More Than One Night

by Sarah Mayberry

  He shook his head. Six weeks ago, if someone had told him that he’d relinquish long-held ambitions so easily, with so little regret, he would have laughed in their face.

  And yet here he was, mentally scrapping the wharf, the Vanquish, and walking away from a potential date with a hot blonde flight attendant. All because of Charlie and the baby.

  A brave new world, indeed. One that he needed to get a grip on ASAP, because it was doing his head in.

  CHARLIE SPENT THE WEEKEND not waiting for Rhys to call. On Saturday she went to Paddington Markets on Oxford Street and spent several hours checking out handcrafted jewelry, leatherwork, clothes and artwork. She bought her first purchases for the nursery—a carved wooden monkey with arms and legs that moved, thanks to leather thongs at its shoulder and hips, and an elephant with a bright red trunk.

  Afterward she bought a big bowl of chicken and mango salad from a nearby deli and took it to the Royal Botanic Gardens. Sitting on the grass in the warm afternoon sun, she ate her lunch and watched the ferries and pleasure boats steam across the harbor. She didn’t check her phone once, and she left it at home when she went to the movies with Gina and her boyfriend, Spencer, that night.

  On Sunday she contemplated tackling the box of her father’s belongings, actually going as far as sliding it out from beside her desk before shoving it back and heading to Bondi to tackle the five-beach trek to Coogee. The winding, twisty path followed the coastline from Bondi Beach past Tamarama and Clovelly to Coogee and took up to four hours return to do properly. Charlie walked for forty minutes before turning back, her face glistening with sweat and her thighs and butt sore. She hoped the baby enjoyed the bumpy ride. It felt good to use her body—and breathe the ocean air—after a week of sitting hunched at her desk.

  When her phone rang that evening she was pleased to feel nothing but a mild fillip of pleasure when she saw Rhys’s name on the display. Just as she would if it were Gina or Yvonne or Hannah or one of her other army friends.

  She told him about her weekend and he told her about his, then she reminded him that she had her twelve-week ultrasound on Thursday morning and he assured her he’d be there. They were both friendly, but there was a certain constraint evident in how carefully they chose their words, and they wound up the call earlier than usual.

  Just as well, Charlie told herself. There was a definite danger in allowing Rhys too close. Arm’s length was much smarter and more manageable.

  The early part of the week slipped away thanks to a tight deadline for one of the sites she was working on. She was feeling gritty eyed and sleep deprived when she stepped into the shower on Thursday morning. She’d stayed up late inputting some last-minute client changes, despite the fact that the site had already gone live, and waking at her usual time had been harder than it should have been.

  “I blame you,” she said, glancing in the general direction of the baby. Her eyes widened. Overnight, her stomach had popped and suddenly there was a very distinct convex curve to her lower torso. She actually looked pregnant. Very early-days pregnant, but pregnant nonetheless.

  She’d been wondering when her body was going to declare its status. So far her pregnancy symptoms had been limited to “evening sickness.” No thickening of the waist, no sore or suddenly huge breasts.

  But as of today she had a baby bump. A tiny baby bump, with the promise of bigger things to come.

  She ran her hands over the rounded shape, imagining the little kidney bean growing inside her. Today, she was going to see him or her for the first time. She was going to see arms and legs and a heart. She was also going to find out if there was anything wrong with her child.

  She’d read through the ultrasound sections in her baby books. She knew that at thirty-two years old she had a higher chance of something being wrong with the baby than if she were twenty-two—not significantly, but there was still a difference—and a little tickle of nervousness made her take a deep breath as she stepped out of the shower.

  She and Rhys hadn’t discussed the medical purpose of the scan. It occurred to her that if something was wrong with their child they were not prepared.

  There aren’t going to be any problems, The Bean is fine.

  She hoped the voice in her head was right, but someone had to draw the short straw.

  She dressed in her jeans, deriving an almost perverse delight in the fact that they were suddenly snug. She pulled on a blue sweater and dried her hair before pulling it into a ponytail. By then there was just over an hour until her appointment. She went to the kitchen, dutifully measured a liter of water then systematically drank it over the next twenty minutes. Then she drove to the radiology clinic in Glebe. Her bladder started to complain as she parked. She checked her watch. Another ten minutes until her appointment. For the sake of her bladder, she hoped they weren’t running late.

  She half expected Rhys to have arrived ahead of her, but there were only strange faces in the waiting room. She settled into her chair and glanced toward the parking lot.

  Fifteen minutes later, she was feeling distinctly uncomfortable and Rhys was late. She checked her phone for the tenth time in as many minutes and resisted, again, the urge to call him to check if he was on his way. The most likely explanation was that he was stuck in traffic and she didn’t want to force him to answer his phone when he was driving.

  She shifted in her chair. Would it be considered beyond the pale if she undid the snap on her jeans? It was either that, or she would have to use the bathroom. She shifted to the edge of the chair and eyed the door to the ladies’ room wistfully.

  “Charlotte Long?”

  She glanced toward the white-coated woman standing in front of the reception desk.

  “That’s me,” Charlie said, standing. She glanced toward the entrance, willing Rhys to arrive, but the doorway remained resolutely empty.

  “This way, please.” The woman led her up the hall.

  Charlie shot one last glance over her shoulder before following. There was precious little she could do, after all. She couldn’t stall until Rhys arrived—the waiting room was full of people waiting for their scans. He’d have to make do with the DVD she’d been told she would be given afterward.

  Disappointment thunked in her belly as she entered a treatment room dominated by an examination table and a portable computer workstation. It wasn’t until this moment that she realized how quickly and completely she’d bought into the notion that she wouldn’t be doing this on her own.

  Better wake up from that little fantasy, Cinderella.

  Because Rhys was not her husband. He wasn’t even her boyfriend. They didn’t share a house or their lives, and they would not be sharing every aspect of this journey.

  So this was a timely wake-up call, really.

  “Shoes off, jeans unsnapped and unzipped,” the woman instructed as Charlie placed her handbag on the chair beside the exam table. “Did you drink your liter of water?”

  “Oh, yes,” Charlie said meaningfully, offering the other woman a rueful smile.

  The woman remained po-faced as she wrote something on a form. “The technician will be with you in a moment.”

  She left, closing the door behind her.

  Charlie bent to untie her shoes and was placing them neatly beneath the chair when a small knock sounded at the door.

  “Come in,” she said.

  The door opened to reveal Rhys, a chagrined expression on his handsome face. His gaze zeroed in on her socks, then the examination table.

  “Shit. Don’t tell me I’ve missed it? Bloody traffic.”

  Charlie grinned, unable to quell her bone-deep pleasure and relief that he was here. They would be sharing this experience after all.

  “You’re fine. We’re about to start. That’s if my bladder doesn’t explode first.”

  �
��Right.” A small frown signaled his confusion about her reference to the status of her bladder.

  “They make you drink a liter of water to help with the imaging,” she explained.

  “A liter? Wow.” He glanced around. “Lucky there’s no running water in here then, huh?”

  She laughed, feeling unaccountably buoyant. “Yeah.”

  She climbed onto the crinkly paper covering the table and settled against the raised backrest. Her hands went to the snap on her jeans—and suddenly she remembered that the last time she’d undone her pants with this man he’d helped pull them off.

  Then he’d tumbled her onto his bed and made her forget her own name with his skilled, intense lovemaking.

  A wave of heat washed up her chest and into her face. She forced her fumbling fingers to undo the button, carefully not looking Rhys’s way, then she slid her zip down. Out of the corner of her eye, she was aware of Rhys glancing away, obviously as uncomfortable as she was.

  “Don’t worry. I have a no-nudity clause,” she joked.

  “I wasn’t worried.”

  A knock sounded then the door opened to admit a different woman. Tall, dark haired and very slim, she wore a pair of heavy, dark-rimmed glasses on the end of her thin nose. Charlie guessed she was in her late thirties, maybe early forties.

  “Hi. I’m Sally. I’ll be doing your scan today.”

  Rhys offered his hand. “Rhys. And this is Charlie.”

  “Hi,” Charlie said.

  “Nice to meet you both. So, shall we take a peek at this baby of yours?”

  It was a rhetorical question, and neither she nor Rhys answered it. Sally busied herself at the computer, typing Charlie’s details before turning to her.

  “I’ll get you to fold your jeans back, Charlie, and roll your top up, too, please.”

  “Sure.” Charlie did as instructed, exposing her pale belly and the upper edge of her black cotton panties. Her bump sat proudly between her hips, a gentle molehill that would soon become a mountain.

  “Look at that. You’re pregnant,” Rhys said. He sounded a little surprised.

  “It happened overnight. I woke up and it was there.”

  She was aware of Sally shooting a glance between the two of them, obviously trying to work out their relationship now that Charlie had revealed that they didn’t live together. When she spoke, though, she was all business. “Okay, this has been in the warmer but it might still be a little on the cool side. Sorry about that.”

  She proceeded to squirt a bluish-colored gel over Charlie’s belly. It was on the cool side, but she’d had worse.

  “Okay?” Sally checked.

  “All good.”

  “Then let’s say hello to this little person.”

  Rhys drew up the chair beside the table as Sally used the mouse to click something on the screen. She swiveled in her chair, bringing the ultrasound wand close. Then, her gaze on the screen, she began to glide the wand over Charlie’s abdomen.

  “Searching, searching… Ah, there we are.”

  A small white shape appeared in the blackness of the screen, surrounded by what looked like static. Charlie held her breath as Sally tapped the keyboard some more and the magnification increased.

  And there, filling the screen, was The Bean.

  “Oh,” Charlie said. An unexpected rush of emotion washed over her as she looked at her baby’s tiny curled body.

  “Okay, before we go any further I need to ask if you want to know the baby’s gender. Sometimes we can’t see it at twelve weeks but your baby is perfectly positioned.”

  Charlie looked to Rhys. “We haven’t really talked about it, have we?”

  “Now seems like a good time,” Rhys said with a faint smile.

  “Yeah.”

  “And?”

  “I think I’d like to know.”

  “Me, too.”

  They both turned to Sally.

  “You’re having a little girl,” she said simply.

  Charlie swallowed against the sudden tightness in her throat. She hadn’t really thought about her baby’s gender. She certainly hadn’t had a preference. But a little girl suddenly felt extraordinarily right.

  A little girl she could lavish love on. A little girl she could assure and nurture and guide. A little girl who would always, always know that she mattered.

  “Hey,” Rhys said quietly. His hand gripped hers as she sniffed away the tears flooding her eyes.

  “Sorry,” Charlie said.

  “Nothing to apologize for,” Rhys said, and she saw that his eyes were shiny with unshed tears, too.

  “For the record, I’m more than happy for you to call the baby Sally,” Sally said.

  They all laughed and the tightness in Charlie’s throat eased. Sally spent the next ten minutes taking them on a tour of their baby, showing them the whirling miracle of her tiny heart, her limbs, her developing organs. They watched, awestruck, as the baby lifted a tiny arm, almost as though she was waving at them.

  “Hey, there, baby girl,” Rhys said.

  After taking some measurements, Sally informed them that there was a very low risk that their baby suffered from Down syndrome. She went on to check for spinal abnormalities before inspecting the placenta and declaring that everything looked healthy and normal.

  Charlie only realized that she was still holding Rhys’s hand when Sally ducked out of the room to organize their films.

  “That was freaking amazing,” he said.

  She tugged on her fingers and he glanced down as though he, too, had forgotten they were holding hands.

  “Sorry,” he said, relaxing his grip.

  “Your mum will probably want to look at the scan. I wonder if we’ll be able to copy the DVD?”

  It was strange, but she felt oddly shy after the intensity of the past few minutes. As though she needed a few minutes alone to compose herself.

  “We can ask when Sally comes back. But you’re right, Mum will go nuts over this.” He pushed his hair back from his forehead, a relieved smile on his face.

  “I don’t mind telling you, I was a bit nervous on the way here. I checked out some sites this morning and there’s some scary stuff on the Net about what could be wrong at twelve weeks.”

  “I know. But we’re lucky,” she said quietly.

  Sally reentered the room, her white coat billowing behind her. “Okay, that’s all sorted. We’ll get you cleaned up, Charlie, and the films and your DVD should be out to you within ten minutes.”

  The other woman used special tissues to clean the gel off Charlie’s belly before disposing of the debris and washing her hands. Charlie zipped and buttoned her jeans.

  “Here,” Rhys said, offering up her sneakers.

  “Thanks.” She tied the laces hurriedly, very aware of the need to use the bathroom now that the excitement had passed.

  “Good luck with everything,” Sally said as Charlie stood and reached for her bag.

  “Thank you. Will we have you next time we come?” Charlie asked.

  “It depends on the roster, but you can always request me,” Sally said with a wink.

  Rhys shook hands with her again before they both exited to the corridor.

  “We should—”

  Charlie held up a finger. “Hold that thought. I’ll be back in a second.”

  She resisted the urge to break into a run as she headed for the ladies’. Rhys’s low laughter followed her up the hallway.

  Five minutes later, she joined him in the waiting room, taking the seat beside him.

  “Better?” he asked.

  “Yes, thank you,” she said primly.

  He grinned.

  “I’m glad you find all
the peccadilloes of pregnancy so amusing,” she said.

  “So am I.”

  His dark brown eyes were dancing and she suddenly realized that her shoulder was flush against his and that the whole left side of her body was being warmed by his. It was always like that with Rhys, though. She was lulled by his charm and the forced intimacy of their situation, then the next thing she knew, she was thinking things she had no business thinking, and feeling things that were plain stupid.

  Trying to make the movement seem as natural as possible, she leaned forward to adjust her handbag on the floor, shifting farther to her right so that their bodies were no longer in contact. Rhys glanced at her, a question in his eyes. He seemed on the verge of saying something when the receptionist called Charlie’s name.

  She shot to her feet, grateful for the interruption. Just as well they would be going their separate ways in five minutes’ time. Clearly she was hormonal and sentimental and stupid after the scan—not a good state to be in when she was within a three-mile radius of Rhys Walker.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHARLIE WAS SIGNING the credit card slip at the reception desk when Rhys joined her. He frowned when she handed the slip to the receptionist, but he didn’t say anything until they were outside.

  “I thought Medicare covered all this.”

  “Mostly, they do. I’ll get a lot of that back.”

  “I don’t want you being out of pocket.” He reached for his wallet.

  She gave him a look. “What are you doing?”

  “Making sure you aren’t footing the bill for my mistake.”

  She flinched at his choice of words.

  “I didn’t mean it like that,” he said immediately.

  But she knew he did. And technically he was right—this baby was a mistake. She certainly wasn’t planned. But from the moment Charlie had seen the poster depicting her baby’s development in the GP’s office, The Bean had become very real to her, and she’d become even more real now that Charlie knew her baby was a girl.