INTERRUPTED LULLABY

by Valery Parv

  The cork escaped with a satisfying pop but he stood still holding the bottle, wondering why the thought of her with another man bothered him so much. This was lust, not love, right? He hadn't been celibate since they'd parted and turnabout was fair play. It didn't make him feel any better.

  She came into the kitchen as he was pouring the champagne into glasses. She had a bath sheet wound around her lithe body and was toweling her hair dry with another, and she looked if anything, more desirable than she had when she was naked.

  Her gaze went to the countertop. "I think the glass is full."

  "What?" In annoyance he saw that he had poured the champagne right over the rim of the glass. Cursing, he fetched a cloth and cleaned it up, then handed her a glass. "What shall we drink to?"

  "Passion?" she suggested, knowing better than to suggest anything more meaningful or personal.

  He gave a slow grin. "I'll drink to that."

  The champagne slid down her throat like velvet. If it hadn't been for the certainty that Zeke took this afternoon at face value, she would have felt more content than she had in months. But wanting something more from him, knowing it was futile, robbed the champagne of its heady pleasure.

  Losing the taste for it, she put the glass down. "I'd better not have too much or I'll be in no state for tonight's dinner."

  "What's on auction?" he asked.

  "All kinds of bizarre things, a walk-on part in an opera, the chance to fire the noonday cannon from Fort Denison, a romantic weekend away, fine art. Better bring your checkbook."

  "I don't see me in an opera, do you?"

  She shook her head. Firing a cannon would be more his style. She refused to let herself think about a weekend away with him. This afternoon had been risky enough. If she had any sense at all, she wouldn't let it happen again.

  She was working up the strength to tell him so when his cell phone rang in the other room.

  * * *

  Chapter 7

  « ^ »

  It was a lucky accident that his phone was still in his pants' pocket in the living room, Zeke thought as he retrieved it. He had been wondering how to keep Tara from overhearing the conversation.

  He looked toward the kitchen but she hadn't followed him. He flipped the phone open just before it switched through to the answering service. "Zeke Blaxland."

  "Are you alone?"

  The woman's voice was husky with fear. He wished he could reassure her that everything would be okay but he couldn't. Until the criminals were caught she was vulnerable and they both knew it. He admired the courage it had taken for her to come him. As far as it was in his power to protect her identity, he would.

  "I'm alone. Did you find out any more?"

  "I'm sorry," she said in her liltingly accented English. "The baby boy was DNA tested soon after it was born. There's no possibility it could be your child."

  Zeke hadn't known how much he was counting on a different answer until he felt the cold wind of despair howl through him. He felt drained, empty. Disappointed beyond belief. He had known the answer all along but had felt the need to double check, as much for his own peace of mind as for accuracy's sake. He was glad he hadn't shared his suspicion with Tara. No need for both of them to feel this shattered.

  "Thank you," he managed to say. "What about the records of the other children? Did you—"

  "Someone's coming, I have to go," she cut across him, her voice rising slightly. The phone went dead.

  "Damn."

  "What is it, Zeke?"

  He looked up to find Tara watching him from the doorway. Her quizzical expression, coupled with the fact that her skin was still flushed from the shower, made her look sexy as sin. If ever there was an antidote for the disappointment he'd just endured, she was it. But she'd kill him if she found out he'd made love to her while waiting for such news.

  For himself, it was no problem. Abstinence wouldn't have changed the result of the call one bit. But it was different for a woman. Had he told her what he was waiting for, she would have preferred to pace the floor and speculate endlessly although it wouldn't have changed anything, instead of losing herself in passion.

  "Nothing," he said, hating himself for lying to her. "A lead I was following didn't pay off, that's all."

  Something in his voice alerted her. "About the baby farming story?"

  He nodded but couldn't meet her eyes. "My contact at the hospital was chasing some information for me. It didn't amount to anything."

  She couldn't keep the tension out of her voice. "Did it have anything to do with our baby?"

  "You know better than that."

  She gripped the towel with both hands as if to hold herself together as much as to remain decently covered. She wasn't sure why she felt fearful suddenly, only knowing that she did. "Do I, Zeke?"

  He gave a sigh, finally accepting that he wasn't about to get away with telling her any less than the truth.

  Tara felt vindicated but more wary than ever, sure from his performance that whatever his news was, she wasn't going to like hearing it.

  "Sit down," he said gently.

  Like a cat walking on hot tiles, she crossed the room and perched on the edge of the sofa, trying to not look at the crushed places on the velvet cover. She made an effort to compose herself, made sure her breathing was steady, even managed a smile of encouragement.

  It vanished the moment he said, "I've established beyond doubt that around the time you had your … our … baby, a group of hospital employees was switching sickly children for healthy ones, altering the records, and on at least one occasion, substituting a dead child for a live one." He passed a hand over his eyes, keeping it there as he said, "For a while I thought our baby might be one of the children taken."

  Tara felt the walls of the room start to close in. She was grateful for the sofa beneath her as her legs turned to jelly. Could her baby have been switched for someone else's ailing child? The thought of a precious little life being bartered for cash made her sick to her stomach but if it meant her child was alive, she didn't care. She only wanted her baby. "Dear heaven, is it possible?"

  "It turned out to be a false lead. I'm sorry," Zeke said quickly. "I didn't say anything before because I knew there was every chance it wouldn't be true, and I didn't want to raise your hopes before I heard from my contact."

  Her eyes spat flames of fury at him. "So instead, you decided a little distraction was in order."

  "I didn't plan on what happened. I only wanted to be somewhere nearby when I got the news, in case it turned out to be positive."

  "When did you plan on sharing this with me?"

  "I didn't," he said shortly. "I couldn't see the point."

  "You couldn't see the point of telling me what you suspected, when my own baby was involved? Lord, Zeke, I know you have trouble handling your own emotions, but at least let me handle mine. How could you shut me out of the possibility of a miracle?"

  Zeke's expression turned cold. "There is no miracle. It's true that another baby boy was born within minutes of yours, same black hair, similar medical profile. But hospital records show the mother had the baby DNA tested. It's her child beyond any shadow of doubt. Genetically, it can't be either yours or mine."

  "Not it, he," she all but screamed at him. "To you, this may be a story, but those are living, breathing children, one of whom happened to be mine."

  "I didn't tell you what I was doing because I was afraid you'd turn hysterical on me."

  She dug her fingers into the velvet cushions, knowing she was only a hairbreadth from raking them down his handsome face. "I'm not hysterical. I'm as mad as hell. I can't believe you made love to me as if nothing else mattered, when all the time you were waiting to hear whether or not our baby could possibly be alive."

  He raked stiff fingers through his hair. "I don't see how it would have helped to sit at opposite ends of the sofa chewing our fingernails."

  "Maybe not, but I hate the thought that I was—" she almost choked on the words "�
��enjoying myself at such a time."

  "Well, thank you, lady," he said on a heavily sarcastic note. "At least you're honest enough to acknowledge that you enjoyed it."

  She felt hot color flush into her features. "That isn't the issue."

  "Then what is?"

  "The fact that you shut me out whenever emotions might be involved. It's what was wrong between us before, and nothing has changed."

  "You mean I haven't changed," he said with a snarl. "You're probably right. Lucy said the same when she ended our relationship. Now you're also saying I'm an unfeeling bastard, so I guess I must be. If trying to protect you was wrong, then I'm guilty as charged."

  She felt a familiar sense of frustration. "It wasn't wrong to protect me, only unnecessary."

  "What should I have done? Tell me that."

  "You should have told me what you suspected, as soon as you suspected it. My God, our child—alive? If I could have held on to that possibility just for a minute…"

  "It was never possible," he said flatly. "It only seemed so because the circumstances were similar to the others. I knew it was a long shot from the start, but I had to check it out just in case."

  An odd note in his tone alerted her. "You wanted it to be true, didn't you?"

  "What do you think?"

  "How can I know unless you're willing to open up and tell me?"

  His brows slashed a dark line across his forehead. "This isn't going to work, Tara. Of course I wanted our baby to be alive. But spilling out my guts about what I've been going through for the last few hours won't make it so."

  "I might have helped you to get through it."

  Her softly spoken words arrowed through him straight to the heart. "You did help me get through it," he confessed. "Holding you, feeling you so alive under me, no amount of discussing feelings could have done more."

  "You say 'discussing feelings' as if it's a dirty habit. It isn't." She lifted her head. "And I don't appreciate being used as some sort of diversion therapy because you'd do almost anything rather than admit you have feelings."

  "You were never a diversion, Tara. You must believe when we made love, it was the only thing on my mind."

  "As I said."

  He began to dress with jerky movements. "This isn't getting us anywhere. I came because I wanted to be near you when I got the news, good or bad. I didn't plan on making love to you, it just happened. You're probably right to suspect my motives. I'm not even sure I know what they are myself. But I do know this—I don't regret it as much as you evidently do."

  She stared at him in amazement. "I don't regret it, Zeke. I only wish you had been more honest with me."

  "Like you were with me?"

  As his shot hit home she felt her stomach muscles clench. "Touché," she said in a voice barely above a whisper. "I guess I deserve that."

  Fastening the buckle of his leather belt, he shook his head. "You deserve only the best, Tara, and I hope someone comes along who'll give it to you."

  She fought to control a sudden flare of fear. "That sounds suspiciously like another goodbye."

  Zeke finished buttoning his shirt. "It probably should be, but I said I'd escort you to that auction tonight and I will."

  She could hardly bear to frame the question. "And then?"

  "Then we'd better do the grown-up thing and try to part as friends."

  How could she be friends with a man who meant as much to her as Zeke? she wondered frantically. "I don't know if I can do that."

  He nodded. "Me neither, so there's only one way to find out."

  He finished dressing, slid his leather loafers onto his feet and came toward her. When he leaned over her, she flinched and he scowled. "Don't worry, I wasn't about to kiss you. I'm only reaching for my cell phone." He held it up as evidence.

  He was probably right, they should part as friends now, while they still could. If they still could. The despair she felt suggested that it was already too late.

  "I'll see myself out," he said as she started to rise. "I'll pick you up here at seven."

  Moments later she heard the door close and the sound of his footsteps diminished down the path. She resisted the temptation to run to the window and pull the curtain aside to watch him leave.

  She stayed where she was for a long time, her thoughts in chaos. Because her body ached from lovemaking, every move she made reminded her of him. She was furious with him for using sex as a distraction. But what did she expect? He had never pretended to believe in love, and she had never felt used before. But she did now, and couldn't fathom the reason for the life of her.

  With all her heart she wished he had told her what he suspected. Even though it had proved to be a false hope, she could have shared it with him, shared the strain of waiting for news, hoping, believing in a miracle, at least for a little time.

  Instead he had shouldered the burden alone, as he invariably did. When would he learn that loving someone meant sharing the good and the bad, for better or worse, as the ceremony said? There was good reason why couples agreed to share both. It created a unique bond between them.

  She and Zeke had never known such a bond and probably never would. Was it why she had felt unable to tell him she was expecting his child? She had justified it by telling herself she didn't want to pressure him into staying with her when he didn't want to, but perhaps she was also guilty of shutting him out. She hated to think so, and would have liked to hold the hormones of pregnancy responsible, but knew in her heart that it wasn't the whole truth.

  The truth was, they didn't have anything else but sex. A shiver rippled through her as she remembered just how good it was with him, but it wasn't enough. She hadn't told him about the baby because she had been afraid that if they took away the one thing they had together, there would be nothing left.

  A sob burst from her throat. It was so simple and so dreadful. Why hadn't she seen it before? From her brother and sister-in-law, she knew the difference children made to a relationship. In one of their heart-to-heart talks, Carol had told Tara how difficult things had been after their first child was born. No matter how adorable the baby had been, she had come between Carol and Ben.

  Carol's and Ben's love had helped them to weather the months of upheaval and sleep deprivation with their romance intact enough to have another child, proof that the experience was survivable. But what if great sex had been all they had? Would they still be together now? Or would they have fallen into one of those relationships where the passion dies but the couple goes on living in the burned-out shell?

  Tara didn't want that, so before telling him about the baby, she had waited for Zeke to show some sign that he loved her. In vain, as it turned out. He made love to her—pity help her, she still craved what only he could give her, even after all that had happened. But she recognized that the aching sensation deep inside her, making itself felt every time she moved, was more than physical.

  "This isn't getting me anywhere," she said, snapping herself out of the reverie. She might be her mother's sentimental daughter but she was also her father's practical one, and there was work to be done. She had a speech to give at tonight's charity auction and it wouldn't prepare itself.

  She had accused Zeke of distracting himself and now she was doing it. Trying to tell herself it was different didn't help. The only difference was that she meant to lose herself in work and Zeke had chosen to lose himself in her.

  * * *

  "I can't believe I bought an island," Tara said as they drove away from the black-tie dinner late that night.

  "Only a part of one, the right to occupy it for a year," he corrected. "Not a bad buy for the price you paid."

  "And it is on Phillip Island," she said dreamily. He knew that her grandparents had lived there and she had spent many childhood holidays with them. When the right to use the holiday home on the island for a year was auctioned, she hadn't hesitated. She could barely remember the details, only her determination not to be outbid for something she had wanted very badly.r />
  She intended to spend every spare minute she could at the house. Maybe she could make an offer to buy it when the year was up. "It will be the perfect place to write my book," she mused. After their first, emotion-charged meeting, Zeke had decided to let Colin handle the rest of the negotiations, and she had signed the contract the previous week, so she was committed to the book now.

  She was glad that Colin had accepted Zeke's excuse that he was too busy to be more than a silent partner in the publishing firm for the moment, because she wasn't sure she could have handled working with Zeke on a regular basis.

  He shot her a speculative look. "Will you be happy shut away on an offshore island with only penguins and seals for company?"

  "As somewhere to retreat to, yes, I will. In any case, Phillip Island is a modern community with a thriving population. It's far from lonely and bleak." She glanced into the back seat of his car. "At least I didn't get talked into buying a dog."

  Hearing her tone soften, the puppy, a big-headed, clumsy-looking male with the distinctive blue-speckled coat of his breed, lifted his head and looked at her. "He's smiling at me," she said in astonishment.

  "It's a trick of Blue Heelers," Zeke said. "They have the most expressive faces in the dog world."

  "And this one's mother does heaps of television commercials, so he has personality built into his genes."

  Because of its famous parentage, bidding for the puppy had been hotly contested. She remembered the intense expression on Zeke's face as he determinedly upped the ante every time another bidder got ahead of him, and glanced at him curiously. "I gather buying the dog wasn't a spur-of-the-moment decision?"

  "It wasn't," he confirmed. "In one of the periods when my birth mother took me back to live with her, she bought me a dog."

  "A Blue Heeler?"

  He nodded. "A boy doesn't forget the first dog—the only dog—he ever owned. Meggs was my first real friend. He used to sleep beside my bed and follow me to school."