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He straightened, wondering if he’d imagined the faint uncertainty in her tone. The tight-lipped glare she shot him down with when he chanced a wink and said, ‘Why? Shaking you up a bit, am I?’ pretty much labelled his imagination as uncontrollable even before she snapped,

  ‘Don’t try and be smart!’

  ‘Gosh darn,’ he drawled facetiously, more angry with himself than her. ‘There I go forgettin’ my lowly station in life again. I sure am sorry, ma’am.’

  Her chest rose on a long, exaggerated indrawn breath and Reb couldn’t pull his gaze from it until it lowered on an exasperated exhale. ‘If you’re quite through acting the comic,’ she chided, ‘you might be ready to hear why I’m here.’

  More like I was acting the fool! he berated himself, before saying aloud, ‘Like I said, I can see why you’re here.’ He shook his head. ‘I don’t know what you’re paying your regular mechanic to maintain this baby, but, sweetheart, he’s ripping you off. Your two rear tyres are as bald as bowling balls and the front ones are barely legal. You’re in desperate need of a wheel alignment and balance—’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I don’t have the time to do that now, but swing the car into the workshop and I’ll fit the new tyres.’

  ‘But…but I don’t want new—’

  ‘Look, sweetheart, I know you wouldn’t be familiar with the saying beggars can’t be choosers, but the fact is it’s after closing time on New Year’s Eve and there’s nowhere else round here you’re going to get tyres fitted before Monday.’

  ‘Would you please not interrupt me and listen? I don’t need any tyres!’

  ‘Ha, don’t kid yourself! Sweetheart, I’ve seen erasers with more rubber on them than this car! Now, I don’t doubt you can afford the price of a defect fine, but the bottom line is those wheels are going to cause you a serious braking problem, or worse, real soon.’

  He grinned. ‘But lucky for you I have this thing about protecting fools from themselves, so I’m going to help you out. Now, swing your car over there and—’

  ‘I will do no such thing,’ she said hotly. ‘I already know that what meets your standards of protection don’t meet mine!’

  ‘Oh, right, like your knowledge of tyres extends beyond knowing they’re made of rubber and should be kept round,’ Reb said dryly, resenting having his mechanical reputation and skills called into question.

  ‘For your information, Ms Vaughan,’ he continued, wondering why he simply didn’t just tell her to take a hike, ‘I never use anything but top-of-the-line tyres on my vehicles! The only reason I don’t stock your brand of choice is there’s no point me carrying expensive brands that none of my regulars can afford to buy. I do, however, ensure that those I stock offer excellent protection under emergency braking conditions. Something yours won’t—’

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake! I don’t care a whit about what sort of budget tyres you use! It’s your choice of inferior personal protection that’s a problem!’

  Reb felt himself stagger. ‘My what?’

  ‘You heard me!’

  ‘Yeah, but I’ve having a rough time keeping up with your conversational leaps.’

  ‘Yeah? Well, if you think that’s tough, try this—I’m having a baby!’

  She delivered the words with a ferocity that not only stunned him, but seemed to have shocked even her for she sagged back against her seat, shaking, then buried her face in her hands.

  ‘You’re pregnant?’ Reb wasn’t so much questioning her as trying to come to terms with the idea. Amanda-Jayne Vaughan was pregnant? Of all the women he knew in this town Amanda-Jayne Vaughan was the last one he’d have picked to end up a single mother. It was a joke in this part of Vaughan’s Landing that if a girl wasn’t pregnant by the time she was eighteen her parents usually threw a party or started questioning her fertility. Sadly, the low socioeconomic situation seemed to continually foster kids who repeated their parents’ mistakes. But Amanda-Jayne Vaughan…

  For starters she was in her late twenties and from one of the richest families in the state, which meant she should have been smart enough to avoid slip-ups and wealthy enough to cover them up if she didn’t. Reb, therefore, could only assume she’d chosen to go the ‘fashionable’ solo mother route. He personally didn’t approve of the trend, but it was nothing to him what the up-market Ms Vaughan did. Why she’d imagine he’d be the least bit interest—

  Suddenly his brain began putting two and two together, arriving at an answer that brought pure panic. Oh, hell!

  ‘Are…are…?’ He gripped the door of her car, barely able to get the words out. ‘Are you say…? You’re pregnant, to me?’

  At the minuscule nod of her head, Reb felt every drop of blood rush to his feet.

  ‘You’re having my baby?’

  ‘Please keep your voice down,’ she hissed. ‘I have no intention—’

  ‘You can’t be!’

  ‘That’s what I said. But we’re both wrong.’

  This couldn’t be happening to him. Nah, it was a joke! he told himself. Except the face of the woman in front of him wasn’t smiling.

  ‘Are…are you sure about this?’ he heard himself ask. ‘I mean, maybe you’re just late. Have you seen a doctor?’

  ‘Of course I’ve seen a doctor! Why else would I be here? A social visit?’

  He ignored her sarcasm. ‘But…. but you can’t mean I’m the father?’ he protested. ‘I can’t be. I used protection. I always use protection. Religiously. Someone else must be the father.’

  ‘I beg your pardon? Do you seriously believe I’d be desperate enough to nominate you as the father of my child if there was the remotest chance it could be somebody else? Anybody else,’ she said snootily. ‘And, furthermore, while I’ve absolutely no doubt you are a practising disciple of casual sex, I am not.’

  That she was acting like indignation personified had Reb seeing every shade of red. ‘Well, I’m sorry all ends up to offend your sensibilities, sweetheart. But I just assumed since it was so easy to get you in the sack that night that I wouldn’t be the only guy who’d managed it.’

  As much as Amanda-Jayne hated him for the comment she could well understand why he’d think as much. ‘I…I was drunk that night,’ she muttered, desperate to regain her dignity in her own eyes if not his.

  The laugh that broke from him was scathing. ‘Now there’s an ironic defence for one’s morals if ever I’ve heard one. But in my defence I have to say that you didn’t seem all that drunk when you darted out of bed and adroitly rounded up your clothes in the dark.’

  ‘What would you know?’ she challenged. ‘You were sound asleep.’

  ‘Was I?’ He smirked as the realisation dawned on her face that he’d been awake the whole time she’d been executing her soundless escape. ‘If you’d asked me,’ he said, ‘I could’ve told you where your knickers and left shoe were.’

  The announcement initially threw her, making her feel an even bigger fool than she obviously was, but the smug amusement on Reb Browne’s face quickly prompted her to go back on the offensive. ‘Really? Then why pretend to be asleep? Why didn’t you say something?’

  ‘Like what? Suggest you stay? Was that what you were hoping I’d do?’

  ‘No!’ she gasped. ‘I was mortified by what I’d done! I’d never done anything like that in my life!’

  ‘No?’ He grinned. ‘Then, honey, you must be a real quick study ’cos your inexperience sure didn’t show.’

  ‘You… I… How…?’

  Amanda-Jayne would have liked to believe her stuttering incoherence was due entirely to outrage at the insult, but her mutilated feminine ego insisted on seizing upon the implication that, unlike her philandering ex-husband, Reb Browne hadn’t found her lacking in bed. And he should know! For, while Anthony had taken great delight in telling her she’d not possessed a tenth of the sexual prowess of the dozen or so lovers he’d taken during their seven-year marriage, it was common knowledge that Reb Browne probably slept with more women than that in a fortni
ght. There—

  Oh, Lord, what was she thinking? Browne’s reputation wasn’t a bonus, it was a serious cause for concern. Hell, it was the only reason she’d decided to advise him of the pregnancy.

  When her obstetrician had asked if she knew of any genetic medical problems on the baby’s father’s side of the family, she’d almost passed out from dread. Not even his assurances that it was only a routine question and that even at this early stage of her pregnancy everything was progressing normally could alleviate her fears. Given that her own medical history put this pregnancy in the realms of a miracle even before one took into account the malfunctioning condom, the idea of her losing this baby was something she couldn’t contemplate. No matter how embarrassing the circumstances of the conception were or how humiliating it was to have to confront this man again, she had to know of any and all possible conditions that might put her pregnancy at risk.

  ‘Look,’ she said, grateful for an upbringing which allowed her to summon poise, confidence and decorum even when her mind and emotions were reeling out of control. ‘I’m not going to deny that I’m ashamed of my part in creating this situation. I am. Mortified, in fact. However, you have to assume some responsibility and—’

  ‘I’m not going to marry you if that’s what you’re—’

  A horrified shriek was the only way Reb could have described the noise that erupted from her.

  ‘Never!’ she spat. ‘Not if I had to kill myself to stop it happening.’

  He grinned. ‘My sentiments exactly. But since I’ve never dodged my responsibilities in the past I’m not going to start now. So you prove I’m the father and naturally I’ll pay child support.’

  ‘I’ve never dodged my responsibilities in the past…’ Amanda-Jayne’s heart ceased beating as the words echoed in her head.

  Dear Lord, was it possible her child would have a half-sibling living in Vaughan’s Landing? Of course it was! Given Reb Browne’s popularity with women it was entirely feasible he’d sired more than one other child. It was something which hadn’t occurred to her. But it should have because the Brownes’ history in this part of the state was almost as long as the Vaughans’. Her grandmother had once told her that in just eighty years the Browne men had probably sired more children outside marriage than the Vaughans had had hot dinners.

  ‘Y-you’ve fathered other children?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘You haven’t?’

  ‘No. Like I told you, I always wear a condom. So if the reason you’ve turned chalk-white is because you’re worrying about something besides being pregnant, you don’t have to.’

  ‘What? Oh! Oh, no. No, I wasn’t worried about that.’ At least she hadn’t been since the doctor had given her the all-clear a week ago.

  ‘Should I be?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Worried about—’

  ‘Of course not! I’ve only ever slept with my husband…er, ex-husband.’

  ‘And me.’ His smirk was smug, suggestive and sexy, creating a heat in Amanda-Jayne’s belly which had her loins tingling even as she hovered on the verge of tears. According to the books she’d read she could expect her emotions to be at the mercy of her hormones throughout her pregnancy and possibly beyond, but there was no way on earth she was going to start crying in front of the like of Reb Browne.

  ‘Hey, are you all right? What’s wrong? Are you in pain or something?’ There was genuine, almost panicked concern in the male face and voice as he crouched beside her seat. ‘A.J.?’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘Yeah, right. You look even more shell-shocked than I feel—which means you’re nowhere near fine.’ He studied her face for moment, muttered a string of profanities under his breath, then he pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘You’re fair dinkum about this, aren’t you?’

  He gave her no time to answer the grimly voiced question. ‘Look, I mean what I said. If it’s my child—’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘—I’ll meet my financial responsibilities and everything else a father is supposed to…to— Aw, hell!’ He looked skyward for several seconds, raking both hands through his hair, then sighed heavily and turned back to her.

  ‘You know, I’d have an easier time grasping things if you’d come here to tell me World War Three had just started, Vaughan’s Landing was at the centre of it and I had to do maintenance on the tanks. At least there’s a chance I’d have been half expecting that,’ he said dryly.

  Amanda-Jayne was expecting World War Three—immediately once her stepmother learned she was pregnant. Not that she was ever going to admit to anyone who had sired her child. Belatedly it occurred to her that the man responsible was staring at her in the way people did when they were expecting a response. She frowned. ‘What?’

  ‘Look,’ he said wearily, ‘I understand we need to talk this through and obviously you’re here because you’re anxious to discuss the situation, but I can’t. Not now. I need time to get my head around this. I asked if we could meet somewhere tomorrow night, to talk things through. Work out where we go from here.’

  He sounded so sincere, so caring, it took Amanda-Jayne several seconds to comprehend what he was driving at. When she did waves of panic began crashing through her.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous! I’m not here because I want to discuss anything with you,’ she told him. ‘I’ve made my decisions and your opinion on the subject isn’t and never was an issue for me. I certainly don’t need your financial support.’

  Reb didn’t mind her disregarding his financial assistance—heck, her family could buy and sell most people ten times over—but if she was carrying his child he’d be damned if he’d have her ride roughshod over his right to express an opinion of how to deal with the situation!

  ‘Now just a—’ he started.

  ‘This is my address, in Sydney,’ she said, holding out a business card to him.

  Reb took the peach business card and scanned it. Apart from her name, embossed in a delicate gold script, it revealed nothing other than her box number at an Eastern Suburbs post office.

  ‘You live at a post office?’

  She ignored his facetiousness. ‘My doctor wants details of any medical problems the baby might inherit from you. I need to know if there’s a history of things like asthma or diabetes or…er…congenital birth defects.’ Her voice cracked a fraction, but she quickly recovered herself. ‘When you get the relevant information you can mail it to me at that address. And that will be the end of it.’

  At the sight of a huge motorbike speeding into the driveway Amanda-Jayne’s heart almost lurched out of her chest. Desperate to avoid being seen here and starting any possible rumours which might hint at Reb Browne and herself having had a relationship, she instantly reached for the ignition key. The noise of the bike interrupted whatever Reb had been saying and when he stepped back to shoot an annoyed look at the rider Amanda-Jayne snapped off the parking brake and flattened the accelerator. The car gave a tricky little slide as she hit the loose gravel at the side of the road at speed, but mercifully, despite her supposed bald tyres, once onto the bitumen she again found traction. A quick look in the rear-view mirror revealed an angry-looking Reb Browne staring after her as a black-clad biker stopped alongside him.

  The image was a graphic reminder of exactly who and what the father of her child was, and reassured her she was doing the right thing in excluding him from her child’s future. It might have been different if he’d been a lawyer or an accountant or…even just an ordinary mechanic. But Bad Boy Browne was a hellraiser from the tips of his biker boots to his unruly raven hair and no child should have to pay for one act of bad judgment on the part of its mother.

  CHAPTER TWO

  THOUGH the coolness of the marble entrance foyer provided respite from the early evening’s heat, it did little to stem the nausea, which had hit Amanda-Jayne at the garage. Feeling that at any moment she might join the ranks of the generations of deceased Vaughans, who peered down at her from the walls, she hurried
towards the staircase, desperately swallowing back the acid bile rising in her throat and hoping to reach her bedroom without throwing up.

  ‘There you are!’ Amanda-Jayne stifled a groan as her stepmother’s gleeful disapproval caught her at the bottom of the stairs. ‘Where on earth have you been?’

  ‘Out,’ she responded, continuing up the stairs without turning.

  ‘Don’t be smart with me, Amanda-Jayne. Have you forgotten we’re expected at the mayoral ball in a little over an hour?’

  Amanda-Jayne had, but it was a moot point now since it was eminently feasible that within the hour she’d be dead from terminal morning sickness. ‘I’m not going, Patricia. I’ll call Mayor Bur—’

  ‘What do you mean, you won’t be going? You most certainly will be!’

  Since dealing with her stepmother could turn her stomach even on its good days Amanda-Jayne had no intention of lingering for a lecture now, so with her mouth firmly shut she continued on up the stairs, dogged by dizziness, nausea and, worst of all, Patricia.

  ‘I expect you to be ready in forty-five minutes. I also expect that you’ll show more style in your choice of evening wear than you did when you chose your current attire.’

  ‘Patricia,’ she said wearily. ‘The only evening wear I’ll be putting on are my pyjamas.’

  ‘Now you listen here, Amanda-Jayne… This family has a tradition of being guests of honour at the New Year’s ball and I will not tolerate you snubbing your nose at it. You hear me? You always attended when your father was head of this family so don’t think you can embarrass me by not going now I hold that position.’

  ‘I don’t need to embarrass you, Patricia; Joshua is managing to do that on his own.’

  ‘You leave my son out of this. He’s only a child.’

  The sheer absurdity of that remark couldn’t go unchallenged. ‘He’s eighteen—hardly a child. Although given the way he almost ploughed down an elderly couple outside the post office a few minutes ago then hurled four-letter words at them, the term juvenile delinquent would be pretty accurate.’