His mouth twisted in a bitter smile. ‘I failed the psych test. Didn’t have the vital mix of aggression and cockiness. I’d seen too much of that in my old man, and I couldn’t pump my ego to the level they needed.’
This made perfect sense to Lizzie. Of course, Jack didn’t have a killer instinct. Even so, she could feel the pain of his youthful disappointment, and her heart ached for him.
‘But if you went to the city now, what would you do?’
‘I have a few ideas. Business plans.’
Lizzie found herself entranced by this idea. ‘Bill told me you’ve a great head for business. He said you do amazing calculations in your head, and you have a nose for the stock market.’
Jack frowned. ‘When were you talking to Bill?’
‘While we were working together in the kitchen.’
He shrugged. ‘I’ve looked after my finances and I’ve made some successful investments. I don’t want to make the same mistakes my old man made.’
She almost allowed herself to be swept away by the thought of Jack in the city, by her side, running his own business, and helping her to bring up her child. It seemed perfect. Too good to be true.
It was too good to be true.
Too soon the bubble burst, and Lizzie could see the real picture—the inevitable journalists swarming around them. The headlines about Jack, the photos, the questions.
Are you the reason Senator Green went into hiding? How do you feel about her sperm-donor baby? How old are you, Jack? Who do you vote for? Why aren’t you the baby’s father? Are you sterile?
Oh, heavens. She couldn’t put him through that. It would be horrendous. He’d hate it. It couldn’t work. She couldn’t believe he would be happy.
And how could she take such a risk with her own happiness?
Twice before she’d fallen deeply in love—and she’d promised herself that she wouldn’t line up for an agonising third bout of heartache. Not now, not with her baby coming.
She had to break up with Jack. Now. Cleanly and quickly. Not like the cowards, Mitch and Toby, who’d been too scared to face her. Their spinelessness had hurt her even more than losing them.
Straightening her shoulders, Lizzie turned to Jack, and her heart hurt as if it held splinters of glass. ‘You know it can’t work for us, Jack. I’ve told you why I settled on a sperm-donor baby, why I plan to live as a single mother.’
A muscle twitched in his jaw. ‘Because you won’t risk getting involved again.’
‘Yes, that’s part of my reason.’ If only he didn’t look so unhappy. ‘But this isn’t just about me. I’m trying to think about your happiness, too. You’re a fabulous catch for any woman—any young woman, that is—and there must be oodles of girls, closer to your age, who’d snap you up in a heartbeat.’
Her brave admission was greeted by silence and she was left to stare, through a blur of tears, at the long, never-ending stretch of flat plains and the cloudless blue dome of the sky overhead. She knew the age difference was a poor excuse. Jack had a natural maturity that set him head and shoulders above men much older than him.
Hoping Jack couldn’t see, she lifted her hand to dash the tears away. Then she heard his voice.
‘Just think about one thing, Lizzie. Ask yourself if you were making love.’ He spoke quietly and coldly, so unlike himself. ‘Or were you just having meaningless sex?’
Without waiting for her response, he stood and began to stamp out the embers of their fire.
As they drove back to the homestead their chilled silence filled the ute’s cabin. Lizzie wished she could think of something helpful to say. She wondered if she should offer to leave Savannah immediately, and she was shocked by how wretched that possibility made her feel.
When at last they drove through Savannah’s gates she turned to Jack. ‘Thanks for showing me the gorge.’
‘My pleasure,’ he said in his driest tone.
‘About next week, Jack, when I go to the doctor, I’d be happy to drive into—’
Her words were cut off as he slammed on the brakes.
‘You’re not going to drive into Gidgee Springs. I won’t allow it.’
‘But it’s a sealed road.’
‘Lizzie, for crying out loud.’ His hand thumped the steering wheel. ‘It’s over a hundred kilometres of bush, and there are no shops, no garages. No nice policeman to come to your rescue if you have a flat tyre. You’ll be stranded.’
She knew that his anger was fuelled as much by their break-up as his concern for her driving safety. It was scary to know she’d pushed easy-going, sanguine Jack to the limits of his self-control.
‘I’ll take you in,’ he said stiffly.
‘Thank you,’ she said, suitably chastened. ‘That’s very kind.’
Outwardly as calm as the quiet, copper-tinted afternoon, Jack stood at the horse-paddock fence, elbows on the weathered timber rail, while he inwardly wrestled with Lizzie’s low blow.
He’d been through the gamut of emotions today. First he’d been angry at the way he’d stuffed up, rushing everything—the kiss, the conversation, the whole catastrophe. Hell, Lizzie had gone to the gorge expecting a pleasant diversion from her work. Instead, he’d put the hard word on her.
He hadn’t told her nearly enough of the things he’d meant to say, about how important she was to him, how she made him feel, how special she was, the hundred reasons he was mad about her.
He’d returned, sunk in disappointment and despair. But now, at last, he was beginning to feel calmer, and he knew he wasn’t going to throw in the towel. Not yet. There was no point in simply giving up, the way he had when he was a kid after he’d lost his career dreams.
No doubt Lizzie was expecting him to take her rejection sweetly on the chin and walk away without a fight. Laid-back Jack, easy to like, easy to let go.
Not so, sweetheart.
The woman had no idea how much he wanted her. Or why.
Truth to tell, Jack had asked himself that question many times this afternoon, running again through the list of negatives Lizzie had rattled off.
Why her? Why a politician? Why a forty-year-old? Why a woman who was pregnant with another man’s child?
The more he thought about it, the more he was certain of his answers. To start with, he knew for sure that the overwhelming feelings he had for Lizzie weren’t merely about her superb good looks. Lizzie was different, unique. Special. If she were eighteen or fifty, she would still be the woman he wanted.
Little things made him wild about her. The way she could turn to look at him and smile, tilting the left-hand side of her mouth more than the right. And then there was the gliding way she walked, and the way she carried herself like a proud princess, with her head high, shoulders back.
Lizzie had presence. She was smart. He totally understood why her political party had grabbed her. She was one classy woman.
But the biggest thing, damn it, the overwhelming reason Jack couldn’t let Lizzie go was the dazzling chemistry between them. He’d sooner lose an arm than let that die.
Not that he had a clue how to win her back.
Only one thing was certain. It wasn’t going to happen until she realised that she needed him. She did need him. Jack was sure of that—and Lizzie was too clever to overlook the truth—but it meant he had no choice but to be patient.
Sadly, patience was not his strongest virtue.
Over the next few days, Lizzie found Jack to be polite and friendly and distant, a perfect gentleman who treated her like a visiting lady senator. He respected her privacy, he ensured she had every creature comfort, and, in response to her questions, he courteously provided any amount of general information about the running of a cattle property.
She hated every minute of it.
She wanted the old Jack, the cheeky, cheerful Jack. Most of all, she wanted to see that intriguing, devilish sparkle in his eyes.
It was very alarming to discover that she was utterly two-faced. She’d told Jack flatly that their affair wa
s over, and then, immediately, she was dying for it to resume. Her integrity seemed to have deserted her.
The worst of it was that, instead of feeling calm and relieved, she was more distracted than ever, unable to concentrate on her work, or her reading. Most nights, she reached for her book about single mothers and their babies, in the hope that it might clear her mind of Jack.
By the light of her reading lamp, she looked again at the photographs of women who’d become single mothers by choice. Giving birth, bathing babies, breastfeeding, cheering their babies on as they learned to crawl, or to place one block precariously on top of another.
Each charming photo was glowing evidence that a mother and her baby could be perfectly happy and a complete unit. Alone. Just the two of them, the way she’d planned when she’d first embarked on her pregnancy project.
The photos were supposed to help, but each night when Lizzie turned out the light and tried to sleep the only picture in her head was Jack.
She was beginning to think she had no choice but to leave Savannah sooner than planned—thank Kate kindly, but admit that the experiment hadn’t worked—then return south, to face the music.
Alone.
On the morning of the doctor’s appointment, Lizzie woke up feeling quite butterflies-in-her-stomach nervous.
Jack was taking her to town in Savannah’s best vehicle, an air-conditioned four-wheel drive, and he had it waiting at the bottom of the front steps, promptly as she’d requested, just before nine o’clock.
When she came down the steps he strode around the front of the car, opened the passenger door, and greeted her with a frown. ‘First time I’ve seen you in a dress.’
‘I thought I’d better make an effort seeing as I’m going to town.’
‘Gidgee Springs is not exactly Queen Street.’
‘I’m not overdressed, am I?’
The look in Jack’s eyes brought a lump to her throat. ‘You’re perfect.’
They drove out along the track that wound across the paddocks, stopping to open and close gates—Lizzie was now an expert—then onto a long, flat blue ribbon of bitumen.
‘By the way, I’ve decided I want to find out,’ she said.
His eyebrows rose. ‘Whether Madeline’s a boy or a girl?’
‘Yes. After all, I’m having a very twenty-first-century pregnancy, and it makes sense to take advantage of all available information.’
He nodded. ‘It’s a red-letter day, then.’
‘Yes, I’m pretty excited.’ And nervous. She wouldn’t tell him that. ‘What will you do while I’m at the doctor’s?’
‘Oh—’ He shrugged elaborately. ‘I’ll be busy. There’s always plenty of business to see to when I’m in town.’ He shot her a sharp glance. ‘Unless you’d like someone there. For support.’
Her heart did a weird little jig at the thought of Jack sharing such a momentous experience, but she couldn’t use him like that. For days she’d been feeling ashamed that she’d been the one to initiate their lovemaking. Jack was right to have asked about her motives. Looking back, it seemed terribly selfish. She couldn’t lean on him any more.
‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘That’s a very kind offer, but I’ll be all right.’
The visiting doctor from Charters Towers smiled at Lizzie. ‘Now, if you’ll just hop up onto this table, we’ll check your baby’s progress with the ultrasound.’
So this was it. The moment of truth. As Lizzie tried to make herself comfortable on the hard narrow bench she felt flutters of panic, and she wished that Jack were there beside her.
He’d been doggedly cheerful and perfunctory when he’d dropped her off at the doctor’s surgery, saying that he’d be back in half an hour. While she was here, having her scan, he would be dashing around Gidgee Springs on business—calling at the saddler’s, at the hardware store, at the bank, and the stock and station agency.
Once Lizzie was finished with the doctor, she was to join Jack at the Currawong café to try their famous hamburgers before they headed back to Savannah.
Their plan had all sounded exceedingly straightforward and sensible. Until now.
Now, on the very brink of discovering her baby’s sex, the moment felt suddenly too big to experience on her own. Which was pretty silly considering there’d been no one besides the doctor when she’d been artificially inseminated, or when she’d been told she was pregnant.
She tried to cheer herself up by imagining Jack’s reaction when she told him about the baby at lunchtime.
‘All set?’ the doctor enquired.
Lizzie nodded, and concentrated on slow, calming breaths as he applied cold gel to her abdomen. She’d never liked medical procedures, and she could never make sense of the black and white shapes on the ultrasound screen, so she closed her eyes, letting the doctor do his job, while she tried to relax.
Think yoga. You’re drifting on a cloud…
She felt the probe sliding over her skin, and she remembered the dream she’d had about her baby—a perfect tiny girl curled inside her. The dream had been so very reassuring. All was well. She clung to the memory now.
The probe moved on, stopping every so often while the machine made clicks and beeping sounds.
‘Well, well,’ said the doctor suddenly.
Lizzie’s eyes flashed open. She saw the surprise in the doctor’s eyes and her relaxation evaporated. ‘What is it? Is something wrong?’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
JACK chose a booth near the window in the Currawong café, so that he had a clear view across the street to the doctor’s surgery. He couldn’t believe how nervous he was, how much he cared about Lizzie and this baby of hers.
When the surgery door opened and Lizzie appeared, his heart gave a painful thud.
She looked beautiful, dressed for town in a sleeveless, aqua-blue dress, bare-legged and wearing sandals of woven brown and gold leather. His eyes feasted on her as she crossed the street, hips swaying seductively. She’d left her hair down for once, and it flowed about her shoulders as she moved, shining in the sunlight, dark as a raven’s wing.
She reached the footpath and looked towards the café, and that was when Jack saw that her face was too pale and her eyes were glazed with shock.
Instantly, he was on his feet, his chair scraping the tiles, his heart knocking against the wall of his chest.
The doctor had given her bad news. There could be no other explanation. A rock the size of a tennis ball lodged in his throat. His fists curled tightly as he steeled himself to be strong. For Lizzie’s sake.
He loved her.
As he watched her come through the café doorway he could no longer avoid the truth. If Lizzie had bad news, it was his bad news. He would do anything for her, would go anywhere in the world, work at whatever he could find, take on whatever role she wanted.
To his eternal shame, he also felt a glimmer of hope. Surely now she must know that she needed him.
Lizzie’s mind was still reeling as she entered the café. She saw Jack standing at the table by the window, saw him wave and smile, and he looked so handsome and familiar and dear she could have kissed him.
She might have kissed him if the group of countrywomen at a nearby table hadn’t all stopped talking and turned to stare at her. Lizzie gave them a nod and a scant smile, and she could feel their eyes following her as she made her way to Jack.
‘You look as if you need to sit down,’ he said, solicitously pulling out a chair for her.
‘Thank you.’
Her shoulder brushed his arm as she sat, and she caught a comforting whiff of his familiar scent and his laundered shirt. He resumed his seat and looked at her with a complicated expression of tenderness and concern.
Tears threatened. Lizzie took a deep breath and willed them away.
Jack had ordered a pot of tea but it sat, untouched, between them along with the requisite cups and saucers, small milk jug, sugar bowl and tea strainer.
‘How did it go?’ he asked. ‘Are you OK?’
Was she? She felt strangely numb. It was the shock, she supposed. ‘It didn’t go quite as I expected.’
Jack swallowed. ‘Is there something wrong?’ He repeated his first question. ‘Are you OK?’
‘Yes. I’m fine. Fit as a healthy horse.’
Lizzie sent a hasty glance over her shoulder and caught several women at the other table watching her from behind their teacups.
Leaning across the table to Jack, she lowered her voice. ‘But I’m afraid there’s not going to be any Madeline.’
‘What’s happened?’ he whispered, and he looked understandably worried. ‘You’re still pregnant, aren’t you?’
‘Oh, yes. I’m most definitely pregnant.’ It was hard to talk about this in whispers.
After a puzzled moment, Jack said, ‘Does that mean you’re having a boy?’
Lizzie nodded. ‘But not just one boy.’
For a moment he simply stared at her, and then his brow cleared and his face broke into an incredulous grin. ‘Twins?’
A nervous laugh escaped her. ‘Twin boys. Can you believe it?’
The café fell silent. Too silent, Lizzie realised. Had she raised her voice?
‘That’s fabulous, Lizzie.’ Reaching across the table, Jack gripped her hand. ‘But I think we should find somewhere else to have this conversation, don’t you?’
‘Yes, please.’
‘I’ve ordered our hamburgers. I’ll tell them we want to take them away and we can find somewhere for a picnic.’
‘Good idea.’
Avoiding the curious glances of the other customers, Lizzie went to the counter with Jack, where he paid for their tea and burgers and bought two bottles of lemon mineral water. Then they left quickly, escaping into the dusty, almost empty main street of Gidgee Springs.
Outside, Jack turned to her, grinning madly, clearly excited. ‘Twin boys. Wow! That’s amazing. Congratulations.’ He gave her a one-armed hug. ‘Aren’t you pleased?’
‘I don’t know.’ It was all Lizzie could honestly say. She still couldn’t quite believe she was having twin boys. Two big, bouncing boys, the doctor had said. She knew she should be pleased. In time she was sure she’d be pleased, but she’d had her heart set on one manageable little girl.
Executive: Expecting Tiny Twins Page 14
