The Secret Baby Bargain

by MELANIE MILBURNE

  Jake’s eyes shifted away from hers, his back turned towards her as he raised the ragged blind and stared out of the window.

  ‘Not sexually,’ he answered after what seemed another interminable pause.

  Ashleigh felt her tense shoulders sag with instant relief.

  ‘But he did just about everything else.’

  Her stomach clenched, her throat closing over. ‘Oh, Jake…’

  He turned back to face her, his expression rueful. ‘Do you realise you are the first person I’ve ever told this to?’

  ‘I—I am?’

  He gave her a sad smile. ‘Every single day we lived together I wanted to tell you, but I thought if I did you would run a mile in case I turned out just like him.’

  ‘You could never be like him, Jake…’

  He turned back to the window, effectively shutting her out again.

  ‘I have to go away for a few days,’ he said into the silence, his voice sounding gut-wrenchingly empty.

  After another little silence he turned around to look at her, the storm raging outside his backdrop. ‘I have some things to see to interstate and I won’t be back before the weekend.’

  ‘That’s OK,’ she said softly. ‘I can continue with the assessment on my own. There are quite a few things I’ll need to do some research on anyway in order to give you some idea of valuation.’

  ‘I don’t care what this stuff is worth; I just want it out of here,’ he said.

  Ashleigh watched as he strode out of the room, his eyes avoiding hers as if he didn’t want her to see the residual pain reflected there.

  She didn’t need to see it, she thought sadly, as the door clicked shut behind him.

  She could feel it for him.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ‘BUT I don’t want to go to crèche!’ Lachlan whined for the fifth time a few days later on the Friday morning.

  Ashleigh’s patience was wearing thin. She hadn’t slept properly in days, unable to erase the images of Jake’s haunted past from her mind. Each day she’d spent in the old house seemed to make it worse, especially as he wasn’t coming back until Monday to break the long aching silences. She knew it was disloyal to Howard, but she missed seeing Jake, missed hearing him move about the house and garden. God help her, she even missed his snarls and scornful digs.

  ‘You have to go, Lachlan,’ she insisted, stuffing his lunch box in his backpack.

  ‘But I want to come wif you!’ His chin wobbled and his dark eyes moistened.

  Ashleigh felt the strings on her heart tighten; her son’s little speech impediment always returned in moments of stress. She put the backpack to one side and squatted down in front of him, holding his thin shoulders so that he had to look at her.

  ‘What’s wrong, darling? Is someone making you unhappy at crèche?’

  He shook his head, his bottom lip extended in a pout.

  She gently pushed on his lip with the tip of her finger. ‘You’ll trip over that if you poke it out any further.’ She gave him a smile as his lip returned to base. ‘Now, what’s all this about?’

  He shuffled from one foot to the other. ‘I just want to be wif you.’

  Ashleigh sighed. ‘Darling, you know I have to work. We can’t live with Granny and Grandad for ever. They need time alone and we need to have our own place too. As soon as Howard and I get married…’ She found it strange saying the words and secretly wished she could take them back.

  ‘Can I have a dog when we move to Uncle Howard’s?’ Lachlan asked hopefully.

  She forced her attention back to her son. His desire for a dog had been so strong but her mother’s allergy to cat and dog hair had prevented it happening. However, Howard’s home with its pristine family heirloom décor was hardly the family home a playful puppy would be welcomed into. She could almost see Marguerite Caule’s look of horrified distaste at the first set of muddy pawprints on the pristine white carpet or one of the linen-covered sofas.

  ‘We’ll see,’ she said and straightened.

  ‘We’ll see means no,’ Lachlan said with the sort of acuity that marked him as Jake’s son if nothing else. ‘You always say that, but it doesn’t mean yes.’

  She sighed and, zipping up his backpack, reached for his hand. ‘Come on, I’m late as it is.’

  ‘I’m not going to crèche.’ He snatched his hand away.

  ‘Lachlan, I will not tolerate this from you,’ she said through tight lips. ‘I have to go to…to that house I’m working at and I have to leave now.’

  ‘Take me to the house!’ he begged. ‘I’ll be good. I won’t touch anyfing.’

  Ashleigh closed her eyes as she pinched the bridge of her nose.

  Today of all days, she winced in frustration. Her mother was out at a fundraising breakfast and wouldn’t be back for hours. It was her father’s annual heart check-up appointment in town and he’d left early to avoid the traffic and Mia had gone to an audition straight from the gym. Ellie, her last hope, hadn’t come home yet from an all night sleep-in-the-park-for-homeless-dogs public awareness stunt that would probably see her on the front page of the morning’s paper. It had happened before.

  She let out her breath in a whoosh of tired resignation. ‘All right, just this once. But if you so much as touch anything or break anything I won’t let you watch The Wiggles or Playschool for a week.’

  ‘Thank you, Mummy!’ Lachlan rushed at her and buried himself against her, his arms around her waist, his cheek pressed to her stomach.

  She eased him away to quickly scrawl a note for her mother who usually picked Lachlan up from the crèche on Friday afternoons to tell her about the change of plan.

  ‘I love you, Mummy,’ Lachlan said as she stuck the note on the fridge with a magnet.

  ‘I love you, too, baby, but you’re getting too big for pulling this sort of stunt.’

  ‘What’s a stunt?’

  She tucked his hand in hers and shouldered open the door. ‘Come on, I’ll tell you in the car.’

  Ashleigh was surprised and more than a little proud of the way Lachlan behaved at Jake’s house. He had played quietly by her side as she worked in the library, never once complaining about being bored. He wheeled his little collection of toy cars across the floor, parking them in neat little rows on the squares on the Bakhtiari carpet with meticulous precision.

  She knew she was taking a risk having him with her but couldn’t help feeling it had been worth it to see the simple joy on his little face every time she looked down at him.

  She knew she was no different from every other working single mother, so often torn between the necessities to provide a reasonable living whilst allowing adequate time to nurture the child she’d brought into the world, but it still pained her to think how short-changed Lachlan was. Of late he’d been increasingly unsettled and clingy and she felt it was her fault. She’d thought her engagement to Howard would have offered him a bit more security but, while he liked Howard, she knew Marguerite intimidated him, although he did his very best not to show it.

  ‘Can I go out into the garden for a while?’ Lachlan got up from the floor with his little cars tucked into the old lunch-box container he kept them in, his dark eyes bright with hope.

  Ashleigh pursed her lips as she thought about it. The garden, though large, was enclosed and the neighbourhood very quiet. The sun was shining, which it hadn’t done properly in days, and she knew that—like most little boys his age—he needed lots of exercise and space.

  ‘As long as you promise not to go through the side gate to the front; I can check on you while I’m working in this part of the house.’

  ‘I promise,’ he said solemnly.

  A smile found its way to Ashleigh’s mouth and she reached out a hand and ruffled his dark hair. ‘Thanks for being so good this morning. It’s really nice to have some company in this big old house.’

  ‘Who lives here, Mummy?’ Lachlan asked.

  ‘No one at the moment,’ she answered, fiddling with a gold shield-shaped
bloodstone opening seal. ‘The person who used to live here has…gone.’

  ‘Did they die?’

  It occurred to Ashleigh at that point that Lachlan had recently lost a blood relative, his paternal grandfather. It seemed unfair not to be able to tell her son who had actually lived in this house, when if things had been different he might have visited like any other grandson would have done, maybe even inherited some of the priceless pieces she was documenting.

  But telling Lachlan would mean having to reveal the truth to Jake.

  She wasn’t ready to tell him and, given what she’d heard earlier that week about his childhood, Jake was nowhere near ready to hear.

  ‘An old man used to live here,’ she said.

  ‘All by himself?’ Lachlan asked, giving the imposing library a sweeping glance, his eyes wide with amazement.

  ‘Yes…but a long time ago he used to live here with someone.’

  ‘Who was it?’ Lachlan’s voice dropped, the sibilance of his childish whisper making Ashleigh feel slightly spooked.

  ‘His…son.’

  ‘Didn’t he have a mummy too?’

  ‘Yes…but she…she went away.’ Ashleigh could see the stricken look come into Lachlan’s eyes and wished she hadn’t allowed the conversation to get to that point. As a child a few months off turning four who had grown up thus far without a father, his very worst nightmare was to have something take his mother away as well. She had always done her best to reassure him but still his fear lingered. She could see it in the way he looked at her at times, a wavering nervousness in his dark brown gaze, as if he wasn’t sure if he would ever see her again once she walked out of the door.

  She bent down and, tipping up his chin, pressed a soft kiss to the end of his nose. ‘Why don’t you go and explore the garden and in five minutes I’ll join you. I’ll bring out a drink and some fruit just like they do at crèche.’

  His small smile brightened his features but did nothing to remove the shadow of uncertainty in his eyes. ‘OK.’

  She took his hand and led him back through the house to the back door, watching as he went down the steps with his car collection tucked under one small arm. He went straight to the elm tree, she noticed. The leafy shade was certainly an attraction on such a warm morning but she couldn’t help wondering if it was somehow genetic.

  She waited for a while, watching him set out his array of cars on the patches of earth where the lawn had grown threadbare, parking each of them neatly before selecting one to drive up and down the exposed tree root nearest him.

  A pair of noisy currawongs passed overhead and a light warm breeze stirred the leaves of the old elm, making each one shiver.

  ‘I’ll be out to check on you in five minutes, poppet,’ she called out to him.

  He didn’t answer, which in a way reassured her. He was happy playing under the tree with the sounds of the birds to keep him company.

  After being in the outdoor sunshine it took a moment for Ashleigh’s eyes to adjust when she went back to the library. She took a few photos of some Tunbridge Ware book slides and stands and wrote a few notes about each, unconsciously gnawing the end of her pen as her thoughts gradually drifted to Jake.

  She wondered where he was and who he was seeing interstate. She drew in a painful breath as she thought of him with another lover. Over the years she’d forced herself not to think of him in the arms of other women and mostly she’d been successful. She’d been too busy looking after his little son to torture herself with images of leggy blondes, racy redheads or brunettes with the sort of assets that drew men like bees to a paddock full of pollen.

  ‘You look pensive,’ Jake’s deep voice said from the door of the library.

  Ashleigh nearly swallowed the pen she had in her mouth as she spun around in shock. ‘What are you doing here?’ she gasped, the pen falling from her fingers.

  He eased himself away from the door frame where he’d been leaning and came towards her, stooping to pick up the pen and handing it to her with a quirk of one dark satirical brow. ‘My business was dealt with a whole lot earlier than I expected,’ he said. ‘I thought I’d surprise you.’

  You certainly did that, she mused, even as her stomach rolled over at the thought of him taking a look out of the library window. One look and she would have hell to pay.

  She forced her features into impassivity. ‘I didn’t hear you come in… Which door did you use?’

  ‘The front door,’ he answered as he picked up a Tunbridge Ware bookmark and began to turn it over in his hands.

  Ashleigh edged towards the window, waiting until she was sure Jake was looking elsewhere before quickly checking on Lachlan. Her heart gave an extra beat when she couldn’t see him under the tree. She glanced back at Jake but he appeared to be absorbed in the bookmark. Checking the elm tree once more, she found her son had come back into view. Her heart’s pace had only just settled down again as she turned back to look at Jake.

  He was watching her steadily, his dark intelligent gaze securing hers.

  ‘So…’ She forcibly relaxed her shoulders, a tight smile stretching her mouth as her heart began its rollercoaster run again. ‘How was your business trip?’

  ‘It was nothing out of the ordinary,’ he responded, his eyes never once moving away from hers. ‘How have you been while I’ve been away?’

  ‘Me?’ It came out like a squeak and she hastily cleared her throat and began again. ‘I mean… I’m fine. Great, been to the gym and feeling pretty fit and…’ She couldn’t finish the sentence under his probing gaze. She was rambling but she knew that if she didn’t go out to Lachlan soon he would come in to her. She didn’t know which would be worse. Maybe she should just come right out and tell Jake now before he set eyes on Lachlan. It wasn’t much of a warning for him, but what else could she do?

  She straightened her spine and faced him squarely. ‘Jake… I have something to tell you that…’ She took a much needed breath and continued. ‘…that I should have told you before, but I just felt it was never the right time, and—’

  ‘Mummee!’ A child’s voice rang out from the back of the house, closely followed by the sound of little footsteps running down the hall.

  Ashleigh swallowed painfully as her son came rushing into the room, her breath stopping completely when he cannoned into Jake’s long legs encased in dark trousers.

  She watched in stricken silence as Jake’s hands steadied Lachlan, his touch gentle but sure as he looked down at the small face staring up at him.

  ‘J-Jake, this is Lachlan,’ she said in a voice she hardly recognised as coming from her own mouth. ‘Lachlan, this is… Jake.’

  Lachlan, with the impulsiveness of youth on his side, got in first. ‘Are you the boy who used to live here a long time ago?’

  Jake stared down at the little child in front of him for what seemed like endless minutes until he registered that the boy had spoken to him. ‘Yes… I am,’ he said, hoping his tone wasn’t showing how shell-shocked he felt.

  Ashleigh had a child.

  The child she’d always wanted.

  The child he wouldn’t give her, refused to give her.

  He couldn’t look at her. He knew if he did she would see his disappointment, his unjustified disappointment.

  So she’d had Howard’s child.

  He assumed it was Howard’s, although the child in front of him certainly didn’t look much like Ashleigh’s fiancé, he had to admit. The sick irony of it was that the kid looked more like him. Once the thought was there it tried to take hold but he just as quickly dismissed it, although it surprised him how much it hurt to let it go.

  There was no way that kid could have been his. He’d watched Ashleigh take her pills every day; it had been part of their daily ritual. He had made it a part of it. She’d never missed a dose and if she had he would have insisted on using an alternative until things were safe.

  It was hard to assess the kid’s exact age. He’d deliberately avoided everything to do with childr
en for most of his adult life and had very little idea of what age went with what stage in a child’s life. On what limited knowledge he had, he thought the boy might have been about three and a half, which meant Ashleigh had dived pretty quickly into Howard Caule’s bed, but then, hadn’t she done the same with him?

  The prospect of fathering a child had always terrified him. He had become almost paranoid about it. The thought of spreading his father’s genes to the next generation had been too much for him to bear. How could he ever forgive himself if he turned on his own child the way his father had done to him? Parenting wasn’t an easy task. How soon would it have been before a light tap of reproof became a closed-fist punch? How quickly would his gentle chastising tone have turned into full-blown self-esteem eroding castigation? How many unspeakable hurts would he have inflicted before the child was damaged beyond repair?

  Nothing had ever been able to convince him it would be desirable to father a child, and yet one look at Ashleigh’s little son had rocked his conviction as only flesh and blood reality could do. She’d had another man’s child because he had been too much of a coward to confront his past and deal with it appropriately.

  A burning pain knifed through him as a sudden flood of self-doubt assailed him. But what if he hadn’t turned out like his father? What if, in spite of all that had been done to him, he could have rewritten the past and become a wonderful father, the sort of father he had longed for all his life? One who would listen to the childish insecurities that had plagued him, especially after his mother had died. Who would have listened and comforted him instead of berating him and punishing for simply being a lost, lonely little boy.

  Other people had difficult backgrounds; there was hardly a person alive who didn’t have some axe to grind about their past. Why had he let his take over his life and destroy his one chance at happiness? His father had been violent and cruel and totally unworthy of the role of parent, but in the end the person who had hurt Jake the most had been himself. When Ashleigh had walked out of his life four and a half years ago he had done absolutely nothing to stop her. Instead he had stood before her, stiff and uncommunicative, as she accused him of being unfaithful after she’d mistakenly read one of his e-mails about his recent trip to Paris. He could have told her then and there the real reason for his weekend away but he hadn’t, for it would have meant revealing the filthy shame of his past to her. In the end his pride had not been able to stretch quite that far.