Laurey Bright - Shadowing Shahna

Planned? How could she reply to that? “Not…exactly,” she hedged.

“Then why didn’t you contact me? Don’t you think I had a right to know?”

Shahna went cold, despite the summer-morning heat creeping into the cottage. Sun-wakened cicadas shrilled in the trees outside.

Her hands clenched, clammy with sudden sweat, and Kier’s face seemed to recede and then swim into focus. She’d never thought she’d have to confront him with this. It was like a bad dream. “No,” she said, looking at him steadily. “He’s not yours, Kier.”

Kier blinked, then seemed to brush her denial aside, making a scornful sound. “What sort of fool do you take me for?” he inquired with forceful sarcasm. “It was certainly no bloody virgin birth!”

Samuel, who had been looking from one to the other of them while clutching a small stuffed rabbit, suddenly burst into loud sobs.

Immediately Shahna’s attention switched to him. “It’s all right, Sam-sam!” She gathered him up into her arms and shushed him, gently swaying her body from side to side to soothe him. “He’s not used to people quarreling,” she told Kier quietly, her hand cradling the baby’s head on her shoulder. “Shh, darling. No one’s going to hurt you.” She kissed a fat tear from a rounded, rose-petal cheek.

Samuel snuffled into gradual silence against her while she murmured comforting words and Kier stood by, black brows drawn together.

Shahna wiped the child’s hot face with her fingers, and Samuel turned his head, stared at Kier and pointed, saying accusingly, “Ma’!”

“Yes.” She had to laugh a little at his baby aggression. “Man. That’s Kier. Mummy used to know him.”

Ominously Kier’s mouth tightened again.

“Kee?” Samuel queried, looking at her for confirmation.

“Kier. He won’t hurt you,” she assured him again. Though Kier’s murderous expression indicated he would have liked to hurt someone, hit someone, she knew he wouldn’t.

“Kee.” Samuel gazed at Kier with solemn suspicion.

“Does he understand you?” Kier asked, the savage look consciously banished, although his face still looked tight and his voice was strained.

“Not every word. He understands tones of voice.”

“I didn’t mean to frighten him.” Kier was looking back at Samuel, keeping his voice low. “I’m sorry.”

“Kee,” Samuel said again, and leaned away from Shahna’s hold, stretching his arms toward the man.

Shahna smiled. “Apology accepted.”

Kier instinctively held out his hands to take the baby reaching out to him. Two chubby arms came about his neck, and incredibly soft curls tickled his chin. He put one arm under the padded little behind while the other held the small, sturdy body close to his chest.

A weird mixture of emotions overtook him. A kind of awe at this tiny human being showing him forgiveness, at the trust being bestowed on him. And a strong urge to preserve that trustfulness, to protect the little guy from hurt.

And a sudden, totally unexpected fierce possessiveness.

Apparently a hug was enough for Samuel. He squirmed, giving a clear signal that he wanted to be put down, and Kier bent and let him go.

Samuel made straight back to the toy basket, and when Kier straightened, his arms felt oddly empty. The warmth of the baby’s body still clung to his T-shirt.

“If you’d told me,” he said, unable to keep a certain righteousness from his tone, “I would have helped. I would have looked after you.”

“I didn’t need anyone’s help.” Shahna seemed almost desperate as their eyes met over Samuel’s head. “And certainly not yours.”

As if he were the last person she would have turned to. Kier’s temper nearly boiled over. He resented her assumption that he’d have reneged on his responsibility.

Her tongue momentarily flicked over pale lips. “I’ve already told you, Kier,” she said with careful clarity, “you’re not Samuel’s father! Another man is.”

Another man?

Another man had made love to Shahna, had shared the intimate secrets of her body, had made a baby with her?

Inwardly Kier reeled, his mind in turmoil again. The only emotion he should be feeling was relief. Instead he felt cheated, and disappointed, and downright red-rag furious. He had to swallow hard and clamp his jaw firmly shut so as not to frighten the baby again.

“I didn’t expect,” Shahna said defensively, “that you’d jump to conclusions so fast.”

“How old is he?”

Her eyes met his full on, her head held high. “Eleven months.”

There was a short, prickly silence while he rapidly calculated. “You didn’t waste any time.”

He knew he sounded accusing. And that he had no right to accuse her of anything. But his bed must have hardly cooled from her leaving it before she’d been hopping into someone else’s. All ready to have the someone else’s baby.

His stomach plunged. “Were you sleeping with his father before you left me?” he asked.

Her eyes went glass-green with temper and color flared in her cheeks. “You know me better than that. At least, I thought you did.”

“I thought I did too,” he said. “But as you mentioned before, maybe I didn’t know you so well after all. Are you sure you know who the father is?” If she was lying to him that should force the truth from her.

“Of course I’m sure! It wasn’t you,” she said. “There is no way it’s possible.”

She sounded quite definite, and he supposed she’d know. Assuming she was telling the truth. “So where is this guy?” he shot at her, still not wholly convinced. “In Sydney?”

He thought at first she wasn’t going to answer. She looked away, then back at him. “Actually, in New Zealand.”

“You came straight here when you left me?” No wonder his inquiries hadn’t found her.

“Yes, I did. I mean, I was working in Auckland for a while before coming north.”

“You met him there? How? When? How long had you known him?”

She blinked as if he’d shocked her, then said steadily, “None of that is any of your business.”

She couldn’t have known the man long. It had certainly taken him a hell of a lot less time to find his way to her bed than it had Kier.

Yet earlier she’d told him she meant to get pregnant! “If your biological clock was sending off alarm signals,” he asked, “why didn’t you talk to me about it?”

“You were very clear that babies didn’t figure in your plans.”

He’d never thought they figured in hers, either. She’d given him no reason to think it. “I don’t recall that we ever discussed the possibility,” he said. “Except in the context of making sure it didn’t happen by accident.”

He’d been just as much concerned for her and her career as for his own freedom. It was all very well for women to think they could have it all, and for men to promise they’d do their share, but he’d seen female colleagues and employees juggling work and family, seen them drive themselves to exhaustion and turn down promotions, miss out on the top jobs because their energies were divided.

Some of them maintained it was worth it, but dammit, Shahna had never said she wanted a baby.

Had she?

He couldn’t recall the details of every conversation they’d ever had, but he was pretty sure he would have remembered that. “Why didn’t you say you felt differently?” he said, trying not to sound affronted. “That isn’t why you left?” Without even mentioning any desire for a child?

Shahna hesitated. “In a way…I suppose it was.”

What the hell did that mean? She hadn’t wanted his baby, but she’d been perfectly willing—eager—to have someone else’s? “So what did you do?” he demanded, his anger spilling over. “Sleep with the first man who came along? Use a sperm donor?” It had never occurred to him before that she might be one of those women who wanted a child to fulfill their womanhood, without the bother of having to share its parenting with a man. But then it had never occurred, either, that she’d walk out of his life without a backward glance.