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Don’t forget Seamus, his brain nagged.
    His son. As if he could forget the boy. Even when he tried to, the unsettling situation remained firmly fixed in his mind.
    Kieran pulled off the road in front of the sign, the engine ofhis hired car idling. His hands were slick with sweat, and he rubbed them down his jeans. In a few minutes he’d meet his son for the first time. His gut clenched, his breathing became shallow. It wasn’t too late to turn back to the apartment.
    To be sure, Abigail would understand. Who was he fooling? A family girl through and through, she might think she understood his struggle with coming face to face with Seamus for the first time, but she’d be wide of the mark. Abby didn’t know he had nothing to offer apart from money. For him to give unconditional love to a small child was the same as someone trying to breathe without lungs. Impossible.
    No way would Abigail comprehend how different his life had been from hers. She had roots here, while, with his father in the diplomatic service, the world had been Kieran’s community. Boarding schools and sterile apartments in countless cities hadn’t given him a sense of belonging anywhere.
    What had it been like for Abigail, growing up here? When she’d left home she’d crossed the orchard and moved into the cottage that used to belong to her brother and his wife and which was now held in trust for Olivia. A narrow life? Or a free, all-encompassing way to live? At least she knew where she belonged. She had somewhere to return to, people to turn to, whenever life went belly up.
    Abigail. Twice at the airport while they had been administering to Stokes he’d called her Abby. He didn’t know why but until then he’d always used her full name. Except that night when they’d made love. Then Abigail had seemed wrong for the passionate woman in his arms, stroking his body, revitalising his jaded outlook on life, and making him briefly question his lifestyle.
    Kieran nodded at the sign. HOPE. Could that be the peculiar sensation tapping under his ribs? Did this place hold the answers to all those emotions he was afraid to face? Warmthtrickled through him. Odd, when he should’ve been feeling a chill at the thought.
    Checking the road was clear, he pulled out and headed towards Abigail’s house. To his future? Or to trouble? Only time would tell. All he could be sure of was that he was about to meet his son.
    As he turned into Abigail’s road his stomach did such violent flips he thought he would be sick. A thin line of sweat rolled down past his jaw. His teeth clenched, aching.
    Get a grip. He could not be seen to be failing at this first encounter. Damn it, he was thirty-five years old, a doctor, a man who’d stood up to drunken thugs on a Friday night in the emergency department. He would not be bested by a fifteen-month-old toddler.
    Says who?
    ‘Welcome to Rose Cottage.’ Abigail opened the narrow gate at the end of a footpath leading to a small weatherboard house.
    ‘Thank you. Were you waiting out here for me?’ Kieran reached for the gate, his hand inadvertently brushing against hers. The brief touch sent a zing up his arm and into his already fried brain. One innocent little touch and he dropped further out of his depth.
    ‘Not quite. Olivia’s so excited about you coming and I caught her on the roadside, trying to look for you. I figured a game on the lawn might distract her.’ Abby pointed to a little girl charging along the path in their direction. ‘Here she comes now.’
    Kieran let the gate slam behind him. Then promptly leaned against it for strength. Pain stabbed his chest as he watched this bundle of arms and legs and dark curls hurtling towards him. His sister as a child. Memories swamped him. Frightened him. It had been his fault Morag had had an accident andruined her career. And this little girl was the spitting image of his sister. Was he a danger to her, too?
    Shaking his head to dispel the stranglehold these thoughts