by Cara Colter
Behind the door came movement…The door opened, and all his irritation fled. He’d thought she’d looked pale when he’d first clapped eyes on her, but now she was white. The only colour in her face came from the grey of her eyes, but even they were dim and bloodshot. All that red-gold hair fizzing around her face only made her look paler.
His heart lurched. ‘Is there anything I can get for you? Would you like me to take you to the hospital or—?’
She shook her head. ‘I’m really sorry I disturbed you, Luke. I—’
She turned from white to green. She spun away to kneel in front of the toilet and was immediately and comprehensively sick. Again. Luke leapt forward to drag her hair back from her face. He didn’t try to talk, and he didn’t rub her back because he didn’t know if that would make her feel better or worse, but with every heaving retch his heart clenched harder and tighter.
When this particular bout of sickness had passed, he flushed the toilet, closed its lid and settled her on top of it. When he was certain she wasn’t going to fall, he moistened a facecloth and very gently wiped her face.
She didn’t open her eyes until he was finished. ‘You’re very kind,’ she whispered.
No, he wasn’t. But he couldn’t stand by and do nothing if she was sick. ‘What did you eat today?’
She frowned. It turned into a glare. ‘I can tell you one thing—I am never eating caramel mud cake again. I couldn’t resist another piece after dinner, but…Ugh, never again.’
It almost made him smile. Only he couldn’t smile when she remained so pale. ‘Keira, I really think you should see a doctor.’
She pulled in a breath. ‘It’s nothing. I promise.’ She closed her eyes and pulled in another breath. ‘It’s become the norm over the last few days, that’s all.’ A third breath. ‘I’m sure it’ll pass.’
His head snapped back. The norm? She was slender, sure, but he hadn’t pegged her as anorexic or bulimic. Still, she was young and pretty, and he knew women her age felt an enormous pressure to conform to impossible media images. Not for the first time he was grateful he had a son instead of a daughter. Raising a daughter without the help of her mother could prove tricky. Or at least trickier than a son.
Keira’s confession settled it—she was seeing a doctor. Whether she had food poisoning or was bulimic or had some ghastly twenty-four hour virus, he was taking her to the hospital. Illness like this should never be the norm.
‘C’mon.’ He urged her to her feet and handed her a glass of water to rinse out her mouth. ‘It’s better to be safe than sorry. It’ll take us no time at all to drive to the hospital and have someone check you over.’ When he saw she was about to refuse he added, ‘Look, I’m going to be out in the fields from dawn, and I probably won’t return till late. Jason will most likely be out with his mates for most of the day. I can’t guarantee there’ll be anyone here to help you if you need it tomorrow.’
She smiled. She was pale and woebegone, and yet she managed a smile. He didn’t know why, but it made his heart crash about in his chest. ‘It’s sweet of you to consider my welfare.’
Not sweet. He refused to allow that. He just didn’t want another woman’s death on his conscience.
‘Luke, I’m really not sick.’
He raised an eyebrow at that.
‘And I have seen a doctor.’
His shoulders loosened a fraction. The pressure eased from his chest. In the next moment the pressure crashed back. If she was this sick after seeing a doctor then that indicated something serious—something sinister.
‘I have nothing worse,’ she continued, ‘than a bad bout of morning sickness.’
He stared at her, trying to make sense of her words. Morning sickness? But that meant…
‘I’m pregnant.’
And then she beamed. His legs gave out, plonking him down to sit on the side of the bathtub.
She sat down again too. ‘I’m having a baby.’
Only then did he notice that she wore an oversized sleepshirt in powder blue. It had a picture of a teddy bear on the front and hung down to her knees. She didn’t look old enough to have a baby!
He surged to his feet as an unlooked-for and unwanted wave of protectiveness flooded him. ‘Where’s your baby’s father? Why the hell is he letting you go through this on your own?’
‘Oh, Luke…’
She pressed two fingers to her mouth. Luke immediately went on high alert. ‘Are you going to be sick again?’ He readied himself to hold her hair back from her face if the need arose. He glanced at that hair. For all its curly unruliness, it had felt smooth and soft in his hand.
‘No, I don’t think so. I think I might risk a cup of tea.’
Her colour had started to return. He shuffled back a step. Pregnant! ‘Do you need a hand with anything else?’
‘No, I’m fine now. Honest.’
With a nod he backed out through the door. ‘Right. I’ll go put the jug on.’
‘Oh, that’s not necessary. You can go back to bed and I…’
He didn’t turn or stop. He headed straight for the kitchen. Pregnant and alone in the world—he’d read that fact in her eyes.
Trouble with a capital T!
He couldn’t get involved. He couldn’t risk it. But the least he could do was make her a cup of tea.
When Keira entered the kitchen she was glad to find Luke had dragged a T-shirt over his bare chest. The breadth of his shoulders, those bulging biceps, had all started to filter into her consciousness towards the end there in the bathroom. It had taken a concerted effort to try and ignore the effect they were having on her.
While it had been beyond kind of him to hold back her hair, to mop her face, it had all started to feel a bit too…intimate. And she wasn’t doing intimate. Not until she and the Munchkin were well and truly settled, thank you very much.
Still, there was no denying she’d gained a measure of comfort from Luke’s presence, and she hadn’t expected that. It had brought those niggling doubts back to the surface, though. Taking great bites out of her confidence, making her question the validity of having a baby on her own.
No!
She pushed the very idea of that thought away. She could and she would have this baby on her own. Those doubts—it was just the misery of nausea talking.
She saw Luke turn from surveying her various boxes of tea. Besides peppermint and chamomile, she had a selection of herbal teas made up by the boutique tea shop she walked past every day on her way to work at the hospital. The teas had gorgeous names like Enliven, Autumn Harvest and Tranquillity.
‘Where’s your…?’ He paused, his eyes zeroing in on the way her hands fumbled with the sash of her terry towelling robe.
‘Where’s my what?’ She gave up trying to tie a bow and settled for a granny knot. It occurred to her that Luke might be as pleased as she that they’d both covered up a bit more. The thought made her stumble.
Stop it! It was somewhere between three and four in the morning. Nobody had rational thoughts at this time of the day. She flipped her hair out from the collar of her robe and raked her hands through it…and remembered the way he’d held it back from her face. She’d felt too sick to be embarrassed then. Strangely, she didn’t feel embarrassed now either.
Luke continued to stare at her, his eyes dark and intense, and filled with a primitive hunger. It raised all the hair on her arms. Not in a panicked I’m-alone-in-a-strange-place-with-a-man-I-hardly-know kind of way either. Which would be rational. But then she’d already determined this wasn’t a rational time of day.
And it was quickly in danger of becoming less so, because as she stared back at him warmth stole through all her limbs, while languor threatened to rob her of her strength…and of the last shreds of her sanity.
One of them had to be rational. Think of the Munchkin!
‘You want to know something amazing?’ She didn’t wait for his answer. ‘All my baby’s fingers can be separately identified now, and soon its eyes will be fully form
ed.’
He jerked, and muttered something she pretended not to hear.
Talking about her baby didn’t douse her in cold, rational logic, but at least it had Luke swinging away. She wanted to shake herself, shake the warmth from her limbs, but she didn’t trust that her stomach would tolerate that kind of punishment just yet.
She frowned and remembered to ask again, ‘Where’s my what?’
‘Liquorice tea.’
She collapsed at the kitchen table and massaged her temples. Of all the things he might have asked her…‘Why would I have liquorice tea?’ She’d never heard of the stuff before. And, quite frankly, it didn’t sound all that inviting.
‘It’s a morning sickness cure.’
She lifted her head. ‘Really?’
‘So’s eating liquorice.’
She watched, half in disbelief, as he sliced a lemon, dropped the slice into a mug, and then poured boiling water over it. He set the mug in front of her. ‘Sip that. It should help settle your stomach.’
He made himself some tea and sat opposite. Keira pulled the pad and pen resting on the table towards her and wrote down ‘liquorice, liquorice tea, lemon’—before taking an experimental sip from her mug. ‘I’m ten weeks pregnant, but the morning sickness has only hit me in the last few days. I haven’t had a chance to research cures yet.’
He shrugged. ‘Ginger can be good. Ginger biscuits, dry ginger ale—that sort of thing.’
He blew on his tea before taking a sip, and it was only then, through the mirage of steam, that she realised his eyes weren’t black, as she’d originally thought, but a deep, rich brown.
When he kinked a questioning eyebrow, she dragged her gaze away and added ‘ginger’ to her list. ‘I’ll pop into town tomorrow.’
‘Has it been happening mostly at night?’
‘It’s been happening all over the place.’ Why hadn’t anyone warned her about this?
‘Having something in your stomach is supposed to help. When you go to bed take a banana or some biscuits with you. When you wake up through the night just have a bite or two. It’ll help.’
‘How on earth do you know all this?’ She took another sip of her lemon and hot water concoction. Her stomach was starting to calm down. ‘Don’t get me wrong. I’m grateful. I really think this is working.’
He set his mug down with a snap. ‘Tammy, my wife, had morning sickness pretty bad with Jason.’
Of course! She glanced around. ‘Is she away at the moment?’ It would be nice to have another woman to talk to about all this.
‘She’s dead.’
Keira froze, and then very slowly turned back. She knew exactly how wide her eyes had gone, but for the life of her she couldn’t make them go back to their normal size.
‘She died three years ago.’ The words dropped out of him, curt and emotionless.
Oh! ‘Oh, Luke, I’m so sorry.’ Idiot! Anyone with eyes in their head could see this place lacked a woman’s touch. Perhaps that explained why there were no Christmas decorations, too.
‘It was three years ago,’ he repeated, his voice flat.
As if three years meant anything!
He might not look heartbroken—she suspected Luke Hillier was not the kind of man to wear his heart on his sleeve—but it explained why he looked so worn out, run down…worn down. She promptly forgave him for all his gruffness and shortness to her earlier in the day.
‘I don’t think it matters if it’s been three years, five years or ten years. My mother died ten years ago and I still miss her.’ Especially at this time of year.
‘Tammy and I had already separated before she died. A separation I instigated.’
Her heart lurched at the pain that momentarily twisted his features. What? Did he think that meant he wasn’t deserving of sympathy? ‘You and Tammy had a child together. That’s a bond that can never be broken.’ And Jason—how he must ache for Jason’s loss.
‘Says you…’ his lips twisted ‘…who’s having a baby on her own.’
Yes, well, there was a good reason for that. But he didn’t give her a chance to explain. He shot to his feet and tipped what was left of his tea down the sink. ‘I’m going back to bed.’
He almost made it to the door before spinning back to the pantry. He grabbed a packet of digestives and shoved them at her. ‘Take these to bed with you, just in case.’
She stared at them and willed her heart to stop its unaccountable softening.
‘Thank you. For everything,’ she added, but doubted he heard. He’d already disappeared.
Keira pulled up short the next morning when she found Luke seated at the kitchen table, reading the Sunday paper. She’d expected him to be long gone out into those fields of his. It was one of the reasons she’d allowed herself the luxury of a lie-in—knowing she wouldn’t be disturbing anyone. Given the kind of night she’d had, it had seemed a perfectly reasonable proposition. But if Luke had delayed his work to make sure she was okay…
‘Good morning.’ She tried to keep her voice casual, not sure exactly what tone she should be aiming for after last night.
Luke immediately set the paper aside, leapt to his feet and slotted two slices of her nine-grain bread into the toaster before turning back, hands on hips, to examine her. ‘Well?’ he demanded. ‘How are you feeling?’
She couldn’t resist teasing him. ‘If I’m going to get waited on like this, then I’m at death’s door.’
He frowned.
‘Relax, Luke. I’m fine. I slept like a log when I went back to bed—’ which wasn’t exactly the truth ‘—and I wasn’t sick again.’
That, though, was. Thankfully. And she didn’t want him feeling responsible for her. She was more than capable of looking after herself and the Munchkin, thank you.
She really didn’t want her heart lurching at the mere sight of the man either. There was no future in that.
She sat. ‘I mean it, Luke. You need to relax,’ she repeated when he retrieved her toast and set it in front of her. He returned from the pantry with his arms laden with spreads.
She opened her mouth to protest some more, but suddenly she was ravenously hungry and allowed herself to be sidetracked long enough to slather butter and strawberry jam over one slice of toast. ‘Oh, this is divine,’ she groaned, devouring it and repeating the process with the second slice. When she was finished she leant back in her chair with a sigh. ‘How on earth is it possible to feel so sick just a few short hours ago and now be so hungry?’
‘It’s normal.’
That was when she remembered what she had to tell him. She had to set him straight. ‘Luke, I’m not some pathetic piece who’s accidentally found herself pregnant and then been dumped by some low-down, lying snake in the grass.’ She could see that was what he thought.
‘It’s none of my business.’ He shot to his feet. ‘Would you like more toast?’
No, she didn’t want more toast. She didn’t want him making her feel all warm and fuzzy inside either.
‘For the last twelve months I’ve been on an IVF programme.’ She waited to see if her words made any impression on him.
He bent down to survey the contents of the fridge. ‘What about a piece of fruit or a yoghurt?’
‘Did you hear what I just said? I’ve fallen pregnant deliberately. And I’ve chosen to do it on my own.’
He stopped fussing at the fridge to turn and stare. ‘What on earth would you go and do something like that for?’
Now that she had his attention—and, oh my, she certainly had that—she wasn’t sure she wanted it. ‘You…um…might like to close the fridge door. It’s shaping up to be a warm day.’
‘You…But…You’re too young!’
She blinked. And then she grinned. ‘How old do you think I am? I’m twenty-four—old enough to know my own mind.’
Luke sat, scratched both hands back through his hair while he stared at her. ‘But you’re still so young. You’re attractive…’
Her heart did that stupid
leaping around thing again.
‘Do you have something against men?’
‘No!’ She stared at him in horror, but she could suddenly see how he’d come to that conclusion. ‘I had an infected ovary removed when I was nineteen. In the last couple of years my remaining ovary has started to develop cysts, and it looks like it will have to go as well. And soon.’
‘So medically…?’
‘If I want a baby, I have to look at doing it now.’
He sat back, let out a low whistle.
‘I mean, in an ideal world I’d have found the man of my dreams and we’d…’ She trailed off. She wasn’t anti-men, not by any stretch, but she wasn’t sure she believed in the man of her dreams either.
‘That’s a heck of a decision to be faced with—and to do it on your own.’ Luke leaned towards her, his hand clenched and his eyebrows drawing down low over his eyes. ‘Being a single parent—you have no idea how hard it is. You could’ve found a man who’d have been happy to help you out.’ He shook his head. ‘It would’ve spared you the expense of IVF, and going through your pregnancy alone.’
‘And given me a whole new set of problems,’ she pointed out. But her heart burned for him. He and his wife might have already been separated, but her death had obviously wounded him. He’d certainly never expected to become a single father. That much was evident.
She’d known Luke Hillier for less than twenty-four hours, but last night he’d held her hair back from her face while she’d vomited. She figured that gave her a certain insight into the man. She leant across the table towards him. She wanted to reach across and touch his hand—perhaps because his eyes were so dark and his mouth so grim? Perhaps because she sensed that behind the grimness lay genuine concern? ‘Would you ever marry a woman just because you wanted a baby?’
‘No!’
Tension shot through his shoulders. The physiotherapist in her itched to un-knot all that tightness. The thought made the woman in her turn to putty.
