‘I want a house,’ he said. ‘With a yard.’
Marianna choked and had to thump her chest to get herself back under control.
He glanced at her. ‘A child needs a yard, right? A place to run around and play?’
She nodded.
He frowned. ‘You won’t mind me bringing the baby to visit?’
She suspected she kind of would, but... ‘Of course not.’ She wanted their baby to know his family. ‘You might have to wait until he or she is weaned first, though.’
‘You could come too.’
If she had her way, that was exactly what would happen—the three of them coming here as a family. She dabbed her napkin to her mouth. When Ryan decided to do something—like become an involved father or build bridges with his sister—he certainly did it with gusto. If possible, it only made her love him more.
* * *
‘Are you planning on going to the hospital today?’ Marianna asked Ryan the next morning.
He didn’t glance up from his newspaper. ‘I don’t think so.’
She bit her tongue to stop from asking, Why not?
They’d slept late—probably due to jet lag—and currently had the house to themselves. Rebecca’s note had said she’d gone up to the hospital. Marianna took a sip of her decaffeinated coffee. Setting her mug back to the table, she ran her finger around its rim. ‘Your grandmother lived close to here?’
‘On the other side of the main street.’ One shoulder lifted. ‘Probably a ten-or fifteen-minute walk from here.’
‘A walk would be nice. So would a big fat piece of cake.’
He glanced up. ‘You want to see where my grandmother lived?’
‘I want to see where you lived.’
‘Why?’
She wanted each and every insight into him that she could get. She wanted to understand why he’d exiled himself from his family. She wanted every weapon she could lay her hands on to make sure he didn’t exile himself from her.
Or their baby.
No. Their baby already had his heart.
But she didn’t. Not yet.
And she couldn’t simply blurt out, I’ve fallen deeply and completely in love with you and I want to understand you so that I can work out how to make you fall in love with me.
She imagined the look on his face if she did, and it almost made her laugh.
And then she imagined the fallout from such an admission and she wanted to throw up.
Ryan’s frown deepened. ‘You looked for a moment as if you might laugh and now you look as if you want to cry.’
Oops. ‘Pregnancy hormones.’
‘Breathing exercises,’ he ordered.
She feigned doing breathing exercises until she had herself back under control. ‘I’d like to see where you grew up. You’ve seen my world and now I’d like to see yours.’ A sudden thought occurred to her. ‘But if you’d rather not revisit your past then that’s okay too.’ She didn’t mean to raise demons for him. ‘I just...’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘It’s probably a bit selfish of me, but knowing all this stuff—your life here in Australia—it’ll make it easier for me when our child does come out here for visits.’
His face softened. ‘You’re frightened by how much you’ll miss it?’
She nodded.
‘Me too. I mean, how much I’ll miss it when I’m away with work.’
Did that mean...? ‘Are you planning on buying a home in Monte Calanetti too?’
He nodded and it occurred to her that she could use this baby as leverage, to convince him that marriage would be the best thing, but... She didn’t want him to marry her for any other reason than that he couldn’t live without her.
‘You could come on the visits to Australia too if you wanted, Mari. You’d be very welcome. My family adores you.’
It was his adoration she craved, not his family’s—as much as she liked them. ‘You forget that I have a job.’
‘I’ll pay you so much child support you’ll never have to work again.’
‘You forget that I like my job.’
He stared at her for a long moment. With a curse he seized their mugs and took them to the sink. ‘Don’t worry. I haven’t forgotten that you don’t want me cramping your style.’
A thrill shot through her at his scowl. If the thought of her with another man made him look like that, then... She left the thought unfinished, but in her lap she crossed her fingers. ‘So, are you going to show me your grandmother’s house or not?’
‘I expect if I want any peace I’ll have to,’ he grumbled.
‘And buy me a piece of cake on the way home?’
He battled a smile. ‘And what do I get in return?’
She didn’t bother hiding her grin. ‘Peace.’
‘Deal!’
This time he laughed and it lifted her heart. She could make him laugh. She could drive him wild in bed. She’d helped him make peace with his sister. And she was going to have his baby. Surely it was just a matter of time before he fell in love with her?
She crossed her fingers harder.
* * *
Ryan pulled to a halt and gestured to the simple brick bungalow. ‘There it is.’ The house he’d grown up in. He watched a myriad expressions cross Marianna’s face. It was easier looking at her than looking at the house and experiencing the gut-wrenching loss of his grandmother all over again.
Avid curiosity transformed into a genuine smile. ‘It’s tiny!’
He glanced up and down the street. ‘Once upon a time this entire suburb was composed of these two-bedroom miners’ cottages.’ Most had long since been knocked down, replaced with large, sprawling, modern homes.
‘It’s charming! It looks like a proper home...just like my cottage.’
He glanced back and waited for pain to hit him. It did, but it didn’t crush him. He let out a careful breath.
Marianna swung to him. ‘Don’t you agree?’
She was right. Gran’s house did remind him of her cottage.
‘Was the garden this tidy when you were growing up?’
‘Keeping this garden tidy was how I earned my pocket money.’ That and stacking shelves at the local supermarket.
A teasing smile lit her lips and it tugged at his heart. ‘So...were you a tearaway? A handful? Did you turn your grandmother’s hair prematurely grey?’
He pressed his lips together as the old regrets rose up to bite him. ‘Definitely a handful.’ She didn’t look at him, too interested in the house and garden, and he was glad for it. ‘I was...rebellious.’
A laugh tinkled out of her. ‘Surely not.’
He wanted to close his eyes, but he set his shoulders instead. Marianna ought to know the truth. ‘As a teenager I fell in with a bad crowd. I was expelled from school.’
She spun around. Her mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out. He didn’t blame her. ‘My grandmother was a saint.’
‘Expelled?’
He nodded.
‘From school?’
‘That’s right.’
‘But look at you now!’ She suddenly seemed to realise that her shock might be making him uncomfortable. She tutored her face to something he figured she hoped was more polite. ‘You, uh...certainly turned your life around.’
Not soon enough for his grandmother to have seen it.
She glanced back at the house and swallowed. ‘I wish I could’ve met her.’
He hesitated for a moment before pulling his wallet from his pocket and removing a photo. Silently he handed it across to her.
She stared at it for a long moment, ran a finger across the face. ‘You have her smile.’
He did?
She smiled at the photo before handing it back. ‘I hope our baby has that smile.’
He hoped their child had Marianna’s love of life, her exuberance, and her generosity.
He blinked, his head rearing back. Where had that come from? He put the photo away. Those things were all well and good as long as the child also had his logi
cal thinking and the ability to read a situation quickly and accurately.
‘Your grandmother helped you find your way again?’
Heaviness settled across his chest. ‘In a manner of speaking. When she died, I realised I hadn’t honoured her enough in life.’
She pressed a hand to her chest, her eyes filling. ‘Oh!’
After a couple of moments she slid her arm through his and rested her head against his shoulder. It wasn’t a sexy move but a companionable one and it immediately made him feel a little less alone.
‘So you decided to honour her memory?’
He nodded.
‘That was a good thing to do,’ she whispered. ‘I think she’d be proud of you.’
He hoped so. ‘She always claimed I had a quick mind that I shouldn’t waste.’
She eased away from him. ‘I meant I think she’d be pleased with the way you’re accepting your responsibilities as a prospective father.’
He swallowed.
‘And with the way you’re building a relationship with Rebecca.’
That would definitely have eased her heart. ‘I...’ He shrugged and then glanced at her helplessly. ‘That thing you said yesterday about my distance hurting Rebecca, I...’
He dragged a hand back through his hair, that heaviness settling all the more firmly over him. He stared at the front door of his grandmother’s old house and wished with everything he had that he could walk in there and talk with her one last time.
‘You didn’t know you were hurting her. It wasn’t something you were doing on purpose.’
‘But now that I do know I can’t just...’ He turned to face her fully. ‘I can’t ignore it. I can’t keep hurting her.’
She reached up to touch his cheek. ‘You’re a good man, you know that?’
She made him feel like a good man. Rebecca’s smile yesterday when they’d clinked wine glasses had made him feel like a good man too. Mari’s hand against his cheek, her softness, made his heart start to pound, alerted all of his senses until they were dredged with the scent of her. It took all of his strength not to turn his mouth and press a kiss into the palm of her hand.
Kissing her would not be a good thing to do.
It’d be glorious.
He tried to shut that thought off.
She kept her hand there a beat and a half longer than she should’ve and it near killed him to resist her silent invitation. When she moved back a step, though, he had to grind back a groan of frustration.
‘Thank you.’
He moistened suddenly dry lips. ‘For what?’
‘For showing me this.’ She gestured to the house. ‘For giving me a little insight into your background.’
She stared at him as if he were... As if he were a hero! His stomach lurched. He was no hero. And the last thing he needed was Marianna getting starry-eyed. You should never have slept with her. For the rest of their lives they’d be inextricably linked through their child. It only seemed right they should know each other, but... An ache stretched behind his eyes. He had to bring a halt to this right now. ‘Friends, right?’
Her smile slipped a little and it was like a knife sliding in between his ribs.
He soldiered on. ‘This sharing of confidences, it’s what friends do, isn’t it?’ He hoped to God he wasn’t leading her on.
She pursed her lips and then straightened with a nod. ‘I’ve shared things with you I’ve never told another living soul.’
It made him feel privileged, honoured. It made him feel insanely suffocated too.
Lines of strain fanned around her mouth. He’d caused those. He took her arm, his chest burning. ‘It must be time for that cake.’ Cake would buck her up. She’d eventually realise that this—that friendship—would be for the best.
They found a funky bustling café on the main street and ordered tea and cake. When the waitress brought their order over, Marianna glanced at Ryan from beneath her lashes before fiddling with her teaspoon. ‘You really don’t mean to visit your mother today?’
Her too casual tone had him immediately on guard. ‘Why is that so hard for you to believe?’
Her shoulder lifted. ‘It’s just that you’ve flown all this way...’
He’d done what he’d come here to do. His mother was recovering. As far as he was concerned, the sooner they left now, the better.
She stirred two packets of sugar into her tea, not meeting his eye. ‘You never asked me what your mother and I spoke about that first day.’
He pulled his tea towards him. ‘Is it relevant to anything?’
She sent him an exasperated glare.
He sipped his tea. He tried to get comfortable on his chair. In the end he gave up. ‘Fine! What did you and Stacey talk about?’
‘You.’
He blinked. Not the baby?
‘She told me the biggest regret of her life was leaving you with your grandmother.’
A ball of lead settled in the pit of Ryan’s stomach. He moistened suddenly dry lips. He’d been doing everything he could to avoid being alone with his mother. He set his mug down with more force than necessary. ‘No doubt she was just making excuses.’
‘Oh, it wasn’t anything like that.’
He suddenly frowned. ‘If she made you feel uncomfortable, I’m very sorry.’
Her head shot up. ‘It was nothing like that!’
A breath eased out of him. Good.
‘I mean, I’m sure your mother likes me and everything, but, frankly, I doubt what I think of her matters to her one jot.’
He raised his hands, at a loss. ‘So...’
‘It was my opinion of you that mattered to her. She wanted to defend those...lone-wolf tendencies of yours.’
She’d what!
‘And your opinion—what you think of her—that’s what really mattered to her.’
He stared at her, unable to utter a word. If what Marianna said was true, and she had no reason to lie, then...then that meant Stacey cared for him. That was what Marianna was saying, whether she realised it or not. His breath jammed in his chest. On one level he knew Stacey must, but it had never been the kind of caring he’d been able to rely on, to trust in or to give himself over to.
For pity’s sake, he didn’t need the same family ties that Marianna did! He’d spent a lifetime guarding his privacy, his...isolation. He sat back. ‘You want me to go and see her, don’t you?’ He glared. ‘You want me to give her the opportunity to tell me what she told you?’
Marianna seemed impervious to his glare. She forked a piece of cake into her mouth and shrugged. ‘What would it hurt?’ she finally said.
What would it hurt? It’d... He suddenly frowned. What would it hurt?
‘You want to bring our child to Australia to visit, yes?’
‘Yes.’
‘You’ll be introducing our child to Stacey, yes?’
‘Yes.’
‘Don’t you think the...tension between the two of you could be...awkward for our child?’
A tiny part of his heart clenched. ‘You’d prefer it if I didn’t let Stacey see our child?’
She huffed out a sigh and shook her head. ‘No, Ryan, that’s not what I’m saying.’
His heart started to thump, the blood thundering through his body. It hit him then that if he wanted to be the best father he could be, then making peace with his family would be necessary. He couldn’t project his own issues with his mother onto his child. That would be patently unfair and potentially harmful to the child. He wanted to protect his son or daughter, help it grow up healthy in body and mind, not turn it into a neurotic mess.
Nausea surged through him. How did one go about fixing a relationship like his and Stacey’s?
He glanced at the woman opposite. She’d tell him to listen to what Stacey had to say. She’d tell him to listen with an open heart. He passed a hand across his face. How did one unlock something that had been sealed shut for so long? It was a crazy idea. It—
Do it for the baby.
&n
bsp; He stilled. If he wanted to do better than his parents had, he wouldn’t run away when the going got tough. He pushed his shoulders back. It was time to man up and face his demons. It was time to lay them to rest.
‘Fine.’
Marianna glanced up from her cake. ‘Fine what?’
‘I’ll go and see Stacey.’ Though, he had no idea what on earth he was going to say to her.
‘You will?’ she breathed.
There it was again, that look in her eye. He should never have brought her with him to Australia. What had he been thinking? He hadn’t been thinking...at least, not with his head. He leaned towards her. ‘Mari, even if I do patch up every rift between me and my family, that doesn’t change things between us.’
She blinked.
He tried to choose his words carefully. ‘It won’t make me a family man. I’m never going to be the kind of man who can make you happy. You understand that, don’t you?’
She tossed her head. ‘Of course.’
His heart shrivelled to the size of a pea. He knew her too well, could see through her deceptions. She didn’t believe him. She thought she could change him. She thought he’d offer her love, marriage, the works. If he didn’t offer her those things would she keep his child from him?
A noose tightened about his throat, squeezing the air from his body. Marrying for the sake of their child would be a mistake—one that would destroy all of them. Anger slashed through him then. He should never have slept with her! And why couldn’t she have kept her word? She’d sworn, No promises!
He shot to his feet. ‘I’m going.’
‘What, now?’
She started to rise too, but he shook his head. ‘Stay and finish your cake.’ He didn’t give her time to reply, but turned on his heel and strode away.
* * *
Ryan tapped on the door to his mother’s room, surprised to find her alone.
‘You just missed Rebecca and Lulu,’ she told him.
A stuffed cat with ludicrously long skinny legs had fallen behind the chair and he picked it up and stared at it, rather than at Stacey.
‘Oh, dear.’ Stacey sat up a little straighter in bed. ‘You better take that home with you when you leave. It’s Lulu’s favourite. She’ll be beside herself if she can’t find Kitty Cat.’
Reunited by a Baby Secret (The Vineyards of Calanetti, Book 3) Page 15