‘When do you want to go out to the stables?’ she asked, hanging on to her equanimity with everything she had.
He was on his haunches now, tossing the dust balls in the air, grinning as the baby shrieked with laughter. ‘Hmm…What did you say? After her nap is fine.’ He tossed another dust bunny for Melanie. ‘Want me to give her a bottle and change her for bed while you make lunch?’
It was a fair offer, since he’d been cooking or bringing home meals so much, yet, watching him smiling so—so infatuatedly as Melanie tossed dirt at him and he laughed, Anna felt only resentment, anger, pain—loss. She’s mine, stop taking everything away from me!
When we leave here, she’ll forget him soon enough, and he’ll have his own children. Sooner or later.
‘Sure.’ Walking on legs that shook only a little, she crossed to the fridge to pull out a salad, and a bottle to heat in boiled water. ‘I’ll check on the animals while you get her settled,’ she said, feeling as brittle as broken glass.
‘Anna?’
The unspoken question—the new uncertainty in a voice always filled with authority—made her gulp; his closeness intensified her shivers. ‘I’m fine. Just get her settled.’
‘I’ll make lunch. You fix her up,’ he said, too quiet. He knew, and wanted to fix it.
She shook her head. ‘Go ahead. As you said last night, the adoption people will need to see us both bonded to her—and her to us.’
She heard the frown in his voice, the confusion. ‘You sound angry. I thought you wanted me to bond with her.’
If only it was anger! But it wasn’t. The jealousy was eating at her—yes, for Melanie’s love, but stronger was the useless wishing for what she’d never had from him, the regret for what never came—the love he’d given to a stranger’s baby so quickly.
She couldn’t look at him as she faced the truth: she could run to the ends of the earth and she’d never forget him, never truly get over him or have a complete heart. It would always be here…at Jarndirri. With Jared.
The worst part was, she knew she could have him. All she had to do was say she’d changed her mind, she wanted to stay—and she’d have the rest of her life with him. Having what she’d signed on for when she’d married him—working the land together, living out their lives together, in bed, at Jarndirri, in their community.
Watching him love Melanie more day by day as she grew, aching for the love he’d never have to give her. Would she end up resenting her baby for being more lovable than she was?
‘I do want you to bond with her.’ Was that her voice, so gentle, so polite, when she felt like screaming, Go away and leave us alone? She grabbed the bottle out of the jug of hot water, shook it and put it into his hand. ‘Go put her to bed. I’m fine.’
Hands lifted her hair; warm lips brushed the back of her neck, and she shivered with its power, the hopeless longing that would never change. ‘I’ll be back in ten minutes.’
Unable to speak, she nodded. The more time the better. She needed to find distance from him somehow.
CHAPTER NINE
WITHIN five minutes he was in the room once more, but no matter how hard she’d tried to think of what to say, she wasn’t ready for the look in his eyes. ‘I’m not hungry,’ he said quietly, when she put two plates of salad, condiments and some sliced bread on the table.
‘I don’t want to talk.’ Desperation laced every word. She was too close, too raw.
‘I know,’ he surprised her by saying. There was no laughter in his voice, just a curious note she couldn’t identify. ‘Come here to me.’
Caught out, Anna looked at him, saw his arms held out, something like tenderness in his face. ‘Don’t patronise me, Jared,’ she snapped, brittle, needing. ‘I’m not Melanie.’
‘I know,’ he said again. ‘But I still think you need a cuddle.’
She heard the echo of her words the night before, and something died in her. ‘I told you, if I have to say it, if I have to tell you what I want or need, it’s meaningless.’
‘It’s not meaningless to me, Anna—and I don’t believe it’s meaningless to you either. Give me a chance. I want to give you what you need.’
Torn between loss and longing, she saw the look on his face once again—strong, carved from the land he loved, but no longer so remote—and her feet obeyed her craving heart. One step, another…
‘I need a cuddle, too. You have no idea how much I’ve missed those cuddles you used to give me,’ he said quietly, and he took a step toward her, and another.
‘I didn’t think you cared about them one way or another,’ she whispered. He was coming to her, at last he was meeting her halfway, and he couldn’t know what that meant to her. ‘You always seemed to just put up with me needing to hold you.’
‘I cared.’ His eyes were dark pools of need, his voice rough, hot gravel, the land before storm. ‘I…still care, Anna. I should have told you, shown you.’ His eyes slowly closed as his hand reached out for hers. ‘I’m so cold without you. I’ve been like a block of ice since you’ve been gone, unable to laugh or feel. I need you, Anna. Touch me. Make it right again.’
He needs me.
One more step, and she was in his arms, hers around his waist, hearing his heart beating beneath her ear. He buried his face in her hair, breathing her in. Her eyes fluttered shut as tiny shivers filled her, warm and beautiful. And when he kissed her with a sweet tenderness she hadn’t had from him since their engagement night, loneliness, so long her constant companion, melted into the furthest shadows of her mind.
He lifted her in his arms; but to her surprise he didn’t carry her to the bedroom. On the fat old sofa in the living room, with the rain pounding down, he sat with her on his lap, still kissing her without demand, only with sweet caring, and a blanket of warmth surrounded her, protecting her from all the pain.
She wanted to lay her head on his shoulder; she wanted him to kiss her for ever. She wanted this man, this Jared, to be hers, forever.
‘I brought something home for you,’ he mumbled between kisses. His hands held her close, tiny caresses from his fingers making her feel safe and cherished.
At that, she pulled back, her gaze searching his, so uncertain. ‘What are you doing, Jared? With me, I mean. All the gifts, the dancing, the kisses and cuddles—why?’
‘Why not?’ he murmured, and kissed her again.
‘I’m serious, Jared. What are you doing?’ she whispered.
His expression, teasing and sweet only seconds before, sobered. The words came, slow and unsure. ‘I’m courting my wife.’
The four words took her breath away. ‘Why?’
He frowned, struggled with the answer. ‘I’m giving you the romance I never gave you from the night I put that ring on your finger.’
Anna was trembling in his arms, wanting to bolt, needing to stay, to hear it. ‘Why?’
‘Because you deserve it—you always did.’ He shrugged and added with devastating candour, ‘I took everything you wanted to give, and what you didn’t want to give. I pushed you into my life and dreams, and never once questioned whether you shared them…not even when you left.’
She bit her lip, turned her face a little. ‘It’s not all your fault. I knew the deal.’
‘No, you don’t.’
Startled, she twisted back to him, her mouth open.
‘You don’t know the deal. You never did.’ Eyes filled with resolution stared into hers. ‘I didn’t take you to have Jarndirri. That was Bryce’s deal, not mine. I told him I’d only take on Jarndirri if I could have you. I said I was going to have you anyway, that he couldn’t stop me, but I’d have Jarndirri as well if it was on offer.’
Anna blinked, gaping at him. ‘W-what?’
He shrugged again. ‘You never suspected the truth? Bryce had far grander plans for you than to marry a humble West. I was intended for Lea, to keep her here, to settle her down. He was hoping you’d marry Marcus O’Malley, to join the two properties. The Curran girls would own the biggest spre
ad in the lower Kimberleys.’
Over two million hectares…oh, that sounded just like her driven, ambitious father. He’d always believed the small amount of fine gold her granddad had found on Jarndirri was the tip of the iceberg—that there was more on the property next door, Cormorant Station, the O’Malley home for a hundred years. To join the two would give Bryce Curran’s children and grandchildren obscene wealth, and for generations to come…
And the Curran name would be remembered in history, even if the great Bryce Curran had only fathered girls.
‘Why did he choose Lea for you?’ she asked, frowning. It made no sense—wasn’t she, Anna, the Golden Girl, most likely to—?
‘You were his favourite, Anna—he wanted the best for you. Lea was getting what he figured she deserved. He also thought she’d want to keep her name when she married—and I’m guessing he knew I wouldn’t care about giving up mine, and becoming a Curran.’
After a moment, she started laughing, slow and helpless. ‘Oh, yes, that sounds like Dad. His middle name should have been Shylock or Machiavelli. He always did have plans to aggrandise himself, through us if he had to—and for everything he gave anyone, he wanted his pound of flesh in return.’
‘Yes, he did—but he gave me a home and family, so I tried to accommodate him.’
‘Of course you did. You were eighteen, nineteen, and he’d been everything to you—just as he planned to be when he took you in. Your gratitude would ensure that you did as he wanted.’ Anna jumped to her feet, pacing the room. ‘I’ll bet he’d hand-picked you for Lea when you were kids, and Marcus for me.’
Jared frowned out the window. ‘Marcus is the kind of man he wanted for you—educated at the best schools in the country, went to Oxford and did animal husbandry and law before he came back to Cormorant. He’s a gentleman—and I’ll always be rough around the edges.’
She had to clamp down on her mouth to stop the runaway sentence, I like rough—I like real men. It would only give him false hope, when she still didn’t know what she wanted.
She had a sudden thought, and though she was still furious at the blatant manipulation of her life, she chuckled. ‘He must’ve gone ballistic on you when you wanted me instead.’
Jared grinned. ‘About equivalent to the force of Cyclone Tracy.’
‘And you held your ground?’ she asked in mock-admiration.
The grin deepened, showing reluctant dimples—the dimples he’d always hated. ‘What can I say—I really wanted you.’
Anna bit her lip over a smile of pure pleasure. ‘No way would Perfect Marcus want wild Lea! Sandra O’Malley is the model wife—just as I’d have been, if we’d liked each other as more than friends,’ she added with absent bitterness.
‘You were the model wife to me.’
‘Yes, and look where we are now,’ she retorted with more sad fatalism than anger. ‘Why, Jared? Why did you rebel against Dad’s plans, when it gave you everything you wanted?’
‘It didn’t give me everything I wanted, because I didn’t want Lea. I wanted you,’ he replied simply. ‘It was always you.’ He grinned, but it seemed to be with an effort. ‘Do you remember the day we met? You probably don’t—but you fell in the dirt at the rodeo, and I picked you up and dusted you off because you were wailing about the dirt on your new clothes. You were about four. I’d just turned eight. You smiled at me when I finally got you clean by dumping you in a horse trough, but I didn’t get your hair or new hat wet. You asked me where my castle was. I said I didn’t have one. You said all princes have castles.’ He shrugged, wouldn’t look at her as he said, ‘I think I knew then I’d marry you.’
She bit her lip over a beatific smile. He not only remembered their first meeting, but had planned their future…
Why wouldn’t he want to marry a rich girl who saw him as a prince?
Her lips pressed hard together for a moment, before she forced the words out again. The words felt like a knife twisting in her heart every time she said them. ‘But you want children. You want your own kids.’
‘No—I want our kids,’ he said quietly. There was a palpable hesitation before he spoke again. ‘But there are other ways to have kids, Anna—our own kids, yours and mine, if—’
‘I don’t want to hear it.’ She wheeled hard away from him, blinking hard to push out the image of that sweet, white face, the eyes that would never open. ‘I don’t want alternatives or medical marvels any more. I don’t want solutions to problems that are no longer mine. Again, it’s your dream, Jared—yours. My dreams of my own children died with Adam.’
‘They don’t have to,’ he muttered, low and hard, ‘if you’d just listen—’
‘No, you listen, Jared West. For once in your life, you are going to listen to me.’ She turned back, hands on hips, staring him down. ‘I won’t go through IVF again—and I don’t want to go the surrogacy route, so if you were thinking of asking Lea or Sapphie, don’t. I’d never ask another woman to bear a child only to hand it over—I’ve lost children, and I couldn’t be so selfish as to ask others to do it when I couldn’t.’
For long moments he sat frozen on the sofa. Then he covered his eyes with a hand and mumbled, ‘Sapphie said she’d do it if you asked her, Anna. She said she wouldn’t mind…’
Anna knew what he’d left unspoken. She and Lea had already discussed it once, watching a show on surrogacy years ago. She’d known what Lea’s answer would be—she’d do it, but it would kill her sister to give away a child, just as it would kill her. ‘Sapphie hasn’t got a clue what you asked of her. You don’t know what it’s like, Jared. You never will,’ she said quietly. ‘You never felt your body growing, never felt the first tiny fluttering bubbles as they moved. You didn’t go through the long pain of giving birth months too early, knowing they were…gone. I couldn’t ask either my sister or my dearest friend to go through all the joy, all the pain of childbirth, only to hand him or her over to us.’
Anna watched in deep-hidden compassion as his dreams died before her. He sat still and white, one hand over his eyes, silent, broken.
She didn’t know if this was the worst time or the only time to bring it to a finish, or twist the knife, but it had to be said. ‘My dreams had been yours, Jared—and I didn’t know it until you asked me to carry Adam, and didn’t know or see how I felt. But no matter whose dreams they were, they died the day Adam did. If I’d had him here, I’d probably still be here, thrilled to be a mother, but part of me always unhappy, not knowing if I was living or existing as part of your world. Never knowing if you’d married me for Jarndirri, never knowing—because you would never have told me before now—if you were wishing it was Lea here instead of me.’
Slowly, during her speech, he’d looked up. Still sheet-white, eyes black with devastation, he said, ‘You don’t know me at all to even think that.’
‘I know,’ she said, her voice steady as what remained of her heart splintered. ‘That was always the problem between us. I don’t know you at all.’
‘I’m trying, Anna. It might be late, but I’m trying to let you in. Wait here.’ With a jerking movement, he got to his feet and walked out of the room. Within moments he was back, holding out a bag to her. ‘I thought of you when I saw this.’
Confused at the change of direction when she’d been planning to end it, she found herself taking the bag, and looking inside. She felt a smile curving her mouth. ‘Jared…’
‘You said Jarndirri didn’t feel like yours. Make it yours—we can buy new furniture, paint the place, do whatever you want—or you take this with you when you go,’ he said quietly.
Her head still spinning a little, she pulled out the three long-stitch kits—she’d always loved creating things of her own, rather than buying anything for the house—it made it her own…
And then she saw the card at the base of the bag. ‘What’s this?’ She looked at it, and gasped. ‘Oh, Jared…’
He was still pale, his eyes haunted—but he smiled. ‘They’re flying it all in this a
fternoon, or tomorrow morning. You always wanted to be an art teacher, but you’ve barely painted since your uni days. I thought you might like to take up painting again—or use your degree. The School of the Air needs teachers, and with the net and video conferencing, you could show the kids in remote areas how to make something beautiful, like that.’
He indicated the painting hanging on the living-room wall. She’d done it years ago, at boarding school: her final project she’d simply called ‘Home’. Jarndirri homestead in the Wet, with jagged lightning forks crossing the sky, and men on motorbikes chasing a rogue brumby.
She looked at the order for a complete art kit: easels of varying sizes; three palettes; and paints—oils, water and acrylic; pastels; stretched canvases and painted masonite, and felt tears stinging at her eyes. ‘I—I haven’t painted anything for years, except…’ Adam’s room. Adam’s high chair and cradle, and his hanging toys…
She felt him pull her close. ‘I know, love, I know.’ He held her against him, kissing her hair as she wept softly, and she felt his tears wet her hair. ‘Art was your dream—and teaching kids. I didn’t think it was as important as living here, being together, having kids. I thought what we had, what I gave you was enough. I was wrong.’ He bent and kissed her cheek, the other. ‘Have your dreams, Anna—whether you stay or go.’
‘Thank you,’ she said, fumbling for words.
‘Don’t thank me, Anna. I’m just giving back what you should never have lost.’
She pulled back to look at him. Yes, his eyes were still haunted, just like her heart. So much pain, so much past—so many loved ones lost. Jared tangled in every memory. She could disappear, but how did she run from her life, her own mind? How could she forget?
‘I still have to go,’ she said quietly, trying to turn her face but held by the unspoken suffering in his. He did care—care for her, not just Jarndirri. She couldn’t fool herself that he didn’t any more. But…‘I need to know what I want, Jared. I need to find my own life.’
‘And it isn’t here?’
One Small Miracle Page 13
