The Parent Test. Elizabeth Duke
get her changed first.’ Cam was already lowering Emma onto a changing table. He had the wet nappy off in a trice, snatching up a clean one from the shelf below. ‘Ever changed a baby’s nappy?’ he asked her with a mocking sidelong glance.
Roxy took a deep breath. ‘No,’ she admitted. ‘But I’m sure if you can master it, so can I.’
‘Quite. Watch how I do it, and next time you can have a go.’ He fastened the clean nappy with more speed, Roxy noted critically, than finesse. The baby, she thought, definitely needs a woman’s touch.
‘Thank heaven for disposable nappies,’ Cam commented, tickling the baby’s tummy. The crying miraculously stopped and the baby began to gurgle, a beautiful smile spreading across her tiny heartshaped face. ‘Voilà!’ Cam gave a triumphant grin. ‘Feeling better already, aren’t you, princess?’
Roxy took a step forward and bent over her baby niece, her eyes misting.
‘Oh, she’s so beautiful,’ she cried involuntarily. The baby had changed so much in the past five months. ‘She looks just like—like her mother looked at the same age.’ She raised blurred eyes to Cam’s face. ‘She has Serena’s eyes…Serena’s lovely smile…Serena’s dark hair. Can I hold her now?’ she pleaded huskily.
He nodded and stood aside. ‘Of course you can.’ She caught an odd glint in his eye as she blinked her tears away, but it was gone even before she turned back to the baby. It could have been surprise… doubt…mistrust…she couldn’t tell.
‘Emma…hullo, sweetheart,’ she said gently. ‘I’m your aunt Roxy, remember?’ With a smile she reached for the baby, bracing herself for a refusal, and renewed wails.
But there were no wails, no refusal. The baby, still smiling her dimpled smile, raised her tiny arms and reached out to her. With a rush of overwhelming love and relief, Roxy gathered her niece in her arms.
As she nursed the baby on her shoulder, stroking her soft hair with tender fingers, overcome by the fragile, sweet-smelling bundle in her arms, she saw Cam watching her. Ready, no doubt, to seize the baby from her if she started crying again. But mercifully she didn’t, and Roxy’s fears began to slide away. She was over the first hurdle, at least.
‘I’ll go and get her bottle ready,’ said Cam, and he slipped from the room. Roxy saw the baby’s eyes following him, saw her lip wobble, and decided to follow him, cuddling the baby in her arms as she headed for the kitchen.
It was only the second time in Emma’s short life that she’d held the baby in her arms, but it felt so different this time—overwhelmingly different. Never had she felt so close to her sister’s cherished child, so deeply moved, so filled with love and sadness and joy, all mixed up together. It made her more determined than ever to fill the tragic void her sister’s death had left.
But what if Cam wouldn’t give up the baby, and insisted on fighting her for custody? What hope would she have of taking him to court and winning? Especially if he had a wife by the time the case came to court. A wife who would care nothing for a baby girl who wasn’t even Cam’s child—as her own stepmother, Roxy brooded, cared nothing for her.
The baby began to whimper as she spied her bottle, and Roxy murmured softly, ‘It’s coming, sweetheart, it’s coming.’
‘She should have had this earlier,’ Cam muttered as he popped the bottle into the microwave, ‘but she fell asleep before I could give it to her. We’re a bit out of our routine today.’
When the bottle was ready he let Roxy feed the baby, suggesting they go into the family room to sit in comfort. Instead of leaving her alone with Emma, he stayed to watch, lowering himself into the armchair opposite. Roxy wondered peevishly if he was still worried about leaving his niece alone with her.
She sighed. It was good that he cared so much for the baby, but not so good that he thought so little of her.
‘If you want to go and do something else, feel free,’ she invited hopefully. Her suspicion that he didn’t trust her with the baby was making her nervous. ‘You must have lots of other things you could be doing.’ With no Mary for the weekend, and no Philomena to cook and clean up for him…
She gulped as it hit her for the first time. She was here alone with him for the whole weekend. She would be alone overnight with him. And tomorrow night. And maybe she’d still be here next week as well, if Cam hadn’t agreed to hand Emma over by then. Assuming he allowed her to stay on.
She began to shake.
The baby made a querulous sound, and Roxy snapped back to earth, cooing softly until Emma settled down again, and resumed her contented sucking on the bottle.
‘I’ll never keep her from you, Roxy,’ Cam promised, his voice bringing her head up with a jerk. ‘You can see the baby whenever you want to. Any time,’ he said expansively, though his eyes were strangely hooded, she noted. ‘Whenever you’re at home’ he added with a touch of dryness. ‘I want her to be close to you, too, Roxy.’
Her blue eyes sparked fire. How generous, she thought caustically. Was he speaking for his new wife, too? Would she want a young, single aunt constantly popping into their lives? Or would she want to keep Cam and baby Emma to herself?
Roxy thought of her possessive, mean-streaked stepmother, Blanche, who’d never wanted to share her husband with anybody, not even his own daughters. Would Cam’s wife be like Blanche, jealously keeping her husband to herself? Perhaps, in time, even wanting to keep Cam from his niece as well?
Rebellion stirred in Roxy’s heart. She couldn’t allow it. She wouldn’t!
‘I’m home for good now,’ she announced firmly. ‘I’m not going on any more field trips.’ She had to make him believe it, and waste no time about it. In the days to come, while she was here at Raeburns’ Nest, she would have to make herself indispensable to the baby so that Cam would see that she was the best one to bring up their niece.
It was vital that she took little Emma from him before he plunged into another marriage, purely for the baby’s sake. Once he was married, she might find herself shut out of her niece’s life altogether, despite what Cam was promising now. His new wife would have no emotional ties with Serena’s baby, and a woman who felt nothing for a child could cause lifelong pain and psychological damage to both the child and to everyone who cared for her welfare.
Roxy felt a fierce protective urge towards the helpless baby in her arms. How could any stepmother feel as strongly for Emma as she felt?
She bowed her head over the feeding baby, hiding her eyes from Cam’s probing gaze. Even if his new wife welcomed her into their home with open arms…even if the woman proved to be a wonderful mother to Emma…how, Roxy wondered bleakly, could she bear to come back here in the future, knowing that Cam would be here…with another woman?
How could she bear to see him gazing at his wife the way he’d once, briefly but earth-shatteringly, gazed at her? How could she bear to see him holding his wife the way he’d once held her? The way he’d held her again earlier today—even if he’d only been trying to comfort her?
She almost moaned aloud, but managed to turn it into a soft humming sound instead, then into a lilting lullaby—one she remembered her own mother singing when her younger sister, Serena, was a baby. She felt her eyes fluttering as she hummed. Her jet lag was catching up with her. She jerked herself awake as her head nodded forward—unwittingly jerking the baby at the same time.
With a snort of protest, Emma snatched her mouth away from the bottle and began to wave her arms about, her big dark eyes wide and anxious now, as if she were about to cry.
‘Getting tired of the baby already, Roxy?’ Cam murmured. He was on his feet, plucking the fretful baby from her arms.
‘Hi, princess, what’s up?’ He had a small rubber dog in his hand, Roxy noticed, which he squeezed, making it squeak. Emma smiled and grabbed at it. ‘That’s better.