The Bachelor's Baby. Liz Fielding
thistledown-soft. ‘Oh…’ he said. Then, ‘Sugar.’
‘I think, under the circumstances, a little more enthusiasm is called for.’
‘Sorry, Maggie. I can’t do enthusiasm. Not for this.’ He continued to stare at the bootees. They were so…so…small. He tried to imagine feet tiny enough to fit them. Toes… He snapped his mind back from the brink. ‘She knows that. I thought the cheque would help.’
‘Did you?’ Maggie shook her head. ‘And I thought you were quite bright, for a man. Never mind, keep trying. I’m sure you’ll figure it out eventually.’
‘You think that I’m heading for wedding bells and happy ever after?’ He could read her like a book. ‘Give me a break.’ She said nothing, but she was thinking for England, he could see. ‘Okay, what would you do? If you were me? Forgetting the white lace and promises bit,’ he added quickly.
‘That would depend on what I—as you—wanted.’ Maggie waited a moment. Then asked, ‘What do you want, Jake?’
‘Me? I’ve got everything I ever wanted.’ He was successful, rich. His father would have been proud… ‘I don’t want this.’
Maggie gave him an old-fashioned look. ‘It appears that you don’t have a choice. It is yours?’ She quirked an eyebrow. ‘There’s no doubt?’ He shook his head. It was his. The only thing he could imagine worse than this situation was knowing that Amy was expecting someone else’s baby. It didn’t make sense, he knew, but then emotional stuff never did. ‘You know, Jake, having a baby is a bit like a bacon and egg breakfast.’
He dragged his thoughts back from the golden moment when they’d made the baby. ‘This should be good.’
‘It takes two to make it happen,’ she said, ignoring his muttered interjection. ‘But while the chicken makes a contribution, the pig is totally committed. The mother of your baby can’t walk away, Jake. Or pretend it isn’t happening. Or pay someone else to feel the pain.’ About to say more, she apparently changed her mind.
‘What?’
‘Nothing. At least… Well, maybe you shouldn’t take the way she handled your cheque too seriously. Her hormones are probably acting up. Leave it a few weeks. Try again when everything’s settled down.’ Then she shrugged. ‘Or you might get lucky. It might just take an extra nought.’
What did he want?
That was easy. He wanted Amy. He wanted to stop the world, rewind the tape, replay those hours they’d spent together. He wanted to breathe in the sweet scent of her skin, he wanted to wake with her in his arms, wanted to hear her whimpering softly as he took her over the edge, followed her there, briefly, to a place beyond pain. For now. He knew it was a fleeting thing. An ache that would soon pass.
Unlike fatherhood.
He didn’t want to be a father. He didn’t know how to be a father. Not the kind of father any baby would want. What he wanted, what he needed, was for Amy to take the money so that he could walk away with a clear conscience. Money to pay for help. Money to pay for everything.
Maggie was being over-sentimental about that. Money would do it every time. One way or the other. And Amy would take it. Eventually. She’d have no choice. But maybe sending it like that had been a mistake. It had been cold and impersonal, and she was a warm and caring woman. In her place, he realised, he would have been angry, too.
That she was angry he didn’t doubt for a moment. It would take a really angry woman to reduce his cheque to such tiny shreds of paper. What the bootees meant, why she had enclosed them with the cheque, was a mystery he refused to confront. He suspected he already knew the answer. She wanted him. On his knees.
He crumpled the bootees in his hand, stuffed them out of sight in his pocket. No way.
But Maggie was right, he acknowledged belatedly. The cheque had been crass. His father would have sent a cheque. He should have thought of something less direct, something that she could have accepted without losing her dignity. A trust fund for the baby, maybe. She wouldn’t, couldn’t refuse that, not once she accepted that he wasn’t to be turned to marshmallow by a pair of pink bootees.
He’d go down there tonight. Apologise. Check that she was keeping well. Not overdoing it. She shouldn’t be on her feet all day…
Dammit, he was doing it again. Thinking about her. Worrying about her. He spat out an expletive that had once earned him a beating from…
No!
He dragged his fingers through his hair. Dear God, where had that thought come from? He’d blanked it out. Walled it up in the attic of his mind with all the other ghosts.
This was her doing. Amy, with her green eyes and gentle touch. His wall was defenceless against her. He knew, just knew, that if he wasn’t very careful she would dismantle it, take it down, brick by brick, and let out all the pain. It had already begun.
Emotion was a loose cannon. Uncontrollable. And the one thing he’d always promised himself was that he would never be out of control of his life. Never again. He would get this over with. Deal with it. Finish it.
For a moment, Amy thought the courier was back. She was behind the cottage, working off her bad mood on the weeds. They would never let her down. They were predictable. They’d always be there.
She was carefully easing out a dandelion with the trowel when she heard the motorbike roaring up the lane, then slowing. Then stopping at her gate. The dandelion root snapped, leaving half still embedded in the soil.
‘Damn!’
Damn, damn, damn. The day had begun so well, so joyfully; then Jake’s conscience had given him a jab in the ribs and after that it had been downhill all the way.
She straightened as the leather-clad figure rounded the side of the cottage, wondering what he’d sent her this time. A bigger cheque? Did he really believe that was what she wanted? Was he that stupid?
That scared?
The man pulled at the strap beneath the black helmet. Removed it. And her heart did a crazy flip-flop that made her feel just a little dizzy, so that she grabbed for the post of the compost bin. Not a courier this time; this time Jake had come himself. Which could be better—or much worse.
He looked tired, she thought. There were dark shadows beneath his eyes and his cheeks had a sucked-in, hollow look emphasised by the stubble of a day’s dark growth of beard. He looked like a man to whom sleep was a stranger.
And the flip-flop happened again. Not just her heart this time, but her entire body responding, reaching out to him. It was a good thing that her feet were weighed down by her gardening boots, keeping her pinned to the spot long enough for her to drag her protesting heart—and hormones—back into line.
‘You’re the last person I expected to see,’ she said.
‘We need to talk, Amy. There are things we have to settle.’
Talk. Settle. Worse, then, because his voice, flat and expressionless, left her in no doubt what he wanted to discuss. He wasn’t bringing his heart, but his wallet. Maybe she’d got it right when she’d suggested to Willow that money was all Jake had to offer. Not a problem when you were a millionaire more times over than you could count.
But if money was all he had to offer, he was in the wrong place. This wasn’t the kind of conversation she wanted to have with the father of her child. She’d thought she’d made her feelings quite clear on that point.
Most men would have taken the hint, probably thanked their lucky stars and left it at that. Jacob Hallam wasn’t most men. He didn’t want to get involved but he couldn’t walk away. His conscience wouldn’t let him.
He was in for a bad time, she thought. And felt an unexpected twinge of pity for him.
‘Have you eaten?’ she asked.
‘We