Nine Months to Change His Life

by Unknown

  He’d be walking away from Jake and his accusations.

  He’d be walking away from Mary.

  Mary.

  She was in his head, brave, funny, alone.

  She wasn’t alone. She’d told him that. She had her community.

  And a family who hated her.

  Maybe he could head up to see her father tomorrow. Tell him what he thought of a dad who turned his back on his daughter.

  Wasn’t that what he was doing—turning his back on his child?

  Mary’s child?

  ‘You’ve made the offer...’

  Yeah, but it was an empty offer. He knew it. He thought of what Mary had here, Heinz, her nursing, her roller derby, her neighbours. She was coping with hate from her family but she was looking to the future. Her child could have...community.

  That was what he didn’t get. He’d never needed it.

  Even in the army, Jake had embraced the life, enjoyed the communal living, found himself good mates who were still there for him.

  He himself had been chosen for missions that had meant working alone. That was what he was best at. He depended on himself. Anyone else depending on him made him feel heavy. Some time, inevitably, he’d let them down.

  As he’d let his mother down.

  As he’d let Mary down.

  He hadn’t let her down, he told himself savagely. He’d done what he could for her. He’d always be there in the background.

  Why couldn’t he get her out of his head?

  Jake’s words kept replaying. He tried to stop them every way he knew how, but they were burned into his brain, on permanent rewind.

  ‘No matter who she is, no matter what she’s done, no matter what she means to you, you’ll never open yourself up. Because if you do then you open yourself up to that whole mess that was our mom. Our family. And Mom killed herself. Finally I’m seeing why you’re so damned afraid.’

  Was he afraid?

  ‘I asked her to marry me.’

  ‘And that was opening myself up?’ He was talking out loud. He had the penthouse suite in the best hotel in town. It echoed. There was no one to listen.

  That was the way he liked it—wasn’t it?

  The night was doing his head in. His phone was sending a pale green light from its recharge station. He kept thinking of how Mary had been last night, wan and sick. He could just phone and check...

  And do what? Say sorry you’re morning sick or night sick or whatever they call it. Say call Kath if you get any worse. Say take care of yourself.

  Take care of yourself... What hollow words were they?

  ‘Maybe the real is worth fighting for. The real is even worth hurting for.’

  Since when had Jake become a shrink? Hell, if he walked in Jake’s footsteps he’d lurch from one emotional mess to another. He needed to get back to the States, immerse himself in his business world, forget this mess.

  Was Mary...this mess?

  Where was sleep when you needed it? Why had he scheduled the plane for ten the next morning? He needed to be on the plane now, heading back to his life.

  His life without emotion. His life without mess.

  His life without Mary.

  He gave up on sleep, flicked open his laptop and started work. The figures danced before his eyes. If he made any decisions now he risked disaster.

  Why could he not stop thinking about Mary?

  It’d be different when he got home, he told himself. Life would get back to normal. He could forget Jake’s extraordinary outburst. He’d done everything he could for Mary. She’d rejected most of what he’d offered but that was her call.

  Her life was no longer his business.

  Except she was carrying his child.

  Except she was ill.

  Except she might need...

  Dammit, he was going nuts.

  If he got up now he could drive there and back by the time he’d scheduled the plane to leave. He didn’t even need to wake her. He could just check...and say goodbye...

  He tossed back the bedclothes—and the phone rang.

  * * *

  Did death feel like this?

  ‘Bring it on,’ she muttered. Anything would feel better than what was happening to her body. Anything, anything, anything.

  ‘I’ve called the ambulance.’ Kath was there, looking frightened. She’d popped over just before dark, dying to talk about Ben, but she’d found Mary in a mess. Morning sickness had turned into afternoon sickness and afternoon sickness had turned into real trouble. Mary couldn’t talk about Ben. She couldn’t even think about him. All she wanted to do was die.

  But an ambulance? For morning sickness?

  ‘I’ll be all right,’ she managed, but they were a pretty thready four words.

  ‘You’ll be all right in hospital,’ Kath said grimly. ‘I’m thinking you haven’t kept fluids down for twenty-four hours. Is there anyone you want told?’

  But Mary couldn’t answer. She was in extremis again.

  She wanted to die.

  * * *

  Mary’s phone. Mary? At two in the morning?

  ‘Mary!’ He almost barked her name, but the voice that came back wasn’t Mary’s.

  ‘Ben? Ben Logan?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I’ve got the right Ben Logan? I’m guessing here. It only says Ben on the phone.’

  ‘Yeah, it’s Ben Logan.’ He was almost shouting. Why was someone ringing on Mary’s phone?

  ‘It’s Kath from next door.’

  ‘Kath.’ His heart hit his boots. ‘The roller derby. The fall. She shouldn’t have played.’ There was a sick emptiness in the pit of his stomach. ‘Has she lost the baby?’

  And then came a worse thought, a thought that sucked the bottom from his world. Haemorrhage. Death. The words intertwined with such savagery that his breathing seemed to stop. ‘Is she okay?’ he managed, and he could hardly get his voice to work.

  ‘She’s not okay,’ Kath said brusquely. ‘But it’s nothing to do with roller derby. The doctor’s saying she has something called hyperemesis gravidarum. That’s a fancy way of saying really bad morning sickness. Apparently she started being sick last night and she can’t stop. She’s had twenty-four hours’ throwing up and she’s got nothing left.

  ‘I came by last night to see how she was doing without you and ended up calling the ambulance. She’s in hospital now. I tried ringing her dad but her stepmum told me where to get off. I’m sorry but I work milking cows. I need to be at work in four hours. She’s by herself. Not that she cares, she’s too sick, but I thought someone ought to know.’

  He sank on the bed as if dragged there by gravity. He felt sick himself.

  She’s by herself...

  ‘How...how sick?’

  ‘They’ve got a drip up but she’s still vomiting. Sorry, Ben, that’s all I know. Where are you?’

  ‘In Auckland.’

  ‘Is there anyone else I can call for her? I can’t think of anyone.’

  Of course she couldn’t. There was no one.

  ‘No,’ he said in a voice that didn’t seem to belong to him. ‘I’ll come.’

  * * *

  You couldn’t hire a chopper at two in the morning, not unless you called out the army, and even Logan’s influence didn’t stretch that far.

  He drove. He may have broken the speed limit. Luckily the roads were quiet. The big car ate up the miles while Ben silently went mad.

  Mary was in hospital, ill. Mary was ill because she was carrying his baby.

  Mary had...what had Kath called it? Hyperemesis gravidarum. He needed to look it up on the internet but he didn’t have time.

  Hell, why wouldn’t the car go faster? It nearly killed him to s
low through the towns. Only the thought of spending the night in jail with the car confiscated stopped him hitting racing-car speeds.

  Mary.

  Mary, Mary, Mary.

  She could lose the baby. He’d accept that. He was making bargains, and the baby was his biggest offering.

  ‘I don’t mind,’ he said out loud. ‘As long as Mary lives.’

  But he did mind about the baby.

  His child. When had it become real?

  Just now. The moment he’d heard Kath’s voice. The moment he’d thought she’d lost it.

  ‘Yeah, but I’m not giving my Mary up for you,’ he told his unborn child, and he wasn’t making sense, even to him. But he added a rider and knew it was true. ‘I want you both.’

  The road seemed endless.

  He should have called Jake. Jake would have come with him. This sort of life-and-death situation, this race through the night, would appeal to his twin.

  But it wasn’t that. It wasn’t Jake’s energy he wanted now. He just wanted...someone.

  He needed Jake.

  He needed Mary.

  And right there, right then, things cleared. It was like a fog was lifting.

  He got it.

  The offer he’d made Mary had been crazy. Nothing. It had been a dumb way to closet her neatly into the life that was already his. No wonder she’d refused, because he’d offered nothing.

  He hadn’t realised then what he was realising now. How much he wanted Mary. How much he needed Mary.

  And if he wanted Mary he was going to have to offer a lot more than he had.

  What had Jake said? ‘I’m capable of loving.’

  ‘I am, too,’ he told the night. ‘Please, just give me a chance to show it.’

  * * *

  It was six in the morning when he finally reached Taikohe’s community hospital. The nurse in charge took him into Mary’s room but told him—sternly—not to disturb her.

  ‘She’s been retching for more than twenty-four hours. We’ve only just got her body to relax. I don’t care who you are but if you even think of nudging her awake I’ll send you into the middle of next week.’

  Mary might not have family here, he thought as he followed the nurse, but she was right, she did have community. Kath had sounded frightened on her behalf. This nurse, who must know Mary personally, sounded fierce.

  And then he was ushered into Mary’s room and everything else was forgotten.

  There was a low-voltage nightlight under the bed, casting a bluish tinge across the room so medical staff could see at a glance what was happening. It made the room seem weird, dark and yet not dark, surreal.

  It made the figure in the bed seem...not alive.

  He crossed to the bed in three strides, and then just...stood.

  She was huddled under the bedclothes, tiny, insignificant, almost as if she was disappearing. Her skin looked almost translucent. That was the light, he told himself fiercely. She was...

  ‘She’s okay,’ the nurse whispered beside her. ‘This light makes everyone look like corpses. It scares the daylights out of our juniors when they first do their rounds. Not that Mary looks exactly pink and healthy but she’ll be okay. Now we’ve stopped her being sick.’

  He wanted to touch her. He wanted to feel her warmth.

  Smash ’em Mary...what a joke. There was no strength in her. There were tubes attached to her arm, monitors, equipment he didn’t know.

  He wanted to gather her into his arms and take her home.

  Home... Where was home?

  Right here, he thought savagely. Home is where the heart is.

  Home was Mary.

  ‘You want to stay?’ the nurse asked, and he nodded. Where did she think he was going?

  Nowhere forever, he thought. This was where he belonged.

  Where was self-containment now? Jake would mock.

  Let Jake mock. He drew up a chair and sat down. Let the whole world mock. Let his dumb armour fall away.

  This was his woman, ill with his child.

  This was where he belonged.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  MARY WOKE TO SUNBEAMS, warmth—and someone holding her hand.

  For a moment she didn’t open her eyes. Why should she? The sun was warm on her face, she was cocooned in comfort—and the appalling sickness had receded.

  Right now she felt...okay.

  Right now someone was holding her hand.

  ‘Hey,’ a voice said gently. ‘Hey, Mary, Smash ’em Mary, Mary my love. Could you possibly wake up? I hate to disturb you but apparently we have a date with an ultrasound in fifteen minutes.’

  Ben was here.

  She was dreaming.

  She was so warm. If she opened her eyes the sickness could wash back. If she opened her eyes Ben would disappear into the dream this surely was.

  ‘Mary,’ he said again, and his voice was so warm, so tender, and the pressure on her hand was so gently insistent, that she had no choice.

  She opened her eyes, and Ben was sitting by her bed, smiling down at her. He was smiling but his eyes were full of worry.

  He needed a shave, she thought inconsequentially. He looked...haggard.

  And then there was another thought, overriding even the amazement of Ben’s presence. An appalling thought.

  ‘My baby?’

  Memory was flooding back. By the time she’d reached hospital she’d been in extremis. The retching hadn’t abated. Her whole body had seemed to be rejecting her pregnancy.

  Why had she stopped being ill?

  ‘Is there something wrong?’ she whispered, even though Ben was here. His presence was the most miraculous thing in the world and he was smiling at her and holding her but still... It nearly killed her to say it. ‘Have I lost my baby?’

  But... ‘Our baby seems to be doing fine,’ Ben told her, smiling in such a way it made her heart seem to turn over. ‘Except he’s making his mother ill. The doctor says this doesn’t mean a risk to the pregnancy. On the contrary, this illness means you’re producing so many hormones that it’s probably ultrasafe. There’s nothing to worry about, Mary. Our baby’s fine.’

  There was a lot to think about in that statement. She was too tired to think much but there was enough to make her sink back onto her pillows and relax a little.

  Her baby was safe, but it was our baby...

  Ben was here.

  ‘You...you’re here. Why?’

  ‘You scared the daylights out of Kath,’ Ben told her. ‘She told me she thought you were dying.’

  Good old Kath. She remembered the fear on her neighbour’s face last night and understood. ‘Maybe I thought I was dying,’ she admitted.

  Why wasn’t she ill now? She was scared to move in case it came back.

  She wanted to close her eyes again but Ben was here and she didn’t want to chance it.

  ‘Dr Bolton says you were dangerously dehydrated,’ Ben said. He sounded matter-of-fact but she knew this man well, and she could hear the tremor behind the words that said there was no matter-of-factness about this. ‘Apparently there’s a tipping point when you’re ill. You get to the stage you’re so dehydrated your body is ill because of it and the whole thing compounds into a vicious cycle. You went past that.’

  ‘Yay for me.’

  ‘I should have been here.’

  ‘You’re going back to the States.’

  ‘Maybe we need to talk about that,’ he said grimly. ‘But meanwhile you have IV fluids topping you up and some ultrastrong antinauseant the doctor said he could give you, as long as I understood it’s expensive. I’ve never been more glad I have money.’

  She thought about that—and liked it. ‘Me, too,’ she conceded. ‘You think you could put your fanc
y drug on the child-support expense list?’

  ‘We need to talk about that, too,’ he said. ‘Mary, I drove for four hours through last night, thinking you might be dying.’

  ‘That’s bad,’ she whispered. She couldn’t get her head around why he was here. All she knew was that he was still holding her hand. He was right beside her, holding her, and he wasn’t letting go.

  ‘Mary, I don’t intend walking out again,’ he said. ‘Not ever. Not if you’ll have me.’

  Whoa... These monitors should be bringing medical staff running with their crash carts, she decided. She was sure her heart had stopped, right there. She was struggling to breathe. She was struggling to take anything in.

  If you’ll have me...

  ‘W-why?’ It was a dumb question but it had to be asked. She felt out of time, out of body. This was happening to someone else, not Mary Hammond. Someone else was lying in a hospital bed, watching the man she loved with all her heart...

  ‘Because I love you with all my heart.’ His words were such an echo of what she was thinking that her dream seemed to intensify. The feeling that this wonder couldn’t be real. But the pressure on her hand was real. The smile behind Ben’s eyes was real.

  And the look of fear that still lingered on his face was more real than she ever wanted to see again.

  ‘I’m fine.’ She put her hand up and touched his face. ‘Ben, I’m okay. You don’t have to do this.’

  ‘Fall in love with you?’ He shook his head and the fear faded a little. ‘How can I not? I think I fell in love with you two months ago, right about the time you dragged me up a cliff in a storm. But it’s taken me this long to acknowledge it.’

  ‘So...’ She was having trouble getting her voice to work, but she was really trying. Of all things, this was worth the most effort. ‘So why acknowledge it now?’

  ‘Lots of reasons. Because it took the thought that I might lose you to make me see. Because Jake called me a coward. Because you called me on being a twin, wearing this tattoo and yet not knowing what it meant. Because you’ve shown me what community means and how important it is.

  ‘I’ve finally figured that community’s great, I’ll buy it, but family’s more. I don’t think Jake and I ever had a family. The way we were raised, with charades and bullying, we never knew what it was, but suddenly I’m seeing it and I want it. I want it with you, Mary. If you’ll have me.’