Two Against the Odds (11 page)

Steve, the type 2 diabetic, stood at Lexie's feet. “You know how she forgets to eat when she's painting. Her blood sugar's probably low.”

“Enough!” Lexie flung her hands up. Everyone stared expectantly at her. “Thank you for your
concern but… Oh, God, I might as well tell you. Yes, I'm overworked but I'm not sick.” She paused a beat. “I'm pregnant.”

There was a shocked silence, then pandemonium broke out. Questions, congratulations, expressions of concern for her health, her ability to provide for herself and her child. Lexie's struggle to make ends meet was no secret.

“Hold on,” Steve said in a loud voice. “We're forgetting the most important thing. Who's the father?”

Lexie groaned inwardly, knowing what was coming. “Rafe.”

Steve looked blank. “Rafe who?”

“The tax accountant who was auditing her,” Hetty said, beaming. “He's lovely.”

“I don't think I met him,” Jack said.

“He was only here a week,” Sienna explained.

“That was some audit, Lexie,” Renita said, smiling.

“A week?” Steve said, incredulous. “You're pregnant by a guy you knew for a week?”

Her father's negative reaction set the rest of them off again, talking over, across and around her. Lexie hut her eyes. She loved her family to bits but sometimes she wished they would all just go away.

Then she opened her eyes again and tried to catch Steve's attention. “Excuse me, Dad.” He was asking Sienna about pregnancy and blood sugar. “Dad!”

“What is it, sweetheart?”

She glanced at Hetty to include her. “Will you two go together to Toastmasters and yoga?”

Steve and Hetty glanced at Lexie, then at each other, warily. Neither seemed willing to speak first.

“Do it for your grandchild,” Renita admonished quietly.

At the thought of a grandbaby Hetty brightened. Then she glanced at Steve and stopped smiling.

Lexie started to lose hope. “Please, Mum.”

Hetty wavered another long moment. “Yes, all right.”

All eyes turned to Steve. Finally, he said gruffly, “If I can stand up and give a speech I guess it'd be a snap to meditate. Heck, they just sit around and say nothing. And I'll do yoga as long as I don't have to wear a leotard.”

“Thank you,” Lexie said, relieved they were going to try.

And that they'd stopped talking about Rafe.

 

R
AFE STRUGGLED
against the return to consciousness. His eyes were glued shut. He had the mother of all headaches and a thirst bigger than the outback. He could hear the rumble of train wheels, feel the vibration through his seat. He was leaning against the wall, a strip of cool metal beneath his left cheek. The frame around a window.

He rubbed his eyes, blinked a few times. It took a moment to focus. When he did, he sat up straight.

It was broad daylight.

Wheat fields stretched to the horizon, broken by the ragged and meandering row of river red gums that told of a dried-up creek bed running roughly parallel to the tracks.

Holy hell. This sure wasn't Sassafras.

He glanced at his watch. Eleven o'clock.

“Excuse me,” he said to a trio of teenage boys sitting in facing seats across the aisle. Dressed in jeans and plaid shirts, they held felt hats in their laps. Ten years ago, before he'd left for the city, he'd looked very much as they did. “Where are we?”

“Western District,” a boy with gelled blond hair said. “Next town is Horsham.”

The other two teens sniggered. One said, “Don't you know where you're going?”

Rafe rubbed a hand through his hair. It felt dirty and oily. Looking down, he saw that his shirt was creased and stained and there was a rip in his pants over the right knee. “Sure I do,” he said slowly. “I'm going to see my folks.”

He just didn't know why. Or what he was going to tell them when he got there.

 

T
WENTY MINUTES LATER
, Rafe stepped onto the platform, squinting in the bright sunlight unbroken by cloud or trees. With a whistle blow, the train chugged off for Adelaide. He followed the other disembarking passengers into the station and stopped to look at the
schedule. The train back to Melbourne wasn't coming through until tomorrow.

Stepping outside into the shade of the broad eaves, he pulled out his cell phone and dialed his mother's cell phone. “Mum?” he said when she picked up.

“Rafe!” she said. “Where are you?”

“At the train station. Any chance you could come and get me?”

“I'm at work. Is something wrong?”

“Why should there be something wrong?”

“Because we don't hear from you from one month to the next and then you turn up out of the blue…” She trailed off but he could hear her exasperation. “You're not in trouble, are you?”

“There've been… I could take a taxi.” He glanced toward the empty taxi stand. If a guy could even find a cab in this one-horse burg.

“No, no. I'll be there in about fifteen minutes.”

“Thanks.” Rafe hung up and walked back into the station. He bought a bottle of water out of the vending machine and downed it in one long chug. At least when he got to the house he could get some painkillers for this hangover.

His mother came for him in a dusty white Ford that backfired as she came to a halt out front of the station. She was wearing her uniform from the pharmacy—navy pants and a red-and-navy flowered top. She was dark, like him, with her thick black hair tamed into a ponytail.

Rafe climbed in and gave her a peck on the cheek. “Car could use a tune-up.”

Ellen Ellersley stared at him. “What happened to you? Your clothes are filthy and torn. You've got dirt on your cheek. Your hair makes you look like a wild man.”

“Is that all?” Rafe asked, grinning. “That's not so bad.”

“You stink to high heaven.” She shook her head but her voice softened as she asked again, “What happened?”

Rafe looked straight ahead. “I went out for a few drinks after work before I caught the train.”

“A few?” Ellen asked drily.

She put the car in gear and drove through the quiet streets of the country town to drop him off at home, a pale green house on a corner lot with a wide paved path to the door and a ramp instead of steps. “I'll be back in a couple of hours.”

“Thanks, Mum.” He gripped her in an awkward one-arm hug. “I appreciate it.”

“Oh, Rafe.” She gave him a tired smile. “It's good to see you, even if you do look like something the cat dragged in.”

Rafe let himself into the house and toed off his shoes to walk sock foot down the hall to his old room. He found a pair of old jeans and a T-shirt in his dresser and carried them back down the hall to the
bathroom. He pushed open the door. And just about jumped out of his skin.

His father was swinging himself off the frame around the toilet with his powerful arms, onto his wheelchair. His pants were still half down around his naked butt.

“Jeez, Dad, you scared the shit out of me.” Rafe studied the floor, reluctantly adding, “Do you need help?”

“You know I don't.” Darryl Ellersley braced his elbows on the arms of his chair to yank his loose-fitting trousers up to his waist. His coarse sandy hair was flattened on one side as if he'd just gotten out of bed. “What are you doing here?”

“I came on a whim.” He's aged, Rafe thought with a pang of regret. He really should see his parents more often. Stepping aside as his father wheeled out of the bathroom, he said, “I'm going to have a shower, okay?”

“'Course. Smells as if you need one.” Darryl spun the chair and gripped Rafe's hand. “You might want to ask if your boss could spring for a clothing allowance, too…. Good to see you, son.”

Rafe showered and changed into clean clothes. He walked to the kitchen, barefoot, hair still dripping.

His father had pulled his chair up to the table, a steaming mug in front of him. “Kettle's boiled. Help yourself to something to eat.”

“You want anything?”

“Nah, I'm fine.” Darryl pulled the paper over and turned to the crossword.

Rafe spooned instant coffee into a mug and poured in the water. He got milk out of the fridge then went back for eggs and ham. Setting the frying pan on the stove, he asked, “How's the clock repair business?”

“I'm run off my feet.”

“Good one, Dad.”

Darryl penciled in a couple of crossword answers.

“How's the tax business?”

“Fine.”

His father glanced up. “Now tell me the truth.”

Rafe cracked an egg into the pan and added a slice of ham. He slotted bread into the toaster. Finally, he admitted, “I'm probably going to get fired over my last audit.”

Darryl pointed his pencil at Rafe. “You're too softhearted. People take advantage of you.”

“It wasn't like that.”

His father waited. That was one thing about the old man being in a wheelchair for so many years. He'd acquired a patience that meant he could outlast anyone.

“We…had an affair.”

Darryl snorted and looked back at his crossword. “What's a three-letter word for donkey?”

Rafe flipped his eggs and ham onto a plate. Popping up the toaster before the toast was brown, he
slathered it with butter. Sitting, he stared at his plate. “That's not all. She's pregnant.”

“That was bloody stupid,” Darryl said, scowling. “Didn't I teach you to always use a condom?”

Rafe started eating. “Thought she was safe.”

“Are you sure the baby's yours?” Darryl asked. “Some women get knocked up, they just want a ride on the gravy train. I'd get a paternity test before I handed over any support payments, if I was you.”

Rafe stopped chewing. A paternity test.

“Nah, Lexie would know if the baby could be someone else's.” He forked up another bite of egg and ham.

“Still, it wouldn't hurt to ask.”

“W
HAT ARE YOU
going to do
?”
Ellen had come home from work and changed into jeans and a T-shirt. Now she'd tied an apron on and was mixing up meat loaf. His father had gone to his workshop leaving Rafe to tell his mother about Lexie, the baby and the work debacle.

“Babies scare me.” Rafe sat at the kitchen table peeling potatoes. “‘Give me food, change my diaper, look after me for the next umpteen years.'”

Ellen chuckled as she sprinkled herbs in with the meat. “It's different when they're your own.”

“How? In what way is it different?” Rafe demanded. To him all babies looked the same. Behaved the same way. Had the same debilitating effect on their parents. “It seems worse, if anything. Ever since my friends Chris and Laura had Jordon they have no time for anything else anymore.”

“You don't want to go out as much when you have children. You love them too much to want to be away from them.” Ellen slid the pan of meat loaf into the oven. “Your father was only twenty-one when you were born. I was barely nineteen. He didn't hesitate,
not for a second. As soon as I found out I was pregnant he asked me to marry him.”

“But you were in love, weren't you?”

Ellen smiled as she wiped her hands. “Yes, we were in love. The only difficult decision we had to make was whether or not Darryl would go to sea while I was pregnant.” She fell silent, her mouth drooping. “Well, you know how that turned out.”

Rafe dropped a potato into the pot of cold water and reached for another. “There's something I haven't told you or Dad yet. Lexie's thirty-eight.”

“Thirty-eight!” Ellen began cutting up the potatoes Rafe had peeled. “What was she thinking, getting mixed up with someone so much younger?”

“We weren't doing a lot of thinking,” Rafe said. “Not that her age matters. She doesn't want to marry me.”

“Thirty-eight.” Ellen placed the cut potatoes back in the pot. “I'm not sure I like this woman.”

“Everyone likes Lexie.” He was silent a moment. “Did you ever regret getting married and having a baby so young?”

Ellen didn't answer right away. Her knife hit the cutting board in short sharp thunks. With her head bowed he couldn't read her expression.

“Mom?” Rafe said. “Did you have regrets?”

“I wanted to be a nurse.” She glanced up with a wistful smile. “I got my wish, only not the way I
expected. After the accident your father needed a lot of care.”

“You could go back and do your training now.”

She glanced at him as if considering it. Then she shook her head. “Nah.” Putting down her knife, she gave Rafe a fierce hug. “I never regretted having
you,
not for a second.”

Rafe returned the hug, then eased back. “Hey, look at this.” He pulled the photo of his boat from his wallet. “Isn't she a beauty? Fifty-foot, twin four-fifty diesel engines. Goes like stink.”

Ellen's head came up. “It's yours?”

“I bought her last week. I'll probably be paying for her for the rest of my natural life but yeah, she's mine. I'm going to run a fishing charter. Someday.” He smiled. “Name of the boat.
Someday.
”

“Oh, Rafe. Congratulations. This is wonderful.” Ellen handed him back the photo. “Did you show your father?”

“No.” Rafe tucked it away. Slowly, he said, “I guess I didn't want to rub in the fact that I'm going to realize my dream when Dad never got to go after his.”

“Honey, your father is proud of you.” Ellen blinked, her smile teary. “He'd be pleased that you've achieved this.”

Rafe glanced up quickly. “You think so?”

“Absolutely.” She carried on chopping potatoes. Thoughtfully, she added, “Sometimes you don't know what you want until it happens. Don't be too quick
to write off fatherhood. And forget what I said about not liking Lexie. That was just me being protective of my son. You stand by the mother, do you hear?”

“I'll do the right thing.”

If he could only figure out what that was.

 

M
ONDAY MORNING
, Rafe walked into Larry's office and placed his letter of resignation on top of the file his boss was reading. On the train home from Horsham he'd decided that he could either wait, like a coward, for the ax to come down or fall on his sword.

“What's this?” Larry said before looking up. He frowned when he saw it was Rafe. “Trying to beat me to the punch, I see. Why did you do such a stupid-ass thing, anyway?”

Once-in-a-lifetime sex didn't seem like the kind of answer Larry was looking for so Rafe kept quiet.

Larry picked up Rafe's letter. He read it over, shaking his head. “Damn it, Rafe. You realize I have no choice but to accept this.”

Rafe worked his jaw. He'd harbored a faint hope that Larry would tear it up. “Do you want me to stay till you find a replacement or clean out my desk now?”

“We're seriously behind in these assessments…” Larry's face scrunched as he considered the problem. Then he waved a hand. “No, forget it. You blew it. You're out.”

Rafe cleared his throat. “Will you give me a reference?”

“Go,” Larry said, glaring at him.

“Right.” Rafe walked to the door. “Larry? I'm sorry.”

Larry didn't look up from his file. Rafe hesitated, and then turned away.

He trudged back to his cubicle past rows of accountants beavering away. Hands in his pockets, shoulders hunched, he tried to come to grips with the fact that he no longer worked at the tax office. Would no longer draw a paycheck.

The shame ate him hollow. He hated leaving this way. Sure, the job was tedious but in tax accounting he was an expert. What did he know about running a fishing charter?

Tina, a petite redhead, popped up to peer over her partition. “Rafe, can you spare a minute? I need some numbers crunched in a hurry.”

Any other time, no matter how busy he was, he would have helped out. “Sorry, Tina, no can do.”

“Oh,” Tina said, surprised. “Are you sure?”

“I'm sure.” Rafe left before she could ask any questions. He was in no mood to explain.

He grabbed an empty box from the printer room for his personal things. At least Larry wasn't standing over him—he trusted Rafe enough not to steal the stationery or sabotage computer files.

“What's going on?” Chris stood in the cubicle
doorway as Rafe started dumping his coffee cup and his photos into the box.

Rafe just looked at him. “I'm toast.”

“You're fired?” Chris jerked to attention as if preparing to charge Larry's office.

“I beat him to the punch by a millisecond.”

“No way. Over Lexie?”

“Don't waste your protest march on me, mate.” Rafe moved on to his drawers. “I'm guilty as charged. I lost my independent state of mind.”

“But…” Chris's fists balled impotently.

Rafe had told his friend everything last Friday. There was no point in rehashing it; he just wanted to get out of here. He was relieved when Chris's phone rang and he had to answer it.

He continued to pack his personal items. Besides the coffee mug and photos, there was a comb, a roll of antacid tablets, novelty Christmas gifts he'd been given over the years, plus sundry other bits and pieces. The mundane task gave him a moment to regroup. It had been an emotional few days what with Lexie's announcement, telling his parents.

Resigning. Getting fired. Take your pick.

He picked up the Snoopy figurine on the top of his partition wall. Snoopy on his doghouse, fantasizing about shooting down the Red Baron. Turning it over in his hands, he thought of all the times he'd looked at it and longed to chuck the job and go fishing.

Now he was going to do it.

“Here, you go, mate,” he said, handing Snoopy to Chris when he finished his phone call. “I pass you the torch.”

Clasping the box under one arm, he held out his hand. The reality of his departure was starting to sink in. “I'll keep in touch. You and Laura have to come out on my boat.”

Chris gripped his hand and pulled him into a man hug. “I'll bring the champagne to crack over the bow. Don't forget to call me.”

“No worries.” His smile forced, Rafe walked backward a few steps then spun and strode away.

 

L
EXIE IGNORED
her rumbling stomach and concentrated on her brushstrokes. The spotting had stopped after a day, thank God, so, despite Sierra's warnings and her own worries, she hadn't bothered going back to see her doctor. Truly, she simply didn't have time.

But she was so tired she was almost swaying on her feet. She had to get Sienna's skin tone just…right while the light was good. She was minutes away from completing the portrait. She stepped back to survey her work critically, then added more colors to her palette, mixing and applying, layer after layer, racing against the sun's movement across the sky. When it dropped behind the trees lining the creek, her best working hours were finished.

In spite of her fatigue, she felt a quiet excitement
building inside her. Months of effort and long hours, half a dozen different versions, the agony and frustration of being blocked, the exhilaration of incorporating the molecular structure of DNA—it had all culminated in these final moments. It was hard to put down the brush, to make the decision to stop.

But she had to. The deadline had been creeping up and now it was here. The paint wouldn't be completely dry but she couldn't wait any longer. She needed to frame the painting, then crate it and have it shipped to Sydney today.

From the house she could hear the vacuum cleaner going as Hetty cleaned for her. Lexie tried to block the sound. Now that her family knew she was pregnant they all wanted to help. She was grateful, she really was, but having anyone in the house was a distraction. All she wanted to do was finish the portrait and get it to Sydney.

Then she could figure out the rest of her life.

The vacuum cleaner turned off. Lexie's shoulders relaxed. She touched her brush in the white paint and started to put the final, almost microscopic, dabs of highlight on Sienna's cheek that would give her skin a luminous quality.

“Lexie, I'm going to the store now,” Hetty said from the doorway. “Have you made a list of groceries?”

Her fingers tightened around the thin wooden brush. “No, Mum,” she said without looking around.
“Just get anything that's quick and easy to cook. But healthy.” A second later she remembered to say, “Thank you.”

“I'll be back shortly,” Hetty said, and left.

Alone at last.

She glanced out the window. Only five minutes or so left. If she could just finish…

Someone was standing in the doorway to the studio. She could sense a presence even though no one had spoken. It was probably Renita. She'd said she might drop by this afternoon.

“I'll just be a minute, Renita,” Lexie said. “Do you want to go put the kettle on?” In other words, wait in the house.

Concentrating, she finished the last strokes. Finally she put down her brush and arched her back to stretch it, hands on her hips, as she stepped back and critically assessed her painting. It was good.

It was…done.

Oh my God. She was finally finished. Unexpected tears welled in her eyes. She wiped them away, smiling. Finally, it was over. And she was happy with the painting. Happier than with anything else she'd ever painted.

Just one more thing…. She dipped a fine brush in dark red. In the lower right-hand corner she signed her name in flowing script.

A smile on her lips, she turned.

Rafe.

She jerked back, knocking the table holding her palette. Tubes of paint spilled to the floor. She crouched to retrieve them, thankful for the distraction. “W-what are you doing here?”

He was leaning against her doorjamb, arms crossed. “I've come to talk.”

Lexie's mouth dried. She drank in his long lean frame in a T-shirt and dark denim, the three-day stubble and thick shock of black hair. And those eyes, deep and dark, studying her.

Then she remembered that the last time she'd seen him she'd cried.

His eyes went to her painting. “I like it,” he said, nodding to the easel. “The background was a stroke of genius.”

She didn't need his praise, didn't need anything from him. “It's done. That's all I care about. Now I just need to ship it.”

He pushed off the door frame, jammed his hands in his back pockets. “Can you spare a few minutes? We need to talk,” he repeated. “About the baby.”

Lexie's gaze dropped to his sock feet. Her defenses nearly crumbled. He didn't want to be a father but he'd remembered to take off his shoes in her house. “Just let me clean up.”

She slotted her used brushes into the jar of turpentine and wiped her stained fingers with a turps-soaked rag. Then she pulled off her smeared painting shirt and threw it over her stool.

Rafe waited at the door for her to precede him. They walked back to the house across the grass, three feet separating them. Lexie put the kettle on automatically.

“I don't want anything to drink, thanks,” Rafe said.

“I do.” Lexie opened a tea canister and plunked a herbal teabag in a cup. She rarely drank hard liquor, and of course she wouldn't now that she was pregnant. But right this minute she wished she had a shot of scotch. “You should have called first.”

“I wasn't sure you'd see me.” He paused. “How are you?”

She pushed back her hair, her chin high. “Fine. My family has been great. Very supportive.”

He flinched, telling her that her shot had hit home.

“
You
look like hell,” she added, wanting to wound him.

His hand went automatically to his belly. “I'm fine.”

Fine? She didn't think so. He needed a haircut and his stomach was obviously still hurting him. She got out another cup and dug around for a peppermint teabag. The silence stretched out, broken by the quiet roar of the water in the kettle as it heated.