took risks. He always had. But some of those risks were unnecessary.
His eyes had lowered to her abdomen again.
She tugged on his arm. ‘C’mon, Ben. Shower and then sleep.’
‘No.’
He didn’t move. Beneath his leathers his arm flexed in rock-hardness. She let it go and stepped back. ‘But you look a wreck.’
‘I need to talk to you.’
His eyes hadn’t lifted from her abdomen and she suddenly wanted to cover herself from his gaze. She brushed a hand across her eyes. Get a grip. This is Ben. The pregnancy hormones might have given her skin a lovely glow, but she was discovering they could make her emotionally weird at times too.
‘Then surely talking over a cup of coffee makes more sense than standing out here and giving the neighbours something to talk about.’
Frankly, Meg didn’t care what any of the neighbours thought, and She doubted any of them, except perhaps for Elsie, gave two hoots about her and Ben. She just wanted him off that bike.
‘You look as if you could do with a hot breakfast,’ she added as a tempter. A glance at the sun told her it would be a late breakfast.
Finally Ben lifted one leg over the bike and came to stand beside her. She slipped her arm through his and led him to wards the front door. She quickly assessed her schedule for the following week—there was nothing she couldn’t cancel. ‘How long are you home for this time, Uncle Ben?’ She kept her voice light because she could feel the tension in him.
‘No!’ The word growled out of him as he pulled out of her grasp.
She blinked. What had she said wrong?
‘I can’t do this, Meg.’
Couldn’t do what?
He leaned down until his face was level with hers. The light in his eyes blazed out at her. ‘Not Uncle Ben, Meg, but Dad. I’m that baby’s father.’ He reached out and laid a hand across her stomach. ‘Its father. That’s what I’ve got to talk to you about, because father is the role I want to take in its life.’
The heat from his hand burned like a brand. She shoved it away. Stepped back.
He straightened. ‘I’m sorry. I know it’s not what I agreed to. But—’
‘Its father?’ she hissed at him, her back rigid and her heart surging and crashing in her chest. The ground beneath her feet was buckling like dangerous surf. ‘Damn it, Ben, you collected some sperm in a cup. That doesn’t make you a father!’
She reefed open the door and stormed inside. Ben followed hot on her heels. Hot. Heat. His heat beat at her like a living, breathing thing. She pressed a hand to her forehead and kept walking until she reached the kitchen. Sun poured in at all the windows and an ache started up behind her eyes.
She whirled around to him. ‘A father? You?’ She didn’t laugh. She didn’t want to hurt him. But Ben—a father? She’d never heard anything more ridiculous. She pressed one hand to her stomach and the other to her forehead again. ‘Since when have you ever wanted to be a father?’
He stared back at her, his skin pallid and his gaze stony.
Damn it! How long since he’d slept?
She pushed the thought away. ‘Ben, you don’t have a single committed bone in your body.’ What did he mean to do—hang around long enough to make the baby love him before dashing off to some far-flung corner of the globe? He would build her baby’s hopes up just to dash them. He would do that again and again for all of its life—breezing in when it suited him and breezing back out when the idea of family started to suffocate him.
She pressed both hands to her stomach. It was her duty to protect this child. Even against her dearest friend. ‘No.’ Her voice rang clear In the sunny silence.
He shook his head, his mouth a determined line. ‘This is one of the things you can’t boss me about. I’m not giving way. I’m the father of the baby you’re carrying. There’s nothing you can do about that.’
Just for a moment wild hope lifted through her. Maybe they could make this work. In the next moment she shook it off. She’d thought that exact same thing once before—ten years ago, when they’d kissed. Maybe they could make this work. Maybe she’d be the girl who’d make him stay. Maybe she’d be the girl to defeat his restlessness. All silly schoolgirl nonsense, of course.
And so was this.
But the longer she stared at him the less she recognised the man in front of her. Her Ben was gone. Replaced by a lean, dark stranger with a hunger in his eyes. An answering hunger started to build through her. She snapped it away, breathing hard, her chest clenching and unclenching like a fist. A storm raged in her throat, blocking it.
‘I am going to be a part of this baby’s life.’
She whirled back. She would fight him with everything she had.
He leant towards her, his face twisted and dark. ‘Don’t make me fight you on this. Don’t make me fight you for custody, Meg, because I will.’
She froze. For a moment it felt as if even her heart had stopped.
The last of the colour leached from Ben’s face. ‘Hell.’ He backed up a step, and then he turned and bolted.
Meg sprang after him and grabbed his arm just before he reached the back door. She held on for dear life. ‘Ben, don’t.’ She rested her forehead against his shoulder and tried to block a sob. ‘Don’t look like that. You are not your father.’ The father who had—
She couldn’t bear to finish that thought. She might not think Ben decent father material, but he wasn’t his father either.
‘And stop trying to shake me off like that.’ She did her best to make her voice crisp and cross. ‘If I fall I could hurt the baby.’
He glared. ‘That’s emotional blackmail.’
‘Of the worst kind,’ she agreed.
He rolled his eyes, but beneath her hands she felt some of the tension seep out of him. She patted his arm and then backed up a step, uncomfortably aware of his proximity.
‘I panicked. You just landed me with a scenario I wouldn’t have foreseen in a million years. And you…You don’t look like you’ve slept in days. Neither one of us is precisely firing on all cylinders at the moment.’
He hesitated, but then he nodded, his eyes hooded. ‘Okay.’
This wasn’t the first time she and Ben had fought. Not by a long shot. One of their biggest had been seven years ago, when Ben had seduced her friend Suzie. Meg had begged him not to. She’d begged Suzie not to fall for Ben’s charm. They’d both ignored her.
And, predictably, as soon as Ben had slept with Suzie he’d lost all interest and had been off chasing his next adventure. Suzie had been heartbroken. Suzie had blamed Meg. Man, had Meg bawled him out over that one. He’d stayed away from her girlfriends after that.
This fight felt bigger than that one.
Worse still, just like that moment ten years ago—when they’d kissed—it had the potential to destroy their friendship. Instinct told her that. And Ben’s friendship meant the world to her.
‘So?’
She glanced up to find him studying her intently. ‘So…’ She straightened. ‘You go catch up on some Zs and I’ll—’
‘Go for a walk along the spit.’
It was where she always went to clear her head. At low tide it was safe to walk all the way along Fingal Beach and across the sand spit to Fingal Island. It would take about sixty minutes there and back, and she had a feeling she would need every single one of those minutes plus more to get her head