And he could be a part of his child’s life.

What about Kit?

Al his plans slammed to a halt. He swal owed. He couldn’t give Kit what she wanted, what she needed.

What happens when she meets someone who can?

Sweat beaded his top lip, gathered at his nape and trickled a path of ice down his back. Eventual y Kit would meet someone and fal in love with them.

She’d marry. And his child would have a stepfather.

He tried to push back the darkness that threatened to swal ow him whole. He rubbed a fist across his brow. Kit deserved to find someone, to be happy, but…

but…

What then? What if she relocated to Perth or…or to America?

Why would this time be any different? Why should it al work out for him now?

Because he wanted it to?

A harsh laugh broke from a throat that ached.

Grabbing the paintbrush, he forced himself back to work. He’d be a fool to get his hopes up.

The back door slammed, jerking him out from beneath the darkness stealing over him.

‘Good to see Kit has you working so hard.’

He glanced down from his position on the scaffolding. Caro. Not holding a meat cleaver. ‘Nice to see you too,’ he drawled.

Kit emerged from the house with a tea tray. At her side trotted a dark-haired child of about four. A boy.

Alex froze.

He didn’t know why the sight of the child rocked him, but it did. To his core. He’d seen other children, of course, since he’d lost Chad, but…

He hadn’t talked to one, touched one.

His hand tightened around the paintbrush. Maybe it was the combination of a pregnant Kit and child.

Kit and child.

Kit and—

Chad would be about this child’s age now.

The thought slammed into him from nowhere and the strength drained from his legs. He braced a hand against a weatherboard. In the back of his mind he was dimly aware that the board was wet. Ignore the paint. Keep breathing.

Paint from his brush dripped onto his trainer. He clenched the paintbrush as if it were his last grip on reality as he tried to push the memories of Chad away, deep down into the unexplored parts of himself where they couldn’t torment him.

It didn’t work. Questions pounded at him.

Would Chad be the same size and shape as the child at Kit’s side? How tal would he be now? Had his hair darkened or grown lighter? The need to see Chad, to hold him, burst the straitjacket he normal y kept it bound to, and for a moment darkness swirled al around him.

‘Look, Mum, I’m helping Auntie Kit and I got the most important job—carrying the biscuits!’

‘Not just any biscuits, but chocolate biscuits,’ Caro said with what he guessed must be the appropriate amount of admiration. Thankful y she turned the child towards the outdoor chairs and table. ‘And you’re al owed to have one just as soon as you set them down.’

‘Alex, that looks great.’

Kit’s voice, her appreciation, pushed some of the darkness away and helped him breathe again. He did his best to ignore the childish patter behind him.

‘Would you like some tea?’

He nodded and final y found his voice. ‘I’l be down in a minute.’

She turned to carry the tea tray to the table, and Alex clenched his eyes shut and tried to control his breathing, tried to block the images that rose up to torment him, taunt him, remind him of al he’d lost.

Tonight he’d have that nightmare—the endless rooms in that mansion, the childish laughter always out of reach. Despair threatened his control. Some days he thought it would take his sanity. With every ounce of strength he possessed, he pushed it back, tamped it down. He couldn’t lose his mind. He had Kit’s house to finish.

He gritted his teeth. The mundane would al ay the nightmare. He opened his eyes, unclasped the paintbrush from fingers that had started to cramp and did his best to wipe the wet paint from his hand with a rag.

‘What are you doing?’

That childish voice came from almost directly beneath him. He stared at the weatherboards. He could do this. He’d wrapped his heart in ice once before. He could halt the thaw that Kit had somehow started and put it in deep freeze once again. He would not think about Chad.

He dragged in a breath. He didn’t turn around. ‘I’m painting your Auntie Kit’s house.’

‘My name is Davey.’

Another deep breath. ‘Mine’s Alex.’

‘Are you Auntie Kit’s boyfriend?’

The voice was even closer now, and the question made Alex blink. In another time, another place, he suspected it would’ve made him laugh. ‘I’m her friend.’

‘I’m going to marry her when I grow up.’

He had to hand it to the kid. He had great taste.

‘Can I help?’

And then Davey’s head appeared and Alex’s heart lurched. Davey had climbed up the side of the heart lurched. Davey had climbed up the side of the scaffolding. What if he fel ? ‘Hold on a minute, Tiger.’

His heart cramped. He’d always cal ed Chad Tiger. Don’t think about Chad!

Alex forced himself to move. He vaulted to the ground and then seized Davey beneath the armpits to swing him down too. ‘Your mum wil come after me with a meat cleaver if you—’

He couldn’t go on. He froze. Davey’s solid weight, his warmth, the trusting way he stared at Alex with dark-fringed eyes that were the same brown as Chad’s. Al of it was imprinted on his memory. A low moan threatened to burst from his chest. Chad would weigh this much now too. He’d stil be chubby-cheeked and chubby-legged like the last time Alex had seen him, held him, but he’d be tal er. He’d probably be asking awkward question and—

Who was letting Chad help paint a house or sand a chair or let him hand them tools while they tuned a car?

Pictures of Chad flashed through his mind. Chad running towards him to welcome him home from work, arms outstretched. Chad with his head thrown back, gurgling with laughter as Alex swung him around and around. Chad nestled against Alex’s chest, his breathing deep and even as he slept.

Alex started to shake.

‘Alex?’

Kit came into view. He barely heard her over the rush in his ears. The cramp in his chest grew until he thought he might crack in two. He wanted to haul this child into his arms and hold him close. He wanted…

He thrust Davey into Kit’s arms. ‘I…I have to go.’

He lurched around the side of the house. He didn’t stop at his car. He kept walking. Chad’s name echoed in his heart with every step. At some point Kit’s started up in there too.

Kit’s heart burned when Alex disappeared around the side of the house. His white-lipped stare, his wild dark eyes, the way his hands had clenched, it had almost made her cry out.

Davey had reminded him of Chad! Oh, why hadn’t she thought? She should have realized.

Her mouth went dry. But…Davey wasn’t Chad. If Alex reacted this way to a child he wasn’t related to, how would he react to his own child?

She swal owed back a sob, not wanting to frighten Davey.

Davey’s bottom lip wobbled. ‘I only wanted to help. Alex doesn’t like me.’

‘Of course he does, honey.’ She pul ed him in close for a hug before moving back towards Caro, unable to meet her friend’s eye. ‘Alex hasn’t been feeling very wel lately. I think he might be coming down with something.’

Caro raised an eyebrow, but Kit was grateful she didn’t snort.

‘Hey there, soldier!’ Frank popped his head up over the fence. ‘Want to come see the baby birds in the nest on my shed?’

Davey’s face lit up. ‘Can I, Mum? Can I go over to Uncle Frank’s?’

‘Okay.’ Caro laughed and pointed a mock-threatening finger at Frank. ‘But mind you don’t feed him more than two biscuits. He’s had two already.’

‘Aye, aye, Captain!’

Caro contemplated Kit as Davey raced across next door. ‘Why are you wasting your time on this man, Kit?’

Was she wasting her time? She folded herself into her chair, hunched down to rest her head against its wooden slats. Nausea and exhaustion pummel ed her.

‘I mean, you had to see the look on his face when he held Davey. Not even Blind Freddy could’ve missed that!’

She had. Shock, wonder and then pain—a dark, searing, tear-the-heart-out-of-your-chest pain.

And she’d wanted to help him. In that moment it hadn’t mattered if he was going to stay or not.

Nobody should be asked to endure that kind of pain on their own.

‘Kit, do you real y believe Alex can change?

Come to terms with fatherhood? Be there for you and the baby?’

Kit moistened her lips and swal owed. ‘I know if our positions were reversed, I’d be asking you these self-same questions. Caro, my head knows what you’re saying. It’s saying the same things.’

‘But?’

But her heart was another matter entirely. It hit her then that she’d been so busy trying to reconcile Alex to the idea of fatherhood that she’d forgotten to protect herself. She’d left herself wide open. She’d fal en in love with him again.

If she’d ever fal en out of love with him in the first place.

What a mess!

She forced herself to state facts. ‘You know he threw up when I told him I was pregnant. Right there in the azalea bushes.’

‘Oh, honey.’ Caro leaned across, clasped her hand. ‘I’m sorry.’

Kit squeezed it back. ‘But he took me to the medical clinic al the same and he looked after me until I was over the kidney infection. He knew he didn’t have to stay, but he did and he never made me feel bad about it. Not once.’

‘Just as wel !’

‘His parents died when he was twelve and he went to live with his mean old grandfather. You and me, we both missed our dads, but our childhoods were great.’

Caro shook her head, but she was smiling. ‘You are such a soft touch.’

‘Every time I’ve just about given up on him, I find out something that gives me hope again. You know, he hasn’t had a proper holiday in nearly five years.

He took leave the month before last and spent it doing aid work in Africa, helping to build an orphanage.’

She’d gril ed him until he’d told her every single detail about it. She could stil remember the way his eyes had shone.

‘Not the actions of a man entirely beyond hope,’

Caro final y agreed. ‘But, honey, I’m so scared you’re going to get hurt.’

Kit pul ed in a breath. It was too late to go back now. ‘I know having him here is a risk, but…’ She now. ‘I know having him here is a risk, but…’ She leant towards her friend. ‘There’s too much at stake to just give up on him. He’l do what he considers his duty—pay child support and whatnot.’ She flattened her hands over her burgeoning stomach and stared at it in wonder and gratitude. ‘I want more than that for my baby, Caro. I love it so much already. If anything I do now can help Alex with his issues and embrace fatherhood, then…’

‘Then you’l do it.’

‘I have to,’ she whispered, her throat thickening and her eyes stinging. ‘I know I might fail. I know the odds aren’t great.’ After what she’d just witnessed, they might wel be non-existent, but… ‘I have to at least try. Otherwise, how wil I ever be able to look my child in the eye when it asks me about its daddy?’

Caro didn’t say anything for a moment. ‘What about what you need, Kit?’

‘The baby has to come first.’

‘Sure it does, but it doesn’t mean you’re not al owed to have hopes and dreams for yourself too.

You know I’d lay my life down for Davey, but it doesn’t stop me hoping my white knight wil turn up.’

With al her heart, Kit hoped that would happen for her friend.

‘You love him, don’t you?’

It was useless trying to hide from the truth. She gave a weary nod. ‘I started fal ing for him the first time I laid eyes on him. If I believed in such things I’d have said we’d known each other in a past life. It just felt that…right.’

And then they’d made love. There had been no going back after that.