Maybe Baby: One Small Miracle

As if in answer, Melanie began crying again, pulling on her ears in obvious pain … and it came to him, a memory floating up from nowhere. ‘Are those nasty teeth bothering you?’ he crooned, trying to think. His mother had always given the kids baby paracetamol or some herbal drops. He didn’t have either here, and Anna said there were none in the bag. If he didn’t stop her crying soon Anna would wake up and try to take over.

He handed the baby a teething rusk, but knew that, though she gurgled happily as she bit down hard with her gums, it was only a temporary measure. She needed pain relief to return to sleep. He changed her nappy again and put her pyjamas back on, knowing he was running out of time.

He needed expert help here, and there was only one person he knew who had both the knowledge of babies and could be trusted to keep their secret, no matter what. He picked up the phone and dialled Lea’s number.

Within moment’s Lea’s voice, rough and growly with sleep, answered. ‘This had better be good, West.’

She’d obviously checked caller ID—and Lea always called him West when she was in a mood. He grinned, liking it as usual, but got to the point. ‘I need to know, without questions asked, what I can use to stop a baby’s teething pain. I don’t have paracetamol for babies or the herbal drops Mum used. Anything I can use that’s in the cupboard?’

‘A baby?’ Lea wasn’t asking, she was demanding to know—same old Lea.

‘I don’t have time now, Lea. If I don’t help her soon, she’ll start crying and wake Anna, and she hasn’t slept properly in days.’

‘Anna? She’s back with you?’

Melanie was beginning to grumble. Jared gave an exaggerated sigh. ‘Can we do this at some decent hour, Lea? I’ll call you some time tomorrow and give you the story. Right now I have a crying baby, and I need my question answered. The poor kid’s in pain here.’

‘She needs chamomile,’ she answered promptly, having picked up on the one ‘she’ he’d used regarding Melanie. ‘Use tea bags if you don’t have drops. Add a touch of honey—just a bit—or she’ll spit it back out. It doesn’t taste the best.’

‘Drops?’ he asked, feeling stupid—then a thought occurred to him. If Anna hadn’t known what they were for. He put Melanie down and ran back to the room, grabbed the baby bag and ran out before he could disturb Anna. ‘What would they look like?’ he asked, rummaging in the bag while Melanie screamed louder.

‘Boy, she really needs help.’ Lea’s voice was filled with sympathy for the baby’s pain. ‘They’re usually in a little dark bottle with a squeeze-top dropper. You put a few drops in watered-down juice—the water has to be boiled first.’

‘Uh-huh,’ he mumbled as he started tossing out stuff that wasn’t what he needed; he knew the water needed boiling. In a little, sealed separate bag, he found a small dark bottle, and held it up to read—’Thank heaven,’ he muttered, ‘I’ve got the chamomile drops. Can I add it to the formula?’ he asked, wondering if they had any tetra bricks of juice left. The nearest store was two hours’ flight away, and juice wasn’t his thing. He drank coffee and beer.

‘Ick, no! Would you drink chamomile tea with milk?’

He chuckled in half-relief as he found a tetra brick of 100 per cent apple juice, and ripped it open. ‘I wouldn’t drink that stuff at all.’

‘Oh, sure, you’re a real Outback man, beer and meat only. You don’t eat quiche or drink herbal teas,’ she mocked, laughing now. ‘Just get the juice and water ready with the drops, and make it gently warm so she can drink it right away. But this takes quite a bit longer to work than medication, so soak a rusk in the juice and drops—she can chew on it and get faster relief.’

‘Thanks, mate,’ he said softly, with a rush of affection, putting the phone on speaker so he could pick up Melanie, who was at ear-splitting level now, and make the bottle at the same time.

‘Yeah, whatever. I’ll send you a baby rescue package by priority—email me a list of what you need, and I probably have it somewhere from when Molly needed it. But I want that call tomorrow, West—today, in fact. I want details. And I want to talk to Anna.’

‘Yeah, yeah.’ He chuckled, putting the juice into the bottle with half water. He hesitated for a moment before he said, ‘Lea—about the baby …’

‘I get it, Jared,’ she said quietly, without the acerbity that was so much a part of her nature. ‘I don’t know whose kid she is, but I know you—and I know my sister. Anna will tell me when she’s ready. I’ll keep the secret. But this had better not be illegal, or some trick. Anna deserves better than that.’

Lea was blunt, but could give great hints when she chose. Anna deserved better than he’d been giving her in years. He got it. ‘It isn’t either one, and I knew you’d keep it to yourself.’

‘Yeah, whatever, West. Just fix the baby, get some sleep, and call me today. Look after my baby sister.’ The click of disconnection followed.

Melanie fought against drinking the juice at first, pulling faces and spitting it out. Jared firmly kept putting the teat back in her mouth. ‘Come on, little one, work with me here,’ he crooned as she still resisted, wanting the milk she was used to. His scrambled brain went into overdrive as he tried to find a way to distract her. He hid behind the bottle for a second, popped around it with a crazy face and said, softly, ‘Boo.’

Melanie gurgled, and swallowed a mouthful of the drink.

He played the game over and over with her, making a different face every time for her, and she drank in response. When the bottle was empty, she still wasn’t sleepy, so he handed her the soaked rusk to chew. Melanie shoved it in her mouth, but looked at him with an expectant what game do we play now look in her bright eyes. Though he’d done little to deserve it, Melanie liked him—and she trusted him without words to make her happy.

He only wished Anna could do the same beyond tonight—or that he knew what would make her happy, so she’d want to stay.

Jared scrubbed at his own weary eyes, and thought. ‘You’re a girl, and your new mummy seems to like dancing … maybe it’s a girl-thing. Okay, little one, how about we dance you to sleep?’ He walked her into the living room, found the CD remote and clicked on the player.

It was an album of Anna’s she hadn’t taken, a compilation she’d made of her favourite songs from CDs she’d bought. He didn’t particularly like them—or thought he hadn’t—but he found, as he waltzed the baby slowly around the room, he knew every word of the songs. He sang ‘Ain’t No Sunshine’, ‘True Colours’ and others without even thinking about it. His voice was rough, but Melanie didn’t seem to mind. She tweaked his nose, pulled his ear and his hair, and giggled with the delicious, rich joy in living only children have the secret of knowing, and adults wished they could find again. ‘It’s true,’ he assured a slightly sleepy baby during the melody. ‘This house isn’t a home without her.’

Then Melanie fell forward in the movement of the dance, and wet, rusk-covered lips brushed his cheek by accident. A slushy baby-kiss touched with magic. Moved, he looked at Melanie, and couldn’t take his gaze from her. Dancing around the room, singing to a kid he’d only tolerated until now, or pretended to like to make Anna happy, the tough Outback man was lost in a baby’s eyes, fixated on a drooling smile …

And suddenly he knew: in one of those flashes of truth that came rarely in life, Jared knew. He saw in a silly midnight dance and baby-kiss all the mistakes he’d made with Anna—and he knew what to do. He only prayed to God he wasn’t too late.

‘Let’s walk on some sunshine, little one,’ he murmured as the song began.

From behind the half-closed door of the living room, Anna, who kept waking up anxious, wondering how Jared was coping, hearing the gravelly voice singing and the baby giggles, watched as a man who’d always seemed as cold and remote as the stars melted for a tiny girl that wasn’t his. And even as she smiled, she ached for what could have been. If only he could have been this man for her.

Then she heard the words he’d never have said if he’d known she was there: This house isn’t a home without her. And deep inside her, something she’d thought was shut down for ever clicked softly back to on.

She turned and crept quietly back to her bed. Melanie was safe and happy, in strong, trustworthy arms. And she, Anna, needed a safe place to let her heart overflow.

He was gone again the next morning when Anna woke, but had left the breakfast for Melanie and coffee for her. He’d even made a breakfast muffin for her, with bacon and eggs kept warm.

There was a note on the bench.

Back soon. We still have the stables to muck out.

Strangely, Anna found herself smiling and singing to herself—the songs he’d sung to Melanie last night—as she fed the baby.

She found delight even in Melanie spitting the food at her, because the baby shrieked in happiness at the mess she’d created. Tiny fingers wiped the mush into Anna’s face and hair, and Anna just sat there laughing, touching that sweet, flushed little face, petting the spiky hair, all damp from the extreme humidity outside, as well as in.

Within days Adam and Melanie seemed to be merging into one face, a single entity of adorable baby, and she loved them both. Motherhood, to have a baby to love, was worth any sacrifice. Any sacrifice.

Jared walked in two hours later, as Anna finished cleaning the house with the baby crawling around after her, making a mess of what she’d cleaned. He lifted his brows, pointing. ‘Has Melanie begun crawling? She’s pretty young for that.’

Even looking at him reminded her of the man she’d seen last night, so moved by a baby-kiss. Aching with wistfulness, longing and regret, Anna made herself laugh. ‘Yes. I sat her down on the floor with some toys so I could sweep—she doesn’t seem to like the portable cot when she’s awake—and the second she saw the dust and dirt, she got down on hands and knees and came after me.’ Awe and joy swept through her, thinking of it: she’d seen a milestone in Melanie’s life … her first crawling step.

He grinned. ‘Has she been crawling behind you, making mess, all morning?’

She chuckled. ‘The things they don’t tell you about the joys of parenthood.’

‘So it seems.’ Eyes shimmering with humour met hers. ‘So do we dare take her out to the stables without the cot?’

This time she burst out laughing, and snorted. ‘Oh, the fun she’d have with the animals—and the dung!’

‘Yeah,’ he said softly. ‘I remember the best times of my childhood were chucking the stuff around—especially at my sisters and brothers—and Mum running around with a wooden spoon, trying to catch me, for all the work I caused.’ He chuckled. ‘She never did catch me. She always said I drove her up the wall, so I’d make car engine sounds and run to walls.’

He was talking about his family life again, and it felt as if she couldn’t stop smiling, laughing—and that felt so good. For the longest time she’d wondered if she’d forgotten how to laugh spontaneously. ‘I see my future before me. Melanie already painted my face with her breakfast. If Rosie does let us adopt her, I somehow don’t think I’ll be getting the decorous little girl I was.’

‘Except when you stole chocolate,’ he reminded her, his eyes still laughing, not sensual—but still she caught her breath for a moment.

She lifted a shoulder. ‘A pathetic kind of rebellion, wasn’t it?’ she asked lightly. ‘During her lifetime, the rebel Lea runs away from boarding school, refuses to marry the man her father picks for her, starts her own place and makes a total success of it, has a child and won’t marry the father. And what do I do in my entire life? I steal chocolate—once.’