understand about how you grew up. You always looked tough and capable when I saw you.’
Rayne listened to her voice, the husky tigress lilt tamed a little now, and thought about what she’d said. So he’d appeared tough and capable. He guessed he had been. By the time she’d been in her early teens he’d almost grown out of his, and his mum had begun to need a bit more care taken of her. A couple of dangerous overdoses. A problem with her supplier that had left her badly bruised. The way she’d forgotten to eat. She’d had two close shaves with the law and had told him if she ever got convicted she would die if she went to prison.
The last years had been a downward spiral and he’d tried most things to halt it. The number of rehab centres, fresh towns, health kicks they’d tried. Things would go well for a few months and he’d get tied up at work. Miss a couple of days dropping in then she’d start to use again.
The best she’d been had been in Santa Monica. She’d looked young for the first time in years. Had got a job as a doctor’s receptionist at one of the clinics he worked from in the poorer area, a place where kids who needed care they normally couldn’t afford could access a range of different doctors. And she’d been good at it.
She had connected well with the people who didn’t need anyone to look down on them. He’d valued the once a week he’d donated his time there, away from the upmarket private hospital he’d worked in the rest of the time. And he’d cheered to see her making a life for herself. Fool.
Until the day she’d worked and gone home early. It had been his day as well and he’d finished late. Locked up. The investigation had been well in progress by the time he’d found out all the drugs had been stolen. Had known immediately who it had been. He hadn’t been able to track her down anywhere until finally she’d rung him. Pleading. Promising she would never, ever, touch anything ever again, if he would say it was him. That this was her chance to go clean for life.
He’d hoped maybe it was true and that she would stop using. Then had begun to realise the fingers had been pointing to him anyway. So he’d made a conscious decision to try a last attempt at saving her.
He’d tried ringing Simon so he wouldn’t find out from someone else that he would probably be going to prison. Hadn’t been able to give the explanation on the phone and had had that ridiculous idea to fly out, explain and then fly back in twenty-four hours. He’d thought he should have just about that much time before it all came crashing down. Before the police came for him!
‘Hey,’ Maeve whispered, but she wasn’t talking to him. The belly beside him rolled and shifted and his eyes fixed on the movement, mesmerised. He glanced quickly at Maeve, who was watching him with a gentle smile on her face, lifted his hand and put his palm on the satin skin. And the creature below poked him with something bony.
Geez. He looked back at Maeve.
‘Cool, isn’t it?’ she said softly. And put her hand over his. And he realised with a big shift of emotion that the three of them were together for the first time. ‘He likes you.’
His eyes jerked to her face. ‘It’s a he?’
She laughed. ‘I really don’t know. Just find myself calling him he. Maybe because you weren’t here.’ He winced at that.
‘Might be a girl.’ She shrugged. ‘I really don’t care which.’
‘I hope she looks like you.’
She looked at him as if she were peering over a pair of glasses at him. ‘Why on earth would you want your son to look like me?’
‘Okay. A boy could be like me but it would be very sweet to have a little girl who looks like you.’ Then he spoilt it all by unexpectedly yawning.
She laughed. ‘You need a nap more than I do. Why don’t you take your jeans off? We can talk more later. Then you can roll over and I’ll cuddle you.’
‘Bossy little thing.’ But suddenly he felt morbidly tired and he did what he was told, not least because his arm had gone totally to sleep now and his jeans were digging into him.
When he climbed back onto the bed and rolled to face the door, she snuggled up to him as close as her big tummy would allow. It actually felt amazing when his child wriggled against him. Geez.
Maeve listened to Rayne’s breathing change and she lay there, staring at his dark T-shirt plastered against his strong shoulders as he went to sleep.
She tried to imagine Rayne as a little boy, from a time when his first memories had begun to stick. Dark, silky hair, strong little legs and arms, big, dark eyes wondering when Mummy would be home.
It hurt her heart. She wanted to hug that little boy and tell him she’d never leave him scared again. How old had he been when his mother had begun to leave him? She had a vague recollection of hearing Simon say to her parents that Rayne’s mum hadn’t started using drugs until after something bad had happened when Rayne had gone to school.
She wondered what had happened to Rayne’s poor mum. Something that bad? It couldn’t have been easy, bringing up a child alone with very little money.
Her childhood had been so blessed. Always her hero brother Simon and three older sisters to look after her, as well as both well-adjusted parents, although her mum was pretty definite on social niceties.
Her dad was a fair bit older than her mum, but he’d always been quietly there, and her mother had come from a wealthy family and always been a determined woman. She’d been spoilt by her dad, but had sometimes felt as if she wasn’t quite enough of a star for her mother. Hence the try-hard attitude she really needed to lose.
She would be thankful for all her blessings of family and now having this gorgeous, damaged man appear just when she needed him. He hadn’t run. He’d promised to stay at least until after the birth. Had tried to fit into a strange family’s Christmas Day, which must be pretty damn hard when he was still reeling from being in prison and adjusting to society again, and he’d just found out he’d fathered a child.
She stared again at the powerful neck and short hair in front of her eyes and the way the thick strands clung to his skull like heavy silk. Resisted the urge to move her hand from around his chest to touch it as she didn’t want to wake him, but her fingers curled.
She could imagine her baby having hair just that colour, though, of course, hers was black like her dad’s as well, so the kid didn’t have much choice. But she would think of it as his father’s hair. Would he have Rayne’s eyes and mouth too?
Imagine.
A long slow pulling sensation surged in her belly from under her breasts down to her pubic bone, growing tighter and then after a while easing off. Just one.
Braxton-Hicks. Practice contractions. Not painful. Just weird, as if the baby was stretching out straight. But she knew it wasn’t. Soon they would come more frequently. Maybe for a couple of hours at a time and then stop. For a few days probably. She’d told other women this so many times, but it was strange when it was yourself you were reassuring.
This time she’d welcomed it without the accompanying flare of nervousness she’d been fighting for weeks. Giving birth was a job that needed to be done and now that Rayne was here the time was right. Whatever happened, whatever her birth journey was meant to be, Rayne would be there to share it all. The best Christmas present of all.
Rayne
