Читать книгу New Arrivals: Surprise Baby for Him: The Cattleman's Adopted Family / The Soldier's Homecoming / Marriage for Baby - Melissa McClone - Страница 11

HOLDING Bella’s hand, Amy went down the hallway, turned left, as Seth had directed, and walked into a stream of sunshine.

And an idyllic tropical paradise.

‘Goodness, Bella, where are we?’

Last night, entering by the back steps in the rainy dark, Amy had realised that Seth’s home was comfortable—but now she saw that not one thing about it came even close to her idea of a cattleman’s residence.

The veranda at the front of the house was so deep it formed large, outdoor rooms. She paused in the doorway to take it all in.

From here she could see a dining area and, beyond that, bamboo cane lounge chairs grouped around a coffee table, and, beyond that again, a desk with a telephone and a high-backed chair. Gently circling ceiling fans and huge potted palms gave the whole area an elegant, Oriental air.

She saw the garden beyond the veranda and gasped…Instead of hectares of dry, grassy paddocks, the Serenity homestead was fronted by terraces of smooth lawns and lush tropical gardens where delicate orchids grew side by side with bright bougainvillea and graceful palms. Heavens, there was even a swimming pool on one of the terraces.

The entire grounds were set in a haven of green on a densely wooded hillside, with views to white sandy beaches, a bright, glittering sea, and the dark emerald silhouettes of offshore islands.

It was gorgeous. Unreal. Amy felt as if she’d woken up at a resort and, at any minute, a waiter would appear to offer her a long, colourful drink with clinking ice cubes and a tiny paper umbrella.

Seth rose from the dining table and came towards them, smiling at the stunned expression on Amy’s face.

‘This is amazing,’ she said.

‘Glad you like it.’

‘But—’ She made a sweeping gesture that took in the gardens edged by rainforest and the view. ‘Where are your cattle?’

Seth laughed. ‘We passed through the grazing country yesterday. Over to the west. Not far away at all. There’s only a narrow fringe of this rainforest along the coastal mountains.’

‘But it’s beautiful.’ She could so easily imagine Rachel living here, soaking up the exotic atmosphere.

That thought brought Amy straight back to earth.

Which was just as well. She knew she couldn’t allow herself to be carried away by the beauty of Seth’s home.

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 had made him smile more times in the past twenty-four hours than he had in the past twelve months.

He said, ‘Weren’t you telling me yesterday that Serenity is as far from Melbourne as London is from Moscow?’

She turned to him, giving him the full benefit of her warm chocolate eyes, and he was very glad he’d suggested that they take this time to sit on the veranda, drinking coffee after lunch, while Bella napped.

‘It must have been quite a culture shock for you to move all the way from Sydney to here,’ she said earnestly. ‘You were only twelve. That’s smack on the edge of adolescence, when everything looms larger than life.’

‘Actually, I think the fact that everything was so different here helped me,’ he said. ‘I was overawed by this place, but I thought it was incredibly exciting, and my uncle kept me busy from first thing in the morning till I fell into bed at night. He turned my life into an adventure. I’m sure I’d have found it much harder to get over my father’s death if I’d stayed in Sydney.’

Surprised that he’d told Amy so much, he reached for his coffee cup and drank deeply.

Her face was soft with sympathy, as if she was picturing how it had been for him. ‘It can’t have been easy though, when you didn’t have a mother.’

From force of habit, Seth brushed her comment aside. He had no intention of explaining about his mother. She was a subject he never talked about. There was no reason to discuss her.

But Amy had hooked her elbow over the arm of her chair and she was leaning towards him, watching him with her complete attention. Two small lines of worry drew her brows low and her brown eyes were rounded with concern, her pink lips parted. Seth found himself wanting to lean closer, too, to kiss those soft, inviting lips, to kiss away that frown.

It would be so easy.

So incredibly satisfying.

And…totally inappropriate. She hadn’t come here for a fling.

All day he’d been struggling to blank out the picture of Amy this morning in her flimsy cotton nightdress. He tried not to think about the soft round outline of her breasts, the smooth skin of her shoulders, the tapering curve of her waist.

But Amy was different from Rachel. Seth knew she hadn’t been planning seduction, and he could have sworn that she hadn’t even noticed when her wrap slipped from her shoulders.

There’d been no flirting in the pool today either. But, heaven help him, he could still see the back view of her as she climbed the pool ladder. World-class legs. Lovely behind. Movements so graceful and feminine he couldn’t help but stare.

Damn it, the very fact that Amy’s sexiness was unintentional, and the knowledge that she wasn’t trying to seduce him, made his desire for her all the stronger.

But he shouldn’t have been checking her out. Just as he shouldn’t be thinking about kissing her now.

He couldn’t afford to start an affair with little Bella’s guardian when he knew that it could never go anywhere. The child needed stability in her life, and he’d learned the hard way that women and his lifestyle didn’t mix. For the past few years, he’d worked hard at keeping his distance from women like Amy—intelligent, warm-hearted, home-and-hearth-loving women.

The marrying kind.

Even so, he knew it would only take the first taste of her tender mouth, the first touch of his lips to her soft, warm skin and he’d be craving more.

He drew in a sharp breath.

Don’t even think about it.

Why was it so hard to remember his past mistakes?

For pity’s sake, man, just answer the woman’s question.

He said, ‘My mother left after my father died.’

‘Left?’ Shock made Amy’s voice tremble. Are you saying she left you?’

Seth shrugged and forced a smile. ‘Ever since I can remember, she’d had her sights set on Hollywood, and without my father to hold her back she was free to go.’

‘But she wasn’t free, Seth. She had you.’ Amy stared at him, with a hand pressed to her throat. Her dark eyes were clouded, as if he’d told her something completely beyond her comprehension. ‘You’d just lost your father. You were only twelve. Why couldn’t she keep you with her?’

It was a question that had eaten at Seth for years. Even now, he could feel the agonising slug of loss that had flattened him, when he’d finally understood what his mother’s choice had meant.

Her longing for fame and glamour had outweighed her sense of responsibility.

Bottom line, she hadn’t loved him enough.

Regretting that he’d started this line of talk, he sent Amy another shrugging smile. ‘I was better off up here with my uncle.’

‘I can’t believe that.’

‘I didn’t believe it at first, but with the benefit of hindsight I know it was best.’

Amy looked as if she couldn’t possibly agree.

‘Think about it,’ Seth told her. ‘What twelve-year-old boy would choose to live in a low-rent flat in a huge metropolis like Los Angeles, when he could be here, learning to ride horses, to raise cattle, to fish and to skin-dive, to explore deserted islands, and to paddle a kayak?’

‘I guess,’ she said uncertainly.

‘I owe my uncle a great deal.’

As if she needed time to think about this, she picked up the coffee pot. ‘Would you like a refill?’

‘Thanks.’ He held out his cup and he admired the unconscious elegance of her slim wrists and hands as she lifted the teapot and poured.

She was dressed for the tropical heat in a soft blue cotton dress, with loose sleeves that left her smooth, lightly tanned arms free. Her hair, which had dried in natural waves after their swim, was twisted into a loose knot from which wispy curls strayed.

Her citified neatness was beginning to unravel and Seth found the process utterly fascinating. He wasn’t sure which version of Amy he preferred, but one thing was certain—he was finding it close to impossible to remain detached, an aloof observer.

But he had to keep his distance. In a matter of days she was returning to Melbourne. She was a city girl. End of story.

Amy filled her cup and added milk, then settled down to resume their conversation. ‘So did your mother make it big in Hollywood?’

‘She’s had walk-on parts in daytime soap operas, but that’s about it.’

‘Has she made enough money to live on?’

‘I have no idea, but it doesn’t really matter. She remarried,’ Seth said coldly. ‘Found herself a cashed-up Californian.’

‘Has she ever been here?’

‘Once, when she dropped me off,’ he said, unhappily aware that he’d revealed much more than he’d intended. It was time to put a stop to these personal questions. Years ago, he’d learned to live without his mother and he wasn’t going to admit to a tender-hearted woman like Amy Ross that his only contact with her had been letters on his eighteenth and twenty-first birthdays with generous cheques attached.

He drained his coffee cup and stood. ‘I’m afraid I have business to attend to and I’m sure you’d appreciate time to yourself while Bella’s asleep.’

‘I’d like to take photographs of your grounds, if that’s all right.’

‘Be my guest. But keep to the open areas. Don’t go wandering off into the rainforest, or down the track to the beach.’

Amy frowned. ‘Do you think I’ll get lost?’

‘I’m assuming you’d rather not come face to face with an amethystine python, or a salt-water crocodile.’

The colour drained from her face and he winced. In one breath he’d completely ruined her stay.

‘I’m exaggerating the danger,’ he said more gently. ‘People have been living here for decades quite safely. But I’d rather you didn’t go exploring without me.’

‘Yes,’ she acceded, still looking pale. ‘That might be best.’

‘So promise me for now that you won’t go beyond the garden.’

Amy gave him her word.