Читать книгу Newborn Baby For Christmas - Fiona Lowe, Fiona Lowe - Страница 10

HAMISH tipped the taxi driver and hefted his bag over his shoulder as he turned to gaze at the shimmering haze of purple blooms that illuminated the ancient jacaranda tree in his front garden. To him, the colour meant summer, Christmas and home. He still had the stench of Mumbai in his nostrils and he longed to replace it with the sharp tang of fresh salt air, but that would have to wait a bit longer, so for now he contented himself with a lungful of lemon-scented breeze, drifting over from the stand of white-barked eucalypts that grew across the road in the park.

Magpies, in their suits of black and white, stood on the nature strip, fixing their beady eyes on him and chortling as if acknowledging his absence and welcoming his return. He greeted them with a ‘Coodle-loodle-do’, fished his keys out of his backpack and bounded up the front steps. Sliding his key in the lock, he turned it, opened the door and called out, ‘Honey, I’m home.’ He promptly laughed at his own joke.

Twenty-four hours ago, just as he’d been preparing to leave India, he’d received a text from Georgie saying she hoped it was okay but she’d taken up his offer of a few days of R and R. He’d started texting his reply of ‘No worries’, but had stopped, deciding instead to surprise her. Although they’d been in contact with each other as much as usual, it had been a year since he’d last seen her—the afternoon she’d requested he be a sperm donor.

The fact they hadn’t seen each other was his fault. After his three trips to the IVF clinic in Tasmania, the need to move had been so great that he’d put his hand up to co-ordinate an extra mission for Giving Back. He’d flown out to Ethiopia for three months. During that time he’d been on tenterhooks waiting for her to tell him she was pregnant.

When it didn’t happen, the relief he’d experienced had been so strong and vibrant that he’d gone out and partied as if he’d just been reprieved from the gallows. He was off the hook. If she did get pregnant in the future, at least it wouldn’t be from his sperm.

His return from Abbis Ababa had coincided with Georgie leaving for a beach holiday on Hamilton Island and by the time she’d returned, he’d left for India. Throughout the year she’d continued to post on his internet social network page and send her usual entertaining emails filled with funny and unusual stories about her work. She was equally interested in hearing about the challenges he faced co-ordinating the overseas trips of doctors who volunteered for Giving Back.

One thing he was certain of was that had she achieved a pregnancy from his donation, there’d be no way she’d be taking a mini-break in his house. She’d been as adamant as he that the baby was hers and hers alone.

‘Hello? Who’s there? Haim?’

He heard the hesitancy in her voice—her concern he might be an intruder—immediately followed by the accompanying creak of the third stair, and then he caught a glimpse of a shapely, tanned ankle followed by a toned calf. He smiled—she’d always had good legs. ‘Yep, it’s me.’

The clack of her sandals against the stairs sped up and a moment later there she was with her arms wide open and a matching smile. ‘Welcome home.’

The bag he’d anchored on his shoulder with his hand slipped past suddenly numb fingers, falling with a dull thud onto the floorboards as shock sucked the breath from his lungs. He instinctively shook his head as if the action would force his retinas to change the image. This couldn’t be Georgie.

Apart from her voice, nothing about her was remotely familiar and he barely recognised her. Gone was her short-cropped hair and in its place a long, glossy, caramel-brown ponytail swept across her shoulders in a caress of curls. Her face, which had always seemed slightly too long for her, was now round and full. In fact, all of her was round and full. A white sundress fell from decorative shoulder straps, flowing across voluptuous breasts before cascading over a high and round belly and swirling against the enticing tilt of her hips, a curvaceous behind and firm thighs. She seemed taller, more sure of herself, and a secret smile played about her lips as if she knew things that others could never understand. She was a Botticelli woman—lush, fertile and glowing.

A thundering wave of pure sexual energy rode off her, spinning him into its orbit and rolling him inside its core. His groin tightened as a wondrous hot bolt of anticipation and excitement pounded through him—the same one he experienced whenever he saw a hot woman that he wanted. A familiar craving followed. A craving he greeted like an old but absent friend because for months it had rarely stirred, giving him an unfamiliar dry spell.

A second later his brain caught up with his body, its reaction horrified and stunned.

This is Georgie. Georgie. We ‘re platonic. We made that decision years ago.

His body gave him the finger. It didn’t care who she was, only that she was all woman and it wanted some of it. ‘You …’ His voice cracked over the husky word and he cleared his throat. ‘You look good.’

‘Thanks. I feel great and it was a good excuse for me to get a whole new wardrobe.’ Her velvet-brown eyes sparkled and her hand lightly caressed her belly, her palm cupping its rolling shape.

His gaze followed her movement and again his blood quickened, surging as another wave of need pulsed through him, numbing his brain. He couldn’t construct a thought. Hell, he could barely see. He bit the inside of his cheek, needing the physical pain to short-circuit his arousal and get himself under control. His feet felt like lead weights glued to the floor and it was Georgie who leaned in, giving him a friendly kiss on the cheek and a quick hug. Her belly brushed gently against his stomach, the touch like an electric shock, jolting him out of the fog that had overtaken him.