Surprise: Outback Proposal: Surprise: Outback Proposal

SURPRISE:

OUTBACK

PROPOSAL

JENNIE ADAMS

A NATURAL

FATHER

SARAH MAYBERRY

www.millsandboon.co.uk

SURPRISE:

OUTBACK

PROPOSAL

JENNIE ADAMS

Dear Reader,

When I started the story of Jayne Cutter, a career-focused businesswoman in her mid-thirties, I knew Alex MacKay, the youngest of my three MacKay brothers, would be the perfect match for her.

Jayne is uncomfortable with the idea of commitment, and isn’t facing the real reasons for that. When she falls for Alex, a younger man, she worries about getting into a damaging relationship where there are age disparities, as her father has done so repeatedly since Jayne’s mother left the family many years ago.

Alex MacKay was dumped on the doorstep of a Sydney orphanage as a baby. He has two wonderful adopted brothers and they should be all the family he needs—so why can’t Alex get rid of the restlessness that plagues him, the feeling that there is something more out there somewhere?

Alex and Jayne join forces for business reasons. Life throws them into each other’s emotional journey, pulling away layer upon layer of self-protectiveness until their real emotions, needs, hopes and fears must be exposed if they are to have any hope of a future together.

Please join me as I take Jayne and Alex on a journey through some of Australia’s beautiful country, and on a personal journey that will help them both to recognise and accept all they are as individuals, and what they can mean to each other.

Love and hugs from Australia,

Jennie

Thanks to the team at Neighbours for inspiring this story, particularly you, Mr. Hannam, with your talk of delicious, barefoot Italian men making gnocchi.

As always, this book would not exist if

Chris was not by my side, mopping my fevered brow

and rubbing my shoulders and making me laugh.

And then there is Wanda, who always makes my

writing better, always knows best and always makes

me laugh even when I think I want to cry. You rock.

CHAPTER ONE

“I DON’T FEEL SO GOOD.” Lucy Basso pressed a hand to her stomach. “Maybe I should do this another time.”

Her sister Rosetta rolled her eyes and passed the menu over.

“Stop being such a wuss,” Rosie said, scanning the menu. “I’m going to have the pesto and goat’s cheese focaccia. What about you?”

“How about a nervous breakdown?” Lucy said.

Around them, the staff and patrons of their favorite inner-city Melbourne café went about their business, laughing, talking, drinking and eating as though none of them had a care in the world.

Lucy stared at them with envy.

I bet none of you are unexpectedly pregnant. I bet none of you are so stupidly, childishly scared of telling your Catholic Italian mother that you decided to do it in a public place so she couldn’t yell too loudly. I bet none of you are contemplating standing up right now and hightailing it out of here and moving to another country so you never have to look into her face and see how disappointed she is in you.

Her sister placed the menu flat on the table and gave Lucy one of her Lawyer Looks. Over the years, Rosie had perfected several, and Lucy kept a running tally of them. This was Lawyer Look Number Three—the my-client-is-an-idiot-but-I-will-endure-because-I’m-being-paid one.

“There’s no point worrying about something you can’t change. And it’s not like you’ve robbed a bank or become a Buddhist, God forbid. You made a baby with the man you love. So what if you’re not married to him? So what if he’s just left you for another woman? None of that is your fault. Well, not technically.”

Lucy narrowed her eyes, for a moment forgetting her nerves. “What’s that supposed to mean? Which bit is technically not my fault? Us not being married or his leaving me? And please do not tell me that you think us being married would have made a difference to this situation, because that’s so not true. I’d just be sitting here with a stupid ring on my finger and he’d still be having tantric sex with Belinda the Nimble.”

Rosie smiled. “There, see? All you needed was to get a little temper going, and you’re fine.”

She looked so pleased with herself, Lucy had to laugh.

“You are the worst. Please tell me you have a trick like that up your sleeve for when Ma starts crossing herself and beating her chest.”

“She hasn’t beaten her chest for years. Not since we told her it was making her boobs sag prematurely,” Rosie said. “And what’s with the nimble thing, by the way? You always call Belinda that. Personally, I prefer ‘that slut,’ but I’m hard like that.”

Lucy reached for the sugar bowl and dug the teaspoon deep into the tiny, shiny crystals.

“It’s one of the things Marcus said when he told me he was leaving. That he’d met someone, and she was beautiful and captivating and nimble.”

Even though two months had passed since that horrible, soul-destroying conversation, Lucy still felt the sting of humiliation and hurt. She’d been so secure in Marcus’s love. So certain that no matter what else was going wrong in her life—and the list seemed to be growing longer by the day—he’d always be there for her.

Ha.

“Nimble. What the hell does that mean? That she can put her ankles behind her ears? Like that’s going to see them through the hard times,” Rosie said.

Lucy shrugged miserably, then caught herself. She was wallowing again. The moment she knew she was pregnant, she’d made a deal with herself that self-pity was out the window. The days of self-indulgent cannoli pig-outs were over. She had another person to consider now. A person who was going to be totally dependent on her for everything for so many years it was almost impossible to comprehend.

“Hello, my darlings, so sorry I’m late.”

Lucy and Rosie started in their seats. When it came to sneaking up on people unawares, their mother was a world champion. It was a talent she’d mastered when they were children, and it never failed to unsettle them both.

“Why you had to choose this place when the parking is so bad and my cornetti are ten times better, I don’t know,” Sophia Basso said as she scanned the busy café, clearly unimpressed. “We could have had a nice quiet time at home with no interruptions.”

“Ma, you’ve got to stop sneaking up on us like that. You’re like the Ninja Mom,” Lucy said.

“I can’t help that I step lightly, Lucia,” Sophia said.

Small and slim, she was dressed, as always, with elegance in a silk shirt in bright aquamarine with a bow at the neck, a neat black skirt and black court shoes. Over it all she wore the black Italian wool coat her daughters had bought her for her birthday last year.

“I know it’s hard to park here, but Brunetti’s make the best hot chocolate in town,” Rosie said.

Sophia sniffed her disagreement as she folded her coat carefully over the back of her chair. Then she held her arms wide and Rosie stood and stepped dutifully into her embrace, followed by Lucy a few seconds later.

“My girls. So beautiful,” Sophia Basso said, her fond gaze cataloging their tall, slim bodies, dark shiny hair and deep-brown eyes with parental pride.

She sank into her chair and Lucy and Rosie followed suit.

Sometimes, Lucy reflected, meeting with her mother was like having an audience with the queen. Or maybe the pope was a better comparison, since there was usually so much guilt associated with the occasion, mixed in with the love and amusement and frustration.

“You’ve put on weight, Lucia,” Sophia said as she spread a napkin over her lap. “It’s good to see. You’re always much too skinny.”

Lucy tensed. She was twelve weeks pregnant and barely showing. If she lay on her back and squinted, she could just discern the concave bump that would soon grow into a big pregnancy belly. How could her mother possibly notice such a subtle change?

Lucy exchanged glances with her sister.

Just say it. Spit it out, get it over and done with.

Ever since she found out she was pregnant five weeks ago, she’d been coming up with excuses for why she couldn’t tell her mother. First, she’d decided to wait to make sure the pregnancy was viable before saying anything. Why upset her mother for no reason, after all? But the weeks had passed and she’d realized she was going to start to show soon. The last thing she wanted was for her mother to find out from someone else. She could just imagine Mrs. Cilauro from the markets or old Mr. Magnifico, one of her customers, asking her mother when Lucia was due.

The thought was enough to make her feel light-headed. For sure the chest-beating would make a reappearance. And she would never be able to forget causing her mother so much pain. Not that being single and pregnant wasn’t going to score highly on that front. Her mother had struggled to raise her and Rosie single-handedly after their father died in a work-site accident when they were both just toddlers. Sophia’s most fervent wish, often vocalized, was that her two daughters would never have to go through the uncertainty and fear of single motherhood.

Guess what, Ma? Surprise!

“I saw Peter DeSarro the other day. He asked me to say hello to you both,” Sophia said, sliding her reading glasses onto the end of her nose. “He asked particularly after you, Rosetta. You broke his heart when you married Andrew, you know.”

“Oh yeah, I was a real man killer,” Rosie said dryly. “All those guys panting on my doorstep all the time.”

Sophia glanced at her elder daughter over the top of her glasses.

“You were too busy with your studies to notice, but you could have had any boy in the neighborhood.”

Rosie laughed outright at that.

“Ma, I was the size of a small country in high school. The only boys interested in me were the ones who figured I was good for a free feed at lunchtime.”

“Rosetta! That is not true!” Sophia said.

Lucy squeezed her eyes tightly shut. Any second now, the conversation was going to degenerate into a typical Rosie-Sophia debate about history as they both saw it, and Lucy would lose her courage. She took a deep breath.

“Mom, I’m pregnant,” she blurted, her voice sounding overloud in her own ears.

Was it just her, or did the world stop spinning for a second?

Her mother’s eyes widened, then the color drained out of her face.

“Lucia!” she said. Her hand found Lucy’s on the tabletop and clutched it.

“It’s Marcus’s. We think maybe a condom broke. I’m due in late October. Give or take,” Lucy said in a rush.

Her mother’s face got even paler. Lucy winced. She hadn’t meant to share the part about the condom breaking. She’d never discussed contraception with her mother in her life, and she wasn’t about to start now.

“You’re three months already?” her mother asked, her voice barely a whisper.

Lucy nodded. She could see the stricken look in her mother’s eyes, knew exactly what she was thinking.

“I didn’t want to tell you until I was sure,” she said. It was flimsy, and all three of them knew it. “I didn’t want you to worry about me,” she said more honestly.

Her mother exhaled loudly and sat back in her chair. Her hand slid from Lucy’s.

“Now Marcus will have to step up and take care of his responsibilities,” Sophia said. “You are angry with him, Lucia, I know, but for the sake of the baby you will take him back. You will buy a nice house, and he will get a real job to look after you and the baby.”

Lucy blinked. Fatten her mother up, give her a sex change and stuff her mouth with cotton wool, and she’d be a dead spit for Marlon Brando in The Godfather right now, the way she was organizing Lucy’s life like she was one of the capos in her army.

“Ma, he’s with someone else now. He loves her,” Lucy said flatly.

Sophia shook her head. “It doesn’t matter anymore. He has responsibilities.”

“Since when did that ever make a difference with Marcus?” Rosie said under her breath.

Lucy’s chin came up as the familiar urge to defend Marcus gripped her. She frowned.

He’s not yours to defend anymore, remember?

“This child needs a father,” Sophia said, her fist thumping the table.

Lucy knew that her mother’s words were fueled by all the years of scraping by, but they weren’t what she needed to hear. She couldn’t undo what had happened. She was stuck. She was going to have to do the best she could with what she had. And she was going to have to do it alone.

Rosie’s hand found her knee under the table and gave it a squeeze.

“It’s not like I planned any of this,” Lucy said. “It was an accident. And I can’t make Marcus love me again. I have to get on with things. I’ve got the business, and Rosie and I have been talking—”

“The business! I hadn’t even thought about that! How on earth will you cope with it all on your own?” Her mother threw her hands in the air dramatically. “All those fruit deliveries, lifting all those boxes. And it’s just you, Lucia, no one else. This is a disaster.”

“Ma, you’re not helping. You think Lucy hasn’t gone over and over all of this stuff?” Rosie said.

“She hasn’t gone over it with me,” Sophia said, and Lucy could hear the hurt in her voice.

“I know this is the last thing you want for me,” Lucy said. “I know you’re disappointed. But it’s happening. I’m going to have a baby. You’re going to be a grandmother. Can’t we concentrate on the good bits and worry about the bad bits when they happen?”

Suddenly she really needed to hear her mother say something reassuring. Something about how everything would be all right, how if she had managed, so would Lucy.

Tears filled Sophia Basso’s eyes and she shook her head slowly.

“You have no idea,” she said. “Everything becomes a battle. Just getting to the grocery store, or keeping the house clean. Every time one of you was sick, I used to pace the floor at night, worrying how I was going to pay for the medicine and who was going to look after you when I had to go into work the next day. All the times the utilities were cut off, and the times I couldn’t find the money for school excursions. I would never wish that life on either of you.”

“It won’t be the same, because Lucy has us,” Rosie said staunchly. “What Lucy was about to tell you is that she’s moving into the granny flat at the back of our house. When the baby comes, Andrew and I can help out. Between all of us, we’ll get by.”

Lucy saw that her mother’s hands were trembling. She hated upsetting her. Disappointing her. Deep down inside, in the part of her that was still a child, Lucy had hoped that her mother would react differently. That she’d be more pleased than concerned, that she’d wrap Lucy in her arms and tell her that no matter what happened she would be there for her.

The nervous nausea that had dogged her before her mother’s arrival returned with a vengeance.

She was already scared of what the future might hold. Of having a baby growing inside her—a crazy enough concept all on its own—and then taking that tiny baby home and having to cope with whatever might happen next without Marcus standing beside her. She’d told herself over and over that hundreds of thousands of women across Australia—probably millions of women around the world—coped with having babies on their own. She would cope, too. She would. But she knew it would be the biggest challenge she’d ever faced in her life. And it would be a challenge that would never stop, ever. At seventy, she would still be worrying about her child and wanting the best for him or her. She only had to look at her mother’s grief-stricken face to know that was true.

She stood, clutching her handbag.

“I can’t do this,” she said. “I’m sorry, Ma. But I can’t do this right now.”

It was too much, taking on her mother’s trepidation and doubts as well as her own.

Her mother gaped and Rosie half rose from her chair as Lucy strode for the entrance, fighting her way through the line of people waiting for service at the front counter.

Outside, Lucy stuffed her hands into the pockets of her coat and sucked in big lungfuls of air. She stared up at the pale blue winter sky, willing herself to calm down.

It’s going to be okay. I’m twenty-eight years old. Last year, I started my own business. I can do this. I’m a strong person.

She found her car keys in her bag and started to walk, chin up, jaw set.

After all, it wasn’t as though she had a choice.

A month later

DOMINIC BIANCO RAN his hands through his hair and stifled a yawn. If anyone asked, he was going to blame the jetlag for his tiredness, but the truth was that he’d gotten out of the habit of early starts while he’d been visiting with family back in the old country. Six months of touring Italy, hopping from one relative’s house to the next had made him lazy and soft. Just what he’d needed at the time, but now he was back and there was work to do. As always.

Around him, the Victoria Market buzzed with activity. Situated in the central business district, the markets were the heart of the fresh produce trade in Melbourne, supplying suburban retailers, restaurants and cafés across the city. Bianco Brothers had occupied the same corner for nearly thirty years, ever since new immigrants Tony and Vinnie Bianco started selling fruits and vegetables as eager young men. Today, the family stall sprawled down half the aisle and turned over millions of dollars annually.

Dom checked his watch. Five o’clock. One hour until customers started arriving.

He wondered if he would see her today. Then he shook his head. What was he, sixteen again?

“Grow up, idiot,” he told himself as he turned toward the pallet of boxed tomatoes waiting to be unloaded.

She might not even come. For all he knew, she might not even be buying her produce from his father anymore.

He flexed his knees and kept his back straight as he hoisted the first box of tomatoes and lugged them over to the display table. His uncle Vinnie was fussing with the bananas, ensuring the oldest stock was at the front so they could offload it before the fruit became too ripe.

“Be careful with your back, Dom. You know what happened with your father,” he said as Dom dumped the first box and went back for another.

Dom smiled to himself. For as long as he could remember, his uncle had said the same thing every time he saw anyone carrying a box. Dom figured the hernia his father had had while in his twenties must have really messed with his uncle’s head.

By the time Dom had unloaded all the tomatoes, he’d worked up a sweat beneath the layers of sweatshirts and T-shirts he’d piled on that morning. He peeled off a couple of layers, enjoying the feeling of using his muscles again.

It was good to be back. He’d felt a little uneasy as the plane took off from Rome two days ago, but it was nice to be home. Even returning to the old house hadn’t been that big a deal.

Danielle’s stuff was gone. The only sign that she’d ever lived there was the pile of mail addressed to them both that his sister had left on the kitchen counter.

Mr. and Mrs. Bianco. He wondered if Dani was planning on reverting to her maiden name now that their divorce was final. It wasn’t something they’d ever discussed. He frowned as he thought about it. It would be strange to learn she was calling herself Dani Bianco. As though the only part of him that she still wanted was his name.

“Dom, how many boxes iceburg lettuce we got?” his father called from the other end of the stand.

Dom shook his head when he saw that his father had his clipboard out and pencil at the ready. For thirty years Tony Bianco had kept track of his stock and sales in the same way—on paper in his illegible handwriting. Any notation he made would be indecipherable to anyone else.

Dom did a quick tally of the boxes stacked beneath the trestle tables.

“We got two-dozen boxes, Pa,” he called. Enough to see them through the day.

Before he’d left for Italy, he’d spoken to his father about bringing the business into the twenty-first century. There were a bunch of user-friendly, highly efficient software systems available for running businesses like theirs. Knowing what stock they had on hand, what it was costing them, how much they were selling and who their best customers were at the touch of a button would be of huge benefit to Bianco Brothers. Currently, all that information was stored in his father’s head and consequently Tony’s business decisions were often based more on gut-feel and instinct than hard figures.

Predictably, his father had been resistant to the idea of change.

“I do it this way for thirty years,” he’d said, then he’d gestured toward the long rows of produce and the customers lining up to make their purchases. “We do okay.”

His father was being modest. They did more than okay. They did really, really well. But, in Dom’s opinion, they could do better. He’d backed off last time because he’d been too messed up over Dani to concentrate on the business, but now that he was back it was time to start pushing harder. He was going to be running this business someday, since none of his cousins were even remotely interested. He didn’t want to have to deal with boxes full of his father’s scrawlings when he tried to work out where they stood.

He dusted his hands down the front of his jeans and glanced over the stand, checking to see that all was as it should be. Everything looked good, and he turned back to the stack of pallets piled behind their displays. Might as well get rid of those before the rush.

By the time he’d tracked down one of the market’s forklift drivers and arranged for him to shift the pallets to the holding area, half an hour had passed. The bitter cold was starting to burn off as the sun made its presence felt, and Dom shed another layer as he made his way back to the stand.

He’d just finished pulling his sweatshirt over his head when he saw her.

She was wearing a long, cherry-red coat, the furry collar pulled up high around her face as she talked to his father. Her long, straight dark hair hung down her back, glossy in the overhead lights. She turned her head slightly and he watched her smile, noting the quick flash of her teeth, the way her eyes widened as she laughed at something his father said.

As always when he saw her, his gut tightened and his shoulders squared.