The possibility made her skin flush hot.
Fool.
In her room, she piled up her pillows and sat in bed in a small pool of lamplight, nursing a mug of hot, sweet tea.
She thought about Rachel, and was swamped by a tidal wave of grief. If only she hadn’t invited Rachel to the launch party. For the trillionth time, she wished that she could go back into the past and change that night. Rachel had always been so full of life, so brimming with can-do confidence and charisma. She shouldn’t be dead.
Their friendship had been so strong, an attraction of opposites. Rachel was brilliant and wild and she’d always claimed that Amy was calming and steadying.
‘Amy’s my anchor,’ she used to tell people.
Guys were forever falling in love with Rachel—so much so that she should have had a warning light, like a lighthouse. Amy’s brother, Ryan, had been smitten, but he’d come to his senses eventually and married his sensible, sweet Jane instead.
For her part, Rachel had loved the attention of men, always had a boyfriend on tap, but somehow she’d managed to stay immune, never really falling in love.
Until her trip north.
‘You should have been there, Ames,’ she’d said, on that night she’d finally opened up. ‘I needed you there, to keep me on the ground. I lost my head completely.’
Swiping at tears, Amy thought about Seth. She wondered if he was looking at the photo album now. Would he sleep tonight? Or was he totally calm again?
Was he thinking about Rachel? About Bella?
He’d looked so terrible tonight when she’d told him her news, and the memory of the deep lines of pain etched in his face sent a throbbing ache to the middle of her chest.
It was so silly to care so much about a man she’d only just met, but she couldn’t help it. There was something about Seth Reardon that got to her—something elemental and deep. Whether he was happy or sad, whenever she was near him, she felt in danger of drowning.
She’d known, from the moment she first saw him—gosh, had it only been this morning?—that he wasn’t a man who would take fatherhood lightly. Chances were, Seth wouldn’t take any relationship lightly—which meant there was a distinct possibility that he’d really, really loved Rachel.
Without warning, Amy’s tears began to fall in earnest, and she buried her face in the pillow so she wouldn’t wake Bella.
The photo album lay abandoned on the nightstand.
Seth had taken a look at it, leafing quickly through the pages, catching glimpses of Bella as a tiny newborn, and later, as a gummy, smiling infant…later still, as a sturdy toddler, learning to walk…
He’d seen pictures of Rachel looking surprisingly maternal, and healthy and happy. There’d even been a shot of Amy, hovering somewhere in the background behind a cake with pink icing and two striped candles. But he’d had to set the book aside. It was too hard to look at these happy snaps.
Amy had offered them to him in all innocence, but she had no idea of the size and force of the bombshell she’d dropped this evening.
She thought he’d fathered Rachel Tyler’s baby.
He’d never dreamed that Rachel was pregnant when she left Serenity, but, hell, in many ways everything would be a whole lot easier if he were the little girl’s father. He would face up to the responsibility, and he could have worked something out with Amy—a way to share custody of Bella, perhaps. Truth be told, the thought of spending more time with Amy was enticing.
But it was a fantasy.
He wasn’t Bella’s father. He hadn’t slept with Rachel.
Not once.
Never.
The real story was something else entirely, and it smothered him with a mountain of guilt and heartache.
While Rachel had flirted openly with him almost as soon as she’d arrived at Serenity, Seth had sensed she could spell trouble and he’d given her the brush-off, so she’d set her sights…elsewhere…
With tragic consequences.
Those consequences were the cross Seth had to bear, but they were too painful to share this evening with a warm-hearted, soft-eyed girl like Amy.
With a harsh groan, he launched to his feet and began to prowl.
This whole business was more complicated than Amy could possibly have imagined and he needed time—days, weeks, years—to work out the best way to explain it to her.
Damn it, he didn’t want to burden her with the truth. Not so soon. She’d been such a loyal friend to Rachel. She’d put her career on hold and she’d devoted herself to Bella, and she’d come all this way, to do something Rachel should have done three years ago.
Reaching for the album, Seth looked again at the photo of Amy, smiling in the background. Her dark eyes were so warm and pretty, and just looking at her made him want to smile.
She was as generous and open-hearted as his uncle had been when he’d taken Seth in after his father died, giving him a home, an education, a sense of belonging. Family.
Seth owed so much to his father’s younger and much admired brother, after whom he’d been named.
But now…damn it…what was the right thing to do?
He couldn’t turn his back on this little girl. How had Amy described her? Cutest thing on two legs.
Too true.
Thing was, it would be easy to wash his hands of this, to tell Amy she was mistaken, that he wasn’t the father. Send her packing.
Except—he felt such a weight of responsibility…and it was all so painful…and even though Amy was warm and compassionate, he didn’t feel ready to talk to a woman he’d just met about what had happened…
He needed time.
‘Wake up, Amy! Wake up!’
Amy felt small fingers trying to prise her eyelids apart.
‘It’s too early,’ she moaned, refusing to open her eyes.
She’d had a dreadful night, endlessly tossing and turning, and she felt as if she’d fallen into a deep sleep only five minutes ago. But a sudden knock at the door brought her smartly awake.
‘Man!’ Bella squealed, gleefully slipping from the bed. ‘Man at the door!’
With a groan, Amy pushed her bedclothes aside and swung her feet to the floor. She had no idea of the time, but daylight was streaming through the shutters.
Bella was banging on the door. ‘Hello, man!’
‘His name’s Seth,’ Amy grumbled. She couldn’t remember where she’d left her dressing gown and she grabbed up a silk wrap to throw around her shoulders to cover her nightgown. ‘Bella, you can’t keep calling him man. Say Seth.’
‘Sef.’
‘That’s better.’ Amy grimaced at her reflection. She looked a fright—hair everywhere, dark circles under her eyes.
There was another knock.
‘Hello, Sef man,’ Bella called through the door.
With one hand clasping the wrap modestly over her front, Amy ran frantic fingers through her hair, but she knew it wouldn’t improve her appearance. She opened the door.
Seth, freshly showered and shaved, was rather too much at such an early hour, but she didn’t have time to go weak at the knees. She was distracted by Bella’s shriek of joy.
‘Hello, Sef!’ the little girl shouted, and she beamed a gorgeous smile up