by Liz Fielding
‘You don’t mind?’
‘I’m happy to be pregnant. I can put up with a little inconvenience to my waistline.’
‘Are you? Really happy?’ He stopped, frowned. She looked it, but he didn’t understand. She was on her own so why would she want this? ‘It’s not just the weight. It’s the sickness, the teeth. Everything. I’d do all that for you if I could.’
‘I believe you. You’d do anything but be a father.’
‘I’m so sorry, Amy. Really sorry.’
She reached out, took his hand. ‘Hey, I was there, too. I’m happy, honestly. I’m ready for this. A baby, motherhood. It’s the right time for me.’
‘Is it? I suppose women are different.’
‘Not that different.’ Then, not giving him time to respond, she moved on, his hand still in hers, ‘I suppose you’ve come to tell me off about Mrs Fuller?’
‘Maggie—my secretary—thought you were just trying to wind me up. Were you?’
‘Winding you up?’
‘She assumed that you were making up all that stuff about the village.’
‘Why would I want to do that?’
The space between her eyes creased slightly in a frown that he suspected was not quite as innocent as it looked. She knew what she was doing. Not that it mattered. She could wind him up simply by breathing—a fact he thought safer to keep to himself.
‘Why indeed?’ he replied evenly, playing along. He hadn’t doubted a word of it, not for a moment. It sounded all too plausible. He was sure that if she put her mind to it she’d have Dorothy Fuller jumping through hoops at the village gymkhana. ‘Of course, she doesn’t know you—’ He’d been going to say, as well as I do, but it occurred to him that while her body was imprinted indelibly upon his mind, he knew very little else about this woman who was apparently delighted to be bearing his child. ‘I hoped you’d be taking things easy. Is decorating wise?’
‘I’m not doing much. Just painting the nursery. Maybe a little stencilling. Stars, do you think?’
‘On the ceiling?’ She’d said she was going to paint the ceiling. ‘I’ve painted ceilings. If you think it isn’t hard work, you’re in for a nasty shock.’ He could picture the scene all too easily. And the picture gave him the shivers. ‘Should you be stretching, bending, climbing ladders?’ She didn’t answer. ‘Will you let me send someone to help with that at least?’
‘Would you?’ For just a moment he thought that he was getting somewhere. Then she said, ‘I promised Mike I’d help paint the village hall this summer, and an extra pair of hands would be—’
‘Forget it.’
Then he glanced at her and realised she was grinning. Definitely winding him up this time. ‘No decorator?’ she asked.
‘Not one you can twist round your little finger the way you have Mrs Fuller.’
‘Spoilsport.’
‘Just a fast learner.’
‘I was afraid you might be.’ She stopped at an antiques shop as something caught her attention. ‘Will you look at that?’
He looked. The centrepiece of the window display was an age-darkened wooden cradle, one of the rockers worn where countless women had rested a foot to gentle a restless baby to sleep.
It would look absolutely right in Amy’s cottage, and for a moment he hovered on the brink of offering to buy it for her. Something warned him not to. ‘It looks really old,’ he said. ‘Elizabethan? Stuart?’
Her hand rested lightly against the window, as if she was communing with all the babies that had lain within the safety of the crib, with all the mothers who had rocked it. ‘That’s real history.’ Her voice was cobweb-soft. ‘Can you imagine, Jake? Some woman centuries ago telling her husband that she was having his child. And her husband searching out just the right tree, cutting it, shaping it…’ She didn’t look at him. Didn’t expect an answer. And after a moment she moved on.
He glanced at her, half expecting her eyes to be filled with tears. His own throat ached unfamiliarly. He swallowed. ‘You didn’t answer my question back there,’ he said, abruptly changing the subject. ‘Do you drive? I haven’t ever seen a car at the cottage.’
She looked up at him. ‘That’s because I haven’t got one.’
‘Oh, no, that’s right. Mike said you use a broomstick.’ Maybe Mike was right. He had this odd feeling that he’d been bewitched. Today he was supposed to be meeting a business contact for lunch. Reviewing progress on a new contract. He’d never intended to be here, walking Amy to the dentist, her fingers laced through his. He knew she’d be better off without him. But how to convince her? ‘Tricky with a pram, though. How do you do business?’
‘On the phone, the internet, by mail order.’
‘Mail order?’
‘It’s a big part of the business. I have a lady who comes in two mornings a week just to deal with that. She used to do it at the cottage, but I need the room now so I’ve rented extra space here which means we can expand.’
He was impressed. But still concerned about transport. ‘Shopping?’ he pressed. ‘How do you manage that?’
‘Just for one. Not a problem. But I’m thinking of getting it delivered. Did you know you can shop online through the supermarket?’
‘I had heard,’ he said wryly.
‘Of course. You’re in that business yourself.’ He nodded once. ‘As for myself, I’m perfectly happy to use the bus service.’
‘Still tricky with a pram,’ he pointed out, trying not to think about her struggling on and off buses as the months passed and she got bigger, as it took more effort. At the end of a long day on her feet. She needed a car—
‘I shan’t be investing in one of those large, coach-built jobs that require a uniformed nanny at the helm—and,’ she said, before he could interrupt, ‘I’m warning you now, before you do something really stupid like having a Volvo estate delivered to my door with a pink bow—’
She could read his mind apparently. Well, nearly. He hadn’t thought about what model estate he’d buy her. As for the colour of the ribbon, he was almost certain that it was too soon to determine the sex of her baby.
‘Not pink.’ She wasn’t the only one capable of doing a little winding up. ‘It’d be a blue bow.’
‘Blue, pink—believe me, it would be a complete waste of time. I’ve never learned how to drive.’ As he bit back, with difficulty, a suggestion that now would be a good time, she stopped. ‘I go in here.’
‘Here?’
‘This is the dental surgery.’ She retrieved her hand, touched his cheek briefly. ‘Do stop worrying about me, Jake. I’ll be fine.’
And before he realised what was happening he was standing alone on the pavement, with the door shut in his face. Again.
Well, not this time. He pushed the door open and was confronted by a receptionist with a smile that was a dazzling advertisement for her employer.
‘Can I help you?’
He doubted it. He was beginning to believe he was beyond help. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m in the wrong place.’
‘If you’re nervous, sir, we can offer…’ He didn’t wait to hear what she could offer for his nerves. He was beginning to think it would take more than a tranquilliser to get him through this.
Amy, in the waiting room, heard Jake follow her into the surgery. Then retreat in some confusion. The easier she made it for him to leave, the less inclined he seemed to be to go, she thought.
‘Miss Jones.’ She wanted so much to go after him. Ask him why he kept coming back. ‘Miss Jones, we’re ready for you now.’
‘What? Oh, right.’ She got up and followed the receptionist through to the surgery. It didn’t matter why he kept coming back, so long as he did it because he cared. The last thing she wanted in her baby’s life was a daddy who was just going through the motions.
And what was all that macho stuff about a blue bow? He wanted a son? Why would a man who’d made it very clear he didn’t want a baby under any circumstances care one way or the other about what sex it was?
Jake walked away from the dental surgery, but he’d stopped trying to fool himself that this was over. Amy might keep telling him to go, but he had responsibilities whether he wanted them or not, the kind he couldn’t walk away from.
He knew all about responsibilities. Every day he held the lives of the men and women who worked for him in the palm of his hand. They relied on him, his vision, his energy, his drive, to ensure that they could pay the mortgage, put food on the table, take their families on holiday.
Maybe that was the answer. If he could deal with this situation dispassionately, treat it as just another project needing his close attention, he wouldn’t get bogged down in emotion.
What he needed was information. He was floundering in a woman’s world that he knew nothing about and was tired of feeling at a disadvantage. Passing a bookshop, he stopped and turned in. It was time to buy himself a little equality.
The assistant was eager to help. ‘You’re going to be a father?’ she asked, when he enquired about books on pregnancy. She didn’t wait for answer, but went on, ‘Is it your first baby?’
‘Er, yes.’
‘How lovely,’ she said, picking out titles that she thought he might find useful. ‘When is it due?’
He realised he hadn’t asked Amy when she was expecting their baby. That was appalling. It was the very least he could have, should have done. Realising the woman was waiting for an answer, he did a little mental arithmetic. ‘December,’ he said.
December. And he thought about heating. He’d seen a stack of logs at the cottage. She couldn’t cope with log fires, she’d need central heating, a drier for the baby’s clothes…
‘You modern men are so involved, so different from when I had my children.’ She smiled. ‘You’re going to be at the birth, I suppose?’
‘What?’ No! Of course he wouldn’t be at the birth. That was unthinkable. But if not him, who? Who’d hold Amy’s hand while she went through the long hours of labour?
Hold her hand and what else? There must be more to it than that. He had some vague idea that Mike had gone to antenatal classes with Willow, learned about the whole process, about breathing through the pain…
‘Oh, dear. You look quite pale just thinking about it. Just be grateful you’re a man, simply an onlooker.’ Then she patted his arm sympathetically. ‘Don’t worry, you’ll be fine.’
Fine. He escaped with the books. Sure, he’d be fine, but what about Amy? Would she be fine? There wasn’t enough money in the world to pay for someone else to be with her, in his place, while his son was born.
He returned to the courtyard café to wait for Amy to return. He ordered a mineral water, then opened one of the books. A month-by-month description of the development of the baby. A month-by-month description of what the mother might expect as her body adapted to the needs of her growing infant.
He stared at the photograph of a developing foetus for a moment, only two inches long and already wriggling his toes. He snapped the book shut. He was getting far too involved, getting much too close. He stood up, put his hand in his pocket for change and his fingers closed over the bootees.
Vicki looked up as Amy walked through the shop. Followed her into the office. ‘How was it?’
Amy dropped her bag on her desk. ‘Fine. All that working out with the toothbrush paid off,’ she said, putting the conversation firmly in the teeth corner, although they both knew that Vicki hadn’t been talking about her visit to the dentist. ‘Everything’s perfect.’
Everything was perfect. Running like clockwork. Exactly right. She was having a baby and absolutely delighted.
So why had her heart taken a little dip when she’d come out of the surgery and Jake hadn’t been pacing the footpath, waiting for her? Hadn’t been sitting in the coffee shop when she got back? She’d seen him there earlier, watching the comings and goings, no doubt assessing her turnover, checking out her ability to support his child.
He wanted to talk, he’d said. About transport? And business? That was all? There was a reprise of the heart-sink as she realised that his mind was still firmly fixed on finance.
‘He came back,’ Vicki said, as if reading her mind.
‘He’d been to the bookshop on the corner and he sat over there with a pile of books about pregnancy.’
Amy found a smile from somewhere. ‘You’re making that up.’
‘No.’ Vicki grinned. ‘My aunt works at the bookshop so I phoned and asked her what he’d bought…’
Books on pregnancy? The smile became less forced. ‘You asked your aunt to betray a professional confidence? That’s appalling…’
‘You don’t want to know?’ Vicki shrugged, turned away to tidy a shelf. ‘Growing a Baby,’ she murmured, half under her breath as she began to replenish the stock. ‘The First Nine Months…’
Back at his desk, Jake opened his electronic notepad and began to work up a strategy for dealing, at a safe distance, with Amy’s pregnancy. The trick would be to do as much as he could for her without getting personally involved.
No more touching.
He could still feel her fingers, cool against his palm, as she’d taken his hand, held it while they’d walked to the dentist. A faint citrus scent still clung to his fingers. Not orange. Something sweeter, lighter, that made him feel better just to breathe it in. Or maybe it was simply the scent of her skin.
He realised he was holding his hands up to his face and snatched them away.
Definitely no more hand-holding.
What he needed was a plan. Normally he’d call a team meeting, ask for ideas, assign tasks, monitor results and make the big decisions.
His team so far consisted of Dorothy Fuller, and Amy had swiftly neutralised her. Well, maybe. He’d talk to Dorothy, make sure she kept a close, if discreet, eye on her charge and reported back to him on a regular basis. Dr Sally Maitland might yet prove to be an ally. He’d go and see her, talk to her. And Willow had been through all this so recently that she could keep him up to speed with what Amy would need by way of support.
And then there was the decorating. He wouldn’t be sending a man in an overall with stepladders and instructions to do whatever the lady wanted. If he did that he’d find himself paying to have half the housing stock of the village redecorated. There had to be another way.
In the meantime, he’d offer her something she couldn’t get anywhere else. A skill not so readily available. That ‘All I need now is to find a match so that I can get it mixed’ was a start. Seeing the perfect colour in the sky was a long way from getting it in a paint tin. It was time for the decorator he’d employed on the penthouse to prove that she could do more than be creative with taupe.
CHAPTER FOUR
FOURTH MONTH. At the end of this month, you may feel your baby move for the first time. With luck the sickness will have tailed off. The baby’s fingernails are beginning to develop and he’s nearly as long as your hand.
JAKE couldn’t believe it. Fingernails. His baby, as yet no bigger than his thumb, was growing fingernails.
He had been so sure that once he knew exactly what was happening, how the baby grew, what to expect from Amy in the way of reaction at each stage of pregnancy, he’d be able to manage things, control them. Regain control of his life.
He’d been fooling himself.
This was like being a kid again. A kid no one cared about, no one took any notice of, until he raged at the world, smashing the things people did care about. They’d taken notice then, but not in any way he’d hoped for.
He stared at the photographs charting the baby’s development and felt…vulnerable. He hadn’t felt so powerless, so helpless since he was ten years old.
He wasn’t in control; the baby was in charge here. All he could do was offer security and even that was subject to Amy’s co-operation.
And she wasn’t co-operating.
He’d been so impatient and excited over the last few weeks, waiting for the decorator to come up with ideas, a reason to drop in at the
cottage…
Now the folder had arrived, complete with shade charts, fabric samples, totally co-ordinated colour schemes that were the very last word in a designer nursery. It lay on the table beside him and mocked him.
Amy would hate it. Hate the phoniness of it. Hate the distance it put between head and heart. He picked up the folder and flung it at a vase. Even before it toppled, smashed against the polished blonde wood floor of the penthouse, he knew that breaking things wasn’t going to help. It hadn’t helped when he was ten years old and a quarter of a century on nothing had changed.
Weeds, weeds, weeds. The weather was warm and wet and everywhere weeds were growing faster than she could pull them out of the ground, and a plague of slugs was devouring her plants as quickly as she could plant them.
Amy subsided onto the damp earth, and as she surveyed the bare stalks of her runner bean plants she howled with frustration. Which was ridiculous. The battle with nature was a yearly event. Nothing to get worked up about. But this year it had all been so much more effort. She was so tired. For the first time since her pregnancy was confirmed, hot tears cascaded down her cheeks.
Damn Jake with his sexy smile, his totally perfect body and the haunted look in his eyes that cried out to her—Love me. She shouldn’t have listened to his eyes. She should have listened to his words.
He’d warned her. She’d thought she could handle it. She could handle anything. But this time she was wrong. He’d bought baby books and she’d been sure that meant he cared, but it hadn’t meant a thing because he hadn’t come back. And a great racking sob wrenched at her body.
Her next-door neighbour, glancing over the fence to see what all the fuss was about, called Willow.
‘It’s not like her. It’s just a few beans, for heaven’s sake, and it happens every year.’