A Woman to Remember

by Miranda Lee

  ‘We’ll see, Rachel.’ Already his mind was shifting to other hopes, other dreams. Attainable ones.

  He must have betrayed something of his secret desires, for her face hardened then. ‘Don’t go misunderstanding what happened last night, Luke,’ she said sharply. ‘It was a mistake, and one which I won’t repeat. I know I gave the impression I was a sure thing where you’re concerned, but that’s not true any more. Believe me when I tell you I won’t go to bed with you again. Never, ever. So you’d be wasting your time hanging around here.’

  He believed that she believed what she was saying. So he let her believe it for the time being.

  ‘Just tell me what happened, Rachel?’

  His firm stance brought a wearily resigned sigh. ‘All right, but I’m beyond dressing it up to make you feel sympathetic. I’m beyond caring what you think of me, anyway. I did it, and given the same circumstances I’d probably do it again. Not that that makes it right...’

  Luke sat down while she stood there silently for a few seconds, her mind obviously off in the past. He waited impatiently for her to continue, and was about to say something when she launched into the explanation.

  ‘I never knew my father,’ she said, and Luke’s head snapped back in the chair. Good God, she was going back a long way. But he remained silent, knowing that any further interruptions would only delay things.

  ‘He died when I was only two. My mother was a wonderful woman, but inclined to be overprotective—especially when I grew up to be better than average-looking. She was afraid, you see, that I would become easy prey to the rich, handsome, conscienceless men of this world, who sought to use any pretty but naive young woman who crossed their path. When I became a model I began to see what she meant. I was pursued by such men, and I fell prey to their empty charm a couple of times before I woke up to their lies. And my own silly self.’

  Luke frowned at this, and might have said something if she hadn’t immediately swept on with her story.

  ‘By the time I met my future husband, at the ripe old age of twenty-two, I’d become somewhat wary of all super-good-looking men—rich or not. Patrick wasn’t overly handsome or overly rich or overly anything. He was, however, a fascinating man, with a brilliant mind, who was already at the top of his scientific field at only thirty-four.

  ‘We met at a benefit to raise money for research into congenital defects in children—his field. I fell in love with him, and when he asked me to quit modelling, marry him and have his children, I said yes like a shot. My mother was delighted—she’d begun to seriously worry about the direction of my life—and wished me every happiness as Mrs Patrick Cleary.’

  Rachel’s unhappy sigh led Luke to the astonishing thought that she had not found such great happiness as Mrs Patrick Cleary. Had this been due to his sickness, he wondered, or something else? Hadn’t her brilliant husband turned out to be the Prince Charming she’d imagined him to be?

  Not too many men, Luke reckoned, were saints. He would imagine that a man who had chosen scientific research as a career might be a very self-absorbed individual, a workaholic-type with little time put aside for the little wife at home.

  But it was hardly the right time to suggest as much.

  ‘A few weeks after our wedding,’ Rachel said quietly, ‘my mum died suddenly of a stroke. It...it was a big shock to me. She was only forty-nine. I found it difficult to come to terms with her death. If it hadn’t been for Sarah’s sweet sympathy and kindness, I might have actually had a breakdown.

  ‘She was a big comfort, too, when several months went by and I didn’t fall pregnant. Patrick was most upset by this, and impossible to reason with. He was anxious to have children, and especially a son to carry on the family name. I told him that conceiving sometimes took time, but he insisted I went for every test in the book.

  ‘When the news came back that I was fine, he finally consented to have tests done himself. He found out that his sperm count was a little low, but...worse...he was suffering from leukaemia—the same disease which had claimed his own father thirty years before.

  ‘We were all devastated by the news. Patrick knew he had a long stint of chemotherapy ahead of him and, unbeknown to me, he had some of his sperm frozen and stored in the sperm bank of a large Sydney hospital. He had no intention, it seemed, of giving up his idea of having a son and heir.

  ‘Meanwhile, he wasn’t well enough for a normal sex life—although we did manage to make love every so often. Still, not enough to make conception a likelihood. He did go into a type of remission for a few short months, and we did resume marital relations on a regular basis, but still... no baby.

  ‘When Patrick became ill again, and was diagnosed as terminal, he came up with the idea of my being artificially inseminated with his sperm every month. He had me take my temperature every morning before rising, and charted everything. Then, when my temperature dropped and it seemed ovulation was imminent, I would take the train up to Sydney, visit the hospital for the necessary procedure, spend the rest of that day and night resting in a hotel room, then return home the next day.

  ‘I did this for five consecutive months, and every time...nothing. I began to dread getting my period and seeing the despair in Patrick’s eyes. I would have done anything to stop him looking like that. The doctors said that if I could get pregnant he might find the will to last another couple of years, but I have to admit that I wanted a child myself. My life had become so lonely and so wretched, without focus or meaning. I needed something of my own to love and hold. It had been so long since Patrick had even touched me, let alone held me.’

  Rachel faced him then, for the first time since she’d started talking. ‘So I did what I did, God forgive me, thinking I was doing something noble. But from the moment you touched me, Luke, and held me and kissed me, I became caught up in something so different from what I’d originally intended. I won’t lie and say I didn’t enjoy every single moment I spent with you that night. I did. But believe me when I say I’ve suffered for my sin, Luke. I’m only sorry that I unwittingly made you suffer as well. I apologise deeply for that. I really do.’

  ‘And you’re absolutely sure of the child’s parentage?’ he asked thickly. ‘There’s no doubt?’

  Rachel stiffened and drew herself up tall, as if in indignation that he would ask that question a second time. ‘No doubt at all,’ came her staunch reply. ‘I’d been artificially inseminated with Patrick’s sperm that same afternoon. I can only assume that my making love with you set off more normal processes within my body, which resulted in it being more conducive to conception.’

  Luke couldn’t help the grimace of distaste which flitted across his face.

  ‘Yes, it’s all very tacky, isn’t it?’ she snapped. ‘Just like last night was tacky. I don’t want to be tacky with you any more, Luke,’ she said, her voice shaking with emotion. ‘Enough is enough. Now I want you to go.’ Again she crossed her arms, her expression and her stance carrying the message that this encounter was at an end.

  He stood up slowly, that she was far too upset at that moment to accept anything from him at all. But he had no intention of leaving her alone. Either her or the boy. Derek might not be his child, but he could have been...oh, so easily.

  As perverse as it might have seemed, it was enough for Luke. For some strange reason he didn’t feel any different about the child for knowing he was not the biological father. His heart filled as he imagined what it would have been like to be such a child’s real father—to love him and look after him. Luke liked the feeling it gave him. It felt right.

  ‘I fully agree with you, Rachel,’ he said quietly. ‘I don’t want there to be anything tacky between us any more either. Au revoir,’ he said, and, nodding towards her stunned face, he swept past her, out into the hallway and out of the house.

  Luke wasn’t too sure what he was going to do, or how he was going to achieve his objectives. All he knew was that he was going to win that woman—that beautiful, brave, wonderful woman. Indeed,
a woman worth loving!

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  ‘FORGIVE me for asking,’ his mother said to him over dinner that evening. ‘But are you involved with a married woman?’

  Luke’s first reaction was a mixture of surprise and resentment at such a question. But seeing the real worry in his mother’s eyes softened his attitude, and he decided—after a moment’s hesitation—to tell her about Rachel and Derek. She would have to know eventually, anyway, because they were going to become part of his life. Luke wasn’t sure how he was going to make that miracle come true, but make it come true, he would. Or die trying.

  ‘So that’s the story,’ he finished over coffee. ‘Now, before you open your mouth and put your foot in it, Mum,’ he warned her, ‘I want to add that I’m going to marry Rachel. Derek might not be mine, but it makes no difference. He’s a grand little kid and needs a father. That father is going to be me!’

  ‘But... but the mother doesn’t want to have any more to do with you!’

  Trust his own mother to come straight to the crux of his problem! ‘Yes, do I realise that,’ he tossed back, recklessly dismissing the niggling qualms which lurked deep within over Rachel’s antagonism. ‘But I aim to start overcoming that small hurdle in the near future.’

  Somehow...

  ‘How?’ his mother asked, and Luke’s pessimistic gut-feeling raised its ugly head again, filling him with exasperation.

  ‘Must you be so negative? Look, I can’t say I know, rightly. Yet. I’ll sleep on it.’ He carried his coffee-cup and saucer over to the sink. ‘After I’ve helped my favourite girl with the washing-up, that is. This male chauvinist pig is going to have to turn over a new leaf if he’s going to settle down to married bliss and family responsibilities.’

  Grace rolled her eyes, stood up and carried her own half-full cup over to pour down the sink. ‘You can’t make her love you, Luke,’ she said. ‘Or marry you’

  ‘You think not?’ he returned darkly. ‘I have the advantage of certain admissions she once made to me. If all else fails, I will have to resort to desperation tactics.’

  Grace stared at her son. She hoped he didn’t mean what she thought he meant. Men who believed sex and seduction were the way to a woman’s heart were fools! Lord, she hoped he wasn’t planning on making her pregnant again. That would be a disaster!

  ‘Mind if I make a suggestion, Luke?’

  ‘Not as long as it’s constructive.’

  ‘You mentioned that you thought their house looked a bit shabby, and the yard unkempt. You might do something about that to start with.’

  Luke frowned. ‘You mean pay someone to fix it up?’

  ‘Heavens, no. From the sound of things your Rachel would bitterly resent that. She sounds like a very proud lady. I was thinking more of you doing some work around the place yourself. You were pretty good with a mower and a paintbrush when you were a lad. The old mower in the garage still works. And there’s a fairly new whipper-snipper Mark and Andy bought me last year, plus more paint than you can climb over. Those brothers of yours are always using my garage to store their leftovers. Serve them right if some of it goes missing.’

  Luke’s face broke into a wide smile, and Grace’s heart turned over as he hugged her close. ‘What a fantastic idea, Mum! I never would have thought of it. Thanks a million. I’ll get started on “Project Cool Hand Luke” first thing in the morning. But let’s hope I’m more successful than the original Cool Hand Luke. He died at the end of the movie. ’Night, Mum. Sleep tight.’

  Grace went to bed, trying to feel optimistic about Luke’s future with this woman, but it wasn’t easy. She hoped it hadn’t been just sexual frustration which had made this Rachel respond to Luke during that first torrid encounter and then again this week. She hoped that somehow, some way, his basic decency and good character had shone through his distracting sex appeal and had captured a little of her heart as well as her body.

  Grace’s thoughts finally turned to the boy who could quite easily have been her own grandchild. What a shame, she thought, that the baby hadn’t turned out to be Luke’s. Patrick Cleary was dead now, so it wouldn’t have mattered to him, and, as she’d always believed, Luke would have made a very good father.

  He would still make a good father to the boy, Grace believed, if only the mother would give him a chance.

  Let her give him a chance, Lord, Grace prayed as she drifted off to sleep. He really is a good man.

  The house was empty when Luke turned up the following morning, and Luke panicked for a moment till he went round to the backyard and saw lots of toys still in the sandpit. Peering through the kitchen window, he also spied a few breakfast dishes in the sink. He couldn’t imagine someone like Sarah being persuaded to abandon the house without doing the washing-up. She was of his mother’s vintage, and such a wickedness would not be allowed.

  Rachel, however, was another matter. Luke could well imagine her deserting the washing-up if she had other priorities for her time. Various X-rated thoughts zoomed into his head, and with a groan of frustration Luke spun away from the window. This would never do. He hadn’t come back to bed her again, but to win her love.

  Still, as he’d implied to his mother, he would use whatever weapons were at his disposal if failure was on the cards. For how could he simply walk away, when he knew that this was the woman he’d waited for all his life?

  Two hours later the front and backyards had been transformed—the lawns mowed, the edges done, the garden beds weeded. But there was still no sight of the occupants.

  Luke ran through the various possibilities in his head. They might have gone shopping, or to the doctor, or simply gone out for a drive. A glance at his watch showed eleven-thirty. One would think they wouldn’t stay out too long with an elevenmonth-old child. Derek would need a sleep soon, surely.

  Hunger pangs reminded Luke that it had been a few hours since breakfast. He drank some water out of the hose, and was contemplating going back home for lunch when he heard a car throttling down out at the front. His heart was in his mouth as he hurried around the side of the house, relief flooding through him on seeing Rachel’s car turn into the driveway and stop at the gates. He could see Sarah in the passenger seat and baby Derek perched up in a baby car-seat in the back.

  Luke strode quickly down the pathway to open the gates, but Rachel was out of the car and there before him. The look she gave him was lethal.

  ‘What in hell are you doing here?’ she snapped under her breath as he drew near. ‘And who in hell do you think you are, mowing my lawns without permission?’

  ‘Morning, Rachel,’ he returned coolly, totally ignoring her angry tirade. ‘Been shopping, have you?’ he said and waved at Sarah, who was smiling at him from the passenger seat, then at Derek, who was looking cranky. ‘Now, don’t make a scene in front of the family,’ he whispered as he helped her open the gates.

  ‘This isn’t going to work, Luke,’ she muttered. ‘I want you to go away and stay away.’

  He gave her a steely look. ‘Don’t be so bloody stupid. I care about you, Rachel, and I’m not going anywhere, so you might as well get used to me hanging around.’

  ‘But... but you can’t!’

  ‘Can’t what? Can’t care about you? Why not? You’re a lovely woman, with a lot more going for you than your looks, though you do seem to have a problem with your temper.’

  ‘But you...you said you were going back to America,’ she wailed.

  ‘My plans have changed.’

  ‘Oh, God...’

  ‘There’s no need to pray, Rachel. I have no intention of hurting you.’

  ‘But you will. Don’t you see?’ she groaned. ‘Every time I look at you it will hurt me.’

  Sarah, unwinding the window and putting her head out, stopped that conversation dead in its tracks. ‘Derek’s beginning to grizzle, Rachel,’ she called out.

  ‘Coming,’ Rachel said. ‘We’ll finish this later.’

  ‘Over dinner tonight?’

  Her e
yes flashed fury at him.

  ‘I’m not going to go away, Rachel.’

  ‘Damn you, Luke. Why can’t you be like all the others?’ she threw at him, before whirling and striding back to the car, slamming the door as she climbed in and driving past him to park under the carport.

  All the others?

  Luke frowned his disgruntled puzzlement as he just stood there.

  What others? Other lovers she’d had? Ones who’d loved and left her?

  Damn it all. He hated to think of her with other men. It was hard enough coming to terms with her husband!

  Derek’s irritable cries snapped Luke out of his brooding reverie, although he was in no mood to be all sweetness and light as he strode over and yanked open the back door. He used brisk, somewhat brusque movements to unbuckle the child from his baby car-seat and whisk him out.

  ‘Now, you stop that grizzling this instant, you little tyrant!’ he ordered as he perched Derek firmly on his hip.

  Derek’s whingeing dried up immediately, a wide smile breaking over his cherubic face. His big glistening brown eyes twinkled cheekily as he reached up and started playing with a lock of Luke’s hair which had fallen across his forehead. He even began making ‘ga-ga’ noises which sounded rather close to ‘da-da’.

  Luke couldn’t help it. He was instantly entranced, a slave from that moment onward.

  ‘See, Rachel?’ Sarah said. ‘That’s just what Derek needs occasionally. A firm male hand. Look, he’s being as good as gold for Luke.’

  ‘In that case Luke can mind the little devil for the rest of the afternoon,’ she retorted as she gathered up several bags of groceries from the car and set off towards the house. ‘I suppose you’d better invite the Good Samaritan in for lunch, Sarah,’ she called back over her shoulder in waspish tones. ‘No doubt he’ll expect some payment for all his work,’ she finished drily.

  Sarah sent Luke an apologetic shrug. ‘It’s been a trying morning,’ she whispered. ‘I’d better go and open the back door for Rachel before she drops all the shopping. Again,’ she added meaningfully before hurrying off.