by Sue MacKay
Then he leaned closer, traced a fingertip over her lips. ‘How have you been, Charlie? Really?’
Her stomach thrummed. Her lips opened under his finger. Just like that, she was his. Or would be if she wasn’t standing in the street with Dad watching warily. Jerking her head back, she glared up at him, saw the man who was used to getting what he wanted when he wanted it, and started to spew out two years’ worth of desperation. ‘I couldn’t be better, what with—’
Aimee interrupted, ‘Mum-mum. Up.’
Charlie spun around to find Aimee half-draped over the fence. ‘You little monkey. That fence is supposed to keep you in.’ Seemed she’d be arranging for the new, higher fence to be built sooner than she’d expected. Opening the gate, she bent to lift Aimee into her arms. ‘Come here.’
Her heart was pounding as her blood sped around her veins. She’d nearly blown it then, had been about to spill it all thoughtlessly, without due consideration for Marshall and his reaction. That would definitely not earn her any points and make it harder for Aimee in the long run.
‘Your daughter?’ Marshall stood right behind her.
‘Yes.’ She saw disappointment cloud his eyes. So he didn’t like the idea she had a child. Didn’t that fit in with his plans? Whatever those were. Tough. She had more bad news for him yet. When he heard the whole story he wouldn’t even be thinking about how he felt about her.
Charlie held Aimee tightly against her chest. A shield? Did she need protection from Marshall? Now the moment of truth had arrived she suddenly wondered how he might react to being told he was a father. He might go absolutely ballistic and deny flat out he could ever be a father. Or say there was no way in hell he wanted a part in Aimee’s life. Or he might insist they move to the States to be near him. Not a hope in Hades, Marshall. Not a hope.
‘Go sort out your car, Marshall.’ Now she sounded bossy. But what was she supposed to do? Tell him everything here and now, standing on the footpath? Hand him Aimee and say, ‘Meet your daughter’? ‘Will you stay long enough for a coffee afterwards?’
Marshall’s eyes widened. Struggling to keep up with her? ‘Sure.’ He turned towards the vehicles, turned back. ‘It’s great to see you, Charlie. Really great.’
Take my breath away, why don’t you?
Her eyes feasted on his broad back and narrow hips as he walked away. A shiver of excitement rippled through her. But there was so much she didn’t know about Marshall. Once she’d tipped his world upside down with the news he was a father, would she get the chance to find out anything? Or would he storm off, never to be seen again?
Her gaze drifted to the entangled vehicles. He wouldn’t be storming anywhere in the next few minutes. Her spirits lifted. He had to hang around for a bit. At least until a new car had been arranged, surely?
*
Marshall headed for his rental, still trying to collect his scattered brain cells. This tall dude was Charlie’s father. Hell, he’d nearly shouted with laughter when he’d heard that. All the disappointment gripping him since he’d spied the guy under the tree had dissipated in a flash.
You’re not in the clear yet, buddy. That cute little girl has to have a father. Kids don’t just arrive in the letterbox.
His smile slipped. True.
‘Right, let’s get this sorted,’ Brendon muttered, just as a Harley shot around the corner.
‘This your neighbour?’ He tilted his head in the direction of the bike. What a way to introduce himself to Charlie’s father. If the man had any sense he’d make sure he never went near his daughter again.
‘Yes. Come and meet John.’ Brendon seemed preoccupied. ‘Are you staying in town, son?’
Straightening his shoulders, Marshall studied the man before him. There seemed to be a lot more to that question than was apparent. Until he got a grasp on the situation he’d give away little about his intentions. Intentions? Hell, they were as clear as a sandstorm. ‘Yes, sir.’
‘For long?’
So the guy did want him gone. Wasn’t happy about his sudden appearance. Protecting his daughter? ‘Two days. Maybe three, depends on my ride out of the country.’
‘So you’re flexible?’ Was that hope lightening that steady gaze? Nothing made much sense here.
‘Depends on the air force.’ Not to mention Charlie and her situation. ‘I’d like to spend some time catching up with your daughter, if that’s at all possible.’
‘You’d better stay the night with us, then.’
I don’t think so. In the circumstances that’s way too close and personal. ‘Won’t Charlie object?’ What about the kid’s dad?
Brendon gave him a knowing smile. ‘Probably, but then she’ll calm down and see the merit in my idea. You might have to weather her temper first, though.’
‘Seems like I’ve already had a wee dose.’ Marshall shook his head. He’d never once seen her get angry back in Honolulu. ‘Let’s talk to your neighbour about his wrecked SUV first.’ And give me time to decide whether I go for broke or head for a hotel in town.
Stay in the same house as Charlie? And not be able to touch her, or to hold her, kiss her like he ached to do? Because if he did he was sure he’d be history. It would go down a treat with her old man. The guy seemed decent enough but touch his daughter and there’d be hell to pay. Marshall just knew it.
Then he was being introduced to John and they got down to the nitty-gritty of sorting out his bad steering problem.
*
Charlie stood at the window, peering through the trees. Spying on the men. Pinching herself. That really was Marshall out there. With Dad. Talking as though they’d always known each other. There didn’t seem to be any animosity from Dad, just his regular caution.
She grinned despite the tension gripping her. Dad must’ve just about wet himself when she’d spoken Marshall’s name. For all his saying to leave it up to the universe to sort her problem, he would never actually have thought anything would come of it. She’d better remember to tell Gemma. She’d enjoy a good laugh.
But Gemma could wait. The man the universe had delivered to her doorstep was about to take all her attention. Strange that now he was here she felt reticent about telling him about Aimee.
Once Marshall knew he was a father Aimee was no longer hers alone. Someone else would have the right to make decisions about her life. Talk about selfish. She definitely wasn’t being fair to Aimee or Marshall. There again, if Marshall wasn’t interested in being a hands-on father, nothing would have changed. Except that if her health turned to custard, Aimee would still have a parent to go to. Marshall would have to take her then.
But it had been one thing wanting to find him with the intention of explaining the whole situation. It was a completely different issue to actually front up to him and turn his day upside down, if not his life.
More than two years ago he’d been adamant he didn’t wanted commitments and she was about to ask him for the biggest one possible. Part of her felt sorry for the guy. If only she’d probed a little to learn what lay behind his statement. But every time she’d started to ask serious questions he’d leaned in and touched her, with the resulting heat turning her brain to molten desire. By the time they’d made love she’d forgotten everything else.
‘Mummy.’ Aimee tugged at the hem of Charlie’s shorts. ‘Want dink.’
‘You want a drink,’ Charlie enunciated clearly for her little miss. Hard to believe how quickly Aimee was learning to talk. Almost overnight she’d gone from saying nothing to these funny little sentences. Aimee was a gift. A joy. She had to get that message across to her daughter’s father so he wouldn’t miss out on anything else as Aimee grew up.
Male laughter filtered through the trees. Seemed everyone was getting on just fine. No surprise there, with John being so easygoing and Dad acting as middle man. Marshall could also charm anyone when he put his mind to it.
Including her. Not that he’d had to try very hard. She’d been his in a blink. Never before had she known such excite
ment with a man. Marshall had truly shown her past lovers to be beginners. He’d known all the buttons to push or caress or kiss, turning her into a sex addict overnight. A Marshall sex addict. There had not been even a hint of anything sexual since.
Trying to ignore the old but familiar sweet tension in her tummy, she turned away and headed for the kitchen and the juice, tidying away toys as she went. Aimee tended to spread everything far and wide when she was playing, making it a constant job to keep the floor clear enough to get from one room to another. Normally just thinking about it made Charlie feel tired but not today. Right now she felt more invigorated than she’d felt since she’d first become ill.
Must be something in the air, she hummed to herself. Or a certain American on her doorstep. Her lips twitched. Marshall Hunter was here. In Taupo. Outside her home. Unbelievable. And then the tears really started, pouring down her cheeks, dripping off her chin.
*
Brendon told Marshall to go on inside the house, and that he’d be along shortly. Marshall could feel his antennae twitching. It was as though Brendon was pushing him and Charlie together—for a catch-up chat? Or was there more to it? But no one had known he’d turn up this afternoon so that couldn’t be right.
Did Charlie mind him being here? Or was she about to kick him to the moon? He couldn’t decide if she’d truly been happy to see him or not. Initially she’d all but thrown herself at him, but only moments later she’d pulled back, hard.
He stepped into the warm interior and paused to suck in a breath. It had been a long haul to get here, no point in retreating now. Until today he’d never retreated—unless his life had been in danger. Or his buddy’s.
His mouth soured. Now was not the time to be recalling that bleak day in hell. Fronting up to Charlie could never be as painful as dealing with what had happened to Rod. The man after whom he’d promised to name his first son, if and when he ever got around to settling down and raising kids. Some time around when he reached fifty.
Stepping along the wide hallway, he glanced at the framed black-and-white photos on the walls. Most of them featured Lake Taupo with the mountains in the background. They were very good. ‘C Lang’ was signed across the bottom-right corner. Charlie did photography? Darn, he knew so little about her.
He found her in the kitchen with the child. Definitely thinner than he remembered. Had pregnancy done that to her? Most women put on weight, didn’t lose it. Could she have taken getting back into shape too seriously? An image of running along the beach in Honolulu with Charlie at his side sprang up and he smiled. Yes, Charlie had been a fitness fanatic. Had loved her sports almost more than anything else. Almost. Sex had been top of the pops. But that was a kind of sport too, she’d told him one day, a cheeky grin lighting up her face.
‘What did John have to say?’ the woman in question asked in a strained voice as she kept her back to him and supervised the little girl drinking juice. Most of the liquid made it into the child’s mouth but the pink tee shirt had a yellow streak down the front.
The pranged cars. Of course. Focus, man. ‘He seemed okay with it all.’ Marshall tried for a nonchalant shrug to hide these oddball emotions charging around his head. He needn’t have worried because Charlie continued focusing her attention elsewhere. He told her, ‘I’ve phoned the rental company and they’ll sort it out, including supplying me with another car.’ His eyes were stuck on the child. She was so cute. Except for the eyes, she had her mother’s colouring right down to the freckles on her button nose.
‘Bet they loved that,’ Charlie sniffed, and he knew she was crying.
Three long strides and he stood in front of her, reaching his fingers to trace the wet lines on her face. ‘Hey, babe, don’t cry. Sorry if I’ve upset you by turning up out of the blue. If you want me to disappear, I’ll go. Pronto.’
Panic flared, widened those damp eyes that flicked from him to the child and back again. ‘You can’t go. Not yet.’ She hiccupped through her tears and swiped at her face again.
Why the panic? Then he was holding her, wrapping his arms around those thin shoulders and tucking her up close to his big, warm body. Protecting her. From what? Himself? Hell, he hadn’t even thought about taking her in his arms. It had just happened. And Charlie hadn’t slapped him across the face and pulled away. He liked holding her. Liked feeling her small frame against his larger one, even if there was a frailty to her that hadn’t been there before.
‘Charlie?’
‘Yes?’ came the muffled reply against his chest.
‘Why are you shaking?’ Tremors had begun rocking through her. ‘Why the tears?’
She said nothing.
Placing his hands on her waist, he tipped back a little to put some space between them. Hell, she was thin, bony even. Was she all right? ‘Talk to me. Please. Tell me about you. About your daughter.’
Charlie’s face whitened, and again panic flared in those haunting eyes. She nodded. ‘Yes. Of course.’
What was going on here? Didn’t she want him asking about her family? That seemed odd. What about her partner? Only one way to find out. ‘You married now?’
Her head swung from side to side, that distinct unease still all over her demeanour. ‘No. What about you?’
She wasn’t going to change the subject that easily. ‘Is this your house?’
‘We share it with Dad. I grew up here. I do have a house in town, which I bought a couple of years ago, but it’s rented out at the moment. Dad helps with looking after Aimee.’ She drew a long breath and opened her mouth, and another torrent of words spilled out. ‘We both work at a medical centre—’
Marshall placed a finger on her lips, felt an electric sizzle up his arm. ‘Slow down, Charlie.’ Under his hands the trembling continued. Because of him? Did his touch disturb her? Or was she afraid of something? He dropped his arms to his sides and stepped back, putting space between them. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked again. She’d better be. He couldn’t bear it if something bad had happened to her.
Her chin ducked abruptly. ‘I’m fine.’ Then, ‘I’m still getting over the shock of seeing you outside our house. Why were you driving away?’
Because I’m a prize idiot. ‘Don’t get the wrong idea here.’ I’m not a stalker. ‘I’d been parked outside for a few minutes, watching you and wondering if you’d welcome me or not. Then I saw your father walking around to the back of the house and got the wrong idea.’
‘So you drove away.’
‘I didn’t want to give you any problems. We had an agreement back in Honolulu and obviously I’ve broken that.’ Had to. Had needed to get over her by seeing her again. But already doubts were creeping in under his skin. Would he ever be able to get over Charlie?
‘So if you hadn’t gone all American and driven on the wrong side of the road, I’d never have known you were here?’ Anger laced her tone and those eyes fired up. ‘You’d have gone away without a word?’ she hissed, leaning closer.
‘I thought I was doing the right thing by you.’ Now he was on the back foot. What had just happened?
Her forefinger jabbed his chest. ‘Do you have any idea how hard I’ve tried to find you?’ Jab. ‘Agreement or not?’ Jab. ‘I have spent…’ jab ‘…untold hours on the computer, searching for you.’ Jab. ‘And you were driving away.’ Then her anger disappeared as quickly as it had risen. Her chest rose and fell fast. ‘Sorry. It’s just that I wanted to find you and now you’re here and I don’t know how to tell you something important.’
Warning bells started blaring in his skull. Nothing Charlie said made any sense and yet he was on high alert. Incoming attack. Stepping back further, he leaned one shoulder against the wall and crossed his ankles, to all appearances totally at ease. But inside his head he was pulling up every scenario imaginable. Because something big was about to go down. Something very big.
Then Charlie glanced from him to the little girl. A sob broke across her lips.
And shocked realisation slammed into him. The green
eyes should’ve warned him.
‘Aimee’s mine.’
CHAPTER FOUR
ALL THE AIR in Charlie’s lungs whooshed out. Her arms instantly wrapped around her waist. And she stared, like her eyes were glued to Marshall’s stunned face, watching and searching. His gaze, firmly fixed on Aimee, showed nothing of his thoughts. Not a hint.
Her heart crashed repeatedly against her ribs as fear and hope warred in her brain. Would he walk? Would he stay? At least stop long enough to hear the rest? Would he shout at her? Call her all sorts of names for not telling him, even when she’d tried so hard to get in touch? Or blame her for getting pregnant in the first place? The skin on her arms lifted in chilly bumps. Why had she not prepared for this moment? Yeah, right. Like how?
‘Mum, mum.’
Charlie reluctantly dragged her eyes from Marshall and checked out her daughter. Their daughter. Oh, hell. Her stomach clenched. She clamped her hand over her mouth as nausea rose. This was so—so big. So difficult. Swallow. Swallow.
‘Charlie? It’s true, isn’t it? I’m a father.’ Those beautiful green eyes shifted their focus to her. Questions fired out at her.
Another swallow and she answered his first one. ‘Yes.’ The word whispered across her bottom lip. She swallowed, tried again. ‘Yes, Aimee is your daughter. She…’ Then the words locked into a lump at the back of her throat, refusing to budge.
‘Holy Toledo.’
That was a good response. Wasn’t it? It didn’t sound bad. At least he was acting calm. So far. She managed, ‘She was born a little over eight months after I got back from Honolulu.’
‘You didn’t have any way of contacting me.’ A ton of regret darkened those words but no blame. Then, ‘So this is why you’ve been trying to find me.’
‘Yes.’ He didn’t need to know the rest yet. ‘It’s a lot to take in.’