Their Baby Bargain

CHAPTER NINE

DAWN.

As the sun slipped over the horizon, Luke stirred with Wendy in his arms. He held her close, savouring this last, long moment of wonder, and then he kissed the nape of her neck to make her stir. Needs must…

‘Love?’

She woke, wondering, and, as she saw that it was daylight her eyes flew wide in panic. ‘No!’

‘It’s fine.’ His grip tightened. He wasn’t letting her go for the world, but it said a lot for his instinctive understanding of this woman that he knew what her first thought would be. Her children. ‘Nick and Shanni are staying at the farm for the night. You knew that. They’re not expecting us back until breakfast.’

She thought about this, panic subsiding. She grimaced-but then it was hard to grimace very much when she was feeling so light and so loved and so incredibly wonderful.

‘I’ve been set up,’ she said, and he chuckled.

‘You have. But soon…’ he glanced at his watch ‘…soon the staff from the resort above will come down and clear the remnants of last night’s debauchery, and we’re not exactly in a position to receive them.’

They weren’t. She blushed bright crimson at that. Good grief! If anyone had ever told her she’d sleep naked on a beach, wrapped only in a picnic rug, and not very securely at that…

‘A swim and dress, I think,’ Luke said ruefully. ‘Before we have visitors. What do you think, my love?’

What did she think? There was only one thing she wanted to do more than swim. But Luke was right, they had to be sensible-or a little bit sensible.

So she didn’t argue-and who could argue when he was lifting her and carrying her across to the river which was now deep and cool and wonderful with the incoming tide-and he was lowering her down into the water and she was gasping and laughing and holding him and devouring his wonderful body with her eyes.

And she was so far in love that she felt she could float not just in the water but anywhere. As long as Luke was beside her.

But…

This was tomorrow.

It was okay for a start. It was fine, even. Dressed-after a fashion, though they did look a whole lot less respectable than the two gorgeous diners who’d entered the restaurant the night before-they crept hand in hand up the track, skirted the resort buildings and made their getaway without sighting anyone.

‘Great.’ Luke grinned as he nosed his lovely little car out onto the highway. He looked across at his love and his grin intensified. ‘Though if we’d been seen they never would have recognised us from last night. You look like a mermaid, my love.’

‘You mean there’s seaweed in my hair.’ She lifted a strand of sea-soaked curls and regarded it ruefully. ‘Just as long as we can sneak inside at the other end.’

‘It’s still before seven. We have every chance.’

‘We have children and puppies,’ Wendy said. ‘We have no chance at all. Nick and Shanni will jump to all sorts of conclusions.’

‘Let them.’ Luke glanced sideways at her again, and the look on his face made her warm from the toes up. ‘They’ll all be right. Unless they figure we’re already married and even that-’

‘Luke…’ She faltered.

‘Yes, love?’

‘You’re going too fast.’

He eased off the accelerator and she gave a sideways smile. ‘I didn’t mean that.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean…marriage.’

‘It’s what I want,’ he said steadily. ‘I want you, Wendy. For ever. Can you handle that?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You knew last night.’

‘Yes, but…’ She faltered again and shook her head. ‘Luke, it’s happened so fast. I met Adam and married him fast, and it was such a mistake.’

His brow darkened. ‘I’m not Adam.’

‘No, but…’

‘But what?’

She stared across at him for a long, long minute, trouble written on her face. Then…

‘Will you sell this car?’ she burst out.

Silence.

Would he sell this car? Luke faced the road again, and unconsciously his foot pressed more firmly on the accelerator. Sell…

He didn’t love this car, he acknowledged, frowning into the silence. Not like he loved Wendy and the kids. But…

‘Why do you want me to sell it?’

‘Because it’s foolish.’

‘Because it’s like Adam?’

‘Yes,’ she burst out before she could stop herself. ‘To have a car that’s so powerful is so stupid!’

‘It’s not a stupid car, Wendy,’ he said carefully. ‘It’s a beautiful car. Sure, it’s expensive, but it’s a craftsman-made piece of engineering that gives me real pleasure. I have never used it unwisely. I have never driven faster than is safe, and I’ve never been stupid in it. But if you think that me owning it makes me like Adam…’

‘I’m sorry, but-’

‘I’m not like Adam,’ he told her, the frown still in his voice. ‘I’m me. And what else will you want me to do if we go down that road? Get rid of any suits that might make me look like Adam? Sleep on the other side of the bed to the one he did? Eat different brands of toast spread?’

‘It’s ridiculous, I know-’

‘It is ridiculous,’ he said. ‘It’s also insulting. You have to know that I’m different. I’m asking you to marry me, Wendy. I am asking you. But if you think for one minute that I’m like Adam then I don’t want a bar of it. So no, I won’t sell this car. Not because I can’t, or because I’m more attached to it than I am to you, but because it’s part of who I am. The whole package. Futures broker, nice car, leather jackets… If you want commitment then you need to love me for me, Wendy, or you don’t love me at all.’

And that was that.

What was he saying? he thought bleakly. Luke sat back and clenched his hands on the steering wheel until white bone showed through his knuckles. Had he thrown away his best shot here?

But somewhere in the back of his brain, he knew he was right. He loved this woman beside him with all his heart, but he couldn’t spend the rest of his life marching behind Adam’s ghost. Always making sure he wasn’t reminding her…

‘Luke-’

‘It’s your decision, Wendy,’ he said grimly.

‘I just…’ And then her eyes widened and her voice changed to panic. ‘Luke!’

He’d seen it. The wombat was sitting right in the middle of the road as they rounded a blind curve. Sleek and black and fat, it sat immovable as a rock.

Luke hit the brakes with everything he had. The car veered sideways onto the verge, tyres screaming. The whole vehicle lifted as it hit the gravel, it tottered for one endless moment as though trying to decide whether to go over-and then it settled again blessedly onto four steady wheels.

Luke and Wendy were left staring straight ahead as the car came to a skidding halt, with Luke blessing brilliant braking systems and fabulous stability-and just a little bit of luck thrown in for good measure.

Whew! They hadn’t even hurt the wombat!

‘Are you okay?’ He looked across at Wendy and she was as white as a sheet. She’d closed her eyes, and her whole body was trembling. ‘Hey, it’s okay, love,’ he said gently. ‘We didn’t hit it.’

‘We could have.’ Her voice was hardly a whisper. ‘Luke, it could have been a child.’

‘We didn’t and it wasn’t.’ He gave her a worried glance, but if she was uninjured he had other urgent priorities. Another car might come around the curve at any minute and the stupid great creature hadn’t moved. He sighed and lifted his travel rug from the back seat. Wombats weighed a ton, but another glance at Wendy’s white face told him he was on his own.

Five minutes later, with one wombat safely carried a couple of hundred yards into the bush-over a creek-bed so it couldn’t easily get back again-and given a solid lecture about road safety, he returned to the car to find Wendy still staring straight ahead and her pale face white with strain.

It had brought back the accident from all those years ago, he thought. Hell! This was just what he didn’t need.

‘Wendy, we’re fine,’ he told her. ‘The wombat’s fine too, not that it deserves to be.’

‘It mightn’t have been.’

‘It is.’

‘It’s this car,’ she whispered, and that brought him up short.

He wheeled to face her, putting his hands out to grasp her shoulders and forcing her around so she had to meet his eyes. There was anger blazing in his face-hell, he’d had a shock, too, and to blame this car…

‘No, Wendy, it was not this car,’ he told her. ‘We were going at a sensible speed on a country road. Yes, sure if I’d had a four-wheel drive vehicle with a bullbar in front we might have gone straight over the top of the wombat without any damage, but we would have killed it. And if we’d hit him in a nice, sensible station wagon-a lump like that weighing half a ton-then we may very well have overturned and been hurt.’

‘We were going too fast.’

‘You mean-I was going too fast.’

‘Yes.’

‘I was going at far less than the speed limit,’ he said icily. ‘Will you get it into your head that I’m not Adam?’

But she was past logical thought. ‘If we’d hit him-if we’d gone over and been killed-Grace and Gabbie would be alone.’

‘Wendy-’

‘I should never have come,’ she said, and her hands went up to her face in horror. ‘Of all the crazy, irresponsible things to do… I’m all Gabbie has, Luke.’ She took a deep, searing breath, searching for steadiness, and with it came some measure of calm. But also determination. ‘Take me home, please,’ she said, and by the sound of her voice there was no argument possible. ‘I’ve been really, really stupid. I’ve been a fool for the second time, and it has to be the last.’

And that was that.

Wendy was immovable. Solid as a rock. Luke took her home; she disappeared to her end of the house without saying a word and he didn’t see her again until everyone was seated at the breakfast table. By then she had her face nicely under control again. She was briskly, kindly formal, and Luke had been put onto another planet. One where she didn’t exist.

‘Are you two going to tell us you had a nice time?’ Shanni asked doubtfully, looking from one face to the other. She’d had such hopes of last night, and then when they hadn’t come home…

‘We had a nice time,’ Wendy told her, trying to smile. ‘We went prawning, but we didn’t catch anything.’

And you didn’t even catch each other, Shanni thought sadly, exchanging a meaningful glance with Nick. Oh, dear. They’d given their best, but it wasn’t enough.

‘We’ll be off, then,’ she said doubtfully. ‘But call us again. Any time you want us to baby-sit…’

‘We don’t need you,’ Wendy said, concentrating fiercely on her toast. ‘What you did was lovely-thank you both very much-but Luke will be returning to the city soon, and I won’t be leaving the children.’

‘Will you really be returning to Sydney?’ Shanni asked, and watched Luke’s strained face.

He shook his head. ‘I haven’t decided but…’ he shrugged ‘…maybe it’s just as well if I don’t stay much longer.’

And maybe it was.

For the next two days Luke tried to keep things as they’d been but it was impossible. The strain between the two of them was almost unbearable-so much so that Gabbie asked, ‘Why does Wendy always look like she’s going to cry after you go out of the room?’

Luke couldn’t answer, but he knew. Of course he knew. It was because Wendy had fallen as deeply in love with him as he had with her-but how to say that to a child? And how to expect Gabbie to understand why Wendy wouldn’t let things ride to their inevitable, joyous conclusion when he hardly understood her reasons himself?

‘You want me as much as I want you,’ he said to her on the second evening after their night out, when the children were safely in bed. He’d come out to find her on the veranda and had discovered her staring out to sea with eyes that were bleak and despairing. ‘How can you deny it?’

She looked at him with eyes that defeated him with their misery. ‘I might want you but I know where that wanting has led in the past,’ she whispered. ‘Luke, please…don’t do this to me. It’s tearing me in two.’

‘And it’s not tearing me?’

‘You’ll get over it,’ she said drearily. ‘Don’t tell me there won’t be other women.’ She wheeled to face him. ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, just leave it. Can’t you see I don’t want a relationship? I was utterly mad to let myself imagine I could love you. To let you make love to me. One night’s madness…’

‘No,’ he said softly. ‘One night’s honesty and one night’s joy. One night’s beginning of the rest of our lives. I don’t do casual sex, Wendy. I made love to the woman I want to marry-with the woman I wish to spend the rest of my life with-and I’m damned sure under that bleak exterior that that’s what you want, too.’

‘I don’t want it, Luke,’ she said again. ‘And as for letting down my defences… It’s not going to happen again. No matter how long you stay here. You’re my employer. You have the cutest baby in the world. I’m desperate to stay here and stay looking after her, but I’ve told you before that if you keep this pressure on then I’ll have to go. Gabbie and I will move on.’

She would too. He looked at her despairingly but there was nothing in her face but resolution and misery. He was making her unhappy, he thought suddenly. Hell, he loved her and he was making her unhappy!

‘You really want me to go?’ he asked, and watched the flare of hope behind her eyes.

‘This is your home. You own it. I can’t force you to leave.’

‘But you want me to?’

‘Luke, I can’t take this pressure,’ she said honestly, and she spread her hands in appeal.

‘Because you love me?’

‘I…can’t.’

‘And yet you do.’ He didn’t touch her. He didn’t move. They were standing four feet apart and he knew if he took one step nearer then she’d turn and leave.

‘I told you,’ she said steadily. ‘I can’t.’

‘Hell!’

‘It is,’ she said bleakly. ‘A very special sort of hell.’

‘Because you can’t trust again.’

‘I’m all Gabbie has,’ she said simply.

‘You don’t think by loving me that Gabbie could have both of us? Grace could have both of us? That the responsibility and the love could be shared? You wouldn’t be all Gabbie has. She’d be a part of a family.’

‘Luke-don’t.’

He closed his eyes. How to make her trust? How?

He couldn’t. Selling his car, changing his clothes-they were just the superficial things. This was a deeper fear, and hoping that she’d change was like hoping for the moon. So face it, he told himself harshly. To drag this out was killing both of them.

‘Okay, Wendy,’ he said, and his voice was flat with defeat. ‘You’ve got your way. I’ll leave in the morning.’

‘Oh, Luke…’

‘It’s what you want, isn’t it?’

There was only one answer to that. There had to be. She tilted her chin and forced herself to meet his eyes. ‘Yes.’

‘Then, that’s that, then,’ he told her. ‘That’s that. Until you can find the courage to trust your heart…’

‘My heart leads me to nothing but trouble.’

‘That’s funny…’ he said, but there was nothing funny in the way he said it ‘…because my heart’s leading me to nothing but joy. Until it comes face to face with your damned barriers, with your mistrust, and it’s learning for the first time just how hurtful that can be. I’ll leave, Wendy. And I hope you can be happy with that decision, because I sure as hell can’t.’

‘We must be,’ Wendy managed.

‘Give me one good reason.’ He sighed and shrugged his shoulders, anger building. ‘You can’t and neither can I. This is just plain stupid, but it’s up to you to get over it.’