Marion Lennox: Their Baby Bargain

That was easy. ‘I’m here because this is the best place in the world. Isn’t it, Gabbie?’

‘No, but-’

‘But what?’ She raised her eyebrows and it made him pause.

What indeed? She was an employee, he told himself. Just an employee. He shouldn’t delve any deeper than he needed. But he hadn’t had an employee like this before, and she had him fascinated.

‘Tell me what your qualifications are, for a start.’

‘You’ll sack me if I don’t make the grade?’

He sighed and shifted Grace to the other knee-and then looked down in dismay at the knee she’d been shifted from. It was wet! Heck, how many nappy changes did babies need?

‘I’m not sacking you,’ he told her, but he was now thoroughly distracted. ‘Holy cow! Look at this. How can she be wet already? You realise I only have one pair of trousers? You might have luggage for a lifetime, but for me this was only meant to be a day trip.’

‘More fool you,’ she said serenely. ‘Never take a baby anywhere without changes of clothes for everyone. It’s the first rule of parenting, Mr Grey.’

‘Then, it’s lucky I don’t need to learn any more,’ he said tartly, and then caught himself as Grace looked up at him. His half-sister’s tiny eyes widened-and it was as if she’d understood what he’d said and was gazing at him with reproach.

Hell! This wasn’t just a baby, he thought suddenly. This was a person! She was a little girl who’d grow up and want to know her family. Who’d need to be told…

His chain of thought was suddenly overwhelming and, Wendy, looking across at him, saw panic flare in his eyes. And understood.

‘Luke, let’s take one day at a time,’ she said softly. ‘You were worrying about wet trousers. I doubt we need to go any deeper than that at the moment.’

‘Until tomorrow…’

‘Until tomorrow,’ she agreed and smiled. ‘By tomorrow those wet trousers might start being on the nose and you’ll definitely have to move on. But for now-as social workers, we tell our clients when they’re having some overwhelming crisis to just focus on the next few minutes. Then the next few hours. The days will take care of themselves. Survival first, Luke, and everything else will follow.’

‘So…’ panic faded in the face of her calmness ‘…you’re advising me to have another piece of pizza?’

‘I guess I am.’ She smiled her enchanting smile that, for some reason, made his insides do strange things. Sitting on this veranda where he’d spent such great times as a kid, looking out over the sea, holding a baby in his arms and having this woman sitting beside him…

This was about as far from his international jet-setting life as it was possible to be. He’d taken his shoes off-they were Gucci, after all, and a man didn’t scrub floors in Gucci footwear-and his bare feet were brushing the grass as he sat on the edge of the veranda. His laptop computer was locked in the car boot and his phone was silent.

There were only the emerging stars and the silence of this place he’d loved. How long since he’d experienced a night like this?

How long until he would again?

He’d leave as soon as he had this mess sorted out, he decided, but then… The thought came out of nowhere, like a gift. When he came back he could visit! Whenever he was in Australia he could drive down to the country and see his half-sister-and this woman and her Gabbie. They’d be waiting for him, like a family.

The prospect gave him a warm glow right in the middle of his solar plexus and he couldn’t help a tiny, smug smile creeping across his face.

Brilliant. This was brilliant!

‘How often do you think you’ll come?’ Wendy asked, and he snapped back into the present with a start. She was eyeing him curiously, and by the look on her face she knew exactly what he was thinking.

‘I…’

‘Grace will need someone to attach to,’ Wendy said softly. ‘If her mother really doesn’t want her…then, like it or not, you’ll be it.’

‘I guess I don’t mind.’ He thought it through, still feeling self-satisfied with his arrangements. What problem would one baby be? Money was no hassle and he’d have his secretary buy her gifts. He’d send them to her often…

But then the thought came back to him of his father, and how much his father’s treatment of him had hurt. His father, paying expensive school fees, sending him over-the-top gifts, with cards not written in his handwriting.

Never wanting to see him…

‘It doesn’t work,’ Wendy said softly. ‘You know it doesn’t.’

‘What?’

‘Being a parent by proxy.’

‘You’d know?’

‘I know.’ She sighed and hugged Gabbie closer. Of course she knew. Some of the warmth went out of the evening and she hauled herself back to practicalities. And responsibility. Of course. That was her role in life. Picking up responsibility where other people left off… ‘Ready for bed, love?’ she asked the little girl.

‘In my new bed with the pretty quilt?’ Gabbie asked.

‘That’s the one.’

‘And you’ll stay out here?’

‘Yes. Luke and Grace and I will be just under your window. We’ll stay out here for a while because it’s so dusty in the house. But I’ll sit on your bed with you until you go to sleep. Okay?’

‘Yes,’ Gabbie said definitely. ‘You’ll stay with me until I go to sleep and then you and Luke and Grace will stay outside my window with the fire and the cows.’

‘That’s right.’

‘That’s good,’ Gabbie said definitely. ‘That will be very good.’

Woman and child left. Luke was left with the remaining pizza and one soggy baby lazily drinking her bottle and gazing up at him with eyes that wondered.

And wondered and wondered.

Just like him.

That’s good. That will be very, very good…

Good grief!

Grace was fast asleep by the time Wendy returned, and Luke wasn’t far behind. He started as she touched him on the shoulder, and then, as he turned to find her smiling down at him, the sight gave him an unexpected jolt. She did have this mystical quality, he thought. It was as if she was the sudden embodiment of a vision he’d thought was only a dream.

But in truth, she was real. In one hand she had Grace’s carry-cot and in the other she had a pile of baby clothes.

‘We need warm water,’ she told him. ‘And a bucket.’

‘Why?’ He raised his brows. ‘We hardly have dishes to wash.’

‘No, but we have a baby to wash,’ she told him. ‘That baby has spent half the day in wet clothes. We bathe her now or you spend the next few days walking a bundle of misery because she has a rash on her bottom. Okay?’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

There was nothing else to say.

Grace hardly woke.

Baths, obviously, were one of her favourite things. She opened her eyes in sleepy wonder as Wendy lowered her naked person into the bucket of warm water. Then she smiled her gracious approval, fluttered her tiny hands in the suds, and lay back in sleepy delight.

For some reason Luke couldn’t take his eyes from her. This was his half-sister, he kept thinking. His sister. His…family?

He hadn’t had family for so long, and now, suddenly, she was partly his-and she was just beautiful. By the time Wendy had finished soaping Grace’s small pink body, Luke was near as not in love with her. What a sweetie!

His sister…

Afterwards, she lay on warm towels and Wendy expertly slipped her into dry clothes, and her eyes closed again before she was dressed. She snuggled into her carry-cot with a contented sigh, and fell instantly asleep.

God was in his heaven. All was right with Grace’s small world, and Luke’s world was still realigning itself on its axis-an axis that had somehow tilted…