Читать книгу Christmas Brides And Babies Collection - Rebecca Winters - Страница 48

HE FELT LUCI squeeze his hand in the darkness and heard her little intake of breath but she didn’t speak, allowing him to continue.

‘Emma had told her sister about the baby and apparently she was planning on telling me that night. She wanted it to be a surprise on what would have been our first night in the house. I’ve hated surprises ever since.’

He had lost everything. Not just his girlfriend but his future. He hadn’t really ever thought seriously about being a father, he’d just assumed it would happen one day, but to be given that news and then have it taken away from him immediately had devastated him.

‘Losing something I never had and never knew I wanted; I didn’t understand how that could hurt so much.’ It had destroyed his belief that good things could happen and he had only seen darkness for a long time after that. Mostly that was still all he saw.

‘I imagine the feeling is similar to knowing that the thing you want most in the world is never going to happen for you.’

Luci’s voice was thick with tears and he realised she did understand how he felt. She would have had the same feeling over and over again, every month, when she had been desperate to fall pregnant and it hadn’t happened. Month after month. But she’d got through it.

Had his confession been hard on her?

‘I didn’t mean to upset you,’ he told her. He’d wanted her to understand. He wasn’t sure why but it seemed important that he share his past with her but he hadn’t meant to upset her.

‘I’m okay. I’m upset for you.’

‘My whole life changed in the space of a few minutes. I took a new direction after that. I never moved into the house. I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I sold the house and bought my motorbike and this boat instead. I couldn’t settle, I was restless, I still am. That was my attempt at domesticity, at living a normal life, and it didn’t turn out as I’d planned. I lost everything at once, things I didn’t even know I had, and it took me a long time to feel like my life was back under control. I think it’s enough now to be responsible just for my own life. I don’t ever want to go through that pain again.’

Over the past three years he had slowly recovered from Emma’s death but he hadn’t forgotten how he’d felt and he wasn’t sure that he wanted to put himself out there again for love. ‘I don’t want to put myself in that position again.’ He didn’t ever want to be vulnerable again. He had worked hard to get back on top of things and he didn’t ever want to lose his way again. He was determined to be the master of his own destiny but that made it very difficult to let someone else in.

He had moved on, to a degree, but he knew the events of that day had changed him and he never again wanted to feel that pain of loss that he felt was inevitable if he opened up his heart. So he had lived a solitary existence.

He didn’t want to have a home. He didn’t want to put down roots. Becoming invested in something, attached to something, scared him. He knew how easily it could be ripped away. ‘When you love someone it isn’t for ever. It can’t be. Life doesn’t work like that.’

‘No one is meant to live a whole lifetime alone,’ Luci argued. ‘There are highs and lows, disappointments and tragedies, as well as happiness and joy in life, and I think it’s better to share those times with someone else. Sharing those feelings can soften the lows and enhance the highs. Joy and sadness are both better shared. Let me show you.’

She stood on the deck and lifted her dress over her head. She wore nothing underneath the thin cotton shift. She stood before him, naked and gorgeous, and offered him solace.

His reaction was immediate. He knew how the pleasures of the flesh could wipe out the traumas of the past, even if only temporarily. He’d had plenty of experience in that method of recovery over the past three years but never had he felt the satisfaction that he felt when he was with Luci. He got a sense of peacefulness with her and that was something that had never lasted before. Along with the physical release Luci was somehow able to provide emotional release too.

He pushed his shorts down and over his feet so he too was naked and knelt before her. His erection stood to attention, stiff and strong, but he ignored it.

He ran his hands up the insides of her thighs, parting them.

She opened her legs wider for him as his fingers reached the junction of her thighs. He slid his fingers inside her. She was warm and moist.

She moaned and pushed against him as he ran his thumb over the bud at her core. He replaced his thumb with his tongue and all his troubles were forgotten as he licked and sucked until she shivered with his touch. He cupped her buttocks with his hands and held her against him, burying himself in her, losing himself in the sweet saltiness of her.

She gasped and held his head with her hands. She moaned again, a little louder. Spread her legs a little wider. Let him in a little deeper.

He felt her legs start to shake. He rose and lifted her off her feet and she wrapped her legs around him. He was vaguely aware of thunder rumbling in the distance as he turned and pushed her against the windshield. The storm was on its way.

He locked her between his body and the slope of the glass. Bent his head and licked her breasts as he drove himself deep inside her.

Her skin glowed ghostly pale in the moonlight and he could see the four freckles, dark against her skin, on the swell of her breast. Over her right shoulder he could see the Southern Cross, the diamonds in the sky that would always remind him of her.

He ignored the storm and the stars and the memories as he focused on feeling, touching and tasting. He rode the waves of pleasure with Luci.

He didn’t miss Emma any more. He hadn’t missed her for a long time. He’d taught himself to be alone but as he lost himself in Luci he realised all the other things he’d been missing. All the things that not feeling had deprived him of. The pleasure of sharing not just physically but emotionally.

He had shut himself off and Luci was helping him to open up again. She saw the good in the world. The brightness and the light. He had blocked that all out. Not wanting to risk being hurt, he had shut out all the beauty as well.

Her arms were around his neck and he felt her legs tighten around his waist as she met his thrusts, urging him to go faster. She was warm and wet as she clung to him. She was brightness and light. Even after what she’d been through she hadn’t given up on the idea of love.

‘Now, Seb. Now!’

She arched her back as she came, trembling in his arms.

He shuddered with the release as a fork of lightning split the sky, followed by a clap of thunder booming overhead just as they came together, sharing the pleasure.

He could smell her. She was warm and sweet. He pressed his lips against her shoulder as he tasted her. She was salty and sweet.

Clouds drifted overhead, obscuring the stars, and he smelt the rain just before it began to fall. Fat, warm drops fell on their bare skin.

Luci was still in his arms and he carried her downstairs to his bed, their clothes abandoned on the deck as the storm raged overhead.

It passed quickly but he didn’t notice. They lay in peaceful, contented silence. He wasn’t thinking about love and loss. He wasn’t thinking about anything other than the satisfaction and pleasure of having someone to hold.

Perhaps Luci was right. Maybe having someone to share things with could sometimes make things better.

He fell asleep with Luci in his arms as the storm rolled to the east.

Luci stowed her suitcase in the luggage compartment under the bus that was going to take her back to Vickers Hill. She climbed on board with mixed emotions. Her uncle had died three days ago so the trip home was tinged with sadness but while she was looking forward to seeing her family she wasn’t sure if she was quite ready to be back in Vickers Hill. She didn’t feel as if she’d been gone long enough to erase people’s perceptions of her. Would they still think of her as ‘poor Luci’, the girl who couldn’t keep her husband? Or would they have moved on to something else?

She was also wary about seeing Ben but she knew there would be no avoiding it. Her uncle had been married to his great-aunt. There weren’t enough degrees of separation in country towns. She would have to see both Ben and his new wife, Catriona, and just to complicate things further Luci knew Catriona would be heavily pregnant. She was due to give birth any day now.

She could use Seb’s cool head and rational thinking but he was hundreds of miles away. She knew he’d been worried about how she was going to cope with all the different stresses but she’d assured him she’d be fine. She didn’t want him to worry, even though she was worried herself. She was a big girl. She’d have to cope. She couldn’t expect Seb to fight her battles, he wouldn’t always be there for her, but she admitted to herself it would have been nice.

Despite the fact that it had only been a few hours since he had dropped her at Sydney airport to catch the flight to Adelaide she was missing him already. But she was only planning on being gone for two days. She could last that long.

She had got used to his company very quickly. He made her laugh. He listened when she talked. He made her feel happy and positive. Plus he was gorgeous and smart and good in bed. What wasn’t to like?

The only problem was that he didn’t want to settle down.

So ultimately he wasn’t the man for her. She knew that but it didn’t stop her from wishing things were different.

She wanted to find the person she was supposed to spend the rest of her life with. There must be someone out there for her. It wasn’t Ben and it wasn’t Seb, not unless she could change his mind—an unlikely event—and she was running out of time.

She’d known from the very beginning that his time in Sydney was limited, as was hers, but his holidays started in eight days and she knew he was planning on leaving then. He was heading off on his boat, leaving her to finish her stint in Sydney. She would have another fortnight in Sydney on her own after Seb left and she was already dreading it, not looking forward to being on her own again. She wasn’t looking forward to being without Seb, but there wasn’t anything she could do about it.

Things were out of her control. She couldn’t control his plans and she couldn’t conjure up a man. She would just have to be patient.

At least she knew now that she could open her heart. Finding love shouldn’t be impossible if she was open to it.

She closed her eyes and rested her head on the window as the bus chugged through the northern suburbs of the city. She fell asleep dreaming of Seb and woke as the bus slowed on its approach into Vickers Hill.

She’d forgotten how dry and brown the countryside could get, even when it was only the beginning of summer. In five weeks she’d already grown used to being surrounded by water, by the ocean, and the blue and sometimes rainy grey of Sydney was very different from the brown and pale, washed-out grey of the Clare Valley.

The scenery was unfamiliar but the smell was the same. She could smell the dust in the air. It smelt like home but did it feel like home? She wouldn’t know until she got off the bus.

The bus pulled up in the main street of Vickers Hill. She wanted to go and see Flick, there was so much to tell her, but she needed to see her parents first. She checked her watch. They would be having lunch. Her father would have taken the day off to bury his brother, Callum would have him covered, but even when he was working her parents had a tradition where her father would break for lunch and go home and eat with her mother. Luci would join them and then attend the funeral. There would be time to see Flick later.

The funeral had gone as well as could be expected. A death was always sad but her uncle had been old and it had been his time. Luci couldn’t help thinking that her father might be next, though. She would feel so differently if it had been her father’s funeral. He was younger than his brother, but not by many years, and she wanted him to live long enough to see his grandchildren. She wanted to give him that gift. Her parents had nieces and nephews and great-nieces and great-nephews but Luci knew it wasn’t the same thing as grandchildren.

Ben along with several of Luci’s cousins and nephews had been the pallbearers for her uncle’s coffin. She had watched Ben as he had helped to carry her uncle out of the church and into the graveyard beside it. Her parents supported her uncle’s wife, her aunt by marriage and Ben’s great-aunt, as they buried her husband.

Luci chatted to her cousins as everyone made their way from the church to the wake, which was being held in the beer garden at the back of the local pub. She spent the next half-hour talking to familiar faces but she felt out of place. Having changed in the past few weeks, she wasn’t sure she belonged here any more.

She was thinking about leaving, about excusing herself to get some breathing space, when she saw Ben approaching. She looked for Catriona but couldn’t see her. She hadn’t noticed her in the church either. It was too late to escape now as he was heading right for her, so she waited; she couldn’t avoid him for ever.

He greeted her with a kiss and Luci waited to see what effect that had but she felt nothing. No regret. No desire. It was like greeting an old friend and she supposed that’s now what they were. They had been friends for too long to cut him out of her life altogether. She could do platonic kisses.

‘Hi, Luce, you’re looking well.’

In contrast, she thought he looked tired. He was a little greyer at the temples. Perhaps a little bit heavier. It had only been a few months since she’d last seen him so how much could he have changed? Or was she just comparing him to Seb?

She pushed Seb out of her mind.

‘Hello, Ben. How are you? How’s Catriona? Where’s Catriona?’ Luci wondered if Catriona was too pregnant, too uncomfortable to stand at the funeral.

‘She’s in hospital. Our baby was born yesterday.’

‘Oh.’ Luci was taken by surprise. Why hadn’t her mother told her? Warned her? Was everyone still trying to protect her?

Or perhaps with everything else going on in her family this week it had slipped her parents’ minds. Her mother had a habit of telling her things twice or not at all, getting confused between what she’d told Luci’s father and what she’d told Luci. Luci supposed she couldn’t blame her for forgetting in the scheme of things. Ben and Catriona’s baby didn’t really matter to Luci, and why should it matter to her mother?

She didn’t need protecting. She was sad for herself, but she didn’t begrudge Ben his happiness.

She really had moved on, she realised. She’d been talking the talk but without really knowing. This was the test and it was good to find she could be happy for Ben.

‘Congratulations,’ she said.

Ben was watching her closely. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t realise you didn’t know. I thought someone would have said something. I wasn’t planning on being the one to tell you.’

‘It’s okay. I would have found out sooner or later. What did you have?’

‘A daughter.’

A baby girl. ‘Details?’ she asked, pleased to know she could remember the niceties.

‘Seven pounds three ounces and we’ve named her Mia.’

Luci breathed a silent sigh of relief. She’d been worried that Ben might choose one of the names they had picked out and she was glad he hadn’t. It was highly unlikely that she would get to use the names she’d chosen, Eve for a girl or Joe for a boy, but even so she didn’t want Ben to use ‘their’ names.

‘I’m happy for you,’ she told him truthfully. She knew he wanted children just as much as she did. She couldn’t begrudge him that happiness, but it didn’t negate the sadness she felt that she was still childless.

She should go and find Ben’s parents, her ex-in-laws, and congratulate them. She knew that by doing that, it would help to stop any unwanted smalltown gossip. She would be doing herself a favour. And it would give her a reason to say goodbye to Ben. She was ready for that. She didn’t want him back but she couldn’t deny that she was jealous of his new life. He had everything she wanted.

She excused herself and was relieved to see Flick making her way through the pub and into the garden. Luci forgot about seeking out her ex-in-laws and made a beeline for her friend, wrapping her in a big hug.

‘God, it’s so good to see you,’ she said.

‘Sorry I couldn’t come to the funeral,’ Flick replied as she hugged her back. ‘Callum was covering the clinic for your dad so he needed me to help him.’

Flick had a sparkle in her eye. She looked well. Happy. But Luci was too preoccupied to pay any more attention than that.

‘Why didn’t you tell me Ben and Catriona had the baby?’

Flick shrugged. ‘She was only born yesterday. I figured your mum would tell you and we’d talk about it today. Who did tell you?’

‘Ben.’

‘Oh, hell. Are you okay?’

Luci nodded. ‘I think so. Sad for me, if I’m honest, but otherwise okay. I’ll hold it together. I’m not going to give anyone here the satisfaction of seeing me fall apart. I’m tired of being the one everyone talks about.’

‘Well, don’t get your hopes up.’ Flick laughed. ‘No doubt they’ll be talking about you again now that you’re back and everyone has seen you talking to Ben.’

‘I’m not back for good,’ Luci responded, and wondered whether that was really how she felt. Could she come back permanently?

She wasn’t sure.

But where else would she go?

She had no idea.

‘You’re not thinking of staying in Sydney, are you?’ Flick asked. ‘Are you enjoying it that much?’

Luci kept quiet, which was a mistake.

Flick jumped straight to a conclusion. ‘OMG, is it Seb?’

She’d told Flick a little bit about him. Not everything. She wanted to keep some of what they’d shared to herself but it had been obvious in her conversations that they’d been spending a lot of time together and Luci hadn’t been able to keep the happiness from spilling into her voice.

‘I’d stay in a heartbeat if he asked me to but I can’t see that happening.’

When Luci saw the expression on Flick’s face—eyes wide open, jaw dropping—she realised she’d said the words out loud and remembered that Flick was working with Seb’s brother. ‘Promise me you won’t say anything to Callum!’ she hissed.

‘Why would I? But does Seb know how you feel?’

Luci shook her head. ‘Of course not. It’s just a bit of fun.’

‘Seriously? That doesn’t sound like you.’

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘Well, you have to admit that even for around here you settled down early. You were always the one who was going to have the serious relationships.’

‘Seb is only in Sydney for another week. I can’t afford to get serious.’

‘So you’re just using him for sex.’

‘Shh!’

‘Well, you are doing the deed, aren’t you?’

‘Yes.’ Luci blushed, thinking about the sex. Where and when and how good it had been. ‘And often,’ she added, wanting to see Flick’s reaction.

Flick laughed. ‘You go, girl! So why is it just a bit of fun? Why can’t it be more serious than that? It doesn’t matter if he’s leaving Sydney. You could go with him.’

‘No.’ Luci shook her head again, knowing she was trying to convince herself as much as Flick. ‘It’s not a long-term proposition. Not at all. We want different things out of life. He’s great but he doesn’t want to settle down. I can’t afford to waste time on someone who doesn’t want the same things as me.’

It was a pity. Such a pity. Luci understood why he felt that way but it was still a shame. He didn’t know what he was missing.

But did she? Why was it that she was so desperate to have kids? Could she be content without them?

She didn’t know what she was missing either but she just knew that something was. There was a yearning in her heart. Not only for a partner but for a family. She knew what she needed to make herself complete. A man wouldn’t be enough. And if she knew that she needed to be a mother without ever having been one, who was to say that Seb couldn’t know he didn’t want to be a father? That wasn’t for her to judge.

Flick opened her mouth and Luci had the suspicion that she was about to tell her something important but right at that moment the crowd went silent. All at once.

Heads turned as the noise ceased and all eyes were focused on the door that led from the pub out to the garden.

Standing in the doorway was Seb.