Expecting Miracle Twins

by Barbara Hannay

  ‘I knew you would never understand,’ she said miserably to Jake’s back.

  ‘And you were dead right.’ He whipped around to face her. ‘I don’t understand. I really don’t understand.’

  He began to pace the room, turned abruptly to face her. ‘Hell, Mattie, I know you like to help people. You make a habit of going out of your way to help just about everyone you meet and that’s fine, but you’ve taken it too far this time. You’re young and single. You should be making the most of your youth. Having fun. You’ve never been overseas. Why not try that instead of turning yourself into a damned incubator? That’s crazy.’

  An incubator!

  ‘How dare you call me that?’ Squaring her shoulders, Mattie fought to defend herself. ‘If you knew Gina and Tom, you wouldn’t call me crazy.’

  He dismissed this with a shrug and she felt anger rise through her like steam. Righteous anger. This reaction was exactly what she’d expected and feared. It was why she’d remained silent, why she’d told him not to come.

  Nevertheless, she was hurt. Why couldn’t he understand?

  ‘This was my decision, Jake. It’s my body. My business. I’m perfectly healthy and I’m in no danger. I don’t need your permission. Besides, you were on the other side of the world.’ She dropped her gaze to her hands, clenched tightly in her lap. ‘You know you were never planning to be a part of my life.’

  She sensed rather than saw the way his entire body stiffened, but when she lifted her gaze she saw something else in his expression that made her heart stand still.

  Oh, heavens. What was it?

  Fear? Confusion and disappointment? Tenderness? All of these things?

  His distress shocked her. She hadn’t expected this. Jake was a renowned ladies’ man. She’d seen for herself how quickly he’d lost interest in his previous girlfriend. He’d warned Mattie off at their final parting.

  Now her throat ached with welling tears as she watched him standing there, shoulders slumped, hands sunk in pockets, throat working as he stared morosely at her drawing of Molly.

  Had she been wrong?

  Did Jake actually care?

  What should she do? What could she do or say? Was it too late? How could she find the courage to take the vital step that might bridge the gap between them? She wasn’t even sure it was possible now.

  Should she tell him that the night she’d slept with him had been the most moving and beautiful night of her life? Should she admit how hard it had been to give him up?

  She wondered if she could tell Jake the other truth, the one she’d barely admitted, even to herself. That she’d been scared that her strong feelings for him might have prevented her from going ahead with the surrogacy.

  Watching him, Mattie was gripped by a terrible confusion. For the first time in her life, her vision of right and wrong was unclear. Until now, doing the right thing had always felt safe and reassuring, but now doubts flooded her.

  She watched his stiff back and his hard, grim profile and she longed to go to him, to reach out, to throw her arms around him and to tell him how utterly gorgeous he was. But could she be sure that he wanted that?

  She was still struggling to find the right answer when Jake turned slowly.

  His face was cold. ‘I’m pleased I called in,’ he said icily. ‘At least the truth is out now.’

  She’d handled this badly. So badly. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, but those two words had never sounded so inadequate.

  Jake shook his head. ‘It’s too late to be sorry. It’s…it’s simply too late.’ He began to cross the room, heading for the door.

  Mattie stood quickly, and she flinched as one of the babies kicked hard in protest. ‘Do you have to go already?’

  ‘Of course. As you put it so clearly—I’m not exactly a part of your life.’

  Brutus started to whimper at Jake’s feet and he bent down to pat the dog and gave him a scratch between his ears. Mattie wished that she could whimper too. Perhaps, if she cried, Jake would give her a scratch behind the ears. A pat? Any tiny sign?

  Get a grip, girl.

  He was already opening the front door.

  Desperately grasping at straws, she stammered, ‘I…I haven’t t-told you about Roy. And…and you haven’t told me about Mongolia.’

  ‘Give me a break, Mattie. You aren’t remotely interested in Mongolia.’

  ‘That’s not true. Anyway, wouldn’t you like to hear about Roy?’

  ‘I can visit Roy and get the news straight from the horse’s mouth.’ He pushed the door wider.

  She would never see him again.

  Her legs almost caved beneath her. She took a shaky step towards the door. ‘You’re really upset. You’re angry, aren’t you?’

  Jake didn’t reply. Without another word, he stepped outside and closed the door quietly but firmly behind him.

  She’d lost him.

  Mattie collapsed in a shaking huddle on the sofa, unable to stop her tears. She went through almost a whole box of tissues, but no amount of crying could ease the terrible ache inside her.

  It had been so dreadfully hard to see Jake again, reminding her of everything she’d given up.

  She’d never had a boyfriend like Jake Devlin, might never meet anyone like him ever again.

  And now she’d lost him.

  She’d watched that door close behind him and it had felt like a death—more than Mattie could bear—and it was ages before she could think clearly, before she could chastise herself for breaking her heart over another man.

  It wasn’t as if Jake’s departure was anything like the break-up with Pete. She and Jake hadn’t been engaged. Not even close. There’d been no understanding. Jake hadn’t promised forever. He’d never pretended to be anything but a footloose and fancy free bachelor.

  Heavens, she shouldn’t even be crying over him. If she was going to shed any tears over Jake Devlin, they should be tears of anger.

  Heck, yes. As Mattie grabbed another handful of tissues, she deliberately stopped feeling sorry for herself and focused instead on all the reasons she should be angry with Jake. There were so many!

  First, he had no right to storm in here and throw a tantrum simply because she wasn’t available for another holiday fling. Second, he had no right to criticise her when she was doing something wonderful for Gina and Tom.

  Third, it was impossible for him to understand why she’d made this choice because he was so jolly self-centred. And, most hurtful of all—he’d refused to show her an ounce of the compassion he’d showered on his old friend, Roy.

  All in all, Jake was an opinionated and selfish prig and she was better off without him.

  But…heaven help her, he was gorgeous too. She adored everything about the man—his flashing dark eyes, his cheeky smile, his happy laugh, his electrifying caresses, his sensational kisses…

  Oh, good grief, she was hopeless.

  Why couldn’t he have stayed in Mongolia?

  Jake tossed his coat onto the back seat of the hire car and slammed the door. Letting fly with a string of expletives, he wrenched open the driver’s door, slid behind the steering wheel and pulled that door shut with an even louder slam.

  He gunned the engine and took off, charging down the street at a reckless speed—until he saw the shocked face of a pedestrian and rapidly slowed down, chastened.

  As soon as he turned the corner out of Mattie’s street, he saw a parking space and pulled into it. His breathing was still ragged, his heart still pounding. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt this angry. Or this scared.

  Actually, that was a lie.

  Jake remembered all too well.

  He knew exactly when he’d felt this way and the very thought of it drenched him in a cold sweat, but it was too late to stop the memories of that terrible night when his baby brother had been born.

  He’d been nine years old and thrilled, because after years of nagging his parents they’d told him that at last he was going to have a baby brother or s
ister.

  He’d been caught up in a whirlwind of excitement during the preparations for the baby’s arrival—painting the little back bedroom, watching parcels of impossibly cute clothes arrive from city stores, seeing nursery furniture coming out of storage.

  Jake had made a rattle for the baby, a pathetic thing really, but at the time he’d been so proud, filling a small plastic bottle with seeds and painting it rainbow colours.

  He’d imagined the baby playing with it, laughing and bashing it on the floor, and he’d dreamed of a future when the baby could crawl and the two of them would play hide and seek together.

  He had such plans—so many things he would teach the youngster—how to swim and to ride, how to climb trees, catch a ball, keep secrets from grown-ups.

  But then that night had come.

  His father and Roy had been away mustering and Jake and his mother had been alone in the homestead. In the middle of the night Jake had been woken by the sound of his mother’s raised voice. He’d crept out of bed to find her, with her dressing gown clutched about her, crying into the telephone, begging the flying doctor to come.

  Terror had struck Jake’s heart. His mother had looked so white and ill, so frightening, with tears streaming down her face. She had been shaking, but when she’d put the phone down she’d brushed his worried questions aside and hurried straight to the two-way radio to call his father.

  The men had been asleep and it was ages before anyone answered. His mother had broken down while she’d waited and, when she’d finally managed to speak, her words had been obscured by her sobbing.

  Jake had hated to see her like this. He’d tried to hug her, demanding to know what had happened.

  At last she’d stopped crying and she’d touched his cheek with a cold hand. ‘I need you to be a brave, good boy, Jake. The flying doctor’s coming. Can you turn on all the house lights and wait on the veranda for him?’

  ‘Yes,’ he whispered, even though the thought of leaving her side terrified him.

  ‘When the doctor comes, bring him to me,’ she said wearily. Then, with a soft moan, she turned and she swayed dizzily back to the bedroom, one hand pressed against her pale lips as if she feared she might throw up.

  To Jake’s horror, as he watched through the bedroom doorway, she collapsed onto the bed and lay perfectly, terribly still.

  Petrified, he ignored her order to wait on the veranda. He raced into her bedroom and shook her gently, trying to wake her. Crying and sobbing, he shook her roughly, begging her, but still she wouldn’t wake.

  Then he saw the tiny bundle…

  He tiptoed, heart in his mouth, around the bed and saw the tiny face of a baby, wrapped in a shawl, lying so close to the edge of the bed it could have fallen off.

  Its eyes were closed and when he picked it up he touched its little face. It was cold and fear leapt inside him like a gas flame.

  If only the doctor would come. Or his father and Roy.

  His tears fell on the little bundle as he gently placed it in the safety of the crib in the corner of his parents’ bedroom. And then he pulled a blanket over his mother and went to wait all alone on the veranda.

  Only in the darkest of nightmares had Jake revisited the terror and misery of that long, lonely vigil. But now the shock of Mattie’s pregnancy had torn down his careful defences and he couldn’t hold back the black memories.

  So many times during that night he’d crept back to the bedroom, praying that his mother or the baby would wake.

  It was hours before the men had arrived, but at last they’d come. The flying doctor plane’s lights had bobbed and bounced on the rough landing strip at around the same time the thunder of horses’ hooves signalled the stockmen’s return.

  The doctor and Jake’s father had gone straight to his mother, closing the door, and it was into Roy’s arms that Jake had crumpled.

  It was Roy who’d finally told him that his mother was going to be all right, but his baby brother had died. It was Roy who’d never left his side throughout the rest of that night or the next day. It was Roy who’d explained about premature stillbirth, Roy who’d assured Jake that he wasn’t to blame for any of this. There was nothing he could have done.

  A jagged groan broke from Jake and he slumped behind the steering wheel, staring through the windscreen at the pouring rain.

  Now, as a rational adult, he knew his mother’s experience wasn’t common. She’d been a tragic victim of the Outback’s isolation. Pregnancy in a huge city like Sydney was a totally different kettle of fish.

  But an irrational corner of his heart shrank, chilled by the old fear he’d never quite been able to bury. He never wanted to put himself through that level of turmoil again.

  Thankfully he’d had the sense to distance himself from Mattie, to walk out of her flat. If he’d stayed there he might have done something he’d regret, might have asked more questions, got himself more deeply entangled.

  But how could a young woman get herself involved in something like this? How could she take such risks with her body for someone else?

  You know why. Mattie Carey isn’t just any girl.

  Too true.

  That was his problem.

  Mattie was so much more than any girl he’d ever known…She wasn’t just divinely sexy in silk and lace lingerie…She was warm, vibrant, special…She had a heart as big as…

  Damn. If he went down that track, he’d start to feel involved and overly protective and he’d already decided that this was not his responsibility. He didn’t want to be involved.

  Slotting the key in the car’s ignition, he started the engine, determined to put distance between himself and Mattie’s pregnancy.

  At the first junction, however, when he braked for a red light, his mind threw up pictures of Mattie over the next few months. Carrying twins.

  The rapidly growing babies were going to be a huge drain on her. And who would be there to support her?

  Did she know what could happen? Did she really think she could manage everything on her own? Why on earth was she doing this? Alone?

  So many questions.

  So many things to worry about.

  Jake drove on, but the thought of Mattie going into labour and delivering twins sent his angry fist smashing into the steering wheel.

  This surrogacy gesture was going too far. It was a one-way street with no chance to turn back. And now it was too late to talk her out of it. He felt as helpless now as he had when he was nine.

  And he didn’t want to get involved.

  But did he have any other option?

  Mattie needed help.

  Without consciously making the decision, Jake circled the block until he was in front of the flats again. And then he was out of the car, dashing through the rain once more, this time without his coat.

  He knocked an impatient tattoo on Mattie’s front door, and the little dog barked madly. Again.

  Again, Mattie took ages to open the door but, when she did, Jake felt as if he’d been slugged in the solar plexus.

  Her eyes were red and watery and her nose was red too, as if she’d blown it many times. She was clutching a handful of damp tissues and, as soon as she saw him, she gave a hiccupping sob and her eyes filled with fresh tears.

  ‘Mattie, I…’

  She shook her head and pressed the wad of tissues against her mouth.

  A strangling sensation seized Jake by the throat. He couldn’t bear to think he’d done this to her. If anyone else had hurt Mattie Carey he would have cracked them on the jaw.

  ‘I had to make sure you were OK,’ he said. ‘But I see you’re not.’

  Instead of inviting him in, she rolled her eyes and the action sent shiny tears spilling down her flushed cheeks. Hastily, she dashed them away with the heel of her hand. ‘I’ve already told you I’m fine, Jake. You don’t have to worry about me.’

  She obviously didn’t want to talk about her crying, so he tried another tack. ‘Who’s looking after you?’

  �
��I don’t need looking after.’ Mattie blew her nose noisily and wiped the last of her tears onto her sleeve. ‘I’m not ill. Just pregnant.’

  ‘But you’re doing all this by yourself?’

  ‘Pregnancy isn’t exactly something you can share.’

  She was being deliberately stubborn, which meant she was almost certainly angry. Battling his own impatience, Jake tried again. ‘What about the next couple of months as the pregnancy advances?’

  ‘When I’m as huge as two houses?’

  ‘You’re still going to have to shop and to cook, and to go to medical appointments.’

  ‘Yes, but don’t worry. I’ll carry one of those warning signs: Oversize Load.’

  He groaned in exasperation. ‘Mattie, be serious. Don’t tell me you’re going to try to do this all on your own.’

  ‘Why not? It’s the truth.’ She was beginning to sound bored by his interrogation.

  Jake drew a deep breath and prayed for patience. ‘You’re expecting twins. Another couple’s twins. Surely they owe you something? In my book they owe you big time, but it looks like they’ve abandoned you.’

  ‘You don’t know anything about them.’ Mattie was calmer now. Calmer and colder. She stood, blocking the doorway, with her arms folded over her ‘baby bump’. ‘No one has abandoned me, Jake.’

  As she said this her face fell, but she quickly recovered. ‘It was my idea to come to Sydney. If I’d stayed in Willowbank, the whole town would have been trying to guess what was going on.’

  She paused to blow her nose again and gave him a very deliberate, if watery, smile. ‘I’m quite capable of managing alone and this is the way I want it. I couldn’t handle the constant fussing if I’d stayed near Gina and Tom. They’d always be hovering over me, making sure I was OK.’

  And so they should, Jake thought. Anything might happen.

  He grimaced, fighting flashes of fear. ‘But twins, Mattie. Surely you’ll get too tired to look after this place and…and everything else?’

  ‘All taken care of. Gina and Tom have sent me a lovely cleaner. She’s brilliant. And they’ve even talked about a home delivery grocery service.’