Bargaining for Baby

by Robyn Grady

  This room upheld the Prescott promise of old money and impeccable taste, yet Sue had managed to make the library look cozy, too, with fresh flowers from the garden and bundles of home décor magazines and crossword puzzles camped out on occasional tables. The flowers were long gone, but the magazines he’d told Cait to leave.

  Jack studied the baby studying the room. Beau was a smart kid. Even at this age, Jack could see it in his eyes.

  “Will you be a reader or more a hands-on type like your uncle?” he asked his nephew, crossing to the nearest bookshelf. “Maybe both. Your mother was good at everything.” He grinned, remembered when they’d been children. “Not that I ever let her know that.”

  He strolled half the length of the room to the children’s section and eyed the spines that Sue might’ve read to Beau when he was a little older, as well as to their own son, had he lived.

  Wincing, Jack inhaled deeply to dispel the twist of pain high in his gut. Every waking minute of every day, he missed her, missed what they’d had. And then Maddy had appeared in his life. When she was around, he didn’t feel quite so empty, and he wasn’t certain how to process that. Should he feel relieved or guilty?

  The polished French-provincial desk in the corner drew his attention. He carried Beau across the room and slid open a drawer on the right hand side. The book was there…Sue’s memory book.

  Jack laid it out on the leather blotter and flipped through the pages, pointing out Sue’s relatives to a fist-sucking Beau. She had spent hours making the pages pretty. On the last page, a blue-and-yellow heart hugged a black-and-white image…a scan of their unborn child.

  His eyes growing hot, Jack gently pressed his palm next to the eighteen-week-old shape that was his son.

  “Sue wanted to name him after her father,” he told Beau, in a deep, thick voice. “But I told her, no disrespect to her dad, that Peter Prescott sounded dumb. I’d wanted to name him after my father—”

  A bitter nut of emotion opened high in his throat. Dropping his gaze, Jack swallowed hard and reached again for the drawer. He drew out a platinum-plated rattle, not a family heirloom but a gift Sue had bought for their baby a week before she’d died. The inscription read Love forever, Mum and Dad.

  His chest tight, Jack smiled at the galloping horses etched down the cool handle. He shook the rattle and was rewarded by a sound similar to sleigh bells. At the noise, Beau pulled his ear then threw a hand out.

  Lowering the rattle, Jack sank into the chair and, feeling empty again, searched his soul.

  He examined first the scan image in Sue’s book then Beau. Then he looked at each again. The pain behind his ribs intensified to a point where he almost lost his breath. But then, remarkably, the ache eased to a warm sensation rather than something bleak and cold and sour. He didn’t want to feel that way anymore.

  As the tension between his shoulders loosened, Jack bobbed Beau high on his arm and, pressing his lips to the baby’s forehead, handed the rattle over.

  Later that day, Jack was back in the stables, preparing to brush down Herc. But he was more interested in what was happening outside.

  Beau was in the yard on a prickle-free patch of lawn and garden near the house. He was enthralled by the motion of the baby swing, which his uncle had hung from a tree branch that morning. Maddy pushed the swing, carefully—not too high. Her face was a portrait of joy. Of contentedness.

  Smiling, Jack absently threaded Herc’s brush strap over his hand.

  Hell, no matter her mood, Maddy was attractive. Perfect symmetry, graceful movements. In his humble opinion, this landscape was the ideal foil for her skin and flaxen hair, particularly given the denim shorts and blousy blue top she wore today…the same color as her eyes. He itched to go join them in the dappled shade of that cypress. But simply looking from a distance raked the reawakened coals that smoldered deep in his gut.

  True, they both felt the same fire. Both wanted the chance to turn the heat on to combustible high. But as much as it needled, he reminded himself yet again that she’d been right last night and he, in turn, meant to keep his word. He wouldn’t crowd her. Foremost, she’d come to Leadeebrook to keep a promise not to begin an affair.

  Jack turned to Herc and, frowning, swiped the bristles down his glossy black neck.

  Affair wasn’t the right word. Affair implied some sort of ongoing relationship and neither of them was immature enough to think that was a possibility. They lived thousands of miles apart. He didn’t like the city. She was not a fan of the country. She might take up his offer and come back to visit once or twice. But she was a young woman with a life, and who she was and what she aspired to be wasn’t here.

  When Herc’s flank twitched and his rear hoof pawed the ground, Jack swiped the brush again.

  Good thing really. He’d considered taking on a more serious relationship with Tara and had concluded it would be a mistake. He’d had no choice but to take responsibility for Beau. After the initial king-hit shock, he was at peace with the arrangement. He’d do everything in his power to protect him, keep him close. Maddy, on the other hand…

  Jack stopped brushing.

  Well, Maddy was another matter.

  Nell breezed by his leg, trotting out the door with a boomerang-shaped stick in her mouth. Curious, Jack crossed to the window in time to see Nell drop the stick at Maddy’s feet.

  It’d be a cold day in Hades before Maddy got chummy with a canine. Given her past, he couldn’t blame her. He, however, couldn’t imagine not having a dog around his feet. Not so long ago he’d owned five.

  Her nose wrinkling, Maddy waved Nell back and Jack heard her say, “Shoo. Get away.” But Nell kept sitting there, every few seconds nudging the stick closer to Maddy’s city sneakers with her nose. Nell wanted to play. She could catch a stick for hours if anyone was silly enough to throw it. Nell thought Maddy was a good candidate.

  Jack grinned.

  And he’d thought Nell was smart.

  He was about to rescue Maddy when she did the most remarkable thing. She stooped and, as if she were handling a stick of dynamite, lifted the no doubt slobbery stick between a single finger and thumb. With a move that reminded him a little of Swan Lake, she kicked out a leg at the same time she flung the stick away. With a visible shudder, she wiped her hand down her shorts’ leg but before she could give Beau’s swing another push, Nell was back, the stick between her jaws, eyes drilling her new playmate’s.

  When Maddy shrank back in alarm, Jack chuckled and set down the brush. Poor Maddy didn’t know what she’d started. She was so much ‘the lady.’ Not prim, but rather manicured, French-scented, lipstick-in-the-morning female.

  He liked that about her.

  When Nell’s ears pricked and she shot off into the western distance, Jack reached for his hat. Only one reason she’d leave her sport. Visitors.

  By the time Jack had washed his hands and moved out into the true heat of the day, the familiar engine groan was unmistakable. Snow’s Holden truck. Snow knew about Beau. The other evening, Jack had mentioned Maddy. Guess Snow’d gotten tired of waiting for an introduction.

  Maddy had scooped Beau out of the molded swing seat by the time Jack joined her and Snow was alighting from his vehicle. Jack hadn’t had time to explain to Maddy who their visitor was, although, from the white of Snow’s beard, she might’ve guessed.

  Snow didn’t close the car door but rather clapped the thigh of his faded jeans. A lamb leaped out, landing in a spray of Mitchell grass with a scramble. Nell sniffed around the lamb but realizing the relationship between these two—this was not a sheep to be worked—she trotted back to her stick. But now Maddy seemed oblivious to Nell’s insistent stare. Her own gaze wide, she clapped one hand over her mouth to catch an enchanted laugh. The lamb was prancing after Snow as if the crusty caretaker were his mother.

  Snow offered his hand to Jack then announced in his tobacco-gruff voice, “Seeing you got a guest at your sheep station, Jum, I reckoned she might want to meet a sheep.” Snow
cordially touched his hat. “Snow Gibson at your service.” He dropped a glance at his woolly companion. “This tagalong’s Lolly.”

  Maddy introduced herself to Snow then, holding Beau on her hip, hunkered down. “Hello, there, Lolly.” She combed her fingers between Lolly’s fleecy ears and sighed. “You are the prettiest little darling ever.”

  Snow stroked his beard. “I see you got one of your own.”

  Maddy pushed up and spoke to Beau. “Say hello to Mr. Gibson, Beau.”

  Snow took the baby’s tiny hand between a rough thumb and a stained knuckle. He sent Jack a hearty look. “He’s like Dahlia.”

  His chest tight, Jack returned the smile. “Same grin.”

  “Think he’d like to see this other one fed?” Snow retrieved a bottle from his inside vest pocket. When he handed the bottle to Maddy, eyes sparkling, she sucked in a breath.

  “Me?”

  Wrinkles concertinaed down the side of Snow’s face when he winked. “She’ll be thirsty. You gotta hang on to this real tight.”

  Jack took Beau and both he and Maddy knelt down again. Lolly almost wrestled her over when she nuzzled up for the teat. As the lamb latched on, Maddy clung to the bottle with both hands while Jack considered a warm stirring emotion he had trouble naming.

  He’d grown up with orphaned lambs as pets. Sue’s parents had been farmers; livestock had been part of everyday life for both of them. He hadn’t seen this kind of awed reaction over an animal in…he couldn’t remember how long.

  The emotion, he realized, was satisfaction.

  With milk disappearing at a rapid rate, Maddy asked, “I didn’t think there were any sheep left here?”

  “I got a few,” Snow expounded, “justa keep a hand in.”

  “You’re a shearer?” she asked.

  “Among other things, yes, ma’am.”

  “You’ll have to give me a demonstration.”

  Snow shucked back his shoulders. “That would be my pleasure.”

  Beau squealed and thrust out an arm, fingers spread toward the lamb.

  Snow chuckled. “The Prescott genes coming out.”

  Snow’s Australian Services badge had lived on the side of his Akubra for decades. Now the metal glinted in the sun as he straightened his hat and put a question to Maddy.

  “How you liking Leadeebrook?”

  Jack’s ears pricked. He’d like to hear her answer, too.

  But, with a big smile, Maddy dodged the question with a throwaway comment. “Jack thinks he’ll get me on a horse.”

  “Does he now?” Snow eyeballed Jack, who cleared his throat. Just because a man wanted to show a lady how to ride didn’t mean anything, even if in this instance it did.

  The lamb had finished his feed so Jack hooked a thumb at the house. “Might be time to get Beau out of this heat.”

  “Babies’ve got sensitive skin,” Snow reflected, taking the drained bottle from Maddy. “But won’t be too many summers before this one’ll be flying off that tire swing hanging over Rapids Creek.”

  Maddy snapped a look at Jack. “There’s a creek nearby?”

  Snow confirmed, “Fulla water, too.”

  Snow wasn’t being smart. There’d been times, and recently, when the creek bed had been bone-dry.

  As they moved toward the stairs and the shade of the veranda, Maddy took the baby and slipped Jack an aside. “I won’t bother asking if the creek’s fenced.”

  Jack wasn’t sure how to respond. Of course the creek wasn’t fenced.

  “By law, pools have to be,” she told him. “Where children are concerned, I don’t see why creeks should be any different.”

  Guess he wouldn’t tell her about the dams then.

  He assured her, “My father taught me to swim before I could ride.”

  “There are some excellent swimming schools and coaches in Sydney,” she countered in an encouraging tone.

  He adjusted his hat and picked up his pace. “Beau doesn’t need to be an Olympian, Maddy. I can teach him everything he needs to know right here.”

  “Everything?” She surveyed the endless plain with a lackluster air. “Here?”

  He strode up the steps, half a length ahead. He wanted to tell his guest to let him worry about Beau. She was the go-between. He’d decide what needed to be done and he’d do it his way.

  No mistakes this time.

  Eight

  Maddy hadn’t known what to expect.

  Hay stacks in every corner? Corncob bobbing contests? A country band wearing plaid shirts, plucking at banjos? Instead, that Saturday evening when she and Jack entered the Clancy City Gala Ball, she was more than pleasantly surprised.

  Clancy was a Channel country community in Queensland’s deep west. It boasted the usual small town landmarks. Nothing to write home about. But the exceptional establishment in which they now stood shone like an oasis in a desert. She might have been back in Sydney.

  Amid the soft strains of tasteful pre-dinner music, uniformed wait staff breezed around classic timber decor surrounded by exquisite gold-plated fittings and waterfalls of fragrant floral arrangements. Best of all, their fellow guests alleviated any concerns she might have had about being overdressed.

  Maddy’s suitcase had presented nothing even remotely suitable to wear. Rather than rely on Hawksborough’s sole boutique—Lindie’s Labels—she had her assistant express courier a gown and accessories she’d purchased from a recent fashion show for an upcoming event. The alizarin-red chiffon sheath made her feel like a goddess.

  The pleated shoulders were sheer with the waist gathered high under a cupped bodice, which created an elegant fall of fabric through the middle down to her silver-heeled toes. If her Bulgari crystal earrings added the perfect touch, Jack Prescott was the perfect escort.

  As he took her arm to guide her through the mingling black-tie crowd, she enjoyed a thrilling rush of pride. The word hadn’t been invented to describe the hold-onto-your-thumping-heart factor Jack oozed in that tailored dinner suit. Beneath the custom-made jacket, powerful broad shoulders rolled with every smooth measured step. His bearing was confident yet also casually relaxed. Movie producers cried out for masculine looks as dramatically chiseled as his.

  Others in the room noticed, too. Women camouflaged their interest behind elevated flutes. Men stepped aside to give this naturally masterful guest right-of-way. Maddy had never felt more envied, more singled out or…more special in her life.

  And this event was only the beginning of their evening. At the regional airport Jack had organized for their bags to be transported to an apartment he’d let for the night—a night she both anticipated with relish as well as with dread. A prude she was not, however, in her book, sexual intimacy wasn’t something to be taken lightly. There was so much to consider. Her philosophy had always been that if it was going to happen, there was no need to rush.

  Yet every time Jack looked at her she felt his gaze on her skin like a steamy caress. Every time he smiled, she wanted to surrender her lips up for his to take. Since Tuesday night when they’d made their pact to keep a respectable distance, the pressure to succumb had built until her anticipation surrounding tonight had tipped the scales toward flash point.

  With his guiding arm through hers, she clasped her hands over her beaded pocketbook. As much as she’d lain awake in her patchwork quilt bed these past nights, staring at the ceiling and imagining what making love with Jack would be like, the imminent reality—the trip wire tight expectation of how this evening would end—now threatened to overwhelm her.

  She’d bet her life he was a natural in the bedroom. Maddy was sure that as far as Jack was concerned, making love was an art form, a living masterpiece to be crafted with liberal amounts of sultry skill. She, on the other hand, wasn’t entirely free of certain inhibitions. She wasn’t the type to swing from chandeliers or even leave the lights on.

  Would she disappoint him?

  Through a break in the chattering crowd, a waiter appeared carrying a silver tray. Jack sel
ected two flutes and offered one over. Maddy sipped the bubbles and sighed at the crisp heavenly taste.

  He smiled. “You like champagne.”

  “A weakness, I’m afraid.”

  “Let’s see…so that’s chocolate custard, rainy mornings and French champagne.”

  She laughed. Tonight the deep timbre of his voice alone was enough to leave her wonderfully weak. “I like books, too, don’t forget.”

  His gaze skimmed her mouth. “I haven’t forgotten anything.”

  “Jack, good to see you.”

  Maddy was snapped from her thrall when a man with a steel gray shock of hair thrust his hand out toward Jack.

  Jack shook heartily. “Charlie Pelzer. How are you, mate?” His hot palm settled on Maddy’s back. “You haven’t met my date.”

  Maddy’s smile wobbled. She wasn’t sure if she liked being referred to as Jack’s date. Or perhaps she liked it a little too much.

  “Madison Tyler,” she said cordially.

  “Maddy’s visiting from Sydney,” Jack said. “She’s in advertising.”

  Charlie’s bushy brows fell together. “Your father’s not Drew Tyler? He’s a huge sponsor of one of my benefactors.” He named a charity.

  Maddy nodded, smiling. “I’ve heard him speak of it.”

  Charlie leaned in conspiratorially. “Perhaps you can bend his ear about sponsoring this cause.”

  He went into a spiel about The Royal Flying Doctor Service, how it was the largest and best aeromedical organization in the world and that without its dedicated staff and services, much of the outback would be uninhabitable. She hadn’t realized that while the RFDS was government subsidized to a point, donations were needed to help replace aircraft and purchase supplies and equipment.