Page 46 of Seduction Under the Southern Stars

“He remembered having a fling with Mum, and when I mentioned the two weeks when I would have been conceived, he confirmed he was with her then. He did say they used contraception, but…” I shrug. “Mum said she wasn’t sleeping with Don at the time, and she’s not likely to have had an immaculate conception.”

“Linc,” Elora scolds.

“Sorry, just stating a fact.”

“What was his reaction?” Fraser asks.

“He was shocked, obviously. A bit suspicious, and again, I expected that.” I hesitate. “Then he asked me to send him a selfie. I did, and he sent me one back.” I pull the photo up on my phone.

Elora leans in to look at it. A big smile appears on her face. “Ah… I don’t believe it…”

“Show me,” Fraser says, and I turn the phone to him. His eyebrows lift, and he laughs. “Yeah, that’s pretty conclusive.”

“Well, it’s not, obviously.” I look at the photo of the man who could be my father. “But it’s promising. He’s suggested we get a paternity test done, so he’s going to send me the details of a lab, and I’ll go and get a cheek swab done. He reckons he can fast-track it.”

“Oh, I’m so pleased for you,” Elora says, and she turns and lifts her arms around my neck and hugs me.

I hug her back, conscious of Fraser’s frown. I close my eyes for a second, shutting him out, and inhale, smelling her perfume, and feeling her soft body against me. Then I release her and open my eyes.

“Yes,” I say, as if I’m completely unaffected, “so good news all around.”

“And I’ve just discovered a great moa’s tracheal rings,” Elora states, beaming. “What a wonderful day!”

Chapter Ten

Elora

“What are you up to now?” I ask Linc, pulling another finds box toward me.

“Nothing.” He leans over to look in the box.

“You don’t want to go sightseeing, or shopping, or something?”

“No. I thought I might stick around and help out, unless you prefer to do it yourself.”

“Not at all,” I say happily. “We need to clean these up, then see if we can identify them.”

“Cool.” He takes off his jacket and tosses it over a chair. He’s wearing a gray T-shirt with a picture of The Beatles’ Abbey Road album cover. He sees me looking at it and smiles. “Does it take you back?”

“It does,” I say softly, remembering one particular Saturday afternoon. The boys had all taken part in a football match in the rain, and they’d come home victorious, but soaked to the skin and covered in mud. Mum had got them all to change and put their filthy clothes in the washing machine, and then she’d made everyone bacon rolls and chocolate brownies. We often played Dad’s old albums—he had a lot of Pink Floyd, Jimi Hendrix, and Led Zeppelin—but that day Fraser had put Abbey Road on. Most of the boys had flopped on the sofa and chairs and played cards, but Linc had come up to the dining table where I was sitting copying a sketch of the bones recovered in Ethiopia of the skeleton of an early australopithecine nicknamed Lucy.

He never commented on the fact that most girls of my age would be drawing cartoon characters or fashion models. Instead, he pulled up a chair, much the same as he’s just done, asked for a piece of paper, and proceeded to copy a sketch of an Acheulean handaxe from another book.

I stuck his sketch next to mine in my notebook. I still have it in a box in my apartment.

“Don’t you have a meeting at eleven?” I ask Fraser, who’s still hovering.

He purses his lips, then gets up and leaves the room.

I blow out a breath. “Overprotective brothers.”

Linc chuckles. “Where’s Joel today?”

“He told Zoe he had an idea for a suitable artifact for the exhibition for her. Maybe it was from the wreck that the cannon came from… can’t remember. Anyway, she said he’d asked her to go diving with him.”

He chuckles. “Sounds like a euphemism.”

“What do you mean?”

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