Page 51 of Hard Road Home
“I went to the doctor’s surgery today. I needed to talk to someone.”
His eyes shut briefly and opened again. The rise and fall of his chest was visible in the movement of the tartan coat. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. I needed to check up on some things about my diabetes. For the future.”
He shifted and for a moment she thought he would turn and face her. “You said it was no big deal.”
“So long as I do all the right things and don’t make any drastic changes in my lifestyle.”
“Would marriage be so drastic?”
At least she knew it was marriage on his mind. He danced around the subject so much, it was hard to know. “Marriage would be fine. Children would be a little more complicated.”
He swivelled on the seat, finally looking her in the eye. “Children would be a problem?”
“Pregnancy can be a risk. Even women with no health issues can sometimes have problems with gestational diabetes. For someone like me, the risk is way higher.”
“What would it mean in practical terms? More medication. Rest. I can look after you. You wouldn’t have to work.”
“I’m not saying it’s likely, because I would be monitored extra carefully by the medical staff, but people have died from it in the past.”
“You could die? That’s ridiculous.” His fingers clenched into fists and he dropped them to his knees. “We’ll have the best medical care available. Maybe not here all the time for specialists, but in Bialga, or we could go to Brisbane or Sydney.”
From somewhere came the urge to keep pushing. “It most likely won’t happen. But things might not be perfect. I’d have to plan carefully around my diet and my treatment. Even then things could go wrong for me, and for the baby. Can you live with that possibility?”
He flung himself to his feet and stood at the edge of the grass, where the ground ended with a short drop to the water. His shoulders were hunched, his back somehow signalling his rejection of what she’d told him. She waited for the inevitable dismissal, the roll of his shoulders as he shook it off and turned to face her.
“It doesn’t have to be a problem. There’s no need to take any risks. Children aren’t essential. It might even be better this way. We wouldn’t be tied down. You’d be able to travel with me when I do charity gigs and so on.”
From zero to a hundred in no time flat. She had to stop him before he got up a full head of steam. Standing, she faced him, forcing him to look at her eye to eye. “Xander.”
He paused in mid-flight; his mouth half open.
“Xander, I want children. I’m prepared to take the risk.”
The stormy cast in his eyes bled away, leaving them a pure cold blue. “I’m not prepared to take risks. Not with your life.”
“I guess that settles it.” Inside, her heart was weeping, a pain so deep she could barely breathe.
He raised a hand, as if to reach out to touch her, but it dropped away. “I can’t lose anyone else. You see that, don’t you?”
“It’s all right.” She laughed, a pained choking sound that hurt her throat. “I expected you to reject me because it would be tough having children. Now it seems you didn’t really want children at all.”
“Not if it means risking your life.”
“It’s my life to risk. I have no family of my own, so children are important to me. If you can’t live with that, then maybe you should look elsewhere. No risk of missing out on the fun.”
A flash of something made her wonder if he wanted to dispute her statement. When she studied his face, whatever it was had vanished, leaving only a wry half smile.
“I’ll take you home.”
Chapter Thirteen
Alone in thewagon, Xander instinctively turned back over the bridge out of town. The drive to the Appleton place went by in a haze. He’d really done it. He’d gone from believing he could marry Bonnie and have the perfect family to nothing at all in a half hour. He couldn’t let her risk her life for the sake of hypothetical children. Knowing his luck, she would die if she fell pregnant. He’d be by himself again. It was better this way. Better to walk away while he still had the strength.
It’s not like she cared like he wanted her to. She wasn’t even surprised. Like she’d been waiting for him to walk away because it was too hard. Like she knew she was too hard. Maybe she was. Why would she risk her health for the sake of children? Risk dying. It might be only a small risk but he’d seen what people would do for the sake of what they craved. They’d risk everything.
There was no way he was going into a situation he couldn’t control. He’d spent half his life building a safety net without risk. Money could buy a lot of safety. A lot of security. He’d learned early some things you couldn’t control. People usually. If you let them have power over you, it always came back to bite you.