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‘G’day, Liam,’ Sid drawled.
‘Sid.’
Sid hitched his head in Sapphie’s direction. ‘Got your visitors here in one piece.’ He rubbed one ear. ‘Not sure about meself, mind.’
A pair of the most startling eyes Sapphie had ever seen swung around to survey her. Blue. Bright blue. ‘Wasn’t expecting visitors, Sid,’ he drawled. All the same he pushed away from the ute towards her.
Sapphie forced herself forward, hand outstretched, though for the life of her she couldn’t seem to find a smile. ‘My name is Sapphire Thomas, Mr Stapleton.’
Long, lean, work-roughened fingers closed about her hand. He was so big! She stared up into his face. She had to throw her head back to do so—he stood at least six feet two inches. It was a hard face, grim and lean, tanned, but it didn’t frighten her. Just for a moment she let the relief trickle through. If he’d frightened her she’d have had to climb back on board the plane and fly back to Broome and leave all this up to lawyers. She always followed her instincts.
Always.
‘Should I know you?’
The dry, rough drawl skittered along the surface of her skin and for a moment she thought it might raise gooseflesh. She let out a breath when it didn’t. ‘Not exactly.’
‘Mind telling me what you’re doing here?’
It almost made her smile. Kimberley cattlemen—they didn’t waste their words.
And then, just like that, it suddenly struck her. She’d spent the last two days thinking Liam Stapleton would try and duck out of his responsibilities and reject Harry, but the longer she stared up into this man’s face the more convinced she became that he would do no such thing.
He pushed the brim of his hat further back, as if to give her a better opportunity to study his face.
A face like that—grim and stern—it could do with some joy.
A child was a joy.
A child was a gift.
‘Well?’ he drawled.
The worry and stress of the last two days all suddenly seemed worth it. A smile broke through her. ‘Mr Stapleton, I’ve brought you your son.’
Liam planted his hands on his hips, told himself to breathe deeply. ‘Did you just say son?’ He uttered the words with cutting precision.
The ridiculous smile that lit up Sapphire Thomas’s face started to slip. ‘That’s…that’s right.’
He hadn’t left Newarra in nearly two years. He hadn’t been with a woman at all during that time. He’d never met this woman in his life. He’d have remembered if he had. He folded his arms, raised an eyebrow. ‘And how old is this particular son of mine?’
Anyone who knew him would know from the tone of his voice that now was the time to back off. Sapphire Thomas didn’t.
‘Twelve months,’ she said, without so much as a blink of her eyes.
Anger, swift and hard, punched through him. With the effort of long practice he reined it in. ‘Ms Thomas, I do not have a son.’ His ex-wife had made sure of that.
‘But—’
‘No buts!’
He let some of the anger from the black pit of his heart reach out to touch her. Her eyes widened. She swallowed and took a step back. Good.
‘So you can haul yourself back on that plane and return to wherever it is you come from.’
Her mouth opened and closed. ‘But—’
Liam turned away, told himself he didn’t care. He would not be the fall guy for a desperate woman ever again.
‘Twenty-one months ago at the Perth agricultural show you met my sister—Emerald Thomas.’
Her words rang clearly in the still air. They sounded formal, with the same tone a judge would use when casting sentence. They sounded rehearsed, as if she’d gone over and over what she was going to say countless times. His lips twisted. They sounded fake.
‘You spent a week together at a resort on Rottnest Island.’
Against his will, he spun around. Rottnest Island! His heart pounded loud in his chest.
The Thomas woman raised an eyebrow. The gesture seemed somehow wrong in the white pallor of her face. Her eyes flashed green, and it occurred to him she should be called Emerald, not her sister.
If there was a sister.
‘Rottnest Island,’ she repeated. ‘Ring any bells?’
Yes, damn it. His hands clenched. But…
A baby’s screams suddenly and abruptly split the air. Sapphire Thomas swung away to dive inside the plane in instant response. She emerged a moment later with a baby capsule cradled in her arms. He found his anger again. Lies! These were all lies, and cruel ones at that.
One thing was clear—this child was not his. This woman could take this baby, get on the plane, and slink back into whatever hole she’d crawled out of. He would not let her take advantage of his family’s grief.
‘Hey!’ he shot at her when she lifted the child from the capsule. ‘I told you to get back on that plane.’ He stabbed a finger at her. ‘You can take your baby and get back on that plane, because there’s no way—’
The baby turned to stare at him.
‘No way that—’
The baby’s face crumpled. It leaned so far away from him it was in danger of falling right out of the woman’s arms.
But that baby. It…
She balanced the baby on her hip and half turned, shielding him from Liam with her body. ‘Don’t you go scaring him, you big, horrible bully.’
Liam couldn’t move. All he could do was stare. At the baby. A baby who was the spitting image of Liam at the same age…of Lachlan…
A baby who was the spitting image of Lucas!
The resemblance had to be a coincidence. He hadn’t fathered this child. But…
What about Lachlan or Lucas?
His stomach turned. No, not Lucas. Lucas had been dead for…
She’d said twenty-one months ago.
Lucas had been alive twenty-one months ago. And able-bodied. He hadn’t yet had the accident that had crippled him.
Twenty-one months ago Lucas had still been able to walk, ride…and presumably make love. Not that Liam had kept track of his trysts. But…
She’d said Rottnest Island, and—
His hands clenched. Anyone who knew his family, anyone who’d known Lucas, could spin a story like this.
But when he stared at the child it didn’t feel like a story.
She backed up a step and a shudder rocked through her. ‘What kind of man are you?’ she whispered.
He barely heard her. Lucas had gone to Perth for the ag show. He’d stayed at Rottnest Island—Liam had the postcard to prove it. This child…could he be Lucas’s son?
A lump tried to lodge in his throat, but he forced it back, refused to allow it to fully form.
Sapphire Thomas speared him with those amazing green eyes. ‘Look, let’s get one thing clear. I am not letting you abandon Harry—got it?’ She lifted her chin. ‘We can deal with this like adults or we can leave it to the lawyers. It’s your call.’
He shifted his gaze from the child to her. She didn’t look like a liar or a cheat, but then neither had his ex-wife.
It would be better to let the lawyers deal with it.
Under his continued scrutiny she turned a shade paler, and then she reached up and fastened the top button on her oversized and decidedly rumpled shirt.
He blinked.
‘And you can stop looking at me like that,’ she said, in a voice so acid it would dissolve the rust from weathered corrugated iron. ‘I haven’t slept in two days. I’ve been stuck in that shoebox of a plane for over six hours. I’ve been weed on, vomited on, it’s as hot as blazes, and the dust is driving me mad! If I look like a bag lady, then—’
‘You don’t look like a bag lady.’ He didn’t know what had possessed him to say that. Only she didn’t look like a bag lady. And if she was feeling the heat, why wasn’t she undoing a few buttons or taking that long-sleeved shirt off instead? Even with the baby cradled in her arms he could make out the lines of the T-shirt she wore beneath it.
She continued to stare at him. Her chin didn’t drop. As a ploy to force him to confront her claim, it worked. Her sister and his brother? He tried to weigh it, assess it.
Why hadn’t she said Lucas was the father, then?
His gut clenched. The day darkened. Given all he’d found out about Lucas after the accident, it made an uncanny kind of sense. It could all still be a pack of lies, of course, and Sapphire Thomas might still be a liar and a cheat. Or her sister might have taken advantage of her and spun her a whole pack of lies. Those things were just as possible.
Something hard and heavy settled in his gut. He averted his eyes from the child. Regardless of how much he wanted to, he could not dismiss this woman’s claims. They warranted investigation. He owed Lucas that much.
And much, much more.
One thing was clear, though. He had to disabuse this woman of the misapprehension she was currently labouring under. ‘Ms Thomas, I know when I said this before that you didn’t believe me, but I am not that child’s father.’
‘But—’
‘I have never met your sister, and I have never been to Rottnest Island. I certainly haven’t taken a holiday—not there, not anywhere—in the last five years.’
Her green eyes darkened in confusion. ‘But—’
‘He ain’t either,’ Sid piped in. ‘It’s become a bit of a joke in these parts.’
Liam had no reason to lie. If he had a son, he would never turn his back on him. His hands clenched. Never!
All the blood drained from Sapphire’s face. Liam pushed his more sombre thoughts aside and braced himself to move forward and steady her if she started to sway. From somewhere, though, she found the strength to stiffen her spine and lift her chin. The lines of exhaustion that fanned out from her eyes tugged at him.
‘But Emmy named you. She…She said…’ She swallowed, obviously trying to come to terms with his revelation. Bruised eyes met his. She recoiled from him as if he’d threatened to strike her…or worse. ‘You’d deny your own son?’
‘No!’ The word broke from him, harsher than he’d meant it to. ‘I wish—’
He couldn’t finish that sentence. ‘I’m not his father.’ He dragged in a breath. ‘But I think I know who might be.’
Her jaw dropped. He took advantage of her momentary silence to cast a sidelong glance at Sid, and hoped that she’d interpret it correctly—he didn’t want to discuss this any further in front of the other man.
Her eyes narrowed. ‘Do you? Or is this just a way of putting me off?’
‘I’m not trying to brush you off, Ms Thomas. You’re right—we do have a lot to discuss.’ He glanced at the sky. The afternoon was lengthening. ‘Where are you staying?’ It wouldn’t do to let this sit. He wanted to get to the bottom of it as soon as possible.
‘Oh, I…’ She blinked, as if she hadn’t expected him to be so reasonable. ‘I’m staying at the Beach View Motel in Broome.’
‘Not tonight, you ain’t,’ Sid said unceremoniously, shuffling forward. ‘I’m having a lay-over in Kununurra. You didn’t say this was a return trip. You just said you wanted a ride to Newarra,’ he added, when Sapphie’s jaw dropped.
‘But—’
‘I’m not heading back to Broome for another two days.’ Sid glanced at Liam, grimaced. ‘And the yearling sales are on.’
Which meant every available room in Kununurra would be booked out. Liam bit back something rude and succinct. He didn’t want a woman at Newarra. He didn’t want a child there either—reminding him, taunting him, plaguing him with all that he’d lost. Not even for two days.
‘There’s nothing for it.’ Sid clapped Liam on the back. ‘You’re going to have to put Ms Thomas and her baby up.’
If the woman hadn’t been standing within hearing distance he’d have let fly, told Sid exactly what he thought of that plan. His lip curled. Sid was trying to protect his bachelor pad in Kununurra, that was what. A makeshift bachelor pad in an airplane hangar, Liam reminded himself. It was no place for a woman or a child. And he could hardly blame Sid for that when it was exactly what he was doing too. Trying to do.
He reminded himself of all he owed Lucas.
‘What’s he talking about?’ the Thomas woman snapped.
Liam planted his hands on his hips. ‘You’re going to have to stay here tonight.’
She stiffened. ‘I don’t think so. I’ll book into a motel or a B&B in Kununurra.’
‘Ms Thomas, with the yearling sales on you won’t get a room in Kununurra.’ He swept out an arm to indicate the emptiness of the landscape. ‘It’s not like we’re exactly teaming with other options out here, you know?’ Kununurra was nearly four hundred kilometres away. Broome was closer to six hundred. Newarra’s nearest neighbour was a three-hundred-and-fifty kilometre drive. He bit back his impatience. ‘You don’t have any other choice.’
She backed up a step. ‘A woman always has a choice.’
Her words came out low and vehement. She reminded him of a spooked heifer. He pursed his lips, adjusted his hat. He worked at keeping his voice low and easy. ‘I guess you could camp out if you wanted. I could lend you some gear.’ He lifted a deliberately casual shoulder. ‘But my housekeeper would have my hide if I let you do any such thing.’
There was no chance he was letting her camp out on his land. Who knew what trouble she’d get herself into? But long practice told him it would be better for Sapphire Thomas to come to the conclusion about the best course of action in her own time. Women were like that—contrary. High-maintenance. Trouble.
