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around the paddock. And Reilly, the man with only one shot at fatherhood, who was willing to spend it on a daughter he’d only just discovered. A daughter whose parentage he’d not even asked for hard proof of, so strong was his instinctive recognition that she was his.
    Lea pushed up onto her toes and threw her arms around Reilly’s surprised neck. For a moment, the very barest ofmoments, his arms crept around her and a fluttering sense of rightness ghosted through her. But then his hands slid upwards, gripped her shoulders and pushed her firmly away, his eyes locking onto hers. She felt instantly cold.
    ‘I’m doing this for Molly. Not for you. I have no interest in helping you beyond what it does for my daughter.’
    She ignored the hurt snapping at her heels like a cattle dog, accustomed to forcing down personal pain. Her vision blurred with tears. ‘I understand.’
    ‘And it’s not without a price. There’s something I want in return.’
    ‘Anything.’
    His dark eyes glittered. ‘Careful, you don’t know what I’m asking yet.’
    There wasn’t a single possibility she hadn’t thought about before driving to Minamurra, a compromise she wasn’t willing to make. She’d already given him her body, albeit in a moment of grief-stricken insanity. There was nothing he could ask that she wasn’t ready to grant. For Molly.
    She tossed her head back and met his gaze head-on. ‘What do you want?’
    ‘First, I want to be able to see Molly regularly. I want to be part of her life.’
    Lea took a deep breath. Since he was the one saving Molly’s life, that wasn’t unexpected. She would watch him like a hawk until she could determine whether he was a man like her father…or something else.
    She nodded slowly. ‘Agreed.’
    Reilly looked at her, his dark gaze unfathomable, probing, intense. The hairs on Lea’s neck stood to attention and her skin tingled.
    ‘And second…’
    Here it comes. He was going to ask her for a physical commitment. A tiny part of her wasn’t dreading it. She remembered every moment from five years ago and the primal haven that was his embrace.
    ‘…I want custody of the child we make together.’
    Gravity suddenly altered its fundamental principles. Lea would have gone down if not for Reilly’s iron grip on her upper arm.
    ‘Given the sacrifice I’m making, it seems a reasonable trade,’ he said. ‘You get Molly’s cordblood, I get an heir.’

Chapter Three
    L EA’S skin prickled despite the morning heat. To find hope only to have it ripped violently away again…Her hands shook. Her voice was strained.
    ‘No.’
    ‘Lea, think about—’
    ‘No!’ She marched off toward her house, heart thumping painfully. She needed to be close to Molly right now. Badly. How could he think, even for a moment, that she would…could…? Her chest tightened like a slingshot. She spun round, wounded beyond measure that he thought that of her. ‘You cannot ask that. It’s not fair.’
    ‘How fair was it to rob me of a child? To bring her to me only when you needed something?’
    ‘I had no choice!’
    ‘Neither do I, Lea. You’re handing me a miracle. How can I just shrug that off?’ He pursued her across the house-paddock, snagged her arm and spun her back round to him. ‘I remember something you said when we were together, about how disconnected you felt from the world.’
    ‘I said way too much that weekend.’ Her determination to keep her distance had lasted all of an hour. After that first sweet time together, she’d opened up to him like he was her confessor, believing she’d never see him again.
    ‘I don’t have to tell you about loneliness, Lea. Surely you can understand why your request might be like a beacon in the darkness? The chance I believed I’d never have?’
    Lea’s chest lifted and fell with her tumbling thoughts. Of course she could understand it. Molly had been her own beacon, even the very idea of Molly. It was why it had been so easy for her