Their Miracle Baby

by Caroline Anderson

  Funny how his mind had emptied, how he couldn’t think of a single thing except that soft shadow and the warm, silky feel of her skin…

  She was busy all day, out on the farm, and he was driven crazy. He started to read the book Ben had given him, but it couldn’t hold his attention. Not against such fierce competition.

  And he was getting so unfit it was driving him mad.

  He went into the kitchen, poked about in the larder and found an unopened bag of rice. That might do the trick. He sat down on one of the chairs, draped the rice bag over his cast and did some lower-leg lifts until his thigh and abdominal muscles were burning. Then he shifted onto his right hip and lifted the leg up and in towards the centre, over and over, then stood up and held on to the sink and lifted his leg out sideways until the muscles round his hip were screaming in protest.

  He looked at the clock and sighed. Ten minutes. Barely that, and he was cream-crackered. Still, it was a start.

  He put the kettle on, then went to the freezer and hunted around for the packet of coffee. Funny, he had been sure

  ‘So how are things?’ Mike asked while he waited for the coffee.

  ‘OK. How about you?’

  ‘Bored to death. Doing exercises so my leg doesn’t wither and drop off. Why?’

  ‘I’m going to cut up that tree,’ his brother said. ‘Want to come and keep an eye on me?’

  ‘I can’t do anything.’

  ‘You can dial 999 when I cut my leg off,’ Joe pointed out dryly, and Russell snorted.

  ‘I hate to point this out to you two but I can’t run the entire farm alone without either of my suicidally reckless sons.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Dad, I’ll look after him,’ Mike assured him. ‘And tell Fran not to worry about lunch, we’ll grab something from the shop.’

  He drained his coffee—the first decent one for days, he realised—and climbed into the cab of the pickup with Joe. Maybe if he was careful he could stack some of the logs…

  ‘Cheers. You’ve been a real help—hope you haven’t overdone it.’

  ‘I’m fine. It was good to get some fresh air,’ Mike told Joe, and slapped his shoulder. ‘Right, I’m going in. No doubt I’ll get a lecture. I’ll see you later.’

  He went into the kitchen and sniffed appreciatively.

  ‘Wow, that smells good.’

  ‘It’s more than you deserve,’ Fran growled, but when she

  ‘I was sensible. I was just going crazy, stuck in the house, sweetheart.’

  ‘I know.’ Her arms were round him, holding him close, and she felt so good he could have stayed there for ever, but she pushed him away and told him to wash.

  ‘You’ve got ten minutes before supper,’ she said. ‘And I want you clean and presentable. We’re eating in the dining room.’

  He peered through the door on the way past and did a mild double-take. Candles?

  He yelled back, ‘Give me fifteen minutes. I’m having a shower.’

  A nice hot one, followed by a shave and a slosh of the citrusy cologne she’d given him for Christmas two years ago. He contemplated the cast with disfavour, pulled on a fresh pair of the baggy boxers, then his favourite aqua-blue soft cotton shirt and his decent shorts—his dress shorts? he thought with a chuckle—and went downstairs.

  Wow.

  She’d said clean and presentable, but she hadn’t expected him to go to so much trouble. He was even wearing aftershave!

  She was wearing a sundress—she’d changed into it after she’d finished turning the cheeses and had a shower, and she’d been out in the garden picking fresh herbs and dead-heading the roses. She could feel the warmth in her shoulders, even though she’d been out of the sun at midday, but it had obviously been enough.

  She cut herself off. This was supper for her husband. Nothing more. Nothing huge. They were going to eat, and they were going to talk and make friends again. And if tonight went like last night, he wouldn’t let it go any further.

  ‘Anything I can do?’

  ‘Yes—sit down in the dining room and light the candles. I know it’s not dark yet, but it’s gloomy in there.’

  ‘You’re an old romantic, do you know that?’ he murmured softly, right behind her. Feathering a kiss over her bare shoulder, he stumped out, the clatter of his crutches almost drowned out by the beating of her heart.

  Brodie was looking hopeful, but she was banned. ‘Sorry, sweetheart, two’s company and all that,’ she said, and shut the dog out.

  They had oysters to start with. Not Falmouth oysters, because they were out of season, but imported oysters that she’d found on the supermarket fish counter. Normally she wouldn’t have dreamed of buying anything so unlocal, out of season and environmentally unsound, but they were on the list, they were reputedly an aphrodisiac and, besides, Mike loved them and he deserved a treat.

  ‘I can’t believe we’re having oysters,’ he said, raising his eyebrows.

  ‘They were on special offer,’ she lied, and wondered how many more lies she’d have to tell him before the end of the meal.

  ‘Well, they would be. They’ve only come fifty miles.’

  He chuckled. ‘Fair point. These are still good, though. Thanks.’

  ‘Pleasure.’

  ‘So—are they part of this diet you’ve got me on?’ he asked casually. ‘Because, if so, I think I like it. And I should certainly heal fast.’ He looked up, laughing, and was arrested by the guilty look on her face. ‘Fran?’ he said, slowly lowering the next shell to the plate untouched. What the hell was going on?

  She swallowed and knotted her fingers together. She always did that when she was nervous—but why?

  ‘Talk to me,’ he said, and she looked up and met his eyes, her own filled with remorse, and he knew—he just knew—that she was hiding something. ‘It’s nothing to do with my leg healing, is it?’ he said slowly. ‘So what’s it all about?’

  She got up and went out, coming back seconds later with a folded sheet of paper. She handed it to him, and he opened it and scanned it.

  ‘Fertility-boosting diet?’ he said, noticing all the things that were on it that should have rung alarm bells. The lack of tea and coffee, the extra fruit, the smoothies, the raw veg soups, the lack of alcohol—not that they drank much, but if she was going to this much trouble they’d usually share a bottle of wine, but there was fruit juice by their plates, and a jug of water on the table.

  He lifted his head and met her wary and slightly defiant eyes. ‘Fran?’

  She looked guilty, and he had a feeling they’d talked about a lot more than diet. Good, because he’d wanted her to have someone to talk to, but he’d never dreamt she wouldn’t discuss things like this with him.

  ‘Why didn’t you say anything?’ he said, hurt and puzzled that she’d felt the need to lie—lie, for heaven’s sake!—about something so uncontroversial and trivial. Or was it? Was it that she hadn’t been sure if he wanted a child with her? She’d said that last night—did she really believe he didn’t? If so, maybe that was why she’d been reluctant to get it out in the open.

  ‘She said it wouldn’t hurt to try it, to improve our diet, to get fitter—and then, if we decided we wanted to go ahead and try again for a baby, we’d be in the best possible position.’

  He felt a flicker of fear for her, dread that yet again she’d be faced with crippling disappointment or a gut-shredding loss that would leave her devastated.

  ‘If?’ he said softly.

  Her eyes flicked back to his. ‘I wasn’t sure if you wanted one—if you didn’t feel it was just a lot of angst and hassle, if Sophie wasn’t enough for you.’

  ‘This isn’t about me, Fran, it’s about you, and if you want a baby.’

  ‘I do—but I want yours. And I need you to want it, too. And right now I’m not sure you do.’

  He sighed. ‘It’s not so urgent for me,’ he pointed out. ‘I’ve got Sophie, and my clock’s not ticking the way yours is. And anyway…’ he scanned the paper again, noted the
section about boosting sperm production and reducing

  ‘What?’

  Her soft, shocked exclamation tore at him, but he went on regardless. ‘Maybe, if you want a healthy baby, you’d be safer trying with someone who hasn’t already got you pregnant twice with an embryo that was probably flawed.’

  ‘We don’t know that that was you!’

  ‘We know that some of the sperm were damaged—that the motility was down a little, that they weren’t all perfect.’

  ‘But—everyone’s are like that, Mike! It’s perfectly normal to have a proportion of sperm that aren’t a hundred per cent. It could just as easily have been something to do with the IVF process.’

  ‘Not the first time.’

  ‘Mike, miscarriage is really common,’ she said, repeating to him all the things he’d told her again and again, trying to encourage her, to give her confidence to try again, but it sounded as hollow now as it had when he’d said it, and he felt the burden of guilt settle firmly on his shoulders.

  ‘But if it is me,’ he said quietly. ‘If it is my fault, then I may not be able to give you a baby, Fran. And how many times are you prepared to try? How many miscarriages are you going to go through before you give up? And what if—just consider, for a moment—what if we have a baby that you should have miscarried but didn’t? A baby nature would normally have rejected as unviable? What if we have a baby with problems—physical or mental disabilities, developmental problems—what then, Fran? Will you be able to forgive yourself for not choosing a better partner? Will you be able to forgive me? Because I’m not sure I could.’

  ‘Of course not!’ He didn’t even have to stop and think about that one. In fact, for a while now he’d been on the point of suggesting to Fran that they adopt a child with special needs, but he’d held back, not ready to concede defeat in the fight for their own child until she was. But she didn’t know that, didn’t realise that he’d considered it, and now she thought he just couldn’t hack it if they had a child with problems.

  ‘Of course not,’ he said again. ‘But I don’t know if I could forgive myself for bringing a child into the world if I had a fair idea that that child would be damaged in some way because of my contribution to its existence. And if that was the case, maybe it would be better to adopt. That’s all I meant. Nothing more sinister. And if it is me—’

  ‘But I don’t want anybody else’s baby,’ she said with a certainty that brought a lump to his throat. ‘I want yours, Mike—and if I can’t have yours, then I don’t want one at all. We’ve got Sophie. That’s enough. We should be grateful and concentrate on loving her.’

  Her voice cracked, and he was up and round the table in a second, his crutches abandoned, hauling her into his arms and cradling her against his chest, unable to bear the desolate look in her eyes. ‘Don’t give up,’ he said gruffly, his eyes prickling. ‘We’ll take our time, try the diet, have some more tests. And then—if you want to, if you think you can cope with it—we’ll try the IVF again.’

  ‘But we can’t afford it, Mike, so it’s pointless,’ she said, her voice clogged with tears.

  She looked up at him, her eyes uncertain, and as he watched, a flicker of hope came to life. ‘Really?’

  ‘Really.’

  She smiled slightly. ‘You’d better sit down and finish your oysters, then,’ she said with a return of her old spirit, ‘because we’ve got baked sea bass and new potatoes and mangetout, followed by hazelnut meringue ice cream with mango coulis and chocolate Brazil nuts with decaf coffee to finish up.’

  ‘And then?’

  She smiled again, and he could see a pulse beating in her throat.

  ‘Then we go to bed.’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  IT WAS the longest meal of his life.

  He didn’t want it. Every mouthful, delicious though it undoubtedly was, was just another step on the path to the bedroom, and the anticipation was killing him.

  Not just the anticipation, though. There was also the fear of failure, of letting down.

  What if he rushed her—if, while she was still uneasy about her body, he was too fast for her, in too much of a hurry for his own satisfaction that he left her behind?

  No. He couldn’t. Not tonight, when it was clearly so significant in the salvation of a marriage he’d realised he wanted more than anything else in the world.

  So he ate his meal slowly, mouthful by mouthful, and he talked to her about what he and Joe had done that day down by the river, and they laughed about him taking the saw from Joe and cutting up the part that had trapped him into tiny little bits.

  ‘It’s just matchsticks now,’ he said, and she laughed again.

  ‘That’ll teach it,’ she said, and then her laughter faded. ‘I was so scared,’ she confessed. ‘When I saw you trapped under it, when they were just about to pull you out and I

  ‘But you didn’t.’

  ‘No—but it came too close, Mike. It scared me. It was bad enough that you were injured, without having to watch you die—’ She broke off, her eyes filling, and he felt a lump in his throat.

  ‘Well, it didn’t happen, and I’m fine.’

  ‘Only because they got you out in the nick of time. Just because you’re big and tough, you think nothing can hurt you.’

  ‘You think I’m tough?’ he asked, flexing his muscles and flirting with her for the first time in years, and she laughed again, softly.

  ‘You look pretty tough to me.’

  Her eyes strayed over him, and he felt the heat building until he thought he’d scream with frustration. But he didn’t scream, and he didn’t leap to his feet and drag her upstairs. Not that he could, unless he sat down and dragged her up backwards!

  Instead they stayed in the dining room for their coffee, but he didn’t eat any of the chocolate Brazils. He was full enough—and with the workout he had in mind, he didn’t want to be over-full. Even by one mouthful.

  And then, at last, it was finished.

  The sun was setting, the last fingers of the day pulling back and leaving them alone in the candlelight.

  He met her eyes—they were wary, a little nervous, but unflinching, her lips parted, the breath easing in and out of the top of her chest, rapid and unsteady.

  It was time.

  ‘I ought to clear the table,’ she said, giving it a guilty glance, but he cupped her chin and turned her back towards him, his fingers gentle.

  ‘Later,’ he murmured. ‘It’ll keep.’

  Still she hesitated, killing him, and then she gave a tiny nod, as if she’d made the decision, and, letting go of his hand, she passed him his crutches and headed for the door.

  ‘You go on up. I’ll let the dog out,’ she said.

  He paused. ‘Don’t be long.’

  ‘I won’t.’

  He wanted to stay with her, didn’t trust her not to change her mind and run away, but by the time he was finished in the bathroom, he could hear her calling the dog in, locking the door, running up the stairs.

  Running?

  He opened the bathroom door and she was standing there, backlit by the landing light, looking just like the girl he’d fallen in love with, and he smiled.

  ‘Five minutes,’ he said, and she smiled back.

  ‘Five minutes,’ she agreed.

  Lord, she was so nervous!

  She’d never felt like this with him, not even the first time, but that had been then and this was now, and so much had happened.

  She cleaned her teeth, washed her face and stared at herself in the mirror, wishing she had a gorgeous silk nightdress she could put on, or some really fabulous underwear—something

  But she didn’t. Because she hadn’t expected things to go so far tonight, she was wearing a pretty but still fairly ordinary bra and a pair of lacy knickers, not very new and not overly glamorous even at the beginning, and a sundress which with the best will in the world was very simple.

  But at least it covered her.

  Oh, help.

  She was so
scared that her whole body was shaking. What if she froze at the crucial moment? What if she just couldn’t let him?

  She looked herself in the eye, took a steadying breath and straightened her shoulders.

  ‘You can do it, Fran,’ she told herself firmly. ‘You can do it.’

  He was standing by the window, watching the sun go down.

  The room was tinted pink from its last rays, and he held out his hand to her.

  ‘Come here,’ he ordered softly, and she went to his side, standing in front of him with his arms around her and his head close to hers. She could feel his heartbeat against her back, feel the steady, solid pounding of it as the sun slipped down into the distant sea, melting away in a flare of crimson and gold.

  Then he turned her in his arms, staring down at her, his eyes serious.

  ‘I love you, Francesca,’ he said quietly. ‘You mean everything to me. You’re the reason I get up in the morning, and the reason I come to bed at night. You make the sun

  She couldn’t believe it. This man, who never showed his feelings, certainly never spoke about them, was baring his soul to her in words that brought tears to her eyes.

  And nothing—nothing—could have convinced her more that their marriage was worth saving.

  She couldn’t speak, couldn’t find any words to match his, so instead, swallowing the tears and stepping back, she held out her hand to him.

  He took it, squeezed it, then swung himself over to the bed, less awkward now on his crutches, and propped them up against the wall, then took her hand again and drew her close.

  ‘I love you,’ he breathed, bending his head and touching his lips lightly to hers. She parted her lips but he eased away, cradling her close, pressing soft, breathy kisses to her hair, her temple, her cheek, his lips grazing her skin like the wings of an angel.

  She let her head fall over to one side, giving him access to the incredibly sensitive skin of her throat, and she felt the hot trail of his breath as his lips traced slowly down to the hollow at the bottom, the rasp of stubble unbearably erotic.