Expecting Miracle Twins by Barbara Hannay Page A

airport, but he felt differently now. He’d missed her. Maybe he’d even changed. He certainly wasn’t going to give in easily.
    Swallowing his pride, he said, ‘I was wondering what would happen if I turned up on your doorstep.’
    This was met by silence.
    Jake held his breath, couldn’t believe how bad he felt.
    ‘I…I…’ Mattie was obviously flustered. ‘Are you planning to come back here?’
    Somehow, he forced himself to ask, ‘Will you still be there in a month or two?’
    Another awkward silence chilled him to the bone. And then, ‘Jake, I’m afraid I’m going to be really busy for the next few months.’
    Really busy …He bit back a swear word. Felt sick. This was the ultimate rebuff.
    ‘You mean you’d rather not see me?’
    ‘It’ll be difficult.’ It was barely more than a whisper and yet he heard the break in her voice.
    Why? What was going on? He remembered Mattie’s tears when they’d said goodbye. He’d been egotistical enough to think they’d meant she was going to miss him, but was there another reason? Something she wasn’t telling him?
    One thing was certain. This phone call wasn’t giving him any answers and there was no point in prolonging the torture. ‘OK. Thanks for setting me straight on that,’ he said, battling disbelief that he could actually let her go like this…without a fight.
    ‘Goodbye, Jake.’
    He heard a click on the end of the line and, just like that, Mattie Carey was out of his life.
    But Jake was left with a niggling doubt, a gut awareness that she hadn’t really wanted to let him go.
    Or was that simply his ego getting in the way of common sense?
     
    In a harbourside café, Gina sipped a coffee latte with a dreamy smile. She sighed happily as she set it down. ‘How lucky are we to have a boy and a girl? It’s so perfect. I can’t believe it. I keep wanting to cry with happiness.’
    Mattie grinned and slipped her arm around her friend’s shoulders. Having her friends with her for the ultrasound this morning had made such a difference. Seeing the joy on their faces and treasuring the warmth of their hugs had made everything about this project totally worthwhile.
    She could forget about the headaches, the heartburn and the tiredness. If she held in her mind this picture of her friends’ happy, smiling faces and the cute black and white images of their two little babies, she could blank out memories of Jake Devlin.
    She had done the right thing when she’d ended the phone call. It was the only sane way to approach this, wasn’t it? After all, if her fiancé hadn’t been able to stay in love with her when she’d been younger and prettier and not pregnant, how could she possibly expect a rake like Jake to stay interested in her now?
     
    It was a cold, blustery winter’s day when Jake returned to Sydney. He stepped out of the taxi and gusts of windwhipped at him. Sharp rain needled his face. Not exactly a warm welcome, but then he hadn’t expected one.
    On the overnight flight he hadn’t slept, but when he checked in to his hotel he went straight to his room, showered and changed and then hurried downstairs again to collect the hire car he’d booked. Rain lashed at the windscreen as he drove out of the hotel car park and joined the steady stream of traffic.
    For a fleeting moment he felt strangely disoriented. The busy arterial road in the frantic heart of Sydney was such a bizarre contrast to the moonscape world of the remote mine site he’d so recently left. He blinked to clear his head, changed lanes and took a right turn at the next set of lights. He’d planned to head straight to Roy’s nursing home but now he realised too late he was going the wrong way.
    He continued on, looking for a suitable place to make a U-turn, and he recognised the camping store where Mattie had bought the little gas ring and billy can for Roy’s tea party.
    This direction led to Will’s flat.
    To Mattie.
    Knots tightened in his gut and his heart began to