"I didn't realize you still played," she said, just for something to say.
"Haven't in a long while. Until…" He stopped suddenly, waited for her to do the same, to turn and face him. "Godfrey's invited me to play every Friday since I came back. I figured I'd spend all afternoon fielding offers to work with him, so I kept knocking him back."
Heart knocking against her ribs, she met his gaze. "Until the day I went to Sydney."
"Yeah. Except I invited myself that day. I wanted to be there for you."
The sincerity of that quiet admission knocked the stuffing right out of Chantal.
"I wanted to tell you the day you came home. I didn't and I've regretted it ever since."
That's what he'd meant by helping her … and she hadn't even bothered to ask. "I wish I had known," she said, her voice barely a whisper.
"Would it have made any difference?"
Remembering her all-fire rage that day… "Probably not."
He nodded. Then, turned and started walking again. Somehow she coaxed her legs into doing the same.
"I guess we both have regrets from that day." She felt his interest, a stillness in his gaze as it rested on the side of her face, but she couldn't look up. All her focus concentrated on placing one foot in front of the other and not screwing up her apology. "In the heat of the moment I said things I wish I hadn't. Especially about quitting your job." And your engagement. "I'm sorry. Truly, deeply sorry."
Their walking slowed until they barely moved, until they stopped, although neither turned. And in that long silence the air felt so taut Chantal swore she heard it sing, high-pitched with the strain.
It was her phone.
As she automatically reached for it, he circled her wrist in an iron-hard grip. "Don't answer it."
"Okay."
He released his breath in what sounded like relief. "I didn't quit. I was fired."
Wow. Cautiously she turned toward him and the movement drew his attention to his tight hold on her wrist. Frowning, he eased his grip to a gentling caress, as if he intended to smooth away any marks left by his fingers. A myriad of sensations swirled through Chantal. The fierce longing to wipe that frown away. To kiss it away. Warmth as tenderhearted as the marshmallow he'd proclaimed her, yet cloaked in a fierce possessiveness. To fight every fight for him, to right every wrong.
"Why would they fire you?" she asked, hackles rising. "Have they no brains?"
"They had their reasons."
Breath held, she silently implored him to share those reasons. Whether he chose to or not seemed immensely significant, a sign of his willingness to include her in more of his life. And just when she didn't believe she could stand the suspense any longer, her phone rang again, a shrill intrusion that she reached to shut off.
"Go ahead," he said shortly. "It might be important."
"Not as important as why you were…"
Her voice trailed off when she identified the caller. Zane's mobile, which he rarely used. He'd started carrying one in case Julia needed him urgently. Her heart constricted with a sudden irrational fear. Three weeks to go, but…
"Is it Julia?" she breathed into the phone. "What's happened?"
She heard three words – pain, bleeding, hospital – before everything faded in a paroxysm of fear.
* * *
Chapter 12
«^»
One look at her stricken face, and Quade had asked two questions: "Where to?" and "How fast?"
At Cliffton Base Hospital they learned that Julia was being prepped for a Caesarian delivery and despite all the reassurance – it's precautionary due to the placental bleeding, thirty-seven weeks isn't too early, the baby's being monitored and is fine – Chantal's face had turned an ashen shade of pale.
She clutched the coffee he'd just fetched between hands that shook more than a little. "You don't have to stay," she said. "Kree will be here any minute. And my parents. They should be on the five-forty plane."
"I'm not going anywhere."
She didn't argue – not that it would have made any difference. He was staying. He didn't want to analyze why, didn't want to think about the ramifications, he just knew he wasn't leaving her. Not while her hands still trembled so badly she couldn't put down her cup without slopping coffee on the side table. Not when her eyes pooled with tears as she fumbled about in her bag. When she started to mop ineffectually at the spill with a wad of tissues, Quade reached for her hand.
"Leave it," he said more gruffly than he'd intended.
She stilled, tensing beneath his touch, and he turned her hand over to link fingers, palm to palm. For a long while he said nothing, simply sitting and letting her absorb strength and comfort from his touch. Gradually he felt an easing in her tension, an acceptance of the solace he offered, and when she gently squeezed his fingers the instant explosion of emotion poleaxed him.
For another long while he didn't speak, couldn't speak past the tight constriction that spread from his gut through his chest to take a stranglehold on his throat.
"Thank you," she said quietly.
He didn't bother with you're welcome, same as she hadn't added it means a lot to me. Both were givens.
After another minute, she spoke again. "You can't have a good association with hospitals."
"Does anyone?"
"Not everyone has your history."
Her quiet observation and the degree of perception behind it stunned him all over again. So did his sudden compulsion to invite her into a past he'd always kept under lock and key. Even from Kristin … but then she hadn't been interested in his past. Only in what his present could do for her future.
"We must have visited Mum, I don't know, at least fifty times when she was in Sydney. Undergoing treatment, they called it, and I remember wondering how the word 'treat' could be associated with what she was going through."
Gently, barely perceptibly, she increased the pressure of her palm against his. Comforting him, encouraging him. Offering the same kind of strength as he had offered her.
"The sensory things get me the most. The smell, the rattle of those carts they use, the way the nurses' shoes squeak on the floors. They trigger this reflex reaction … I guess it's fear."
"Of the very worst kind."
He knew she wasn't thinking only of his mother's death, but of her sister and her unborn baby. Her fear that all would not be well with them. This time he returned the pressure of her fingers twined in his, tightening his grip until their forearms came into contact, elbow to wrist, along the aligned arms of their chairs.
"Thank you." No more than a husky whisper of sound but he knew she was thanking him for sharing as well as for the comfort.
Countless times over the past weeks he had replayed her words from that day in his shed, the day she walked out on him. You haven't told me one damned thing about it. All you were prepared to share with me was your body. Until today he'd clutched stubbornly at some warped sense of righteousness, because he'd never promised anything else, because he hadn't believed he wanted anything else.
But the instant he saw her again, the truth had hit like a sucker punch. Recovering from that initial blow had taken some time; so had accepting the truth. He wanted more. He didn't know how much, but it had started back on the golf course with his I was fired admission. Then, in the aftermath of Zane's phone call, his need to look after her, to be there for her, crushed any lingering doubts.
Now he had shared a glimpse of himself but there was so much left unsaid. Yet he felt no urgency, no cause for panic. Sitting hand in hand, offering her comfort and drawing some back, he felt a sense of harmony, as if suddenly all the fragmented pieces of his life had fallen back into place.
Glancing around the maternity ward, taking in the worried tightness between her brows, he knew this wasn't the time or place for the whole of his story but he would offer part as a sign of intention. The rest would wait.
"They fired me because another firm secured confidential information." Before she could voic
e the protest he saw in her eyes – and that instant defense warmed him gut-deep – he shook his head. "They were justified. It came from me."
"I don't understand. How?"
"Kristin's boss enticed her to extract information. Pillow talk." He released a disgusted breath. "I didn't even realize what was going on."
"That's treachery. She was your fiancée." Outrage brought color to her pale cheeks, fire to her dark eyes.
"First and foremost, she was an attorney."
"And this is why you broke up." A quiet statement of fact, not a question, and Quade knew he needed to explain the full circumstances later but, for now, this would do.
"Yeah, and why I fired into you so unjustly."
"I'm not Kristin."
"I know that." He'd known it for a long time; he just hadn't been ready to admit it.
"I'm sorry." A wry smile quirked her mouth. "Not about you breaking up with that evil woman, but about losing your job. About losing the life you had."
For the first time he felt no bitterness, no sense of loss. "They did me a favor."
"Really?"
"I took up law for the wrong reasons. After Mum died, when Dad could barely look after himself, Godfrey found out about the scholarship to Melbourne Grammar. It didn't cover everything, not by a long shot, and for the next ten years he paid the bills Dad couldn't handle, right through school and university.
"I had to prove I was worth all that money. Law seemed the perfect choice – prestige and money – plus what better way to prove myself than doing better in my benefactor's career?"
"You won't ever go back to law?"
"No." He was absolutely certain, at total peace with that decision.
"What will you do?"
"I'm going to put vines in. I've been looking at a viticulture course, thinking about external study."
Smiling – hell, he'd missed that slice of sunshine – she turned a little in her seat, enough that he could see the teasing twinkle in her eyes. "Farmer Quade, huh?"
"I'll see how it fits." But already the notion was sitting as comfortably as the feel of her by his side, as warmly as the effect of that smile. Eyes fixed on her mouth, he started to lean toward her…
"Chantal. There you are. I thought I'd never get here. Has twenty miles ever taken so long?" Kree fell upon them in a rush of words and hugs and demands. "Tell me I'm panicking for nothing. Zane left a message with Tina and it was so not helpful. Tell me she heard it wrong. Tell me it's all good."
Quade let Chantal explain, settling back in his chair as they reassured each other. A half hour later the rest of the Goodwins rushed into the room – both parents, Mitch and his son – and before the tumult of their arrival settled, Zane arrived wearing hospital scrubs and a dazed expression. The noisy rabble sobered instantly, and in the long beat of silence Quade noted the gleam of tears in Zane's pale eyes, and then an inkling of a smile. Still dazed, but a smile nonetheless.
"A girl." His deep voice hitched with emotion and he scrubbed a hand across his eyes before he could continue. "We have a baby girl."
He was instantly enclosed in a huddle of high emotion, questions falling upon questions without any pause for answers. Finally he pulled clear and held up his hands. "I need to get back there. I just wanted to let you all know they're both fine. Everything's fine."
"When can we see her? Them?"
"Is she dark like Jules?"
"The baby's all right, isn't she?"
As the questions streamed around him, Quade felt the first pangs of disquiet. Until this moment he'd been too focused on Chantal's worry to even consider the baby's arrival. A real infant, newly pulled from her mother's womb. Uh-uh. He took several automatic steps backward. He was not ready for this. And with so many family members, Chantal no longer needed his shoulder. Superfluous. He would leave them to savor their intense relief, their joy, the euphoria of the moment. Birth. Such a stark contrast to his hospital experiences. Such a stark reminder of his only remaining regret from Kristin and Dallas.
As he headed for the car park, he felt the sharp prick of tears in the back of his throat.
* * *
For a glimmer of a moment Chantal caught the look in Quade's eyes. Fear? No, more than that. Pain. Was he remembering his mother? The loss of his family?
She tried to catch his eye, but he seemed too tightly focused on his own inner thoughts, his expression remote. Never had she felt such a bittersweet ache of need, never had she wanted to reach out more, but before she could act Mitch caught her up in a wild whooping hug that swung her off her feet.
Around and around she spun, while Joshua bounced and yelled encouragement and Mother shushed their exuberance with loud disapproval. Back on her feet, her head spun with giddiness and when she finally regained her bearings, she turned around, once, twice, searching each corner of the large waiting room. Her stomach hollowed out. He was gone.
Disappointment settled quickly and heavily but lifted with equal alacrity. Nothing could dampen her elation nor her conviction that this afternoon marked a sea change in their relationship.
Relationship.
Her heart gladdened as she silently repeated the word. He had stayed and he had shared so much more than his body – he had shared the stuff of his heart. With a resolute smile, she vowed that before this night was over she would share the essence of hers.
* * *
Call it telepathy or call it love-blinkered confidence, Quade knew she was coming. He didn't bother fixing dinner or turning on the television and although he opened a bottle of red, it sat untouched on the coffee table as he paced the floor with an impatience he had never experienced before.
He swore he heard the sound of her engine before she turned off the main road. Impossible but tonight his senses felt so finely tuned he believed it. He opened the door before she knocked, but she showed no sign of surprise.
"We have to talk," she said with steadfast purpose. "Really talk."
Quade knew that. But talk involved mouths and once his gaze shifted from the dark intensity of her eyes to her soft pink lips, he decided the talking could wait.
He couldn't.
"We will," he promised, pulling her inside and shouldering the door shut in one blink of her long lashes. In the next he had her pushed up against the slab of wood with her hands trapped above her head. Now she looked surprised. Satisfaction gathered low in his gut. So did a month's load of frustrated abstinence. "After."
She started to smile and he was there before it formed, sinking into her with a hunger that drove her hard against the door. His hands slid the length of her arms, fingertips to armpits, releasing them to capture her breasts with the same urgent compulsion.
She matched his mood immediately. Hands hard in his hair, holding him to her mouth, she arched her back and pressed the fullness of her breasts into his hands, driving him wild with the need to possess.
Here, now, take no prisoners.
A torrent of heat flooded his groin as his hands slid to her buttocks, lifting her from the floor and hard against him. Without pause, she hooked her legs high and rocked her hips in perfect synchronicity with his. Perfect but for excess clothing.
Wrenching his mouth from hers – two hands didn't seem sufficient, teeth might come in handy – he started to right that wrong. He pulled her shirt from her waistband and started on the buttons but she was quicker. Hands already at his waist, releasing his belt buckle, unzipping, freeing him with a sharp cry of triumph.
Quade sucked in a long tortured groan at the incredible softness of her hand, moving on him with mind-numbing tenderness, stroking him until the heat and need roared in his ears.
He had to be inside her. Now. Yesterday. Last week. Forever.
"Condom." He hissed in a breath as she rolled her thumb over the head of his erection. "Jeans pocket."
His hands were otherwise occupied, under her skirt, ripping down her pants, touching her moist center without preliminaries. Or enough preliminaries judging by her instant
response. Her breathing grew harsh, her pleas raw and earthy, and he had to stop, to plant his hands on her hips and remind her about her interrupted task.
"Protection. Now."
"I can't," she breathed with equal desperation, "seem to get it."
Teeth gritted, he endured her fumbling ministrations, the exquisite pleasure-pain of her hand on him, stretching and rolling until he was sure his head would explode. Either one of them, both of them, it didn't matter. And when she was done, he rasped out something that might have been a curse or a blessing or a promise as he plunged into her.
Holy hell. How he had missed this. The hot caress of her body, drawing him in, to plunge again and again. The silken heat of her skin beneath his hands, the taste of her mouth, her throat, her breasts. The sounds of their breathing, harsh and ragged in the thick silence; the dark words they whispered, encouraging the fervent need to possess and be possessed.
It should have felt like lust, pure and elemental, but in those last seconds, as his climax gathered power and his senses clamored with the need for release, he gazed into her eyes and knew he loved her with the same unstoppable power as their joining, with the same savage intensity as the thunder that roared through his body as he came.
It took long minutes to collect himself from the ceiling, to gradually sink back into the shattered remains of his body. To realize where they were. Standing, slumped against his front door. More than half-dressed. His arms seemed barely capable of supporting him as he eased back from her body, out of her body, and in that instant he understood the significance of her stillness. The slightly puzzled look on her face.
The condom had broken.
* * *
Chapter 13
«^
Knees weak and trembling, Chantal sank to the rim of his bath and buried her face in her hands. Unfortunately that didn't obliterate either his surgically bright bathroom light or the memory of what had just happened in his hallway.
QUADE: THE IRRESISTIBLE ONE Page 13