lip. After Fran’s desertion, it was a possibility he should’ve considered. He’d left Ella open for rejection, not just by one woman, but by two. His hands clenched. His jaw clenched. He wanted to throw his head back and howl at the mess he’d made of things.
‘I love it at Waminda too.’ Nicola’s voice sounded clear and harmonious in the evening air. It filtered through the furore raging in his mind and somehow helped to soothe it, though he didn’t know how.
‘But you always knew I had to go back to my home in Melbourne. I have to go back to see my mother and my friends...and I have to go back to my job, remember?’
‘As a schoolteacher.’ Ella nodded, evidently proud that she’d remembered.
‘But it doesn’t mean we can’t be best friends for ever, though, does it? We can write to each other—letters and emails. That’ll be fun, don’t you think?’
Ella nodded again. And then she straightened and started to bounce. ‘We could Skype!’
His four-year-old had recently discovered the joys of the Internet and particularly Skype. His lips twisted. He could forsee a Skype addiction in the future. But suddenly that didn’t seem so bad, because Ella wasn’t crying or traumatised by the thought of Nicola’s departure from Waminda.
Nicola had managed to quieten Ella’s fears and at the same time pump up the little girl’s confidence with an ease he couldn’t believe. It occurred to him then that she might have foreseen a moment like this, and had come up with a plan that she’d implemented so smoothly nobody’s feelings were hurt and all seemed right with the world. Only...
In another three weeks, Nicola would leave Waminda, and that suddenly seemed very, very wrong.
He shot to his feet and immediately set about helping with the general clearing up and packing away. They always made an effort to leave the lake and surrounding as untouched as they could.
I wish you were my mummy.
The words burned like a brand. His gaze drifted to Ella and Nicola and his heart clenched at the way Ella rested against Nicola with all the trust in her four-year-old heart. And at the way Nicola held the child as if she were the most precious thing in the world.
Ella deserved a mother—a woman who would love her and provide her with a role model.
Nicola deserved the family, the children her heart craved.
Daddy, you could marry Nic.
The insidious thought slid under his guard and chafed at him. He tried to shake it off. It was a crazy idea.
I saw you kissing her.
His mouth dried. There was no doubt whatsoever that he enjoyed kissing her. No doubt whatsoever that he’d like to do a whole lot more than kiss her.
But marry her?
He shook his head with a muttered curse and set about packing the car.
* * *
Cade, Nicola, Ella and Holly—with a little help from Nicola—waved at the plane as it took off into endless and cloudless blue sky.
Ella slipped her hand inside Cade’s. ‘I’ll miss Grandma, Daddy.’
‘Me too.’ It took him a moment to drag his gaze from the way Nicola kissed Holly’s crown and then made her giggle by tickling her. He forced himself to smile down at Ella. ‘But she’ll visit again soon,’ he assured her, ushering them back to the car and helping Ella with her seat belt while Nicola strapped Holly into her car seat.
‘She said she’d visit for my birthday.’
He nodded as he started the car and turned it in the direction of the homestead. Dee was going to do her best to bring the boys back for a couple of days then too. He hoped he’d be able to return the favour and take Ella and Holly to visit for the twins’ birthdays later in the year.
‘Nic, can you come back for my birthday?’
Nicola stiffened. If he hadn’t been so finely attuned to her every movement he’d have missed it, it was so fleeting. But he was attuned. And he didn’t miss it.
He glanced at her sharply, but she barely met his gaze as she turned to talk to Ella in the back seat. ‘When’s your birthday, sweetie?’
‘Um...Daddy?’
‘The eleventh of March.’
Nicola shook her head. ‘That’s in term time so I won’t be able to make it.’
In the rear-vision mirror he watched the joy leach from Ella’s face.
‘But it doesn’t mean I can’t come to visit in holiday time...or that I can’t send you a present,’ she added on a teasing note.
Both assurances made Ella brighten, but they didn’t satisfy him. ‘What about Easter?’ he found himself demanding. ‘Could you come then?’
She met his gaze but he couldn’t read her expression and he had to drag his attention back to the dusty track before he drove over a mulga bush or fallen log or large rock and ripped a hole in the fuel tank or tore the muffler from the car.
‘I’m afraid not.’
‘You have plans?’ He couldn’t let it go.
‘I do.’
There was nothing left to say after that.
* * *
Something dragged Cade from the depths of sleep. He sat up in bed and tried to shake the fog from his brain so he could identify what had woken him.
Crying... Holly...
He was on his feet in an instant and stumbling in the direction of the nursery.
He paused in the doorway. Nicola was already there. She had Holly in her arms and was walking her up and down singing a low lullaby. He noticed the bottle of baby medicine on the nightstand.
When she turned to walk back towards the doorway and saw him, she shot him a smile that reassured him there was nothing seriously wrong with his youngest daughter. In time and tune to her lullaby, she sang, ‘We’re teething, Daddy, and it’s not very comfortable.’
Holly’s cries were starting to ease. Poor little tyke. He wanted to reach out and cradle her head, only he didn’t want to disturb her now she was starting to settle again.
Nicola sang that he should go back to bed.
He should. He needed to be up early in the morning—as usual—but he found he didn’t want to. He found the sight of Nicola in her nightie, rocking his child to sleep, amazingly comforting...and undeniably erotic. It struck him as unbelievably tantalising when he realised how thin her nightdress was, and how he could almost make out her entire shape beneath it.
His nanny was all woman and pure temptation. When she leant over the cot his breath caught at the free sway of her breasts. He could imagine the weight of them in his hands, he could imagine burying his face in them and the way she would arch against him and—
‘Cade, go to bed. Holly is sleeping now. I’m sorry we woke you.’
She’d settled Holly with a minimum of fuss. She was great with her. She was great with both his daughters.
‘Can we talk?’ The question shot out of him before he realised he’d meant to ask it. But after a moment’s thought he didn’t regret it. Not one little bit. He pushed his shoulders back.
‘Cade, it’s one o’clock in the morning.’
‘But—’
‘This is not a good time for us to talk.’ She swallowed. ‘It’s not a good time for us to be alone.’
When she went to ease past him, he used his body to trap her against the doorframe. His chest touched her chest and he could feel the way her breath caught and her nipples