Expecting Miracle Twins Read Free Page A

for Roy had never wavered. It pained him that the old stockman, who’d been like a second father, was now a frail and lonely old bachelor with no family to support him. It tore at Jake’s guts to see him waiting docilely in his postage-stamp-size room. He was fighting tears as Roy’s face broke into an enormous smile.
    ‘Jake, how are you, lad? It’s so good to clap eyes on you.’ With a frail hand Roy patted a chair. ‘Take a seat, son. They’ll bring us morning tea in a minute. Come and tell me all about Mongolia.’
    Roy’s body might have betrayed him, but his mind was still alert and, unlike most people who asked Jake about Mongolia, he was genuinely interested. He knew that horses were as important to the people there as they were in the Outback. And in the same way that many Outback kids learned to ride when they could barely walk, so did children on the steppe.
    Roy was more than happy for Jake to retell the same stories he’d told last time. But, as Jake talked, he was painfully aware of the reversal of their roles. Now he was the one spinning stories and Roy was the grateful listener.
    Two hours later, however, as Jake re-emerged into fresh air and sunshine, he knew that a few stories had not been enough. He was plagued by a gnawing certainty that he was letting the old guy down.
     
    Mattie was in a very good mood when she came home from the doctor’s. Everything for the surrogacy was set to go. Gina and Tom’s frozen embryos had already arrived at the clinic and in two weeks’ time, when Mattie’s cycle was right, she would begin taking pre-transfer hormones. With luck on her side, she would be pregnant within a month.
    She could hardly wait to get started.
    Gina and Tom were an amazing couple and if anyone deserved to be parents they did. They’d been childhood sweethearts and their deep love for each other had remained unshakeable. These days they ran a farm on the banks of Willow Creek and Gina’s house was always warm and welcoming, always filled with baking smells, a pot of tea at the ready. But there was a little yellow and white room at the end of the hallway, still waiting for the baby Gina longed for.
    Mattie had seen Gina on the day she’d been told she needed a hysterectomy. She’d found her friend huddled in an unrecognisable ball in a corner of the lounge, red-eyed and shrunken—shut down—as if someone she loved with all her heart had died.
    Of course, that was what had happened really, because now the baby Gina dreamed of would never have the chance to live.
    For Gina, of all people, this was the cruellest blow. Mattie and Gina had been planning their families since they’d played with dolls in the tree house Gina’s dad built.
    Mattie was an only child and she’d thought two children would be nice, but Gina came from a big family and she had been adamant she wanted five. Her husband was always going to be Tom and they would have two sets of twins and then a single baby at the end, a baby girl for her to spoil and cuddle when all the twins had gone to school.
    It was unthinkable now that Gina couldn’t have at least one baby, and as Mattie had dumped any dreams of a family of her own after the truly toxic break-up with her fiancé, she hadn’t taken long to come up with her surrogacy proposal.
    For her it was a perfect solution. Gina and Tom could have their baby, and she had the chance to do something positive and life-affirming—the perfect antidote to heartbreak.
    This way, Mattie figured, everyone was a winner and she’d wasted no time before putting the idea to Gina and Tom.
    They’d invited her for Sunday lunch, a simple, relaxed, happy meal of roast chicken and winter vegetables, followed by berries and ice cream. After the other guests had gone, Mattie had stayed behind to help with the cleaning up. The three of them had been in the kitchen, Mattie washing wineglasses at the sink while Gina stacked the dishwasher. Tom had just brought in freshly chopped wood for