Almost Mine Page 13

I hugged him closer and kissed his chest. ‘I love you.’

  ‘I’d give you the moon and all of the stars that surrounds it, angel.’ He kissed the crown of my head. ‘Now let’s try and sleep.’

  Chapter 13

  As I sat behind my desk in the office after a long day catching up on paperwork, I heard a quiet knock on the open office door and reacted in a way that over the past two years or so had become instinct; I wrapped my fingers around the handle of the letter opener that sat within reach at all times. Then I looked up and saw Blake standing in the door way and I relaxed, but just a fraction.

  ‘I’m not interrupting, am I?’ he asked with a wink.

  My hand remained steadfast on the letter opener. ‘Not at all; what can I do for you?’ I waved him forward with my free hand, inviting him in.

  ‘Nick asked me to drop these into your letter box here,’ he gestured toward the slot in the door with the tilt of his head, ‘but seeing as how the door is open...’

  ‘It’s ok. You can come in.’

  ‘They’re just my bank details and what not.’

  ‘Oh right.’ I accepted the white envelope when he stepped forward and handed it to me. I used the letter opener to slice it open.

  ‘What’s with the police check?’

  ‘Nick is a thorough man.’

  ‘I’ve noticed.’

  ‘He just likes to know who he has working for him.’

  ‘Of course. It’s a pretty elaborate set up. Best place I’ve worked and I’ve been around, let me tell you,’ he laughed at a joke that I didn’t get, but I found myself enjoying the way he looked so carefree and easy.

  ‘So you’ve led an interesting life?’

  ‘It hasn’t been boring if that’s what you mean.’

  ‘How are you finding the job so far?’ I said.

  ‘Well, it is early days, but I think I’ll be very happy here. I’m not used to such a settled working environment, but here, everything runs so smoothly and efficiently.’ He indicated the empty chair opposite me and I nodded, inviting him to sit; after all, I was still armed with the letter opener so I wouldn’t be caught off guard if he tried anything. ‘Nick is very dedicated, isn’t he?’

  ‘That he is. This place is his pride and joy; the love of his life.’

  ‘That must sting a bit.’ Blake laughed out loud.

  ‘Oh, don’t get me wrong.’ I found that I laughed easily in his company — there was something about his infectious wide grin. It was clear to me that he would fit in well. ‘Neglect is something that I am a stranger to. It’s just that the winery is very important to him. Actually, it’s really a part of him, and as vital to him as his heart. He lives it and breathes it.’

  ‘Well, that’s obvious. It’s a real credit to him. Before I interviewed for the job I asked around town, you know, just for some background. I heard that it’s regarded as one of the best drops of Merlot in the country, the world. I had to check it out just to see if the locals weren’t just a little biased.’ He winked conspiratorially.

  I leaned back the chair with an air of confidence as if the answer was obvious. ‘And?’

  ‘And, they were not wrong. But you know what they say, ‘behind every good man is a good woman’ or something like that.’

  ‘I hardly think that’s true in this case.’

  ‘I doubt that,’ he winked again. ‘Anyway,’ he continued after a brief quietness that was only made more unusual by the way Blake’s eyes lingered on me, ‘I’d better let you get back to your own important work. I guess I’ll be seeing you around?’

  ‘I guess you will, and I’ll get these sorted now.’ I patted the envelope.

  When he left I finally placed the letter opener back in its position within reach beside me. I blew a few stray strands of honey hair out of my face in frustration. How could someone that was barely in my life still have so much control over me?

  Chapter 14

  ‘Nick! Come and see what I’ve found,’ I called from the home office. I’d been trawling the internet for most of the evening, but with little success in finding what I had been searching for. I was engrossed by the encouraging words on the wide screen of my VAIO when I felt Nick beside me.

  ‘Looks a bit invasive,’ he commented warily.

  ‘What? Taking a few natural tablets?’ I glanced up at him.

  ‘Tablets?’

  I looked at the screen and chuckled. ‘Oh geez, not that.’ I closed off a window showing a picture of an infertile man during an operation. ‘Read this.’

  It was a short article explaining the ins and outs of natural remedies for infertile men, plus it also showed what I wanted to hear most. The percentage rate of success was phenomenal; almost ninety five percent of couples taking the tablet being able to conceive. What I liked most about it, other than the fact that I was one step closer to becoming a mother, was that it was all natural and Nick wouldn’t have to go through difficult procedures that he’d just witnessed with undeniable panic.

  ‘We can order online. It’s a daily dose of a fertility vine that grows deep in an Indonesian jungle. Did you see the success rates?’ I reread the article. Nick pulled up a chair beside me.

  ‘Well it is a believable piece of writing, but any numbskull could have written it and then proceeded to charge two hundred and fifty dollars for a month’s worth of the “natural remedy” and claim to the desperate-to-become-a-mother that it would be the answer to all of their prayers. But that hardly means that it would be. The article is pretty vague. It doesn’t even explain how it works, exactly.’

  ‘I guess it doesn’t…’ I peered closer at the screen. ‘But look at these results. Read some of these customer reviews. It’s very positive, Nick.’ I beamed with the excitement of a child on Christmas morning, begging to open the biggest present because I knew that it was everything that I had ever wanted.

  ‘Very convincing.’ He diplomatically gave in.

  I looked across him, my finger poised on the left click of the mouse. ‘So, should I order it?’

  ‘Whatever it takes.’ He leaned in as he stood, kissing the crown of my head. I clicked on ‘add to cart’, and now I was a tiny step closer than a second a go to becoming a mother.

  I turned back just as he was about to leave the room. ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘It’s late. I’m off to bed.’

  ‘Ok, I’ll be there soon.’ I turned back to the order form now downloaded on the screen.

  So I ordered a month’s worth of miracle, and, honestly, I did try to stop there, but then I found more sites promising more miracles and I found that I just couldn’t help myself. By three o’clock I’d ordered five different natural remedies, each one promising more success than the other. So how could I not give them a go? They were not all tablets, though. Some of them were creams for me to apply to various zones over my body. Apparently the problem with Nick’s lack of sperm could be related to the fact that maybe his body didn’t find my body enticing enough. The cream released amounts of pheromones that would encourage Nick’s little guys go into overdrive to make the journey to the egg.

  As I settled quietly into bed, I found it difficult to switch my brain off. Just think of it, in a few months my dream may come true; I may have a little Nick or a little Cate growing within me. I subconsciously found my hand rubbing my belly, as if by doing so, it would encourage the universe to give me what I wanted; a baby, just one, just the chance to experience my definition of happy, of fulfilment…but then something monumentally moved within my core. My centre of gravity, my centre of being — or of purpose — shifted. My eyes flung open and I turned my head in Nick’s direction in the dark, or was it pulled in his direction? My heart pummelled under my rib cage, beating harder than it ever had, and before I could control myself, my body, as if on its own accord, jolted upright as my lungs ached for air.

  ‘What is it?’ Nick sprung beside me. He switched the side lamp on and his eyes, wide in alert, found mine.

  My heart raced and I
couldn’t get a word out.

  ‘Shit, Cate! You’re as white as a ghost.’ Nick spanned his hand over my clammy chest to feel the fierce thumping vibrate under his palm. ‘I’m calling an ambulance.’ He threw off the covers and reached for the phone beside the bed. He dialled.

  ‘Wait.’ I stopped him before he pressed the call button.

  ‘Things like this can’t wait. You need a doctor.’ He was speaking hurriedly as if taking a breath would waist precious time that we didn’t have.

  As fast as the panic attack came on, it dissipated at the sight of him: of my vigilant and solemn protector. My breathing slowed, as did my heart, and the cold sweat that covered my entire body ceased. ‘I just need you close to me.’ The words seemed to take me by surprise, as if on auto pilot, as if I hadn’t planned to say them but that they were precisely what needed to be said. ‘Please, I’m ok,’ I beckoned him with an outstretched hand. He was torn between saving my life and giving me whatever I wanted.

  He replaced the phone back onto its cradle and pulled me into his arms as he climbed back into bed. ‘What happened?’ he asked as he brushed my damp hair from my temple. ‘You scared the shit out of me.’

  ‘I don’t know. I was thinking about everything and I just—’

  ‘Panicked?’

  A slow heart beat passed between us. ‘I think I did.’

  ‘About us?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes.’ I held his hand in place on my hip when it moved away slightly. ‘Not about us, us, just about our past, our future, what it will be like.’

  ‘You’re thinking that it won’t be what you want?’

  ‘I’m thinking that it won’t be what I expected.’

  ‘And you’re overwhelmed by…?’ he prompted.

  ‘I honestly don’t know.’

  With his finger tip he gently brushed a stray tendril of hair from my face. ‘Well then how am I supposed to remedy your worry?’

  I snuggled closer to him and kissed the span of the dark hair across his chest. ‘Maybe you should trust me to do the fixing for a change.’ I reached over him and switched the lamp off. Then I straddled him. Earlier my basal body temperature indicated that I was at prime ovulation in my cycle. ‘I have an idea for you to remedy my worry, for the short term at least.’

  ‘I’ll give it my best shot.’

  Just as he was about to do exactly that his mobile buzzed to life on the side table. I reached for it but he held my hips in place.

  ‘Just leave it. It’s almost midnight.’

  I managed to wriggle free and grab it. ‘So, it’s probably an emergency.’

  Fuck. Why did I have to look? It was only Lucy, and I immediately extricated myself from him as I handed him the phone.

  ‘She wants to have dinner here tomorrow night,’ he told me. ‘Apparently Tom has leave and he’s coming down for the weekend.’

  ‘She’s told you all about him, has she?’

  ‘Is he a dickhead?’

  ‘No. He’s actually quite a nice guy.’ Which is why I’m surprised that he’s taken a fancy to Lucy. But of course I didn’t say this aloud.

  He held his thumbs over the key pad. ‘Should I say yes?’

  ‘Only if you can’t say no to her.’ The words left my mouth before I could stop them.

  Nick replaced the phone back to the side table without replying and cuddled into me. ‘What’s this all about?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Has something happened between the two of you?’

  ‘It’s the same as it’s always been. I’ve just grown intolerant of her over the years. We are two very different people.’

  ‘Yes you are. You have my entire heart and she doesn’t.’

  ‘So you’re not oblivious to her then?’

  ‘I’m not stupid, Cate.’

  With a rush something occurred to me. ‘Has she ever tried something on you?’

  ‘No. Well, not since we were teenagers.’

  ‘Did you…?’

  ‘No, angel,’ he kissed my mouth, ‘there’s only ever been you.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘I can’t imagine how nice it would be to know that I’m the only one who has ever touched you.’

  I rolled into him. ‘But you are.’

  ‘I’m not, Cate.’

  ‘You’re the first and last and I’ve forgotten all about the in between, so if you think about it, it is true.’

  ‘Is it really? And if I said that I had slept with another woman, would you just write that off as meaningless?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He punished my untruth with a squeeze of my bottom. ‘Liar.’

  We were talking about sex with other people, in our bed, and still he managed to put a smile on my face. Was there no topic that he wouldn’t indulge me over?

  ‘Say yes to dinner.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Tom’s travelling a long way. I’m sure Lucy has the sex part sorted but we can’t leave it up to her to feed the man. He’ll starve to death.’

  Chapter 15

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Tom chuckled, ‘but I’m finding it increasingly difficult to concentrate. This place is like nothing I’ve ever seen.’ He took a deep breath of Mother Nature’s best.

  ‘You’ve never been to a winery before?’ Nick asked as he stretched his legs on the plush green grass.

  We sipped thirty year old merlot on the lawn by the naked blossoms as the moon took its rightful place in the star-speckled night sky. It was cold, but not yet cold enough to venture inside, or perhaps that was due to the home grown wine in our warm bellies.

  Lucy was being so lovely, which kind of threw me a bit, but proved to be the reason for my utter relaxation.

  Tom was relaxed to as he rested back onto his elbow on the picnic rug where he and Nick sat. ‘I grew up on the beach. Basking in the sun is my ideal place to be, but now, having experienced what feels like another world, I think that maybe I’m more suited to bush and vineyards than I am to sand and surf. So, how long have you two been married?’ Tom asked Nick as he swirled his glass like a natural, as if it wasn’t the fifth glass of wine that he had ever had in his life.

  ‘Almost two years.’

  ‘No way! Up until now I could never have imagined wanting to be with anyone for more than two days!’

  ‘Up until now you hadn’t met Lucy?’ I pointed out because I was a gracious hostess.

  ‘I just couldn’t see myself settling down. I guess all it takes is the right woman.’

  ‘That’s right, mate. Once you meet her, the one who gives you reason to breathe, you just know it, don’t you?’

  ‘Cheers to that. Is that what it was like with you two? You met and it was instant?’

  I wondered if Nick would take the lead with an appropriate response, but instead, he sat back with an expression of pure amusement. He held my gaze and I gave him a nod, prompting him to answer. Maybe I wondered what he told people about us. Maybe I wanted to be a fly on the wall and hear for the first time how he would explain our courtship. Because of my delay in answering, and thanks to Nick Matheson’s unwavering dedication to me, he would gladly take the bullet that I was trying to dodge.

  ‘For us it was instant. The first time we toddled toward each other as one year olds with arms flung open, we knew that we never wanted to be apart. The way she looked at me with a cheeky glint just before throwing sand into my face, and the way I always found myself laughing whenever she was around, made my heart ache. I was instantly addicted to the rush of adoration, or love, if a kid is capable of such a feeling, and I knew that she felt the same.’ Nick laughed, leaning conspiratorially toward Tom. ‘I was pretty cute back then, so how could she not love me too. I guess she just didn’t know it.’

  ‘Women,’ Tom rolled his eyes, ‘they never know what they want.’

  ‘I’ll drink to that.’

  ‘Hang on a minute,’ Lucy chimed in, nipping the male superiority complex in the bud. ‘We know precisely what we want. We just prefer to
keep it secret from you men as a way of weeding out the slackers and the ones with the steam to keep on rolling. Plus, why would we want to give all of our secrets away? You guys like a bit of mystery don’t you? No point laying everything out within the first five minutes. Where’s the fun in that?’

  ‘Actually, I’d have to agree with you there, Lucy,’ Nick amended. ‘Cate can be a bit of a closed book at times, and I kind of like it. I like the fact that I don’t know everything about her.’

  ‘Sorry to contradict you, Nicholas, but you know me better than I know myself.’

  ‘I do know that,’ he hushed his words conspiratorially toward me. ‘I was trying to be an obliging host.’

  Tom laughed. ‘That’s impossible.’

  ‘Why?’ I challenged him.

  ‘How can you ever really know someone, you know, truly know someone? It’s difficult enough to know someone as much as they’ll let you, let alone know them better than they know themselves.’

  ‘It’s entirely possible.’

  ‘You can’t be serious, Cate. You think that Nick knows the inner workings of your brain, of your heart, better than you do?’

  ‘Granted, there will always be things that we don’t know about each other, but the fundamentals are very well understood between us.’

  Tom still wasn’t buying it. ‘He could never know you better than you do.’

  ‘You’re sounding as if I’m detached somewhat from myself, as if I don’t know myself at all; living my life half-heartedly because I don’t actually understand my own needs. That’s not what it’s all about. Nick and I have a bond, a communicative understanding that requires less work than most couples. I probably know him better than he knows himself, too. ‘

  Tom marvelled at such an other-worldly concept. ‘How did that happen?’

  ‘I guess when you have known someone for so long, and been through life-altering moments with each other, you learn from them. When someone is at their highest or at their absolute lowest, is when you see them for who they are. Then you know them, better than they know themselves, because you understand how they would react to situations. It’s far easier to see things from the outside in than the inside out. You know what they would think if an issue was to arise. Even if fear curtains a true understanding of a person, you know deep down exactly how things will play out. Don’t you get confused sometimes? And don’t you wish that you could take a step outside of yourself, to look at a situation with fresh eyes? We have each other for that because we’ve been through a lot together.’