The Marry-Me Wish (9 page)

Peace.

‘Damage does haunt, doesn't it?' he said at last. She could see the movement in his neck as he swallowed. ‘We could give it a try, I guess. See how it goes.'

Anne could only nod. She didn't trust herself to speak for a moment. Even if David was prepared to try repairing something more than what their conversation had ostensibly been about, she couldn't afford that tiny
spark of hope reigniting. The one that had flared when he'd said
come home with me
.

‘I'll call in the troops,' was all she said finally. ‘First thing tomorrow.'

L
EARNING
that the removal of damaged floorboards from her cottage had revealed piles in dire need of replacement should have been a cause for dismay.

‘I can't move home yet,' she told David. ‘Half my floor's been ripped up.'

‘Are you in a hurry to get home?'

No. Not if he wanted her to stay…

‘Not really. But I didn't intend imposing on you for so long. I could move to a motel or something.'

‘You're hardly imposing.' But David shoved his fingers through his hair, unconsciously revealing that the idea of her staying longer might be disturbing. Then he gave her a searching look. Anne said nothing, allowing him time to see whatever it was he was looking for. It only took an instant.

‘Seems to me like you've become a project manager in the last few days,' he said. ‘For a job I couldn't have tackled to save myself. I should be paying you a lot more than room and board.'

‘Don't be daft. I'm having fun.'

Smiling, she waved a hand at the chaos in front of
her. The big mahogany table in the dining room was covered with plans for things like an en suite going into the master bedroom and a makeover for the other bathrooms. Sketches of ideas for the garden and paint colour cards were scattered amongst pictures cut from house and garden type magazines. Fabric samples draped the back of chairs and rolls of wallpaper were open and anchored with books on the floor.

This project had become more than fun. At some stage in the last few days Anne had become hooked. She'd never attempted renovation on anything like this scale but then she'd never had the time or the need for distraction. Or an apparently unlimited budget.

Her enthusiasm seemed to be contagious. David returned her smile. ‘And I'm enjoying having some company and something happening in the house,' he said. ‘It felt like a mausoleum when I first came back. Now it's…'

‘A mess?'

‘Alive.'

Nothing more had been said about her moving out since then. Day after day went by with the momentum of the renovation project increasing at a pace that mirrored Anne's returning physical well being. She was regaining her emotional strength as well. So much so, that when the prospect of spending a whole day with David when he had his first day off in more than a week was disturbing, Anne decided it was time to stretch her wings.

‘I'm going to go and visit Jules and Mac and the babies today,' she informed David when he appeared in
the dining room to get an update on progress, a mug of coffee in his hand. ‘Daily phone calls don't seem to be enough any more. I'd like to see them all.'

‘They live over the back of Governer's Bay, don't they?'

‘Yes. Up on the hill with a fabulous view of the harbour.'

‘That's quite a drive. You sure you're up to it?'

Anne's nod was confident. ‘My car needs a run. The battery's probably getting flat by now.'

‘I could drive you over.' Something in his gaze suggested that he hadn't been considering the condition of her vehicle.

‘No need,' Anne said hurriedly. Even if he wasn't showing a disconcerting comprehension of how difficult it might be for her to see the babies again, being in car with David would be very different to being in his house like this. Here, there were constant reminders that they weren't alone.

Right now, hammering sounds came from upstairs where Jim and his team were working in the main bathroom. A conversation between a couple of electricians was taking place in the hallway outside what had become Anne's office and through the latticed windows Nick, the university student, gave a wave as he walked past, carrying a serious looking hedge clipper under one arm.

Anne waved back and nodded her approval. The banging overhead got louder.

‘It would be a nice drive,' David added. ‘I could go for a walk while you were visiting.' He looked up at the ceiling. ‘Don't think I'll get much done around here today.'

Anne paused in the sorting of the quotes she'd been reviewing. David might be enjoying how lively the house had become but it had to be unsettling when you couldn't be sure if the water was running or whether a stranger might be in the bathroom you were hoping to use. And maybe it was more to do with him enjoying having company.

Was David lonely?

Like she was a lot of the time when she wasn't at work?

She was going to see her family today. David didn't have any family and he'd always been a bit like her in that his devotion to his career hadn't allowed for the nurturing of close friendships.

When they'd had each other, it hadn't mattered.

‘Maybe I'll go and see if I can give that young lad in the garden a hand with something.' David turned to leave and Anne felt the distance stretching between them.

‘You're welcome to come with me if you'd like to,' she found herself saying. ‘I won't be staying long and I…wouldn't mind a walk somewhere myself.' She rolled her gaze upwards as a particularly loud cracking noise came from directly overhead. ‘It is a bit hard to think in here today.'

 

If Julia and Mac were surprised to see Anne's companion, they hid it well.

‘Gidday, mate.' The colloquialism delivered with a strong Scottish accent made them all smile and broke any possibility of ice. ‘Come on in.'

Sunshine streamed into the little house on the hill. The living area was taken over by baby gear. Prams and
change tables and nappies. A clothes horse was draped with tiny articles drying in the sunshine. The kitchen bench was cluttered with bottles and measuring spoons and tins of formula.

‘Good grief!' Anne exclaimed. ‘I'd forgotten how completely babies take over your life.'

‘We're living and breathing babies,' Julia said happily. ‘It's heaven.'

They were so obviously rapt. Anne had given them this gift and she'd never felt so welcome. She hadn't expected that being bathed in this environment would be so overwhelming, however. The whole house actually
smelled
of baby. Of formula and nappies and damp clothes. It took her back. Way, way back to when the centre of her own life had been her small and helpless baby sister. To when there'd been no time for anything for herself but it hadn't occurred to her to feel put upon in any way because that tiny being had been so important. So precious.

She completely understood the intensity of this time in Julia and Mac's life. She didn't expect the conversation to include anything other than the twins and it didn't. They talked of feeding patterns and details of mixing formula and sterilising bottles. Of sleeping—or lack of it on the part of the parents—and of how bathtime got organised each evening. Anne was also quite prepared to admire the infants with the kind of reverence their parents demonstrated.

What was even more unexpected, given the overwhelming environment, was the way she was able to take a step back. The way her body and mind were ac
cepting—possibly with a tinge of relief—that these weren't
her
babies. Her heart was squeezed by the force of love she could feel but her breasts gave no more than a tingle of protest that was easily dismissed, and that heaviness in her belly was gone. So different from how she'd felt in the first days after the birth. That counsellor had been right. It had been hard but it had been the right thing to do to create that initial distance.

The bonding of this new family was so powerful. She wasn't excluded by any means but neither was she in that inner, almost obsessed, circle. She could feel David watching her as she held wee Angus but her smile was genuine.

‘He's gorgeous,' she pronounced, handing him back to his dad as he began to grizzle loudly. ‘He looks just like you, Mac.'

‘He does, doesn't he?' Mac was bursting with pride. ‘Chip off the old block.'

‘And don't you think Amy looks a bit like me?' Julia asked hopefully. She rocked the baby she was holding as Amy joined her brother in a hungry wail.

‘Absolutely.' Anne was still smiling as she noted a hint of a puzzled frown on David's face. He was shifting his gaze from each baby to its parent, clearly making an attempt to find the likeness. Her smile faded as the babies increased the intensity of their demanding cries. She could feel the sound closing in around her. She needed to
do
something. Now.

‘There, there, darling,' Julia soothed. ‘Lunch is on its way. Mac?'

‘Onto it. Come on soldier.' He shifted Angus so
that the baby was upright on his shoulder. ‘Let's mix that formula.'

‘Do…you need a hand?'

‘No. We've got this down to a fine art. Unless you want to hang around and help feed them?'

Something like panic edged into the tension. Anne opened her mouth to speak but David answered first.

‘I promised Anne lunch somewhere nice. And a walk. If we don't go now we might miss the best of the day weather-wise.'

Julia nodded but her eyes held a question.

Anne hugged her gently, enclosing the baby in the space between them. ‘Next time,' she whispered.

‘You okay?' The words were almost inaudible.

‘I'm good.' Anne tightened the hug a fraction. ‘But baby steps, yes?'

She turned to let David know she was ready to leave but he was already heading for the door. Implementing her rescue. Had he been aware that she was reaching her emotional limits? Did he understand, even a little? It was a powerful notion. One that was giving her an ally. A friend. It felt like another bit of tarnish was being polished off the connection between them, making it shine like gold.

 

The need to escape had been puzzling but real.

Talk about full on!

Still feeling somewhat in shock, David said little as they got back into the car and drove further around the harbour. Some fine tuning of his preconceptions clearly needed to be done.

The experience of the last hour or so wasn't at all what he remembered of encounters with children, which was odd, given that he'd had plenty of contact over the years. Paediatric patients and their siblings, children of colleagues that appeared, albeit briefly, at dinner parties. Had he chosen to only remember some of them in order to fashion his own desires for the future? Or maybe he'd only registered the ones who were old enough to communicate. The ones who had their own personalities. Small people.

Of course, he knew they'd all been newborns at some stage. He'd assumed he had a handle on that as well but given the taste of reality he'd just experienced, his notions were kind of fuzzy around the edges. Had he been spared most of the details by doting parents and nurses who had attended to physical necessities?

‘Do all new parents do that?' he asked Anne as they stopped at a corner shop, having decided that the day was nice enough for a picnic.

‘What?'

‘Talk about what they find in nappies, for instance, as if it was genuinely fascinating?'

‘Yeah.' Anne slanted him an amused glance. ‘What goes in and comes out of those little creatures is absolutely riveting. So is every twitch and burp and analysis of any differences in the noises they make. It's all part of the bonding process.'

‘More like an obsession.' David led the way into the shop. ‘I guess it's nature's way of ensuring survival.'

‘It's like falling in love,' Anne said quietly, from
behind him. ‘When you're the one involved, it's as natural as breathing.'

The bonding theory to ensure survival made sense. But if it was instinctive, why hadn't Anne experienced it after giving birth? Or maybe she had. She'd said as much, hadn't she? He'd been so prepared to slate her for giving those babies away and then turning her back on them and she'd stunned him when she'd said she couldn't go and stay with her sister because she wanted to see the babies
too
much.

And…maybe hope had been born in that instant. Hope that there could be a future for them that gave both of them what they wanted most in life. He wasn't ready to go down that track, however. Not when it might mean setting himself up for the kind of heartbreak he'd spent a year getting over. Not when Anne wasn't herself. They were both vulnerable. Confused. What fate had provided, in their living arrangements, was a kind of breathing space.

Determined to let the topic drop, David parked again at a small bay where a strip of grass led down to a rocky beach. There was a wooden table with built-in benches that was ideal for sitting at to eat the sandwiches and fruit they had purchased. The air smelled of the kelp that was piled up on the rocks below and the sun was warm enough to invite a scramble amongst the rock pools when they had finished eating.

It was Anne who voiced thoughts that were still focused on that visit.

‘Poor Mac,' she murmured, watching a family of crabs scuttle into hiding having been disturbed by a shifting
rock. ‘I don't think he's too keen on having to go back to work next week when his paternity leave runs out.'

David made a sound of agreement but somewhere in the back of his mind another mental rock had been dislodged. Paternity leave? Had it ever occurred to him that he might want to take advantage of such a thing when he had a newborn of his own? Weeks of time away from work? How disruptive would that be? He'd assumed that the mother would be more than willing to make that kind of a sacrifice, though, hadn't he?

Finding a large, smooth, sun-warmed boulder, David sat down to watch Anne crouching to peer into the rock pool.

‘He does seem just as enthralled as Julia.'

‘He's a natural-born dad.' Picking up a stick of driftwood, Anne poked gently at a sea anemone to watch it flutter shut. ‘I know how he feels,' she said a moment later. ‘I used to hate having to go to school and leave Jules with the nanny.'

The loose braid of Anne's dark hair lay across her back as she leaned forward, the sun bringing out tiny sparkles of light that made it come alive. Tendrils had come loose and the breeze made them play against her neck and face. David had to fight the urge to reach out and smooth them back. He wanted to see—and touch—the milky smoothness of that skin. It was good to see her relaxing like this, with a childlike fascination for what the rock pool contained.