by Cara Colter
“That’s a nice quilt,” he remarked, looking down at it. “It’s nice and soft, with all those swirly bits in different shades of brown. What’s the pattern? It looks like the spirit of autumn.”
“I—” Oh, help, she hardly knew. This quilt had become her refuge from staring at him the past two weeks; she’d chosen colours and pattern at random.
Looking down, she took in what her fingers had been creating the past fortnight—and felt the heat flaring on her face. Double circles intertwining … golden-hearted rose petals …
She rushed into speech, before he asked another question. “It’s … um, a traditional pattern, popular since the early twentieth century—and—and since it’s autumn …”
Babbling again, she thought in disgust. If any other of her quilting club were here, they’d give her a knowing grin and tease her unmercifully about her Freudian slip. It was a wonder they hadn’t noticed it at the Friday night “eat-fest.”
It was a traditional pattern, all right, and very popular: a wedding quilt. And what was worse, it was all in the colours of maple and caramel and golden-brown—autumn shades, but also the colours of Noah’s eyes and hair and skin.
She hadn’t even known until now, when the evidence was right in front of her; but she couldn’t deny her unconscious desires, revealed by her creation.
Lust she could handle; she had been, barring a few physical injuries—try a few hundred—but if she was dreaming of everything—of the marriage and babies she couldn’t risk—
Come on, Pollyanna, fix this one, she heard a voice taunting her. What man will want a tainted strain he can’t even have kids with?
Noah already has children. He doesn’t need a baby from you, her mind whispered.
But that’s not the real problem, she admitted wearily to herself.
All her life she’d wanted just one thing: to be a wife and mother. To be rounded with her babies, feeling them kick, to feed at her breast, reading stories to her children, singing songs. The whole nine yards that went with it, even the hours of worrying about teenagers let off the leash.
Well, she’d had it—and Cody had been the one to pay the price for her dreams.
“Jennifer? Are you okay? Is the heat getting to you?”
When he spoke like that, touched with caring, his voice ran over her with rough sweetness, making her forget everything: the past, her pain—everything but the rush of wanting him.
You can’t have him. No touching.
She gulped and blurted out, “I should ask you that question, since you’ve always got your shirt off these days. I wish you’d put it back on—then I wouldn’t have all these injur—” She skidded to a horrified halt, her mouth open to speak and she couldn’t seem to close it.
Terrified but unable to stop it, she looked up at him.
He was biting the inside of his lip, but it didn’t quite cover the grin. His eyes were warm with laughter and something deeper, hotter and infinitely more masculine. “I didn’t realise it was bothering you. I’ll keep it on, then.”
She had to force her mouth closed, to stop the protest coming out. Now she’d gotten what she’d needed the past couple of weeks, she wished she’d just kept her silly mouth shut.
Nothing short of sudden blindness would stop her staring at him, anyway.
A trickle of sweat ran down her neck. God help her, she was so obvious it was pitiful! She jumped to her feet, letting the quilt apparatus scatter across the verandah. “Make way, kids!” she hollered, and bolted for the Slip and Slide.
The kids laughed and scattered for her, knowing when she gave that war whoop, she was going for it—a full-on slide all the way down …
Picking up her quilting stuff, Noah watched her run and slide to her hip as she landed on the wet length of plastic, her legs in the air, with absolutely no grace or dignity. He hid a knowing grin. She might be having fun now, but he knew why she’d needed to cool down; and while he couldn’t do a thing about that particular heat, the man in him loved his power over her.
The same power she held over him.
Strange, but though he’d always thought her pretty, at first it was in a more ordinary way: the same kind of appreciation he had for the flowers in her garden. They were lovely, but something he could see anywhere. He wanted her; she’d woken him somehow; but surely he could control it.
But the more he saw her, the more she captured him with every movement of her hands and hips, every nuance of her smile, the light in her soft eyes. The beauty no amount of makeup could create, no amount of surgery could buy. Just being Jennifer …
She landed in a heap of arms and legs at the other end of the slide, where she’d set up rubber bumpers to stop the kids getting hurt, and he laughed. She could make him happy with the simplest of acts, her uncomplicated, innate dignity … and she seized him heart and soul with her love for his children, and how she was healing them just by being herself.
Being Jennifer.
She untangled herself and jumped to her feet, yelling, “Let’s all go together! A train!”
Noah lost his breath; a sharp lump lodged in his throat, blocking air. Her thin white summer shirt was wet, revealing every curve, each dusting freckle and the glow of her light-fawn skin. Her smile was radiant; she tossed her half-fallen plait off her breast to her back as if it were a nuisance.
Oh, to be that hand, that plait. To be able to touch her so casually … to touch her at all. Just to be free to touch her, to be a man again …
The gulp hurt him all the way down to his chest.
The kids beat her to the top of the slide, which she’d placed on a slow graded hill; they waited in line, Tim holding Cilla, Cilla holding Rowdy. Jennifer plumped down behind Tim, her hands at his waist, and she pushed off, with a loud cry, “Go!”
They didn’t make it to the end, but nobody cared. Everyone was laughing too hard. Rowdy gave his cute, choking giggle, but Cilla and Tim were alive with the joy she brought them.
He couldn’t stand it anymore. He’d been alone too long. He had to be a part of the fun.
“Let’s make a bigger train!” he yelled, and ran for the hill. “I’ll beat all of you!”
When he saw Cilla and Tim running to beat him—Cilla was playing with him—he choked up again. He deliberately tripped over nothing, just as Jennifer did when she knew they wanted to win, and landed splat on the wet, muddy grass face-first. “Ah, nuts!”
The kids cracked up when he lifted his face, showing it covered in dirt.
“Oh, get up, Brannigan. You’re holding up the train!”
Noah grinned at Jennifer, standing over him like an impatient schoolmarm, if somewhat too wet and dirty for the job. An adorable paradox; the miracle he’d never hoped to find. He had to be careful, or he’d fall so hard and deep for her, he’d never climb out of it; but while he had this happiness, he’d grab at what he could.
He put his hand into her outstretched one, ready to help him up; but as he began getting up, she slipped away, letting him fall on his face again. “Ha! I got him, I got him!” she crowed to the kids, who were on the ground, pointing at him and cracking up again.
“Funny Daddy!” Rowdy cried.
“Silly Daddy,” Cilla giggled.
“Silly Dad, he can’t even get up by himself!” Tim shouted. He seemed to have no problem with Jennifer touching him—at least long enough to drop him on his face.
He looked up at the instigator of the scene, who winked at him, seeming totally unaware of what she’d just done for his family—or of her enticing state of semi-naked loveliness.
“I’ll get you for that,” he threatened, but his voice was a hoarse croak.
“Yeah, yeah, promises, Brannigan,” she chanted, and ran for the slide. “Get in the line, kids. Big train time! I’m the driver this time!”
With a grin, Noah scrambled to his feet and joined onto Tim, who was at the back … and if Jennifer had deliberately avoided his touch by being the driver, it didn’t matter. For this half hour, he h
ad his family with him, his happy family, and it was a gift.
Another miracle at the March farm.
“Hey, Uncle Joe! We’re here!” Rowdy cried, in his usual boisterous welcome. “We come for Timmy.”
Jennifer’s uncle came around the corner of the shop leading to the junkyard. “Hoy, little mate,” Uncle Joe chuckled, sounding like a pirate. He’d never been on the sea apart from a few fishing expeditions, but Rowdy didn’t know that. “And Miss Cilla—how’s the prettiest girl this side of Brisbane?”
From behind Jennifer’s skirt, Cilla smiled and waved. She wasn’t quite sure of this big, bluff man, but if Tim and Rowdy liked him, she’d give him a chance.
“I called. I guess you were out the back.” Jennifer smiled at her uncle. “Is he here?”
Joe nodded, his face tender. “He got here about an hour after school. He said he had permission. I gather he didn’t,” he sighed. “He’s in a bad mood, Jenny—he doesn’t even want me to help him. He just wants to bash nails into metal for a while. How about I bring him home in time for dinner?”
Jennifer sighed in turn. “Come for dinner—it might help.”
Joe looked a bit shifty. “The Swans are playing tonight—St. Kilda. So how about he stays for dinner with me, watches the game, and then I bring him home? It’s Friday—no harm in staying up a bit later, eh? It’ll give him time to work it off, whatever it is.”
After a brief hesitation, she nodded. “I’ll check with Noah, and call you either way.”
“It does him good being here, Jenny,” Uncle Joe said quietly. “And it does me good, too. I like having the boy around. We have a project or two in the works …”
Jennifer touched his hand. “I know, Uncle Joe. A boy after your own heart, right?”
Joe chuckled, and cocked his head to where some strident banging was taking place out the back. “In some ways too old for his years—in others, just a boy. We’re soul mates.”
Working on her verandah an hour later, Noah saw Jennifer and the kids returning, laughing, and his heart lifted. She’d found Tim at Joe’s again, he guessed.
Thank God for Jennifer—because of her and her uncle Joe, Tim had a permanent and safe place to run … and Cilla only disappeared next door.
But when they spilled out of the car and no Tim was in evidence, the familiar fear chilled his body, as if he’d been dropped in ice water. He snapped, “Where’s Tim?”
Her face and voice casual—a mask for the tension Cilla didn’t need—Jennifer said, “He and Uncle Joe have some special projects going on. He invited Tim for dinner and to watch the first Swans game of the season, if that’s all right. He said he’d bring Tim home straight after—or before, if you prefer,” she added quickly.
“Daddy, Jenny took me to the dolly museum today,” Cilla blurted out, her eyes shining. “Her friend Brenda runs it. She’s got more dollies than I ever saw!”
Noah felt the jerk inside him as he savagely reined in his anger over Joe’s commandeering his son. Cilla was talking to him of her own free will … “A dolly museum? Wow—I didn’t know there was one!” He waited for her answer, hoping she’d volunteer more information.
Cilla nodded vigorously, glowing with the joy of her outing. “Lots of grown-ups gave their dollies there, the lady said. There’s really old dollies, and some talking dollies, and dressed-up dollies, and baby dollies that drink from bottles—”
“And soldier dollies, too, Daddy!” Rowdy added, so excited he was bouncing up and down.
Cilla pulled a face. “They got guns and big sticks, Daddy. Not nice.”
Noah laughed, and laid a hand on Cilla’s curls. “Not nice for girls, but boys like them. Boys don’t have good taste like girls. They like silly things like guns and sticks.”
Cilla smiled up at him, and Noah almost gasped. He could barely remember when she’d smiled, just at him. “Did you like guns and sticks?” Her trusting expression said of course you didn’t—and he smiled at her faith.
“Back in the Dark Ages of your youth,” Jennifer murmured, laughter in her voice.
He shot her a mock-threatening look before returning to Cilla, telling her a truth that would disgust Rowdy if he was old enough to understand; but he was three, and Daddy could still do no wrong in his eyes. “I tried to like them, for a little while. I always liked LEGO and building blocks and drawing—but all my friends in the street wanted to play the rough stuff, so I had to pretend to like them, too.”
Rowdy smiled at him in obvious pity. “Poor Daddy.” He patted Noah’s hand.
Cilla nodded thoughtfully in agreement with Rowdy, her brow wrinkled. “It must be hard to be a boy.”
He choked on the laughter. So damn adorable. Cherishing the moment that was too rare—having a conversation with his daughter. “It is,” he assured her, keeping a straight face and voice.
“You want to come see the dollies tomorrow, Daddy?”
Cilla wanted to spend time with him. Cilla invited him without being prompted!
Hide the emotion. Don’t scare her! He nodded and smiled. “It’s a date,” he said solemnly.
In his peripheral vision he saw Jennifer swiping at her eyes. She knew.
“Jenny, I’m hungry,” Rowdy said, with the angelic look he always used to get his way.
Jennifer laughed at that, and held out a hand to him. “Come on then, piggy, let’s find something to eat. How about burgers tonight, and oven fries?”
“Yummy!” Rowdy cried, and scooted ahead of her around the side of the house. The screen door banged a moment later. Within moments, after a visible hesitation and a glance at her father, Cilla ran in after him.
Noah smiled after her, torn between joy at their first conversation in too long to remember, and wanting more in case it never happened again.
“Is it all right, Noah? About Tim, I mean? I told Uncle Joe I’d ask you and let him know.”
He turned back to Jennifer, knowing he shouldn’t indulge in the rare moment of being alone with her without Tim watching. “It’s fine.” His voice came out rough-edged. “If it makes Tim happy …”
“He’s doing so much better.” Jennifer half-reached out to him before she let her hand fall. “I know it’s hard to see at times, but his teacher says he’s settled down in class, and I can see him softening toward the kids here, as well. Before long, I think he’ll be working on that cubby house with you.”
Not unless Belinda’s found. He couldn’t blame her for not understanding. Tim might be healing with other people, but he’d only trust his father again if Belinda came back—and he no longer believed it was going to happen. Tim blamed him for his mother’s disappearance, and barring a miracle, there was no way to change that.
He turned back to tearing off another plank. “That’s great.”
The tone of his voice made a lie of the words. Just go away and leave me be …
“I know you want more. You want him to be healed, to be able to accept what he can’t change. You want him to stop resenting you for losing his mother and everything else that goes wrong in his life. But you’re his father—who else can he blame? And no matter how he worries you, you’ve got him, Noah. He’s here with you—he loves you dearly, even if you can’t always see it. You don’t know what a miracle that is.”
Noah had looked up by the end of her first sentence, arrested by the taut, restrained passion in her voice. She stood before him, her right hand shaking, her eyes burning with a fire she was obviously about to share with him, whether he wanted it or not. “Are you okay?”
She dragged in a breath, two, before she spoke, yet it still came out choked with emotion, like a river rushing down-tide against a collapsing dam wall. “You lost Belinda, yet you still don’t understand. There are thousands of people out there who wait years, and pay a fortune for what you have—a family. You have three beautiful, healthy children who adore you, despite their problems. I’d die for what you have!”
She pushed past him, running into the house with a stumbling st
ep.
When the screen door slammed shut, Noah closed his eyes and dropped the ripped-up plank he still held. She was right, so right he was shocked, shamed by his wilful blindness all this time. His beautiful, healthy children were a gift he should never take for granted—and moving here, having Joe and Jennifer as a safe bolthole for the kids when they needed it, was a miracle he hadn’t dared question, in case he woke up back in Sydney, still struggling to make it alone.
He was blessed, so much more so than he’d realised.
But it was why Jennifer had said it that shocked him the most … all she’d half-said. All the painful hunger, the thwarted passion in her face and voice, which told him so much more than her stark words.
All this time he’d looked at her and wanted her, ached for her, been on-his-knees grateful for her, been amazed by her—but finally he was seeing her. Her words ripped away his blinders and showed her, not just as a woman, but as a person: a person whose empathy and strength came from a loss as profound and life-changing as his own.
All this time she’d listened to him, given to him—but she hadn’t shared, and he hadn’t listened. So damned scared he’d get too close to her, he’d missed all the signs.
No more. Right now, with the kids still awake, wasn’t the time—but the first piece in the jigsaw of all she hadn’t told him had just fallen into place, and judging by the anguish bursting from her just then, Jennifer needed to talk to someone about the tragedy in her past.
Desperately.
CHAPTER SIX
HE WAS watching her, every time he thought she wasn’t looking.
Talk about basket cases …!
Jennifer kept her attention on the kids as they ate, and again as she washed up; but it was hard to avoid him when he insisted on helping bath Cilla and Rowdy and putting them to bed. Then he also wiped the dishes before he returned to work.
It was even harder to act normal when he kept looking at her as if he was waiting for her to burst out again.
Well, you did before …
I am a strong woman. I do not need to lean on a man. I do not need a family to complete me. I can stand alone. I have a good life!
