Shadowing Shahna

“I didn’t mean to frighten him.” Kier was looking back at Samuel, keeping his voice low. “I’m sorry.”

“Kee,” Samuel said again, and leaned away from Shahna’s hold, stretching his arms toward the man.

Shahna smiled. “Apology accepted.”

Kier instinctively held out his hands to take the baby reaching out to him. Two chubby arms came about his neck, and incredibly soft curls tickled his chin. He put one arm under the padded little behind while the other held the small, sturdy body close to his chest.

A weird mixture of emotions overtook him. A kind of awe at this tiny human being showing him forgiveness, at the trust being bestowed on him. And a strong urge to preserve that trustfulness, to protect the little guy from hurt.

And a sudden, totally unexpected fierce possessiveness.

Apparently a hug was enough for Samuel. He squirmed, giving a clear signal that he wanted to be put down, and Kier bent and let him go.

Samuel made straight back to the toy basket, and when Kier straightened, his arms felt oddly empty. The warmth of the baby’s body still clung to his T-shirt.

“If you’d told me,” he said, unable to keep a certain righteousness from his tone, “I would have helped. I would have looked after you.”

“I didn’t need anyone’s help.” Shahna seemed almost desperate as their eyes met over Samuel’s head. “And certainly not yours.”

As if he were the last person she would have turned to. Kier’s temper nearly boiled over. He resented her assumption that he’d have reneged on his responsibility.

Her tongue momentarily flicked over pale lips. “I’ve already told you, Kier,” she said with careful clarity, “you’re not Samuel’s father! Another man is.”

Chapter 3

Another man?

Another man had made love to Shahna, had shared the intimate secrets of her body, had made a baby with her?

Inwardly Kier reeled, his mind in turmoil again. The only emotion he should be feeling was relief. Instead he felt cheated, and disappointed, and downright red-rag furious. He had to swallow hard and clamp his jaw firmly shut so as not to frighten the baby again.

“I didn’t expect,” Shahna said defensively, “that you’d jump to conclusions so fast.”

“How old is he?”

Her eyes met his full on, her head held high. “Eleven months.”

There was a short, prickly silence while he rapidly calculated. “You didn’t waste any time.”

He knew he sounded accusing. And that he had no right to accuse her of anything. But his bed must have hardly cooled from her leaving it before she’d been hopping into someone else’s. All ready to have the someone else’s baby.

His stomach plunged. “Were you sleeping with his father before you left me?” he asked.

Her eyes went glass-green with temper and color flared in her cheeks. “You know me better than that. At least, I thought you did.”

“I thought I did too,” he said. “But as you mentioned before, maybe I didn’t know you so well after all. Are you sure you know who the father is?” If she was lying to him that should force the truth from her.

“Of course I’m sure! It wasn’t you,” she said. “There is no way it’s possible.”

She sounded quite definite, and he supposed she’d know. Assuming she was telling the truth. “So where is this guy?” he shot at her, still not wholly convinced. “In Sydney?”

He thought at first she wasn’t going to answer. She looked away, then back at him. “Actually, in New Zealand.”

“You came straight here when you left me?” No wonder his inquiries hadn’t found her.

“Yes, I did. I mean, I was working in Auckland for a while before coming north.”

“You met him there? How? When? How long had you known him?”

She blinked as if he’d shocked her, then said steadily, “None of that is any of your business.”

She couldn’t have known the man long. It had certainly taken him a hell of a lot less time to find his way to her bed than it had Kier.

Yet earlier she’d told him she meant to get pregnant! “If your biological clock was sending off alarm signals,” he asked, “why didn’t you talk to me about it?”

“You were very clear that babies didn’t figure in your plans.”

He’d never thought they figured in hers, either. She’d given him no reason to think it. “I don’t recall that we ever discussed the possibility,” he said. “Except in the context of making sure it didn’t happen by accident.”

He’d been just as much concerned for her and her career as for his own freedom. It was all very well for women to think they could have it all, and for men to promise they’d do their share, but he’d seen female colleagues and employees juggling work and family, seen them drive themselves to exhaustion and turn down promotions, miss out on the top jobs because their energies were divided.

Some of them maintained it was worth it, but dammit, Shahna had never said she wanted a baby.

Had she?

He couldn’t recall the details of every conversation they’d ever had, but he was pretty sure he would have remembered that. “Why didn’t you say you felt differently?” he said, trying not to sound affronted. “That isn’t why you left?” Without even mentioning any desire for a child?

Shahna hesitated. “In a way…I suppose it was.”

What the hell did that mean? She hadn’t wanted his baby, but she’d been perfectly willing—eager—to have someone else’s? “So what did you do?” he demanded, his anger spilling over. “Sleep with the first man who came along? Use a sperm donor?” It had never occurred to him before that she might be one of those women who wanted a child to fulfill their womanhood, without the bother of having to share its parenting with a man. But then it had never occurred, either, that she’d walk out of his life without a backward glance.

To his considerable surprise she looked stricken. “I…it wasn’t like that,” she said, leaving him none the wiser. “And anyway, it’s not your business.”

About to hotly dispute that, Kier clamped his teeth together. She was perfectly correct, of course. If Samuel wasn’t his—he looked at the oblivious little boy, who had found a colored metal xylophone and was inexpertly banging on it with his hands—then he had no rights. And no obligations.

For some reason the thought didn’t please him.

Shahna went down on her knees and fished in the basket, coming up with a wooden baton for the xylophone. She put it into Samuel’s hand, and after gently removing it from his mouth, encouraged him to use it. Samuel grinned at her, attacked the keys with gusto, then looked back to his mother for approval.

Staring at her bent head as she folded her fingers around the pudgy baby hand and picked out the tune of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,” Kier felt excluded. Restlessly, he shoved his thumbs into the pockets of his jeans, shuffled his feet.

Shahna got up from the floor. “Well,” she said, obviously waiting for him to leave, “I’m sure you can get a ride to the ferry if you want to go back to Rawene the quickest way. Or on to another town if you intend to explore the Far North. The locals are good about picking up hitchhikers.”

He’d promised himself that seeing her one more time would complete the sense of something unfinished that had haunted him since she left; rationalized that the occasional nightmares about Shahna caught in some terrible, dangerous situation and his futile efforts to rescue her would stop once he knew she was alive and well and didn’t need him. That once he’d tied up the loose ends and found out the reason for her abrupt departure, he’d be able to heal the aching, gaping wound inside him that she’d inexplicably left, get on with his life and be happy.

So now that she’d made it clear she was alive and well and didn’t need him, now that he knew she’d walked out on him apparently because of some biological imperative that, not being a woman, he didn’t understand and probably never would, why couldn’t he walk away as easily as she had? Why this feeling of massive reluctance at the thought of it?

Maybe because he’d found more questions than answers.

When Shahna looked up Kier was still standing stubbornly unmoving, looking down at her and Samuel. A new sound penetrated above the tinny tinkle of the xylophone. An engine sound—not from the water, but coming closer and then cutting off, outside of the house. A truck? “Sounds like you have another visitor,” Kier said.

“My landlord is going to put up a fence for me today.”

Morrie McKenzie had promised to build her a childproof fence. The small lawn at the back between the vegetable patch and her studio was already enclosed, but with the river so near the house, and sheep droppings dotting the grass, she had to keep the front door closed or put a wooden barrier across it in case Samuel escaped.

A brisk tap on the door sent her to open it to a burly, tanned young man, wearing only khaki shorts and sturdy boots.

He ran a hand over thick, blond-streaked hair and grinned at her. “Hi, Shahna. I’ve got your fencing here. The old man was gonna come too, but he’s got a splinter in his hand and it’s infected or something. Mum had to help out with milking this morning.” He looked beyond her, curiosity in his bright blue eyes. “Hi, there.”

Kier was standing at her shoulder. Shahna sensed him without looking around.

She had no choice but to introduce them. “Kier’s a friend of mine from Australia,” she explained. “Kier, this is Ace McKenzie, my landlord’s son.”

Kier leaned past her to offer his hand. “I can help with the fence.”

Ace looked at him appraisingly as he accepted the handshake.

Shahna objected, “You don’t have any experience.”

Kier shot her a look, his eyes glinting wickedly, then turned a bland one to the other man. “I’m sure Ace can clue me in.”

“Sure thing,” Ace agreed happily. “Be glad of a hand.”

“You don’t need to—” Shahna began, but Kier was already moving her firmly aside and going down the steps to join Ace. “Let’s do it.”

They did it.

Kier helped Ace unload corner posts and supports and a posthole digger from the truck he’d parked near the house, and together they worked at digging in and leveling the posts.

Samuel, perched on Shahna’s knee while she sat on the top step, watched the activity with total absorption at first, but when he showed signs of wanting to join the men she took him inside despite his noisy protest.

Kier looked up as she shut the door behind them, muffling Samuel’s indignant wails. The sun was hot on his back, and his T-shirt clung sweatily to his body. He debated following Ace’s example and dispensing with the shirt, but at this time of day he’d probably burn rather than brown, and risk future skin cancer to boot.

“Hold this?” Ace asked, and Kier turned to steadying a metal standard while Ace rammed it into the earth.

Despite the heat, he was enjoying the unaccustomed physical work. He didn’t have the muscular bulk of Ace, but he’d always kept trim with his chosen sports and an occasional gym workout. Which wasn’t the same as using his muscles to actually build something. It was a long time since he’d got his hands dirty.

After a while Shahna came out of the house, carrying an opened beer bottle and two glass lager handles.

Ace straightened, wiping the back of a large hand over his forehead, and grinned at her. “Good one, Shahna. Just what we need.”

Not usually a beer drinker, Kier too was grateful for the cool, bitter draught. He drained his glass while Shahna stood by, and then handed it back to her. Somehow they fumbled the exchange and the glass dropped to the ground, which was fortunately soft enough not to break it. “Sorry,” he said.

Shahna was already scooping it up. “My fault,” she acknowledged, taking Ace’s glass, too.

“Where’s Samuel?” Kier asked.

“Playing in his room.” She surveyed the work they had done and said, “Lunch in about an hour? I’ll feed the Scamp first and put him down.”

Ace said, “I can go home for lunch.”

“No!” She paused. “It’s no trouble, and seeing you’re here you might as well eat with…us.”

When the supports were in Ace surveyed them with an experienced eye and turned to Kier. “How about a dip before lunch?” He jerked his head toward water—gleaming and invitingly cool.

Kier looked down at the grubby jeans that clung to his legs. “I’m not dressed for swimming.”

Ace grinned at him. “You don’t get dressed for it,” he said with exaggerated patience. “Just drop the jeans, mate.” As Kier glanced toward the house, Ace added, “You’ve got something on under them, haven’t you?” He bent and began unlacing his boots.

What the hell, Kier thought. Shahna had seen him often enough in less than the black briefs he wore under the jeans. He snapped open the fastener at his waist and lowered the zip, and within seconds he was following Ace and taking a shallow dive off the jetty.

When ten minutes later they pulled themselves onto the jetty again Shahna was there with two folded towels in her arms.

Ace’s shorts were dripping and clinging to him. He shook his streaming head, and Shahna gave a startled exclamation as water sprayed, spotting her shirt in large, spreading blotches.

“Oops, sorry!” Ace reached for a towel. “Thanks.” He began vigorously rubbing at his hair.

Shahna handed the other towel to Kier.

A silvery droplet ran from the curve of her jaw down into the neckline of her cotton shirt. Involuntarily following its progress, he saw that water had already darkened her shirt over one breast. He watched the center intriguingly peak beneath the fabric, and when his gaze jerked back to hers, saw the chagrin in her face, and recognized the helpless desire in her eyes.

The surge of his answering desire had him hastily allowing the towel to unfold while one fist held it loosely against his body. Triumph seemed to expand his chest, and blood drummed in his ears.

Shahna had inexplicably left him, but she still wanted him.

In that instant he made up his mind he wasn’t going to tamely go away and leave her here in the weird, closed little world she’d made for herself. They had always had terrific, incredible sexual rapport, and more besides that he couldn’t put into words. And there was that nagging, unsettling conviction that if only she would open up to him, he’d find something wonderful and precious, something he couldn’t afford to miss.

She might have been able to walk away from it all, but he couldn’t. And now he had found her again, he wouldn’t.

Shahna turned away, almost suffocating with the effect Kier had on her. She knew he’d seen and responded to it, and a treacherous part of her reveled in that knowledge.

But she had Samuel to think of. No longer a free, single woman whose mistakes would rebound on her head alone, she had knowingly taken on the enormous responsibility of bringing a child into the world. And now all her actions had to be weighed against that.

Kier might have been willing to “do the right thing” when he believed she’d given birth to his baby. But she’d told him he wasn’t Samuel’s father, absolving him of any moral duty, so couldn’t expect him to take into much account the needs of a child who wasn’t his. Looking after Samuel’s welfare was up to her.

Just as it had always been.

Kier changed in her bathroom. Ace, refusing to sit at the table in his wet shorts, parked himself in the doorway with a plate on which Shahna had piled cold meat, cheese and salad accompanied by wedges of crusty bread.

“Homemade?” Kier helped himself to a thick slice and looked at Shahna quizzically.

Shahna nodded. Although ready-sliced loaves were available at the garage-cum-mini-market a few miles away, she liked watching the yeast swell the dough, liked taking fresh new loaves from the oven and cutting off a few slices to eat while they were still warm.

“Delicious,” Kier decided after taking a bite. “There’s no end to your talents, is there?”

She glanced at him sharply, but there was no sarcasm in his expression.

From the doorway, Ace said, “She makes great chocolate nut cake.”

“Cake?” Kier queried.

She had sometimes whipped up a meal for the two of them, or made dinner for friends. But he didn’t recall her ever baking cakes.

“Ace has a sweet tooth,” Shahna said casually.

So she made cake for him? Regularly? Kier looked at the other man. His brawny, tanned shoulders and deep chest shone in the outdoor light, and surely the mop of sun-streaked hair, the candid blue eyes and the white-toothed, slightly cheeky grin would be attractive to women.

To Shahna? She’d sat watching the fence-building this morning, and whenever Kier looked up she certainly hadn’t been concentrating on him. Had her gaze been drawn to Ace, shirtless and muscular, and working with a practiced competence that Kier was unable to match?

Kier wondered how often Ace came to the cottage. And what else he did besides erecting fences.

Samuel had obviously recognized Ace, pointing and calling “A’e…A’e!” as if pleased to see him, which Ace had acknowledged with a cheery wave and “Hi there, Scamp!”

Samuel’s eyes were blue, too. Was it possible that Ace…?

He looked from the young man to Shahna.

She’d said she hadn’t—exactly—intended to bring up Samuel without a father, but also that she wasn’t living with a man. So how did those contradictory statements fit?

As Kier turned to stare at Ace with an oddly strained look on his face, Shahna studied him across the table. He was even better-looking than she remembered, and a little ache caught at her heart.

Leaving him was the hardest thing she’d ever done. And now, just when she thought she was finally getting over that and all the pain and anguish that had followed, he had to come sailing back into her life.

This morning she’d made the excuse that it wasn’t fair to shut Samuel out of the excitement of watching the men work, but the truth was she hadn’t been able to resist it herself.

Despite Ace’s minimal clothing and well-developed muscles, it was Kier’s lithe body and masculine grace that sent pleasurable goose bumps chasing over her skin when the close-fitting T-shirt stretched across his shoulders as he easily lifted a post, that made her heart pound as his jeans molded themselves to his haunches when he bent to drop the post into the ground. She’d watched him in covert fascination, plagued by memories that clogged her throat and made her blood run faster, only switching her attention whenever he glanced in her direction.

The men returned to the fencing while Shahna washed up, then she worked for half an hour in her studio before lifting a grouchy Samuel from his cot and placing the barrier across the doorway so he could see the men while she baked a cake.

By midafternoon a sturdy mesh fence, sporting barbed wire strung on angles at the farm side to discourage cattle from leaning on it, enclosed the front of the cottage.

“That’ll keep the little fella out of mischief,” Ace declared with satisfaction, “and the stock away from him.”

A gate with a childproof catch was the finishing touch, and then they celebrated with more beer and slices of fresh chocolate nut cake before Ace threw his tools and the unused fencing materials onto the tray of his truck, called, “See ya!” and roared off along a rough roadway through the trees.

“Thank you for your help,” Shahna said to Kier as she gathered up glasses. “Um…would you like a shower before you go?” His sweat-stained T-shirt and jeans would probably never be quite the same again.

“If you toss your clothes out the bathroom door,” she said, “I’ll wash them with a load I’m putting through.” It would mean he’d have to stay a couple of hours at least while his things dried but that would hardly matter now and, as she said when Kier hesitated, “I owe you that much.”

“You don’t,” he contradicted her, “but thanks.”

By the time he came out of the bathroom wearing clean clothes she had the washing machine going in the enclosed porch off the kitchen. Samuel was walking around the living room furniture, making his precarious way from the settle to a chair, to the sofa, and then complaining that the nearest dining chair was just out of his reach.

When Kier entered, the little boy twisted to look at him, lost his balance and fell on his rear end, breaking into a roar.

“Is he hurt?” Kier asked as Shahna picked him up.

“No, he’s just a bit niggly because his tooth’s bothering him.”

“Is that why he looks so flushed?” The rounded cheek that Kier could see was bright red.

“Mmm.” Shahna patted Samuel’s back and spoke to him. “You’re not going to let me get any more work done today, are you, Scamp?”

“I’ll watch him for you,” Kier offered.

She looked surprised and suspicious. “I can’t take advantage…”

“I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t want to.”

Shahna couldn’t recall when Kier ever had done anything he didn’t want to. But why would he want to do this? “You’re not used to babies,” she reminded him, torn between a stupid desire to make the most of the short time he’d be here, and a fear that he might find out more than she wanted him to know about her feelings for him.

“You’ll be here,” he reminded her, “if we have any problems. Right, Sam?”

He held out his hands invitingly to Samuel, who regarded him with suspicion for a moment, then said in a tone of pleased discovery, “Kee!” And reached for him.

Doubtfully, Shahna relinquished the child into Kier’s waiting arms. “I don’t know…”

“He’ll be fine. And if he’s not I’ll call you,” Kier promised.

He wouldn’t need to. She’d hear if Samuel were upset. “Your washing,” she said. “I was going to hang it on the line outside.”

“I’ll do it.”

Shahna hovered uncertainly, but Samuel was absorbed in a renewed inspection of Kier’s face, his scrutiny just as fascinated and far less covert than her own earlier, and Kier seemed to be returning the compliment.

Samuel grunted, then pointed an imperious finger to the toy basket, now tidied and placed on top of the settle.

“You want to play?” Kier asked. “Okay.”

Neither of them was taking the slightest notice of Shahna, so with faint trepidation she left them to it.

It was difficult to concentrate as she gently shaped lengths of delicate silver wire, to be set with pieces of polished amber-gold kauri gum.

Gradually she became absorbed in the work, clearing her mind of everything else. Hearing Kier’s voice, she looked out of the open doorway and saw him dump a basket of washing on the ground, where Samuel sat under the single wire that had been strung between the trees and the house and was held up by an old-fashioned manuka-branch clothes prop. Kier had found the container of plastic clothes-pegs that had a hook for hanging it on the line, but when Samuel stretched out a hand he placed it in front of the baby.

“Mistake,” Shahna murmured, and couldn’t help smiling as Samuel promptly upended the pegs all over the ground.

Kier laughed, and laughed again when Samuel laboriously picked one up and offered it to him. She heard him say, “Thanks, pal,” as he took the peg and fished a towel out of the basket of washing.

Shahna watched as he inexpertly hung up the towel and picked out another, before she turned back to what she was doing, smothering a nagging sadness that had settled around her heart and that mingled, confusingly, with an undeniable pleasure at just having him in sight.

Accustomed to keeping an ear cocked for the sound of Samuel waking from a nap in the room just a few yards from the studio, she heard him when he began to fuss, and was getting up from her workbench when Kier appeared in the doorway, holding the baby.

“I think he needs changing,” he told her, and thankfully handed the wriggling, indignant little bundle over to her.

As she took Samuel from him, Kier looked beyond her and said, “Mind if I look around?”

“Go ahead,” she invited after an infinitesimal hesitation, and bore her son off to the house.