He nodded. “I see what you mean, but I honestly don’t think you have a lot to be afraid of with me, Nina. I can’t promise you I won’t make mistakes. This is new territory for me.”
“For both of us,” she acknowledged fairly.
He placed a gentle finger on her lips. His eyes pleaded for her belief. “I can promise you I’ll never knowingly make our kid feel she isn’t wanted or doesn’t belong. I’ve been through that myself. I sure as hell wouldn’t do it to my own kid.”
His sincerity was beyond doubt. Nina recollected what he’d said about nannies and the alienation from home life by being sent to boarding school at a young age.
“Don’t you worry,” he went on strongly. “Charlie girl is going to have a very special place in our lives. She’ll know it, too. Look at Spike.”
This last comment threw Nina. “What has our daughter got to do with your dog?”
“When I took him home from the animal shelter he was a cowed and beaten dog. Whoever his previous owner was had woefully mistreated him. Broken his spirit. I gave Spike confidence in himself. Now he thinks he owns the place,” Jack declared, proving his capability of restoring faith in a dog.
Nina couldn’t help smiling. “Charlotte isn’t a puppy, Jack. Human beings are a bit more complex.”
He gave her a wise look. “Maybe human beings make things complex when they should be kept simple.”
“Maybe. In any event, let’s give it some time. There’s no need for us to rush into marriage.”
His sigh carried reluctant resignation. “Living apart doesn’t give me the best chance to prove I can be a good dad, Nina,” he pointed out.
That was true, yet she couldn’t bring herself to make a commitment she wasn’t absolutely sure of. “Be patient with me, Jack,” she pleaded. “I’ve seen my parents go through the marry in haste, repent at leisure experience. I don’t want to be rushed.”
“Fair enough,” he agreed, kissing her lightly to show there were no hard feelings. He followed it up with a dazzling smile. “How about you and our daughter spending the weekend at my place? It lets me be a full-time dad for two days so you can judge how I’m doing,” he added persuasively.
Jack’s emphasis on the words our daughter was not lost on Nina. It would be an even better sign if he called her Charlotte, but Nina was content with one step forward at a time.
“Fair enough,” she agreed happily, reaching to pull his head to hers again and turning to feel the warm, wonderful length of his body against hers.
Jack needed no further invitation to resume lovemaking, and Nina revelled in every exquisite nuance of their intimacy.
One barrier gone, she thought exultantly.
She fiercely hoped Jack could remove the other.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
JACK learnt a highly sobering lesson the next morning. When it came to babies, triumph could be turned into disaster in no time flat.
There he was, thinking he’d achieved a great step forward. Charlie girl had slept right through the night, as her dad had tactfully suggested, giving her mum a good rest, not to mention the freedom to reacquaint herself with the highly pleasurable satisfaction of lovemaking between a man and a woman. A splendid kid, Jack had thought, one who knew the meaning of artful cooperation and followed it to the letter.
Then what happened? Because Charlie girl hadn’t woken for her regular feed in the wee hours of the morning, when she had called for it at the respectable time of sunrise, Nina’s breasts were so tight with milk, at the first bit of sucking it ran down the kid’s throat like the gush of a tap having been turned on full blast. Too much to cope with. She’d choked and spewed everywhere, distressing Nina and not feeling too good herself.
Jack could not have imagined such a little kid being a projectile vomiter. He took over the cleaning-up detail, relieving Nina of that mess. And he certainly had to admire Nina’s fast thinking. She figured out if she lay on her back and the kid had to suck up from her breasts, the flow wouldn’t be such dynamite.
It solved the feeding problem. Unfortunately, a baby’s stomach was only so big. It couldn’t take the double helping of milk Nina’s inbuilt maternal machinery had manufactured and stockpiled. Her breasts were still uncomfortably tight after the kid had filled up.
“I’ll have to use a breast pump, Jack,” she said worriedly. “Will you find a chemist shop and buy one for me, please?”
“A breast pump,” he repeated, incredulously thinking of the sucking contraptions stuck onto cows’ teats for milking. When he was in primary school he’d gone to a dairy farm on an education excursion and seen them in operation. Nina had to use something like that? The idea horrified him.
“Yes. I guess I should have had one on hand, but I didn’t expect Charlotte to start sleeping through the night this soon.”
Guilt writhed through Jack.
“I think there’s a twenty-four-hour chemist shop at Epping if you wouldn’t mind going for me,” Nina urged.
“Of course, I’ll go.” He checked his watch. It was almost seven o’clock, too early for normal business hours. They were only a couple of streets away from Epping Road. “Should be back in about twenty minutes or so. Will you be all right, Nina?” he asked anxiously.