Their Newborn Gift Read online

  Her answer was simple. ‘I don’t lie.’ She’d made some bad choices in her life, but she’d lasted thirty years without letting a lie knowingly cross her lips. She wasn’t about to start now. ‘It was the last thing my mother asked of me.’ The only thing she’d asked.

  Let no lie into your heart, baby girl.

  Reilly’s eyes went straight to Molly. He was right; she’d been Molly’s age at the time. Her heart squeezed, imagining for one moment that Molly might go through what she had. Watching her mother just waste away. Begging her—literally, on her tiny, scabbed knees—not to go. That she’d be a good girl. A better girl. Her tiny heart fracturing.

  Lea’s throat thickened now and her hand tightened in her daughter’s hair.

  ‘You’ve kept that pledge your whole life?’ His voice was gentle. ‘I’m sure that’s not what she would have wanted.’

  ‘No. But it’s something I could do. For her.’ She sucked back the sting of tears and met Reilly’s eyes again. ‘It became a habit. And then an obsession. It was so hard at times—at school, with my sisters, my father. I feel like going back on it now would make all of that pain worthless.’

  The clock ticked quietly. ‘So I could ask you anything and you’d have to tell me the truth?’

  ‘Not have to. Choose to, yes.’ She glared at him warily. Necessity had forced her to become queen of the loophole: it wasn’t a lie if you didn’t answer. It wasn’t a lie if you talked around it. It wasn’t a lie if you tackled a question with another question.

  Deflection. Avoidance. Fast talking.

  Reilly nodded, then went back to his spreadsheet.

  Lea’s heart thundered. ‘Aren’t you going to ask me something?’ His eyes lifted back to hers. ‘You look like you’re burning to.’

  He stared at her hard. The room lost some of its air. ‘I want to know a lot of things about you, Lea Curran. But I figure it’s like gentling a horse; just because I can force it to my will doesn’t mean I want to. I figure you’ll tell me when you’re ready.’

  When—not if. Reilly could have taken her bared throat and sliced her to ribbons, but he hadn’t.

  He dropped his lashes for a moment then lifted them again, his eyes blazing, his voice a kiss. ‘I tried to find you.’

  She sucked in a breath.

  ‘I’d almost convinced myself that you were a figment of my imagination. If not for a few of my mates who’d seen us leave the pub together, if not for the significant muscle-strain from our…marathon, you might have been a dream.’

  They’d spoken before of that night but not like this. Never as though it had been a good thing.

  ‘I couldn’t believe in a community as small and fragmented as ours that I couldn’t find one woman. I had a handful of facts and a physical description, and I traipsed around town like Prince Charming with the glass slipper, but no one from the district knew you. I ended up thinking you were a tourist from the Eastern States. And all along you were right round the corner.’

  In the sparsely populated Kimberley, three hours away was.

  Lea sat up straighter and stroked Molly’s hair reassuringly. ‘I didn’t want to be found. I never meant to tell you anything about me at all that night. But you were easy to talk to. You listened. You seemed to understand.’

  His smile had her heart flipping. ‘I had incentive. The longer I kept you talking, the longer you would stay.’

  A complicated silence fell on the toasty little room. Lea cleared her throat.

  ‘I’m sorry I left like that.’

  His smile was wry. ‘I understand now. And it turned out to be good for me—a lesson of sorts.’

  ‘That’s very zen of you.’

  Reilly chuckled. ‘Seriously. A taste of my own medicine. You were exactly as anonymous as I usually liked women. But not being able to find you when I wanted to was very irritating. And the way you left…’ He sighed. ‘I’d done that myself on occasion. It wasn’t fun.’

  Lea blushed. ‘You can’t say I wasn’t memorable, then.’

  His eyes grew serious. Darker. ‘Lea, that’s the least of the reasons you were memorable.’ He glanced back down briefly. ‘Knowing you as I do now, I can see how out of character that night must have been for you. Why you might have crept out at first light.’

  Accord. She’d not expected to have that between them.

  She cleared her throat, dropped her eyes to the pile of papers under his fingers. ‘Would you like some help with your books?’ His eyebrows lifted and her hackles twitched, ready to spring into action. ‘Are you more surprised I’m offering to help you or that I can count?’

  Laughter rumbled through the room like the thunder that rolled across the horizon; it skirted the edges of her skin and left raised hairs in its wake. ‘You didn’t strike me as a numbers girl,’ he said.

  She frowned. ‘Who do you think does all my finances? Did you notice a team of assistants littering Yurraji?’

  He let the papers drop to the table. ‘You mentioned a stockbroker.’

  ‘To broker my share-trading. I manage the portfolio. I do the accounting.’ Had he never noticed the commerce degree framed on her wall? What did he think she’d filled the years between school and Molly with?

  ‘You? You track the stock exchange?’

  She dropped her magazine to the floor on a soft exclamation, conscious of the sleeping child on her lap. ‘You are the father of at least one girl, Reilly. You’re going to have to become accustomed to females being able to do things.’ The spectre of Bryce Curran shivered through the room. ‘I fully expect you to doubt every part of my capacity, but I hope you won’t treat Molly that way. She’s going to have enough self-doubt to manage.’

  He finally managed to blink; he sat back in his chair and turned the spreadsheet slightly in silent invitation. Lea tucked a cushion carefully under Molly’s head then padded around to Reilly’s side of the desk. She stepped in next to him and rested one hand on the gorgeous mahogany desk.

  She scanned the top page and then quickly reviewed the pages under it, specifically not thinking about how close she was standing to him, and how all that heat coming off his body was affecting her.

  ‘What am I looking for?’

  Reilly explained the discrepancy he was trying to locate—missing funds from a half-shipment of stock-feed. Lea located the original payment and then scanned the following figures. She settled in more comfortably next to him, slightly in front, conscious on her periphery of his eyes watching her. She sensed them travelling from her fingers that moved briskly down the rows of figures in his spreadsheet, up her arms and to her shoulders. To the curve of her ever-expanding breasts. Up to the angle of her jaw. Down to her pregnant belly.

  How was a woman supposed to count with all that looking going on?

  She hissed sideways at him. ‘I can see you, Reilly.’ She leaned further forward to block his gaze and only managed to dislodge it for a moment before it fluttered to rest on her bottom—also expanding rapidly, these days.

  ‘Reilly…’ She straightened, frowning.

  His apology was the least sorry she’d ever heard. But he let his expensive chair roll back so that she could get right in between him and his computer without practically sitting in his lap. She set to work on the electronic version of the data, collecting, tagging, dragging. A couple of formulas here, a few linked fields there; nothing she wasn’t used to. It was first-year accounting.

  All the while she was conscious of the man behind her, probably still examining her denim-clad bottom as closely as he’d run through his figures.

  ‘Bingo.’ Her eyes narrowed just as they fell on a number that seemed suspiciously out of place in its column. The discrepancy, an error in a single formula. Reilly pushed to his feet behind her and peered over her shoulder as she highlighted the guilty cell on the screen. ‘You have a one in this formula, where a point-five should be.’

  This close, the clean cotton smell of him tantalised her receptors. He practically cloaked her with hi
s body. And he knew it, guaranteed. His breath was warm against her ear as he spoke; his confusion, at least, was completely genuine.

  ‘How did you find that?’

  She couldn’t turn to speak to him without ending up pressed against him, and she couldn’t step away easily. Standing still was presently the best option. Never mind that it felt fabulous, like she was born to fit into his body. ‘I fragmented your data, subbed it out and it was fine. It was just on this page that it went hinky. So I traced it back, and…’

  She saw his face turn towards hers in the reflection of the computer monitor. Felt his words against her ear.

  ‘You make bookkeeping sound so much better than dirty talk.’

  His voice was husky and his closeness drugged her. Her eyes glanced briefly at a soundly sleeping Molly and then fluttered closed. She tipped her head imperceptibly away from him, lengthening her throat. She needed his lips there—needed, not wanted. Her body was responding in total violation of her mind.

  ‘Shall I talk to you about vectors?’ She threw the joke out like a lifeline and then clung to it, bobbing dangerously in a tide of attraction.

  Reilly chuckled again and leaned past her to alter the formula on his computer. His broad chest rubbed against her shoulder—only her shoulder—but Lea doubled her hold on that lifeline.

  Breathe! In…out…‘I take it you’re not so good with figures?’

  ‘Not the mathematical kind.’ His lopsided grin caused her pulse to hitch. ‘I don’t see the logic. I don’t know most of the rules.’ He studied her closely—microscope-close. She stiffened. ‘Lea, would you consider doing my books while you’re staying here? Maybe teach me how you work them?’

  Her eyebrows plunged into a wrinkle-forming frown. ‘You’re asking for my help?’ Admitting he wasn’t good at something—the great Reilly Martin? What was she supposed to do with that? She hadn’t really seen that happening in her life, and certainly hadn’t expected it from him. It dawned on her that maybe he was baring his throat just a little bit too.

  Just that simple act had her heart thumping. She forced it to slow. Having warm and fuzzy thoughts was not going to help her situation. She didn’t want to start connecting with him. Liking him.

  Needing him.

  He regarded her seriously. ‘I haven’t built Minamurra up to this level by doing everything myself, or kidding myself that I can. I play to the strengths of my team, and right now your accounting strengths are looking pretty good to me. I’m not too proud to stand back and let you help me.’

  Lea took a deep breath. She was officially out of her depth. The men she knew were all doers—obnoxious and painful with it—like her father, who believed he simply could not make a mistake. Or determined, resolute and uber-capable, like Jared.

  Here was a man’s man—a hundred-proof outback ringer—not only admitting he couldn’t do something as well as she, but giving her the chance to run with it. Letting her have her head.

  Lea took it, but not without a healthy dose of humour to shelter behind. ‘Sure. After all, we can’t have you blowing our children’s inheritance on bad bookkeeping.’

  A crack of thunder overhead made them both jump.

  Reilly fought hard to keep his face neutral, knowing that was as close to a breakthrough with Lea as he had ever got. ‘Our children?’

  Furious heat flared into her face. ‘Your children, of course.’ The flush worsened. ‘That is, your child. I don’t expect…for Molly…’

  He rested a calming hand on her forearm. ‘Molly will always be my daughter, Lea, no matter who she lives with. If she wants Minamurra when I’m gone, she’ll have it.’

  Our children. The all-too-familiar kick in his guts was back, but this time it felt good, less of a kick and more of a tug. Like someone had reached low into his belly and yanked. A strangely pleasurable sensation. It wasn’t sexual, although it could easily become so with very little encouragement from him. There was just something disturbingly right about sharing the office all afternoon with this woman and their child as the first big rain of the wet dumped down outside. Molly napping, Lea resting and reading, him doing the books.

  It was as though they’d been doing it for ever instead of just weeks. It was now their default activity as soon as the bruising of the sky heralded rain. He’d never looked forward to a downpour so much. He’d hoped a month would be enough to get Lea—that kiss—out of his system. Spending more than a few days with a woman tended to do that, in his experience.

  He’d thought it would be enough to sort his feelings about Molly out, too. But the sound of little feet pattering on timber floors was already as familiar to him as the rain splattering steadily down on Minamurra’s tin roof. Loading pixie-sized bowls and cutlery into the dishwasher just felt right. Having a second breakfast with Molly after a couple of hours of early-morning outdoor work had become a pleasant ritual. The more time he spent with his daughter, the more he wanted.

  Not occasionally—not once a month, not on access visits—always.

  But ‘always’ was going to be a problem.

  He stood rapidly and moved to the window, cutting Lea out of his vision and staring out to where God’s Gift circled the paddock, still very much his obstinate self, even as gallons of the purest Kimberley water tumbled relentlessly onto him from the sky. It did nothing to dampen the stallion’s ardour for the one female remaining in season in the next paddock.

  If anything, the rain enhanced it. Every living creature out there was synchronised to the seasons and, as the air grew increasingly laden with moisture, hormones raced and every species started twitching with the sudden imperative to reproduce.

  He closed his eyes and breathed in air rich with Lea’s scent. Every single part of her radiated fertility. Her skin was smoother, her hair was glossier and her eyes were brighter. Her body, despite its changing shape, was fit and firm and so damned woman that he was cold-showering every single day.

  Had he ever felt this way before? It was ridiculous to be responding to the metre of the land himself as though he’d walked its hard, red surface for thousands of years instead of just thirty-one. Knowing his child grew in Lea’s fertile belly was messing with his head. The pregnant land around him was making him think things, want things, he never would have otherwise. See things that weren’t there. Feel things that weren’t real. Teasing him with possibilities that just wouldn’t eventuate. The attractive woman, growing with the child he’d never thought he’d have. The instant family.

  Lea was in this for one thing only: the stem cells that would save Molly. But it was getting complicated for her too. In the reflection of the window, he watched her hand absently stroking her rounded belly. She was bonding with their baby, whether she recognised it or not. How would she manage when the time came to hand over the child? Her heart wasn’t nearly as hard as he’d always imagined, it was soft and vulnerable and liable to tear right open. The parts that weren’t so obviously scarred over from a life with Bryce Curran.

  He frowned. What kind of father would he be to his children? He looked at Molly again, and then let his eyes slide to the mantel above her, to the one photo in the house of the people that had raised him—a hard, emotionally distant mother and a father too tightly bound by her influence to protect his struggling son. That kind of example didn’t bode well for his chances of success as a dad.

  His chest tightened.

  They made quite a pair—he with absolutely no idea where to begin being a good father, and Lea who’d lost her mother so young, been estranged from her father and was double-reinforced with layers of protection against any possible hurt. Both of them were hell-bound to give their child a better start in life than they had had themselves. His lips twisted on the realisation.

  Just when he’d thought the only thing they had in common was Molly.

  He glanced at the sky, still grey-packed but thinning out at last. He turned as he murmured Lea’s name. Her eyes lifted, still guarded, but not like they had been—another change he
was sure she wasn’t aware of. ‘Can we keep Molly up a bit later this evening? There’s something I’d like you both to see.’

  It was true—he did want Molly to see what he loved about Minamurra—but it was also an excuse. Just another misguided chance to spend more time with her mother.

  ‘You’ll need to bring a raincoat.’

  Chapter Ten

  ‘REILLY, this is crazy. I’m nearly six months’ pregnant.’

  Reilly peered over the roof of his feed-shed and smiled down at her. ‘This from the woman who can do anything? It’s just a ladder, Lea.’

  One minute he wouldn’t let her open a can of spaghetti without a support team, and the next he was hauling her up onto a rooftop during an electrical storm. The man was as unpredictable as the Kimberley weather. But he was impossible not to trust.

  Lea caged in an excited Molly with her torso as they climbed the first few rungs of the ladder. Reilly reached down and engulfed the two little hands that stretched towards him and pulled Molly up onto the rooftop. A moment later two happy faces reappeared back over the edge.

  The smaller one beaming, and as dear to Lea as her own life.

  The other one rapidly catching up.

  She frowned and had brief words with herself; self-lectures were become a regular necessity. Reinforcing the reality of her situation was the only way she could keep herself grounded, not buying into the temporary, happy-family fantasy she was living.

  ‘Give me your hand.’ He stretched sure fingers towards her, smiling as he saw her glance nervously at the ground. ‘We haul sacks of feed up these ladders, Lea. I don’t think your slight weight will trouble it too much.’

  Another flattering comparison, but not far off how she was feeling two thirds of the way through her pregnancy. She made a joke of it before he could. ‘Not so slight these days. Better hold on tight.’ She slid her clammy hand into his warm one.

  ‘Mummy hates heights.’ Molly dropped her right in it. Some reward for a lifetime of motherly service.