A Father At Last (8 page)

“How about if I was a landscape gardener?” he asked presently, and she thought she heard the hint of laughter on his voice. “Would that be a safe enough occupation?”

She said nothing.

“Too risky, sweetness? I might chop my foot with the spade when I’m planting a tree and bleed to death.”

“That’s just plain silly,” she said, but she couldn’t help herself smiling with him.

He stepped forward then and wrapped both arms around her, drawing her into his body in a warm hug. His words had disturbed her, but his arms were strong and hard, and instinct told her she was safe with him. She resisted the wild impulse to press her hips closer to his. But it didn’t matter, because he was unable or unwilling to resist the urge to do the same to her, pulling her up close, into the strength of his body, hips touching hips.

He buried his head in the soft curve of her neck, and as she wrapped her arms around him and let her fingertips trace the steely ridges of muscle running on either side of his spine, she felt the warmth of his lips on her flesh, and knew she wanted more.

Experimentally, she moved against him, in the tiniest of squirms; he groaned A Father at Last

“Don’t”, and moved, putting space between them.

“You feel too good,” he said raggedly, then he released her and started packing up the chilly bin and gathering up the rug, and she felt oddly bereft.

“Come on, I’ll walk you to the car park,” he said, his voice still husky. They picked up their shoes and walked side by side, close but not touching. All the other cars had gone, bar hers, a black BMW, which she guessed was Ben’s, and the plumber’s van she noticed earlier.

At her car, he opened the back door and put the chilly bin on the floor behind the driver’s seat. “Take it home. There’s at least half a bottle of champagne left in there—have it tomorrow night. Shame to waste it.”

“Come home with me, Ben. Dylan’s not there.” The words were out before she was even conscious of opening her mouth. She turned to face him, and she knew the answer, saw it in his rigid stance, before he spoke.

“I can’t, sweetheart.” He reached out to draw her close. “Not tonight, I’m sorry.”

She was thankful it was dark so he couldn’t see the flush warming her cheeks. She’d misread the situation, obviously, and she felt a fool. She pulled back from his embrace as a sickening realisation dawned.

“Is there someone waiting at home for you? A wife? A girlfriend? I’m sorry, I didn’t think.” And then she was angry with herself for apologising. If he was already taken, he was the one who should be apologising.

“No wives, no girlfriends. Where’s Dylan?”

“What?”

“Dylan—you said he wasn’t at home. Who’s got him?”

“He’s staying overnight with my friend Marnie, and her husband Jamie. They’re his friend Lachlan’s parents and they live next door to us.”

He’d rejected her; it hurt and she wanted to know why. He didn’t have a partner waiting for him at home.
I can’t. Not tonight.
Of course! How could she be so naïve? Night time was when the players in the shady underworld he inhabited came out to do business.

“Are they good people?” He was looking down at her, waiting for an answer.

“Who?”

“Keep up, Kelly. This Maisie and her fella.”

“Her name’s Marnie, and yes, she and Jamie are very good people. And they’re great with Dylan. They’re going for a family holiday to the Gold Coast in a couple of days with their two boys, and they’re taking him with them.” She couldn’t help smiling. Dylan was going to love his first trip overseas, his first ride in an aeroplane.

“Terrific.” Ben wasn’t smiling. “And how long are they in Australia for?”

Julie Mac

“Ten days. I’ll miss him like mad, but he’ll enjoy every minute of it, so I’m glad he’s going.”

“Can you trust them to look after him properly? Will this Jamie bloke protect him from sharks? And snakes? And crocodiles, goddammit?”

“Absolutely.” Kelly felt laughter bubbling up. She’d always loved Ben’s crazy sense of humour. “We’re talking Gold Coast holiday resort here, not the wilds of the Northern Territory. And anyway, Jamie’s great with him—like a dad really…” The laughter died on her lips.

Ben’s face, his whole body, was granite‐still, his tension palpable. He said nothing.

She tried to read his eyes, but in the soft wash of the street lights, they were no more than murky pools.

Now. Tell him now. Tell him the truth.
She took a long, slow breath, but before she could form the words she knew she must say, he was speaking again.

“Would you trust his real father—his blood father—to take him away on holiday?

Without you?” He spoke softly, but his words were strained and compressed, as if dredged from some great depth. It must have been a rhetorical question because he continued, obviously not expecting an answer.

“Do you lie awake at night, Kelly, scared, wondering if Dylan’s father might turn up on your doorstep one day and claim custody—part time, full time, for holidays, whatever?”

Fear hit in an icy blast, clutching her chest in its evil grip. Her heart squeezed blood, heavy as lead, too fast, too much; her lungs pumped in hard, short bursts.

She’d lost her dad, she’d lost her mum.

Her heart squeezed tighter.

How could she ever bear to lose her precious baby—her beautiful boy?
He’s mine!

She wanted to cry out the words,
pummel
Ben with them.

Instead, she reached back with her hands, searching for support against her car.

“No,” she whispered raggedly, shaking her head from side to side, knowing she told a monumental lie.

He took her hands then, pulling her into a tight embrace and gently guiding her head into the crook of his shoulder.

“Don’t,” he whispered, close to her ear. “Don’t be afraid.”

They stood like that for what seemed to Kelly a long time. He’d just voiced her worst nightmare, but somehow, crazy as it seemed, his whispered words of comfort and the strength of his arms, his body, wrapped around hers, were soothing, and gradually, her heart slowed and her breathing returned to normal. And as it did, the irrational flight or fight response of her body was conquered by logic. Ben wasn’t a threat, she reasoned, because Ben didn’t know he was Dylan’s father. He was talking hypothetically. Of course he was.

A Father at Last

She was aware then of him shifting his stance and she felt his hand trail down her face in a gentle caress.

“Will you be okay, sweetheart, going home on your own?” he asked softly, looking down at her and seeking out her eyes.

She nodded.

“I’ll call you,” he said, kissing her briefly on the lips, and reaching around her to open the driver’s door. Then he bent to put on his shoes.

She slid into the car, and pulled out her phone from under the dash. “Give me your number,” she said, “and I’ll text you so you’ve got my number too.”

She had her phone in her hand and her fingers ready to tap in his number when she heard him say, “Goodbye, babe.”

He shut the door on her and walked away. For ten seconds she sat, eyes wide, breathing suspended, as she listened to his retreating footsteps. Then she started her car and headed for the road without looking back.

Julie Mac

Chapter 4

“There’s a call for you from a Mr Carter, Kelly.”

Kelly froze at her desk. Mr Carter? Mr
Ben
Carter?

“Kelly? Can you take the call?”

“Ah…yes. No! Mr Carter, did you say?”

“Mr Carter. Can you take his call? Yes or no?”

Jess, the receptionist, in her forties, sophisticated and downright bossy, was close to losing patience with her, she could tell. She took a deep breath, and Jess must have heard it down the phone line because she said, “Come on Kelly, you can do it,” and now there was laughter in her voice. “This Mr Carter sounds like one hell of a hot guy. Do yourself a favour and talk to him.”

She let out a long breath. “Okay, Jess, put him through.”

“Kelly Atkinson.” She used her best professional voice.

“I need to see you again, Kelly. Can you meet me tonight after work?”

She closed her eyes. And smiled. Even after all these years, his voice sounded just the same on the phone—all close up and intimate, as if his mouth was hovering near her ear. And he
did
want to see her again; in typical Ben style, he’d got straight to the point.

But did she want to see him again, risk her feelings getting the better of her—her reckless, unthinking feelings?
Think of an excuse.

“I’m…um…going to the movies with a girlfriend.”

“Cancel. Now, are you on for tonight?”

Kelly picked up a pen and doodled on her desk pad, thinking furiously. Dylan had been gone two days, and it was lonely at home. An evening out would be nice.

Nice!
She wrote the word in big letters on her desk pad and then scribbled it out.

Nice wasn’t what a date with Ben Carter would be. Dangerous, yes. Exciting, yes. But not
nice.

“Say something, Kelly.” She could almost hear him drumming his fingers against his phone.

“Wait! I’m thinking.”

She wrote the word ‘
NO’
on her pad. Ben was bad news. He stirred impulses in her A Father at Last

she didn’t want stirred.

She was supposed to be telling him he had a son. All week, she’d agonised over her decision, lying awake each night for hours, reliving the fear his words had provoked, trying desperately to hang on to logic.

She wrote ‘
NO’
again, in bigger letters this time, then she remembered her vow to herself at the beach the other night. She’d help Ben see that his way of life was all wrong. Or at least try. She owed him that much for the friendship he’d given her through those awful years when her father was arrested and then in prison. She’d try to set him on the right track.

“Yes,” she said.

Ben jumped on a bus, which took him out west, where he caught a cab back into Auckland’s city centre. He got the driver to drop him downtown, just a short walk through a shopping mall to the car park building where he rented a short‐term space for one of his vehicles.

He’d taken more precautions than he really needed to. But then, he’d never forgive himself if somehow Kelly came to any harm because of her association with him. He checked his rear vision mirror frequently as he headed north over the harbour bridge. The stakes had got a whole lot higher in the last week or so.

The deals were bigger, so was the danger. For the moment, those scumbags in whose world he was forced to operate were quiet. But they were mad dogs and if things went wrong, they’d destroy anything or anyone who got in the way.

He was taking a calculated risk seeing Kelly, but if he had to disappear quickly, he wanted some memories to take with him. And there was still something he needed to tell her.

Kelly found the place easily and knew immediately why he’d chosen this spot. The private show garden was out in the country, just north of the city in an exclusive lifestyle block belt where plush, oversized houses stood in grand splendour, surrounded by five or ten acres of pasture, usually with a pony or two and maybe some sheep grazing in the paddocks.

Here, there was almost zero chance of running into any of the crooks he dealt with—

not like there would have been if they’d met at a bar or restaurant in the city.

She paid an entry fee at the gate and drove down the long, liquidambar‐lined drive to a parking area beside a cute little café. The gardens and café were open to the public late on summer evenings, and there were half a dozen other cars in the car park, none of which seemed to contain Ben.

Julie Mac

She parked and walked over to the café to study the blackboard menu outside.

Suddenly, he was beside her.

She jumped. “Do you always just appear like that, from nowhere?”

“Not always.” He kissed her on the cheek and then took her hand, his touch sparking a thousand delicious memories. “Come on, let’s go and look at the gardens. We can come back to the café later.”

He started walking before she had a chance to kiss him back, or even agree—not that she objected to walking with him. It felt good to have a man take her hand so confidently, and what red‐blooded woman in her right mind would turn down the chance to stroll hand in hand through a beautiful garden on a lovely summer’s evening with a good-looking man?

She was glad she’d left work early so she had time to shower and change before she came here. She wore her new blue silk top, teamed with a pair of summery white three-quarter pants and her pretty strappy sandals, and she’d spent a good ten minutes with the straightening iron on her humidity‐frizzed hair.

A couple of young women passed them, heading in the opposite direction, and Kelly saw the looks of appreciation they shot Ben’s way.

When they’d gone, she turned to him, smirking. “Still turning heads, I see.”

He pretended not to have noticed. “Why would I look at other women when I’ve got you by my side?” he asked, gripping a little tighter on her hand and pulling her closer to steer her past a rough spot on the path. He wasn’t laughing and Kelly experienced a rush of pure pleasure. The memories were there, hot, strong and undiluted by the passage of time—his skin against hers, his mouth on hers, their bodies moving as one.

She gave herself up to the sensations washing over her. This wasn’t real and couldn’t last, but for now it was nice—yes, nice, she thought, remembering the word she’d scribbled on her desk pad—to have at her side someone who was good‐looking and desirable.

Someone who cared, someone admiring, someone
protective.
She thought of all those growing‐up years she’d gone through without a dad there when she needed him, or even a big brother or an uncle.

But Ben had been there, right beside her, standing up for her when the other kids at school teased her in those early days of her father’s trouble. He’d got into a few fights on her behalf, too.

She squeezed on his hand and sighed.

“What are you thinking, Kelly?” He turned to look at her, frowning as he studied her face.