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A Mother To Make A Family
A Mother To Make A Family
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A Mother To Make A Family

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Lila pulled a piece of paper from the bedside drawer and held it up. ‘It’s not very good ’cos I don’t have any pencils.’

The paper was lined, Rose recognised it from the hospital case notes, but on it Lila had drawn a fabulous picture of a horse.

‘Is this your horse?’ Rose asked.

Lila nodded.

‘What’s her name?’

‘Fudge.’

‘That’s an interesting name.’

‘She’s the same colour as caramel fudge,’ Lila explained, ‘but it’s hard to tell ’cos the nurses could only find a lead pencil.’

‘Well, I think she’s beautiful.’

Rose noticed that Lila’s voice became a little more animated when she was talking about her horse. Maybe that was the secret to getting her to engage. But wasn’t that the same with all children? You just needed to find something that they were interested in. Rose knew that if you did that it was often hard to stop them from sharing.

‘Does she smell like caramel?’

‘That’s silly.’ Lila couldn’t hide her smile. ‘Horses don’t smell like caramel.’

‘Well, what does she smell like?’

‘She smells like a horse.’ Lila giggled and her dark eyes sparkled, losing their serious intensity. She looked like an eight-year-old girl now and Rose had a moment of self-satisfaction that she’d been able to make this little girl laugh. That she had been able to make a connection, however small, gave her a sense of achievement. This was what she loved about teaching, establishing a connection with the children.

Lila’s giggles continued and Rose knew she was intrigued, but before she could say anything further she became aware of someone on the periphery of her vision. Someone else waiting and watching as she listened to Lila’s laughter. She looked up to find a man standing in the doorway of the ward.

Possibly the most gorgeous man she had ever seen.

Tall, dark and handsome.

Her heart skipped a beat as she wondered who he was. A doctor she hadn’t met yet? An orthopaedic surgeon? She was certain she’d never seen him before—his was not a face she would forget.

Rose ran her eyes over him. He would be a shade over six feet tall with a slim build but his shoulders and chest were broad, his arms were strong and muscular and his legs were long. He was casually dressed in jeans and a navy T-shirt, not the normal doctor-on-staff outfit—no white surgical coat, no tell-tale stethoscope—but Rose noted these things almost subconsciously as her gaze remained locked on his face. His very handsome face. It was tanned and he had a full head of thick, brown hair, cut short, with dark brown eyes to match. His jaw was triangular, darkened by a shadow of stubble, and he had a slight smile on his lips.

She bent her knees and her thighs tensed, ready to push her out of her chair, ready to cross the room and introduce herself to a handsome stranger. It was a reflex response, a reaction completely outside her conscious control, but before she could actually complete the movement the rest of her brain woke up and she realised what she was doing. She relaxed back into her seat, barely managing to rescue herself from complete embarrassment, and took some comfort in the thought that he hadn’t noticed that she’d been about to stand as his attention was focussed on Lila.

The drive to go to him had been strong and the attraction she felt was primal, carnal and, while the result might have been pure embarrassment, it pleased her that she could still experience these feelings. That she still had the desire. The want and the need.

She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt such an immediate attraction to a man. She hadn’t been remotely interested in men or relationships for the past two years yet somehow, with just one look, she knew she would change her mind for this man.

Who was he?

She checked for a hospital ID lanyard hanging around his neck but there was nothing. If he wasn’t a doctor, who was he? Should he even be in the hospital?

He stepped into the room and crossed the floor, and Rose held her breath.

She was vaguely aware that Lila’s giggles had stopped and out of the corner of her eye she saw Lila turn her head as she noticed the man’s movements.

‘Daddy!’

This was Lila’s father?

He reached his daughter’s bed and bent over, kissing her on the forehead. ‘Hello, princess.’

Princess. Rose’s father used to call her that. But she forgot all about her father as this man straightened up and looked at her.

Her breath caught in her throat, stuck behind a lump that had lodged there.

Now that father and daughter were side by side Rose noticed that they had the same eyes. Dark and serious. His chocolate eyes were intense, probing and forceful and she felt as if he could see right into her soul.

* * *

Mitch straightened up and looked again at the woman who sat by his daughter’s bed. He’d noticed her as soon as he’d stepped into the room. He’d heard his daughter giggling, a sound he didn’t hear enough of, but he’d been distracted by the woman sitting beside Lila’s bed. She was not the type to go unnoticed.

He thought he’d imagined her at first. She didn’t look real. Her face was round and serene, perfectly symmetrical. Her green eyes were enormous and iridescent. Her mouth was wide and her nose small. She looked like a woman from a Renaissance painting. Maybe that Botticelli one, the one of the young Madonna with the baby Jesus and the two angels. The light from the window bounced off her golden hair, making it shine like spun silk and making him forget that he hated hospitals, making him forget that he wished he and Lila were a thousand miles away. She was absolutely beautiful, but he had no idea who she was or why she was by his daughter’s bedside.

She was watching him now, staring, silent, frozen like a deer in a spotlight. There was something fawn-like about her. Innocent. Young. Maybe it was her huge, luminous eyes.

Who was she?

She wasn’t a nurse. She had a hospital ID badge hanging around her neck but she wasn’t wearing a uniform and unless things had changed considerably since his last foray into a hospital he was pretty certain nurses didn’t have time to sit idly at patients’ bedsides. Unless the patient was critically ill, which he knew Lila wasn’t.

A feeling akin to dread flooded through him as it occurred to him who she might be. ‘Are you from social work?’ he asked. The social worker had left several messages for him on the station answering machine but by the time he got in at the end of the day it was well past office hours and too late to call back. He knew he could have returned to the house during the day to make a call but he’d been nervous. Worried about what the social worker might want. Worried she might want to talk about what had happened two years ago. That she might want to talk about Cara. He had refused counselling before and had no qualms about doing it again. They didn’t need it. They were all fine.

‘I meant to call you back,’ he fibbed.

She was frowning. A little crease had appeared between her green eyes, marring the perfect smoothness of her brow.

‘I’m not a social worker,’ she replied.

Mitch relaxed; expelling the breath of air he hadn’t even been aware of holding.

‘I’m Rose,’ she continued. ‘I’m just here to keep Lila company.’ She stood up. Her hair fell past her shoulders and she lifted her hands and gathered it all, twisting it into a long rope and bringing it forward to fall over one shoulder.

Now it was his turn to stare. Her movements were fluid and effortless. She’d obviously done this a thousand times before but to Mitch it was one of the sexiest things he’d ever seen and he was transfixed.

‘But now that you’re here, I’ll get going,’ she said, and before he could find another word to say she had stepped past Lila’s bed and was on her way out of the ward.

He couldn’t stop himself from watching her go and his eyes followed her out of the room.

She was slim but under her dark trousers he could see the two, full, round globes of her buttocks. They bewitched him as she stepped out of the room. She wore a soft white top that floated around her torso and reinforced his first impression of her as a golden angel.

Or maybe a golden rose.

Rose who? he wondered. She had left without a decent explanation of who she was and why she was there.

She was young and pretty and her name was Rose. That didn’t seem like enough information. He wanted more. But just thinking about her made him feel old. He couldn’t remember ever feeling young. He felt like he’d always been old. He knew he’d only felt that way since he’d lost his wife but he struggled to remember how he’d felt before. So now it felt as if he’d been born old.

His life was defined by before Cara died and after Cara died. But the more time that passed the harder it was to remember the before. He was so busy running the station and trying to figure out how to be a single father that he never seemed to have time to stop and sit and remember her. He was asleep before his head hit the pillow at night and up at dawn and he didn’t stop all day.

If he had time to stop he might realise he was lonely but this was not something he noticed on a day-to-day basis. He had got used to life on the station and the absence of his regular weekly trips into Broken Hill and he only noticed his loneliness when he visited the city. At the cattle station, despite its isolation, he was surrounded by people who knew him; some of the staff had worked for him for close to ten years. But in the city no one knew him and he knew no one. He could go all day without talking to a soul. Despite the fact that there were hundreds of people around him in the city he was alone with too much time on his hands.

He didn’t enjoy the city but he was going to have to keep returning until he could take Lila home. Maybe he should make an effort to make some connections with people. Talk to people, to complete strangers. In the country he wouldn’t hesitate but city people were different. He’d been one of them once but now he just felt disconnected. They seemed busier, more caught up in their own lives, existing close together but without any meaningful interaction. He was so used to sharing his day, his life, with his workforce. At least until dinner was finished but after that he put his children to bed and was now in the habit of spending his nights doing the bookwork before going to bed alone. It was becoming a sad existence. A self-perpetuating cycle.

His mind drifted back to Rose. Thinking about her was a pleasant distraction from the dozens of other things that had been occupying his mind of late. It had been a long time since a pretty woman had caught his eye. It wasn’t as if he met a lot of new women in Outback Australia and he’d just about given up noticing. He was tired and jaded, so it was a pleasant change to notice a pretty woman and he almost felt human again. But he knew he didn’t have time for anything more than an appreciative glance. His days were busy, too busy for romance.

And despite the pleasure that seeing a beautiful woman had given him, he couldn’t imagine ever falling in love again. It wasn’t worth the risk. He would have to recover as best he could and move on. Alone.

Next time he came to the city he would bring the boys with him, he decided. They wanted to see Lila, they were missing her, and now that she was on the road to recovery he knew she would like to see her little brothers too. He’d bring the boys and they would provide him with company. Then he wouldn’t need to think about young, blonde, Botticelli angels called Rose. He wouldn’t have time to wonder if he’d see her again.

CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_fe85259c-4bcd-5120-bd75-6b2b03c79c7c)

‘IS SHE ASLEEP?’ Rose asked as her sister walked into the kitchen.

Scarlett had been settling her daughter, Holly, for her afternoon nap while Rose had chopped what felt like a mountain of cabbage and carrot to make coleslaw. But she’d been glad to have a job to do. She was hoping it would keep her mind busy so she would have no time to think about gorgeous men with kind faces and daughters in hospital. Lila’s father had unsettled her. Her reaction to him had her on edge but she found if she kept herself occupied she could almost manage to push him to the back of her mind. Wielding a sharp knife was making sure she stayed focussed on the task at hand. She scraped the vegetables into a bowl and started tossing them together to make the salad.

‘Yes,’ Scarlett replied, ‘but she was fighting sleep every step of the way. I think she has too much of her father in her—she knows there’s a party going on and she doesn’t want to miss out!’

Rose smiled. Her brother-in-law did like a party. He’d grown up in a big family; he was the youngest of six siblings so there had always been plenty of people in the house and even now he liked to surround himself with family and friends. There was no special reason for today’s gathering but Jake never needed a reason. He loved a crowd and didn’t mind being the centre of attention. He’d worked as a stripper to put himself through medical school and Rose had heard he’d been very good at it. She had no doubt he’d loved every minute of it. Scarlett, by comparison, was happy behind the scenes. She only needed the attention of one person, her husband.

Like Jake, the old Rose had loved a party too. She’d enjoyed attention and she knew she got more than her fair share, but now that attention made her uncomfortable. Now it only made her more aware of everything that had happened to her. Aware of the contrast between the pretty Rose of her youth and the new Rose. She felt much, much older than her twenty-three years. She’d been through a lot in the past two years and had come out the other side a lot less positive about the future. She knew now that some things were out of her control and just because she had a plan it didn’t mean that life had the same one for her.

Things were different now.

Rose had been avoiding parties but Scarlett had refused to listen to any of her excuses. The only reason Rose had agreed to come to this barbecue was because Scarlett had threatened to withhold time spent with Holly if she didn’t attend. It was emotional blackmail—Scarlett knew Rose couldn’t bear to think of being separated from her niece. Holly was one of the few highlights in her life. One of the things that Rose had fought so hard for. She adored Holly and Holly adored her.

Having a family of her own was all Rose wanted. It had been all she’d wanted since she was eight years old. Her dreams had been so different from those of her two elder sisters yet now they were both married and Scarlett had a daughter. Scarlett and Ruby were living Rose’s dream and Rose couldn’t help feeling a pang of jealousy when she thought about it. Scarlett had professed that she was never going to have kids, she’d always intended to focus on her career, yet look at her now, Rose thought: a qualified anaesthetist and mother to the most adorable little girl.

Ruby, the middle of the three Anderson sisters, was a different kettle of fish altogether. She was nomadic, nothing remotely like Rose, who was the epitome of a homebody. Marrying Noah was the first ordinary thing Ruby had ever done, but even then she’d gone for the unusual. Not too many people were married to professional race car drivers. Ruby had always had a point of difference, whether it was her dress sense, her living arrangements or her boyfriends; no one could ever accuse her of being ordinary, whereas Rose longed for an ordinary life—a husband who adored her, perfect children and her own happily ever after.

She wanted to re-create that perfect world she used to live in. The world she’d inhabited until the age of eight. She wanted to fall in love and have her own family. She believed in true love and part of her still hoped it would happen for her. She still imagined her white knight would come and sweep her off her feet. He would give her the world and would be so blinded by love that he wouldn’t notice all her flaws.

The Anderson sisters had grown up with their own labels. Scarlett was the clever one, the career girl; Ruby was the fun one, the slightly wild and offbeat sister; Rose, not overly ambitious, had been content to be the pretty one. Until recently.

She used to be so confident, used to be able to walk into a room and know that men would look at her. She knew she was pretty and her blonde hair and big green eyes lent her an air of innocence that men couldn’t resist. But Rose didn’t feel pretty any more. She was scarred, emotionally and physically, but she hated the idea of anyone else knowing it.

She was also scared. Scared that no one would want her now.

Scarlett kept telling her to give herself time. To get back out into the world without expectations. To relax, have fun and see what happened. Her psychologist was telling her the same thing—give yourself time—but Rose wasn’t convinced that time was the great healer that everyone professed it to be.

It had been almost two years since her last relationship had ended and she didn’t feel any closer to being ready for another one. Not when she knew she would have to open herself up.

She was scared and scarred and she didn’t believe that was a combination conducive to finding love.

Scarlett held out a tray of burgers and shashliks to Rose.

‘Would you take these out to Jake for me, please?’

Rose could see her brother-in-law at the barbecue, talking to one of his friends.

‘I know what you’re doing,’ she said.

‘What?’ Scarlett replied, all wide-eyed and innocent.

‘You want me to talk to Rico.’

‘He’s a nice guy.’

‘I’m not saying he’s not, but—’

‘You’re not ready.’ Scarlett finished the sentence for Rose with her usual retort but that hadn’t been what she was about to say. ‘I’m worried about you, Rose. You need to get out there. You’d have fun with Rico. It doesn’t necessarily have to be anything more than platonic fun but at least you’d be out and about. Working and spending time with Holly isn’t enough. You’re twenty-three, have some fun.’

Rose couldn’t mount a good argument so she reached out and took the tray of barbecue meat, resigned to the fact that she would have to let Scarlett win this round. Scarlett won most rounds. She was the bossy older sister. Rose knew she did it out of love and so she gave in. It was easier that way. ‘All right,’ she sighed, ‘I’ll go and talk to him.’

She was aware of Scarlett watching her through the kitchen window as she stepped outside. She knew her big sister was worried about her. Scarlett had always mothered her. They had all suffered when Rose’s father had died suddenly and their mother just hadn’t coped with the aftermath. Scarlett, at the relatively young age of sixteen, had taken it upon herself to be the champion for her two younger sisters and that instinct had never quite left her, even though her sisters were now both adults.

Rose looked around, taking in Scarlett’s house, small but filled with love, her gorgeous husband, and a garden overflowing with their friends. Despite the fact that Scarlett was eight years older than Rose, Rose couldn’t deny that she wanted what Scarlett had. A career, a husband who adored her, and a baby. Actually, she would settle for two out of three; unlike Scarlett, she wasn’t that interested in a career. She enjoyed teaching but it was a job rather than her calling, and she didn’t have the same burning ambition about it that Scarlett had about her career as an anaesthetist.

And Rose knew exactly why Scarlett was pushing her to get outside and mingle. She had never made a secret of the fact that she dreamt of marriage and babies, certainly not to her sisters, but she wasn’t sure that she was in the right frame of mind to mix and mingle today. Although she couldn’t complain about the talent on offer. Jake’s friends were lovely, a good mix of polite, gentle, charming and good-looking; many of them, including Rico, were professional men who were also former colleagues of Jake’s from the strip club, The Coop. They took pride in their appearance without, for the most part, any vanity, and Rose was happy to appreciate the efforts they went to in order to stay fit and in good shape. But she wasn’t sure that getting involved with one of her brother-in-law’s mates was a good idea. What if things didn’t work out? Wouldn’t that be awkward?

Scarlett had insisted that Rico was a genuinely nice guy who treated women with respect. Rose knew she could do worse than go out on a date with him.

Not that he’d asked her yet, she chided herself as she crossed the paving and headed for the barbecue. She was thinking of excuses unnecessarily. Why would he be interested in her? Just because Scarlett had put the idea in her head it didn’t mean that Rico was entertaining the same notion.

* * *

‘Could I have your number?’

Rose had been chatting to Jake and Rico for several minutes when Rico asked the question. She was glad he’d waited until Jake had taken a tray of cooked hamburgers inside to Scarlett. She didn’t think she had the heart to turn him down in front of his mate but she couldn’t give him what he wanted. He was handsome in a swarthy, dark, Mediterranean way, he had a great body, hours in the gym having toned it to perfection, and he seemed genuinely nice, but there was no spark. Rose wondered if she’d ever feel that spark again. Rico was just the type of man she normally fancied, tall, dark, good looking, a few years older than her but she wasn’t interested. She hadn’t been interested in a long time.

Not quite true, she thought as she remembered a man with chocolate brown eyes, a triangular jaw and an easy smile. She might make an exception for a man like him. But that was just a silly fantasy about a complete stranger. She didn’t even know his name.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘I’m not dating at the moment.’

She knew she had to figure out how she was going to fulfil her dream of having a family when she didn’t feel ready for a relationship. She still dreamt of finding love but in reality she was scared. She knew she couldn’t wait for ever, she didn’t want to wait for ever, but she was afraid to take that first step back into the dating game. She knew that first step would lead to others, which would lead to her having to share parts of herself, and that was the part she wasn’t ready for.

Rico looked as if he might be getting ready to plead his case and Rose tried to remember how she used to turn invitations down without appearing rude. ‘Why don’t you give me your number?’ she added. ‘And if I change my mind, I’ll call you.’

‘Sure.’

‘Great,’ she replied, pleased he wasn’t going to argue with her. ‘I’ll just grab my phone.’

She ducked inside and rummaged through her handbag. Her phone was lying in the bottom of the bag under a tin of coloured pencils she’d bought for Lila. She pulled the pencils out with the phone. She’d get Rico’s number and then she would go and see Lila. She’d had enough of the party. She knew it would only be more of the same. Talking to Jake’s friends, getting asked for her number. She made her excuses to Scarlett, promising to call back later, hoping that Jake’s friends would have left by then and she could play with Holly without interruption.

But right now there was somewhere else she’d rather be. Someone else she’d rather talk to.