It was. And Alex had rained on her parade. He didn’t deserve her smiles.
Frank gestured to the tools. ‘Good to see you haven’t wasted any time. What’s the plan?’
Alex told him because it was easier than fol owing Kit into the house and dealing with the reproachful silence she’d subjected him to in the car.
He’d deserved it, he knew that, but he didn’t know how to put things right. It’d be better for al concerned if she just kept thinking of him as some kind of unfeeling monster.
He battled the scowl building up inside him and told Frank how he meant to replace the joists and wal studs in the living room wal after he’d fixed the broken tiles on the roof, and then how he was going to re- plaster the wal and paint the house.
‘If you need a hand…’
Frank’s eager face final y burned itself into his brain. Frank wanted to help, was dying to be useful, and Alex didn’t have the heart to rain on another person’s parade today. ‘You wouldn’t happen to be handy with a sander by any chance, would you?’
‘I would be.’
Alex clapped the older man on the shoulder. ‘Then you’re hired. A second pair of hands wil be a godsend.’
Frank beamed at him and Alex found he could stil smile. After a fashion.
CHAPTER EIGHT
KIT and Alex spent the next week working on their individual projects. Because there was so much dust and noise from the work Alex was doing in the living-dining area, Kit had set up a temporary office in one corner of her bedroom—a card table, her laptop and a file that was over a foot thick that had been couriered from Sydney.
Alex always broke off at lunchtime to make sure she ate. And that Frank ate too, if the older man was helping and hadn’t already left for one of his tri-weekly swims that Doreen insisted he keep up.
‘Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, lovey. Doctor’s orders.’
Kit had the distinct impression that some days Frank was more of a hindrance than a help. His pleasure at being of use, though, touched her. So did Alex’s patience with him.
It was a side she hadn’t seen to Alex before. As the multi-mil ionaire executive in Sydney, Alex had been demanding, dictatorial and, at times, difficult.
He paid his executives top dol ar and as a result he expected them to be on the bal —no excuses. But this Alex, the builder-tradesman working on her house in Tuncurry, he was more laid-back, more relaxed. More human.
He made her heart beat harder too.
It was just…if Alex could be this good with an eager elderly gentleman, then wouldn’t he be great with a child?
The thought hitched her breath, made her stomach churn and her fingers tremble. She pushed away from the card table to pace. She’d been lucky thus far in her pregnancy—she hadn’t suffered much from nausea. But whenever she thought of Alex’s reaction during her scan, her stomach rebel ed and bile rose in her throat.
He had become so
She paused in her pacing to pul both hands back through her hair. She couldn’t deny it. She wanted a father for her baby. Even a part-time father was better than no father at al . Before she’d found out about Chad, she’d thought Alex the lowest of low lifes. But now she knew he would never hurt their baby the way her father had hurt her.
She remembered al the nights as a child when she’d lain awake yearning for a father, the joy when he’d final y become a part of her life. The devastation when she’d found out how little she’d real y meant to him.
Chad had meant the world to Alex. It didn’t take a genius to figure that one out. Couldn’t this baby mean the world to him too?
She swung away, hands clenched. It wasn’t fair that her baby—
She stumbled. Was that it? Did he think she would take his baby away from him the way his ex-wife had?
She turned to stare at the door. If that were the case… She bit her lip. She had to get him to un-think that as soon as she could.
Alex glanced around as Kit emerged from the hal way door and careful y closed it behind her.
Keeping it closed kept the worst of the dust out of the bedrooms.
Last week, Alex had moved a camp bed and his clothes into the spare bedroom. The nursery. It shared a wal with Kit’s bedroom. He wasn’t sleeping wel . One wal didn’t seem like much of a barrier and at night, whenever he closed his eyes, al he could see was Kit’s glorious nakedness. It made him ache and burn.
Just like her impersonal politeness made him ache and burn. He missed their easy-going banter, the connection that had once existed between them.
Tel ing himself it was for the best didn’t help.
Grinding his teeth together, he ordered himself to focus back on the sanding, but before he could he caught an eyeful of the way her breasts pressed against the cotton of her simple shirtdress and he found he could barely move let alone get back to work. Her curves had become curvier in the last few days and only a saint could deny noticing.
Both he and Kit knew he wasn’t a saint.
