Baby for the Midwife

‘Go camping, you mean?’ Max was looking at her as if to judge how serious she was.

The idea promised sanctuary, Georgia thought, clutching at anything to divert her mind away from the past. ‘No phones, no people—just the bush and us.’

‘I think it’s a great idea to take some picnic supplies and get offroad,’ Max said cautiously, and she looked up in surprise. She’d thought he would have jumped at the chance to camp out.

He went on. ‘How about we run back into the coast at night to sleep with civilised showers and comfortable beds? Away from the mosquitoes, for Elsa’s sake.’

The urgency to hide loomed larger than comfort for Georgia. ‘Elsa will be fine. I thought you enjoyed roughing it.’

‘Logistically it’s a little easier for me to camp than you and Elsa. If you don’t fancy the coast there are fabulous mountain retreats in the Lamington National Park. We could slip across into Queensland and go up into the mountains and make log fires in the retreats at night when Elsa goes to bed.’

She sighed with relief. They could still go. ‘That would be wonderful, Max. Could we?’

‘Sure.’ He stood to collect their plates. ‘We can decide where we’ll go after dinner. I’ll go online later and check it all out. I do have friends up that way who own a lodge.’

She watched him head for the kitchen. She normally would have jumped up to help him. He was solicitous and she guessed he must have connected the hospitals, too.

She felt like someone had dropped a boulder on her smooth life when she wasn’t looking. To get away this weekend would at least give her time to get her thoughts together without jumping at every sound.

She hugged herself and the feel of her arms reminded her how it had felt when Max had first agreed to look after her. That first day that Sol had seen Elsa.

She stood up, walked to the window and gazed out into the inky blackness. Far away on the ocean a container ship rode the horizon. Alone and undefended it could still look after itself.

She wasn’t ready to do the same and she didn’t know what to do for the best.

What if Max was in danger, too?

Max entered the room and placed the dishes on the table, not trying to be quiet. He expected her to turn from the window but she didn’t seem to hear him return.

When he touched her on the shoulder she flinched so violently that his hand pulled back and his own pulse rate soared.

‘Hey.’ He stepped closer now that she knew he was there and slid his arm around her shoulder. When she didn’t pull away he turned her into his chest and encircled her. She was shaking and his chest tightened. He would protect them both with his last breath.

‘You only need to tell me how you feel and I’ll share it with you,’ he said and teased her gently. ‘You’re not alone and I’m deeply offended you think you are.’

‘I’m sorry, Max.’ She sniffed into his shirt and his hand slid up and brushed the hair out of her eyes. Her expression of deep foreboding twisted his stomach.

He wanted to snatch up Georgia and her daughter and carry them away from any chance of Sol finding them and that was when he began to realise she would never be free until the Sol issue was resolved.

‘Even if it is only for a year, I am your husband. Who better to protect you? I may seem a flipperty sort of fellow but I do have hidden strengths.’

‘You don’t seem flipperty at all. You’re wonderful.’ She glanced at his muscled arms and gave a twisted smile. ‘Your strength isn’t hidden and I don’t deserve your patience with my bogeyman.’

‘Cut it out, Georgia. If we are anything, we are friends.’ He lifted her chin. ‘Isn’t that right?’

‘Yes.’ She nodded and buried her face back into his shirt.

‘So friends trust each other and your worries are my worries. But we do need to communicate. It is very hard to help you when you shut me out.’

‘I know.’ She straightened and he hugged her one last time before he forced himself to let her go.

‘Come and eat. Then we’ll talk. Unless we feed all this food to the dog, Mrs White will find out we didn’t enjoy her hard labour.’

‘I couldn’t eat a thing.’

Max stared down at her and she looked so forlorn and lost that his heart ached to ease her pain.

He leant forward again and kissed her gently on the lips with all the tenderness she inspired in him. She sighed against him and didn’t pull away, and when he drew back she turned her face towards him and leaned up to kiss him back. He forced back the desire to pull her into his arms and really kiss her so she could forget the man that stood between them.

‘I’m scared, Max.’ Georgia leant her head on his chest again.

‘I know, darling.’ He had felt her tremble beneath his lips when their lips had met. He couldn’t see how one man could inspire such dread but Georgia obviously could.

‘Hold me,’ she whispered.

He’d imagined holding her in his arms many times, but not for this reason. Poor baby. ‘Any time you want, Georgia. You only have to give me a sign.’ He gathered her in and she rested her cheek against him. Then she turned to look up at him.

When she closed her eyes and invited another kiss, he could no more stem his response than stop the waves on the beach he could hear in the distance.

He cupped her chin and traced the pure lines of her face with his mouth as he’d longed to do since Monday night. Her skin felt like velvet and glowed like cream, and he wanted to taste both. He brushed her eyebrows with his lips and then the tip of her nose before settling on her lips in homecoming.

She tasted divine, as he’d known she would, and he searched deeper, always waiting in case she pulled away, but she responded with a hunger that smouldered like his own. Her response tore at him so strongly it was difficult to remember he had to hold back.

When he raised his lips from hers to stand back, she murmured in denial, still with her eyes closed, so he leaned forward and took her mouth again in a kiss that left them both breathless and stunned by the connection between them.

They stood, wrapped in each other’s arms, breathing as one, and for Max it was as if he were standing under the full brunt of a waterfall, and he could no more hold back the water than he could hold back the urge to carry Georgia to his bed and make her his.

‘I need you to take me, Max.’ Her words echoed his own desire, but the need in her voice inflamed him as nothing else could have. When he lifted her into his arms her head lay back to expose the soft column of her throat, and he brushed his face against the tender skin there to inhale the perfume of her skin before straightening.

She sighed into him with such softness and warmth he pulled her against his body and whisked her up the stairs before either of them came to their senses.

When he placed her gently on his bed she reached up for him without hesitation, but a brief moment of sanity stilled his hand before she tugged at him and he lowered himself down beside her.

‘Are you sure?’

‘Kiss me, Max.’

He’d dreamed many times that he would hold her in his arms and protect her from the world. Yet though he wanted to make her his, he needed to ensure her own feelings of self-belief were restored. That was more important than anything. For him this was right, but what of her?

For Georgia, all intrusion from Sol had vanished with the safety of Max around her. Somewhere in the distance her brain disagreed, but the last time Max had lowered his mouth she’d felt the leashed force of his need and that had made her forget. She wanted that again. She pulled him closer and answered the call without permission from any inner voice.

She slaked his hunger with her own and when, peripherally, she felt her clothing move and then his bare skin against hers, she could no more stop her response than she could stop her own heart beating.

His chest was rock hard against her and flattened her breasts gloriously against him. Her fingers skimmed the V of hair on his belly and she exulted in his caressing hands as she caressed him.

It wasn’t enough.

Suddenly there was no time for niceties, neither did she want them. She wanted Max.

She wanted Max over her, in her, joined to her, and she wanted him now. She’d never felt a need as strong and overpowering as this before, but the need was ancient and she demanded his response to wipe out all that had come before.

She could feel Max try to slow the pace but deep inside her a dark fear despaired that something would prevent their union, that some sinister force would tear them apart, and the very least she wanted was this consummation to make her whole again.

Max rose above her and she stared up at him. His strong throat soared above her and his chiselled features were outlined in the darkened room. His golden eyes stared down at her with all the fierce need for possession she’d stoked in him with her own need.

Their eyes locked and she reached up to savour the bulge of taut muscles in his arms as he lowered himself gently against her. Her eyes widened as he entered her, slowly, intimately questing, deeper and deeper, until his whispered name escaped her.

He stared down and the adoration in his face made the tears slip beneath her lids and then he withdrew until she protested. He smiled and entered her again. Slow and steady and deep until again she moaned his name and only then did he quicken the pace.

Georgia clutched at his back to stay with him and they rose and fell together in a long slow erotic dance that drove everything out of their minds except the feel of each other in union.

When it was over they lay together, her head on his chest and his arm encircling her as if he’d never let her go.

She knew the moment he slept and she turned her head and kissed his chest. ‘I don’t want to hurt you,’ she whispered. ‘Maybe there is hope. We’ll see.’

Through the night they joined again, but this time in a slow dance of discovery that scaled the heights again in a different way until much later they slept, entwined.

This time Max lay awake until the morning when he watched her wake up to see if he had been a fool.

He’d promised he would keep her safe and what had he done at the first temptation but taken her like a caveman bearing his prize? He hadn’t been able to resist and now he scanned her precious face for any sign of regret.

At least he couldn’t make her pregnant. He winced with the pain that reflection brought, but the pain was nothing to the thought of losing Georgia.

She’d been mind-blowing and incredible but even in the midst of their magical storm he’d feared she’d only wanted to escape from her memories and that he’d taken advantage of her when he should have waited for the right time.

Now he was afraid he had created more dilemmas for her, which was the last thing he had intended.

He knew he loved this woman above all things but he also accepted he had to create an out for her if that was what she needed. No matter that it would rip out his heart to put distance between them again—a greater risk was destroying any chance of their future.

Not when he’d found the one woman he’d never known had been out there. He could not taint that again with her regret.

‘Good morning?’ He couldn’t help the question mark at the end of his greeting and inside his head a devil mocked him.

‘Good morning, Max.’ Georgia chewed her lip.

Max’s stomach plummeted and he forced himself to smile. He’d known she would regret it.

‘There is something I need to tell you,’ she said and his gut twisted.

At least she hadn’t said she regretted the night, yet. Max brushed her cheek with his hand and then reached for her fingers to hold in his. ‘So tell me.’

She searched his face and what she saw there encouraged her to go on. ‘When I moved back in with Sol to protect my friend…’She paused and closed her eyes for a second as if compelling the words to come, ‘He overpowered me and forced himself on me in a horrific night I thought would never end… And that is how Elsa was conceived.’She shook her head at her own stupidity. ‘I hadn’t foreseen him doing that.’

Max’s voice was low with shock and how he would have done things differently if he’d known. He didn’t know what to say. ‘Did you go to the police?’

‘Who would believe me when he was my husband? He’s respected and I was supposed to have paranoia. They’d say that I went back to him and cried rape. I was shattered and the whole situation was a nightmare.’

Max felt the words hammer into his brain and unconsciously he squeezed her hand. He could tell there was more. ‘Go on.’

‘I ensured my friend was safe from him and I left. I vowed no man would ever do that to me again. I never wanted to think about sex again. Last night all that changed. I needed you and you answered my need.’ She smiled crookedly. ‘Handsomely. You’ve taught me to trust my instincts again.

‘I’m sorry if you think I used you but suddenly I needed you to wipe the slate clean and show me that making love is just that. And you showed me how it should be and I can never thank you enough for restoring my faith and my self-esteem. But last night was not the beginning for us.’

Max felt as if his heart was breaking for her courage. ‘My poor darling.’

He didn’t know how she’d stayed as sane and strong as she had with such a man. Max ached to come across Sol in some dark alley some time and make amends for Georgia.

He had trouble getting the words out past his regret that he hadn’t known her then. ‘Not all men are like that.’

She shook her head as if to say that wasn’t her concern. ‘I’m scared for you, Max.’

How could she worry about him at a time like this? ‘Don’t be, because I swear to you now, that man will never hurt you again. If he tries, he will have me to deal with.’

He wanted to tell her that he truly loved her with all his heart and soul, but to pressure her now with that would be selfish. He needed to step back and lay more groundwork before he went there.

Instead he said, ‘Let’s still go away for the weekend. Forget all this and just relax together with Elsa.’

‘Could we?’ He saw the way she looked up eagerly.

He nodded. ‘We could pack and be out of here by ten, if you still want to.’

Her eyes met his. ‘I’d like that.’

Down the hallway the baby cried and the chance of more discussion was lost as she slipped from his bed. She pulled on his robe and he knew she would go to her room with Elsa and not return. He knew from the way she didn’t even look back as she left.

He knew what he was fighting for and he was even more determined. He would woo her as she deserved.

CHAPTER NINE

THEY drove to the mountains and the spectacular scenery lifted Georgia’s spirits in a way she couldn’t believe, especially now that there was even more to think about.

It seemed Max was going to make it easy for her by not discussing last night. Her body glowed every time she thought of those stolen hours—but that’s what they had been. Stolen and not to be repeated.

Max had no idea what they were up against. Their time together had been an amazing escape from the reality and despair that just hearing Sol’s name had again left her with.

Thankfully, it seemed that Max would bide his time and perhaps, if a miracle occurred, maybe some time in the future they could travel that road.

At least Max had helped her understand that when someone cared for you, making love was just that—making love. Love in a way both parties felt more together—not less!

But though their intimate time had strengthened her acceptance of how much she loved Max, it had also given her more reason to leave.

Max desired her, there was no doubt about that, but this morning’s relaxed dismissal of their night together had made her wonder if he had the capacity to love or just make love.

Maybe it was better if Max didn’t love her. Safer for everyone.

They stopped many times along the way north to Queensland. The all-terrain vehicle crawled along hardly used bush trails, showed them great vistas over rainforests and let them enjoy escarpments decked with eagles and graced with tumbling waterfalls that smashed down onto boulders far below.

Lunch was another picnic packed by Mrs White, which they had beside a cold mountain stream, and afternoon tea saw them back on the coast and an hour and a half east of their destination.

They drove through the Lamington National Park three thousand feet up to the rainforest retreat and Max was greeted like a long-lost friend.

The owners, Paddy and Morgan, had even arranged for their daughter, Trish, to sit with Elsa in the room later that evening while Max and Georgia enjoyed their dinner.

The suite Max had secured, instead of the two single rooms she’d expected, made her pause at the door, and Max’s hand rested on the small of her back as he waited for her to say something.

They could see over the canopy of trees from the window but it was the two big canopied beds that dominated her vision.

‘The suite is lovely, but it seems strange they didn’t have two single rooms.’

‘I didn’t ask for singles, Georgia. We’re a family, even though you and I may not sleep together tonight.’ Max met her eyes unswervingly. ‘I thought you’d be more secure if I was right here with you and Elsa.’

When she didn’t answer he went on. ‘Despite last night, you can trust me. As you can see, we have two doubles and there’s a cot for Elsa.’

He shrugged and changed tack. ‘Actually, I did it for myself. The nightmares have been a problem and tonight I’ll have you to protect me.’

Georgia glared at him. She wouldn’t make a fuss. It would be ridiculous after what had passed between them, but she’d thought he’d understood. ‘I hope Elsa keeps you awake all night.’

He shrugged. ‘She’s done that before.’

This wasn’t happening. Last night had been a mistake that she couldn’t regret but had no plans to repeat. ‘Any designs you have on me will not come to fruition, Max.’

‘I’ll have you know that I am saving myself.’ Max averted his face primly.

As if. ‘You’re not a virgin any more, Max.’ Georgia couldn’t help the reluctant grin he’d dragged from her, despite her best efforts to remain cross.

‘That was only my body,’ he said solemnly.

‘You…are…mad.’

‘I’m crazy with it all right,’ he said, and this time no humour lit his face. She was a fool. He really had only thought of her, but before she could apologise for doubting him, Elsa stirred.

‘I’ll see you down in the lobby where the maps are displayed,’ he said, and she filled the silence with movement as Max slipped out the door.

He’d told her to trust him and she’d never had cause to disbelieve him. That was the baggage Sol had left her with, and she wasn’t going to start not trusting Max.

Elsa settled quickly after her feed, and Trish arrived with her own dinner on a plate.

After a brief discussion over what to do if Elsa woke up, Georgia completed her make-up and brushed her hair again. Strangely nervous, she went to meet Max downstairs.

As she came down the stairs the way his gaze travelled over her made her glad that she had spent the extra few minutes on her appearance and her nerves dissipated like smoke from the chimney.

This was Max. Tall, gorgeous Max, with his incredible body and amazing hands and amazing mouth that just thinking about sent waves of colour to her cheeks. Max, her refuge, her husband, even if it was only for a year, and the man who was looking at her as if she were the one person he’d ever wait for.

Max smiled that wonderful smile of his and held out his hand, and when she put her fingers in his she realised how right it had been to get away.

‘Welcome to our first real date,’ he said as the waiter showed them through the doors to a private table in a bay-windowed alcove.

She smiled. After all they’d been through. ‘For first-timers we’ve had our moments of interest together,’ she said, and the thought of last night tingled her skin in a pink glow.

‘That’s no excuse not to catch up on the stuff we missed out on,’ Max said, and she saw the flutes of champagne and laughed.

A long-stemmed red rose lay across her setting and she glanced up at the waiter with a smile. ‘Does everyone get a rose when they come here?’

‘Only those on their first date,’ the waiter said, and smiled. The man pulled out her chair and Georgia sat and looked around at the restaurant as Max chose the wine for the meal.

The room was long, with several bay windows overlooking the valley below that disappeared in the darkening twilight.

A log fire crackled in a central fireplace and added pleasant warmth without overheating the room. Her throat felt warm but she knew the heat was from something else.

Exposed wooden beams crossed the ceiling with relics from the roaring days of the pioneers, but there was nothing rough about the service or the fine china.

The waiter left after ensuring they were happy, and Max raised his glass to hers in a toast. ‘To a tranquil weekend.’

She’d drink to that. ‘Utopia.’ They clinked the delicate crystal and she sighed blissfully. ‘What a gorgeous place. You’ve obviously been here before.’

Max glanced around and his face softened. ‘My aunt loved this restaurant. I used to come here at least once during my holidays with her.’

There was a note in his voice she’d never heard before. ‘Tell me about your childhood and parents.’

He put his glass down and grimaced. ‘Now, that’s a boring story.’

She frowned at him and he held up his hand. ‘But I did say I’d answer questions.’

He smiled whimsically. ‘My father was a worthy man, an excellent surgeon with very little sense of humour, who retired one month before he died of a heart attack.’

Georgia stretched her hand across the table and touched his in sympathy where his fingers lay against the tablecloth. He looked at her briefly and then looked away.

‘My mother now lives in America with her new husband and apparently is reasonably happy.’

It sounded emotionless and she couldn’t help being disappointed by his distance.

‘Try a little harder, Max,’ she said. Though what did she expect when she was the one creating distance all the time?

He sighed laboriously and then went on. ‘My parents had very little in common with each other, or me, but led a very civilised life together. My brother and I spent a lot of years at boarding school.

‘Fortunately, I spent a lot of my holidays with my mother’s sister, who owned the house in Byron, while Paul stayed home and became even more worthy.’

His face softened and his beautiful mouth curved. ‘My Aunt Beatrice I could talk about for hours.’

‘Please, do,’ she said softly, aching for the boy who had obviously been lost in boarding school and at a family that hadn’t known how to love.

Maybe that was why he had chosen Tayla and had such low expectations of marriage.

‘Beatrice was a widow. Her husband died early in their marriage, which was very considerate of him. I’m sure she was happier doing as she liked. She was an Amazon of a woman who adored bright colours with the black she said she wore for mourning.’

He grinned at the memories. ‘She could put colours together. Black and gold stripes, black and emerald spots, black and hot pink, sometimes all of them at once, and always adorned with lots of beads.’

He shook his head. ‘She’d have sunflowers growing in her garden and they were all over the house in vases. She’d sing the blues in this gravelly voice that would raise gooseflesh on my arms.’

He glanced around the room as if seeing memories from the past. ‘She loved to sculpt and paint and you’ve seen all the luminous stars she glued onto the ceilings in the house at Byron. She loved the stars.’

‘Beatrice sounds wonderful.’ But best of all was the affection she could see for his aunt on Max’s face. He’d loved his aunt. There was hope yet.