Marriage Reunited: Baby on the Way. Sharon Archer

idea. Take the master bedroom. I’ve put fresh sheets on the bed.’

      Quick heat burned her cheeks as she remembered their exchange of words earlier. ‘Thanks.’

      ‘Hell, Liz. I didn’t mean that the way it must have sounded.’

      ‘It doesn’t matter.’ She waved a hand in dismissal and forced her leaden legs to move. ‘Goodnight.’

       It did matter.

      Jack blew out a breath of frustration and guilt after she’d gone. He’d seen her face fall, a tell-tale blush briefly hiding the pallor of fatigue. The quip about the sheets had been unintentional. Sure, he’d had some harsh thoughts while he’d been making the bed up. But common sense told him, as much as he burned to sleep with his wife, it wasn’t going to happen while they had so much unresolved. Though he’d have been happy to put forward an argument on how it might help them resolve their problems…But then, that was how Liz had ended up pregnant in the first place, so perhaps not. Sharing a bed with Liz was probably a long way down the track.

      He dropped the dishes in the sink and looked out at the gathering twilight. His sanity might be in question before this was over. The thought of her in bed on the other side of the house made him ache.

      He’d come home to save his marriage, prepared to talk about having a family if that’s what it took. There should have been discussions, reconciliations—he’d especially been looking forward to those. But they were supposed to ease into it, approach the problem like mature adults, set a timetable that they could both be happy with. There should have been a decision to stop using contraception, the fun of trying to conceive and, eventually—maybe—Liz falling pregnant. Not this headlong pitch into impending parenthood.

      He wasn’t ready.

      Which made him realise that the problem with his imaginary future was that he’d never truly envisaged a pregnant Liz, the birth of a child.

      Himself as a father.

      And yet once his younger self had wanted that role fervently until grief and betrayal had crushed the naive joy in his heart.

      Suds filled the sink as he squirted detergent under the running tap. Could he resurrect an echo of that anticipation for Liz, for the child they were going to have together? If anyone deserved his best efforts, it was his wife. But contemplating their future as parents left him cold and empty.

      He sighed and began methodically washing the plates. After his experiences with his manipulative mother and then with his unfaithful fiancée’s pregnancy, he’d vowed to squash every nurturing instinct he possessed. For the first time he understood how thoroughly successful he’d been. Poor Liz. She’d never agree to take him back if she realised what an appalling candidate for fatherhood he really was. He’d have to work hard to make sure she never found out.

      CHAPTER THREE

      IN THE bedroom, Liz shut the door and closed her eyes as she leaned her forehead against the wood. The faint clinking of china carried to her. Jack working in the kitchen.

       Jack.

      Rolling her head, she twisted until her back was pressed to the door. She opened her eyes. The first thing she saw was the bed.

      One area they’d never had trouble in…until now.

      Blinking hard, she sniffed back the tears that pressed for release. Not that she wanted to sleep with Jack.

      She grimaced. Who was she kidding? She wanted him like crazy with her heart, mind and body.

      But everything was too messy. Sleeping with him wouldn’t solve anything.

      She walked over to turn down the spread and touch the crisp linen pillowcase on her side. Jack making up the bed showed unexpected sensitivity. She should just appreciate it, not feel this tearing pressure in her heart.

      He said that he wanted to save their marriage. Something completely out of character. Especially as she was pregnant. She had expected him to run a mile as soon as he saw her condition.

      So why wasn’t he running? A quick pummelling from inside her abdomen reminded her of the shock on his face in the hospital room. A small, watery chuckle escaped before she quickly sobered. Judging by his reaction, he certainly hadn’t had a change of heart about having children.

      And after their increasingly acrimonious arguments on the matter before he’d gone away, she’d changed her mind about starting a family with him. Discovering her pregnancy soon after his departure had come as a shock to her too. All that hard thinking she’d done about what sort of man she wanted to be the father of her children was suddenly irrelevant. The bottom line was, Jack was the father and he fell far short of what she wanted for her baby.

      A fine situation she’d got herself and her poor unborn child into. Could Jack change? No, it wasn’t that simple. His attitude was too entrenched. She had to stop torturing herself with such imaginings. Apart from those few fraught moments in the hospital room right after he’d discovered her pregnancy, he hadn’t mentioned their impending parenthood. Just their marriage.

      Nothing had changed. Her baby’s future was her responsibility and hers alone. A child needed a warm and secure environment. No father at all would surely be better than one who was completely uninterested.

      Liz would never subject her baby to a cold, formal childhood like she’d endured.

      Now, with her medical training, she understood the psychology behind her drive for perfection and her brother’s addiction to extreme sports. In her secret heart, she’d hoped her father might find some value in her. Mark, her brother, must have felt lacking as well, using his dangerous behaviour as a method of seeking their distant parents’ attention.

      Why hadn’t their father loved or valued them? Perhaps he hadn’t wanted children at all.

      She’d known since high school that her mother must have been pregnant before the marriage. But in her teenage naivety she’d fantasised it had happened because they’d been in love and engaged. Now she wondered if her parents had talked about having a family. Or had they rushed headlong into matrimony without considering the weighty issues? Perhaps she had more in common with her mother than she’d ever have believed possible. Unfortunately, asking was out of the question. Her mother never, ever discussed personal or emotionally untidy things.

      Liz frowned. Marrying, almost eloping with Jack, had been fabulously romantic at the time. They’d seemed so attuned to each other, especially in bed. She’d been smug about finding a partner prepared to give her the space to practise her career. In hindsight, she could see they hadn’t known nearly enough about each other. Hadn’t truly discussed the issue of having children. She realised Jack had made vague comments, let her do the talking whenever she’d brought up the subject. Fool that she was, she’d read the meaning she wanted into his responses.

      What were Jack’s reasons for not wanting children? In all their arguments he’d skirted the issue every time. If he was serious about saving their marriage, fatherhood was part of the deal.

      She stripped off the oversized T-shirt and track pants and studied her reflection in the mirror for a long moment. She looked pregnant, but nowhere near as enormous as she felt. When she was in her white coat at work, the nurses assured her that her pregnancy was barely noticeable. And yet in the last couple of weeks she felt like she’d ballooned. She ran her hand over the mound. Fourteen more weeks. The skin felt ready to split now. How much more could it stretch? She reached for the moisturiser and massaged more cream into the tight skin, smiling when the pummelling seemed to follow the movement of her hand. A baby. She was growing a baby, a little girl. Almost certainly a little brunette since she and Jack both had dark hair. But would she have Jack’s blue eyes or her hazel ones? Not that it was important. What mattered was this little girl had a mother who loved her to distraction, sight unseen.

      His muscles pleasantly tired after a long run, Jack