by Ally Blake
“No!” said Sable. And Mercy exhaled so hard she seemed to shrink. “I wouldn’t be on my second glass of wine if I was.” Or was it her third? “But—”
“But? There’s a but?”
Sable glanced at Rafe, who, frustratingly, sat back, arms crossed, expression unreadable. Having gone full self-preservation mode.
Well, it was out now. And from her extensive experience with deeply uncomfortable conversations, Sable had learned it was always better to be honest, and just push through it.
“But that is our plan. We’ve found some excellent doctors who think there’s a good chance they can help make it happen, so hopefully, soon, yes, I’ll be pregnant with Rafe’s baby.”
“What the heck do they need doctors for?” That was Ed.
Janie shrugged. “Beats me.”
The faces around the table ranged from shock to discomfort. How had they gone from “Please pass the salt” to this?
“We’re not together,” she went on, in it now. “We’re not in a relationship. Rafe has kindly agreed to do this for me. It’s a...” What was it they were doing exactly? “It’s a transaction?”
If Rafe looked rock-like before, at Sable’s transaction comment, he now looked positively petrified.
“They want to have a baby together without the fun part?” Ed muttered, though loudly enough for everyone to hear. “Makes no sense.”
Janie’s, “I know, right,” just as clear.
Before Sable could dig herself deeper into a hole of too much information, Mercy pushed back her chair with such vehemence it wobbled, spun and crashed to the ground. Then she swept from the room, her skirt floating behind her.
“Excuse me,” Sable said, motioning to Bear to take over. Which he did, his voice following her down the hall, “Right, people. Anyone know if Mercy stocks soda water?”
Sable found her mother in her bedroom, a hand on the desk beneath the window, fingers splayed over a slew of early photos Sable had taken that she’d found in a box at the top of a cupboard. “Mum?”
Mercy looked up. Her face pinched. Pained. “What the hell are you thinking?”
Sable moved slowly into the room.
“You had it so good,” her mother muttered. “Away from here. Away from him.”
Sable shook her head. “Maybe I was too subtle before. Things were not good for most of the time I was over there. Most of the time I felt as if I couldn’t move, couldn’t smile, couldn’t breathe.”
“Then go somewhere else! Try something else!”
“I am trying something else. I’m trying listening to myself. Listening to my needs, to my voice. I’m trying what I want for once. I want a child, Mum. More than one, if the fates decide. I want a home, with a backyard, and a sprinkler my kids can play under. I want to put down roots. I want my local barista to know how I take my coffee because I go to his coffee shop every morning, not because he saw a picture on Instagram.”
The fact that the house that flashed into mind looked very much like the kind you’d find in the small snow towns of Victoria, rather than a Brooklyn brownstone, sent a little shiver through her.
Her mother sniffed. “So this is how you choose to rebel.”
Sadie threw her hands in the air. “Oh, damn it, Mum, this is not about you!”
“It’s always about the mother.”
“Did you get pregnant with me because of your mother?”
Her mother slanted her a look that said maybe she had.
“Then tell me so,” Sable said. As she knew less about her grandparents than she did about her father, which was saying something. “Throw me a bone here.”
Mercy turned, leaned against the desk, her long fingers gripping the top. “Fine. My mother was terribly conservative. All baking and aprons and gingham curtains. It was claustrophobic. I couldn’t wait to leave home. I had that scholarship to study agriculture at Melbourne Uni. I’d imagined myself a vintner. Then your father came along, all wilful and wild. I saw my way out.”
Sable’s heart clutched at the tragic note in her mother’s voice even while she tried so hard to appear unmoved by her own story. Her story, which did not end well, Mr Wilful and Wild leaving her when he found out she was pregnant.
Sable’s voice was raw as she said, “Funny. That I was so desperate to have a home, to stay in one place for any length of time, I’d have happily sewn my feet to the floor.”
Mercy’s right eye flickered. “Sable. Don’t do this. Don’t place your happiness in the hands of a man.”
“I’m not. I’m placing my happiness in my hands. I just need Rafe to help me. And he’s agreed. Because he’s that good a guy. Just because my father didn’t keep his bargains, doesn’t mean Rafe would do the same.”
Mercy finally looked her way, dismay etched into her features. “You love him, don’t you? You love him still.”
Sable didn’t answer that. She’d only just started wondering the same thing herself. It would mess things up terribly. And if it turned out to be true, that was a conversation to be had between Rafe and her. If she told him at all.
“A baby,” Mercy said, her eyes glazed. “How did they all know? While I was left in the dark?”
Sable went to her mother and took her by the hand to find the fingers cold, lean, rough. “It wasn’t deliberate, I promise. I actually have no idea who knows or how. For this is all very new for us too. And I didn’t talk to you about it, because I knew you wouldn’t approve.”
“Since when have you ever cared about my approval?”
“Since always! You just never wanted me to.”
Mercy gave her a look then, as if she’d only just realised how thoroughly she’d hobbled her own efforts.
“Do you know why I left? Why I chose to go to New York?”
“Well, the prize, which you totally deserved. And because I saw Rafe buying the ring and made it crystal clear you would not have my blessing.”
Sable shook her head. Then she crouched to the floor, lifted the corner of the rug, and unhooked the floorboard. Pulling out the small metal box, she found the postcard from Greece.
The look on Mercy’s face as she took the card in hand was one Sable had never seen before. Shock, heartache, and joy. “Where did you—”
“I took it out of the bin after you threw it away. You were so miserable that week. And I knew the signs. You were about to pack us up and leave again. But I knew how much you loved it here. That you’d put down roots in a way I’d never seen before. So I left instead.”
Mercy stared at her daughter.
“I’d seen them over the years, the postcards. No signature. I usually found them torn in half, in the bottom of the bin. It’s from him, isn’t it? My dad.”
“How could you possibly—” Mercy slapped a hand over her mouth. Then her face crumpled.
So shocked was she at seeing her mother in tears, Sable moved in beside her, wrapped an arm about her mother’s bony shoulders.
Finally her mother said, “It’s his way of letting me know he’s still around. But he was worse at sticking than even me.”
Oh, Mercy. “But you loved him anyway.”
“A little.”
“Still?”
That earned her a smile. “Touché.”
When the air in the room settled, Sable drew back. “I’d better go out there, see to our guests.”
Her mother waved her away. “Go.”
At the door Sable turned. “There is one guest I know would be devastated to think he’d upset you.”
Mercy sniffed.
“Stan’s pretty hot, don’t you think? In a silver fox kind of way.”
Mercy shot her a look, and the vulnerability behind it gave Sable hope.
Sable left her mother with the postcard and went back out into the fray.
The McGlintys were gone. Bear too. As he�
��d been their designated driver.
Janie was saying goodbye to Stan who gripped his hat hard in his hand.
Sable gave him a wave. And a smile. Mouthed, Not your fault.
He nodded, then hobbled out of the front door and was gone.
“Rafe?” Sable asked.
Janie pointed towards the back door, then headed into the kitchen to wash up, singing under her breath. High drama her base normal.
Sable found Rafe in the yard, holding a rope swing that was now a frayed rope, squares of light from the sunroom windows making shapes on the patchy dirt. His fingers gripping tightly, his shoulders a hard line, his profile deadly serious.
Her scalp prickled. Her chest tightened. And everything that had felt so certain an hour before felt wobbly.
He was an intensely private man, who hated nothing more than people sticking their noses in his business.
They hadn’t discussed if or how they’d let anyone know, even their families, and in an effort at assuaging her discomfort, she’d just blurted their most private news to some of the biggest gossips in town. She, who knew how it felt to be on the receiving end of whispers and stares.
Badly done, Sable.
And while she’d told her mother Rafe would never back out on a promise, she felt a frisson of very real fear that she’d ruined everything. That it was a thing she did! Had her plan to try to bring everyone a little closer, to consolidate the relationships between those who would be a part of her baby’s life, instead blown it all apart?
Sable took a step his way and felt time shimmer.
In her mind’s eye the blackberries disappeared, the swing was fixed, and Rafe stood barefoot on the lush green grass, shoulders relaxed. She moved in and all but felt herself wrap her arms around his waist, lay a kiss on his shoulder, tuck her head into the warmth of his back. Then came the happy squeal of a child, and a head full of floppy blonde curls came bouncing their way...
Another step and the vision fractured, the grey autumnal evening gloom of this timeline slamming sharply into focus. And she ached, all over, from the loss.
“Rafe?”
He turned, his face unreadable. “Hey.”
“Before you say anything, please let me apologise.”
“For?” Rafe asked, his voice soft and rough in the semi-darkness. But closer. It definitely felt as if he’d moved closer.
“My unintended announcement! Stan feels so awful, I ruined Carleen’s dress, my mother is sitting in my bedroom being all sentimental—”
“Mercy,” he deadpanned. “Sentimental.”
She shook her head, her throat too full to speak. “Rafe, stop. Let me say this, please.” As if a veil had been lifted she finally let herself see just how much she’d imposed on this man. Not only in the last weeks, but her entire life. “I’m sorry...for everything. My intention was to quietly slip back into your life, and instead I landed like a bomb. Disrupting your business, your reputation in this town. I’ve forced you to relive a past you’ve taken great pains to put behind you. And I’ve asked something of you no sane person would ever ask another—”
“Sable.”
“No. It’s me. It’s my MO. Best of intentions, worst choices. My ex’s therapist claimed I deliberately put myself in situations that are doomed to fail. I thought he was a sham, but I’m starting to wonder if he was right.”
“Sable.”
“Yes?”
Sable looked up to find Rafe had indeed moved closer. Moonlight poured over his back, creating a halo of silvery light around his big shoulders. His strong arms. How her libido could still yearn for him, even as every other part of her ached for the loss she felt was surely coming, she had no clue.
“Don’t much want to talk about your mother right now. Or your fool of an ex. Or his therapist, for that matter. I do want to talk about us.”
Sable closed her eyes. To think they’d come so close... “I knew it. You’ve changed your mind.”
“What? No.”
“Oh.” Oh! Her eyes sprang open. “Really?”
“Sable. Once I’ve made a decision, I stick to it. Simple as that.”
“Oh, thank you. Thank you, thank you! I love you so much! I mean, I don’t love you...” Oh, heck, how had that slipped out? “I’m just...” Mortified! “Grateful. So deeply grateful...”
Her voice trailed away pathetically at the end, while the tension between them only built as the word she’d dropped swirled around them.
His voice was deeper, lit with a thrum of tension that sang in her blood, when he said, “When I collared you in the hall, I asked if we could find a moment alone.”
“Mmm-hmm?”
“I wanted to talk to you about my visit to the doctors in Melbourne—”
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. My swimmers are strong and plentiful.”
Of course, they were.
“But as I went from listening to the psychologist, to being poked by the fertility specialist, prodded by the ultrasound guy I wondered more and more what I was even doing there.”
Sable felt as if she were driving on a never-ending roundabout. Was he about to tell her something good or something bad?
Rafe stepped in, took her by the hand. “Can we agree any attraction between us is not completely in the past?”
Sable blinked at the change of tack. Her gut cried out, Deny, deny, deny! But she’d have looked like an idiot. “It’s not in the past.”
“Great. Now whether it’s an echo of what we had, or a glimpse of something new, I’m not sure. But it’s there. Constantly. A hum keeping me awake nights.”
“Like tinnitus?”
Rafe’s face broke into a rare grin and the backs of Sable’s knees tingled.
“It’s driving me crazy, Sutton. You, being so near, and me not able to touch you, to hold you, to kiss you. Tell me you feel it too.”
Feel it? It was rocketing through her like a sugar rush.
She nodded, feeling as if she’d just taken some huge step into the great unknown space beyond the borders of her plan.
Rafe’s chest rose. And fell. “Great. Then I have a proposition for you to consider. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Ed made a good point. Why are we looking at intervention, unless we find, down the track, it’s absolutely necessary? When the regular way of making a baby is less invasive, less crazy expensive, less stressful and far more fun than being poked and prodded by strangers.”
Why? Because I’m falling for you, Thorne. All over again. And falling into bed with you would have to complicate things beyond anything I can contain.
“Are you hitting on me, Rafe Thorne?” She’d never felt less like making a joke in her life but if she didn’t cut through this tension, she’d self-combust.
He shook his head. “See, that’s the thing. I’m not. This is a time for rational decisions, not romance. And with this thing simmering between us, untended, unreleased, we are only going to blow.” He reached up, tucked a swathe of hair behind her ear. “So what do you say? How about we make a baby, the old-fashioned way?”
His argument sounded so seductive. But could she separate the action from the result? Would being with him let off steam or show her a glimpse of a false life from which she might not recover. “Rafe—”
“No strings, Sutton. Just as you ordered. Only no prescriptions either. No pressure. We let things happen naturally. And if that doesn’t work, we seek intervention.”
“No strings.” She looked from one eye to the other, searching for a glimmer of the feelings that had begun to overwhelm her, pull her under. But all she saw was pragmatism. And lashings of banked heat.
He meant it. He was being grown up about all this. Use the attraction simmering between them to bring about the result she so desperately wanted.
Rafe... No, Rafe’s baby. A child. Her child.
It was a very sophisticated ask from a country boy. But he’d been around. He’d lived too. Not that she wanted details. Was this how he felt when anyone talked about her life? Her ex? It wasn’t fun.
But speaking of fun, she wanted him. So bad. Even standing this close to him she felt feverish with need. “Is this even possible?”
“Only one way to find out?”
Rafe brought her fingers to his mouth and kissed them, one by one, before turning her hand over and resting his lips on her palm. Then his other hand slid under her chin, tilting it just so, so that he might lean down and kiss her.
There was none of the hesitation of their other kisses. Or the penance. Or the relearning.
It was sweet and luscious, full of longing and promise.
It was real.
So real, tears welled in the backs of Sable’s eyes, clogging her throat. Too many to spill.
Rafe wasn’t pulling back, he was all in.
After being at the lowest point of her life only a couple of months before, here she was, kissing Rafe, her first love, in the moonlight. It felt so terrifyingly close to getting everything she’d ever wanted it shook her to her very core.
She pulled back from the kiss, sucking in a breath. Looked into his eyes. And found herself drowning in the heady mix of emotion she saw within—care, want, need, lust and determination.
“So what do you say?” he asked.
Rafe. Rafe was asking her to be with him. Something he’d never done the first time around. She’d been the one to make the first move, seducing him in the barn on her seventeenth birthday. She had no idea how much that had played on the more vulnerable corners of her mind until that minute.
Then some creature deep down inside her slithered giddily to the surface and said, “Why the hell not?”
Rafe laughed, then, with a growl, he picked her up and threw her over his shoulder.
She squealed, then laughed, then struggled to speak for she could barely catch her breath as he loped around the side of the house. “Where are we going?”
“This is not happening in your old bedroom. There’s only so far I’ll go for the sake of posterity.”
