Trish Wylie - Rescued - Mother-To-Be

Looking into the hazel eyes that for most of her teenage years she had wanted to look at her with the kind of warmth they now held for a brief second, she just couldn’t do it. She couldn’t tell him. Not yet. Yes, she would have to at some stage. But just not yet. Not today.

‘It ended badly.’ Which barely began to explain what had happened.

‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

Not half as sorry as Colleen was.

EAMONN didn’t know what he’d expected when he’d come back to Killyduff, the tiny village he’d once called home. But if he’d had a list of things he wouldn’t have expected…

Colleen McKenna being so grown-up had to be expected, he supposed. But she’d grown up pretty damn well. In his memory she’d been this scrawny little slip of a thing who had followed him around the farm like a puppy. She’d been a tomboy back then—sometimes in jeans, sometimes in riding jodhpurs, always in muddy boots. Wherever she’d been there had been a fat, hairy pony of some shape or other, and a dog with a permanently wagging tail. On the very odd occasion when she’d entered his thoughts that was how he’d thought of her. The little kid whose fair hair he had always ruffled.

She wasn’t that now.

When he’d driven back through the narrow lanes and looked at the open scenery around him his mind had been filled with memories. So many of them bad ones—or happy ones tinged with a bittersweet after-taste. And when he’d walked into the office he had even been prepared for a moment to see his father behind the desk. Even though he’d known that wouldn’t happen ever again.

Even though part of him had wanted the older man to be there. Just one last time. A ghost to lay to rest his own ghosts, or rather his demons.

The sight, then, of a fully grown, sparkling-eyed woman behind the desk his father had occupied for so long had caught him off guard. It had even taken him a few seconds to realise who she was. And then her direct way of speaking had amused him. The way her eyes would flicker away from him and then back had fascinated him.

But the sight of her so full and rounded with a baby? Looking as feminine as a woman could, lush and glowing. That had knocked him sideways.

Then to find out some jerk had walked off and left her like that…

Well, he wasn’t sure why the thought of that annoyed him so much. Maybe simply because out of all the bad memories he had from this place he’d once called home it would have been nice to be left with one happy one. That the Colleen he remembered was happy and settled.

It would have been nice if one of them had figured out how to be happy.

If she’d been better settled he wouldn’t have felt quite so bad about what he’d decided to do. He had hoped she’d be in a position to keep the place if she wanted to. But that wasn’t looking likely, was it? It made him think somewhat more deeply about his plans.

What would she do when her baby came? How would she cope alone? How would she make her living? The questions shouldn’t have been on his mind as much as they suddenly were. It wasn’t really his concern, after all. But the questions were there regardless. And what had been planned as a flying visit—literally—wasn’t looking so likely.

He took a deep breath. Damn it. It was a complication he didn’t need. And it wasn’t as if Colleen McKenna was his responsibility.

After a wander around the large old farmhouse, he threw some things out of his bag, showered, and searched through the cupboards for something to eat that might wake him up. Sleeping might be what his body craved, but he knew jet-lag well enough to know the sooner he adjusted to the time zone he was in the better.

Then, with the light fading outside, he wandered to the back of the house and looked out over the empty yard.

To catch sight of Colleen, pushing a huge wheelbarrow.

What the—?

He was in front of the stable she was in in less than two minutes. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’

Colleen’s head jerked up at the sound of his sharp voice, and the huge grey horse beside her baulked. Immediately her hand came out, smoothing along the horse’s wide neck to reassure it. ‘Evening stables. What does it look like I’m doing? Belly dancing?’

Eamonn scowled as she smiled at her own joke. ‘You shouldn’t be doing this. Isn’t there someone else?’

‘The two girls we have left do most of it before they go home, but I do a wee skip round and check the rugs before I go to bed.’

‘On your own?’

‘Yes, on my own.’ His astonishment seemed to surprise her. ‘I’m pregnant, Eamonn. I’m not in a wheelchair. And keeping moving is good for me.’

‘Wheeling a bloody great wheelbarrow about isn’t.’

‘Are you a gynaecologist now?’

‘No, I don’t need to be. It’s common sense.’ His eyes narrowed as the large horse stepped towards him to investigate. He shoved his hands into his jeans pockets and spread his feet wider, as if preparing himself for an attack, which made Colleen laugh aloud.

‘I’d tell you Bob doesn’t bite, but I’d be lying. And if you keep your hands in your pockets like that he’ll think you have food.’

Eamonn removed his hands, held his palms out for the horse to nuzzle in evidence of his lack of food, and tilted his head to see past to what Colleen was doing.

She was lifting droppings onto a shavings fork. While he opened his mouth to give out to her again, she spoke in a softly firm voice. ‘Bob, back.’

Bob dutifully stepped back from the door.

‘And another one. Back.’

He stepped back again, leaving enough room for Colleen to deposit what she was carrying into the wheelbarrow she had placed across the open doorway. She looked around the stable floor again. ‘I’ll be done in a minute anyway. I’ve just this row to do.’

‘I’m not happy with you pushing that wheelbarrow around in your condition.’

‘Thoughtful as that is, I’ve survived without your help this far. I can make it to the end.’

‘Are you always this stubborn?’

Her head turned as she fluffed the wood shavings into place, one eyebrow quirking. ‘I’ve always been this stubborn. Don’t you remember that much?’

‘I remember you frequently being a pain in the—’

She laughed. ‘Oh, I was that too.’

He wheeled the barrow out of the way as she came out of the stable, pausing to pat the horse’s neck again before she closed the stable door, bolted the top bolt and kicked the bottom into place.

She then turned to retrieve the barrow. But Eamonn jerked his head towards the next stable. Stubborn only went so far with him. ‘If I can’t stop you then I’m wheeling the barrow. So hurry up.’

‘I can do this just fine without your help.’

The rise of her chin and the glint in her eyes amused him, gave him a small sense of pride at her fierce independence that almost made him smile. Almost. If he smiled she’d think she’d won. And she hadn’t. ‘I believe you. But I’m here now, so learn to live with it. Now, hurry up. It’s bloody freezing out here.’

‘Warmer in Borneo, was it?’

‘Peru. And, yes it was.’He jerked his head again, ‘Go on, then.’

After a moment of hesitation, she sighed, and then moved to the next stable, where a finer darker head was over the door. ‘Get back, Meg.’

Eamonn watched with less surprise as the animal did as it was bid. ‘Do they all jump when you ask them to?’

‘They know who’s boss.’

He wheeled the barrow into place the same way she had at the previous stable, before leaning against the doorframe, watching her movements, and that of the horse, with cautious eyes. ‘You’re still taking a chance going in there, though. You know that.’