‘Oh.’ The word broke from him softly as if he’d thought her above worrying about such things. As if the thought hadn’t occurred to him that such things could worry her. ‘I think you’l make a great mum. I don’t think you’l get impatient or yel . You never did at work. I know you loved your job, but how much more wil you love your baby?’

He had a point.

‘As for this baby brain you talk about, you’re doing the crossword and playing word games and I know you’l beat it. Maybe you could pick up some part-time work that wil give you some down-time from the baby?’

She eyed him uncertainly. ‘You don’t think it’s a mother’s role to be with her baby twenty-four seven?’

‘Nope.’

She let that idea sink in. ‘I’m scared of other stuff too.’

‘Like?’

‘What if dirty nappies make me puke?’

‘Keep a bucket by the changing table.’

That made her laugh. She sobered a moment later. ‘I wonder how I’l cope with months of broken sleep. I wonder how I’l cope if I get sick again.’

‘You have lots of friends al wil ing to help you out.’

‘I know, but…’ She wanted it to be him she shared al those things with—the difficulties and the joys of adjusting to a new baby.

He’d loved a child once. Didn’t it mean he could love another one?

‘But?’

‘I know al those things, but it doesn’t make the fear go away. I…I mean, the thought of the labour terrifies me.’ She gulped when she realized what she’d said. She hadn’t meant to reveal quite so much.

Turbulence raged in those dark eyes of his. ‘Then why are you going through it?’

‘Because the hope is greater than the fear.’

Something fluttered in her stomach—like a hiccup

—only it didn’t come from her.

‘What is it?’ Alex barked when she held herself suddenly stiff, al his energy focused on her. It almost threw her concentration. She loved watching his muscles bunch like that, his eyes narrow in readiness.

‘Hold on…’ She held up a hand. There! It happened again.

It was the baby!

‘Oh, Alex, look!’ She grabbed his hand and pressed it to her stomach.

‘What am I—?’

She pressed his fingers more firmly to the spot where the hiccup feeling grew. ‘Can you feel that?’

Wonder fil ed her.

‘What is it?’ He frowned. ‘Should I take you to the clinic?’

She laughed for the sheer joy of it. ‘That’s the baby, Alex. That’s the baby kicking.’

For a moment she thought he meant to pul his hand away but, almost as if he couldn’t help it, his hand away but, almost as if he couldn’t help it, his fingers spread across her bel y and gently pressed against her, sending darts of warmth shooting through her. ‘The baby?’ he whispered, almost as if he were afraid of waking it up.

‘Uh-huh.’ She nodded. ‘Isn’t it amazing?’

‘Yes.’ Then he frowned. ‘Does it hurt?’

He would’ve pul ed his hand away only she laid her hand on top of it to keep it there, to maintain this tenuous three-way connection—him, her and their baby. ‘Not a bit. It feels…wonderful! I’ve been dying for this moment.’ Her grin must stretch al the way across the channel to Forster.

His eyes widened. ‘This is the first time?’

She couldn’t get the grin off her face. ‘The very first time.’

Alex’s wonder made him look younger. The grooves either side of his mouth eased, the creases around his eyes relaxed and the darkness in his irises abated, his lips tilted up at the corners, and it al made Kit catch her breath.

Beneath her hand, his hand tensed. She dropped her gaze to stare at their two hands. Neither one of them moved, and in less than a heartbeat desire licked along her veins. She wanted to lift her gaze and memorize every line and feature of his face, the texture of his skin, while she could. Here on her rock.

So she could have this memory for ever.

She didn’t need to look up to do that, though. His every feature was already branded on her brain. She knew that dark stubble peppered his jaw. Alex needed to shave every day, but he’d skipped that chore this morning, eager to get started on the painting instead. Her palm itched to sample that roughness, her tongue burned to trace it, to taste it…

to tease him.

Today he looked more like a disreputable pirate than a civilised businessman and a thril coursed through her at the danger she sensed simmering just beneath the surface.

Final y obeying the silent command she sensed in him, she lifted her gaze to his. At the edge of his right eyebrow was a tiny nick, as if he’d once had a stitch there. She’d always meant to ask him about it, but her breath came in shal ow gulps and her pulse had gone so erratic she didn’t trust her voice not to give her away.

His eyes burned dark and hot as they travel ed over her, and her soul sang at the possessiveness that transformed his features. No longer afraid of revealing her desire for him, she lowered her gaze to his lips. Need, hunger, thirst al speared into her. Her lips parted. Her eyes searched out his again, pleading with him to sate her need. If she couldn’t taste him just one more time she thought she might die.

Something midway between a groan and a growl emerged from his throat. His hand tightened on her stomach. Her hand tightened over his. Yes! Oh, please, yes!

Stil Alex held back, his eyes devouring her face as if he was picturing in vivid detail every caress he meant to place there. He didn’t lift his hand from her abdomen and it felt like a promise. His fingers splayed, sending darts of need right into the core of her, making her tremble with the intensity of her desire.

His other hand came up to cup her face, his thumb traced the outline of her bottom lip, dipped into the moistness of her mouth, traced her lips again, moved back and forth over them as if to sensitize them to the utmost limit of their endurance before taking her to the next level with his lips and mouth and tongue.

She started to pant, wanted to beg him for his lips, his mouth, his tongue, but stil his mouth didn’t descend. With a low growl she flicked her tongue across his thumb. He stiffened as if electrified. She drew his thumb into her mouth, circled it with her tongue, suckled it until his eyes darkened to obsidian.

And then final y, slowly, inexorably, his head lowered and her blood started to sing. His body blocked out the sun and, as he moved closer and closer, al she could see was the light reflected in his eyes. His lips touched hers, moved over hers—

surely, reverently, thoroughly—her eyes fluttered closed and, as the kiss deepened, light burst behind her eyelids. Every wonderful Christmas, every sun-drenched summer and visiting dolphin, every bright and beautiful thing that had ever existed in her life gained a new vitality in that kiss.

The need and the energy, it took her and Alex and merged them into a sparkling, flaming oneness until, body and soul, she didn’t know where she ended and Alex began. It was the kind of kiss to shape and Alex began. It was the kind of kiss to shape worlds and change lives. It shifted the foundations of her world and al she believed about herself.

The hope is greater than the fear.

For the first time where Alex was concerned, her hope was greater than her fear.

Alex eased away from Kit. He didn’t know for how long they’d kissed. He barely knew which way was up. Very slowly he drew his hands away—one from her face, one from her stomach. He tried to stop his legs from jerking in reaction.

‘Are you okay?’

Her voice came out soft and husky, as if he’d kissed al her breath away. Served her right for kissing his breath clean away too.

He nodded and cleared his throat. ‘And you?’

‘Oh, yes.’

She had stars in her eyes! No woman should look at him like that.

An imaginary noose pul ed tight around his neck, and yet for a moment al he could see was the shine on her lips and he ached to sample them again.

‘I’m…’ He cleared his throat again. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘I’m not.’

‘It can’t happen again.’

‘I’l be holding my breath til it does.’

He closed his eyes. He was in way over his head.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

THE phone rang. Alex stared at it and then down the hal way towards the bathroom, where he doubted anything could be heard over the blast of Kit’s hairdryer.

The phone rang again.

He opened his mouth to hol er for Kit. He snapped it closed again. She wouldn’t hear him. Or if she did she’d ask him to answer it for her.

He snatched it up, barked, ‘Hel o?’ into the receiver.

He hated answering her phone. There would always be a strategic pause, like now, as the person on the other end of the line—one of the very many of Kit’s community of friends—tried to weigh him up by the sound of his voice.

‘Hel o, I’m hoping to speak with Kit Mercer.’

Female. It wasn’t a voice he recognized, but something about it made his shoulders loosen a fraction. ‘I’l just get her for you. May I ask who’s cal ing?’

‘Candace Woodbury. I’m her mother.’

Kit’s mother! His shoulders immediately clenched up twice as tight. ‘Uh…right.’ He headed down the hal way and knocked on the bathroom door. And then he gulped. He hoped Kit was decent.