Christmas at Candlebark Farm (3 page)

Jason scowled. ‘Yeah, well, whatever.'

Keira glanced from one to the other, a tiny crease forming between her eyes. ‘I…um…brought a caramel mud cake.'

She pulled an enormous box from the fridge and set on the table. When she lifted the lid the scent of cake and sweetness filled the air.

‘They didn't have anything smaller than this monstrosity, but I'm afraid I couldn't resist. There's not a chance of me getting through all this on my own, so please help yourselves. It'd be a shame to let it go to waste.'

As she was talking, she cut three generous slices from the perfect round. More of that sweetness drenched the air. Luke couldn't remember the last time the kitchen had smelled so good.

‘Sweet!' Jason accepted one of the slices before slouching back off in the direction of his room.

Keira glanced up at Luke, a hint of mockery lighting her eyes. ‘Relax, it's only a piece of cake, Luke.' With that she gathered up her magazines, her tea, and her slice of cake. ‘I'm sure you'll excuse me if I retire to your veranda to admire that view of yours.'

She left—just like that. As if she didn't need looking after, as if she didn't need that country hospitality she'd been so hot about. And without inviting him to join her.

Not that he'd wanted an invitation.

Luke stared around his now strangely colourless kitchen, his gaze coming to rest on the remaining slice of cake. From somewhere deep inside yearning gripped him. For a moment he was tempted to swipe a finger through the rich chocolate frosting.

He reached out.

What the hell…? He snapped back. Then he seized the plate and shoved it into the fridge.

He stormed out through the back door. He had work to do.

L
UKE
shot upright—still groggy from sleep—and groped for his bedside clock. Through slitted eyes he read 3:21. With a groan, he dropped it back. Something had woken him from a dead sleep. What?

Closing his eyes, he concentrated on picking out any noise unfamiliar amid the normal night sounds of crickets, cicadas, and a call from the occasional tawny frogmouth.

He relaxed when the low whine of the tap in the bathroom broke through the other night noises. His lodger. It would take him a night or two to get used to someone else's rhythms.
Good, go back to sleep.
He punched his pillow, settled back down, and…

Hold on. He lifted his head again. Sat up. That was no normal nightly visit to the bathroom. Keira was… Was she being sick?

For all of two-tenths of a second he considered burying his head in one pillow, covering it with another, and trying to go back to sleep. But he knew it wouldn't work. He'd never been able to ignore an animal in physical distress. Unfortunately, that included lodgers.

Muttering imprecations under his breath, he hauled himself out of bed, dragged on a pair of tracksuit pants to cover his nakedness and made for the bathroom.
Trouble with a capital T!

He paused outside the door, hand raised to knock, and
then grimaced at the unmistakable sounds that emerged from behind the door—muffled but unmistakable. ‘Keira?' He knocked. ‘Can I come in?' He wanted to burst in and make sure she was all right, so he could go back to bed. He held himself back, reminding himself she was a lone woman in a strange place.

Behind the door came movement… The door opened, and all his irritation fled. He'd thought she'd looked pale when he'd first clapped eyes on her, but now she was white. The only colour in her face came from the grey of her eyes, but even they were dim and bloodshot. All that red-gold hair fizzing around her face only made her look paler.

His heart lurched. ‘Is there anything I can get for you? Would you like me to take you to the hospital or—?'

She shook her head. ‘I'm really sorry I disturbed you, Luke. I—'

She turned from white to green. She spun away to kneel in front of the toilet and was immediately and comprehensively sick. Again. Luke leapt forward to drag her hair back from her face. He didn't try to talk, and he didn't rub her back because he didn't know if that would make her feel better or worse, but with every heaving retch his heart clenched harder and tighter.

When this particular bout of sickness had passed, he flushed the toilet, closed its lid and settled her on top of it. When he was certain she wasn't going to fall, he moistened a facecloth and very gently wiped her face.

She didn't open her eyes until he was finished. ‘You're very kind,' she whispered.

No, he wasn't. But he couldn't stand by and do nothing if she was sick. ‘What did you eat today?'

She frowned. It turned into a glare. ‘I can tell you one thing—I am
never
eating caramel mud cake again. I couldn't resist another piece after dinner, but… Ugh, never again.'

It almost made him smile. Only he couldn't smile when
she remained so pale. ‘Keira, I really think you should see a doctor.'

She pulled in a breath. ‘It's nothing. I promise.' She closed her eyes and pulled in another breath. ‘It's become the norm over the last few days, that's all.' A third breath. ‘I'm sure it'll pass.'

His head snapped back. The norm? She was slender, sure, but he hadn't pegged her as anorexic or bulimic. Still, she was young and pretty, and he knew women her age felt an enormous pressure to conform to impossible media images. Not for the first time he was grateful he had a son instead of a daughter. Raising a daughter without the help of her mother could prove tricky. Or at least trickier than a son.

Keira's confession settled it—she was seeing a doctor. Whether she had food poisoning or was bulimic or had some ghastly twenty-four hour virus, he was taking her to the hospital. Illness like this should
never
be the norm.

‘C'mon.' He urged her to her feet and handed her a glass of water to rinse out her mouth. ‘It's better to be safe than sorry. It'll take us no time at all to drive to the hospital and have someone check you over.' When he saw she was about to refuse he added, ‘Look, I'm going to be out in the fields from dawn, and I probably won't return till late. Jason will most likely be out with his mates for most of the day. I can't guarantee there'll be anyone here to help you if you need it tomorrow.'

She smiled. She was pale and woebegone, and yet she managed a smile. He didn't know why, but it made his heart crash about in his chest. ‘It's sweet of you to consider my welfare.'

Not sweet. He refused to allow that. He just didn't want another woman's death on his conscience.

‘Luke, I'm really not sick.'

He raised an eyebrow at that.

‘And I have seen a doctor.'

His shoulders loosened a fraction. The pressure eased from his chest. In the next moment the pressure crashed back. If she was this sick after seeing a doctor then that indicated something serious—something sinister.

‘I have nothing worse,' she continued, ‘than a bad bout of morning sickness.'

He stared at her, trying to make sense of her words. Morning sickness? But that meant…

‘I'm pregnant.'

And then she beamed. His legs gave out, plonking him down to sit on the side of the bathtub.

She sat down again too. ‘I'm having a baby.'

Only then did he notice that she wore an oversized sleep-shirt in powder blue. It had a picture of a teddy bear on the front and hung down to her knees. She didn't look old enough to have a baby!

He surged to his feet as an unlooked-for and unwanted wave of protectiveness flooded him. ‘Where's your baby's father? Why the hell is he letting you go through this on your own?'

‘Oh, Luke…'

She pressed two fingers to her mouth. Luke immediately went on high alert. ‘Are you going to be sick again?' He readied himself to hold her hair back from her face if the need arose. He glanced at that hair. For all its curly unruliness, it had felt smooth and soft in his hand.

‘No, I don't think so. I think I might risk a cup of tea.'

Her colour had started to return. He shuffled back a step.
Pregnant!
‘Do you need a hand with anything else?'

‘No, I'm fine now. Honest.'

With a nod he backed out through the door. ‘Right. I'll go put the jug on.'

‘Oh, that's not necessary. You can go back to bed and I…'

He didn't turn or stop. He headed straight for the kitchen.
Pregnant and alone in the world—he'd read that fact in her eyes.

Trouble with a capital T!

He couldn't get involved. He couldn't risk it. But the least he could do was make her a cup of tea.

 

When Keira entered the kitchen she was glad to find Luke had dragged a T-shirt over his bare chest. The breadth of his shoulders, those bulging biceps, had all started to filter into her consciousness towards the end there in the bathroom. It had taken a concerted effort to try and ignore the effect they were having on her.

While it had been beyond kind of him to hold back her hair, to mop her face, it had all started to feel a bit too…intimate. And she wasn't doing intimate. Not until she and the Munchkin were well and truly settled, thank you very much.

Still, there was no denying she'd gained a measure of comfort from Luke's presence, and she hadn't expected that. It had brought those niggling doubts back to the surface, though. Taking great bites out of her confidence, making her question the validity of having a baby on her own.

No!

She pushed the very idea of that thought away. She could and she
would
have this baby on her own. Those doubts—it was just the misery of nausea talking.

She saw Luke turn from surveying her various boxes of tea. Besides peppermint and chamomile, she had a selection of herbal teas made up by the boutique tea shop she walked past every day on her way to work at the hospital. The teas had gorgeous names like Enliven, Autumn Harvest and Tranquillity.

‘Where's your…?' He paused, his eyes zeroing in on the way her hands fumbled with the sash of her terry towel ling robe.

‘Where's my what?' She gave up trying to tie a bow and
settled for a granny knot. It occurred to her that Luke might be as pleased as she that they'd both covered up a bit more. The thought made her stumble.

Stop it! It was somewhere between three and four in the morning. Nobody had rational thoughts at this time of the day. She flipped her hair out from the collar of her robe and raked her hands through it…and remembered the way he'd held it back from her face. She'd felt too sick to be embarrassed then. Strangely, she didn't feel embarrassed now either.

Luke continued to stare at her, his eyes dark and intense, and filled with a primitive hunger. It raised all the hair on her arms. Not in a panicked I'm-alone-in-a-strange-place-with-a-man-I-hardly-know kind of way either. Which would be rational. But then she'd already determined this wasn't a rational time of day.

And it was quickly in danger of becoming less so, because as she stared back at him warmth stole through all her limbs, while languor threatened to rob her of her strength…and of the last shreds of her sanity.

One of them had to be rational. Think of the Munchkin!

‘You want to know something amazing?' She didn't wait for his answer. ‘All my baby's fingers can be separately identified now, and soon its eyes will be fully formed.'

He jerked, and muttered something she pretended not to hear.

Talking about her baby didn't douse her in cold, rational logic, but at least it had Luke swinging away. She wanted to shake herself, shake the warmth from her limbs, but she didn't trust that her stomach would tolerate that kind of punishment just yet.

She frowned and remembered to ask again, ‘Where's my what?'

‘Liquorice tea.'

She collapsed at the kitchen table and massaged her temples. Of all the things he might have asked her… ‘Why would
I have liquorice tea?' She'd never heard of the stuff before. And, quite frankly, it didn't sound all that inviting.

‘It's a morning sickness cure.'

She lifted her head. ‘Really?'

‘So's eating liquorice.'

She watched, half in disbelief, as he sliced a lemon, dropped the slice into a mug, and then poured boiling water over it. He set the mug in front of her. ‘Sip that. It should help settle your stomach.'

He made himself some tea and sat opposite. Keira pulled the pad and pen resting on the table towards her and wrote down ‘liquorice, liquorice tea, lemon'—before taking an experimental sip from her mug. ‘I'm ten weeks pregnant, but the morning sickness has only hit me in the last few days. I haven't had a chance to research cures yet.'

He shrugged. ‘Ginger can be good. Ginger biscuits, dry ginger ale—that sort of thing.'

He blew on his tea before taking a sip, and it was only then, through the mirage of steam, that she realised his eyes weren't black, as she'd originally thought, but a deep, rich brown.

When he kinked a questioning eyebrow, she dragged her gaze away and added ‘ginger' to her list. ‘I'll pop into town tomorrow.'

‘Has it been happening mostly at night?'

‘It's been happening all over the place.' Why hadn't anyone warned her about this?

‘Having something in your stomach is supposed to help. When you go to bed take a banana or some biscuits with you. When you wake up through the night just have a bite or two. It'll help.'

‘How on earth do you know all this?' She took another sip of her lemon and hot water concoction. Her stomach was starting to calm down. ‘Don't get me wrong. I'm grateful. I really think this is working.'

He set his mug down with a snap. ‘Tammy, my wife, had morning sickness pretty bad with Jason.'

Of course! She glanced around. ‘Is she away at the moment?' It would be nice to have another woman to talk to about all this.

‘She's dead.'

Keira froze, and then very slowly turned back. She knew exactly how wide her eyes had gone, but for the life of her she couldn't make them go back to their normal size.

‘She died three years ago.' The words dropped out of him, curt and emotionless.

Oh!
‘Oh, Luke, I'm so sorry.' Idiot! Anyone with eyes in their head could see this place lacked a woman's touch. Perhaps that explained why there were no Christmas decorations, too.

‘It was three years ago,' he repeated, his voice flat.

As if three years meant anything!

He might not look heartbroken—she suspected Luke Hillier was not the kind of man to wear his heart on his sleeve—but it explained why he looked so worn out, run down…worn down. She promptly forgave him for all his gruffness and shortness to her earlier in the day.

‘I don't think it matters if it's been three years, five years or ten years. My mother died ten years ago and I still miss her.' Especially at this time of year.

‘Tammy and I had already separated before she died. A separation I instigated.'

Her heart lurched at the pain that momentarily twisted his features. What? Did he think that meant he wasn't deserving of sympathy? ‘You and Tammy had a child together. That's a bond that can never be broken.' And Jason—how he must ache for Jason's loss.

‘Says you…' his lips twisted ‘…who's having a baby on her own.'

Yes, well, there was a good reason for that. But he didn't
give her a chance to explain. He shot to his feet and tipped what was left of his tea down the sink. ‘I'm going back to bed.'

He almost made it to the door before spinning back to the pantry. He grabbed a packet of digestives and shoved them at her. ‘Take these to bed with you, just in case.'