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The Secretary's Secret / Rodeo Daddy: The Secretary's Secret / Rodeo Daddy
Soraya Lane

Michelle Douglas


The Secretary’s SecretKit Mercer smooths down her skirt preparing to face her boss the morning after spending the most amazing night of her life with him! Surely he can’t wait to sweep her into his arms again? Actually, Alex Hallam tells her what a mistake he’s made! It’s the right thing to do – after his ex-wife’s lies, is he really ready to be a proper full-time daddy? Rodeo Daddy A fall ended Lark Anderson’s rodeo career – and his marriage – leaving him a single dad. The community, suspicious of the new ‘celebrity’ resident, nominated Sophie to keep the hot-tempered cowboy out of trouble. But the sight of Lark hugging his daughter breaks Sophie’s heart, reminding her of what will never be hers…












Praise for Michelle Douglas:


“Packed with a smouldering tension and underlying

passion, The Loner’s Guarded Heart by Michelle Douglas will leave readers wanting more … [It] is a keeper that I will treasure. If you are a reader that loves tender, heartfelt stories, then this book is a must-buy, because it has all these elements and so much more …” —www.cataromance.com

“Michelle Douglas makes an outstanding debut with

His Christmas Angel, a complex, richly emotional story. The characters are handled especially well, as are the many conflicts and relationships. This one’s a keeper.” —RT Book Reviews


The Secretary’s Secret

Michelle Douglas

Rodeo Daddy

Soraya Lane






www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


The Secretary’s Secret

Michelle Douglas




About the Author


At the age of eight MICHELLE DOUGLAS was asked what she wanted to be when she grew up. She answered, “A writer.” Years later she read an article about romance writing and thought, Ooh, that’ll be fun. She was right. When she’s not writing she can usually be found with her nose buried in a book. She is currently enrolled in an English Masters programme for the sole purpose of indulging her reading and writing habits further. She lives in a leafy suburb of Newcastle, on Australia’s east coast, with her own romantic hero—husband Greg, who is the inspiration behind all her happy endings. Michelle would love you to visit her at her website: www.michelle-douglas.com.


To my grandparents, Bunny and Beryl Snaddon,

with love and thanks for all those

wonderful summer holidays!




PROLOGUE


THE intercom on Kit’s desk buzzed and instantly her heart hammered up into her throat.

‘If you’d come through now, Ms Mercer.’

Kit’s toes curled at the rich black-coffee voice. Her heart lurched back into her chest to thump out a loud tattoo. When she leant forward to depress a button, her finger was surprisingly steady given what was happening to the rest of her body. ‘Certainly, sir.’

Her finger might be steady but the huskiness of her voice was more Marilyn Monroe than sensible, strait-laced secretary. It should appall her, belying as it did her attempts to match her employer’s professional formality, but it didn’t. His formality made her lips twitch.

That formality delighted her; energized her.

She seized her shorthand pad and tried to stop herself from racing straight into his office. Cool. Calm. Collected. Her smile widened. No hope of that whatsoever!

Still, she paused at the door to smooth a hand down her skirt. Adjusted her shirt. Undid her top button. Her fingers lingered at her throat, remembering …

Heat rose up through her. Anticipation fired along each and every one of her nerve endings.

She did her best to dispel the images that rose up through her. She didn’t want to appear like a trembly, needy teenager in the throes of her first crush. She wanted to look like a woman in control, like a woman who knew what she wanted. She wanted to look seductive.

She bit her lip to rein in a smile. What she wanted was for Alex to take one look at her, grin that sexy grin of his and take her in his arms. Kiss her. To sweep the polished surface of his enormous desk clear and make love to her.

Her legs grew languid, her breasts pushed against the crisp cotton of her shirt. She gulped in a steadying breath. Stop it! Alex had indicated how he wanted to play this. And last night had proved just how well she and Alex played together. She smiled again. She couldn’t seem to stop smiling. They’d play it Alex’s way this morning. Tonight they’d—

No. There’d be plenty of time to think about that later.

She lifted a hand to check her neat, businesslike bun and then, swallowing back her excitement, she pushed through the door, chin held high. ‘Good morning, sir.’ She made her voice brisk.

‘Take a seat, Ms Mercer.’ He nodded to her shorthand pad. ‘You won’t need that.’

She placed it on the desk in front of her then very carefully folded her hands together in her lap and waited for a cue. She loved that oh-so-serious look on his face, couldn’t wait until he said something sexy and husky in that masculine burr of his. She couldn’t wait to take the pins from her hair, to shake it out till it fell around her shoulders in a newly washed cloud, and to then walk around this enormous desk of his. No, not walk—sashay. She’d sashay slowly around to him like the siren she was starting to think she was.

The siren she’d become in his arms.

Once she was face to face with him she’d slide up to sit on his desk. She’d cross one leg over the other, making sure the action hitched up her skirt to reveal the silky tops of her stockings, held in place by a lacy suspender belt the colour of coffee cream. Then she’d undo the buttons on her blouse, her fingers lingering over each one, until she’d revealed breasts practically spilling out of the tiniest wisp of lace imaginable in matching coffee cream.

And she wanted to watch his face while she did it.

She zeroed in on his face now, holding her breath and waiting for her cue, aching to play out that fantasy. His lips opened, lean and firm, and the breath hitched in her throat. Thick, hot yearning tumbled through her.

This man was all she’d ever dreamed of and more. Last night had revealed that to her in undeniable glory. They’d moved together with an accord that had been more than physical. Last night had been the most wonderful night of her life. When Alex’s passion and gentleness and generosity as a lover had touched her soul.

Words emerged from those lean lips of his. Kit relished their black-coffee timbre, savoured their resonance, and drew in deep breaths of his dark malt scent. She’d caught a trace of that scent on her sheets this morning. She’d placed those sheets in the washing machine with a faint sense of regret before she’d left for work. She’d cheered herself with the thought that it’d take more than laundry powder and water to wash those memories away. Of course, there were all those new memories they’d make too and—

‘Kit?’

The staccato whip of Alex’s voice hauled her out of her thoughts. It hit her then that she’d been so busy relishing and savouring that she hadn’t taken in a single word he’d said. ‘I’m sorry.’ She glanced down the length of her nose at him in as cheeky a fashion as she dared. ‘I was a million miles away.’

It took an effort of will to hold back her smile.

He let out a breath and glared. She blinked and sat back with a frown. What on earth had she missed? Had something gone awry with the Dawson deal? The deal Alex had been chasing for the last eight months. The deal that they’d clinched and then in their elation …

He leant forward and his glare intensified. ‘Do I have your full attention?’

She swallowed. ‘Yes.’

‘I was saying that what happened last night was unfortunate and regrettable.’

Each word was clipped out with precision. Short, sharp, unmistakable. Barbs, bayonets, slashing at her. Kit flinched and half lifted an arm as if to ward them off.

No!

His mouth grew straighter, grimmer. ‘I’m sure you agree.’

Unfortunate? Regrettable? Her stomach tumbled in sudden confusion. How could he say that? Last night had been wonderful.

‘I beg your pardon?’ She prayed he wouldn’t repeat it. She prayed she’d heard him wrong.

He held her gaze. Unlike her, he didn’t flinch. He looked cold, hard … alien. ‘This time I believe you heard what I said. And that you understand exactly what I mean.’

The room spun. She gripped the edge of her chair and hung on tight, praying her sense of balance would return and halt this sensation of endless freefall.

A denial sprang to her lips as the room and Alex swam back into her line of sight. He was wrong!

She released her iron grip on her chair. ‘Let me get this right.’ Her hands trembled. Perspiration gathered beneath the collar of her shirt, beneath the underwire of her bra. ‘You’re saying you wish last night never happened?’ The perfectly monitored air-conditioned air chilled the skin at her throat, at her nape, of her bare-but-for-nylons legs. She resisted the urge to chafe her arms. ‘That you … regret last night?’

‘That’s exactly what I’m saying.’

She stared into his face—cold, hard, the face of a stranger—and greyness leached in at the edges of her consciousness, swamping her joy, blanketing her in a thick fog that her mind struggled to think through.

The air conditioning chilled a layer of ice around her heart, numbed her brain and robbed her eyes and mouth of all natural moisture. She’d never realized before how much she hated air conditioning.

Beyond Alex, through the floor-to-ceiling plate-glass window, morning light glinted off the white sails of the Sydney Opera House with an absurd gaiety that was reflected in a thousand different points of light in the water of the harbour.

How had she read this man, this situation, so wrong? She lifted her hands to massage her temples. She wasn’t some doe-eyed schoolgirl easily seduced.

No hot-blooded woman would deny Alex’s all-male magnetism, and last night she had most definitely been hot-blooded.

But not doe-eyed!

A demon of panic clawed at her throat. This wasn’t how it was supposed to end. He couldn’t deny this connection that existed between them.

She dragged her gaze from the sight of the harbour, alive with yachts and ferries, to the man on the other side of the desk. He leaned towards her and she forgot to breathe. What would he do if she leaned across the table too and pressed her lips to his? She’d bet her bottom dollar it’d drive the deep freeze from his eyes.

He jerked back, folded his arms. His face became even more stony and unreadable. ‘It can never happen again.’ He must’ve registered her shock because he added, ‘Not that I’m denying it was enjoyable, pleasurable.’

His eyes darkened, as if in memory of the amazing things they’d done together last night, and everything inside her clenched.

‘Nevertheless, it cannot happen again.’

‘Why not?’ The question slipped out of her like the air from a slowly deflating party balloon. She knew it wasn’t what he’d wanted her to say. She hitched up her chin. Why shouldn’t she ask? It wasn’t as if she had anything to lose.

Except a good job.

Well, okay, it was a great job.

And maybe some pride.

She pushed her shoulders back. Who gave two hoots about pride at a time like this? And good jobs were a dime a dozen to someone with her qualifications. ‘Why not?’ she repeated, louder this time.

‘Because you’re the best damn secretary I’ve ever had!’ He slammed his hand down on the desk, the force half spinning him in his chair. He glared at the wall to her left. ‘And I don’t want to ruin a great working relationship by sleeping with you.’

Why were men so afraid to call it making love? She stared at him, willing him to meet her eye, silently urging him to unsay his words and to put this right. When he didn’t she said, ‘From memory, there wasn’t much sleeping involved.’

She cleared her throat and leaned towards him. ‘And, for the record, I don’t think it was unfortunate and I certainly don’t regret it.’ So there. All his square-jawed, broad-shouldered, tight-buttocked masculinity could take that!

One of his superb shoulders shifted, its power barely disguised by the impeccable cut of his suit. She recalled the feel of the firm flesh of those shoulders beneath her fingertips, the crisp whorls of hair on his chest, and her mouth went dry. She recalled the silky hardness of him and her body’s delight at his touch with a clarity that made her insides tremble. She would never forget her soul’s delight at a night of lovemaking that had blown her apart and put her back together again both at the same time.

He pushed out of his chair. ‘It can’t happen again.’

Oh, yes, it could. And so, so easily.

He shoved his hands into his pockets and pinned her to the spot with his dark, frigid eyes. ‘And it won’t happen again, Katherine, because I don’t do long-term, I don’t do marriage and babies, and I certainly don’t do happy families.’

He’d called her Kit last night, not Katherine.

‘And if I continue to sleep with you you’re going to eventually realize I’m telling you the truth and that you can’t change me. Then you’ll get hurt and angry, there’ll be ugly scenes and recriminations and then you’ll up and leave without giving me so much as a week’s notice.’

It took a moment for the actuality of his words to sink in. When they did, her jaw slackened. He had to be joking, right? These couldn’t be his actual thought processes.

His dark hair glinted almost black to the Opera House’s white. She stared at him and her stomach billowed with an inexplicable emptiness as the scales finally fell from her eyes. For the last eleven months she’d been in love with a lump of rock.

Alex Hallam was a lump of rock.

Not something light and porous like limestone either, but something hard and impenetrable.

Like granite.




CHAPTER ONE


‘KATHERINE MERCER?’

The receptionist glanced up expectantly as Kit pushed through the door. Kit nodded and tried to find a smile. ‘Yes, that’s right.’

‘Dr Maybury is almost running on time. If you’d take a seat, she shouldn’t be too much longer.’

Kit smiled her thanks. The surgery had managed to fit her in for the last appointment of the day and the waiting room was deserted.

She sat. She crossed her legs and bounced her foot. She glanced at her watch. She shifted on her seat, glanced around the waiting room, glanced at her watch again and finally seized a magazine. It wasn’t that doctors’ surgeries made her nervous. It was just—

The magazine fell open to a celebrity wedding spread with the bride and groom in a variety of cheesy but romantic poses—arms wrapped around each other, staring deep into each other’s eyes, feeding each other wedding cake. For a moment all Kit could do was stare. And then she slapped it shut and shoved it back into the magazine rack.

All that giddy happiness.

She closed her eyes and pulled in a breath. It was three months almost to the day since Alex had so brutally ended their … She could hardly call it a relationship, and still there were images—like the ones in that magazine—snatches of conversation, a scent, that could hurtle her back in time and remind her of her stupidity. Remind her of the ridiculous dreams she’d woven about a man who hadn’t been worth a single one of them. Reminded her of her appallingly bad judgement.

It was crazy too because she and Alex had hardly spent any time together during these last three months. He’d flown to the Brisbane headquarters of Hallam Enterprises the day after his no-nonsense rejection of her and he’d remained there for six weeks. He’d only been back in Sydney for two days when she’d found herself given the fancy title of Project Manager and moved to another department two floors down.

She’d welcomed that change, but … She uncrossed her right leg to cross her left leg instead. She bounced her left foot. She let out a breath and stared up at the ceiling. Was she becoming too hard to please? Was that it? It was just … The project she was heading up was one that had previously excited her. She should be raring to go, eager, engaged. But she traipsed into her office each day as if she had nothing more interesting to do than filing and data entry.

Why?

She was the one who’d urged Alex to pursue the book deal McBride’s Proprietary Press had offered him over four months ago. And she was the one who’d hoped she’d get the chance to head the project up.

Midway through last year, she’d written a profile on Alex for a book titled Australia’s Most Successful Entrepreneurs. That had led to a whole chapter in another book called Advice From Australia’s CEOs. Now McBride’s were launching a new series called From Goto Whoa, and they wanted a book with Alex’s name on the cover detailing a land development project from its earliest stages through to the final development. The title they’d floated was Commercial Land Development: from Scrubland to Shopping Mall. Kit had already substituted shopping mall with sports resort.

She should love what she was doing.

Her eyes narrowed. Had she lost her zest for life because a man had disappointed her? Pathetic!

She slapped her hands down onto her knees and glared at the wall opposite. From now on, whenever thoughts of Alex surfaced she was ousting them out of her head pronto. It was time she started having fun again.

She brightened marginally. At least for the next three weeks she didn’t have to worry about running into Alex, didn’t have to steel herself for accidental meetings in the corridors at work, there wouldn’t even be the risk of catching an unexpected glimpse of him in the distance. A week ago he’d left for a month-long odyssey to Africa. Rumour had it that he was doing some kind of aid work.

Not that he struck her as the aid worker type.

She uncrossed her legs. Re-crossed them. Well, okay, maybe he had three and a half months ago, but not since—

No. She wasn’t doing that any more. She was through thinking about Alex, through trying to work him out. ‘Enough,’ she muttered under her breath. She had more important things to think about.

Like the reason she was sitting in her doctor’s waiting room at ten to five on a Friday afternoon.

She gripped her hands together. If this was what she thought it was, then …

She squared her shoulders. She’d get through it. Adjustments would be necessary, but it wouldn’t be the end of the world. This could be taken care of.

‘Ms Mercer?’

Kit jerked around at the receptionist’s voice and tried to smile. Would she have to have a needle? She didn’t like needles.

Of course you’ll have to have a needle. The doctor will have to take blood.

The receptionist smiled kindly, as if she sensed Kit’s nervousness. ‘This way; the doctor is ready for you.’

Dr Maybury was middle-aged, kind and unfailingly practical. ‘Now, Kit, it’s been a while. What seems to be the problem?’

Kit pulled a face. No sense in beating about the bush. ‘I’m worried I might have diabetes.’ She pulled in a deep breath and quickly detailed her incredible thirst, her endless trips to the bathroom—especially at night. ‘The thing is, though, that sometimes there’s nothing, just a drop or two. And I’m so tired all the time. And hungry.’

‘Dizziness? Nausea?’

‘I’ve felt faint a couple of times.’

‘Blurriness of vision?’

Kit shook her head.

‘Well, let’s not waste any more time.’ Dr Maybury handed Kit a cup. ‘We’ll test your urine.’

Ten minutes later, Dr Maybury turned to her and folded her arms. ‘I’m pleased to say you are not diabetic.’

Kit slumped in relief. ‘Oh, that is good news! The thought of having to give myself daily insulin injections …’ She shuddered.

‘Kit, you’re not diabetic, but you are pregnant.’

Kit blinked. She shook her head. ‘What did you just say?’

The doctor repeated it.

She shook her head again. ‘But …’ Her chest tightened, her stomach cramped. ‘But I can’t be! I just had my period.’

‘Some women maintain their period throughout their entire pregnancy.’

Kit could only stare. ‘Heavens,’ she found herself murmuring, ‘how unfair is that?’

Dr Maybury smiled and Kit shook herself again. ‘No, you don’t understand. I can’t be pregnant. I haven’t had morning sickness and … and my breasts haven’t been sore … and … I mean you have to have sex to get pregnant and I haven’t had sex in, like, forever!’

She hadn’t had sex since that magical night with Alex. Her mouth went dry. ‘Except … One night … ‘

‘One night is all it takes.’

‘But … but that was three months ago.’ She couldn’t have been pregnant for three months and not known.

Could she?

She thrust out her arm. ‘Please, do a blood test or … or something!’

‘I will take blood and send it off to the lab to make a hundred per cent certain. But, Kit, the pregnancy test I just used is roughly ninety-seven per cent accurate. I can do an internal examination to eliminate that final three per cent of doubt if it will put your mind at rest.’

Kit nodded mutely.

After the internal exam and when Kit was dressed again, she forced herself to meet the doctor’s eyes. ‘Well?’

‘There is not a doubt in my mind that you are pregnant. And, like you say, I’d put you at about three months. The results of the blood test will give us a better indication of your due date.’

She could tell the doctor the exact date of conception, only she didn’t have the heart to.

‘Kit, what do you want to do?’

She couldn’t be pregnant. She just couldn’t be. Alex, he’d …

She closed her eyes.

‘If you’d prefer a termination, we can’t leave it too much longer.’

Her eyes flew open.

‘Do you want children, Kit?’

‘Yes.’ The word croaked out of her.

But she’d wanted to do it the right way—married, with a divine husband whom she adored and who adored her in return, and with a mortgage on a cute little house and … and planned. Not like this!

‘You’re twenty-eight. How much longer did you mean to leave it?’

She didn’t have an answer for that. Through the fog of her shock, though, one thing started to become increasingly clear. She swallowed, twisted her hands together. ‘I don’t want to terminate my pregnancy.’

Her doctor smiled.

The answering smile that rose up through her suddenly froze. ‘Oh, but I’ve been drinking tea first thing in the morning and again at lunchtime and—’

‘You don’t have to give up caffeine altogether. Are you exceeding more than three cups a day?’

‘No.’

‘Then that’s okay. Alcohol?’

She winced. ‘I usually have a glass on Friday and Saturday nights.’

‘Any alcoholic binges in the last three months?’

‘No.’

‘Then there’s nothing to worry about.’

‘I haven’t been taking folate.’

‘You can start that today.’

Kit leaned forward. ‘You really think my baby is okay?’ She couldn’t stand the thought that she might have somehow hurt her unborn child.

The doctor patted her hand. ‘Kit, you are a healthy young woman. There’s absolutely no reason to suppose your baby isn’t healthy too.’

She let the doctor’s words reassure her. Finally, that smile built up through her again. ‘I’m really pregnant?’ she whispered.

‘You really are.’

‘But that’s lovely news.’

Alex Hallam wouldn’t think it was lovely news.

The doctor laughed. ‘Congratulations, Kit.’

Who cared what Alex Hallam thought? She was through thinking about him, remember? She beamed back at the doctor. ‘Thank you.’

Pregnant!

Kit left the surgery and turned in the direction of the train station. When she arrived there she couldn’t remember a single step of her journey.

Pregnant? A tentative excitement wrestled with her apprehension. One moment joy held sway. In the next, anxiety had gained the upper hand. An unplanned pregnancy? She gulped. It sounded so irresponsible. Irresponsible people shouldn’t be allowed to raise children.

She hugged her handbag. No. She hadn’t been irresponsible. She and Alex had taken precautions. It was just that sometimes, obviously, accidents happened.

She frowned over that word—accident. Her baby wasn’t an accident. It was lovely, a miracle.

Alex wouldn’t think their baby lovely. He’d definitely think it was an accident, a mistake. She closed her eyes. It was pointless telling herself now that she was through with thinking about Alex. They were having a baby. That changed everything.

Her hand moved to her abdomen, cradled it. She imagined the tiny life inside and her mouth went dry. How on earth would Alex react when she told him the news?

I don’t do long-term, I don’t do marriage and babies, and I certainly don’t do happy families.

Nausea swirled through her. Her eyes stung. Would Alex reject their child as ruthlessly and dispassionately as he had rejected her? Her throat thickened and then closed over completely. When her train arrived she boarded it like an automaton, found a window seat and concentrated on her breathing.

A baby deserved a mother and a father. Had she robbed her child of that chance because she’d misjudged Alex so badly? She should pay for that mistake, not her baby. She’d messed everything up and now her baby would pay the price.

The rush and clatter of an oncoming train as it sped past her window made her flinch and then sit up suddenly straighter. What was she doing? She couldn’t control how Alex would react, but she could control how she dealt with the news. She had a miracle growing inside her and she wanted this baby with every atom of her being. The weight pressing down on her shoulders melted away. A smile built up inside her.

She was having a baby!

The minute Kit entered her apartment she let out a whoop, shrugged her arms out of her coat and threw it up in the air. She was going to have a baby! And then she danced around the coffee table before falling onto the sofa and grinning at the blank screen of her television, at her sound system, at the magazines scattered on the coffee table.

She was going to be a mother.

Her hands formed a protective cocoon across her abdomen. ‘I’m going to be the best mother that ever walked the earth,’ she vowed, making the promise out loud to her unborn child.

And Alex I-don’t-do-happy-families Hallam?

She lifted her chin and pushed all thoughts of Alex aside for a moment. He was out of contact for the next three weeks and she wasn’t going to let thoughts of him darken her day or dim her joy. He might not do happy families but she did!

She reached for the phone and dialled her mother’s number in Brisbane. Today was for joy. ‘Mum, I have some wonderful news.’

‘Ooh, do tell, darling.’

She heard her mother’s grin down the line. It widened hers. ‘Mum, I’m going to have a baby!’

She held the phone away from her ear as her mother squealed her delight. ‘Darling, I’m so happy for you! I can’t wait to be a grandma. When are you due?’

Kit counted six months off on her fingers. Was that how one did it? She shrugged. ‘Some time in March, I think.’

‘I’ll take holidays,’ her mother vowed. ‘I want to be there for you.’ There was a slight pause. ‘And the daddy?’

‘He doesn’t know yet … and he’s not going to be thrilled. I … um … got him all wrong.’

‘Oh, darling.’

Kit’s eyes filled at the sympathy in her mother’s voice. ‘Do you really think I have to tell him?’ Keeping it from him, would that be so bad?

‘Yes, darling, you must.’

Kit knew her mother was right.

‘Are you quite sure you got him so wrong?’

‘Quote: I don’t do long-term. I don’t do happy families. End quote. I don’t think he could’ve made it any plainer, do you?’

Her mother exhaled one indignant breath.

She shook her head at the remembered pain of his words. It didn’t matter. Not any more. ‘It was a learning experience. The baby and I will be just fine. We’ll be better off without him.’

‘I’m sure you will be,’ her mother agreed, ‘but what about him? Will he be better off without you and the baby?’

She snorted. ‘Of course not. But, as you and Grandma have always said, you can lead a horse to water …’ Still, if Alex did want to be involved …

‘I see.’ A pause. ‘Not all men are like your father, Kitty-Kat.’

She smiled at the childhood nickname. ‘I know, Mum. And I will tell him about the baby. Just as soon as he gets back from Africa next month.’ And who knew, maybe Alex would surprise her.

‘Good. So tell me … ‘

She had a vision of her mother settling into her favourite armchair, feet tucked beneath her.

‘What are your plans? Do you mean to stay in Sydney?’

What was she going to do? Kit wriggled around until she lay on her back. She propped an ankle on the arm of the sofa. She’d never envisaged raising children in the city. She’d always thought …

She gave a sudden laugh as she realized exactly what she was going to do. ‘I’m going to go home, Mum. I’m going to raise my child in Tuncurry. It was a wonderful place to grow up.’

‘Your grandmother will be thrilled!’

Kit started mentally writing her resignation letter. She’d give two weeks’ notice on Monday.




CHAPTER TWO


‘GOOD morning, Mr Hallam.’

‘Phillip.’ Alex inclined his head as he exited the elevator on the top floor of Hallam Enterprises’ Sydney office. He told himself that eventually he’d get used to seeing Phillip rather than Kit behind that desk.

‘It’s good to have you back, sir.’

‘Thank you.’ Alex walked through to his office. He closed the door behind him and glanced around. Everything was neat, tidy and shining. Outside the window, the harbour sparkled in the early spring sunlight.

Nothing had changed.

Except Kit no longer sat at that desk in the foyer.

It had been almost four months since he and Kit had …

He dragged a hand down his face to try and dispel images that were still far too vivid.

He dropped into his chair. This last month in Africa had provided him with some perspective, given him some distance. It had renewed his determination, had allowed him to gather his strength again. With Kit, he’d made a mistake. He’d paid dearly for that mistake too. He’d made love to her and in the next instant the nightmares about little Chad had started up again. He couldn’t go there, couldn’t do that again. Not for anyone. Not even for Kit.

He’d learned his lesson and he would never make the same mistake again. Not with Kit. Not with any woman.

He swung in his chair to survey the harbour, a scowl building through him. Reckless. Idiotic. That was what he’d been. He should’ve taken more care around her. He should’ve …

He shouldn’t have hurt her.

The knowledge that he had pounded at him, lashed him with guilt. Even now. She deserved so much more than anything he could ever offer her. She deserved the best. She would never find the best with him. He didn’t do family, forever and commitment. He couldn’t do it.

He tried to focus on the scene before him, willed himself to appreciate its beauty. When that didn’t work he dragged a hand down his face. It took an effort of will to stop his shoulders from slumping. He’d regret hurting Kit till the day he died, that was something he couldn’t change. But no doubt she’d found a way to move on and so had he.

There was just one more test.

He leant across and pressed a button on his intercom. ‘Phillip, can you set up a meeting with Kit Mercer for some time tomorrow afternoon.’

There was a hesitation at the other end of the line. ‘Sir, Kit resigned. All the details are in a file in your in-box. She finished up at the end of the week before last.’

Alex didn’t say anything. He sat back and stared at the intercom. He stared at his in-box. He tried to work out how he felt.

Betrayal. And relief.

The betrayal was nonsense. Kit owed him nothing.

He rubbed the back of his neck. Relief? Maybe she was right. Maybe this was the answer—cut all ties and never clap eyes on each other again.

He leapt up, paced, stopped to track the Manly ferry’s progress into Circular Quay, and remembered Kit telling him how much she loved working for Hallam Enterprises. She’d said it was her dream job. He remembered her smile, the way her eyes had shone … and her gratitude to him. To him! His mouth dried. That had been the same day they’d clinched the Dawson deal, and that night they’d made love.

His hands clenched. He recalled how, in their few meetings since then, two faint lines would appear on her forehead whenever she looked at him and how her eyes would dim. He’d taken her dream job, all the satisfaction she found in her work, and had turned it to ashes.

Letting her walk away, never having to see her again, that would be easy. It’d also be incredibly selfish. Kit had loved her job. She shouldn’t be made to suffer on his account any more than she already had. He had to make this right!

He swore loud and hard. That was what his trip to Africa had been about—wanting to do something positive rather than negative, helping rather than hurting, making someone’s life a bit better rather than a bit worse. He’d needed to feel that he could make a difference in a good way instead of a bad one.

Letting Kit walk away was making a difference in a bad way. He’d done enough damage where she was concerned. He had no intention of adding to the score.

He scattered the contents of his in-box across his desk until he found the file he wanted. He tucked it under his arm. ‘Tell Donald he’s still in charge,’ he shot at Phillip as he strode from his office. He punched the button for the elevator … twice … three times. ‘There’s something I need to take care of.’

Phillip did his best not to gape. Kit would’ve stood, hands on hips, and demanded to know where he was going, what time he’d be back and what he expected her to tell all his appointments for the day. Alex shot into the elevator before Phillip could ask him anything so unanswerable. All of those answers depended on Kit.

Alex double-checked the file that lay open on the car seat beside him, and glanced again at the house opposite. There was no doubt about it, this was the address. This was where Kit now lived.

He frowned. It was a far cry from her stylish one-bedroom flat in French’s Forest. That building had been all square blonde brick with a couple of well-trimmed hibiscuses out the front. This wasn’t anywhere near as well-ordered. This was … messy.

Paint peeled from weatherboards, and one end of the tiny veranda sagged. What lawn there was needed cutting. Shrubs grew willy-nilly in the front garden. Most of it was obscured, though, by the enormous bottlebrush tree on the front path that was so laden with red blossoms it sagged beneath their weight. It took him a moment to realize the hum came from the bees in that tree rather than his shock.

Kit’s talents would be wasted in this two-horse town.

He’d researched Tuncurry on his phone at a roadside restaurant a couple of hours back. Apparently it was a seaside township purportedly inundated with holidaymakers in the summer, four hours north of Sydney. A glance at his watch told him he’d been on the road for five hours.

Five hours? He hadn’t even had the sense to pack an overnight bag. He dragged both hands back through his hair. He didn’t even have a plan.

He did know the outcome he wanted, though. For Kit to return to Hallam Enterprises.

He pushed out of the car and straightened his tie. All he had to do was the right thing. He had to make things right for Kit again so she could go back to the job she loved. End of story.

The gate squeaked when he opened it and the wood and wire fence swayed when the gate slammed back into place behind him. The door to the house stood wide open, but nobody appeared at his first knock, or his second.

He hesitated, then opened the screen door. ‘Hello?’

The room was empty—unlived in empty. No furniture. No people. He was about to holler another hello when a door at what he guessed was the back of the house thudded closed and a few seconds later Kit came tripping into the room wearing faded jeans, a navy-blue singlet top and with her hair scraped back into a ponytail. He cleared his throat. She swung to him and froze in one of the shafts of sunlight that came streaming in through the front windows.

His stomach hollowed out. Dear Lord, she was lovely. A sense of regret stole through him, giving him the strength to push his shoulders back. ‘Hello, Kit.’ He took two steps into the room and let the screen door close behind him.

‘Alex?’

Two lines creased her forehead. He had an insane urge to walk across and smooth them out.

‘What on earth are you doing here? I thought you’d ring or email, but … ‘

The sound of a truck screeching to a halt outside had her glancing behind him. ‘You’ll have to excuse me for a minute.’ She shook herself, dusted off her hands. ‘It sounds as if my new furniture has arrived.’

She moved past him and out to the veranda to wave to the truck. She smelled of soap and fresh cotton and she barely spared him a glance. He surveyed the room in an effort to distract himself from the way her jeans hugged the curve of her hips, at the memory of how his hands had traced those curves and how she’d—

His heart started to pound. He gritted his teeth. He glanced to his left, guessing the hallway that opened off there led to the bedrooms and bathroom. Given the proportions of the outside of the house, he’d guess there would be two bedrooms.

The mundane calculations helped settle his heart rate.

Kit half-turned in the doorway, not quite meeting his eyes, and smiled as if he could be anyone. ‘How was Africa?’

‘Amazing.’ He found himself suddenly eager to tell her all about it. He knew she’d appreciate it, that she’d understand. He opened his mouth to find she’d already swung away to greet a burly man with a clipboard.

‘Delivery for Mercer?’

‘That’d be me,’ Kit said with a smile that held genuine warmth, and Alex’s stomach dropped. Kit didn’t want to hear about his trip. And there was no conceivable reason on earth why she should be glad to see him.

‘Do you need a hand?’

The burly man glanced at Alex, took in the suit and tie and shook his head. ‘We’ll be right, mate. We do this for a living.’ He turned back to Kit. ‘Just tell us where you’d like the stuff.’

Bemused, Alex watched as Kit indicated where she wanted the dining table and chairs—in the small part of the L-shaped living room, which he discovered adjoined the kitchen with a door that led out to the back garden.

‘I want the dresser there, the sofas here and here, and the entertainment unit against that wall.’

‘Rightio. Oh, and the boss was really sorry the delivery was delayed so he sent someone to install those shelves you ordered.’

‘That was kind of him. I want them on that wall there.’

She indicated an internal wall and Alex had never felt more like a third wheel in his life.

She turned to look at him again. And again those two lines creased her forehead. ‘We’ll um … be out the back if you need us.’

‘No probs.’

Kit hitched her head in the direction of the back garden and Alex followed. Her back garden wasn’t any neater than the front. A row of haphazard azaleas bloomed along the fence to the right. A banksia stood sentinel at the back fence while, to the right, a giant frangipani stood wedged between the back of the house and a garden shed, threatening to push them both over. Some patches of the lawn were more sand than grass.

Kit, however, didn’t seem to find anything wrong with the place and she certainly wouldn’t care what his opinion of it was either. That much was evident.

‘Are you just passing through, Alex, or is there a purpose to your visit?’

Her ponytail bounced as she knelt down in front of a Cape Cod chair, picked up a piece of coarse sandpaper and started sanding.

His stomach started to cramp. He felt ridiculous in his dark suit and tie out here in her garden. He dragged the tie from around his neck and shoved it into his jacket pocket. He undid his top button and ordered himself to take a deep breath. ‘There’s a reason.’

Her ponytail kept bobbing. She was sanding that chair all wrong. If she weren’t careful, she’d pull a muscle. He had to clench his hands to stop from reaching out, hauling her to her feet and turning her to face him.

He couldn’t touch her. He’d made so much progress and he had no intention of backsliding now. He just wanted to make things right—do the right thing. Touching her would be a step in the wrong direction.

‘Then any time today would be good … ‘

His teeth clenched when she still didn’t turn around. He unclenched them to say, ‘I’m waiting for you to spare me a moment of your attention.’

‘From memory, when you were offered my full attention you didn’t want it.’

Just like that, the old tension wrapped around them. Her hand froze mid-sand as if she couldn’t believe she’d uttered the words.

He wanted to swear and swear and swear. He should’ve had a plan. He should’ve rehearsed what to say. He should’ve known better than to trust his instincts when he was anywhere in the vicinity of Kit Mercer.

‘You resigned!’ The words shot out of him like an accusation. Unrehearsed.

‘You always were quick on the uptake.’

Kit had always been sassy, but rarely sarcastic. His hands clenched and this time he did swear. ‘Can’t we try and keep this civilised?’

Finally she turned and planted herself in the half-sanded chair. ‘Why?’

All his frustration bubbled up, threatening to choke him. ‘Look, I didn’t force you to sleep with me, all right? We were consenting adults and you were as into it as I was. I know I didn’t live up to your expectations and I’m sorry. I wish to God it had never happened. But it’s done now and I can’t undo it.’

Her eyes hardened. ‘Fine!’

‘What else can I do, other than apologise?’

‘Leave?’

The word kicked him in the centre of his gut and he knew then that this woman had left her mark on him for life. He also knew that if he was to save his sanity he had to rip her out of his life completely.

But he should be the one to suffer. Not her.

‘I can’t accept your resignation, Kit.’

An angry flush stained her cheeks. Her eyes glittered. ‘That’s your problem, Alex, not mine.’

‘You loved your job!’

‘So?’

‘And you were brilliant at it.’

She blinked.

‘Come back to Hallam Enterprises and I will double your salary.’

‘No.’

‘I’ll triple it.’ He planted his feet. ‘Kit, you’re too valuable an employee to give up on without a fight.’

She stared up at him and he could’ve sworn her bottom lip wobbled. ‘Alex—’

‘Look, come back. You don’t need to relocate and change your whole way of life. If working with me is so difficult for you, I’ll relocate instead to our Brisbane office. I will leave Donald in charge of operations in Sydney, I’ll triple your salary and you won’t have to clap eyes on me again. I promise.’

Her eyes had grown huge. She pressed her hands to her cheeks. ‘I thought you’d ring, Alex, or email. I didn’t expect you to just turn up like this.’

Her hands shook. Her colour kept flooding and then receding. Should he have given her some warning? He’d been so intent on his mission he hadn’t thought what might be best for her.

But he knew how much she’d loved her job. She gained more satisfaction out of her job as project manager than he did running the entire company. She shouldn’t feel compelled to leave because of what had happened between them.

Still, he’d been a fool to think that any meeting between them could be anything less than fraught.

He raked both hands back through his hair. In the warm spring sunshine his skin started to prickle beneath his suit jacket. ‘Why don’t I come back tomorrow at, say, 10:00 a.m.? It’ll give you a chance to think over my offer. You’re obviously busy here and—’

‘No!’ She surged to her feet. ‘I don’t want to drag this out. Alex, I will not be returning to Sydney. I mean to make this place home. I grew up in Tuncurry and I’ve missed it. This is where I want to live. The lifestyle, the people, the pace, it suits me more than Sydney ever did.’

Didn’t she care that her talents would be wasted here?

‘Your offer was more than generous—’ she hauled in a breath ‘—and I do appreciate it, but … ‘

She didn’t finish her sentence. She didn’t have to. Her shrug said it all. Bile rose up to burn his throat, his tongue. His recklessness, his weakness, had made this woman’s life worse and there was nothing he could do to make amends. ‘What will you do?’

‘I’ll get a job. I have a lot of contacts here and the tourism industry is thriving. With my qualifications, it’ll be a piece of cake.’

She had every right to that confidence. Whoever was lucky enough to employ her would find they had a gem.

‘You’re sure you won’t reconsider?’

She shook her head. And then she went so pale he found himself stepping forward to take her arm. She lifted her hands to ward him off. Stepped away so he couldn’t touch her. As if his touch would poison her. Just for a moment he had to rest his hands on his knees.

‘Alex, I don’t want to raise my children in the city. I want to raise them here.’

He flinched at that word—children—and then straightened, but part of him was glad—fiercely glad—that she’d uttered it. It reminded him of the impossible gulf that lay between them.

Her lips twisted and her eyes hardened at whatever she saw reflected in his face. But her colour didn’t return. He noted the way she twisted her hands together. To stop them from shaking?

‘Alex, I didn’t resign from Hallam Enterprises because I found it impossible to work with you. I resigned because I’m pregnant.’

He stared. For a moment it seemed as if time were suspended. And then her last two words hit him in the stomach like blows from a sledgehammer. I’m pregnant.

I’m pregnant. I’m pregnant.

No! He fell back. Not … No! ‘You can’t be serious?’ The words rasped from a throat that burned like acid.

‘I’ve never been more serious about anything in my life.’

Her hands twisted and twisted. He stared at them and prayed they could save him. ‘With …?’

But he couldn’t finish the question. He reeled away from her, reeled all the way to the back fence and the banksia tree. He dug his fingers into the hard bark of a branch and held on until the nausea passed. Anger pounded through him then, hot and thick and suffocating. At the edge of his consciousness he could hear Chad’s laughter taunting him like it did in his nightmares.

He swung around, strode back to where Kit stood and jabbed a finger at her. ‘You expect me to believe it’s mine?’ The words were harsher than anything that had ever scraped out of his throat before.

She folded her arms, moistened her lips and met his glare head on, although tears filled her eyes and he doubted she could see him properly through them. But she didn’t let a single one of them fall. ‘Just walk away, Alex,’ she whispered. ‘Just turn around and walk away and we’ll pretend that none of this ever happened.’

His heart pounded in his throat, his pulse raced. He’d come here to make her the offer of a lifetime. Instead, she was extending that offer to him.

He could walk away.

He didn’t want to walk. He wanted to run!




CHAPTER THREE


ALEX lurched across to the nearest azalea bush, where he promptly and comprehensively vomited. Kit had to sit again and focus on her breathing to avoid that urge herself. Up to this point, her pregnancy had been remarkably nausea free.

She rubbed at the niggling ache in her back. In her free moments, when she’d tried to picture telling Alex he was going to be a father, she’d expected yelling and shouting, accusations and disbelief, even a hard, angry silence.

Shock—yes.

Vomiting—no.

Had her father vomited when her mother had told him she was pregnant with Kit?

She shook the thought off and deepened the massage to the left side of her back, her fingers doing what they could to shift the pain there and their own nervousness. With Alex, she’d have preferred the shouting and anger. A part of her would have preferred it if he’d taken the out she’d offered him and had walked away without one single backward glance. She flicked a quick glance in his direction.

He still might yet.

She tried to stamp out the sympathy that rose through her at the memory of the white-lipped panic that had sent him wheeling away from her, at the red-faced panic that had sent him hurtling back, at the grey-skinned despair that had sent him staggering across to that azalea bush.

Having an unplanned baby wasn’t the end of the world!

Her throat ached. Her eyes stung. Her news had made him vomit. Vomit!

I don’t do happy families.

He wasn’t kidding, was he?

Her temples throbbed. The ache in her back that had been plaguing her since yesterday increased in ferocity. A hot flush wrung her out and then a chill gripped her. She might not be able to stop herself from feeling sorry for Alex, but he was an adult, a grown up. He might not do happy families, but she did. There was no way on God’s green that she was going to let him hurt her baby.

Their baby.

No—her baby! Alex didn’t want this child. She did with every molecule of her being. She would provide for this baby and give it everything it needed.

A baby needs a father.

She thrust her chin out. She’d coped perfectly well without one.

Really?

She dropped her head to her hands with a groan. She’d ached to have a father who’d wanted her, who’d loved her.

‘Kit?’

Alex’s face was void of all emotion. It made her catch her breath. How could he hide all that … that turmoil away, just like that? She searched his face for a spark of … anything.

She searched in vain.

‘You’re saying it’s mine?’

‘Yes.’

‘We used protection.’

She didn’t want to do this. She wanted to curl up and sleep the afternoon away. She wanted to forget all about Alex Hallam. ‘We’d have been better off if I’d been on the Pill.’

‘Have you thought everything through? Considered all your options?’ He planted his hands on his hips, his eyes narrowed. ‘You know you have options, don’t you?’

‘You’re talking about a termination?’

‘That’s certainly one of your options and—’

That had her surging to her feet. She ignored the pain that cramped her back. ‘What a typically male thing to say! You’re …’ She couldn’t find words enough to describe the entirety of his awfulness.

He wanted her to get rid of their beautiful baby?

Oh, that so wasn’t going to happen!

‘Look, I’m just saying it’s an option, that’s all. I was just checking that you’d considered all your options.’

‘Is that so?’ She folded her arms. After the heat of her first flush of anger she went cold all over. Chilled-to-the-bone cold. ‘But a termination would make your life so much easier, wouldn’t it?’

‘Only if the child is mine.’

For a moment she couldn’t breathe. He doubted it? He thought she would lie about something as important as this? She’d envisaged anger and shock, resentment, when she told Alex the news but not once had it occurred to her that he might not believe her. She’d never given him any reason to think she would lie.

She wrapped her arms about her middle to stop from falling apart. ‘I am not terminating my pregnancy.’

He didn’t blink. He didn’t flinch. ‘Fine. But if you claim the child is mine then I demand a paternity test be carried out upon the child’s birth.’

She hitched up her chin. ‘Alex, you’ve made it clear from the start that you’re not a family man.’ Well, perhaps not exactly from the start. But he had rectified that particular misapprehension on her part with startling speed. ‘I don’t want anything from you. I assure you I have everything that I need. Frankly, I don’t know what you are still doing here.’

His gaze sliced to the path that led around the side of the house—the path that would take him to his car and freedom. She recognized the hunger that flashed across his face before all expression was cut off again.

‘I—’

An almighty crash from within the house interrupted whatever he’d been about to say. Kit spun around. One of the deliverymen appeared at the back door. ‘I … uh … a wall’s fallen down.’

She blinked. ‘It’s what?’ She took off at a run. Her beautiful house!

‘Kit, wait, it might not be safe!’

She ignored Alex’s shout. It couldn’t be any more dangerous than being out in the back garden with him. His footsteps pounded behind her, but he didn’t catch up with her until she came to a dead halt at the edge of the living room. He slammed into her and she winced as pain cramped her back again. She coughed at the plaster dust thick in the air.

‘Sorry.’ He gripped her shoulders to steady her. ‘Okay?’

She couldn’t answer him. The warmth of his hands had memories sideswiping her, memories that demanded she turn and rest herself in his arms. Crazy! She couldn’t talk but she could resist such insane impulses. She managed a nod.

He immediately transferred his attention to the deliverymen. ‘Anyone hurt?’

She closed her eyes. She was a hundred different kinds of a fool where this man was concerned.

The deliverymen all assured Alex that they were unhurt and Kit opened her eyes to survey the damage. She waved a hand in front of her face to try and dispel some of the dust. ‘What happened?’

Her house. Her beautiful house.

As the dust settled, a great hole appeared in her wall where her brand new shelves should’ve been. They lay in disarray amidst the clutter and mess on the floor. Alex swore. ‘Didn’t you look for a supporting beam?’

‘Course I did,’ a dusty figure muttered. ‘Take a look yourself.’

Alex did. He poked and prodded and then swore at whatever he’d discovered. Kit’s heart sank. Her budget didn’t run to expensive repairs and—

All her thoughts slammed to a halt when he stuck his head through the hole and peered upwards. ‘Alex!’ The protest squeaked out of her. What if more stuff fell down?

It was only when he backed out again that she noticed the three deliverymen edging towards the door. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ She’d meant to utter the words in her best scary secretary voice, but it came out as a squeak too.

‘Sorry, love, but we’ve delivered your furniture. There’s nothing more we can do here.’ With that they turned tail and fled.

‘Hold on a minute!’

A firm hand wrapping around her upper arm prevented her from setting off after them. ‘It’s not their fault, Kit. Let them go.’

She wrenched herself out of his grip and then coughed as dust rose up around them, disturbed by her agitated movements. It settled on the shoulders, the sleeves, the lapels of Alex’s finely tailored suit. It settled everywhere, even on his eyelashes. Kit yanked her gaze away. She didn’t want to notice how the dust on his eyelashes made the brown of his irises deeper and clearer. She didn’t want to notice anything about Alex Hallam.

He went to take her arm, but she evaded him. She didn’t want him touching her again either. She didn’t want to notice how his touch was imprinted on her soul. As if she were his woman. She wasn’t!

She whirled away from him. ‘What do you know about any of this anyway?’

He brushed a hand through his hair, shaking plaster dust out of it. He shrugged and sort of grimaced. ‘I’m a builder by trade, Kit.’

‘No, you’re not. You’re a multi-millionaire property developer.’ She planted her feet. ‘Builder my foot,’ she muttered under her breath.

‘I’m a multi-millionaire property developer and a builder by trade.’

She frowned. ‘But you have an economics degree.’ She’d seen it on the wall of his office.

‘Mature-age entry. Part-time attendance. How do you think I funded a tertiary education?’

She stared at him and then shook her head. Had she ever really known him?

All the intimate ways she had known him rose up through her. When he raised an eyebrow she realized she was staring. She pushed the memories away and bit her lip, wished it weren’t so hard to catch her breath. ‘So …’ she waved at the hole in the wall ‘… you know about all this?’

He nodded.

She bit back a sigh. ‘Right then, you’d better tell me the worst.’

He glanced at the wall and then back at her. A frown formed in his eyes. ‘The wall stud is rotten with damp. That’s why it didn’t hold the shelves and, as you can see, when they fell they took a great chunk of plaster with them. Kit, there’s a hole in the roof. Looks as if you’ll need to find a new place to rent.’

‘I’m not renting, Alex.’ Kit wanted to sink to the floor amid all the chaos and rest for a bit. ‘I’ve bought this house. It belongs to me.’

Alex pushed his jacket back to plant his hands on his hips. ‘How the hell does one buy a house in just three weeks?’

‘Private sale.’ Her hands rested in the small of her back as she grimaced and stretched. ‘We rushed it through.’

The owners had seen her coming a mile off. ‘At least tell me you had a building inspection done.’

‘The previous owners told me it was fine. The real estate agent said he could vouch for them personally.’

‘Did you get anything in writing?’

He knew the answer before she shook her head. How could a woman so savvy and efficient in dealing with demanding clients and difficult staff make such an elementary mistake? His gaze drifted to her waist and his lips thinned.

She rested her hands on her knees and only then did he notice how unwell she looked. Pregnant women, they threw up a lot, right? He grimaced at the reminder of his own behaviour earlier. ‘Kit, are you going to be sick?’

‘Don’t think so,’ she mumbled.

She straightened. He noticed the way her hand went to the small of her back as if trying to massage away a pain there. He did a rough calculation. If he were the father, Kit would be nearly four months into her pregnancy. He couldn’t remember when Jacqueline had started getting back pain. He was pretty sure it was later than four months. ‘Are you sure you’re feeling all right?’

‘I’m pregnant,’ she snapped. ‘I don’t have some disease!’

He figured he deserved that, but … he really didn’t like her colour.

‘And it’s been a great day,’ she continued. ‘The father of my child throws up when I tell him the happy news and now I have a hole not only in my wall but, if what you are telling me is true, in my roof too! You know what, Alex? I’m feeling on top of the world right now.’

She had a point. Several, in fact. Rather valid points at that. He couldn’t help it. He glanced at her waist again. As far as he could tell, there wasn’t any change there at all.

Perhaps this could turn out to be a glorious mistake?

He glanced at the hole in the wall and knew he was grasping at straws. Kit had a hole in her wall and she was pregnant.

He was in the middle of a nightmare.

He was going to suffocate. All the plaster dust in the room felt as if it had lodged in his throat. He didn’t do kids. He didn’t do family. He wanted out of here.

He dragged in a hoarse gasp of air and closed his eyes, concentrating on his breathing. Kit had told him he could walk away.

He wanted to run, escape, as fast as he could.

He wanted to stampede for the door. Charge through it and never come back.

He opened his eyes, glanced at the door and then glanced at Kit, who’d backed up to perch on the edge of the nearest sofa, which was still wrapped in the heavy-duty plastic it had arrived in. He frowned as he looked at her more closely. One moment she was pale, the next she was flushed. Before he had time to think better of it, he reached out and rested the back of his hand against her forehead.

She slapped it away. Glared. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

She was burning up!

He dragged a hand back through his hair. His retreat was moving further and further out of reach. He could almost feel it slipping through his fingers like water … or plaster dust.

‘You’re running a temperature.’ Hell! He couldn’t leave a sick woman to fend for herself. ‘Come on. You need a doctor to check you over. I’ll take you up to the hospital.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous!’

By rights, her glare should’ve withered him to the spot. He sat next to her, he was careful not to touch her. ‘You’re not feeling well, Kit, and you’re running a temperature so you can be excused for making poor judgement calls.’

‘Poor judge—’

‘But do you really want to take the risk that a high temperature might harm your baby?’

‘Oh!’

Her bottom lip wobbled and one of her hands moved to cradle her abdomen. That action told him exactly how much this baby meant to her. For a moment he had to fight the nausea that punched through him again.

‘You really think I’m running a temperature?’

‘I know it.’

‘Okay,’ she finally whispered. ‘But not the hospital, the medical clinic.’

‘Fine.’ He would take her to see a doctor. He would bring her home again. He’d book into a hotel overnight. Tomorrow, he and Kit would discuss what needed discussing and then he would walk out of her life for ever.




CHAPTER FOUR


KIT’S pallor, the way she bit her bottom lip and her down-turned mouth all struck at Alex’s heart, making him forget his own panic. He wished he could make her smile. He’d been able to—once.

He stood and pretended to survey the sofas. ‘You know what? The plastic-wrapped look was a smart choice. I think it could really take off.’

She didn’t smile.

‘I hear babies make a lot of mess. You might want to keep this look for the next three or four years.’

He couldn’t believe he’d said the word babies without flinching. ‘You know, we could plastic-wrap the whole interior of this room. You could just hose it down at the end of every day. It’d save you loads of time.’ He was glad he’d made the effort when her lips shifted upwards the tiniest fraction.

He shook himself. Enough of this. ‘C’mon, let’s get you to the medical clinic.’ He reached down and helped her to her feet. He didn’t release her arm. ‘Are you feeling dizzy or faint?’ Should he carry her to the car?

His skin pulled tight with need. It rocked him to find just how much he wanted to touch her, to have her in his arms.

She shook her head. Carefully, as if the action hurt. ‘I just feel as if I have a bad case of the flu without the sore throat and sniffles.’

His chest clenched. The sooner she saw a doctor the sooner she’d get medicine—antibiotics or whatnot—to make her feel better. But when she removed her arm from his grasp all he could think for a moment was how the day had darkened. They were just about to leave when they found the door blocked by two figures.

‘Hello, lovey, we’re Frank and Doreen from next door.’ An elderly couple tripped into the room. ‘Hello, Kit dear.’

He blinked. Lovey? Him? Nobody … nobody had ever called him lovey. He rolled his shoulders, cracked his neck.

‘Hi, Auntie Doreen.’

Her aunt!

‘The boys just told us what happened. We thought we’d pop our heads in to see if there’s anything we can do.’ Doreen turned to Alex. ‘Frank here used to be a welder, you know.’

Frank here looked about seventy in the shade.

‘He’s handy with his hands.’

And then she winked at him.

Alex swallowed back a smart rejoinder. How on earth did a welder propose to fix a hole in a wall, not to mention another in the roof? Even if he was handy with his hands.

Nevertheless, when the older man extended his hand Alex shook it. ‘Alex Hallam.’ He glanced at Kit. She looked ready to drop. ‘I’m sorry, but Kit is running a temperature. We’re off to the medical clinic.’ He waved a hand at the mess. ‘I’ll deal with all this later.’

‘You run along, lovey, while we see what we can do.’

He didn’t want this unconventional pair messing with Kit’s house. Things were bad enough already.

‘We’ll close the door when we leave.’

Kit didn’t seem concerned or put out by Doreen’s words so he shrugged and edged her towards the door.

Doreen leant across to squeeze Kit’s hand as they passed. ‘So glad your young man has finally arrived.’

‘Oh, but he isn’t—’

‘Young,’ Alex bit out. He continued to shepherd her all the way out of the door and towards his car. They didn’t have time for explanations.

Alex accompanied Kit into the doctor’s consulting room. She didn’t put up a fight, but he had a feeling that had more to do with how unwell she was feeling rather than a sign of her trust in him.

The doctor frowned and pointed to a chair when Alex started pacing up and down. He planted himself in it and tried not to fidget. Then he scowled. The doctor looked as if he was just out of high school! Surely he was too young to know which way was up, let alone—

‘Relax, Alex,’ Kit groaned.

Relax? How could he relax when she looked like death warmed up? Why hadn’t he picked up on that earlier? He could have unknowingly made her worse. He’d walked into her house as if he’d had every right and demanded she come back to work. Without a thought for what she really wanted. All to ease his conscience. As if he knew what would make her happiest. As if he knew what was best for her.

He knew zilch.

He dragged a hand back through his hair. He did know one thing. When a woman told you she was pregnant with your child, you shouldn’t throw up. Bad reaction. Wrong reaction. Completely inappropriate.

And completely out of his control.

But … Kit was carrying his child?

He slammed a wall down on that thought.

Not his baby, Kit’s. And if Kit lost her baby because of anything he’d done—

Bile rose up to burn his throat. He choked it back. He would never forgive himself if that happened. Never.

‘Kit, you have a kidney infection. I suspect you’ve had a urinary tract infection, not all that unusual during pregnancy, which has travelled to your kidneys.’

Alex’s head snapped up at the doctor’s words. ‘How serious is that?’ he barked. It sounded bad.

Kit didn’t look at him, but her hands shook. He clenched his to fists. ‘What he said,’ she whispered.

‘We’ve caught it early.’

Her hands cradled her abdomen and Alex couldn’t take his eyes from them. Such small, fragile hands.

‘Will my baby be okay?’

‘Yes. As long as you do everything I say.’

Kit swallowed and nodded. Alex leaned forward to make sure he caught every word the doctor uttered.

‘I’m booking you in for an ultrasound on …’ he surveyed his computer ‘… on Thursday. It’ll put both you and your regular doctor’s minds at rest. I’ll also prescribe you a course of antibiotics, and no, they won’t harm your baby,’ he added before Kit could ask. ‘But, until your ultrasound, I want you to have complete bed rest.’

‘Oh, but—’

‘You can get up to go to the bathroom. You can have a quick shower or tepid bath once a day. But the rest of the time I want you in bed.’

Kit’s hands twisted in her lap. ‘I … ‘

The doctor peered at her over the top of his glasses. ‘It’s better to be safe than sorry, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, of course. It’s just … ‘

The doctor turned to Alex. ‘She’ll need someone to stay with her, look after her.’

Alex nodded, ignoring the way his stomach dropped. ‘I’ll do that.’ Thursday? He could stay till Thursday, or even the weekend. Kit wouldn’t be sick if she wasn’t pregnant. And she wouldn’t be pregnant if it wasn’t for him.

Thursday or the weekend? It was the least he could do.

He could see that Kit didn’t like the idea. In fact, she probably loathed it. Not that he could blame her.

The doctor pointed at Kit. ‘You rest. It’s important, you hear?’

Kit nodded and swallowed. ‘I hear.’

Alex wanted to hit the doctor for frightening her.

The doctor’s glare transferred itself to Alex. ‘She’s to have no stress, no worry. She’s not to be upset in any way.’

Alex’s hands clenched as fear punched through him then too. ‘Right.’ No stress, no worry. He could manage that. For Kit. Till Thursday. Or the weekend.

‘I don’t need you to stay with me, Alex,’ Kit said the moment he pulled his car to a halt out the front of her house and turned off the ignition.

He didn’t blame her for not wanting him there. In her shoes he wouldn’t want him staying over either, but hadn’t she heard a word the doctor said? She needed someone to stay with her, look after her. He wasn’t leaving until someone trustworthy was here to fill his shoes.

‘I’m happy to call one of your friends or a relative—perhaps your aunt Doreen—to stay with you, but I’m not leaving you alone, Kit. You heard what the doctor said,’ he added when she opened her mouth to argue.

She closed it again. She looked pale and wrung out, and he grimaced. ‘Look, this is the story, Kit. I’m staying in Tuncurry tonight. Now, whether that’s on one of your new sofas or in a hotel room is up to you.’

‘But—’

‘It’s getting a bit late to be driving back to Sydney, especially when I’m still jet-lagged from the Africa trip.’

She rested her head against the back of the seat as if it were too hard to hold it up under her own steam. He wanted to reach out and trace the line of her jaw, the curve of her cheek. He clenched his hand. Just get her into bed where she can rest. No stress, no worry.

He swallowed. ‘Kit, how does this sound for a plan? You let me crash on your sofa, just for tonight, and tomorrow we can discuss other arrangements?’

She closed her eyes and then finally she nodded. ‘Okay.’

He had a feeling she’d agree to just about anything at the moment if it meant she could rest.

He discovered that didn’t mean she’d let him carry her into the house, though. He stayed close behind her on the slow trek from the car to the house, in case she needed a hand. They both paused on the threshold. The living room looked like a bombsite, though Frank and Doreen had obviously done their best to sweep the debris into one tidy pile.

Kit picked up a note from the coffee table. ‘Doreen has left us a casserole.’ She started to turn. ‘I should pop over and thank her.’

‘I’ll do that. You go to bed.’

She didn’t look at him. She glanced about the room and her shoulders slumped. One of her small hands inched across her stomach. Alex’s chest burned. She looked so lost and alone. He touched her shoulder, but when she glanced up at him with big worry-filled eyes he found himself drawing her into his arms and pressing her head to the hollow of his shoulder. ‘It’s going to be okay, Kit.’

‘You don’t know that,’ she mumbled, but she didn’t draw away.

He stroked her hair in an effort to reassure her, but found himself revelling in her softness, in how good she smelt, instead. ‘We’ll do everything the doctor says and you and your baby will be fine.’

She stared up at him then, a frown in her eyes.

‘If the doctor had been really worried he’d have admitted you to hospital.’

She nodded, but the frown didn’t leave her eyes. ‘What are you still doing here, Alex?’

‘There are things we need to talk about.’ Maybe honesty would win him a measure of her trust. ‘It doesn’t matter how much I might want to leave, I can’t until we’ve thrashed some things out. But that can wait until later in the week. What’s important at the moment is for you to get better again.’

He hooked an arm under her knees and lifted her into his arms. Carrying her was easier than arguing with her.

Carrying her was divine.

‘Point me in the direction of your bedroom.’

She pointed to the corridor that led off the living room. ‘First door on the right.’

The moment he set foot inside it, he wanted to back out again. This bedroom, with its big wooden bed and plaid quilt in pastel shades piled decadently with cushions, was pure Kit. It reminded him of that night.

He set her down on her bed and then backed up fast, almost falling over his feet in his haste. ‘You need to rest—doctor’s orders. Nothing else matters at the moment, Kit. I’ll go and serve you up a plate of your aunt’s casserole.’ Even sick, she looked divine.

‘Honorary aunt. Doreen isn’t my real aunt.’

Right.

‘Alex?’

He turned in the doorway.

Her chin lifted as she met his gaze. ‘You’re going to leave us, aren’t you, me and our baby?’

Her bottom lip wobbled as the words whispered out of her. Each word pierced his flesh.

She bit her lip, maybe in an attempt to get it back under control, and then she pursed her mouth. ‘You know, Alex, I can understand you not wanting a future with me. I get that.’

She glanced away, swallowed. Her throat worked. He wanted to close his eyes.

She turned and her gaze met his again, her eyes dark and shadowed. Confusion and turmoil chased themselves across her face. ‘But how can you turn your back on our baby?’

A weight slammed into place. He must look like a monster in her eyes.

Maybe he was.

He wanted to tell her to rest but the words wouldn’t come.

‘You don’t care what’s best for me. You don’t care what’s best for our baby. All you care about is what’s best for you.’

She spoke almost as if to herself and her words chilled him. He wanted to tell her she was wrong, but …

He shook himself. ‘Kit, I’m not abandoning you. I will be staying until the weekend.’

Her lips twisted. ‘What good do you think that will do anyone?’

He didn’t know how to answer.

She shifted slightly, her eyes suddenly glittering. ‘You know what? It might just be simpler if I make you a lump sum payment.’

‘What the hell …?’

‘For the donation of your sperm. That way, everyone knows exactly where they stand. There’ll be no misunderstandings.’ She lifted her chin. ‘I’m sure you can get those fancy lawyers of yours to draft something up.’

Horror welled through him. She couldn’t be serious! He—

No stress, no worry.

He clenched his hands to fists, drew in a ragged breath and swallowed back the denial that shot through him. Her eyelids had started to grow heavy. A sheen of perspiration filmed her face. She continued to glare at him with her chin hitched up like a warrior’s, but he knew a discussion like this couldn’t be good for her. ‘Rest now, Kit. We’ll talk later.’

Not that there was much more to say, he realized, his mouth growing sour with the knowledge. He turned away and headed for the kitchen. Food and making sure Kit rested—he’d focus on what he could do.

An hour later, Alex found himself on Frank and Doreen’s front veranda, hand raised to knock on their door. He’d made a deal with Kit—she’d try to sleep and he’d come over and thank Frank and Doreen.

He shifted his feet, scowled at the ground and knocked.

‘Lovey!’ Doreen appeared. ‘C’mon in.’

He shook his head and fought the urge to fidget. ‘I don’t want to leave Kit for too long in case she needs me. I just—’

‘Frank! It’s Kit’s young man, Alex.’

Alex gritted his teeth.

‘Come in and have a beer, young man,’ Frank offered.

Again, Alex shook his head. ‘The doctor has diagnosed Kit with a kidney infection. She should be fine but he’s ordered bed rest for the next few days. I don’t want to leave her alone for too long.’

Both Frank and Doreen nodded sagely, as if this made perfect sense. As far as Alex was concerned, the longer he remained in Tuncurry, the less sense anything made.

‘Kit wanted me to come over and thank you.’ He suddenly realized how grudging that sounded, as if he hadn’t appreciated what they’d done—their attempts to tidy up, the casserole. ‘I mean we wanted to thank you.’ But he and Kit, they weren’t a we and he didn’t want to give the wrong impression. ‘Just …’ He gave up. ‘Thank you. It was thoughtful of you.’

Frank eyed him. ‘You’re a city boy, right, Alex?’ When Alex didn’t say anything he added, ‘You’ll find we’re more community-minded out here.’

Community? It took an effort to stop his lips from twisting. From where he was standing, that just meant Kit would probably get stuck with looking after Frank and Doreen in a few years’ time when they both started losing their faculties.

Still, they had checked up on her today and that had been a nice thing to do. And they’d made sure she had food.

Both Frank and Doreen looked at him expectantly. He cleared his throat. ‘It’s nice to know Kit has such good neighbours.’

‘No doubt we’ll all get better acquainted now you’re here, lad.’

Alex took a step back. No way! The expectation, the cosy familiarity, the good-spiritedness, it wrapped around him, threatening to suffocate him, to bury him. He took another step back. ‘I … uh … should get back to Kit. Goodnight.’

He turned and fled.

There wasn’t any comfort in returning to Kit’s house, though. He glared at the hole in her wall and then threw himself down on the nearest sofa. White dust rose up all around him.

His curse ground out from between gritted teeth. He couldn’t bolt and leave Kit’s living room looking like a demolition site.

If the child she was carrying was his …

He leapt up and stomped off to find a broom, a bucket and some cleaning cloths. Tonight he’d be sleeping on plastic because he wasn’t taking the wrapping off the sofas until he’d had a chance to vacuum, and he wasn’t vacuuming tonight. It’d wake Kit and she needed to rest.

Alex checked on Kit again at midnight. She’d taken her antibiotics, she’d eaten some dinner and then she’d slept. So far, so good. She needed to get well. He wanted her to get well as soon as possible.

So you can leave?

He tried not to scowl.

From the light of the hallway he caught sight of the title of the book on her bedside table—What To Expect When You’re Expecting. He picked it up and tiptoed back out into the living room. Lowering himself to the sofa that would be his bed for the night, he turned to the page she had bookmarked.

And froze.

Everything went blank.

The bookmark—it was an ultrasound photograph of Kit’s child.

Of his child.

He snapped the book shut and rested his head in his hands. A baby. A child.

He lifted his head, darkness surging up to fill the empty places inside him. He wasn’t doing that again. He couldn’t.

You don’t care what’s best for our baby. All you care about is what’s best for you.

Kit didn’t understand. Him getting out of her and the baby’s lives—that would be best for her and the baby.

And for you too.

He nodded heavily. And for him too. It didn’t stop a part of him from feeling as if it were dying, though.

When he finally fell asleep that night, Alex had a nightmare about Chad. He raced through a darkened mansion, his legs wooden and heavy, his heart pounding faster and faster as he searched for the two-year-old. Chad’s laughter, always just out of reach, taunted him and spurred him on. The rooms in the mansion went on and on. He tried calling out Chad’s name but his voice wouldn’t work. His legs grew heavier and heavier. It took all his energy to push forward. He pulled open the final door, surged through it, to find himself plummeting off the edge of a cliff.

He woke before he slammed into the jagged rocks at the bottom, breathing hard and with Chad’s name on his lips. He lay in the dark and tried to catch his breath, his skin damp and clammy with perspiration. He tried telling himself Chad was safe, living somewhere in Buenos Aires with his mother, but that didn’t ease the darkness that stole through his soul.

Before he and Kit had made love, he hadn’t had a nightmare about Chad in over ten months.

He shoved the thought away. It wasn’t Kit’s fault she made him feel things he hadn’t felt in a long time. It was his fault for giving in to temptation. Biting back a groan, he pushed up into a sitting position. Past experience told him he would get no more sleep tonight. He dragged a hand down his face. That was okay. There was still plenty of cleaning to do.

A sharp rap on the front door just after nine o’clock had Alex falling over his feet to answer it before the noise of another knock could wake Kit.

The woman who stood on the other side raked him up and down with bold, unimpressed eyes. ‘I’m Caro,’ she said without preamble. ‘Kit’s best friend.’ She didn’t stick her hand out. ‘Doreen rang me. I take it you’re Alex?’

‘That’s right.’

She folded her arms. ‘I’ve heard all about you.’

He gathered none of it had been complimentary.

‘How’s Kit?’

‘Asleep,’ he ground out.

‘All night?’

‘She was up—’

She brushed past him into the living room. ‘She’s not supposed to be up!’

He clenched his jaw till he thought his teeth might snap. He unclenched it to say, ‘The doctor said she was allowed up to have a quick shower once a day.’ He felt like a schoolboy hauled up in front of the principal. ‘She had breakfast, took her antibiotics and now she’s sleeping again.’

‘You’d better tell me you prepared her breakfast.’

Who the hell did this woman think she was? He was tempted to shove her back out of the door again. ‘Look, I’m worried about her too. I mean to make sure she follows the doctor’s orders to the letter.’

‘I’m going to pop my head in to check on her.’

‘Don’t wake her,’ he growled.

She tossed him a withering glance before disappearing down the hallway that led to Kit’s bedroom.

He scowled after her. She had another thing coming if she thought he was offering her coffee.

Darn it! She was Kit’s friend. He stalked into the kitchen and put the jug on to boil.

Caro entered moments later. ‘You and me—’ she pointed to him ‘—outside, now.’

He blinked. ‘Are you calling me out for a fight? I’ve got to warn you, Caro, I don’t hit women.’

She smiled sweetly. ‘It should be a walkover then, shouldn’t it?’ She glared and held the back door open. ‘I want to talk to you and I don’t want to disturb Kit while I’m doing it.’

And she was itching to bawl him out. It didn’t take a degree in economics and a finely honed ability to read people to figure that one out. He decided it might be safer if Caro didn’t have a hot drink in her hand. He preceded her out of the door and into the back garden. Kit’s bedroom faced the street. They shouldn’t disturb her out here.

‘How long before you shoot through again?’

Again? What did she mean, again?

He rolled his shoulders and scowled. If he’d known Kit was pregnant he wouldn’t have left for Africa when he had. He’d have … delayed it for a week? a sarcastic voice muttered in his head.

He thrust out his jaw, folded his arms. ‘I’m not leaving today. I told Kit I’d be here for her and I will be. There are things we need to sort out.’

Caro folded her arms too. ‘You can forget it if you mean to offer her money.’

‘This is none of your damn business.’

‘Kit is my best friend. I love her. Can you say the same?’

For a moment he couldn’t utter a single word. The same suffocating shroud that had blanketed him at Frank and Doreen’s last night twisted about him now.

‘Exactly what I thought,’ she snorted. ‘You’re going to turn tail and run.’

‘I am not!’ he shot back, stung by the loathing in her voice. He’d wanted to bolt yesterday, but he was still here now, wasn’t he? ‘And I have to pay child support. It’s a legal requirement.’ That was only honourable and right.

She stuck out a hip. ‘You’re a right piece of work, aren’t you?’

His jaw dropped.

The next moment Caro’s face was wreathed in smiles. ‘Hey, honey-bun, you’re supposed to be in bed.’

He turned to find Kit in the doorway. She raised an eyebrow in his direction. ‘You’re still here.’

Had she thought he’d do a runner while she was asleep? He straightened. That was exactly what she’d thought. He forced himself to grin—no stress, the doctor had said. ‘Sure I’m still here.’ She was still convinced he meant to abandon her.

Isn’t that exactly what you mean to do?

He bit back an expletive. He wasn’t doing happy families, but he thought about that hole in her wall. Someone had to fix it. He could fix it.

He could make sure Kit had everything she needed and that she was ready for the baby before he sailed off into the sunset.

Kit glanced from Caro to him. He did all he could to keep his expression bland. He tried not to groan when she moistened her lips.

‘What’s going on out here?’

‘Caro and I were just having a chat.’ He would not upset her. ‘You know the doctor’s orders. You want me to carry you back to bed?’

‘I’m going, I’m going. May I have a chamomile tea?’

‘Coming right up.’

Kit disappeared. Caro grabbed his arm before he reached the back door. ‘You mess with my friend and I’ll come after you with a meat cleaver.’

He held the door open for her, bowed her inside. ‘Chamomile tea for you too?’

‘Ooh, lovely.’

She’d pay for that smile. He’d sweeten her tea to within an inch of its life.

But one thing had become increasingly clear—he’d come after himself with a meat cleaver if he hurt Kit any more than he already had.




CHAPTER FIVE


‘WERE you giving Alex a hard time?’ Kit asked after Alex had delivered their teas and then beat a hasty retreat.

‘You bet.’ Caro grinned. ‘I read him the riot act.’

‘Oh, Caro!’ But Kit couldn’t help laughing as her friend kicked off her shoes and climbed up onto the bed beside her.

Caro grimaced when she took a sip of her tea.

‘I thought you liked chamomile.’

‘I do.’ Caro’s lips twitched. ‘It’s just that first sip, you know? Anyway, tell me how you are feeling.’

‘Much, much better. My temperature is back to normal and the awful cramps in my back have become a low level ache … much easier to deal with. And I don’t feel as if I’ve been hit by a bus any more either.’ She shuddered. ‘I thought I was going to be stuck with that back pain for the next six months.’

‘Your colour is good. The antibiotics must’ve kicked in.’

‘I think the doctor is being a panic merchant,’ Kit grumbled. She almost felt whole again. ‘What am I going to do in bed for another two and a half days?’

‘It’s better to be safe than sorry.’

Which was what Alex had said when he’d brought her breakfast.

Caro took another sip of her tea. ‘You don’t think he deserved the riot act?’

‘I don’t know. I … I can’t believe he’s still here.’ Though he had been sort of sweet last night—reassuring and kind. Somehow he’d managed to defuse her misgivings and her awkwardness, without her even realizing it. She wasn’t quite sure how. ‘He even vacuumed the living room while I was having breakfast if you can believe it.’

And he hadn’t thrown up again. Her lips twisted. At least, not that she knew about.

She glanced at her friend and a different emotion surged through her. She took her and Caro’s mugs and set them on the bedside table, and then she took Caro’s hand. ‘I have something really important to ask you.’

‘Shoot.’

‘Me getting sick like this, it’s made me realize a couple of things. I …’ Her stomach knotted and a lump lodged in her throat. Caro squeezed her hands but didn’t rush her and Kit loved her all the more for it. ‘Caro, if something should ever happen to me … I mean, it probably never will …’ She hoped to heaven it never did. ‘But … but if I died, would you look after my baby? I don’t know who else I trust as much as you. Mum and Grandma would help out, of course, and—’

‘Yes.’

Caro didn’t hesitate. Kit closed her eyes in relief. ‘Thank you.’ But a weight pressed down on her. If she’d done this right, her baby would have two parents to rely on rather than one. She’d robbed her child of that and she knew, no matter how much she tried, she would never be able to make that up to her baby. Ever.

Unless Alex had changed his mind and wasn’t going to walk away from his child after all. It seemed a slim hope.

A tap on her door brought her crashing back. Alex stood in the doorway. Her chest clenched. Had he heard what she’d just asked Caro? The pinched white lines around his mouth told her he probably had. She swallowed. But he didn’t care, did he? Not about her and not about the baby.

He’d wanted her to terminate her pregnancy!

Her heart burned. Sorrow and anger pulsed through her in equal measure. What did he care what safeguards she put in place to take care of her baby? He meant to leave again just as soon as it was humanly possible. She was sure of it. Her best guess was that he’d organise for Doreen and Caro to take it in shifts to look after her for the next couple of days so he could hightail it back to Sydney.

Perhaps she should confront him about that right now? It was just that the doctor had ordered her to rest—no stress, no worry. Yesterday she’d been feeling too fuzzy to take those orders in properly. But today … She swallowed. Today she’d do anything to keep her baby healthy. Fighting with Alex, confronting him about his intentions, had to wait. She raised an eyebrow. ‘You wanted something?’

He rubbed his nape. He didn’t meet her eyes. ‘I wanted to check if Caro was staying for a while. I need to pop out to grab a few things.’ His voice was devoid of all emotion.

‘Pop away,’ Caro said with an airy wave of her hand, not even looking at him.

Alex left without saying another word. Kit pleated the quilt cover with her fingers. ‘Do you think he’ll be back?’ Maybe he’d make that dash for Sydney right now.

‘Oh, I’m sure of it.’

She didn’t understand Caro’s grin but, before she could ask for an explanation, her friend said, ‘Snooze or a game of gin rummy?’

‘Ooh, go on. Break out the cards.’

* * *

The first thing Kit saw when she woke was the framed photograph of her ultrasound picture on her bedside table. She stared at it for a moment before hauling herself into a sitting position and reaching out to pick it up.

‘I thought it might help.’

The second thing she saw was Alex sitting in a dining room chair at the bottom of her bed. Her stomach tightened. She dismissed that as a symptom of her kidney infection. ‘Help?’

‘I thought it might give you added incentive to follow doctor’s orders and stay in bed.’

She had no intention of disobeying the doctor’s orders—her baby’s welfare was too important for that—but Alex’s thoughtfulness touched her all the same. She stared down at the picture, lightly ran her fingers over the glass, following the contours that made up her baby.

‘I couldn’t make head nor tail of it,’ he confessed.

It suddenly seemed wildly important to Kit that he did. ‘Head here—’ she pointed ‘—tail there.’

Alex didn’t move to get a better look and she remembered then that he didn’t want this child. She pressed the photo frame to her chest. She wanted to tell her baby that it didn’t matter.

Only it did matter. A lot.

‘Why are you sitting guard at the end of my bed?’

‘I didn’t want you getting up again unless you had to. I’m here to fetch and carry.’

Oh.

‘Caro said to ring if you needed anything.’

Caro had gone? How long had Kit been asleep for? She and Caro had played cards for over an hour and then she’d napped. She glanced at the clock. She’d napped for three hours! Caro would’ve had to leave to collect Davey from pre-school.

‘Your friend is a psychopath, by the way. Can I get you something to eat or drink?’

Kit’s lips twitched. She settled back more comfortably against her pillows. ‘No, thank you.’ She still had an almost full bottle of water on the bedside table. ‘I know Caro can come across as kind of scary, but she has my best interests at heart.’

‘I know,’ he said softly. ‘I’m glad you have such a good friend.’

She was so surprised she couldn’t speak.

He shifted on his chair. He was too big for it. It wasn’t the kind of chair made for lounging, but the only other option was to invite him to join her on the bed and no way on God’s green was she doing that. The last time they’d been in bed together …

It had been heaven.

Once the thought flitted into her mind, it lodged there—a stubborn, sensual reminder that pecked at her, teased her. All the sensations Alex had created in her with deft fingers and a teasing mouth, with the dark appreciation of his eyes and intakes of breath as she’d explored his body with as much thoroughness as he’d explored hers—exquisite, torturous reminders—they all flooded through her now and her body instantly came alive in some kind of primal response. She recalled with startling accuracy the taste of him, the feel of him against her tongue, her palms … his scent. The way he’d—

‘Kit!’

She jerked out of the recollection to find herself leaning towards Alex, breathing hard. Her name had scraped out of his mouth on a half-strangled choke. He was breathing as hard as her.

Oh, dear Lord! She wanted to close her eyes. She’d been staring at him, practically undressing him with her eyes and begging him to—

And his eyes had darkened in response. She swallowed. She’d recognized the answering hunger that had stretched across his face before it had been comprehensively snapped off from her view.

He shot out of his chair and pretended to adjust the blind. She knew he was giving them both time to pull themselves together again, but she couldn’t help noticing his hands weren’t any steadier than hers.

How could it be like this? How could she want him so badly when she didn’t even like him? How could he want her, knowing she was pregnant? She’d seen what the news of her pregnancy had done to him.

But he did want her. She read that too clearly to mistake it for anything else.

He raked a hand back through his hair. ‘I picked you up some magazines while I was out.’ He spoke to the window, not to her.

‘Thank you.’ She breathed a sigh of gratitude. Her voice was low, but at least it worked.

He finally turned. ‘I thought if you wanted I could haul your television in here and set it up so you at least have something to watch.’

She shook her head. ‘That’s not necessary.’ It’d only mean setting it back up out in the living room when she was well again. She suddenly frowned. Had too much sleep fogged her brain? ‘Alex, why are you still here? Don’t you have a company to run?’

‘The company isn’t important.’

She stilled at that, glanced down at the photo frame. Had he changed his mind about having a baby? Yesterday he’d been in shock and denial. But maybe today … ‘Are you trying to tell me that you’ve come around to the idea of being a father?’

‘No.’ The single word was inflexible. His face had gone impassive, emotionless. It was an expression she was starting to recognize, and loathe.

‘Then don’t you think it would be better for both of us if you just left?’

He didn’t say anything.

‘Between them, Caro and Doreen can take perfectly good care of me.’

He dragged a hand down his face then before seizing the chair and pulling it back a foot or so and planting himself in it. He leant forward to rest his elbows on his knees. ‘Caro told me that over the course of the next two days Doreen is booked in for a rash of tests at the hospital. It’s something to do with late onset diabetes,’ he added quickly when she bolted upright, ‘and it’s nothing serious, but … ‘

But it meant Doreen wouldn’t be available to look after her. Kit settled back again, chewing her lip.

‘And Doreen told me that Caro’s mother is arriving from England tomorrow and—’

‘Oh!’ Kit clapped a hand to her forehead. ‘Caro is collecting her from Sydney Airport. She’s leaving at the crack of dawn to get there in time. I forgot.’

‘She was going to change her plans and make other arrangements for her mother, but I told her not to. If you think I did wrong, then I can call her now and—’

‘No, no. Caro hasn’t seen her mum in over a year.’ And while Caro’s mother was staying for a month, Kit certainly wasn’t going to be responsible for delaying their reunion.

‘And we’ve all been trying to ring your grandmother,’ Alex continued, ‘but … ‘

Kit smiled faintly. ‘But she’s a gadabout who refuses to carry a mobile phone. If you leave her a message on Tuesday you might hear back by Friday.’

‘And your mother lives—’

‘In Brisbane,’ she finished for him.

She pressed her fingers to her temples. Think!

‘Kit?’

She glanced up.

‘I’m staying in Tuncurry until the weekend.’

‘But—’

‘It’s non-negotiable. There are things we need to discuss, but they can wait until you are well again. It’s just as easy for me to stay here and keep an eye on you than it is to book into a motel.’

Easy for who?

‘And it’s the least I can do.’

She sagged into her pillows, suddenly unutterably weary. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I know I hurt you, Kit.’

She wanted to look away, but those dark eyes of his held hers and something whispered between them. The memory of soaring together for one unforgettable night and touching the stars. No matter how much she wanted to deny it, this man had touched her soul. In that moment she recognized that she’d touched his too.

It didn’t mean they had a future together, though. She saw that just as clearly.

‘I hurt you, Kit, and I know I’m disappointing you now.’ He rested his head in his hands for a brief moment. ‘Knowing me has made your life worse. I can’t begin to tell you how sorry I am about that.’

She blinked and then frowned. He looked as if he actually meant that.

‘Helping you out for the next two and a half days is the least I can do.’

Two and a half days? When he put it like that, it didn’t sound like much. And, frankly, there was no one else available because she had no intention whatsoever of imposing on either Caro or Doreen.

‘Don’t you think your baby’s welfare is more important than anything else at the moment?’

‘Yes,’ she whispered. She did. With all her heart.

‘So do I.’

She blinked and frowned. He did?

‘So why don’t we just do what the doctor ordered—you rest and I’ll be general dogsbody?’

She drew in a breath. What he was proposing, she may not like it, but it made sense. She let out the breath in an unsteady whoosh. ‘Okay, Alex.’ She nodded. ‘It seems to be the best solution. And … um … thank you.’

‘No thanks necessary,’ he said roughly.

She frowned suddenly, hitched up her chin. ‘But you know what? Regardless of what you think, being pregnant, that hasn’t made my life worse. Having a baby is wonderful.’

He turned grey. She shrugged. ‘I just want you to know that you don’t have to feel guilty about that. At least, not on my account.’

If he really did mean to walk away from his child, though, she hoped guilt would plague him every day of his sorry life.

He moved to fiddle with her CD player on the other side of the room. The sound of lapping water and soft squeals and gurgles filled the room.

She stared at him when he turned back around and then at the CD player. ‘What on earth is that?’

‘It’s called Sounds of the Sea.’ He shrugged and held up the CD case. ‘It’s supposed to be calming and relaxing.’

He’d bought her a relaxation CD!

‘I got it from one of those hippy places when I went shopping earlier.’ He rubbed the back of his neck and didn’t quite meet her eyes. ‘You know the doctor said you needed to relax. I thought the CD … ‘

‘I thought you went shopping for a change of clothes, a toothbrush.’

‘I did. And for food—your refrigerator was practically empty!’

‘There are plenty of frozen TV dinners.’ She shrugged at his stare. ‘I don’t cook.’

He planted his legs, hands on hips. ‘What do you mean, you don’t cook?’

She waved her hands in front of her face. ‘This is all beside the point. Alex, you’re doing my head in!’

One corner of his mouth kinked up. ‘I’d appreciate it if you didn’t mention that to Caro.’

The silence between them filled with the laughter of dolphins—oddly hypnotic. She shook herself out from under its spell. He might find this amusing, but she’d lost her sense of humour. There was too much at stake for laughing. Her baby …

‘I just don’t get you at all. You wanted me to terminate my pregnancy—’

‘No, I didn’t! I—’

‘You threw up when I told you I was pregnant but now you’re doing everything you can to make sure the baby stays healthy.’

He was silent for a moment. ‘You want this baby, Kit. You’ve already given your heart to it. You love it. I would never take that away from you.’

Her chest clenched. Frustration, remembered joy and then the ensuing crushing desolation, Alex’s generosity as a lover and then his callousness the next day, it all rose up through her now. She didn’t understand him at all and yet she’d agreed to let him stay in her house.

She was having his baby!

She needed to understand at least some of what had happened between them or …

Or she’d have learned nothing.

‘You were the most incredible lover, Alex, generous and thoughtful. You made me feel beautiful and cherished.’ And loved, which just went to show how skewed her judgement had been.

He leapt up, going white at her words.

‘And then the next day you acted as if what had happened between us meant nothing. No, even less that that, as if what had happened between us was an aberration.’ She lifted her hands. ‘Why?’

‘It wouldn’t have been fair to let you think we had a future.’

‘But you were so utterly cold, so callous. You didn’t even bother trying to let me down gently. What did I do wrong? Please—I don’t ever want to make that same mistake again.’ She had a baby to think of. Her heart jammed in her throat. What if next time it wasn’t just her heart she broke but her child’s too? If her judgement about him could be so off, how could she ever trust it again?

‘How could you have changed so completely? What was that all about? Was it you? Or did I do something?’ She couldn’t hold the questions back. Her voice rose as each one burst from her. ‘Why?’

Alex’s face twisted in an emotion she couldn’t identify—anger? Panic? Horror? He thrust an arm towards her stomach. ‘Because I didn’t want that!’

The shouted words reverberated in the quiet of her cool, shady bedroom. They pulsed in the air like live things. Her hands crept across her stomach in an attempt to block her unborn baby’s ears. In an attempt to protect it from pain and hurt. In an effort to console it. Her knees drew up beneath the covers to form a barrier between him and her.

‘You really don’t want this baby, do you?’ She’d known that before, but now she knew it in a harder, more real way. And it hurt. It died, that part of her that hadn’t been able to give up hope. Hope that once he’d recovered from the initial shock he’d come around, perhaps even welcome this baby into his life.

Alex was never going to accept this child.

‘I’m sorry.’ He’d gone a hideous kind of grey. ‘I shouldn’t have yelled.’

Perhaps not, but she couldn’t really blame him. She’d pushed him. She hadn’t meant to, it had just happened. But now she had her answer.

He dragged a hand back through his hair, eyed her uncertainly. ‘Time for us to get calm again.’

‘I am calm.’

Strangely enough, that was true. She felt icily and preternaturally calm. It didn’t stop her from suspecting she may well cry buckets over all this later. ‘I’m tired,’ she whispered.

‘I’ll leave you to rest.’




CHAPTER SIX


ON WEDNESDAY evening Kit woke to the smell of something divine coming from the kitchen.

Alex poked his head around her bedroom door as if he had some finely tuned radar that let him know when she was awake. ‘How are you feeling?’

‘Good, thank you. Actually, really good.’ Back-to-normal good. She pushed herself into a sitting position and smiled when her back proved totally pain-free. ‘I can’t believe how much I’m sleeping, though.’

‘Your body needs the rest.’ He shuffled his feet, glanced away. ‘Dinner will be ready in five if you need to …’ He waved towards the bathroom.

‘Freshen up?’ she supplied.

‘Uh, right.’

No sooner had she made it back to bed and settled the covers around her when Alex walked in with a tray. Kit groaned as he set it on her lap. ‘This smells heavenly.’

‘It’s just a beef and potato salad.’

She could tell he was pleased, though. She speared a piece of beef, popped it into her mouth and closed her eyes in bliss as she chewed.

When she opened her eyes she found Alex frozen to the spot, his eyes glued to her mouth. Her stomach, skin, even her ears, all tightened. ‘I … um …’ She cleared her throat and tried to tamp down on the heat rising through her. She set her fork to her plate before she dropped it, and searched her mind for something to say. ‘You’re … um … not going to eat out there on your own, are you?’

He snapped back. ‘I thought—’

‘Bring your plate in here, Alex. Do you know how boring it is being confined to bed?’ And then she wondered if that was such a good idea. She didn’t really want to spend more time in Alex’s company than she had to, did she?

‘It’s only for one more day.’

‘Half a day,’ she corrected.

He stood for a moment as if undecided before leaving the room and returning with his plate. He settled himself on his chair.

She should get a nice little tub chair for this room. It was the last thought she was aware of thinking before she returned to her food. She couldn’t believe how ravenous she was, and how much better she was feeling. She scraped up the last of the sauce with a piece of lettuce, chewed in avid appreciation and finally set her tray aside. ‘That was unbelievably delicious. Though you didn’t have to go to any trouble, you know?’

‘No trouble.’

She didn’t believe that for a moment. ‘You could’ve just tossed a TV dinner into the microwave and I’d have been grateful for that.’

He polished off the last of his food too and set his plate on her dressing table. ‘I can’t believe you don’t cook.’

‘It’s boring and messy and takes too long.’

‘It doesn’t have to be any of those things.’

‘I do other things. I can crochet. That’s nice and domestic.’

‘You have a baby on the way. You need to know how to cook.’

Yes, she had a baby on the way. His baby. Only he didn’t want anything to do with it.

An awkward silence opened up between them, turning her tongue to lead.

Alex cleared his throat. ‘Finished?’

‘Yes, thank you.’

‘Would you like some more?’

‘No, thank you.’

Her hands clenched in the quilt when he left with their empty plates. Why was he still here!

He returned a short while later with two mugs of steaming tea. He handed her one and settled himself on the seat at the end of her bed again.

‘So.’ He cleared his throat. He didn’t look any more at ease than she did. ‘This is where you grew up?’

She took a careful sip and then nodded. ‘The house where I grew up is a few blocks closer to the river.’

‘And you have lots of friends here, lots of honorary aunts and uncles?’

Was he trying to reassure himself that she had backup for when he did leave? Was that what all this was about? Him staying here looking after her—was it his attempt to assuage a guilty conscience?

No, no, he was too ruthless for that.

She bit her lip. He’d framed her ultrasound photo.

He’d bought her a relaxation CD.

Maybe he had a seriously guilty conscience?

‘Kit?’

She shook herself, searched and found the thread of their conversation again. ‘This was a great place to grow up. Doreen next door used to be the school secretary at my old primary school and what she doesn’t know about my old classmates isn’t worth knowing.’

He grimaced and she could see how this small-community lifestyle might seem suffocating to him, but she wasn’t going to lie about the kind of life she wanted for herself and her baby. ‘I barely clapped eyes on my neighbours in Sydney.’ Everybody was too busy working long hours, dealing with long commutes into the CBD. ‘I like knowing my neighbours’ names. I like chatting over the back fence. I like knowing that they’re keeping an eye on me and that I can do the same for them.’

She had no regrets about leaving the busy pace of the city behind.

‘Auntie Doreen is a good friend of my grandmother’s. My grandma used to live across the street.’ Which was probably why she’d jumped at the chance to buy this house. The street held good memories for her.

Alex frowned. ‘She doesn’t live there now, though, does she?’

Her eyes narrowed. ‘No, Alex, she doesn’t. I’d have sent you to sit on her veranda to wait till she’d returned home from wherever it was she’d been, so it could be her rather than you sitting here talking to me right now.’

‘I didn’t mean … ‘

‘She moved into a retirement village in Forster five years ago when my mother relocated to Brisbane. She delights in all the activity the village offers. She has a very full social life.’ Before he could ask, she added, ‘Forster is across the bridge.’ Forster and Tuncurry were twin townships separated from each other by the channel of water that fed into Wallis Lake.

Did he really mean to abandon his child? As the question speared into her, an ache stretched behind her eyes, pounding in time to her pulse.

‘You look tired again. I should let you get more rest.’

He went to take her mug but she kept hold of it, forcing him to look at her. His fingers felt cool against hers. Unbidden, images of what he’d done with those fingers rose up through her. She snatched her hand away. She didn’t know how he managed to keep hold of the mug or prevent its dregs from spilling over her quilt. All she knew was that she couldn’t think when he touched her.

‘What the—’

Whatever he saw in her face had him biting back the rest of his words. His jaw had clenched so hard she suspected he wouldn’t be able to utter them now anyway.

‘I want to ask you something.’ She was appalled at her uneven breathiness. She’d wanted to sound cool, calm and in control. Unflappable.

Where Alex was concerned, though, she was highly flappable. And flammable!

His choked out, ‘Ask what?’ didn’t help either. She knew precisely how flammable he could be.

He didn’t meet her eyes. The pulse at the base of his jaw jumped and jerked.

She stared down at her hands to find her fingers mechanically pleating the quilt.

Alex reached out and trapped them beneath his hand, stilling them. ‘Kit, just tell me what’s on your mind.’

He sat back down and just like that some of the tension eased out of her. She pulled in one long, hard breath. ‘You said you weren’t leaving Tuncurry until we’d sorted out a few things. I want to know what those things are.’

‘There’ll be time enough for that once you’ve received the all-clear from the doctor tomorrow.’

She could almost see him replay the doctor’s words through his mind. No stress, no worry.

She folded her arms. ‘Look, I’m going to worry about this until we sort it out. Either you let me stew about it all night or we can talk now.’

For a moment she thought he was going to refuse, get up and walk away. ‘Can we keep this calm?’ he finally asked instead.

‘We’re adults, aren’t we?’ she countered.

He surveyed her for a long moment. It took a concerted effort not to fidget under those dark inscrutable eyes. ‘Okay, Kit.’ He nodded. ‘Once the child is born I want a paternity test carried out. If the child is mine then I’ll arrange for child support payments.’

She kept her voice perfectly polite. ‘No.’

He leant forward. ‘What do you mean, no? I have every right to demand a paternity test.’

‘Really?’ Even though she’d steeled herself for this, she was still surprised at how much his distrust hurt. ‘Just for argument’s sake, let’s say that we do get the test done and you discover that the baby is yours, and, believe me, Alex, that is what you’ll find out. But once you have incontrovertible proof, what is it going to change? Are you going to want visitation rights? Are you going to be a real father to this baby?’

He turned ashen. ‘No, but I’ll at least make sure that financially you and the baby are taken care of.’

‘You can take your blood money and sod off, Alex!’ She abandoned all pretence at politeness. ‘I can look after this baby on my own—financially and otherwise.’

‘It is my duty to provide financial support. It’s a legal requirement.’

‘It’s your duty to be a proper father, but it’s obvious that moral requirements don’t figure on your radar! So you can take your legal requirements and stuff them up your shirt for all I care.’

She wanted to drop her head to her knees and weep for her unborn child.

‘I can’t believe you’re prepared to turn your back like that on your own child, Alex. And I can’t believe that you could accuse me of lying about this, of—’

‘I’m not accusing you of anything!’

‘Yes, you are!’

He swore, scrubbed both hands down his face. ‘Hell, Kit, this isn’t about you.’

‘Not about me? How can you—’

‘I’ve been lied to once before.’

The world tilted to one side for a moment before righting itself again. Kit moistened her lips. When she could speak again she asked, ‘When? Who … ?’ Who would do such a thing?

‘My ex-wife.’

Her own hurt vanished. Just like that.

His face had gone unreadable, impassive. She suddenly found that she wanted to cry for him too. ‘What happened?’

He dropped his head to his hands. For a long moment Kit didn’t think he’d answer. Finally, he dragged both hands down his face and straightened. ‘Jacqueline and I had been married for fifteen months when she fell pregnant. She told me the baby was mine and I had no reason to doubt her. We’d dated for over a year before we married.’

He’d loved a woman once, enough to marry her? She rubbed at her arms but it couldn’t erase the sting that bloomed across her skin.

His mouth tightened. ‘It never occurred to me that she’d lie. And God help me, but when I found out she was pregnant I couldn’t wait to hold my son. We called him Chad.’

Kit’s spine lost all its strength. Her hands crept up to cover her mouth. Before her eyes, Alex aged. His skin lost its colour. The lines around his mouth and eyes grew more pronounced. Shadows took up residence in his eyes. She dragged her hands back down to her lap, gripped them together. ‘When did you find out the truth?’

‘Not until Chad was two.’

Her mouth went dry. Alex had spent two years, not to mention the nine months of the pregnancy, loving his son—his Chad—and giving his heart to him completely? He didn’t have to say that out loud—the evidence was written in every line of his body, in the grief that twisted his mouth and made his shoulders slump.

‘Oh, Alex! What happened?’

‘She took him away.’

She had to gulp back a sob at the raw pain in his voice.

‘She had paternity tests carried out and they proved that I … ‘

‘But you’d raised him. You loved him!’ The words burst from her. ‘Alex, you must’ve had rights.’

‘She and her lover—Chad’s biological father—left before I’d gathered my wits. They fled to South America.’

Kit stared at him. No! This episode in his life—it couldn’t end like this. Alex had loved that little boy. That little boy would’ve loved Alex.

‘The legal advice I received wasn’t promising. After all, what legal rights did I really have?’ His face twisted. ‘Oh, I had the money to drag the case through the courts for years, but in the end who would I really be hurting?’

Chad. The knowledge sucked the air out of her lungs. He’d done what was best for the little boy he loved, but it hadn’t given him an ounce of comfort. It had left a deep and lasting scar.

‘Don’t cry for me, Kit.’

It wasn’t until he reached across to brush her tears away with the pad of his thumb that she realized she was crying.

‘I’m not worth it.’

Wasn’t he? Suddenly she wasn’t so sure.

‘Because the fact is, no matter what I tell myself, I can’t go through that again.’

A weight settled in the middle of her chest.

‘I once had a son, Kit, and now I don’t. So you see, the paternity test, it isn’t about you, it’s about me. If your child is mine I will do what is legally required, but nothing more.’




CHAPTER SEVEN


ALEX strode out to the dark of the back garden and tried to draw air into his lungs.

He hadn’t meant to tell Kit about Chad. He didn’t talk about Chad. To anyone.

His gut clenched. He strode down to the back fence to wrap his fingers around the hard bark of the banksia tree until they started to burn and ache. He hadn’t realized how much Kit’s inability to fathom his previous treatment of her had plagued her, tormented her, had her questioning her own judgement and doubting herself. His mouth filled with acid. This was why he should have been more careful in the first place—resisted the temptation she’d presented, the lure of a life that he knew could never be his. But her sunshine had touched his soul, and for a short time he had been lost.

And she’d paid the price.

He’d wanted—needed—to reassure her that none of this was her fault. The only way to do that was to tell her about Chad. To tell her why he couldn’t go through all that again.

Her unborn child—it was a source of joy for her.

For him … For him it was a constant source of torment, reminding him of everything he’d had and then lost, reminding him of the gaping hole at the centre of himself that nothing could fill. In losing Chad he’d lost the best part of himself.

If there’d ever been a best part of himself.

He didn’t want another child.

He didn’t want to love another child.

He’d given Chad everything—his time, his care, all the love in his heart. But it hadn’t been enough. Jacqui had still left. He’d still lost the child he loved.

He wasn’t going through that a second time.

Losing Chad had proved something that deep down he’d always known but had never wanted to believe—he didn’t have what it took to be a family man. He refused to hide from the hard facts now. He could not give Kit what she so badly wanted—a stable and loving family unit.

What was the point in trying when he’d only lose it all again anyway?

Not hiding from the hard facts again? He gave a mirthless laugh. His demand for a paternity test was a lie, a blind, an excuse to hide behind. Kit wasn’t lying. Her baby was his. He just didn’t want to believe it, that was all. Kit didn’t care about his money and she sure as hell didn’t see him as a great catch. She’d prefer it if he wasn’t her baby’s father.

He rested his head against the trunk of the tree. Jacqui had taken Chad away from him without a backward glance. There were no guarantees that Kit wouldn’t do the same. Eventually.

He would not relive that nightmare. Not for Kit. Not for anyone. If that made him a monster in her eyes, then so be it.

He loosened his grip on the tree to glance around the garden, which was partially illuminated by the light from the kitchen window. His gaze fell on the Cape Cod chair that Kit had been sanding the other day.

Do something useful.

He strode towards it. His mind worked best when his fingers were busy, and tonight he needed his mind to be at its peak.

Because, no matter what he told himself, he couldn’t just up and leave when the weekend rolled around. He might not be able to offer Kit emotional support, but he couldn’t abandon her with a house threatening to fall down around her ears either. Not when she was expecting a baby. He had to come up with a plan she’d go for and fast.

Because if he didn’t, once she received the all clear from her doctor tomorrow he may well find himself very politely thanked and very firmly asked to leave. And who’d make sure she had everything she needed then?

Kit woke early on Thursday morning. She tried to go back to sleep but the nerves leaping and jumping in her stomach wouldn’t let her.

Today she’d have her scan. Today she’d find out if her baby was okay.

A tap sounded on her bedroom door and Alex’s head poked around its corner. How did he always know when she was awake?

‘Good morning.’

She swallowed. He looked fresh and alert and good enough to eat. She pushed up against the pillows, dragged her hands back over her hair, tried to smooth it. ‘Morning.’

‘How are you feeling?’

‘Fine.’ Physically in herself, she was. She felt as if she’d never been sick in the first place.

But what if her high temperature had harmed her baby? What then? She knew worrying about that would do her no good, but not worrying was impossible.

Alex’s eyes narrowed. ‘Breakfast?’

She shook her head. She doubted she’d be able to keep anything down. ‘A cup of something hot and herbal would be great, though.’ Despite what the doctor had said, she’d given up caffeine the day she’d found out she was pregnant. She’d wanted to give her baby every chance.

Alex appeared with two mugs of … lemongrass tea. The fragrance made her stomach loosen a fraction. She accepted her mug with a lift of the lips that she hoped would pass for a smile. ‘You do know that I don’t mind if you drink coffee, don’t you? You don’t need to abstain just because I am.’

‘It doesn’t seem fair to drink it when you can’t. Besides, this lemon stuff is halfway decent.’ His nose wrinkled. ‘But you can keep that chamomile nonsense to yourself.’

She found herself chuckling, even amidst all the anxiety swirling through her.

‘Nervous, huh?’

She didn’t know how he’d sensed it. She’d thought she’d done a good job at covering it up. It seemed pointless trying to deny it, though. ‘A little.’

He surveyed her for a moment, set his mug on the floor and then leaned towards her. ‘Your temperature came down very quickly, Kit. You’ve had lots of rest, good food and medicine. You’re young, strong and the picture of health again. There’s no reason to believe that your baby isn’t strong and healthy too.’

She nodded. She knew he was right.

‘But?’ he said softly.

She set her mug on the bedside table as her stomach clenched up again. ‘Do you believe in fate, Alex?’

‘Not really.’

He didn’t pick his mug up again. He remained with elbows on knees, his full attention focused on her. For a moment it made her feel spotlighted—at the centre of his world. She shook herself.

‘Why?’ he asked.

She swallowed again, found her fingers had started pleating and unpleating the quilt. She gripped them together to still them. ‘Maybe I’m not fated to be a mother. I didn’t realize I was pregnant for three whole months. I drank caffeine and the occasional glass of wine, and … and I didn’t do stuff that I would’ve done had I known.’

He frowned. ‘Kit, you’re going to be just fine.’

‘Fine?’ Her voice rose. ‘How on earth can you say that? On Monday I didn’t even realize I was sick! Honestly, Alex, what does that say about me and the kind of mother I’m going to make?’ Her heart ached. She pressed her palms to her eyes for a moment before dragging them back into her lap. ‘It doesn’t reflect very well on me, does it? For heaven’s sake, I don’t even know how to change a nappy! Maybe …’ She gulped. ‘Maybe I’m not meant to be a mother.’

‘What the hell … ? No!’

Alex jumped up, knocking over his mug in the process. With a swift curse he tore off his T-shirt and used it to mop up the spill.

As a broad expanse of naked flesh met her gaze, Kit’s eyes went wide. She could feel them getting bigger and bigger as the space in her lungs for air became progressively smaller and smaller. Her thought processes slammed to a halt. Alex’s shoulders and chest and the sculpted line of his back—tanned, muscled and toned—all beckoned to her. She knew from experience how firm his skin would be to the touch. And how warm.

Her pulse skittered and skipped and skated through her veins.

‘Didn’t want the rug to stain,’ he said, his voice gruff as he glanced up at her.

She sucked her bottom lip into her mouth, felt an answering tug in her womb as he rose to his feet and stood before her in all his half-naked glory. She remembered another time … Her stomach, her lips, her limbs softened.

Oh, dear Lord! She tried to catch her breath. ‘I … um … You didn’t need to ruin your shirt in the process.’

He lifted one powerful shoulder as he sat again, the T-shirt hanging negligently from his hands. ‘I’ll throw it in the wash later. It’ll be fine.’

The muscular definition of his biceps and the sinewy strength of his forearms had her melting against the bedclothes. He was so tanned. Had he worked beneath a hot African sun without his shirt?

‘You’re going to be a great mother, Kit.’

That dragged her attention back. His eyes had darkened to coal and they stared at her intensely as if by their very force they could compel her to believe his words.

‘What makes you so sure?’ she whispered. She wanted to believe him—desperately—but …

‘Look at how much effort you’re going to in order to provide your baby with the best life you can. You’ve moved back to this place that you love because you think it’s a good place to raise your child. You’ve bought a house and you’re getting it ready for your baby’s arrival. You’re surrounding your baby with a community of people who will love it almost as much as you will.’

She bit her lip.

‘Kit?’

She glanced up into those coal-dark eyes again.

‘You love your baby. That’s more important than knowing how to change a nappy or abstaining from caffeine or … or anything! You want to be a mother, right?’

She nodded.

‘Then you’re going to be just fine. You’ll learn all the things you need to know about being a mum along the way. You have your family and friends and your baby books to help you. You’ll probably make the odd mistake because you’re human like the rest of us, but it won’t mean you love your baby any less and it won’t make you a bad person. It certainly won’t make you a bad mother.’

She blinked, considered his words, and then sent him a shaky smile. ‘You’re right. Thank you. I’m sorry, I just panicked for a bit.’

‘Nothing to apologise for.’

He leaned back in his seat. It highlighted the flatness of his stomach and the way the muscles there coiled and flexed beneath his skin. Her gaze drifted downwards and she noted how the waistband of his jeans sat low on his hips. Her mouth and throat went dry.

‘There’s something I’d like to discuss with you, Kit. I was going to wait until after your doctor’s appointment, but that’s still hours away.’

She sensed that he wanted to distract her from brooding on her worries about her baby’s health. She started to lift her eyes, wanted to thank him again for easing her fears, but his chest and shoulders proved more of a distraction than his words. His chest started to rise and fall with a rhythm that matched hers. Her fingers clenched in the quilt. A pulse pounded at the base of his throat. Firm, lean lips opened. Heat swirled through her.

That magnificent body leapt up. Kit’s breath caught and she started to lean towards him—

‘I’ll be back in a moment.’

The words—hoarse with need—scraped out of his throat and caressed all the hairs on her arms into lifting as if in surrender. He surged out of her room, the muscles in his back rippling, and Kit melted back into her pillows, her mind too fuzzed to work.

He returned a moment later, dragging another shirt on over his head.

Heat of an entirely different variety burned her cheeks, her face, her throat then. She wanted to cover her head with the bedclothes. Instead she buried her face in her lukewarm mug of tea while Alex opened the bedroom window wider to let in the cool morning air and then busied himself with her CD player. Sounds of the Sea filtered into the room. He kept his back to her and she wondered if he was having as much trouble getting himself under control as she was.

Eventually she managed to clear her throat. ‘You wanted to talk to me about something?’

He turned then, moved his chair another foot or so away from her bed. If he kept doing that he’d end up in the bathroom.

He sat. ‘That’s right, I did.’

‘Well?’ she prompted when he didn’t continue.

‘Kit, do you have a job lined up yet?’

She stared. A job? And then she rolled her eyes. ‘You don’t need to worry about my finances. I had a very nice nest egg squirreled away before I left Sydney.’

‘Enough to cover expensive repairs on your house?’

She bit her lip and glanced away. She could get a bank loan.

When you don’t have a job. Ha! Fat chance.

Her stomach clenched and her pulse started to race. She’d better start job-hunting asap because she needed the house ready for when the baby came. She glanced back at Alex. She’d failed in providing her baby with a father. She couldn’t fail on this too. Alex had calmed her fears about her ability to be a good mother, but to prove she could be a good parent she had to get this house, and her life, on track fast. Finding a job was the first place to start.

‘Kit, I want to barter an exchange of labour with you.’

‘A …’ She stilled. ‘Why?’

‘Because I think it would be to both our benefits.’

An exchange of labour?

‘I’d really like you to finish that book project for McBride’s.’

‘Alex—’ she lifted her hands and then let them drop again ‘—there are any number of people at Hallam Enterprises more than capable of finishing that project. Didn’t you read my report?’

‘It was your passion that had that book offer tabled to us in the first place. It was your passion that sold me on the deal. It’s your passion that will make it a success.’

‘Your name on the cover will do that—your experience, your expertise.’

‘I can’t write the thing, though. You’re the one who translates all that so-called experience and expertise into a compelling, readable account. That’s where your expertise lies. We make a good team, Kit.’

She stilled at his words. A team—her and Alex?

‘I want you to finish overseeing the work on the book because you are the best person for the job. With an Internet connection here you can work remotely. You won’t need to go into the office.’

‘You said a barter of labour. What will you be doing?’

‘Fixing your house.’

Her jaw dropped. ‘Alex, you’ve just returned from a month abroad. You can’t afford to take more time off work.’

His chin tilted at an arrogant angle. ‘It’s my company. I can do what I want. Besides, Donald has everything under control in the Sydney office.’ He shrugged and the arrogance vanished behind the beginnings of a smile. A wry smile admittedly, but potent for all that. ‘He’s doing a good job and I am only a phone call away if there’s an emergency.’

‘But …’ Her mind wouldn’t work.

‘I’ll fix the hole in your roof and the hole in your wall. I’ll repoint the piers on the southern side of the house and replace the guttering. I’ll check for dry rot and—’ his lips twisted ‘—not-so-dry rot. I’ll modernise the bathroom and give the whole place a lick of paint, inside and out.’

Her eyes widened as his list grew. Whatever he saw in her face made him leap to his feet and stalk over to the window, hands shoved deep into his pockets.

She moistened her lips. ‘It sounds as if I’m getting the better end of that deal.’

‘Financially you’d be better off if you stayed on the books at Hallam Enterprises, took the maternity leave you’d be entitled to, and paid a builder to make the repairs.’

She needed a job and she needed the house ready for when the baby came. Alex was offering her both in one fell swoop. He didn’t want to be a father, but he didn’t want to leave her in the lurch. That much was clear.

Maybe the truth of the matter was that Alex couldn’t walk away from his child and he just hadn’t realized that yet.

She remembered the expression on his face when he’d talked about Chad. He had glowed with love, his face soft with it, before the anguish had taken over. He’d wanted a child once.

She lifted her chin. ‘Will you help me decorate the nursery?’

He shuffled his feet, rolled his shoulders. His lips turned down but his chin didn’t drop. ‘Consider it added to the list.’

‘Then, Alex Hallam, we have ourselves a deal.’

‘Excellent!’

Just for a moment, his smile bathed her in light.

‘Ready for breakfast yet?’

‘Yes, please.’ Suddenly she found she was ravenous.

The doctor unwrapped the blood pressure monitor from around her arm. ‘I’m delighted to say you’re as fit as a fiddle.’

To her left she was aware of Alex sagging in his chair. Relief? She wouldn’t be privy to that particular emotion until after the scan. She gripped her hands together and prayed her illness hadn’t harmed her baby in any way.

‘I’d like you to keep taking it easy for a bit, though. Rest when you get tired. You also need to make sure you finish the course of antibiotics.’

She could practically see Alex file those instructions away in case he needed to bring them out and wave them under her nose and recite ‘doctor’s orders’ at her. It made her feel looked after, cared for, as if someone had her back. It was why she hadn’t kicked up a fuss when he’d accompanied her into the doctor’s consulting room. He’d looked after her so comprehensively these past few days. Besides, this was his baby too. He deserved to know if it was healthy and developing normally.

‘Okay, let’s do the scan. Jump up onto the table.’ The doctor gestured to an examination table.

Alex leapt to his feet, paled. ‘I’ll … um … wait outside.’

‘Alex, no!’ Kit grabbed his hand, her stomach twisting and her heart pounding. If the news wasn’t good she didn’t think she could face it on her own. His mouth whitened. His shoulders clenched, but he didn’t shake his hand free from her grip. Eventually he nodded.

‘Thank you,’ she whispered. She tried to release his hand, but found that she couldn’t. Finally he smiled, just a slight drawing up on the right side of his mouth, but it helped ease some of the tension that had her wrapped up tight.

‘C’mon, Kit, up onto the table.’

He helped her up onto it, which was just as well because her legs had turned to putty. He held her hand when the doctor squirted cold gel onto her stomach.

‘There’s your baby, Kit.’




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