New Arrivals: Surprise Baby for Him: The Cattleman's Adopted Family / The Soldier's Homecoming / Marriage for Baby. Melissa McClone
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It would be prudent to keep Rachel at the forefront of her thoughts. She had to remember that it was right here, in this setting, that Rachel and Seth had been swept away by a passionate liaison.
Bella was tugging at her hand. ‘Look, look! A swimming pool!’ She tried to pull Amy towards the sparkling blue water. ‘My go swimming.’
‘Not now,’ Amy told her. ‘We’re going to have breakfast.’
Bending quickly, she picked the little girl up and hugged her, and as they took their places at the dining table she wished she didn’t feel so unaccountably afraid.
Her desire for Bella to know her father had been driven purely by emotion. Families were important to Amy. Her own family was big and noisy and loving and she hated that Bella knew no one who was related to her by blood. Now, suddenly, Amy was looking at this gorgeous property, and was forced to accept practical realities that outweighed emotion.
Seth Reardon was seriously wealthy. He didn’t merely own vast tracts of land and mobs of valuable cattle. His home was beautiful and comfortable and he had domestic help, and an aeroplane, for heaven’s sake.
Bella was his daughter, his potential heiress, and if Seth wanted to he could hire a nanny for her and she could live here with him quite happily and safely.
Last night, when he’d been stunned and shocked, Seth had agreed that Amy could take Bella back to Melbourne. Naively, she’d had no doubt that she was the very best person to raise the little girl. She’d even broken up with Dominic because she believed that so vehemently.
But already, less than a day after arriving at Serenity, she was having deep misgivings about her right to make such demands.
Had Rachel felt similar doubts? Was that why she’d kept her pregnancy secret?
‘Let’s eat,’ Seth said, watching her with a puzzled smile, and she turned her attention to the food.
Clearly Ming was a genius, and their breakfast was a meal of stunning simplicity. A beautiful fruit platter of passionfruit, vividly hued pawpaw and mango, and a star-shaped fruit Amy had never seen before, was followed by perfectly delicious, lightly spiced mushrooms and tomatoes on toasted homemade bread.
Bella ate a banana cut up in a bowl of yoghurt with golden circles of honey drizzled on top.
‘That’s one of her favourite breakfasts,’ Amy told Seth as she watched the little girl eagerly wielding her spoon.
‘I took a guess when I suggested fruit and yoghurt to Ming. He’s not used to cooking for a two-year-old.’
‘Are you?’ she couldn’t help asking. ‘Have you had much experience with children?’
‘Only what I’ve observed with other people’s kids.’
Which meant he was more observant than most bachelors, she decided unhappily. Again, she felt an anxious swoop in her chest at the possibility of giving up Bella.
‘I’m guessing that Bella might enjoy a play in the pool before it gets too hot,’ Seth said when they’d finished their meal.
‘I’m sure she would. She loves the water.’ Amy was grateful that she’d included their bathers when she’d packed, but she’d expected to be swimming in an Outback creek or a river, not a beautifully tiled, sparkling, manmade pool.
‘Go swimming,’ Bella announced, pulling at Amy’s hand.
Amy gave her a wistful smile. ‘When your breakfast’s gone down.’
But it wasn’t very long before she gave in and Bella was racing ahead of her down the smooth stone steps to greet Seth at the edge of the pool.
‘Look, Sef!’ the little girl announced with great excitement. ‘I’m a ballerdina!’ She spun around, so he could admire her red and white spotted swimsuit edged with cute frills.
‘You’re a beautiful ballerina,’ he assured her. ‘Bella the water-baby ballerina.’
His smiling gaze flickered to Amy and she was glad she’d splurged on a new swimsuit for herself. She knew she was no real beauty, but she’d always been told she had decent legs, and the swimsuit was dark green and perfectly cut to flatter her figure. Even though she wasn’t trying to impress this man, she was quietly pleased that she looked OK.
Seth looked more than OK, of course, in black swimming trunks and with a towel slung around his magnificent shoulders.
It was hard to stop stealing glances at his bare chest and his deeply bronzed, fabulous physique.
‘Well, let’s have a splash, shall we, Bella?’
The little girl loved the water, but she couldn’t swim, so she needed constant help and supervision and Amy was grateful that she was kept busy. It helped to ignore Seth while he swam up and down the pool with smooth, powerful strokes.
After a bit, he joined them. ‘Your turn,’ he told Amy, sending her a grin that made his teeth flash white against his tan. ‘I’ll look after Bella, while you have a swim.’
It was unsettling to hand Bella over, almost as if it was a foretaste of the future. Amy struggled with her reluctance. ‘You need to watch her like a hawk,’ she told Seth. ‘She thinks she can swim.’
‘I’ll be careful.’
She had no choice but to trust him. ‘She’s not scared of the water, and she doesn’t mind putting her face under.’
Bella was so excited and wet and wriggly that the handover was precarious. Amy almost dropped the little girl when she felt Seth’s bare leg brush against hers and she fumbled again when their hands touched and they bumped elbows.
It was bittersweet relief to leave them at last and to swim away in a careful breaststroke to the deep end of the pool. As she swam she could hear Bella’s delighted squeals and laughter.
When she reached the other end, she turned and looked back and saw them together—father and daughter, looking so alike with their dark wet hair, sleek against their skulls—and she felt another tremor of fear deep inside.
Was she being silly, or was she really in danger of losing Bella? Would Seth demand that his daughter live with him?
The thought brought a hot swirl of panic. She’d been so sure she was doing the right thing, that bringing Bella here was in line with Rachel’s intentions.
But now she’d met Seth and seen his beautiful home she couldn’t help wondering why Rachel had objected to living here. She wondered if there was a deeper reason behind Rachel’s avoidance of this meeting with Seth. And was there also an equally good reason why she’d named Amy, and not Seth, as Bella’s guardian?
Amy was sure she was entitled to the role. She adored Bella, had been involved in her life since her birth, had actually been present at her birth.
She would never forget that incredible, joyous morning. Now, the possibility that she might lose Bella made her want to weep.
She dived under the water to wash away the possibility of tears. She had to be strong, to remember that she’d come here for this—to allow Bella and her father to meet—and she was pleased they were getting on so well. He’d accepted that Amy was Bella’s guardian and she had to have faith in her decisions and in her instincts that told her Seth Reardon could be trusted.
Even so, the few days that she would spend here suddenly felt like a dangerously long stretch of time.
‘Everything’s so different and exotic here,’ Amy said later, waving her hand to the view of the terraced hillside and the bright blue sea framed by a tangle of rainforest jungle. ‘I find it hard to believe that I’m still in Australia. I feel as if I’ve crossed hemispheres.’
‘In a way you have.’ Seth sent her a slow smile, aware that it was becoming a habit, this smiling at Amy. It was highly likely that, between them, she and Bella