shaped like soccer boots with knitted bumps for spikes from Mia and the girls at morning teatime and a welcome-baby card that had a three-dimensional baby actually swinging in a seat from a tree that the girls had fallen in love with.
But the excitement all took its toll.
‘You look exhausted. Enough. I’ll go back to the manse and you sleep.’ Rayne stood up.
It was lunchtime, and Maeve was ready for a sleep.
Rayne kissed her. ‘I’ll come back any time you need me. If you want to get out of bed or Connor is unsettled and you want someone to nurse him, I’m the man. Ring me.’ He looked at her. ‘Promise.’
‘Bossy.’
‘Please.’
‘Okay.’ Not a bad back-up plan. She watched him go with a prickle of weak tears in her eyes and sighed into the bed.
‘He did well,’ Tara said, as she closed the blinds of the room.
‘He did amazingly.’
‘You did amazingly. But I agree with you and with him. It’s time for sleep.’ She checked Connor was fast asleep after his feed and quietly backed out.
As the door shut Maeve relaxed back into the bed and glanced at her downy-cheeked son. It had happened. She couldn’t tell if he looked like either of them because now he looked like her darling baby Connor.
The whole labour and birth were over. And the next stage was just beginning.
The beginning of shared parenthood with a man she knew she loved. She didn’t know if Rayne felt the same, but she was too tired and tender to worry about that now. That he was here was enough.
Rayne’s solid support had been a thousand times stronger than she’d dared to hope for, his pre-birth nerves were a precious memory to keep and maybe occasionally tease him about, and she could see that Rayne would take his responsibilities to Connor and to her very seriously.
Lying in Rayne’s arms yesterday seemed so far away in time with what had happened since then but as she drifted off to sleep she knew there was so much they could build on. She just needed to be patient, she thought with sleepy smile on her face, and trust in Rayne.
FOUR DAYS LATER Maeve went home with Connor and Rayne—her family. Home being to the manse and the fabulous cooking of Louisa, who had decided the new mother needed feeding up.
Rayne, being fed three meals a day at least, was chopping wood at an alarming rate to try and keep his weight down from Louisa’s cooking.
Simon went back to Sydney for work and planned to return each alternate weekend, and Tara was going to fly down to Sydney on the other weekends until their wedding in four weeks’ time.
Selfishly, Maeve was glad that Tara had stayed with them, instead of following Simon to Sydney, and with Rayne booked to do the occasional shift over in the hospital on call, she had ample back-up help with Tara and, of course, Louisa, who was in seventh heaven with a baby in the house.
They’d shifted Connor into Rayne’s room with the connecting door open and Rayne bounced out of their bed to change and bring Connor to her through the night.
Life took on a rosy glow of contentment as she and Rayne and Connor grew to be a family. The joy of waking in the morning in Rayne’s tender arms, the wonder on his face when he looked at her with Connor, the gradual healing of her body, the steady increase of confidence in breastfeeding, managing Connor’s moods and signs of tiredness, and the ability to hand him to his father’s outstretched hands all gelled. Life was wonderful.
Her brother’s wedding approached and their mother was coming. It was four weeks after the birth of Connor and Maeve was suddenly nervous.
Rayne decided Maeve had been twitchy all morning. Her mother was due to arrive along with Maeve’s three older sisters. He’d seen her change her clothes four times and Connor’s jumpsuit twice before the expected event.
On arrival her mother kissed Maeve’s cheek and an awkward few moments had passed right at the beginning when she looked Rayne over with a sigh and then stepped forward and shook his hand.
‘Hello, Rayne. Maeve said you were very good when Connor was born.’
So this was what Maeve would look like when she was older. Stunning, sophisticated and polished, though Desiree was blonde, perhaps not naturally because she had dark eyebrows, but a very successful-looking blonde.
He glanced at Maeve and the woman holding his son had it all over her mum for warmth. ‘It was Maeve who was amazing.’
A cool smile. ‘I’m glad she’s happy.’
‘So am I.’ Which left what either of them really meant open to interpretation.
Maeve broke into the conversation. ‘You remember my sisters, Ellen, Claire and Stephanie.’
‘Ladies.’ He smiled at the three women, who were cooing at Connor.
Maeve hung onto his hand and Connor was unusually unsettled, probably receptive to the vibes his mother was giving off.
Luckily Desiree was swept up into the final wedding preparations and they all managed to ease back on the tension for the rest of the afternoon.
The next day Simon and Tara’s wedding was held in the little local church and most of the town had come to celebrate with them.
It was a simple and incredibly romantic celebration. The church ladies had excelled themselves with floral decorations. Tara looked like the fairy on top of the cake, thanks to the absolute delight Mia, Simon’s stepmother, had taken in spoiling her, and beside him, Simon nearly cried in the church when she entered.
A big lump had come to Rayne’s throat when he thought about his friend finding such happiness and he couldn’t help his glance past the bride and groom to the chief bridesmaid, his Maeve, who looked incredible in the simple blue gown Tara had chosen for her attendants.
Except for the divine cleavage, nobody would suspect Maeve had recently given birth, because she’d returned to her pre-pregnancy size almost immediately.
As Rayne listened to the words of the priest the certainty inside him grew that he could answer yes to all of it.
By the time Simon and Tara were married all he wanted to do was hold Maeve in his arms and tell her he loved her.
But he would have to wait.
The reception was a huge outdoor picnic, all the speeches a success, and the ecstatically happy couple finally left for their honeymoon in Hawaii and would then fly on to Boston, where Maeve’s father waited to meet his stepson’s new wife.
Back at the manse after the wedding Rayne needed a beer and a bloke to drink with, because the only sane woman was Louisa, who kept feeding him.
Maeve still hadn’t settled, though she seemed
