Marriage Reunited: Baby on the Way

CHAPTER TWO

SIX hours later, rested and showered, Jack stood at the ward desk. On the other side, Liz leaned forward, her hands braced on either side of a stack of patient records.

‘I’m working. I can’t just leave.’ Each word was enunciated with a frigid clarity that should have blistered his ears.

‘Yes, you can.’ For the first time he began to appreciate just how difficult the task he’d set himself was going to be. He took a slow deep breath. ‘I’ve spoken to Tony Costello—’

‘What? You’ve spoken to my boss?’ Her voice was still pitched low in deference to the patients in the ward, but her intensity rammed into him. ‘How dare you?’

‘Easily.’ He’d come too far to back down now. ‘You’re not to darken the hospital doors before tomorrow.’

If she had any idea of the scope of the discussions with Tony she’d be even angrier. He’d cross that bridge when he had to. Leaning on the counter, he willed his body to relax. The smile he forced to his mouth felt stiff with tension.

‘I’ve got things to do.’ Liz wore a hunted look as her eyes slid away from him to a pile of neatly stacked patient notes.

‘Yes, you sure do. You have to come home with me.’

Her gaze, dark and revealing, darted back to his. She was afraid. Of him? The notion punched his breath away. His Liz was fearless. Surely, he was mistaken.

‘Do I have to throw you over my shoulder, darlin’?’ He was relieved there was no trace of his turmoil in his voice.

‘In case you haven’t noticed, I don’t bend that way any more,’ she grated out. Any hint of fear was burned away as her eyes glowed gold with anger.

He allowed his gaze to drift down to the mound of her abdomen. His chest tightened in an unexpected rush of possessiveness. His woman. His baby. ‘No, I guess not. Okay, fireman’s lift is out. How about I sweep you up and carry you out in my arms? Should cause quite a stir.’

‘You wouldn’t.’ She scowled, pulling the edges of her white coat over her stomach and folding her arms.

‘Try me.’

He held her gaze for a long moment before she huffed out a breath and looked down at the desk, her lips clamped in a firm line. A pang of sympathy tweaked at his conscience. She was no match for him now that he’d had a solid five hours sleep.

Since he’d been up, he’d returned the rental car to the depot and shopped for groceries. On the back seat of Liz’s car sat half a dozen bags of necessities to stock the woefully depleted refrigerator he’d found at the house, at their home. He straightened, flexing his shoulders. Pregnant women needed to look after themselves. Or be looked after.

‘Very well.’ She straightened a pile of forms. ‘But I need to check on one of the patients before I go. So you’ll just have to wait.’

‘Don’t be long, sweetheart, or I’ll come and find you,’ he said softly as she rounded the desk to move past him.

The look she flashed him should have fried him on the spot. ‘I’ll be as long as I need to be.’

As he watched her moving down the corridor, her steps slower than normal, he knew he was doing the right thing whether she liked it or not. A peculiar mixture of emotions—exasperation, love, and maybe just a touch of anger?—churned in his gut as she disappeared into one of the rooms.

He expelled a long sigh. They’d had so many arguments about starting a family in the six months before he’d gone overseas. He’d finally faced the fact that he didn’t want to be a father. That the remnants of his paternal instinct had died more than a decade ago.

With Kylie’s betrayal. Kylie. He hadn’t thought about his teenage crush for years. The girl who’d told him he was going to be a father—only to dump him when she miscarried. And dump him hard, trashing his love and his fervent promises of marriage, support, fidelity. Even stripping him of his right to grieve for the lost baby with her confession that it wasn’t his.

Perhaps his past wasn’t as buried as he believed.

He rubbed a hand over his face and thought back to his last confrontation with Liz, on the day before he’d left. It’d been very cold, very civilised after the preceding months of hot words and hotter, hope-filled reconciliations.

But regardless of the physical passion that flared between them, he hadn’t been able to overcome the obstacle of Liz’s desire to have a family. His argument, that they had something special and didn’t need children to complete their relationship, hadn’t swayed her at all. He’d agreed to give Liz a divorce. He smiled grimly. Looking at it from Liz’s perspective, though, she’d been unable to overcome his entrenched resistance to becoming a father.

Stalemate.

Not that it mattered now. A moment’s careless pleasure and they were going to be parents. Though, in fairness to both of them, they hadn’t been careless, just unlucky. Their usual contraceptive regimen had failed.

Or had Liz been deliberately careless? The muscles of his scalp contracted, pulling at his already tense forehead. He shifted, paced a few steps, trying to shake the unwelcome thought away.

It was irrelevant. He preferred to deal with reality, with the present. And the pregnancy, deliberate or accidental, was a fact that had to be faced squarely. Besides, she wouldn’t have gone to such lengths…would she?

Liz ignored the faint tremor in her fingers as she studied Bob Smyth’s chart. His temperature had stabilised during the day. The new antibiotics were obviously doing the job, clearing his lungs, easing his breathing. Microbiology results on the sputum still weren’t back, but there was no sign now of the respiratory distress he’d been admitted with the day before yesterday.

She looked at the patient propped up on the pillows, his face relaxed in sleep, and toyed briefly with the thought of disturbing him. Hard plastic dug into her flesh as she pressed her palms on either side of the chart board. Why couldn’t Bob have been awake? She could have asked him a question, chatted for a few minutes about something, anything. Then she might have felt as though she was here for some purpose.

Instead, she had to admit to herself that she was avoiding the moment when she had to face Jack. Her husband…the father of her baby. Her heart squeezed painfully as she smoothed a hand over her stomach.

The unwilling father of her baby.

She hooked the chart on the end of the bed, her fingers fiddling with the clip for a moment longer. She was hiding, trying to delay the inevitable. Stupid because there was nothing she’d like more than to be able to go home and put her feet up, or perhaps wallow in a bath. If it weren’t for Jack being at the house, she’d probably have left the hospital hours ago.

With a small sigh of defeat, she turned to leave the room. Back at the front desk, she wrote up a request for physiotherapy for Bob and slipped it into a wire basket at the end of the desk.

She felt Jack’s gaze follow her as she went through to hang up her white coat and retrieve her bag from the locker.

‘I need to go to the supermarket on the way home,’ she said when she returned.

Jack fell into step with her. ‘What for?’

His hand came to rest in the curve of her back as he guided her down the corridor. The small, almost protective gesture sent her pulse into overdrive, scattering her thoughts. ‘I’m sorry?’

‘What do you need to go to the supermarket for?’

‘Oh. Um, yes.’ With an effort she pulled her mind back to the conversation. ‘You didn’t let me know you were coming home so I haven’t done any shopping.’

‘Hmm.’

The noncommittal response, coupled with her reaction to his touch, irritated her. ‘I’m assuming you do want to eat?’

‘Yeah, I do. I’ve got it under control.’

A short time later and they were on the road. Going home…together. Liz’s heart thumped with an upsurge of poignant emotion.

‘Congratulations, by the way.’ She clasped her palms together in her lap, interlaced fingers pressing hard into her knuckles. With her peripheral vision, she saw Jack give her a quick glance before returning his eyes to the road.

‘For?’ He sounded wary.

‘Being appointed brigade captain.’ She caught her breath in the short, tense silence. ‘Why? Is there something else you haven’t you bothered to tell me?’

‘Liz—’

‘Of course, I’d heard rumours. But nobody thought to tell me because they naturally assumed I already knew.’ She stared at his profile, hating the bitterness she could hear in her voice. ‘How do you think that made me feel, Jack?’

He sighed. ‘I thought I’d be home to tell you before the details got out. I should have known better. I’m sorry.’

A muscle jumped along the line of his now clean-shaven jaw. He looked disgustingly fresh and well rested.

And utterly desirable.

While she felt frumpy and unattractive. She wrenched her gaze away, sealing her lips to stop herself from saying anything more.

As soon as the car stopped in the driveway, she scrambled out and opened the back door of the car.

‘Leave those,’ Jack said from the driver’s side as she reached for one of the grocery bags on the back seat.

‘I’m here so I might as well carry something.’ She leaned in and grasped a calico handle.

Moments later, hands clamped around her hips and she was gently but firmly tugged out of the vehicle. The bag she held was removed. Off balance from his touch, she looked up to find hard blue eyes boring into hers. ‘I said leave them. Just…go inside and put your feet up. Do whatever you like, but let someone else be in charge for a while.’

‘Fine, carry them all yourself, then.’ With Jack’s arms spread, one hand on the car door, the other on the roof, his solidly muscled body effectively corralled her. Her heart ricocheted around in her chest cavity. He’d touched her through layers of clothing, but the imprint of his strong hands still lingered on her flesh. Even worse was her body’s wicked yearning to press against him. She curled her fingers around her handbag to stop any possibility of reaching out.

Her eyes fixed on the navy rib of his neckband, she forced her mind to form a coherent sentence. ‘If you’ll get out of my way, I’ll leave you to it.’

Letting go of the car door, he shifted enough for her to brush past.

Not trusting her voice while he was still so close, she shot a tight smile in his direction. Then, mustering all the dignity she could, she walked towards the house.

‘I put the key back in the pot-belly if you need it.’ His voice followed her up the path.

A few moments later he joined her on the veranda, shopping bags in hand. ‘Dinner will be in an hour or so. I’ll call you.’

‘Fine,’ she mumbled, fumbling through the contents of her bag for her keys. She should have just retrieved the spare from the wretched stove. That way she’d have been inside already and out of his disturbing radius.

He shifted his weight, hefting the bags. Out of the corner of her eye she could see his biceps bulging slightly, filling the short sleeve of his T-shirt. ‘Do you want me to get the spare?’

She started at the sound of his voice as her fingers closed around her keyring.

‘No.’ Picking one, she stabbed it into the lock, relieved when it turned smoothly.

‘After you.’ She pushed the door open and stood back to hold the screen. The tang of his aftershave stayed with her as she stood on the doorstep, staring after him.

The thin cotton knit shirt moulded to his long back. She’d always loved his broad shoulders, loved the strength in them. With snug jeans clinging to narrow hips, he was heart-throb material. A hot spear of lust twisted in her abdomen. Her shoulders slumped and she closed her eyes on a wave of despair. Even after their years together, even after the bitter arguments that had punctuated their relationship before he’d gone away, she wasn’t immune to his masculine appeal. In fact, she wondered if she’d become even more sensitised to him in his absence. For the sake of her sanity she hoped familiarity would breed its contempt—and quickly.

‘Are you all right?’ Jack’s voice jolted her out of her miserable reverie. ‘Do you need a hand?’

‘Yes. No.’ She drew herself up. The last thing she needed right now was for him to touch her again. ‘I’m fine, thank you. It’s…I’ll go and, um, have a bath. Now. In the en suite.’

She fled, feeling his gaze follow her into the house, only releasing her when she turned into the main bedroom.

An hour later, more pampered than she’d felt in a long time, she wandered through to the kitchen.

‘Good timing.’ He looked up from the bench where he was putting the finishing touches on a colourful tossed salad. She fidgeted beneath his scrutiny. ‘You look better. Less exhausted.’

She grimaced wryly. ‘Thanks, I guess.’

‘You always look beautiful, Liz.’ A small smile curled the edges of his lips. She dragged her eyes away to focus on the chunks of tomato dotted over the lettuce.

‘I wasn’t fishing for a compliment.’ But in her heart she wondered if she was telling the entire truth. Some small, stubborn core lapped up the words, wanting more. Really dumb. They’d soon be going their separate ways…They had to. The marriage was over. She couldn’t use the pregnancy to hold him. Wanting more of anything from him was pointless.

He shrugged. ‘I’ve set the table on the deck and poured you a drink.’ He nodded at a wineglass filled with golden liquid. ‘Why don’t you take that outside and sit down while I put the salmon on?’

‘I can’t drink alcohol.’

‘I know.’ He opened the sliding door with his elbow while balancing the salad in one hand and plates in the other. ‘It’s apple cider. Non-alcoholic.’

‘Oh. Then…thanks.’ She picked up the chilled glass and stood awkwardly.

‘Coming out?’ He was waiting at the door.

‘Can I do anything?’

‘Yep. Grab the salad.’ He held out the bowl. As soon as she’d taken it, he turned away to the barbecue. ‘Sit. Relax.’

The smell of salmon sizzling on the hot barbecue plate made Liz acutely aware of how hungry she was. She rearranged the table to make room for the things she carried then slid onto the seat. A jaw-cracking yawn caught her by surprise. She hastily smothered the last of it when she realised Jack was watching.

‘Excuse me.’

‘Early night for you tonight.’

‘Yes.’ She sighed, lounging back on her chair and stretching out her legs. ‘I must. I’m on call.’

‘No. You’re not.’

His response didn’t make sense. She frowned. ‘I’m rostered on.’

‘Tony changed it.’

‘Tony changed it?’ Perplexed, she sat for a long moment until the implications sank in. She bolted upright, her hands fisted. ‘Tony changed it! After you talked to him?’

‘Mmm. But all I—’

‘I can’t believe you would do that. What made you think you have the right? If you think you can come back here after all that time away and pull this heavy-handed husband rubbish then you can think again. I won’t tolerate it. You…you…’ She threw her hands up. ‘Words fail me.’

‘Not noticeably, darlin’,’ he drawled, his expression shuttered as he walked past her back into the house.

She marched after him. ‘You’ve never been the nannying sort, Jack, and I don’t appreciate you starting now.’

Heat wafted over her as Jack opened the oven and used mitts to retrieve two baked potatoes.

‘Don’t you?’ A muscle flexed in his jaw. ‘If you’re not going to be more sensible with your health, you’ll have to get used to it.’

She gaped at his profile for long seconds. ‘That’s a stupid thing to say. I am sensible with my health. I’m a doctor, for goodness’ sake.’

‘The two things don’t necessarily go hand in hand, sweetheart.’ He swiped off the mitts and dropped them on the bench. With his hands on his hips, he slanted a dark, brooding look at her. ‘I’ve been back in the country for half a day and I know that you’ve worked hours that would stop a normal person in their tracks. And the contents of our fridge would only have kept a dieting rabbit happy for a couple of hours.’

He picked up the plate with the potatoes and she was left with a view of his back as he walked away from her again. Even with frustration stampeding through her, she couldn’t help an involuntary scan down his lean length. Abruptly, the anger turned to a visceral tug of desire. How she used to delight in running her hands over his body, the swimmer’s shoulders, the narrow waist, hard, muscular buttocks.

She took a deep breath, desperately channelling her energy to a more appropriate avenue. They were arguing about food. She followed him out to the barbecue where he turned the salmon.

‘Like I said before, if you’d seen fit to let me know you were coming, I might have had a chance to lay in supplies for a whole bloody warren.’ She sounded inadequate and defensive while he looked so big and gorgeous and in control. It wasn’t fair. He was the interloper here.

The corners of his mouth twitched. If he laughed at her she was going to dump the salad over his head.

‘I know. The point is there wasn’t enough in our fridge to feed one overworked doctor. Which confirms that you’ve been working long hours as you haven’t had time to restock.’ He flipped the browned fillets onto the serving plate. ‘Dinner’s ready.’

‘It’s not that. I’ve been tired.’ Aware she sounded more like a petulant child than an adult, she slipped into her seat. She knew if she’d been home alone there was a good chance she’d have opened a tin of baked beans and then gone to bed.

‘I rest my case.’ He picked up the bottle of red wine and topped up his glass before giving her an old-fashioned look over the rim.

She fumed silently for a long moment. ‘Anyway, that’s beside the point. You have no right to interfere in my professional life. I’ve a good mind to ring Tony and insist he reinstate the roster.’

Jack sighed. ‘I didn’t ask him to change it, Liz. It was his call. His professional decision. And one I happen to agree with.’

‘Why would he do it without telling me?’

‘I was there when he made the decision and I said I’d let you know. We were talking about last night’s accident, as new fire chief to hospital superintendent. It prompted him to remember you’d been on duty. There are four other doctors at the hospital.’

‘Two. Barbara’s on holiday and Tim’s just broken his leg,’ she muttered.

‘Nevertheless, someone else is doing tonight’s shift.’ He pushed the salad bowl towards her before reaching across to add a piece of fish and baked potato to her plate. ‘Now, can we eat?’

The meal looked perfect. Perfect. She’d had the workday from hell. All her personal relationships were a disaster. Her brother, Mark, was angry because she’d tried to talk him out of his latest hare-brained stunt. Her mother was disappointed in her because she hadn’t succeeded with her brother. She was pregnant, married to a man who didn’t want to be a father. And now the man wanted to play happy families as though nothing out of the ordinary was happening.

The perfection in front of her seemed to underline the wretched state of everything else.

She stared at tiny brown granules of pepper showering over the food on Jack’s plate as he twisted the top of the grinder.

His eyes met hers as he slowly placed the unit back on the table. ‘Is there a problem? I never thought to ask you if there’s anything you can’t eat.’

‘The salmon’s fine. It’s not that…it’s you.’ She swallowed, trying to subdue the undulation in her stomach. ‘It’s this whole weird thing. We agreed to a divorce. Why are you behaving as though you’re trying out for husband of the year when we both know our marriage is in the ditch?’

‘I know what we agreed on. But we’re not divorced yet and maybe we don’t have to be.’ He leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table, his eyes guarded as they held hers. ‘But if we’re going to fix our marriage, someone has to start somewhere.’

‘And you think you’re that someone?’ A year, even six months ago, his stand would have been the sweetest offer he could have made. But the fact remained he’d been adamant about their marriage remaining child-free back then. All that had changed was her pregnancy. If he stayed now, it smacked of selfsacrifice. She didn’t want that for her baby. Or herself. ‘What if I don’t believe it can be fixed? What if…I don’t want you back?’ she finished in a rush so the words wouldn’t choke her.

If she hadn’t been looking at him, she’d have missed any sign her words had registered. As it was, there was just the suggestion of stillness in his face, a tightening around the eyes, his throat moving in a quick swallow. She had an urge to push harder, see what it took to make him feel the turmoil she was feeling.

‘But you’re not sure.’ He picked up his napkin and laid it on his lap.

‘W-why do you say that?’

He gave her a bland look. ‘You haven’t told anyone we’re separated.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Among other things, I ran into your mother at the supermarket this afternoon. If she knew my days were numbered I don’t think she’d have been able to resist some small barb to let me know.’

She stared at him, unable to refute the claim. Her mother’s antipathy towards Jack had caused difficulty from the beginning of their marriage. Any sign that the union was over and her mother wouldn’t hesitate to voice her pleasure.

‘So why haven’t you?’ Jack interrupted her thoughts.

‘Because…Because…’ She searched for a reason that would set him back on his heels. Instead, her shoulders slumped as the anger seeped out of her. ‘Because an opportunity never seemed to present itself. And then I found out I was pregnant and it seemed even less appropriate.’

She reached for the base of her glass, the liquid sloshing slightly as she pushed it to and fro.

‘It’s hardly the sort of thing I could share without making some sort of explanation, is it? What was I supposed to say? Hey, everyone! Guess what? Jack and I have decided to get a divorce. Oh, and by the way, in case you hadn’t noticed, I’m pregnant. Isn’t it just peachy?’ She grimaced. ‘Hell, Jack, I’m a doctor. If I can’t get birth control right, what sort of example am I to my patients?’

‘Must have been tough for you.’ Jack gave her an understanding smile, which slowly faded when she frowned at him.

He reached for her hand, stopping the restless movement of the glass. His thumb caressed her wedding ring, rubbing her skin lightly on either side. The warmth of his touch felt good, made her realise how chilled her fingers were.

‘Liz, let’s leave this for another time.’

‘I won’t change my mind.’ Her voice sounded wobbly, hoarse. She had to be strong. Hers wasn’t the only life affected by her decisions any more.

‘I know.’

She sucked her lips between her teeth to quell their trembling. ‘Then what’s the point?’

‘The point is you’re tired, I’m still jet-lagged.’ He smiled in appeal. ‘I promise we can resume hostilities after a good night’s sleep. Scalpels at dawn. Cross my heart.’