by Alison Kelly
‘You sold the car because you thought I needed money.’
She blushed. ‘I…er…overheard you telling Jack the other night that you thought the idea was an incredible investment opportunity, but that you weren’t in a position to commit to it. Because of…well, because of the baby and me—’
‘A.J., I—’
‘Shh,’ she said, placing a finger across his lips. ‘There was real excitement in your voice when you were talking to Jack and I don’t want you to miss this opportunity. The car isn’t and never has been as important to me as you’ve become, Reb Browne,’ she told him in a tone that wrongly implied she’d told him this countless times before. ‘And it’s silly that you should have to forfeit a fabulous business opportunity when I’m driving around in a totally impractical car!’ She winked. ‘Besides, a baby capsule is going to look ridiculous in a convertible. So you just get back into that meeting and tell those investors you want in. Okay?’
‘You really mean that?’
‘Of course I do! Reb, if you think this is a good deal—’
‘Not that! I mean do you really love me?’
The sparkle in her eyes softened to a gentle glow a nanosecond before she nodded. ‘I love you more than I could ever tell you, Reb Browne.’
Feeling as if his heart had just inflated to the size of the Earth, Reb pulled her fiercely against him. ‘Oh, honey, I’ve been dying waiting to hear you say that. But you couldn’t have shown me your love better than you’ve just done.’
Though Amanda-Jayne wished he’d have verbalised his own love immediately, a part of her heart told her to be patient; that later, when they had no audience, Reb would be more than eloquent in revealing his feelings. It was, however, difficult not to cling to him when he gently eased her from him.
‘Jack,’ he said, looking not at the man behind him, but deeply into her eyes, ‘my wife thinks this deal is too good to turn down, so I guess you better get back in there and tell them I’m in.’
‘Great! But you can tell them yourself.’
‘Sorry, Jack. Right now I’ve got a few things I need to tell my wife.’ Lowering his head, he took her mouth in a short soft kiss. ‘Like the fact that I’m crazy about her,’ he whispered so only she could hear. ‘That picking her up in a bar was the smartest move I ever made… That I’m prouder than hell that she’s going to be the mother of my child… And that I love her more than life itself.’
The hefty kick that nudged his stomach indicated that the words seemed to surprise not only A.J. but also their child. Automatically his hand moved down to soothe it.
‘Y-y-you love me?’ she asked, her voice tight, her eyes swimming with tears. ‘Really?’
‘Oh, yeah.’
She threw herself against him, her hands and lips feverishly moving over him. ‘Oh, Reb! I can’t believe it! I love you so much! I need you so much! Reb…’
Struggling to contain his own joy and disbelief amid her gleeful, sobbing declarations of love, Reb held onto her as tightly as he could. No one had ever told him they loved him. No one… Except this amazing, beautiful woman who’d managed to fulfil not only his fantasies, but also dreams he’d never dared to have. Amanda-Jayne Vaughan loved him. Bad Boy Reb Browne had somehow won the heart of the princess.
As incredible as the idea still seemed to his brain, his heart recognised it as the truth—just as his heart knew she’d forgive him his deception about his true financial situation. All that was left to do now was to tell her about it.
CHAPTER TWELVE
FOR a long time Amanda-Jayne simply stared at the huge single-storey Federation-style home, coming to terms with what she’d learned. Bad Boy Reb Browne wasn’t merely a struggling mechanic who’d stretched himself to his financial limit when he’d paid off all her bills; he was a former professional motorbike racer who’d earned sufficient money on the circuit to invest in his former sponsor’s, Jack Edgemen’s, chain of motorcycle dealerships. Along the way the dealership had grown to be the second largest in the country and the investment he’d been discussing with Jack today was seen as the way to push it to number one.
Conscious of the concerned gaze Reb fixed on her and the tension radiating from him, despite the way he appeared to lean casually against the bonnet of Jack’s Edgemen’s Jaguar, Amanda-Jayne didn’t know whether she wanted to laugh, cry or punch him out. This might not have been on the scale of Vaughan House but, situated in a semi-rural area on Sydney’s north-western outskirts, which boasted the hideaways of an increasing number of artists and professionals, it was light-years away from the garage apartment.
‘You really own…’ she spread her arms to encompass the manicured lawns, which he’d said were ‘roughly four acres’, the house and a huge brick building that to her mind didn’t look sufficiently well ventilated to be a horse stable ‘…all of this?’ He nodded. ‘And what’s that used for?’ she asked, still curious about the brick building.
‘When I had the place built I intended it to be a garage where I could muck around with my bikes. I think the last tenants who were here used it as some sort of glorified games room for their kids.’
She turned to give him an accusing look. ‘All this time, I’ve been worrying myself sick that I was adding to the financial strain of keeping the garage afloat. I only applied for that job because you’d acted like the price of that dress Savvy wanted was beyond you.’
‘It wasn’t the cost but the dress itself I had reservations about. I swear, A.J.,’ he said earnestly, ‘I wasn’t trying to deliberately mislead you about that. Or the ring.’
‘Just everything else, huh?’
Reb knew he deserved her disdain, but there was none of it in her smile as she walked towards him with her arms around their unborn child. But she stopped about a metre away.
‘I take it since no one let anything slip to me that Savvy and everyone else at the garage was in on the poverty conspiracy too?’
‘No. That was just dumb luck.’
‘And that photograph on the bedroom wall is of you, isn’t it?’
He nodded. ‘It was taken at Philip Island in my first year of racing in the 500cc championship. It’s special to me because it was my only major race in Australia. I did a few years in the 250 class, then moved on to Superbikes and then back to the Grand Prix scene and racing 500s. I crashed out midway through my second season on GP 500s and then my uncle died and I had Savvy to look after so that was that.’ He shrugged. ‘I picked up my life in Vaughan’s Landing.’
‘Do you miss it—the racing?’
‘I did until you came into my life,’ he admitted honestly. ‘Now I don’t ever want to do anything that might take me away from you or our baby.’
‘Good!’ she said firmly. ‘Because I absolutely hate the thought of you doing something that dangerous. Were you ever badly hurt?’
He grinned. ‘Let me put it this way…if the baby is born with metal pins in its wrist and knee he or she will have inherited them from me.’
She pulled a face, then turned once more to study the house. ‘Reb, why buy a property and build a house like this and then not live in it?’
He sighed. ‘Because I’d always promised myself that one day I’d own a real home, on a par with those you see in magazines… Trouble was, I couldn’t bring myself to live in it. I couldn’t get past the crazy idea that I was selling out to what and who I really was. I felt like I’d let the remarks of all the people who said I’d never amount to anything have too much influence.’
She spun back to him. ‘Oh, Reb, that’s silly,’ she said gently. ‘You proved them wrong; if anything you should have shoved their noses in it.’
He pulled a wry face. ‘I suppose…but when you’ve spent a lifetime craving to be accepted for yourself, being accepted for how much cash you’ve got doesn’t seem like such a victory.’
‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘It isn’t. But we’ve both ended up victorious, haven’t we?’
He nodded, smiling. ‘We have if you can f
orgive the fact that I’ve got more money than you expected.’
‘I’ll try and not see your wealth as a hardship,’ she teased, then her expression became uncertain again. ‘You have to also forgive me for being less than honest with you…’ She took a deep breath. ‘I’ve already explained about how I paid off the car, but the rest of the story is that I never really intended to marry you. What I mean is that right up until I said “I do” I was counting on Patricia releasing my allowance so I wouldn’t have to go through with it,’ she admitted, studying her shoes.
‘Gosh darn!’ Reb said dryly. ‘That thought never crossed my mind.’
Her head jerked up. ‘You mean you knew?’
‘Not really, but, honey, no one was more surprised than I was when you were still standing beside me at the end of the ceremony.’
‘Wanna bet?’ she laughed.
‘Nope,’ Reb said. ‘I want you to come here so I can kiss you and show you how grateful I’m always going to be to your stepmother.’
Her compliance was swift and earnest and their kisses sprinkled with endearments which suddenly had more depth, meaning and power than ever before. The subtle but elemental difference of knowing her love was returned touched Amanda-Jayne in a way she couldn’t describe, but Reb, obviously sensing it too, managed to put it into words.
‘We’re not the Bad Boy and the Perfect Princess any more,’ he said, grazing his thumbs along her cheeks. ‘We’ve outgrown Vaughan’s Landing and its image of us. So, I’ve been thinking… Maybe it’s time to get the dust of the place off our boots for good. What would you say if I suggested we move here for a while and see what it’s like to be normal? To live in a place where no one knows us?’
Electric excitement raced through her. ‘You’re serious? You mean we could move…here?’
‘Any place you like, honey.’
‘Oh, Reb,’ she yelped excitedly, throwing herself into his arms. ‘I love you so much! I never thought I could be this happy. That anyone could be this happy!’
‘I know,’ he murmured. ‘But what’s more amazing is that you loved me even when you thought I was just a lousy mechanic.’
She pulled back before their lips met and grinned at him. ‘True, but I wanted your baby even when I thought you were nothing more than the town Bad Boy.’
He caught her chin. ‘Good,’ he said darkly. ‘’Cos I can’t promise that from time to time I won’t regress.’
She threaded her fingers into his hair and drew his face nearer. ‘I hope you do…’cos I’ve discovered I like being bad with you.’
For Amanda-Jayne the next six weeks passed in a flurry of moving, house-furnishing, nursery decoration and the irritation of waking several times every night to hurriedly waddle to the bathroom only to find she didn’t have to go when she got there. Reb, however, was a master at finding delicious ways to compensate her for being dragged from a restful sleep by their over-active child. However, two weeks before her due date, when she awoke to find herself lying in a very wet bed, Amanda-Jayne’s first reaction was to burst into tears of self-disgust… The second was to scream as a knifing pain cut low in her abdomen.
Forty minutes later she was breathing as hard as she could on some sort of mask which was making her light-headed, but not numbing the pain to any noticeable extent.
Three hours later she was swearing at Reb, Savvy and the oh, so pleasant nurses and telling them that childbirth was just too hard and she’d happily stay fat and pregnant for ever and never complain about it if they’d let her go home. Now.
Ten hours after that, she was still a tad light-headed, but this time with joy as she sat propped up, proudly cradling her nine-pound-four-ounce son who’d eventually been delivered by an emergency Caesarean. Curiously, there was no sign of the motorbike Amanda-Jayne had insisted he must have been straddling during her futile efforts to deliver him naturally. Nevertheless, for all the difficulties of her labour, she was convinced that Travis Joshua Browne was the most beautiful child ever born. And the most wonderful husband in the world agreed with her. So too did Savannah and Josh, although the latter was still pushing for his nephew’s names to be reversed.
When the nurse came and insisted for the third time that Travis be returned to the nursery, Amanda-Jayne felt as if they were taking away a part of her and demanded a wheelchair so she could accompany him. The request was declined on medical grounds, so she dispatched Reb, Savvy and Josh to ensure Travis came to no harm on the journey. She then fretted until Reb returned, alone, to report their son was in good hands and, under the adoring eyes of his uncle and cousin, was sleeping peacefully.
‘You need to sleep too, darling,’ he insisted, taking her hand and carefully lowering himself onto the bed so as not to jar her. ‘You have to be exhausted.’
Amanda-Jayne shook her head. ‘I’m too happy to sleep. Oh, Reb, he’s perfect, isn’t he?’
‘How could he not be with you as his mother?’ he said. ‘I don’t know what I did to deserve you in my life, A.J., but I’ll be eternally glad God noted it.’ With the back of his hand he stroked her cheek. ‘You’re the best thing to ever happen to me, A.J. I can’t even bear to think what my life would be like without you. Promise me you’ll never leave me…’
Fighting tears and the effects of the pain-killers she’d recently taken, Amanda-Jayne forced a smile. ‘I love you so much my soul bleeds at the idea of being parted from you just until tomorrow morning, Reb Browne. My heart will have stopped before I could even think of leaving you.’
Leaning forward, Reb kissed her tenderly. A tear fell from his eyes onto her cheek as he drew back. How she managed to unerringly lift a finger to touch his tear amid her own he didn’t know, but even more amazing was what she did next. Holding the tear on the finger of one hand, she carefully opened her nightie with the other; when the task was completed she gently touched the teardrop to her nipple.
‘That’s so both your strength and your tenderness will nurture your son in your absence,’ she told him, taking his hand and holding it against her heart. ‘I love you, Reb. If our son turns out to be half as kind, honourable and loving as you, I’ll be the proudest mother alive.’ She smiled. ‘Heaven knows, I’m already the proudest wife.’
EPILOGUE
IF AMANDA-JAYNE was surprised to come home from hospital and find her beloved car sitting in the driveway with a bow around it, it was nothing compared to the surprise Reb had for her three years later on their shared thirtieth birthday.
‘Reb Browne, there’d better be a very good reason why you’re dragging me into the garage at one minute past midnight,’ she grumbled, unable to think what he could possibly be keeping hidden here since there wasn’t a new car, which had been her first guess. Her humouring mood started to further evaporate when he merely continued to grin silently.
‘If this is an April Fool’s joke…’ she said ominously.
‘It’s not.’ He opened the back door of the four-by-four and motioned her to get in.
‘Are you nuts? Reb, I’m not going anywhere in my nightdress.’
‘Don’t worry, you won’t be wearing it long,’ he said, lifting her into the car then climbing in after her and shutting the door.
‘Reb…what are you doing?’
His hand went to her neck. ‘Re-creating my misspent youth.’ His voice was lazy, his eyes full of mischief and desire. ‘I racked my brains to think of a gift I could give you that wouldn’t be overshadowed by the inheritance you’re going to come into today. Then I remembered there was one thing you always said you wanted…’
He eased her onto her back and leaned over to blanket her body with his. ‘By rights I should have made you climb in here from the front seat, but a lady like you deserves better than that.’
The entire situation was so sweet, so crazy, so typical of how Reb continually surprised her that Amanda-Jayne was blinking back tears even as she laughed.
‘Oh, darling! I love you! But we can’t do this now.’
He produce
d a mock frown. ‘Now that’s a classic opening line if a guy has you in the back seat… Are you sure you haven’t done this before?’
She tugged his ear hard. ‘Yes! But I know you have!’
Grinning, he traced her clavicle and in the process slipped the straps of her nightdress off her shoulders. ‘Jealous?’
‘I refuse to answer on the grounds I may incriminate myself,’ she said, then added more seriously, ‘Reb, we won’t hear Travis if he wakes, out here.’
‘I told Savvy she was on toddler-sitting duty for the next three hours. So just relax and enjoy your birthday present, okay?’
Amanda-Jayne sighed as his mouth claimed hers and she was swept up in a kiss that left her boneless with love, desire and passion. It would have been infinitely easy to simply surrender to the magic of the moment right then, but there was something she wanted to do first so she forced herself to break the kiss.
‘Er, I might as well give you your present now too. But I have to warn you, it’s not as original as the one you’re giving me and much more expensive. In fact,’ she said, stifling a grin at his rueful expression, ‘you’re going to be paying for it for the next eighteen years at least.’
Amanda-Jayne counted three heartbeats before understanding dawned on Reb’s handsome face.
‘You’re pregnant!’ His delight was tangible as he grasped her to him. ‘Oh, honey! That’s great! It’s— I’m…I’m—’ Grinning widely, he shook his head. ‘Oh, hell, I don’t know what to say!’
She laughed. ‘Well, good! That beats having you deny responsibility the way you did when I told you about Travis! Now, if you’re through looking so damned pleased with yourself, can we get back to my pres—?’
He cut her words off with a hard, possessive kiss that fed all of her senses and emotions to a point where she could scarcely think.
‘Oh, God, A.J…. I love you, so much,’ he rasped, against her throat. ‘So damnably much. I can’t tell you how much… I can’t show you how much…’
