Michelle Douglas - The Secretary's Secret

‘What are you doing?’

That childish voice came from almost directly beneath him. He stared at the weatherboards. He could do this. He’d wrapped his heart in ice once before. He could halt the thaw that Kit had somehow started and put it in deep freeze once again. He would not think about Chad.

He dragged in a breath. He didn’t turn around. ‘I’m painting your Auntie Kit’s house.’

‘My name is Davey.’

Another deep breath. ‘Mine’s Alex.’

‘Are you Auntie Kit’s boyfriend?’

The voice was even closer now, and the question made Alex blink. In another time, another place, he suspected it would’ve made him laugh. ‘I’m her friend.’

‘I’m going to marry her when I grow up.’

He had to hand it to the kid. He had great taste.

‘Can I help?’

And then Davey’s head appeared and Alex’s heart lurched. Davey had climbed up the side of the heart lurched. Davey had climbed up the side of the scaffolding. What if he fel ? ‘Hold on a minute, Tiger.’

His heart cramped. He’d always cal ed Chad Tiger. Don’t think about Chad!

Alex forced himself to move. He vaulted to the ground and then seized Davey beneath the armpits to swing him down too. ‘Your mum wil come after me with a meat cleaver if you—’

He couldn’t go on. He froze. Davey’s solid weight, his warmth, the trusting way he stared at Alex with dark-fringed eyes that were the same brown as Chad’s. Al of it was imprinted on his memory. A low moan threatened to burst from his chest. Chad would weigh this much now too. He’d stil be chubby-cheeked and chubby-legged like the last time Alex had seen him, held him, but he’d be tal er. He’d probably be asking awkward question and—

Who was letting Chad help paint a house or sand a chair or let him hand them tools while they tuned a car?

Pictures of Chad flashed through his mind. Chad running towards him to welcome him home from work, arms outstretched. Chad with his head thrown back, gurgling with laughter as Alex swung him around and around. Chad nestled against Alex’s chest, his breathing deep and even as he slept.

Alex started to shake.

‘Alex?’

Kit came into view. He barely heard her over the rush in his ears. The cramp in his chest grew until he thought he might crack in two. He wanted to haul this child into his arms and hold him close. He wanted…

He thrust Davey into Kit’s arms. ‘I…I have to go.’

He lurched around the side of the house. He didn’t stop at his car. He kept walking. Chad’s name echoed in his heart with every step. At some point Kit’s started up in there too.

Kit’s heart burned when Alex disappeared around the side of the house. His white-lipped stare, his wild dark eyes, the way his hands had clenched, it had almost made her cry out.

Davey had reminded him of Chad! Oh, why hadn’t she thought? She should have realized.

Her mouth went dry. But…Davey wasn’t Chad. If Alex reacted this way to a child he wasn’t related to, how would he react to his own child?

She swal owed back a sob, not wanting to frighten Davey.

Davey’s bottom lip wobbled. ‘I only wanted to help. Alex doesn’t like me.’

‘Of course he does, honey.’ She pul ed him in close for a hug before moving back towards Caro, unable to meet her friend’s eye. ‘Alex hasn’t been feeling very wel lately. I think he might be coming down with something.’

Caro raised an eyebrow, but Kit was grateful she didn’t snort.

‘Hey there, soldier!’ Frank popped his head up over the fence. ‘Want to come see the baby birds in the nest on my shed?’

Davey’s face lit up. ‘Can I, Mum? Can I go over to Uncle Frank’s?’

‘Okay.’ Caro laughed and pointed a mock-threatening finger at Frank. ‘But mind you don’t feed him more than two biscuits. He’s had two already.’

‘Aye, aye, Captain!’

Caro contemplated Kit as Davey raced across next door. ‘Why are you wasting your time on this man, Kit?’

Was she wasting her time? She folded herself into her chair, hunched down to rest her head against its wooden slats. Nausea and exhaustion pummel ed her.

‘I mean, you had to see the look on his face when he held Davey. Not even Blind Freddy could’ve missed that!’

She had. Shock, wonder and then pain—a dark, searing, tear-the-heart-out-of-your-chest pain.

And she’d wanted to help him. In that moment it hadn’t mattered if he was going to stay or not.

Nobody should be asked to endure that kind of pain on their own.

‘Kit, do you real y believe Alex can change?

Come to terms with fatherhood? Be there for you and the baby?’

Kit moistened her lips and swal owed. ‘I know if our positions were reversed, I’d be asking you these self-same questions. Caro, my head knows what you’re saying. It’s saying the same things.’

‘But?’

But her heart was another matter entirely. It hit her then that she’d been so busy trying to reconcile Alex to the idea of fatherhood that she’d forgotten to protect herself. She’d left herself wide open. She’d fal en in love with him again.

If she’d ever fal en out of love with him in the first place.

What a mess!

She forced herself to state facts. ‘You know he threw up when I told him I was pregnant. Right there in the azalea bushes.’

‘Oh, honey.’ Caro leaned across, clasped her hand. ‘I’m sorry.’

Kit squeezed it back. ‘But he took me to the medical clinic al the same and he looked after me until I was over the kidney infection. He knew he didn’t have to stay, but he did and he never made me feel bad about it. Not once.’

‘Just as wel !’

‘His parents died when he was twelve and he went to live with his mean old grandfather. You and me, we both missed our dads, but our childhoods were great.’

Caro shook her head, but she was smiling. ‘You are such a soft touch.’

‘Every time I’ve just about given up on him, I find out something that gives me hope again. You know, he hasn’t had a proper holiday in nearly five years.

He took leave the month before last and spent it doing aid work in Africa, helping to build an orphanage.’

She’d gril ed him until he’d told her every single detail about it. She could stil remember the way his eyes had shone.

‘Not the actions of a man entirely beyond hope,’

Caro final y agreed. ‘But, honey, I’m so scared you’re going to get hurt.’

Kit pul ed in a breath. It was too late to go back now. ‘I know having him here is a risk, but…’ She now. ‘I know having him here is a risk, but…’ She leant towards her friend. ‘There’s too much at stake to just give up on him. He’l do what he considers his duty—pay child support and whatnot.’ She flattened her hands over her burgeoning stomach and stared at it in wonder and gratitude. ‘I want more than that for my baby, Caro. I love it so much already. If anything I do now can help Alex with his issues and embrace fatherhood, then…’

‘Then you’l do it.’

‘I have to,’ she whispered, her throat thickening and her eyes stinging. ‘I know I might fail. I know the odds aren’t great.’ After what she’d just witnessed, they might wel be non-existent, but… ‘I have to at least try. Otherwise, how wil I ever be able to look my child in the eye when it asks me about its daddy?’

Caro didn’t say anything for a moment. ‘What about what you need, Kit?’

‘The baby has to come first.’

‘Sure it does, but it doesn’t mean you’re not al owed to have hopes and dreams for yourself too.

You know I’d lay my life down for Davey, but it doesn’t stop me hoping my white knight wil turn up.’

With al her heart, Kit hoped that would happen for her friend.