The Cattleman, The Baby and Me. Michelle Douglas
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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