by Emma Darcy
He had an attitude problem.
And Nina didn’t believe in overnight transformations, however much she might want to. She had seen Jack look benevolently upon babies before, even speak to them benevolently. She knew it to be an act, a social pretence. They were anathema to him.
“Good sleeper, isn’t she?” Jack commented, warm approval in his voice.
“She’ll probably turn into the baby from hell once I take her home,” Nina predicted.
“Well, we’ll meet that problem when it comes,” he said, clinging to blind optimism.
“Why, Jack?” she demanded. “Why are you even thinking of taking this on? I didn’t imagine what you said to me about babies.”
His eyes were pained. “Nina, if I could take that back…if I could take back these past eight months, I would. There’s been one hell of a hole in my life since you took yourself out of it.”
Her heart flipped over. She tore her gaze from his and attacked the lettuce in the Caesar salad. However much he wanted it to be, this was no longer a one-on-one situation. She couldn’t answer his needs. She concentrated fiercely on what she was eating. The dressing on the salad was superb. She loved the tangy taste of anchovies.
Jack pulled up the visitor’s chair and sat down. “I meant what I wrote on the card with the roses, Nina,” he said quietly.
“Sorry.” She choked the word out. “I should have thanked you for the flowers. They’re very nice.”
She kept shovelling the salad down her throat so it wouldn’t tighten up. Her stomach wasn’t receiving it so well, but she hoped it would soon settle down if she piled enough food into it. She was not—not going to let Jack Gulliver twist up her straight thinking or her carefully organised plans or her stomach.
“I’ve missed you. More than I can say,” he went on, undeterred by her lack of enthusiasm. “You were the best thing that ever happened to me, Nina. I don’t want to lose you again.”
He was remembering how it was. That was forever gone. No point in thinking it could be recaptured, not with Charlotte in the picture. Nina relentlessly crunched some croutons. They were more substantial than lettuce.
“You disappeared so quickly,” he complained. “One week. Just one week, and you were gone. No forwarding address from where you’d been living. You didn’t even work out your notice on the job you left. No one had a clue to your new whereabouts.”
Pure luck, she thought, seeing Sally’s advertisement for a seamstress in the Herald the day after the critical argument with Jack. She wondered briefly if it had been good luck or bad luck.
“You made your stand, Jack,” she reminded him, her eyes sharply scanning his. “You said last night I didn’t give you a choice. I didn’t think you gave me one. Can you honestly say, if I’d confronted you with my pregnancy one week after that argument, you would have reacted as you seem to be reacting now?”
He hesitated, searching his mind for an honest response. “I love you, Nina. I would have done whatever you wanted of me.”
A weight lifted off her heart. At least he wouldn’t have suggested an abortion. The hope squiggled again. Love sounded good. Love sounded wonderful. On the other hand, his response was entirely concentrated on her, which left out the baby.
Nina shook her head sadly. “It doesn’t work like that, Jack. It’s too one-sided. We had a lot of joy together….”
“Yes, we did,” he said eagerly, his eyes simmering with memories.
Sex, Nina thought. Wild, uninhibited, stupendous, passionate sex. Total absortion in each other. That was what he was remembering and that was what he wanted back. She took a deep breath and deliberately dashed the highly distracting ardour emanating from him.
“I don’t want to live with every bit of joy being whittled away by your resentment of the baby, Jack.”
He raised a hand in solemn fervour. “Nina, I swear to you I can accommodate the kid.”
Nina gritted her teeth. Accommodate the kid! How dared he talk about Charlotte like that? It was hopeless. Absolutely hopeless. She picked up a strawberry and bit the fruit off its stalk, seething through its juice. Jack Gulliver might be the sexiest man alive, but he wasn’t worth a father’s bootlace. She shot him down with her eyes.
“If you’re thinking of hiring a nanny—”
“A nanny! Who said anything about hiring a nanny?” He looked upset, frowning belligerently. “No kid of mine is going to be brought up by nannies. If that’s your plan, Nina, I’ve got to say right now I disapprove of it.”
Nina was so stunned, she popped another strawberry into her mouth, and the question, “You do?” became something of a gobble.
“I most certainly do. My parents left me with nannies until I was seven years old and then they turfed me off to boarding school.”
“That’s terrible!”
“We are not going to do that, Nina.”
“Oh, no!” She grabbed another strawberry, fascinated by these revelations about Jack’s childhood.
He stood up and pointed at the bassinette. “This kid is going to be brought up right.”
She nodded agreement, her mouth full of juicy fruit, her eyes feasting on a vision of Jack as a dedicated and devoted parent.
He leaned over and kissed her forehead. “Must get to work now. I’ve got a shipment of stuff coming in. Keep eating, Nina. You need building up. Put some cream on the strawberries. It’s good for the kid.”
She nodded again, totally dumbfounded by this turn of events.
He paused by the bassinette. “See you tonight, Charlie girl. Be good for your mum. We’ve got to get her straightened out on a few things.”
He was almost out the door before Nina remembered. “Sally is picking me up tonight,” she called after him. “I’m going home, Jack.”
He halted, looking at her with determined authority. “Correction. I’m picking you up. I’ve already fixed it with Sally. Very understanding woman, Sally. She let me into your granny flat so I could provision your fridge properly. No more skimping on meals, Nina.”
He left, having taken over as he pleased. Nina felt steamrollered. Maybe she did need straightening out. Hope jiggled in her heart and danced around her mind as she poured some cream onto the strawberries. She looked at Charlotte, who was still sleeping peacefully.
“Well, kid,” she said giddily. “Maybe you’ve got a dad after all.” Then she sobered up and added, “But I’ll believe it when I see it.”
CHAPTER SIX
IT WAS strange, sitting beside Jack in his car, driving across the city. Nina felt she was in a time warp, as though the past eight months hadn’t happened. Same big, four-wheel-drive Range Rover he had owned then, same sense of being king of the road with all the lower traffic around them, same man in control of where they went, drawing an intense physical awareness of him, same feeling of intimacy, enclosed in a world of their own.
To shake off the eerie feeling, Nina kept glancing around to check that Charlotte was, indeed, with them, securely tucked into her capsule and undisturbed by her new and strange surroundings. Life had moved on, and Charlotte added another dimension to it.
Jack had expertly anchored the capsule on the rear seat. He’d had his vehicle fitted for it today, learning where to put the bolt from the safety harness and get everything adjusted properly. Nina was amazed at his forethought. At least in this practical sense he had accepted Charlotte.
“Stop worrying, Nina. There’s no problem.” He gave her a reassuring smile as he caught her glancing at the rear seat again. “Babies always sleep in moving vehicles.”
“How do you know that?”
His smile turned lopsided. “A guy I know drove around most of one night with his kid. His wife was desperate for sleep, and it was a surefire way to stop the baby from crying.”
“Maybe there was something wrong with the baby.”
“Just colic.”
He spoke so matter-of-factly, yet Nina was acutely conscious of the problems he listed and how they could affect their rela
tionship. So far, Jack had only ever seen Charlotte asleep, like a serene little doll, demanding only a token acknowledgment. It was easy to think nothing much had changed. She was guilty of it herself, sitting beside him, remembering how it had been together…before Charlotte.
But they weren’t going out on a date and they weren’t going home to make love. Tension knotted her stomach as she wondered about Jack’s expectations of tonight. Did he think they could pick up from where they had left off eight months ago?
He hadn’t tried to kiss her, as yet. Not properly. Nor had he really touched her except in courteous and caring support. She stared at his hands, lightly guiding the steering wheel. Perhaps it was from his love of working with wood, bringing out the beauty of its grain. Jack had wonderfully sensitive hands. As much as Nina craved the physical reassurance of his love, it was too soon to let him resume their former intimacy.
Too soon in several senses. Her body needed recovery time from the ordeal of giving birth. Apart from which, Nina felt the need to test Jack’s commitment to Charlotte before involving herself too closely with him. She couldn’t risk accepting it on faith alone. The road to hell was paved with good intentions.
They were driving into the harbour tunnel now. Once they emerged on the north side, it wasn’t far to Lane Cove, where Sally’s house and business were handily situated to draw clients from both the northern and western suburbs of Sydney. Nina hoped Jack wasn’t anticipating staying overnight in her granny flat. She hoped he wasn’t assuming everything was settled between them. It wasn’t. Maybe she should make that clear right now.
Something rolled against her feet as the Rover headed down the tunnel. She leaned over to pick it up. A can of dog meat. Nina stared at it, inwardly recoiling from what it meant. Jack still had the dog.
“Sorry about that,” he said, glancing over with a rueful grimace. “Must have escaped from one of the shopping bags. Better put it in the glove box, out of the way.”
She did as he suggested, wishing Jack wasn’t so attached to the mongrel dog he’d rescued from the RSPCA. It was big and fierce, and she was frightened of it. Jack had trained it to be a great watchdog, which was important, since the furniture he worked on was very valuable. Although he insisted Spike’s bark was worse than his bite, Nina had never been able to bring herself to pat it and play with it as Jack did.
Maybe it was because she hadn’t had any familiarity with dogs during her upbringing. Which reminded her… “How come you never told me about your childhood, Jack?”
He shrugged. “No joy in recalling misery, Nina.”
It was a fair answer. She hadn’t detailed her childhood to him, either, only telling him her parents had divorced and she’d lived with her grandmother until she’d come to Sydney to go to design school. Since her family—if you could call it that—lived hundreds of kilometres away at Port Macquarie, the question of visiting them had been easily put aside.
Besides, with his own parents dead, Jack was not family minded. He’d never pressed her on the subject, accepting her independence as naturally as he took his own for granted. There had been no reason to tell him she had been an unwanted burden to everyone. It didn’t do much for her self-esteem. Jack had accepted her as the person she was—no concern about her background—and that was how she liked it.
“Did you have a dog when you were a boy?” she asked, switching to her earlier thought.
“No. My parents wouldn’t allow it. Too much trouble.” He flashed her a wry smile. “I was too much trouble, let alone a dog.”
So he’d been a burden, too, though not an unwanted one.
“Where I went to school, the caretaker had a dog. He let me play with it,” Jack added in fond reminiscence. “Honey. That was her name. A Labrador. One year she had nine pups. I would have given anything for one of those pups.”
Nina smothered a sigh. Jack was not about to be separated from Spike. Another problem. How could she let that ferocious dog anywhere near Charlotte? There were too many horror stories about dogs mauling children for Nina to even contemplate taking a chance with it.
They were out of the tunnel and heading up the Warringah Freeway. Jack would normally take the Willoughby Road turn-off to go to his home at Roseville Chase. He had a lovely place, Nina reflected, overlooking Echo Point and Middle Harbour. He’d turned the triple garage into his main work area, but he did the finishing in the rumpus room. It was an ideal set-up for Jack, but a child would certainly put a spoke in it.
They passed the turn-off and zoomed along to the Gore Hill Freeway. Nina steeled herself to spell out the situation as she saw it. Jack had to understand that giving an off-the-cuff commitment was not enough for her. She needed some very solid follow-up before she could even think of getting herself deeply entangled with him. She was about to open her mouth when he spoke first.
“Every kid should have a dog,” he declared, nodding over the idea. He looked to her for approval. “Maybe a little one to begin with. I’ve heard that miniature fox terriers make great pets.”
Miniature sounded good. “I think there’s a few other things to settle first,” she warned, and they weren’t in the miniature category, either. Jack was leaping ahead with apparently blind disregard of the adjustments he’d have to make to his lifestyle.
“Sure,” he agreed blithely. “I won’t rush you, Nina. Sally reckoned it would take at least six weeks to organise a dream wedding. I wouldn’t do you out of a dream.”
Her mind freaked out. “Jack!” She looked at him in horror. “I don’t believe in shotgun marriages.”
He frowned at her. “No-one’s pointing a gun at my head, Nina.”
“You wouldn’t have thought of marriage except for the baby,” she said accusingly.
“That’s not true. I was going to ask you to live with me the very night we had that damned argument. Same thing.”
“It’s not the same thing at all!”
“It is for me.” His green eyes flashed intense conviction. “You’re the only woman I’ve ever wanted to live with, Nina.”
“You’re forgetting something, aren’t you?” she asked angrily. “I come with a child.”
“It’s because I’m taking our kid into consideration that I think marriage is a better idea,” he answered with controlled patience. “Kids like to feel secure with their mum and dad.”
“That’s all very well in theory,” Nina retorted fiercely. “It doesn’t work out so neatly in practice. More than one in every three marriages ends in divorce. Where are the kids then?”
He sighed and slanted her a sympathetic look. “I know you’re speaking from your own personal experience, Nina. It must have hurt a lot when your parents divorced…”
No, it didn’t. The hurt came long before the divorce.
“But that’s no reason not to give us a chance,” he went on. “We’re different people.”
“I wouldn’t be with you now if I wasn’t prepared to give it a chance, Jack,” she said tightly. “But will you please stop assuming I’m ready to commit myself and Charlotte to you? I’m not.”
Silence.
Nina could feel Jack brooding, searching for ways and means around her doubts and fears. It set her nerves on edge. She didn’t want pressure. She couldn’t cope with it right now. While life didn’t hang out guarantees for anything, trust did require time to build.
It came as a shock when Jack pulled the Range Rover over to the kerb outside Sally’s house and cut the engine. Nina had lost track of where they were. Home! Her heart fluttered in agitation. She hoped Jack wasn’t going to be difficult, wanting more than she could give.
He released his seat belt and turned to her, reaching out to gently cup her cheek and capture her attention. “Nina…” His eyes glowed with commanding intensity, and his voice was furred with deep emotion. “I love you. I don’t say that lightly. Let me show you….”
He leaned over. Before she could even think of stopping him, his mouth claimed hers with a seductive, tender yearning t
hat melted any resistance she might have mustered if it had been a storming kiss. It was so gentle, so sweet, a sensitive tasting, begging a response, not trying to force one.
She ached for more, the emptiness of all the lonely months without him surging into a desperate need to be filled, to have doubts and fears obliterated by a flood of love so overwhelming it could carry everything in its stride. Her lips moved instinctively, encouraging, inviting, hungry for what he was offering, blindly seeking the reassurance of the passion she had known with him.
She lifted her hand to his chest, loving the warmth and strength she could feel through the light fabric of his shirt, the exciting thud of his heart, beating hard and fast with his need for her. It was the same as before.
Intoxicated by the wonderful familiarity of touching him again, Nina slid her hand over the smooth roundness of his shoulder, up the strong column of his neck and tunnelled her fingers through the thick springiness of his hair, exulting in the tactile reality of what had become only a haunting dream.
Jack…his mouth filling hers with enthralling sensation, feasting on her eager response, drawing on the desire that had always exploded between them. It flowed now, a torrent of wanting that craved fulfilment. Her body trembled with the force of it, weakness draining through her legs, ripples of arousal spreading to her stomach, her breasts straining to be caressed and held.
Slowly, reluctantly, Jack leashed the power of the passion they shared, leaving her still pulsing with sensation as he drew back, breathing roughly yet stroking her cheek and lips with feather-light fingertips. She dizzily opened her eyes, breathless, wavering between a protest at his parting from her and a plea for what had started to be finished.
He looked anguished. “I could have been with you all this time….”
She didn’t want to look back. She wanted…
“I would have been, Nina, if only you’d told me.”
Was that true? Had she robbed them of what should have been? This magic that was theirs?
His eyes swore it was so. “I wouldn’t have let anything get in the way of what we have together.”
