below.
‘My mother had been paying him, bribing him, to play father to me.’
Her voice was strangely impassive and it took a moment for the import of her words to hit him. When they did his hands threatened to snap his fishing rod in two. He’d have preferred to wrap them around her father’s throat. The hide of the man!
‘I never saw him again. I was pretty angry with my mother for a long time too.’ She paused, pursed her lips. ‘But now, with a baby of my own on the way, I understand my mother’s actions so much more.’ She glanced at him and then glanced away again. ‘You see, Alex, I want my baby to have everything good in this world and that includes a father.’
Her words chil ed him to the very centre of his being. ‘Kit, I—’
‘I know what you told me, Alex. I know you said you would not be a father to our baby.’
‘I would love to change your mind about that.’
‘I—’
‘No, just listen to what I have to say. I’m not asking you to respond. I just want you to hear what I have to say. Okay?’
His heart dropped to his knees. He managed a heavy nod.
‘I know what it’s like to yearn for a father with your whole being until everything else shrinks in importance. Knowing how important it was to me, do you think I would purposely and consciously ever deny that to my child?’
She turned then and her golden eyes met his. ‘I couldn’t do it, Alex. I could never do what Jacqueline did. I could never deny my child its father.’
He closed his eyes, tried to block out al her goldenness and the spel she was threatening to weave about him.
‘Like I said,’ she continued, ‘I’m not asking you to respond to any of this. It’s just…’
He opened his eyes. He couldn’t help it.
‘The thing is, Alex, if you’re using that as an excuse to avoid fatherhood then you’re going to have to come up with another one because that one doesn’t exist.’
A hole opened up inside his chest. ‘I’m sorry your father did that to you, Kit. You can rest assured that I would never do that to your child.’
‘No,’ she whispered. ‘You mean to hurt it in an entirely different way. At least I met my father and had a chance to know him and find out who he was.
Even if he did disappoint me, at least it stopped me from building unrealistic fantasies around him.’
Was that what their child would do?
‘Anyway—’ Kit shook herself ‘—enough of al that for one day. Wanna learn how to clean and scale a fish?’
He tried to match her tone. ‘How could I resist an offer like that?’
Her laugh could no longer lighten his heart. Her father’s absence had left a hole in Kit’s life, had left an indelible impression there that nothing could erase. Alex hadn’t meant to do harm to anyone. But his actions had harmed Kit, and they would harm her unborn child’s.
unborn child’s.
His child.
He dragged a hand down his face.
‘So you’re squeamish, huh?’
He pul ed his hand away to find her attempting to demonstrate the correct way to gut a fish.
She cocked an eyebrow. ‘Not going to throw up, are you?’ Her half-grin robbed the words of their sting.
He wanted to lay himself at her feet and beg her to forgive him. For everything.
He didn’t. Instead, he took al of the fish from her hands and, fol owing her instructions, cleaned each and every one of them. It was the least he could do.
‘Excel ent.’ She took the last fish, bundled up their things and made to leave their rock. ‘I’l cook dinner tonight.’
‘Hey, hold on a moment. You can’t cook.’ He took the net and the bucket from her hand and handed her the lightweight rod instead.
Her eyes danced. ‘I said I
His mouth watered.
They walked back the length of the breakwater.
Kit hummed, but Alex’s mind churned. And then Kit halted mid-hum, and just stopped to stare.
At a mother and her baby swimming—floating—
together in the shal ows of the Rock Pool. A pre-toddler-sized baby. A little girl if the pink bathers and sunhat were anything to go by.
A little girl. Alex’s thoughts tumbled to a halt. He couldn’t drag his eyes from that baby. A great aching hole cracked open inside him.
