Black Ice - Sandy Curtis

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On the day the scan had revealed her baby's sex, Kirri had named her Catelyn, a combination of her grandmother's and mother's names.

      She glared at Daniel, then frowned as he reached into his jeans pocket and took out his wallet. Wordlessly, he extracted a small, battered photo and handed it to her.

      The air squeezed out of her lungs as she gazed at the black and white image.

      CHAPTER SIX

      Philip Weyburn closed down the computer program with a sigh. How his father had managed to keep his embezzlement from being found out was beyond him. If Daniel Brand had come to Australia and demanded a copy of the company's records before this, Jim Weyburn's theft would have been discovered.

      Gazing down at the photo of his mother in the gilt-edged frame standing on his father's desk, Philip was conscious of the terrible legacy his father had left him. His mother's mental health was precarious, had been for some years, with mood swings and depression that had almost destroyed his parents' marriage. But she had been a loving parent in his youth and he was determined to protect her from the scandal that would eventuate if his father's crime was revealed.

      Once his father's half of the company's shares had been transferred to him, Philip would have as much control as Daniel Brand, but in the meantime -

      'Is there anything I can help you with, Philip?' The low voice from the doorway spun him around in the chair. Stella Quinlan's statuesque body moved with a relaxed grace that belied her usually controlled demeanour as she walked over to his desk. She was smiling with a warmth that didn't really reach her eyes, and he felt a prickling between his shoulder blades. She was his age, but he had the feeling she was light years ahead of him in areas he hadn't explored until now.

      Philip cursed his previous reluctance to learn more about the financial management side of the company. He'd always enjoyed the more practical side of construction, and he excelled at it, never gaining the same satisfaction from the necessary, but to him, boring investment and finance strategies that his father had handled. Over the last couple of years, his father had turned more to Stella for assistance, and now Philip found himself wondering if she knew about the embezzlement.

      He scrutinised her face, the perfect though understated makeup, the dark expressionless eyes he'd always felt hid an inner insolence. She reminded him of a shark - cold, calculating, ready to close in for the kill. He was determined not to give her that chance. For the time being he needed her, but soon she would have to be removed.

      The prospect gave him a great deal of pleasure.

      'I'm sure your father would have wanted me to assist you in any way possible.'

      If it was in Stella's nature to purr, Philip suspected she would have done so. Since his father's death, Stella's polite business-like attitude towards him had warmed considerably, but he couldn't bring himself to reciprocate. There'd been an easy intimacy between Jim Weyburn and his private secretary that had always made Philip feel excluded, and he viewed her changed behaviour with suspicion. Perhaps she felt her job was now in jeopardy …

      'Have you confirmed Mr Brand will be available to pick you up at the airport?'

      'We didn't discuss it. Apparently Daniel was involved in a hit-and-run accident yesterday.'

      She inclined her head in surprise, her chin-length blonde hair forming a smooth halo around her face. 'As the victim or the driver?'

      'The victim.'

      'And do they know who the driver was?'

      Philip shook his head. 'No. But Daniel's seeing the police today. Perhaps they'll have more information for him then.'

      A slight movement of her shoulders dismissed Stella's interest in the topic. 'Would you like me to clear out your father's desk for you? It has been almost two weeks …'

      'I know!' Philip fought the impatience that gripped him. He wondered whether Stella realised just how much her officious manner irritated him. She was good at her job, he had to admit that, and he'd wondered more than once why she'd taken on a secretarial position when she had a degree in business management. She was a smart bitch, all right. Pity her personality didn't match.

      He looked down at the large mahogany desk, at the drawers he knew would be cluttered with the numerous pieces of seemingly irrelevant paper his father had kept for years, and sighed. 'I'll bring in some boxes tomorrow. Then I can take it all home and sort through it when I have time.'

      Stella smiled her mouth-only smile, but her dark eyes gleamed with satisfaction.

      'It's … it's Catelyn.' Kirri traced the face of the child in the photo with a gentle finger.

      'No. It's my mother.'

      She looked up at Daniel, shaking her head in stunned disbelief. Then she focussed again on the photo. Focussed on the small black-haired child dressed in fringed white trousers and tunic. Except for the straight hair pulled into a plait, the child in the photo was the image of her daughter.

      'She's Native American,' she whispered.

      'Her mother, my grandmother, is Native American.'

      Kirri fought back tears. 'I looked … at every man who came into my art gallery in Cairns and here at Noosa. Catelyn doesn't look like me, except for the curls, so I assumed she must look like her father. I never suspected …' She shook her head. 'You don't look like your mother.'

      'I take after my father. We're very similar.' He showed her the other photo he carried in his wallet, and she nodded her agreement. Similar in more than looks, Daniel thought, acknowledging the constancy of his love for her. His whole body was aching, not just from the bruising inflicted on it the day before, but with intense need. The need to take Kirri's slender body in his arms and offer her comfort. To run his fingers through her tumbling cloud of red hair and draw her face to his and kiss away the distress etched on the paleness of her skin.

      To love her as he had before.

      But things were different between them now. He was changed - harder, tougher, with responsibilities that weighed him down. And Kirri was changed, too. There was a wariness in her that hadn't been there before. And she didn't remember him at all!

      Or did she?

      'Kirri, how did you know to paint Catelyn in an outfit so much like my mother's if you have no memory of your time in New Orleans? And the painting of the cottage? That was in New Orleans as well.'

      'I have no idea.' Kirri rubbed at her head with one hand, but she still clutched the photo with the other. 'Everything about that time is just a black hole. But sometimes … something … like the smell of honeysuckle …' she looked up at Daniel, imploring him to understand, 'it must trigger a chord, and I paint whatever the picture is that forms in my mind. But I have no idea where it is or what it relates to. Catelyn's painting was formed in my mind when I woke up one morning.'

      She looked down at the photo, at the sombre, unsmiling child standing defiantly, staring at the camera. 'Did you show this photo to me in New Orleans?'

      Daniel nodded. 'Yes. My grandmother told me my mother hated having her photograph taken, and it showed there. Apparently she was a very determined young child.'

      'Like Catelyn.' Kirri touched the photo again, wishing, hoping, trying to make some connection to the weeks she had lost. 'Will your mother be pleased to know she has a grand-daughter?'

      'My mother died when I was three years old. But I'm sure she would have loved our daughter.'

      Our daughter!

      Kirri froze. Catelyn had been hers, and hers alone, not only since birth, but from those first faint flutterings of life in a stomach that was still remarkably flat, and a body still healing from the trauma it had endured. She wasn't sure she was prepared to share her with Daniel Brand.

      Panic gripped her. For a long time she'd wanted to know who was the father of her child, but now that she did she was afraid. She'd heard of many cases where one parent would fight the other for custody simply out of spite.

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