Her Outback Knight

Was he part of some prank? It was ridiculous, like some melodramatic movie or reality show. And he’d laugh if—if—

If her story hadn’t been so plausible.

That was the worst part of it. He’d tried to scorn the woman—Annie, she’d said her name was—or laugh at her, or think she’d got the wrong number. But she’d named his parents, his hometown…and she’d asked the fatal question.

“Haven’t you ever wondered why you’re lighter-skinned than your parents?”

He ground out a savage curse. The woman might be crazy, but she’d known a lot about his personal life, including the wonder most kids had who didn’t strongly resemble their parents. Am I adopted?

Why now? Why had she called? What did she want from him?

“Jim?” The question sounded halting, uncertain.

With a sense of fatality, Jim turned from the tree where he leaned with a balled fist. Only one woman he knew had a voice that made him think of shadows and moonbeams. Only one woman didn’t give him the nickname Jimmy, and never had.

She stood ten feet from him, seeming smaller than her five-six or seven because she was so dainty. Her pale skin glistened in the clear moonlight; her long, shimmering waves of hair blew around her in the gentle breeze like the ocean at night. Her filmy silver skirt caught in the gusts, softly billowing. Her eyes, fixed on his face, were limpid pools of concern.

She looked like an elf maiden straight from his favourite fantasy books. So beautiful, and she had no idea of it…

“Danni,” he said with grave courtesy. Hiding his emotions, his need, as he always had. The oldest of six kids, he’d always been the dependable one in the family.

His fists clenched. Family…Were they that anymore? His one anchor in life had crumbled before his eyes, vanishing without warning.

“What can I do for you?” he managed to say with a semblance of politeness.

“Laila’s worried about you,” she said quietly. “We saw you take the phone call…and your reaction to it.”

That was Danni, never hiding behind pretty words; she always got straight to the point. “I’m fine,” he ground out, sounding almost savage. “Go back and tell Laila I’ll be in soon.”

She should have turned and gone back inside—his rare brusqueness had that effect on people—but she stood her ground. “I wouldn’t be able to reassure her, and she’d only get more worried. I can stand a lot of things from people, but I always know when someone’s lying to me…and Laila will know, as well. I can’t lie to her.”

“So I’m not fine,” he snarled, surprising even himself with his sudden hostility. “What do you care? You don’t even like anyone here but Laila.”

“True.” Her smile was remote, austere. “And I won’t have her worried right now. She’s in pain and trying to hide it for the family’s sake. I can’t go in there and say ‘He said he’s fine, now leave him alone.’ You know she loves you. She’s worried about you.”

A sudden shaft of bitterness hit him. If Laila had loved him enough, he would have her to share this with. He wouldn’t feel so scared or so alone.

“Yeah, Laila loves me. Just like my sister. It’s wonderful.” Though he knew the bitterness would fade as quickly as it came, he still said it, wanting to push Danni away, make her turn and flounce back into the restaurant, safe inside her anger and mistrust of all men.

Again she surprised him by holding her ground. “It’s more wonderful than you know. You take all the love in your life for granted. I always wanted a sister, a brother—anyone to be there for me the way your family is for you. The way Laila is there for you.”

The unconscious reminder inside her words cut him all over again. Family.

“Excuse me, would you?” Without waiting to see what she did—he could count on Danni walking away in stiff-necked pride, rather than be unwanted—he called home.

A soft, feminine growly voice answered in moments. “Hello?”

“Mum?” he said, feeling for the first time the utter comfort of that word; for the first time, not accepting it as his right. You take all that love for granted. “It’s me.”

“Kilaa,” she cried, using his totem Aboriginal name: the galah, a big white bird—the one who’d flown away. “Are you all right? Seeing Laila again, it hurts, huh?”

Though a dim part of him knew Danni was still listening, the tide of emotion, repressed and held in, spilled over. “I just got a call from a woman named Annie. She claims she’s my real mother.”

A stifled gasp was his only answer for a few moments…moments that stretched out to almost a minute. “Kilaa…” she finally said, her voice weak. Shaking. “Let me explain…”

But she didn’t. He could hear the quiet sobs from the other end of the line.

“It’s…true?” he asked through stiff lips.

One word came and it shattered his world. “Yes.”

“Who is she?” The words came without his knowing they were there.

“She’s my sister—my half sister. My mum had her before she met my dad.”

He frowned. It felt unbelievable to him—his family was too close. “Then why haven’t I met her before? Why hasn’t she come to any family parties and stuff?”

“We always invited her, Kilaa. She never came.” His mother—except she’s not my mother—spoke in a slow, teary voice. “She was taken away by the authorities when she was two, because she was half-white. She came back at twenty or twenty-one with you. She said she couldn’t afford a baby—but really, she couldn’t handle it.”

“Why not?” he asked, but given his knowledge of their people’s history—he’d done a semester of it in second year—he thought he knew.

“She was raised in an institution. I think being with us only reminded her of what she’d never had in life, poor Annie.” His mum sighed. “Anyway, she gave you to me—I was only nineteen then—and then she left. I was already with your father. He said, ‘So he’ll be our firstborn.’ And you were to us. You were always our firstborn.” Her voice was thick with tears. “Kilaa, come home, let us explain to you. You are still our son.”

Jim heard the words, but barely took them in. So Dad isn’tmy father, either. My grandfather isn’t my grandfather, my brothers and sisters are—are my cousins….

Suddenly he wished he was a vegetarian like Danni; the steak he’d eaten for dinner sat like lead in his stomach. His knees were shaking, his head spinning.

The bottom was falling out of his world. Half an hour ago, his unwanted attraction for Danni was tragic to him.

What a difference a phone call makes, he thought grimly.

CHAPTER TWO

“I DON’T WANT TO HEAR THIS over the phone. Expect me in a couple of days. I’ll arrange a locum for the practice.” He flipped his phone shut and leaned against the tree with a clenched fist. Scraping his knuckles raw hitting the rough bark, over and over.

As she watched him hurting his bleeding hand far less than the pain in his heart, Danni had absolutely no idea what to do. What can you say, when a man has his entire life stripped from him in the space of five minutes?

She was useless here. More than anything she wanted to turn tail, run inside the restaurant and send Laila out here. She was Jim’s best friend; she always had something unexpected and wise to say, or at the very least, she’d hold him close and be here for him.

Which would only be another reminder of something he’s lost.

It looked like she was it, then, God help her. What did she say? How did she start?

A moment later, he stopped hitting the tree. “I know you’re still there,” Jim said, his back stiff. “I can hear you breathing. I can feel the indecision jumbling around in your head.”

That was Jim—the only man she’d ever known who didn’t treat her with wary diffidence because he’d never been frightened by her fighting reflex or sarcastic tongue. He treated her like every other woman he knew, with teasing and truth. With the respect he gave to all women.

The only man she’d never been able to feel cynical about…at least until he’d ended her most private hopes before they’d truly begun.