Nineteen
A week later, Rowena was coming to the end of her twelfth week. Tomorrow, she’d be entering her second trimester. And it was like a switch had flipped.
Which made her feel simultaneously relieved and worried.
She was suddenly less tired and the nausea seemed to have settled almost completely—overnight.
There were still vague, fleeting moments of queasiness, but a Life Saver here and there usually did the trick.
Part of her celebrated the relief from the relentless nausea.
Part of her knew decreased nausea was common in the second trimester.
But the other part was tied in an anxious knot as she thought about all the sinister possibilities.
Sudden cessation of morning sickness symptoms could be a sign that her hCG levels were dropping. HCG was necessary to support a growing pregnancy. So, if the levels were dropping? It could herald the loss of a heartbeat.
Of a miscarriage.
And Rowena did not know how she’d cope with that. She was very aware that the fourteen-week mark would be approaching soon, and that had formed some kind of mental benchmark. If she got past that, maybe this baby would be okay?
Maybe it would all be okay?
Another therapy session helped. Helena pointed out that while her tiredness and nausea had reduced significantly, she was still experiencing both. They went through all the other things that feeling well again could mean.
Things that Rowena already knew.
Like a natural plateauing of hCG levels in the second trimester. Which was normal. Her body getting used to the levels of hCG. Adapting. Which was what bodies did. And the fact that having pregnancy symptoms fluctuate was also very normal.
Helena once again counselled Rowena to get an ultrasound.
That it might actually give her some peace of mind seeing everything was okay inside her uterus, seeing a strong heartbeat.
But Rowena still baulked at the idea. She understood Helena’s thinking.
Hell, if the situation was reversed, that’s what she’d be counselling too.
But Rowena couldn’t.
She knew there was no logic to it—that seeing her baby on an ultrasound screen would make zero difference to whether it survived or not. Even less logical was that somehow losing the baby would hurt less if she hadn’t seen the heartbeat.
It was just a mental hurdle she couldn’t get over.
Not before that benchmark fourteen weeks. After—maybe. But not before.
Another thing she’d noticed—which was far from existential but still a definite change—was that she was suddenly exceptionally, and rather inconveniently, horny.
Also perfectly normal.
Rowena knew that pregnant women entering the second trimester often experienced an increase in sexual desire.
The initial double whammy of tiredness and morning sickness had generally settled, and there wasn’t yet the issue of a large bump or third trimester fatigue to negotiate.
On top of that, there was a bunch of sexy-time hormones running around, as well as an increased blood volume to the genitals.
Talk about the holy trinity of sex drive.
Add to that how elusive her orgasms had been, and Rowena’s second trimester horniness was well and truly exacerbated.
The problem was, this wasn’t just general horniness. She wasn’t looking at every available man who crossed her path with lascivious intent.
Nope. Unfortunately for her, it was just one man.
Lachlan freaking McCabe.
The dreams she was having about him were epic erotic fantasies—always in that big bed at The Stockman, and growing more and more elaborate as each night passed. Fantasies that made it hard to meet his eye in the morning.
Frustratingly, though, she’d still been unable to get herself across the line. The fact Lachlan was in the next room certainly didn’t help. She’d cried out one night as she’d woken from a particularly erotic moment in a dream, and he’d been in her doorway in a flash asking her if she was okay.
Farmers were, apparently, very light sleepers!
The thought that she might moan too loudly in the throes of a self-love was definitely not helping her hit the jackpot. But every time he smiled at her or laughed at something Reggie said at the dinner table or regaled her with some daily farm anecdote, her libido wound a little bit tighter.
She’d never known just talking with a man could be so goddamn sexual, and yet their conversations always left her in a puddle of lust.
Completely non-sexual conversations.
About her roster or Shirley’s daily antics or the latest freaking long-range weather forecast. Seriously, how could any of those topics get her motor running?
But they did.
Her body hummed after each one like a bloody nuclear power station. So much so, she started to wonder if a person could actually die from horniness.
Or at least be permanently disfigured?
*
Rowena was standing on the bunkhouse deck at the end of her fourteenth week. An early shift had helped preoccupy her mind, for which she was grateful, but now she was staring out over the trees and scrub beyond, her hand cradled over her abdomen, breathing in and out as she fought back tears.
She’d made it to the benchmark. One she hadn’t made with her previous pregnancy all those years ago, which was hard not to think about today. Not to think about the way her little boy had slid from her body so precious and perfect.
He may have been born sleeping, but he was as alive to her now as he had been then.
Surely the universe wouldn’t be so cruel as to do it again? To take this precious gift from her now? Because she wanted this baby. Wanted it with a ferociousness that took her breath away. Wanted it more than she’d ever wanted anything.
More than that purple ten-speed bicycle she’d coveted when she’d been seven. More than those tickets to see Pink when she’d been fifteen. More than getting that job on the NICU when she’d been thirty.
More than how much she wanted Lachlan McCabe between her thighs right now.
Dare she hope? Could she let go and allow herself to revel in this? To celebrate this miracle?
To enjoy it?
‘Hey.’
Rowena started. She’d been so caught up in her thoughts she hadn’t heard him approach.
‘Reggie said you were here. Everything okay?’
Rowena blinked hard to clear any trace of moisture from her eyes and braced herself for the usual jettison of oestrogen as she turned to face him.
And he didn’t disappoint, looking all kinds of sexy in his low-rider blue jeans and flannel shirt rolled to his elbows.
He had that I’ve-just-come-from-the-paddock look and lordy, lordy, she wanted to rub against him like a cat.
To relieve the ache in her breasts and the one between her legs, and the restless kind of itch under her skin.
He stopped his advance abruptly as his searching gaze took in her rapid blinking and her hand flat on her stomach. He took his hat off and fingered it absently. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing,’ she assured hastily. ‘Everything’s fine. I’m just …’ She turned back to the view in case she really did start to rub herself against him. ‘Thinking.’
She was conscious of him moving closer and her whole body went into an instant frenzied alert when he slid in beside her, his fingers wrapping around the top railing. He didn’t say anything for a beat or two, but when he did speak, he cut straight to the chase.
‘You’re thinking about your baby?’
‘Yes.’
‘I mean about Arch—’
‘I know what you mean,’ she said, interrupting quietly, not surprised by his insight where she was concerned.
Despite outward appearances, Lachlan had proven to be very in tune with her thoughts and feelings. For a guy who swaggered about doing manly stuff, he was incredibly emotionally intuitive.
Which had been … unexpected.
Stereotypes about the dearth of sensitive men in the outback abounded, but were patently false where Lachlan was concerned.
Maybe that came from his own experiences of grief.
Maybe it had been Reggie’s influence. But the fact he was sensitive to where she was at emotionally and about her triggers only increased his sexiness tenfold.
He spoke again after long moments of silence. ‘You made it to the end of fourteen weeks.’
She nodded. ‘Yes.’
‘How are you … feeling about that?’
The question was tentative. He was clearly aware that his enquiry could be met with any number of responses, from neutral to hostile and anything in between. But Lachlan had once again proved he wasn’t scared of the sticky questions.
‘Mixed, I guess,’ she admitted, glancing at his profile. ‘Wondering if I should dare hope. Wanting to on one hand but still catastrophising on the other. Fourteen weeks is a definite milestone for me but it’s still early days.’
‘Is there a certain number of weeks where you’ll stop catastrophising?’
Rowena almost laughed. Now there was a question.
‘Well … viability is twenty-four weeks, but—’ She knew full well the struggles faced by premmie babies.
The long hard road, the complications, the one-step-forward, two-steps-back roller coaster.
‘That’s still very tiny. And honestly, I’m going to be like a cat on a hot tin roof through all this pregnancy. ’
Bad things could and did happen at any stage of pregnancy. Rowena was probably never going to relax until she was holding a full-term, squalling infant in her arms. But if the thought of supporting her emotionally for so long daunted Lachlan, he didn’t say so.
He just nodded and said, ‘Okay.’
There was more silence as they both contemplated the scenery, and Rowena wondered if his thoughts were as circular as hers. After a minute, he turned to face her, propping his hip against the railing.
‘Do you think … Now that …’ He paused. Grimaced. Shook his head a little as if trying to shake out the right words. ‘I know you haven’t wanted to talk about this, but … maybe it’s time to get an ultrasound?’