by Margaret Way
‘Yeah.’ Ambrose twisted in his hands and Jacob was forced to release him on to the floor. As the cat began to wash himself, Jacob straightened and looked at Nell. ‘Did you have a good ride?’
‘It was wonderful, thanks.’
‘Not too stiff?’
‘Not so far.’
He had never looked more gorgeous as he stood there in battered old jeans and an equally old T-shirt with a hole near the neck. If she hadn’t been holding Sam she might have dashed across the room and hurled herself into his arms, told him how very much she’d wished he’d been with her down at the creek.
But Sam began to fret. ‘Did he behave for you?’ she remembered to ask.
‘He was just starting to grizzle before the cat and the dogs arrived.’
‘I guess he’s due for his evening bottle.’
‘I’ll take care of that.’
‘But you’ve already done your share.’
‘You need to soak in a warm bath. If you don’t relax your muscles after the ride, you’ll be sorry.’ Jacob was wearing his masterful look now. ‘After, with luck, we might be able to enjoy a drink before dinner.’
With meek thanks, Nell headed for the bathroom and, half an hour later, feeling wonderfully warm and clean and relaxed, she found the lounge room restored and Jacob pouring two glasses of chilled wine.
‘Is Sam asleep?’
‘Out like a light.’ He handed her a glass. ‘Take the weight off your feet.’
She sank gratefully into an armchair. ‘This is very civilised.’ She sipped her wine and wondered why she wasn’t calm. She’d just had a beautifully relaxing bath and surely, by now, she should be able to sit in a room with Jacob Tucker without feeling as if she might swoon at any moment.
Jacob, on the other hand, seemed excessively calm, with his mind on other things entirely. ‘Be honest,’ he said with a sweeping gesture that took in their surroundings. ‘Tell me what you think of this room.’
Nell followed his gaze. ‘It’s lovely and big.’
‘What about the furniture?’
‘It’s very—’ She hesitated.
‘It feels like office furniture?’ he finished for her.
‘Perhaps,’ she said carefully.
‘It doesn’t really feel like a home?’ he prompted.
Nell nodded thoughtfully.
He angled a wry grin. ‘If you’d decorated it, would you have used all this leather and chrome?’
‘I tend to go for a more traditional look,’ she admitted. ‘This is such a lovely old timber home. I’d probably fill it with comfy chintz lounges and deckle-edged mirrors, lots more timber and antique furniture.’ She smiled at him. ‘I have something that might help to warm this room up a little.’
‘Yeah?’ He was intrigued.
‘I’ll be back in a minute.’
She hurried into her new sewing room and came back with her arms full of quilts.
‘You could think about hanging one of these on the wall,’ she said. ‘Or even, if you draped one over the sofa, it would help to soften the starkness of the dark leather.’
With a flick of her arm, she opened a quilt and tossed it over the sofa. It was one of her favourites, a carefully pieced, dramatic blend of ochre, cream, aqua and green.
‘Wow! That’s beautiful!’ Setting his glass aside, Jacob stood and examined the quilt more closely. He picked up a corner and fingered a fine seam. ‘You’re so talented, Nell. And it’s the perfect colour combination for here. The colours of the Outback.’
‘I made it once when I was feeling homesick for the bush.’ She held it up against a blank wall. ‘It goes well with this room, doesn’t it? You could hang it here, or above the sideboard.’
‘It would look stunning.’
‘I have some leftover fabric. I could make throw cushions to match.’
‘I wouldn’t want to put you to too much trouble.’
‘It’s no trouble. Quilting’s my thing. Honestly, I love it. I find it very comforting to be able to plan a whole quilt and have it turn out exactly the way I wanted it to.’ She laughed. ‘See? I’m a control freak.’
‘You’re a genius.’
Before she realised quite what was happening, Jacob was swinging her off her feet and the quilt dropped from her hands.
A laugh bubbled from her. ‘I’m glad you like my quilts.’
‘I like a damn sight more than your quilts, my girl.’
Their faces were inches apart. Nell was instantly ablaze as she looked into Jacob’s eyes and saw his unguarded desire.
‘I’m very taken with everything about you, Nell,’ he said softly as he lowered her to the floor. ‘Your quilts, your smile, the way you look when you hold Sam, the way you look right now.’
‘How do I look right now?’
He squinted and pretended to study her. ‘I’d say you look … like an incredibly sexy grandmother.’
She laughed again. ‘Don’t I look like a happy grandmother?’
His eyes shimmered. ‘That, too.’
‘I’m remarkably happy, Jacob.’
He framed her face with his hands. ‘Any idea about the cause of all this happiness?’
‘Oh, I think I like being here.’
‘Here?’ He dropped a tiny kiss on her brow.
‘Right here,’ she breathed, lifting her lips to kiss the roughness of his jaw.
‘Anything special about here?’ Jacob asked as he pressed his lips to her eyelids.
Nell was burning up. Any minute now, she would be a pile of cinders on the floor.
‘Tell me,’ he insisted as his lips roamed close to her ear.
She whispered, ‘I’m rather partial to the way you kiss.’
‘Great answer, Nell.’
Jacob’s arms wrapped around her and he covered her open lips with his.
As soon as their mouths met, they both knew that tonight kisses would not be enough. Greedily, their hands sought to touch and explore and their bodies strained together, pressing in with an urgent and greedy precision.
‘Come with me,’ Jacob murmured, kissing her mouth, her jaw, her throat.
Anywhere, anywhere … she answered silently. And in a haze of heat she went with him down the hallway, through a doorway and into his bedroom.
CHAPTER NINE
IT WAS only then, when Nell saw Jacob’s lamp-lit room, his enormous bed with its solid timber headboard, its scattering of silver and grey pillows and huge black duvet, that she felt a splash of cold dismay. This was the first time she’d been with a man since her divorce.
Jacob sensed her hesitation. ‘What’s the matter, Nell?’
‘I’m—’ she swallowed the nervous blockage in her throat ‘—I’m so old now.’
He threw back his head and laughed. ‘You’re no older than I am.’
‘It’s different for a woman. Age matters more, makes more of a change.’
‘Rubbish,’ he muttered thickly and he pulled her towards him. ‘Come here and tell me you’re old.’
Against his shoulder, she protested, ‘I’m certainly not the nubile girl you seduced.’
‘Of course you’re not. You’re even lovelier, Nell.’
‘I’m nearly forty.’
‘So what?’ Jacob kissed her jaw, her earlobe, buried his face in her neck. ‘You smell nineteen.’
She couldn’t help laughing. Jacob had always made her laugh. ‘That’s because I used Sam’s baby soap.’
‘I’ll buy a truckload of Sam’s baby soap.’ He kissed her mouth, nibbled at her lower lip and stilled her laughter, sending fresh flames of longing coursing through her. ‘You taste like my Nell.’
Oh, Jacob, you darling man.
His hands gripped her bottom and he held her against his hardness. ‘You feel like my Nell.’
A soft groan came from him, a small whimper from her. He dipped his mouth lower.
Nell was grateful for the subdued lamplight as his hands slipped under her T shirt, guided it up and over her head.
Oh, go
sh. Why hadn’t she thought to wear a sexy bra, something lacy and pretty, instead of this plain white cotton? But apparently it didn’t matter. Jacob was too busy hauling his T-shirt off. How magnificent his chest was. Such shoulders.
Then he was kissing her again, steering her backwards till her trembling legs met his bed. He eased her down to the mattress, joined her there, helped her out of her bra. And he was so enraptured by what he found that Nell forgot to worry about how round and pale her body was, forgot to worry about anything.
Her eyes drifted closed, her mouth fell open in a soundless exclamation as Jacob paid flattering homage to her femininity. She was nineteen again, head over heels in love with this man, wanting only this man.
And how she wanted him.
In a fever of haste they shed the rest of their clothing. A happy little cry escaped her as they came together once more, rolling into each other’s embrace, desperate to savour the electrifying thrill of skin against skin, of Jacob’s rigid nakedness against her soft contours.
He hugged her to him. ‘You’re beautiful, Nell. You’re gorgeous. You haven’t changed a bit.’ Easing back a little, he traced the curve of her hip. ‘All woman,’ he murmured. And then, ‘Ah, there it is.’
‘What is?’
‘The little butterfly-shaped birthmark on your hip.’
Bending forward, he kissed the spot on her hip, making a warm circle with his lips and his tongue. Longing and happy memories swept over Nell as he trailed kisses from the dip of her waist to the swell of her breast.
She fleetingly marvelled that everything was happening so easily. There was nothing awkward or jarring to hinder them and they found ways to please each other with surprising ease. Every touch, every kiss was fuel to the fire of their longing.
When Jacob paused to reach into a drawer in his bedside table, Nell almost protested. She felt so gloriously reckless she wanted to throw caution to the wind. But then sanity returned. After all, she was almost forty. They had a grandson.
And all she wanted now was Jacob.
She watched his eyes as he joined her, saw deep emotion married to dark hunger. Then she closed her eyes and cried his name once before she was submerged in a spiralling whirlpool of need.
She lay with her head on his shoulder. ‘That was amazing.’
Jacob dropped a kiss on her forehead. ‘I felt so close to you.’
Nell pressed her lips into his neck, tasted the salt on his skin. ‘I didn’t expect to be so uninhibited.’
He smiled at her. ‘That’s because this is where we’re meant to be.’ He let his hand trail down her arm, then drew a circle over her stomach. ‘And this is where our little baby grew.’
‘Yes.’ The monosyllable caught in her throat.
He pressed his splayed hand gently against her stomach and she watched the darkness of his skin against the paleness of hers. She felt the warmth of him there, awakening memories of her pregnancy, of the weight of the baby inside her, the strong little limbs kicking.
The awful loss …
‘Oh, Jacob.’
She wanted to tell him about Tegan, about her pregnancy and how she’d felt while carrying their child, but, without warning, tears spilled.
‘What is it, Nell? What’s the matter?’
‘I loved Tegan.’
‘I know, sweetheart. I know.’
‘Even before she was born, I loved her so much.’
Suddenly, she was weeping—weeping for the loss of her baby and for the loss of this man whom she’d loved more than anything in the world. In one fell sweep she’d lost everyone who had mattered. And now Tegan was gone forever.
Jacob held her tightly and buried his face in her hair. She wasn’t sure if he was weeping too, but they clung to each other, rocking gently, sharing the pain they’d borne for too long, offering the comfort that only they could give.
It was quite a long while before the flow of Nell’s tears stopped, but she felt awed by a sweet sense of release, as if the crying had cleansed her.
She looked at Jacob in the faint lamplight, gave him a shaky smile.
He smiled back at her, kissed her nose, her damp cheeks and eyelids. ‘Everything’s going to be OK now, Nell.’
‘Yes, I know.’
This was a new beginning.
‘Roll over,’ he said. ‘I’ll give you a massage.’
‘There’s no need. I’m OK now.’
‘Roll over.’
Shooting him a shy smile, Nell obeyed. And very soon she was inexpressibly grateful as his warm hands rubbed and kneaded her back, soothing and freeing muscles that she hadn’t realised had become tense, dropping warm kisses wherever he rubbed. She could feel her body relaxing and letting go, felt happiness spreading through her again like warmed honey.
Until gradually the tempo and rhythm of the massage changed. Jacob’s hands slowed and his fingers began to trace gentle, dreamy circles on her back. He trailed feather-soft caresses down her spine to her buttocks and thighs and a new thrilling tension blossomed in Nell.
Rolling on to her side, she whispered, ‘My turn.’
‘You want to give me a massage?’
‘More or less,’ she replied, running seeking fingers over his magnificent chest, venturing lower. ‘On your back, man.’
Jacob did as he was told.
He felt so-o-o good. Nell gloried in him, reawakening suppressed memories as her hands explored eagerly, rediscovering the wonder of his satiny skin stretched smooth and taut over masculine muscles, adding bold kisses wherever she touched him.
Soon it grew too much for Jacob and he took control again, moving over her, lavishing her with kisses as he took her, once more, to the moon.
When Sam woke it was still dark. His wails penetrated Nell’s sleep and she sat up quickly, her heart racing. She didn’t think she’d been asleep for very long, but it had been long enough for her to feel confused by her surroundings. She took a moment or two to remember she was in Jacob’s room. In his bed.
He stirred beside her. ‘Is that Sam?’ he asked sleepily.
‘Yes. He’ll be hungry.’ Nell yawned and her stomach rumbled. ‘Actually, I’m hungry too.’
‘That’s because we forgot to eat dinner.’
‘Oh, heavens, you were cooking something. What happened to it?’
‘I turned the heat off while you were in the bath. I’m afraid the casserole’s still in the oven.’
She giggled. ‘It might still be OK. I’ll check while I’m warming Sam’s bottle. If it’s burned, I might fix a snack. Do you fancy cheese on toast?’
‘Sure. I’ll help you make it.’
Nell was so used to the ‘wifely’ role she’d played during her marriage that she almost ordered Jacob to stay where he was, but he was already rolling out of his side of the bed. She wondered where her T-shirt was, switched on the lamp and saw it lying on the floor near the door. Actually, there were articles of clothing scattered all over the floor.
‘Look at this room,’ she cried, smacking her hand to her forehead in mock dismay. ‘What shocking behaviour. You’d think grandparents would set a better example.’
‘Some old folk have no sense of decorum,’ Jacob agreed solemnly.
It became a pattern.
In the nights that followed, if Sam woke around two a.m., Jacob would grumble, but then good-naturedly head for the kitchen to heat his bottle while Nell changed the baby and brought him back to their bed. They would talk softly, weave dreams for Sam while he drank, brought up wind and fell back to sleep again, making soft baby sounds as he snuggled between them.
During the day, Jacob had work to attend to around the property but, as he still had cattle scattered on agistments around the state, his holding at Koomalong was relatively small and manageable and he made time to be with his new little family.
One day they had a picnic. Jacob and Nell took Sam in his basket and cooked sausages over a fire beside the creek. On another day they went for a long walk through the bush with Sam in
a baby sling and the dogs hard at their heels. They even went riding together and Jacob carried Sam in the sling.
Many evenings, they spent on the western veranda, Ambrose purring, Sam in Nell’s lap, or being walked up and down if he was restless. Jacob’s dogs sprawled at their feet while they watched the sun drip molten gold as it sank into the distant hills and they listened to corellas and cockatiels calling to each other as they winged their way homewards through the purple light.
In the evenings, they cooked together in the homestead kitchen, experimenting with new pasta dishes, a fancy stir-fry or risotto.
Nell wrote a long letter to Jean to keep her abreast of Sam’s latest antics. He was piling on weight and he smiled all the time now. He could hold his rattle and he was very close to rolling over from his back to his tummy. She spoke to Jacob’s mother, who rang one night from the Kimberley and they had a long and cosy chat, just like the old times when they’d talked in the kitchen at Half Moon.
When Hilda Knowles, Jacob’s cleaning woman, came to do the ironing and to give the house its weekly ‘onceover’, she made it quite clear that she very much approved of Nell.
‘I’ve never seen Mr Tucker looking so well,’ she confided.
Nell looked up from folding Sam’s freshly laundered clothes. ‘Has Jacob been ill?’
‘Not ill, no. He’s always been as fit as a fiddle. Perhaps well isn’t quite the right word.’
Hilda set the iron to rest and her brow puckered while she gave Jacob’s condition careful thought. ‘There’s always been something in his eyes that troubled me. A sadness. A kind of shadow. And it’s gone now. When he smiles, his eyes light up as if there’s a constant happy glow inside him. I reckon you must have put that there, love.’
Nell fervently hoped so, but neither she nor Jacob talked aloud about their Koomalong experiment. No doubt they were both frightened that talking about it might break the magic spell. But secretly she was confident that things were working out just fine.
The parcel from Jean arrived in the third week.
Sam was awake after his morning nap and he was kicking on a blanket on the lounge room floor when the mail truck’s horn sounded. Most of the envelopes were addressed to Jacob, but there was a large rectangular parcel for Nell and she brought it into the lounge room to sit on the floor beside Sam as she unwrapped layers of brown paper.
