thoroughly enjoyed the whole experience. The only part he didn’t enjoy was getting dressed again. Ryan finally gave up and came out into the kitchen, carrying a naked toddler in one arm and a nappy in the other.
‘OK. You win. I need a mother here.’
Abbey was clean herself. There was a cold shower on the back verandah. She’d thrown herself under it in the hope it might shake some sense into her head, and then hauled on jeans and a T-shirt.
She should be cool. Instead, she was as hot and flustered as she’d ever been in her life.
Keep it light, Abbey told herself. Keep it… keep it away from heartbreak.
‘You mean you can cope with the intricacies of microsurgery but not a piece of flannel?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Wuss!’
It was so hard to keep her voice light.
She had the makings of omelette on the table. Now she took her naked son from Ryan, and pointed to the eggs.
‘OK, if you can’t do nappies you’re on omelette duty.’
Ryan blinked.
‘Hell, Abbey, I can’t cook.’
‘Why not?’
‘I’ve never learned. I have a housekeeper.’
‘A housekeeper? Back in New York?’
‘Well, yes…’
‘And if I married you would I have a housekeeper?’ Abbey asked carefully.
‘I guess… Yeah, of course you would. Mrs O’Hara could look after Jack…’
‘While I went out to work?’
‘Abbey, I don’t know about registration in the States,’ Ryan admitted. ‘It’s been easier for me here because I have Australian citizenship. I’ll have to look into whether you need to retrain or not. Registration could take some time.’ He spread his hands. ‘But, hell, Abbey, you’ve worked so hard all your life… Why don’t you marry me and let me take care of you for a while?’
‘I wouldn’t know how to,’ Abbey confessed. ‘Ryan, just hold on here.’ She hugged her small naked son against her, as if he gave her strength. ‘This morning you were engaged to Felicity. Right?’
‘Right, but-’
‘But you’re not engaged to her now?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because we don’t love one another.’ Ryan wanted to lunge over and take Abbey in his arms. Make her feel like he was feeling. Desperate to have her close. But it was a bit hard to lunge at a woman with a naked baby hugged to her breast.
Abbey closed her eyes. ‘You decided that today, then? That you don’t love Felicity? Just like that?’
‘Abbey, Felicity and I have never loved each other,’ Ryan said slowly, pushing back the urge to lunge. ‘Admired and respected each other-yes. Thought we were compatible-yes. I thought I’d be proud to call Felicity my wife and she felt the same about me. But marriage to each other was something that suited us. It would have made no demands on our lifestyles. It would have fitted in.’
‘And now…’
‘I’ve discovered that it’s not enough,’ Ryan said simply. ’I want you.’
‘I see.’
Silence.
Abbey turned away to a couch by the stove, bent over and started putting a nappy on her son. Ryan watched in silence as Jack submitted to his nappy with no trouble at all.
Finally respectable, Jack was set on his feet to toddle out to the verandah. The sun was setting in the west over the mountains. The hens were starting to roost and Jack headed off toward the henhouses to watch his friends put themselves to bed.
As if Ryan wasn’t there, Abbey wandered out to watch, her idea of cooking omelettes forgotten. Ryan followed.
‘Marriage…’ Abbey whispered. She put her hands on the weathered verandah rail and looked out over her run- down farm. ‘You really want to marry me?’
‘I do.’ Ryan came up behind her and put his hands on her shoulders. Touching her felt so good. So right. He wanted to swing her around and pull her into his arms but he knew instinctively that she would resist. She wasn’t ready.
Her body was tense beneath his hands.
‘Ryan, you don’t want to stay here,’ she whispered.
‘No. Of course not.’ Ryan’s grip tightened. ‘My work’s important. Hell, Abbey, I make more in a week in New York than I think you make in a year. We can both be comfortable on my income. Jack can go to any school he wants. He can have everything. We can have more children… ’ He did turn her then so she was facing him against the setting sun.
‘Abbey, I love you,’ he said softly, and he tilted her chin so she was forced to look up at him. ‘I think I always have. I didn’t want to leave when I was fifteen, and I should have come back before this. I never realised I’d left something so precious behind.’
‘And now you’ve realised you’ll pick it up and take it away… take me back to New York?’
‘If you’ll come.’ He stooped to kiss her but Abbey pulled back, her eyes searching his in the soft twilight.
‘Ryan, no…’ She fended him off, pushing him away with her hands, and the feel of his heartbeat under her palms made her want to cry. What she had to say was so hard.
That she wasn’t just Abbey. She was Jack’s mum. Janet’s daughter-in-law. Sapphire Cove’s doctor.
‘Ryan, what you said about you and Felicity, fitting into each other’s lifestyles-it may not be the most important thing about a marriage but it’s important, all the same.’
‘You’d fit.’ He took her waist and pulled her into his arms but she still resisted. ‘Believe me, Abbey, you’d fit.’
‘Maybe,’ she whispered. ‘Maybe I’d fit into your lifestyle. But maybe I wouldn’t be happy, fitting into your lifestyle. And I can’t see you fitting into mine.’
‘Abbey…’ Ryan looked down into her troubled eyes. ‘Hell, sweetheart…’ He lifted a hand from her waist and gestured around him. ‘You can’t live like this for the rest of your life. In debt, and up to your ears in work.’
‘No. But I can’t live like you want me to either,’ she said sadly. ‘In wealth and up to my ears in idleness.’
‘Abbey, I want to look after you.’
‘Yeah, well, I’m not ten years old now, Ryan Henry,’ she snapped, and suddenly hauled herself back from him. He was being obtuse here. Thick! ‘I’m twenty-eight years old and I’m a doctor and… I know it sounds pious, Ryan, but here people need me. Jack needs me. Janet and Sam need me. Sapphire Cove needs me. I’m not going to walk away. And I think… ’
She took a deep breath and desolation welled up all around her. ‘I think Jack needs to grow up here. His grandma’s here. There are people here who loved his daddy. If I took him away it’d be like cutting him off from his father’s memory for ever. And I can’t do that.’
‘Abbey…’
‘Please, Ryan…’ Her voice was desolate. ‘Don’t. All I want to do is come with you.’ She looked up at him, her eyes bright with tears. ‘I love you, Ryan Henry,’ she admitted. ‘I want you more than anything in the world. But… but, Ryan, I’ve only just found my turtle. I have to stay.’
He did lunge then. The sight of her… small and defenceless and desolate, standing there in her bare feet on floorboards that threatened to rot away underneath her. To leave her…
Before she could protest he gathered her into his arms and he held her close, moulding her body to his. He kissed the top of her head and she buried her face in his chest to stop him kissing her anywhere else.
‘Ryan, don’t… Please… ’
‘Abbey, I must. This is nonsense. We can take Janet with us. You’ll have Janet and Jack. And we’ll come back. I promise. We’ll return for a month every year so Jack can learn to love this place and I can spend time with my
