That was what he should have talked about tonight. He should have confessed his role in Josh’s death.
Oh, God. The mere thought of telling Lucy the truth caused a sickening jolt in his chest. She would hate him.
He couldn’t take that risk.
The next day, Sunday, dragged for Lucy. She wasn’t on call so, apart from checking on her patients, including the python, who was recovering nicely, she couldn’t distract herself with work.
She collected her car from the Careys’ and spent a happy half hour discussing the wedding with Mattie’s mum over a cup of tea. In the afternoon, she took her dogs for a lovely long walk along Willow Creek, but they weren’t good conversationalists, so she was left with far too much time to brood over the huge gaffe she’d made during last night’s conversation with Will.
She couldn’t believe she’d actually asked her schoolgirl crush to help her to have a baby. Talk about a Freudian slip!
What must Will think of her?
Why in heaven’s name had she blurted out such a suggestion when she’d once been engaged to Will’s brother?
The question brought her to a halt, standing at the edge of the creek, staring down into the clear running water. She remembered the happy times she’d spent here with Will, panning for gold or sapphires. How excited they’d been over the tiniest speck of gold or the smallest dull chips of dark glass that signified sapphires.
She’d never once let Will see how much she loved him. She’d been too scared to risk losing him by telling him how she felt.
She was so totally lost in thought that she was startled when her dogs began to bark suddenly.
‘Stop that, Harry,’ she called. ‘Seamus, what’s the matter?’
Then she heard the snap of twigs and the crunch of gravel underfoot. Someone was coming along the track.
‘Come here,’ Lucy ordered but, to her dismay, the dogs ignored her. Their tails kept wagging and they yapped expectantly as a tall figure came around the bend.
It was Will.
A flare of shock burst inside her, as if someone had lit a match. Will looked surprised too, but he seemed to recover more quickly. He smiled, while Lucy’s heart continued to thump fretfully.
‘Fancy seeing you here,’ he drawled.
‘I brought the dogs for a walk.’
He grinned and bent down to give the boys a quick scruff around the ears. ‘I needed to get out of the house.’
‘Already? But you’ve just arrived home.’
‘I know.’ His grey eyes sparkled as he looked up at her. ‘But I’ve had this crazy idea rattling around in my head and I needed to get away to think.’
‘Oh,’ Lucy said uncertainly.
The dogs, content with Will’s greeting, went back to hunting for the delectable smells in a nearby lantana bush. Watching them, Will said, ‘I’ve been thinking about your baby proposal.’
‘Will, it wasn’t a proposal. You know I didn’t mean it.’
With a distinct lack of haste, he said, ‘But is it such a bad idea?’
Lucy’s mouth fell open. Surely he wasn’t serious? ‘Of course it’s a bad idea. It’s crazy.’
He looked about him, letting his gaze take in the silent trees and sky, the smooth stepping stones crossing the creek. ‘You really want a baby,’ he said quietly. ‘You said so last night, and you’re worried you’re running out of time.’
Now it was Lucy who didn’t answer. She couldn’t. Her heart had risen to fill her throat. She’d never dreamed for a moment that Will would take her flippant comment even halfway seriously.
He stood, blocking her way on the narrow track, watching her carefully. ‘I’m sure you’d prefer your baby’s father to be someone you know.’
She still couldn’t speak. Her hand lifted to the base of her throat as she tried to still the wild pulse that beat there.
Will pressed his point. ‘I imagine a friend must be a better option than an unknown donor in a sperm bank.’
‘But friends don’t normally have babies together.’
She couldn’t see his expression. He’d turned to pluck at a long grass stalk and it made a soft snapping sound.
‘People accept all kinds of convenient family arrangements these days,’ he said. ‘The locals in Willowbank have accepted the idea of Mattie’s surrogacy very well.’
‘Well, yes. That’s true.’
But, despite her silly dreams, Lucy couldn’t imagine having a baby with Will. He’d never fancied her. And, even if he did, he was Josh’s brother.
‘Look, Lucy, don’t get me wrong. I’m not pushing this, but I’m happy to talk it through.’
‘Why?’
A slow smile warmed his eyes. ‘We haven’t talked for years and we used to be really good at it.’
Lucy felt a blush spread upwards from her throat. Her mind was spinning, grasping desperately at the idea of Will as her baby’s father and then slipping away again, as if the thoughts were made of ice. ‘But what exactly are you saying? That you would be willing to…um…donate sperm for another round of IVF?’
Surprise flared in his face. He tossed the grass stalk into the water. ‘If that’s what you want.’
‘I…I don’t know.’
‘Of course, there’s always the natural alternative. If you’ve had trouble with IVF, that shouldn’t be ruled out.’
Lucy bit her lip to cover her gasp of dismay. She watched the grass float away, disappearing behind a rock. The dogs began to bark again. ‘They’re tired of this spot and they want to move on,’ she told Will.
‘Let’s walk, then,’ he suggested.
There was just enough room on the track for them to walk side by side, and it should have been relaxing to walk with Will beside the creek—like in the old days. But today an unsettling awareness zapped through Lucy. She was too conscious of Will’s tall, rangy body. So close. Touching close.
She couldn’t think straight. She was so tantalised by the idea of a baby, but how could she even talk about having a baby with Will when she’d never admitted that she’d always had a crush on him?
She didn’t want to frighten him away, not now when he’d made such an amazing suggestion.
Dragging in a deep breath, she said, ‘OK. Just say we did…um…give this some thought. How do you actually feel about becoming a father?’
She glanced at Will and saw his quick smile. ‘To be honest, fatherhood has been well down on my wish list. But I guess I’m seeing it in a new light lately. I’ve been hit by the feeling that I’ve been wasting my life.’
‘Because of the little boy at the funeral?’
‘Yes, that little guy really got to me. But there’ve been other things too—like Gina’s twins. They knocked me for six. They’re so damn cute.’
‘I know. I’m eaten up with envy every time I see them. But you haven’t answered me. Would you really want to be my baby’s father?’
Will stopped walking. ‘I can’t promise I’d be a terrific help, Lucy. I don’t even know where I’m going to be working yet, so there’s not much chance I’d be a hands-on father. But, if you want to have a child, I’d certainly be ready to help.’
She was so surprised she found her thoughts racing ahead. ‘I don’t mind managing on my own. It’s what I’d planned anyway.’
Will smiled. ‘So what does that mean? Do you want to give this some serious thought?’
‘I…I don’t know.’ She was feeling so dazed. ‘I know I was the one who started this, but I never dreamed you’d take me up on it.’
Even as she said this, Lucy wished she’d sounded more positive. This was her dream, to have Will’s baby. OK, maybe the dream also involved Will falling madly and deeply in love with her, but surely half a dream was better than none?
‘But I guess there’s no harm in thinking about it,’ she said.
His eyes were very bright, watching her closely. ‘I wasn’t even expecting to see you today. There’s no pressure to make a decision now. We should sleep on it. If we deci
de to go ahead, we can fine-tune the details later.’
‘Fine-tune?’
‘IVF versus the alternative,’ he said without smiling.
The alternative.
This time Lucy’s skin began to burn from the inside out. She hadn’t even been able to dance with Will last night without getting upset. How on earth could she possibly make love with him without a gigantic emotional meltdown?
The very thought of becoming intimate with Will sent flames shooting over her skin. She began to tremble.
‘There’s no rush,’ he said. ‘I could be around here for a while yet, and if I move to Armidale it’s only a couple of hours away.’
Lucy frowned at him. ‘Armidale?’
‘The job I mentioned. At the university.’
Oh. She expelled air noisily.
‘Look, we both need time to think about this, Lucy.’ Will watched her dogs running impatiently back and forth, trying to urge her to get walking again. ‘And I should head back now.’
‘All right.’
‘I’m glad I ran into you,’ he said.
Lucy nodded.
‘So you’ll give this some thought?’
‘Yes,’ she said, but a shiver rushed over her skin and she wrapped her arms around her as she watched Will walk away.
At the bend in the track he turned back and lifted his hand to wave. Then he smiled. And kept walking.
He hadn’t been totally crazy, Will told himself as he strode back along the track beside the creek. He hadn’t committed to a full-on relationship with his brother’s ex. He’d simply offered to help her to have a baby.
This was purely and simply about the baby.
The baby Lucy longed for.
But it meant he’d be a father and he really liked that idea.
He’d be able to watch the baby grow. He’d help out with finances—school fees, pony club, whatever the kid needed. And who knew? Maybe, some day in the future, the kid might take an interest in Tambaroora, if it still belonged to the Carruthers family.
But the big thing was, the lucky child would have Lucy as its mother.
If any woman deserved to be a mother, Lucy did.
Will had dated a lot of women, but he couldn’t think of anyone who was more suitable than Lucy McKenty to be the mother of his child.
And it wasn’t such a crazy situation. Being good friends with his baby’s mother was a vast improvement on some of the unhappy broken family set-ups that he’d heard his workmates complain about.
But the details of the baby’s conception caused a road bump.
Will came to a halt as he thought about that. He snagged another grass stalk and chewed at it thoughtfully.
Any way he looked at this situation, leaping into bed with Lucy McKenty was stretching the boundaries of friendship.
But it was highly unlikely that she would agree to sex. Apart from the fact that Will was the brother of the man she’d planned to marry, and setting their friendship issues aside, Lucy was a vet. She used IVF all the time in her practice and she was bound to look on it as the straightforward and practical solution.
Except that she’d tried the clinical route once and it hadn’t worked.
Which brought him back to the alternative. With Lucy.
Damn. He could still remember their long ago kiss on the veranda.
He should have forgotten it by now. He’d tried so hard to forget, but he could remember every detail of those few sweet minutes—the way Lucy had felt so alive and warm in his arms, the way she’d smelled of summer and tasted of every temptation known to man.
Hell. There was no contest, was there?
IVF was most definitely their sanest, safest option.
Lucy was in a daze as she walked back to her ute. She couldn’t believe Will had given her suggestion serious thought. It was astonishing that he was actually prepared to help her to have her baby.
She couldn’t deny she was tempted.
Tempted? Heavens, she was completely sold on the whole idea of having a dear little baby fathered by Will.
It was the means to this end that had her in a dither.
Sex with Will was so totally not a good idea. The very thought of it filled her with foolish longings and multiple anxieties.
She’d loved Will for so long now, it was like a chronic illness that she’d learned to adjust to. But to sleep with him would be like dancing on the edge of a cliff. She would be terrified of falling.
If only IVF was simpler.
She’d hated the process last time. All the tests and injections and clinical procedures and then the huge disappointment of failure. Not to mention the expense and the fact that, if she wanted to try again, she’d have to go back on that long waiting list.
Oh, man. Her thoughts went round and round, like dairy cows on a milking rotator. One minute she rejected the whole idea of having Will’s baby, the next she was desperately trying to find a way to make it happen.
Could it work?
Could it possibly work?
Lucy remembered again how she’d felt when she’d seen Will at the wedding rehearsal, standing at the front of the church with tiny Mia in his arms. Just thinking about it made her teary. He would be such a fabulous father.
She drove home, but when she was supposed to be preparing dinner she was still lost in reverie, going over and over the same well worn thoughts.
She found herself standing at her kitchen sink, thinking about Will again. Still. She caught sight of her reflection in the window and was shocked to see that she was cradling a tea towel as if it were a baby. And her face was wet with tears.
The picture cut her to the core and, in that moment, she knew she had no choice. She wanted Will’s baby more than anything she’d ever wanted in her life.
That precious baby’s existence was a hundred times more important than the method of its conception.
Tomorrow, she should tell Will she’d made a decision.
Early next morning, however, there was a telephone call.
‘Is that the young lady vet?’
‘Yes,’ Lucy replied, crossing her fingers. Calls this early on a Monday morning usually meant trouble.
‘This is Barney May,’ the caller said. ‘I need someone to come and look at my sheep. Four of them have gone lame on me.’
Lucy suppressed a sigh. Lame sheep usually meant foot abscesses or, worse still, footrot, which was highly contagious. There’d been plenty of rain this spring so the conditions were ripe for an outbreak. Darn it.
‘Could you come straight away?’ Barney asked. ‘I don’t want a problem spreading through my whole herd.’
‘Hang on. I’ll have to check my schedule.’
She scanned through the surgery’s diary for the day’s appointments. It was the usual assortment—small animals with sore ears or eyes or skin conditions; a few vaccinations and general health checks for new puppies and kittens—nothing that her assistant couldn’t handle.
‘I’ll be there in about an hour,’ she told Barney.
‘Good, lass. You know where I live—about ten kilo-metres out of town, past the sale yards on the White Sands Road.’
An hour later Lucy knew the worst. The sheep indeed had footrot and it had spread from the neighbouring property via a broken fence.
After paring the hooves of the unlucky sheep and prescribing footbaths, she had to continue her inspection and, all too soon, she discovered more evidence that the disease was spreading beyond the Mays’ property, thanks to another farmer who’d really let his fences go.
Which spelled potential disaster.
Without question, it would mean a full week of hard work for Lucy. Her assistant would have to man the surgery while she toured the district, visiting all the farms as she tried to gauge just how far the problem ranged.
Each night she was exhausted and when she arrived home she had to face the surgery work that her assistant couldn’t handle. By the time she crawled into bed she was too tired to tackle a complicated phone cal
l to Will.
And, because the Carruthers family farm was at the opposite end of the district from the initial footrot outbreak, it was Friday afternoon before she got to Tambaroora.
It was a beautiful property with wide open paddocks running down to the creek and a grand old sandstone homestead, bang in the centre, surrounded by a green oasis of gardens. Lucy could never think about Tambaroora without seeing the garden filled with summer colour and smelling roses, jasmine, lavender and rosemary.
By the time she arrived, Will and his father had already completed a thorough inspection of their herd and they reported that their sheep were in good condition, but Lucy still needed to make spot sample checks.
Will hefted the heavy beasts she selected with obvious ease, and he kept them calm while she examined their hooves. She’d been dealing with farmers all week and she knew he made a difficult task look incredibly easy.
‘For someone who doesn’t think of himself as a farmer, you handle sheep well,’ she said.
‘Will’s surprised us,’ his father commented wryly. ‘We didn’t think he had it in him.’
A smile twisted Will’s mouth as his father trudged off to attend to a ewe that had recently delivered twin lambs.
‘I meant it,’ Lucy told him. ‘Not all farmers are good at handling stock. You’re a natural.’
He looked amused. ‘Maybe I was just trying to impress you.’
She rolled her eyes, but that was partly to cover the attack of nerves she felt at the thought of telling him she’d reached a decision about the baby. Her stomach was as jumpy as a grasshopper in a jar as he helped her to gather up her gear, then walked beside her to her ute.
‘Do you have to hurry away?’ he asked as she stowed her things. ‘I was hoping we could talk.’
‘About the baby idea?’ She spoke as casually as she could.
There was no one around, but Will lowered his voice. ‘Yes, I’ve been thinking it over.’
Her heart jumped like a skittish colt and she searched his face, trying to guess what he was going to tell her. If he’d decided to scrap the baby idea, she wasn’t sure she could bear the disappointment. She’d become totally entranced by the thought of their adorable infant and she’d convinced herself that this time it would work.
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