A Miracle for His Secret Son / Proud Rancher, Precious Bundle. Barbara Hannay

struggled to breathe, struggled to think, to believe, to understand…but, all the while, gut-level awareness was shouting the truth that Freya still hadn’t told him.

      He had a son. A boy. Now eleven years old.

      ‘Gus, I’m so sorry.’ Freya stood on the path in front of him, wringing her hands, her face a blurred wash of tears.

      His mind flashed back to their past, to the last magical summer he’d spent at the Bay—three halcyon months between the end of high school and the start of university—when he and Freya had been almost inseparable.

      Twelve years had passed since then and in many ways it had felt like a lifetime. Now, for Gus, it felt like a lifetime in exile.

      He rounded on her. ‘Say it, Freya. Spit it out. This boy is my son, isn’t he?’

      Shoulders back, chin lifted, she met his angry gaze. ‘Yes, Gus, you’re Nick’s father.’

      ‘Nick?’

      ‘He’s Nicholas Angus.’

      A terrible ache bloomed in his throat, swiftly followed by a tumult of emotions—alienation and loneliness, frustration and anger. He spun away from her, fighting for composure. The sea breeze buffeted his face and he gulped in deep needy breaths.

      He tried to picture his son, this boy he’d never seen. His flesh and blood. Damn it, he had no idea what the kid might look like.

      How crazy was that?

      His thoughts flew haphazardly. He had a son. Every boy needed a dad. What right had Freya to keep such a secret?

      Had it worked both ways? Did the boy know anything about him?

      Unlikely.

      Gus whirled back to challenge Freya. ‘Why? Why the hell didn’t you tell me?’ He knew he sounded bitter but he didn’t care. He was bitter. ‘Did you keep this to yourself because you didn’t know who your father was? Is it some kind of warped tradition in your family?’

      ‘No, of course not.’

      Her protest wasn’t convincing but he didn’t stop to investigate. ‘Why then? Why didn’t you tell me that I had a son?’

      ‘I thought—’ Freya’s hands flailed with a wild kind of helplessness, then fell to her sides and she gave a groan of frustration. ‘I tried, Gus. I did try to tell you.’

      ‘When?’ he shouted, not trying to hide his disbelief.

      ‘The day I came to the university to see you.’

      His mouth sagged open as memories of that day arrived in a sickening rush. His skin flashed hot and cold and a feeling suspiciously like guilt curdled unpleasantly in his stomach.

      Over the years, he’d blotted out Freya’s sudden appearance on the St Lucia campus, but he couldn’t deny that he’d never felt comfortable about the last time they’d met.

      Now, she was walking away from him, leaving the walking track and hurrying across the velvety lawn to the rocks that bordered the foreshore. By the time Gus reached her, she’d pulled tissues from a woven shoulder bag and was blowing her nose.

      ‘We have to talk about this,’ he said.

      ‘Of course. That’s why we’re here.’ She spoke with quiet resignation.

      They found a flat rock to sit on—side by side, looking out to sea—and it was uncannily like old times, except that, unlike the pounding surf in Sugar Bay, this sea was flat and calm. And they were facing west now, rather than east, so the setting sun was suspended inches above the horizon like a giant glowing balloon.

      Freya shoved the tissues back into her bag, then drew an elaborately deep breath and let it out very slowly.

      Despite his rage and frustration, Gus couldn’t help thinking how lovely she looked, sitting on the rock beside the sea.

      She directed her steady gaze his way, giving him the full effect of her darkly lashed aquamarine eyes. ‘Do you remember that day I came to see you at university?’

      ‘Of course.’

      ‘I was, honestly, planning to tell you that I was pregnant.’

      ‘But you didn’t say a thing about it. Not a word.’ He fought to speak calmly. ‘Why?’

      She dropped her gaze. ‘It’s hard to explain now, after such a long time. I know I was very young and immature back then. I was totally freaked by the whole university scene.’

      The wind plucked at her hair and she caught a strand and tucked it behind her ear. To his dismay, Gus found himself noticing the delicate shape of her ear and the small hole pierced in the middle of her neat pale lobe.

      ‘The whole journey to Brisbane was such a big deal for me,’ she said. ‘I had to travel such a long way from the Bay on the train, and I had to get up at something like four o’clock in the morning. And I had morning sickness, so I was pretty fragile. Then, when I got to Brisbane, I had to catch the bus out to St Lucia. When I arrived there, and the university was so—’

      She waved her hands, searching for the word.

      ‘Intimidating?’

      ‘Yes. So huge and important-looking. All those sandstone buildings and columns and courtyards.’

      Gus nodded. It was incredibly easy, now, to imagine how a girl from a sleepy beach village had felt, but he’d been young, too. Looking back, he suspected that he had, quite possibly, been insensitive.

      Freya pouted. ‘I’d told you I was coming, so I thought you’d skip a lecture to see me. But I had to wait around for ages for you to come out of the lecture hall and then, when you did, you were surrounded by a tribe of adoring women.’

      Gus felt his neck redden as he remembered. ‘Hardly a tribe. And there were other guys in the group.’

      She dismissed this with a sharp laugh. ‘I was naïve, I guess, but I got such a shock to see how you’d changed so quickly. After all, it was only about six weeks since I’d seen you.’

      ‘I couldn’t have been too different, surely?’

      She lifted her hands, palms up. ‘Believe me, Gus, you were different in every way. You had this scholarly air. And you were so full of how awesome university was. You couldn’t stop talking about your college and your lecturers, your career plans. After six weeks at uni, you were going to single-handedly save the Third World.’

      Gus swallowed uncomfortably, knowing she was right.

      ‘And those girls were such snobs,’ Freya said. ‘Designer jeans, masses of jewellery, perfect hair and make-up. I hated the way they looked down their noses at me.’

      ‘I’m sure they didn’t.’

      Freya rolled her eyes as if he hadn’t a clue. ‘They made it clear that I had no right to be there, chasing after you.’

      Gus remembered how Freya had looked that day, dressed in her hippie, beach girl get-up like something out of the seventies, in a batik wrap-around skirt, a silver anklet complete with bells and brown leather sandals.

      He’d thought she’d looked fine. She was Freya, after all. But he could guess how those city girls might have made her feel. No doubt they’d used that particularly sinister feminine radar that sent out signals undetected by males.

      Why hadn’t he been more perceptive? More protective of his girlfriend?

      Even to him, it no longer made sense.

      But hang on. He might not have shown exemplary sensitivity, but Freya still should have told him she was pregnant.

      Gus turned to her. ‘How could you have been pregnant? We took precautions.’

      She lifted an eyebrow and the look she sent him was decidedly arch. ‘If you