Barbara Hannay - The Bridesmaid's Best Man

‘But that’s a fabulous idea. It’s exactly what I was hoping you’d do. I told Tim last night—’

‘You told Tim about it?’

‘Sophie, he’s my husband, and he’s your friend as well as Mark’s best mate. He’s worried about both of you. You’re so far apart, it’s almost like being on another planet. He said last night that if only you two could get together again you’d be able to sort this all out. And I agree.’

‘So you think I should go?’

‘Absolutely. It’s going to be horrendous to try to talk about everything from the opposite ends of the earth.’

That was true. But it would be horrendously extravagant to go all that way for a conversation she could have over the phone.

Except…she would see Mark again. And she might feel stronger about facing her family after she’d spoken to Mark.

And there was always a chance—a tiny, tiny chance admittedly—that when she and Mark got together again, they might…

Be careful, Sophie. Remember what happened with Oliver. Don’t get carried away dreaming of a happy-ever-after with Mark.

‘Sophie,’ insisted Emma. ‘It’s your future that’s at stake. And the baby’s and Mark’s. This is a big deal. It’s not something you can do long-distance.’

‘You’re probably right,’ Sophie said. ‘I’ll think about it.’

Emma wriggled off the seat, slipped her feet back into her black and silver sandals, then patted the top of Sophie’s head. ‘Listen to Aunt Emma, darling. If there’s a single event when a man and a woman need to sit down and look into each other’s eyes while they talk something through, it’s a shared pregnancy.’

‘I suppose so.’

‘I know Marion Bradley’s on the lookout for work. She’d take care of your agency for a week or two. Actually, Marion would probably take your business over if she had half a chance.’

‘I’ll bear her in mind.’

‘It’ll all work out beautifully.’ Emma looked at her watch. ‘I promised Tim I’d only be five minutes.’

‘You’d better go and rescue him. Thanks so much for coming.’

‘I’ll be in touch.’

THE three-quarter moon drifted out from behind a patch of cloud and cast a cool, white glow over the mustering camp. Mark tried to take comfort from his surroundings.

He saw the silvered silhouettes of the sleeping ringers, the last of the tough breed of Outback cowboys who still worked in the saddle, and who were essential help on big musters like this. He stared above at the night sky, at the familiar stars and constellations he’d known all his life. Everything was in the right place, just as it was at this time every year…the saucepan-shaped Orion…the Southern Cross with its two bright pointers…the dusty spill of the Milky Way…

A long sigh escaped him. He’d had twenty-four hours to digest Sophie’s news, but he still looked about him with a sense of bewilderment, still felt as if the whole world should have changed to match the sudden turmoil inside him.

He’d made her pregnant.

It was impossible. Astonishing.

He felt so damn guilty.

What the hell was he going to do about it? And what did Sophie intend to do? He didn’t even know if she wanted to keep the baby.

It would be her decision, of course, but he hoped that she would keep it. He would support her, would do the right thing.

He sighed heavily. If only they could have finished their conversation. He blamed himself that the phone’s battery had run down. He hadn’t realised that the cook he’d hired had a gambling problem. The damn fellow had been using the phone on the sly to place bets with his bookmaker in Melbourne and hadn’t bothered to recharge it.

Now, lying in his sleeping swag on the hard, red earth, Mark couldn’t stop thinking about Sophie. Kept remembering her gut-punching loveliness. Everything about her had set him on fire—the happy sparkle in her eyes, the musical laughter in her voice, the astonishing smoothness and whiteness of her skin, the seductive tease of her slender body brushing against him as they’d danced.

And then in bed…

He rolled uneasily in his swag. What was the point in tormenting himself with such memories? Sophie wasn’t happy now. He’d seduced her and wrecked her life.

When he got back, he would have to bite the bullet and make her understand that there was no point in her coming all the way down here.

Under other circumstances, it would have been different—fantastic, actually—if she’d been coming here. He could think of nothing better than having Sophie arrive for a brief holiday, so that they could take up where they left off. But if she was pregnant? Hell! She might be thinking of something more permanent, and that would be crazy.

His lifestyle was too hard, his world too alien and remote for a pregnant city girl from England. He had a property to run, which meant he was away from the homestead for long stretches. And Sophie would hate it here on her own. Apart from the heat and the dust, everything else was so far away—doctors, hospitals, shops, restaurants. There were no other women handy for girly chats.

It would be much more sensible if they simply worked everything out over the phone. He could send her money and arrange to see the child from time to time.

When he or she was old enough, they would be able to come out here for holidays.

That was the only way to handle this. He would do everything he could to support her, but Sophie shouldn’t leave London.

The coffee table in Sophie’s lounge was strewn with travel brochures, flight schedules and maps of Australia, as well as flyers advertising her sisters’ next concerts.

Sophie stared at an elegant black and white head-shot of her eldest sister, Alicia, and sighed. Both her sisters were musically gifted, like their parents, and both had launched brilliant careers. Neither of them would have landed in a mess like Sophie’s.

As the youngest Felsham daughter, Sophie had often been told she was pretty, but she’d been too given to daydreaming and too impulsive to ever be called brilliant. She’d never been able to stick at music practice the way Alicia and Elspeth had, had never felt driven to be a high achiever like her famous parents.

Emma had suggested once that Sophie had stopped competing with her sisters because she was afraid of failure, and Emma was probably right, but Sophie figured she’d failed often enough to justify her choice.

Oliver’s rejection—her most recent and spectacular failure—had been one too many.

Now her unplanned pregnancy would cement her position as the family’s very, very black lamb.

Sophie shook her head to clear her mind of that thought. Somehow she had to turn this latest negative into a shining positive. She owed it to her baby.

Of course, she was scared—she’d never had much to do with babies—but she was strangely excited, too. She wanted to be really good at motherhood, was determined to be a perfect mum. Her own mother had always been so terribly busy, especially by the time her third daughter had arrived.

Sophie would be loving and patient, happy to let her baby grow into a little individual, free from the pressures of great expectations.

And for the first time in her life Sophie would be doing something that Alicia and Elspeth hadn’t done already and done better than she ever could. She would care for her baby so brilliantly that no one in her family would dare to utter a single ‘tut tut’.

Cheered by that thought, she picked up a brochure about the Australian Outback. Her instincts had urged her to go straight to Mark as soon as she’d found out about the baby.

OK, OK, so maybe her instincts had also nudged her clear away from her parents. But, family aside, surely she owed Mark a visit?

Or was she crazy to even think of going all the way Down Under, to face the possibility of being rejected and hurt yet again?

Closing her eyes, she pictured Mark—remembered his hard, lean body, the tan of his skin, the crinkles at the corners of his eyes, his unhurried smile—and she felt a sudden, thudding catch in her heart. In every way, Mark was very different from Oliver.

Her fingers traced a light circle over her tummy, and she couldn’t help smiling. She was carrying a little boy or girl who might look like its daddy, who might walk like him, or smile like him. A whole little person whose future happiness rested in her hands.

And Mark’s.

Was Emma right? Did she owe it to her baby to go to Australia, to find Mark in the Outback? But, if she did, what then? What if she fell deeply in love with Mark, only to have him reject her and send her packing? It would be like Oliver all over again only a hundred—no, a thousand—times worse.

Sophie doubted she was brave enough to sacrifice her dignity on that particular altar. But would she be any safer if she stayed here in London to endure the dismayed gaze of her family while she grew fat with this pregnancy?

Wouldn’t it be better to take a gamble on Mark?

THERE was nobody home.

Sophie stared in consternation at the peeling paint and tarnished brass knocker on the front door of the sprawling timber homestead. She read the name plate again: Coolabah Waters. This was definitely Mark Winchester’s home.

But no one answered her knock. Where was he?

It had never occurred to her that Mark wouldn’t be here. He’d said he would be back before now. Would phone. When she’d called his caretaker to tell him of her plan to fly out here, he had confirmed that Mark was due home any day. But now there was no sign of either of them.

She knocked again, called anxiously, ‘Hello!’ and ‘Anybody home?’

She waited.

There was no answer, no sound from within the big house. All she could hear was the buzz of insects in the grass and the distant call of a lone crow.

She sent a desperate glance behind her, squinting in the harsh Outback sunlight. The mail truck that had brought her from Wandabilla was already a cloud of dust on the distant horizon. Even if she ran after it, jumping and waving madly, the driver wouldn’t see her.

She was alone. Alone in the middle of Australia, surrounded by nothing but miles and miles and miles of treeless plains and bare, rocky ridges.

Why wasn’t Mark here?

She’d thought about him constantly through the long, long flight from England, another flight halfway across Australia to Mount Isa, and then a scary journey in a light aircraft no bigger than a paper plane over endless flat, dry grassland to Wandabilla, near the Northern Territory border. Finally, after getting advice from a helpful woman in the Wandabilla Post Office, she’d cadged a lift to Coolabah Waters on the mail truck.

Now she didn’t know what to do. She was exhausted to the point of dropping, and her decision to come all this way to talk to Mark felt like a really, really bad idea—even crazier than inviting him back to her flat on the night of the wedding.

It had been Tim, Emma’s husband, who had finally convinced her that she must make the trip Down Under.

‘Of course you need to talk to Mark face to face,’ he’d insisted. ‘He’s that kind of guy. A straight shooter. He won’t muck you about. And you’ll love it in Australia. There’s no place like it in the world.’

Well, that was certainly true, Sophie thought dispiritedly, looking about her. But she didn’t think she could share Tim’s enthusiasm for endless dry and dusty spaces.

She hadn’t expected Mark’s home to be so very isolated. She’d understood that the Australian Outback would be vast and scantily populated, but she’d thought there’d be some kind of a village nearby at least.