I help you with today, Shauna?’ she asked as her client sat and settled her toddler on her knee.
‘I think I might be pregnant again.’
Luci waited for the usual stab of jealousy but it didn’t come. She didn’t need to feel jealous any more, she was certain pregnancy would happen for her one day. ‘Have you done a test?’
‘I’ve done a couple,’ Shauna said. ‘One came back positive and one was negative but I’ve got all the usual symptoms. I feel sick, my boobs hurt and I need to go to the toilet constantly. I thought maybe you could do another test.’
Luci took a jar for a urine sample from the cupboard and handed it to Shauna.
She tested it when Shauna returned. ‘It’s negative. When was your last period?’
‘Three weeks ago.’
‘It might just be too early.’
The conversation made Luci think of her own situation. When had her last period been? she wondered. She did a quick mental calculation. It had been almost six weeks ago.
She and Seb had practised safe sex most of the time but that night on Seb’s boat, during the thunderstorm and in the heat of the moment, protection had been the last thing on her mind. She hadn’t thought anything of it then. Sex that night had been spontaneous, contraception hadn’t been an issue for her then, and she hadn’t given it a moment’s thought.
Maybe she was pregnant?
But that eventuality was more than likely just wishful thinking. Mind over matter. She was probably putting two and two together and getting five, she thought. But the minute Shauna left the consulting room she took a standard pregnancy test from the cupboard for herself.
She took it into the bathroom. She knew what she was looking for. She’d done dozens of these. She was looking for two pink lines.
She waited. She’d never seen the two pink lines before.
Until today.
She double-checked the window. She leaned over the basin and triple-checked but the lines still remained.
Her knees buckled and she sat back on the toilet seat.
That explained the nausea and her slightly elevated temperature.
Her hand went to her stomach.
She was pregnant.
* * *
Seb was into his second week of holidays. He should be somewhere far away from Sydney. His plan had been to take his boat and travel but he hadn’t been able to bring himself to leave. Not while Luci was still in town.
He’d realised too late that he should never have left so hurriedly the night Luci had said goodbye. He should have stayed and argued his case, only he hadn’t known he’d had a case. Not then.
His knee-jerk reaction had been to leave. He didn’t want to settle down, to commit—at least, that was what he’d been telling himself for three years—and it had taken him a while to realise he’d changed his mind. That Luci had made him change his mind. She had brought the light back into his life and her absence had taken it away again.
They had said goodbye but he hadn’t been able to sever the ties so he sat on his boat, alone, in Fairlight Bay, watching the lights go on and off in Callum’s apartment and wondering what Luci was up to. How she was doing. If she was missing him.
For the past three years he had been working toward fixing his boat, making it habitable on a permanent basis, but now he felt trapped. It was supposed to be his sanctuary but instead it felt like a prison cell. He escaped its confines every day, taking his bike from the garage he’d rented and cruising the highways, but the feeling of freedom never lasted. He didn’t want to be free. He didn’t want to be able to come and go as he pleased. He didn’t want to be alone. He wanted to be with Luci.
He shouldn’t miss her and he knew he should be pleased for her. She had an opportunity to be a mother, had a chance to get what she’d always wanted. But he wanted that to be him.
He had spent the last three years convincing himself, and everyone else, that he was fine, that he was happy to be alone, but he hadn’t stopped to see if he actually was and now that Luci was gone from his life and he was alone again he realised that he wasn’t okay. He needed her in his life.
He needed her.
He loved her.
And he didn’t want to think about Luci finding another man. He didn’t want to give someone else the chance he’d thrown away.
Once again he hadn’t realised how badly he wanted something until it was gone but, unlike last time, it wasn’t too late. He wanted Luci in his life and he would do what he could to keep her.
She wanted a family and he wanted her. Could he give her what she wanted?
He was going to have to because he couldn’t imagine his life without her in it.
All he needed to know was whether or not she wanted him.
He knew she was due to leave Sydney tomorrow but he didn’t know where she was headed. What were her plans? What was she going to do?
He only had a few hours to find out. It was two days until Christmas and Luci was due to leave Sydney on Christmas Eve.
He had one last chance to see her.
* * *
Luci had finished cleaning the apartment. She was leaving tomorrow. She would be back in Vickers Hill for Christmas.
She went into Callum’s bedroom, just for one final check to make sure it was clean and tidy, although she knew it was. Seb had changed the sheets and tidied up. She knew because she was in here every day, thinking about him. She sat on the bed and ran her hands over the covers. They were tucked tight, not a stray crease in sight. Almost as if Seb had never been there.
She thought about the first night they’d made love. It had been in this bed. They’d been in too much of a hurry to get any further; they’d barely made it to here. But the bed showed no sign of their intimacy. It was almost as if it never happened.
But she had proof that it wasn’t a dream.
Her hand went to her stomach.
There was the proof of what they had shared. She had all the proof she needed.
She had two things left to do—pack her bags and then see if she could get hold of Seb.
She had debated about when she should speak to him, when she should give him the news. She had thought about waiting until thirteen weeks, or maybe even eighteen, after her first scan, until she knew everything was all right, but she had decided it would be better to tell him face-to-face while she was still in Sydney, and she knew part of her wanted an excuse to see him one last time before she left.
There would be no easy way to share her news and she knew he didn’t like surprises but he had the right to know about the baby. Their baby.
He
