The Baby Gift: Wishing for a Miracle

‘I couldn’t go home,’ she said quietly. ‘Not without knowing what rattled your cage so much tonight.’ Her gaze caught his and held it. ‘Was it something I did?’

‘Good grief, no!’ Mac was transfixed. By the smell of…what was it? A mixture of soap and…almonds, that’s what it was. Even more by the warmth he could feel radiating off this small, determined woman. Most of all, by the way her eyes seemed to catch the glow from the lights behind him in the parking lot. He knew her eyes were blue but right now they were just huge and dark and full of concern.

‘It…it was the job,’ he told her. ‘It…got to me.’

‘Of course it did.’ A tiny nod advertised that Julia had already come to that conclusion. ‘There’d be something wrong if it didn’t.’ She frowned now, glancing down and lowering her voice. ‘But why couldn’t you talk about it? Like we always do?’

Mac opened his mouth to offer the same excuse of exhaustion. Or to say he’d been asleep but it was obvious she knew he would be lying. She was looking up at him again and he could see plainly that she knew he hadn’t been asleep. She’d seen through him in the truck and she was seeing through him now. Right into his head. Into his heart. There was no escape and, suddenly, Mac didn’t want to find one.

‘That woman,’ he heard himself saying. ‘She…reminded me of someone.’

‘Ahh.’ The sound was long. It contained complete understanding that there was—or had been—a woman of great importance in his life. Far more important than herself.

Mac could actually see the thought process going on in the way she was standing so still she wasn’t even blinking. The almost imperceptible backing away he could sense. The way her lips were parted a fraction as her mind worked.

And that slight parting of her lips was Mac’s complete undoing.

She was so wrong to put herself down in any way but that was exactly what she was doing. She was convincing herself that she had been dismissed in favour of the woman he’d been thinking about. That she was somehow less worthy of his attention. So wrong, and there was only one way he could think to prove it as soon as he noticed her lips.

He had to kiss her.

She could have stopped him. Time seemed to slow down to a crawl. He looked at her mouth and then back to her eyes and he could see that she knew he was unable to resist the temptation now that the thought had occurred to him. Slowly and deliberately…so slowly she had any amount of time to duck out of reach, he tilted and lowered his head. He was giving her the chance to move. Part of him was desperately hoping she would.

But she didn’t move a single muscle.

Her mouth was there. Waiting for him. Her lips still parted. And even then Mac moved so slowly he could feel the warmth of her breath against his lips before he closed that last, infinitesimal space.

Once his lips touched hers, he couldn’t think of anything else at all. Her mouth claimed his. Dragged him in. Drugged him. It was only the need for oxygen that forced him to break the contact but then he heard the sound that Julia made. A soft whimper of desire and he was lost again.

When her mittened hands came up to circle his neck, he surrendered himself without a heartbeat’s hesitation. He caught her head in his hands and tilted it. Touched her lips and then her tongue with his own and it felt like the ground had vanished from beneath his feet. He was weightless. Floating. Vaporised in some fashion by the heat being generated.

When he became aware of what he was standing on again, Mac felt reality returning with a jolt. Who had broken that extraordinary kiss? He didn’t think he could have if his life had depended on it.

He was breathing hard. So was Julia. She’d stepped back from him. It must have been she who had broken the contact, then, because Mac was sure his feet hadn’t moved. What was she thinking? What on earth could he say that might diffuse the intensity of what had just happened? Did he want to?

And then Julia peeped up at him and grinned.

‘You have to marry me now, you know,’ she said.

Mac’s jaw dropped but then it hit him. This was a joke. Maybe Julia’s reaction to the kiss had been nothing like his own. Or maybe she was just as astonished as he was and needed enough space to get her head around it. For whatever reason, she was going to make light of it and right now, it seemed the perfect way forward.

‘Hey…’ He feigned shock. ‘It was only a kiss.’

‘Only a kiss? Cheers, Mac.’ But her lips twitched and there was a glow of merriment in her eyes.

Mac’s smile felt rusty but it was still there. And it grew. He could feel it stretching something that had got way too tight inside him. ‘It was a pretty good kiss,’ he said thoughtfully.

Julia nodded in agreement. ‘Exactly.’ She sighed. ‘So now you have to marry me.’

Mac’s smile broadened. ‘Is that so?’

Julia nodded again. Firmly. ‘Yep. I paid attention at school and Sister Therese said…’

The bark of ironic laughter came from nowhere. Oh, God…if only Julia knew that she was making a joke about the very thing that had been haunting Mac so keenly. He could actually hear a faint echo of his own voice from a decade ago.

‘I’ll marry you, Chris. We can make this work.’

And hers. Scathing.

‘You can’t be serious! You think I want a kid? Holding me back? Interfering with everything I want to do with my life?’

‘It’s my baby, too. You can’t just—’

‘It’s my body, Alan. I can do whatever I like and you can’t stop me.’

How could he have thought that Julia and Christine were alike? The very idea of marriage had been an insult. A threat, even, to the woman he’d believed himself in love with. Something that could never have been discussed reasonably, let alone joked about.

That Julia could make a joke of it was the other end of the spectrum, wasn’t it? Maybe he should find that almost as offensive but, somehow, it wasn’t.

She didn’t know and, at this particular moment in time, it really didn’t matter. How could it, in the wake of that astonishing kiss that had taken him somewhere he’d never been before? A place that held release rather than tension. A pleasure so pure it was paradise.

Relief was coursing through him as well. If he wanted to make something out of this new development in their relationship with each other it was going to be up to him. Julia wasn’t bothered. She could laugh it off. Even better, any damage done by his behaviour tonight was repaired. They would be able to work together again without a barrier that would have been unbearable.

He could play this game. He could laugh it off too and make it go away.

‘Come on, then,’ he said, completely deadpan. ‘I’ve got a full tank in my car and Gretna Green isn’t that far away.’

Julia laughed. She turned away, shaking her head. ‘Are you kidding? I only listened to Sister Therese’s rules, I didn’t obey them.’ She was walking away now, towards her small car, but her words floated back, still coated with laughter. ‘Kisses don’t make babies. You’re safe, mate.’

Safe?

Safe?

Who was she trying to kid?

Mac wasn’t in a remotely safe place right now. What was worse, a part of him didn’t think he wanted to be either. The part that wanted to go after Julia right now and grab her and take her in his arms for another kiss.

At least part of his head was still functioning sensibly. He wrenched open the heavy door of his vehicle, eager to shut himself into the temporary sanctuary.

‘He what?’

‘Kissed me. Come on, Annie. This line is so good you might as well be here sitting on the end of my bed. You heard just fine.’

‘I’m just…surprised.’

‘You and me both.’ Julia’s laugh was hollow. ‘Actually, I have the horrible feeling it might have been me, kissing him.’

‘Who made the first move?’