Their Newborn Gift (16 page)

Lea nodded sadly. ‘Yes.’

‘You’ll stay? For good? As long as I don’t touch you? We’ll be a family?’

Six…five…

‘Yes.’ Her voice was barely a whisper; her single nod, tiny; her eyes utterly defeated. ‘A family.’

He swept into her, pulling her to him and crushing her against his body. His mouth came down hard on hers, urgent, insistent, desperate to take the unhappiness away. Knowing it was likely the last time he’d taste her. She held herself ramrod-straight in his arms.

Three…two…

Then she sagged against him and let him in for the barest of heartbeats—into her hot, welcome passion—and kissed him the way he’d been dreaming of as a rousing New Year cheer went up in the distant barn. Angels burst into song somewhere.

She tore her lips from his and reeled back from him, betrayed. Wounded. Flushed with unmistakable passion.

The primitive part roared again. ‘A new start for a new year,’ he reminded her through a voice even he didn’t recognise. ‘That kiss was last year.’

And our last
.

On that crushing thought, he turned and walked away from the woman who enthralled him, who had wheedled herself and her daughter so firmly into his heart. The woman he couldn’t allow himself to want.

Back towards the party. Back to where a keg of beer and elective oblivion awaited.

Immunisation against a lifetime of not touching the woman he burned for.

M
OLLY
was weakening.

You could see it in the way that she played now: quieter, more reserved. In the way Max the Cat could pass through the living room without her doing more than reaching out to stroke his orange tail. The number of naps she now needed every day. The duration of her coughing attacks.

Death waited patiently for her in the shadows.

Dr Koek tweaked her medications, consulting long-distance and keeping Molly’s body functioning chemically. Sounding more brightly positive each time. That artifice hit Lea the hardest. She caught herself hoping for a premature birth just so Molly’s suffering could be eased sooner.

What kind of person did that make her?

Her chest was permanently tight throughout January. By February her blood pressure was up. Her appetite was down. Wanting Reilly and losing Molly was going to kill her, and there was nothing she could do about either.

‘Hold on, baby,’ she whispered to Molly during one of her many long naps. ‘Just a few more weeks. You can make it. We both can.’

She turned to find Reilly watching her from the doorway, a strange expression in his eyes. He walked away without speaking.

Lea sighed. New Year’s Eve had changed everything. A new, wary kind of tension that hadn’t been there before now pulled everything tight between them. Like they needed any more hurdles in their relationship.

Their
business
relationship.

She rubbed her eyes. None of the pull that she’d felt six years ago had changed. It echoed in every conversation they had, it lurked in every encounter. Knowing he was also attracted only made the magnetic hum that much louder. Nine months of this had seemed doable. Endurable. Another fifty years was pressing down on her like a threat. Turning it off was the only way she was going to survive. By withdrawing.

She’d done harder things.

She closed the door on a sleeping Molly and padded towards the kitchen. It was empty. The living room, Reilly’s study: both empty. She frowned and turned for the far end of the house. She knocked softly at the door to his bedroom suite, looking beyond the entryway into the masculine, beige-and-brown territory she’d never seen.

‘Reilly?’

He stepped out of his
en suite
bathroom, his balled-up T-shirt in his hands, working jeans slung low on lean hips. His body was hardened by hard work instead of hours in a gym. She’d felt all that hardness pressed up against him on the dance floor. At the waterhole. In the kitchen.

Lord, that kiss felt like it was a lifetime ago.

He tossed the T-shirt across to the laundry hamper in a slam dunk and then looked back at Lea, his eyes guarded as they usually were these days. They dropped to her large belly and lingered there a moment, as though he had x-ray vision. Then they lifted back to hers. ‘Is everything all right?’

She swallowed past her dry mouth. ‘What time do we need to go?’

‘The Valentine’s rodeo starts at four, and it’s a three-hour drive to Kununurra because the shortcut’s washed out. Mrs Dawes is set to watch Molly from twelve. I’m just about to have a shower.’ His eyes glittered as they watched her teeth worry her lip. ‘Is there anything else?’

He reached for his belt and Lea flushed. Knowing it was her no-touching rule that made this scene such a joke didn’t help
make it funny. Reilly’s casual state of undress screamed in the silence, testing the boundary she’d set. Testing them.

Withdraw
.

She took a breath. ‘I’m just worried about Molly. She’s not well’.

Reilly stared at her for a long time, choosing his words carefully. ‘She’s been getting worse for weeks, Lea. Steadily. I don’t think she’ll suddenly crash, and if she does Mrs Dawes will call the Flying Doctor immediately. They’ve been briefed on her situation.’

Lea’s chest crushed in painfully but she nodded, knowing it was true. Reilly had made sure all the emergency services had Molly’s information. The Royal Flying Doctor Service was the most likely service to come for her. It was why they were here—the airstrip.

She’d do well to remember that.

‘Or are you just looking for a reason to opt out? I won’t force you to come.’

Lea studied him. Was she? ‘No. I’d like to come. I’d like to understand you better.’ Heat flooded her cheeks. Understand
it
better, she’d meant to say.

His eyes held hers, silent, as unforgiving as ever in these past, tense weeks.

Then his hands went back to his belt and unbuckled it with the economy of years of practice and it flew to the big bed with a decided snap. ‘In that case, I’d better get cleaned up. I’ll come for you just before noon.’

She heard his jeans unzip as he turned back to the bathroom. She spun round and hurried back down the hall, cheeks flaming.

The bathroom door clicked shut behind her, mocking her haste.

It wasn’t what she’d expected. What she’d feared.

The particular rodeo fraternity that Reilly belonged to was more conscious of public expectation than others she’d heard of. Their event was family friendly; the horses and bulls won their rounds more often than the riders, which gave Lea a sense that it was a little more equal than she’d believed.

Reilly and a second pick-up rider were mounted for the whole event, glued to their saddles like they were born there. They cleared the arena between rides, ensuring the keyed-up bulls could find their way to the safety of the holding yards after they’d tossed their riders free. But their primary job was to pick up the bareback bronco-riders once they’d hit their eight seconds.

There was no good way off a suicide-ride bronco, so Reilly rode up hard next to the bucking, crazed horse long enough for the competitor to leap from the wild horse across the back of Reilly’s bombproof one. Then they’d slide off the back, and Reilly and his partner would flank the wild-eyed bronco with their mounts so that it felt protected by the herd. Then they’d reach over and un-strap the binding tethers.

It calmed them instantly.

‘Reilly!’ Her hand shot to her mouth and silenced her accidental outburst. No one heard her under the cheering. She’d caught herself exclaiming much more for the pick-up teams and the hapless bulls than for the competitors themselves. If they wanted to maim themselves in the name of sport, they could go ahead. Riding pick-up seemed highly dangerous, but she could see the importance of the role. Reilly was not only responsible for the safety of the competitors but the welfare of the animals. Their contribution directly calmed the stressed livestock.

She struggled not to approve of that.

As she watched, Reilly cut a particularly recalcitrant bull into the holding area, finally ending its run around the arena; it snorted and bucked after the unprotected competitor threw himself over a barrier wall.

‘And there goes Reilly Martin on his workhorse, Sprocket,’ the announcer boomed into the PA system as Reilly slung the gate shut behind the bull. ‘Nice work, mate. And nice horse, too. He breeds those himself out at Minamurra.’

The large crowd applauded as Reilly gave a humble wave of thanks for the plug, and Lea found herself unable to take her eyes off his confidence. The way he worked the horse with his legs, the stability of his seat, the teamwork between horse and
rider; she wondered what he must have looked like competing in events but was glad he wouldn’t be tonight. Her heart wouldn’t be up to it.

Right on cue, Reilly glanced into the stands and found her with shielded eyes. She gave him a nervous smile. Not rude, but hardly encouraging. He looked away.

Damn
.

Around her, hundreds of people were crammed into the public seating. Families, couples, singles on the prowl. It seemed like rodeo was a perfectly acceptable Valentine’s activity in this part of the country. She let her eyes wander over the families, the husbands and wives, the partners. How many of them lived in marriages that were more about binding properties together, or settling for the nearest female, or surviving in harsh country? The bush seemed too sparse a place for every one of these people to have found the perfect love-match.

Maybe others out there had made the same kind of concession that she was making. For family.

Settling
.

The thumping music increased in volume, signalling a break, and Lea knew the rodeo clowns would be back. The head clown performed for the kids in the crowd as, off to one side, new bulls were loaded into the six arena-chutes, awaiting their eight seconds of liberty.

The clown called three children from the crowd, none of them older than Molly, and had them out there with him now, solving a giant barrel-puzzle in the heart of the arena, going for the prize of a real-life cowboy hat. The three of them worked against the clock to win the hat, while the clanking of chute after chute being loaded with angry bulls was drowned out by the loud music.

Lea flicked her eyes to where Reilly lounged on horseback off to one side, taking a break until the pick-up team was needed again. Long display-chaps hung down from his hips, over his legs and stirrups, and fed the illusion that he was part of the horse. It was stupidly sexy. As if he needed any help with that.

Her heart thudded in time with the music.

Every eye in the place was on the activity in the centre of the arena, except Lea’s. As if sensing her interest, Reilly turned and encountered her bold stare.

Hey
.

Brown eyes held hers as his horse danced under him.

Hey yourself
.

And then, barely consciously, her eye refocussed just past his shoulder, at the chute behind him being loaded with bulls. As she watched, a clamp in one of the chutes gave way to the pressure of one ton of angry bull slamming against it and, virtually in slow motion, the gate flung open into the arena, releasing an explosion of angry, bovine flesh.

Lea shot to her feet at the same time that she screamed Reilly’s name.

He spun around, saw the disaster unfolding and then turned with Lea to look at the children standing unprotected in the centre of the arena. He dug his heels cruelly into Sprocket. Cattle hands leapt down off their chutes, and the head clown caught on just as Sprocket lurched into a standing gallop. The clown sprinted forward, slowed by his giant clown shoes, grabbed a child under each arm then bolted for the boundary fence. He practically threw them over into the arms of waiting strangers and leapt up onto the fence himself. He just didn’t have enough arms for all three children.

Reilly bore down like a missile on the tiny, blond boy left standing frozen in the ring. So did the bull. The two animals raced for the centre of the arena, but Reilly got there first. The bull stopped to take its fury out on one of the empty barrels with his blunted horns and Reilly slid from the saddle, hanging by one hand on its pommel, and scooped the remaining child up into his arms. He righted himself and kicked the responsive Sprocket into high gear again.

The entire audience was on its feet, and several people screamed hysterically. Reilly galloped around the far side of the bull, keeping the child away from the feral animal, and his eyes hunted out Lea in the surging crowd.

She pushed forward.

He slammed Sprocket up against the barrier fence hard and hurled the screaming child towards her even as her arms reached out. There was no time for something gentler. Adrenaline gave her the strength to catch the flailing boy and fold him into her arms as though he were Molly, rocking and soothing him as only a mother could.

As she rocked, her eyes sought Reilly out in the arena, her heart thundering painfully. He was circling the bull, letting it burn off some of its aggression on the hapless barrels. The prized cowboy-hat lay crushed in the red dirt, trampled by massive hooves. Four clowns and the other pick-up guy got in on the act and worked with Reilly to encourage the panicked bull back into the holding yard, which now stood wide open. Someone released other steers into the arena and they immediately formed a small herd, drawing the overwhelmed animal into their centre. Reilly worked the herd like he’d worked the brumbies, cutting them back and round until all five of them obediently trotted through the exit gate to the holding yards.

As it swung shut, a blonde woman crashed headlong into Lea and the boy in her arms, tearing him from her careful hold, a mother’s tears streaming down her face.

Lea felt her own start to run at what they’d all just witnessed, the deathly disaster they’d very nearly had. She thought immediately of Molly.

Her streaming eyes lifted to the arena. Reilly leaned stiffly down from his horse to a group of officials who’d gathered around the broken chute, and whatever he said had impact because one of them nodded, looked to the announcer’s box and cut his flattened hand across his throat. Loud music burst into life and waiting competitors stood down from their positions.

The rodeo was over.

Sprocket’s eyes were white and rolling and his glossy coat was now flecked with foam as Reilly walked him back across the arena. He patted the horse’s neck reassuringly and then cut a direct course for Lea, lifting stricken eyes to hers.

She didn’t hesitate.

She clambered to the front row of the tiered seating that
looked down over the sunken arena and pressed her body over the barrier. Reilly threw down the reins and turned the horse against the barrier with his legs. Without thinking, Lea, threw her arms around him, her feet practically leaving the stadium seats, and she buried her face in his neck. He stank of sweat and horse and fear. But she held on for dear life.

He slid his arms up to hold her, steady her, and wrapped them hard around her body. Both of them were shaking. She wasn’t yet capable of speech, only action. Right now, in this moment, she didn’t care how hard she’d worked to keep him at a distance, the pledge she’d made him give. She only knew that she’d felt the same gut-tearing fear when Reilly was in danger as she felt for Molly. The fear of losing someone she…

Oh, God
. Realisation battered her like the bull’s horns on a barrel.

She loved Reilly Martin. Desperately and entirely, despite every precaution she’d taken. Despite knowing she was just a means to an end for him. Knowing that he didn’t love her back.