Her Outback Knight

No, not for her attention, for her to listen: they needed to spill their latest complaints about each other into her unwilling ears.

She was all they had, she knew that. Yet she’d only seen her parents once since she’d returned from Germany three months before.

The visit had ended after only two hours. Having gained space from them during her time in Europe, enduring their constant harping and sly, nasty comments about each other had been more than she could tolerate. After more than twenty years, she’d finally lost it.

Why don’t you separate and find your own lives? she’d said as she’d headed for the door. You should have done it when I was little, then I wouldn’t be so screwed up now. You didn’t stay together for my sake, you just want to keep punishing each other forever. I can’t stand any more. I’m your daughter, not your referee!

Since that day, her mum and dad had phoned her every day as usual, but although they’d tried apologising, asking, and finally begging her to come home, she couldn’t force herself to go back. If she had to hear one more snide, sarcastic remark between them…it felt as if she were dying of slow suffocation, a strangling of her spirit. It might entertain them, but it only hurt her, and reinforced the reasons why she’d never be normal.

She came out of her reverie to the realisation that something was wrong. By instinct, her gaze swerved to the large French doors leading onto the back veranda.

Jim stood leaning against the doorway talking into his phone, looking at her, yet it was as if she wasn’t there; his whole concentration was on the call. His body was taut, his face filled with quiet storms.

It was none of her business.

She turned her eyes back to the table, determined to show everyone that she didn’t care. She forced a smile to her face, and joined in the laughter and teasing common to their group of friends, but rare for her.

She couldn’t do it. Just as she always responded to wounded creatures in distress, she had to look at him…she had to know.

He no longer leaned on the doorpost, but stood rigid in the doorway, his face so hard it seemed carved in dark marble. His laughing eyes were like flint; his nostrils were flared. She’d never seen laid-back Jim look so shocked, or so thoroughly furious. And the pain inside the depths of those coffee-dark eyes…

He flipped his phone shut, turned on his heel and stalked back outside. She could almost feel little flicks of lightning following in his wake.

“Go to him,” Laila whispered.

Shocked, Danni stared at her friend. “Me? Jim and I aren’t even friends. You should be the one to help him. He loves you. He’ll accept your help.”

Laila’s eyes grew misty with tears. “I can’t.” She lowered her gaze for a moment. “I’ve been having the Braxton-Hicks contractions all day, on and off. I have to rest…and—and…” she sighed, her face filled with the wretchedness of guilt. “Please, just go to him. Make sure he’s all right—for me?”

Laila was hiding something from her, but the plea was genuine.

All her life, Danni held aloof from people; to grow too attached only caused pain. But from the time they’d met, Laila wouldn’t be held at a distance. Her open, loving heart didn’t know boundaries. She’d dragged the sarcastic loner Danni into her small circle and, seeing the hurt others caused Laila with the princess tag given to her as the only and most cherished daughter of an obscenely wealthy man, Danni had begun leaping to her friend’s defence before she’d even known Laila was a friend.

Laila was part of her heart now, and she asked so little. How could she refuse?

With a small smile, she walked out to find the man she wanted never to speak to again—at least not without her shield of protective sarcasm.

But that was what she had to do now, for Laila’s sake…and maybe for her own. If she did a good deed for Jim Haskell in return for his two years before, whatever it was she felt for him—lust, obligation—would be over.

The phone rang again almost as soon as he’d shut it, and again and again. He just kept disconnecting. He’d be damned if he’d answer it. The woman was demented!

Was he part of some prank? It was ridiculous, like some melodramatic movie or reality show. And he’d laugh if—if—

If her story hadn’t been so plausible.

That was the worst part of it. He’d tried to scorn the woman—Annie, she’d said her name was—or laugh at her, or think she’d got the wrong number. But she’d named his parents, his hometown…and she’d asked the fatal question.

“Haven’t you ever wondered why you’re lighter-skinned than your parents?”

He ground out a savage curse. The woman might be crazy, but she’d known a lot about his personal life, including the wonder most kids had who didn’t strongly resemble their parents. Am I adopted?

Why now? Why had she called? What did she want from him?

“Jim?” The question sounded halting, uncertain.

With a sense of fatality, Jim turned from the tree where he leaned with a balled fist. Only one woman he knew had a voice that made him think of shadows and moonbeams. Only one woman didn’t give him the nickname Jimmy, and never had.

She stood ten feet from him, seeming smaller than her five-six or seven because she was so dainty. Her pale skin glistened in the clear moonlight; her long, shimmering waves of hair blew around her in the gentle breeze like the ocean at night. Her filmy silver skirt caught in the gusts, softly billowing. Her eyes, fixed on his face, were limpid pools of concern.

She looked like an elf maiden straight from his favourite fantasy books. So beautiful, and she had no idea of it…

“Danni,” he said with grave courtesy. Hiding his emotions, his need, as he always had. The oldest of six kids, he’d always been the dependable one in the family.

His fists clenched. Family…Were they that anymore? His one anchor in life had crumbled before his eyes, vanishing without warning.

“What can I do for you?” he managed to say with a semblance of politeness.

“Laila’s worried about you,” she said quietly. “We saw you take the phone call…and your reaction to it.”

That was Danni, never hiding behind pretty words; she always got straight to the point. “I’m fine,” he ground out, sounding almost savage. “Go back and tell Laila I’ll be in soon.”

She should have turned and gone back inside—his rare brusqueness had that effect on people—but she stood her ground. “I wouldn’t be able to reassure her, and she’d only get more worried. I can stand a lot of things from people, but I always know when someone’s lying to me…and Laila will know, as well. I can’t lie to her.”

“So I’m not fine,” he snarled, surprising even himself with his sudden hostility. “What do you care? You don’t even like anyone here but Laila.”

“True.” Her smile was remote, austere. “And I won’t have her worried right now. She’s in pain and trying to hide it for the family’s sake. I can’t go in there and say ‘He said he’s fine, now leave him alone.’ You know she loves you. She’s worried about you.”

A sudden shaft of bitterness hit him. If Laila had loved him enough, he would have her to share this with. He wouldn’t feel so scared or so alone.

“Yeah, Laila loves me. Just like my sister. It’s wonderful.” Though he knew the bitterness would fade as quickly as it came, he still said it, wanting to push Danni away, make her turn and flounce back into the restaurant, safe inside her anger and mistrust of all men.

Again she surprised him by holding her ground. “It’s more wonderful than you know. You take all the love in your life for granted. I always wanted a sister, a brother—anyone to be there for me the way your family is for you. The way Laila is there for you.”

The unconscious reminder inside her words cut him all over again. Family.

“Excuse me, would you?” Without waiting to see what she did—he could count on Danni walking away in stiff-necked pride, rather than be unwanted—he called home.

A soft, feminine growly voice answered in moments. “Hello?”

“Mum?” he said, feeling for the first time the utter comfort of that word; for the first time, not accepting it as his right. You take all that love for granted. “It’s me.”

“Kilaa,” she cried, using his totem Aboriginal name: the galah, a big white bird—the one who’d flown away. “Are you all right? Seeing Laila again, it hurts, huh?”

Though a dim part of him knew Danni was still listening, the tide of emotion, repressed and held in, spilled over. “I just got a call from a woman named Annie. She claims she’s my real mother.”

A stifled gasp was his only answer for a few moments…moments that stretched out to almost a minute. “Kilaa…” she finally said, her voice weak. Shaking. “Let me explain…”

But she didn’t. He could hear the quiet sobs from the other end of the line.

“It’s…true?” he asked through stiff lips.

One word came and it shattered his world. “Yes.”

“Who is she?” The words came without his knowing they were there.

“She’s my sister—my half sister. My mum had her before she met my dad.”

He frowned. It felt unbelievable to him—his family was too close. “Then why haven’t I met her before? Why hasn’t she come to any family parties and stuff?”

“We always invited her, Kilaa. She never came.” His mother—except she’s not my mother—spoke in a slow, teary voice. “She was taken away by the authorities when she was two, because she was half-white. She came back at twenty or twenty-one with you. She said she couldn’t afford a baby—but really, she couldn’t handle it.”

“Why not?” he asked, but given his knowledge of their people’s history—he’d done a semester of it in second year—he thought he knew.

“She was raised in an institution. I think being with us only reminded her of what she’d never had in life, poor Annie.” His mum sighed. “Anyway, she gave you to me—I was only nineteen then—and then she left. I was already with your father. He said, ‘So he’ll be our firstborn.’ And you were to us. You were always our firstborn.” Her voice was thick with tears. “Kilaa, come home, let us explain to you. You are still our son.”

Jim heard the words, but barely took them in. So Dad isn’tmy father, either. My grandfather isn’t my grandfather, my brothers and sisters are—are my cousins….

Suddenly he wished he was a vegetarian like Danni; the steak he’d eaten for dinner sat like lead in his stomach. His knees were shaking, his head spinning.

The bottom was falling out of his world. Half an hour ago, his unwanted attraction for Danni was tragic to him.

What a difference a phone call makes, he thought grimly.

CHAPTER TWO

“I DON’T WANT TO HEAR THIS over the phone. Expect me in a couple of days. I’ll arrange a locum for the practice.” He flipped his phone shut and leaned against the tree with a clenched fist. Scraping his knuckles raw hitting the rough bark, over and over.

As she watched him hurting his bleeding hand far less than the pain in his heart, Danni had absolutely no idea what to do. What can you say, when a man has his entire life stripped from him in the space of five minutes?

She was useless here. More than anything she wanted to turn tail, run inside the restaurant and send Laila out here. She was Jim’s best friend; she always had something unexpected and wise to say, or at the very least, she’d hold him close and be here for him.

Which would only be another reminder of something he’s lost.

It looked like she was it, then, God help her. What did she say? How did she start?

A moment later, he stopped hitting the tree. “I know you’re still there,” Jim said, his back stiff. “I can hear you breathing. I can feel the indecision jumbling around in your head.”

That was Jim—the only man she’d ever known who didn’t treat her with wary diffidence because he’d never been frightened by her fighting reflex or sarcastic tongue. He treated her like every other woman he knew, with teasing and truth. With the respect he gave to all women.

The only man she’d never been able to feel cynical about…at least until he’d ended her most private hopes before they’d truly begun.

But all that was past. He needed help now, and she was the only one around.

She stepped forward. “I’m sorry, Jim.” The words sounded stilted, even to her.

Using only one shoulder, he shrugged. Was he blocking her off, or unable to speak about it? She didn’t know. She didn’t know him well enough to judge.

What an ironic commentary on my life, considering I’ve known the man, been in the same circle of friends with him ten years.

“Your real mother called?” She wanted to hit herself for the stupid question, but she had to start somewhere, and she had no idea of how to reach out to him.

Still leaning against the tree with a balled fist, he nodded.

What did she say from here? More inane questions to force him to talk—or did she give him the peace and space to think?

To grieve, you mean.

Yes, she understood that—from personal experience.

“Um, do you want me to get Laila?” I’m no good here. I shouldn’t be involved in this.

He didn’t answer; but in his stillness and silence, his stiff stance, she still felt the waves of need coming from him. He didn’t want to be alone; but being Jim, he didn’t know how to ask for help.

What could she do?

Forcing her feet to move, she walked to him, doing what Laila would have done. Reaching out to him, lifting her hand to touch his shoulder, hoping it was enough. That she was enough, because no one else had bothered to come out to see if he was all right, if he needed anything.

Not one of Jim’s many friends had come to him.

She frowned. Why hadn’t they come out? Jim would have done so for them—he had done it, whenever any of them needed him. Laila was the only one with a valid excuse—and she was the only one fretting over his welfare, or had even noticed his pain.

At the touch, he turned his face and looked down at her. His eyes were shattered.

“Oh, Jim,” she breathed. Though she was wading waist-deep in a stormy ocean of the things she’d always avoided before—vulnerability, emotional attachment to a man—she worked on an instinct she didn’t know she had, tugging him toward her.

Wanting to comfort him.

With a muffled sound, the tortured moan of an animal caught in a trap, he grabbed her and hauled her hard against him, dragging in ragged breaths.

A drowning man holding onto a leaky life preserver. Wishing she knew how to help, she sighed and gave up, wrapped her arms around him and let him be.

Six foot four of raw masculinity surrounding her had a swallowed-alive feel to it. The hot, sweet tenderness so foreign to her two years before when he’d held her returned in a rush. The jumble of changes in her life in a single hour left her humbled, confused and wanting all at once. She didn’t know what to do with the inner whisper telling her she was in the right place at the right time.

Yet somehow, her silence wasn’t wrong or pitiful. Maybe quiet was what he needed far more than her imperfect words. After all, words had just torn his life apart.

They stood locked together for a long time. The quiet shimmered with peace, like sunlight on a winter pond, gentle and beautiful. Though she’d never done this with a man before, standing in Jim’s arms, holding him close and giving him comfort felt so natural she almost forgot to question it, to remember the differences between them.

Perhaps that was the reason: the biggest differences between them had been removed. The rug of secure family had been pulled out from beneath his feet, while she’d never had a rug. Suddenly opposites had become two of a kind—but the welter of confusion, fury and unexpected grief had blinded him. He’d need a guide to walk him through the darkness.

And she knew that darkness well: the parental lies and omission; feeling as if you don’t belong anywhere; feeling lost and alone. She’d walked in that darkness ever since the day she’d realised other kids’ mummies and daddies actually liked each other. They didn’t all buy separate groceries, use the kitchen at different times and sleep in separate bedrooms. They didn’t all stay together for the sake of the child, living in a trap of semi-polite hatred and needle-fine insults.

Some parents loved each other.

Some parents didn’t lie to their kids—and gentle, honest Jim had just discovered, at age thirty, that he’d lived a lie all his life. He’d been a lie all his life.

Slowly, the stiffness in him softened. He still clung to her, but it felt more relaxed, sharing rather than the drowning man’s hold. She could breathe again.

“Thank you,” he murmured against her hair.

“You’re welcome,” she murmured back, feeling her hair move, and his breath touch her skin. She shivered.

He lifted his face and looked at her, those dark eyes filled with turbulence; and yes, the wanting she couldn’t help feeling for him, even here and now, it was there in his eyes, too. Even though she knew Jim was an expert in playing the game—he’d had girls hanging off him for as long as she’d known him—in the reflection of the deep blackness of his eyes, she still felt beautiful, truly desired as a woman for the first time.

And she felt—vulnerable. Feminine. Lost, but happy to be so…and her lips parted…

“I don’t know who I am anymore.”

Danni blinked, trying to reorient herself. The kiss they hadn’t shared had seemed so real, she felt as if he’d wrenched it from her—just as she’d felt it two years before when he’d turned her down and walked away without looking back.

Tonight had been a terrible shock for him, she admonished herself. He needed time to adjust, not kisses, biting wit or sharp-tongued defences: he needed a friend. She couldn’t leave him alone with this.

As alone as I’ve been all my life…and I survived it, didn’t I?

Yeah, you’re a regular poster girl for personal growth.

After long moments, she said tentatively, “You should go home, talk to your—” She stopped there, uncertain what to call them now, the people who’d raised him and loved him.

His smile was a grim travesty of the open, cheerful, I know who I am and where I belong smile that had ticked her off all these years…and yet now, it hurt that he wasn’t the same man he’d been an hour ago. “It’s okay to call them my family. Apparently I’m still related.”

Wondering how he fit in now, she smiled back at him. “That’s good.”

“Half nephew,” he said, reading her thoughts without difficulty. “If there’s such a thing as a half nephew.”

“Well, that’s good…isn’t it? I mean, you still belong with them.” She closed her mouth, cursing her stupid tongue—and her body. His touch, the depth of his gaze on her was stirring her senses so much she couldn’t think. She’d been thrown without warning into a world where she wanted so much more than to best a man at the game he played, a world without superficial rules.

Maybe it was because Jim was incapable of playing games tonight; he was in too much pain to handle it. She had to ignore her pathetic wish that she could have been in his arms an hour before the phone call had rocked his life off its secure foundations.

“I suppose I do still belong.” He kept looking at her. His hands, at her back, moved a little. The most tentative caress she’d ever known.

She felt her breath catch again. Looking at him became dangerous, yet she couldn’t stop. What was he doing? What did he want from her: a friend to understand his pain, or a lover to help him forget for a while? The thought sent a shudder of longing through her.

Did she follow his lead, or ignore it? She didn’t know; all she knew was she couldn’t breathe again, and her gaze clung to his.

“I have to go,” he whispered, but held her still.

Without breath or balance, she nodded again, not trusting her voice. Wanting too much. Craving. She rested her hands against his chest, trying to find the strength to move.

“I want you, too, Danni,” he said quietly, giving her the words she didn’t know she was aching to hear until they came. “Right now I don’t think I’ve ever wanted a woman more. But until I know who I am, I can’t give you what you need.”

From another man, the words would have brought out her fighting spirit. She didn’t need anything from a man. She would make her way alone, and succeed.

From Jim, it was raw truth, he was hurting too much to tell her anything else.

She didn’t want to think about whether he was right or not. “So you can’t give your usual one hundred and fifty percent. Maybe it’s time someone gave to you, Haskell,” she said, hearing the huskiness of desire in her voice. “I don’t think you should go home alone.”

He tipped up her chin, his gaze searching her face, so taken aback by her words, his brows met in a frown. “Are you offering to come with me?”

Amazed that she actually was, she nodded…and made a soft, purring sound when his hand caressed her back, and the other moved beneath the sensitive skin at her chin.

He made a helpless gesture, a little shrug that conveyed his confusion. “Why?”

How to answer that, when she didn’t know herself? “I owe you for saving my butt two years ago. And I’ve been where you are, in a way,” she said, hearing the soft breathlessness thrumming through each word. “I might not be adopted, but I’ve spent my life wishing I was.” She looked up at him, half-defiant. “You know my story. I suppose everyone does. I’ve been navigating the waters of parental lies and self-delusion all my life. You can’t let them to fluff you off with their version of the story—and believe me, they’ll try. Even the best parents hate being caught out lying or being in the wrong. They should have told you years ago, and given you the chance to find your real parents.” She drew a deep breath after saying more in one go than she had for years. “You shouldn’t be left alone with this.”

“What about your job?”

She shrugged. “I quit three weeks ago. I’ve only been doing locum work until I find the right practice. So I’m free to come with you.”

“How about where you live? Laila said you signed a lease on a place in Sydney?”

She shrugged. “My stuff’s there. A week’s rent’s no big deal.” She frowned as he began to find another objection. “Look, I’ll come if you want me to. I may not be Laila,” she added tartly, “but I’m free for another week or two. I don’t see anyone else offering to be your support person.”

Why on earth am I pushing this?

As if he’d heard her thought, a brow lifted. “And…? Come on, Danni, say it.”

She bit her lip over a crazy urge to smile. She ought to have known he wasn’t going to let her leave it unsaid, or let her hide behind her sarcasm. Typical of Jim—but she knew whatever she gave to him now he’d give back tenfold, because he always did.

The thought of what he’d give her, what she’d been wanting from him from the first moment he’d touched her at graduation two years ago, made the sweet wanting bloom into a hot ache in every part of her body.

Wrong time, wrong place, probably the wrong people as well…But she didn’t care.

“And because…” She lifted her chin and said it outright, “I don’t want you to walk away again and leave whatever this is between us hanging for another two years.”

He laughed then—not with his whole heart, not as cheerful as the past—but still he’d laughed, and she’d done it for him. She felt a little glow of pride. This reaching out and doing things for people actually felt pretty good—at least, it felt good with Jim.

When he spoke, the warm laughter was still there…but so was the desire. “Spoken like the straight-from-the-hip woman you are.”

“Is that bad?” She moved her hands on his chest.

His eyes darkened. “It’s good, Danni. It’s damn good. I didn’t think you’d ever admit to it.” He pulled her closer. “Come on, little fighter. Make it real.”

Maybe he wanted her; maybe he just wanted one piece of good news tonight, or a distraction from the knock he’d suffered. Maybe he was lying to himself—but he was too honest to do that. And he’d been looking at her like that before the call.