Dear Reader,

All families are special, but some are truly miraculous. My brother’s family is one. Ten years ago, this family, with three young children, relocated to Kathmandu in Nepal. My brother was a medical officer for the U.S. Peace Corps. One day my sister-in-law visited a hospital in the city, and saw what she thought was a newborn baby—but that baby was eight months old, and dying. With tears in her eyes, she asked how she could help. The sick mother of five put that baby in her arms. “Take my baby,” she said. “Save her.”

The doctors gave that child a month; but with round-the-clock nursing, my nephews, niece and both grandmothers included, they saved her. Today, after many operations and constant care, she is almost nine, a singing, dancing marvel, adopted with her real parents’ blessing.

So when I was asked for a book “outside the square” for the Harlequin Romance® line, I thought of a book dedicated to this very special family. It is the proudest moment of my writing career to bring this story to fruition.

Wishing you all joy,

Melissa

“I never should have gone to Africa without you, Samantha.”

“It’s over, Brett.” Her eyes turned dark. “We need to move on, to accept our past before we can know if there is a future for us as a family.”

“Oh, there is, Sam.” He picked up her hand. “Acceptance is good, such as accepting that I’ll always be here for you from now on, or how much I love you.”

He saw her swallow. “Brett—”

“Tonight, I’ll show you how much we have in common. We can go home—if that’s what you want, Sam. If it is home, for us both.” She was listening…and maybe, just maybe, she was open to his suggestion.

He looked into her eyes, and his whole body took fire. He was winning her over. If he had his way, the night would blend into tomorrow, the next day, week, year or decade—in her home, in her bed.

He just prayed he didn’t blow it again.

Long-Lost Father
Melissa James

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Melissa James is a mother of three, living in a beach suburb in New South Wales, Australia. A former nurse, waitress, shop assistant, perfume and chocolate demonstrator, among other things, she believes in taking on new jobs for the fun experience. She’ll try anything at least once to see what it feels like—a fact that scares her family on regular occasions. She fell into writing by accident, when her husband brought home an article stating how much a famous romance author earned, and she thought, I can do that! She can be found most mornings walking and swimming at her local beach with her husband, or every afternoon running around to her kids’ sporting hobbies, while dreaming of flying, scuba diving, belaying down a cave or over a cliff—anywhere her characters are at the time!

Outback Baby Miracle #3936

This book is dedicated to Lily Maya, for singing, dancing and demanding all the happiness that life can offer. To Chris, Chrisanya, Zeb and the family, for all you did to save a baby in a hospital in Kathmandu, who would never have lived without you. Special thanks to the Institute for Deaf and Blind Children in Sydney, for helping me to understand the special needs of my brother’s family, and for permission to use their marvelous facilities as a part of Casey’s life.

Final thanks go to Mia Zachary, Olga Mitsialos and Rachel Robinson, for all their excellent suggestions. And to Maryanne and Diane. You know why.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER ONE

“SO SHE MARRIED the prince and lived happily ever after in his beautiful castle.” Samantha Holloway’s fingers left the page to trail over her daughter’s sleep-flushed cheek. “It’s time for sleep now, princess.”

The child’s tiny Cupid’s-bow mouth stretched wide in a yawn. “Oh, all right.” The golden-brown eyes—so like her father’s—turned to Samantha, soft and unfocused. Eyes as heartbreaking as they were beautiful, for while they were filled with expression, they were not filled with light. “D’you still love me lots and lots?”

Sam felt her throat close up as she caressed the feathery gold curls. “More than anything in the world, princess.” To love and protect her darling girl was her life’s mission.

Casey smiled, lighting twitching dimples, with a look of mischief that was her father’s inheritance. Sam ached anew, seeing it. “Night-night, Mummy.” After her prayer, she rolled over and pulled up her sheet before drifting off to sleep.

Sam returned the stuffed animals and discarded book back to their slots—and then she did the same for the rest of the house. Cleanliness wasn’t a luxury or an obsession in Sam’s home. It was a necessity she couldn’t afford to neglect. A dropped toy was a potential hazard; spilled milk not immediately wiped dry could be worth crying over.

When your child was blind, mess was deadly.

When her work was done, Sam heaved a sigh of relief and wandered to her bedroom. She crossed to the window and looked out at the night through her neighbour’s trees, luxuriating in the simple joy of silence and peace.

It was her time now…her time to live.

But I have no one to live it with.

Stop it! Self-pity is as destructive to you as it is to Casey.

She’d go relax on her hammock on the veranda. That was it. Let’s get positive…

The light cotton dress slithered down steam-heated skin, pooling to a huddled heap around her feet. Her cream-coloured lacy underwear—her concession to femininity—followed piece by piece, dropped carelessly for the simple abandon of it. Then years of routine kicked in, and she laid them on the bed. She stretched, her hands sliding upward to lift her mop of fair curls through her fingers as she drank in the dark, still night. Shrugging off the responsible woman she must be during the day, even if it was only for an hour. As much as she loved Casey—and no woman could love her child more—she reveled in the glorious freedom of quiet, the peace of being alone. For now, she belonged only to the sweet, velvety summer night.

February nights in Sydney were steamy, heavy with the promise of storm, turning the lightest of clothing into unbearable fetters. She loved padding around the darkened house in as little clothing as possible, feeling the whispering breezes through her windows surrounding her. With a long, cool drink and her lightest sarong, lying on the hammock she could only set up on her veranda at night—lest Casey walk into it and hurt herself—and she could indulge her senses, lose herself in the pulsing silence of darkness.

Shimmering waves still rose from the ground as the earth cooled itself from the scorching heat of day. Her body took on its heat and pulse, the waiting for the storm, the pressure building, heat sliding into her pores. She took an ice cube into her mouth, letting it melt, and the cold liquid slipping down her throat in cool relief.

The build-up toward the distant rumble of thunder set her nerves jangling; the promise of electricity lashed in tiny whip-flicks along every nerve ending.

The glistening water of the inground pool, lit by floor lights, whispered her name. It was her only indulgence, renting a house with a safe, solar-heated pool. She told herself Casey needed hydrotherapy, but deep down she knew it was for her. A swim was the only way she could release the pressure of the day.

A perfect night for a swim…moonlight and starlight and dark, roiling clouds, terrifying and beautiful—she wanted to slide into them, become part of the night.

Stop the memories…

She had little time before the storm hit. She was all Casey had; she couldn’t risk her life, as she used to when it didn’t matter—before Casey gave her life strength, meaning and love.

Twenty or thirty hard laps would dissipate the tension, bring her back to reality.

She wouldn’t admit that it was thinking of him that she wanted to escape.

A minute later, dressed in her favourite sky-blue one-piece swimsuit, she plunged into the deep end, her splash coinciding with the distant crack of thunder from the clouds closing in on the Sydney Basin.

Tire yourself out and you’ll stop thinking.

During the buildup to a storm, memories overwhelmed her. The tension took hold of her heart, body and soul, leaving her so alone, and the power of him came like a knight on a white charger to rescue her from endless isolation. Memories of his laughing face. Of him taking hold of her hand, something serious and intent inside those golden-brown eyes as her boss had introduced them at a swish poolside function at his fashionable Kew home.

“Samantha Holloway, this is my doctor, Brett Glennon. He saw you standing alone over here and wanted to meet you.”

Brett had smiled at her as if he knew something wonderful, amazing, that she didn’t. World-weary at twenty-two, she’d waited for the trite line about Fate or something blatantly sleazy; but he’d looked at her kicked-off sandals, glanced down and said, “I never could resist a pair of bare feet as good-looking as that. My feet are jealous.” And he’d kicked off his shoes, defying the disapproving looks of the formally clad guests with a conspiratorial grin that had melted her heart.

He was like that from the first, making her feel special and keeping her laughing. Life wasn’t serious or tragic with Brett; she wasn’t the Ice Princess—she was Sam, a young woman enjoying life with a man who saw beneath her cold facade to the scared girl inside.

Brett was the laughter she’d never known in her sterile world, the caring she’d always hungered for in the dark emptiness of the orphanage—and on their wedding night, he’d overcome her fears and introduced her to the passion she’d read about but never understood. For five exquisite months, he’d been the light in her starved life, the love, the reason to get up every day. Brett was everything.

And then he was gone, and the sun disappeared behind the clouds of her life: she was back to the mistrust and anger, the abandonment and dark emptiness, of life in the orphanage and repeated bouts of foster care…the nothing. He’d left her behind.

Yet for a little while, she had been loved—or at least she’d believed so at the time. Sometimes she wished she could have remained that blissfully ignorant.

Still, he hadn’t left her totally alone. He’d left her a priceless treasure. Every day she thanked God for the gift of her beautiful daughter. To Sam, Casey was perfect, precious—her beloved daughter, her only family. She’d spent six years on the run to keep them together. David and Margaret Glennon might be Casey’s grandparents, but they’d only gain custody of her over Sam’s dead body.

Don’t think. Swim!

On a night like this it was impossible not to relive her time with Brett. He’d been gone for too long, and memories were all she had. But she ached with what she’d lost—the absolute love from a man who knew her inside and out.

Every so often the memories became overwhelming, so incredibly real. She could almost feel the tender brushing of his lips against her mouth, the gentle waft of cool breath, the whispered comments that made her choke with laughter, made her body come alive with need and her heart overflow with love at once; and tonight she was already aching, yearning for what could never be again…

Swim harder!

She turned at the end and struck out again. Twenty. Twenty-one.

The memories, beautiful and unforgettable, were worse than useless. Painful and bittersweet, they hurt her as much as his words after their first kiss. He’d caught her behind the palms surrounding the pool, laughing—and something in him had called to her, melting the frozen walls she’d built to keep all men at arm’s length.

Her resolve had died by the end of that incredible kiss—and he hadn’t been laughing when they’d finally parted. He’d said, his voice shaking and almost bitter, “Why couldn’t I have met you three years from now?”

Don’t think about it. Swim! You have only—

“Hello, Sam.”

She gasped in water, halting midlap. Had she really heard that beautiful dark-malt-whiskey voice? No! Don’t drive yourself mad with hope!

Yet she whimpered, “Brett.” Hungering, craving…

“Yes, it’s me.” The dark, smooth voice was strong, sure—so masculine yet so cold. “Despite your best efforts to hide, I found you. I hear I have a daughter. I’d like to meet her.”

She gasped again. Her eyes snapped open. She jerked backward in the water until she stood facing the shadows of the veranda from where the sound of his voice had come. No—it couldn’t be Brett. He was…was—

Obviously not in an unmarked grave behind enemy lines in some war-forsaken tiny nation in Africa. All six feet of strong, dark-haired, golden male was right before her, living, breathing—and all she could do was gape at him while stinging tears rushed to her eyes.

“Brett?” The name was laden with disbelief, with terror, her whole body shaking: the rush of shock, from her fingertips to her reeling mind, seemed to have changed her very heartbeat, stopping and kick-starting in painful waves. He was real…he was real.

“Hello, Sam.” He stepped out of the languid darkness, into the soft brightness cast by the pool lights. Those eyes, those golden-brown laughing eyes, were dark with the intense emotion he was keeping under tight check.

Sam couldn’t stop shivering; the world seemed to be spinning the wrong way. Her hand found the edge of the ladder, and she hung on for dear life. “Brett…” She sounded like the world’s biggest idiot, repeating his name over and over, but she couldn’t stop.

“Yes.” His tone held no impatience; it held nothing at all.

“But…” The change from languid heat to ice-cold fear, from deepest fantasy to utter reality in a matter of seconds left her too disoriented to be coherent. “Africa…Mbuka…when did…?”

His face tightened. “If you mean when did I get back to Australia, almost two years ago.” He lifted something in his hand—it was a walking stick. “I only got the all clear from my physiotherapist a week ago.”

Two years. He’d been home two years, and she’d known nothing, thinking him dead.

It was too much. The sickness rushed to claim her. Her head drooped onto the ladder, but she breathed in water. Gasping, choking on one cough after another, she tightened her grip on the ladder as if it were a lifeline to sanity. Tears poured down her face.

She felt his warm, strong hands grasp under her arms. A moment later he’d lifted her out of the pool and hauled her against him, patting with a cupped hand against her upper back, pushing upward with the heel of his palm to clear the water. He kept working on her until the choking subsided. “That’ll teach me to shock a woman in a pool,” he murmured somewhere near her hair. “You’d think a doctor would know better.”

Even the intimacy of his hand on her back, his voice so close, overwhelmed her. Six years of painful dreams, waking to emptiness, always alone but never letting anyone close…now he was here and…touching her…Brett…

There were times during the frantic days, the long, sleepless nights, when she thought she’d die for him to be here, to touch her one more time, to let her know she wasn’t alone.

She choked again as the emotion came crashing down over her, and the more she tried to fight it, the bigger the burning ball of pain became, cutting off her breathing. The woman who’d never allowed herself the time or luxury to grieve for the husband she’d adored finally emerged from some dark place inside, demanding relief. Her legs shook too hard to support her. She dropped to her knees, buried her face in her hands and wept.

“Sam.” He was so close she could smell the spicy aftershave he wore, the one she’d always loved so much. She’d bury her face into his throat and inhale it, inhale him. “I know this is a terrible shock. I had no choice but to do it like this, without warning.”

Soft as the touch of butterfly wings, his fingertips touched her arms, caressing her. She felt the traitorous urge to snuggle against him, to take the comfort he was offering—

A bolt of panic sent her scuttling back. “D-don’t touch me,” she cried through the sobs still overwhelming her. She ached for his touch but hated that vulnerability after six years of strength and independence. She couldn’t afford to be weak now.

You’re at his feet in tears, a disgusted little voice said inside her. Is that strong?

“Okay.” His voice grew deeper, hard yet rich with sensuality. “It’s your choice. But could you adjust that thing you’re almost wearing?”

Oh! The shock stilled her tears like a twisted-off tap. Gulping and hiccuping, she looked down and saw her old, favourite swimsuit had gone patchy in places, delicately see-through. She groped for her sarong and scrambled away from him, hitching it over her breasts. Unable to stop herself, her gaze lifted to his.

The tight-leashed control she’d sensed in him must have slipped just a little, for his dimples twitched. “You’d better get dressed now, Sam. It’s been a long time—for me, at least—and you’re still the most beautiful woman I know.”

She crossed her arms over her breasts in guilty confusion. The winds, cooling now, sent a chill down the length of her overheated body. She shuddered, but with a massive effort she managed to stop her teeth from chattering. “W-why are you here?”

His gaze remained steady on her face. “You’re shivering on a night as hot as this—you’re in shock. Dry off and get dressed or you’ll end up sick.”

She jumped unsteadily to her feet and fled into the house, locking her bedroom door. She leaned against it for a minute or more, just shaking, drawing deep breaths. She couldn’t think, could only feel right now—and what she felt was sheer panic.

She reached out with trembling hands to gather up her forgotten towel and dried herself.

“Sam? Are you all right? You’ve been in there a long time.”

Frantically she pulled herself together. “I’ll be right there.” She scrambled into her underwear and the plain cotton sundress she’d kicked under the bed and then used a second towel to fluff her hair semi dry. Time, she needed just a little more time to think…

On the other side of the door waited the husband she’d been told was dead.

She walked through to the living room and turned on the lights to negate the sensual, soft, deep velvet of night and the memories that were too strong, too beautiful, for either of them to forget, too dangerous to remember.

Brett waited for her by the open double glass doors leading to the small back veranda, arms folded, leaning on the doorpost.

It seemed some things didn’t change. He still wore his favourite hip hugging jeans and a black Screaming Jets T-shirt. The evening shadow showed that he hadn’t shaved since morning, giving him a rough, unfinished look that had always melted her.

He’d seemed a living oxymoron to her at first: a high-born doctor, the son of a judge, dressed like a rock star. Then, as she’d come to know him, she’d seen beneath to the boy forced to wear designer labels and always looking perfect for the world, as expected of a Glennon. But Carlton Brett Glennon, while loving his wealthy, socially active family and remaining close to them, had rebelled against his parents’ perfect standards of dress and expectation from his teen years. From the day they’d met, he’d impressed her by caring more for his patients than his status, or the car he drove: the exact opposite of his socially conscious family he still somehow managed to love and respect—at least he had until he’d left for the tiny African nation of Mbuka to join Doctors for Africa, when their expectation had been for him to be a top Melbourne surgeon.

Did he want that, now, too? Would he finally fulfil his parents’ hopes for him, and join the professional A-list?

She shook herself. Whatever he’d been when he’d loved her, things were different now. I’m not the girl who ran from the threat of the Glennons. I will stand and fight this time!

Then she noticed that he was pale beneath his tanned skin and he was shifting what was obviously his bad leg in an effort to find comfort. “Sit down, Brett,” she said, aching for him, for his pain. “Put your leg up if it’s hurting you.”

The grin he directed her way was strained. “Watch it, I might think you care. All those tears and concern about my leg.” He limped to the chaise lounge she’d found at a garage sale and lowered himself onto it with a sigh of relief. His cane clattered to the wooden floor.

And the spell broke. Brett was achingly familiar yet so distant, a man she’d once loved with all her starved heart. Now he was a stranger, and the memories of all they had shared only added to the awkwardness of this meeting. What were they now?

We are Casey’s parents and have shared memories. That’s all there can be.

“Don’t play games, Brett.” She knew her voice was curt, but she couldn’t help it. He looked so much like the man she’d fallen so hopelessly in love with. The Brett who had brought her to life, the man who’d taught her how to live, to laugh and love.

She had to bury those memories. Brett was Casey’s father, but he was also a Glennon: a man whom she had no doubt was still close to his parents, since he had always been before.

And his parents were the people who’d threatened to prove her an unfit mother, and take Casey from her by force.

David and Margaret Glennon, secure in family love and with wealth to back them up, didn’t care if they left her all alone, as she’d been before; all they knew was that Casey was a Glennon, and deserved better than the penniless orphan mother who had nothing but love to give her. They’d wanted her to give Casey life and then leave as if she’d never existed.

What if that was why Brett had found her? Had he come to take Casey from her?

CHAPTER TWO

SHE WAS SLAMMING the emotional shutters down on him.

Brett thought he’d steeled himself for this—after all, he’d seen it all before, but he thought he’d helped her past all the insecurity and pain in her childhood of neglect had branded on her heart. But she’d seemed terrified by his appearance, and while he’d half expected that—he must have seemed like a ghost—he still hadn’t seen a sign of happiness that he was alive.

The one thing that had kept him going until now was the hope she’d be thrilled he wasn’t dead. That she might run into his arms to rejoice at his resurrection…but she’d shrunk from his touch.

Did that mean she’d prefer him to be dead? Why? Why?

“I’m not playing games,” he replied, his voice curt with the pain he’d had to bury deep inside for too long. “I’m the one who never got any letters from you once I finally notified my family that I was alive. I’m the one who missed the calls that never came. I’m the one who’s been looking for you for almost two years.” He dragged in a breath. “I had to find out I was a father through my parents—but I discovered I had a daughter through a private detective. I had to learn her name through a stranger I paid to find you.”

She flushed and turned away, her hands fiddling in the deep pockets of her blue sundress. Her hair was the same, the silver-blonde curls worn loose; she was barefoot, like the hippie he used to tease her about being. He’d loved her that way—the barefoot angel, his sweet nonconformist. She’d kicked her sandals off at the party where they’d met—that had drawn him to her. In a place full of stuffed shirts trying to impress each other, she’d been a lovely phantom of freedom.

It seemed they still had that in common—no need to impress anyone or to be anyone but themselves. But what else did they have? Did he even know her anymore?

“You could have left a forwarding address, Sam,” he said, forcing calmness into his voice, willing his heart to the same. Anger and accusation would get them nowhere. “Were you so relieved that I was dead you just left me behind?”

“You know nothing about what I went through,” she said, her voice barely audible through its shaking. “Maybe you can understand that in my grief for a husband I barely knew, I decided that starting over was best.” She lifted her brows as she finished the words, trying for a sarcasm that didn’t come off. Sam had never been any good at sarcasm, he thought with an unwanted shaft of tenderness.

But my Sam was never a coward, either.

“By changing your name and leaving no forwarding address?” he repeated the point, as cool as he could manage. “You never thought of checking with my parents or Doctors for Africa, to see if I could be alive? My parents were frantic about you and their grandchild. You never considered they’d need her when they lost me—or that she’d love to know the only extended family she has?”

Her nostrils flared; her lips were white with strain. “I don’t have enough experience with loving families to have thought of that. Sorry.” She didn’t sound bitter, just resigned…yet something simmered beneath the surface, some extreme emotion she wasn’t willing to show him.

Once, Sam had shared her every thought, her every insecurity and bad memory with him.

You’ve been apart six years, his inner voice jeered. What did you expect—that while your life blew apart, time stood still for her?

He sighed. “I’d have thought your background was even more reason. You finally had a family, didn’t you? My parents welcomed you into the family—”

“Despite the fact that I was a nameless orphan,” she agreed softly, “and not worthy of the honour of gaining the affections of a Glennon.”

What the hell did that mean? “I never once thought of you that way.”

“I know,” she said, still expressionless. What was she hiding?

“My parents were good to you,” he growled, testing that particular water.

Something fleeting crossed her face, then disappeared—an emotion as heartfelt as it was private. “They were very good to me.” Her voice held no inflection whatever.

Oh, man. A far greater distance separated them than a mere twelve feet of space. He felt like a soldier invading a fortress on his own, ramming his head against invisible barricades.

So much for those years of dreams in Mbuka, envisioning the joy of their reunion. Those dreams had gotten him through a life so dark and vile, so alone, that he could barely stand to think about what it had taken just to survive. He’d focused on coming home to Sam. She was his hope, his joy, the future, the only reason to want to get out of bed each day. A day filled with patching up people with little chance of surviving another week; a day where he was a prisoner of war and his medical skills were all that kept him alive, doctoring people who held life so cheap they’d shoot their mothers for food…

In the compounds and ragged camps, deserts and dank jungles of Mbuka’s changing war zones, clinging to this moment had been his only hope.

Coming home hadn’t done a damn thing to stop the nightmares, the shaking, the times when he’d just zone out and not know where he was, lost in memories an Olympic sprinter couldn’t outrun. During two years of grueling physical therapy after the reconstruction of his knee, and repeated bouts of infection, he’d snatched the dying vestiges of his dream and hung on to them with a mindless tenacity that defied reason. He’d shut out the demons of doubt that whispered to him. She’d never been there for your calls from Africa…and her calls late at night had been strained, scaring the hell out of you. Remember?

But he’d blanked it out. Sam hadn’t left him; they’d been so happy! Surely when he found her, he’d find home at long last…because home was in Sam’s arms, in the heart he’d always known had been totally his.

Well, he’d found her again, and he’d seen how she felt about it. While he’d used every resource of strength he’d had not to haul her against him and lose his living nightmare in her loving kiss, inside her welcoming arms and body, all she’d done was scramble to put distance between them.

A distance as emotional as it was physical. A distance she seemed determined to keep there.

So his parents were right: she’d escaped from him; she’d been glad he was dead. She’d found a new life in Sydney, leaving a trail so faint that it took almost two years to get a handle on her whereabouts.

Was the memory of what they’d been to each other so insignificant in her eyes? Was he so unimportant to her?

The child was definitely his; he’d seen the pictures of their child, a girl named Casey. The eyes were his, as were the dimples. There was no way Sam could claim her daughter was another man’s. He’d get DNA tests if he had to.

But, damn it, he shouldn’t have to—not with Sam, his Sam, whom he’d once trusted with his life, his heart and his entire future. Never in his vilest dreams had he believed that Sam could be this hard, so selfish as to disappear without trace, to take his child away from his parents, to deny them the comfort of his only child when they believed he was dead.

“What happened?” she broke into his reverie, sounding as if she was driven to ask. “To your leg, I mean.”

Funny that he’d been the one so long in a war zone, facing life and death every day, fighting death more than once; yet the real question wasn’t about him. What happened, Sam? What changed you?

He shrugged, feeling the shadows fall down on him. If he was going to break through Sam’s barriers, he had to lower some of his own. But the memories of Mbuka—oh, God help him, would he ever forget? Just getting through each night without taking something to kill the dreams—dreams of what he’d lived through left him a shaking mass of pain, waking from fevered dreams drenched in sweat, screaming Sam’s name like a prayer—seemed a victory.

“Brett?” Her voice sounded tentative, and he knew she’d seen him shaking.

“Sniper shot.” If he didn’t keep details to the bare minimum, the dreams would be worse tonight. “A splinter tribe near the Congo needed a doctor. But this time the cruciate ligament shredded into strips, stabbed the cartilage and got infected. I was no use to the warlords sick, so they left me out on the road to die. I was picked up by a tribe on the run with some compassion. They dosed me up with traditional healing cures and left me with some UN volunteers, who got me to a camp hospital.”

“This time?” she whispered, her eyes filled with horror. “Is that what happened to you when you…disappeared.”

He nodded; she deserved to know that much, to know why he hadn’t phoned or come home to her. “It’s an occupational hazard of being a doctor working in war zones. It took two years to escape from the first warlord, but I was captured again on the road south.”

“Why didn’t it hit the news?” she whispered, those amazing blue eyes of hers enormous with disbelief. “Your father has power and influence. Why didn’t your disappearance hit the world media? Why didn’t they look for you?”

“I signed the contract with my eyes open, knowing I could be shot or taken. It wasn’t anyone’s fault.” He shrugged. “Everyone assumed I was dead.” Funny, he knew that should mean that it wasn’t Sam’s fault, either, and he couldn’t blame her for believing he was dead—but he did blame her. She’d loved him, damn it. Why hadn’t she believed, as Mum and Dad had? Why had she just packed up and left?

“They didn’t check to see if you were there? How fair is that on families?” she cried.

“They had the living to save. The boundaries change in war zones every day, Sam. There is no way to check, to be sure.” He gave her a tired smile. “I’m sure they gave you the standard patter. ‘There is a very slim chance he could be alive, but please get on with your lives. You may never know.’”

She gulped, bit her lip and nodded. Her eyes were dark with emotion. “I—I believed them. I had to get out. Your parents were so—so…”

He nodded. “If Dad could have gone there and throttled someone, he would. But he’s in a wheelchair. He had a series of strokes.” He looked at her. “He had the first a week after you left.”

Her lashes fluttered down; she bit her lip. “I’m sorry, Brett. I didn’t know.”

“If you’d stayed, you would have known, Sam. Would it have changed anything for you?” he asked, unable to hide the fury. “Would you have stayed to help them through the nightmare? Would you have given the gift of their grandchild, my only child, to my sick parents? Maybe you wouldn’t have turned into a human shadow, changing your name and hiding my daughter from my family—her family, who only wanted to know and love her?”

She stood still, unmoving, her pallor even more strongly marked. She either couldn’t or wouldn’t answer him.

He watched and waited. From experience he knew Sam would rush into speech and say whatever was on her mind if he kept his peace. He’d always learned a lot about her that way—but then, that had been when she’d loved and trusted him. Back when he’d held her in his arms as he’d waited for her to purge her pain. But in the lengthening silence, he knew how far he’d have to go to regain her trust.

That goes both ways, Sam, he thought grimly. Like it or not, they had to deal with each other. If she thought he’d walk out on his daughter, she’d better think again.

It seemed they both had some thinking to do. The one thing he’d banked on in this living nightmare was that Sam would be the girl he’d fallen in love with, loved so hard and deep that he’d married her after only eight weeks. But she had changed, so profoundly he found it difficult to recognize her. At this moment he didn’t know if the Sam he’d loved and would have trusted with his life still existed inside the lovely yet withdrawn woman in front of him.

“Coffee?” she asked when the quiet stretched out to unbearable proportions.

“If you have decaf.” At this time of night caffeine kept his mind active and led to the kind of visions that made him reach for the tranquilisers.

“Okay.” With relief in her eyes, she left—no doubt to gather her thoughts. Her legs and hands were shaking. She held on to pieces of furniture as she walked.

She was still in shock. As a doctor, he knew he needed to go easy on her and wait before he made any judgments. Anything else was unfair to Sam.

To his surprise, he found he needed time, as well. He thought he’d known exactly what he was going to say to her, but his mind had emptied the moment he’d seen her in the pool, as lithe and beautiful as he remembered.

He sighed and rubbed his knee; it was aching badly. He’d have to take a painkiller soon, but he wanted to be coherent for what was coming.

He’d never felt so lost or alone in his life, as if he was still missing in action…

Or maybe it was his world that had gone missing. His tunnel-vision focus for so many years had been getting home to Sam, his light and life. But that particular tunnel had been blasted out of existence, as if he’d stepped on an emotional land mine. He didn’t know what to do or say to get his life back, the only life he’d ever wanted apart from spending a few years serving his fellow man in Africa. He’d had it all planned…living in his beloved Melbourne, a heart surgeon, with Sam by his side. Starting a family when they returned to Australia, satisfied they’d done their part for humanity.

It seemed that everything he’d ever dreamed of had been relegated to the past. His shattered knee would heal eventually, and the moment it did, he’d accept the surgical residency he’d been offered in Melbourne’s top hospital. But his African dream had exploded in his face within weeks. He already had a child, but she was a stranger to him. And he didn’t know his wife anymore. His Sam lived for him, made his life hers; his Sam would have moved heaven and earth to reach Africa and find him.

This Sam watched him like a hawk, didn’t rush into his arms, didn’t cry joyful tears to know he was alive. This Sam didn’t need him, and he didn’t have a clue where to go from here.

Give her time…give yourself some, too. Trouble was, he felt he’d been marking time for years. He might need time, but he couldn’t convince his heart and body of that need—others were crowding it out with their long-denied demands.

“Here.” A soft voice, a gentle touch, and he looked up to see her standing above him, holding a steaming cup. Her face held question…and just for a moment, her luminous eyes, the colour of a spring sky, were touched with caring. She smelled fresh and clean, like the pool. Her voice was still sweet, almost singsong; she finished every sentence with a tiny lilt, as though she was asking an unconscious question.

So some things hadn’t changed. He shook himself and smiled at her. “Thanks, Sam.” Testing the boundaries, he let his fingers brush hers as he took the cup from her.

Her eyes darkened; her lids fluttered down, tender and languorous. Her lips parted—then she bit the lower one and came back to reality. “You’re welcome. You look tired,” she added with a gruffness that covered the husky tone she always used when he touched her.

Does that mean she hasn’t gotten over me?

She moved back to the lounge opposite his, her face shuttered again. She didn’t know what he wanted and wasn’t giving an inch until she knew.

Obviously it was time to cut to the chase. “I’d like to meet my daughter.”

She gripped her hands together so tight he could see the bone through the knuckles…and for the first time noted how thin, how delicate she’d become. Her skin, once pale and translucent, now seemed transparent.

“She’ll be thrilled to find out she has a father. Most of her friends have families. She started asking about you a few months ago.” Her hesitation was palpable. “Brett, you need to know something about Casey—”

“That she’s blind?” he asked bluntly. “That’s why you aren’t working as a secretary anymore. It’s why you only work on reception two days a week at the Deaf and Blind Children’s Centre. So you can take her. You can stay with her.”

Sam ran her tongue over her top lip before she nodded. “She’s not at school full-time until the end of summer. I need to work, but I want to be with her as much as possible.”

“How strong is her disability? What percentage of sight does she have?” The question had been in his mind since the detective had first told him. “Is she legally or profoundly blind? Is there any chance of optic regeneration through surgical procedure?”

Sam’s eyes flashed. “This isn’t a preliminary examination, Dr. Glennon. You’re not her doctor, you’re her father.”

Stung, he retorted, “Pardon me, but since my daughter is five and I’ve never met her, it’s hard for me to be emotional about this. I didn’t see her birth or change her nappy, do a night feed or hold her when she cried.” He shrugged. “Maybe I’d have been more emotional if I’d known her the past two years. She and I could have shared a lot—like our physical therapy classes.”

Like a balloon pricked, the fight went out of Sam. “You’re right.” Her eyes closed over tears; she looked lost, defeated…and he remembered the reports from the detective. If he’d gone through hell in Mbuka and during recuperation, her life hadn’t been anyone’s picnic. Yet she’d not only survived, she’d adapted, changed her life for their child’s sake and made a success of it.

He sighed, rubbing his brow. “I’m having a hard time with this. I thought you’d at least be glad that I’m alive.”

“I am. I am!” she cried, looking wretched. “But I feel like a mouse that can’t get off one of those treadmills. I didn’t expect this. I had no notice you were coming—”

“Would you still be here if I’d given you notice?” he asked with all the force of the cynicism he felt welling inside.

She drew in a quick breath. “I don’t know,” she admitted with all the frankness he’d once loved in her. “I don’t know why you’re here. What do you want from me, Brett?”

Everything. But he’d be an idiot to say it now; he wasn’t even sure if it was true. What he’d planned for and dreamed of for so many years had been coming home to his Sam. But while this woman looked like his Sam, sounded like her, she sure as hell didn’t act like her. He wanted his wife, the life and family he’d dreamed of sharing with her.

So he chose the easy option. “I want to see my daughter, Sam. I want to spend time with her, to go places with her—”

But stark terror flashed through her eyes. “You can’t take her anywhere without me. She—she doesn’t know you. She doesn’t take well to strangers. You have to see her with me here.”

He frowned, feeling the emotional undercurrents pulling him into unknown waters. “For now, I just want to meet her, Sam.”

“So long as you know,” she muttered.

“That’s fine—for now,” he said, refusing to pull his punches. “But Casey has a family she’s never met. I want to take her to Melbourne and let my parents and sister spend time with her. My parents are really anxious to meet her. She has cousins, too—”

“No!”

The gritted snarl jolted him.

Brett stared at her white face, her burning eyes, and knew that whatever Sam’s problem was, they were near the heart of it. “You can’t deny Casey’s right to a relationship with her family. You know how badly that could affect the rest of her life.”

Sam strode over to him, her face almost completely white and her eyes almost black with an emotion he hadn’t been able to define until now. It was panic—blind panic. “You’re not taking her from me, Brett.”

It was obvious that by her intense reaction to his request, something was missing in this scenario. “I never said I wanted to take her from you, Sam. I only want her to meet her family. Is that such an unreasonable thing to ask?”

“M-maybe not,” she said, her voice throbbing with hidden fear. “But you can’t take her anywhere without me. Where she goes, I go.”

Wishing he could shake the confusion right out of his head, he frowned at her. “Why are you talking about this? I haven’t even met Casey.”

Sam, so pale moments before, flushed again, soft and rosy. With her curls drying around her face, she looked so much—so damn much—like the angelic Sam he’d fallen in love with all those years ago, he ached.

“I know,” she muttered, looking at her feet. “But if your parents want grandchildren to fuss over, you can find another woman easily and have the sort of family, the sort of children your family will—” She skidded to a halt, looking confused and guilty.

Not half as confused as he felt just by looking at her. She was blurting out what was on her mind now, as he’d planned; but none of it made sense to him. He was lost in looking at her. She was so sweet, so pretty in her confusion, he ached. Ached to turn back the clock and change choices that had been set in stone before he’d met her. Ached to haul her close and tumble down the barriers she’d put up between them.

The thought of making love to her made him burn inside, so fierce and hot that he had to force his mind back to the real issue. He needed to be calm and focused. “Casey deserves to know who she is. This isn’t about your past, Sam,” he added gently, knowing how hard this would hit her. But someone had to tell her, and he was the only father Casey had.

Unless Sam has found another man and Casey has already accepted him as her father?

“This is about Casey and her needs,” he went on, ignoring the dark coils of jealousy that sprang up at the thought of another man touching Sam. “Why isn’t she the sort of child my family will welcome? I know they can be a bit snobbish about dress and appearance, but they’ve never stopped me doing what I want with my life. They’re dying to meet Casey. They have a room full of presents for her, stuff recommended by the Royal Blind Society. They want to meet her so badly. She’s their granddaughter, Sam, their flesh and blood.”

After a moment, she sighed. He saw her hands trembling. “I didn’t mean it like that,” she muttered low. “It’s not that…”

“Then what is it? You said she’d asked about me. Are you trying to keep me from her, Sam? Would you deprive her of her father, of her family heritage, so you won’t be alone?”

At that he saw the faltering of that fierce lioness, saw her resistance stumble, leaving a crack of vulnerability shining through.

“If she finds out the truth one day—that she has a whole family in Melbourne that you’ve kept from her—she’ll resent the hell out of you for keeping her from them. Casey deserves to experience the love of extended family that’s every kid’s right. You should understand that, Sam. Do you still lie awake at night wondering who you are, wondering where your mother is and why she left you? Why your dad didn’t hang around?” He waited a moment, but she didn’t reply. “I know you do, Sam. Everyone wants to know who they are. Are you going to deny that security to Casey just so you won’t be alone anymore?”

She looked up at that; her eyes flashed. “You don’t understand.”

“Make me understand,” he said quietly. Trying to see how she’d react to his words.

Sam turned and walked to the window, looking out at the trees bending in the wind. The storm, which had hovered off-coast for a while, was closing in fast—but it didn’t compare to the turbulence inside her heart. Within minutes of Brett’s return he’d left Sam feeling raw and exposed—and now she felt more vulnerable with each probing word he uttered. On a night when emotional roller coaster didn’t begin to cover the way she felt, she couldn’t speak.

The laughing, live-for-the-moment Brett she’d adored had become quiet, dark and driven. What had he been through in Mbuka? Instinctively she knew whatever he’d told her so far had only scraped the surface of his suffering. The almost two years of therapy he’d endured showed how close to death he’d come.

And now his father was ill, in a wheelchair…and it was her fault.

Given what he’d been through, what his family had been through, she couldn’t tell him about his father’s threat to take Casey from her. Being an orphan who’d never had the priceless treasure of family, a heritage or any sense of belonging, she couldn’t take those threats from Brett. She’d spent her entire life craving what he had. It wasn’t his fault his family didn’t find her good enough for their beloved son. How could she blame them for that, now she had Casey? She wanted the very best for her beautiful girl…

Brett might be the single greatest threat to her security in Casey’s life and love at this moment, but he’d obviously suffered enough. For the sake of the love she’d once had for him—for Casey’s sake, too; the Glennons were her grandparents—she must keep silent about the reason for her flight from Melbourne.

She may not know how it felt to belong or about being loved, but she knew about disillusionment and abandonment.

She lifted a shaking hand to wipe away the sweat she hadn’t known was breaking out on her face until that moment. “There’s nothing to understand. Casey and I are a double package, and that’s all—and we both stay in Sydney.”

She could see his gaze on her, searching her face; she forced her eyes to remain calm as she faced him down.

Eventually he sighed. “I’ll play your game for now, but the playing field could shift sides without warning. I want to know my daughter.”

“I wouldn’t prevent you if I could.” She’d take what advantage she could get, for as long as she could, but Brett was far too much a take-charge man to sit in the backseat for long. “You’ll love her, I know you will. She’s such a little imp at times, but so loving. You barely know she’s blind half the time, she’s so able and smart.”

His eyes grew dark, shadowed again. “I’m sure I will love her—she’s from both of us,” he agreed. “As sure as I am that my family will love her just as she is. As sure as I am that having Casey to love would have helped my parents during the time they thought I was dead.”

She’d expected a frontal attack, but at his words the world seemed to go elliptical, swaying around her in strange arcs. She reached out behind her to a chair, the closest thing she could find as an anchor. I can’t tell him, I can’t!

Silence seemed the only option. To vindicate herself at the cost of Brett’s family, his stability and security, was too selfish.

As selfish as you’ve been all these years in keeping Casey from all the rights and privileges of being a Glennon?

The pain was too great to bear. Every way she looked, her choices, both past and present, hurt someone she cared about.

But all those other people at least have someone else to love. Casey is all I have.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, praying he would leave it at that, knowing he wouldn’t.

He stared at her, frowning. “Even if you couldn’t handle living with Mum and Dad, why didn’t you at least stay in Melbourne? Then you’d have known I was alive the past two years.” His voice came out raw and scraped with intense emotion. “You’re my wife, Sam. I went through hell in Mbuka—but the real nightmare began when I came home and found out I could be a father to a child I’d never seen. I lay awake night after night, wondering if you were all right, if I had a son or daughter. Wondering why you’d run—and if you’d run from me.” His lips pressed together and she knew he was in pain that was as much physical as it was emotional. “I needed you, Sam,” he managed to get out through gritted teeth.

Her eyes closed as she prayed for strength. He was hitting her right in the heart with every word he spoke, because they came from his heart. “You needed me?” Her throat scratched on the words. “I was in hospital for weeks after you left, bleeding and in constant danger of miscarriage. I called you from the hospital, trying to talk as if nothing happened because I didn’t want to upset you when you couldn’t do anything about it! I needed you, Brett—”

“Is that where you were? When I called and my parents said you were out?” His voice was dark and strained. “And why you sounded so distracted when you called me.”

She drew a deep breath and nodded. “We all agreed to act like normal. We didn’t want to upset you when you had so many lives dependent on your skills and ability to concentrate. But I obviously failed. I’m sorry. It must have worried you.”

The silence was broken by a pounding boom of deep thunder, the wildness of a summer storm in Sydney. Lightning hit moments later, just to the right of the house. The lights flickered off and on, and in the flash of light she saw the stillness of remembered pain on his face and the deep relief of a worst fear unrealised.

“There was no one else, Brett,” she said quietly. “If I sounded strange, it was because I was alone and scared. I needed you with me, but you were off saving the world. I didn’t blame you, but abandonment goes both ways. You left for Mbuka within two months of our wedding—”

His voice was full of stress. “You knew I’d signed the contract with Doctors for Africa before we met. I was locked into two years’ service. The people at the refugee camp were relying on me for their lives. But if you wanted me home, all you had to do was tell me you were pregnant and bleeding. I’d have come home on the first flight.”

“But you’d have resented me for forcing you to turn your back on your lifelong dream,” she insisted wearily. “You were so passionate and eloquent about meeting the desperate need in Mbuka. Casey’s existence, then her blindness, would have kept you here. There are few good facilities for a blind child in a war zone, Brett.”

In the silence, a clock ticked…and the next rumble of thunder came.

“You didn’t give me the chance—or a choice, Sam. You didn’t tell me.” Brett’s voice was harsh. “You talked so movingly about the plight of the refugees when we met. You said you understood why I had to go…you said you’d come soon. Do you know how hard it was just being there, day after day? I lost more people than I saved and saw the most horrific injuries I’ll ever see, knowing they were inflicted by the guy in the next bed half the time. Desperate people poured in to the camp day and night. I worked around the clock without a break except to eat and snatch an hour’s sleep.” As if in agreement, lightning forked across the sky, almost right over the house. “Do you know how often I ached for my wife to be with me? If I’d have known why, I’d have felt less abandoned by the time I was kidnapped by the rebels.”

By the time I was out of hospital, I was on the run from your parents and their threats to take Casey from me, to have me proven an unfit mother by any means they could. “You never mentioned to me how bad it was there when we talked,” she said, giving him some sort of answer. “Would it have been a safe place for Casey to be born?”

“Maybe not—but you didn’t know that, so that can’t be the reason.”

The first patter of rain on the roof was normally a sound she welcomed, but tonight she barely noticed. The bulldog in Brett hadn’t changed; he grabbed on to what he wanted to know and hung on with a tenacity that outlasted every other objection—and got him his way in the end.

“The doctors said I couldn’t stress myself in any way—I had to rest to keep Casey alive,” she said, knowing this much she could say. “Handling your upset and fear, frantically trying to get home because I was sick—” She left it there, knowing she’d said enough. “And then—”

“Yes, we keep coming back to it, don’t we?” His tone was grim, as dark as the eyes boring into hers. So sure he was right in his belief that she’d abandoned his family. Yes, he was the same old Brett. What he thought, wanted or believed had to be the best thing for everyone.

“And then, when it was time to tell you,” she went on inexorably, “the official at Doctors for Africa told us you were dead.” She forced the word out, dragging in a breath so harsh he could probably hear it over the sounds of the storm finally hitting above them. “They told us there was no room for hope. I—I had to get out. I couldn’t take all the memories.”

She gulped down the ball of burning pain in her throat.

She hadn’t heard him move, didn’t know he’d moved until she felt his hand on hers. “You could have stayed with the family. You wouldn’t have been alone then.”

You have no idea how alone I would have been.

She sighed and rubbed her aching forehead, feeling as if she had taken a sudden fever. “I feel like I’m stuck on a whirligig, just with you being here. I had to accept your death, to put you behind me. I had to forget to stay sane.”

“Did you manage it, Sam? Did you forget me?” His fingers moved up her wrist and arm, soft and slow, and she shuddered in longing. Oh, the heady delight, not just of sensuality but of touch. Not a child’s wonderful hugs but the touch of a man who understood that she couldn’t be perfect, couldn’t always be strong…

“There’s no point in sharing our memories. We both know the truth. I know you loved me. But you were my life. Your work was your true love, your passion. It was important. I always knew I came second.”

His hand stilled on her arm. “Is that the reason why you didn’t tell me about Casey?”

Half-shamed, she nodded. “I didn’t know whether you’d come home to us. I didn’t want to know if I was going to come second again.”

He winced, his eyes haunted. “You could have given me the chance. You could have trusted me.”

“I did…in your commitment, your belief that you were in the right place, doing the right thing for humanity. It was almost all you talked about while we were together. I was scared you’d tell me what the people of Mbuka were going through and they needed you more than I did.”

Having said so much, she felt drained, shaking with emotion. She’d wanted, needed this for so long? But now he was here, dreams had intertwined with her most vivid nightmares, and she couldn’t find a way to untangle them.

You were never good enough for my son. You know nothing about family life. What makes you think you could ever be a good mother? David Glennon’s words haunted her. Give my son back his life when he returns from Africa—and give us the child. We’ll raise it as a Glennon deserves. You can’t give any child what they need to be safe and happy.

Maybe she hadn’t been raised in a family, and she’d always known she wasn’t good enough for Brett. But David Glennon had been wrong about one thing. She’d turned herself into a good mother by constant work and determination. She’d never give Casey to the Glennons!

But she didn’t know yet what she was up against, and Brett’s silence wasn’t helping.

“What do you want, Brett?” she asked wearily. “It’s obvious you want something from me, not just Casey. Are you waiting to tell me that you want a divor—?”

He’d turned her into his arms, his mouth covering hers, before the word was complete. The kiss was frantic, full of a hunger so strong it knocked her off her emotional perch. She moaned into his mouth, alive for the first time in so long, aching and hungry. She gave kiss for kiss, knowing she’d have to pay for this weakness later, but finally, at last, she was a woman again…

Brett held her hard against him. “Does it feel like I want a divorce?” he demanded against her mouth. “Does it feel like I’ve forgotten you or replaced you?”

She couldn’t answer; she was shaking, not with fear, but with need, and he knew that as much as she did. Her sensuality was something she’d never been able to hide from him.

“This—” he kissed her again, deep, hot and hard “—is what kept me together through the years of torture and blackness. The hope of being near you. Touching you. Having you in my bed again.”

Her eyes slowly closed, and for a moment she gave herself to the unbearable beauty of his words. Making love—having that touch that made her feel so complete, so loved…

She gulped down the pain of aching temptation. “It’s not enough.” Her voice was drenched with the frantic need she heard in his words, and she shivered in violent craving. She couldn’t…

“It feels like enough.” His voice was rough with sensuality. He brushed his mouth over hers again, his hand caressing her waist, and it was all she could do not to puddle in a melted heap at his feet. “It feels damn good. We were always magnificent together. You can’t hide from what we have—or from me.”

She squeezed her eyes shut, but the vivid memories took over. Touching skin, mouths fused, caressing, whispering words of love…

She had to snap out of this, to face reality if he wouldn’t. “What we have, apart from mutual attraction, is shared memories—and a child. Circumstances forced us to change, to become different people.” She kept her gaze focused on his, watching his eyes darken in denial. “I’m not that adoring girl who needed you to fill her life. My life with Casey is busy and fulfilling.” Liar, a voice in her mind whispered. “I’m not your satellite now. I can’t be your one-person support-and-cheer squad. I can’t change my life—or more importantly Casey’s life—to make yours work for you. My first priority is Casey, and it will stay that way.”

Brett’s gaze darkened, his eyes almost black. She could see the intensity of suffering he’d been through in the years they’d been apart shining through in more than his damaged knee. He wanted more than her body—he needed her presence to give him strength to heal or at least drive away the anguish that obviously still hadn’t left after two years back home.

But her life had changed. All her strength, all her resources of giving and support, had to remain focused on meeting Casey’s needs. How could she give him what she no longer had?

The knowledge lay like lead over her heart and soul. Just being Casey’s mother took every scrap of strength she had every day. She had nothing to give him—

Except my heart. And how do I trust him to not take all I have, including my daughter, and leave for Melbourne on the first flight?

Melbourne was no longer home. It was where his parents waited with a court order to stop her from leaving again; where they’d use their influence to have her proven an unfit mother, simply because she wasn’t a Glennon, and didn’t have a family name or background to give them. Then they’d take Casey from her…the only worthwhile thing in her life.

She swallowed the ball of pain in her throat. “What we once had is gone. I’m sorry, but I can’t give you what I don’t have.”

His hands landed on her shoulders, holding her with gentle strength—the inner strength of knowing who and what he was that she’d always loved about him. “I don’t believe it. Either you’re lying to me or to yourself. You want me as much as I want you.”

“That isn’t the point. It’s been a long time for me—but it’s not enough. The issue isn’t how we feel about each other.” Barely able to move, she pushed wayward strands of hair from her eyes. “What you or I want doesn’t matter. This isn’t about us. Casey is my first, last and every duty of care. You should understand that as a doctor, even if you don’t feel like her father yet—”

Before she could finish her words, a sleepy little voice came from the other end of the room. “Are you my father?”

CHAPTER THREE

SHE SOUNDS LIKE SAM in miniature…

Lost in a haze of passion, of need for Sam’s touch, Brett reacted with the instinct of a man who’d lived in a place where to move too slow could mean death. He slewed his gaze to the open door off the open-plan lounge, to where the lilting voice had asked the half-curious question.

And he saw a tiny, mussed angel in Winnie the Pooh pyjamas.

Feathery curls a touch brighter than Sam’s fell in tumbled disarray around little shoulders. A face as fine and spiritual as a Botticelli cherub was turned to him. Tiny features, a replica of her mother’s, in a pale heart-shaped face. A mouth of baby pink was unsmiling yet not angry.

This is my daughter.

A jolt of awareness filled him, a gentle awakening of some emotion he’d long buried beneath anger and denial. She was his daughter; he could see a pair of twitching dimples beside her mouth and the enormous golden-brown eyes gazing in his direction.

The photos he’d seen hadn’t done her beauty any justice at all. He couldn’t stop staring at this haunting, delicate, beautiful child.

My daughter.

“Hello?” Casey’s voice trembled with sudden uncertainty. “Mummy?”

He wanted to hit himself for being so stupid. Lesson number one in being a daddy to a special-needs child: always answer her when she talks to you.

“I’m here, sweetheart.” Sam’s voice was full of love.

Brett put a hand on her arm, willing her to stay where she was. After a short, searching glance, Sam nodded but held her ground.

“Hello, Casey.” Brett’s heart was beating fast. What would she think of him? Would she like him? Or—

“Hello.” A tentative smile flitted across her face, lifting dimples, before she repeated her initial question. “Are you my father?”

Her face held only a polite smile. Impassivity in a five-year-old unnerved Brett. There was nothing in her face to read. She was curious as to whether he was her father, that was all.

“Yes, Casey,” he said softly. “My name’s Brett Glennon. I’m your father.”

She nodded, slow and cautious, not moving toward him or moving away. He realised she was keeping her distance, almost as if she was afraid…

Afraid of him?

Keeping his features schooled, he absorbed the pain. Casey saw more than he would have thought with those imperfect eyes. Had she seen past his gentle facade to the anger in his heart that his child, his daughter, should have such a terrible burden to bear? Did she wonder if her daddy wouldn’t like her because she was blind?

This was a fear his daughter should never have had to go through—

And she wouldn’t if I hadn’t left for Africa.

And like that, the truth pounced on him, like a lion long crouched nearby, waiting to attack. Maybe he’d known all along. But he’d concentrated so much on where Sam had been, he’d forgotten what she’d borne alone in the years he’d been gone. If she’d stayed with his parents, he’d have known Casey the past two years—but he’d still have three years of unintentional neglect to make up for.

Not for the first time, he felt the knife-pang of regret for leaving Sam behind in the first place, for charging ahead with a dream despite the cost to others, for cementing a love that happened in the wrong time and place. By living his dream, he’d left her alone with a hard pregnancy, a new state and a special-needs child, and his parents with the consequences of an assumed death and his father’s strokes.

He’d been so damn-fool arrogant to think he had to save the world instead of keeping his own world together. Been so sure his choice was right, cocky and confident that everything would fall into place for everyone he loved.

It hadn’t worked out for anyone. Not for the refugees he’d gone to help—he’d been kidnapped too soon to be of use. It hadn’t worked for his parents—his father had been wheelchair-bound for years from the shock of losing his son and grandchild at once.

It didn’t work out for Sam, either. Not even for me.

He’d thought he’d been the victim in this scenario. Events tonight had shown him that he hadn’t been the only one to make sacrifices.

It seemed he had a lot to make up for.

“I came to meet you, Casey,” he said, hoping to start bridging a gap that should never have existed…but it did, and he had to deal with the reality of that. “I would have come a long time ago, but—” after a glance at Sam, he went on “—but I was living far away and I didn’t know where you and Mummy had gone.”

“Okay,” Casey said, accepting his words at face value. She stuck out her hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Mr.—” She groped for the name she’d already forgotten.

“My name’s Brett Glennon, Casey.” He limped forward and took her hand. Sam had trained their child in good manners—but then, blind children learned through hearing and touch, scent and instinct. Touching was Casey’s way of “seeing” him.

“I’m very glad to meet you,” he added, smiling at her even though he knew she couldn’t see it. Casey possessed her mother’s ability to send that piercing shaft of joy through him with the most simple of words and acts.

“You’re smiling,” Casey said. “I can hear it in your voice.”

“Yes, I am,” he replied, taken aback. “I’m just so happy to meet you, Casey—and to discover that I have such a beautiful daughter.”

“My name’s Holloway,” Casey said gravely, releasing his hand. “At school, the other kids who got a daddy and a mummy all got the same name.”

“Have, Casey,” Sam put in, her voice restrained. “The kids have a daddy and have the same name.”

“Yeah, that,” Casey agreed, her smile growing. “So why’s your name different?”

Brett grinned. So she’d also inherited his tendency to tease…and his bulldog tenacity to get answers.

Cautiously he gave her an edited version of the truth. “Like I said, I was far away. I was living in a place called Africa when you were born. I’m a doctor and I wanted to help people who were hungry and suffering.” With a flickered look at a withdrawn Sam, he added, “I was working where it was hard to get to a phone. I wish I had known about you, Casey. I would have come home to look after you both.”

He searched Casey’s face, wondering if she’d noticed his avoidance of her real question, but she’d veiled her reaction. Another wall of anguish slammed into him. That any five-year-old child, let alone his daughter, should know how to hide her emotions, struck his soul with a chilling feeling of wrongness.

Casey asked slowly, “Can I look at you?”

Sam said, “She means she’d like to—”

“I know, Sam.” With a difficulty so strong it was pitiful, he managed to bend his knee. Balancing with a hand on the chair, then the coffee table beside it, he lowered himself to the floor before the little girl. Again he took Casey’s hand—such a fragile thing—and lifted it to his face. “Go for it, kid,” he said in a gentle voice.

Casey’s fingers explored his face, walking along his skin in delicate pulses and strokes. She felt his closed eyes, tested the shape of his less-than-classic nose, his strongly defined cheekbones, the line of his brow. She learned the shape of his ears. Her fingers probed his mouth, feeling the indents of his dimples beside it.

Question number one answered: she wasn’t legally blind but profoundly blind. Legally blind children could see through thick glasses, make out blurry images by peering close enough. Casey must have no sight at all. What accident of birth or fate had caused it? Had the stress of her mother’s pregnancy all alone caused this?

Could he have prevented Casey’s disability if he’d been home and seen the signs of trouble before her optic nerve had become irreparably damaged?

“You have dimples, like me,” Casey commented, jerking him from his reverie.

“And we have the same colour eyes,” he added, without mentioning the actual shade. She wouldn’t understand, he thought, and the pang of wistfulness hit him harder than he believed it could. He’d thought he’d accepted this…

But that was before he’d met her, this lovely child with the woman’s mind.

Casey nodded thoughtfully. “Do I look like you?”

“A little bit,” he said, feeling a strong sense of pride. This tiny angel, so haunting and almost perfect, had sprung from his loins, his blood, his love for Sam. “You look more like your mummy, which means you’re very pretty.”

A tiny hand fell onto his chest—and a frown marred her translucent face. “Why are you sad?” she asked. Either she knew she was pretty or such things didn’t bother her.

Does she know what “pretty” is? She’s never seen one beautiful thing in her life…

And again that hurt far more than he’d thought it would.

Then her words penetrated and he blinked. “What?”

“You walked funny and have a stick to balance. You have a sore leg. And you have sad lines,” Casey said softly, “here—” she touched his mouth “—and here,” touching his forehead.

“I might be old,” he replied to gain time, stunned by what she’d said and how she’d reached her conclusions—and by the fact that she was right every time.

Casey’s mouth turned down. “Your hand hasn’t got any wrinkly bits. Your voice isn’t old.” She moved back, severing the fragile connection they’d been making.

Lesson number two: don’t underestimate her because she can’t see.

“Why were you fighting with Mummy?”

The way she put it wasn’t a question; she was stating a fact and demanding answers. No, Casey wasn’t a child to underestimate.

Sam jumped in before he could answer the child. “Casey—” she ordered in a no-nonsense, go-to-bed tone.

Brett frowned, surprising himself by siding with Casey. “She deserves to know, Sam.”

Sam glared at him. “She’s only five! She doesn’t need to—”

“She’s part of us,” he said, again surprising himself, and turned back to Casey. “I sort of startled Mummy. She wasn’t expecting me to come here. She thought I was still far away.”

“You were yelling at her,” Casey pointed out. “Don’t you like Mummy?”

He twisted around, looking at his wife with a serious, intent expression. “Yes, Casey, I like your mummy. I always have, from the moment I met her.”

He could see the rosy outline of Sam’s cheek as she turned away. But the denial implicit in her stiff back slammed into his gut—then he saw that she was shaking. This night, this reunion, was taking a higher toll on Sam than he’d believed it could.

And behind his wife’s turned back, on the sideboard, he saw it. A series of framed photos: a picture of them on their first date, holding hands and smiling, taken by a roving photographer; their engagement celebration, done at a professional studio, him seated, with Sam’s arms wrapped around him from behind; and their favourite wedding shot, a candid one taken by a friend, where Sam had tripped over something—he couldn’t remember what—and he’d grabbed her around the waist to steady her. Both of them were laughing with the joy of the day, her veil billowing around them like a benediction.

So she hadn’t forgotten. If there was a man in her life, she’d have put the visible reminders of her past in a drawer, where they belonged.

“So why were you talking cranky?”

Brett dragged his attention back to his daughter. All he wanted right now was to take Sam into his arms, to comfort and love her. But he wouldn’t even get to his feet without making a total fool of himself; reaching the floor for Casey had taken all the strength he’d had for now.

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