Liar. If the bed wasn’t on offer…
He wanted this woman any way he could have her. And he wanted her for ever.
She wasn’t arguing. In that final moment as she placed her lips against his they both knew that they were surrendering themselves to each other. Completely. If this night was all they had, then so be it. Better one night than never. If this night was to last a lifetime then they’d take this night with joy.
They weren’t protected. Joss had nothing and when he remembered he groaned, but Amy wasn’t fussed at all.
‘If you’re happy to take the risk then so am I,’ she murmured as they reached the bedroom door and paused. There was a brief moment of sanity to reassure Bertram-and lock him in the kitchen-and take stock of what they knew lay ahead. ‘If I end up pregnant from this night I’d think it nothing but wonderful.’ She smiled up at him. ‘And you?’
He thought about that. Nothing but wonderful…
Amy carrying his child?
So much for his fear of commitment. The thought filled him with unadulterated joy.
‘You’re sure, my love?’
‘I’m sure. I’d make a very good single mum.’
He had his own ideas about that. Single mum? Humph!
But now wasn’t the time to declare his hand. Not until he was sure. If she thought she was headed for single parenthood, well and good. For now.
With a whoop of sheer loving triumph he swept her up into his arms so he was carrying her down the hall. He was laughing into her gorgeous dancing eyes and she was laughing back at him, loving him, wanting him…
‘Then so be it,’ he told her. ‘So be it, my love. Let’s see if we can make a baby. The way I feel tonight, we might even make quads!’
They were falling onto his bed, their clothes were disappearing. The moonlight was slanting across their bodies, as if in blessing…
Man and woman, becoming one.
Dawn came too soon. Or maybe it wasn’t dawn. Something was ringing.
Joss stirred. Amy was cradled in his arms, her lovely hair was splayed out over his chest and she was cradled against him in love and in peace.
Who said married couples needed double beds? he thought sleepily. Single worked just fine.
‘Um…it’s the telephone.’ Amy lifted her head. ‘Why did we end up in your room when the phone’s in my room?’
‘The world’s in the rest of the house. Here there’s just us.’
Which was fine-but the telephone was ringing.
‘Maybe it’s urgent,’ Joss said.
‘I think we should forget the medical imperatives. Charles the First can give it a shot.’
Charles the First? Oh, right. The ancient doctor with dementia. ‘Maybe.’ But the ringing kept on. ‘Maybe someone’s dead.’
‘There’s not a lot we can do if they’re dead,’ she said practically. ‘Call the undertaker-not us.’
‘Amy…’
She sighed. ‘Hey, I’m the conscientious one, not you.’ She rubbed her face against his bare chest, and her hair felt like silk against his skin. The sensation was unbearably erotic. ‘OK, oh, noble doctor. Go and answer the phone. I’ll keep the bed warm.’
‘Promise?’
She smiled down into his eyes, love and laughter fighting for supremacy. Love won. ‘I promise.’ But she was kissing him so deeply that he couldn’t resist.
The phone stopped. Two minutes later it started again and Joss swore.
‘It’s nine o’clock on a Monday morning,’ Amy told him, still laughing. ‘The world has a right to intrude.’
‘It’s not nine o’clock.’
‘That’s what your watch says.’
‘You’re lying on my watch.’
‘That’s not all I’m lying on. Go and answer the phone.’
‘Did I tell you I love you?’
She beamed. ‘Yes. But tell me again if you like.’
‘I love you.’
‘There you go, then.’ She kissed him lightly on the lips and pushed him away. ‘That makes a hundred and eleven. But tell me again.’
‘I love you.’
‘A hundred and twelve. Go and answer the phone.’
It was Sue-Ellen from the nursing home.
‘The ferry’s operating. Emma’s parents were the first over and they want to know if they can take their daughter home right away.’
Joss groaned. He really did need to check the child first.
‘I’ll be there as soon as I can,’ he told her.
When he returned to his bedroom Amy was gone.
‘Amy?’
‘I’m in the shower.’
‘You promised to keep the bed warm.’
‘I lied. People do.’
He thought about that as he hauled open the bathroom door to find her under a cloud of steam.
‘I don’t,’ he told her.
‘Yeah, right.’
There was only one way to handle insubordination like that. Joss hauled the shower screen wide and swept Amy up into his arms. They stood naked as the water poured over them and he kissed her so hard she lost her breath and had to pummel him away with her fists. Breathless and laughing, she leaned back in his arms and looked up at him with love.
‘If you need to see Emma before she’s discharged, we need to go.’
Damnably they did.
‘Joss…’
‘Mmm?’
‘Thank you for last night.’
‘It’s the first of-’
‘No.’ The laughter died then. ‘Joss, it’s not the first of anything. It’s a one-off. Today you’ll get into your stepmother’s amazing pink Volkswagen and you’ll drive onto the ferry and out of my life.’
‘No.’
‘Yes.’ She struggled to be free and reluctantly he loosed her. Not so much as you’d notice, though. She was still linked within the circle of his arms.
‘I’ve had a long-term engagement,’ she told him. ‘I don’t want another.’
‘But-’
‘No.’ She was holding him close but her voice was urgent. ‘Joss, you know I can’t leave here for six years. This place would die. So many people would lose so much. I can’t hurt them and you wouldn’t want me to.’
He thought about that. In truth, he’d been thinking of little else. Except for how wonderful this woman was.
How he needed to keep her.
‘You can’t stay here,’ she told him.
He thought about that.
‘Joss?’
‘Mmm?’
‘You need to return to Sydney.’
He did. Damnably, he did. There was so much to do.
‘Remember me,’ she told him. ‘But not…not with faithfulness. I’m not waiting for you and you’re not waiting for me. We’re free.’
Free.
Once it had seemed the only way to be. Now, as he kissed her one last long time, it seemed a fate worse than any he could think of.
Free?
Where was the joy in that?
They made their way back to the nursing home in almost as deep a silence as the way they’d driven home the previous night.
So much had changed-and yet so little. They reached the nursing home and they were surrounded by need.
Emma’s parents were waiting to see him, desperate to know her poisoning hadn’t caused long-term damage. Charlotte’s father had appeared, wanting to blast someone for his daughter’s unhappiness, Rhonda Coutts’s daughter had come to make sure her mother was being well cared for and was recovering. And more…
There must have been a longer queue on the far side of the river waiting to come to Iluka than the queue on the Iluka side waiting to get out, Joss decided. He fielded one query after another, always conscious that Amy was working close by. Amy was here.
Amy would always be here.
‘Now the ferry’s operating, Daisy’s happy for you to take her car back to Sydney,’ his father told him, and he had to raise a smile to thank her. Driving a pink Volkswagen would get him a few odd looks but those looks were the least of his problems. ‘That is,’ his father added, looking sideways at his son, ‘if you still want to go.’