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If there was one thing he knew, it was that once a fence was broken completely, all you could do was build a new one from scratch. He’d broken their marriage somehow. Now he had to build their relationship over again … and this time it would be made to last. He’d build it with drought-proof, fireproof materials.
So she thought he sucked at communication?
Fix it. Talk to her. ‘Mum always strained the fruit and cereal, until the kids were walking.’
She opened a drawer and handed the strainer to him without a word.
He squashed the apple through the sieve into the bowl with the mixed cereal and made-up formula, and stirred the concoction. The baby was making protesting noises again and he shoved the bowl at Anna. ‘Get this mush into her and fast. She’s starving, I think.’
‘I doubt John or Ellie would hear much of anything, even if she wasn’t hard of hearing,’ Anna said dryly, pointing out the window, where a boom of thunder followed hard after a sheet of lightning wide enough to split the house in two. ‘Looks like we got here just in time.’
Great. He wanted to prove they could communicate, and they were already reduced to talking about the weather. ‘I’ll make dinner while you feed her.’
‘You can cook?’ The faint emphasis on you was almost an insult … or was it teasing?
She hasn’t teased me for so long …
Already heading for the fridge, he twisted around to grin at her. ‘I’m a man of many talents—so long as you like scrambled eggs and bacon on toast, or omelette and chips with some salad.’
The ready laugh told him she’d actually been teasing him—then she hastily put another spoonful into the baby’s mouth when she protested. ‘That’s something I didn’t know about you.’
‘I can also do a mean barbecue at a pinch,’ he added, revelling in hearing her voice again, angling for her laugh. An awkward, high-pitched giggle with a tiny snort at the end, ee-yaw, like a donkey, it was infectious, making him laugh just to hear it.
And it came again, making him chuckle. ‘Well, I’m no top chef, so we might resort to your barbecues, omelettes and salad until we can let Mrs Button back in the house.’
Elated by a stupid conversation about cooking, he swept a mock-bow. ‘So which is your pleasure this evening, my lady?’
Anna stared, blinked; her mouth opened a little in pure surprise—and there was something else there, too—a touch of the sensual woman he’d refused to believe she’d buried with Adam, which was why he’d come to Broome and taken her by storm.
‘What?’ he asked huskily.
She shrugged, her cheeks tinged with pink. She’d either read his mind or she wanted him, too—and he chose to believe the latter. ‘I haven’t heard you make a joke in a long time.’ Lifting the baby onto one hip, she said, ‘I’ll get this one bathed and to bed. She looks exhausted.’
So simple teasing and laughter made her want him? If he’d known at the start that was what she’d wanted, he’d have made her laugh constantly. But he could do it from now on …
Then he looked at the baby. She was yawning and rubbing her eyes a lot, considering she’d slept the entire trip home—and a memory stirred. ‘She’s either not a good traveller or she’s teething—probably teething.’
Anna blinked. ‘How would—?’ She rolled her eyes.
‘Don’t tell me, your mum always said it when the kids were grumpy, right?’
He waved a pot at her. ‘Don’t knock my mum, it’s the only source of baby information we’ve got right now.’ Unless you want to ask Lea, he almost said but didn’t. Some time in the years they’d lost babies and Lea had had one, Anna had turned her sister into the competition, even believing he’d wanted Lea. He might not know much about women, but one thing he was good at was knowing when to keep his mouth closed.
He was glad he’d kept quiet when, alight with laughter and mock-fear, she backed off, one hand up in surrender. ‘Okay, okay, you and your mum are the fount of all baby knowledge. I worship at your feet.’
‘Oh, if only,’ he retorted, a hand over his heart in playful teasing to hide how much he meant it. He’d always loved the way she’d looked at him as if he was the closest thing to perfection she’d ever find. Thinking he’d never see it again—or that she’d found him out for the fraud he was—had brought the inner darkness spinning up from a buried corner of his mind, until the savagery overtook him and, desperate for relief, he had to see her, to touch her—
Anna stilled, looking at him with a depth of doubt that shook him to his soul. It made him want to run a million miles—or bolt into her arms and tell her—
Yeah, tell her what? When did you ever say the right thing?
It seemed to him he only got it right with Anna when he communicated without words.
Go slow, or you’ll lose her again.
Failure was not an option—but his craving body was taking to common sense with a battle axe and battering ram, breaking down pathetic defences. Screaming, Take her to bed and love her into submission. You know she wants to … or you can soon make her want to.
Then the baby gave a mighty belch, and the moment broke; they burst out laughing. ‘Oh, what a good girl,’ Anna crooned, her face flushed as she caressed the baby’s spiky hair.
Yeah, she was far from ready to touch him, by her body language—he had to play it smart here. So he grinned again. ‘Isn’t it funny the way we tell babies they’re good when they burp or fart, and then tell them to stop it by the time they’re about two?’
‘Better out than in, I always say.’ She chuckled. Her face buried in the baby’s soft skin, he still saw her smile, and it was infectious. ‘I’ll be back in time for dinner—I hope.’
Jared decided on a barbecue at that moment. The uncertainty in her voice showed her confidence levels on bathing a slippery, soapy baby. He might not have bathed a baby in a long time, but he knew the basics—he could help her while the meat defrosted in the microwave. Anything that brought them together, kept them talking, was good right now—even a baby he didn’t want coming between them.
He threw a salad together first, giving her five minutes to undress the baby and run the bath. Then he went into the bathroom and Anna joined him at that moment with a naked, grumpy baby on her hip, a bottle of baby shampoo in the other hand. ‘What are you doing in here?’
Her tone was cold, almost suspicious. He didn’t let it get to him, but held out his arms. ‘I’ve done this hundreds of times. Everyone needs one lesson at baby-bathing in their lifetime,’ he said with a grin that felt dogged even to him. ‘My mother watched over me about ten times before she trusted me not to kill the kids.’
She didn’t laugh; the suspicion in her eyes dissipated a touch, but she frowned, and the watchfulness remained. ‘All right,’ was her only response. She handed the baby over to him as if yielding up buried treasure. Everything in her body language was screaming, Mine.
If laughter was the best medicine, as people said, it seemed their relationship was sick enough to need it in five-minute doses. And right up until the day she’d left him, he’d thought everything, apart from her trouble having babies, was perfect for them.
Had he been so totally blind to her unhappiness? He’d thought her only unhappiness lay in needing a child.
He put the baby in the four inches of water, leaving her sitting up. ‘When they’re really little you have to put your hand around and under them, holding them by the shoulder so they don’t go under, but …’ He frowned for a second, then remembered the baby’s name and added, ‘Melanie’s old enough to sit, so it’s easiest to make this playtime for her. You need toys and stuff to distract her while you wash, or she’ll scream her way through it.’
‘I know,’ she said so dryly he knew she’d had a bad time of it at least once. How many times had Rosie left the baby alone with Anna?
He tried not to laugh at her tone, and failed dismally—and he was relieved when she laughed with him.
He was still chuckling as he handed Melanie a clean flannel and an empty bottle of shower gel as playthings. At this age, anything would do—but he made a mental note to buy a rubber duckie or something in Geraldton when he flew down. ‘Nobody’s born knowing this, you know. Not even women.’
A look crossed her face, gone so quickly he almost thought he’d imagined it—but he knew he hadn’t. What had he said to put such pain in her eyes? Did she think she ought to know about babies by instinct? She’d always been able to laugh at her failures before, but Adam’s death had changed something fundamental in her. He only wished he knew how to heal her of whatever it was—he needed his wife back, in his bed, his arms, in his life.
Melanie pushed the washcloth in her mouth, tasting it, chewing on it while she tried to make sense of the shower gel cap. He knew he only had a minute to show Anna what to do before the baby tired of the toys and yelled the place down. ‘So you have to juggle,’ he said, rushing the words as he tried to remember what he hadn’t done since he’d been about fourteen. ‘Pour some of the shampoo in one hand, and keep the bottle out of reach.’ He put it on the sink. ‘Then use your free hand to hold her by one shoulder or her back. You have to leave her hands free to play or she won’t be happy.’ He massaged the baby’s scalp. ‘Try not to rub too hard because the baby’s head isn’t closed yet.’
Smothered laughter made him turn his head to mock-glare at her. ‘What?’ he demanded, in faked indignation. It was working, she was laughing again, that crazy, infectious giggle that lit up his world.
Her eyes were bright with mirth. ‘Her head’s closed, Jared—her skull isn’t.’
He rolled his eyes, keeping his hands on the baby. ‘Semantics, shemantics.’
She grinned at him. ‘Just keep teaching, O Yoda of babies.’
Satisfied that he’d injected more medicine into their sick—not dead—relationship, he turned his attention back to the task at hand, putting up with the baby’s yells of protest as he laid her back and rinsed her hair so he didn’t get soap in her eyes. He sat her back up with her makeshift toys as soon as he could. The rain was hissing down outside, making drumming thunder on the tin roof, but he couldn’t risk the noise for long. The rain at the start of the Wet could be spasmodic, coming and going at will—and if the Buttons heard Melanie, all Anna’s dreams could become toast. ‘You can use the shampoo as baby soap for the rest of her, if Rosie didn’t pack any.’
Anna frowned, and ran into the bedroom to check the bag. ‘Here. Non-soap baby cleanser, but how you clean without soap in it I don’t know.’
‘Soap dries out babies’ skin,’ he explained without thinking.
‘Fine.’ She waved an irritable hand, closing the subject. ‘What else?’
Melanie had worked out the gel bottle mechanism, and was gurgling in delight as she sprayed out the last of the purple gel into the water, and over her plump little legs, kicking and squealing at her achievement. They both laughed, and he knew Anna was caught between sweetness and regret, just as he was. No matter how she wanted to believe they were opposites, in their grief they were one. They were both thinking, This could have been Adam.
They could have been laughing together over their son’s baby pride.
‘We won’t be fed until midnight at this rate,’ he said gruffly. He squeezed the non-soap cleanser into his palm, and rubbed it all over the baby’s soft skin, rinsing her with a cupped hand over and over. Then he lifted her wriggling, slippery form into the air, dripping water. ‘Hand me a towel.’
Anna wrapped the fluffy soft towel around the baby, taking her into her arms as if she couldn’t wait to claim her rights. ‘Thanks, Jared. I can take it from here.’
Hating being locked out, he tried to think of a new way to be useful. ‘How many nappies do you have left? How much cereal?’
The sudden panic in her eyes made him rush to reassure her. ‘I can fly up to a petrol station, or go to Geraldton or Kununurra tomorrow if you’re almost out.’
Given reprieve yet again, Anna tried to think as she carried Melanie through to the bedroom she’d used for seven months, since moving out of Jared’s bed until she’d left. ‘I think I have about a quarter left—it was a pack of fifty—but the cereal’s almost gone. I don’t think the service station will have everything—and you know old Ernie, he’s Stop One on the Bush Telegraph Gossip connection.’
‘Good point … and too many people know us in Geraldton. Kununurra it is, then. I probably won’t be back in time to give her the cereal, but you can mush up the arrowroot in the morning with the formula. I’ll take off early. I’ll steam an apple for you before I go.’
‘Thanks, Jared.’ Again she felt relief. She didn’t know what she’d have done without him today. They’d worked together as a team. If that was the point he was trying to make, he’d done it magnificently. ‘I’ll have lunch ready when you’re back,’ she offered as she dried the baby, tickling her between to hear that silvery laugh, like sweet, tinkling bells.
‘Speaking of food, I’ll go start the barbecue.’
His voice was husky again, and she realised he’d been watching the curve of her butt as she’d worked. She flushed again, feeling tension replace the accord: the tension he’d probably misconstrue as sexual, because he still didn’t seem to have any idea why she’d left. ‘Good idea.’
He left the room. She didn’t watch him go or look at the long, clean lines of him, a strong working man of the land. The ache of feminine yearning was strong whenever she was near him, and when he smiled at her like that—but walking right alongside the physical, sexual desire was the sense of utter uselessness. Why bother with an act that might bring temporary joy, but could only reinforce what she no longer was, what she’d never be again? He couldn’t even truly want her now, surely—this was about keeping Jarndirri, keeping his word. She wasn’t a real woman any more; she was an empty shell, a hulk of a car without its engine.
A woman is far more than her womb, Anna, she’s a man’s other half, the gentleness, the empathy. A man needs a woman for far more than babies alone. The counsellor Jared had paid an exorbitant amount to fly up here every week to let her talk had sprouted those and many other glib words, but they’d brought no comfort or healing, only more unspoken resentment. How could any woman who hadn’t lost both her only child and her last chance of having children at the same time understand the word empty, and how much it encompassed?
She had to make Jared give up on her, and find someone who could give him what he needed. So she didn’t watch him move; she fought the desire with everything in her.
Motherhood by proxy she could do. But how could she be a wife again, a woman, when she felt like a blank slate, almost androgynous? No, she wasn’t that good an actress. She knew what Jared wanted—far more than sex alone, he wanted what he’d had, a wife and partner in Jarndirri—but it was impossible. He was the man who reminded her of everything she’d once been … and never could be again. Desire and endless grief in one taut, man-of-the-land body.
When she entered the kitchen she found a fresh, warm bottle waiting. She fed Melanie one last time, and the baby was fast asleep within a minute. Anna rocked her, softly crooning long after she knew Melanie couldn’t hear her. Ah, motherhood was so sweet, even by proxy.
She laid Melanie in the bassinette she’d just about outgrown, and placed it on the middle of the queen spare bed, surrounding her once again with all the pillows she could find, making a safe zone with every chair in the house. It meant they’d have to eat on the verandah, but that was a good thing: she knew Ellie and John Button would be watching. It also meant some touching, even some kissing to prove their reconciliation was real.
Her fingers curled hard over one of the chair backs. You can handle this. Do it for Rosie, and for Melanie.
The wafting smell of steak and onions came to her, and her stomach reminded her how long it had been since she’d had more than coffee. She walked out the door to the back verandah, where Jared, shirt plastered to his chest from Melanie’s kick-ups of water, was flipping the meat onto a platter already laden with onions. ‘I hope you’re hungry.’
‘Starving, actually,’ she confessed, with an uneven laugh. He looked so—so like every dream she’d had since she’d been fifteen—and he knew how to bring her every desire to life.
To divert herself from her fast-growing obsession, she reached for the platter, taking the food to the outdoor setting where the salad and dressings lay waiting. ‘I guess we eat out here, since all the chairs are surrounding Melanie’s bed …’
Her words dried up as she looked at him. She’d put Melanie in her bed, in the room that had been hers in childhood, and again after she’d moved out of their marital bed. There were many other rooms with beds here, but the implication—
‘I need a mattress put on the floor in her room,’ she said quickly, putting the plate down so he wouldn’t see her hands shaking. So he wouldn’t see how much she wanted and ached for what she craved, but shouldn’t have again. ‘It’s her first night in a new place. She’ll need someone familiar beside her if she wakes.’
‘It’s her second new place in a week, too, which is probably also why she was so unsettled tonight,’ he replied, his gaze penetrating, but his tone was calm. ‘I’ll bring one in for you when you’re ready to sleep.’
Glad she wasn’t facing him, she wet her lips. ‘Thank you.’ What else to say? He seemed so helpful, so strong, and so able to resist her … and though it should reassure her, it only unsettled her. When he’d come to her in Broome, it had been her place, her say. Now, even though she was half-owner of Jarndirri, she felt as if she’d lost her sense of power. He’d taken control again—he was master of her future, as well as her desires.
And yet he’d done nothing but help since she’d entered the house.
‘So tell me about life here since … in the past few months,’ she said with overdone carelessness. Telling him not to get too personal or come too close without words.
He shrugged, but smiled, and she realised it was the first time she’d asked anything about Jarndirri since her time in hospital. ‘It’s all going as normal. The seasons have been pretty good this year, behaving themselves nicely. The crop was excellent, and we got good prices for the beef and lamb. Stock from the neighbouring properties have wandered in, and we mustered them and took them back. One or two sheep have drowned in the river, two cows have died calving.’
‘The round of farming life,’ she replied, hearing the slight dreaminess in her voice. ‘I noticed my veggie patch is still thriving. I thought it’d be long gone.’
He turned his face toward the murky grey of the rain and falling darkness behind the thick curtain of clouds. ‘It’s a good place to shovel the muck from the stables, and the plants seem to do well with it. Watering doesn’t take long.’
With a little start, she blinked at him. ‘You’re the one who’s been looking after it?’
He frowned almost fiercely. ‘Why not? It’s a good source of fresh food, cheaper than flying stuff in, and it solves the dung problem. It makes economic sense to take care of it.’
Funny, but though all he said was true, her mouth twitched. She got the feeling he wasn’t telling the whole truth, and that wasn’t like the Jared she’d always known. ‘Thank you for not letting it die,’ she said softly. It was a part of her.
If anything, his frown grew. ‘You can take care of it again, now you’re back. It’ll save me an hour a day.’ As he said it his gaze came back to her, lingered on her face.
‘Of course,’ she said quietly, still hiding a smile. ‘And even if it only made good economic sense, I’m still glad you saved it.’
Strangely, as they ate, the thrumming rain on the tin roof became a companion, making the quiet somehow peaceable. She found herself smiling at her surroundings, familiar and loved throughout her life; smiling at the rain, her old friend—and she even smiled at Jared, who watched her with smoky-dark eyes, shadows of desire in the darkness. The wanting quivered in the air between them—and instead of being her enemy, her weakness, it gave odd comfort to her hurting heart. After he’d humiliated her before with Kissing used to make you happy, he was showing her he still wanted her.
Her smile grew and she sighed.
His voice drifted to her over the drumming beat of the Wet’s fall, deep and soft, filling her soul. ‘Is my barbecue that good?’
‘Actually, it is,’ she replied, liking even the small talk. ‘What’s the marinade?’
His brows lifted. ‘I’d tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.’
She laughed, feeling relaxed enough—aroused enough—to slide back into the old teasing banter they’d always shared before making love. ‘The man’s a spy. He has to be. Everything’s a state secret, from his early life to his emotions and even his barbecue sauce.’
After a moment, he chuckled, moved an inch closer to her. ‘Australia has so many enemies, especially out here.’
‘You have a million hectares.’ She grinned at him in a playful kind of challenge she hadn’t felt with him since they’d been engaged, and she’d been able to pump him for anything she’d wanted to know. ‘You’re hiding a nuclear power facility out here. Mining uranium to sell to the unknown enemy. Making weapons of mass destruction. Building satellite dishes to listen in on our neighbours.’
He laughed and shook his head. ‘Okay, I get it. I never was big on small talk.’ His fingers touched hers, and she drew in a breath as her taunt came back to mock her, I don’t want to sleep with you.
To string out the growing warmth between them, the certainty of shared desire, she threw him an incredulous glance. ‘Now, there’s the understatement of the year. You were never big on any talk, except to your horses.’
‘I get it, Anna. I don’t know how to communicate … but I’m trying. I can learn, if you’ll help me out,’ he said quietly, his eyes locked on hers, filled with meaning.
‘I am helping. I’m saying all I want to say for now.’ She sighed, and put her fork and knife down. ‘I don’t want to revisit emotions that are best left buried. Can’t we just talk like this, Jared? Have some fun, like we used to?’
‘All right,’ he agreed, in a lighter tone, ‘but before we descend to the weather and what groceries you want me to buy tomorrow, I have a confession.’
