Midwife in a Million (8 page)

She looked at Rory with pure agony in her eyes. A devastation she’d carried bottled up for ten years. Rory wanted to kill someone for doing this to his Kate.

‘I never saw who our baby looked like. What colour his hair was. The shape of his ears or hands—
nothing.’ She gazed into the fire. ‘I think I could have borne it better if I’d said goodbye.’

Rory struggled with the monsterlike actions of a man who should have looked after her. ‘Your father had no right to leave you to face that alone.’

She shrugged and rolled her shoulders to loosen the tension in her neck. ‘For a long time I pleaded for information on what had happened. He kept saying, “Nothing happened. Forget it. There never was a baby.’” She shook her head at the concept.

‘By the time I’d left boarding school I was strong enough to stand up to him and I demanded the address of the funeral home. I even hoped faintly that the baby hadn’t died, maybe he’d adopted him out, but I searched Perth, found Fairmont Gardens and there was a plaque. I’d found him. Baby of Kate Onslow. Lived for a day, and the date.’

Rory felt sick with self disgust. ‘What date, Kate?’

She stared into the fire. ‘The third of August. He’d been eight weeks premature and I’d never had a chance to name him.’

Rory looked at Kate and didn’t know what to do—or say. She’d never forgive him for this. No wonder she hated him. ‘I’m so sorry.’

‘I don’t blame you.’ But her voice was flat and broken with memories and his heart ached for this woman who’d meant the world to him—still meant the world to him.

He tried to imagine what a young girl without a
mother, or anyone to hug her, could do in the beginning to ease that pain. He guessed there wasn’t much she could do without support except brick it up and try not to think about it. ‘Did you go home at all?’

‘No.’ She shook her head vehemently. ‘Why would I? I boarded in Perth and studied every minute to give myself choices. That’s when I decided I’d stay for uni and do my midwifery. I’d be there for young mums.’ She looked at him. ‘This is the first time I’ve been back to Jabiru and you had to turn up.’

Rory couldn’t grasp that she’d shut him out when she’d most needed him. ‘It’s been ten years. What about later? You never told me.’

She looked at him but there was no expression on her face. After what she’d just said. No expression. That scared him most of all.

‘What was I supposed to do? Write to you and say—by the way, guess what happened? Ruin your life too?’

He needed to reach her. ‘My life was ruined when you wrote to me and told me never to come back.’

She shook her head. Not wanting to hear that. ‘I was scared. Scared what my father would do to you. He warned me he’d ruin you if I contacted you. Ruin your family, who still worked for him. And I was scared that, if I told you, you’d never do the things you wanted to do. I know how important moving up in life was for you, Rory. I didn’t want your bitterness and disappointment to be my fault if you’d come
back to look after me.’ She looked away. ‘Then it was too late. I didn’t want to talk about it. I still don’t.’

‘You were more important than my career.’ It was his turn to deny. But, in all honesty, would he have had that clarity in his youth? ‘I would never have blamed you. We would have made it somehow.’ He reached out his hand to her. ‘Kate, I would have been there for you. I’m here now.’

She ignored it. ‘It’s too late for us, Rory. I don’t want a husband. When my father dies I’ll sell Jabiru Station and go back to Perth. It’s time to go back. I’ll open a refuge for pregnant women, plaster its availability everywhere, give young women options that they might not otherwise get.’

It couldn’t end this way. ‘You can do that and still see me.’

She shook her head at him like he was a child. Like the child he was beginning to feel against her implacable wisdom. ‘You’re still in love with someone who doesn’t exist, Rory. The sixteen-year-old girl you left. I’m not that girl. I never will be again.’

This couldn’t be it. After the glimmer of hope when he’d found out she’d never married. After the rapport they’d shared in flashes only today. There could be more of those. ‘I could love the woman she’s become.’

One decisive shake of her head. ‘I don’t think so.’ Then she lifted her chin and said the saddest thing yet. ‘Because if I can’t love myself how can you?’

Oh, Kate. What had he done? ‘You were too young to cope with that on your own. I was careless and unprepared for what happened that afternoon but I should have come back to check you were all right. I’m sorry I let you down, Kate.’

‘I don’t want to talk about it any more, Rory. Just know…’ here she paused, and Rory knew he wasn’t going to like what was coming ‘…I’ve been powerless. I’ve been excluded in consultation on what affects me and, worst of all, unable to keep myself or my child safe, and I won’t ever be like that again. I am in charge of my own destiny.’ She turned her face to look into the fire. ‘I’m going to run my own life and nothing or no one is going to change that.’

That finality struck into his heart like a shard of ice.

But it pricked his anger as well. That wasn’t fair. Rory frowned. ‘I’m not trying to change you, Kate, but I’m not a nobody, harassing you. I’m your friend, the man who wanted to marry you, someone who knows you inside and out—or did—ten years ago. I loved you, Kate, as you were, and I could love you as you are now. I’m just trying to be here for you.’

He took her hand and, when she didn’t respond, he slipped his arm around her and drew her close. ‘I’m not going to pressure you. Ever. Though maybe we could call a truce. Share some grief that affects both of us.’

After the initial stiffness she did slightly relax against him as she thought about it. It did affect both
of them. It was a new concept that maybe she’d been too buried in her own misery to think about before.

She hadn’t given in, but truce was a good word and sharing the memories of that time with Rory, the only person she had ever shared them with, was painful but strangely healing. She thought for the first time of Rory as her baby’s other parent. And for her possibly selfish assumption that it wouldn’t matter to him if he didn’t know. Maybe she did owe him an apology.

‘Kate—’ he squeezed her hand ‘—is it too late to give our son a name? It’s so sad we can’t call him anything. Acknowledge our baby as a real person who will always be a part of our lives, no matter how fleeting.’

The sting of tears Rory’s comment caused made Kate blink and she wished just once she could turn towards him and sob in his arms. Why couldn’t she cry?

A name? For their son who flew away ten years ago. She looked at Rory, in his eyes such concern that she realised he worried his question hurt her. The ice inside melted a little more. ‘I always liked Cameron,’ she said softly, and squeezed his hand back.

‘Cameron Onslow-McIver.’ He lifted her fingers to his mouth and turned her hand to kiss her palm. The gentlest benediction. ‘Our son.’

So they sat there as the fire died, occasionally talking but mostly just leaning into each other and Kate could feel the easing of the burden she’d carried
for so many lonely years. That pain would never go but Rory had not done the one thing she’d feared above everything. He hadn’t said her baby didn’t matter.

I
T WAS
six a.m. and the sun was dusting the horizon pink when Rory woke. He doubted Kate had slept well because the stretcher bed had creaked all night and he’d bet she wished she’d swapped places with him in his quiet swag.

He rolled over onto his back and stared at the tree branches lacing the sky at the edge of his vision. He needed to find a way to keep open the chink in Kate’s barriers against him. Maybe then he could also ease the burden that Kate had carried for so long.

He could almost deal with the fact she didn’t want to spend the rest of her life with him. Almost.

What he couldn’t deal with was the memory of that despair in Kate’s face and the realisation that she’d done it alone when he should have been there. No wonder she hadn’t wanted to see him again.

He’d made decisions that had affected her without thinking of her choices. No matter that leaving to make his fortune for her had been in her best interests.

He sighed. Had it really been, though? Rory wondered sardonically to himself, not for the first time since he’d returned to the Kimberley. Hadn’t it all been about him feeling inferior to Kate’s family and needing to prove he could be bigger and better than they were? Were those goals—top man in the state, paramedic extraordinaire, independently wealthy to equal the Onslows—really for Kate or his own gratification?

It wasn’t a very nice picture he’d just painted and he doubted an apology would cut for what Kate had been through.

No wonder she hadn’t wanted to tell him about what had happened. He had to break down that reserve and it had better be before they got back to Jabiru or he’d never reach her. Because one thing was clear after last night—he still wanted Kate—and he wanted all of her.

Rory rose and rolled his swag. Kate was up before he’d poked the fire back into life for a mug of tea. ‘Sleep well?’

‘Hmm, no,’ she mumbled as she walked past him into the scrub. He smiled to himself. So his Kate still wasn’t a morning person.

They sipped tea and ate fruit before he tackled the truck. They jacked it up and Kate rolled the spare across to him, passing tools and clearing up when she wasn’t needed. Not a bad team, Rory thought, and they smiled with less tension between them as they went about their tasks. The truck was rolling within the hour.

Kate glanced at her watch. ‘You still think we’ll get home today?’

‘We’ll give it our best shot and as long as it hasn’t rained somewhere we don’t know about.’

‘This truck can manage most terrain.’ Kate patted the dash.

‘That’s my girl.’ Rory smiled at her and she frowned a warning at him.

‘Figure of speech,’ he said and Kate just shook her head. But he suspected there may have been a tiny smile there. It was a start. They used to laugh a lot together.

One thing he didn’t understand. ‘So if you hate your father so much, how can you stand to come back now?’

She huffed a sigh. ‘Why do we have to talk about me all the time? Let’s talk about you.’

He did understand her reluctance but this was important. ‘I’d really like to know, Kate. I’ll probably fly out of here as soon as the weather settles. Never bother you again, if that’s what you want.’ Lord, he hoped not. ‘But you can’t change that I do care about you. Or that I have some right to know why you cut me out of your life.’

She wouldn’t meet his eyes. ‘You do?’

‘You knew the letter you sent me was a lie and yet you let your father back in.’

She flicked a stray hair out of her face. ‘Don’t start again. I don’t need your opinion on what I do.’

‘I think you do.’ He glanced at her. ‘Besides, with
that mean and nasty attitude you have, there can’t be too many people who love you.’

She smothered a laugh and Rory smiled with her. He’d been the only one who’d dared to poke fun at her and he’d bet that hadn’t changed much.

She screwed her face up at him and grudgingly considered his question. ‘Why did I come back?’ She shrugged. ‘Because he’s my father and he asked me to come home. And he’s dying. And maybe I need to lay some of my own ghosts—’ she looked at him ‘—like you did.’

That was a start. ‘Fair enough.’ He met her eyes and then looked back at the road. ‘So why are you working at Jabiru Township?’

She shrugged again and he could tell she wanted this conversation finished. ‘There’s a need there. The clinic is my statement that I do my own thing. My father doesn’t control me but I’ll still see him.’ She glared at the windscreen as if her father were on the other side.

She went on, ‘As we’re dissecting my emotions, I think that being there for Lucy yesterday could help a lot with closure, especially as there’s a good outcome.’

Thank you, God, for brief windows of enlightenment, Rory thought, but he had so much more to fathom. He wanted to ask questions but she’d slipped into a reverie. He didn’t want to disturb the flow of her thoughts as he tried to grasp what was important to this new Kate.

As he’d hoped, she went on. ‘Lucy made the same mistakes as me but she was more fortunate. Does that make me a bad mother because my baby died and Lucy’s didn’t?’ She turned to Rory and he saw the moment she allowed herself to consider some absolution. She shook her head with relief. ‘Thank goodness Lucy’s baby is okay.’

Rory continued the concept she only seemed to be grasping now. ‘We both know that young mums and toxaemia happen pretty fast, sometimes with devastating results, but you couldn’t have known that when you were sixteen. Of course you were unlucky.’

Rory went on, ‘You made a good call for Lucy, Kate. Leaving Jabiru, not waiting until the weather set in; it would have been easy to hold off a decision until too late.’

Kate chewed her lip as she remembered. ‘I was so scared for Lucy and her baby.’

‘Well, you didn’t show it. Despite your own doubts. I thought you were amazing during the birth.’

She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, as if to block out the memory. ‘I lost it for a second.’ She shook her head and shuddered. ‘It all flashed back at me, you know, I’ve never had that before and, although everything was okay in the end, I never want to have those feelings again.’

‘Maybe you needed that moment to move on. I think you’re still too hard on yourself.’

‘Maybe. Maybe not.’ She shook her head. ‘I know
birth is run by nature. Without interference, it’s designed to run smoothly and that’s what happened to Lucy. Lucky Lucy.’

‘Lucky Lucy to have you.’

She frowned as if the thought remained unpalatable and brushed his comment away. ‘Flattery. You’re wasting your time because compliments mean nothing. And you’re still not invading my life.’

‘Damn.’ He felt like a spy peering over the top of the wall into a forbidden city and he couldn’t help but smile at her back-pedalling. ‘I thought I was doing well there.’

Too well
, Kate thought,
that’s the problem
, and she turned to look out of the window. She needed to keep some barriers up and Rory was systematically lowering them one by one. She wasn’t throwing away ten years of stoicism and independence because of a few kind words but it was hard not to slip back into that old security of his presence.

Rory slowed the truck and she looked ahead as they approached the first of the river crossings. This had been the deeper one on the way with Lucy and the river height had gained another six inches. As a cemented causeway it wasn’t as treacherous as a riverbank crossing but still the flow was much faster than before.

He pulled up and turned the engine off and they both climbed out to look. At least the rain had stopped and the weather was heading towards a mild day shrouded in cloud.

The roar of the water at the rapids further down almost drowned out the flow in front of them across the causeway. Rory knelt to pull off his riding boots and roll his trousers while Kate chewed her lip.

Past the causeway in the deeper part of the river the water looked to have a strong current in the middle and wild eddies down the side that swooped under overhanging trees.

Any other time it would be pleasant under those trees when not in flood but at the moment the branches swept the water and tangled anything that floated. With the amount of water that gushed past, it would relentlessly bombard anything, or anybody, washed into the branches with tons of never-ending water.

‘You sure you want to wade across there?’

Rory looked up at her from under his brows. ‘You just watch for crocs, though this crossing’s not as bad as the Pentecost for salties.’

‘The water looks fast.’ My word, it did, thought Kate, as she scanned the riverbank for movement and then followed a piece of bark that scooted past her and twirled around as if unseen hands under the water were spinning it in a game.

‘If I can’t walk the causeway, I won’t drive it,’ he said, ‘but I want to get closer to home than this. Don’t you?’

Kate agreed but it was more difficult than she’d expected to watch Rory prepare to take that risk.

They both looked downstream where the river
widened and shallowed and the trees poked out of the riverbed near the rushing middle.

Rory smiled reassuringly but Kate wasn’t feeling reassured and something he must have seen in her face made his eyes narrow. ‘I’m not planning to, but if I do get swept away I’ll be able to get out down there.’ He pointed. ‘I’ll be fine.’ He held her gaze. ‘Do not come to save me if I slide down.’

Kate had seen the clearer area he’d indicated but it still flowed too fast for comfort. The real rapids came after that and the thunder from them was what they could hear. Then, if he didn’t manage to stop himself, there was a fifty foot waterfall that plunged into the gorge to look forward to.

The images were far too graphic for Kate. ‘Let’s not play that game.’

There was an edge to his voice. ‘Promise you’ll stay out of the water, Kate.’

In all the years she’d known him, the only time she’d ever seen Rory really angry had been when she’d put herself in danger. The way he said it reminded her of a time she’d always blushed to remember.

That night Rory told her not to follow him out to the shed to save the duck she’d befriended from the chopping block
.

Rory was so nearly caught by Kate’s father, except Kate slipped into the shed and turned out the lights and he was able to get away. Her father never was
sure if a dingo had got the duck or Kate had been responsible but Rory was livid she’d put herself at risk. He flayed her with his anger so fiercely that she almost wished he’d shaken her instead; he didn’t speak to her for days. But she would have done it again if she’d needed to.

Today was like that. She couldn’t guarantee it.

‘Well, don’t get washed away.’

Rory grinned at her. ‘Kate. You really do care.’

Grrr. Typical man, laughing at danger. If men took fewer risks there’d be less danger. They were so stupid sometimes. ‘Oh, I care, but then I’d care if you were an animal.’ She pretended to ponder it. ‘Probably more.’

Rory looked suitably dashed. ‘Gee, thanks.’

He gave up his attempt to roll his jeans high enough and moved back to the truck, where he shucked them down and threw them on the driver’s seat.

‘Now do you care?’ He posed, hands on the strongly muscled thighs of his tanned legs, elbows bent like a male model as Kate tried not to see the whipcord body beneath his black boxers and shirt tails. Rory had certainly grown up.

She shrugged and looked away to hide her eyes. ‘Maybe. I’d probably care as much as an animal. Now, stop stressing me and move it,’ Kate said and turned her back. Actually, it was for her own protection because Rory looked far too sexy and danger
ous, and too dear to lose. Yet, despite their predicament, she was beginning to wish he’d taken off his shirt as well as his jeans so she could see what she couldn’t help imagining. What she should be thinking instead was how she could save him if he needed help.

‘Enough joking,’ he said and Kate felt her heart rate pick up with a thump in her chest as Rory turned to enter the water. Her palms truly began to sweat.

‘Be careful, Rory.’ She had a bad feeling about this.

He approached the edge. ‘Yes, ma’am.’ He looked back at her once more as he entered the water. ‘Do watch for mysterious logs with eyes.’

‘Absolutely.’ Kate was deadly serious—they both were—and she scanned the banks again before she watched him wade in.

Rory edged across, one step at a time. The water attempted to sweep him sideways but he leaned into it, strong thighs braced against the torrent. Once he stumbled slightly when his foot slipped into a crumbled section and Kate stifled a scream but he recovered well. He threw her a one-eyebrow-raised glance and continued on.

Kate rested her hand over the pulse in her throat—she could feel the beat against her fingers—and took shallow sips of air until Rory finally emerged on the other side.

The causeway was deep but the truck would handle it. Rory started back and Kate watched his
every step, which was why she didn’t see the branch until it was too late.

‘Watch the log, Rory,’ she yelled and he twisted to see, maybe even thinking it was a crocodile, and lost his footing and the branch collided with his legs as he tried to regain his balance.

Rory was skittled into the water like a tenpin by a ball and Kate screamed his name as his head bobbed under the water and then resurfaced.

The speed of the water carried him swiftly down the swirling river and Kate scrambled along the side of the bank as she desperately tried to keep up with him through the scrub.

Her heart pounded in her ears and she couldn’t see where he’d gone until she climbed out onto a fallen tree that overhung the river. The trunk stretched a third of the way across the torrent but where it dipped into the water she couldn’t keep her balance and she had to sit down to edge along the trunk so she could peer out over the river.

Rory was hooked on a tree root that curled around him like an arthritic hand out of the bed of the river. It tangled his shirt as the water flowed over his face and head and he disappeared under the water. Then he reappeared, shook his head to clear it and glanced up to where Kate was overhanging the torrent.