A Father At Last (3 page)

The loud message on the store speakers snapped her out of her daze. She was standing in the middle of the children’s wear department, her mind filled with Ben, all her senses running a wide‐screen replay of those five minutes in the lift—five minutes with Ben Carter that threatened to knock down all the defences she’d built up over the last few years.

And then there was the bottle of perfume. She’d looked in the bag after he’d left the lift, and saw he’d bought the perfume she couldn’t afford. Which meant he
did
remember her favourite scent. Or more likely, she thought now, he knew she’d wanted it because he’d followed her.

She’d dropped the wad of cash, still in her hand, into the bag. What normal citizen walked round with a bunch of notes loose in a pocket instead of in a wallet? The whole lot, cash and perfume, could go to the women’s refuge she supported. Now, impossible as it seemed, she needed to concentrate on Dylan’s present.

Quickly, she located the tables holding the mini rugby jerseys and matching shorts—

easy to find since the focal point of the display was a life‐size male mannequin wearing All Blacks gear and bearing a remarkable resemblance to the New Zealand rugby team’s present captain.

Finding her son’s size on the well‐stocked tables wasn’t so easy, and besides, her concentration was shot to pieces by constant thoughts of Ben.

He’d tried to find her after their night together. Was that good or bad? Not good, she reminded herself. But then, she’d tried to find out about him when Dylan was a toddler.

Her discreet inquiries had come up with nothing. Googling his name on the net didn’t tell her anything new; there were the old news articles about the smart kid in trouble with the police and suspended indefinitely from his school for hacking into its computer system and handing out the confidential contents of teachers’ files to other students.

Julie Mac

There were the almost gleeful media follow‐ups of his earlier entrepreneurial black market hawking of soft drinks in the school grounds after the high school had banned the sale of fizzy drinks in the tuckshop. And later, a brief report from one of the local papers, covering his court appearance.

But nothing else. Surprising, she’d thought at the time, considering he’d been seen by some of her friends—more than once—hanging out in his early twenties with guys known as the local drug pedlars.

She’d found no clue as to where he lived or worked, not a single hit on any social networking sites.

Then, just a couple of years ago, she’d seen him in a television news clip of an incident at Auckland Airport’s domestic terminal. A man, his back to the security cameras, walked up to a prominent Member of Parliament and punched him in the face, hard. The portly middle‐aged MP buckled up, blood gushing from his fleshy face, while his assailant walked on calmly. Security guards rushed to grab the attacker, who made no effort to get away.

When the man, tall and dark‐headed, turned fractionally towards the security camera, Kelly knew she was looking at Ben Carter.

She’d scanned the news avidly for the next few days, and was amazed to read that the MP had declined to press charges. It was election year; he earned much‐needed brownie points by saying he wouldn’t waste precious court time and public money by bringing charges against the unidentified assailant, a poor, sad, loser. A stranger who was probably on drugs, and had done no real harm, the MP had said at the time.

And that was the last she knew of him. Of course, she could have phoned his parents, or called around to their home. A check in the phone book told her they were still at the same address. But knocking on their door would have caused all sorts of wrong conclusions. Besides, they were good, decent people; it was entirely possible they’d washed their hands of their wayward son.

“This store will close in two minutes. Please make your way to the exits.”

The disembodied voice on the department store speakers, polite but firm, brought her back to the present. She quickly paid at the counter and headed for the lifts with the last of the straggler shoppers.

As she left the shop, she thought of Dylan’s reaction to his new clothes. His eyes would light up with pleasure and excitement. His golden eyes, just like his daddy’s.

Ben grabbed a bottle from his fridge, sank into the sofa, and pushed the button on the TV

remote for the sports channel. He watched motor racing for a few minutes, but didn’t turn up the sound.

He took a long pull on his beer, then swore. He’d done something really dumb today, but he couldn’t bring himself to regret it.

A Father at Last

He hadn’t needed to follow her—not really. His scumbag colleagues had given up waiting for her long before she came out of the court building. He shouldn’t have followed her, shouldn’t have risked dragging her into his seedy underworld.

But seeing Kelly had been like a breakthrough of sun on a winter’s day, a ray of goodness and hope in an increasingly tawdry world. And once he’d seen her at the court, he couldn’t leave it at that. Couldn’t live with ‘hi and goodbye’ again, not this time. Six years and nine months ago, way back in the past, he’d been prepared to accept that she simply didn’t want him. After their night together, he’d tried—God, how he’d tried—to contact her, to find her. But it was clear she hadn’t wanted to hear from him, or see him, again.

Okay, he’d been man enough to accept that, even though it hurt like hell. He’d even been content to follow his mother’s counsel and leave well alone when he’d found an address for her three years ago. Making a pest of himself with a woman wasn’t Ben Carter’s style.

But seeing her today,
touching
her,
kissing
her,
tasting
her, changed everything.

He suppressed a groan and flicked through the channels, looking for something half-pie decent to take his mind off her, then gave up. In a few minutes, he’d make himself something to eat, and then he had to go out again. But first, there was a phone call to make.

He punched in a number on his mobile phone.

“Any progress, bud?” asked the person he’d called.

“Yeah, plenty,” said Ben. “I’ll deliver the goods, no worries. But I want more time.”

There was silence on the other end of the phone, then, “You’ve got that extra time, mate, but watch yourself out there.”

He put the phone down, picked up his Steinlager and let himself think of Kelly again.

She was strong and proud and every bit as attractive as when he’d seen her last.

Maybe more so. That golden‐red hair was still a curly, tangled temptation, her face still lively, intelligent and likely to turn the head of any male under the age of eighty.

He thought of those lowlifes he was with at court today, commenting and sniggering at her, and anger surged through his veins in a hot tide.

He picked up his beer, drank deeply—and resisted the temptation to bang the bottle down hard on the coffee table. Anger—any emotion—had no place in his life right now.

Anger displaced reason. Anger was unproductive. Anger was dangerous. As were other emotions. Like attraction to a woman.

He dropped his head into his hands.
Who the hell am I kidding?

He could still feel Kelly’s mouth under his, soft but eager—no, more than eager—

hungry, starving hungry. And if she was starving, he was ravenous. Courting Kelly right now was crazy, he knew that. But he wouldn’t let her go this time—couldn’t.

Julie Mac

Chapter 2

Long Bay was aptly named, Ben thought, just a little sourly, as he came to the northern end of the kilometre‐long stretch of golden sand on Auckland’s North Shore.

Walking along the beach, sussing out every group of young mums and little kids on the sand or in the water was downright embarrassing—even if he
was
wearing a cap pulled low on his head and face‐hiding sunglasses.

Trouble was, so were most of the young mums. At five thirty in the afternoon, the sun was still fierce. He’d thought Kelly, if she were here with her little boy and his friends, would be easy to spot with that mane of fiery hair. But if she’d tied it up and stuck a hat on top, and wore big sunglasses, it wasn’t going to be easy.

He headed for the grassy reserve behind the long strip of sand. There were picnic tables here, big stands of old pine trees for shade, and space for kids to kick a ball or fly a kite. He’d walk back down to the southern end, and if he didn’t see her, he’d call it quits.

He spotted a group of three young women, sitting at a picnic table under the trees, watching a bunch of little boys kicking a soccer ball around on the grass, between them and the beach. Then one of the mothers laughed, loud and uninhibited.

Kelly!

She was sitting on the far side of the table. Sure enough, her hair, loose around her shoulders and glinting in the sun, was a dead giveaway, even with the wide‐brimmed cowboy‐style sunhat she’d put on top.

Then he heard the little boy on the seaward side of the grassy strip call, “Hey, Dylan, kick it to me!”

Ben’s eyes homed in on the boy with the ball ten metres away, and at that moment, his life was changed forever.

The little fellow with the ball was wiry, his limbs tanned, his dark hair thick and wavy.

Instinct told Ben the truth.

Or maybe it was simple rationale: the boy was a dead ringer for Ben’s sister’s little boy.

You’re mine. My son.

A wild surge of joy and sorrow threatened to engulf him, and he had to fight the compulsion to rush over and scoop up the boy in a big bear hug.

A Father at Last

Oblivious, Dylan was laughing, carefree and happy, his feet toying with the ball.

Then he looked up, and kicked, but his aim was way off, and instead of heading straight for the other boy, the ball was coming to Ben.

Like an arrow to my heart.

Ben stopped the ball with his foot, but didn’t kick it back because at that moment, his phone vibrated in his pocket. He pulled it out, pushed a button and put it up to his ear.

“I’m listening,” he said, then, “yeah, yeah, will do. Hang on a minute, will you?”

Dylan had run after the ball, and now he was standing in front of Ben, looking up at him.

Trusting, innocent, his faith in human beings well and truly intact. Ben took off his sunnies and for a long moment, he and the boy made eye contact. The colour of the little boy’s eyes, the shape—the fall of the lashes—told Ben the truth.

He thought his heart might break. And then it filled with the brightest light when Dylan smiled.

“Hey, mister,” he said. “Do ya wanna play too?”

Too trusting maybe.

“No, you’re okay, buddy. But your mate over there’s waiting for the ball.” Ben inclined his head towards the boy standing on the seaward side of the grass strip, watching and waiting, and Dylan’s eyes followed.

“That’s my friend Lachlan. He’s real good at soccer ‘cause his dad’s our coach and he knows all the good moves. I’ve only got a mum, and she’s a real nice mum, but she doesn’t know
anything
about soccer.”

Ben felt a surge of emotion—hot and searing and so totally painful it threatened to take his breath away. Walk away, he told himself.
Walk away now, before you do something
really stupid.

But first… “If you want to improve your aim when you kick, you need to have a good look at where you’re kicking, fix that spot in your mind, then stroke the ball with the side of your foot—don’t just boot it.” He pushed the ball to Dylan with his foot. “Here, matey, you try it.”

“Thanks, mister.” Dylan flashed a grin at Ben, then his face was a picture of concentration as he lined up the ball and kicked, straight and true. An instant later he was gone, sprinting after the ball, laughing in delight as it shot directly to Lachlan, and calling back over his shoulder, “Hey, it worked. Thanks, man.”

Ben put the phone back to his ear.

“Sorry about that,” he said to the caller, “you were saying?” For the space of thirty seconds, while he listened to a fresh set of instructions, he allowed himself the luxury of standing and watching the boys play—Dylan, Lachlan and two others, kicking, tackling, Julie Mac

running, laughing.

Doing what boys should be doing. One of them booted the ball too hard and it shot off the grass and down the bank onto the sand. The other boys shouted good‐natured abuse at the kicker, then they all swarmed down the sandy bank and onto the beach.

Ben made himself a vow. One day he’d play soccer at the beach with Dylan and his friends. One day, when Dylan could call him
Dad
; when he could
be
Dylan’s dad. But not today. Not now. Not till all this was over, because right now, being Dylan’s dad could put the boy at risk, and he’d rather die than do that.

And then reality kicked in, hard and excruciatingly painful. He, Ben Carter, was never going to be a dad. Not now. Not when this gig was over. Never. He’d made a promise to himself a long, long time ago. He squared his shoulders, mentally getting a grip on his emotions.

It had seemed so easy then, so black and white.

But seeing Dylan—seeing this lively, living legacy of his own flesh and blood…

He had a sudden urge to suck in air, deep and fast, and realised he’d been holding his breath. “Say again,” he said to the caller at the other end of his phone, and this time he concentrated on the instructions.

Presently he said, “Don’t worry, the shipment’s on time and the stuff’ll be there. Just like we planned.” He finished the conversation and put his phone away.

“Are you stalking me?”

He hadn’t seen her approaching. Slack, he told himself. He’d allowed himself to be distracted.

He turned as Kelly stopped beside him. She looked younger and less tense than she had the other day; her cheeks were pink from the sun, and she’d swapped the severe black suit she’d worn in court for cream shorts and a cute little turquoise top that did amazing things for her figure.

Ben focussed on her blue eyes. Safer that way.

“Maybe.” He’d call it educated guesswork, mixed with instinct; Long Bay was a kid-friendly beach not far from the address he’d discovered for her three years ago. It was also just down the road from the high school they’d both attended, and had been a favourite teenage haunt of theirs.