‘I didn’trideit. I wheeled it. And that was a one-off. It was?—’
‘You took me miles out of the city to sit on a hill above a beach to watch people surfing so I could understand how important Estelle’s leg was for her.’
Connor’s face was settling into an expression that managed to look both neutral and dangerous. ‘You have a problem with that?’
‘I think it’s unhealthy to get too involved.’ Kate wished she hadn’t started this conversation but she couldn’t turn back now.
Besides, she still had that nasty, sharp feeling in her belly.
‘If you want to get that involved with kids,’ she heard herself saying, ‘you should get some of your own.’
That shocked him. He was staring at Kate as though she came from an alien species while she couldn’t banish a series of images flashing through her head.
Connor holding a newborn baby. His own.
Passing it into the arms of the woman who had given him this gift.
A woman that wasn’t Kate.
Oh, God… She wasn’t going to cry. No way. Kate turned back to her dissection board.
‘And if it’s kids you want,’ she added crisply, ‘you shouldn’t be wasting your time in here. With me.’
The silence from behind her was unnerving. She had to turn back.
‘You don’t really know me at all, do you?’ Connor said.
Didn’t she? Kate had thought she did. She’d danced with this man. She’d gone off with him willingly to do the most dangerous thing she’d ever done in her life, riding on the back of his bike. She’d dreamed about him. Okay, he might have no idea that he’d been sharing her bed so often, but it felt like she knew him very, very well.
Too well. Well enough to know that she could never get that close to him in reality.
But she couldn’t say any of that aloud. After waiting for a long, long moment, Connor made a huff of sound that was both angry and defeated.
‘Kids are the last thing I’deverwant,’ he said bitterly.
* * *
He could hear the bitterness in his own voice.
See the absolute shock on Kate’s face. Whatever else she had to get done before she could put the poor chap on the table back together had clearly been forgotten.
She was as shocked by his vehement statement as he had been when he’d discovered that someone had abused Kate in the past.
She’d been honest with him that night.
Didn’t she deserve the same kind of honesty from him?
‘Sorry,’ he muttered. ‘You touched a bit of a nerve.’
Kate nodded but her eyes were still bewildered. Connor blew out his cheeks in a long, long sigh.
‘I’m the youngest of four brothers by quite a few years,’ he told her. ‘And the first real memory I have is from when I was about three and they brought our baby sister home from the hospital. Her name was Philippa but she was only ever called Pippi. Cos she was little and precious, my mother always said. The little girl she’d always dreamed of having.’
Kate looked as though she was holding her breath. As though she had no idea what to make of what he was telling her. Would she guess that he never talked about this? Toanyone?
‘Pippi got sick,’ Connor continued. ‘When she was almost four. Leukaemia was the first really big word I learned to say.’
He could see the sympathy in Kate’s eyes so he turned his head just enough to focus on something else. It was way too late for sympathy.
