AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Abby woke at seven a.m. The sun was streaming through the curtains, showing the start of a beautiful sun-kissed day. She stretched in her comfortable bed. Then she realised something was wrong. The house was silent. Her house was never silent at this time in the morning. But, then, she never slept this late, and she never woke up alone. Reuben always woke up in the middle of the night and she brought him into bed beside her.
She sat up in bed and rubbed her eyes. She couldn’t even remember how she had got to bed. The last thing she remembered she’d been lying on the rug in the living room with Luke. The memories made her blush.
Abby threw back the cover, pushed her feet into her slippers and grabbed her dressing gown from the foot of the bed. As soon as she pushed open her bedroom door she could hear voices. Happy voices. No, Reuben’s voice was happy—Luke’s voice was a little strained. She wandered along the corridor towards them.
Luke was lying in the guest bedroom, propped up on some pillows. Somehow he’d resisted coming into bed alongside her. He must have known she wouldn’t have wanted Reuben to see them in bed together. His duvet had been transformed into an assault course for a variety of soldiers and cars. Ornaments, toothbrushes and aerosol cans littered the cover and Reuben was having the time of his life. Crash! Bang!
‘Give me the red one, Luke, it’s the super-charged one. You take the blue one—it can fly. Now, ready, set, go!’
Abby stood in the doorway. They hadn’t even noticed her yet. She could feel the butterflies in her stomach. This was the man that didn’t want children. Ever.
Hell, he hadn’t even liked coming up to the paediatric ward to pick her up and on the few occasions that he had appeared, he hadn’t been able to get out of the place quickly enough.
Then something else struck her. She’d never seen Reuben do this before. He’d never had a male adult role model in his life. Most of his adult contacts were with Abby or Lucy. She watched him as he leapt onto Luke’s back and tried to tumble him to the floor.
She frowned. It was much more rough and tumble behaviour than he did with her. Was this what a little boy needed? And he wasn’t getting it from her?
For the first time ever she felt strangely lacking. Maybe Reuben needed more than her?
‘Abby, hi.’ Luke’s voice cut through her thoughts. His eyes were heavy from lack of sleep and an uncomfortable smile was on his face. ‘Reuben woke me early this morning. He decided we would be playmates.’
Luke shifted underneath the cover, causing numerous items to move around the bed.
‘Wow, Luke, now we’ve got a mountain!’ shouted Reuben as he pounced on Luke’s bent knee.
Luke lifted his eyebrows at Abby. ‘Does he wake this early every day?’
Abby nodded solemnly.
Luke swallowed thoughtfully. Long, comfortable lie-ins were obviously a thing from the past in this household. The kind of thing he used to do with Abby on a morning like this. Long, lazy days usually spent wrapped in each other’s arms with no one else to think about. If only. He caught the expression on her face. He could tell she was uncomfortable, but why?
It was time to get her mind on other things. ‘This morning we have the car and soldier extraordinaire assault course. Would you care to have a try?’ He lifted the corner of the duvet cover and gave her a wink. Abby he could deal with. Abby he was comfortable with.
She watched, an uneasy feeling spreading over her. Her child. Reuben was hers. And he had been right from the start. Hers alone. She didn’t have to share him. What’s more, she didn’t want to share him.
‘Are you coming in, Mommy?’
She shook her head. ‘No, honey. Let’s go downstairs and make breakfast.’
In one leap, Reuben flew across the room and flung himself into her arms. ‘Great, I’m starving.’ The warmth of his little body spread that familiar feeling throughout her body. The feeling that gave her reassurance of her place and role in his life. She was his mother. No one could take that away from her. ‘What are we having, Mommy?’
‘What do you want?’
‘Porridge! Porridge is my favouwite!’
Abby gave him a kiss on the cheek and set him down on the floor. ‘Then porridge it is.’ She turned her head towards Luke. ‘And Dr Luke will get dressed before he comes downstairs,’ she said determinedly. The thought of Luke parading around her kitchen in his thin theatre scrubs conjured up butterflies in her stomach that she didn’t need.
Abby started as the phone rang as she walked by the hall table. She picked it up quickly and listened to the voice at the other end. Luke was wandering down the stairs towards her, some decidedly rumpled clothes in place and his hair standing on end.
‘Yes, yes. No, I understand.’ She winked at Luke as he appeared behind her. ‘Oh, don’t worry, I’m sure I can find someone to do that. No problem, see you later.’
‘Who was that?’
‘David Fairgreaves.’
‘What? Is something wrong with Jennifer Taylor?’
She shook her head. ‘No, Jennifer Taylor is doing fine. No signs of going into labour as yet. Valerie Carter, however, has just decided to go into an early labour.’
Luke’s brow furrowed. ‘Who’s Valerie Carter?’
‘Do you remember that yesterday I told you our cardiologist was 38 weeks pregnant, with a full clinic?’
He nodded. ‘So that’s Valerie Carter.’ The realisation of her words had just struck him. ‘So what have you just volunteered me for?’
‘Just to cover her clinics and procedures tomorrow.’ She gave a little smile over her shoulder as she walked towards the kitchen. ‘Let’s face it, you don’t have anything else to do for the next few days.’
Luke gave her a lazy smile. ‘True. It’s not like I can do anything for Jennifer Taylor. I might as well make myself useful. But I thought you said you only had a few deliveries a year?’ He followed her into the kitchen and as she washed her hands at the sink, he stepped up behind her, sliding his arms around her waist and pressing the full length of his body against hers. She leaned backwards into him, and his head dropped to the exposed skin at the nape of her neck as he started to run some butterfly-like kisses up to the back of her ear.
‘It’s true, but what’s that old saying, “When it rains, it pours”?’
He could hear her breath catching in her throat, knowing the effect he was having on her. ‘So I’m going to spend the next few days surrounded by babies, then?’ His voice was low and husky and there was a certain something awakening behind her as he pressed closer.
Abby let out a little groan as she answered, leaning her head further back and exposing even more of the white skin on her neck. ‘Looks like it. Time to get used to it, Luke. Pelican Cove is a small place, you can’t just hide away because you don’t like kids.’ Her voice was loaded, her tone almost accusing.
‘You don’t like kids, Dr Luke?’ Reuben’s voice was like a bolt out of the blue, causing them to spring apart.
He pulled his T-shirt lower to cover the swell in his trousers. Damn! He’d forgotten all about Reuben. All he’d thought about was Abby and what he wanted to do to her. The intrusion irked him. He wasn’t used to this. He wasn’t used to being mindful of small eyes and ears. He was used to walking across his apartment wearing nothing but his birthday suit. And previously, when he’d been with Abby, they’d managed to christen every room in the apartment they’d shared. How could you do that with a child about? It was bad enough to be woken early every day, without any extracurricular activities being interrupted as well.
Reuben’s voice was full of astonishment. ‘Why don’t you like kids?’
Luke shifted uncomfortably as a tinge of red appeared on his cheeks. ‘Who said I don’t like kids?’
‘My mom did.’ His eyes were large and his expression solemn. ‘And she knows everything. Don’t you like me?’ There was something in the way he said it, like a four-year-old who implicitly trusted his own little world, that tugged at Luke’s heartstrings. He want
ed the floor to open up and swallow him. For a second, he’d almost wished the little guy away. He was the adult here, and he was a guest in their home. It was up to him to make an effort. Reuben was part of Abby’s life, and whether he liked it or not he was going to have to get used to the idea.
A picture flitted through his mind. A picture of another little boy on a day out at the beach—wide-eyed, expressive and trusting—just before his wretch of a big brother had dunked him in a rock pool.
He could feel Abby’s eyes staring at him, burrowing into the side of his face. He bent downwards and whispered in Reuben’s ear, ‘Of course I like you, Reuben. You look just like another little boy that I used to play with. And I liked him—a lot.’
Reuben’s eyes narrowed, before he nodded acceptingly and trotted off to play.
Luke breathed a sigh of relief and sagged back against the wall. This was tougher than he’d thought.
CHAPTER SEVEN
ABBY headed out to the front step, shaking some crumbs from the breakfast tablecloth. Luke couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen someone use a fabric tablecloth—it must be one of the things her aunt had left.
‘So what are we going to do today?’ There was a twinkle in his eye. He could think of lots of things he’d like to do with Abby today.
‘We—’ she emphasized the word strongly as she looked pointedly at Reuben ‘—were going to do a little shopping, then head down to the beach.’
