“What we have isn’t love. It’s lust, infatuation, sex.”

Zeke’s eyes gleamed. “Three out of four isn’t bad.”

“I won’t settle for three out of four this time,” Tara said. “You didn’t trust me enough to know what was best for me then, and you obviously don’t now.”

“I’m a reporter. I deal in facts. Trust is an intangible.”

“So is love,” she reminded him. “But you need both to make a relationship work.”

“All this talk about love and trust is a blind, isn’t it? You wanted an excuse to stop seeing me, and I provided one by accepting a job overseas. If I’d rejected the offer, you would have invented some other reason to walk out.”

“You make it sound as if it was my decision alone.”

“Wasn’t it?” he demanded. “Can you deny you were already pregnant when I asked you to come with me?”

She felt her spine crumble. He knew.

Dear Reader,

As always, Intimate Moments offers you six terrific books to fill your reading time, starting with Terese Ramin’s Her Guardian Agent. For FBI agent Hazel Youvella, the case that took her back to revisit her Native American roots was a very personal one. For not only did she find the hero of her heart in Native American tracker Guy Levoie, she discovered the truth about the missing child she was seeking. This wasn’t just any child—this was her child.

If you enjoyed last month’s introduction to our FIRSTBORN SONS in-line continuity, you won’t want to miss the second installment. Carla Cassidy’s Born of Passion will grip you from the first page and leave you longing for the rest of these wonderful linked books. Valerie Parv takes a side trip from Silhouette Romance to debut in Intimate Moments with a stunner of a reunion romance called Interrupted Lullaby. Karen Templeton begins a new miniseries called HOW TO MARRY A MONARCH with Plain-Jane Princess, and Linda Winstead Jones returns with Hot on His Trail, a book you should be hot on the trail of yourself. Finally, welcome Sharon Mignerey back and take a look at her newest, Too Close for Comfort.

And don’t forget to look in the back of this book to see how Silhouette can make you a star.

Enjoy them all, and come back next month for more of the best and most exciting romance reading around.

Yours,

Leslie J. Wainger

Executive Senior Editor

Interrupted Lullaby
Valerie Parv

MILLS & BOON

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To all the babies lost before or soon after birth,

who are still very much loved and remembered

VALERIE PARV

lives and breathes romance and has even written a guide to being romantic, crediting her cartoonist husband of nearly thirty years as her inspiration. As a former buffalo and crocodile hunter in Australia’s Northern Territory, he’s ready-made hero material, she says.

When not writing about her novels and nonfiction books, or speaking about romance on Australian radio and television, Valerie enjoys dollhouses, being a Star Trek fan and playing with food (in cooking, that is). Valerie agrees with actor Nichelle Nichols, who said, “The difference between fantasy and fact is that fantasy simply hasn’t happened yet.”

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Prologue

When the baby’s lusty cry tore the air in the small private hospital, the new mother burst into tears of relief and joy. Seeing the midwife rush the newborn baby into the resuscitation room, the mother had been frantic with fear. Now, hearing her baby’s healthy cries as the midwife placed him into her arms, the mother knew everything would be all right.

It had been a difficult night. The doctor was to have been here long ago, but had stopped to help at a horrendous accident between two crowded buses at a major intersection in the city. According to the midwife, staff had been borrowed from all over the hospital to help deal with the victims pouring into the emergency room, a scene being repeated at hospitals throughout the city.

Admiring the new baby, Rosemary Fine felt triumphant. As a midwife she was accustomed to coping without a doctor most of the time, but when a baby needed resuscitating, she normally called for backup. This time she couldn’t call anyone because the mother, Jenny Fine, was her sister-in-law, and it was against hospital rules to deliver a relative’s baby. With everyone too busy to ask questions, Rosemary had decided to go ahead on her own. She had nearly regretted it when the baby was born, but everything was all right now. Rosemary had seen to it.

Jenny quickly counted tiny fingers and toes. “I suppose everybody does that,” she said, her voice sounding thin.

Rosemary mustered a smile. “Probably. He looks pretty good to me. Vaughan, isn’t that the name you chose for him?”

“Sylvia for a girl and Vaughan for a boy.” Jenny brushed damp hair out of her eyes with her free hand, her gaze blurring. “Did I hear Ross tell you that the nice woman in the next room lost her baby?”

The midwife hesitated. “You weren’t supposed to hear that. Her baby’s cord prolapsed, causing oxygen starvation. There was nothing Ross or anyone could do.”

Jenny’s arm automatically tightened around her baby. “How terrible. She told me her name is Tara, and she’s so beautiful. A model, I think. We checked in almost at the same time. Her partner couldn’t be with her, either, so I hope he gets here soon. She’ll need him to comfort her. After I lost Josh, they told me it was crib death and nobody’s fault, but I kept asking myself how I could have made a difference. Tara’s probably doing the same right now.”

Rosemary brushed her sister-in-law’s hair out of her eyes. “You mustn’t distress yourself about it.”

Jenny sighed. “You’re right. But I couldn’t face Ross if anything went wrong this time. He wants a son so much. How much longer is he going to be tied up? Except for a few minutes here and there, I’ve hardly seen him since I arrived.”

“You’ve been married to a midwife long enough to know that nothing ever goes to plan. He’ll stop in as soon as he can, but like me, he’s had to extend his shift until more staff can get here,” Rosemary said. “Apparently half the city’s still at a standstill. They’re swamped in emergency.”

The new mother peeled back the cover swaddling the baby. “Hi, Vaughan. Your daddy’s going to be so proud of you.” She lifted her head, her eyes bright. “I’ll have a word with poor Tara later. She must feel devastated.”

Rosemary shook her head. “It’s not a good idea. She’s best left to deal with her grief in her own way. We’ll see she gets professional help when she’s ready.”

Jenny looked uncertain. “If you think so.”

“Trust me, I do. Ross is arranging to move her to a ward away from the other mothers and babies, so you’re unlikely to meet her again. You concentrate on getting your strength back and taking Vaughan home. Let Ross and me look after Tara. There’s nothing for you to concern yourself about, nothing at all.”

Chapter 1

As soon as she walked into the meeting and saw who was sitting in the front row, Tara McNiven felt tension coil inside her like a snake waiting to strike. What was Zeke Blaxland doing here? He could be here for the same reason as the rest of the audience, to hear about the children’s charity she represented, she told herself shakily, but somehow she sensed he had another agenda. Zeke always had another agenda.

She had heard that he was back in Australia, and his column had been carried by the Australian papers while he was living in America so she was used to seeing his photograph on the editorial page three times a week. She had managed to convince herself that she was immune to the sight of his ruggedly handsome features but being confronted by him again in the flesh made her all too aware of the reality. She would never be immune to Zeke, no matter how much time they spent apart.

Other members of the audience, all executives from the city’s fashion retailers, were casting him curious glances. As Australia’s best-known newspaperman, he was instantly recognizable by sight as well as by reputation. His mane of collar-length black hair was as much a trademark as the challenging spark in those pewter-grey eyes.

He was taller than most other men but managed to look relaxed even coiled into a chair a size too small for his impressive frame. It was a wary kind of relaxation, she couldn’t help noticing. He was probably assessing every detail of her appearance and demeanor.

Well, let him. She schooled herself to not show that his unexpected presence had unsettled her. She had changed since they’d been together, but knew she looked good. She weighed a few pounds more these days but it suited her. Her hair was straighter, curling under onto her shoulders where it had once tumbled midway down her back in a torrent of curls. Zeke had liked to run his fingers through it, she recalled, a shiver of memory rippling over her scalp and down her spine.

She was glad she was wearing her best power-dressing cerise jacket and navy skirt, the colors flattering her honey-gold complexion. Business-like but still feminine, she had decided as she’d checked the mirror before leaving home.

The shorter hairstyle emphasized the features that had made her a successful model before she became spokesperson for Model Children, the foundation she and a group of fashion designers had established to help children in need.

She sighed inwardly. Try as she might to play down her model looks and focus attention on the work of the charity, it didn’t help. Like Zeke Blaxland, she was recognizable wherever she went.

She could hardly complain. Her background had helped her to recruit some of the biggest designers in the industry to support the cause, and her fame ensured the charity got the publicity it needed to help as many children as possible. Now she wanted to broaden the foundation’s base to include other arms of the fashion industry.

She felt her brows arrow into a frown. Zeke Blaxland’s name hadn’t been on tonight’s guest list, she would swear to it. But demanding to know what he was doing here would only show how much his presence disconcerted her and she had no intention of giving him such an advantage. She had given Zeke far too much already.

Just thinking of how much sent a pang through her so sharp it was almost physical, but she fought the sensation. Deliberately she pulled herself together, for once thankful that she stood five-ten even without the slender heels she wore for speaking engagements. Zeke used to say she was one of the few women who could meet him eye-to-eye—almost.

He liked the almost part, she recalled with a surge of bitterness. Near equality wasn’t the same as true equality, something he had never wanted from a woman, or not from her, anyway. He liked to kid himself that he was a New Age man when truthfully, he hadn’t a New Age bone in his magnificent body.

Tara’s heart picked up speed. Once his caveman approach had thrilled her. She had enjoyed the feeling of being protected and, yes, loved by him. She swallowed hard, remembering the feel of his arms around her, so strong and dependable, as his sensuous mouth shaped hers to his will, while his clever hands manipulated her body with a skill worthy of a virtuoso violinist. She had been a willing instrument and Zeke the bow. Lord, what magnificent music they had made together.

Her heart thundered and her palms moistened as she thought of the end result of their lovemaking she had carefully kept from him. Once she wouldn’t have dreamed of keeping anything from him, especially something as important as the child they had conceived together, but his decision to work in America had made it impossible for her to tell him the truth without looking as if she were trying to manipulate him.

Their baby had been stillborn so there had been no need for him to find out. No need for them to both endure the nagging sense of loss she’d lived with for so long. There was nothing he could have done, and she couldn’t have borne forcing him to give up his dream to remain with her, only to have their life together end so disastrously.

A choking sensation gripped her. So much had happened in a year. A year, seven months and a handful of days, she amended inwardly. She hadn’t been aware of counting the days but now she found that part of her had logged every minute since he had left.

She made herself take deep breaths, conquering wire-taut nerves with an effort of will. She owed it to herself and the children not to reveal how much Zeke’s presence bothered her. “Fake it,” the photographers used to tell her during her modeling days. Why were these things invariably easier said than done?

She stepped forward. “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for inviting me to address your group about the projects we’re currently undertaking at the Model Children Foundation. I’m told you choose a different charity to support each year and since Model Children was started by people in the field of fashion like yourselves, I hope to persuade you to choose M.C.F. this year. Are any of you familiar with my work?”

She saw Zeke’s hand shift as if he meant to raise it. “I mean, the work of the foundation?” she restated, and saw his arm relax. But his eyes continued to flash a challenge at her. “You can’t ignore me forever,” they seemed to say. As if she could ignore him for one single minute. But she didn’t have to let him know it.

Another man raised his hand. He seemed younger than most of the men in the room, probably his early twenties and less outwardly confident. A very junior executive, she couldn’t help thinking. “The foundation helped my wife and me when our first child was born. A fire in our house destroyed every stitch of clothing my wife had prepared for the baby as well as the beautiful new nursery we’d prepared.”

This time her smile was genuine as satisfaction surged through her. She was able to stop thinking about Zeke’s eyes on her for all of thirty seconds as she turned to the man. “You’re Todd Jessman, aren’t you?” He nodded. “I remember seeing the fire reported on the evening news.”

“I wondered how the foundation managed to step in so quickly. I doubt we’d have had the courage to ask for help but after the news story, your people appeared out of the blue with everything we needed. My wife was overwhelmed. We did write, but it’s great to have a chance to finally thank you in person.”

She shook her head. “I can’t take the credit. A large group of fashion designers and others in the industry are behind the foundation.”

“And they are getting excellent publicity in the bargain,” came a soft interjection.

At the sound of Zeke’s gravelly voice, an involuntary shiver shook her. It reminded her too vividly of compliments freely given and lapped up like mother’s milk, of whispered suggestions in the moonlight, and promises made over the phone.

Promises ultimately broken, she made herself remember. From what she knew of him, Zeke hadn’t changed. In his syndicated column, Difference of Opinion, he took potshots at everything that was good about people. She had once asked him why he preferred to write about the negative side of human nature. He had responded that good news didn’t sell papers.

It was where their outlooks reached a fork in the road. She believed that what goes around comes around. Zeke believed you had to fight for what you wanted. He hadn’t fought for her, she thought, wondering what else he could have done to make a difference. No, she wasn’t about to start making excuses for him now. With his cynical attitude, they couldn’t have lasted anyway, even without the baby.

She pulled her thoughts sharply back to the present. It wasn’t easy. She had never loved another man the way she had loved Zeke and she was staggered at how much it hurt to see him again, surveying her with hard-eyed intensity as if she were meat in a butcher shop window.

Not meat, candy, she remembered him saying once. He had told her how, as a boy, he had pressed his face against a candy store window, his eyes eating up all the goodies inside. With not a cent to his name, that was all he could do. With you, Tara, I feel as if I’ve finally been given the keys to the store, he had told her the first time they’d made love.

Too bad he had eaten her up then spat her out, she thought, feeling anger flash through her. She subdued it and made her fingers unclench, forcing herself to concentrate on her task. Normally she could assess her audience in a couple of glances, enough to decide exactly what tone to take in her presentation, but tonight her thoughts were in chaos. Although the audience was two-thirds male, Zeke could have been the only man in the room for all the attention she had paid the rest, she realized with a shock.

Zeke would turn up when the meeting was being covered by Australian Life magazine, she thought furiously. The journalist and photographer had already set their equipment up at the back of the room as they had done for a number of the foundation’s fund-raising activities. Accustomed to performing for the camera, she hadn’t let the visitors distract her unduly. The dress-for-success outfit was her only concession to the coverage. Zeke’s presence was another matter.

The visiting journalist was bound to recognize him and would no doubt want to interview him, as well. No matter. Maybe they could find out what his motives were and save Tara the trouble. She only hoped he would behave himself well enough not to spoil the story for her. No matter what he thought, the publicity was intended to help the foundation far more than any individual.

“It’s true the fashion designers benefit from the publicity,” she carried on, amazed that she could sound so unruffled given the turmoil inside her. “But children in need are the real beneficiaries and tonight I’d like to show you how you can join us and help make a difference in their lives.”

She had their attention, she saw with satisfaction as she warmed to her subject. Business people responded to factual information, she knew from previous experience. Appealing to their emotions was the fastest way to scare them off, so she deliberately made the presentation very practical, with lots of case histories like Todd’s so they could visualize their efforts playing a real part in improving the lives of the children the foundation was intended to help.

She couldn’t imagine having the same impact on Zeke, she thought. His own experience had made him cynical about charity. Her breath caught as she remembered the night she’d learned about his background. She had wanted him to accompany her to a fund-raiser for a foster family program. He’d objected but wouldn’t go into details.

She’d pressed. He had always been reluctant to discuss his family and now she wondered if she’d hit on the reason when she’d asked that night, “Zeke, do you have some experience of foster care?”

“Bitter experience,” he’d snapped, his eyes becoming shadowed. “My mother was only seventeen when somebody spiked her drink at a party and she woke up in bed with an older boy whose name she never knew. When she found herself pregnant, her family disowned her. She couldn’t cope alone.”

Tara’s heart had leaped into her throat. “She gave you up for adoption?”

“It would have been better if she had. She left me with a foster family long enough to settle in, then she took me back to live with her.”

“At least she loved you enough to come back.”

“I might have believed it once, but three times is a little hard to swallow.”

“Oh, Zeke.” Her heart went out to the small boy whose trust had been so badly betrayed. No wonder he was reluctant to show affection after learning that it could be snatched away at a moment’s notice. “What about your mother’s family?” she’d asked.

He’d looked away. “Her father was a religious type who didn’t want to know her or me. I only tried to see him once, to tell him his daughter had died in a car accident. It was made clear that I needn’t have bothered.”

“It’s his loss,” she’d said firmly, wrapping her hand around his. His fingers had felt cold. “I’m sure he regrets it now that you’re so successful.”

“Too late. So now you know why I object to supporting something that did me more harm than good. If a parent puts a child up for adoption, at least everybody knows where they stand.”

To Tara, things weren’t always so simple, but she had known it was futile to argue with Zeke when his mind was made up. And who knew, she might have felt the same if her early life had been as disrupted as his. She had also understood why he’d resisted making promises to her. Their life was wonderful as it was, he’d insisted. Why tamper with perfection?

As a result, when she found out she was pregnant she had known she couldn’t force him into a commitment he didn’t want. Nor could she go with him, for the same reason. She had hoped he would stay in Australia of his own accord, but he hadn’t. From his comments tonight, it seemed he hadn’t changed at all.

Awareness of him played through her thoughts like background music as she went on to explain how the foundation had started when a woman on her own had unexpectedly given birth to triplets without the resources to clothe and equip them.

Tara had been a patient at the same hospital, although she avoided mentioning that part, especially with Zeke in the room. She had expected to be in the maternity ward and her heart had been torn in two when she had been moved to a surgical ward instead, with a woman who coughed all night. It was a long way from a baby’s healthy cries, she remembered thinking.

The single mother with the triplets had been the talk of the hospital and as soon as she was discharged, Tara had buried her aching sense of loss while making telephone calls to colleagues and persuading them to donate clothes for the babies. One of her favorite designers had gone further, creating an adorable miniature wardrobe for the triplets. The resulting publicity had led more of Tara’s colleagues to offer money and assistance, and before long the foundation was a reality.

She had never expected to become the charity’s spokesperson. At first she could barely be around children without falling apart, but slowly it dawned on her that there was healing here, too. Seeing so many babies and children being given hope for the future had renewed her own sense of hope. Her pain had slowly eased to a distant ache that only caught her unawares every now and then.

In helping others, she had helped herself to go on. She called on that strength now to keep her voice steady and her body language serene, describing work the foundation had done and the work still to do, and how the audience could play a part.

When they broke for coffee she was immediately surrounded, but even as she answered questions she was aware of Zeke across the room, a coffee cup untouched in his hand, his gaze on her. His look felt like a flame, licking at her body.

Time to take the bull by the horns. Excusing herself, she strode up to him, her own coffee cup held like a shield in front of her. “Hello, Zeke.”

“Nice talk. Very persuasive,” he said evenly.

“Wasted on you.”

“I didn’t come to be recruited,” he denied. “You know my philosophy—charity begins at home.”

“Then why are you here?” she demanded.

In the confined space, his body brushed hers and she felt her pulses leap in instant response. When they were together, his hard body hadn’t always been encased in expensive tailoring. More often, it had been encased in nothing at all and the image sent shards of desire spearing through her.

Chemistry, that’s all it was, she told herself desperately. Zeke had never had to do much to send her into orbit. Sometimes merely touching her was enough. This time she owed it to herself to keep her feet firmly on the ground.

“I want to learn about your work,” he insisted, his deep voice close to her ear.

The warmth of his breath curling around her nape made the room seem to recede.

“Isn’t it a bit late?” she managed to whisper around a throat as arid as the Australian Outback. They both knew she wasn’t referring to her work.

“According to our speaker, it’s never too late to do your bit,” he murmured. He shot a deliberate look at the reporter taking notes at the back of the room. “Unless you don’t practise what you preach.”

Of all people, Zeke should know she did, she thought with a sinking heart. “I suppose you hope to make a fool of me in front of the magazine people.”

He looked mildly insulted. “I don’t need Australian Life as a mouthpiece. My column has as many readers a week as they do in a month.”

Her spirits sank even further. “You’re writing about the foundation in your column?”

His smile twisted her insides in an instant, an unwelcome response but she forced it away as he said, “It’s possible.”

“For your series on charities that help themselves more than others.”

It wasn’t a question. The leaden feeling in her stomach told her she was right even before his smile became wolfish. “Since starting that series, I’ve visited charities whose headquarters would make the Taj Mahal look modest. Debunking them has been a pleasure.”

“Model Children isn’t a publicity stunt,” she denied, keeping her voice low although it was an effort. “We’ve saved whole families by helping the children.”

“Too bad our family wasn’t one of them.”

Stopped in her tracks, she stared at him. “You can’t blame me for what happened. You were the one who went to America, then moved in with someone else.” His eyebrows lifted and she added, “Gossip travels fast in the media. How is Lucy, by the way?”

“You’ll have to ask her new husband,” Zeke said flatly.

For the first time she saw genuine pain cloud his startling pewter eyes. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”

A cynical smile tilted his full lips. “If you’d come with me to the States you would have known. Of course, if you’d been with me in the States, I wouldn’t have turned to Lucy.”

She felt anger flash into her gaze and didn’t care if he saw it. “You’re saying it was my fault?”

“Wasn’t it?”

“I couldn’t go with you.” She was well aware that the desire to keep this between them wasn’t the only reason her voice came out as a strangled whisper.

“You never did say why.”

“I told you—”

He cut across her savagely. “You gave me excuses but no real reason.”

“I had my work.”

He glanced around the room, part of a technical college by day. There was little of glamor about it and she saw his gaze absorb the fact. “Nineteen months later you’re not modeling at all. You’re stumping around the country talking business people into parting with their cash. Yet you couldn’t take the time to come with me where your career could have really taken off. Were you afraid of failing or succeeding?”

“Neither,” she insisted, feeling her heart gather speed. She hadn’t been able to share her reasons with him then, and there was no point now. “I had other priorities.”

His mouth twisted into a sneer. “Evidently I wasn’t among them.”

“Must we always bring this back to you?”

His finger stabbed the air. “This time it’s to you. You were the one holding the reins. You could have come with me but you refused.”

“So you drowned your sorrows in Lucy. It took what? Just over a year to love her and leave her. You didn’t pine for very long.” Not nearly as long as Tara herself had.

At his startled look she wondered what she had said wrong. “I didn’t leave her, she left me,” he stated, astonishing her. “It seems I wasn’t sufficiently in touch with my feelings.”

The cynical way he said it turned it into a denial. Bitterness threatened to swamp Tara. “You actually care what a woman thinks? This is certainly new behavior.” Her opinion never carried much weight with him, she recalled.

“I make a point of learning from my mistakes.”

Tara felt her breath rush out. What did he consider a mistake—his behavior toward the other woman, or—she could hardly bear to think it—leaving Tara?

Signs of the coffee break winding up caught her attention. “We can’t talk now. What about after the meeting?”

His slow smile, alight with masculine interest, instantly made her regret the suggestion but it was too late to retract it now. “Going to make a personal appeal to me, Tara? I could get to like this foundation of yours.”

“You don’t have to like it. You only have to give it a fair appraisal,” she snapped, and stood up purposefully to move to the podium again. It was just as well she had already given this talk many times before, because her concentration was well below par. She was too aware of Zeke Blaxland leaning back with his arms folded across his broad chest, his expression daring her to put a foot wrong.

Potent with memories, the scent of her perfume lingered in the space around Zeke and he inhaled slowly, cursing himself for a fool, but unable to stop himself. Poême, he thought, automatically putting a name to the heady fragrance with its reminders of the foolish satin and lace scraps she called lingerie. Did she still wear that stuff?

From where he sat, the new Tara McNiven looked all business. She had never been skeletal, like some models, but her new curves were a definite improvement. The glimpse of satin skin and hint of décolletage her businesslike jacket afforded him set his pulses hammering. His imagination began to work overtime on the rest.

Her hair was shorter, too, brushing her shoulders in a waterfall of gold he knew from experience would feel like silk. His fingers twitched with the need to touch her. He turned it into a drumming gesture on his knee, saw her notice and frown, and stilled his hand.

What had possessed him to gate-crash the meeting? His lack of faith in charities was no secret, but he didn’t really believe Tara’s foundation belonged in his series. He’d researched them, and had no doubt that they were on the level. It didn’t mean he believed in what she was doing, but neither did he think she was in it for her own benefit.

So why was he here?

If he was honest, the answer was pacing up and down in front of him as she urged the group to put themselves in the children’s places. “It’s easy to say that one person can’t make a difference, but all it takes is the willingness to try.”

Amid the rueful nods, Zeke felt himself frown. Was Tara sending him a message? When they were together Zeke had been guilty of shutting himself away in his study for long periods. The only place she had had his undivided attention was in bed.

Her gaze bored into him. “We’ve all heard the saying about charity beginning at home.” She took a breath. “Tonight, I want you to go home and look at your own children, and imagine their lives if you couldn’t provide for them. Then when you’re in bed tonight, spend five minutes imagining what it would be like not to have that bed.”

Zeke felt a growl well up in his throat. He didn’t have to imagine what it would be like. He knew from his own experience, and no charity had come along to rescue him. He pushed the unwelcome memory aside, preferring to picture himself in Tara’s bed. Arousal throbbed through him at the very thought. Considering that it felt like a lifetime since he’d been with Tara, he was amazed how clearly he remembered every moment together, starting with the day he’d met her.

She had been the celebrity attraction at a car show where he had gone to check out the latest model Branxton convertible. He had barely been able to find the car for the spotlights and cameras aimed at her as she posed alongside it.

Irritated at having to wait until the publicity shoot ended, he had voiced his disapproval to a colleague he spotted in the throng. “Do they still have to sell cars by draping them with bubble-brained women in low-cut clothes?”

“Depends whether you’re selling the lowered sports suspension or the viscous drive differential,” came a throaty voice in his ear. Startled, he’d noticed that the photographers had been dismantling their gear and trying not to grin as the model cornered him with fire in her eyes.

He’d felt himself flushing. “You heard?”

“Enough to know that you’re wrong about me on at least one count.”

His gaze had slid over her breasts swelling so tantalizingly in the low-cut gown that his throat dried in automatic response. “It obviously isn’t the dress.”

Her lips had begun to twitch. “Obviously.”

“Doesn’t it bother you to be used as a prop to sell cars?”

She had shrugged, somehow imbuing the gesture with grace and beauty. “Doesn’t it bother you to write about chicken farming?”

“Battery hens,” he had corrected her, unwillingly pleased that she had connected him with his latest piece. “It’s my job.”

“For the moment, this is mine.” She’d offered her hand. “I’m Tara McNiven.”

Her fingers had felt cool in his and he found he didn’t want to let her go. So he hadn’t. “Zeke Blaxland. Shall we continue this discussion over coffee?”

To his relief she had nodded. “There’s a Green Room behind the main stage. We can go there. It’s more private.”

Private had sounded good. “My place is even more private.”

She had given him an old-fashioned look. “I already told you I’m not bubble-headed.”

He soon discovered it was true. Apart from a masters in business, she had a burning curiosity about everything including him, he was humbled to find out. He was still astonished by how good a team they made, out of bed as well as in it. Her refusal to come with him to America had been all the more devastating because he had finally thrown caution to the wind and started to trust her. He had even started imagining a future together.

His memories weren’t only of the good times, either. He recalled nursing her through a bad bout of flu, the first time he’d done such a thing for anybody. He’d been worried about getting it wrong, and had probably gone overboard with the chicken soup and the funny videos, not to mention watching over her while she slept.

When she awoke and found him there, she had protested that she looked awful. He couldn’t convince her that he found her beautiful even when her nose was as red as a beacon and her glorious hazel eyes were streaming with cold.

She was all fire and brimstone now as she urged her audience to be aware of the world outside their own, and Zeke’s body responded to her passion automatically. He was glad he had a folder of notes to hide the reaction. He could almost see the headlines if his response was noticed—Charity Spokesperson’s Most Upstanding Convert. When had he started thinking in headlines? Maybe he’d been writing the darned column too long.

He tried to focus on her words. Despite what she evidently suspected, he had come with an open mind, knowing that if anyone could give him another slant on the charity story, Tara could. He’d been open-minded in approaching all the groups he’d included in the series. It hadn’t been his fault that, upon closer investigation, they had been found wanting.

He’d meant it when he told Tara that he learned from his mistakes. He was starting to suspect that one of them had been accepting the offer to file his column from the paper’s parent publisher in America. What had seemed like the chance of a lifetime was beginning to look like the biggest mistake of his life.

After the emotional tug-of-war he’d endured as a child, he had never wanted anyone to become as important to him as Tara had. Was that why he’d headed for another country? He hated to think so, but the longer he was in the same room with her, the more he was forced to question his decision to leave.

When she’d let him walk out, he had convinced himself he was doing the right thing. Love was a fool’s paradise. Relationships never lasted. His disastrous involvement with Lucy was further proof if he needed any. So why was he back here, hanging on Tara’s every word? Was he some kind of glutton for punishment?

Must be, to have agreed to stay and talk after the meeting, he decided. He resolved to make it brief, snare a few quotes for his column, then get the hell out.

Remembering why he was here, he dragged his attention back to what Tara was saying, although it wasn’t necessary. Even while he was thinking about their relationship—former relationship, he amended inwardly—the journalistic side of his brain had absorbed every word. His mind had always worked that way. Compartmentalized. Tomorrow if he had to, he could give her entire speech himself.

That left the greater part of his thoughts free to focus on Tara herself, noting the graceful way she moved on the podium and the innate sexiness she projected like a beacon. Part of it was her training as a model but mostly it was natural. She was totally unselfconscious. Except when her eyes rested on him, then she tensed in a way he didn’t like at all. As a result, she didn’t look at him half as often as he found himself wanting her to.

He was annoyed to find his thoughts straying to their talk after the meeting. Maybe he wouldn’t hurry away, after all. They had a lot to catch up on, purely as friends. Perhaps they could do some of it at his new apartment overlooking Sydney Harbor. By night, the view was truly spectacular.

His body stirred again and he knew the view had nothing to do with it, other than the one right in front of him now. Remember what Tara had always said, he ordered himself angrily. “Modern women want more from a relationship than sex.” He had to remind himself again that he and Tara didn’t have a relationship anymore. She probably didn’t want anything from him except the sight of his back as he left.

She had been happy to see it once, when he went away, he reminded himself. When she refused to discuss coming with him, he had been so furious that he had gone without a backward glance, sure that there must be someone else. When he demanded a name, she had gone quiet, leaving him to draw his own conclusion.

It was partly why he’d turned to Lucy. She was all the things Tara hadn’t been, malleable, loyal, deferring to him in everything. Until he got exhausted doing her thinking for her, and demanded that she develop a mind of her own. Then she changed into a tigress who was never satisfied with anything he did. Coming from a wealthy family, she couldn’t understand his need to take care of himself, and that his job sometimes took him away from her at inconvenient hours. Her daddy could take care of them, she insisted, refusing to accept that Zeke might prefer to make his own way.

So the relationship had ended and he wasn’t particularly sorry, except for having to face the rare fact of his own failure. Lucy had a new partner, her daddy’s right-hand man, who had none of Zeke’s pigheadedness when it came to accepting a house, a job and support from her daddy. Zeke wished them well.

When he let the paper lure him back to Australia with the promise of the chance to write features of his own choosing, he hadn’t meant to see Tara again, at least not consciously, but some part of him must have planned it all along. When he read about this meeting, it had seemed like fate. He had already started the charity exposé so it had seemed logical to add Tara’s group to his list of targets.

Except that this target was proving elusive. He knew if he wrote up the foundation as worthwhile, he might be accused of going easy on his former lover. But he wasn’t sure he could condemn her work as bunk, either. Too many things she’d said touched an unwelcome chord with him. There was nothing for it but to investigate further before he made up his mind. But first there was the talk she had promised him. Zeke was amazed how much he looked forward to it.

Chapter 2

Zeke took his time clipping his notes and Tara’s handouts into his folio while the room emptied around him. The journalist and the photographer had left, disgruntled by his refusal to be interviewed. Now only one other man remained. Todd Jessman, Zeke thought, his brain automatically supplying the name. Tara’s foundation had helped him and his family, he recalled. From old journalistic habit, he tuned his ear to their conversation.

“I’d love you to send me photos of the baby,” he heard her tell the man. A slight catch in her voice made Zeke frown. Didn’t she know she shouldn’t get emotionally involved with the people she was supposed to help? Zeke had always prided himself on his objectivity. Emotional involvement was a weakness that clouded judgement. Another point they disagreed on.

“I’ll be sure and send some. Thank you again.” The man touched her arm and Zeke tensed, surprised by the force of his instinctive reaction. The man was married with a kid, for pity’s sake. On the other hand, maybe he needed reminding of the fact. If he wasn’t getting enough attention at home, he could mistake Tara’s professional concern for something more.

Before he had completed the thought, Zeke was at the front of the room, coming between them physically. He was a big man and while he didn’t deliberately use his size to his own advantage, he didn’t mind if it occasionally had that effect. His actions annoyed Tara, he realized when he saw her take a step back. From him? He didn’t like that, one bit.

“I have to go now,” she said to the young man, and Zeke swore he heard a tremor in her voice.

The young man looked from her to Zeke and swallowed, getting the message at last. “Okay, I’ll be in touch.”

She raked Zeke with a look. “Do you enjoy intimidating people?”

“It never worked with you.”

“Perhaps you should keep it in mind.” She began to gather up her things. “You didn’t say much to the magazine people.”

So she had noticed. Good. “I told them this was your show and they would have to get their quotes from you. What did you expect? A hatchet job?”

She tried to keep the pain out of her eyes and suspected she failed. “Isn’t it what you came to do?” He couldn’t deny it, she saw as his expression fleetingly revealed the truth. She pushed files into her briefcase. “I have to go.”

“You promised we would talk.”

It was out before she could stop it. “Why am I the only one who has to keep promises?”

He took a deep breath. “I never made you any promises I didn’t keep, Tara.”

It was true, he hadn’t. He had promised she would be the only woman in his life and she had been, while they were together. He had promised her the sun, the moon and the stars and she had found them all in his arms. But he had never promised her forever because he didn’t believe in it.

She understood that his upbringing argued against it, creating a barrier around his heart that he allowed no woman to penetrate, least of all her, but it didn’t lessen the hurt. Had Lucy managed to break down the barrier? Tara doubted it.

She had always suspected that if Zeke let her into that secret place deep inside him that he guarded so fiercely, he would be a lover without equal. He very nearly was already. But his reserve remained as a silent warning to come close but no closer.

“Why did you come back to Australia?” she asked, hearing herself sound hollow with the strain of the evening.

“You sound regretful.”

Probably because she was. “We hardly parted on good terms.”

“Your terms,” he said with sudden coldness. He looked around the empty room and beyond it to the corridor where a janitor was turning off lights. “You’re right, we do need to talk, but not here. I could use some coffee.”

“And I could use some sleep,” she shot in quickly before he could suggest going to a café. “We can talk on the way to my car, then I have to go.”

“Kind of you to offer me a lift,” he said, although they both knew she hadn’t. “I sold my car when I left the country and haven’t replaced it yet. I live at Neutral Bay so it’s on your way if you still live in the same place.”

How had she ended up driving him home? she wondered as he shadowed her to the lift and down to the basement car park. Her compact car looked lonely in the cavernous space and she was unreasonably glad Zeke was with her, although she refused to recognize any reason other than security. “I hate these places at night,” she admitted, not sure why.

“When I’m not around, you should have a security guard escort you in future,” he instructed.

It was good advice, but she had trouble thinking past the first part of his statement. “What do you mean, when you’re not around? You haven’t been around for a year and a half and I’ve coped perfectly well. Isn’t it a bit late to tell me what I should and shouldn’t do?”

“I never could tell you what to do,” he said as he folded himself into the passenger seat. Normally she loved her car with its reminders of a similar model she had purchased in her late teens. Now she wished for something more spacious to put greater distance between herself and the man beside her.

When she reached for the hand brake, she couldn’t help brushing against him and a riot of sensual thoughts raced through her head, none of them the least bit welcome. Or so she told herself. Convincing the parts of her that suddenly ached for his intimate touch was another matter.

“It didn’t stop you trying,” she snapped, throwing the car into gear with less care than usual and steering on autopilot.

“I never stop trying,” he said so softly that she wondered if she had heard correctly.

Concentrating on easing out into the traffic, she kept her startled glance to herself. “Two confessions in one night? Working in America can’t have changed you that much?”

“I’ve had a lot of time to think about what’s important in my life. I want us to try again, Tara.”

It was just as well she had both hands on the wheel, giving her something to hold on to, she thought. The traffic streaming along Military Road made it impossible to do what she really wanted, and that was to pull over and demand what in blazes he thought he was doing. She couldn’t simply pick up where they left off.

He sensed her resistance. “Leaving was a mistake. When you said you couldn’t go with me, I should have turned the offer down and stayed in Australia.” As soon as the words were out, he knew they were the reason he was here. The real reason.

Her heart ached. Nineteen months ago, hearing him say that would have made all the difference in the world. It wouldn’t have saved their baby. Nothing could have done that. But it would have meant everything to have his support through the nightmare of losing their child and facing life afterward. At the same time, she had recoiled from using her pregnancy to blackmail him into staying when he hadn’t wanted to for her sake alone.

Pain fueled her anger. “So you made a unilateral decision to return and claim what’s rightfully yours. Did it occur to you that I might not want to be claimed?”

He chuckled ruefully. “I’ve never been stopped by a challenge before.”

“I’m not a challenge, Zeke. I’m part of your past, as I’m sure you told the magazine reporter.”

“I didn’t tell them anything except that it was your show and I was there to observe.”

She glanced away from the traffic long enough for him to register her surprise. “And are you?”

“I’m not the enemy, Tara. You may think I am because of my exposé on charities that help themselves more than other people, but so far your foundation doesn’t seem to be one of them.”

It was more than she had expected from him and she felt heat blaze a trail through her. “Thank you.”

In fairness he had to say, “Don’t thank me yet.” He paused, then added, “Save it until I have enough material to write the column.”

She felt her pulse jump. The thought of him investigating her was almost more than she could handle, but she refused to let him see it. “Then you’d better get yourself a car,” she said through gritted teeth. “I don’t make a habit of driving audience members home.” Especially not this one.

“Turn left here. You can pull into the driveway at the end of the road,” he said.

She did so, not sure whether she was glad or sorry that they had arrived at his apartment building. The street was a steep one, leading down to the harbor foreshore, with the city ferry terminal only a short stroll away. In front of them was a swathe of parkland, then the water sparkling like black velvet strewn with diamonds. Zeke explained that his apartment occupied the entire ground floor of the old Federation terrace house that had been converted into a duplex. The view must be sensational, she thought.

“Nice place,” she commented tensely.

“It came with my new job,” he said. “Would you like to take a look at the view?”

“I can see it perfectly well from here.”

“Scared, Tara?”

His softly voiced challenge was all it took. She wasn’t scared of him, nor of her ability to deal with the situation. In comparison with what she’d been through since he’d left, Zeke Blaxland was a piece of cake. “Very well, but I won’t stay long. I’m starting on a book, and the only time I get to work on it is early in the morning.”

“About the foundation?” he guessed. She nodded. “You always said you wanted to write, but I thought it was going to be a torrid romance.”

She was painfully aware that the vision had been fueled by their affair. This time she would have to look somewhere else for inspiration. “I changed my mind,” she said flatly.

“Pity. But I’m glad you’re following your dream.”

She could say the same for him. According to the same media grapevine from which she had learned about his marriage, Zeke’s column was now published in a dozen countries in several languages. He also did an op-ed piece on a national morning television show. She had first seen it in hospital after the baby was born and it had almost been her undoing. But after a year or more of being confronted with his image everywhere she turned, she was immune to the effect, or so she tried to assure herself.

Liar, she taunted herself silently. She would never be immune to the sight of Zeke on television or anywhere else. She had only to glance sideways to remind herself of how vulnerable she still was to his brand of charm. Charisma was an overused word, but he had it in spades.

Even when she looked resolutely away, his presence radiated toward her like a beacon. You’re a moth to his flame, she told herself scathingly, forcing herself to remember what happened to moths when they flew too close to the light. It didn’t stop her from getting out of the car, locking it and following him inside.

She might have known his apartment would be spectacular. He never did anything by halves. From a plant-filled atrium, he led her into a vast living area furnished with Corbusier chairs and sofa separated by a mirrored coffee table. Her high heels clicked against the white Italian tiles covering the floors.

Beyond the living room, a dining area contained a fruitwood table surrounded by a dozen rope-seated chairs. A handcrafted boat sat atop a trestle side table, and above it a brass mirror was angled to reflect the view. Kelim rugs and softer natural elements, terracotta pots and baskets of plants, relieved the coolness of the tiled floors.

“It’s lovely,” she admitted, impressed in spite of herself. Home-making hadn’t been among Zeke’s inclinations when they were together. His previous apartment had been beautifully but impersonally furnished by the simple means of buying several room lots complete with accessories from a fashionable furnishing store. This apartment was another matter. It exuded a feeling of home that she wasn’t accustomed to associating with Zeke. “Did you hire someone, or is this your own work?”

“A bit of both,” he conceded. “I had good advice, but I knew what I wanted.”

He usually did. She accepted the glass of sparkling spring water he offered her, foolishly pleased that he had remembered she never drank when she was driving. It bothered her to think she might be what he wanted, because she already knew how hard it would be to refuse him. She wasn’t sure she wanted to, only that she had to. Having ridden the emotional roller coaster with him once before, she’d be crazy to climb aboard it again.

She tensed as he moved up behind her, but it was only to steer her closer to the spectacular view. His hands on her shoulders felt warm, strong. A molten sensation flowed along the length of her spine and pooled beneath the curve of her stomach.

“You wouldn’t believe how much I missed this.”

She found her voice with an effort. “The harbor view?”

He turned her again until he was looking directly into her eyes. “This view.”

The raw emotion in his gaze made it clear the harbor wasn’t in the race. She had half expected it, she told herself, forcing herself not to move. It was the test she had set herself by agreeing to come with him.

When she said nothing, he began to massage her shoulders with gentle but persuasive movements until she wanted to melt. “No comment, Tara?”

She shook her head. “It is the approved journalistic phrase.”

He frowned. “In my experience it’s used by people who have something to hide.”

She jerked away from his hands as if stung. He couldn’t know her secret, but conscience made her react. Or else it was the unnerving effect of his nearness. Both, she suspected. She was mad to put herself through this. As a test of her indifference to him, it was already a failure.

He studied her intently. “What is it, Tara? Did I say something?”

She fought the urge to wrap her arms protectively around herself, and walked to the wall of windows looking onto a vast terrace. The view might as well have been painted on for all the impact it had on her. She was far more aware of the man behind her. “This wasn’t a good idea.”

“On the contrary. It’s the only good idea I’ve had in a long time.”

Turn and face him now, or you never will, she commanded herself, but found it almost impossible to do. Almost as hard to say lightly, “Am I hearing things? Zeke Blaxland is a positive fountain of good ideas.”

“You know I was speaking personally.”

As much to remind herself as him, she said, “Not an area I have a right to go into.”

His gaze hardened. “Because you don’t feel anything for me anymore, or because you do?”

How did one answer the unanswerable? She picked up her bag and started for the door, but he was there before her. “You can’t leave yet. I asked you a question.”

“I can leave anytime I please,” she said, not at all sure that it was true.

He saw it, too, she noted, and pressed home his advantage. “Tell me to go to hell right now, and I’ll know I’m wasting my time. I won’t bother you again, ever.”

“You’ll stop investigating the foundation?”

He shook his head. “Not until I get what I came for, but I guarantee I’ll be a model observer. You won’t even know I’m around.”

And the sun didn’t have to rise in the morning. As long as Zeke walked the earth she would be aware of him. In the same room, she could no more ignore him than she could fly. “It won’t work,” she denied, her hair haloing around her head as she shook it. “You’d find some way to make your presence felt.”

“You make me sound like a glory-hunter,” he said, sounding wounded. “But you’re probably right, it is a big ask. However, there’s another solution.”

“What is it?”

“We make love here and now, and get it out of our system.”

His so-called solution was so typically Zeke that she almost choked. “What makes you think that will solve anything?”

His smile was infuriatingly cocky. “Maybe it won’t, but it’s a lot more fun than standing at the door, arguing all night.”

Too late, she remembered that Zeke thought falling into bed could solve any argument. Unfortunately, he had been right more often than she cared to remember. But not anymore. “Sorry, Zeke, I’m otherwise committed.”

His eyes narrowed. “Committed as in another man? The same man who kept you from coming to America with me?”

“There was no one else then and there isn’t now,” she said tiredly. “Given the complications that go with being in love, I’ve decided I’m better off celibate.”

She saw no point in letting him know she had been since he’d left. Pregnancy had imposed its own limitations, but in truth no other man had interested her since Zeke. Whatever his failings, he was a tough act to follow.

Evidently you weren’t, she told herself. He hadn’t waited long before rushing into another relationship. Pain blistered through her. Jealousy. Anger. Other emotions she refused to identify. All of it on a level only Zeke aroused in her. Still did, she recognized in panic. She had to get out of here.

He read the urge to flee in her startled movements. “What’s so all-fired important you have to rush home to it?”

“My life.”

“Your writing and your precious foundation?”

When she nodded dumbly, he looked skeptical. “Can they keep you warm at night, Tara? Can they enfold you in love and comfort the way my arms can? Like this?”

Before she had time to martial her defenses, he took her in his arms. She tried to stiffen but it was useless. He knew exactly how to hold her to turn her to putty in his embrace. Almost of their own accord her arms went around him. As soon as her fingers traced the muscular contours of his back she knew she was lost. For eighteen months she had dreamed of being right here, resting her head against the hollow of his shoulder and feeling the steady drumming of his heart reverberating through her.

Except that it wasn’t steady at all. It beat as rapid a tattoo as hers did, as his lips traced a pattern along her hairline then descended with lightning swiftness to claim her mouth. “Now tell me again how you prefer celibacy,” he insisted.

The moan she heard escape from her throat was part passion and part despair. Why did he have to come back just when she was getting her life back on track? She didn’t blame him for the baby. The doctor said her contraception had failed during a bout of flu, so it was nobody’s fault. But she did blame Zeke for rushing off to the States without a backward glance after she refused to go with him. She hadn’t been ready to tell him about the baby then, but she would have, given a little more time. Instead, he had slammed the door shut on further communication.

She had wanted to break the news in a way that made it clear he didn’t owe her anything. Knowing how he resisted family ties because of his own chaotic childhood, she wouldn’t have imposed them on him. Barely recovered from the flu, she hadn’t bargained on feeling so wretchedly ill in the first weeks of pregnancy, unable to deal with her own emotions, far less Zeke’s.

By the time she was ready, he had gone without leaving a forwarding address. She could have contacted him through the newspaper but it wasn’t a message she had wanted to risk falling into the wrong hands, so she had decided against it. Thinking she would never see Zeke again, it didn’t seem to matter. Now she wasn’t so sure.

The thought didn’t stop her body from responding of its own accord. After so long, his touch shocked her system into overdrive. Every inch of exposed skin felt alive in a way that terrified her. He was right, celibacy had nothing to compare with the way he made her feel.

It didn’t help to remind herself that forever wasn’t in his vocabulary. He was here. Nothing mattered except the demands he made on her mouth as his hands roved over her body, exploring, pleasuring, exciting. As he eased her jacket open and slid his hand inside, her heart almost stopped. When she felt him cup her breast, she went weak. She moaned again, shifting closer to him to press his hand against the spot where he would feel her rapid heartbeat.

He was aroused, too, she felt as their altered positions made it apparent. Seeing how quickly she had made him want her brought her senses close to overload. How could she have forgotten what they were like together?

She hadn’t forgotten for one single moment, she understood in the instant, eye-of-the-storm moment she had for clear thinking. She had accepted his invitation knowing what would happen. Wanting it. Wanting him.

His tongue began a sinuous dance with hers, sending spears of sensation lancing through her. She wanted to deny everything he made her feel, but the words stalled inside her, unable to compete with the way her heart pumped in erratic rhythm, hazing her mind and filling her with yearnings. As they kissed, he massaged her nipples, sending her into a spiral of desire that could end in only one way. “Oh, Zeke, it’s been so long,” she heard herself murmur.

“Too long,” he said in a voice like broken glass. “I want to make love to you.”

It was enough to break the spell. “No, Zeke.” She placed a hand against his chest, the gesture too ineffectual to push him away but symbolic enough that he understood her meaning. Self-preservation was the only thing urging her to refuse him. He knew every inch of her body as well as she knew it herself. He was bound to notice the changes in her and ask questions.

Questions she was far from ready to answer.

She found she ached to say yes more than she had wanted to do anything for a long time. To know the mind-shattering pleasure of his possession and to surrender utterly to his will, even as she commanded him, was a heaven she had dreamed of all the time they’d been apart.

Not that she hadn’t tried to put him out of her mind. Awake, she had almost succeeded. About her dreams she could do nothing. Instead of dulling her need for him, the long months of abstinence had sharpened her desire until it registered as an exquisite pleasure-pain sensation that ached to be satisfied.

But not tonight.

Not ever, if she had any sense. Her breath escaped in a sigh of frustration. When had she shown any sense around Zeke? This time she had little choice, she thought as she closed her jacket with shaking fingers and took an unsteady step away from him. It was only a few inches, but it felt like a vast gulf of emptiness opening between them.

“Am I going too fast for you?” he asked, sounding as strained as she felt.

If you could count the months of abstinence as fast, she thought ruefully. “No, it’s just…I don’t know how I feel about us anymore.”

His expression turned cold. “As I recall, you never did.”

The accusation in his tone shocked her out of her remaining torpor. “I wasn’t the one who went away and found someone else.”

Light broke across his strong features. She had forgotten the full force of his attractiveness, she thought distractedly. His dark hair was thick and full, curling slightly at the ends where it wanted a barber’s touch. In anger, his eyes looked like the sea in storm but the glint of gold reminded her of how they could sparkle wickedly at her, usually just before they made love. She closed her own eyes against the reminder. It would be a long time before she saw that look again, if ever.

“Is that what this is about?” he demanded, sounding furious. “It’s okay for you to send me away but not for me to find comfort somewhere else. What was I supposed to do? Wait until you made up your mind that I was worth making a few temporary sacrifices for? Or did you hope I’d come rushing back, unable to exist without you?”

Both options had occurred to her. Evidently only one of them to him. She dragged her fingers through her hair, mussing it. Her scalp felt tight and tense, good company for the rest of her. “I didn’t want anything from you that you weren’t prepared to offer freely, and I still don’t. You did the right thing finding someone else. I’m only sorry it didn’t last.” Then she wouldn’t have to deal with this.

Instead she would have to deal with knowing he was forever beyond her reach. She wasn’t sure which was the worse torment.

“Well, I did come back,” he said, startling her. “I tried moving on and it didn’t work. You can’t give to one person something you’ve already given to another, and Lucy sensed it. I decided to come back and find out if you felt the same way about me. Was I wrong?”

Say yes and end this now, she urged herself. Instead, what came out was a lame, “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know if you still care about me?”

He sounded so bitter that she wanted to weep. She kept her head high. When their baby died she had shed all the tears in the world for their child, for him and for herself. She had thought she had no tears left. Now, feeling her eyes grow heavy, she knew she did, but shedding them in front of him would be far too revealing. To herself or to him? The question caught her off guard, silencing her until she realized he was waiting for an answer.

“We can’t pick up where we left off,” she said with an honesty he couldn’t possibly understand. There were too many layers under what he thought he heard.

His generous mouth tightened into a hard line. “Can we pick up at all?”

“No.”

She hadn’t intended to be so forthright, but survival demanded it. If she said so much as another word, she would break down and admit that there was more than a chance. After what she had experienced in his arms tonight there was a bedrock certainty. And it was a luxury she couldn’t afford. One night with him would undo all the months of silence.

How could she tell him she had conceived and lost their baby? How would he react to being excluded from something he had every right to expect to share? Even now, she had trouble justifying it to herself. No matter how difficult he had made it, or how ill she had been at the beginning, she should have found a way to tell him. Now it was too late. Would he even believe the child had been his? He had been ready enough to blame her refusal to come with him on another man. She wasn’t sure he believed her denials even now.

There was only one thing she could do. It cost her almost more courage than she possessed to retrieve her bag and touch a hand to the side of his face in silent homage to what might have been. “Goodbye, Zeke,” she said, and made herself walk through the door.

Chapter 3

Three days later, Tara knew she had done the right thing in walking away from Zeke, but couldn’t make herself feel good about it. She was babysitting for her sister-in-law, Carol, when the sound of the front door opening and closing told her that her sister-in-law had returned. Carol came into the room and dropped her briefcase on a side table. “Children asleep?”

“Finally.” Tara’s tone suggested it was an achievement.

Carol gave a wry smile. “I hope they didn’t give you too hard a time.”

“Of course not,” Tara assured her. “Cole might be at the Terrible Two stage, but he always makes me laugh. And Katie’s so sweet, calling me Tawa through the gap in her teeth. How can you refuse them anything?”

“I remind myself it’s for their own good.” Carol paused at the kitchen door. “Join me for lunch?”

Tara nodded. “I’m seeing a publisher this afternoon and having dinner with a potential benefactor for the foundation, but I’m free till then.”

“Another schmoozy dinner. How do you stand spending so much time with people whose only attractive feature is their bank balance?”

“It isn’t always the case. Some of them are sweet, and when it’s for the kids, it’s worth it,” Tara said.

“We’ve never really discussed it, but it can’t be easy for you, dealing with children every day. Even minding mine must be a strain.”

Tara let out a long sigh. “When I’m bathing them or playing with them, I sometimes feel such a longing for what might have been. Then I think how lucky I am to be an aunt to your two. They help in the healing process.”

“Children are like that,” Carol conceded, adding realistically, “especially when they’re asleep.”

“Then they’re positive angels,” Tara agreed, laughing.

“I don’t know why dramas always have to coincide with the nanny’s day off,” Carol went on. “Although if Mrs. McCarthy changes her will one more time, I swear I’ll hasten her end myself.”

Tara laughed. Her sister-in-law was a lawyer who had set up a practice at home while her children were young. The client in question was bedridden, but still feisty enough to enjoy the power her fortune gave her over her family. According to Carol, the woman changed her will at regular intervals to keep her clan under her thumb.

Tara perched on a stool and watched Carol prepare sandwiches with practiced ease. Her sister-in-law was one of six children, all younger than herself, so she was incredibly domesticated. She was also a good friend. Tara’s brother, Ben, reminded her frequently, that marrying Carol was an example of his dedication to pleasing his little sister.

Pleasing himself had nothing to do with it, she thought with humor. Ben was a doctor and had met Carol professionally when she defended a colleague in a malpractice lawsuit. Love at first sight, Ben had called it, when he wasn’t claiming he chose Carol so he’d have his own private lawyer on tap. Tara knew which reason she believed.

“This is the first chance I’ve had to ask you how Monday’s talk went?” her sister-in-law said, levering the top off a mustard jar.

Tara traced a pattern on the granite counter. “The usual.”

Carol’s hands stilled. “No matter how many times you do this, you never describe it as usual. In fact you assure me every presentation is different. So out with it, what’s the problem this time?”

“Zeke Blaxland is investigating the work of the foundation.”

Carol caught her breath. She knew about Zeke and had been incredibly supportive during Tara’s pregnancy and the shattering aftermath. Other than Tara’s doctor, her brother and sister-in-law had been the only two people Tara had confided in.

Tara knew that Carol still felt badly about being out of Australia when the baby was born, but the family had been in England, settling Carol’s elderly mother into a retirement place. They had flown back as soon as they could, but it was too late. Tara had assured Carol she understood. Their presence wouldn’t have changed the outcome. And they had supported her through everything else, including the baby’s memorial service. Carol had shed almost as many tears as Tara herself, and had held Tara’s hand through the days that followed.

Now she frowned in sympathy. “Oh, honey, how awful. Did you hate him on sight?”

Tara laced and unlaced her fingers until she regained her voice. “Worse than that, I didn’t hate him.”

Carol covered Tara’s hand with her own. “You didn’t do anything foolish?”

Tara knew her laugh sounded hollow. “You mean like go home with him and let him make love to me? Does one out of two count?”

Reading between the lines, Carol shook her head. “Sounds like your sense of self-preservation kicked in just in time.”

What self-preservation? Tara asked herself. Zeke had been in her audience for only a few hours before she’d thrown caution to the wind and driven him home. She hadn’t been reckless enough to go to bed with him, although it was close. But he still managed to dominate her waking thoughts. Her dreaming ones, too, she had discovered, only in her dream they had been a family of three. This morning she awoke with tears drying on her cheeks.

“I didn’t have him figured as the charitable type,” Carol said.

“He isn’t. He’s writing a series of columns about charities that help themselves more than the people they’re set up to help.”

Carol looked shocked. “He must know the foundation is genuine or you wouldn’t be involved.”

Tara nodded. Carol knew that after ending her relationship with Zeke and losing the baby, Tara hadn’t wanted to face the world at all, far less be involved in a cause that brought her into daily contact with young children. She hadn’t wanted to return to modeling, either, so had retreated behind closed doors to lick her emotional wounds.

But the storm of publicity surrounding her efforts to help the single parent with the triplets had refused to abate. Gradually she had been drawn into similar projects until it had become a full-time job.

She sighed. “I hope Zeke agrees with you. The publisher I’m seeing wants me to write a book about the foundation’s work, so he must think it’s on the level.”

Carol rested her elbows on the counter. “So why are you letting Zeke undermine your confidence? I can hear it in your voice and see it in your body language.”

Tara straightened, chagrined at being read so easily. Reading body language was part of a lawyer’s stock-in-trade, she told herself, but it didn’t change the fact that Carol was right. “How can I be the children’s spokesperson when the proof of my own failure as a mother was sitting in my audience last Monday?”

There, it was out. Tara had barely articulated her reasoning to herself, but as soon as she said it, she knew it had been nagging at her from the moment she’d seen Zeke in her audience.

“Losing the baby wasn’t your failure any more than it was Zeke’s,” Carol stated. She retrieved a jug of homemade lemonade from the refrigerator and added it and two glasses to a tray with the sandwiches. “Let’s go outside. It seems I have a pep talk to give.”

“I don’t need a pep talk.” But Tara followed her sister-in-law out to a table and chairs placed underneath the weeping branches of a crepe myrtle. From somewhere in the greenery, a Little-Wattle Bird gave its distinctive rusty-hinged cry. “It’s beautiful out here,” she said.

Carol wagged a finger at her. “Don’t change the subject.”

“Can I make a statement in my own defense, counselor?”

“Only if it doesn’t incriminate you.”

Tara poured them both a glass of lemonade. “Everything I can think to say fits that category.”

“Because you’re not as over Zeke Blaxland as you tell yourself.”

Tara felt her eyebrows lift. “You’re supposed to be on my side.”

“Sometimes defending a client involves making them deal with facts they’d rather not face.” Carol held out the plate. “Have a sandwich. They’re good if I do say so myself. Then we’ll discuss Zeke.”

About to refuse, Tara saw Carol’s expression. It was easier to eat than to get into an argument with someone who made a career out of it, so she took half a sandwich and bit into it, although her appetite had deserted her.

Was she avoiding facing facts? Perhaps so, Tara thought on a silent sigh. She was still attracted to Zeke, but it didn’t mean she had to give in to it. “Whatever he and I had is over. All I’m hearing are echoes from the past,” she said firmly.

Carol looked unconvinced. “As long as you’re sure.”

Tara wasn’t, but decided to let it lie. She appreciated Carol’s and Ben’s support, but there was nothing they could do. At some stage Tara knew she had to learn to deal with a world that included Zeke. Now was as good a time to start as any.

“You haven’t told me how the insider trading suit ended,” she said, seizing on the fastest way to divert her sister-in-law.

Her tactic worked. “We won. My client was completely exonerated. Didn’t you read this morning’s paper? We made the front page and the editorial.”

Tara had avoided looking at the paper. She choked back an instinctive protest as Carol went to fetch the paper. Seeing Zeke’s byline and knowing he was writing his column practically on her doorstep was another thing she must learn to deal with.

Carol came back and spread the paper across Tara’s knees. “Read the headlines then the editorial. I get a mention in both.”

Tara dutifully scanned the story, feeling pride in her sister-in-law’s accomplishment. “So the unwinnable case wasn’t as unwinnable as everyone predicted,” she said, a note of pleasure in her voice.

Carol nodded. “That’s pretty much what the editor says, too.”

Tara flipped pages until she came to the piece in question. It painted a glowing word picture of Carol’s handling of the difficult case. About to congratulate her, Tara’s eye strayed to the photo at the top of the next column and her heart almost stopped. A new photo of Zeke accompanied his column. It showed him seated behind a desk, making him look much more commanding and handsome than the previous head shot. More like the man she remembered so well, she thought.

Like someone drawn to touch a hot stove to prove it really can burn, she began to read and her blood turned to ice in her veins. “How can he do this?” she stormed after a few paragraphs.

Carol looked surprised. “I thought it was pretty flattering myself.” She glanced over Tara’s shoulder and saw what she was reading. “I didn’t mean to put that in front of you. I didn’t have time to read beyond the editorial this morning. Sorry.”

Tara shook her head although her muscles felt stiff and unresponsive. “I would have seen it sooner or later.”

Under the heading, Not-So-Sweet Charity, Zeke urged his readers to consider carefully where they donated their hard-earned money, suggesting that some organizations were designed as much to provide for their organizers as to help the underprivileged.

“How dare he suggest that I’m a do-gooder,” Tara demanded hotly.

Carol scanned the column and she frowned. “He doesn’t mention your name, or the foundation’s.”

“He doesn’t have to. After Australian Life publishes their piece and notes that top-gun reporter Zeke Blaxland was checking us out, it won’t be hard for people to put two and two together.”

Carol read on. “Are you sure you aren’t reading too much into this? Zeke may not flatter some of the fund-raising activities people do, but he doesn’t say anything that could give rise to legal action.”

“He only suggests that we’re in this for our own benefit.”

Carol gestured dismissively. “Nobody in their right mind will think he means you. You gave up a fortune in modeling fees to help set up and run the foundation.”

“Because I want the bulk of the money to go to the children. He doesn’t mention that part.”

“Maybe he doesn’t know it,” Carol suggested.

Tara stood up, adrenaline surging through her body. “Then it’s time he did, counselor. I may have no legal redress, but I can give that son-of-a-columnist a piece of my mind.”

“Wouldn’t it be better to cool down first?”

It was the last thing Tara wanted to do. “I’d rather tackle him while my blood is so hot I could burn him by bleeding on him.”

In spite of the situation, Carol laughed. “Poor Zeke. I wouldn’t want to be in his shoes when you get hold of him.”

Tara looked affronted. “How can you say ‘poor Zeke’? He’s the one using his position to take a cheap shot at me just because I didn’t leap into bed with him the moment he showed up.”

Carol shook her head. “I meant poor Zeke after you get through with him. From the look on your face, that cheap shot may turn out to be a lot more expensive than he bargained on.”

The Publishing House was a curious hybrid. Built behind a century-old sandstone facade, the new tower rose seventeen floors above Sydney’s historic Macquarie Street. Tara’s publisher was headquartered there, as was the editorial division of Zeke’s newspaper. When she parked outside, she wondered how she was going to cope with coming here on a regular basis, knowing that Zeke was only a few floors away.

Today it wasn’t a problem. She not only wanted him back in town, but seated behind the desk in his office so she could give him a large chunk of her mind.

Naturally, because she was fired up to confront him, he wasn’t there. His computer screensaver featured an animated figure walking through a never-ending series of doors that closed behind him one after the other, accompanied by cheerful sound effects. Across the screen scrolled the words, “Missed me by that much.”

It was an in-joke, related to Zeke’s love of classic television shows, she remembered, thinking of the hundreds of tapes in his collection. She wasn’t a fan but her pleasure had come from watching him while he watched the tapes. Some of them he knew practically by heart. Unwillingly, she found herself remembering long, rainy Sunday afternoons when they made huge bowls of popcorn and watched marathon sessions of old series.

Sometimes he had turned the sound off and made up his own dialogue, urging her to join in until they had both been helpless with laughter, she recalled. Inevitably, she had ended up in his arms, her laughter turning to passion as his kisses deepened. From the sofa, they invariably slid to the floor and made love while some old superhero flickered in the background. She couldn’t be certain but she suspected that their baby had been conceived at such a moment.

She made herself turn away from the screen, unwilling to be reminded of those days.

“Looking for Zeke?” came a familiar voice behind her. “He’s out.”

She spun around. “Matthew Brock. It’s great to see you. Still working for this newspaper then?”

He looked rueful. “Until the right man comes along to take me away from all this, I don’t have much choice. I finally stopped chasing Pulitzer prizes and settled for a steady paycheck and what little security this business has to offer.”

Matthew was a photographer and Tara had worked with him many times during her modeling days. “You never chased Pulitzer prizes, although you have the talent for it,” she said. “You always preferred security. A plateful of do-nuts and you’re anybody’s, you used to tell me.”

He rolled his eyes. “I never could put anything past you, Tara. You look great. I know you’re pretty involved with the kids thing, but if you ever want a modeling assignment…”

“I’m after blood, actually,” she cut in, remembering her mission.

He looked interested. “Zeke’s blood, by any chance?”

“Blood, bones, whatever.”

“‘Hell hath no fury,”’ he quoted, adding, “I gather you saw the column?”

She affected an expression of innocence. “Did he write a column concerning me?”

“Zeke knows better than that, but reading between the lines, it wasn’t very kind, considering the two of you used to be an item. Maybe that quote should be about a man scorned.”

“I didn’t scorn him, he left me,” she snapped then caught herself. Matthew was an old friend, not the enemy.

She jumped as her cell phone played the first few notes of “Jingle Bells.” Matthew grinned as she answered it. It was early for Christmas, but the tune was easy to hear in a noisy setting. By the time she flipped the phone shut, she could feel her face muscles tightening. She relaxed them with an effort.

“Problem?” Matthew asked.

“Only a potential benefactor calling to cancel our dinner engagement tonight. Apparently something came up. I’ll bet I know what.”

“You might be reading too much into this. Not everybody reads Zeke’s column.”

“There may be a corner of the African veld he doesn’t reach, but I happen to know this lady never misses it. She told me she’s thinking of supporting one large charity rather than a number of smaller ones but she’ll get back to me. In a pig’s eye.”

“Oh.”

“Yes, oh. When I get my hands on Zeke…”

“Maybe it’s just as well he isn’t around. He’s doing wonders for our circulation.”

She laughed in spite of herself. “You and your insecurity. The paper survived while Zeke was in America. It will survive again without him.”

“Wow, you really are out for his blood.”

“When is he due back?”

Matthew looked thoughtful. “He’s following a lead, something about a baby farming racket he’s working on.”

Something tightened inside her. “Baby farming? Isn’t that a bit out of Zeke’s line?”

Matthew shook his head. “Before agreeing to come back to Australia he negotiated the right to work on features of his choice. This is one of them.”

She kept her tone carefully neutral although every instinct shrilled a warning. “It sounds fascinating. What’s it about?”

Matthew shrugged. “I don’t know much. I only took a couple of pictures that Zeke wanted. A mother being united with a year-old baby that was apparently stolen from her, for one.”

Something inside Tara wound even tighter. “Really?”

He nodded, glad of her interest. “Yeah, it’s all very cloak-and-dagger. Zeke needed a shot of the hospital involved, so I used a long lens to avoid tipping them off. It’s a place with a flowery name. The Roses Private Hospital, that’s it.”

She could hardly breathe. “How fascinating.”

Concern flashed over his features. “Keep it to yourself, Tara. If anyone else breaks the story before Zeke is ready, he’ll kill me. It’s his baby.”

She felt faint. His baby. Matthew couldn’t know how his words stabbed her to the heart, but not because of a newspaper feature. Zeke’s infuriating column was nothing compared to what she had just learned. He was investigating the hospital where she had given birth less than a year ago.

She knew better than to hope that her baby had been stolen and given to someone else. She had only to remember her son’s lifeless form when the midwife brought him to her after attempts to revive him had failed. So she held no hope that things might be different for herself. But if Zeke managed to access the hospital records, and he was more than capable of doing it, he was bound to learn the truth.

Matthew regarded her anxiously. “Are you okay? You’ve gone chalk-white.”

She made herself nod and say shakily, “I’ve only eaten half a sandwich today. My blood sugar is probably in my boots by now.”

He took her arm. “Let’s grab some coffee and you can have a snack.”

She didn’t really want food, but she needed to occupy herself until Zeke returned, and she did feel shaky. Besides, the photographer was one of her favorite people. “Okay but I can’t stay long. I have a meeting in the building in less than an hour.”

“That’s just long enough to tell me more about what you plan to do with Zeke when you catch up with him.”

It was more a case of what he would do with her if he uncovered the truth, she thought as she allowed Matthew to steer her out of the office. The unkind things Zeke had written in his column would pale into insignificance beside his reaction when he knew she had kept from him the birth of his own child.

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