limbs, hands and feet, were pink and perfect, as were her ears. Her little chest was rising and falling.
Rosa was a miniature miracle.
‘Such a sad little girl,’ Claire cried as she bent down and carefully lifted the sobbing baby. Her heart swelled with emotion as she held the warm, minuscule body against her. She supported Rosa’s weight with one hand, while her other hand gently stroked her super-soft skin.
Almost immediately the cries subsided into little snuffles. Claire pressed her lips to the back of the tiny girl’s neck and her nostrils were filled with the unique, intoxicating smell of new baby.
Like a snugly puppy or kitten, Rosa’s head nestled against the curve of Claire’s shoulder and, with her open mouth, the tiny baby nuzzled her neck.
Claire hardly knew how to cope with the flood of unexpected love she felt for this sweet little creature. Oh, God! She wanted to be brave, but her arms were so starved for the feel of a warm, live baby. There’d been an aching hole inside her for so long, and now her heart almost broke with the bittersweet pain of her longing.
Even though she and Adam hadn’t bothered about a family during the first three years of their marriage, she’d endured five years of trying since then. Sixty months of disappointment and unbearably empty arms.
And here was Maria, so much younger, and for each of those five years she’d produced a baby. Maria only had to look at Jim and she was pregnant! Five of them! It wasn’t fair.
It wasn’t fair at all.
‘If you were mine,’ Claire whispered as she rocked Rosa gently, ‘I’d make you such a sweet little nursery in our home at Nardoo. I’d have the cutest baby things for you—the prettiest clothes—lovely soft talcum powder and baby creams for your delicate baby skin. I’d look after you so beautifully.’
She glanced over her shoulder and caught sight of herself in the age-speckled mirror above the dressing table. Looking back at her was a tall, slim woman with big brown eyes and a delicate but sad face, surrounded by a mass of soft, light golden curls.
Surely I look like a normal, nice enough woman who deserves to be a mother?
Her eyes lingered over the most wonderful part of that picture, the dear little baby curled in her arms. Rosa looked so perfect, so perfectly at home as she snuggled against her breast.
A fierce pain speared Claire’s chest. It felt as if someone had plucked at her very heartstrings.
‘I’d set up a rocking-chair on the veranda and we’d sit there and watch Adam riding home at the end of a long, hard day in the outback,’ she whispered. ‘You’d love it up there in the bush. You could help me to feed all the pretty, noisy parrots that fly in at sundown.’
The baby’s snuffles stopped. It was almost as if she were listening to Claire.
‘There’s a pied butcher bird that taps on the kitchen window every morning for his breakfast,’ she told her. ‘And when you’re bigger, you can play in the beautiful garden I’ve made at Nardoo. Adam will buy you a dear little pony and we can both teach you to ride.’
She knew Adam would be a fantastic father. The best father in the world! It would be so wonderful.
Claire kissed the back of the baby’s little head again and she couldn’t stop the tears from spilling down her cheeks. No one understood her pain.
No one.
A throat-clearing sound from the doorway startled her. Adam was standing there, watching her, frowning. He stepped into the room and walked towards her, his mouth tilting into an uncertain smile.
He looked at the baby in her arms.
‘She’s so sweet, isn’t she?’ she whispered.
‘Yeah,’ he agreed. Gingerly, he reached out one finger and touched the tiny hand that lay curled on Claire’s shoulder and then he touched Claire’s tear-stained cheek. ‘Were you imagining she’s yours?’
As Adam asked the question he looked so troubled, Claire’s tears erupted into proper, loud sobs.
‘My sweet girl,’ he whispered as his big arms came around her and the baby. ‘Hey, there. Don’t cry. You mustn’t cry. You’ll upset the baby.’
But in spite of her determination to be strong, she couldn’t stop crying. She leant her head against Adam’s chest and sobbed her heart out, sobbed for all those long, empty months she’d waited for a baby. Sobbed for her recent disappointment and all the unbearable months still to come.
And she felt her husband’s strong arms holding her close and his lips pressed against her forehead, but, to her horror, she knew that this time his loving embrace couldn’t bring her the comfort she needed.
There was only one person who could ease her terrible pain—and it was this little baby in her arms.
CHAPTER THREE
AS THEIR taxi sped through the dark streets, taking Adam and Claire through Sydney’s suburbs and back to their hotel, they sat silently and stiffly apart on the back seat. Claire stole anxious glances Adam’s way and once, when they were passing beneath a street light, their eyes met and she saw pain and stark worry in his.
An answering stab of anguish twisted in her chest. How could she ever live down her shame? She’d asked her brother if she could buy his baby!
How had she ever imagined that Maria and Jim would be relieved and pleased with her offer? What a fruit cake she was! Why hadn’t she seen that they would find her offer shocking, even insulting?
She’d totally lost it!
The impulse to ask for Rosa hadn’t been rationally thought out. It had seized her with frightening speed and, once it had taken hold, she’d reacted quickly, not giving herself time for second thoughts.
For a brief, shining moment it had seemed like a brilliant solution to everyone’s problems.
Her brother and his wife were really struggling to support their family. Maria looked very tired and strained. Their house was bursting at the seams. And it wasn’t as if they wouldn’t be able to see Rosa whenever they wanted to.
But how quickly that shining idea had dimmed. Now it could go on record as the blackest plan ever hatched.
The taxi swung sharply around a corner and Claire shoved a fist against her mouth to hold back a sob. She didn’t want to cry again. She was so sick of crying.
What a mess she’d made of things! And she’d hurt Adam, too. She could tell by the grim set of his mouth that he was still very upset.
Leaning back against the seat, she closed her eyes, but tears insisted on seeping from beneath her lids as she remembered the look on his face when he’d realised what she’d done.
‘You’re not in this alone,’ he’d reminded her and she’d felt a horrible pang of guilt.
Rushing headlong into making the offer without even consulting Adam was yet another example of how thoughtless she’d been
