The Rancher's Adopted Family (8 page)

Deep down, she sensed the truth as clearly as if the words had been spoken. This uncle had been Rachel’s grand passion.

‘Now’s not the time, Seth, but you and I need to have a talk,’ she said tightly. ‘A serious talk.’ Then she turned and fled from his room.

A
MY
arrived on the veranda, half an hour later, dressed for breakfast and ready for a showdown.

The questions about Bella’s father had to be answered.

Today. Preferably, this morning. She had no idea why Seth had remained silent and mysterious about Bella’s conception, but she was determined to have everything out in the open.

Perhaps he’d guessed what was on her mind. Despite his smooth smile, she could sense an extra tension in him.
Good
, she thought. It wouldn’t hurt for him to stew for a while; a little discomfort might make him more cooperative.

Guiltily conscious that she was thinking like an interrogator, Amy turned her attention to breakfast, which was another of Ming’s masterpieces.

While Amy helped Bella to dip toast soldiers into her softly boiled egg, she talked to Seth as any guest might, about the fruit trees scattered about the garden, and the hens in the coop at the back of the house.

‘Perhaps Bella and I could collect the eggs,’ she suggested. ‘You’d like that, wouldn’t you, poppet?’

‘You’re very welcome to collect them,’ Seth told
her. ‘I’ll warn Ming that the job’s covered for the next few days.’

Playing his part as host, Seth talked politely and carefully about the scenic spots around the property. Amy was equally polite as she tried to pay attention, but she found it hard when her brain was boiling with seriously important questions.

As soon as Bella finished her breakfast Amy grabbed her chance. ‘Seth, do you think Ming could keep Bella entertained, while we have half an hour to ourselves?’

He gave an unsmiling nod and stood. ‘Ming’s a good sport. I’ll speak to him. I’m sure he’ll oblige.’

In no time, Ming appeared, dark eyes sparkling as he flashed Amy a wide grin. ‘Does Bella like to blow bubbles?’

She couldn’t help laughing. ‘Do kangaroos hop? Bella, would you like to blow bubbles?’

The little girl squealed, and as easily as that she was whisked away to the kitchen.

And Amy was alone with Seth.

‘More tea?’ he asked, smiling enigmatically as he lifted the teapot.

‘Thanks.’

She had to concentrate hard, keeping her hand steady as Seth filled her teacup and his, then set the pot down. He regarded her steadily. ‘You said we need to talk.’

‘Yes, I did.’ Amy took her time adding milk to her tea while she marshalled her thoughts. She had to get this right, had to get to the truth without making Seth angry.

Over the rim of his teacup, he watched her. ‘Am I right in guessing you have questions?’

‘Quite a few questions, actually,’ she said. ‘And I hope you’ll give me straight answers.’

His expression remained impassive. ‘Fire away.’

This was it. Time to hold her nose and jump in. ‘Are you Bella’s father?’

Seth looked her straight in the eyes. ‘No, Amy. I’m not.’

Oh, boy
. She felt as if she’d dived into a pool only to discover too late that it was the shallow end. Even though she’d guessed this possibility, it was still a shock to have it confirmed. ‘You—you know that for sure?’

‘Absolutely. I didn’t sleep with Rachel. In fact, I had very little to do with her while she was here.’

I didn’t sleep with Rachel
.

Amy sat very still, trying to ignore the warm wave of relief that rippled through her. It was totally inappropriate to be pleased simply because this gorgeous man hadn’t made love to her best friend.

She had to forget the way her body went into meltdown at his slightest touch. Her focus was Bella—Bella’s parentage. Bella’s future.

Bella was the only reason these questions were important. If Amy was going to take care of Bella for the next eighteen years or so, she wanted everything about Bella’s family background out in the open. No murky secrets or skeletons in the cupboard.

‘Rachel told me that Bella’s father was Seth Reardon, so I assumed you were—’

‘The culprit?’

‘Yes.’ With one finger, she traced the teacup’s handle. ‘But if it’s not you I suppose Bella’s father was—the other Seth.’

He nodded slowly. ‘Your friend and my uncle were lovers. Neither my uncle nor I knew of Bella’s existence,
but if Rachel named Seth Reardon as her father, I can only assume Bella’s their child.’

So there was the truth at last—or as close to the truth as she was ever going to get.

Amy folded her arms and hugged them against her, needing a little head space to adjust to this news. Rachel’s lover was not
this
Seth Reardon, but a wonderfully attractive, older man. A man who, like Rachel, was no longer alive.

‘Poor little Bella,’ she said.

‘She’s fine, Amy.’

‘But she has no mother or father.’

‘She has you. You’re a terrific mother. You’re doing a fantastic job.’

She shrugged uneasily—disappointed that she couldn’t feel happier now that she’d achieved her goal. ‘Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you let me think you were Bella’s father?’

Seth switched his gaze to a distant spot in the garden. ‘Would you like to go for a walk?’

A walk? He wanted to take a walk now?

‘Are you trying to lead me up the garden path, Seth?’

He gave a soft laugh. ‘No, but I can explain things better outside.’

She shrugged uncertainly. ‘All right.’ She supposed he mightn’t want Ming to overhear them.

As they went down the short flight of timber steps the air was warm and humid and laden with the scent of frangipani. They followed a flagstone path past a bed of lush green plants with astonishing bright orange flowers shaped like lobster claws, and Amy stole a glance at Seth’s frowning face.

She wasn’t going to be put off. Now that she’d
adjusted, she was getting increasingly angry that he’d let her think the wrong thing for so long. ‘Were you ever going to tell me about your uncle?’ she asked.

‘I was planning to tell you the whole story.’

‘When?’ she snapped, annoyed by his coolness. ‘When Bella turns twenty-one?’

His mouth tightened and, to her dismay, a distressing sheen brightened his cobalt eyes.

Sudden sympathy burned her throat and she stopped walking. She knew Seth had loved his uncle. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said gently. ‘I should remember that this is difficult for you, too.’

They were at the top of a long flight of stone steps that led down to the very bottom of the garden. Below the steps, the tangle of scrub began, but right in front of them lay a breathtaking view of the beach below, curling like a slice of lemon peel at the edge of the sparkling, dancing sea.

‘I always intended to tell you the truth,’ Seth said. ‘That’s why I brought you back here. But I felt it was important to get to know you first, to make sure I was doing the right thing. And I wanted you to see this place, so you had the whole picture.’

Amy looked at the sea, shimmering like aquamarine silk. She looked at the moss-green islands floating silently, then she looked back to the beautiful house, the terraced gardens, the dark forest of trees. She thought about the hundreds of hectares beyond this, all of which had belonged to Bella’s father.

‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘Seeing this place has certainly opened my eyes. It’s nothing like I expected. I suppose you have to be wary of people turning up out of the blue and claiming some kind of connection. Like
land rights. But that’s not why I’ve come here, Seth. I simply wanted to find Bella’s…family. Her roots.’

‘I know,’ he said quietly. ‘And for my part, I’m very happy to have found Bella. I need family too and she’s incredibly important to me. My relatives are rather thin on the ground.’

He flashed Amy a lopsided smile and her bones threatened to melt.

He said, ‘Some time in the future, you’ll be able to tell Bella all about this place.’

Some time in the future…

She thought about going back to Melbourne and resuming her old life…

Before she’d left the city, she’d wanted nothing more than to hurry back there as soon as this mission was accomplished. But from the moment she’d first set eyes on Seth in Tamundra, she’d been foolishly losing her sense of direction.

Even if they hadn’t shared that sensational kiss last night, she’d still be in danger of swooning whenever he was near. Every moment she spent with him she was falling a little more deeply under his spell.

Newsflash, Amy. The enchantment is one sided
.

Seth’s kiss might have bowled her over, but it was a mere blip on
his
radar. He’d shown no interest in an encore.

It was time to be sensible. She had to stick to the original plan, which meant finding out as much as she could about Bella’s father, then heading straight for home.

‘There’s something down here that I should show you while we’re talking,’ Seth said, and he began to descend the stone steps.

Amy kept pace beside him. ‘Can you tell me more about your uncle and Rachel?’

His hesitation was momentary. ‘I can tell you that he loved her. I didn’t realise it straight away, but he was head over heels.’

Amy nodded, recognising the familiar story. Guys were often falling head over heels for Rachel—except that this time, Rachel hadn’t remained immune.

‘Apparently, this was the first time my uncle had been so deeply in love since he met my mother,’ Seth said.

They’d reached the bottom of the steps and she saw a track winding through the untamed scrub. Seth slowed his pace.

‘I think Rachel felt the same way,’ Amy told him. ‘For ages, she wouldn’t talk about her baby’s father, and that was highly unusual for her. Finally she admitted that she loved him, but she didn’t think she could live here. Do you think your uncle tried to persuade her to stay?’

‘I’m sure he must have. He certainly didn’t want her to leave.’

‘But he didn’t try to come after her either.’

Seth stopped walking. His mouth was a pensive downward curve and he stood with his thumbs hooked through the belt loops of his jeans, not quite meeting Amy’s gaze. ‘I know he was worried that he couldn’t make the relationship work, but he still wanted to jump on a plane and fly down to Rachel.’

His mouth twisted unhappily. ‘I’m afraid I persuaded him that he shouldn’t try to follow her.’

‘Why?’

Her abrupt question seemed to anger him. ‘Seth was a fifty-year-old man chasing after a girl almost half his age.’

‘Stranger things have happened in the name of love.’

‘Love?’ He sent her a sharp glance.

‘Why are you looking at me like that?’

‘I don’t want to bad-mouth your friend…’

He left the sentence dangling and now it was Amy who was angry. ‘What?’ she demanded. ‘What are you not telling me?’

‘I—I wasn’t convinced that Rachel really cared for my uncle.’ He looked away, eyes squinted against the bright morning sun. ‘She was a flirt. A girl on the lookout for a holiday fling.’

Telltale wariness flickered in his eyes.

Amy gasped. ‘Don’t tell me she flirted with you, too?’

Seth sighed heavily.

‘Seth?’

‘She made it pretty obvious she was interested.’

Oh
.

It was pathetic, but Amy couldn’t hold back her next question. ‘But you didn’t sleep with her, did you?’

‘I told you, no.’

With a pained grimace he kicked at a stone and sent it tumbling down the track. ‘Rachel arrived here full of flirtatious smiles and ready for fun, but I must admit she changed her tune after she met my uncle. But I still didn’t recognise how deeply he was involved. I kept trying to downplay the romance. We went through this weird kind of role reversal, where he was the reckless, love struck kid and I was the cautioning adult.’

Cords of tension stood out on Seth’s neck, and when he shoved tightly fisted hands into his jeans’ pockets, knotted veins showed in his forearms.

‘Seth, I didn’t mean to pry. You don’t have to—’

He kept talking as if he hadn’t heard her. ‘He came to me one morning in the middle of the wet season. We’d had really heavy rain and the roads were cut and he demanded that I fly him to Cairns. Come hell or high
water, he was going to Melbourne. He still hadn’t heard from Rachel—no phone calls, letters, or emails.’

Seth gave a despairing shake of his head. ‘I told him he was a hot-headed fool, that he hadn’t thought everything through. I said he should wait till the wet season was over. If he still felt the same way about her then, he should go.’

Again, Seth looked unhappily out to the distant green islands. ‘I forgot how stubborn and independent he could be, and there’s no fool like an old fool. He took off alone in the flaming tinny to go to Cairns by sea—’

‘What’s a tinny?’

‘An aluminium dinghy. We used it for fishing around the islands, but my uncle was planning to take it all the way to Cairns.’ Seth’s throat worked. ‘A damn storm came up out of nowhere.’

Amy stared at him in dawning horror, guessing what would come next.

Grim-faced, Seth told her. ‘A fishing trawler found the wreck three days later.’

The news rocked Amy. She’d never dreamed…

‘I’m sure Rachel didn’t know,’ she whispered.

Appalled, she recognised Seth’s grief, and felt his pain. It was there in the way he held himself stiffly,
so
stiffly, and his hurting was a live thing, reaching out to her and squeezing her heart.

‘I blame myself,’ Seth said softly. ‘My uncle asked me to do one simple thing for him and I turned him down. After everything he’d done for me.’

Again, he kicked at a stone and, with a gruff, anguished growl, he began to stride away from Amy. She hurried down the track to catch up.

‘You mustn’t blame yourself,’ she said.

He whirled around. ‘Why not? I should have seen how desperate he was. If I’d had any idea he’d take that bloody boat, I’d have flown him to Cairns in a heartbeat.’

Tears stung her eyes.

‘I didn’t know Rachel was pregnant.’ His voice was rough and choked. ‘I didn’t know how to contact her after he died, but if I’d known she was pregnant, I would have made a bigger effort to find her.’

Blinking tears, Amy reached out and touched him on the arm.

He tensed as if she’d burned him.