Nikki Logan - Maybe Baby - One Small Miracle

‘Still the same,’ she sighed. Why did he have to make this so uncomfortable? She was what he’d always wanted her to be—sensible, unemotional, not putting her wants on him. Why was he changing the game on her now? ‘Look, Jared, can’t we deal with this as adults? You signed on for Dad’s dream; you love the life on Jarndirri. You’re willing to continue on there for the rest of your life. I’m the one walking away. You can have everything you wanted when you agreed to marry me … and I’ll set you free. You can find another woman to have your sons with.’

There, she’d said it, twice now, and even without a quiver. So why wasn’t he grateful? Surely she was letting him off lightly—but the silences were becoming unbearable. Jared looked outside as he poured coffee and stirred in the milk and sugar, his face expressionless, just as it had been the day her father had told them of his plans for them to marry and inherit Jarndirri together. She remembered the sick, sinking feeling, so scared he’d say yes, even more scared he’d say no …

Anna forced herself to stand still and quiet, giving him time and space to think.

Then he said the last thing she expected as he turned back to face her at last, pushing a mug toward her. ‘Bryce offered me the Jarndirri deal with Lea, you know.’

She almost choked on her coffee. ‘What?’

‘When you were fifteen and Lea was eighteen, he said if I took Lea off his hands so he didn’t have to worry about her any more, I could have everything.’

She frowned, forcing coffee down a tight throat. Thinking of it, it made perfect sense—Dad knew she’d be the good girl, accept his decision and take whatever was left. He had to get the rebel settled and safe before she did anything stupid to dishonour the Curran name. ‘And?’

He shrugged. ‘Predict it, Anna. You know Lea.’

She thought about it, and found herself grinning. ‘She exploded, told Dad to go to hell … and you too, if you thought she was going to be served on anyone’s platter.’

His brows lifted, fell. ‘That’s about it … you just missed one or two small things.’

‘Well?’ she prompted after a few moments.

His eyes met hers … deep, stormy grey-blue, his mouth curving in that half-smile of sensual intent, and she felt her body heating in response. She couldn’t tear her gaze away; her breaths came short and choppy. He didn’t move—he didn’t have to. Whenever he looked at her like that, she always came to him … came running.

How easy I made everything for him. A loving wife and Jarndirri, all neatly served on Dad’s platter. One kiss, one touch and I became his for the taking.

‘And?’ she croaked, forcing her feet to stay in place. Heart and mind fought a body that suddenly reminded her that, uterus or not, she was still a woman. Sort of.

‘And we had a good laugh later. From the day I moved in, we were like brother and sister. There was nothing there.’

‘Really?’ She tried to snort the word, but it came out breathless. ‘You two always got on so well.’

‘Every way but one.’ The smile slowly grew, and she felt her feet itching, trying to move. Her hands ached, screaming to touch him. She might not love him now, but, oh, he knew every way to arouse her, to give her satisfaction. ‘She didn’t want me either. We tried to kiss once, and ended up falling on the ground laughing.’ He grinned now. ‘She kept wiping her mouth and saying, “Ick, gross, it’s like kissing my brother.”’

‘Did you like it?’ she asked slowly, wishing she could keep the words locked inside, but so many years of wondering.

He took a step toward her, the predatory intent clear, and all the words she’d practised since asking him to come fled her mind. She watched him come, her body coming alive, hot and breathless, her breasts swelling and her hands lifting.

‘Kissing Lea was one of my life’s happier memories. It was then I knew I had a sister for life—and I knew I’d never hurt her.’

Interpreting everything he hadn’t said, as usual, she relaxed—until he took another step closer, body heat the oxygen fuelling her slow-burning body, and she gulped and breathed, trying to keep up with her galloping heart. ‘And then?’

‘I found you three weeks later in the haystack, hiding from Lea with the chocolate stash you stole,’ he murmured, eyes languorous with blatant sexuality, and his tinder sparked the slow flame in her.

Hiding from Lea, she’d whispered frantically to Jared to not give her away when he found her there. He’d looked at her in silence, asking without words what on earth she was doing. She’d lifted the chocolate in laughing offer, sharing her booty if he wouldn’t give her away. And he bent to her, saying she’d made a mess of her face, and took the chocolate smears from her mouth with his lips and tongue. She’d forgotten all about the chocolate, the hay in her hair and on her clothes; she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him back, crossing the unseen threshold from child to woman in an instant.

He hadn’t kissed her again for a long time—she was only fifteen to his eighteen—but he hadn’t gone with all the young guys to the infamous B&S balls—the Bachelor & Spinster balls—after that. And he hadn’t let any other guy near her either. He’d kept her on constant sensual alert with burning-hot glances and unspoken promises, soft whispers in her ear and intimate jokes for her alone.

But on her eighteenth birthday he’d given her a beautiful diamond ring made especially for her with gold from Jarndirri and a Kimberley diamond, danced with her all night at her party, and took her outside to the high verandah where she kept dozens of sweet-scented potted flowers and her climbing roses—planting them, even in the high ground, would drown them in the Wet—and he’d kissed her again, this time deep and slow with his arms around her.

I’m going to marry you, he’d whispered in her ear after half an hour of dazzling, melting kisses, and, poor, starry-eyed girl that she’d been, she’d had no thought of denying him anything he’d wanted. They’d come back into the house with that ring on her left hand, and her eighteenth party had become their engagement party.

They’d married four years later, after she’d finished university as her father demanded. She’d come home, torn between wanting to teach and aching to be with the man she adored. One slow smile from Jared on her return to Jarndirri, one melting kiss, and her future was decided. She couldn’t have left him again if her life depended on it.

She’d never kissed any other man, had never wanted to. From the first time she’d seen him, she’d been lost; from the moment he’d kissed her in that haystack, his wishes had become her wishes, his world hers.

Then the bottom fell out of the world they’d forged for themselves, the shattering of dreams as beautiful as pure crystal, and just as delicate. When she came home from the hospital, she’d felt the storm building inside him slowly, worse for its being unspoken. He wanted her to talk, to come past her intense grief, to heal … but he only wanted her to say what he was ready to hear. She knew what he wanted—the smiles and laughter, the sensuality and return to the joyous woman she’d once been. He’d wanted relief from the endless pain, for the uncertainty to be over, so he could get on with his life.

He could get on with life, because he still had options. He could still become a father. He could never understand the depth of her double loss. He just wanted her sadness to be over so he could bring up what he’d planned. She felt the leashed impatience as the months passed.

That was Jared. He was willing to run any race, fight any fire, swim any flood … he’d be there whenever she needed him, for whatever reason she needed him, so long as she didn’t expect him to talk, to share—or to feel. He just wanted to get on with it, whatever it was.