A Baby on Her Christmas List (15 page)

But he had still never said the word ‘love’ to her. Not about her or his child. Or about anyone or anything, for that matter, ever. He was all locked up in the tragedy of his baby sister and it was desperately sad but she wanted him to love someone.

She wanted him to love her.

And he couldn’t. Because if he did he wouldn’t be heading off on some mission that he didn’t need to go on. He’d be here, holding her hand and planning a happy Christmas, supporting her in her last couple of months of pregnancy.

Was it too much to ask? Was she expecting too much?

No. It was what every couple strove for. She wanted him to feel the same way about it all as she did. She wanted him to share that excitement she felt whenever she lay in his arms. The way her heart soared when he was inside her. The sensation of utter completeness when he looked at her, when he made her laugh. She wanted him to love her and the baby the way she loved him. Wholly. Totally. Without reservation.

And there it was. The naked, ugly truth. She’d fallen in love with him.

When she should have been putting all her attention into this baby, she’d gone and fallen for its father—the wrong kind of man to love.

No.

She tried not to show her alarm and fixed her face as best as she could into an emotion-free mask as she walked away from him, while he stared at her uncomprehendingly, his hand on the doorhandle.

No. Don’t go
. She wanted to shout it at him. To hurl herself at him and be a barrier between him and the door. But what would be the point? Letting him go was the right thing to do. What was the point in making someone stay, hoping they would learn to love you? Hoping...

She loved him. Completely. Devastatingly. Instead of protecting herself against more heartache, she’d allowed her life to be bowled over by a man who couldn’t and wouldn’t ever love her. It was a simple and as difficult as that. How stupid.

And now, even worse, she was tied to him for ever. She’d insisted on that. And he’d agreed. He’d torn up the contract in a dramatic gesture of commitment and determination that had both impressed and scared her. And despite everything she knew about him, she’d believed him and somewhere deep inside a little light had fired into life and it had grown and she’d hoped...

And now the light had blown right out.

Because, after all, she’d been the silly one in all this, she’d allowed herself to dream, had allowed herself to slip under his spell, had willingly given her heart to him. He’d always been upfront. And you couldn’t be more upfront than jumping on the first plane out of Dodge.

Liam had been right all along. Love could be damned cruel. She could never let him know. ‘I need you to leave. Now. I need you to go, Liam.’

‘Georgie—’

‘Go. I have to work.’ She watched the door close behind him, and almost cried out, almost declared herself, to see if that would make a difference to him going or staying. But she wasn’t about to play games, give him tests, make him say something he’d regret. Or that they’d both regret.

But, still, nothing took away from the fact that she loved him. She had probably always loved him—as a friend, as someone who she could confide in and share a joke with. He was, deep down, a good man who was conflicted, who was trying to hide from hurt, and after his experiences who could blame him? His flaws made him even more likable. Falling romantically in love with him had been the icing on the cake and she would be proud for her child to have him as a father. One day she would tell him that. When she could look him in the face again. When her heart had stopped shattering into tiny pieces.

With shaking hands she picked up her shopping bags, took out the tinsel and gaudy baubles and threw them on the table. That would be for later, for a time when she felt like celebrating. Right now Christmas loomed ahead a sad and sorry affair. A Christmas without Liam. She’d wrapped him up in her festive excitement, made him the best present a girl could have, and he’d gone. Left her, just like her mother had.

One day she’d find someone who wanted her enough to stay around.

She took a few deep breaths, swiped a hand across her face and caught a tear. And another one. Then gave up the fight and let them flow.

My God,
she thought as she looked in the staff-room mirror, she needed to pull herself together; this clinic could be hard enough without the nurses falling apart, too.

‘Come on, girl.’ Plumped up her cheeks and dried her eyes. ‘There are plenty who are much worse off.’ Like the people Liam was going out to save. Like the ones she had booked in now, who looked to her for support and advice. Who didn’t have a healthy baby in their bellies. Who needed her dedication and attention to get them through. She allowed herself two more tears. Exactly that. One for her, one for her baby, then she took another deep breath, put on her game face and went back out into the world.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Two weeks ago...

L
IAM
LURCHED
AGAINST
the cold hard passenger seat as the Jeep bumped over potholes along the pitted dirt track. ‘Man, these roads don’t get any better. I’m going to be covered in bruises before we get to the camp.’

‘Aren’t you pleased to be back?’ Pierre Leclerc shouted above the din of the engine, his words tinted with his French-Canadian accent and vestiges of the countless places he’d visited in his long aid career. He cracked a booming laugh and hit Liam on the thigh. ‘We missed you.’

‘Ah, shucks, mate, I missed you too.’ Like hell he’d missed them. He’d struggled every kilometre, every minute of the interminable flight, the uncomfortable transit, the stench. The seven-day layover in Juba, getting supplies, waiting for the right documents, stuck in bureaucratic hell. The long drive out here. Every second wishing he’d had the courage to stay in Auckland with Georgie.

He just couldn’t get rid of the memory of her. All grumpy and stroppy, stomping down the crowded street, the swing of her backside, the tense holding of her shoulders, the swish of her ponytail. The closed-off posture. The truth of her words.
Our friendship is ruined
. But it was all too late.

Pierre leaned across. ‘I hope you bought us something decent for our Christmas stockings?’

‘I have something to help us forget, if that’s what you mean.’ Patting his duty-free purchases of rum and whisky, he joined in the laughter, trying to be friendly, wishing like mad he was back in New Zealand, far away from this nightmare of dry earth and flies.

I made a mistake,
he thought.
I made a million of them
.

They pulled into the camp compound, the dull corrugated roof of the medical building half-hidden by a layer of brown sand whipped up by the morning wind. A thin pale grey sky stretched above them, promising little relief from the scorching sun.

Liam looked around at the thousands of tents and crudely made straw structures lining the gravel and mud path. Sun-bleached rags, tied between sticks and corrugated metal, provided the best shelter they could from relentless heat. A group of women huddled around a water tap. ‘It hasn’t changed at all.’

‘Nothing much changes around here. It’s like
Groundhog Day
.’ Pierre pulled out a handkerchief and swiped it across his forehead. ‘People still arrive every day seeking help, and we still struggle to house them, to feed them, to provide adequate clean water. There aren’t enough toilets, the kids are all getting sick. Nothing changes at all.’

Except last time Liam couldn’t wait to get here. And this time he couldn’t wait to leave. ‘So, what’s planned for today?’

‘Immunisation programme. Training the new assistants so they can go on and run it solo.’

‘Okay. Let’s do it.’ Liam jumped down into the fog of red dust created by the Jeep wheels.

Within seconds, dozens of semi-naked children appeared screaming, laughing and singing, surrounding Liam and Pierre and clinging to their legs. Such joy in everything, even in the direst circumstances. But that was kids for you: they didn’t overthink, they didn’t worry or analyse, they just got on with life, running forward to the next great adventure. There was a lesson there.

Pierre steered him into the medical centre. As they squeezed past the long queue of sick people waiting to be treated Liam found himself wondering where to begin, but as always Pierre had the routine down like clockwork. And Liam easily slipped back into it.

‘Okay, your turn.’ He beckoned to a mother holding a small child in her arms. ‘How old?’

The woman looked at him, not understanding. She offered him the child, a boy of about twelve months, scrawny and lethargic with the telltale potbelly signs of malnutrition.

‘He’s about one year and a half.’ The base nurse translated the woman’s local dialect, ‘His name is Garmai. Just out of the supplementary feeding programme two weeks ago.’

Liam checked him over and measured the child’s arm circumference to determine the extent of malnutrition. Garmai would probably spend the best part of his life growing up in a refugee camp, his home town too dangerous to go back to as rebels terrorised the streets and drought stole their crops. So different from the life his own child would lead in New Zealand, where water came through invisible pipes below the ground, machines worked with the swipe of a finger and food was plentiful.

And a father half a world away
.

What the hell had he been thinking?

‘Eighteen months old? Really?’ He spoke to the nurse. ‘It looks like he still has signs of mild malnutrition. He needs to go back to the feeding centre, not stay here where he’s probably only going to get sick again.’

‘There isn’t room. They discharged him because there’s too many more coming every day.’

‘They’ll have to make room. This child needs help and I don’t want a half-hearted effort.’ He turned and smiled at the mother, trying to dredge some hope when there was little. ‘I’m going to have a child. To be a father.’

He’d never given any personal information to anyone here before, not even to the staff—but the words just tumbled out. Pride laced his voice as his thoughts returned again to Georgie for the umpteenth time that day, along with the familiar sting of regret and yet startling uplift of his heart. Every thought of her brought a tumbling mish-mash of emotions and a fog of chaos. ‘Soon. Very soon.’

The mother gave him a toothy grin and gabbled something to him, but a high-pitched scream grabbed their attention. A heavily pregnant woman half walked, half crawled into the room, clutching her stomach. She was immediately ushered back out and into the emergency area by two nurses.

Georgie?
Georgie.
Of course it wasn’t Georgie. He’d left her to face her biggest challenge alone back at home. How would she cope with the pain of childbirth? Did she have a plan? Why the hell hadn’t he made sure she had a plan? He’d phone her again, at least try to, tonight, and make sure she was okay. That was, of course, if she ever deigned to speak to him again. Her silence had been deafening.

Unlike the squawk of chattering voices and laughter and screams that filled the room as a huddle of women walked towards the emergency area. He looked up at the nurse for an explanation. ‘The pregnant woman’s sisters, here to help.’

‘Great. She’ll need some support.’ He looked back at the boy, then jerked his head up again at another straggle of women walking through the room.

‘The birthing attendants. The mother’s mother. Her aunts.’

‘Are they going to have a party or something? There’s a lot of them.’

The nurse beamed. ‘Of course. Family is very important here.’

As it was to Georgie. And she was going to be alone.

And that was his fault.

Watching those people come together to help their sister, to celebrate family in all its messy glory, made his heart clutch tight and he realised that Georgie had been wrong about one thing: he did want the same dream. He’d spent the last nine months trying to fight it with his head, but his hands had worked on her house, her garden, building a home for them all, a home that he loved. His arms had held the woman he adored, cradled her belly holding the baby he so desperately wanted.

For the first time in years he saw his own needs with startling clarity. He wanted to look forward instead of back. He wanted to be a father his child would be proud of. He wanted a family.

Hell, Georgie had even got him thinking about his own mother and father. And how much, deep down, he wanted to make some kind of contact with them again. He’d make a start tonight. He’d phone them and tell them they were going to be grandparents.

He wanted to be part of something good. He wanted somewhere to call home, a community of friends. Someone to love. And to be loved. The same simple dreams as every single person in this camp. He just hadn’t realised it until now.

Most of all he wanted Georgie, with such a passion it stripped the air from his lungs. But he knew her heart came with a proviso. He had to love her. She wouldn’t accept any less than that.

He had to love her.
Had to?
Could he do that? He sat for a moment and that thought shook through him like a physical force. He let her image fill his brain, suffuse his body with so many wild emotions. His throat filled with a raw and unfettered need.

Man, how he wanted her. He missed everything about her. He wanted her. Dreamt about her, saw her soft beautiful eyes in everyone’s here, her kindness in the gentle touch of strangers, her compassion, her independence that frustrated and endeared her to him. He missed her so intensely it hurt. He needed to touch her, to lie with her, to fight with her. And, of course, to make love to her over and over and over. And such a need and such a want could only amount to one thing.

He did love her.

He’d been fighting so hard to protect himself he hadn’t seen the single most important thing that had been happening.

God.
He loved her and he’d walked away. No, he’d
run
away, afraid of how much she made him feel things. He’d messed up everything and now was it too late to start again? Would she even let him in the house? Would she let him love her?

Did she love him back?

He needed to know. He needed to make things right. He needed to go home.

A scream and a healthy wail echoed through the flimsy walls. New life. New beginnings. Not just for that family in there. But for him. Being here reminded him how fragile life was, and he needed to spend the rest of it with the woman he loved.

It was time to act. He needed to get back to her. Before Christmas, before the baby came. Before he lost any more time being here instead of there. He stood up and realised that a queue of people had formed, all staring at him in this tin-roofed lean-to in a place, it seemed, even God had forgotten.

Damn
. He’d made too many mistakes and being here was one of them.

But how the hell to get out of this godforsaken dustbowl and bridge the fifteen thousand kilometre gap to be home in time?

Christmas Eve...

‘Kate? Is that you? Hey, it’s Georgie. From the clinic.’ Georgie gripped the phone to her ear and tried to keep her feelings in check. This part was always the most emotional bit of her job but she wished, just this once, that she could see Kate’s face when she told her the news. Knowing exactly how her patient would be feeling at this moment, she wanted to wrap her in a hug. In fact, wrapping anyone in a hug would be lovely—it felt so long since she’d done that. One month, two days and about twelve hours, to be exact. Not that she was counting.

And the loneliness was dissipating a bit now, especially when she distracted herself. Which she felt like she had to do most minutes of most hours, because he was always on her mind. Just there. The look on his face as she’d called the whole thing off, haunting her. But it had been the right thing to do. A very right thing.

‘Yes?’ Kate’s voice wavered. The line was crackly. ‘Yes?’

‘I’ve got the results from the blood test you came in for earlier today.’

A sharp intake of breath. ‘Yes?’

‘So...’ Georgie read out all the numbers, knowing that this gobbledegook would mean the difference between heartache and ecstasy for this couple. ‘So, all that means we have good news. Great news. You have a positive pregnancy test. Looks like you’re going to have a very happy Christmas. Huge congratulations. I know how much this means to you.’

There was a slight pause then a scream. ‘Oh. My God. Really? Really? Are you sure?’

Georgie couldn’t help her smile. Her heart felt the fullest it had in a month. Since, exactly, the moment she’d watched Liam disappear from the clinic. ‘Yes. It’s very early days, obviously, and we still have to take one day at a time. But, yes, you are pregnant.’

‘Oh, thank you. Thank you so much. Mark will be so thrilled. I know how much he wanted this. We both do. We can’t thank you enough.’

Georgie ignored the twist in her heart at the thought of how gloriously happy this couple would be, together. Expecting a baby, making a family. Of how much Mark would be involved, and how much his love and concern for his wife always shone through his face.

It did not matter, she kept telling herself, that she was facing all this on her own. She would be fine and one day, maybe, she’d find a man who wanted her too. ‘Okay, so we need to make another appointment for you for a few days’ time to check the HCG levels are rising as well as we want them to, which means you’ll have to come in before the New Year,’ Georgie explained. ‘I also need to book you an ultrasound scan...’

‘Not long to go for you now?’ Kate asked, after they’d finished the business end of the call. ‘How are you feeling? Excited?’

‘Very. There’s just over a month to go and I don’t feel remotely ready. I still have heaps of shopping to do, and I haven’t even thought about preparing my delivery bag.’

‘Get your man to spoil you rotten over the holidays, then. Make him do the fetching and carrying while you put your feet up.’

Familiar hurt rolled through her. Emails had been sporadic. Phone calls virtually non-existent. The only news she got was on the TV or radio. But even then she wished she hadn’t heard anything. Too many people being killed. It was too unsafe. And all this stress just couldn’t be good for the baby, so in the end she’d switched the damned TV off and played Christmas music to calm her down. ‘He’s overseas at the moment. I’m not sure when he’ll be back.’

‘That’s a shame. What are your plans for Christmas?’

‘Oh, just a quiet one at home.’ She thought about her Christmas tree with the lavish decorations that she’d eventually found the motivation to finish last night. The small rolled turkey she’d bought and the DVDs of old Christmas movie favourites stacked up waiting for her to watch in the evenings. It was going to be an old-style Christmas, just her and Nugget. Not what she’d hoped for. And that was fine. It really was.

‘Well, have a good one.
Kia kaha.
’
Stay strong.

‘Yes, thanks. Bye.’ Georgie smiled as she put the phone in the cradle. Broken heart or not, she fully intended to.