The Baby Swap Miracle

by Caroline Anderson

  Just in case we need the ambulance in a hurry, he thought, but didn’t say so. She would only have ripped his head off if he had.

  ‘Why’s it called Flaxfield Place?’ she asked curiously.

  He shrugged. ‘They must have grown flax around here in the past, I suppose. It’s the site of a much older house, probably a farm. I keep meaning to research the history, but I haven’t got round to it yet. No time, as usual.’

  His grin was wry, and he drained his glass and stood up. ‘Right, I’m going to the builders’ merchants. Do you want anything while I’m out?’

  ‘No, I’m fine.’

  ‘OK. Will you be all right while I’m gone?’

  She frowned. What a stupid question, she thought, and nodded. ‘Of course.’

  ‘OK. Back soon.’

  He wasn’t long. An hour, at the most, but the first thing he did when he returned was check on her.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ she asked drily. ‘Making sure I haven’t run off with the family silver?’

  He frowned. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. There is no family silver. How are you doing? Have you stopped for lunch?’

  ‘Hardly, it’s only twelve. Dan’s here, by the way. He was looking for you.’

  ‘Yes, I saw him, he’s cutting the ivy back on the wall as we speak. Once he’s done that I’ll send him up here to you.’

  ‘What, so he can keep an eye on me?’ she asked, only half joking, and he frowned again.

  ‘I thought you wanted a hand?’

  Emelia nodded. ‘I do. This elder needs digging out.’

  ‘Don’t overdo it. It’s taken years to get like this. It can hardly be recovered in a minute.’

  ‘I know, I know,’ she grumbled, and got awkwardly to her feet. He was right, of course, she was overdoing it again, and her bump was starting to get in the way a little. She arched her back and he scowled, so she scowled back.

  ‘Stop it. If you want to make a fuss, you can bring me lunch.’

  He rolled his eyes. ‘Anything that stops you killing yourself,’ he growled, and stalked off in the direction of the house, leaving her smiling.

  She went and sat in the rose arbour, on the ancient teak seat which had probably been there for fifty or more years, and waited for the ache in her back to ease. It was looking better, she thought, eyeing the garden critically. Much better. Or at least the part she’d tackled was. There was still a lot more to do, and then the knot garden needed clipping and shaping, and as for her own garden, she hadn’t even set foot in it with a tool yet.

  She’d meant to. She’d thought she could put in an hour in the evenings after she finished in the rose garden, but by the end of the day she was exhausted, even though she’d taken to having a lie-down after lunch when the sun was at its height.

  And it wasn’t going to get better the further on she was in her pregnancy, she realised.

  She bit her lip. She had to keep going. She was massively conscious of the huge amount of money Sam had paid her for this restoration, and the terrifying thing was it wouldn’t last long. Her car had failed its MOT test last week and she’d had to fork out hundreds of pounds to get her suspension sorted. That had been totally unexpected—although maybe the little creak should have warned her.

  She dropped her head back and closed her eyes, shoving the sunglasses up to hold her hair off her face so the air could cool her skin. The blackbird was singing in the apple tree, and if she opened her eyes she knew she’d see the robin scratching in the freshly turned soil.

  Bliss.

  She was asleep.

  Sam put the tray down quietly on one end of the long arbour seat and lowered himself carefully onto the slats. She had a tiny smile on her lips, and there was a little streak of sunscreen across her nose. He was pleased to see it. She didn’t always bother and then she burned.

  And why should he care? he asked himself. She was an adult woman.

  He gave a silent grunt of laughter. As if he hadn’t noticed that. His eyes traced the growing curve of her abdomen, her hands linked loosely round it and resting on her thighs, and as he watched, the bump shifted and jerked.

  Her hand lifted and slid over it soothingly, caressing their baby, and he felt a huge lump lodge in his throat. Even in sleep—

  ‘Why are you watching me?’ she murmured, and he gave a guilty start.

  ‘I wasn’t,’ he lied. ‘I thought you were asleep.’

  ‘Just resting and listening. It’s so beautiful in here. I can see why you bought the house on the strength of it.’

  ‘Talking of which, I’ve had a call from English Heritage,’ he told her. ‘They’re sending someone to check a few final details, and then I can get the specialist team in to start work.’

  She opened her eyes and turned her head towards him, sitting up again. ‘That’s great,’ she said, and picked up a sandwich. ‘What’s in this?’

  ‘Chicken and pesto. OK?’

  ‘Lovely, thanks,’ she murmured distractedly. The talk of the specialist team had reminded her, as if she’d needed reminding, just how out of her league Sam Hunter was. Flaxfield Place must have cost over a million even falling apart, and the specialist restoration would undoubtedly double it.

  But it wasn’t just about money. She owed him far more than simple cash. She owed him her sanity and her peace of mind, and there was no way one could put a price on that.

  So she’d persevere, bit by bit, and she’d give him what she could in recompense.

  She’d give him his rose garden.

  The builders were in by the end of the next week—and perhaps foolishly, she’d imagined she’d see no less of him.

  But she hardly saw him. They were working in the bedrooms overlooking the rose garden, and sometimes if she glanced up at a window, he’d wave to her. When he was getting the builders a drink he’d bring her one, but that was all. And she missed him.

  The slow, leisurely breaks seemed to have stopped, and when she did see him, he seemed preoccupied.

  ‘Problems?’ she asked one day, as he was poring over plans in the kitchen when she went in to get a drink.

  ‘Not really. I’m just juggling things in the master bedroom suite.’

  ‘Want me to help?’

  ‘No, it’s fine,’ he said, folding the plan up again and straightening. ‘How are you getting on?’

  Well, he didn’t have to show her the plan. ‘OK. It’s hot today.’

  ‘Go and rest—have a lie-down or something.’

  ‘We haven’t had lunch yet. I thought I’d make something.’

  He shot her a guilty look. ‘Ah. I grabbed a sandwich. Sorry. I’ve been up since before five, I ran out of steam.’

  ‘You’re as bad as the blackbird outside my bedroom window,’ she said mildly, trying not to be hurt that he hadn’t brought her a sandwich, too. Or at least made one and left it in the fridge for her. ‘I’ll pop home, then, and get myself something, and have a rest and a shower. Freshen up.’

  He nodded, then frowned and vanished, leaving her there wondering what she’d said to send him away. Because it must have been something.

  You’re getting paranoid, she told herself as she walked back to her cottage with Daisy at her side. You didn’t say anything. He’s just preoccupied with the builders. You simply aren’t that important. And that’s why he didn’t ask you for your advice, either. It’s none of your business, nothing to do with you. And you aren’t ever going to be in the master bedroom suite, so why on earth would you care?

  But it still hurt.

  I’ll pop home, then.

  Home?

  Hell, he wanted her to think of the cottage as home, and yet…

  He stared down at the folded plan in his hand—the plan of the master suite. He’d been trying to incorporate a nursery into it, but it was tricky.

  So why hadn’t he shown her the plan and asked her advice?

  Because he’d been imagining them in it together when she’d walked through the door, that was why. Imagining
her getting up in the middle of the night and going through to the baby. Lifting him from his cot and bringing him back to bed to breastfeed him. And ultimately the baby would move into the room beyond the nursery to make way for the next one—

  ‘Idiot!’ he growled. He was going crazy. He didn’t need a nursery off his bedroom, because there was no way this was going to happen! She was still getting over the loss of her husband, and he—he would never forget Alice’s lies and the pain they’d caused him. It had destroyed his dreams of being a father and a husband, and he wasn’t going to risk that happening again. He was trying to move on, but only in a direction he considered to be failsafe and foolproof. And Emelia was not in that direction.

  Oh, no. She was right in the other direction, leading him headlong into trouble, and it didn’t matter how much he wanted her, how much she stirred something deep and elemental inside him, he wasn’t going there in a million years.

  So why the hell was he looking at the plans and building stupid, dangerous, incredibly tempting pipe dreams?

  ‘Everything OK, boss?’

  He gave the foreman a distracted smile. ‘Yes, fine. I was wondering about putting the wardrobes in the bedroom instead of here, to leave it free.’

  The foreman nodded. ‘It would make a nice little nursery, perfect for the little one.’

  He felt his neck heat. Stupid. There were plenty of rooms his son could have down the line.

  ‘Forget it, it’s fine as it is. Just carry on as you are.’

  ‘Well, you’ve got a few days to think about it,’ he said cheerfully, and carried on, as instructed, whistling softly.

  Sam stared out of the window. It overlooked the rose garden, and working on the bedroom suite had given him a perfect excuse to watch Emelia without her knowing.

  He frowned. There’d been far too much of that, and not enough concentrating on the core business. And fantasising about their baby in a nursery was certainly not the core business!

  ‘I’m going to finish the gatepost,’ he said abruptly, and turning on his heel, he ran down the stairs two at a time and left the house. A few hours’ hard work should burn off some of the pointless and crazy images his mind was conjuring up, and maybe by nightfall he’d be tired enough to sleep.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  HER antenatal classes started a week later, and it just underlined what a strange situation she was in.

  Everyone else had a birth partner, the father of the baby or a mother, sister, friend. She was the only one there alone, and she felt conspicuous and uncertain.

  They were all friendly, but there was a limit to what she wanted to volunteer.

  ‘Hi, I’m Emelia, and I’m only pregnant because the IVF clinic made a dreadful mistake and so instead of my dead husband, the father of my baby is a total stranger’ didn’t seem to be quite the thing. So what was? ‘I’m a widow/single mother/elected to have a baby alone/the victim of a monumental mix-up’? If he’d been there, of course, she could say, ‘This is Sam, he’s the baby’s father but we aren’t together.’ That was probably the most accurate and economical.

  But he wasn’t there, and he wasn’t going to be, was he? Why should he? The pregnancy, the labour, the birth—they were hers alone. It was only the child he was involved or concerned with, until and unless there was a problem.

  And then the second week Judith, the coach, asked if she had anyone who could come with her the following week as they were doing a series of activities that needed two people to work together.

  No, not really.

  It wouldn’t have been so bad if she’d had a woman friend she could ask, but she could hardly ask Emily, could she? That would be beyond cruel. Her mother was on the other side of the country, she worked full time and although she was supportive and interested and offered sage advice on the phone, she wasn’t in a position to drop everything and come and help.

  Which left no one.

  She was working in the rose garden the following day and mulling it over in her mind when Sam appeared with a tray of watermelon slices, glasses clinking with ice and beaded with tiny droplets, and some sandwiches.

  ‘Here. Come and sit down and have something to eat,’ he said. ‘You’ve been working non-stop for hours.’

  She stood up awkwardly, wincing at the pins and needles and a twinge in her side, and he frowned at her. ‘Don’t start,’ she warned, and he smiled wryly, but he still watched her walk to the arbour and sit down beside him, and there was something that could have been concern in his eyes.

  ‘Have you been watching me again?’ she mumbled round a sandwich, and he looked a little guilty.

  ‘The bedroom’s just above here, and I was painting. All I had to do was glance down.’

  She hmphed, and he gave a soft chuckle.

  ‘OK, fair cop, I was watching you—but only because I thought you looked a bit glum. Everything OK?’

  ‘Fine,’ she began, but then sighed. ‘Well, not really fine,’ she admitted. ‘I went to my antenatal class last night, the second one, and everyone’s birth partner was there.’

  ‘And you didn’t have one,’ he finished softly.

  ‘Mmm—well, not for the classes. Not that that’s really a problem most of the time, but—well, it’s next week. They’re doing activities that need two people, and I don’t have anyone to take. And the only person really is Emily, and I couldn’t ask her.’

  ‘No, you couldn’t. But you could ask me.’

  She blinked and stared at him, her mouth open. Only slightly, and she shut it as soon as she realised, but—

  ‘You?’ she squeaked.

  He looked slightly offended, and she backpedalled hastily.

  ‘I didn’t mean— Sam, I couldn’t ask you. It’s too much. I know you didn’t sign up for this level of involvement—’

  He shook his head. ‘Emelia, I’m his father. Who better?’

  Someone who loves me? Someone who wants to be there, who doesn’t look as if they’re going to the dentist for root canal work?

  ‘Are you sure?’ she asked, and he nodded.

  ‘Absolutely. What time?’

  ‘Tuesday evening, seven o’clock. We’ll need to leave just after six-thirty.’

  ‘No problem—I’ll drive. Here, have some watermelon.’

  She took a slice, and was lifting it to her lips when he said, ‘Actually, I’ve got a favour to ask you, too.’

  ‘Go on, then, fire away,’ she said, biting into the cool pink flesh and swiping the juice from her chin with a grubby hand. ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s the nursery. I wanted to ask your advice on furniture.’

  She stared at him. ‘What furniture? What nursery?’

  ‘The nursery here. I’ll need to get a cot and all sorts of other things, I suppose—you’d better tell me what I need.’

  She held up her hand. ‘Whoa, there. Hang on. Need? Here?’

  ‘For when he comes to stay,’ he explained, as if it was obvious.

  Not to her, it wasn’t. ‘He can’t come and stay here for ages!’ she said, fighting down the panic. ‘Months—years, probably.’

  He frowned again. ‘Why not?’ he asked, as if it had never occurred to him, and the panic escalated.

  ‘Because he’ll be too small for sleepovers without me!’

  ‘Not without you. I don’t mean him to come without you, but—well, I thought it would be a good idea for him to get used to me and the house right from the beginning.’

  ‘So you’re just assuming I’ll come and stay? Like—what, like a nanny?’ she asked, her voice deadly soft, and there must have been something in her tone that warned him, because he met her eyes a little warily.

  ‘I’m not suggesting that at all,’ he began, but she was cross now. Cross enough to rip into him, because he could have thought this through and obviously hadn’t, and scared that it was the thin end of the wedge that would end with her losing custody of her child.

  ‘No,’ she said flatly, jumping to her feet and glaring do
wn at him. ‘This is my baby, Sam, and he lives with me, in my house. You want to play happy families, you come to me and do it. And when the baby’s old enough to need it, then we’ll talk about furnishing the nursery, and not before.’

  He met her eyes in stony silence, then with a curt nod he stood up, too, and leaving their little picnic lying there on the bench, he walked out of the garden, taking Daisy with him, and shut the door behind him with a little more force than was strictly necessary.

  He’d looked hurt, she realised belatedly. Hurt and puzzled by her reaction.

  And then she remembered he’d offered to come with her to antenatal classes. Because he was trying to take over? Or just because she’d needed someone to support her?

  The latter, she realised in dismay. He’d volunteered to give up his time to be her partner at the class, even though he’d looked appalled at the prospect, and then he’d asked for her help and advice—the very thing she’d been miffed about him not doing just a few days before, and now, just when they were making some progress, she’d shot it all down in flames.

  It was Tuesday again, and as Emelia got ready for her antenatal class, she was still feeling sad and confused because of the way she’d reacted to Sam.

  She would have apologised, but he’d been away over the weekend so there hadn’t been a chance, and it had been really weird without him. She’d been here on her own working on the last section of the border, which had given her altogether too much time to think.

  And she didn’t think much of herself.

  He hadn’t needed to do any of this, she reminded herself for the hundredth time as she sat on the bed and looked around the safe and comfortable home he’d provided for her and the baby. He could have washed his hands of it, told her to do what she liked, sued the clinic for compensation and walked away. He might even have insisted she have the pregnancy terminated, she thought, her mind recoiling at the thought. Did he have the power? She had no idea, but he hadn’t suggested it. Quite the opposite. Instead he’d been amazing, and all she’d done was hold him at arm’s length and defend her corner.