LITMIR.BIZ

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then.’

      ‘Not here. I need to go home.’

      ‘Home?’ he asked. ‘To Vickers Hill?’

      She shook her head and gulped air as she tried to get her emotions under control. ‘No. Back to the motel.’

      He was happy to call it quits. It was almost the end of the day and hopefully Heather had managed to reschedule the remaining appointments. Rarely was anything so urgent with community health that it couldn’t be pushed back. He would start earlier tomorrow if necessary, before they headed back to Sydney. Right now Luci was his priority.

      He had bundled her into the car and driven her back to the motel and now she was sitting on the edge of the bed. Her face was blotchy and her eyes were red but she had stopped crying. He boiled the kettle to make tea, wondering if he should call room service for something stronger, but decided to wait.

      He handed her a cup of green tea. ‘What’s going on?’ he asked.

      ‘I don’t like delivering babies.’

      He frowned. ‘What’s not to like? I agree, sometimes things can get a bit difficult but we had a really good outcome today, all things considered.’

      ‘I know and I’m happy for Nadine but I find it soul destroying. It just reminds me that the thing I want most in my life isn’t a possibility.’

      ‘What are you talking about? We’ve had this conversation…you’re young, you’ve got time.’

      ‘It’s not time I need,’ she said with a shake of her head. ‘There are some things I love about small country towns and there are things I can live without. Like delivering babies. That’s part of the reason I wanted to get out of there. I don’t want to deliver other people’s babies. Not when I can’t have my own.’

      ‘What do you mean?’

      ‘I can’t have kids.’

      He wasn’t sure if he was following the conversation properly. ‘But you told me you and your ex-husband were planning on starting a family.’

      ‘We were trying to get pregnant. It didn’t happen.’

      ‘But that doesn’t mean you can’t have them. It just means it hadn’t happened yet.’

      ‘We tried for eighteen months. Nothing.’

      ‘It still doesn’t mean the problem lies with you.’

      ‘I’m pretty sure it does. Ben has remarried and is expecting a baby with his new wife.’

      Wow. He hadn’t seen that coming.

      ‘Why haven’t you told me this before?’ he asked.

      ‘Because it was irrelevant to you.’

      He was momentarily affronted until he realised she was right. Their relationship had no strings attached.

      But that didn’t change the fact that Luci was upset and his natural instinct was to try to fix things. Although this could be a slight problem. He might be out of his depth.

      ‘I guess it’s not,’ he agreed. ‘You’ve spoken about wanting to have kids but you never mentioned you couldn’t.’ He was surprised at how hurt he felt that she hadn’t confided in him but he wasn’t stupid enough not to realise that he hadn’t confided in her either. There was plenty of information he had kept to himself so why should he be upset to find she was no different? He didn’t normally have double standards. ‘Do you know what the problem is?’

      Luci shook her head. ‘No.’

      ‘You haven’t been tested?’

      ‘It’s a long story.’

      ‘I’m not going anywhere.’ Never had a truer word been spoken. They were in the middle of New South Wales. They had nowhere to go, nothing else to do. He had all the time in the world.

      Luci sipped her tea. ‘The doctors said the same thing as you did initially. They told us we were young and healthy and there was no reason to worry. They said we should try to relax, try to just enjoy it, and if, after a year, we weren’t pregnant then they’d do tests. So we listened and decided to keep trying. I had no idea how hard it would be to “relax” in that situation. We kept working. We thought we’d pay off some more of our mortgage and Ben wanted to expand the family business and suddenly eighteen months had passed. So we went back to the doctor and tests were suggested.

      ‘We started the process but by now we were worried. We started discussing what we would do if the tests showed a problem. Would we go down the IVF path? That’s expensive and we weren’t sure how we would afford it. We were already stressed and things just got worse, and then Ben met Catriona. When Ben left me there didn’t seem any point in continuing the testing process and when I heard that Catriona was expecting a baby I figured I had my answer.’ She shrugged. ‘It didn’t matter what the tests showed. The problem was with me.’

      Seb could understand her devastation and her logic but that didn’t mean she was right. ‘But it could have been any number of things.’

      ‘Well, until I find someone who I want to try again with it doesn’t matter. What matters is trying to get on with my life. Ben took away my marriage and I’ve recovered from that, but he also took away my dream of having a family. Even if the problem lay with me as a couple we could have adopted or fostered kids, we could have made something work, but now I either have to give up on my dream or start again. I decided to start again. I will do it. I want this more than anything but it still hurts when I see pregnant women or women with their babies. It reminds me of what I might never have and it’s part of the reason I wanted to move away from working in a country hospital. I had to assist with deliveries and I’d want to be happy for the parents but every time it just felt like my heart was breaking.’

      ‘Working in family and community health might be just as difficult.’

      ‘I know. I’m coming to realise that,’ she sighed. ‘But it’s still an area that interests me. It’s a double-edged sword in a way. I want to work with kids but I didn’t think about the fact that so many women with young children would be pregnant with another one. But I’m hoping that eventually I’ll feel better about it. It will either wreck me or help me but I don’t expect it to happen overnight. One thing at a time.

      ‘I’ve got over the end of my marriage, perhaps one day I’ll accept that I can’t have a family, but for the moment I just prefer not to talk about it. Not talking about it means I can try to ignore it. It’s obvious the problem lies with me, but I’m not ready to think about what it means.’

      All along Seb had had the feeling that she’d been running away and now he knew why. He couldn’t blame her for not wanting to be around when her ex’s new partner had the child she’d been longing for.

      And now it was Seb’s turn to feel as though his heart was breaking. In sympathy with Luci. I’m so sorry. What else could he say?

      But he couldn’t help her. There was nothing he could do. As much as he wanted to, he couldn’t fix this. He couldn’t give her what she wanted but he could take care of her. At least for now.

      He lay on the bed with her and wrapped her in his arms and waited until she fell into an exhausted sleep.

      But sleep eluded him. He lay in the dark and thought about Luci.

      It had been a long time since anything, or anyone, had affected him this strongly. Since anyone had made his heart ache.

      This was exactly what he’d been trying to avoid. He didn’t want to feel. He didn’t want to hurt for someone else. And he didn’t want to think about what that meant.

      In the space of three weeks he had seen her ecstatic, nervous, passionate, playful, flirty and full of despair. Unlike him, she wore her heart on her sleeve. He felt he had known her for much longer and he knew he would miss her when they parted ways, but their time was limited.

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