Expecting Miracle Twins Read Free

brief, keen glance in her direction. ‘So have I.’
    ‘Right.’ Mattie inhaled sharply, surprised that he’d shared even this much about himself. ‘I…um…hope it goes well, then.’
    He looked faintly amused and, for a moment, she thought he was about to smile and say something friendly, but then he shrugged and turned his attention to the kettle.
    Mattie hurried away and told herself that she didn’t care if he was unsociable. He would be gone in less than a week and it didn’t matter if he never smiled. His grumpiness was his problem, not hers.
    But, as she went past the open bedroom door, she caught sight of those sheets again. She quickly averted her gaze—she didn’t want to spy on Ange. Except…
    She couldn’t help taking another hasty glance and she realised then that she wasn’t mistaken. The bed was empty. Clearly, Ange had not come home with Jake, which perhaps explained his bad mood.

CHAPTER TWO

    T HE woman at the nursing home smiled at Jake. ‘Come this way, Mr Devlin. Roy’s up and dressed, ready and waiting for you. He’s very excited about your visit.’
    ‘Glad to hear it,’ Jake replied, but a small coil of dread tightened in his stomach as he followed her down a narrow hallway. This place was as bad as he remembered from his last visit. It smelled like a hospital and the walls were lined with pastel paintings of butterflies, flowers and fruit bowls. Roy wouldn’t like them. Not a horse or a gum tree in sight.
    As Jake passed doors, he caught glimpses of white-haired old folk in bed asleep, or nodding in their armchairs, and his feeling of dismay settled like cold stones in the pit of his stomach. He hated the fact that a great man like Roy Owens, who’d spent his entire life on vast Outback cattle stations, had to spend his twilight years shut away in a place like this.
    His throat was already tight with emotion even before he entered Roy’s room. But then he saw his old friend.
    It had been six months since Jake’s last visit and the changes in Roy were more devastating than ever. The tough and wiry hero Jake had idolised throughout his boyhood had all but vanished and had been replaced by a pale andfragile gnome. Jake tried to swallow the fish bone in his throat but it wouldn’t budge.
    Throughout Jake’s childhood, Roy had been the head stockman on the Devlin family’s isolated Outback cattle property in Far North Queensland. Until a few years ago, Roy had been a head taller than Jake’s father and as strong as an ox. He’d taught Jake how to ride a horse and to fish for black bream, how to leg rope a calf, to fossick for gold, and to follow native bees back to their hives.
    At night, around glowing campfires, Roy had held young Jake entranced as he spun never-ending stories beneath a canopy of stars. No one else knew as much about the night sky, or about bush lore, or the adventures of the early Outback pioneers. By the age of ten, Jake had been convinced that Roy Owens knew everything in this world that a man ever needed to know.
    Roy could turn his hand to catching a wild scrub bull, or leading a search party for a lost tourist, or baking mouthwatering hot damper in the coals of a campfire. Most miraculous of all, Roy had endless patience. No matter how busy he’d been, or how hard he had to work, he’d always found time for a small lonely boy whose parents had been too occupied raising cattle, or training their racehorses, or pursuing their very active social lives.
    When Jake had questioned his parents about Roy’s transfer to a Sydney nursing home they’d claimed that they hated that he had to go away, but they had no choice. Roy needed constant care and regular medical checks.
    ‘But have you visited him down there?’ Jake demanded. ‘Have you seen what it’s like?’
    ‘Darling, you know how terribly busy your father and I are. We will get down there, just as soon as we can spare the time.’
    So far, his parents hadn’t found time.
    But Jake’s affection