The Midwife's Son

Keep it simple.

Do not get too close.

Don’t ask him for more than fun. And great sex.

Her skin sizzled. What they’d shared last night had gone beyond fun, beyond description. She grimaced. What rule had she broken there?

‘Jessica, you’re going weird on me.’ Jackson was right beside her as she punched in the security code for the alarm system.

Pulling the door shut and checking it was locked, she dug deep for a nonchalant answer and came up with, ‘Not weird, just pulling on my mother-in-charge persona.’

‘You’re two different people?’ His eyes widened, making him look surprised and funny at the same time.

She couldn’t keep serious around him. Bending forward at the waist, one hand on her butt like a tail and the other creating a beak over her mouth, she headed towards her car. ‘Quack, quack, quack.’

‘Hang on, who are you? Where’s Jess gone? Bring her back. I’m not getting in a vehicle with a duck.’

‘Quack, quack.’

Jackson chuckled. ‘Is this how you bring up your son? The poor little blighter. He’ll be scarred for life. I need to save him.’

Jess felt his arms circle her and swing her off the ground to be held against that chest she’d so enjoyed running her fingers up and down during the night. She slid her hands behind his neck and grinned into his face. ‘You’re not going to kiss a duck?’

He groaned. ‘I must be as crazy as you.’ Then his mouth covered hers and she forgot everything except his kiss.

Heat spiralled out of control inside her. Her skin lifted in excited goose-bumps. Between her legs a steady throb of need tapped away at her sanity. Sparks flew. Whoever had invented electricity obviously hadn’t had great sex.

Without taking that gorgeous, sexy mouth away from hers, Jackson set her on her feet and tugged her hard against him. She could feel his reaction to her against her abdomen. She clung to him. To stop holding him would mean ending up in an ungainly heap on the ground.

His lips lifted enough for him to demand, ‘What’s that code you just punched in?’

‘Why?’

‘We need a bed. Or privacy at least.’

He was right. They couldn’t stay in the very public car park, demonstrating their awakening friendship. Not when he’d made sure no one had seen him leaving her place early that morning. She glanced down at Jackson’s well-awake evidence of their needs and grinned. ‘Three-two-four-eight-one.’

‘I’m expected to remember that in the midst of a wave of desire swamping my brain?’

Thank goodness he returned his mouth to hers the moment he’d got that question out. She couldn’t stand it when he withdrew from kissing her. Could this man kiss or what?

Cheep-cheep. Cheep-cheep.

‘What the—?’ Jackson’s eyes were dazed as he looked around.

Reality kicked into Jess. ‘My phone.’ She tugged the offending item from her pocket and glared at the screen. Then softened. ‘It’s probably Nicholas, using Andrea’s phone.’ As she pressed the talk button she gave Jackson an apologetic shrug. ‘This is another side of being a mother. Always on call.’ Then, ‘Hello, is that my boy?’

‘Mummy, where are you? I want to see Grady now.’ He’d taken to Grady very quickly. Perhaps it was a sign he needed a male figure in his life?

‘I’m on my way to get you.’ She turned from the disappointment in Jackson’s eyes. He might as well get used to the reality of her life right from the start. Presuming he wanted to see more of her, and that bulge in his jeans suggested he did.

‘How long will you be, Mummy? I want to show you the fish the seagulls stole.’

‘Nicholas, you know I can’t talk to you while I’m driving so you’ll have to wait until I get there to tell me about the seagulls. Okay?’

‘Why won’t the policemen let you drive and talk to me? It’s not fair.’

Jess grinned. ‘It’s the law, sweetheart.’ Knowing Nicholas could talk for ever, she cut him off. ‘See you soon.’

Jackson’s hands were stuffed into the pockets of his designer jeans as he leaned against the vehicle he’d borrowed from his mother. ‘Want me to drive?’

‘You still want to come with me?’ Now, that surprised her. As far as she knew, Jackson wasn’t used to little kids and this particular one had interrupted something fairly intense. ‘Are you going to growl at him for his timing?’

‘No.’ He flicked a cheeky smile her way. ‘The day will come when someone interrupts him in his hour of need.’

She groaned and slapped her forehead. ‘I do not want to think about that. He’s four, not thirty-four.’

‘Thirty-four?’

‘That’s when I’ll think about letting him out on his own to see girls.’

‘Good luck with that one.’ He crossed to the driver’s side of her car and held his hand up for the keys. ‘Let’s go.’

‘Um, my car. I drive.’

He just grinned at her. Really grinned, so that her tummy flip flopped and her head spun. So much that driving could be dangerous.

‘Go on, then.’ She tossed the keys over the top of her car. ‘Men.’

‘Glad you noticed.’

How could she not? His masculinity was apparent in those muscles that filled his jeans perfectly, in his long-legged stride, in the jut of his chin, in that deep, sexy chuckle that got her hormones in a twitter every time. She climbed into the passenger seat and closed the door with a firm click. Then something occurred to her. ‘We’re going to Pohara Beach. Shouldn’t we take both vehicles, save a trip back into town later?’

‘Nah. I’ll go for a run when it cools down, pick up the truck then. Mum won’t be needing it today.’

‘Running? As in pounding the pavement and building up a sweat?’ She shuddered. ‘You obviously need a life.’ But it did explain those superb thigh muscles. And his stamina.

Jackson just laughed. ‘You’re not into jogging, then? Knitting and crochet more your style?’

Thinking about the cute little jerseys she’d made for Nicholas last winter, she smiled and kept quiet. If only you knew, Jackson.

Then he threw another curve ball as they headed towards the beach. ‘Who held you while you had Nicholas? Who smoothed your back and said you were doing fine?’

The man wasn’t afraid of the big questions. ‘No one ever asked me that before.’ Not even Mum and Dad. Especially not Mum and Dad.

‘Tell me to shut up if you want.’

That was the funny thing. She didn’t want to. Jackson touched something in her that negated all her usual reticence when it came to talking about personal things. ‘Two nurses I was friendly with took it in turns to hold my hand and talk me through the pain.’ She’d trained with Phillip and Rochelle, and when they’d got married she’d been there to celebrate with them. They’d been quick to put their hands up when she’d announced she was having a baby, offering to help in any way they could. It had been more than three years since they’d left to work in Australia, and she still missed them.

‘That must’ve been hard.’

Because Nicholas’s dad wasn’t there? No, by then she’d known she’d had a lucky escape. ‘Not so bad. It was worse afterwards when I wanted to share Nicholas’s progress, to talk about him and know I was on the right track with how I brought him up. That’s when single mothers have it tough. That’s what I’ve been told, and going by my own experience I have to agree.’ It was also probably why Nicholas got away with far more than he should. There was no one to share the discipline, to play good cop, bad cop with.

‘So how do you cope with the day-to-day stuff of being a solo mum?’

‘Heard of the headless chook? That’s me.’

‘When you’re not being a duck, you mean?’

She giggl

ed. ‘That too. I don’t think about how I manage, I just do. I wouldn’t want to go back to before I had Nicholas. Being a mother is wonderful. Though there are days when I go to visit Sasha or your mum for a bit of adult conversation and to help calm the worry that I’m getting it all wrong.’

‘Even two parents bringing up a child together have those worries.’

‘Guess it will never stop.’

Jackson turned onto the road running beside Pohara Beach. ‘I was watching Lily and Matthew earlier. They were desperate to hold their baby and it hurt them not to be able to.’

Again she thought she could read him. ‘Believe me, if you want to be a part of your child’s life then you’re not going to miss that first cuddle for anything. Sad to say, but my boy’s father truly didn’t care. He came to town for three months, had a lot of fun, and left waving a hand over his shoulder when I told him I was pregnant. He didn’t even say goodbye.’