‘Did you grow up in Sydney?’
‘Yes.’
‘Whereabouts? North, south, east or west?’
His stomach tightened. He didn’t like talking about his childhood. But her question, it was innocent, innocuous. ‘In the western suburbs until I was twelve and then Vaucluse.’
She spun on her rock. He shot an arm out to steady her. ‘You grew up in Vaucluse—as in on the harbour—and you’ve never been fishing?’
‘Would you eat what came out of the harbour?’
She pursed her lips, then nodded. ‘Good point.’
He removed his arm from around her waist. He couldn’t stay here in this golden place near this golden woman. Eventual y everything he touched turned to ash.
He wouldn’t do that to Kit.
In the next instant he nearly fel off the rock. ‘Holy crap!’ The fishing rod had developed a mind of its own.
Kit started laughing so hard tears fil ed the creases at the corners of her eyes. ‘Reel in! Reel in!’
she final y managed to choke out. ‘You’ve hooked a fish, you landlubber.’
‘A fish?’
He promptly set about reeling it in.
‘Ooh, it’s a big one!’ Kit gave him instructions
—“Play the line out a bit, don’t lose it on the rocks’.
Frankly, he didn’t have much of a clue what she meant, but final y he had the fish, flapping on the end of his line, clear of the water.
Jumping to her feet and bracing herself against his shoulder, Kit scooped the net beneath the fish and presented it to him. ‘Your first fish!’
He leapt to his feet. His first—
‘A bream! Congratulations, Alex.’ With that she leaned forward and planted a kiss on his cheek.
He promptly felt ten feet tal . He leant in and kissed her ful on the mouth.
She kissed him back.
They drew away and stared at each other. Her eyes were golden with sunshine and fun. Her lips…
The al -consuming need that had been building in him for the last fortnight broke through his control. He had to have more! Before he could think the better of it, he grasped her chin in his free hand and slanted his mouth ful y over hers.
She tasted of salt and choc-chip cookies and some memory from his past that he couldn’t quite grasp.
His tongue traced the inside of her bottom lip, revel ing in her velvet warmth. Maybe if he kissed her deeper, longer, more thoroughly, he’d remember that memory and—
memory and—
Her tongue shyly stroked his and al conscious thought fled as their kisses deepened. Her hand fisted in his shirt to draw him closer. His fingers slanted around the curve of her scalp, sliding through the silk of her hair to angle her mouth so he could explore every exquisite mil imetre of her delectable lips.
Four months! He’d ached for this for four months.
It was worth the wait.
For a moment he thought it might just be worth anything.
Final y, with a gasp, she dragged her mouth from his, rested her forehead against his cheek, her chest rising and fal ing as if she’d just run a race.
‘Alex, you’ve got to warn a woman if you’re going to kiss her like that.’
He was breathing so hard he couldn’t speak.
‘At least make sure she has two hands free to hold onto you.’
She was stil holding the net ful of fish. He took the net from her. ‘Sorry, I got carried away by the moment.’
No, he wasn’t. He wasn’t the least bit sorry.
She stared up at him then, a frown in her eyes.
‘I’m not sure we should be doing that.’
He blinked. He wanted to do a whole lot more than—
Hel ! He snapped away from her.
Kit sighed and sat again. ‘Don’t fal off the rock, Alex. The current is fierce and I don’t feel like diving in and saving you.’
When he sat back beside her she expertly unhooked the fish and popped it in the bucket.
‘Okay, next lesson—how to bait the hook.’
He took his cue from her. She didn’t want to talk about that kiss and he was damn sure he didn’t want to either. It didn’t mean anything. It couldn’t mean anything.
They caught two bream apiece. Even given that kiss, the confusion it sent hurtling through him, Alex couldn’t remember the last time he’d had so much fun. ‘I have to hand it to you, Kit. This fishing gig was a good idea.’
He grinned when she said, ‘I won’t say I told you so.’ They sat in companionable silence, their lines dangling in the water and the breeze playing across their faces. They swung their feet and breathed the invigorating salt tang that seasoned the air and listened to the cries of the seagul s. ‘You know, I always dreamed that my dad would take me fishing like this.’
He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. She hadn’t mentioned her father before. ‘He didn’t?’
She snorted. ‘He didn’t know one end of a fishing rod from the other.’
Neither had he before today.
‘When I told my grandma about that little dream, she took me fishing herself.’
‘On this rock?’ He couldn’t get enough of her stories about her childhood.
She pointed back along the way they’d come. ‘We dropped hand lines further along that way in the channel. A much safer spot for a child.’
‘And?’ He didn’t know what he was waiting for. He rubbed the back of his neck. Would his child dream that one day its father would take it fishing too?
The thought unnerved him.
‘And we didn’t catch a thing, but we had the best time.’ She laughed, the memory obviously a good one. ‘Eventual y my grandma and I graduated to this rock.’ She patted it.
He stretched his neck first one way then the other.
Kit’s child would have her for its mother. It wouldn’t miss out on anything. It wouldn’t want for anything.
Except a father.
‘Your childhood sounds idyl ic. You were close to your family?’ He wanted her surrounded by family who would look out for her, support her.
‘My family is my mother and grandmother. I adore them both.’
His heart started to pound. ‘And your father?’
A shadow passed over her face. He immediately regretted darkening her day. ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked. It’s none of my business.’
‘No,’ she said slowly. ‘I think you should know about my father, Alex. It might help you understand where I’m coming from.’
He didn’t need to know about her past to know that she was wonderful now. But he was happy to listen to anything she wanted to tel him.
‘My parents never married. Their relationship was over long before I was born and my mother had me without any support from him.’
‘You and your mum were happy?’
‘Oh, yes, but when I started school and saw the
‘Oh, yes, but when I started school and saw the other children with their daddies, I wanted one too. I started asking Mum a lot of questions, pestering her about my dad until she final y promised to track him down for me.’
He could imagine the younger Kit with her golden hair and her golden skin and her golden eyes. And her yearning. He swal owed. ‘And?’
‘And final y she did. I was so happy. He took me swimming and for ice cream. I got to introduce him to Caro and Denise and Alice and al my other friends.’
‘And then?’
She shrugged. ‘I saw him off and on until I was fifteen. He’d show up three or four times a year with a belated Christmas present, take me out for my birthday, that kind of thing.’
She fiddled with her fishing rod, resettled her hat on her head. Alex didn’t move.
‘I was a bit slow on the uptake. It took me a while to realize he didn’t actual y enjoy hanging out with me.’
Bile burned the back of his throat. ‘Kit, I’m sorry. I
—’
She waved his sympathy away. ‘You know, I could’ve accepte
d it if he’d made al those visits out of a sense of responsibility or duty, but…I caught Mum paying him.’
He frowned. He wanted her to turn and look at him, but her gaze remained on the swirling water below.
‘My mother had been paying him, bribing him, to play father to me.’
Her voice was strangely impassive and it took a moment for the import of her words to hit him. When they did his hands threatened to snap his fishing rod in two. He’d have preferred to wrap them around her father’s throat. The hide of the man!
‘I never saw him again. I was pretty angry with my mother for a long time too.’ She paused, pursed her lips. ‘But now, with a baby of my own on the way, I understand my mother’s actions so much more.’ She glanced at him and then glanced away again. ‘You see, Alex, I want my baby to have everything good in this world and that includes a father.’
Her words chil ed him to the very centre of his being. ‘Kit, I—’
‘I know what you told me, Alex. I know you said you would not be a father to our baby.’
Our baby. He closed his eyes. It wasn’t that he wouldn’t, but that he couldn’t.
‘I would love to change your mind about that.’
‘I—’
‘No, just listen to what I have to say. I’m not asking you to respond. I just want you to hear what I have to say. Okay?’
His heart dropped to his knees. He managed a heavy nod.
‘I know what it’s like to yearn for a father with your whole being until everything else shrinks in importance. Knowing how important it was to me, do you think I would purposely and consciously ever deny that to my child?’
She turned then and her golden eyes met his. ‘I couldn’t do it, Alex. I could never do what Jacqueline did. I could never deny my child its father.’
He closed his eyes, tried to block out al her goldenness and the spel she was threatening to weave about him.
‘Like I said,’ she continued, ‘I’m not asking you to respond to any of this. It’s just…’
He opened his eyes. He couldn’t help it.
‘The thing is, Alex, if you’re using that as an excuse to avoid fatherhood then you’re going to have to come up with another one because that one doesn’t exist.’
A hole opened up inside his chest. ‘I’m sorry your father did that to you, Kit. You can rest assured that I would never do that to your child.’
‘No,’ she whispered. ‘You mean to hurt it in an entirely different way. At least I met my father and had a chance to know him and find out who he was.
Even if he did disappoint me, at least it stopped me from building unrealistic fantasies around him.’
Was that what their child would do?
‘Anyway—’ Kit shook herself ‘—enough of al that for one day. Wanna learn how to clean and scale a fish?’
He tried to match her tone. ‘How could I resist an offer like that?’
Her laugh could no longer lighten his heart. Her father’s absence had left a hole in Kit’s life, had left an indelible impression there that nothing could erase. Alex hadn’t meant to do harm to anyone. But his actions had harmed Kit, and they would harm her unborn child’s.
unborn child’s.
His child.
He dragged a hand down his face.
‘So you’re squeamish, huh?’
He pul ed his hand away to find her attempting to demonstrate the correct way to gut a fish.
She cocked an eyebrow. ‘Not going to throw up, are you?’ Her half-grin robbed the words of their sting.
He wanted to lay himself at her feet and beg her to forgive him. For everything.
He didn’t. Instead, he took al of the fish from her hands and, fol owing her instructions, cleaned each and every one of them. It was the least he could do.
‘Excel ent.’ She took the last fish, bundled up their things and made to leave their rock. ‘I’l cook dinner tonight.’
‘Hey, hold on a moment. You can’t cook.’ He took the net and the bucket from her hand and handed her the lightweight rod instead.
Her eyes danced. ‘I said I don’t cook. That doesn’t mean I can’t cook. And I can certainly do fish on the barbecue, jacket potatoes and a tossed salad.’
His mouth watered.
They walked back the length of the breakwater.
Kit hummed, but Alex’s mind churned. And then Kit halted mid-hum, and just stopped to stare.
At a mother and her baby swimming—floating—
together in the shal ows of the Rock Pool. A pre-toddler-sized baby. A little girl if the pink bathers and sunhat were anything to go by.
A little girl. Alex’s thoughts tumbled to a halt. He couldn’t drag his eyes from that baby. A great aching hole cracked open inside him.
‘Cute, huh?’ Kit whispered.
Yes!
Confusion, fear, desire al whipped through him.
Kit’s father had only visited Kit a few times a year. It had been enough for her until she’d discovered his betrayal. Could Alex manage that kind of minimal contact—three or four visits a year?
He’d thought his staying away would be best for this child. Now he wasn’t so sure. Kit’s story had shaken him, left him stranded in uncertain territory with the ground shifting beneath his feet.
‘Did you find out?’ The question scraped out of his throat, unbidden. He hadn’t meant to ask it. He hadn’t known he’d wanted to ask it.
‘Did I find out what?’
She continued to stare at the baby. Her face had gone soft, her lips curved upwards and her eyes shone. His heart pounded against the wal s of his ribs. ‘Did you find out the sex of the baby?’
She turned and smiled. ‘No. I want it to be a surprise. But if you’d like to know I’m sure the doctor would tel you.’
Her smile, her words, they took his breath away.
Perhaps she meant it. Perhaps she would let him be part of her baby’s life.
He stared at the mother and baby in the shal ows below and his arms started to ache with the longing for a child’s weight. Three or four times a year, it wasn’t much to ask. He remembered the smel of a baby. The newly washed, baby-powdered and slightly milky smel . The softness of a baby’s skin.
The surprising strength when a tiny hand gripped a finger.
Three or four times a year…
He scratched a hand back through his hair and then, without another word, he swung away and strode off towards the car.
CHAPTER NINE
‘THE barbecue is ready to go.’
Kit’s breath hitched, but she refused to turn from the bench where she tossed the salad. Alex—freshly showered—was making her heart beat just a little too hard. That was why she’d sent him outside to clean the barbecue plate.
‘Is it lit?’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
Her lips twitched at his mock subservience. She doubted Alex had a subservient bone in his body.
Nice body, though.
Oh, stop it!
She finished tossing the salad and wished her pulse would settle as easily. She tried to force her mind to mundane matters. Cooking, dinner, food.
Her mind refused. It wanted to dwel on Alex. On the breadth of his shoulders, the strength of his thighs. Thighs she’d had ample opportunity to examine when they’d been sitting on the breakwater.
She tried to resist glancing around at him. And failed. He met her gaze, moistened his lips. She wanted to groan. She wanted to reach up and wipe the tempting shine away.
That kiss on the breakwater…
Momentary lapse of concentration, her foot! It had been heaven.
And she’d love a repeat performance.
Her gaze zeroed in on those lips—lean, firm and magical. Alex cleared his throat. ‘What can I do now?’
His voice came out hoarse. She wrenched her gaze away. Cooking, dinner, food, that was what she needed to concentrate on.
Food…um—she’d seasoned the fish with butter, lemon juice and fresh herbs before w
rapping them in foil. They’d take no time at al to cook.
Dinner…um—she glanced at the stove. Jacket potatoes were nearly done. Salad was tossed.
Cooking…um—she lifted the platter of fish.
‘You can get out of my way, for starters, because this master chef needs room to move.’
With a bow, Alex held the door open for her. Her heart gal oped at the grin he sent her, flip-flopped and then gal oped again. She did her best to ignore it. ‘Could you bring that plate of corncobs with you?’
She sent up a prayer of thanks that her voice actual y worked.
After arranging the food on the barbecue, she glanced around her garden. The light was pink and gold and promised to last for another hour yet. A light breeze made the very top of the banksia sway every now and again. ‘How about we eat out here?’
‘A picnic?’
She wondered when Alex had last been on a picnic. She’d bet it was a long time ago. ‘Freshly caught fish tastes better eaten out of doors.’
Besides, he had sanded her two Cape Cod chairs and accompanying table and had painted them a crisp, clean white. They were crying out to be used.
‘Tel me the first word that comes to your mind when I say “fishing”?’
She wanted Alex to relax this evening. She wanted him to have fun. And then she wanted to talk.
‘Rocks,’ he returned.
She had an immediate image of his legs dangling over her rock on the breakwater earlier. Strong thighs and—
‘Mountains,’ she returned.
‘Himalayas.’
Good, no sexy images accompanied that word.
She turned the fish. And in the same spirit… ‘Yaks.’
‘Yaks?’
Laughter burst out of him and Kit refused to question the way her shoulders lightened. ‘Yeah, you know, big wool y animals with horns.’ At least she thought they had horns.
‘I know what a yak is.’ His grin when it came was sudden and blinding. ‘But in four steps we’ve jumped from fishing to yaks?’
Kit had to grin back. She physical y couldn’t help it. Besides, grinning wasn’t against the rules. ‘I’m trying to keep baby brain at bay. Caro has warned me that as soon as the baby is born, my brain wil turn to mush. I thought word association games and turn to mush. I thought word association games and the daily crossword might help counter its onset.’
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