Having His Babies (Harlequin Presents) Page 5

  She took a deep breath.

  But he said, ‘Know what it would be lovely to do?’

  She looked at him.

  ‘Take our clothes off and have a swim.’

  ‘Here?’

  ‘I’ve swum in this creek all my life. The water’s clear and cold, there are no leeches and sometimes, if you’re quiet enough and lucky enough, you may even see a platypus.’

  ‘I… if I had a costume, I might have taken you up.’

  He laughed softly. ‘You could swim in your underwear. Don’t tell me you’re not hot enough, Slim.’ He eyed the perspiration trickling down the side of her face.

  ‘I’m exceedingly hot,’ she retorted, ‘but there’s no saying I mightn’t be ambushed by the Nez Percé.’

  He chuckled and drew a big, clean handkerchief from his pocket. ‘Then we’ll have to content ourselves with this.’ He soaked the hanky in the creek and handed it to her.

  ‘Thanks.’ She took it gratefully and patted her face and neck with it. The rivulets that trickled down from it were deliciously cool and he wet it again and she repeated the process then he did the same.

  ‘That was lovely,’ she said.

  ‘So are you.’

  She looked up to find that he was staring at her blouse. And looked down to see that the front of it was all wet and moulded to her so that the outline of her lacy bra was visible beneath the thin cream silk, and her nipples had responded to the chill of the water and unfurled into twin peaks, also clearly visible.

  A rich tide of colour coursed into her cheeks as she raised her eyes to his, but as she went to stand up he said softly, ‘Don’t move.’

  ‘I…’

  ‘Humour me just for a moment, Clare.’

  She sank back. ‘Why?’ It came out as a husky little sound.

  ‘Because I want to take this moment with me. So that I can think of you when I’m alone, so slim and grave and lovely. So elegant and classy and—unusually innocent sometimes, even after six months of making love to me. And so that I can at least picture you without your clothes, in the water with me, like a lovely dryad with your hair wet and black, your sea-green eyes so clear and your skin like warm ivory—where it isn’t like rose velvet.’

  She licked her lips and swallowed as the familiar sensations he aroused in her started to prickle her skin and run through her body.

  ‘You’re so slim there are times when I’m afraid I could break you,’ he went on in the same deep, quiet voice. ‘But it’s a joy to me, did you know that, Clare? Because you’re also perfectly proportioned and your breasts and your hips are a great trial to me at times. I can’t always keep my hands off them without the sternest effort of will.’

  ‘Lachlan,’ she said raggedly. ‘I…’

  But she couldn’t go on because he put out a hand to her, drew her to her feet then into his arms. And in the moment before he kissed her he said, ‘Think of me when I’m away, Clare. And this.’

  How could she not? she wondered helplessly as they kissed passionately.

  ‘Talking of will-power…’ as he raised his head eventually and looked down at her, his grey eyes were alight with self-mockery and laughter ‘… you may have to be the strong one, Clare.’

  An imp of humour lit her own eyes. ‘Talking of will-power, Lachlan, did you hear that?’

  He narrowed his eyes and listened for a moment. ‘Ah, how fortuitous—that you have such good hearing, I mean. In all other respects it couldn’t have come at a worse moment for me.’

  She kissed him briefly. ‘I never thought I’d be rescued from a fate worse than death in this manner, Mr Hewitt, but there you go!’ She sat down on the rock, arranged her skirt demurely and fanned the front of her blouse.

  ‘There’ll be other times, Clare,’ he warned with a wicked little glint, and sat down beside her only moments before Paddy and Flynn, once again befeathered, bounded up beside them with a whooping Nez Percé hot on their heels.

  The rest of the afternoon was curiously peaceful until Sean dropped a bombshell.

  They’d had tea on the veranda and Clare had had two slices of the chocolate mud cake decorated with cream and cherries, and had thought longingly of a third. Now she was spending a little while with Sean at his computer while Lachlan had a last word with his estate foreman. Only to be told admiringly that she was the one person Sean knew who knew as much about computers as he did.

  ‘Now, that’s a real feather in my cap!’

  He looked at her assessingly. ‘Can I really come and stay with you, Clare?’

  ‘If your dad and your aunt agree.’

  ‘Because I think we get on very well, don’t you?’

  He had cornflower-blue eyes like his mother set in a thin, vivid little face and his blonde hair stuck up at the crown. ‘I do,’ she conceded.

  ‘Which could be important if Dad marries you—I haven’t said anything to him about it yet—’

  ‘Sean—’

  ‘Don’t worry, I won’t, but I think it would be nice. Mum’s got a boyfriend, you see, and they’re pretty serious about each other.’ He screwed his face up. ‘I think he’s ghastly. He talks to me as if I’m two! But he does have a big house and garden and she asked me the last time I spoke to her whether I’d like to live with them if I could take Paddy and Flynn.’

  ‘What did you say?’ Clare asked with a certain fascination.

  ‘That I’d think about it but I was pretty happy as things are. After all, I’ve lived here all my life,’ he said quaintly, as if his life had spanned many years.

  ‘What did she say to that?’

  ‘She said, all the same, it would be much better for me to have two parents around even if one was a step-parent. So I thought, If I’ve got to put up with a step-parent I might as well have one I like and one who could be useful, like this.’ He waved a hand at the computer.

  ‘Sean…’ Clare stopped, torn between a desire to laugh and a terrible feeling of pity for a child caught in this dilemma.

  ‘Besides,’ he went on, ‘I could never leave Dad to be lonely and sad on his own. So if he does ask you, Clare, I’d be very happy to be your stepson. And then she couldn’t worry about me not having two parents full time.’

  And he looked at her enquiringly with those piercing blue eyes.

  ‘Sean,’ she said quietly, ‘your dad and I haven’t…discussed anything like this.’

  ‘Oh, well, if it does come up, at least you know how I feel.’

  ‘Feel about what?’ Lachlan asked, coming into the room.

  ‘Shoes and ships and sealing wax and cabbages and kings,’ Sean replied pertly.

  Lachlan raised an eyebrow at Clare but as she tensed he said merely, ‘Ready for me to run you home?’

  ‘Yes.’ She stood up gratefully but then she turned and held out her hand to Sean. ‘You paid me a compliment earlier, Sean. May I return it? You’re the brightest boy I know, and one of the nicest.’

  Sean shook her hand gravely, then turned back to his keyboard.

  ‘What was that all about?’ Lachlan asked when they were out of earshot.

  ‘A mutual admiration society,’ Clare murmured. ‘He appreciates my computer skills.’

  As they drove through the village, Lachlan looked at her enquiringly. ‘Want to be dropped off at work?’

  ‘No, thanks. I’ll walk down tomorrow to pick up my car.’

  ‘I’m sorry I can’t spend this evening with you,’ he said as he drove into the courtyard of her apartments. ‘I promised Sean—’

  She put a hand on his arm. ‘It’s OK.’

  ‘Especially—’ he covered her hand with his and looked into her eyes ‘—since we’re in accord once again, Clare. Well, I hope you’ve forgiven me for kidnapping you earlier?’

  ‘I’ve had a lovely day,’ she said.

  ‘But have you?’ he persisted.

  ‘Have I… forgiven you, you mean?’

  ‘Yes.’

  They stared at each other. And after a long moment she
touched her fingertips to his mouth. ‘Take care, Lachlan. I’ll … be here when you get back.’ And she slipped out of the car and disappeared inside.

  Lachlan Hewitt found himself gripping the steering wheel unusually hard before he deliberately relaxed and, after a moment’s indecision, drove off.

  What would it take to pin her down? he thought as he steered the Range Rover through Lennox Head, and pictured her beside the creek—a vision that made him tighten his hands on the wheel again. Perhaps it couldn’t be done. Was it a legacy from her domineering father? Did she honestly not give a damn about anything but her career? It wasn’t as if he was asking her to marry him…

  He paused on the thought then shook his head. Talk about contradictory life-style preferences. Could he see Clare Montrose buried at Rosemont, even though he could never compare Clare and Serena? he asked himself, and smiled with unwanted savagery.

  Clare changed into a housecoat and went straight to the padded lounger on her veranda.

  A north-easterly breeze had brought the hang-gliders out and there were three hanging lazily in the air off the Head. And a fair swell forming long breakers had brought the surfers out in force.

  It often amazed Clare—where they all came from and where they went to, how the word was spread—because, be it a weekday, a work day or a wet day, if the surf was good they came. Often but not always long-haired and hippie-looking, often in beat-up old cars or on rusty bicycles with their boards tucked under one arm—a whole alien culture, she mused, with but one aim: to follow the surf.

  She sighed and for the first time wished she had only one aim in life—to peacefully and happily bear the baby she was carrying.

  Not that she couldn’t, she reflected. She was financially secure, she didn’t need to depend on anyone, she could virtually do what she liked. But every child deserved a father, so they said. And he was a good father … but the big question was, did he want to be a father again?

  Her thoughts roamed back to the creek on Rosemont, to how she’d been on the brink of telling him but how he’d forestalled her and the things he’d said. Lovely and flattering things but they’d effectively stopped her in her tracks. Stopped her from telling him, because if that was what attracted him, she thought, if that was all that attracted him, she amended painfully, when she was no longer slim and lissom but heavy and clumsy and undryad-like…who knew?

  Besides which, he’d been there and done that; he had a beloved son, why complicate his life? Wasn’t that why she might have been a perfect choice as a partner of sorts in the first place? Well, almost perfect. An independent career woman, yes, a definite tick there, an unclinging type, another tick, but perhaps only a B+ for availability—on business trips anyway.

  She moved her head restlessly. Then there was Sean, she thought. He was too bright not to know there was something between them that was more than friendship, and he was worried about his father being sad and lonely if Serena remarried—what did that mean?

  ‘Sad and lonely without him or because he’s lost Serena?’ She said it out loud and realized again just how much Serena Hewitt plagued her.

  She went to bed that night with only one thing resolved in her mind—she desperately needed to find someone to share her workload.

  Fate, or whatever, found that person waiting on the office doorstep on Monday morning.

  ‘Sue—is it you?’ Clare said faintly as she approached her doorway with keys in hand.

  ‘It is I!’ Sue Simpson, her only real friend from law school, hugged her heartily. She was a short, jolly-looking girl who’d had two great ambitions—to be a lawyer and a champion surfer. At the moment she looked like the quintessential surfer with her thick brown hair in a long Indian plait, her skin berry-brown, her clothes nondescript and rubber sandals on her feet.

  ‘How … ?’ Clare began.

  ‘I just happened to stop in Lennox on my way to Brisbane, Mum and Dad have a beach bungalow here, I couldn’t pass up this marvellous surf, and I was walking up the street to get a paper when I saw “Clare Montrose, Solicitor” painted on the door, so I plonked myself down to wait for you. My, my, Clare, you have done well! Your own practice! Whereas I’m out of work and down and out!’

  Clare laughed. ‘Only because you want to be, Sue, I’m quite sure!’

  Sue pursed her lips. ‘True. I took off for a year’s holiday bumming it around the great surf beaches, but my year’s up and I desperately need some dosh—you wouldn’t have a job going for me? No, I’m only joking, I’ve got a couple of interviews lined up in Brisbane—’

  ‘Sue, come in, you could be the answer to my prayers,’ Clare said slowly.

  Half an hour later the deal was struck.

  There was no mistaking Sue Simpson’s sharp brain and proficiency despite her love of surfing, and it surfaced as they discussed the details.

  Clare said, ‘I think we should give ourselves a three-month trial period just in case it’s not what you’re looking for. It’ll be quite different from—’ she named some of the big law firms over the border in Brisbane ‘—but if after three months we’re both happy I could offer you an associateship and eventually a partnership.’

  ‘Clare,’ Sue said, ‘I don’t think there’s going to be a problem with me being happy. I can live in the beach bungalow, the surfs right at my front door, and it would take me years to work my way up to an associateship elsewhere. Besides, I was bornm and grew up in Lismore and I know an awful lot of people in the area so I have contacts in the Lismore, Ballina and Byron Shires—I might be able to bring some of their legal work our way.’

  ‘Great,’ Clare said. ‘But I must warn you I’ll be scaling down a little.’

  ‘Don’t blame you if you’ve been running the whole show yourself—getting the Hewitts’ business must have been quite a coup. How did you do it?’

  ‘You know them?’

  ‘Lachlan’s aunt taught me and terrorized me as my headmistress,’ Sue said humorously. ‘No, not really, but we’ve sort of known each other as families ever since I can remember.’

  ‘Oh.’

  Sue cocked an eyebrow at Clare. ‘You sound a bit reserved on the subject of the Hewitts. I must say I found Serena a bit hard to take. She was always so damn sure she was God’s gift to men but otherwise—’

  ‘They’re divorced,’ Clare said. ‘I handled it for him.’

  Sue whistled softly through her teeth. ‘There you go!’

  ‘There’s more,’ Clare said, and told her friend the whole story.

  ‘Clare … !’

  ‘I know. I’m the last person you could imagine getting into this kind of a muddle.’

  ‘Not … Clare, so that’s why you’re looking so beautiful!’ And Sue came round the desk to give her a warm hug.

  Which caused Clare to burst into unlawyerly tears, although she was laughing at the same time. ‘You’re the first person I’ve told, apart from my doctor.’

  ‘When are you going to tell Lachlan?’

  ‘When I find the right time and place. I just … don’t know how he’ll take it.’

  ‘Darling Clare … no,’ Sue said. ‘I was going to give you all sorts of advice but I’ll just say this. You’ve got a friend on hand now. Is it a boy or a girl?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t think you can know this early, even if you want to, there’s not a lot I do know about it, to be honest.’

  ‘We’ll look upon it as a learning curve! You didn’t pass out top of the class for nothing, Clare!’

  The next morning, the spare office in the suite had been made over to Sue, phones et cetera installed, and she was interviewing girls from a local business college for a secretary.

  Lucy signified her approval of the new solicitor on the team by saying to Clare, ‘Good. I’m glad you got a woman so we’re still an all-girl outfit!’ Lucy was fifty-five herself.

  The three weeks of Lachlan’s trip away passed swiftly, much more swiftly than if Clare had not had a friend as well as business colleague
to spend time with. He didn’t call but she hadn’t expected him to and was relieved that she didn’t have to make evasive conversation with him.

  May rang a week before he was due home to say that Sean had come down with a mild case of chicken pox and would be staying with his mother until he was over it.

  In light of Sean’s revelation, and despite a sharp little pang of concern for him, Clare breathed a sigh of relief, and she spent an hour searching for an interesting CD-ROM to send down to him in a parcel May was posting.

  But she was also relieved not to be confronting May and Sean because she was now almost three months pregnant and there were some signs of it. She was no longer as reed-slim, although with the right clothes it wasn’t so noticeable. The right clothes, however, had meant some new ones and a new loose style that could in itself be a give-away.

  She’d noticed Lucy eyeing her curiously when she’d gone to work for the first time in a smart blue linen but waistless dress. So far only Sue was aware that she was pregnant and she knew she ought to tell her other staff before they started to gossip—but tell them what? That she was having this baby in some kind of a vacuum?

  But the biggest change was in the size and sensitivity of her breasts. Her areolae were darkening and spreading and her breasts felt heavy at times.

  Otherwise, she felt well. Her morning sickness had abated although certain foods could reactivate it, but Valerie had told her she was going to be one of the lucky ones by the look of it.

  And now that she had Sue and some of the pressure of work off her shoulders she was happy to take long walks on the beach or up the Head, to go to bed early and eat sensibly and to indulge her growing preoccupation with the baby.

  She couldn’t help it, she was excited, she thought once. Her biological clock must have been ticking away without her realizing it because there seemed to be a new dimension to her life and herself despite the great problems it might bring her.

  Then the day was upon her—one day earlier than she’d expected. It was Saturday and she’d taken the whole day off. It was also close to the end of February, hot and clear.

  She went down to the boat passage, an area of calm water on Seven Mile Beach that was protected by a sand bar and much beloved by families with young children because it was so safe. She sun-baked for a while then had a long swim in the gentle swell. There were also babies, toddlers and children on the beach and she watched them with new eyes.