Princes of the Outback Bundle (45 page)

“You noticed?”

And that one wry question wiped away his anger, wiped away everything but a powerful wave of protective concern. “How long have you been sick? Have you seen a doctor? Isn’t there something they can give—”

“Slow down. Just…sit down.” She waved a hand toward the sofa. “I’ll make some tea.”

Alex set his jaw. “I don’t want tea. I want answers.”

“Well, I do want tea, as it happens.” She pressed a hand to her stomach again and he was struck again by how thin she was. “And another breakfast.”

“You’ve lost weight.”

“I dare say.”

How could she be so blasé? This was her health, the baby’s health.
His
baby’s health! “Dammit, Zara, sit down. I’ll make you tea and…what can you eat?”

Too wrung out to object, Zara let him feed her. Sitting at the kitchen table, she gave him directions on what to make, where to find things, and tried to focus on how small and shabby he made her kitchen look, with his elegant navy suit and red silk tie and perfect grooming. Focusing on the superficial and reassuring him about her health—several times—helped keep her trepidation down to a dull roar.

But then, while she ate, he leaned against the counter and watched. He was so quiet, so cool, that for a second
she wished back the dark slice of anger he’d displayed earlier. At least that was an emotion she understood.

This Alex was infinitely more dangerous because she didn’t know how he’d strike and therefore she couldn’t prepare to defend. And if he kept watching her like that, if her stomach kept churning with her rising anxiety, then she wouldn’t have to worry about anything except making the bathroom in time.

“How did this happen?”

Zara looked up from spreading a second slice of toast. She didn’t know that she wanted to eat a second slice, but she liked having something to do. She liked the cool and solid strength of the knife in her hand, too. Not so much a defense as a prop.

“The pregnancy?” she asked, meeting his eyes. Resisting the smart-mouth answer that sprang to mind. “Well, you were there.”

“We used protection. Every time.”

Oh, yes. So many times, so many ways. All of them completely mind-blowing.

Zara looked back at her toast, away from the heat of that thought reflected in his darkening eyes. Away from the flare of color along his cheekbones. The look she’d seen so many times when he came to her after donning protection. Or while she’d rolled it on, slowly, carefully, tormenting and teasing.

The knife clattered from her hand, breaking that dangerous thread of thought.

“Condoms don’t offer one hundred percent protection.” She adopted a practical, professional tone. “For various reasons, but mostly user error.”

He didn’t say anything for a long moment but she felt his tension, felt it stretching between them like a physical entity. “Did you know the last time I was in Melbourne?”

Zara shook her head. “I would have told you if I’d known. I know how important this is to you.”

“You’re going to have the baby?”

“Of course I am! What did you think?”

“I don’t know. You haven’t given me the chance to think.”

Oh, but that hurt. The words and the insinuation, the cool tone and the spark of accusation in his eyes. “You know, it came as something of a shock to me, too. I’ve had a lot to think about and to deal with—”

“Dammit, Zara, I could have shared all that!” He rocked forward off the counter, as if he couldn’t maintain that fake-casual stance any longer. “I could have been looking after you, getting you medical care, making sure you were eating properly.”

“I hope you’re not implying I’ve been neglectful.”

“How can you look after yourself here?” He waved a hand around. “Alone? With your study and your work. You look like—”

“Hell. I know. You have pointed that out.”

And somehow they were back at glaring odds, except this time the anger simmered just as strongly in Zara. How dare he imply that her home—bought with her mother’s estate, her only asset, and perfectly adequate for her needs—wasn’t good enough?

How dare he imply that she couldn’t look after herself and her baby?

Instinctively, her hand dropped to her lap. “I have been looking after myself,” she said coolly, “since before I turned twenty. For four of those years I also nursed my mother through a debilitating illness. I’m a medical student and I know how to protect my health.”

His look suggested otherwise but he didn’t say so. He
didn’t say anything for a long, tense moment. Then he blew her right away. “I want to marry you, Zara. As soon as we can make arrangements.”

Zara sucked in a breath but it wasn’t enough to stop the giddy whirl in her brain. “You want to marry me? Because I’m pregnant?”

“Because we’re going to have a baby together. Yes.”

“I…” Her voice trailed off. She licked her lips and tried again. “I don’t see how that would work.”

“Why not?”

“Well, because you live in Sydney for a start. Your work is in Sydney and I have my degree to finish.”

“You can transfer to Sydney,” he countered, cool and logical. “I know people. I can pull some strings—”

“No.” Both her hands came down on the table hard enough to rattle her plate. “You absolutely cannot pull strings. I got where I am on my own and I will continue to do so.”

“Because you’re too independent to accept help?”

“Because I value what comes from effort. Everything I have and everything I am comes from hard work.”

His eyes narrowed slightly. “Unlike me?”

She met his eyes and knew, in her heart, she was doing him another injustice. But then she also recalled where this argument had started and how every argument ended with this kind of vehemence. “How can I marry you,” she asked, “when every debate ends in this kind of frustration?”

“If we were married, perhaps we wouldn’t be frustrated. At the cabin we got along just fine. Remember?”

“How can I forget?” she asked with a twisted smile. She remembered all the getting along just fine. “I also remember the first weekend at the cabin and our discussion about marrying for the right reason. Do you remember that?”

“I remember.”

“Then you know that I don’t believe two parents are necessarily better than one.”

He stiffened so perceptively Zara swore she heard a snap. “Are you saying you want to raise this baby—
our baby
—alone?”

“I’d prefer if he or she—” she paused, overcome for an instant by the concept of this baby as a boy or a girl, as a real, living, breathing baby “—if our baby has two involved parents. But I don’t believe they need to be married.”

“You’d rather live together?”

“I’d rather we reach some agreement for shared custody—”

“No. That’s not the best thing for a child, being tossed between two homes.”

Zara lifted her hands, palms up, in a helpless gesture. “See? We can’t agree on anything. I told you the last time we talked why I couldn’t handle a relationship with you. None of that has changed just because I’m pregnant.”

He looked away, and she could see the flick of a tensed muscle at the corner of his jaw for the second before he turned back. “Think about it, Zara. Think about how much easier it would be for everyone if we married. As my wife you won’t have to worry about what the papers say about you. Have you thought about that? About what happens if they latch on to the fact that you’re pregnant and I’m the father?”

No, she hadn’t. Zara’s stomach churned. How could she have not realized that?

“Marry me, Zara, and I’ll protect you from all that. You’ll have the best medical care and afterward we can hire a nanny. You can study, you can work, you can have whatever you want.”

And that last phrase lodged in Zara’s chest, thick and unshakable. Yes, he could give her opportunities and care and everything money could buy. Yes, his name and his position might protect her on some level, once the tabloids had their initial fun dragging her through the mire.

But sitting there at her little kitchen table listening to his deep voice and his fervent promises only made her realize the one thing he hadn’t mentioned. The only thing that mattered and the only thing that could make a marriage work.

He hadn’t mentioned love.

“I’m sorry, Alex, but I can’t marry you,” she said quietly. “I don’t believe you can give me what I want.”

A
lex had thought he couldn’t marry a woman who didn’t want him. He recalled telling Zara those exact words the weekend he’d met her. Yet in the days after she turned him down—after she turned his world upside down—he discovered that he’d lied.

He wanted to marry Zara Lovett, despite her rejection. He wanted to marry her even after she’d looked him in the eye and coolly told him he couldn’t give her what she wanted. He didn’t have to ask her to elucidate.

He remembered her exact words when they’d first discussed marriage, that same night at the cabin. She’d told him she would only marry a man she wanted to share her whole life with. Someone she couldn’t bear living without.

Obviously he wasn’t that man and she was not prepared to take anything less.

And, dammit, he wasn’t going to beg. Nor was he laying his pride out for her to stomp all over again.

But that didn’t mean he was about to give up. He wanted her as his wife; he wanted his child’s parents together, preferably married, before the birth. He just had to work out a plan to make it so.

For now he’d agreed to give her the time and space she’d requested to get through her end-of-year exams. After much pressing, she’d finally thrown her hands in the air and agreed to accept his financial help immediately, since she’d had to resign her job at Personal Best. But she refused his proposal to send his housekeeper/cook to look after her and his offer to buy her a car.

The second was nonnegotiable. He would buy her a car. She just didn’t know it yet.

She had, however, relented on a couple of key issues.

At first she’d not wanted anyone else to know until she was further along in the pregnancy, since things could go wrong, but then she’d conceded that his mother and brothers should know because of the will.

Secondly, she’d agreed to him accompanying her on her first prenatal visit, after she’d finished her exams. That had surprised him. Perhaps she’d seen the obdurate set of his jaw or perhaps he’d swayed her with his reminder that this was
their
baby.

“I will let you know once I’ve made an appointment,” she’d told him, and Alex had dipped his head in acknowledgment. “I appreciate that. Thank you, Zara.”

He knew that was the only way to make any ground with her. With polite, controlled, nonconfrontational exchanges. He knew and yet he’d struggled—each time he’d called her since—to keep the heat of frustration from his voice.

He’d struggled, too, against the impulse to ask all kinds of incendiary questions. When he asked how she was feeling, he wanted to then ask if her body was changing. If she
felt any different. Did she ever lie awake at night thinking that this was
his
baby inside her, a part of him that would forever bond them together, whether she wished it or not?

He wanted to remind her of the other nights they’d talked on the phone, when they’d laughed and shared details of their days, when she’d sighed and told him she missed him in her bed.

But these conversations were short and awkward, punctuated with fraught silences and always ending with her saying she needed to get back to work.

Tonight Alex had called with a purpose beyond asking after her health. He’d invited her to Kameruka Downs to meet his family the weekend after her exams finished and, dammit, he’d felt as tongue-tied as a teenager asking a girl out for the first time.

The silence after he finally got his tongue around the invitation felt damningly thick.

“I want you to meet Mau,” he said stiffly. “My mother. And she will want to meet you.”

“Have you told her yet?” she asked. “About the baby.”

“This weekend. I’ll tell her then.”

“Will the rest of your family be there?”

“Yes. Tomas’s wife is throwing a small party for Cat. Rafe’s wife. This will be her first visit, too. I thought that might help. You won’t be the only new—” God, he almost said
wife
but stopped himself in time and pinched the bridge of his nose “—newcomer.”

“I don’t think so,” she said after a brief pause. “This is your sister-in-law’s party.”

Alex gripped his phone tighter. For some reason, without even knowing it, he’d been banking on her accepting. Banking on getting her out into the country where they might recapture a glimpse of what they’d shared at the
cabin. A place where she would be comfortable and relaxed, where he could show her how it could be between them. “It’s not like that,” he told her, pacing the room, trying to control his gathering frustration. “Angie throws a party at the drop of a hat. It’s no big deal. Just an excuse to dress up and invite a few neighbors over.”

“I thought those outback neighbors were hundreds of miles away.”

“They fly in.”

He heard a sound that could have been laughter, but it was too short and sharp to tell. “Alex, I appreciate the invitation. And I do want to meet your family one day. But by this weekend I’m going to be exhausted. I’ll only want to sleep.”

“We have beds at Kameruka Downs.”

She sighed and he could actually picture her tired face, her worn-out eyes from that day in her kitchen, and he felt a pressure in his chest. A pain born of helplessness because he could do nothing for her. She wouldn’t let him. “Look, I have to go. I have studying—”

“To do,” he finished over the top of her. “I know, Zara. I’ve heard it before.”

And this time he didn’t even bother telling her not to work too hard, to look after herself, to get some sleep. He knew that was a waste of breath. And after they’d said their stilted goodbyes, after she’d reminded him of the time of her doctor’s appointment next week, he allowed himself to consider if he was also wasting his time and his hopes.

She didn’t love him. She wouldn’t marry him. How the hell did he think he could change that?

Alex didn’t tell anyone about the baby straight off. At the back of his mind he’d been wondering about his sisters-
in-law. Waiting for some announcement, he supposed, but so far there’d been nothing. If either Angie or Cat was pregnant, they sure weren’t showing the same signs as Zara.

He heard Angie’s distinctive laughter and turned to see her, the life of the party, surrounded by a group of neighbors. Mostly male. He smiled, but as always lately, the gesture felt tight and the smile didn’t stick. He did feel a degree of satisfaction, however, when he noticed that Tomas was one of the group. And that he—his formerly morose little brother—had a grin as wide as the north all over his face.

Angie was good for him. But she looked the same as the last time he’d seen her, strong and healthy and vibrant. If she was pregnant, she sure as hell wasn’t suffering.

Turning a slow half circle, he scanned the small assembly in the central courtyard of the sprawling homestead that was now Tomas and Angie’s home, until he located his other sister-in-law. Catriona. He found her sitting in a quiet corner, head bent toward Mau, listening intently.

Rafe had told him how she’d resisted making this trip for the two months since they’d married, how shy she’d been of meeting all the Carlisles, but finally he’d talked her into this weekend. Alex had wondered if that was significant. But then he couldn’t imagine Rafe keeping quiet about anything, let alone impending fatherhood.

Right on cue, he felt a familiar thump between the shoulder blades.

“That’s my wife you’re ogling,” Rafe said. “Do I need to punch your lights out?”

Alex snorted. “You could try.”

They both watched Rafe’s wife a second longer.

“She seems to be getting along fine with Mau.”

“Are you thinking Dad knew what he was doing?”

Alex swirled the contents of the glass he’d forgotten he was holding. Whiskey. The color of Zara’s eyes. The knowledge tightened his chest as he considered Rafe’s question. “We assumed he wanted to see Mau happy again.” He dipped his glass in that direction. “She’s smiling now.”

“My wife has that effect.”

The tightness in Alex’s chest constricted further at those words.
My wife.
As he noted the proprietary look on Rafe’s face.

“The deadline’s past,” he noted. The three months they’d been granted to conceive, according to Chas’s will.

“Don’t take it too hard.” Rafe cut him a look. “Tomas and I both consider we’ve won even though we’ve missed out on the inheritance.”

“Neither of you?”

“Nope.”

“Are you sure?”

“Pretty much.”

Alex considered the depths of his whiskey another second. Cleared his throat. “I have some news.”

Alex felt his brother’s gaze shift and fix on his face. “Jeez, Alex, don’t tell us you’ve been jilted again.”

As far as jabs went, that one was pretty effective. And Rafe didn’t even have a clue. Alex huffed out a breath and then looked up to meet his brother’s eyes. “It seems I’ve made the deadline.”

Rafe stared. The realization came slowly, in degrees, sharpening his gaze and curving his lips into a smile. “You sly dog.” He slapped Alex on the back and then turned and called out across the courtyard. “Hey, little bro. Get over here.”

Everyone turned and looked. Rafe grinned and shook his head. “I did not see that one coming.”

Alex ushered his brothers inside, before Rafe decided to yell the news to all and sundry. In the office where this had all started the afternoon they’d buried their father, he told them that Zara was pregnant and that for the moment that news stayed within these walls.

“She hasn’t even seen a doctor yet.”

“But she’s sure she’s pregnant?” Tomas asked. “Those home tests can be—”

“She’s sure. She’s studying medicine. She knows the symptoms.”

Tomas whistled. “A doctor. Nice.”

Rafe grinned. “Seems big brother’s been checking out her bedside manner.”

Alex ignored his brothers’ ribbing. He knew he should feel some measure of satisfaction. He’d fulfilled the terms of the will. He’d carried out Chas’s last wish.

But even when Tomas unearthed his father’s aged Glenfiddich to toast Alex’s success, he felt no joy. When Rafe made a second toast to the first Carlisle grandchild—“I’m going to be an uncle!”—Alex’s smile was forced.

And when he turned and saw his mother in the doorway, when he felt the shrewd sharpness of her eyes on his face, he knew she hadn’t missed a thing.

“Rafe. Tomas.” Mau’s gaze didn’t veer. “I would like to speak with Alexander in private.”

They left without demur. When their mother used a name in full, they knew she meant business.

“You have some news to tell me?”

Mau hadn’t been privy to the added clause in her husband’s will and when she’d found out she’d been ropable. She looked no happier now as Alex repeated what he’d told
his brothers. A bare-bones version of how she was to become a grandmother.

“If everything goes well. Zara’s only eight weeks along.”

“Zara.” She seemed to weigh the name on her tongue, even as she weighed the story he’d told. Perhaps what he hadn’t. “How do you feel about this? You don’t look very happy.”

“I’m…” He huffed out a breath. Looked away as he battled a heart-ripping surge of emotion. And when he looked back up, he knew he couldn’t even try to hide all he felt from his mother’s keen eyes. “She won’t marry me. She’s independent and stubborn and she thinks she’s better off on her own. I’ve offered her everything. I don’t know what else I can do.”

“Have you told her you love her?” Mau asked.

“Why do you assume I love her?”

“I pray that you do, seeing as you seem so set on marrying her.”

“She’s having my child. Of course I’m set on marrying her.”

Mau shook her head sadly. “You should know better than that, Alexander. What do you think would have happened if I’d married your father? Or Rafe’s? I was too young and lost to know what I wanted then, but at least I knew enough not to marry for the wrong reason.”

He looked away again. Studied his untouched whiskey. Saw Zara’s eyes and heard her voice telling him about the right reasons. About love. “And if I do love her?”

“I suggest you tell her so.”

“What if she doesn’t feel the same way?”

“Oh, Alex.” She put her hand on his arm. Squeezed gently. “I know you guard your emotions tightly and I think I know why. But you’re nothing like him, you know.”

His biological father. Alex didn’t have to ask.

“He was wild, he had a temper, and he never had the will to try and control it. You’re strong, like your grandfather and like the man Charles raised you to be. Sometimes I think you’re too strong-willed. Too set on keeping everything inside.” She squeezed his arm again. “Don’t let that make you unhappy. If you love her, Alex, you need to tell her.”

“And if she doesn’t want to hear it?”

“If she’s the right woman, that’s all she’ll want to hear.”

By Sunday afternoon, Zara had had enough of sleeping and recuperating from exam stress. Not that all that lounging about didn’t have its advantages. For example, she hadn’t thrown up since Friday morning. But on the other side of the coin, not thinking about cytology and urology and hematology meant she had too much thinking space for Alex.

Unable to sit around doing nothing, yet not sure she wanted to push herself too hard—she could get used to this not-throwing-up thing very easily—she searched for her knitting bag, last used in the winter when she’d knocked off a scarf for Tim and another for Mr. Krakowski next door. Luckily they both supported the same football team so she could use the same colors and pattern. Black and white stripes were not that complicated.

She rummaged through her bits and pieces but nothing inspired her. Then it struck her. The baby. She could make…she didn’t know what. She didn’t know what babies needed and that struck her as a huge hole in her education. Up until this weekend she’d been too busy and too sick, but suddenly she wanted to know. Suddenly she had time to go to town to look through the shops. To educate herself.

Three hours later, she didn’t feel educated so much as overwhelmed. Wandering back from her tram stop, she was a little excited, a little fearful, and incredibly thankful that she’d not been too proud to accept Alex’s financial help. Raising a baby, she had learned today, was a very expensive exercise.