The Rancher's Adopted Family (4 page)

Have I done the right thing, baby?

She padded on bare feet down the darkened hall to the kitchen and found an electric jug and the makings for tea. On her way back, mug in hand, she saw light coming from beneath a door just across the hallway.

Was it Seth’s room?

The possibility made her skin flush hot.

Fool.

In her room, she piled up her pillows and sat in bed in a small pool of lamplight, nursing a mug of hot, sweet tea.

She thought about Rachel, and was swamped by a tidal wave of grief. If only she hadn’t invited Rachel to the launch party. For the trillionth time, she wished that she could go back into the past and change that night. Rachel had always been so full of life, so brimming with can-do confidence and charisma. She shouldn’t be dead.

Their friendship had been so strong, an attraction of opposites. Rachel was brilliant and wild and she’d always claimed that Amy was calming and steadying.

‘Amy’s my anchor,’ she used to tell people.

Guys were forever falling in love with Rachel—so much so that she should have had a warning light, like a lighthouse. Amy’s brother, Ryan, had been smitten, but he’d come to his senses eventually and married his sensible, sweet Jane instead.

For her part, Rachel had loved the attention of men, always had a boyfriend on tap, but somehow she’d managed to stay immune, never really falling in love.

Until her trip north.

‘You should have been there, Ames,’ she’d said, on that night she’d finally opened up. ‘I needed you there, to keep me on the ground. I lost my head completely.’

Swiping at tears, Amy thought about Seth. She wondered if he was looking at the photo album now. Would he sleep tonight? Or was he totally calm again?

Was he thinking about Rachel? About Bella?

He’d looked so terrible tonight when she’d told him her news, and the memory of the deep lines of pain etched in his face sent a throbbing ache to the middle of her chest.

It was so silly to care so much about a man she’d only just met, but she couldn’t help it. There was something about Seth Reardon that
got
to her—something elemental and deep. Whether he was happy or sad, whenever she was near him, she felt in danger of drowning.

She’d known, from the moment she first saw him—gosh, had it only been this morning?—that he wasn’t a man who would take fatherhood lightly. Chances were, Seth wouldn’t take any relationship lightly—which meant there was a distinct possibility that he’d really,
really
loved Rachel.

Without warning, Amy’s tears began to fall in earnest, and she buried her face in the pillow so she wouldn’t wake Bella.

The photo album lay abandoned on the nightstand.

Seth had taken a look at it, leafing quickly through the pages, catching glimpses of Bella as a tiny newborn, and later, as a gummy, smiling infant…later still, as a sturdy toddler, learning to walk…

He’d seen pictures of Rachel looking surprisingly maternal, and healthy and happy. There’d even been a shot of Amy, hovering somewhere in the background behind a cake with pink icing and two striped candles. But he’d had to set the book aside. It was too hard to look at these happy snaps.

Amy had offered them to him in all innocence, but she had no idea of the size and force of the bombshell she’d dropped this evening.

She thought he’d fathered Rachel Tyler’s baby.

He’d never dreamed that Rachel was pregnant when she left Serenity, but, hell, in many ways everything would be a whole lot easier if he were the little girl’s father. He would face up to the responsibility, and he could have worked something out with Amy—a way to share custody of Bella, perhaps. Truth be told, the thought of spending more time with Amy was enticing.

But it was a fantasy.

He wasn’t Bella’s father. He hadn’t slept with Rachel.

Not once.

Never.

The real story was something else entirely, and it smothered him with a mountain of guilt and heartache.

While Rachel had flirted openly with him almost as
soon as she’d arrived at Serenity, Seth had sensed she could spell trouble and he’d given her the brush-off, so she’d set her sights…elsewhere…

With tragic consequences.

Those consequences were the cross Seth had to bear, but they were too painful to share this evening with a warm-hearted, soft-eyed girl like Amy.

With a harsh groan, he launched to his feet and began to prowl.

This whole business was more complicated than Amy could possibly have imagined and he needed time—days, weeks,
years
—to work out the best way to explain it to her.

Damn it, he didn’t want to burden her with the truth. Not so soon. She’d been such a loyal friend to Rachel. She’d put her career on hold and she’d devoted herself to Bella, and she’d come all this way, to do something Rachel should have done three years ago.

Reaching for the album, Seth looked again at the photo of Amy, smiling in the background. Her dark eyes were so warm and pretty, and just looking at her made him want to smile.

She was as generous and open-hearted as his uncle had been when he’d taken Seth in after his father died, giving him a home, an education, a sense of belonging. Family.

Seth owed so much to his father’s younger and much admired brother, after whom he’d been named.

But now…damn it…what was the right thing to do?

He couldn’t turn his back on this little girl. How had Amy described her?
Cutest thing on two legs
.

Too true.

Thing was, it would be easy to wash his hands of this, to tell Amy she was mistaken, that he wasn’t the father. Send her packing.

Except—he felt such a weight of responsibility…and it was all so painful…and even though Amy was warm and compassionate, he didn’t feel ready to talk to a woman he’d just met about what had happened…

He needed time.

‘Wake up, Amy! Wake up!’

Amy felt small fingers trying to prise her eyelids apart.

‘It’s too early,’ she moaned, refusing to open her eyes.

She’d had a dreadful night, endlessly tossing and turning, and she felt as if she’d fallen into a deep sleep only five minutes ago. But a sudden knock at the door brought her smartly awake.

‘Man!’ Bella squealed, gleefully slipping from the bed. ‘Man at the door!’

With a groan, Amy pushed her bedclothes aside and swung her feet to the floor. She had no idea of the time, but daylight was streaming through the shutters.

Bella was banging on the door. ‘Hello, man!’

‘His name’s Seth,’ Amy grumbled. She couldn’t remember where she’d left her dressing gown and she grabbed up a silk wrap to throw around her shoulders to cover her nightgown. ‘Bella, you can’t keep calling him man. Say Seth.’

‘Sef.’

‘That’s better.’ Amy grimaced at her reflection. She looked a fright—hair everywhere, dark circles under her eyes.

There was another knock.

‘Hello, Sef man,’ Bella called through the door.

With one hand clasping the wrap modestly over her front, Amy ran frantic fingers through her hair, but
she knew it wouldn’t improve her appearance. She opened the door.

Seth, freshly showered and shaved, was rather too much at such an early hour, but she didn’t have time to go weak at the knees. She was distracted by Bella’s shriek of joy.

‘Hello, Sef!’ the little girl shouted, and she beamed a gorgeous smile up at him, holding her arms up to be lifted.

For a moment, Amy thought he might resist the appeal of those little outstretched hands, but after only the briefest hesitation he bent down and scooped Bella high.

‘How are you this morning, possum?’

Giggling, Bella planted a wet kiss on his cheek and hugged him hard. Amy choked back her surprise. When had this pair become such firm friends?

She watched Seth’s ears redden, but with the typical fickleness of a two-year-old the little girl was soon wriggling to be set down again.

Seth’s smile was shy as he took in Amy’s dishevelled appearance. ‘I see I’m too early for you.’

‘I forgot you cattlemen get up at the crack of dawn.’

His eyes shimmered with mild amusement as he took in her nightgown and her efforts at modesty. He glanced at his wristwatch.

‘What’s the time?’ she asked.

‘Seven-forty.’

‘Oh…well…not exactly dawn, then.’

‘Breakfast’s at eight. Is that too early?’

‘No, that’s fine, thank you.’

She dropped her gaze, unsure what to say now. She wondered if Seth had adjusted to the news that he was Bella’s father. Even though he looked calm enough, he could be angry that she’d come to Serenity under false pretences. Last night she’d lain awake worrying and
imagining that he’d send her packing this morning, straight after breakfast.

‘It’s stopped raining,’ Seth said. ‘So you might have an opportunity to take some photos after all.’

‘Really? That’s great.’ She felt her heart skip in relief. So, not straight after breakfast, at least.

Behind her, Bella began bouncing on her bed, treating it like a trampoline.

Amy whirled around. ‘Bella, stop that, or you’ll fall.’ She reached out to catch the little girl’s hand.

‘I was thinking it would be good if you could stay on for a bit longer than we’d planned,’ Seth said, ignoring the distraction.

Amy blinked at him from beneath tumbled hair.

‘You came here because you wanted me to get to know Bella,’ he said. ‘So it doesn’t really make sense that you should rush away too soon.’

‘I—I—’ Catching giggling Bella in mid-jump, Amy held her close to keep her still. ‘I’d have to change my flights.’

‘I’m sure we could arrange that.’

She rubbed at her forehead, trying to clear her sleep-fuzzed brain. ‘You were so upset last night. Are you sure you want us to stay?’

‘I’ve had time to think, to get used to everything. I’d like the chance to get to know Bella. I’d like her—both of you—to enjoy Serenity.’

‘Will your uncle mind?’

Seth’s face seemed to cave in. Shadows darkened his eyes and his throat worked. ‘My uncle’s not here. He died a couple of years ago.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ she said, but it was hard to feel the appropriate depth of sympathy when she hadn’t known
his uncle, especially when her stomach was fluttering madly at the possibility of staying on, alone with Seth.

Amy couldn’t think why she was hesitating. This invitation was exactly what she’d come north to achieve. Twenty-four hours ago, time on Serenity so that Bella could get to know her father had been her primary goal. Her dream.

Twenty-four hours ago, she hadn’t met Seth Reardon. She hadn’t developed a silly, useless and problematic crush that would only get worse if she spent more time with him. But there were other problems, too. There was every chance that Seth would fall for sweet Bella as swiftly and certainly as she had fallen. How would she cope if Seth wanted to keep Bella?

Part of Amy wanted very much to whisk the little girl safely back to Melbourne and to resume her life. She couldn’t give her little girl up.

She would have to make it clear that Bella couldn’t stay at Serenity permanently. That had never been her plan.

Amy knew how Rachel had felt about remote Cape York, and yesterday she’d seen for herself how far Seth’s home was from anywhere else. It was no place for a single dad to try to raise a sociable toddler.

‘Look, I’ll give you time to think about it,’ Seth said, backing down the hall. ‘We can talk about it at breakfast.’

‘No, it’s OK.’ Amy sent him an apologetic smile. ‘It’s a good idea and we’d love to stay. Thank you.’

‘Terrific.’ Seth smiled in a way that put creases in the suntanned skin around his bright blue eyes. ‘We’ll have breakfast on the front veranda at a little after eight. You just have to turn left at the end of the hallway.’

‘OK. Thanks.’

It was only after Seth had gone that Amy realised her
wrap had fallen during their conversation—while she was trying to catch the bouncing Bella, no doubt. She’d been standing here, talking to Seth in her fine cotton nightgown, exposed in all its transparent glory.

A glance in the mirror showed her just how much of her Seth had seen, and a blushing river of heat flooded her.

At least he’d been too polite to stare at her breasts.

She wished she could take more comfort from that.

H
OLDING
Bella’s hand, Amy went down the hallway, turned left, as Seth had directed, and walked into a stream of sunshine.

And an idyllic tropical paradise.

‘Goodness, Bella, where are we?’

Last night, entering by the back steps in the rainy dark, Amy had realised that Seth’s home was comfortable—but now she saw that not one thing about it came even close to her idea of a cattleman’s residence.

The veranda at the front of the house was so deep it formed large, outdoor rooms. She paused in the doorway to take it all in.

From here she could see a dining area and, beyond that, bamboo cane lounge chairs grouped around a coffee table, and, beyond that again, a desk with a telephone and a high-backed chair. Gently circling ceiling fans and huge potted palms gave the whole area an elegant, Oriental air.

She saw the garden beyond the veranda and gasped…Instead of hectares of dry, grassy paddocks, the Serenity homestead was fronted by terraces of smooth lawns and lush tropical gardens where delicate
orchids grew side by side with bright bougainvillea and graceful palms. Heavens, there was even a swimming pool on one of the terraces.

The entire grounds were set in a haven of green on a densely wooded hillside, with views to white sandy beaches, a bright, glittering sea, and the dark emerald silhouettes of offshore islands.

It was gorgeous. Unreal. Amy felt as if she’d woken up at a resort and, at any minute, a waiter would appear to offer her a long, colourful drink with clinking ice cubes and a tiny paper umbrella.

Seth rose from the dining table and came towards them, smiling at the stunned expression on Amy’s face.

‘This is amazing,’ she said.

‘Glad you like it.’

‘But—’ She made a sweeping gesture that took in the gardens edged by rainforest and the view. ‘Where are your cattle?’

Seth laughed. ‘We passed through the grazing country yesterday. Over to the west. Not far away at all. There’s only a narrow fringe of this rainforest along the coastal mountains.’

‘But it’s beautiful.’ She could so easily imagine Rachel living here, soaking up the exotic atmosphere.

That thought brought Amy straight back to earth.

Which was just as well. She knew she couldn’t allow herself to be carried away by the beauty of Seth’s home.

It would be prudent to keep Rachel at the forefront of her thoughts. She had to remember that it was right here, in this setting, that Rachel and Seth had been swept away by a passionate liaison.

Bella was tugging at her hand. ‘Look, look! A
swimming pool!’ She tried to pull Amy towards the sparkling blue water. ‘My go swimming.’

‘Not now,’ Amy told her. ‘We’re going to have breakfast.’

Bending quickly, she picked the little girl up and hugged her, and as they took their places at the dining table she wished she didn’t feel so unaccountably afraid.

Her desire for Bella to know her father had been driven purely by emotion. Families were important to Amy. Her own family was big and noisy and loving and she hated that Bella knew no one who was related to her by blood. Now, suddenly, Amy was looking at this gorgeous property, and was forced to accept practical realities that outweighed emotion.

Seth Reardon was seriously wealthy. He didn’t merely own vast tracts of land and mobs of valuable cattle. His home was beautiful and comfortable and he had domestic help, and an aeroplane, for heaven’s sake.

Bella was his daughter, his potential heiress, and if Seth wanted to he could hire a nanny for her and she could live here with him quite happily and safely.

Last night, when he’d been stunned and shocked, Seth had agreed that Amy could take Bella back to Melbourne. Naively, she’d had no doubt that she was the very best person to raise the little girl. She’d even broken up with Dominic because she believed that so vehemently.

But already, less than a day after arriving at Serenity, she was having deep misgivings about her right to make such demands.

Had Rachel felt similar doubts? Was that why she’d kept her pregnancy secret?

‘Let’s eat,’ Seth said, watching her with a puzzled smile, and she turned her attention to the food.

Clearly Ming was a genius, and their breakfast was a meal of stunning simplicity. A beautiful fruit platter of passionfruit, vividly hued pawpaw and mango, and a star-shaped fruit Amy had never seen before, was followed by perfectly delicious, lightly spiced mushrooms and tomatoes on toasted home-made bread.

Bella ate a banana cut up in a bowl of yoghurt with golden circles of honey drizzled on top.

‘That’s one of her favourite breakfasts,’ Amy told Seth as she watched the little girl eagerly wielding her spoon.

‘I took a guess when I suggested fruit and yoghurt to Ming. He’s not used to cooking for a two-year-old.’

‘Are you?’ she couldn’t help asking. ‘Have you had much experience with children?’

‘Only what I’ve observed with other people’s kids.’

Which meant he was more observant than most bachelors, she decided unhappily. Again, she felt an anxious swoop in her chest at the possibility of giving up Bella.

‘I’m guessing that Bella might enjoy a play in the pool before it gets too hot,’ Seth said when they’d finished their meal.

‘I’m sure she would. She loves the water.’ Amy was grateful that she’d included their bathers when she’d packed, but she’d expected to be swimming in an Outback creek or a river, not a beautifully tiled, sparkling, manmade pool.

‘Go swimming,’ Bella announced, pulling at Amy’s hand.

Amy gave her a wistful smile. ‘When your breakfast’s gone down.’

But it wasn’t very long before she gave in and Bella was racing ahead of her down the smooth stone steps to greet Seth at the edge of the pool.

‘Look, Sef!’ the little girl announced with great excitement. ‘I’m a ballerdina!’ She spun around, so he could admire her red and white spotted swimsuit edged with cute frills.

‘You’re a beautiful ballerina,’ he assured her. ‘Bella the water-baby ballerina.’

His smiling gaze flickered to Amy and she was glad she’d splurged on a new swimsuit for herself. She knew she was no real beauty, but she’d always been told she had decent legs, and the swimsuit was dark green and perfectly cut to flatter her figure. Even though she wasn’t trying to impress this man, she was quietly pleased that she looked OK.

Seth looked more than OK, of course, in black swimming trunks and with a towel slung around his magnificent shoulders.

It was hard to stop stealing glances at his bare chest and his deeply bronzed, fabulous physique.

‘Well, let’s have a splash, shall we, Bella?’

The little girl loved the water, but she couldn’t swim, so she needed constant help and supervision and Amy was grateful that she was kept busy. It helped to ignore Seth while he swam up and down the pool with smooth, powerful strokes.

After a bit, he joined them. ‘Your turn,’ he told Amy, sending her a grin that made his teeth flash white against his tan. ‘I’ll look after Bella, while you have a swim.’

It was unsettling to hand Bella over, almost as if it was a foretaste of the future. Amy struggled with her reluctance. ‘You need to watch her like a hawk,’ she told Seth. ‘She thinks she can swim.’

‘I’ll be careful.’

She had no choice but to trust him. ‘She’s not scared of the water, and she doesn’t mind putting her face under.’

Bella was so excited and wet and wriggly that the handover was precarious. Amy almost dropped the little girl when she felt Seth’s bare leg brush against hers and she fumbled again when their hands touched and they bumped elbows.

It was bittersweet relief to leave them at last and to swim away in a careful breaststroke to the deep end of the pool. As she swam she could hear Bella’s delighted squeals and laughter.

When she reached the other end, she turned and looked back and saw them together—father and daughter, looking so alike with their dark wet hair, sleek against their skulls—and she felt another tremor of fear deep inside.

Was she being silly, or was she really in danger of losing Bella? Would Seth demand that his daughter live with him?

The thought brought a hot swirl of panic. She’d been so sure she was doing the right thing, that bringing Bella here was in line with Rachel’s intentions.

But now she’d met Seth and seen his beautiful home she couldn’t help wondering why Rachel had objected to living here. She wondered if there was a deeper reason behind Rachel’s avoidance of this meeting with Seth. And was there also an equally good reason why she’d named Amy, and not Seth, as Bella’s guardian?

Amy was sure she was entitled to the role. She adored Bella, had been involved in her life since her birth, had actually been present at her birth.

She would never forget that incredible, joyous morning. Now, the possibility that she might lose Bella made her want to weep.

She dived under the water to wash away the possibility of tears. She had to be strong, to remember that she’d come here for this—to allow Bella and her father to meet—and she was pleased they were getting on so well. He’d accepted that Amy was Bella’s guardian and she had to have faith in her decisions and in her instincts that told her Seth Reardon could be trusted.

Even so, the few days that she would spend here suddenly felt like a dangerously long stretch of time.

‘Everything’s so different and exotic here,’ Amy said later, waving her hand to the view of the terraced hillside and the bright blue sea framed by a tangle of rainforest jungle. ‘I find it hard to believe that I’m still in Australia. I feel as if I’ve crossed hemispheres.’

‘In a way you have.’ Seth sent her a slow smile, aware that it was becoming a habit, this smiling at Amy. It was highly likely that, between them, she and Bella had made him smile more times in the past twenty-four hours than he had in the past twelve months.

He said, ‘Weren’t you telling me yesterday that Serenity is as far from Melbourne as London is from Moscow?’

She turned to him, giving him the full benefit of her warm chocolate eyes, and he was very glad he’d suggested that they take this time to sit on the veranda, drinking coffee after lunch, while Bella napped.

‘It must have been quite a culture shock for you to move all the way from Sydney to here,’ she said earnestly. ‘You were only twelve. That’s smack on the edge of adolescence, when everything looms larger than life.’

‘Actually, I think the fact that everything was so different here helped me,’ he said. ‘I was overawed by this place, but I thought it was incredibly exciting, and my
uncle kept me busy from first thing in the morning till I fell into bed at night. He turned my life into an adventure. I’m sure I’d have found it much harder to get over my father’s death if I’d stayed in Sydney.’

Surprised that he’d told Amy so much, he reached for his coffee cup and drank deeply.

Her face was soft with sympathy, as if she was picturing how it had been for him. ‘It can’t have been easy though, when you didn’t have a mother.’

From force of habit, Seth brushed her comment aside. He had no intention of explaining about his mother. She was a subject he never talked about. There was no reason to discuss her.

But Amy had hooked her elbow over the arm of her chair and she was leaning towards him, watching him with her complete attention. Two small lines of worry drew her brows low and her brown eyes were rounded with concern, her pink lips parted. Seth found himself wanting to lean closer, too, to kiss those soft, inviting lips, to kiss away that frown.

It would be so easy.

So incredibly satisfying.

And…totally inappropriate. She hadn’t come here for a fling.

All day he’d been struggling to blank out the picture of Amy this morning in her flimsy cotton nightdress. He tried not to think about the soft round outline of her breasts, the smooth skin of her shoulders, the tapering curve of her waist.

But Amy was different from Rachel. Seth knew she hadn’t been planning seduction, and he could have sworn that she hadn’t even noticed when her wrap slipped from her shoulders.

There’d been no flirting in the pool today either. But, heaven help him, he could still see the back view of her as she climbed the pool ladder. World-class legs. Lovely behind. Movements so graceful and feminine he couldn’t help but stare.

Damn it
, the very fact that Amy’s sexiness was unintentional, and the knowledge that she wasn’t trying to seduce him, made his desire for her all the stronger.

But he shouldn’t have been checking her out. Just as he shouldn’t be thinking about kissing her now.

He couldn’t afford to start an affair with little Bella’s guardian when he knew that it could never go anywhere. The child needed stability in her life, and he’d learned the hard way that women and his lifestyle didn’t mix. For the past few years, he’d worked hard at keeping his distance from women like Amy—intelligent, warm-hearted, home-and-hearth-loving women.

The marrying kind.

Even so, he knew it would only take the first taste of her tender mouth, the first touch of his lips to her soft, warm skin and he’d be craving more.

He drew in a sharp breath.

Don’t even think about it
.

Why was it so hard to remember his past mistakes?

For pity’s sake, man, just answer the woman’s question
.

He said, ‘My mother left after my father died.’

‘Left?’ Shock made Amy’s voice tremble. ‘Are you saying she left
you
?’

Seth shrugged and forced a smile. ‘Ever since I can remember, she’d had her sights set on Hollywood, and without my father to hold her back she was free to go.’

‘But she wasn’t free, Seth. She had you.’ Amy stared at him, with a hand pressed to her throat. Her dark eyes
were clouded, as if he’d told her something completely beyond her comprehension. ‘You’d just lost your father. You were only twelve. Why couldn’t she keep you with her?’

It was a question that had eaten at Seth for years. Even now, he could feel the agonising slug of loss that had flattened him, when he’d finally understood what his mother’s choice had meant.