Kit moistened her lips and swal owed. ‘I know if our positions were reversed, I’d be asking you these self-same questions. Caro, my head knows what you’re saying. It’s saying the same things.’

‘But?’

But her heart was another matter entirely. It hit her then that she’d been so busy trying to reconcile Alex to the idea of fatherhood that she’d forgotten to protect herself. She’d left herself wide open. She’d fal en in love with him again.

If she’d ever fal en out of love with him in the first place.

What a mess!

She forced herself to state facts. ‘You know he threw up when I told him I was pregnant. Right there in the azalea bushes.’

‘Oh, honey.’ Caro leaned across, clasped her hand. ‘I’m sorry.’

Kit squeezed it back. ‘But he took me to the medical clinic al the same and he looked after me until I was over the kidney infection. He knew he didn’t have to stay, but he did and he never made me feel bad about it. Not once.’

‘Just as wel !’

‘His parents died when he was twelve and he went to live with his mean old grandfather. You and me, we both missed our dads, but our childhoods were great.’

Caro shook her head, but she was smiling. ‘You are such a soft touch.’

‘Every time I’ve just about given up on him, I find out something that gives me hope again. You know, he hasn’t had a proper holiday in nearly five years.

He took leave the month before last and spent it doing aid work in Africa, helping to build an orphanage.’

She’d gril ed him until he’d told her every single detail about it. She could stil remember the way his eyes had shone.

‘Not the actions of a man entirely beyond hope,’

Caro final y agreed. ‘But, honey, I’m so scared you’re going to get hurt.’

Kit pul ed in a breath. It was too late to go back now. ‘I know having him here is a risk, but…’ She now. ‘I know having him here is a risk, but…’ She leant towards her friend. ‘There’s too much at stake to just give up on him. He’l do what he considers his duty—pay child support and whatnot.’ She flattened her hands over her burgeoning stomach and stared at it in wonder and gratitude. ‘I want more than that for my baby, Caro. I love it so much already. If anything I do now can help Alex with his issues and embrace fatherhood, then…’

‘Then you’l do it.’

‘I have to,’ she whispered, her throat thickening and her eyes stinging. ‘I know I might fail. I know the odds aren’t great.’ After what she’d just witnessed, they might wel be non-existent, but… ‘I have to at least try. Otherwise, how wil I ever be able to look my child in the eye when it asks me about its daddy?’

Caro didn’t say anything for a moment. ‘What about what you need, Kit?’

‘The baby has to come first.’

‘Sure it does, but it doesn’t mean you’re not al owed to have hopes and dreams for yourself too.

You know I’d lay my life down for Davey, but it doesn’t stop me hoping my white knight wil turn up.’

With al her heart, Kit hoped that would happen for her friend.

‘You love him, don’t you?’

It was useless trying to hide from the truth. She gave a weary nod. ‘I started fal ing for him the first time I laid eyes on him. If I believed in such things I’d have said we’d known each other in a past life. It just felt that…right.’

And then they’d made love. There had been no going back after that.

‘Do you know how he feels about you?’

‘I know he likes who I am.’ She hesitated. ‘I sometimes think he has me up on some stupid pedestal. And I know he’s stil attracted to me.’ Her heart fluttered up into her throat. There was no denying she was attracted to him.

‘But something is holding him back?’

‘Yes.’ Chad.

‘Honey, if you can’t get to the bottom of it, no one can. If and when you do, he’l be your slave for ever.’

Kit wished she shared her friend’s confidence.

‘And if I fail, you’l be there to help me pick up the pieces.’

‘Just like you’ve always been there for me.’

‘Caro, if Alex can’t be my birth partner, wil you do it?’

Caro leaned over and hugged her. ‘I’d be honoured.’

Kit found Alex on her rock.

She didn’t mean to. She hadn’t gone looking for him. She’d just needed to get out of the house.

She’d needed the fresh air and spring breeze to blow away the fears and worries crowding her mind.

She’d come here to her rock to remind herself of al the good things she’d stil have in her life if Alex did leave. Just the thought of Alex leaving bleached the colour out of al that was good. She swal owed and settled one hand on her stomach. That wasn’t true. If Alex left she’d stil have her baby, and her baby was a very good thing. An amazing thing.

A miracle.

She’d give thanks for her baby every day.

She stared at the rigid lines of Alex’s back and shoulders and clenched her hands. Why was he finding this so hard? Their baby wasn’t Chad. Their situation was different. Sure, the prospect of a new baby was scary, but it was joyful and wonderful too.

Or it would be if only he’d let it.

She blinked hard. She should leave him be. He obviously wanted privacy. Maybe her rock would help him find a measure of peace. She turned to leave, but he swung around as if some sixth sense had told him she was standing there.

‘Oh…’ The words dried in her throat as emotion, yearning, her love for him, al swel ed up through her.

‘I’m sorry,’ she final y choked out. ‘I didn’t know you were here. I didn’t mean to disturb you. I’l go.’

‘No!’ He leapt to his feet. ‘This is your spot. I’ll go.’

His vehemence, his evident desire to put her at her ease and to do what was right, made her smile.

‘I’m happy to share. There’s room enough for two.’

There was room enough for an entire family, but she left that particular thought unsaid.

He shrugged. ‘I’m game if you are.’

He moved forward and offered her his hand, helped her clamber down. He let her go again as soon as it was safe, and she immediately missed his sure strength, his warmth. She tried to make do with the sun-warmed rock instead.

She rested back on her hands and lifted her face to the sun. ‘Summer is nearly here. I love summer.’

When she glanced back at him, she found him staring out to sea. Her heart crashed and ached and burned. Was he wishing himself a mil ion miles away?

Regardless of his sentiments, it couldn’t be denied that this stay here at least agreed with him physical y. His forearms and calves had grown tanned from the sun. His body, if it were possible, had grown harder and leaner.

She’d love to see him naked.

Oh!

She must’ve made some betraying noise

because he turned to her. She waved a hand in front of her face as if shooing a fly.

‘Look, I’m sorry. I know I freaked out back there earlier with Davey.’

That was one way of putting it.

‘But al of a sudden he was up on that scaffolding with me and al I could think was, what if he fel ? It’d be my fault.’

‘No, it wouldn’t. Caro and I should’ve been watching him more closely. I keep forgetting how quick he is.’

When he didn’t say anything else, a weight settled in her stomach. She stared at the water flowing in the channel. If she fel in now she had a feeling she’d sink to the very bottom. ‘Tel me about Chad.’

Every line of him stiffened. ‘Why?’

She lifted one shoulder. ‘Because I know that’s who Davey reminded you of. He’s such a big part of you even though he isn’t in your life any more.’ Alex didn’t say anything. She swal owed. ‘How old was he when he started to sleep through the night? Where did he take his first step?’

did he take his first step?’

Alex’s hands clenched to fists.

‘What was his favourite toy?’

He swung to her, his face twisted. ‘Talking about Chad, remembering him, whatever you think, Kit, it doesn’t help.’

The hairs on her arms lifted and her heart raced.

‘You’re not the only one who is scared, you know?’

she burst out, unable to keep the wobble from her voice.

He frowned then. ‘You’re scared?’

If she had the energy, she’d have smiled at his incredulity, if she could just get over the ache flattening her chest and stretching behind her eyes and pounding at her temples first. ‘Dammit, Alex!

Some days I’m terrified.’

She couldn’t bear to look at him any more, knowing the distance that stretched between them.

She stared down into the strong current that rippled down the channel as the tide came in, at the clean, clear water. Then blinked when a silver-grey shape lifted out of that water. ‘Oh, look!’ She pointed at the myriad of fins that surfaced. ‘Dolphins.’

In the past it had never mattered what it was that she’d brooded about as she’d sat out here; when the dolphins arrived things never looked so bad.

From the way Alex leaned forward to get a better view, from the way his back unbent and his shoulder unhitched, she figured maybe they had the same effect on him.

‘What are you scared about, Kit?’

‘That I’l be a terrible mum. That I’l be impatient and yel a lot and that being home with a baby wil be so intel ectual y and mind-bogglingly boring that I’l lose myself and blame the baby.’