Maybe Baby: One Small Miracle

It was far from the ‘I love you’ he’d once taken for granted as his right, his due, and now craved to hear; but he’d take it—a smile was a step in the right direction.

Yeah, it looked like it was definitely time he started listening to what she was actually saying, not what he thought she wanted—and he’d watch her body language. If he got really lucky, maybe she’d seduce him next time, and stay because she wanted to.

Her strong, curvaceous working woman’s body made him ache again as she gathered her scattered clothes and made a beeline for the bathroom—but he’d made a forward step, and he wasn’t about to blow it.

As he dragged the mattress into the other room for her, finding space for it in a corner beside the plethora of chairs she’d used for the baby’s safety, he wondered how he could have made so many mistakes with her and missed them—and how he’d lost her love without even noticing when it had gone missing.

Unfamiliar shame washed through Anna when she’d awoken with Melanie’s cries at seven the next morning to find a bottle made ready in the kitchen, apples steamed and strained for the baby and already mashed through his arrowroots. He’d even left coffee hot in the pot.

He’d made everything for her before he’d flown out, so all she had to do this morning was bond with Melanie. After her ungracious refusal to stay with him—which she guessed he probably had the right to expect after making love three times—he’d still kept his word.

The plane moved slowly into the hangar again at eleven, during Melanie’s morning nap. ‘Can you help me unpack the gear, Anna?’ he yelled over the beat of the rain.

‘Coming.’ She ran out to the hangar, drenched before she made it into the massive double doors. She blinked in surprise when she saw the plane stacked to the roof. ‘What’s all that you’ve got there?’

Opening the back doors of the plane with care, Jared grinned at her, his black hair plastered to his forehead just by the twenty seconds he’d been outside calling for her. And the brightness of his eyes, that slow, sure smile sent her insides into silly flips. How did he still do that to her after all these years? ‘I brought back lunch and dinner from the pub in Kununurra,’ he said, ‘meat pies and chips to reheat in the oven, and a lasagne with garlic bread for dinner.’

She frowned. ‘You went to the pub?’

He kept smiling at her. ‘Don’t worry about gossip. The tom-toms are already out on us. I got a call outside the grocery store from Jim Turner’s missus. She wanted to feed us to say welcome home to you, and happy second honeymoon.’

‘The Turners didn’t see the nappies and cereal?’ she asked anxiously.

He flipped her concern away with a hand. ‘I got a tourist lady to buy them—she thought it was hilarious that I couldn’t be seen buying baby stuff. She made some joke about a woman’s underwear department. I didn’t get it.’

‘I do.’ Anna heard herself chuckling. Crazy that, after all these years, Jared had found a new ability to make her laugh, even when he had her thinking about second honeymoons and all they entailed.

Jared shrugged and grinned, willing to be the butt of humour; the thin, wet cotton shirt stretched taut across his shoulders and back as he bent into the plane to pick something up, and her mouth dried with ridiculous longing. How pathetic was it that she could want him again so badly, only hours after they’d spent half the night making love?

‘We can’t get too many baby things yet,’ he was saying, his voice muffled. ‘It’ll look too suspicious—but …’ A smile of boyish excitement filled his eyes with sapphire brilliance as he turned back to her, opening something. ‘Voilà!’

Anna’s jaw dropped—unbelievably, he’d brought a collapsible travel cot!

‘Where did you get that?’ she asked, awed and a little worried. If the store owner remembered him later … Then she noticed its slightly rusty legs.

He laughed, his normally in-control face, like a carving of Alexander the Great, was alight with teasing pride. ‘Would you believe it? I saw it left by the road near the airstrip. It’s a bit busted up, but I’ll fix it before she needs to sleep tonight. It’s wet, but it’s all plastic coated so all we have to do is wipe it down. I bought a few thin pillows to use as a mattress for her. So you don’t need to worry about her safety. The baby’s got a bed.’

Anna had had to swallow a lump in her throat. This wasn’t the man she’d married. Her Jared would never have noticed a collapsible cot, let alone stopped to get it.

Or maybe he would. He’d saved the lives of two kids by diving into a swollen, raging river, had flown through dangerous storms to help others.

Flown through thunderclouds to reach her in the time he’d promised.

He’d found the cot for her. The way he didn’t even call Melanie by name told her how little he wanted to bond with a baby that wasn’t his. But he’d gone to all this trouble to make her happy. Even if he’d done it to keep her in bed with him, to stop her from needing to sleep with the baby, he’d still made Melanie more comfortable.

She should have known he’d do it. Whatever she’d ever given him, Jared had always found ways to return it tenfold. That was her Jared, the man who moved heaven and earth to keep a promise, or risked his own life to help others.

Just don’t ask him to talk, she reminded herself ironically.

He’s talking now, isn’t he? an imp in her mind taunted her. You’re the one refusing to open up …

‘I can’t believe you managed all this without anyone noticing,’ she said as they kept unstacking. ‘But I’m not really surprised. You always did come up with brilliant plans.’

After a short silence, he shrugged. ‘We’ll have to wait until after dark to bring in the baby supplies. You know how curious Mrs Button can be.’

‘Good plan.’ She refused to create new unspoken tension between them, after all the debacles yesterday. Him being away had given her time to think. The adoption authorities would want to see a happy, loving couple here, not tense silences and discord, if she wanted any hope of keeping Melanie. She had to keep things light and happy. ‘Thank you,’ she said as she helped him unpack the plane. ‘I really appreciate it.’

He glanced outside then moved on her, so close she could smell the honest sweat on him, taste the desire he never wanted to hide from her. Her body, already stirring in response to his wet shirt, flared to life with the touch of his cool skin in the watery heat. ‘There’s a better way to thank me, one I think we’d both enjoy.’ He lifted her face and kissed her, hard and hungry.

Before she knew it her hands were in his hair. Cooling heated palms on the raindrops running through it; she moved against him, with a soft sound of exultation and need.

They kissed until they both forgot where they were, slowly dropping to the ground, undressing each other with trembling fingers. Jared was lying on her, and she gloried in the feel of his taut body on hers, the hard arousal—

Suddenly an alert went off in her mind. What was she doing—again? The more she gave in to this, the more right he had to hope she wouldn’t leave. And things would go back to the way they’d always been. A hard life, a satisfying life, loving the land and the work, but.

She pushed him away an inch. ‘I’ve got to go in to Melanie,’ she said softly, kissing him once more so he didn’t think she was angry or withdrawing from him. He’d done so much for her. ‘She’ll be waking soon.’

Expecting some curt or cutting words about Melanie and her priorities, she almost started when he smiled at her again and helped her to her feet. ‘Put the oven on when you go in, will you? Lunch needs reheating. I’ll find a way to get these things in under cover before Ellie Button dies of curiosity.’

Anna blinked and shook her head. ‘Is this an alien abduction? Who is this man who actually seems to want to talk, and when will you take me to your leader?’

He bent and kissed her again, his chuckle making her lips vibrate. ‘From James Bond to My Husband Is An Alien—what’s the next Hollywood comparison?’

‘I think that alien was a stepmother,’ she whispered back, the soft, breathy laugh touching his lips as his touched hers. The shock sent tingling through her, but it was a pleasant, sensual vibration. She might barely recognise this Jared, but whoever this man was she—liked him.

Shaken by the thought, she turned away from him, gathered the lunch sack and dinner basket under each arm, drew a deep breath and bolted through the sheets of water to the house. She needed space, distance from this new, fun, exciting Jared. Wanting him she could handle; but liking and wanting him at once was dangerously close to emotions that could see her walking voluntarily back into the Jarndirri cage.

She could never go back to that. A life of being what her father had wanted, what Jared had wanted, instead of what she wanted. Subjugating herself to suit the men in her life, the life even strong-minded Lea couldn’t take—no, she couldn’t live like that any more. She’d never be that lost, needing woman again.

She ran through the back door, soaking wet in fifty metres, to hear Melanie’s voice through the open bedroom door. The baby wasn’t crying; she was making blah-blah-blah, singsong sounds.

Melanie seemed remarkably resilient to strangers, happy to go with her. If Rosie didn’t change her mind, Melanie could be happy with her.

Grabbing the opportunity while the baby was happy, she put lunch in the oven, turned it on and ran to the bathroom to dry off the water running in rivulets down her skin. Despite the happy play, she couldn’t risk Melanie getting bored, crawling out of her bassinette and rolling off the bed. The sooner that travel cot was ready, the better.

‘She seems a happy baby,’ Jared said as he joined her in the bathroom nearest the main bedroom, the one that had always been theirs.

She snapped back, her face muffled in a towel, ‘Why shouldn’t she be?’

Then she felt ashamed. Why had an innocuous remark instantly put her on the defensive?

Though he said nothing at first, Jared’s gaze burned right through the towel to make her cheeks heat up. ‘No reason,’ was all he said, his tone light yet penetrating, and what he’d left unsaid hung in the air between them like an accusation. Don’t get your hopes up. Don’t forget Rosie could change her mind.

She hung up the towel, but still didn’t look at him. Her recent discovery of new feelings for the man she thought she knew was too raw, too frightening to keep thinking about. ‘I’ll grab her while you set the table.’

‘I need to—Sure,’ he amended, and she knew he’d seen her stiffen. ‘Can you help me feed the animals and shovel out the muck this afternoon?’

‘Of course I can.’ Then she frowned. ‘But what do we do with Melanie?’