Emma Darcy - Jack's Baby

SMILING benevolently did not come easily. Jack had to work hard at repressing the angry frustration that seeing Nina had stirred. He wanted to snap and snarl. He felt a deep empathy with his dog’s behaviour when a great bone was moved out of his marked territory. He felt no empathy whatsoever with the drivel coming out of Maurice’s mouth.

“He’s got my ears, poor little blighter.”

Jack smiled. “Well, one can always resort to plastic surgery.”

Maurice laughed indulgently. “They’re not that bad. He’ll grow into them.”

“Bound to,” Jack agreed, his face aching with smiling.

Maurice looked besottedly at his wife. “I’m glad he’s got Ingrid’s nose.”

Jack obediently performed the comparison, studying the straight, aristocratic nose of Maurice’s buxom blonde wife and the longer, slightly bumpy one of his friend. He forced another smile. “Yes. Much the better nose.”

Why was it obligatory to divide a baby’s features between the parents? It was inevitably done, like a ritual, perhaps affirming true heritage, or an assurance that a little replica would fulfil its parents’ expectations. Not only was it a deadly boring exercise to Jack, it almost drove him to snap, “Let the kid be himself, for God’s sake!”

But that wasn’t the done thing.

He wondered whom Nina had been visiting on this floor. Not that it mattered. No point in trying to find some contact point with her. From the attitude she had flashed to him, it would probably constitute harassment. Besides, Jack had a built-in inhibitor against going where he wasn’t wanted.

“Give me the baby, darling, while you open Jack’s present,” Ingrid commanded, brandishing the newborn power of being a mother. This was definitely one time she could boss Maurice around. The proud and grateful Dad would undoubtedly lick her feet if she asked him to. Jack knew from observation that the flow of uncritical giving wouldn’t last.

He watched Maurice lay the precious bundle in his wife’s arms with tender care. It was really a pity such blissful harmony didn’t last. They looked good—loving mother and father with child. Idyllic. The rot didn’t set in until they went home from hospital.

Ingrid’s long blonde hair gleamed like skeins of silk falling over her shoulders. Jack frowned at the reminder of Nina’s hair, which some idiot had clearly butchered. What had possessed her to have her beautiful hair cut? She’d looked like a ragamuffin, wispy bits sticking out as though she’d run her fingers through the short crop instead of brushing it. The style didn’t suit her. It made her face look thinner.

Maybe her face was thinner.

Had Nina been ill?

It was a disturbing thought. Frustration boiled up again. He hated not knowing what had been happening to her. Her face had looked paler than he remembered, too, all healthy colour washed out of it. If she’d been ill, was ill…no, it still made no sense for Nina to look at him with fear and anger.

It was no reason to cut him out of her life, either. She could have stayed with him. He would have looked after her. Did she have anyone looking after her now?

“My favourite champagne, Veuve Cliquot!” Maurice beamed at him. “Great gift, Jack.”

“I won’t be able to drink it,” Ingrid wailed. “It’ll sour my milk.”

New regime rolling in, souring more than her milk, Jack silently predicted. He grimaced an apology. “Sorry, Ingrid. I’m an ignorant male.”

“Never mind, love.” Maurice dropped a kiss on her puckered forehead. “We’ll keep it until the little guzzler here goes onto a bottle.”

“I don’t know when that will be.” She pouted. “Look how big my breasts are swelling up with milk. They’re even beginning to leak.”

They were certainly stretching her nightgown to its limits of stretchability, Jack observed, and suddenly had a flash of Nina in the elevator, her arms hugging her rib cage, her breasts pushed up, surely far more voluptuous than they used to be.

She’d been wearing a loose, button-through dress, her shape disguised by it initially. Besides, his attention had been riveted on her face then, the expression in her eyes. But when she’d turned around in the elevator, pressing back against the wall, holding herself defensively, her breasts had definitely bulged.

His heart skittered. He gave himself a mental shake, pushing the idea away. To associate Nina’s breasts with Ingrid’s—swollen with milk—was a neurotic vision he could well do without. Nina couldn’t have had a baby. It was only eight months since she’d left him.

After an argument about babies.

His mind whirled at sickening speed. Maternity hospital…not a dress, a free-flowing housecoat…tired, careless of her appearance…shock, disbelief, fear at seeing him here…anger…

He felt the blood draining from his face. He clenched his hands, gritted his teeth and willed his heart to pump his circulation back into top working order. He had to think clearly and rationally, not leap to wild conclusions. If Nina had been pregnant, surely to God she would have told him. Flung it in his face, most likely, in the middle of that argument. She couldn’t have thought he’d turn his back on her.

Maybe she had thought it, deciding to take that initiative herself rather than confront what he might say or do, given his negative attitude to having children.

Nausea cramped his stomach and shot bile up his throat. If she’d gone it alone because she hadn’t trusted him to respond supportively…

“Are you all right, Jack?”

Maurice’s question broke through the glaze of horror in his mind. They were looking quizzically at him. Had he missed something? Apart from a nine-month pregnancy?

“Sorry.” He sucked in a deep breath and swallowed hard. “I was just thinking how great the three of you look together.”

Ingrid laughed. “Time you found yourself a wife and started a family, Jack.”

Join the club. They all said that. Once they were caught in the family trap, it was as though anyone who was free of it was an offensive reminder of what they’d given up. The hell of it was he might very well have a child somewhere on this ward, a child whose mother had decided was better off fatherless than having Jack in their lives.

“Aren’t you thirty-something?” Ingrid persisted.

“Darling, I’m forty,” Maurice reminded her. “Age has nothing to do with it. If I hadn’t met you, I’d still be a freewheeling bachelor like Jack.”

Jack didn’t want to be a freewheeling bachelor. He wanted Nina. He didn’t care if she came with a child. He wanted Nina. The need and desire for her burgeoned out of the emptiness that had haunted the past eight months, growing with compelling force, overpowering all his objections to babies.

A little scrap of humanity like the one in Ingrid’s arms couldn’t beat him. He’d learn how to handle the child. He’d never had a problem handling anything once he set his mind to it. If Nina needed proof of that, he’d give it to her.

Babies were probably only destructive monsters because parents allowed them to take over. Jack was made of sterner stuff. Having seen the damage babies wrought on relationships, he could take protective steps and save Nina and himself a lot of unnecessary stress. It was all a matter of attitude and organisation.

What he needed was a plan.

He also needed definite facts instead of suppositions. A plan could very quickly come unstuck if he didn’t have his facts right. Therefore, step one was to grab a nurse and make a few pertinent inquiries.

“You know, Jack—” Ingrid eyed him speculatively “—I have a few girlfriends you might enjoy meeting.”

The good old matchmaking trick.