A Bride and Child Worth Waiting For

Well, it was all conjecture, Jill thought harshly. Charles must have done his own agonising. It wasn’t for her to do his agonising for him.

‘But it does mean you have a daughter,’ she said gently into the silence.

‘I do,’ he said. ‘But I missed out on the whole damned lot. With Lily it’s a bit like being given the chance again.’ He hesitated. ‘OK. Enough. What about you?’

‘Me?’ she said, startled.

‘All I know of your background is from other people,’ he said. ‘Maybe if we’re to be married I ought to know a bit more.’

‘You don’t want to know about Kelvin.’

‘Harry told me he was in jail.’

‘He had a five-year sentence for…for hurting me. I’m still…’

‘Afraid of him?’

‘He used to say he’d kill me if I left him,’ she whispered. ‘He demonstrated it enough for me to believe him.’

‘You think he’s still a threat?’

‘He doesn’t know I’m here. You know that. You know I’ve changed my name. Judy Standford, dumb, bashed wife of a fisherman down south, to Jill Shaw, director of nursing at Croc Creek. But he’ll still be looking.’

‘Surely after so many years…’

‘What Kelvin owns he’ll believe he owns to the end,’ she said bleakly. ‘He’d want me dead rather than see me free.’

‘Why the hell did you marry him?’ he asked savagely.

‘The oldest reason in the world,’ she said. ‘Like you and Maryanne, only maybe without the passion. I was sixteen. A kid. Kelvin was a biker, a mate of my oldest brother, Rick. Rick agreed I could go with them to a music festival. I was way out of my depth and I ended up pregnant. My dad…well, my dad was as violent in his way as Kelvin. Kelvin agreed to marry me and I was terrified enough to do it. Only then I lost the baby. And when I tried to leave… It just…’ She stopped, seeming too distressed to go on.

‘You don’t have to explain to me,’ Charles said gently. ‘But, even after you left, you never thought you’d marry again? You never thought you’d like a child?’

‘Of course I’d like a child,’ she said explosively. ‘I was seven months pregnant when I lost my little girl. I hadn’t realised…until I held Lily…’

‘So Lily’s a second chance for both of us.’ He reached over the table and took her ring hand, folding it between both of his. The warmth and strength of his hold gave her pause.

She’d been close to tears. Close to fury. His hold grounded her, settled her. Made her feel she had roots. But it also left her feeling out of her depth.

‘D-don’t,’ she said, and tugged back.

‘We need to show a bit of affection,’ Charles said wryly. ‘If we’re to pull off a marriage that doesn’t look like a sham.’

‘It doesn’t matter if it is a sham.’

‘You see, I’m thinking that’s where you might be wrong,’ he said. ‘We’ve been given Lily. It’s a huge gift.’

‘We should be home with her now.’

‘She doesn’t need us now,’ Charles said. ‘That’s the problem. Oh, she needs us in that we’re providing security whether she knows it or not. But if we said she was to live with Gina and Cal…’

‘She’d be upset,’ Jill said. She tugged her hand away and stared down into the depths of her ring. ‘Or she’d be more upset,’ she amended. ‘She’s traumatised.’

‘She won’t let the psychologists near.’ Charles sighed. ‘Well, you know the problems as well as I do. Do we tell her tonight that we’re getting married? That she can stay with us for ever?’

‘Cal knows. Gina knows. Sophia Poulos knows. We’d better do it or she’ll be the last in Croc Creek to find out.’

CHAPTER THREE

CHARLES settled the bill and they went out into the balmy night. On another occasion they might have walked here—or wheeled here, Jill corrected herself. Charles never let being in a chair stop him going places. The strength in his arms was colossal and he could push his chair long after those around him were tired from walking.

But there was packing to do tonight and they needed to collect Lily before it got too late. So they’d driven. Or Charles had driven. He was almost as fast getting into the car as a normal driver, opening the door, sliding into the driver seat, clipping his chair closed and swinging it into the rear seat behind him. By the time Jill had adjusted the drapes of her dress they were already moving out onto the road.

He was a normal guy, Jill thought as she tried to focus on the road ahead, and she swallowed. A normal husband. Did he realise what that did to her?

It terrified her.

She’d agreed to this marriage why? Because she loved Lily. Because she couldn’t bear that Lily be further dislocated.

Because Charles was in a wheelchair and would make no demands on her as a wife?

Maybe that had been a factor, she conceded. Up until now Charles’s paraplegia had made this marriage seem…safer? A sexless marriage.

But maybe that was dumb. His injury was so low that maybe…maybe…

Maybe nothing. It didn’t matter, either way. She trusted Charles. It’d be OK.

But she glanced sideways at his profile in the moonlight. The lean, angular features of a strongly boned face. The crinkles around his eyes where years of laughter had left their mark. And pain. He’d never admit it but you didn’t suffer the type of injury he’d endured without pain.

She loved the way his hair crinkled at the roots and then became wavy—just a little. She loved the silver in it. Premature grey was so damned sexy in a male…

Sexy. See, there was the thing. Charles didn’t see himself as sexy so neither should she. She was right to think of his paraplegia as her security. She had to keep thinking of him as disabled, because if she kept thinking of him as sexy this marriage of convenience would never work. She ought to run rather than risk it.

But she was tired of running. She wanted a home. A home, a husband, a daughter.

Charles.

If Kelvin found out, he’d kill them all.

Was she being paranoid? The logical part of her said yes. The part of her that had been controlled by Kelvin said she wasn’t being paranoid at all.

‘What are you thinking?’ he asked, his voice a little strained. Maybe he was finding this as hard as she was.

‘That maybe it’s good for you that you’re going to Wallaby Island tomorrow,’ she said, and for the life of her she couldn’t stop her voice from sounding faintly waspish. ‘This place is going to be awash with gossip, and you and Lily will have escaped.’

‘Just snap their noses off when they ask to see your ring,’ he said. ‘That’ll sort them out.’

‘You think I’m…prickly.’