know who I was?’ He let the challenge roll out like giant rolls of straw shoved off the back of a feed truck. Her hesitation gave her away.
Blush-heat raced along her cheekbone. ‘Everyone knew who you were, Reilly. You’d just brought home the rodeo champion’s cup. You were Reilly Martin, king of the Suicide Ride. I practically had to join a queue.’
For what good it had done him. ‘I’m sure the challenge made me all the more attractive.’
Lea’s eyes flamed. ‘You don’t really need much help with that, Reilly. I’m sure you’re not going to tell me I was the first bar-room pick-up you’d ever pulled?’
Self-loathing added its weight to the discussion. ‘Not by a country mile, sweetheart.’
The blush doubled. It intensified the glitter in her eyes, and did unhelpful things to his resolve. He dropped his face from her gaze. ‘I’m not the point of discussion here. You are. Or rather, Molly is.’ He met Lea’s eyes again. ‘You cheated me out of knowing my daughter.’
Damn, that felt weird, coming out of his mouth.
Lea paled and her eyes widened. She struggled against something internal. ‘No one forced you to have sex with me. Fatherhood is a risk you were taking every time you went with any woman.’
‘Particularly a deceitful, immoral one.’
Pain streaked across her face. She sucked it up, took a deep breath. ‘Look, it happens, Reilly. Birth control fails. It’s why they print warnings on the boxes. You could have walked away first that night.’
No. Not if he’d tried.
They glared warily at each other, like a cattle dog and a steer sizing each other up. ‘Why me, Lea—of every man in that pub?’
Her eyes rounded—not the question she was expecting, obviously—but she pushed her shoulders back and answered. ‘You stood out for two reasons. You were—’
‘Male and stupid?’
Her eyes hardened. ‘Attractive but unhappy.’
An ugly laugh cracked through his lips. ‘Unhappy? I’d just won the champion’s cup, I was surrounded by women and was working my way through a keg of celebratory beer. Why would I be sad?’
If she noticed how he’d remembered so much about that night five years ago, she didn’t comment. Lucky; it would be tough to explain.
She barrelled on, ignoring the question. ‘I’d had…I wasn’t feeling the best that night.’ Something in her expression told him there was a heck of a lot more to that story. ‘And there was something in your eyes that I recognised. Some pain that spoke to me.’
He snorted to cover up how close to the mark she suddenly was. No way was he going there. ‘I’m guessing my inheritance probably spoke to you loudest. Is it speaking to you now?’
She gasped. Her nostrils flared and she tossed her thick hair back. ‘Have I asked you for money?’
‘I’m sure you’re getting round to it.’
‘I’m not here for that.’
‘Then why are you here? Why now, Lea, five years into my daughter’s life?’ There was that word again. It was going to take some getting used to.
Deep shadows crossed her eyes. ‘Believe me, I wouldn’t be here at all if I had a choice,’ she blazed up at him. ‘We were doing just fine, Molly and me.’
Were? His eyes drifted to the little girl, who had Max in a delighted stranglehold. The cat swished his tail impatiently but knew better than to lash out.
Lea took a deep breath. ‘My daughter’s dying, Reilly.’
Reilly staggered backwards, and his eyes fell on the little piece of innocence tangled around his cat. He’d only discovered her moments ago. Then Lea played a particularly stinking card.
‘Our daughter’s dying,’ she continued, her voice dead and tight. ‘She has aplastic anaemia; it’s a disease of her bone marrow. I’m not a tissue match.’
He turned back to her tortured face, his mind buzzing. ‘You want to know if I’m a match?’
She shook her head. ‘Even if you were, the success of adult-to-child transfer is too low.’
He ran stiff fingers through his hair. ‘I don’t understand. What do you want from me?’
She took a deep breath and locked her hazel eyes onto his. He’d never encountered anything quite as beautiful as the loving determination burning there. For a split second, he wished it burned there for him. When had anyone looked at him like that? Ever?
The silence screamed. And then she spoke.
‘I need you to get me pregnant again so we can save Molly.’
Lea had never seen someone shrink like that right before her eyes. Reilly sagged back against the timber posts enclosing the veranda.
‘Molly’s dying?’
Well, at least he was focussing on the most important part. ‘Gradually.’ Her voice cracked and she swallowed hard. ‘Yes.’
He looked at her. ‘Is she in pain?’
Her heart softened. Very definitely the most important part. Finding he was still capable of the compassion and kindness she remembered was a relief. He hadn’t shown much of it until just then. ‘Not always. But she’s exhausted perpetually, and she bleeds very easily.’ And four-year-olds were prone to tumbling over all the time.
He nodded, digesting. ‘And having a second child will help her—how?’
Lea was prepared for this question. ‘Cord blood. And placenta. The baby wouldn’t be touched at all.’ She threw that in hastily, knowing it was what she’d want to know in his position.
‘Stem cells?’
Lea nodded. His eyes swam with uncertainty. His breath came heavily. Then he pinned her with his gaze. ‘How does it work?’
Lea lightened like helium. Was he considering it? She rushed to answer, knowing this stuff back to front. ‘Cord-blood stem cells can become almost any other type of cell in the body, whatever needs repairing—bone, tissue, muscle. Marrow, in Molly’s case. She can grow healthy marrow. She can make healthy blood.’
‘Don’t they have banks for cord blood now?’
Lea clamped down her frustration. Did he not think she’d thought of those things? Her child’s life had been worth an ex-ploration into every medical possibility. And every moral one. But she held her temper, moderated her breath.
‘The genetic mix of people from regional north-west Australia is too specific—part-indigenous, part-Asian islander, part-European. There’s nothing like that gene mix sitting in cord-blood banks around the world.’
‘What about a cousin or something?’
Another deep breath. Sapphie had already offered her new baby’s cord. Anna’s infertility was none of his business. ‘Not closely related enough. This treatment requires the cells to be from a full sibling.’
He tipped anguished eyes up to her. ‘A second baby could have the same condition.’
Lea shook her head. ‘It’s not genetic.’
He considered that. ‘A baby conceived with an agenda?’
Lea laughed, an ugly, angry sound. ‘Believe it or not, this is the best available chance Molly has. Please, Reilly; I know it’s unconventional, and I know I am probably the last person in the world you would want to help, but I’m not asking for me. I’m asking for that little girl.’ They turned to watch Molly leap off the chair and limp after Max along the veranda. ‘Your little girl.’
Reilly