‘For a happy-ever-after ending?’ Nikki gave a short, harsh laugh. ‘Is that what you think?’
‘If he thinks he’s sterile he’ll be delighted about the baby.’
‘Yes.’ Nikki nodded. ‘He’s taken his sterility hard. And family is important to him. You’re right, Charlie. If I told him, then Luke would marry me.’
‘And you don’t want that?’
Nikki shook her head. ‘Not…not on those terms.’
‘But he made love to you. He must feel…’
‘He made love to me out of some crazy, stupid scheme to shake me out of my isolation and misery. For the same reason as you pinched all my clothes. Well, it worked only too well. I’m not isolated any more. I’m going to be the mother of two.’
‘Oh, Nikki, will you cope?’
‘Sure I’ll cope,’ Nikki whispered. ‘The town will talk behind my back-but they always have. Beattie will stand by me. And I have my career. Isn’t it lucky I’ve just done this damned exam?’ Her voice broke on a sob and she buried her face in her hands.
‘Nikki…’ Charlotte held out a hand helplessly to her friend and then withdrew it. ‘Nikki, you’ll have to tell him. It’s not fair…Apart from anything else, he has to know he’s not firing blanks.’
Shaken, Nikki looked up sharply and Charlotte shrugged and grinned. ‘Well, he does…’
‘If he had a low sperm count he must only have marginal fertility,’ Nikki said slowly. ‘He could try for twenty years and not father another child.’
‘Or he could do the same tomorrow.’
Nikki nodded. ‘OK,’ she said slowly. ‘I’ll tell him.’ She took a deep breath. Her face was set. ‘But not yet. I’ll let him get right away from Eurong and then I’ll write to him, care of the medical board. They’ll forward a letter. But it won’t be for a while yet. I’ll give myself time to have the strength to tell him to go to blazes when he demands that I marry him.’
‘That’s really what you want to do?’
‘He’ll love our baby,’ Nikki said bleakly. ‘But he doesn’t love me. So…so it’s what I really have to do.’
CHAPTER TEN
NIKKI arrived back at Eurong the following afternoon to find Beattie and Amy waiting for her at the airport. Amy raced across the tarmac to envelop her mother in a bear-hug.
‘Mummy, guess what? We’re going to have a Luke party!’
‘A Luke party.’ Nikki buried her face in her daughter’s chubby shoulder for longer than usual, finding comfort in that small person’s presence. Another Amy? Maybe…maybe someone who looked like Luke…
‘A Luke party,’ she said again unsteadily, bringing her face up to smile at Beattie. ‘What’s a Luke party?’
‘Luke’s going tomorrow,’ Amy told her, her face momentarily clouding. ‘But Beattie said tonight we’re having a party to say welcome home Mummy and goodbye Dr Luke. Only…only I think it would be nicer if Luke thought the party was just for him. If you don’t mind?’ she asked anxiously.
‘I don’t mind.’ Nikki set her daughter back on to her feet. ‘And what delicacies have we planned for such an event?’
‘All the food he’ll like best,’ Amy said proudly. ‘Little red sausages. Bread and butter and hundreds and thousands. Jelly beans. Red lemonade. Sausage rolls…’
‘Wow!’ Nikki grinned. ‘What man could ask for more?’
‘Exactly.’ Amy skipped beside her, her hand clinging to her mother’s. ‘Maybe-maybe if he sees what really good food we have sometimes, maybe he’ll stay.’
‘I don’t think that’s possible.’
‘No.’
Beattie glanced across at Nikki’s set face and then looked away. There was real pain there.
Nikki drove down to the hospital just before dinner. Luke, it seemed, was leaving in the morning and Nikki needed to know what hospital patients were in and what their medications were while he was still available to answer questions. She did a slow ward round, methodically going through each patient’s chart. There were no problems. Luke had written each patient’s history with meticulous care, knowing that he was soon handing over.
The young fisherman was recovering nicely and Nikki was pleased to see his impatience to be home. ‘I dunno why he’s keeping me so long,’ the boy complained. ‘I’ve only got a sore thumb.’
‘You wouldn’t have any thumb at all if it weren’t for Dr Luke,’ Nikki told him severely. ‘And if you risk infection by going home you can still lose it.’
‘Yeah, well, I’ve got nine more,’ the boy grinned and Nikki shook her head.
‘You don’t know how much you’d miss your right thumb until you’re without it,’ she warned him. ‘So just lie back and let us take care of you.’
‘It is nice,’ the fisherman admitted. He smiled shyly up at her. ‘The nurses here are great. And the food is something else.’
‘I guess it beats your dad’s cooking.’ Nikki hesitated. ‘Has he been in to see you?’
‘Yeah, once.’ The boy’s face closed. ‘Just wanted to know how long he’d have to hire someone else for. I dunno…I dunno that I’ll go back to living with him. I might get private board or something.’
‘Does your mum know you’re in hospital?’
‘No.’ Jim bit his lip. ‘Mum…well, Mum left a couple of years back and I chose to stay with Dad. It was a mistake, I guess, but…but I didn’t know where she was going and…I know Dad would hang up if she rang, or would burn any letters she wrote.’
Nikki nodded. ‘If you give me her full name and birth-date, I might be able to contact her,’ she offered. ‘If you like.’
‘Could you?’ Jim’s eyes brightened and then clouded again. He lay back on his pillows. ‘She’s probably glad to be shot of us both.’
‘Let me try and see,’ Nikki told him. ‘It can’t hurt to try.’
She left him then and spent a fruitful half-hour on the telephone. At the end of it she was practically certain that the Brisbane police would contact Mrs Payne. ‘Just let her know her son’s in the Eurong hospital after suffering an accident,’ she told them. It made it sound a little more serious than it really was now, but Jim-well, Jim was only nineteen and he still needed someone.
Everyone does, she thought bleakly. She looked up as the door of her office opened and Luke entered.
‘Welcome back.’ His tone was formal and his smile was forced. ‘How did the exam go?’
‘Fine.’ Nikki rose to her feet and stood awkwardly. How would it be, she wondered, if I just told him? Luke, I’m carrying your child. For a moment-just a moment-she felt a crazy impulse to do so, but he was looking at her with eyes that were distant and formal.
‘You’ve come for hand-over?’
‘I thought I should.’
‘Fine, then. Let’s go.’
So they walked through the hospital again, this time with Luke going through the notes as they visited each patient. The process was professional, efficient and cold.
The patients must think we can’t stand each other, Nikki thought, and bit her lip. Maybe for Luke it was true. Nikki had made him drop his guard and let the world in. Luke had done the same for her, but for Nikki the world, in the guise of one Luke Marriott, was more than welcome.
‘Is there anything else I should know about?’ she asked in a tight voice as they reached the end of the patient list.
‘No. I’ve left notes in the surgery.’
‘Fine.’ She nodded hopelessly. ‘I’ll be getting home, then. I’ve…we’ve a party to organise.’
‘Nikki, don’t go to any trouble.’
She turned then. ‘You do intend to show up?’ she demanded.
‘I have…there’s a house call.’
‘Luke, Amy’s counting on this party.’
‘Nikki, Amy has you and Beattie…’
‘And she has you.’ A surge of anger rose in Nikki. That he could hurt her was enough, but to hurt Amy…‘My daughter cares for you, Luke Marriott. She’s as big a fool as her mother in that r
egard. I’d stop it if I could but I have no control over my daughter’s decision to give her affection. She’s sad to see you go and she’s pressed us all into giving you a party that you don’t deserve.’
‘Nikki…’
‘You don’t care who you hurt, do you, Mr Marriott?’ she demanded. ‘You’d hurt Amy…you’d hurt me.
You’re hurting all your family-Oh, yes, I forgot to
tell you-I saw Megan while I was in Cairns. She’s another whom you’ve hurt with your introspective nurturing of your damned pain. Just because you’ve been sick, Luke Marriott, you think you can trample on the feelings of others and you don’t give a damn.’
‘Nikki, I do…’
‘You don’t or you wouldn’t do it. Amy is a lovely little girl, Luke Marriott, and she’s going to cry herself to sleep tonight if you don’t come to this damned party. So you can put yourself second for a change and come and eat little red sausages and party cakes and you can look as if you’re enjoying it or…’
‘Or what?’ Luke’s face was still.
‘Or I don’t know,’ Nikki ended up lamely. ‘Or I’ll think you’re even more selfish than…than my exhusband!’
If it hadn’t been for the children, the night would have been impossible. As it was, Sandra came with her four and the party was a riot. If Nikki was quiet and Luke’s smile was forced, then the children more than made up for it. Sandra’s brood were making up for past deprivation with a vengeance. They ate like miniature vultures while Sandra made futile protesting noises in the background and Beattie looked on with an indulgent smile.
‘It does me good to see Whispering Palms full of children,’ she beamed. ‘It’s like it ought to be.’
She glared then at both Luke and Nikki in turn, as if they were deliberately withholding its due from the old house.
Afterwards the children dived en masse into the pool and Luke joined them. Amy looked a question at her mother but didn’t voice it. It seemed she sensed Nikki’s reluctance to be with them. And tonight Amy was going to enjoy her Dr Luke and her new friends to the fullest. For tomorrow, her doubtful look at her mother said, we’ll be back to being by ourselves.
Not for long, Nikki thought grimly. Eight months?
At the thought of what lay ahead, blind panic filled her. She had assured Charlotte that she could cope, but could she? When Amy was a baby she had suffered at the hands of Eurong’s gossips. Now? All Eurong would count back and know whose baby this was.
And how would Luke react when he finally found out? He won’t find out for months, Nikki told herself desperately. It can’t be until I have the strength to say I won’t be part of a family for a baby’s sake. I won’t…
And finally the interminable evening ended. Luke left to drive Sandra and her children home and Nikki wearily carried an exhausted Amy up to bed.
‘It was nice, wasn’t it?’ Amy asked sleepily, snuggling into her mother’s arms.
‘Yes, it was.’ Nikki pulled back Amy’s bedcovers and deposited her daughter on to the pillows. ‘A special night.’
‘Dr Luke’s special,’ Amy said seriously. ‘Mummy, I don’t think Dr Luke should go away. I think he should stay here and be our daddy.’
And so say all of us, Nikki’s heart replied. Instead, though, she kissed her daughter goodnight and made her way back down to the kitchen. Beattie had already left for bed. Nikki made herself coffee and then went to sit out by the swimming-pool. She needed time to think.
Think of what? The next few years? The rest of her life? She closed her eyes as loneliness engulfed her. The responsibilities ahead were awesome and she couldn’t face them. Not alone.
There were footsteps behind her and she turned. Luke was there, his body outlined in the light of the doorway. He saw her and came across.
‘Satisfied?’ he asked her.
‘That you came to my daughter’s party? It was very generous of you,’ she whispered.
‘I even ate little red sausages.’
As an attempt at humour it was pretty appalling but Nikki managed a smile. She rose. ‘Well done. A manly effort.’ She made to go past him but he stopped her with his hand.
‘Nikki?’
‘Let me go, please,’ she said steadily. ‘I’m tired.’
‘Nikki, I’m sorry it had to end this way. Before God, I never meant to hurt you.’
‘What did you mean to do?’
He sighed. ‘I don’t know, my Nikki. I saw you so damned alone, and I thought-well, I thought it was time you came out of your shell. So I dragged you out.’
‘And now I’m exposed,’ she whispered. ‘Without a shell. And I’m supposed to be grateful.’
‘Nikki…’
‘I’m going to bed,’ she said wearily. ‘Let me go, please, Luke.’
‘Not yet…’
‘Please…’
‘Nikki, tomorrow I’ll be gone. I can’t stay here. We both know that.’
Nikki shook her head. ‘I don’t know that. I don’t see why you have to keep running.’
‘I’m not running.’
‘No?’
He closed his eyes. His face was haggard in the moonlight. ‘Nikki, I’m just trying to come to terms with myself-with what’s happened. Can’t you see that?’
‘With the fact that you can’t have children.’
He nodded. ‘Yes. It’s important to me.’
‘Luke…’
It was so close. The words were so close. Instead Nikki drew in her breath. She wouldn’t buy this man’s love. She wouldn’t. It had to be for her…
‘Luke, I love you,’ she whispered. ‘Isn’t that enough? Can’t that be enough?’
He stood motionless in the still, tropical night. Around them even the cicadas fell to silence, waiting. And then Luke shook his head.
‘I don’t think it can be,’ he said roughly. ‘God knows it should be. But I can’t make it work. Even though I want you…’
‘Do you want me?’
‘You don’t know how much.’ He opened his eyes and stared across at her. She stood motionless, waiting. She was playing with every card she had. There was only tonight. There was only now.
‘I’m yours if you want me, Luke,’ she whispered. ‘If you want me…’
She could do no more. She closed her eyes and waited.
And he would have had to be less than human to resist. In the moonlight, her soft white dress floating around her and her tousled curls gold-red in the moonlight, she was almost ethereal. Luke groaned and half turned away. Nikki didn’t move. Please, she was whispering over and over in her heart. Please…
And he came to her. He had to. It was as if they were two parts of a magnetic force that only had attraction for each other. He came and gathered her into his arms as though he were drowning. His lips took hers and Nikki gave herself to him with joy.
She could never recall how it happened, but somehow…somehow they were inside, in her big, cool bedroom, and he was kicking the wide French windows closed behind them. Nikki’s dress was somehow falling on to the polished floorboards and she was being lifted to lie on the smooth sheets, to wait…to wait for her love.
This was her place. This was her rightful home in the universe. She was with her man-of her man-one-and her body responded with all the joy that was in her heart.
This man was her love. This man was the father of the child she carried in her body, and her whole being reacted with light and love. Her hands took him to her, greedily, hungrily. She wanted to know every part of him, forever and ever and ever.
They were mad that night. They were two hearts, wounded and somehow made whole for the blessing of one magic night. In each other’s bodies they found joy and peace and love. They made love and slept and woke and made love again and Nikki tried to keep awake in Luke’s arms, so that she could savour it-this night that she wanted to go on for the rest of her life.
‘I love you,’ she whispered over and over again as he loved her body-as he made her feel the most loved and wa
nted woman on the face of the earth. She ran her fingers over his muscled frame and sought to make him hers-sought to melt her body into his. ‘I love you,’ she whispered, but he didn’t respond.
He didn’t reply.
His lovemaking told her that he wanted her-that he needed her-and that when he was gone he would be desperate for the comfort of her body.
His tongue tasted her and loved her, but didn’t say the words that would tie him to her forever.
Nothing.
And, finally, Nikki slept.
She woke at dawn as Luke stirred beside her, disengaged his body from hers and rose.
Sleepily Nikki looked up, loving the strong curves of his muscled body. Her eyes sought to know every inch of him. Instinctively she knew that there was to be no more. This was the end. The end…
She didn’t speak. She couldn’t. Instead she lay in the weak dawn light and watched the man she loved prepare to leave.
Finally, clothed, he turned to face her. Wordlessly she watched, waiting. Silence stretched out between them. It went on and on, as if neither was willing to face what had now become inevitable. Finally Luke swore softly and crossed to the bed to look down at her.
Nikki lay still, her red-blonde hair tumbled on the pillow around her too pale face. Her eyes were enormous as she looked up at him, waiting for the hurt.
And, sure enough, it came.
‘Last night shouldn’t have happened,’ he said quietly, his eyes pain-filled. ‘These whole three weeks…’
‘Should never have happened,’ Nikki agreed. ‘I know. But they have, Luke. And…and I’ve changed forever because of it.’
He touched her hair as if it hurt to do so. ‘I’m glad…if it means you’ll get out more. Meet people. Find someone…’
‘Someone who’ll love me…’ Nikki’s voice broke and she turned into her pillow. ‘Luke, how can you say that? How can you say that when you know I love you?’
‘God, Nikki…’
She turned back to him then and rose to a sitting position, the sheet falling away to reveal her lovely nakedness. Her hand came out to touch his-a wordless pleading.
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