Australia: Handsome Heroes. Alison Roberts

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      CHAPTER FOUR

      THE house was still when Cal returned. Unusually still. Everyone must be out, he decided. Or busy.

      Half their luck.

      He grabbed a beer but then replaced it. With regret. He could really use a beer, but if he was to go back on duty at nine he had to leave it.

      Why was the kitchen empty? And the lounge? Where was everyone? This house was always full of people. He needed people.

      He needed people now.

      The door swung wide and he turned, but it wasn’t the people he wanted. Or maybe it was.

      ‘Hi.’ It was Gina. And CJ. His son.

      They’d been laughing, he thought. CJ was still smiling broadly and there was a trace of a smile fading from Gina’s face. Gina had showered and changed since he’d last seen her. Apparently her luggage was on the coach to Cairns, but someone had lent her jeans and a soft blue and white gingham blouse. She’d brushed her dark curls until they shone and she looked…she looked…

      ‘Did you have a good evening?’ he managed, but then he had to think for a minute to figure out what his words meant. Everything seemed disoriented.

      Luckily CJ noticed nothing strange. He was more than prepared to chat. ‘Bruce took us to Athina’s for dinner ’cos he says Mrs Poulos makes the best food in town,’ he told him. ‘And tomorrow he says he’ll take us crocodile hunting again.’

      ‘I’m not sure whether we can go,’ Gina told him.

      ‘But we have to go. And he gave me this hat.’ This was obviously the highlight of the evening. The little boy was wearing a vast, battered Akubra Cal would have recognised from a mile away.

      ‘Bruce gave you his hat?’ Here was another astonishment. Cal knew Bruce well, and he knew the croc hunter lived in this hat.

      But apparently no longer.

      ‘He says it’s time he got a new one,’ CJ said proudly, lifting it off his head to poke his finger through a hole, centrefront. ‘I asked him if this was from a bullet and he said it might have been.’

      ‘Bedtime, CJ.’Gina was steering CJ firmly toward the door.

      CJ balked, planting his feet. Bracing himself.

      ‘Can Cal read me a story?’

      ‘Cal’s busy.’

      ‘He doesn’t look busy.’

      ‘CJ…’

      ‘I’ll read him a story.’

      ‘You—’

      ‘Have you told CJ anything about me?’ He was angry, he decided, sorting through the myriad emotions he was experiencing and choosing the one in the forefront. He hadn’t met this kid until now, and CJ—his son—was wearing another man’s hat.

      ‘I’ve told CJ that you’ve been a friend of mine for a long time.’ Gina’s voice was carefully neutral. ‘I guess…if you do want to read to him then it’s fine.’

      ‘I do want.’

      ‘Then I’ll help him brush his teeth and put on his pjs. Jill’s found us some gear to keep us going until I can retrieve my luggage. So…His bedroom in five minutes?’

      ‘Fine.’

      Why had he done that? This was a crazy situation. He didn’t want to get involved.

      He was involved.

      CJ had beamed up at him from underneath Bruce’s hat and…

      And he was involved right up to his neck.

      It was Gina’s turn to sit alone on the veranda.

      The big French windows leading to her son’s bedroom were wide open. She could hear everything that was going on inside. So she sat, staring out at the moonlit sea, listening to Cal’s deep voice reading her son a story.

      This was CJ’s favourite book, carried everywhere in his backpack, and she must have read it to him a thousand times. Paul had read it to him even more.

      Now his father was reading it to him.

      She blinked. Hard.

      No tears. No tears!

      This is an unsentimental journey, she told herself fiercely, staring into the deepening darkness. Just come, introduce the two of them and get out of here.

      So why did you tell him you’d loved him, she asked herself, sifting through the conversation she’d had with the man she was listening to.

      She hadn’t meant to admit that. But telling him about CJ…there hadn’t seemed any way to explain her little son’s existence without acknowledging love. CJ had been conceived in love and she was proud of it. The fact that Cal would never acknowledge it—that he’d admitted that the pregnancy would have seemed a disaster to him—had the potential to hurt.

      It hurt now.

      ‘The pirate’s little boat started creeping out of the harbour. Creep, creep, creep.’

      It was too much. Cal reading to her son. Cal reading to his son.

      This was dangerous territory. Maybe she should leave in the morning. Fast.

      The baby wasn’t stable. She’d put her hand up as a cardiac expert. If she had to go in again, put more pressure on the valve…

      He was too little for her to contemplate further surgery, she thought. Far, far too frail.

      So what was she doing, staying here?

      The baby needed her.

      Right.

       ‘“Where’s my boat?” roared the pirate, and out to sea the little boat chuckled.’

      Where’s my plane? Gina thought. Where’s my way home?

      Where was home itself? She was no longer sure. She sat and tried to think about the beauty of the night, tried to think about something other than Cal—but how could she?

      ‘Gina?’ It was a yell from the far end of the path. She rose, welcoming the distraction—any distraction—and Charles was spinning down the garden path, his wheelchair moving at speed.

      ‘Is Cal there?’

      ‘He’s inside. I’ll get him.’

      ‘I need you both.’ Charles’s voice was clipped and urgent. ‘His damn phone’s ringing out. What the hell is he thinking of, turning it off? I need him. You, too, Gina. If you’ll help.’

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