The Accidental Daddy. Meredith Webber

as if telling this tragic story had stolen her last reserves of energy, leaving her too exhausted to wipe away the tears that leaked, slow and full, from beneath her eyelids.

       CHAPTER THREE

      HIS FINGERS ACHED to wipe those tears away, but she was a stranger—a stranger he’d just hurt beyond any understanding, which meant touching her was out of the question.

      And particularly out of the question given how previous touches—casual, helpful touches—had affected him.

      Be practical. Practical was good. He could do practical!

      Food—she undoubtedly needed food.

      Max stood up and went in search of the kitchen, not hard to find as it was right at the end of the hall. A tall, walkin pantry offered a packet of crackers and the refrigerator cheese, grapes and tiny tomatoes. He sliced some cheese, found a plate and set out his offerings. He took a bottle of mineral water from the refrigerator and poured a glass, added ice, and carried the plate and glass into the living room, setting it down on a small table beside the couch.

      ‘Eat!’ he ordered, and to his surprise she opened her eyes and smiled at him. It was a wan smile, but it was still a smile.

      He definitely liked her smile.

      ‘Only if we share,’ she said, waving her hand towards the plate, so he took a cracker, and a chunk of cheese and a grape, but knew he wouldn’t eat them, his tension over the conversation that lay ahead making his body so uptight he doubted it would accept anything in the way of food.

      ‘So!’ she said, after she’d demolished half the plate of food while he’d surreptitiously wrapped his morsels in his handkerchief and poked it in his pocket. ‘Tell me what makes you think this is your baby.’

      She patted her belly protectively but in a matter-of-fact way, and Max guessed if she spoke to the unborn child at all, it would be as an adult—in a normal conversation. A sensible, intelligent woman, as well as being beautiful.

      But he had a tale to tell …

      ‘I went to the lab this morning—’

      ‘Brilliant Babies, or whatever silly name they’re calling themselves now?’ she queried.

      ‘Babies First,’ Max corrected. ‘Yes.’

      He stalled again.

      ‘And you went because …?’

      Joey asked the question and sighed inside. Was she going to have to drag every syllable of the story out of this man? She hoped not. She’d been tired before he’d dropped his unbelievable bombshell—now she was exhausted.

      She ate another couple of grapes, hoping their sugar content might help.

      ‘I wanted to have my sperm destroyed,’ he said finally. ‘The frozen stuff. It’s been stored there now for seven years and they’d sent a bill recently or I’d have forgotten about it altogether. The quality of the frozen sperm probably deteriorates with time, but it wasn’t all that. I guess it was an acceptance that I wasn’t cut out to be a family man. It’s probably genetic. My father thought he could be, but my sisters tell me he was never happy when he was at home. But when he finally cut and ran, well, to me it was so hurtful that I realised I’d have been better off never having had a father.’

      Joey knew she was frowning again. No wonder, considering he was telling her his life story, rather than explaining what had happened at the clinic.

      ‘But if that’s how you felt,’ she said, ‘why freeze your sperm in the first place? It can’t have been a donation because that clinic doesn’t take donations and, anyway, in places where they do, they’re stored separately. Did you think you were ill?’

      She stopped, because it had suddenly struck her that she was having a conversation with a virtual stranger about his sperm.

      Beyond weird!

      ‘Well?’ she demanded when he still didn’t answer.

      ‘I’d been diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma. And I had a fiancée at the time. I was young and optimistic enough to think I could make a go of marriage and family.’

      He paused for a moment, then added, with more irony than bitterness, ‘I was still optimistic, or perhaps foolish, to think the same thing the second time I became engaged.’

      The second time?

      She had to ask!

      ‘I can perhaps understand losing one fiancée—particularly if she couldn’t handle your being ill—but two? Or were there more?’

      He didn’t answer for a moment. Why should he when his love life really wasn’t any of her business? But he didn’t look stricken by pain at the loss of these women, but more thoughtful than anything else.

      Until he frowned.

      ‘No, you’re wrong. My first fiancée did stick around—for quite a lot of my treatment. But I was treated very aggressively and being around someone who’s sick all the time isn’t much fun. Plus I was a terrible patient. We were both young. When she decided to move on, it was the right decision for both of us.’

      Good for him, defending her, Joey thought, although she was well aware this conversation was nothing more than a delaying tactic.

      A delay she needed right now …

      ‘And the second?’

      ‘She was a stunner,’ he said simply. ‘I was over illness, over everything and I fell hard. But maybe I’m not cut out for marriage. She was planning the wedding, planning babies, planning life and suddenly things started to close in. So I went to climb Everest,’ he said, startling Joey so much she had to straighten up from her comfy slump.

      ‘You went off to climb Everest? So Meryl’s right, you are a little mad!’

      She shook her head, trying to clear the vision of a huge snow-capped mountain so she could concentrate on what really mattered in the conversation.

      But mountains that big were hard to shift.

      ‘So did you?’

      ‘Yep. I managed to annoy my fiancée enough for her to call it off. I thought she’d understand because she knew climbing Everest had always been a dream, it was just that after—’

      ‘Forget the fiancée! Did you climb the mountain? Did you make it to the top?’

      Even the idea of such a feat sent a thrill down her spine and she looked at the attractive stranger with new eyes. Not that she hadn’t been looking at him fairly closely since he’d first appeared …

      Hormones—it had to be hormones …

      He smiled, but the faraway look in his eyes told her he was back there again—back in those mighty mountains.

      ‘No, but I knew all along I wouldn’t be going to the top. I was support crew, and for me it was enough to be there—to be on the mountain right up to the last camp, before the final assault. It was magic.’

      ‘And hard and tough and dangerous as well?’

      He smiled.

      ‘So’s beating cancer,’ he said. ‘But for me, right from the diagnosis, it was a goal to work towards. I had a friend planning a climb and that gave me the motivation not only to get through the treatment but after it to do the training and build myself up to peak physical fitness—the kind that was needed if I wanted to be included in the team.’

      ‘But the second fiancée?’

      ‘I’d thought I could settle down, build a general practice here. It almost happened.’

      Joey studied the man who’d catapulted into her life while she tried to make sense of all he