Kate shook her head. ‘This place is a well-oiled machine and kindness isn’t a weakness.’ She looked him in the eye. ‘It’s a strength.’
For once he didn’t bluster. ‘Maybe I got it wrong but that’s all I knew. It might have been different if your mother had lived.’
‘Maybe you should have married again.’
‘Hmmph. I don’t have to. It’s your job to ensure the succession.’
She gathered their plates. ‘You might have blown it there. I’m not looking for a husband. Are there any cousins or relatives anywhere?’
‘You’d better sell it to the dogs’ home.’ He was watching her like a hawk and she doubted he missed her frown. No, she didn’t think she could do that now. Every day she felt more like she belonged, except for the emptiness at night, but she guessed that would never go away.
CHAPTER TEN
A MONTH after Rory had left, Kate landed on the strip of her father’s property and saw a dust-covered Range Rover waiting beside her own farm vehicle. Somehow she knew it was Rory.
In that moment she panicked and looked at the fuel gauge. All she wanted to do was dip the wing into a turn and circle back the way she’d come, to run, hide, but the sensible pilot inside her head disagreed. Land, the pilot said.
There was fuel to spare, but not much, and Kate always listened to the pilot. As she touched down the roaring of the engine echoed in her head and she tried to block out the questions.
Why had he come back? Why now, when her father was so ill? What should she do? How should she act? She’d be caught in the middle again.
The plane taxied to a stop and she looked across as the propeller began to wind down. At least he was on his own and she didn’t have to pretend it wasn’t a shock to see him. And he looked amazing.
Damn. It wasn’t fair. She was dishevelled, exhausted from the broken sleeps with her father as he became more ill, and wretched.
The wind blew his shirt against his muscular chest, the one she wanted to rest her head against, and he lifted his hand to hold his Akubra firmly on his head, hiding the thick dark hair she loved.
Loved! The truth crashed into her as if she’d landed her plane into a fence instead of kissing the airstrip and parking normally. She’d been miserable because she’d missed Rory. Because Rory’s presence was life and promise and the future—her future—and she’d been too stubborn and frightened to take the risk when he’d come back after all these years and she’d thought that chance was gone.
It should have been her landing at his back door to say she’d got it wrong. Should have been her asking for forgiveness. Her explaining she loved Rory as much, if not more than ten years ago and would he please never leave her again.
All the fruitless mental discussion of how it was better she’d seen him and could forget the past. The exhaustion and misery of the last month.
What a fool she’d been.
It was all dirt and lies and bull dust. She loved Rory McIver with all her heart and soul and always would. She just needed the guts to tell him!
She shaded her eyes as she climbed out and then jumped down to the ground in front of him.
‘How are you, Kate?’ He saw beneath her bravado to the young woman within and suddenly her bravery was gone.
She couldn’t do it. What if it was too late? Tiredness hit her like a tsunami, flattened her, bowled her off her feet so in her mind she bobbed with indecision. She didn’t look at him as she walked to her vehicle. ‘Tired.’ Such a small, spineless voice. She disgusted herself. ‘How are you, Rory? Have you been to the house?’
‘Yes.’ His quiet, gravelly voice, low with compassion.
That pulled her up. ‘Spoken with my father?’
‘Yes.’
This time she looked straight into his face. Questioning. Dreading the answer. ‘And you’re both still alive?’
‘He was when I left him.’ His voice lowered. ‘Just.’
She sagged. She didn’t know how she was going to get through that either. ‘I know. He hasn’t long. He’s just an old man who’s made some wrong choices along the way and he has to live, and die, with those choices.’ Like she did. She looked at Rory. ‘In the last month I’ve come to terms with that. He’s still my father.’
Rory smiled at her. Undemanding. Empathetic. Her Rory. ‘I’m glad. I’m here because I’d like to stay with you until the end, Kate. Be here for you. Like I wasn’t before. When Cameron died.’
She felt the tears build behind her eyes and they felt heavier than usual. But she never cried.
That was why he’d come back. How had he known she’d dreaded being alone when it happened? Technically, though, she’d have people around her—the housekeeper she’d only met two months ago, who didn’t normally live-in, the manager, the yard man, John, the stockmen, the drivers and overseers. Not on her own—but alone.
He wouldn’t stay. He had his important position to go back to.
‘How long have you got?’
‘As long as you need me.’ That calm, reassuring Rory voice.
Fine words. ‘What about your high-powered job?’
He shook his head. ‘You’re my family. As long as you need me.’
He’d do that for her? Risk everything he’d worked for to hold her hand? Be with her at the end and comfort her? No one else had ever worried about her like Rory.
And she couldn’t even risk saying she loved him?
It was as if the sky cleared and the dark clouds of the last few weeks were blown away from over her head. Maybe forgiving her father had helped. Maybe knowing there was a time in the not too distant future when she could meet her lost son—if only on paper. But suddenly those restraining shackles had gone. This was all about her and Rory. So what was she going to do?
Was she going to pretend she hadn’t just had the biggest brain snap in history and wait for him to decide their fate?
Or was she going to take her future in her own hands and lift her head and meet his eyes and tell him she loved him more than she could believe was possible for one woman to love a man?
It was a terrifying thought, but not as terrifying as him walking away without the truth leaving her lips.
She looked into Rory’s caring eyes, this tall and straight, fabulous man of her dreams, who had never forgotten her and she spoke the truth. ‘I love you, Rory McIver. With all my heart. I always will. Thank you for coming back to be with me.’
Kate felt the tears sting and then they welled. She struggled to hold them back and then realised she didn’t have to. Amazingly, dampness spilled over onto her cheeks. For the first time in ten years, Kate Onslow cried. She stepped into Rory’s open arms and he lifted her to him and kissed her cheeks before he set her down to cradle her against his chest.
She cried great gulping, soul-freeing sobs, and she cried quiet, whispering weeps until his shirt was sticking to her face with dampness and then she pulled away and gave him the first of many watery smiles.
She wiped her cheeks with her fingers until he pushed her hands aside and patted the tear trails himself with the big white handkerchief he’d tried to give her.
‘I bet—’ she sniffed ‘—you didn’t expect that tropical storm,’ and she snatched the handkerchief from him and inelegantly blew her nose before she crumpled the wet cloth into a ball and jammed it into her khaki trousers.
‘I’d say it’s about time.’ Then he kissed her. Inexpertly at first because she hadn’t expected it and then perfectly, amazingly, healingly until there was no doubt that her own revelation in the plane was matched by his.
His words caressed her as he spoke into her ear. ‘I love you, Kate. I’m here for you. Always.’
Once started, she couldn’t stop. It was time to open herself to the love he promised.
‘I love you, too,’ she said. ‘I was a fool to push you away when you came back. I’ve missed you so much this last month, but goodness knows how long it would have taken me to be brave enough to come and tell you. Thank you for tak
ing that risk.’
‘Again,’ he teased.
‘Again.’ She wiped her eyes.
He squeezed her shoulders. ‘Have I ever told you everything would work out fine?’
She looked up at him. Her hero. ‘For years.’
‘And that’s how long I’ll be here. For years and years and years.’ He captured her hand and kissed her palm. ‘For ever. My darling Kate, I’ve always loved you, never more than now.’
He pulled a tiny box from his pocket and it sat there in his palm, daring her to open the lid. ‘Will you marry me? This time?’
She looked at him and then the box and, as he had so many years ago, he took the ring and slid it on her finger.
The most exquisite pink Argyle diamond ring; the size of the central stone took her breath away, but it was the much smaller diamond beside it that brought more tears to her eyes. ‘My original stone from the ring you gave me? You kept it?’
She looked from the ring to Rory. This man she’d cut from her life so many years ago had never given up and she shuddered to think of how close she’d been to losing that chance.
Later that night, when Kate had seen to her father’s comfort and most of the lights were out in the homestead, she found Rory on the swing on the veranda watching the night sky as he waited for her. Still waiting.
He made room beside him and slid his arm around her shoulders as they sat hip to hip in the dark. The moon shone from behind a cloud and the sound of a night bird echoed eerily over the silver paddocks.
‘How are you?’ he asked quietly.
She snuggled in against him. ‘So much better now you’re here.’
He stroked her arm. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’
She pouted but he couldn’t see so she patted his leg. ‘I was thinking we could go to bed.’
‘Are you trying to seduce me again? Under your father’s roof?’ She could hear the smile in his voice.
A flicker of heat curled in her stomach. ‘Serve him right.’
‘I think not,’ came the measured voice of her beloved from the darkness beside her.
‘Rory McIver!’ She couldn’t believe he’d refused her offer. She’d been fantasising about him all day. Had watched his mouth as he talked, the way he held his head as he walked, and stared at the sprinkling of dark hairs in the vee of his shirt so much she could have plotted their pattern. Had waited, very impatiently, to relive those magic hours they’d shared at Xanadu.
‘No, my wanton little midwife. I want to marry you first this time. Tonight I want to dance with you in the moonlight. Hold you under the same stars that I held you all those years ago. Then fall asleep, just holding you until you are my wife. Does that sound so bad?’
The wedding was intimate, beautiful, and held at Jabiru Homestead very quickly. Smiley and Sophie were attendants and even the bedridden Lyle seemed resigned to their marriage.
Kate never knew what Rory had told him but she’d seen the grudging respect her father paid to Rory now.
Her world was in harmony. That night Kate slept, sated, and with a soft smile curving her lips. Safe and finally at peace in the place she belonged—in Rory’s arms.
When Lyle Onslow died he was put to rest beside his wife and infant son, in the family plot on the hill above the homestead.
Beside him stood a tiny angel, in memory of Cameron Onslow-McIver, 3rd August.
Kate stood in the windswept paddock and gazed out at the land she loved, at the land Lyle had taught her to love, and thought, this is right.
Forgiveness came from loving. Forgiveness was healing all on its own and her love had come full circle.
Life could move on.
One year later
‘YOU said you’d never ask me to do something I didn’t want to.’ Kate tossed her head against the plastic-covered pillow in the shower. ‘I can’t do it. I want to go home.’
If they’d been anywhere but here, the birthing centre at Perth General, Rory would have given in, plucked her up into his arms and carried her all the way back to Jabiru.
But she’d told him about this. The end of the first stage of labour. Transition. He said what he’d been told to.
‘I know. I love you. You’re doing beautifully.’ And he kissed her and held her hand and she ground her wedding ring into his already painful fingers until suddenly her eyes opened wide, startled yet intent.
‘I have to push.’
‘Hallelujah,’ he said under his breath because he’d been ready to scream for a transfer to a labour ward and an epidural, anything to stop the pain for the love of his life.
‘Oh, my,’ she said as the sensations took over.
‘Remember the breathing. Calm breathing.’ He couldn’t believe he was saying this, but then again he was doing it too, and the breathing had been the only thing that had got him through this. He’d been breathing his heart out for what seemed like forever.
His feet ached in his new leather boots, both boots as soaking wet as the bottoms of his jeans, but Kate had needed the shower as soon as they’d arrived and he hadn’t had time to change.
The steam from the shower had Kate’s hair sticking to her forehead and he reached over and offered her a sip of water through the straw.
Kate sipped urgently and then spat the straw out as the next contraction started and hastily he put the cup down. He still found labour very stressful.
The midwife watched them both and smiled. She didn’t say much, this old bird, he thought fleetingly as he smiled back, but she’d been just like Kate had been when Lucy had birthed. Calm, unflappable, unlike the way he was feeling.
Oh, my God, he could see the baby’s head. The midwife put the Doppler low over Kate’s stomach and the clop, clop of his baby’s heart rate filled the bathroom. Soon—very soon—he would meet their child.
‘Nice and gentle,’ Rory said because he remembered Kate had said that to Lucy all that time ago and nobody else said anything. He looked around.
With only the three of them here it was suddenly incredibly peaceful. Kate was totally focused on the job at hand now, with the warm shower water cascading over her shoulders like that day at Xanadu and the waterfalls in the gorge.
The midwife was prepared and patient and he was the only one talking now. It seemed he couldn’t keep his mouth shut. He clamped his lips together and realised their song from their teenage years was playing in the background.
Then slowly, crease by wrinkled forehead skin crease, their baby began to birth until a thick mop of damp hair and a squashed little face spun to stare at him.
‘Rest one hand under the bottom shoulder as it comes out and put your other hand on the top shoulder,’ the midwife said quietly.
He was holding it. He looked up at Kate and she was staring through him as she concentrated.
Suddenly he was holding all of him…her…he didn’t know which…and the baby was as slippery as a little eel and he juggled and skidded it up Kate’s belly until her hands closed around it and she searched for his face. His. Her husband. Rory’s.
‘Oh, my stars,’ she breathed out. ‘Hello, baby. A boy or a girl? What is it?’ Kate was still looking at him, unable to believe it was over and she held their baby in her arms between her breasts.
‘It’s a…’ Rory lifted one leg and tried to see but it was all too hard to peer through the tears in his eyes and the baby skidded and folded up like a puppy. The midwife’s hands came in and she tilted the baby so he could look properly.
His heart swelled. ‘We have a daughter. Jasmine.’ He looked at Kate and tears ran down his face. ‘She’s incredibly beautiful, like her mother.’
ISBN: 978-1-4268-5051-6
MIDWIFE IN A MILLION
First North American Publication 2010
Copyright © 2009 by Fiona McArthur
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