Second Chance with Her Soldier. Barbara Hannay

added expectations.

      And yet Ellie had barely touched the food she’d taken so much trouble to prepare. Joe supposed she wished he was gone—completely out of her hair.

      As long as he hung around this place, they would both be besieged by this edgy awareness of each other that kept them on tenterhooks.

      Ellie was meticulously shredding the tender chicken on her plate with her fork. ‘So what are your plans now?’ she asked in the carefully polite tone people used when they were making an effort to maintain a semblance of normality. ‘Are you staying in the Army?’

      Joe shook his head. ‘I have a job lined up—with a government team in the Southern Ocean—patrolling for poachers and illegal fishermen.’

      ‘The Southern Ocean?’ Ellie couldn’t have looked more surprised or upset if he’d announced he was going to mine asteroids in outer space. ‘So...so Jacko won’t see you at all?’

      Annoyed by this, Joe shrugged. ‘If you plan to stay out here, it wouldn’t matter what sort of work I did—I still wouldn’t be able to see the boy very often.’

      ‘There’s an Army base in Townsville.’

      This was a surprise. He’d expected Ellie to be pleased that he’d be well away from her. ‘As I said, I’m leaving the Army.’

      Ellie’s eyes widened. ‘I thought you loved it. I thought it was supposed to be what you’d always wanted.’

      ‘It was,’ Joe said simply. For possibly the first time in his life, he’d felt a true sense of belonging with his fellow Commandos. He’d grown up as the youngest in his family, but he’d always been the little nuisance tag-along, hanging around his four older brothers, never quite big enough to keep up, never quite fitting in.

      In the Army he’d truly discovered a ‘band of brothers’, united by the challenge and threat of active service. But everything about the Army would be different now, and he couldn’t bear the thought of a desk job.

      Ellie dipped her fork into a pile of savoury rice, but she didn’t lift it to her mouth. ‘I can’t see you in a boat, rolling around in the Southern Ocean. You’ve always been a man of the land. You have all the bush skills and knowledge.’

      It was true that Joe loved the bush, and he’d especially loved starting his own cattle business here at Karinya. But what was the point of rehashing ancient history?

      ‘I guess I feel like a change,’ he said with a shrug.

      ‘When do you have to start this new job?’

      ‘In a few weeks. Mid-January.’

      ‘That soon?’

      He shrugged again. He was pleased he had an approaching deadline. Given the mess of his private life, he needed a plan, somewhere definite to go with new horizons.

      ‘Will you mind—’ Ellie began, but then she swallowed and looked away. ‘Will it bother you that you won’t see much of Jacko?’

      Joe inhaled a sharp, instinctively protective breath. He was trying really hard not to think too much about his son, about all the milestones he’d already missed and those he would miss in the future—the day-to-day adventure of watching a small human being come to terms with the world. ‘Maybe I’ll be more use to him later on, when he’s older.’

      It was clearly the wrong thing to say.

      Ellie’s jaw jutted. She looked tenser than ever. Awkward seconds ticked by. Joe wished he didn’t have to try so damn hard, even now, after they’d broken up.