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 til 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 vil age in Forster five years ago when my mother relocated to Brisbane. She delights in al the activity the vil age offers. She has a very ful 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 Wal is Lake.

Did he real y 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 spil ing over her quilt. Al 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 appal ed 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 mechanical y pleating the quilt.

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

He sat back down and just like that some of the tension eased out of her. She pul ed 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’l be time enough for that once you’ve received the al -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 al 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 final y asked instead.

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

‘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’l 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.’

‘Real y?’ Even though she’d steeled herself for this, she was stil 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’l 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’l at least make sure that financial y you and the baby are taken care of.’

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

‘Hel , 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. Final y, he dragged both hands down his face and straightened.

‘Jacqueline and I had been married for fifteen months when she fel 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 cal ed him Chad.’

Kit’s spine lost al 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 al , what legal rights did I real y have?’ His face After al , what legal rights did I real y 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 real y 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 tel 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 wil do what is legal y 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 tel 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 fil ed 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 tel her about Chad. To tel her why he couldn’t go through al 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 fil . In losing Chad he’d lost the best part of himself.