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“I’m the one you should be asking.” He smiled as Jodi waddled toward them, trying to balance a tray laden with fruit, water, and dry crackers, her round belly protruding further than last week. “Ask me again why I wanted another one after the terrible two.”
Taking the tray from her, he dropped a kiss on her cheek. “Terrific two, you mean.”
As she eased into a chair, she smiled as she saw the twins standing still like a couple of expectant angels, not making a sound.
“They are pretty terrific most of the time. Though you know they’re only ever quiet like this when you bribe them every week?”
He poured a glass of iced water and handed it to her. “It’s not bribery, it’s spoiling my favorite niece and nephew.”
“Don’t let Sandi and Monica hear that. You know they think their kids are wunderkinds.”
Laughing, he bent down to the twins’ level and pretended to rummage in his pockets. “Hmm…what have I got here?”
At the familiar question, the twins abandoned their good behavior and started climbing all over him again.
“James and Jemma, manners please,” Jodi said, sounding exhausted.
Her admonishment had no effect and Blane winked at his sister over James’ shoulder, disengaging two pairs of cloying hands before producing matching miniature diggers from each pocket.
“Wow,” the twins said in unison, eyes wide as they grabbed the brightly coloured toy earth movers, already running for the sandpit to bury their latest treasure.
“Hey, what do you say? And what about your snack?” Jodi asked.
The twins pulled up short at the sound of their mother’s firm tone and turned back to him. “Thaaank yooou Uncle Blaaaay…”
They drew out each word in the usual way kids did when told to thank someone, whirling away the minute he smiled at them.
“They can have their snack later,” he said, catching sight of Jodi’s frown. “Let them play.”
Rolling her eyes, she offered him the fruit platter. “You’re a pushover. Wait until you have kids of your own. You’ll see.”
His smile faded as he selected a bunch of grapes and slid onto the wooden bench opposite.
“Hey, what did I say?”
“Nothing.” He popped several grapes into his mouth at once, wondering how much he should tell his sister.
“Come on, bro. Spill it. This has to be about a woman.”
Not justawoman.Thewoman. The woman he’d half fallen in love with the moment he first laid eyes on her, the woman he’d walked away from six years earlier, the woman to complete him, to make his dreams come true.
But Cam still harbored doubts. He’d seen it in her expressive eyes when she’d told him about her fertility issues, he’d seen it in her tense body language on the trip back to Melbourne afterward.
He should be ecstatic she loved the house, even more so that she’d agreed to give their marriage a second chance, but he couldn’t dispel the gloomy feeling that something wasn’t quite right, that Cam didn’t believe him when he said she was all he needed to make his life complete.
Eyes narrowed, Jodi stabbed an apple slice in his direction. “This mystery woman doesn’t want kids? Is that why you got that funny look on your face when I mentioned kids of your own?”
Shaking his head, he gulped a glass of water to ease the sudden constriction in his throat at the thought of never having children.
“It’s not as simple as that.”
“Then how simple is it?”
Knowing she’d never let him leave without some snippet of the truth, he sat back and interlocked his hands behind his head.
“It’s Cam.”
Jodi sat bolt upright, wincing as her belly grazed the table. “TheCam? As in the-teenager-you-married-then-walked-away-from Cam? As in love of your life Cam? The Cam we’ve all heard about but never met?”
