by Liz Fielding
‘You’d have had to waste time worrying about me?’ she enquired archly. Archly! Five minutes ago she’d been promising herself that she’d stop playing games, would fling herself into his arms and tell him that he lit up her life.
A moment ago she’d thought her heart was in her boots. She knew nothing.
‘Oh, damn!’ She stopped, caught her breath, closing her eyes as the muscles of her uterus contracted.
‘What is it?’ He was right behind her, his hand about her shoulders.
She shook her head. ‘Nothing. Braxton Hicks contractions. It’s just—’
‘Just the body going through a practice lap. I know.’
‘Of course you do. You read about it in a book,’ she snapped.
‘You’ve had them before?’
‘Yes, Jake,’ she said, shaking him off. ‘I know what I’m talking about so there’s no need to panic. I’m not about to have the baby on the living room floor.’
‘I wish I’d been to all the antenatal classes with you. I should have been there.’
‘You’re a busy man with more important things to worry about.’
But Jake refused to be pushed away, reaching for her, wrapping his arms about her, holding her. ‘There is nothing more important. You think I don’t worry about you?’ He looked down at her, his expression deadly serious as he pushed her floppy fringe back from her face. ‘Every minute of the day and night?’
‘Where were you, Jake? What have you been doing?’
‘Making myself dispensable. Putting my affairs in order. Tying up loose ends. I’m going to need a lot of time in the coming weeks, months, years if I’m going to be the kind of father I want to be. Where were you today? I arrived bearing gifts to find the house dark and cold. Why did you send Dorothy away?’
‘Because.’ She frowned. ‘You didn’t know?’
‘Not until an hour ago or I’d have done something about it sooner. Thankfully, Maggie was on the ball.’
‘She really bought a house?’
‘In less than a week. Pretty good going, eh?’ He grinned. ‘The estate agent must have wondered what had hit him. Where have you been?’
‘Nowhere. Just cleaning out my office.’
‘Nesting?’
‘Piffle. Apparently I just missed you at Mike’s place. What were you doing there?’
‘I’ll show you.’ He pushed open the living room door.
‘Come and put your feet up. Get warm.’
The fire was bright, stingingly bright. Something must be making her eyes sting. She blinked furiously. ‘What the…?’ She stopped, looked back at him uncertainly. ‘You bought that cradle? The one we looked at?’
‘No.’
She took a step into the room. No, it wasn’t the same. The firelight gleamed off the silky glow of polished oak. ‘Another one, then…’
‘Do you remember what you said that day?’
She was flustered, uncertain. Jake was different, somehow. Less tense. His eyes were softer… ‘I don’t know. Something about a man searching out the perfect tree, felling it—’ She stopped, looked back. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve been out in the greenwoods with your trusty axe?’
‘No. Apparently any decent-sized oak would have had a preservation order on it. And it takes a long time to season the wood. But I did choose the timber, and with Mike’s help I cut it. It looks simple enough, but it took weeks to make.’
‘You made this?’
‘For you. For our baby.’
Our baby. The words sounded so sweet. She crossed the room, touched the hood, setting the cradle gently rocking. Knelt down beside it, laid her cheek to the smooth wood, breathing in the scent of beeswax, touching the white linen waiting for a new life, and she sucked her lips hard back against her teeth.
‘You do it every time, Jake Hallam. You take me to the brink and I think, This is it, Amy Jones, you’ve messed it all up and he’s never coming back. And then you do something else to take my breath away.’ She felt another contraction, stronger than before, a smooth ripple of muscle like a strong wave passing over her. She waited a moment, breathing with it until it had passed.
‘Is that how you do business?’ she said. ‘Drive your customers crazy? Make them desperate, bring them to their knees?’
‘I’m the one on my knees, Amy. Asking you if you can ever forgive me for being so stubborn, so stupid.’ He knelt beside her, took her hand.
Dorothy bustled in with a tea tray that she set down on a low table. ‘The casserole is in the warming oven. Put the crumble in when you dish up and it’ll be ready. There’s cream in the fridge. And don’t worry about the washing up; I’ll be back first thing in the morning.’
‘Thank you, Dorothy.’ Neither of them spoke until they heard the door shut. ‘Tea?’ she asked.
‘The only thing I want is you.’ And after a moment, sweetly hesitant, he kissed her. Gently, tenderly, lovingly, holding her as if she was made of eggshells. Far too briefly. ‘Bad timing,’ he said, as another contraction swept over her.
‘There’s no bad time to fall in love,’ she said when it had passed, light years from cool, or arch or snappy.
She leaned back, nestling her head against his shoulder, tucking his arms under hers so that he could rest his hands on her abdomen, feel the coming contraction.
‘Should we do something about that?’ he asked. ‘Tell someone?’
‘Not yet. There’s plenty of time.’ She closed her eyes, wanting to prolong this time, knowing that it was special. ‘I was born here. In this house. It belonged to my grandmother.’
‘You came here after your family were killed?’
‘Yes.’
‘I know so little about you.’ He rubbed his cheek against her hair.
‘More than I know about you. Where were you born, Jake?’
‘Not like this, in front of a warm log fire. My mother would have thought this very…rustic.’
‘Oh?’
He held her close. ‘She favoured a famously expensive nursing home, where I could be delivered into the lap of luxury with the minimum inconvenience to all concerned.’ She turned and looked at him. ‘Neglect isn’t confined to the disadvantaged, Amy.’
‘Was your father there? When you were born?’
‘My father, a man who had his priorities very firmly fixed on the important things in life, was in Hong Kong on business. I not only look like him, I learned at a very early age that I was just like him.’
‘No.’
‘Yes, Amy. But then I had a double dose of genetic single-mindednesss. My mother engaged a maternity nanny and joined him a week later.’
‘She left you behind?’
‘I wasn’t a commercial asset.’
She reached up, covered his hand with her own. ‘Why? If she didn’t want a baby… If he didn’t…’
‘Oh, he did. All that money, property, required a suitable heir. He discovered too late that children are the downside of fatherhood. Messy, uncontrollable. And, no matter how much you distance yourself, a small boy who is desperate for attention can wreak havoc.’
‘Well, I should hope so.’
‘I wasn’t a nice little boy, Amy. Wheeled out by a nanny to be admired by my parents’ influential friends, I discovered that repeating a new word I’d overheard was a real conversation-stopper. And that being bad got me a lot more attention than being good ever had.’
She flinched. ‘I’m sorry…so sorry…’
‘Anything was better than being ignored.’ He shrugged. ‘Of course, it only precipitated my early entry into the boarding school system.’
‘You hated it?’
‘Not particularly. Only the fact that my parents were always too busy to come to open days. To fetch me home for weekends. As soon as I learned that “I’ll try…” meant nothing, I became very inventive at getting my parents summoned to school. I was expelled from three prep schools for disruptive behaviour in rapid succession and then, when I wanted to ensure my father’s presence at m
y tenth birthday party, I took his brand-new Mercedes and drove it into a tree. Just to be sure he couldn’t leave.’
‘Were you hurt?’
‘No, but inevitably the police became involved, and the family court. My mother sat there and wept, telling them how much she loved me, how she’d tried, that it broke her heart to let me go but there was nothing more she could do. The heads of three distinguished prep schools wrote letters to back her up and I was taken into the care and protection of the state.’
‘Oh, Jake.’
‘I didn’t learn for a long time. I still thought that if I behaved badly enough, they’d finally realise how much I needed them.’
‘They didn’t come.’
‘No. That was it. They wrote me off like a bad debt. I was lucky. I ended up with Aunt Lucy. I could have—’ Amy gasped. ‘Sweetheart?’
‘I think this is the real thing.’
‘I’ll call Sally and let her know that things are underway.’ He got to his feet, helped her up. ‘Hold on to the back of the sofa, lean forward and it’ll help,’ he said.
‘Know-all,’ Amy said, and grinned as he rang the doctor and the midwife.
‘Do you want me to call Willow?’ he asked.
‘Sally’s on her way, and the midwife, and you’re here, Jake, a walking encyclopaedia on the subject of childbirth…’ She grasped his hand as she was seized by a more powerful contraction. ‘Leave Willow to enjoy her evening. We’re doing okay.’
‘Are we?’
‘Scared?’ she asked.
‘Petrified.’ He’d stepped off the cliff and he hadn’t reached the bottom yet. But that was simply life; a plunge in the dark. If you were lucky, a hand was waiting to grasp yours as you passed so that you weren’t alone. Amy had been waiting too long for him to reach out for hers. He’d so nearly missed her…‘But we’re in this together,’ he said, with a smile. ‘Til death us do part.’ Then, ‘Shouldn’t I be timing those contractions?’
She smiled, kissed him. ‘Any time you’re ready.’ Then, ‘Jake, what changed your mind? You said you were like your father. What happened to change your mind?’
‘You.’ He took her hands, held them together against his chest. ‘He’d have written a cheque, just like me, but when you sent it back he’d have shrugged, called you a fool and thrown the bits in the bin, along with the bootees, then wiped the incident from his memory—’
‘Bootees? What bootees?’
‘The pink ones.’ He felt in his pocket, found them.
‘They’re a bit grubby.’
‘I wondered what had happened to those.’
‘You put them in the envelope with the torn-up cheque.’
She shook her head. ‘Not me. Vicki must have reopened the envelope and put them in before she gave it to the courier. She was nauseatingly gooey that day, having been swept off her feet by the leather-clad motorbike rider who delivered your unwelcome missive.’ She caught her breath. ‘You’ve been had, Jake,’ she said, when the contraction had passed. ‘Suckered.’ She grinned. ‘Have you really been carrying them about with you for all these months?’
‘Yes. I suppose I should have given them back, but since you’re having a boy you won’t be needing them.’
‘It’s a girl,’ she replied stubbornly, and then let out a surprised yell as another contraction coincided with the ringing of the front doorbell. ‘And I’m about to prove it.’
‘He’s beautiful, Jake.’ They were finally alone. The midwife gone, Sally dashing away to catch a little sleep before morning surgery. Amy looked from her baby to Jake. ‘Thank you so much.’
‘You like him? You’re not disappointed?’
‘He’s adorable. Absolutely perfect.’
‘Only I thought…’
‘Mmm?’ She touched George’s tiny hand with her finger and he gripped it tightly.
‘We could always try again.’
She kissed her infant, then looked up. ‘You’re a comedian, Jake Hallam.’
‘No. I’m serious. I want you to have your little girl.’ He kissed her. ‘George should have a sister. Boys need sisters to keep them in line and I just want you to know that I’m prepared to keep trying for as long as you are—’
‘That’s very obliging of you.’
‘But you’ll have to make an honest man of me first. I’m going to have to insist that you marry me.’
‘Insist?’ She was trying very hard not to smile. It was a waste of time.
‘All right. Beg. Implore. Beseech you to marry me. You’ve been extraordinarily patient. You’ve kept telling me to go away and I thought I wanted to.’
‘So why did you keep coming back?’
‘I don’t know. Didn’t know. It made me so angry.’
‘I noticed.’
‘I thought “love” was just a meaningless word.’
‘The way your parents used it.’
‘They were so wrong. But it doesn’t matter now. I know what love is. I know that the power of true love is so strong that it can heal the soul.’ He pressed her hand to his forehead, closed his eyes, stretching for the words. ‘You’ve shown me that I’m not bound by the past. That the past doesn’t matter. That I can be anyone I want to be. I was here today—not in some meeting, not on the other side of the world. I helped to deliver my son, made with the woman I love more than life itself. That’s the man I want to be, Amy.’
He waited a moment, but when there was no reply he looked up and saw that she’d drifted off. It didn’t matter. He’d tell her again tomorrow. And the day after. For as long as it took.
And he lifted baby George from his mother’s arms, tucking the fine shawl about him before kissing him, holding him for a while, then settling him in the cradle he’d brought up and put beside the bed.
Then he turned back to Amy, kissed her, too, pulled the cover over her shoulders. She sighed, stirred. Opened her eyes. Murmured something sleepily.
He bent closer. ‘What was that?’
‘You guarantee we’ll get a girl next time?’
‘I’ll try…’ He stopped, then saw that she was smiling. ‘I guarantee that it will be a baby,’ he said. And he took her hand and made a cross against his heart. Then he took out the ring box that had been burning a hole in his pocket since he’d picked it up at the jeweller the day before. He opened it, took out the diamond ring and slipped it on her finger. ‘I love you, Amy Jones.’ He liked the feel of the word in his mouth so much that he said it again. ‘I love you.’
EPILOGUE
‘LOOK this way, George!’ The five-year-old, dark like his father, green glints inherited from his mother flashing in his eyes, turned for the camera. ‘Okay, you can cut it…now!’
George snipped carefully through the gold ribbon tied across the door of the hundredth ‘Amaryllis Jones’ store, and as a big cheer went up from the crowd gathered on the pavement Jake retrieved the scissors and gathered up his son.
‘Well done, George!’
‘Can I have some cake now?’ he asked.
‘Absolutely. Look, there’s Granny Lucy; she’ll get you some. Take James with you.’
‘What about Mark?’
‘He’s a bit little for cake. Next time, maybe.’ Jake glanced at Amy. ‘Congratulations, sweetheart. A hundred stores in five years.’
‘A hundred stores and three babies.’
‘Three boys.’
‘Three gorgeous boys,’ she said. ‘Adorable boys. Just like their father.’
‘Still no Polly, though.’
‘Well, actually…’ Amy’s shoulders shifted very slightly. ‘I was talking to Lucy.’
‘Oh?’
‘She’s been asked if she could take in an abandoned newborn baby girl, but, well, she’s getting on a bit and she just doesn’t think she can cope. The thing is, there’s just no one else…so she suggested us.’
‘As foster parents?’
‘Would you mind?’
For a moment Jake seemed slightly stunned. Then he shook his
head. ‘No. I think it’s a wonderful idea.’ He took their smallest boy from her, put his arm about her and kissed her. ‘But don’t think I won’t still be making every possible effort to provide you with a daughter of your own.’
‘You’re all talk,’ Amy said, with a slow green glance from her bewitching eyes.
Nothing had changed. Nearly six years had passed since the day they’d met and still she could stop his heart with a look.
‘I’ll show you the difference between talk and action the minute I have you to myself, Amy Hallam.’
She laughed. ‘Promises, promises.’
His only answer was to take her hand in his and draw a cross over his heart.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-7235-8
THE BACHELOR’S BABY
First North American Publication 2001.
Copyright © 2001 by Liz Fielding.
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