A Miracle for His Secret Son / Proud Rancher, Precious Bundle: A Miracle for His Secret Son / Proud Rancher, Precious Bundle

‘Freya should have been home hours ago. Who do you think you are, coming down here and making all sorts of assumptions about my daughter?’

To his credit, Gus was very restrained and polite, but he left in a hurry. It was Freya who lost her cool, later, after he’d gone.

‘How could you be so mean, Mum? We were only kissing. Why did you have to be so awful to Gus?’

‘I don’t trust him, or any of that snobby lot up on the hill.’ Poppy picked up the damp hem of Freya’s dress and frowned elaborately at the clinging grains of sand.

‘Well, I trust him, and surely that’s what counts?’

It was an argument that came back to bite Freya four months later, at the end of the summer, after Gus had already left for university in Brisbane and she missed her period.

Now, Freya was so lost in the mists of the past that when the bell at the front door rang, letting her know that yet another visitor had come into the gallery, she didn’t look up. Most people liked to be left to wander about looking at paintings without being observed, and she wasn’t in the mood for an exchange of happy banter with a tourist.

When a shadow fell over her desk, she realised she was out of luck. She looked up and heat rushed into her face. ‘Gus!’

Gus’s heart was pounding, actually pounding. As he’d walked into The Driftwood Gallery, he’d seen Freya sitting at the pale timber desk in the corner. She had her back to him and she was wearing jeans and a grey knitted top that shouldn’t have looked sexy, but it was soft and it clung lovingly to her shoulders before falling loosely to her hips, and somehow it managed to look incredibly feminine.

She was leaning forward so that her hair, light brown and streaked with gold, parted like a curtain to show a V of smooth, pale skin on her neck. And suddenly he was remembering every detail of falling in love with Freya Jones and the heady, blinding happiness of that magical summer.

Their summer.

To his dismay, he felt the sting of tears and he found himself recalling all the silly nicknames Freya had given him—Huggy Bear, Hot Stuff, Angel Eyes.

Her favourite had been Sugar Lips, while he’d simply called her Floss.

Memories pulled at him as he approached her desk but, when she looked up, he saw shock in her eyes and then unmistakable fear, and their happy past disintegrated like a jigsaw puzzle breaking up into a thousand separate scattered pieces.

Gus was wrenched back into the present in all its unhappy complexity.

‘Hi,’ he said, forcing the breezy greeting past the constriction in his throat. Freya’s smoky blue eyes were so clouded with worry that he tried to cheer her with a joke. ‘I’ve finally escaped from the evil clutches of the vampire.’

‘The vampire?’ She looked more worried than ever.

‘Hasn’t Nick mentioned her?’

‘No.’

Damn. Gus grimaced.

‘I thought you were at the hospital. What are you talking about?’

‘I have been at the hospital,’ he assured her. ‘Every one of my vital organs has been X-rayed and scanned from every conceivable angle, and I’ve given vast quantities of blood.’

‘Oh. Is that the vampire connection?’

‘Yeah. Bad joke. But you can blame Nick. He told me about the vampire nurse when he called in this morning on his way to school.’

‘Really?’ Freya was on her feet, twisting a locket at her throat with anxious fingers.

‘I’m so glad Nick called in to see me, Freya. He came to thank me, and it meant a lot. He’s a great kid. You must be proud of him.’

She showed no sign that his words reassured her. She looked distressed and rubbed at her temple, as if her head ached. ‘Nick didn’t tell me he was going to see you.’

‘Well, I think he felt bad about yesterday’s reception. And he’s entitled to see me. I’m his father, after all.’

‘Yes, of course.’ She was still frowning and not looking at him.

Gus’s jaw tightened. If Freya was going to be a dog in the manger about their son, she’d have a fight on her hands.

‘So what will you do now the tests are out of the way?’ she asked. ‘Will you fly straight back to the Northern Territory?’

‘Why?’ he asked coldly. ‘Are you keen to be rid of me?’

‘No. But you said you had commitments.’

‘I don’t want to rush away till I’ve had a chance to get to know Nick.’

Freya regarded him thoughtfully. ‘But you do know it will be a week or more before we get the results?’

‘A week, Freya? What’s a week when you’ve had Nick for more than eleven years? Don’t you understand that I need a chance to get to know my son?’

‘Yes, of course I understand that. I’m sorry.’ She looked as if she might weep.

‘They’re giving Nick’s case priority,’ he said in a more conciliatory tone. ‘So we might hear quite soon.’

‘That’s good news, at least.’

Gus glanced at his wristwatch. ‘It won’t be too long before school’s out and I thought Nick might like to come swimming with me this afternoon.’

‘Oh?’

‘I won’t keep him too long. I know he has homework.’ He frowned at Freya. ‘Nick does swim, doesn’t he?’

‘Of course. He’s like me. He loves the water.’

Out of nowhere, something about the soft, vulnerable droop of her lower lip triggered a memory for Gus. Damn it. He was recalling a folk song he’d heard years ago, a song about a forsaken mermaid.

He’d only heard it a couple of times—once at an outdoor folk festival and once on the radio—but each time the lament about a lost and heartsick mermaid had drenched him with memories of Freya.

For days afterwards, the memories had haunted him. He’d only shaken them off, eventually, by convincing himself that Freya Jones had moved on with her life just as he had. But how could he have guessed that she hadn’t settled down with some lucky man? How could he have dreamed there was a child, a living connection that would link him to her for ever?

Perhaps it was because of the memory that he said, ‘Freya, you’re welcome to come swimming with us, if you like.’

‘I…I can’t go. I’ve got a gallery to look after.’

Gus looked about him at the empty rooms and the walls filled with artwork. He lifted an eyebrow in a silent question.

‘I know it doesn’t look very busy at the moment,’ she said, reading his thoughts. ‘But you never know who might drop in. I can’t close on a whim.’