The Bridesmaid's Baby (9 page)

Later.

Oh, heavens, she mustn’t think about that.

The only good thing about being so frantically busy was that it had helped her not to dwell too deeply on the actual reason for this dinner. The merest thought of what was supposed to happen
after
the meal set off explosions inside her, making her feel like a string of firecrackers at Chinese New Year.

Hastily Lucy showered, slathering her skin with her favourite jasmine-scented gel and checking that her waxed legs were still silky and smooth.

Her hair was short so she simply towelled it dry, threw in a little styling product and let it do its own thing.

She put on a dress. She spent her working life in khaki jeans and she didn’t wear dresses very often, but this one was pretty—a green and white floral slip with shoestring straps and tiny frills around the low V neckline. It suited her. She felt good in it.

A couple of squirts of scent, a dab of lip gloss, a flourish with the mascara brush…

A truck rumbled to a growling halt outside.

Lucy froze.

Her reflection in the bedroom mirror blushed and her skin flashed hot and cold. Frenzied butterflies beat frantic wings in her stomach.

Firm footsteps sounded on the front path and her legs became distinctly wobbly. This was crazy.

It’s only Will, not Jack The Ripper.

Unfortunately, this thought wasn’t as calming as it should have been.

Concentrate on the meal. First things first. One step at a time.

It was no good. She was still shaking as she opened the door.

Will was dressed casually, in blue jeans and an open-necked white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to just below the elbow. Behind him, the twilight shadows were the deepest blue. He was smiling. He looked gorgeous—with the kind of masculine fabulousness that smacked a girl between the eyes.

‘Nice dress,’ he said, smiling his appreciation.

‘Thanks.’

With a pang Lucy allowed herself a rash moment of fantasy in which Will was her boyfriend and madly in love with her, planning to share a future with her and the baby they hoped to make.

Just as quickly she wiped the vision from her thoughts. Over the past ten years she’d had plenty of practice at erasing that particular dream.

Reality, her reality, was a convenient and practical parenting agreement. There was simply no point in hoping
for more. She was incredibly grateful for Will’s offer. It was her best, quite possibly her only prospect for motherhood.

‘Something smells fantastic,’ he said.

‘Thanks.’ Her voice was two levels above a whisper. ‘I hope it tastes OK. Come on in.’

She’d planned to eat in the kitchen, hoping that the room’s rustic simplicity and familiar cosiness would help her to stay calm.

Already, that plan had flown out of the window. She was almost sick with nerves.

‘Take any seat, Will.’ She gestured towards chairs gathered around the oval pine table. ‘You can open the wine if you like. I’d better check the dinner.’

She opened the oven door.
Concentrate on the food.

Her heart sank.

No, no, no!

The baked custard, which was supposed to be smooth as silk, was speckled and lumpy. Like badly scrambled eggs.

The lasagne was worse.

How could this have happened?

The lasagne had been a work of art when it went into the oven—a symphony of layers—creamy yellow cheese sauce and pasta, with red tomatoes and herb infused meat.

Now the cheese sauce had mysteriously disappeared and the beautiful layers were dried out and brown, like shrivelled, knobbly cardboard splattered with dubious blobs of desiccated meat.

It was a total, unmitigated disaster.

‘I can’t believe it,’ she whispered, crestfallen. She’d spent hours and hours preparing these dishes—beating, stirring, spicing, testing, reading and rereading the recipes over and over.

‘What’s happened?’ Will’s question was tentative, careful.

Fighting tears, Lucy shook her head. ‘I don’t know. I followed the instructions to the letter.’ Snatching up oven gloves, she took out the heavy lasagne pan.

Stupidly, she’d been picturing Will’s admiration. ‘It’s disgusting,’ she wailed.

‘It’ll probably taste fine,’ he said gallantly as she dumped the hot dish onto a table mat.

Lucy wanted to howl. ‘I’m sorry, Will.’ Unwilling to meet his gaze, she retrieved the dreadful looking custard and set it out of sight on the bench, beneath a tea towel. ‘They’ve opened a pizza place in town. I think I’d better run in there.’

‘This food will be fine,’ he insisted again.

Hands on hips, she shook her head and glared at the stove. ‘I can’t believe I spent so much money on a brand-new oven and I still made a hash of the meal.’

‘It might be a matter of getting used to the settings.’ He bent closer to look at the stove’s knobs.

Lucy followed his gaze and squinted at the little symbols. Now that she took a closer look, she saw that a tiny wriggly line on one knob differentiated it from its neighbour.

She swore softly. ‘I think I turned the wrong knob. Damn! I’ve been trying to grill the food instead of baking it.’

She’d been too distracted. That was her problem. She’d kept thinking about the
reason
for this dinner and a moment’s loss of concentration was all it had taken to ruin her efforts.

Will’s grey eyes twinkled, however, and he looked as if he was trying very hard not to laugh.

To Lucy’s surprise, she began to giggle. She’d been so tense about this evening, so desperate for everything to be
perfect and now, when she had to try to cover her disappointment, she could only giggle.

It was that or cry, and she wasn’t going to cry.

Will flung his arm around her shoulders in a friendly cheer-up hug, and her giggling stopped as if he’d turned off a switch.

‘Right,’ she said breathlessly as she struggled for composure. ‘If we’re going to try to eat this, I’d better set the table.’

Will opened a long-necked bottle with a fancy label and poured dark ruby-red wine into their glasses. Lucy took the salad she’d prepared from the fridge. At least it still looked fresh and crisp. She removed the plastic film, added dressing and tossed it. She found a large knife and cut the lasagne and was surprised that it cut easily, neatly keeping its shape. That was something, at any rate.

‘I told you this would taste good,’ Will said after his first mouthful.

To Lucy’s surprise, he was right. The lasagne’s texture might have been a bit too dry, but it hadn’t actually burned and the herbs and meat had blended into a tasty combination. She sipped the deep rich wine and ate a little more and she began to relax. Just a little.

‘Have you rescued any more pythons?’

She shook her head. ‘The only wildlife I’ve cared for this week is a galah with a broken wing. But I discovered who dropped the python off. It was one of the schoolteachers. Apparently, he accidentally clipped him with his ride-on mower. He’s going to care for him for another week or so, then let him go again in the trees down near the creek.’

They talked a little more about Lucy’s work, including the good news that the footrot hadn’t spread to any more sheep farms.

‘What have you been up to?’ she asked. ‘I hear you’ve been lending a hand with drenching.’

He sent her a wry smile. ‘News travels fast.’

‘I saw your father in town the other day and he was so excited. He said you haven’t lost the knack.’

Will shrugged.

‘I told you you’re a natural with animals.’

‘Are you trying to turn me into a farmer, too?’

She didn’t want to upset him, so she tried another topic. ‘Have you started job-hunting?’

Over the rim of his wine glass his eyes regarded her steadily, almost with a challenge. ‘I’m going for an interview at Armidale University next Thursday.’

Lucy could feel her smile straining at the edges, which was ridiculous. She knew Will would never settle back in the Willow Creek district. ‘That’s great. Good luck.’

‘Thanks.’

He helped himself to seconds, but Lucy was too tense to eat any more and she wasn’t sure if she should offer Will the dessert. However, he insisted on trying her lumpy custard and rum-poached pineapple and he assured her it was fabulous.

‘Very courteous of you to say so.’ She took a small spoonful of the custard. ‘Actually, this does have a scrumptious flavour, doesn’t it?’ She smiled ruefully. ‘At least I had all the right ingredients.’

‘And that’s what counts.’

Something about the way Will said this made Lucy wonder if he was talking about more than the food. With a rush of heat, she remembered again what this night was all about.

The butterflies in her stomach went crazy as she stared at the mouthful of wine in the bottom of her glass. In a
perfect world, people created babies out of love, but tonight she and Will were supposed to make a baby by having ‘friendly’ sex.

Leave your emotions at the door, please.

She wasn’t sure this was possible for her. But, if she wanted a baby, she was going to have to pretend that she was OK about the ‘only friends’ part of their arrangement.

Cicadas started their deafening chorus outside in the trees and in the soft pink-plumed grasses, as they did every evening in spring and summer, calling to each other in the last of the daylight.

Lucy cocked her ear to the almost deafening choir outside. ‘Those cicadas are just like us.’

Will’s eyebrows lifted. ‘They are?’

‘Sure. Listen to them. They wait till the last ten or fifteen minutes of daylight, till it’s almost too late to find partners, and then they go into a mad panic and start yelling out—
Hey, I need to pass on my DNA. I need a mate. Who’s out there?’

Will laughed and topped up their wine glasses.

A startling image jumped into her head of his white shirt slipping from his broad brown shoulders, of the fastener on his jeans sliding down.

Consumed by flames, she gulped too much wine. ‘This would be so much easier if we were aliens.’

Will almost choked on his drink. ‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Oh, you’ve seen the movies.’ She held out her hand to him, fingers splayed. ‘If aliens want to have a baby, they just let their fingertips touch. Or they hook up by mental telepathy and
voila!
One cute triangular baby.’

Shaking his head, Will stood. He wasn’t smiling any more as he collected their plates and took them to the sink.

Slightly dazed by this abrupt change, Lucy watched him with a mixture of nervousness and longing. His long legs and wide shoulders—
everything,
really—made him so hunky and desirable.

‘Shall I put the leftovers in the fridge?’ he asked.

Goodness. He was hunky and desirable and unafraid to help in the kitchen. Lucy was so busy admiring Will she almost forgot that this was her kitchen and she should be helping him.

She jumped to her feet. ‘My dogs will adore that custard in the morning.’

They made short work of clearing the food away, then Will snagged the wine bottle and their glasses. ‘Why don’t we make ourselves more comfortable?’

‘C-comfortable?’

He smiled at her. ‘If you stay here chattering about mating cicadas and alien sex you’re going to talk yourself out of this, Goose.’

Well, yes, she was aware of that distinct possibility.

‘Where do you want to go, then?’

Amusement shimmered in his eyes. ‘I thought we might try your bedroom.’

Lucy gasped. ‘Already?’

‘Come on.’ Will was smiling again as he took her hand. ‘We can do this.’ He pulled her gently but purposefully across the room. ‘Which way?’

‘My room’s the first on the right.’ Lucy was super-aware of their linked hands as she walked beside him on unsteady legs.

Think about the baby. Don’t fall in love.

Will stopped just inside her bedroom doorway. ‘Very nice,’ he said, admiring the brand-new claret duvet with
silvery-grey pillows. She’d chosen the pillow slips because they were the colour of Will’s eyes.

She was glad she’d turned on the bed lamps and drawn the new curtains. The room looked welcoming. Not too girly. Smart. Attractive.

Will put the bottle and glasses down on one of the bedside tables, then came and stood beside her. He took her hands.

Lucy’s mouth was drier than the Sahara. How could he be so calm?

She felt a riff of panic, found herself staring at his shoes, thinking about them coming off and then the rest of him becoming bare. She could picture his shoulders, his chest, his tapering torso…

He was so gorgeous, but he was only doing this because he wanted to help her. He only thought of her as a friend. He couldn’t possibly fancy her. She’d always known that.

If she’d ever doubted it, she only had to remember the way Will had kissed her on the night of his farewell party, and then left for overseas as if it hadn’t meant a thing. Now he would be so much more experienced with women.

Oh, help. It was ages since she’d had a boyfriend. Why had she agreed to this? How had she ever thought this could be OK?

‘Will, I don’t think—’

‘That’s good.’

‘Pardon?’

‘Don’t think,’ he murmured and he smiled as he drew her closer.

Nervously, she looked down at their linked hands and watched his thumb gently rub her knuckles. She wondered if she should warn him she was scared—scared of not living up to his expectations. Scared of falling in love.

But no. He was so confident and calm about this, he probably wouldn’t understand. She could frighten him off and she would end up without a baby.

‘I want our baby to be like you,’ Will said softly.

Lucy gulped. ‘Do you? Why?’

‘You’re so sweet, so clever and kind.’

‘You’re all of those things too.’

She saw the stirring of something dark and dangerous in his eyes.

He touched her collarbone and she held her breath as his fingers traced its straight line. Her pulses leapt as he reached the base of her throat.