Pregnant With His Child

by Lilian Darcy

  ‘I’m wide awake, though.’

  ‘Yeah, me, too. Buzzing. And filthy. Remind me, Tink.’ He grinned across at her, and her heart did its ninety-seventh lurch of the evening. ‘Where were we, before we were so rudely interrupted?’

  On the edge of a precipice, Joe. That’s where we were.

  But she didn’t say it.

  CHAPTER TWO

  THEY GOT OUT of the car and went inside. Joe put his overnight bag down in the middle of the living-room rug and hugged her again. Blissfully. His arms were hard and warm and familiar, he made a hungry, appreciative mmm sound deep in his chest, he rubbed his strong, smooth jaw against her cheek like a cat.

  Christina felt the familiar stirring of desire. It began low in her stomach and radiated outwards like the heat from a glowing coal, and it hadn’t lessened or lost its dizzying sense of importance in two years. In fact, it had only grown stronger. Because she had always been so unsure of how long Joe Barrett would stay in her life?

  He kissed her.

  And, oh, she shouldn’t let him do this, but if it was for the last time…

  At some level, had she wondered if every kiss would be their last?

  She couldn’t hold the question long enough to really consider it. It was too abstract. All she could think about was now, because there was no ‘maybe the last’ about this kiss. This time she knew for certain.

  His mouth teased her, clinging and tasting, lavishing her generously with hot sensation. He was never a man who did things by halves. (Except that this didn’t gel, did it? Their relationship was only a half, or even less. A lopped-off, uncompleted thing.) He was never a man who did things by halves in the present moment, she revised fuzzily. He kissed her with his whole soul, his hard-packed male energy, his astonishing heart, and she kissed him back.

  For the last time.

  She ran her hands up the back of his head, releasing the scent of his shampoo into the air. She drank in the taste and feel of his warm mouth and pushed deeper, wanting more, wanting to get still closer, never wanting this to end. Time was standing still right now, but it couldn’t stand still for much longer.

  Joe was the one who broke the moment. ‘I need a shower,’ he muttered, still holding her. ‘Smell like a plane. And probably kangaroo. I’m amazed you’re letting me do this.’

  So was she.

  She was appalled that she was letting him do this, appalled that she couldn’t even smell plane or kangaroo, she could only smell him.

  ‘I need a shower just as much,’ she said out loud.

  ‘Wanna share?’ That teasing sideways grin came at her, that sexy, dark-eyed look from beneath deliberately lowered lashes. He rubbed his jaw against her cheek and her head turned all on its own, her mouth once more in search of his.

  Christina Farrelly, you have to be stronger than this, she coached herself.

  ‘No, you go ahead and have it to yourself,’ she told him. So hard to say it. Even harder to let him go. ‘I—I’ll just wash up in the laundry sink. I don’t have the Cairns transit lounge to wash off.’

  ‘I’d still like to share,’ he said. He pulled her back against his chest, teasing her, so confident about how she’d respond. He had no idea.

  ‘Joe, we have to talk,’ she blurted out. Her heart started to pound as soon as the words were spoken.

  Crunch time.

  Moment of truth.

  ‘Yeah?’

  His big dark eyes were puzzled but untroubled. He still didn’t see it coming. Why should he? She hadn’t given any hints or warnings. She hadn’t known until a week or two ago that she’d reached ultimatum time.

  Make this easier. Make it civilised.

  If that was possible.

  ‘Are you hungry or anything?’ she offered vaguely, waving her hand in the direction of the kitchen. Then she caught sight of the clock. Almost one-thirty. If she was really going to do this tonight, it was way past time.

  She was going to do it. She’d said that first fateful line about talking. She had to go through with it now. Bringing her hand to his shoulder she felt another sudden, sick-making lurch in her guts.

  ‘Hungry? No,’ he said. ‘We got a fistful of meal and drink vouchers in Cairns to make up for the delay.’ He studied her face more closely, his own softening. He bumped his nose lightly against hers. ‘Hey, what’s up? Something else has happened? You didn’t tell me everything in the car? What were you waiting for?’

  His tone had dropped to the intimate pitch that she loved. It was the voice he used in bed, the voice he’d used last month when a gastric upset picked up from a patient had laid her low for the last two days of his visit. ‘Still feeling crook, Tink?’ he’d said several times.

  He’d had to fly home while she’d still been spending a miserable amount of time in the bathroom and maybe that was when she’d begun to understand once and for all that she needed more—more than a man she only saw once a month, in the snatches of time where their long working hours didn’t clash.

  Should she tell him to sit down? She was the one with the shaky knees, because she didn’t know where to start. ‘This isn’t going anywhere, is it?’ she blurted out. ‘Us, I mean.’

  ‘Going anywhere?’

  ‘Joe, don’t be thick about it.’ Shaky knees and a shaky voice. ‘Don’t make it harder. Please. Take a second to think about it and then try and tell me you don’t know what I mean.’

  She tore herself from his touch and began to pace around the room, wishing it was bigger, wishing he’d trap her and pull her back into his arms. She felt claustrophobic, and desperate for him to pre-empt this and tell her she didn’t have to say it.

  So far, he wasn’t doing so. He’d stilled, retreated to lean his broad shoulder against the open archway that led between this room and the dining area. He looked as if he wanted to touch her and hold her again but had decided that he shouldn’t.

  ‘I want you to move out,’ she said. ‘Tomorrow, if you can. I can’t bear to drag this out, and I can’t imagine you’d want that either. I’ve arranged a room for you at the house.’

  There was only one house, the doctors’ residence at the hospital. It should be spelt with a capital H.

  ‘I can’t keep going with this,’ she went on. ‘We’ve been together—a quarter together—for two years. More. And I want…more. More, Joe. Some idea of a direction. Commitment. Some indication that…that this isn’t just time out for you. You know, the Christina Farrelly full-service day spa. I—I—’ Oh, hell, I’m going to say the L word. ‘—love you. You have to know that by now, surely, and what we have just isn’t good enough any more.’

  Silence.

  Around three seconds’ worth.

  ‘I love you, too,’ he said slowly. ‘Is that what this is about? That I haven’t said it? I love you, Tink.’

  But he was floundering, and the way he said it told her that the other shoe was about to drop.

  He swore. Which was unusual. Especially with such force.

  ‘I’m sorry you’re not happy.’ He took a breath. ‘I’m a bit, um, stunned that you’re not happy. It’s one-thirty in the morning. We’ve had a hell of a night. And you’re suddenly saying all this.’

  ‘You thought this was what I wanted? All I wanted? For it to go on like this forever? It’s not sudden, Joe.’

  ‘We have such a great time together.’

  ‘You think that’s all I want? A great time?’

  ‘Better than a miserable time.’

  ‘Don’t joke about this. Don’t.’

  ‘I’m not belittling—I care about you. I love you. I’m—yeah—stunned.’

  She closed her eyes, then opened them again. He’d said the L word, too. Three times. But it was just a word. Some men could splash it around like wet paint. Yeah, ’course I love ya, babe. She hadn’t picked Joe as being one of them. ‘Sorry, I’m being a bit slow here, Joe.’ Her voice came out slow and rusty. ‘Are you fighting this?’

  Please, please, fight it!

  �
��No. I wouldn’t. Fight it. How could I? If that’s what you’re saying you want. If you’ve…’ He swore again, and for the first time he sounded angry. ‘…arranged a room.’

  It’s not what I want! It’s not!

  ‘I’ve got no grounds to fight it on,’ he said. ‘If it’s how you feel. But, hell, Christina, you couldn’t have given me a bit more of a warning? Told me at the airport, or—?’

  ‘I didn’t think we’d get sidetracked on the way home.’

  ‘You could have phoned me in Auckland.’

  ‘You hate me phoning. You never phone me.’

  He didn’t deny it. He was too angry. ‘You’ve arranged a room!’

  ‘That was the best thing to do, wasn’t it? Make it easier, on both of us?’

  ‘Guess you can look at it that way.’

  ‘But…’ OK, time to lose all pride here, and give him a hint.

  Oh, this was miserable! She hadn’t realised quite how much she’d been hoping the room at the doctors’ house would stand empty after all, throughout her process of decision-making, when she’d arranged the room with Brian Simmons, all through the sad and farcical delays in their arrival home tonight.

  ‘You mean you’re not going to promise anything different in the future?’ she asked.

  He whooshed out a sigh, then groped for the right words. ‘I don’t feel as if I’ve promised the wrong things so far. I mean, I’m only here one week in four. You said it yourself. I really like being with you, Tink.’ His tone lost some of its angry edge. ‘I think we’re good together. Great together. My life at home—I know I never talk about that. To be honest, I think the main reason I come here is not the extra money, even though, heaven knows, I need that, but the fact that I don’t have to think about home…’ He stopped. ‘It’s tough. My life at home is tough. It’s so good to have you, and not to talk about it, or think about it—’

  ‘This is your R&R, isn’t it? Your time out?’

  He seized on both expressions, grateful for them. ‘Yes! And it’s so good!’

  ‘Not for me, Joe.’ She could hardly get out the words. Sobs wanted to come out instead.

  ‘No?’ he said softly.

  ‘The word “love” obviously means something very different to you. Not what it means if I say it. I want to be part of your life. Your whole life.’

  This time his answer came quick as a rabbit trap clamping shut. ‘No, you don’t.’

  ‘So you’re not going to tell me anything about—’

  ‘No. I’m not.’

  OK, two choices.

  One, accuse him of having a wife.

  Two, storm out and slam the door.

  Christina did neither. She just started shaking so hard that Joe couldn’t have missed it from a distance of three hundred metres. Couldn’t have ignored it unless he didn’t care anything for her at all.

  And he did care.

  He came up to her, wrapped his arms around her, physically held her on her feet so she wouldn’t subside onto the rug with her face buried in her hands.

  ‘I am so sorry, Tink,’ he whispered. ‘I didn’t see it coming. Maybe I should have. That crack about warning me, and the room—that probably wasn’t fair. I can see how you feel. Couldn’t we just try and…?’ He stopped.

  ‘Yes?’

  He didn’t say anything, just kept holding her. Oh, hell, and she so loved the way he smelled, even tonight when it came tinged with the faint aromas of aeroplane, axle grease and kangaroo. She didn’t know what it was. Him, his soap, his clothes. He always smelled like this and she always loved it. Could have drowned in it. Could have saved her life with it.

  ‘No,’ he finally answered. ‘I’m not going to argue. I’ve got no grounds. Nothing to promise. Nothing to offer. Hurts, it’s stupid. I’m stupid. Sorry. I’ve been an idiot not to realise that you’d want things spelled out more clearly. I’m not in the market for something long term, for a commitment. I’m just not. I have enough of those. I just don’t have room and, really, you wouldn’t want me to.’

  ‘But you won’t let me be the judge of that,’ she said, in a voice that managed to be hard and wobbly at the same time. ‘You’ve just made the decision for me, without telling me—’

  ‘Can we stop this now? Can we? I think we have to, because I don’t think there’s any point in saying more, or anything more we can say.’ He pulled back and stood very upright, chest like a board, arms folded over it. She could see what he was doing, mentally clawing his way back to a less emotional operating mode, getting some distance.

  She tried to do the same.

  He was right. They’d reached the impasse she’d…only one-quarter expected, to be honest. Less than a quarter. Ten per cent. She only now fully realised that she had seriously been hoping he’d throw his arms around her and tell her it was all a mistake, he wanted everything that she wanted, and that he’d make all the right promises on the spot.

  But, no, they’d reached an impasse, and there was nothing left to say.

  ‘Are they…uh…they’re not still expecting me at the house tonight?’ he asked. ‘At this hour?’

  ‘If your flight had been on time, that was the plan. But now we should wait until tomorrow. I was thinking so even before the joey and the flat tyre. No one’s had enough sleep over there the past week or so. I don’t want to go thumping around those loud wooden floors and turning on lights at two in the morning.’

  ‘My stuff…’ Which had accumulated to several suitcases’ and boxes’ worth over the past two years.

  ‘I’ll be out on the clinic run till almost dark tomorrow. Where are they slotting you at the hospital?’

  ‘Don’t know yet.’ Joe was always used where he was needed. The emergency department, Maternity, Paeds, Anaesthesia occasionally.

  ‘If you can drop me at the base, you can have the car,’ she told him. ‘Then if you get a break during the day you can pack and shift. I didn’t…box anything up for you because…’ She didn’t finish.

  ‘That’s OK. Hell, that’s OK, Tink. I wouldn’t have expected for a second…’ He didn’t finish either.

  ‘Have your shower. I’m going to bed,’ she gasped, and didn’t wait.

  Not for an answer, not for a protest.

  She knew nothing would come.

  And, of course, she couldn’t sleep.

  At two-thirty she stopped listening for the sounds of him moving around the house. He’d obviously gone to bed, too. At three she stopped thinking about going along to his room and climbing into his bed…or hoping that he would come along and climb into hers. At three-thirty she surrendered the idea of phoning the obstetrics and gynaecology unit at the hospital in the hope that Georgie Turner or Grace O’Riordan would be there, delivering a baby.

  If they were, they wouldn’t have time to talk. If they did have time, Joe would hear her sobbing on the phone. And sobbing and talking wouldn’t even put a dent in the pain.

  At four she got up to get a glass of water in the kitchen and came back to meet Joe padding silently along the passage towards her, wearing only his black cotton pyjama pants and an inadequate cloak of darkness over his bare chest. They did one of those silent movie–type byplays where two people both moved in the same direction to try and get past each other and almost collided three times, accompanied by fervent apologies. But it wasn’t funny.

  ‘Are you married, Joe?’ she said.

  ‘No!’ His protest tailed away to a rough whisper. ‘Hell, no, I’m not married!’

  ‘Well, that’s something.’ It sounded very bitter.

  ‘Ah, Tink, ah, hell. Don’t do this.’

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘Don’t look for reasons.’

  ‘Aren’t there reasons?’

  ‘Of course there are.’

  ‘Then tell me what they are.’

  But he didn’t answer, because they were already holding onto each other like shipwreck survivors in a dark sea. His whole body was warm from sleep—or maybe from frustrated wakefulnes
s—and she could feel the low ride of his drawstring waistband against her lower stomach through the thin stretch cotton of her sleeveless pyjama top.

  It was so familiar. The way her breasts pressed against him. The rapid burgeoning of his arousal. The tickle of hair, the rumbling groan of need he made, the rippling sensitivity of every square inch of her skin.

  Christina didn’t mean to let it go as far as it did, but when he started kissing her, seeking her mouth a little clumsily in the darkness, she just didn’t care about self-preservation or pride or boundaries. He felt so good, and she wanted him too much, the way she always had.

  He didn’t ask out loud how far he could go, but his body asked the question with every deepening kiss and every more intimate touch, and he never got no for an answer. The door to his room was only a few feet away, so that was where they ended up, sitting on his bed.

  She could just see the faint swimming of light in his dark eyes, the sober expression on his face.

  ‘Christina…’ he breathed.

  He peeled her top over her head and bent to kiss her breasts and her neck. She closed her eyes, letting him, just letting him do it, then she reached out and spread her fingers in his thick hair, pulled his head up and kissed him so hard they were both grateful for breath at the end of it.

  He stood, pulled her up, slid her pyjama pants down then his, taking his own nakedness and state of arousal for granted. She’d seen it before. She’d responded to it in a hundred wonderful ways. This time it would be as good and as powerful as ever. Still standing, he touched her, gliding his hands lightly over her body, all the expected places and some unexpected ones as well. The backs of her knees, the knobs of her spine.

  He was taking inventory, storing up memories, as aware as she was that this was the last time. It really was. It had to be. No secret hopes in her heart this time. ‘Christina…’ he breathed again. His hands grew slower and lighter on her skin, hardly touching her breasts, whispering down her body.

  Suddenly she felt angry and impatient and didn’t want to wait, didn’t want to linger over this as if it was some great elemental parting, made unavoidable by war or destiny. This was his choice, and it didn’t have to happen. She had set the challenge, but he had failed to rise to it, so how the hell could he act as if they were playing out some twenty-first-century version of Romeo and Juliet?