Maggie wasn’t to know that anything had changed between them so all he had to do was pretend things were normal and they would be again. Hopefully very soon.
He could do this.
No sweat.
CHAPTER FOUR
‘HE’S GOING TO make a great dad, one day, isn’t he?’
For a moment, Maggie couldn’t think of anything to say in response to Laura’s comment, so she turned her head to see what had prompted it.
Harrison was a little way away from where she and Laura were unpacking the barbecue supplies onto one of the picnic tables at this beach, watching Joe set up his windsurfing board and sail.
‘What’s that?’ she heard Harrison ask.
‘It’s called an up-haul. It’s a rope for pulling the sail up out of the water.’
‘And what’s that?’
‘That’s called a dagger board. It’s like a big fin. If I pull on this lever here, it makes the board go down, see?’
‘Why?’
‘You can use it to stop the board being so wobbly sometimes. To stabilise it.’
‘Can I try?’
‘To pull the lever? Sure.’
‘No...’ Harrison looked up at Joe. ‘Can I try in the water—like Jack’s going to do?’
‘Sorry, buddy...you’d need a wetsuit in this cold water. And you’re a bit little to try windsurfing just yet. The sail’s quite heavy to pull up.’
Jack was zipping up the back of his wetsuit as he joined Joe and Harrison. ‘I don’t know if I’m going to be able to do it, Harry,’ he said. ‘This is the first time I’ve ever tried windsurfing. You just wait. I bet I fall into the water with a big splash.’
Harrison laughed and Joe ruffled his hair, which made the small boy duck his head shyly. ‘You can help me,’ he told Harry. ‘I’m going to stand here and tell Jack what to do. You can watch and tell me if you think he’s doing a good job, okay?’
‘Okay.’ Harrison’s nod was solemn. He was going to take this responsibility seriously.
Maggie was smiling as she turned back to Laura. ‘He’s so cute.’
‘Which one? Jack, Joe or Harry?’
‘Harry, of course.’
‘Yeah...’ Laura’s smile was misty. ‘He is pretty cute, isn’t he?’
She seemed to have forgotten the comment she’d made about Joe’s future as a father and Maggie certainly wasn’t going to remind her. She’d never reveal the private information that Joe had shared with her about not wanting to be a husband or father and she would never, ever break that confidence and tell anyone about why he felt like that. It felt good to know that he’d trusted her enough to tell her and even better that she could protect his privacy. Their friendship was back on track. Better than ever, even, judging by the last few shifts they had worked together.
‘It’s a treat to get out like this to a beach,’ Laura added. ‘How often do we get a day like this on a weekend?’
‘About as often as we all get a day off at the same time.’
‘I know, right? When Jack said that Joe was going to give him a windsurfing lesson, I knew we had to gatecrash the party. That’s why I offered to do the barbecue.’
‘And I wasn’t going to miss out on the fun.’ Maggie nodded. She lifted the lid of a cooler. ‘Did we remember to put bacon in here? It’s not a proper barbecue without bacon.’
‘We’ve got hamburgers, bacon and some steak. There’s wine and beer in the other cooler. Ooh...why don’t we take a break and have a glass of wine while we watch the boys?’
‘Sounds like a plan.’
By the time Joe had shown Jack how to carry the board and sail into water that was deep enough for him to try getting on, Laura and Maggie were set up on the sand, sipping their drinks and waiting for the entertainment.
‘Okay, Jack...’ Joe called. ‘Make sure the dagger board is down and that you’re standing in line with the sail on the other side with the wind at your back.’
‘Yep. All good,’ Jack called back.
‘Now put your hands on the centre line, shoulder-width apart and climb onto the board.’
‘He’s making it wobble,’ Harrison said.
‘He is,’ Joe agreed. ‘Stay on your knees, Jack. And hold onto the up-haul before you try standing up.’
‘Doesn’t look that easy,’ Laura said to Maggie.
‘No... Uh-oh...’
Trying to lift the sail, Jack was leaning too far back. He lost his balance and crashed back into the water with a huge splash that make Harrison shriek with laughter. Laura’s chuckle was an echo of her son’s enjoyment.
‘It’s so good to see him out like this. He used to be so scared of men.’
‘I know. I remember when Jack moved in with us and Harry burst into tears every time he came into the room.’
‘He never had a problem with Cooper, though, which surprised me because Cooper’s so big.’
‘He likes Joe now, too.’ Maggie was looking at the backs of the two figures in front of them. Tall Joe and short Harry. Their postures were almost identical, standing there with their feet apart and their arms folded. It gave her a beat of something rather poignant because it looked as though they could be a father and son. Because Laura had been right in that Joe would make a great father. He was always so kind and gentle in dealing with children but he could be firm if he needed to be—to keep them safe or provide essential medical treatment.
It was completely a personal choice whether or not to be a parent but it was sad to think that no child would get to have Joe as a father. And that he might miss out on learning that a family could be so much better than the one he’d experienced as a child himself.
‘We’re lucky,’ Laura said. ‘It was the best decision I ever made to move into a big house and find people to share it with rather than to stay by myself with Harry in that small apartment. He’d never have had any male role models if I’d done that.’
That was probably true, Maggie thought. She’d never known Laura to show the slightest interest in dating anybody and she never talked about Harrison’s father.
‘It can’t be easy, being a single mum.’
‘No.’ Laura took another sip of her wine. ‘But it’s much better than being in a bad situation with a partner.’
Maggie made a sympathetic sound. She’d always had the impression that Laura had escaped from an abusive relationship but she’d never tried asking questions that her flatmate might not want to answer. Given her own recent thoughts about choosing to be a single mother, though, she was curious.
‘How old was Harry when you split up with his father?’
‘About three months. Just when I was due to go back to work after maternity leave.’
‘Oh, no...what did you do?’
‘What could I do? I just did my best and got on with it. I’d already arranged childcare so that I could go back to work.’
‘So you were working all day and then looking after a tiny baby by yourself all night...’
‘It wasn’t easy,’ Laura agreed. ‘Leaving him in day care when he was so little was the hardest thing I’d ever done but we muddled through somehow. And life’s good now. I love my job and Harry’s happy. What more could I want?’
Again, Maggie responded with no more than a sound of agreement. She was answering that question silently, however. Maybe Laura could want a partner to share the parenting. Or to make part of her life about herself as someone special and not about her being a mother or a nurse. Even with a child as company constantly out of work hours and adult flatmates around a lot of the time, there had to be moments when Laura felt lonely or that there was something missing in her life.
The way Maggie did at weddings?
Or when she was holding other people’s babies?
How much worse could that be, though, if she was struggling to hold down
her job and look after a baby alone, the way Laura had done?
‘I don’t think I could do it,’ she murmured aloud.
‘What—windsurfing?’ Laura was watching Jack again.
‘Keep your hands on the boom,’ Joe was telling him. ‘You lean the sail towards the back of the board to turn into the wind and to the nose of the board to turn away from the wind.’
‘He’s wobbling again,’ Harrison shouted.
‘He’s okay. Look at that. Well done, Jack...’
‘You could do that with your hands tied behind your back,’ Laura told Maggie. ‘You can ride a motorbike, for heaven’s sake. And dangle out of helicopters when you need to. You could do anything you put your mind to.’
‘I was talking about being a single mother. I was actually thinking of trying it, seeing as I can’t seem to find anyone remotely suitable to partner up with.’
‘Really?’ Laura sounded shocked. ‘How was that going to work? Get pregnant and not let the guy know?’
‘No, I’d never do that. But you know...there are sperm banks available.’
Laura shook her head. ‘Don’t rush into anything. I mean... I love Harry to bits and I wouldn’t be without him but it’s not what I would have deliberately chosen for my life. No way... You’ve still got lots of time to find someone.’
The sound Maggie made this time was less than convinced.
‘It does happen. Look at Cooper and Fizz.’
‘They’re due back from their honeymoon soon, aren’t they?’
‘Next week. I’m looking forward to having Fizz back working in Emergency.’ Laura scrambled to her feet. ‘Looks like Jack’s had enough of his first lesson. Might be time to get that barbecue started.’
But Maggie stayed where she was for the moment. Joe had taken the board from Jack and was heading further out to sea, making it look easy as he manoeuvred the sail to catch the wind and began to pick up speed.
Jack and Harrison came past where Maggie was sitting on the sand.
‘That’s a lot harder than it looks,’ he told her. ‘The way my shoulders feel right now, I might have trouble lifting a beer.’
‘You wobbled a lot,’ Harrison agreed. ‘But Joe said you did a good job.’ He skipped ahead of Jack. ‘Mum? I’m starving...’
Maggie was still watching Joe, who was skimming across the relatively flat water at an impressive speed now. He was making the board jump from the surface, catching a short ride in the air before landing again and doing turns that changed his direction so swiftly and smoothly it looked like a kind of dance. She knew how much muscle strength that would take. Like other forms of dancing, being able to make it look that effortless and elegant actually took enormous strength and skill.
And that made Maggie remember all the dancing they’d done at Cooper and Fizz’s wedding and how much fun it had been. She could almost feel his arms around her and the strength she had felt in his muscles as he’d lifted her feet off the ground and spun her around. And then, somehow, her memories and what she was watching right now and even that conversation with Laura somehow coalesced in Maggie’s brain, and she was simultaneously thinking about Joe not wanting to be a father and what he’d looked like standing beside Harrison and about his muscles and his arms around her and even the disappointment of knowing that he would never agree to be a sperm donor crept into the mix, and the alchemy of it all became very weird.
Because Maggie suddenly thought about what might have happened if Joe had been open to the idea of fathering a baby for her and how they might have achieved her goal. For the first time ever, she was thinking of Joe...and sex...and it was doing something very peculiar deep inside her body. She knew what that spear of sensation was all about, too.
Physical attraction.
Pure, unadulterated lust, that’s what it was.
Her body liked the idea of having sex with Joe. A lot. So much so that Maggie could feel the flush of colour heating her cheeks and she had to scramble to her feet and turn her back on Joe before he carried his board and sail from the water and got close enough to see what might be a very odd expression on her face.
She had to get her head straight and make sure she never tapped into that line of thought again. Not that it had anything to do with any plan of becoming a single mother that had been fading away even before she’d taken Laura’s warning on board. No...it was bad enough feeling any kind of attraction to a good friend. Not only a good friend but the person she loved working with so much. The other half of the ‘dream team’.
If Joe knew that she had entertained any thoughts of sexual attraction to him, he’d either be horrified and back off to a safe space or he might be curious enough to make something happen. Either way, it would not only change and potentially destroy the friendship they had, it could do exactly the same thing to their working relationship.
No matter how good that sex would probably be, it wouldn’t be worth it. Maggie was going to make absolutely sure that nobody knew what she’d been thinking. She wasn’t even going to allow herself to think about it again.
Ever...
* * *
Thoughts could be like unwanted seeds. Weeds that insisted on growing no matter how diligently you tried to pull them out.
Despite Joe’s best efforts, it was proving impossible to stop having inappropriate thoughts about Maggie. Even in a moment like this, when he should have been revelling in what was a different kind of adventure at work. Getting a callout to assist the coastguard in responding to a medical event on a ship was the kind of variety that made their job so exciting and Maggie was clearly loving every minute of this wild ride out to the entrance of Wellington Harbour. Daylight was fading and the winds were strong enough to have made the prospect of winching a paramedic onto a boat too dangerous so here they were cresting huge swells and crashing into troughs in this powerful and well-equipped rescue vessel. Maggie was small and light enough to be bounced right out of her seat and she was hanging on tightly as a splash of spray caught her face, but she was laughing as she shook the sea water from her skin.
And, okay, the rigid-hulled inflatable boat was unsinkable with the fat air cushions surrounding it but most people would be terrified by being thrown around in waves this big. Nothing really scared Maggie, did it? Or, if it did, she kept it well hidden.
Who knew how sexy that kind of courage in a woman could be?
Just how physically attractive his colleague was had been right under his nose for so long but it was only now that the genie had been released from the bottle that it was becoming apparent that there had been a lot of other stuff bottled up as well.
Like the way Maggie looked when she was in her leather gear for riding her bike.
Or the way she’d looked on the beach that night, when they had been toasting marshmallows on a driftwood fire after he’d given Jack his first windsurfing lesson. The way her face had glowed in the firelight. The sound of her laughter. Although focussing on Maggie had perhaps been a way to distract himself from the poignant feeling of loss that having Harrison standing beside him and ‘helping’ as he’d watched Jack’s progress. He’d felt an odd bond with the little boy who didn’t have a father around but at least Laura would never make Harry feel like he’d ruined her life. He was clearly the centre of his mother’s universe and deeply loved. A little boy as lucky as all children deserved to be.
‘Whoa...’
They hit the bottom of the next swell with a thump that sent Maggie toppling sideways. Both Joe and one of the coastguard crew reached to help her catch her balance but Joe got there first. For a moment, as he helped her upright, his face was within inches of hers.
‘You okay?’
‘I’m good.’ Maggie was smiling and nodding but then her gaze caught Joe’s as she settled back into her seat and he saw the flare of...something...
Oh, no... Had she guessed what had just gone through
his head? When their faces had been so close? That they had been almost close enough to kiss...?
He knew exactly how horrified she would be if that was the case. He could still hear the echoes of that conversation they’d had at Cooper and Fizz’s wedding about what Maggie thought the ‘real thing’ was all about and he’d said that he and Maggie were friends but it would never be anything more than that and Maggie’s response had been vehement.
God, no...because there’s no chemistry.
What he was feeling right now felt a lot like rather powerful chemistry but he knew it was one-sided.
He had to try harder, that was all there was to it.
* * *
Good grief...
Had she really thought that she could simply order herself to stop thinking about something and have it magically disappear from her head?
Ever since that trip to the beach, Maggie had found it impossible to stop those inappropriate thoughts about Joe from sneaking into her head. Or sometimes into her body before her head. Like the way they just had when she’d felt his hands grabbing onto her body to stop her falling. Catching his gaze had been a big mistake because that had only made it worse. Hazel brown eyes had always been her favourite colour so how come she’d never noticed that Joe had eyes that looked like there was sunshine making the brown so golden and warm.
It had felt like it took far too much time to drag her gaze clear of his and, for a horrible micro-second, Maggie wondered if he’d guessed what she’d been feeling and thinking. She clung onto the handles on the edge of her seat even more tightly as they rode the next swell. Falling into Joe’s arms again would not be a good idea.
Catching his gaze like that again was a no-no, too. Imagine if he knew what she was thinking? He’d spelled out his lack of interest in anything more than friendship the night they’d been talking at the wedding when he’d said that they would never be more than friends. And she’d been so quick and definite in her agreement, hadn’t she?
Pregnant with Her Best Friend's Baby Page 6
