The Army Doc's Baby Secret

‘Not here.’ Tia stalled. ‘Especially not after...this. But it can’t go any further, Zeke. That can’t happen. I won’t allow it.’

‘You’re right, it shouldn’t have happened.’ His tone scratched deep inside her. Gouging at her.

So matter-of-fact, so undaunted, that it made her feel dismissed and unwanted by him all over again. And it hurt more than it had any right to.

As much as she wanted—needed—to tell him about Seth, she couldn’t. Not after this. Not now, anyway.

She needed time to recompose herself. A night. A couple of days at most.

‘I have to go,’ she muttered, grabbing her purse and car keys and pushing past him.

Both sick and relieved when he let her go.

* * *

Tia had no idea how she got home. One moment she was leaving the lifeboat station, shifting her car into gear and hurtling out of the car park. The next, she was pulling into her father’s driveway, blinking away the tears that threatened to spill out over her cheeks the entire eight-minute drive. And as she hurried up to the house her heart lifted at the sight of Seth’s face peering out of the window, and his elated grin as he blew her frantic kisses.

She couldn’t get her key in the door fast enough as she heard him racing down the hallway, already babbling to her about his day with Grampy. What was it about the prospect of a squeezing hug from her son that promised to settle her churning stomach and the turmoil of the past few hours better than any antacid ever would?

The door was barely open before Seth was dragging her inside, a finger painting in one hand and a sticky piece of toast in the other.

‘Look, Mummy, I drew you a tiger catopolly.’

‘Wow.’ Tia crouched down right there and scooped her son into her arms, inhaling deeply the comforting scent of his freshly washed hair. Right now, she couldn’t bear to look in those suddenly too familiar grey-blue eyes. Instead, she smiled brightly and took the picture.

‘A big cat tiger, huh?’

‘No,’ he chuckled. ‘A tiger catopolly. They’re really fuzzy and there are lots of them on Delburn Island.’

‘Oh, that’s right, Grampy was taking you on the beach walk today,’ she realised, making a great show of admiring the scribbled drawing. ‘So this must be a tiger moth caterpillar?’

‘Yes,’ Seth declared proudly, his eyes sparkling as much as ever, and making her heart constrict. ‘A tiger moth catopolly.’

‘Well, I think it’s marvellous,’ she declared, shoving any last thoughts of Zeke out of her head.

Reaching out, she began to close the front door when a foot wedged itself in the way.

A big, biker-booted foot.

She almost tipped backwards in her haste to stand up. Instinct making her send her curious son to his grandfather and closing the living room door behind them.

She hadn’t even noticed him following her, let alone heard his bike. Yet there it was, parked right on the driveway as though he had every right to be there.

And Zeke, looming and furious, in the doorway. His eyes locked onto the closed door as she gripped the handle as though that could somehow delay the inevitable.

‘What the hell, Tia?’

‘Zeke...’

She should have told him. Back there in the lifeboat station. It was why she’d come back to Delburn Bay the moment she’d discovered Zeke was in Westlake.

Waiting for the right moment had been a mistake, because there was never going to be the perfect opportunity for giving a person that kind of news. And in delaying, she’d only made things ten times worse. A hundred times.

‘I have a son?’

His shocked words were barely audible and still the torment in his tone lacerated her. She couldn’t even answer. Not that he needed her to. Anyone who saw father and son together would instantly see the resemblance. There was no denying the relationship.

Not that she wanted to.