by Anne Oliver
He made a self-deprecating sound in his throat and shook his head. ‘I don’t know how you women do it. Why do you want to put yourselves through that?’
Why? ‘For love, Luke.’ Don’t you get that?
‘I don’t think I could stand it, seeing you… If I ever made you pregnant…’
His words stabbed through her like a knife. Her heart stopped, then began again at double time. Why did he have to say that now, when she’d already framed the words she was going to use in her head? Later?
‘Luke, it’s okay,’ she said quietly, loving him with every beat of her throbbing heart. Finally admitting what she’d always known. Why there’d never been anyone else for her but this man searching her eyes with such sweet tenderness.
But she’d not been honest with him. She should have persisted. Written again. Tried harder. She should have known Luke wasn’t the kind of man who’d walk away from a child—his child—without a word, even if those words had been a rejection. And a rejection would have come with support, even if only a monetary one.
She’d misjudged him and denied him the opportunity.
‘Hey. You’re crying.’ With the pads of his fingers he wiped the moisture from her cheeks that she hadn’t realised was there.
‘I am not crying.’ But, dammit, she wanted to keep crying. Sheer determination kept the tears at bay.
‘You’re exhausted, you’re over-emotional and you’re going to bed.’ He swept her up into his arms and placed his lips on hers, a warm, sweet pressure, a gentle understanding.
Except he didn’t understand. Because he didn’t know. She had to tell him. Tonight. But first she had to show him how much she loved him.
Her room was cool and quiet as he pulled back the quilt and laid her down. The scent of a bouquet of daffodils and freesias from Carissa’s spring garden perfumed the air. Dappled moonlight shone through her lace curtains, dimming and brightening as clouds scurried across its face.
Enough light to see all of him as he stripped off his clothes without speaking. They both knew without words he was staying. He was beautiful—a perfectly proportioned beautiful man, in every way. In the moonlight his sharp, dark masculine lines and ridges melted into the soft sheen of silver where the moon coasted over his skin.
Lazy shadows curled and stretched as he approached the bed, placed his hands on either side of her waist and leaned over her.
‘Melanie.’ Her name drifted on the air like a balm, to soothe and to arouse as he slid warm palms beneath her jumper and up, sliding her arms out of the sleeves then over her head. Then her skirt, a slow rasp of zip, the rougher chafe of denim as he tugged it down over her hips.
‘Purple?’ he asked, his voice husky as his hands moved over her satin bra, cupping her breasts before unclasping it from behind, then gliding down her hips and slipping off her matching panties.
‘Red.’ The moon had leached all colour from the room, stripping it down to stark black and white and silver. The way he was stripping her, leaving nothing but the sheer simplicity and clarity of love.
In the dimness and slow-burning passion she ached to lose herself in Luke’s loving and not think about tomorrow. ‘Make love to me, Luke,’ she whispered, wanting skin to skin, heart to heart, knowing everything had changed. Would change again too soon.
Tonight was different. For her, for him.
‘You’re not too tired?’ he murmured.
‘After seeing that little miracle tonight?’ She shook her head against the pillow. ‘I’m on a high—no, I’m not too tired.’
He took her raised hands, twining his fingers through hers and looked into her eyes. ‘You are amazing. I’ve said it before, but now it’s more. Much more.’ He lifted their joined hands to his lips, pressed his open mouth to the pulse thrumming like a hummingbird’s wings at her wrist.
Then he lay down and stretched out beside her, one hairy thigh against her hip. His heat, his need burned with an urgency tempered by a willingness to take it slow.
He whispered into her ear. ‘First I’m going to kiss you until there’s not a patch of skin I haven’t tasted.’
She whimpered as he laved a path from ear to neck to breast. Did he know she trembled? Could he hear the way her heart thundered against his lips? Her own hands traced the hard slope of his shoulders and muscled upper arms, marvelled at the soft, sweet pull of his mouth on her nipple. Strength and tenderness.
He skimmed his lips over sensitised, goose-peppered flesh, his body abrading the sheets with a soughing sound as he moved down. Over thigh, knee, calf, ankle, toes, repeating his journey up the other leg.
He paused to pry her legs apart, looked up and met her eyes. What she saw in those depths was real and honest. Her heart swelled, her exposed flesh quivered as he lowered his head, lingered there with something close to reverence.
On a low groan he reared up on his knees and straddled her. With his attributes carved in moonlight and shadows he was that perfection she’d admired the first morning he’d come back into her life.
Then he lowered himself on top of her and her eyes drifted shut.
His mouth caressed hers, opened. Tongues met in a lazy tango of darkly rich tastes and textures, until kissing was no longer enough.
Spreading her thighs, she took him in, a slow, slippery glide of heat, a long satisfied sigh of completion. She arched her hips so he was deep, so deep it was as if he touched every part of her.
They’d never loved this way before, lingering over every touch, absorbing every sigh. Savouring every moment as if it were their last. Time slowed, stopped, became irrelevant.
‘Look at me,’ he murmured. ‘I want to see those silver eyes with me all the way.’
She opened her eyes and his dark, passion-filled gaze melded with hers. He felt it too, she thought in wonder—the magic they made together.
Something stronger than magnetism drew them together, Luke thought. Her skin glowed beneath his hands. It wasn’t moonlight; it was Melanie. Shining with her own inner radiance.
He watched her bloom anew as he buried himself deep in her dark velvet heat again, withdrew slowly, deliberately, until his entire body was throbbing with need.
But he bit back the groan that threatened to erupt from his chest, desperate to keep the mood easy. She needed a slow hand tonight after the hell-for-leather day she’d had.
Lazy gave him time to search for buried treasure he might have missed up till this point. He discovered the little sound she made when he rubbed circles behind her knees. When she began to squirm and sigh he used fingers and lips on her familiar trigger points until easy turned to urgent.
Until he steeped himself in her one last time, watching her eyes turn dark, then cloud with passion as he came and she flew apart beneath him.
Moments later, she nestled beside him as he watched the mottled moonlight play across the wall. ‘Luke.’ His name slurred slightly on her lips.
‘No talk. Sleep now.’
‘No. We must talk, I must tell you some—’
He looked down at her face, taut with fatigue, put a finger on her pursed mouth. ‘Whatever you want to say can wait another day.’
‘But—’
‘No.’
Deliberately, he pulled the quilt up over his shoulder, closed his eyes. It was a brief minute or two before he heard her sleep-slow breathing. And not before time.
Dedicated, his Melanie, with a steely strength hiding a marshmallow core. And yet when he’d looked into her eyes in the kitchen earlier, he’d seen…vulnerability. Something was bothering her. Whatever it was, it would wait till morning. Whatever it was, he’d help her through it.
* * *
Luke woke to the sound of rain beating on the window and a warm body next to his. A sleeping body. He snuggled lower. Great weather for staying in bed and indulging in some morning glory, he thought, plumping his pillow so he could watch Melanie sleep.
Eyes closed, her hair in disarray on her pillow, a frown creasing her brow as if she save
d patients even in dreams. Or fought demons, he thought with a frown of his own, remembering last night when she’d wanted to talk.
An arm shot up, hitting his nose and nearly knocking him out. Typical Mel. She never stayed still for long—he was amazed that he’d slept undisturbed all night. A testament to the long hours she’d put in yesterday, he guessed, his body tightening as the curve of Mel’s bottom wriggled closer.
Down, boy. Right now she needed sleep more than she needed sex. But he couldn’t resist easing the quilt down to see the gentle rise and fall of her breasts, the dark chocolate nipples jutting at him.
Okay. Option one. He could lie here and torture himself looking at the early morning light bring a tinge of colour to her creamy skin, feeling her warm breath on his shoulder. Or option two, he could go home and make a start on those boxes he’d taken to his apartment that he’d yet to sort. Come back in a few hours with breakfast.
Then take the afternoon showing Melanie that spending it in bed was… No. She’d be anxious to visit Carissa and little Robert Baxter Jamieson again. They could do that together, he thought, hauling his butt out of bed. He wanted to check on the little guy again himself to see if he’d changed any since last night.
It also got him thinking again as he pulled on yesterday’s wrinkled and—he sniffed—vaguely odorous clothes. About kids and family. And Mel. And kids and family and Mel in the one sentence was a new step for him.
His gaze turned to Mel. As he watched she did a flip and rolled onto her back. A hank of ebony hair obliterated half her face. Smiling, he crossed to the bed, smoothed it away.
And his heart swelled with…something. Something big. Something so huge it left no room for breath. He’d tried to ignore it; Melanie didn’t want anything permanent—she’d made that quite clear.
But last night… She’d been different last night.
He stepped back quietly, shut her door behind him and let himself out into the rain. Maybe it was time to change her mind.
* * *
Back in his apartment he was on the floor and down to the last box. The junk of his life, he thought, glancing at old papers and magazines littering the space around him.
He pulled the last box nearer and took out a bundle of old correspondence. His forwarding address had been added in his father’s handwriting, but it had missed the post by about five years.
He flipped through them. A dental reminder, a magazine subscription renewal, a letter. Business envelope—he turned it over—no sender info. He tore it open, slid out a single sheet of paper. Instantly recognised the handwriting.
He read the first line. Blinked, read it again.
‘Luke, I’m pregnant…’
The lines blurred and he couldn’t read any further. The paper slipped from his numb hands. His breath stalled in his chest; something was twisting his bowel into knots. His heart—he didn’t know what to do with the jack-hammer pounding its way through his chest, the vice that was squeezing the life out of it. Nor the knowledge that—sweet heaven…
Mel had been pregnant.
With his child.
And somewhere in the part of his brain that was still functioning rationally a question: where was that child now?
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
THE noise pounded its way into her dreams, a relentless hammering that finally brought Melanie to a groggy awareness that someone was demanding to be let in. And that Luke was no longer lying beside her.
Pushing her hair out of her eyes, she sat up. Eleven forty-three! She grabbed her terry robe and struggled to her feet. ‘I’m coming!’ For God’s sake.
Throwing the door open and squinting against the dark outline against the glare of daylight, she barely recognised Luke before he stalked inside. ‘Oh…hi… Where have you been…?’ She rubbed the heel of one hand across her eyes, pressed it to the dull throb in her temple. ‘I’ll have to get a key cut for you…’
Her voice trailed off as she finally looked at the man in front of her, fists curling and uncurling and smelling of rain. Muscles bunched on both sides of his unshaven jaw. His damp hair was furrowed, as if he’d run an exasperated hand through it.
But it was his eyes that brought her fully awake. Dark and roiling with a dozen different emotions.
Fear gripped her. ‘What’s wrong? It’s not Carrie, is it?’
‘What happened to our child?’
For a second she simply stared, stunned. Then her breath caught and her knees trembled while her pulse thundered sickly in her ears. How…? It didn’t matter.
What mattered now was that he knew.
And he hadn’t heard it from her.
‘I…was going to…tell you last—’ Old guilt coiled around her heart, its venom dark and deadly. She tried to speak, to explain, but all that came out was the pitiful sound of her heart breaking. Again. Spots shimmered before her eyes and, unable to stand, she sank to the floor.
He stooped, gripping her upper arms. ‘You were pregnant, Melanie—I found your letter amongst a pile of stuff Mum and Dad forgot to post.’
She closed her eyes as tears spilled down her cheeks.
‘When I didn’t answer your letter did you decide it was all too hard? That a child—our child—would’ve gotten in the way of your life?’
Horror and anger gave her strength. Struggling out of his arms, she pummelled his chest with all the fury and the pain and the anguish she’d borne alone for so long.
‘How dare you think that? You weren’t here.’ She shoved him away. ‘You have no idea how I felt, what it’s like to be pregnant and alone. But, no, I did not have an abortion.’
A fraction of the tension eased from his face and something flickered in his eyes. He knew he was handling this all wrong. With a shake of her head, she staggered to her bedroom. She hugged her arms, remembering.
She felt Luke come up behind her but she didn’t turn around. He ran his hands up and down her arms. ‘You’re shaking like a leaf. Sit down.’ With an arm around her shoulders, he lowered her to the side of the bed and sat beside her, then let her go. Pulling away.
‘Tell me,’ he said, his voice oddly devoid of emotion.
Melanie closed her eyes. ‘I had a miscarriage.’
‘What happened?’
‘I was lifting a tray of drinks and I slipped on some spilt champagne.’
Incredulity brought a slash of colour to his cheek-bones, turned his eyes dark. ‘You kept working? Lifting heavy loads in your condition?’
‘Yes,’ she snapped. He wouldn’t understand; he’d never understand what it was like to have to work to survive. ‘I had no choice. I had to work.’
Luke’s hand slipped into hers. That simple act also threatened to open a floodgate, so she didn’t squeeze back. Instead she took a deep fortifying breath and stood up. They needed somewhere neutral, a place where they could talk without Adam interrupting them. ‘Let’s take a walk,’ she said.
Without speaking they took Luke’s car and drove two minutes to the local park. They walked for five minutes, making their way along a path overgrown with winter soursobs.
A chilly breeze chased away the rain but the old plane trees dripped moisture, cold drops spilling onto her face and down her neck and leaving droplets on Luke’s hair and eyelashes. She wanted to reach out and connect with him but he didn’t want that touch. He stood remote and grim—within touching distance but miles apart, shivering in nothing but a T-shirt, the hairs on his arms bristling with the cold.
‘You didn’t tell me. Five years ago…you should have done more.’ Eyes as bleak and winter-cold as the day drilled into hers. ‘And now we’ve been together weeks, and still you kept it to yourself.’
‘I wanted to tell you, Luke. I was going to. I was waiting for—’
‘Don’t you know I’d have come back for you?’
The soul-destroyingly broken way he said that, almost as if he were laying his heart at her feet, ripped her to shreds. She shook her head. ‘Why would I think that? You accepted a job int
erstate. You didn’t include me in your plans.’
‘No?’ His lips flattened, his jaw clenched. ‘You were in such a hurry to pack up and move on that night, I barely had time to finish dressing, let alone ask you if you’d take a chance and come with me.’
While she stood reeling at his words, he twisted away with a sharp exhalation, slapped a hand on the trunk of the tree they stood beneath. ‘Where do we go from here?’
By the way he muttered it Melanie didn’t think he expected a reply, and he didn’t get one; she was fresh out of answers.
They drove back in silence but for the muted radio playing seventies hits and the click click of Luke’s fingers tapping an agitated staccato on the steering wheel.
She half expected him to drop her off and continue on his way, but he accompanied her inside. To collect his jacket, she realised.
They stood in the room like two strangers. Her lip trembled as she watched him but she bit down on the inside until she tasted blood. She’d lost him.
Not that she’d ever had any claim to Luke Delaney, rich man’s son or self-made millionaire.
He didn’t even say goodbye. Just turned and walked out, closing the front door behind him. Closing the door on their relationship. Their no-strings, casual relationship.
Why should she have expected anything else?
* * *
Gripping Melanie’s letter, Luke let himself into the old house with his key and headed for the bright glass-walled gazebo, a recent addition at the far end of the house where his parents spent their leisure hours.
The room’s warmth from the pot-belly stove and the damp-earth smell from his mother’s indoor plants greeted him as he shoved open the door.
He found his father asleep on his recliner, Sunday’s newspaper on his chest, reading glasses halfway down his nose.
‘Dad, where’s Mum? I need to talk to both of you.’
His father opened his eyes. ‘Hello, son. Your mother’s gone to the city for some ladies’ luncheon. Won’t be back for hours.’ He frowned. ‘What’s up? You look fit to kill.’