Maybe Baby: One Small Miracle

She didn’t move for a long time. Only the slight rise and fall of her chest told him she was breathing at all. Her fingers twitched, like they always did when she was stressed.

After a long time, she nodded. ‘You win … again,’ she whispered. ‘I’ll stay.’

Tears ran down her cheeks. Her soft golden-brown skin had drained of all colour until it looked like alabaster. As her head drooped, her hair slowly fell over her face, a toffee-coloured curtain hiding her emotions from him.

Withdrawing into the world she’d wandered the past year, lonely and grieving and lost. She looked exactly as she had the day Adam had died, and he’d sent her back there so he could win, so he could have what he wanted. At Anna’s expense …

‘God help me, what have I done?’ he muttered beneath his breath.

Every part of him ached to take her in his arms, say he didn’t mean it, that she could have the blasted baby or anything else she wanted—but when he took a step, she rose to her feet. Head still lowered, she lifted a hand. ‘You can force me to stay with you, but you can’t make me want to be here. You can force me to be your wife, but you can’t make me love you.’

The half-whispered words froze him where he stood. The one thing he’d gambled on this whole time was that she loved him still, that all these months of denial was grief talking … but somehow, now, he felt it.

It was over. She didn’t love him. She didn’t want to stay.

Stooping down to gather Melanie into her arms, she walked out of the room with an unsteady step—but at the door, she paused.

‘I don’t understand,’ she whispered through a throat so thick he barely heard her. ‘Everything I ever did was for you, in an effort to make you happy. I even left so you could have Jarndirri, and find a real woman, someone to have sons with. I gave you your dream and freedom. Why can’t you let me go, Jared? Why can’t you let me be happy without you?’

Until now he’d never have believed there was worse suffering than losing his son, but she’d just taken his heart from his chest while it was still beating, and walked right over it. After what seemed like hours, she still stood there, demanding answers in her silence, and he finally answered. ‘It’s always been you and me at Jarndirri. We belong here, together, for life. You’re my wife.’

She looked up then—but her beautiful dove’s eyes burned with fury and betrayal. ‘The one thing I’d held to all these years was that you never meant to hurt me. You have no idea what you just said, do you?’ She laughed, but it was an ugly sound, sad and bitter.

Moments later he heard the key turn in the lock of the room she shared with the baby.

Jared stood in the middle of the kitchen, feeling like the world’s biggest fool. After all the hard work he’d done to bring her closer, he’d just pushed her away and he didn’t even know why. She was in his life, but it was the last place she wanted to be.

Why? If only he could understand what he’d said or done! He loved Jarndirri with a dreamer’s passion, sure, but everything he’d done had been for them, for the family they could still have, if only she’d listen …

You can’t make me love you.

At least he hadn’t said the three fatal words. How many times had he heard his father say them to make his mother stay in an unendurable situation, or to ask her to fix what he’d broken? I love you, Pauline, please make this right, make us all happy again.

He thanked heaven he hadn’t repeated history, trying to fix the unfixable with three words. If he had, Anna would only despise him for it, and rightly so.

With all his being he burned to go to her now. With a word he could make her open the door, come back to eat the forgotten lunch, or touch him—he had the power over her, until Melanie was adopted at least—but she was right. He couldn’t make her want to be here.

He couldn’t force her to love him. What was her staying worth without that?

The phone began ringing at that moment, and he knew it was Lea; it was only a matter of time before Lea called looking for Anna, especially as Anna’s cellphone was switched off. ‘Perfect timing,’ he muttered wryly. On feet as uneven as hers had been, he crossed the room to face the tiger.

In the Wet, there were no pretty blue and violet twilights, only damp, dark shadows creeping around the clouds growing deeper by the moment. Night didn’t fall, it just happened. Anna waited that long to leave her room, though she was amazed Jared hadn’t forced her out long before now. He’d proven his ownership, his power over her. Was he waiting to starve her out, so she’d have to come to him like a supplicant? She was blowed if she’d go begging …

But when Melanie was no longer satisfied with the bottle of water, and began whimpering for her dinner, Anna knew she had to face him. She changed the baby again, and left the room with her head high. He might have what he wanted, but he’d never own her again.

She smelled the rich roasting cheesy smell, the garlic in the bread baking, and her stomach howled. Entering the kitchen, she saw it was empty—but there was a bowl of cereal for Melanie covered with plastic wrap, and a bottle of her favourite red wine from the Barossa Valley open and breathing.

He’d bought the wine she’d always loved?

Sounds of scraping on the front verandah led her that way. Picking up Melanie’s bowl first—it even had a little spoon in it—she walked through the screen door.

Soaking wet, Jared was scrubbing the rust off the legs of the travel cot; the inside was already clean, the thin pillows sewn together to make a mattress, a sheet over it. He looked up with a grin when she came out. ‘Hey. Have a good rest?’

Anna blinked. What was he doing, acting as if nothing had happened? Opening her mouth to say no, she heard an uncertain ‘Yes, thank you,’ escape her lips.

Maybe her heart was wiser than her mind. She was tired of the arguments, of the constant struggle to win when she only ended up losing.

‘That looks better,’ she remarked, noting he’d done the work on the side of the house where the Buttons wouldn’t see or hear him.

‘I couldn’t put Melanie in something that dirty, she could get sick.’

It was the first time he’d used Melanie’s name without hesitation … and he was showing concern for the baby’s welfare. Touched despite the lingering anger and humiliation roiling through her, she smiled.

Then the baby howled, and Anna sat down quickly, Melanie on her lap, and took the plastic cover from the bowl. ‘Thanks for having it ready.’

‘It was the least I could do.’

She had to keep her eyes on Melanie as she fed her, but the note in his voice, curiously humble, distracted her. She didn’t pretend to misunderstand. ‘I don’t like being blackmailed.’

‘I didn’t know any other way to keep you with me.’

In all the years she’d known him, she’d never heard such an open admission from the great Jared West; he’d always been so sure of himself, so strong. ‘It won’t work,’ she said quietly, soothingly for Melanie’s sake. ‘It won’t make you happy, Jared, if I don’t want to be here.’

He left off scraping rust, and came to her. He was still soaking wet, his black hair plastered to his forehead, his eyes like the deep indigo twilight hidden by the clouds. ‘Give me a chance, Anna. I want to get it right. I can’t stand to think you’re going to walk away from me when I know all we could have been, if only I hadn’t taken you for granted.’

His honesty compelled her to be open in return. ‘I never wanted your solutions, Jared. I wanted you to listen to me, to care about how I felt.’

His gaze searched her face. ‘Are you so unhappy at Jarndirri, Anna—or was it me that made you unhappy?’

Having Melanie’s mouth open for more food gave her a moment’s respite to think. She spooned more cereal into that little rosebud mouth, with a rush of love and joy that confused her, given Jared’s question and her certainty until now. ‘I don’t know,’ she said at last.

‘You said you were tired of being alone. Did I make you feel so lonely?’

Strange that, when Jared was asking her the right questions at last, when he seemed to be listening after all these years, it felt so surreal, like she was having one of those dreams so vivid and real, she almost believed it was true. She’d wanted this for so long, but now it was here, she wasn’t ready to answer. ‘Melanie’s dribbling her food,’ she said, for something to say. ‘Could you get one of her bibs? I forgot.’

She waited for one of his teasing comments, such as What would you do without me? but he merely nodded and went inside, giving her space, time—and he took longer than he’d need to find the bib in the baby bag. When he came back out, he had a container of wet wipes as well as the bib, and a damp cloth. ‘I didn’t know which you’d want, so I brought them all.’

Anna felt as if the world had slowed down, turned the other way. Jared was giving her choice. ‘Thanks … um, the damp cloth, I think.’ She wiped down Melanie’s front and her face, put the bib on and put another spoonful into her mouth when she wailed. ‘You really bought a lot of things today,’ she said. Lame, Anna, so lame! ‘The wine, the wet wipes—the pillows for the travelling cot. You were really busy.’

‘I wanted to make you happy.’

The simple words, filled with all the emotion she’d once have given her life to hear, somehow became the last straw on this roller-coaster of a day. ‘Stop it, Jared. I’m not ready—

I don’t know what you want me to say. You’re confusing me. All these years of no talking at all from you, and now…’ She shook her head. ‘I just want to feed the baby and have dinner.’

A loud grumble of her stomach came louder than the drumming rain. Jared laughed—with an effort, it seemed to her. ‘Stupid male, throwing hard questions at a hungry woman and expecting answers. I’ll go serve our dinner. Want to eat it here?’

‘Yes, please,’ she said, more confused than ever.