Unsuitable (40 page)

“I
see.” The gun was still loaded.

“Is
he here?”

“He’s
not. He’s taken Etta for a driving lesson.”

Audrey
held her breath. There was a subtle shuffling of feet and she realised the
girls had arranged themselves at Charlie’s back.

“You’re
welcome to wait.” Charlie turned to Flip. “Take Mia inside and be nice. When
Reece gets home, leave him alone. I know you’ve been up to something, but it
ends now.”

The
girl’s vanished down the hallway. Mia didn’t so much as glance back at Audrey before
entering the house, but Charlie never broke eye contact.

“How
old are you?”

“Older
than Reece.”

“Too
old.”

“Isn’t
that for him to decide?”

“Understand
that I love my son and I won’t let you trap him into being responsible for
something that’s not good for him. I already did that to him so no one else is
going to have the same chance to mess with his life.”

Charlie
McGovern was slender, attractive and formidable. There was weight and right in
her words and they deserved respect.

“I
understand. I can’t promise not to hurt him. I will promise to let him choose
freely.”

Charlie
sighed. And then a car door slammed, the gate clanged.

Etta
stormed past. “He only wants to teach me to drive like a little old grandma. Jesus.
I’ll never get anywhere on time.”

Then
Reece said her name and her knees nearly gave way. She turned towards him,
heard the front door close. They were alone. He stood the other side of the low
gate. He looked wonderful, a great wall of man frowning at her. She couldn’t
see his eyes for sunglasses, but she could see the tension in his frame; every
muscle alert for trouble.

“Audrey,
is everything all right?

Not
yet. Not yet
. But it could be if she got this said
the way it needed to be. “Can we talk? I called but...” Oh God, she was
nervous.

He
came through the gate. “Where’s Mia?”

“She’s
inside with the girls. I met your mother.”

He
grunted. “How did that go?”

He
stood on the path. She stood on the verandah. He made no move to come up the
steps to her. “I’m suitably chastised.”

He
moved in that way of his, sudden and graceful. He came up the stairs and sat
facing out to the street, with his back to her. She stepped forward and sat beside
him, not too close, not touching. He was bigger than she remembered, more beautiful
and he was hurt, she could see it in the way he held himself away from her and
kept his sunglasses on.

“What
do you need, Audrey?”

You,
I need you
. Not a changed washer, not a child minded, not a
service rendered, but she couldn’t say it like that. She couldn’t force his
hand or manipulate him either. All her corporate skills were useless. All she
had was the truth and her love for him.

“I
was scared, Reece. I’m a grown-up and I was terrified.”

He
clasped his hands. “Yeah, don’t I know it.” He was bitter. And she’d started in
the wrong place. He stared out at the street. “There’s nothing I can do about
my past. Before you say anything else I’m back fighting. Proper boxing, gloves
and rules, but should know that, it’s as much a part of me as being a sucker
for agreeing to teach Etta to drive.”

She
curled her fingers around the underside of the verandah deck. She needed something
to hold on to.

He
pushed a breathed out sharply. “Do we have anything else to say to each other?”

“I
was scared of me, Reece, falling in love with you. Everything else I said was
an excuse. It’s not about your past. I don’t know how to do family. I don’t
know how to do being in love. Before you, Mia was the love of my live.”

From
inside the house there was thumping about and laughter. Reece dropped his head
forward, forehead to his clasped hands. She’d never known him to be so
thoroughly contained; keeping everything she needed to see in him locked away.

“There
has never been anyone like you. Never any hint I could have the kind of family
you see in books and movies. You came along, and you were bigger than the sun
and five times as powerful for all your gentleness, and I was scared of losing you
before I even had you completely.”

She
swallowed the lump of emotion in her throat and watched his stillness. It was
entirely possible he would get up and walk away and she would get what she’d
always planned for and no longer wanted.

She
would be alone.

He
lifted his head. “I can’t change you, Audrey. And I’m not changing me.” His
voice was thick and clotted. “I can’t do anything more than I’ve done to make
you feel safe and cared for.”

If
only he’d look at her. He might see she had changed. “I was scared to rely on
you, but now I’m not. I did a terrible thing to both of us when I sent you away.
A terrible thing to Mia.”

He
pushed his sunglasses on top of his head, but he still didn’t look at her. She
only had his profile. She only had the dream of him.

“What
do you want, Audrey?”

It
was a fair question. All she’d told him so far he already knew. She wanted more
than she could outright ask for. “I want to know what you want.”

He
sighed. It came out of him in a stream of irritation. “I’m going to open a
kindy. Polly and I are developing a property.”

He
didn’t smile, but she did. “That’s wonderful.” It was sudden and surprising and
perfect for him. But it wasn’t forgiveness.

“There’s
a long way to go, but I’m not going to be nannying for families anymore.”

“I
don’t want you to be our nanny.”
Please look at me, please, Reece.
“Do
you still want a family of your own?”

He
turned his head. She almost recoiled. He had old world sorrow in his eyes, and
she’d put it there. But he had Charlie’s fighter-spirit in him too.

“I
have a family of my own. That’s them inside laughing, fighting, hating each other,
enjoying each other. You could’ve been part of my family, you and Mia, but I wasn’t
good enough for you.”

His
eyes were dark, dark, dark. His words were painful to hear. “You’re the only
man I’ve ever loved, Reece. There was my father and he didn’t deserve it, there
was Barrett and he’s more like a brother, and there is you. And when you got
out of the car and said my name just then you nearly stopped my heart. I have
missed you like I lost my sense and reason.”

He
groaned and looked away. “What do you want from me, Audrey?”

“I’m
scared to say because you would give me anything.”

He
didn’t look at her. He closed his eyes. “Fuck my life. I would.”

She
wanted badly to touch him, but it might send him away and if he rejected her
she’d need to camp on these steps till she was strong enough to move again. “And
that might not be good enough for you.”

He
turned to her again; this time his whole torso. He put all his frustration in
her hands. “You need to tell me why you’re here. Are you sick again?”

“No,
although I’m desperately tired.” He would see that. He would see every one of
her sins and lies, fears and hopes, and he would be allowed to walk away from
them.

“You’ve
put on weight.”

No
one else had noticed. “I’m going to put on a lot more.” There was no easy way
to tell him. She’d done nothing but stall. She was failing in the most
important presentation of her life.

“You
are so beautiful. I have not been the same without you. If this is an apology
before you move on, rip it quick.”

“I’m
pregnant.”

It
hit him like hostility. He turned his body away. “I can’t help you with that.” He
thought it was Barrett’s and it devastated him.

“It’s
yours, Reece. Ours.”

His
eyes came back and searched hers. “But you weren’t, and we...”

“It’s
freakish. Or I thought that at first, but now I know how fortunate it was. It’s
miraculous.”

“Pregnant
with my baby?” His voice was thick with disbelief, but she could see in his
face he’d already accepted it, because he’d dreamed it.

“The
twins run in Charlie’s family, don’t they?”

He
frowned at the tangent. “Yeah.” And then it wasn’t tangential to him. “Holy
fuck, Audrey.”

She
nodded. He reached for her. “You’re pregnant with my twins.” Not a question, a
declaration.

She
moved to hold him off. “You didn’t want this right now and you’re building a
new life and—”

“You’re
going to try telling me you’ll cut some deal like you have with the furniture
removalist. There is no fucking way.”

She
couldn’t help but smile. “You can be as involved as you want.”

“I’m
their father. I’ll be in their puke, and their spit, and their blood, and their
poop to my eyeballs.”

She
was grinning like a circus clown. “If that’s what you want.” A circus clown who
couldn’t believe the dumb things they did scored applause; that the audience
loved them despite their propensity to be a proud idiot and fall down.

“Okay.”
Reece was still behind the action, still reeling from the enormity of this. He
shook his head. “Where does that leave us?”

“Where
do you want to be?”

He
reached for her. Moved so one of his long legs was behind her and she was
encircled by his strong arms. She had never felt safer.

“In
your heart, in your life, in your bed, Audrey. No matter what.”

His
hands roamed all over her, checking, re-familiarising, bringing new energy, new
vigour to her limbs.

She
was strong and capable without him, but she’d trade alone for loved and be
super-charged. His lips were in her hair and he murmured nonsense words as his
hands came to rest over her belly. He made her giddy. He made her want.

“I’m
a lousy cook. I got another promotion, and I’ll need to travel. I don’t know
how to do twins.”

He
laughed. His whole body shook. She didn’t think he was going to quit. And they
weren’t quite done here. “Stop it so I can ask you something.”

He
got himself under control. He brought his forehead close to hers. “It had
better be to marry you.”

The
husk in his voice made her lose her breath. She grazed her nose against his; this
surprising, gorgeous, delightful man, who she loved so deeply. She wondered
what she might accomplish with him by her side.

“Or
what?”

He
laughed. “What the stuff, I can do sin.”

“You
do know I am hopelessly domestically challenged.”

“You
do know I love you past anything you can and can’t do.”

She
choked on a sob and honoured his mother, a single parent who hadn’t had the
choices, the advantages she’d had. “I’m probably too old for you.”

“Do
they make lingerie for pregnant women?”

She
laughed. “I’m too tired to think about that.”

“Then
ask me to marry you and sleep in my arms till you’re not tired anymore.”

She
smiled at him, smiling back. She would never tire of smiling at him, seeing the
love in his eyes. An extraordinary man who’d made her old life unsuitable and
her new life a miracle.

“Reece
with a c McGovern, will you marry me?”

He
kissed her. Too soft, too brief. Too shockingly beautiful. Breaking away to
tease. “What, no bended knee?”

She
tried to move to give him what he wanted. She’d go to her knees for him because
of everything he meant to her; love and respect and family and work, and lives
of dependence and independence, and all the tangled states in between.

He
stopped her shifting, tightened his grip around her. “Yes, yes, yes, Audrey. I’ll
be your carer.” He kissed her, too quick again. “Your lover, your husband, your
wife, father to your children, supporter of your career, maker of your meals,
doer of your laundry. I want all of it, the noise, the tears, the frustrations,
the laughter, the ambition, the crazy joy. But if we can afford it, please can
we keep Cameron, because twins in a two career family, we’re going to need the
help.”

“I
hope you’re good with boys.”

He
stroked her cheek with the back of his hand and then went still. “We’re having
boys?”

“It’s
going to get wild, isn’t it?”

He
blinked and all his sorrow was washed away. “It’ll be hell. And I’ll love you
all the way through it.”

She
kissed him with no finesse, with bumped noses and scraped teeth, with hunger
that smoothed out to a banquet of his lips and tongue, his hands in her hair,
hers on his face.

And
their hearts beating unsuitably fast, but arguably, appropriately, thrillingly,
together.

About the Author

Ainslie
Paton is a corporate storyteller working in marketing, public relations and
advertising.

She’s
written about everything from the African refugee crisis and Toxic Shock
Syndrome, to high-speed data networks and hamburgers.  She writes cracking,
hyper-real romances about women in control and the exciting men who love them.

You
can find Ainslie on her website and blog:
http://www.ainsliepaton.com.au
and on Twitter
@AinsliePaton.  She also has an author page on Goodreads and Facebook.

If
you enjoyed Unsuitable you might enjoy
Insecure
, due for release March
2015 or
White Balance
which is available now.

Read
on for a sample of White Balance.