Page 79 of Where the Wattles Bloom

Nope. Unfortunately for her, it was just one man.

Lachlan freaking McCabe.

The dreams she was having about him were epic erotic fantasies—always in that big bed at The Stockman, and growing more and more elaborate as each night passed. Fantasies that made it hard to meet his eye in the morning.

Frustratingly, though, she’d still been unable to get herself across the line. The fact Lachlan was in the next room certainly didn’t help. She’d cried out one night as she’d woken from a particularly erotic moment in a dream, and he’d been in her doorway in a flash asking her if she was okay.

Farmers were, apparently, very light sleepers!

The thought that she might moan too loudly in the throes of a self-love was definitely not helping her hit the jackpot. But every time he smiled at her or laughed at something Reggie said at the dinner table or regaled her with some daily farm anecdote, her libido wound a little bit tighter.

She’d never known just talking with a man could be so goddamn sexual, and yet their conversations always left her in a puddle of lust.

Completely non-sexual conversations.

About her roster or Shirley’s daily antics or the latest freaking long-range weather forecast. Seriously, how could any of those topics get her motor running?

But they did.

Her body hummed after each one like a bloody nuclear power station. So much so, she started to wonder if a person could actually die from horniness.

Or at least be permanently disfigured?

*

Rowena was standing on the bunkhouse deck at the end of her fourteenth week. An early shift had helped preoccupy her mind, for which she was grateful, but now she was staring out over the trees and scrub beyond, her hand cradled over her abdomen, breathing in and out as she fought back tears.

She’d made it to the benchmark. One she hadn’t made with her previous pregnancy all those years ago, which was hard not to think about today. Not to think about the way her little boy had slid from her body so precious and perfect.

He may have been born sleeping, but he was as alive to her now as he had been then.

Surely the universe wouldn’t be so cruel as to do it again? To take this precious gift from her now? Because she wanted this baby. Wanted it with a ferociousness that took her breath away. Wanted it more than she’d ever wanted anything.

More than that purple ten-speed bicycle she’d coveted when she’d been seven. More than those tickets to see Pink when she’d been fifteen. More than getting that job on the NICU when she’d been thirty.

More than how much she wanted Lachlan McCabe between her thighs right now.

Dare she hope? Could she let go and allow herself to revel in this? To celebrate this miracle?

To enjoy it?

‘Hey.’

Rowena started. She’d been so caught up in her thoughts she hadn’t heard him approach.

‘Reggie said you were here. Everything okay?’

Rowena blinked hard to clear any trace of moisture from her eyes and braced herself for the usual jettison of oestrogen as she turned to face him. And he didn’t disappoint, looking all kinds of sexy in his low-rider blue jeans and flannel shirt rolled to his elbows. He had that I’ve-just-come-from-the-paddock look and lordy, lordy, she wanted to rub against him like a cat.

To relieve the ache in her breasts and the one between her legs, and the restless kind of itch under her skin.

He stopped his advance abruptly as his searching gaze took in her rapid blinking and her hand flat on her stomach. He took his hat off and fingered it absently. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing,’ she assured hastily. ‘Everything’s fine. I’m just …’ She turned back to the view in case she really did start to rub herself against him. ‘Thinking.’

She was conscious of him moving closer and her whole body went into an instant frenzied alert when he slid in beside her, his fingers wrapping around the top railing. He didn’t say anything for a beat or two, but when he did speak, he cut straight to the chase.

‘You’re thinking about your baby?’