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‘Oh, God, I’m never going to get up again,’ Beth sighed as she dipped her legs into the blissfully cool water. She reached into her pocket for her tissue and blew her nose again. ‘I must look like a beached whale.’
Rilla smiled. Beth was full and ripe and lush. She placed her hand over the sudden ache that had sprung from her womb. ‘Don’t moan, whale,’ Rilla teased, to disguise the bleakness inside. ‘I’ll help you.’
‘You’ll need a crane,’ Beth said.
‘Stop fishing for compliments,’ Rilla said bossily, plonking herself down next to Beth. ‘You’re blooming.’
‘Tell that to my back,’ Beth grumbled as she accepted a bottle of water from her sister.
‘It seems to be bothering you a bit.’
‘It’s been bothering me for months,’ Beth said dismissively as she took a long pull of cool water. ‘It doesn’t help that this rock is so damn hard it could put diamond to shame.’
‘You’re right.’ Rilla laughed, preparing to get up. ‘We don’t have to stay. We can head back.’
Beth put a stilling hand on her sister’s arm. ‘Are you kidding? It’s like paradise here. I want to just sit and absorb it for a while. And I need a rest.’
Rilla relented. The trek hadn’t been particularly arduous, a little uneven and rocky in places, but, then, she wasn’t walking for two.
‘I know you don’t want to talk about Luca, Ril. But being proposed to here must have been very, very romantic.’
Rilla trailed her legs through the water as she thought back to that magical day. Had it only been eight years ago? It seemed like decades. But then some days, like today, it came back to her in such vivid detail it could have been yesterday.
‘Yes, it was.’
They had been alone here that day too. She remembered the feeling of isolation, of feeling they were the only two people in the world wrapped up in a cocoon of love. And she remembered the feeling of absolute rightness. That even after only three months she and Luca were meant to be. That nothing could put them asunder.
It had been a day full of promise and hope. The future had been so bright. So positive. She’d had no inkling that only seven months later their dreams would be crushed into the dirt and within a year it would all be over.
‘Got any Vegemite and cheese?’ Rilla asked, rousing herself from the memories that seemed to have taken over her life since finding out about Luca’s return.
‘Of course,’ Beth said, passing a round of Rilla’s favourite sandwiches to her.
They sat with their legs dangling in the pool, munching on sandwiches, chatting and laughing as the water trickled down the rock, inexorably eroding the surface. They didn’t talk about Luca, or the baby. In fact, sometimes they didn’t even talk at all, familiar enough with each other to be comfortable with silence. They mightn’t share the same DNA but they were as close as any blood sisters.
‘Damn,’ Beth muttered, rubbing her back again. ‘I think I’m going to have to get up. My back’s on fire and my butt is numb.’
They packed up their wrappers and Rilla helped Beth get her shoes back on.
‘God, I can’t wait to see my feet again.’ Beth grimaced as Rilla hauled her upright. ‘Ow,’ she called, reaching out to her sister as she doubled over.
‘What?’ Rilla demanded.
‘Oh, no.’ Beth’s grip tightened as she looked down.
Rilla looked down also. To her dismay a rapidly spreading wet patch stained the front of Beth’s shorts.
‘I think my membranes just ruptured,’ Beth said.
Rilla exchanged a look with her sister.
‘Oh, boy. Gabe’s not going to be happy,’ Beth said.
Rilla couldn’t have agreed more as she stared at the fluid now leaking down Beth’s leg.
‘It can’t be happening now. I’ve still got four weeks to go. It’s too soon. What are we going to do?’
‘It’s OK,’ Rilla said, hearing the first note of panic in her older sister’s voice. She was a nurse. She’d delivered the odd baby or two, the ones that couldn’t wait. Not that it was going to come to that.
‘It’s fine. We have plenty of time. Are you having contractions?’
Beth shook her head. ‘No. Just Braxton-Hicks’ on and off the last few days. It’s mainly my back.’
Rilla gaped at her sister and bit back an exasperated retort. It seemed very likely that Beth had been dismissing true contractions for the harmless Braxton-Hicks’ variety. She didn’t want to think about the fact that they’d been blissfully walking through the bush while Beth was in labour.
‘I wish Hailey was here too,’ Beth murmured.
Ditto. Beth would have been far better off having their youngest sister here. Rilla certainly would have given anything to have someone who had delivered hundreds of babies by their side. But Hailey had declined to join them today, out searching for apartments to rent instead.
‘OK, here’s what we’re going to do,’ Rilla announced. ‘We’re going to get back to the car as quickly as possible and then we’re going to drive straight to the General. It won’t even be a ten-minute drive from here. OK?’
‘OK.’ Beth nodded.
Rilla took an arm and let Beth lean against her as they left the waterhole. They hadn’t gone ten paces when Beth stopped abruptly, practically crippled by a contraction.
‘I don’t think that was Braxton-Hicks’,’ Beth said, her voice wobbling.
Rilla felt Beth’s arms trembling and did some calculations in her head. The walk to the waterhole had taken thirty minutes. The return trip would take longer if they had to keep stopping for contractions. Her heart slammed madly like an open shutter in the middle of a force ten gale.
‘Tell me it’s going to be OK, Rilla,’ Beth gasped, her hold on Rilla tightening.
Rilla could hear the tremble in her sister’s voice. Beth who was always cool, calm and collected was looking to her for assurance. Beth, who, prior to her maternity leave, had run the operating theatres at the General like a sergeant major for years.
‘Of course it is,’ she said confidently. ‘First baby labours take for ever.’ That was one piece of information she did remember in a brain that seemed to be suddenly frozen.
‘But it’s not my first baby.’ Beth grimaced as she clutched at her stomach.
Of course—it wasn’t. ‘It may as well be,’ Rilla said reassuringly. ‘Twenty-three years is a long time. We wipe the slate clean after a while. How long was your labour with David?’
‘Four hours,’ Beth said through gritted teeth.
Rilla tried not to look too alarmed when she glanced sharply at her older sister. ‘Let’s hustle,’ she said, kicking up the pace.
But the going was still slow. The contractions increased in frequency and length over the next twenty minutes, necessitating the need for numerous stops and Rilla was becoming more worried that they weren’t going to make it to the General.
The track remained deserted and their mobile phones still had no signal. All they could do was trudge on and hope the premature baby didn’t decide to make an appearance.
Rilla judged they were about twenty minutes from the car when Beth let out a cry and gripped hard to the arm that was supporting her.
‘What?’ Rilla demanded.
‘Oh, God,’ Beth panted. ‘I need to push.’
‘No. No, no, no,’ Rilla said, shaking her head wildly. ‘No pushing. It’s not far now.’
‘Ril,’ Beth said, leaning forward. ‘I think the baby’s right there.’
‘No.’
‘Yes,’ Beth said looking her younger sister straight in the eye. ‘It is. This baby is coming. Now.’
Rilla believed her. Oh, no! It was time to go to plan B. ‘OK.’ Don’t panic. Just do what has to be done. ‘I’ll get the picnic blanket out of the backpack. I think we need to take a look.’
Rilla’s pulse thundered as she spread the blanket on the track and helped Beth to the ground. This was Beth. Her sister. And her niece. The stakes couldn’t be higher and she was scared out of her brain.
‘Hurry,’ Beth bellowed loudly.
The loud groan broke into Rilla’s escalating fear. ‘OK, Beth, let’s take a look,’ Rilla said, forced to focus as the sound of her sister’s agony echoed through the bush.
Luca Romano was taking a walk down memory lane when he heard the cry of distress nearby. He responded immediately, pistoning his strong legs and arms hard to reach the source. Someone was obviously in trouble. The cry had been full of pain and panic. The bush grew eerily quiet as he headed towards the sound, as if it too could detect the urgency of the situation.
He burst from a side track onto the main pathway, locating the problem with a quick swivel of his neck to the right. He cursed under his breath. Two women were huddled on the track. What the hell had happened?
‘Everything all right here?’ he asked as he approached.
Rilla’s head snapped up. She may have had her back to the approaching man but she’d have known that sexily accented voice anywhere. It still haunted her dreams and stoked her fantasies. She turned. Of all the men in the entire world, their knight in shining armour had to be him?
‘Luca?’
Beth also looked up. ‘Luca?’
Luca stopped dead in his tracks. ‘Rilla? Beth?’
For a few moments no one did or said anything. The entire bush seemed to be holding its breath.
‘Rilla,’ Beth cried. ‘It’s coming!’
Rilla turned her attention back to Beth, breaking out of the twilight zone they’d entered. She looked down in dismay to find that Beth was right. The head was right there. Great!
She turned to look at Luca. There were seven years of silence and a jumbo load of baggage between them, but Rilla knew that they were in the worst possible place if the baby or Beth needed any emergency care. And estranged husband or not, Luca was an emergency medicine consultant—she wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. She could ponder the fickle finger of fate later.
She swallowed. ‘Luca, get down here. I need you.’
Luca knew she hadn’t meant need him need him, but it didn’t stop the quick flare of heat he thought had been extinguished long ago. He took a beat to mentally douse the flame before he responded to the obvious urgency of the situation. He moved closer, crouching down on the rug.
‘Is she full term?’ he asked. His gaze assessed the situation as his medical training came to the fore.
Rilla shook her head. ‘Thirty-six weeks.’
Luca nodded. Only just premature. And Beth’s belly certainly looked a decent size.
‘What do you want me to do?’ he asked. He knew Rilla was perfectly capable of delivering a baby hell bent on getting out and didn’t see any need to take over. Beth was in good hands.
‘Just be here.’ Things were out of their control and Rilla knew it. Babies that came as fast as Beth’s determined little one practically delivered themselves. All she had to do was catch. ‘Just in case.’
She could feel his presence looming beside her and felt strangely claustrophobic in the middle of the wide open bush.
On second thoughts … ‘Actually, go down the other end and give Beth something to lean against. Reassure her.’
Luca nodded. Good idea. As far away from Rilla as possible. He shifted around behind Beth, settling her back against his stomach in a supported semi-upright position. Her elbows dug into his thighs for leverage.
Luca looked down into Beth’s sweaty face purposely evading Rilla’s gaze. A fine film of grime had settled into the furrows of her brow as her face grew red from the effort of suppressing the urge to push.
‘You’re doing well, Beth,’ he said, and gave her a gentle smile. ‘Let’s just keep this bit slow and easy.’ He picked up her hand and gave it a squeeze.
‘Easy for you to say,’ Beth said, gritting her teeth, and Luca laughed.
‘She’s nearly crowned,’ Rilla said to Beth.
He glanced up, despite telling himself he wouldn’t, and caught Rilla’s gaze. She was on her knees, her left hand against the baby’s head to slow the delivery so Beth wouldn’t tear. And she was just as he remembered. Exactly as she was in his dreams.
Her hair was just as thick. As dark and rich as expensive chocolate, and the weight of it in his palms was still almost tangible seven years later. Her long fringe was plastered to her puckered forehead and a hundred memories of sweeping it back while they made love swamped him.
Her eyes were the colour of amber—tawny in some lights, like liquid gold in others. The large freckle that adorned the corner of her mouth like an old fashioned beauty spot, the only blemish on her flawless olive skin, drew his gaze like a moth to flame. Before he knew it he was staring at her mouth, remembering its softness, its secrets.
Luca bit down on a frustrated oath. How the hell had he ended up helping to deliver a baby with his estranged wife in the middle of nowhere? His analytical mind spun at the odds of stumbling across this particular set of sisters on an out-of-the-way bush track. He’d only been back in Brisbane for two days. What kind of sick cosmic joke was this?
But how much more ironic, more cruel was it that a baby was being born as well? The very thing that had been the catalyst that had driven them away from each other seven years ago was the very thing that had now brought them back together for the first time since.
Beth groaned and brought him back to the present. ‘You’re doing well, Beth,’ he soothed quietly, returning his attention to Beth. ‘You’re so close—isn’t she, Rilla?’ he added as Beth started to protest.
Rilla swallowed at the familiar way he purred her name, his accent rolling it across his tongue, branding it with his own special stamp of possession. ‘Y-yes,’ she said huskily.
A couple of voices from behind split the air at that moment and Luca was relieved to see a young couple approaching.
‘Have either of you got a mobile phone?’ he called, his voice firm and commanding, gaining their attention immediately.
The couple nodded, looking at him uncertainly. ‘Yes, but there’s no reception,’ the woman said.
Luca nodded. ‘We know. I need you to run back to the car park and ring for an ambulance. Tell them we’ve got an imminent delivery of a four-week-premature baby.’
The couple stared for a moment, not moving. ‘Now, damn it! Hurry!’ Luca demanded. And then Beth cried out again and the couple needed no further encouragement, rushing away.
Beth quietened and Luca searched for some distracting conversation. ‘I didn’t know you were pregnant, Beth.’
Rilla suppressed a snort. ‘Well, you wouldn’t. Would you?’
He heard the accusation in her tone and their gazes locked, hers flashing rich gold embers. Had she cared? He’d left the country with the distinct impression she never wanted to see him ever again. He noticed her ring finger was minus the gold band he’d given her, and he wondered how long she’d waited before removing it.
