The Cattleman, The Baby and Me. Michelle Douglas
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the room to a bookcase. He was just a little too lean and broad and hard for a woman’s peace of mind. It would suit her just fine if he kept his distance.
He came back, laid a heavy photo album across her knee and retreated to his chair. She opened the first page and just stared. She turned to the second page…went back to the first page…turned to the third. And it suddenly fell into place—why Liam had broken off mid-tirade and stopped threatening to throw her back on the mail plane. The faces of the babies staring out at her from the album were identical to that of the baby sleeping beside her.
‘Harry is…’
‘The very image of me and my brothers,’ Liam confirmed, his lips twisting.
She stared at him, willing him to show just a little bit of joy at discovering he had a nephew. She understood that he might still be wrestling with the magnitude of the surprise, but…
She swallowed and shook herself. ‘Who’s this? And this?’
Liam leant across the arm of the sofa. He touched one brown finger to a photograph. ‘This is me…That’s my brother Lachlan, my sister Lacey…And this here is Lucas.’
Until around the ages of three, the photographs of Liam, Lachlan and Lucas seemed identical. They still looked like brothers after that, but their individual differences started coming to the fore. Not just physically either. In every photograph of him after the age of five Liam stood with his back ramrod-straight, staring intently at the camera. Lachlan, with a grin full of mischief, was usually showing off. And Lucas, when he wasn’t laughing, had a tendency to duck his head—a little uncertain, a little shy.
They were gorgeous kids. And they had all grown into seriously gorgeous men.
As Sapphie turned the pages of the photo album, a picture formed of a close-knit family bound by love and laughter and mutual respect. Longing yawned through her. She’d spent her whole life wanting to belong to a family like this.
She glanced down at Harry. Could all this history and heritage be his?
Finally she handed the album back to Liam, and thankfully he moved away, back to his armchair, where his heat and his scent couldn’t beat at her. He smelt of horse and leather and native grass—scents she associated with the Kimberley and with good times. For as long as he’d sat so close she’d had to fight the urge to lean into him. She swallowed and told herself to stop being so fanciful.
‘The resemblance is remarkable.’
‘Yes.’
If the photos were any indication, Lucas laughed a lot. He looked as if he’d make a wonderful father—full of fun and laughter…and love. The opposite of the man sitting across from her.
Her instincts told her Liam was a good man, but nobody could accuse him of being a barrel of laughs, could they? The lines around his eyes and mouth grew more pronounced. She wished he’d smile. She should have known the moment she’d clapped eyes on him that Emmy wouldn’t mess with a man like Liam. He wasn’t the kind of man one messed about with.
‘You should probably have a look at this.’
He held something out to her. A postcard. She couldn’t decipher the emotion that momentarily twisted his features, but an icy premonition suddenly seized hold of her. She didn’t want to read that postcard. She knew that with every atom of her being. She forced her nerveless fingers to take it. A postcard from Rottnest Island. She turned it over. It was signed by Lucas. The date was twenty-one months ago. She frowned. It seemed innocuous enough.
Liam held up two sheets of paper. ‘This is Lucas’s credit card statement from twenty-one months ago. Multiple transactions were made at a resort on Rottnest Island. It appears he was there for about a week.’
Just as Emmy had said. But…
She stared at Liam, at the credit card statement he held, and her mouth suddenly went dry. ‘Liam, where is Lucas?’
He stared back at her with eyes as dark as tar. ‘Lucas is dead. He died eight months ago.’
All the strength drained from Sapphie’s arms and legs. She stared at his white-lipped face. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she whispered.
He gave a curt nod.
She found it hard to bear witness to such naked grief. She knew Liam would resent the fact that she’d seen it, and would reject any attempt at comfort she made, so she turned to stare at Harry. Her throat went tight and her eyes burned
Poor Harry!
No! She refused to believe it.
‘The resemblance—it could be a coincidence! It doesn’t mean—’
‘We’ll have a DNA test done to make sure. It’ll put everyone’s minds at rest.’
‘But if Lucas was Harry’s father…’ She let the sentence trail off because she couldn’t bear to finish it.
‘They’ll be able to tell from my DNA how closely related I am to Harry.’
‘No! It doesn’t make sense.’ She had to find Harry’s father. She had to!
‘Emmy said you were Harry’s father, not Lucas. Why would she say that if…?’
He rested his head in his hands, suddenly looking as old as the ranges on the horizon.
Her fingers curled into her palms. ‘What?’ she whispered.
‘Lucas had me on a bit of a pedestal.’ The word ground out of him as if he loathed it. ‘He was only twenty-three when he died—fourteen years my junior. Our mother always called him her happy accident.’
A mother who had lost her son. For a moment Sapphie could barely see Liam through the sheen of her tears. She gulped them back.
‘After his accident, when we were at the hospital, I did hear that when Lucas went out on the town he’d sometimes introduce himself as me.’
She stared. ‘But why?’
He lifted one shoulder. ‘I never asked him. At the time there were more important things to worry about.’ He scowled, dragged his fingers back through his hair. ‘At the time I figured he was playacting at being the manager of Newarra—it was what he wanted more than anything. If it’s any consolation, I don’t think he deliberately set out to deceive your sister.’
‘But it still doesn’t mean he’s Harry’s father! This could all be a mistake.’
‘For the last four years Lucas was the family’s representative at the Perth Agricultural Show. He was definitely on Rottnest Island at the time you claim Harry was conceived.’
‘But—’
‘I know this isn’t the scenario you were expecting, or hoping for, but taken all together the facts tell their own story.’
All she could do was stare at him—this man who spoke such hard, unrelenting words. A tremble ran through her. Her fingers started to shake, and then her hands, her arms, her shoulders—she couldn’t stop them. The postcard fluttered to the floor. Harry’s father was dead.
No!
She stared at Liam and shook her head. ‘No,’ she whispered. Harry’s father was supposed to step forward and claim him, love him.
‘I’m sorry, Sapphie.’
Her shaking grew so violent she thought it might shake her bones from her skin. She’d failed Emmy. She’d failed Harry. She’d change places with Lucas in an instant if…
She dropped her head to her knees and let the shaking overtake her. Liam leapt to his feet, but she held up a hand to ward him off. With a muttered oath, he fell back into his chair.
Finally, when the trembling had subsided, she lifted her head. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘You’re exhausted!’