by Lindy Dale
“I gather this is Alice’s baby we’re talking about. Does he have a fever?”
I looked at Ethan.
“Feel his forehead, Olivia.”
Wow, could Cole see through the phone or what? I put my palm to the baby’s forehead. “It’s warm but normal warm.”
“Well, that’s a good sign. But I’d best come over to be on the safe side. See you in five minutes.”
“I don’t know how to thank you for this.” An audible sigh of relief escaped my lips. Not that Cole would have heard it over the wailing of the baby.
“I’m sure you’ll think of something.” He chuckled.
*****
Thirty minutes later, Cole and I were sitting on the couch in the living room, a very drowsy Ethan cuddled in Cole’s large arms. The fingers of one tiny hand played at the fabric of Cole’s shirt as Ethan’s eyelids grew heavier and heavier. His other hand held a cooled teething ring, which he was sucking on furiously. Nobody would have believed it was the same child who’d been howling the place down half an hour before. He looked like a happy little angel, positively cherubic.
“I can’t believe you fixed him,” I whispered. “I thought I was going to have to take him to the hospital. I could kiss you Cole.”
Cole’s eyes twinkled. “I might let you do that a bit later. After we get this little one into bed.”
Cole’s arrival had been like a visit from the male version of Supernanny. Scooping the crying baby from my arms as I opened the front door, he’d stuck a finger in Ethan’s mouth identifying a number of small bumps on his gum.
“Teething,” he’d pronounced. There was something sexy about a man who took charge I’d thought, as he disappeared to the kitchen with me following along behind trying not to look utterly bewildered. Even the way he rifled through the contents of my fridge sent little shivers of excitement up my spine. Though it could have been because the freezer door was open. That always made me shiver. After a minute or so, Cole had produced a squishy blue ring, which he had given to the baby who stuck it in his mouth and begun to suck on it. The crying had ceased, enabling Cole to administer a dose of baby paracetamol, which he’d gotten from Mrs Tanner and somehow managed to clear with Alice on his way to my place.
I watched the entire episode with what must have been a look of stunned admiration on my face. “I wondered what that thing was. I thought it was some kind of toy.”
Cole had shaken his head in dismay.
Back in the lounge, Cole had rocked and cooed at Ethan until he settled. He was like a baby whisperer the way he’d done it. The only other male I’d seen behaving in such a paternal fashion was Jed and though I thought it was sweet when he did it, Cole’s fatherly touch definitely tugged at my heart strings. Images of babies, wedding dresses and big sandstone houses on the edge of town drifted into my head.
“I suppose we should get the little fella into bed before his parents get back. He must be knackered from the crying,” Cole said, after a bit.
“Um, yeah.”
I got up from the couch and led the way to the spare room where Cole settled Ethan for the night. The baby wasn’t the only one who was knackered. This parenting business was very exhausting. I switched off the light and left the door ajar in case Ethan stirred.
“Phew. I’m glad that’s over. I had no idea what I was doing before. Thanks again for helping.” I leant against the wall for a second, my ear tuned to the soft rhythmical sound of Ethan’s breathing.
Leaning forward, Cole pressed his body into mine. His arms wound around to cup my bottom and he gave me a cheeky grin that made a different sort of shiver run down my spine. “Anytime. Now, how about that kiss you owe me?”
*****
Alice and Jed arrived home to find Cole and I snuggled on the couch and the TV playing the second season of Game of Thrones. Naked women cavorted across the screen in front of us and on the coffee table, a bottle of red wine stood empty beside two bowls that had clearly held ice cream. I might not have been able to cook to save myself but I was a demon at making a banana split — and my new low fat version had met with Cole’s approval. So much so, he’d had two helpings.
“Well, isn’t this a cosy sight,” Alice remarked, flopping onto the opposite sofa and patting the space beside her for Jed who’d sat close. Very close, indeed.
I eyed the couple across the coffee table. Something was definitely up. Alice was smiling so hard her face had to be hurting and Jed looked like the proverbial cat who’d got the cream or a good seeing to, at least. I pushed myself upright. “Have you two made up?”
Linking her arm through Jed’s, Alice placed a tender kiss on her husband’s nose before answering. “Why didn’t you tell me I was acting like an idiot? Running about town in a trench coat and packing suitcases. It’s a wonder I wasn’t committed.”
I had been concerned for her sanity at one point. And I hadn’t been the only one. After Alice had been spotted lurking behind a stop sign wearing an Afro wig as a disguise — a remnant from a seventies costume party — there had been distressed murmurs in the shops up and down the main street. The fact that she’d taken to wearing ten centimetre heels and popping into the bank at random times of the day hadn’t helped either.
“Mrs Tanner was a little worried. The words ‘marital psychosis’ were being bandied around in the supermarket earlier today. She questioned whether or not you might require medication.”
“Great. I’ll never live it down, will I?”
“I’m pretty sure nobody noticed you skulking near the newsagent last week,” Cole said. “Not too sure about that wig the other day, though. You looked like Groucho Marx.” Clearly he was finding the whole episode very amusing.
“Or you were doing research for that Cheaters show,” I added.
“Okay. Enough taking the piss you two. I get the fact that I’ve behaved like a dick.”
“I’m gathering you’re in possession of a full set of facts now?” I asked.
Jed cuddled Alice closer. “It took a couple of slow dances before Al grasped the idea.”
“Jed’s been having ballroom dancing lessons as a surprise for our anniversary. The woman who rang the house was his instructor, Vicki, checking if she’d gotten her days mixed up because he was meant to be having a lesson and hadn’t arrived.”
“For real?”
Everyone in Merrifield knew Jed was as uncoordinated as polar bear on ice skates and how he truly abhorred dancing. It had been like car crash TV witnessing Alice and Jed’s first dance as a married couple. He’d shuffled and clomped his way around the dance floor, out of time with the music. He’d trodden on Alice’s gown and they’d both ended up sitting on Great Aunt Muriel’s knee. Alice had been so mortified she’d wanted to sink into the wedding cake. I’d been mortified for her.
“He’s been learning to waltz and we even did a salsa. Can you believe it? It’s like I have my own personal Channing Tatum.” Alice was obviously enamoured with the gesture and had completely forgotten that she wanted to fry Jed’s nether regions in a pan of hot oil.
“Uh, don’t think so, babe,” Jed replied. “It was a gift for you. Don’t expect me to get up and start any of that hip-hop stuff. The blokes at the cricket club would laugh their heads off.”
“I hope you captured it on video,” I said. “There’s a lot of people in this town who wouldn’t believe you know how to do anything more intricate than the Chicken Dance.”
“You think I’d let anyone forget this?” Jed replied. “I reckon I’ve earned enough brownie points to last me until at least the next decade and after the torture I’ve gone through, I wasn’t gonna to let it be forgotten in a hurry. I’ve got a copy preserved for posterity, or if Al decides to get into me about my lack of dancing or sensitivity in the future. Jim did the honours. He’s got this new mini recorder and he wanted to break it in before his holiday to Brazil.”
I hadn’t even known Jim was going to Brazil.
Alice turned to Cole. “How’s Ethan? Di
d the paracetamol do the trick?”
“As we suspected, it was teething. I sorted it though. He’s tucked up for the night. Sleeping like a baby, excuse the pun.”
“Thanks ever so much. I don’t know what we’d have done without you.”
I wanted to feel affronted that the babysitting rug had been pulled from under me but how could I? Cole was entitled to take the credit. I’d been as useful as flippers on an elephant. “Ah, excuse me. I helped. I held the bottle of medicine. In fact, now he’s sleeping, why don’t you two head off home and continue your romantic evening without him? You can pick him up first thing.”
Alice bit her lip. “You mean like a sleep over?”
“Exactly. A bit of alone time will be good for you. I’m sure I can cope for the rest of the evening. Besides, it’s nearly Sunday. I don’t have to work tomorrow.”
“Will you be involved in this sleep over Cole?”
Now there was a thought I hadn’t considered.
Cole rubbed his hand along my thigh. “I most definitely will. If Olivia makes me a bed on the couch, that is.”
Ha. As if I’d be doing that.
*****
“Tell me about Phoebe,” I said.
It was 3am. Neither Cole nor I had had a wink of sleep since Alice and Jed had collected Ethan earlier in the day. It was like time had stopped the moment we discovered we were allowed to like each other. I wasn’t tired. I was running on sex-filled adrenalin. And it was way better than cake. In fact, I hadn’t even thought about cake or slice or anything sweet for almost twenty-four hours. If Cole was the catalyst for that, he was a keeper.
“What was she like?” I asked again.
Cole cuddled me and I adjusted the covers around us, snuggling closer. His chest was smooth against my cheek. I liked the way his arm held me tight. I liked the way I could draw little circles around his bare chest and make him twitch. It made me feel very contented and rather like I was up to something naughty.
“Phoebe had the most amazing green eyes. From the minute she was born, her eyes were what people commented on most. Her eyes and her wit. She was intelligent too, very intelligent, though who knows where she got that from. Neither Jenny nor I are Rhodes Scholars. I did pretty well at school but I was lazy and I could never make up my mind what I wanted to be. I had half a dozen jobs before I fell into property development. Phoebe wasn’t like that. She wanted to be a doctor and help sick kids. She would have been too, if she hadn’t got sick. I don’t doubt it.”
“She sounds like a pretty cool little girl.”
“She was. She was also the most obnoxious kid on the planet. But not in that annoying spoilt sort of brat way, more in the always-get-everything-right way. Every idea she came up with was bizarre and outrageous but somehow they seemed to work. And she never let me forget it.”
“Like what?”
“Once she convinced me I should use myself in an ad for the business, you know, like the big builders do to get you to buy their spec homes. I thought she was insane but within weeks I was inundated with clients wanting everything from makeovers to full scale property development.”
“I bet most of them were women.”
If I’d seen Cole on TV I’d be clamouring to have him work on my house.
“Funnily enough. The ad was like a magnet for every desperate woman in Western Australia to turn up on my doorstep and ask me to take my shirt off.”
“Oh my God — you’re the Reno King.”
“That’s me.”
“You were really hot in that ad. I wanted you to renovate my house and I didn’t even have one.”
“What do you mean ‘were’? I’m haven’t exactly lost my looks.”
I leaned up on my elbow. “You are so full of yourself.”
“Hey, not as full of myself as some people, Miss I-met-Kirsten-Dunst.”
“I did!”
“Did you get her phone number while you were at it? Share a latte?”
The punch I gave him in the arm was so forceful he winced. Then he grinned and grabbed me. “So, it’s a fight you want is it? Come on then, tough girl.”
I wished I’d never told him I was ticklish. I didn’t have a hope of winning that fight.
Later, we talked about how Cole had come to live in Merrifield, his desire for a change of scene after Phoebe had died and what he wanted from his future. It was as if we’d known each other for years, the way he talked. Like he wanted me to know the most intimate details of his life because I was important to him. It made me comfortable to share things with him too. Most things anyway. I wasn’t quite ready to divulge my love for David Cassidy and The Partridge Family.
“It must have been hard for you when Phoebe died,” I said.
“It was the worst time of my life. I felt so guilty.”
“Why? It’s not like you could have found a cure.”
“I still felt bad. When your kid gets sick you want to make it right. I wanted so much for Phoebe to live but it wasn’t meant to be. And after she died, it was like some gaping void opened up. I didn’t know how to fill it. I had this empty hole in my chest. The days were a blur. I can’t remember a lot of it but I know I spent most of the first few months sleeping. Or drunk. I almost lost the business in that time but the guys I had working for me were great. They kept the wheels turning as best they could.” He expressed a grief-laden sigh. “I don’t think anyone could understand how the death of a child makes you feel unless they’ve experienced it.”
“But one day you’ll have more kids, right? I mean, Phoebe will always hold a special place in your heart and I know you’ll never replace her but don’t you want more children. When the time comes?”
Cole lifted a questioning eyebrow. His eyes twinkled as he moved in to nuzzle at my neck. “Why, Merrifield? Are you offering to have my babies? Because I’ve been thinking I’d like at least another half a dozen. Depends how tired I get with the practising.”
I hoped he didn’t feel me flinch.
Chapter 23
For the remainder of the week I felt like was floating on air. I was so happy I would have tap danced into work, swinging around lampposts like Gene Kelly in Singin’ In the Rain— if I’d known how, that was. The week could not have been any more perfect.
First, Alice and Jed had gotten back together and seemed even more in love than ever which was sort of sickening if you were in the same room as them for longer than twenty minutes. Especially when they started that cooing thing. Eww.
Second, I’d managed — finally — to score myself a boyfriend who wasn’t a complete degenerate or only after one thing. Cole was real, honest, single AND manly — qualities that when combined were unheard of in any boyfriend I’d ever had and a feat I never thought I’d see in my lifetime.
Lastly, that morning, I’d hopped onto the scales to find I’d dropped another two kilos. I’d spent so much time in bed that I hadn’t had time to eat and the added ‘exertion’ had literally melted the calories away. I was actually beginning to like my scales. They weren’t causing me stress. And because I could feel myself getting thinner, I didn’t feel the need to obsessively jump on them every time I went to the toilet. It was like my brain had been cauterised in my sleep so that that part of me no longer existed.
It was all because of Cole, of course. It was the little things he did, the cute way he pushed the hair back from his forehead, the masculine line of his chin, the sweet things he said that made me understand how he felt. But mostly, it was the way he made me feel when he gazed into my eyes before he kissed me — like finally, I’d found that person I could lean on when things went bad, that someone I could share everything with like I’d always wanted.
*****
I’d finished the morning’s clients and was about to eat my chicken salad lunch when the bell on the front door tinkled and Mum walked in. At least, I thought it was Mum; the face was obscured by a massive bunch of helium-filled balloons, which she was swiping aside with her hand in order to see where she w
as going. I put down the container in my hand and stood to greet her.
Mum stopped at the corner of the counter, kissing my cheek. “Hello sweetheart. How’s tricks?” She looked relaxed and content after her mini break with Connor, a smile from ear to ear gracing her face.
“Hi, Mum. Great thanks. How was your break?”
“Glorious. I didn’t want to leave. There was such a lot to see and do. We had a couple’s pampering session followed a horse and carriage ride to a picnic Connor had organised by the lake. It was very romantic.”
I was happy for her. It sounded nice.
“Then, on the Saturday night we went to a movie under the stars,” she continued. “Watched The Notebook. That Ryan Gosling is a bit of a looker but I didn’t go much on the beard. We had the most amazing sex that night. I’m so glad I enrolled in that Kama Sutra yoga class.”
Okay. Maybe not so nice.
“Then on Sunday—”
I held up a hand. “I think I’ve heard enough, thanks.”
Mum appeared bemused. “I was only going to say Connor had had personalised cupcakes made. Pity I couldn’t eat them. He’d forgotten I’m allergic to egg.”
Reaching out, Mum placed the bunch of balloons — weighted so they wouldn’t float away obviously — on the counter. Her hands went to my shoulders and she turned me this way and that, her gaze intent as it swept over my body. I imagined it was rather how a contestant in Miss Universe might feel. “You’re looking quite trim,” she remarked. “Are you wearing the Spanx?”
“No. I’ve lost another two kilos.”
“Oh well done. The diet’s going well, then?”
“The extra exercise seems to be doing the trick.”
Not to mention the sex.
“Keep it up. You look so much prettier when you’re not carrying extra weight.”
I knew this was meant to be a compliment but I couldn’t help feeling like Mum was having a go at me. Again. I know she didn’t mean to, that the things she said and did came from a place of love but sometimes I wished she’d think before she opened her mouth.
