by Nikki Logan
‘Why would you do that to yourself?’ Or to me. ‘It can’t be … comfortable.’
His stare intensified and she could see his brain turning over the right response. ‘There’s a world of options between kissing and sex, Bel. And plenty of time to explore whatever this is we have going on between us.’
Test it, he’d said last night.
‘But no actual …’ Words failed her. ‘Because I’m pregnant?’ Because I’m about to treble in size?
His eyes narrowed. ‘Indirectly.’
Oh.
But then he spelled it out for her. ‘Annulment of our marriage is going to be conditional on it not being consummated. It’s in both our best interests. If you want the marriage revoked …’
She stumbled at the bed edge. Annulment. He was still thinking about the court case. He was still thinking about the end. And here she was thinking about love and flowers and happy ever afters.
‘Right. Yes, of course.’ Her voice grew hushed. ‘So this is …?’
‘There’s something between us, Bel. For better or worse. And we have months yet to try and work it out of our systems.’
She internalised the slap across the face that statement was.
Right. Because that always went so well in the movies …
She shouldn’t be surprised. It was a natural progression for someone like Flynn from attraction … to exploration of the feelings … to exorcism of them. A man who sought disappointment would never let himself find anything else.
‘So what’s it going to be?’ he said, brightening. ‘Bed or breakfast?’
Self-preservation finally reared its lazy head. ‘I vote for eating.’
He looked surprised. And a little bit crestfallen. ‘Two minutes ago you were about to throw up.’
She shrugged. ‘It’s a pregnancy thing. Now I’m ready to eat.’
He studied her silently, then finally released his hold on her quilted prison. ‘Then breakfast it is.’
‘Lunch.’
Somehow, given what had happened between them last night, they did manage to get things back on a reasonably even footing over a simple meal of grilled cheese on wholemeal toast. So much had changed since lunchtime yesterday, it felt quite surreal. Playing house with a man she’d been sparring with for so many months felt odd enough without also knowing how he looked semi-naked. How he felt naked. And how she felt when she was naked with him. Semi-naked.
Alive, was the answer. Amazingly, embarrassingly alive.
And she hadn’t felt that for …
She frowned.
… ever.
Flynn tossed her a cloth and she wiped the lunch crumbs off the kitchen island. ‘I was awake for a while after you fell asleep,’ he said. ‘Thinking. Watching you sleep.’
She stared at him. ‘Oh, that’s not creepy at all.’
He chuckled. ‘The important thing is what I decided.’ He stared at her expectantly.
Okay. ‘What did you decide, Flynn?’
‘I’m done bagging Gwen and Drew. The past belongs in the past. I can’t change any of it, particularly now. I need to be looking to the future.’
Bold words. If he could do it. Lord knew she’d had little enough success getting her heart and body to do what her mind recommended. He had a lot of unresolved feelings about his brother, still. ‘I think that’s a great idea. These babies don’t need the extra confusion of an uncle who didn’t like their parents.’
His eyes shot up to her, wide and intense. ‘Uncle? You’re still assuming you’ll get custody.’
She matched his stare. ‘I have to assume that.’ Otherwise, what did she have?
‘And you’re planning on telling them they’re not yours? Ours?’
She reeled. ‘Well, yes. Are you saying you weren’t?’
‘It’s a lot for kids to understand.’
‘That they had parents who loved them and wanted them badly enough to go through the hell of IVF for?’
‘That their parents died and their aunt carried them?’
‘It’s the truth.’
‘Truth isn’t always the best option.’
‘How were you planning on explaining a mother or a father who left them? One of us isn’t going to be there. How is that the best option?’
The idea seemed to make him angrier. ‘By surrounding them with love so that they have support when they eventually work that out.’
‘Well, that’s fine for you but I don’t have a support network. I only have me. They’ll only have me.’ Her own words made her frown. That couldn’t be good, could it? What if something happened to her?
His nostrils flared. ‘Why don’t we leave that discussion until we have an outcome? That’s still a few months away.’
Her hand slipped low on her belly. ‘Well, they’d better hurry up or these babies will be in high school.’
His eyes followed her hands and then lingered there, and then to her empty plate, taking on a speculative light. ‘So, you’re adequately refuelled then?’
She channelled that nurse from the hospital in London—Lord, that felt like two lifetimes ago—and crossed her arms. ‘Not on your life, sunshine.’
But then, because of Flynn’s comically crushed expression and because in that split second she realised she wasn’t at all ready to never feel his body against hers again, she took a deep breath and modified. ‘Not until sunset, at least.’
CHAPTER NINE
WINTER in Oberon was so much like winter in England Bel felt at home for the first time all year. A thick layer of snow spread across fields that were once green, and mounded up on tree limbs that had once had leaves until it overbalanced and crashed to the ground with a muted thud.
Bel lay on the sofa closest to the window in the main homestead, snuggled into a quilt woven from the fleece of one of Arthur’s belligerent alpacas, a hot chocolate in hand, staring out absently at the picturesque scene.
It was possible she was just adapting, finally, to Australian life. And it was possible that she felt at home because Bunyip’s Reach had started to be her home. Here she had new parents and grandparents who enjoyed her company and wanted her around. She had a husband who seemed to enjoy her conversation as much as her body. What parts he’d had access to. And now that he was letting himself get closer to her.
Some kind of internal switch had flicked the day Flynn finally worked out why she affected him so much—because she reminded him of his brother. From that moment—maybe from the following morning—he’d been incrementally warming to her. Letting himself laugh, letting himself learn. Letting himself … if not quite love, then definitely like.
The twins were healthy and robust at eight months and, consequently, Bel was officially enormous. Her tiny frame exploded to the front like a watermelon she’d strapped there—not too far from how it felt as her muscles twinged in sequence, ensuring she was never quite comfortable. Her belly might have made a handy shelf for her hot chocolate while reclining, but she’d offered weeks ago to move back to her own room and leave Flynn in the comfort of his bed without having to squeeze around the HMS Belinda, which he’d flat out refused. Which meant she still had the nightly pleasure of snuggling back against his hot frame and falling asleep to the warmth of his easy breathing against her ear, the beat of his heart against her back, and the possessive heat of his hand on her drum-tight belly.
It wasn’t perfect, but it was the kind of heaven she’d never let herself imagine having. And if she squinted just the right way it almost looked like love.
Unsatisfying, unconsummated, unrequited love.
But that was as much her doing as his. While she’d never had a fastidious bone in her body when it came to her appearance, suddenly she didn’t want Flynn seeing her puffing and ungainly lurching around when he was still as solid and gorgeous as ever. And for him, holding back on that one final intimacy had grown to mean something important, something beyond the preservation of the annulment that hovered on the horizon. A deep and paranoid part of her feared that—for Flynn�
��as long as her body remained inviolate, so did his heart. After all … despite the many joys and comforts of living as Mrs Flynn Bradley, neither one of them had said a word about love. Or the future. Or about what was going to happen when the Crown’s decree finally came in. Some days it was almost possible to forget entirely that the dispute even existed and just enjoy life on the tablelands. The happy family illusion. Bel knew that day would be hard enough without obsessing over it in advance.
Flynn was a very practical man. And, apparently, a very disciplined one. There was no way in the world that a man as careful as he was would ever have impregnated a girl accidentally. The more she got to know him, the more surprised she was that his family bought that. It just wasn’t him.
She frowned.
Another thing she’d almost forgotten about. All the lies. Marrying Flynn had effectively rendered everything that came before it rather void. And the lies had started to roll all too comfortably off her tongue. She actually felt like Belinda Bradley. The old Belinda and all her troubles were virtually gone from her mind.
Maybe if you said something enough times it really did start to be truth?
‘Sugar.’ Over in the corner Denise ranted one of her more moderate curse words.
Bel looked up from the book she was reading. For the past six weeks she’d been barred from all but the lightest of chores and was officially on wait-duty, confined to the main homestead until Flynn returned from whatever task he was doing. Going mad with boredom.
And not the best time to be without something to keep her hands and mind busy, given the custody hearing had been incourt since the start of the month.
‘Problem?’ she asked Denise.
‘Internet is down again. It’s this weather. One good storm and we’re out for days.’
‘Something you need particularly?’
She laughed. ‘Just contact with the outside world. I have a pile of emails in my outbox just waiting for a decent connection.’
Another thing she’d prefer not to think about. The outside world was so not welcome right now. Like King Oberon’s mythical subjects, she had no interest in knowing what was happening outside the forest. Reality had a way of messing with fantasy. The white-out could go on for ever as far as she was concerned, just as long as she had Flynn’s arms to crawl into at night and the Bradley clan to hang out with by day. And a belly-full of babies.
Yep, denial was more than comfortable enough, thanks very much.
‘I’ll have to send Flynn and Bill into town to see if they have better luck with signal there. You should put in an order.’
There was almost no point. Anything she needed she could get in Sydney next month when she went in to have the twins. Not that she’d have a long list. Everything she needed she had. Healthy children, a warm, welcoming home and if not the love of a good man then at least his affection and attention.
Denise’s frustrated sigh disguised her own.
She’d spent a lifetime mining what hints of affection she could from people, surviving off them. Suppressing her emotions was virtually second nature now—not that it hurt any less in the middle of the night when the shifting babies woke her and she thought about leaving the man whose arms she lay in—but it had become an easy habit with practice. Easy and necessary. She’d long since accepted that Flynn’s heart was nowhere near as deep into this temporary marriage as his body was, and that it was going to be one-sided—her side—until the day it was over.
And that day had to be coming soon. Bel did her very best to ignore it. Because ignoring it meant she could have Flynn.
And she wanted him very much.
Decision day—D-Day—hung over everything, ominous and looming. Any time now Flynn’s petition would be decided and they’d have a binding outcome and she’d be leaving Australia either empty-handed or with very full hands indeed.
Scarily full hands.
Not for the first time, she reminded herself that she’d let just about everyone in her life down. Why would the twins be any different? Just because she wanted it to be? What if she wasn’t cut out to be a single mother? What if she failed? This wouldn’t be like bailing out of school or moving out of home, things that only impacted on her.
Her hand slid to her belly. If she failed these two little people then they would be at risk. And assuring their future was the point of all of this.
But what other option did she have? She knew the drill when she first came to Bunyip’s Reach and, despite everything, nothing had really changed. Flynn had never once said what if or spoken of other ways they might proceed with this. If she stayed. How that could work …
She wrapped her arms more tightly around herself in the window seat. God, she couldn’t even think the words …
If he wanted her to stay and be a family, he would have asked.
Just because they were sharing a bed didn’t mean he’d changed his mind about anything else. They were just working it out of their systems.
Well, he was. She was taking whatever she could get while it lasted.
Any day now she was going to confess all to the people who loved her, hurt them, and take two children from the arms of the man she loved and leave him for ever. Or … it was still possible … walk away from here with nothing. Just when she thought her life couldn’t get any emptier than it had been.
A chill as arctic as the wind outside rattled through her body.
She suspected there were depths of empty she’d not even begun to plumb.
‘Nothing for me, thanks.’ Bel smiled at Flynn as three generations of Bradley men piled into Bill’s old utility. They’d decided it would take all three of them to retrieve the long list of supplies Alice had given them, but Bel figured a few quiet ones with mates at the Oberon tavern was probably more on the agenda.
Some time amongst friends. Away from the women-folk. She didn’t begrudge them that at all. A little separation was healthy in a relationship.
She snorted inwardly at her own presumption. Since when was she the expert on relationships? She was probably the most under-qualified one on the whole farm to make statements like that. Just because the time she spent with Flynn after a number of hours apart were the sweetest of her day …
‘Give me your phone, then,’ he said. ‘I’ll find some signal and download your mail for you.’
Email. Outside world. There was only one particular email he was thinking about … And Bel didn’t want to think about it at all. But she handed over her phone politely, every move she made these days a kind of deception, every moment she didn’t tell him how she felt about him. ‘Thanks, Flynn. I’ll see you when you get back.’
I’ll miss you while you’re gone.
Flynn tucked her phone into his pocket with one hand and pulled her close with the other, planting a gentle kiss on her lips, lingering, enjoying. Reading her silent thought as clearly as if she’d spoken—which, given her history, was a distinct possibility. As always, his touch caused a riot amongst the tiny hairs along her arms, and they prickled to attention.
And as always she stood grinning like an idiot when he stepped away and slid into the crowded back seat of his father’s old extra-cab utility, loaded up with ecoshopping bags and every mobile phone in the place.
All three women hurried back into the warmth of the house after losing sight of the men-folk around the Reach’s long drive.
‘Tea, Bel?’
‘I’m English, aren’t I?’ she quipped, inexplicably out of sorts. Maybe her disrupted sleep was finally getting to her. Or Flynn was. Whatever, she didn’t feel quite right.
Please don’t let it be because Flynn’s not here. Please don’t let me have become that bad …
Alice lit the stove and filled the kettle with fresh rainwater from the tank. ‘The last Brit we had here didn’t drink tea at all. Only coffee. Short black. Was most disconcerting, culturally.’
Bel froze.
Gwen. They were talking about Gwen. After how many months? She’d truly believed they
would never, ever speak of her sister and now that they had she wished they’d stop. But the opportunity to find out, first-hand, what they’d so objected to about her flesh and blood was too good to walk away from.
‘Was she one of your chalet customers?’ she asked casually, her voice unnaturally tight, even to her own ears.
Alice laughed. ‘Far from it, love. She was our daughter-in-law.’
Daughter. In law. Just like Bel was. Unless it was possible to be a daughter-against-the-law? Because what she was didn’t really count.
She knew Alice and Denise would expect her surprise so she did her best to fake it. ‘Flynn’s brother was married to an English girl?’ It was more croak than voice. How could some lies seem so much worse than others? Was it too late to back out of the discussion?
‘She was such an elegant thing. Very European. So different to everyone on the Tablelands.’
Not if you’d seen her lounging around the house in training pants and socks, shovelling pizza into her mouth. In her comfort zone. She was just a normal Chelsea girl then.
‘Was?’ Bel risked.
Alice’s eyes grew hooded. Denise averted hers entirely. ‘She died in the same accident as our Andrew.’
Pain surprised her, sharp and low. Even though she knew how this story ended. Her body reacted with a shaft of biting misery hard across her mid-section. ‘Oh. I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be sorry for us. It’s not like we lost two of our own. Though I’m sure her own family mourned her.’
You have no idea. ‘She wasn’t a daughter to you?’ The unfairness of that really lodged in Bel’s gut.
Alice smiled sadly. ‘Not the way you are, love. We barely knew her.’
‘Why not?’
‘We only met her the once, face to face.’ Alice glanced at Denise. Neither woman looked comfortable about it. ‘She didn’t … fit. She didn’t belong here.’
No. She belonged at home in Chelsea with the people who loved her. Defensiveness crowded in. ‘Maybe she sensed she didn’t belong. Wasn’t welcome.’
‘Oh, don’t get me wrong, Bel. She was always welcome, regardless. She loved our Andrew. She just wasn’t happy here. Her loyalty was with Drew. Rightfully.’
