Page 45 of A Chance to Believe

‘I didn’t realise. We seem to get the same things as usual at night.’ Shayne narrowed his eyes. ‘Does it bother you?’

‘Why would it? Parker takes great pride in his work and I’m benefitting. I will miss him, and his food, when I move out.’

‘Do you have to?’

Cassie laid down her cutlery. ‘Do you mean move out, or are you offering to let me steal Parker?’

Her heart pinched at his broad grin. She loved it when he smiled wholeheartedly.

‘You know Parker is a fixture.’

‘Sooo, you’re saying I could be a fixture too?’

‘More than a fixture.’ He placed his knife and fork neatly on his empty plate. ‘I’m thinking family.’

Her breath stalled and she forced herself to suck in air. ‘Family?’ It came out in a squeak.

‘We were talking about names before. I’d like …’

He appeared to be finding breathing difficult. Or getting the words out, anyway. She waited, her stomach roiling.

‘I’d like … I think I’d like to get married.’

‘But you don’t do marriage. I mean, you didn’t marry Kimberley’s mother.’

‘That was a different situation. I’m older now and ready for marriage. It’s not only about the twins. We got along well in Brisbane. Really well.’

‘You mean the sex?’

His frown drew his brows together. ‘No, I mean everything.’

‘You didn’t contact me afterwards. There was no suggestion of further meetings.’

Shayne scrubbed his fingers through his hair. ‘You have no idea how I regretted that. It wasn’t about you. Well, not entirely. I told you I’d dated someone when Kimberley was young. She was a born and bred Sydney person and I discovered almost too late that her ideas for our marriage involved putting in a manager here and living in Sydney or Melbourne. Even Brisbane wasn’t classy enough for her. I judged you by her, and I’m sorry. I should have given you the benefit of the doubt. City people can transition. You seem to have settled well.’

It was a long speech for Shayne. Her own reticence about her past had been as much to blame for his assumptions when they first met. ‘I’m not sure about getting married. It’s something I decided against a long time ago.’

‘Is there a particular reason?’

‘I almost married once. I told you I was engaged. It was a painful part of my life and I suppose I decided I didn’t want to go through that again.’ Not without love on both sides, at least. Shayne had said nothing about love. It was telling that he was willing to marry her. It suggested more feeling than he must have had for Courtney.

The green in his eyes was intense, as if he were trying to see inside her brain. ‘If it was painful I won’t force you to revisit it, though I would be grateful if you shared that part of your life. You know most of our history.’

‘I would like to talk about it sometime. Maybe not now.’ She glanced at the kitchen door, behind which she could hear the faint echoes of country music that told her Parker was working. ‘It’s funny, but for the first time, I feel I could revisit that part of my past.’

‘I appreciate that.’ His hand rested lightly on hers, sending warmth through her veins to her heart. ‘I’m happy to wait until you feel it’s an appropriate time. In the meantime, I hope you’ll think about my proposition. I’m serious. I love having you around and I think, I believe, we will work well as a family.’

Will work well.She liked his confidence, but wasn’t sure she shared it. ‘I will think about it. I can see that it would solve some problems.’ And create some. But that was something she would need to deal with herself. She’d spent too long grieving the past and it was hard to pull herself back into the real world. Shayne was very real and what he offered had the potential to continue the jumpstart he’d given her heart all those months ago.

It meant she would have to come clean about her past. His assumptions of her as an urbanite were based on an impression she’d deliberately given him during their time together. It had made it easier somehow, to pretend to be the city sophisticate when she’d been taking such a risk, spending time with a man she found overwhelmingly attractive. It hadn’t gone away. Cassie was ninety-nine per cent certain if she hadn’t been carrying the twins in an at-risk pregnancy they would have been burning up the sheets again.

It was there in the flare of his eyes as they rested on her. He was remembering how it had been between them. She felt the burn too, but there was nothing she could do about it. ‘What about these names?’

He looked like he might say something else about marriage, but he gave a half smile and pulled out a folded sheet of paper from his breast pocket. ‘I’ve listed family names on the left and other names I like on the right.’

Cassie pushed aside her plate and took the paper to scan it. His writing was spiky but easy to read. ‘I have a grandfather, William. If you like it, we could put it on the list.’ She recognised another name. ‘I like Francis but would probably be inclined to name a daughter Francesca. Not that we are looking at girls’ names.’

‘We could, in the future.’ There was a wicked sparkle in his eyes. It suggested he hadn’t entirely put aside the idea of them making a family. The idea of Shayne with another little girl to bring up was appealing. Kimberley adored her father, so he must have done the right thing by her even without her mother being physically present.

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