt, that Ellie was experiencing the same level of physical attraction to him that he was grappling with in the other direction.
He was in trouble, here.
As if things hadn’t been difficult enough when he thought that the attraction was one-sided.
Ellie was stirring gravy as if her life depended on making sure there were no lumps in it.
‘Want to eat outside? It’s not too cold yet.’
‘Sure. I’ll grab some plates.’
Outside would be good. Closing the doors might ramp up the sudden tension that seemed to be in the air.
What else could he do to try and defuse it?
Luke cleared his throat as Ellie put down the last platter of food on the table outside.
‘Did you go and see that place in Takapuna you were telling me about last night?’
‘Yeah...’
‘No good?’
‘No.’ Ellie’s sigh was heartfelt. ‘The pictures didn’t show that it was right on a main road and that the back garden was a junk yard. I actually saw a rat.’
‘Good grief...’
‘Not to worry. There are new places going up every day. I’ll find something.’
She would. But as Luke closed his eyes in appreciation of that first mouthful of moist chicken smothered in gravy, a sudden thought flashed in completely from left field.
What about this place?
He could let her live here and care for it. It wasn’t as if he had to sell the place to survive financially. He didn’t even need the rent and the property would only continue to grow in value, which would make it a fantastic investment.
Jamie would be safe. And he would grow up having the kind of childhood that Luke had never had, right from the start.
But...
Even the perfect crunch of the potatoes that gave way to their smooth soft centres wasn’t enough to slow the out-of-control speed of Luke’s train of thought. It was inevitable that they were going to crash.
If he did that, he’d be tied. He would have a woman and child depending on him.
He would be responsible for the safety and happiness of others.
As if he had his own family...
‘I had a call from my solicitor today.’ He had told Ellie about the problem Brian Gilmore had presented. ‘The will’s been upheld and can’t be contested. I’m free to put the place on the market as soon as I’m ready.’
‘Oh...’ Ellie seemed to be concentrating on cutting the food on her plate into very small pieces. She often did that, he’d noticed, in case she ended up having to feed Jamie and eat one-handedly. She didn’t even look up when she spoke.
‘Just as well we’re getting the garden in shape, then. Not that it would make a difference. I’ll bet the first person through will buy it.’
‘It has to be the right person.’ Luke was focusing on his plate now, too. Weird that one of his favourite meals wasn’t tasting as good any more. ‘A family.’
Or at least the promise of a family. Like a couple and their new born baby.
Like him and Ellie and Jamie?
Luke’s fork clattered as he dropped it onto his plate.
‘I’m going to get another beer. Do you want anything?’
Ellie shook her head. Her smile looked forced.
‘No. I’m good.’
Luke pulled his phone from his pocket as he stood in front of the fridge. He pulled up Mike the real estate agent’s number and tapped in a message.
Had the all-clear to put the property on the market. Drop over later this evening if you want to get the agency agreement signed.
He stared at the screen for a long, long moment.
And then he hit ‘send’.
CHAPTER EIGHT
IT HAD ONLY taken as long as a single heartbeat but something huge had changed.
One glance...
Had Luke actually meant to give her that compliment on what he thought of her body shape?
Maybe not. Maybe he’d surprised himself and that was why, for that instant in time, he had dro
pped his guard and Ellie could see the blaze of desire in his eyes.
And, oh, my...she had felt it ignite an apparently endless supply of tinder-dry fuel in her own belly, the heat flooding her entire body. Even her face had probably ended up looking as if it would be possible to fry an egg on her cheeks.
Luke must have seen—and worse, understood—exactly what her response had been.
She’d thought initially that he would be horrified to know how attracted she was to him because he wouldn’t be remotely interested in her in the same way. Now she knew that he was and yet he seemed to be just as appalled.
He’d put up what felt like an impenetrable barrier.
Starting the process of putting the house on the market had been the first sign of the distance being created. A reminder that being together in the same house was a temporary situation.
On his day off, Luke had been more than willing to dust off the old tools in the garden shed and do whatever Ellie had asked. He’d cheerfully pruned back the larger branches that needed a chainsaw and spent hours attacking long grass, first with the weed-eater and then with the lawnmower. Ellie could only watch from a distance, often with Jamie in her arms, and wonder if he’d been this happy to spend his day working outside because it meant that he didn’t need to be anywhere near her and conversation, for most of the day, was impossible due to the noise he was generating.
The sensation of a clock ticking to make sure she didn’t forget how temporary this was increased when the team of painters arrived and put up scaffolding to work on the outside of the house. Visible changes were happening day by day as one week blended into the next.
Hidden changes were also happening as that barrier became thicker. Even eye contact seemed fraught now and best avoided. There was an elephant in the room that only seemed to be getting larger as they both avoided it so carefully. On the day that Ellie had her six-week postpartum check-up and the doctor told her cheerfully that she was fine to resume her normal sex-life, just being in the same room as Luke was enough to make her blush. She didn’t dare risk eye contact. It was almost a blessing that Jamie was more grizzly than usual after his first vaccinations so he kept her fully occupied and, when he was finally settled, Ellie was too tired to do anything other than fall into bed herself.
The Surrogate's Unexpected Miracle Page 10