Marriage Reunited: Baby on the Way

‘Yes.’ Tightness gathered in his chest as he waited for her answer.

Finally, she gave him a helpless look and slowly shook her head. ‘I don’t know. I think I hoped you’d just…stay away, go on fighting other people’s fires indefinitely. It was stupid.’

‘Didn’t you think I had a right to know?’ He should stop pushing. Sooner or later, she would say something he didn’t want to hear. But he could help himself.

‘Did you?’ She crossed her arms defensively. The action pushed the disturbing cleavage into even more prominence. ‘You’d made your position abundantly clear before you left. There didn’t seem to be any room for negotiation.’

‘But this…’ he waved a hand towards her stomach ‘…changes things.’

‘It does for me, yes.’ She tilted her chin at him defiantly. ‘I wanted a baby and now I’m having one.’

The band around his heart squeezed harder. ‘It changes things for me, too, Liz.’

She pounced as soon as the words were out of his mouth. ‘Are you saying you want this baby?’

His brain refused to co-operate. He opened his mouth, hoping the right words would be uttered magically. ‘I…I’m—’

‘Don’t bother straining yourself for a reply to placate me.’ She held up her hand, disgust patent on her face. ‘I can see the answer for myself.’

‘No, dammit, you can’t.’ He reached out to stop her as she stalked past him. With his hand circling her upper arm loosely, the backs of his fingers were nestled against the soft, warm flesh of her right breast.

She gasped, raising startled hazel eyes to his. Her pupils flared dark and deep, betraying her involuntary reaction, giving him the unexpected knowledge that she wasn’t as contained as she was trying to appear. Hope and exultation surged through him, a palpable force loosening the pain in his chest.

‘Give me a chance,’ he said, softening his voice persuasively. ‘I need time to get used to the idea. You’ve known for months. I’ve known for a bare twenty-four hours.’

‘And what if you can’t get used to the idea, Jack?’ She wrested her arm out of his grip, rubbing the skin as though trying to scrub away the evidence of his touch. ‘This is a baby. Not a ten-day trial where you get a refund if you change your mind.’

‘I know that.’ He ground his teeth. God, he probably knew it almost better than she did. ‘I’m prepared to do the right thing.’

‘That’s big of you, isn’t it? Forgive me if I don’t fall down on my knees to offer up prayers of gratitude.’ She looked at him stonily. ‘I don’t want my child to have a duty father.’

‘And I don’t want it to have an endless parade of uncles through its life when it has a perfectly good father around.’ The irony of his words blasted into the silence and he couldn’t suppress a wry grin. ‘Well, perhaps an imperfectly good father.’

Liz stared at him for a long moment. Then her lips twitched, only to immediately thin. She was obviously not prepared to let a smile escape. ‘It depends on the imperfection, doesn’t it?’

He felt his smile slip as the cold vice around his heart clenched again. ‘Yeah, I guess it does.’

‘Look, this isn’t getting us anywhere, and I really do have to go to work now. Can we pick it up later?’

‘Sure.’ He watched her walk out the door before rubbing a hand over his face in defeat. She was right. He wasn’t good enough. Even without knowing his history, she could sense that lack in him.

‘Grace Burns?’ Liz scanned the room for her first patient, a four-year-old according to the notes.

A mountain of a man stood up, his muscular, tattooed arms cradling a small blonde urchin.

‘Come through, Mr Burns.’ She led the way into the cubicle and shut the door. ‘I’m Liz Campbell. Have a seat.’

Liz slid onto a second chair and smiled at the child. ‘Hello, Grace. Tell me why you’ve come to see me today.’

‘I got somefing in my ear.’ Solemn blue eyes were wide with caution.

‘Have you? How did it get there?’

‘I put it dere.’ Golden ringlets bobbed as she tilted her head to look up at her father. ‘Didn’t I, Daddy?’

Liz suppressed a smile. Grace was adorable.

‘I found her in my wife’s studio with the bead box, Doc. She must have got in while I was getting the other kids off to school.’ The man spoke quickly, obviously nervous. ‘I managed to get one of the beads out, but I couldn’t reach the red one. And Gracie said it was hurting.’

‘Let’s have a look, then, shall we, Grace?’

The girl watched with saucer-like eyes as Liz picked up the otoscope and attached a speculum. ‘I’m going to shine this light and look inside your ear through this magnifying glass. See?’

Grace squinted at the instrument doubtfully.

‘I need you to keep very still for me. Can you do that, Grace?’

‘Will it hurt?’

‘It shouldn’t, but I want you to tell me if it does, okay?’

Grace checked with her father for reassurance. His smile must have given it because the big blue eyes swivelled back to Liz and the blonde head nodded.

Using a pair of forceps, Liz extracted the red bead easily and dropped it into a waiting kidney dish.