The Secretary's Secret / Rodeo Daddy: The Secretary's Secret / Rodeo Daddy

But it meant Doreen wouldn’t be available to look after her. Kit settled back again, chewing her lip.

‘And Doreen told me that Caro’s mother is arriving from England tomorrow and—’

‘Oh!’ Kit clapped a hand to her forehead. ‘Caro is collecting her from Sydney Airport. She’s leaving at the crack of dawn to get there in time. I forgot.’

‘She was going to change her plans and make other arrangements for her mother, but I told her not to. If you think I did wrong, then I can call her now and—’

‘No, no. Caro hasn’t seen her mum in over a year.’ And while Caro’s mother was staying for a month, Kit certainly wasn’t going to be responsible for delaying their reunion.

‘And we’ve all been trying to ring your grandmother,’ Alex continued, ‘but … ‘

Kit smiled faintly. ‘But she’s a gadabout who refuses to carry a mobile phone. If you leave her a message on Tuesday you might hear back by Friday.’

‘And your mother lives—’

‘In Brisbane,’ she finished for him.

She pressed her fingers to her temples. Think!

‘Kit?’

She glanced up.

‘I’m staying in Tuncurry until the weekend.’

‘But—’

‘It’s non-negotiable. There are things we need to discuss, but they can wait until you are well again. It’s just as easy for me to stay here and keep an eye on you than it is to book into a motel.’

Easy for who?

‘And it’s the least I can do.’

She sagged into her pillows, suddenly unutterably weary. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I know I hurt you, Kit.’

She wanted to look away, but those dark eyes of his held hers and something whispered between them. The memory of soaring together for one unforgettable night and touching the stars. No matter how much she wanted to deny it, this man had touched her soul. In that moment she recognized that she’d touched his too.

It didn’t mean they had a future together, though. She saw that just as clearly.

‘I hurt you, Kit, and I know I’m disappointing you now.’ He rested his head in his hands for a brief moment. ‘Knowing me has made your life worse. I can’t begin to tell you how sorry I am about that.’

She blinked and then frowned. He looked as if he actually meant that.

‘Helping you out for the next two and a half days is the least I can do.’

Two and a half days? When he put it like that, it didn’t sound like much. And, frankly, there was no one else available because she had no intention whatsoever of imposing on either Caro or Doreen.

‘Don’t you think your baby’s welfare is more important than anything else at the moment?’

‘Yes,’ she whispered. She did. With all her heart.

‘So do I.’

She blinked and frowned. He did?

‘So why don’t we just do what the doctor ordered—you rest and I’ll be general dogsbody?’

She drew in a breath. What he was proposing, she may not like it, but it made sense. She let out the breath in an unsteady whoosh. ‘Okay, Alex.’ She nodded. ‘It seems to be the best solution. And … um … thank you.’

‘No thanks necessary,’ he said roughly.

She frowned suddenly, hitched up her chin. ‘But you know what? Regardless of what you think, being pregnant, that hasn’t made my life worse. Having a baby is wonderful.’

He turned grey. She shrugged. ‘I just want you to know that you don’t have to feel guilty about that. At least, not on my account.’

If he really did mean to walk away from his child, though, she hoped guilt would plague him every day of his sorry life.

He moved to fiddle with her CD player on the other side of the room. The sound of lapping water and soft squeals and gurgles filled the room.

She stared at him when he turned back around and then at the CD player. ‘What on earth is that?’

‘It’s called Sounds of the Sea.’ He shrugged and held up the CD case. ‘It’s supposed to be calming and relaxing.’

He’d bought her a relaxation CD!

‘I got it from one of those hippy places when I went shopping earlier.’ He rubbed the back of his neck and didn’t quite meet her eyes. ‘You know the doctor said you needed to relax. I thought the CD … ‘

‘I thought you went shopping for a change of clothes, a toothbrush.’

‘I did. And for food—your refrigerator was practically empty!’

‘There are plenty of frozen TV dinners.’ She shrugged at his stare. ‘I don’t cook.’

He planted his legs, hands on hips. ‘What do you mean, you don’t cook?’

She waved her hands in front of her face. ‘This is all beside the point. Alex, you’re doing my head in!’

One corner of his mouth kinked up. ‘I’d appreciate it if you didn’t mention that to Caro.’

The silence between them filled with the laughter of dolphins—oddly hypnotic. She shook herself out from under its spell. He might find this amusing, but she’d lost her sense of humour. There was too much at stake for laughing. Her baby …

‘I just don’t get you at all. You wanted me to terminate my pregnancy—’

‘No, I didn’t! I—’

‘You threw up when I told you I was pregnant but now you’re doing everything you can to make sure the baby stays healthy.’

He was silent for a moment. ‘You want this baby, Kit. You’ve already given your heart to it. You love it. I would never take that away from you.’

Her chest clenched. Frustration, remembered joy and then the ensuing crushing desolation, Alex’s generosity as a lover and then his callousness the next day, it all rose up through her now. She didn’t understand him at all and yet she’d agreed to let him stay in her house.

She was having his baby!

She needed to understand at least some of what had happened between them or …

Or she’d have learned nothing.

‘You were the most incredible lover, Alex, generous and thoughtful. You made me feel beautiful and cherished.’ And loved, which just went to show how skewed her judgement had been.

He leapt up, going white at her words.

‘And then the next day you acted as if what had happened between us meant nothing. No, even less that that, as if what had happened between us was an aberration.’ She lifted her hands. ‘Why?’

‘It wouldn’t have been fair to let you think we had a future.’

‘But you were so utterly cold, so callous. You didn’t even bother trying to let me down gently. What did I do wrong? Please—I don’t ever want to make that same mistake again.’ She had a baby to think of. Her heart jammed in her throat. What if next time it wasn’t just her heart she broke but her child’s too? If her judgement about him could be so off, how could she ever trust it again?

‘How could you have changed so completely? What was that all about? Was it you? Or did I do something?’ She couldn’t hold the questions back. Her voice rose as each one burst from her. ‘Why?’

Alex’s face twisted in an emotion she couldn’t identify—anger? Panic? Horror? He thrust an arm towards her stomach. ‘Because I didn’t want that!’

The shouted words reverberated in the quiet of her cool, shady bedroom. They pulsed in the air like live things. Her hands crept across her stomach in an attempt to block her unborn baby’s ears. In an attempt to protect it from pain and hurt. In an effort to console it. Her knees drew up beneath the covers to form a barrier between him and her.

‘You really don’t want this baby, do you?’ She’d known that before, but now she knew it in a harder, more real way. And it hurt. It died, that part of her that hadn’t been able to give up hope. Hope that once he’d recovered from the initial shock he’d come around, perhaps even welcome this baby into his life.

Alex was never going to accept this child.

‘I’m sorry.’ He’d gone a hideous kind of grey. ‘I shouldn’t have yelled.’

Perhaps not, but she couldn’t really blame him. She’d pushed him. She hadn’t meant to, it had just happened. But now she had her answer.

He dragged a hand back through his hair, eyed her uncertainly. ‘Time for us to get calm again.’

‘I am calm.’

Strangely enough, that was true. She felt icily and preternaturally calm. It didn’t stop her from suspecting she may well cry buckets over all this later. ‘I’m tired,’ she whispered.

‘I’ll leave you to rest.’

CHAPTER SIX

ON WEDNESDAY evening Kit woke to the smell of something divine coming from the kitchen.

Alex poked his head around her bedroom door as if he had some finely tuned radar that let him know when she was awake. ‘How are you feeling?’

‘Good, thank you. Actually, really good.’ Back-to-normal good. She pushed herself into a sitting position and smiled when her back proved totally pain-free. ‘I can’t believe how much I’m sleeping, though.’

‘Your body needs the rest.’ He shuffled his feet, glanced away. ‘Dinner will be ready in five if you need to …’ He waved towards the bathroom.

‘Freshen up?’ she supplied.

‘Uh, right.’

No sooner had she made it back to bed and settled the covers around her when Alex walked in with a tray. Kit groaned as he set it on her lap. ‘This smells heavenly.’

‘It’s just a beef and potato salad.’

She could tell he was pleased, though. She speared a piece of beef, popped it into her mouth and closed her eyes in bliss as she chewed.

When she opened her eyes she found Alex frozen to the spot, his eyes glued to her mouth. Her stomach, skin, even her ears, all tightened. ‘I … um …’ She cleared her throat and tried to tamp down on the heat rising through her. She set her fork to her plate before she dropped it, and searched her mind for something to say. ‘You’re … um … not going to eat out there on your own, are you?’

He snapped back. ‘I thought—’

‘Bring your plate in here, Alex. Do you know how boring it is being confined to bed?’ And then she wondered if that was such a good idea. She didn’t really want to spend more time in Alex’s company than she had to, did she?

‘It’s only for one more day.’

‘Half a day,’ she corrected.

He stood for a moment as if undecided before leaving the room and returning with his plate. He settled himself on his chair.

She should get a nice little tub chair for this room. It was the last thought she was aware of thinking before she returned to her food. She couldn’t believe how ravenous she was, and how much better she was feeling. She scraped up the last of the sauce with a piece of lettuce, chewed in avid appreciation and finally set her tray aside. ‘That was unbelievably delicious. Though you didn’t have to go to any trouble, you know?’

‘No trouble.’

She didn’t believe that for a moment. ‘You could’ve just tossed a TV dinner into the microwave and I’d have been grateful for that.’

He polished off the last of his food too and set his plate on her dressing table. ‘I can’t believe you don’t cook.’

‘It’s boring and messy and takes too long.’

‘It doesn’t have to be any of those things.’

‘I do other things. I can crochet. That’s nice and domestic.’

‘You have a baby on the way. You need to know how to cook.’

Yes, she had a baby on the way. His baby. Only he didn’t want anything to do with it.

An awkward silence opened up between them, turning her tongue to lead.

Alex cleared his throat. ‘Finished?’

‘Yes, thank you.’

‘Would you like some more?’

‘No, thank you.’

Her hands clenched in the quilt when he left with their empty plates. Why was he still here!

He returned a short while later with two mugs of steaming tea. He handed her one and settled himself on the seat at the end of her bed again.

‘So.’ He cleared his throat. He didn’t look any more at ease than she did. ‘This is where you grew up?’

She took a careful sip and then nodded. ‘The house where I grew up is a few blocks closer to the river.’

‘And you have lots of friends here, lots of honorary aunts and uncles?’

Was he trying to reassure himself that she had backup for when he did leave? Was that what all this was about? Him staying here looking after her—was it his attempt to assuage a guilty conscience?

No, no, he was too ruthless for that.

She bit her lip. He’d framed her ultrasound photo.

He’d bought her a relaxation CD.

Maybe he had a seriously guilty conscience?

‘Kit?’

She shook herself, searched and found the thread of their conversation again. ‘This was a great place to grow up. Doreen next door used to be the school secretary at my old primary school and what she doesn’t know about my old classmates isn’t worth knowing.’

He grimaced and she could see how this small-community lifestyle might seem suffocating to him, but she wasn’t going to lie about the kind of life she wanted for herself and her baby. ‘I barely clapped eyes on my neighbours in Sydney.’ Everybody was too busy working long hours, dealing with long commutes into the CBD. ‘I like knowing my neighbours’ names. I like chatting over the back fence. I like knowing that they’re keeping an eye on me and that I can do the same for them.’

She had no regrets about leaving the busy pace of the city behind.

‘Auntie Doreen is a good friend of my grandmother’s. My grandma used to live across the street.’ Which was probably why she’d jumped at the chance to buy this house. The street held good memories for her.

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 till 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 village in Forster five years ago when my mother relocated to Brisbane. She delights in all the activity the village offers. She has a very full 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 Wallis Lake.

Did he really 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 spilling over her quilt. All 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 appalled 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 mechanically pleating the quilt.

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

He sat back down and just like that some of the tension eased out of her. She pulled 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’ll be time enough for that once you’ve received the all-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 all 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 finally asked instead.

‘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’ll 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.’

‘Really?’ Even though she’d steeled herself for this, she was still 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’ll 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’ll at least make sure that financially you and the baby are taken care of.’

‘You can take your blood money and sod off, Alex!’ She abandoned all pretence at politeness. ‘I can look after this baby on my own—financially 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 all 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. ‘Hell, 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. Finally, he dragged both hands down his face and straightened. ‘Jacqueline and I had been married for fifteen months when she fell 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 called him Chad.’

Kit’s spine lost all 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 all, what legal rights did I really 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 really 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 tell 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 will do what is legally 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 tell 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 filled 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 tell her about Chad. To tell her why he couldn’t go through all 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 fill. In losing Chad he’d lost the best part of himself.

If there’d ever been a best part of himself.

He didn’t want another child.

He didn’t want to love another child.

He’d given Chad everything—his time, his care, all the love in his heart. But it hadn’t been enough. Jacqui had still left. He’d still lost the child he loved.

He wasn’t going through that a second time.

Losing Chad had proved something that deep down he’d always known but had never wanted to believe—he didn’t have what it took to be a family man. He refused to hide from the hard facts now. He could not give Kit what she so badly wanted—a stable and loving family unit.

What was the point in trying when he’d only lose it all again anyway?

Not hiding from the hard facts again? He gave a mirthless laugh. His demand for a paternity test was a lie, a blind, an excuse to hide behind. Kit wasn’t lying. Her baby was his. He just didn’t want to believe it, that was all. Kit didn’t care about his money and she sure as hell didn’t see him as a great catch. She’d prefer it if he wasn’t her baby’s father.

He rested his head against the trunk of the tree. Jacqui had taken Chad away from him without a backward glance. There were no guarantees that Kit wouldn’t do the same. Eventually.

He would not relive that nightmare. Not for Kit. Not for anyone. If that made him a monster in her eyes, then so be it.

He loosened his grip on the tree to glance around the garden, which was partially illuminated by the light from the kitchen window. His gaze fell on the Cape Cod chair that Kit had been sanding the other day.