When she’d left home a few months ahead of her eighteenth birthday her parents had clearly received the signals she’d been sending and only engaged with her when she contacted them, which wasn’t often. Bel considered they were just happy to be free of the problem child in the family, possibly congratulating themselves on how it had all worked out. Though they’d winced when Gwen had followed not long after. But Bel had what, ultimately, she’d wanted.
Her own life.
Away from the compulsory university studies they’d had lined up for her. Away from the damning self-talk they somehow birthed in her. Away from their parties and the drinking and the substances and apparently empty friendships.
Thank God her parents had found each other because who else would have had them? Even in the ridiculously moneyed set.
‘Can you bring a sack over, Bel?’ Arthur called from across the little fenced yard where the wallaby joeys lived. Each one had a sheepskin sewed up the side, turned inside out and folded into a proxy pouch where they spent the many hours when they weren’t being hand fed, toileted or weighed. There were only three in residence—a good year on the roads according to Arthur—but there was room for a dozen more.
Her chest squeezed as Arthur withdrew the smallest of the three from its fake pouch and lowered it carefully into the sack she gave him. It was so young its fur was only just starting to come through and so it was all joints and gangly limbs and veins through translucent skin. Arthur hung the whole sack on an old-fashioned butcher’s scales to weigh it. The needle barely travelled before swinging to a stop.
Poor little mite.
Had she always been this clucky? Or was it only since coming to Australia? Since being implanted? It was still such a surreal concept that at least one life was busy growing away deep inside her. In its own liquid pouch. She couldn’t begin to imagine how her body would … adapt … for getting it out again and mostly she tried not to think about it, but since women had been doing it for millennia she had to assume that it could happen.
The wallabies had the right idea, born the size of a rice-grain and all their growing done externally.
That sounded infinitely more sensible.
‘Good growth,’ Arthur mumbled happily as he moved the tiny creature back into its usual abode.
Bel pottered around after Arthur, watching what he did and learning what to do herself. The road injured echidnas were similar enough to her hedgehogs to make her feel all warm and fuzzy towards them but different enough to have her shaking her head and smiling. It was a wonderful way to pass every afternoon and, as soon as she was past the vulnerable first trimester and she knew she’d be staying, she’d offer to help him with some of the rest of his jobs. The midnight feeds, the intensive care. The harder tasks.
It would be good training for nine months from now.
She bent to tip out the dregs of water from a ceramic bowl for a refill and as she stood a wave of weakness washed over her and she stumbled into the fence and grabbed it for stability, letting the bowl slip from her fingers back down to the rich earth. Its thud drew Arthur’s eye to her before she could straighten and compose herself and he was by her side in a moment.
‘Belinda …’ His hands went under her elbows and took her weight.
‘Wow …’ His strength freed her hands up to rub over her face and eyes, scrubbing away the dizziness.
‘Are you okay?’
‘I’m …’ She couldn’t say what she was. ‘Maybe it’s the Australian heat finally getting to me.’ And maybe morning sickness didn’t have to be in the morning. ‘I’ll be fine in a moment, Arthur. Please don’t worry.’
‘I’ll call Flynn.’
‘No!’
The joeys lurched in their pouches at the vehemence in her tone. Flynn’s keen-eyed scrutiny was the last thing she needed. He was constantly on the watch for any sign that things weren’t going well. He’d probably start looking up flights for the UK. One way.
‘He’ll only tell me to stop helping you. And it’s not necessary, I’m feeling better already. See?’ She stood on her own and only wobbled a little bit, quite proud of that.
‘Well, at least go in to Alice, then. Make yourself a cool drink and sit for a bit.’
Oh, heaven. ‘Yes. I’ll do that. Thank you, Arthur.’
She wobbled her way inside and waited until she was much more recovered before emerging into the kitchen where Flynn’s nan was pickling onions. Within a heartbeat she went from dizzy and nauseous to fixated on what Alice was doing.
She’d kill for a decent pickled onion.
Oh, Lord, was she going to be one of those pregnant women—licking blackboards and scarfing daisies when no one was looking? The thought brought a smile to her face just as Alice looked up.
‘You look peaky. Sit down and I’ll get you a drink.’
‘I can get it, Alice.’
‘Of course you can, but I’m right by the fridge. Just set yourself down.’
She did, and closed her eyes for a moment and when she reopened them Alice placed chilled water with a twist of lemon in front of her and a plate with a selection of home-jarred goodies on it. A blob of chutney, some dried strip meat, cheese and a strange dark sphere. She leaned closer and examined it.
‘It’s a pickled egg. Bill makes them.’
Bel picked it up and studied the awful looking thing as closely as Alice was watching her. ‘Why?’
‘Everyone has different tastes,’ she chuckled. ‘He loves them.’
And then, for no good reason, Bel suddenly had the impulse to experience this new cuisine. Whole. She shoved the entire shelled egg into her mouth and her eyes drifted shut.
Heaven.
‘Did you know I was a midwife when I was younger, Bel?’ Alice mentioned casually after a moment.
Speaking around an entire boiled egg wasn’t easy and so Bel didn’t have a prayer of being able to respond. She just lifted both her eyebrows with polite enquiry and kept chewing, her hand discreetly in front of her mouth.
‘Growing up out here, lots of women had to learn the essentials of childbirth,’ she continued easily. She nodded to the jar of blackened eggs in the larder. ‘Those were popular amongst the pregnant ladies. Anything pickled, really.’
Bel froze, but then realised how suspicious that would look and so kept chewing slowly, doing her best to appear normal. Finally she swallowed it down. ‘Interesting flavour,’ she said, super-casually. ‘Not what I was expecting.’
‘Would you like another?’ Those sharp eyes missed nothing.
Yes. Desperately. ‘No, thank you. We’ll call that an experiment satisfactorily undertaken.’ She gulped at her water.
‘Arthur shouldn’t push you so hard. You’re still getting used to farm life. You look worn out.’
Ah, that will be the sleepless nights wondering how I can get out of all of this. Wondering what I will do if I leave here without Gwen’s babies. But as long as they were talking about Arthur, they weren’t talking about midwifery and pickled eggs.
‘It’s not his fault. The heat just takes me by surprise. I can’t work out how it can be so warm and so cool only a few hours apart. I love it out there with Arthur. The joeys are doing so well …’
Bel effectively steered the conversation onto matters less contentious as she gnawed on the dried meat strip and sipped her water. The chewy protein wasn’t her first since arriving and it was fast becoming a favourite. Alice chatted about what she was preserving this week and cleaned up after the last of her onions.
‘All done?’ the older woman asked when Bel brought the half-empty plate to the kitchen island.
‘Yes. I don’t want to spoil dinner.’
Alice glanced at the remaining contents as she scraped them into the scraps bin. For no good reason Bel was reminded of the wacky tea leaf reading woman at her local tea-house back home.
‘I … um … might just go and find Flynn. Thank you for the break and the snacks. I feel much recovered.’
Alice
smiled. ‘Good. Remind that boy he’s eating with us tonight. He’s worked through enough dinners lately.’
‘I will. Thank you, Alice.’
It was hard not to demurely respond when Alice turned her full matriarchal powers onto her. She reminded Bel so much of her own missed grandmother. The one adult she’d really adored as a child.
She quietly left the kitchen and went in search of Flynn.
He’d been on and off with her for the past three weeks, in her face one minute and then keeping a healthy distance the next. For a man who was fighting so hard for the little lives inside her he really didn’t seem that happy when the pregnancy confirmation came in. About the only time she enjoyed being around him was when they sat together on the bank of the stream and watched the platypus. He taught her all about their biology, about their behaviours, the threats they faced. The very specialist conditions they needed to thrive.
He was particularly resistant to any discussion about Drew and Gwen. As if he’d simply decided they were no longer worthy of his mind space. Of course this only drove her to discuss them more and, short of walking away, there was not a lot he could do to stop her speaking her mind.
But she’d grown weary of even that game the few times they were alone together and she found herself wanting to get to know more about him from him. Flynn the man, not Flynn the brother or son.
But first things first.
‘I think your grandmother is onto us,’ she said the moment she walked in his back door, puffing from the hike across the gully.
CHAPTER SIX
FLYNN looked up from his paperwork. ‘What did you do?’
Bel skidded to a halt, outraged that he could have such accusation in his tone when he’d done little enough to dissuade any of them that things weren’t odd between them. ‘Nothing. But she was asking questions today, and talking about delivering babies.’
He let his focus fall back to his papers. ‘She was a midwife. She’s bound to talk about it at some point.’
‘It was in the way she looked at me. Like the pickled egg was some kind of sign—’
His head snapped up. ‘What pickled egg?’
‘The one I tried at afternoon tea. I had a little … rest …’
He got to his feet. ‘Why did you eat it?’
Her brows closed in on each other. ‘Because she served it to me on a plate. I didn’t want to be rude. And besides, I felt like an egg. What’s the big deal?’
‘My mother hates those eggs.’
‘Understandable. They’re not the prettiest to look at.’ Or to swallow.
‘But she went crazy for them when she was pregnant with Drew.’
Oh. ‘Truly?’
‘Don’t eat them again.’
The seriousness of his tone infected her. ‘I won’t.’
But would she? She’d not meant to eat the first one, just examine it. The next thing she knew, it was in her mouth.
‘You’re expected for dinner tonight,’ she said, changing subject rapidly.
‘I’m busy—’
‘No. You’re not leaving me for another dinner with your own family. It’s been three weeks since I sat across the table from you. How are they going to believe we’re a couple if you treat me like I have some foul disease?’
‘They know me.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
His eyes bored into hers. ‘I mean it won’t surprise them at all that I’ve gone AWOL. I’ve been doing it my whole life.’
She blinked at him, unsure which was more surprising—that her need to learn more about him was being unexpectedly addressed or that he’d volunteered something personal. Flynn. Mr Uncommunicative. ‘Really? Even while you’re home?’
‘Just because we share property doesn’t mean we have to share every waking moment. I love my family but there are limits.’
Not for me. These days and nights of unconditional acceptance were some of the best days of her life. Which was a bit sad, really. Not that unconditional necessarily meant totally without complications. There was clearly a lot that different members of the Bradley clan were wanting to ask but they were—for the most part—restraining themselves. But how many nights of Flynn being a no-show would they tolerate?
‘The longer you leave me with them, the harder it’s going to be to not get into difficult territory.’ She bent a little to catch his eyes when he tried to avoid her gaze. ‘They’re going to start asking questions I’m not equipped to answer. It’s not normal that a couple—’ she put that in finger quotes for good measure ‘—would spend this much time apart.’
The moment she found his eyes, he held them. She almost regretted searching them out. ‘Fine,’ he growled. ‘You eat with me from now on.’
Her stomach dropped. ‘Here?’
‘That should buy us some time.’
Time until they had definitive proof that one of the embryos had stuck well-and-truly and formed a tiny Rochester—she glanced back at him—Rochester-Bradley. Because until that was the case then he wasn’t telling his family anything about their supposed wedding plans. And, by rights, a chance to spend some time away from the need to lie continuously to them should have been a blessing.
But still she hedged. ‘What if they want to see you at dinner?’
‘They see me during the day. I’m sure they’ll survive.’
‘But I’m expected.’
He shrugged. ‘Then go. You were the one concerned about their questions.’
Frustration hissed out of her. ‘It’s not very fair that you’ve left me to deal with all of this. You’ve just … opted out of the whole thing.’
‘Again. They’re used to it.’
‘But I’m not. I’m feeling the pressure. What if I say something wrong?’
‘Then have dinner here tonight. With me.’
Dinner with Flynn, alone here in his house. The earthy, masculine decor suited him down to the ground and here he was very clearly the lord of his domain. The whole place even smelled like him, that distinctive eau de Flynn that tripped her pulse in ways it really shouldn’t.
Coming down here during the mornings and pretending to spend time with him was one thing. Sitting down for a whole lonely meal with the man who’d made it all too clear how he felt about her family and—by association—her …
She’d take the Bradley inquisition any day.
She straightened and turned for the door. ‘I’ll see you in the morning.’
He was up in a second and caught her just as she pushed the screen door open. Two opportunistic flies buzzed in through the gap. ‘Belinda …’
She stopped and turned.
‘Stay.’
He said it in the same low tone he used when he worked with the Reach’s two golden retrievers—mild and low. As if they’d be doing him a favour rather than obeying a command. And somehow the timbre of his voice reminded her of the way he’d taken his mother’s phone call back in the café on that first day they’d driven into Oberon. Gentle. Intimate.
Which was not possible. Not with her.
And, sure enough, he followed it with, ‘I think you could be right. We should start limiting how much alone time you have with them. Especially Nan, if she’s growing suspicious.’
The mini-pleasure of Flynn finally admitting she was right about something only lasted a nanosecond as the reality of being stuck with his dubious company struck home. But still she couldn’t help the snark. ‘Will you actually be here or will you go find a wombat burrow somewhere to hole up in while I eat alone?’
His thick lashes dropped for a moment, then lifted. ‘I’ll be here. We should talk.’
Oh.
And suddenly talking seemed so much worse than not talking. Except that she did have a few things she wanted to say. She turned for the big house. ‘I’ll let your mother know …’
‘No, I’ll do that. Make yourself comfortable.’ And, with a quick snatch of his battered akubra off the hook by the entrance to protect him from the late aft
ernoon sun, he squeezed past her in the doorway and was gone.
Comfortable. Uh-huh. Not going to happen. Not in Flynn’s company.
In order of comfortableness, Arthur came first with those quiet, companionable hours with the rehab animals—no questions about the past or the future or her home—then Bill and Denise, the parents who echoed so many of Drew’s traits it was impossible not to like them. Then, despite how much she reminded Bel of her own long-gone Gran, Flynn’s nan, Alice, who saw too much to be truly relaxed around …
And finally Flynn, way down the bottom of the list. The man who made her angry and nervous and self-conscious …
… and breathless and acutely aware of what every part of her body was doing at any given moment. As he had just now as he’d pressed past her in the doorway, brushing his hard frame against hers.
She crossed her arms across her front and hugged them to her.
He had his brother’s charisma but it was packaged differently. Drew had channelled his into an easy charm and sharp wit that made him a joy to be around. To care for. Flynn’s was all about sexy, silent, understated intelligence. Not easy to be around but, boy, did she know she was alive when she was near him.
She pushed away from the door and drifted back into the small open-plan house. The back half was blue corrugated steel and charcoal window frames, standing on timber stumps a half-metre off the rich green earth. But the front half—her favourite part of the house—was floor to ceiling tinted windows all around and it jutted out on tall stilts where the ground beneath dropped away in a sharp slope.
She crossed to the corner closest to the magnificent view down the long gully of interconnecting forested spurs. If you followed the meandering trail long enough, Flynn had told her, you would stumble out into a cave network and you could be lost for ever in the famous Blue Mountains.
She was just as happy to look from a safe distance.
But what an amazing place for two young boys to grow up. What adventures Drew and Flynn must have had. Her hand slipped to her still-flat belly. If custody went her way would she be welcome back so that Drew’s child could experience some of what he must have?
Beauty and the Wolf / Their Miracle Twins Page 21