LITMIR.BIZ

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the air, from the swing of her ponytail to the brightly checked orange-yellow shorts teamed with a lime green tank top. Kimberly was making statements; right, left and centre. She was not going to be ignored, overlooked or left in the wings of anybody’s life.

      Nick glanced at Rachel who had tactfully withdrawn any obvious interest in the family contretemps. From the balcony of his Blues Point apartment, one could take in a vast sweep of Sydney Harbour. Rachel’s gaze was fixed on the water view but her stillness revealed an acute listening and suddenly Nick didn’t want her hearing this, despite their intimate relationship.

      “Rachel, this is a very private family matter...”

      “Of course.” She rose quickly from her chair, flashing him an understanding smile. “I’ll let myself out and leave you to it, Nick.”

      There was so much about Rachel he liked...very capable, highly intelligent, shrewdly perceptive about most people, though his twelve-year-old niece frequently flummoxed her. Even their careers dovetailed, she an investment advisor, he a banker. They were both in their thirties. As a prospective partner in life, Rachel Pearce looked about as good as Nick thought he was going to get, desirable in every sense, yet...the magic connection was missing.

      As she stood up, sunshine glinted off her auburn hair, turning the short hairstyle into a glorious, copper cap. Good-looking, always chic, sexy, comfortable with men, her sherry brown eyes invariably warm for him... Nick wondered what more he could want in a woman?

      Nevertheless, it didn’t feel right for her to be privy to such sensitive family secrets as Kimberly’s adoption. It involved delving into lives that only he and his niece had known and shared. It was not Rachel’s business. Not yet.

      He rose from his chair at the same time, intent on taking command of the situation. “Thanks for your company, Rachel.”

      “My pleasure. I hope...” She glanced at Kimberly who was helping herself to another cherry, stiffly and steadfastly ignoring her, then with a last rueful look at Nick, she shrugged her helplessness and turned to leave.

      “Even if my real mother doesn’t want me, I won’t go to your old boarding school anyway,” Kimberly shot after her. “So you needn’t think you can get rid of me that easily.”

      Rachel froze in the doorway to the living room.

      Nick’s heart sustained another breathtaking blow. His mind, however, did have something to clutch on to this time—his conversation with Rachel last night. Kimberly should have been in her room asleep but she must have eavesdropped. This current mood and stance had clearly been fermenting ever since.

      “It’s not a matter of getting rid of you, Kimberly,” he said tersely. “It’s a matter of what’s best for you.”

      “You mean what’s best for you,” she retorted. “And best for her.” Her eyes flared fierce resentment. “I’m not stupid, Uncle Nick.”

      “Precisely. Which is why I’d like you to start your secondary education at a good school. To give you the best teachers and the best education.”

      “Most girls would consider it a privilege to go to PLC,” Rachel argued with some heat. “It’s certainly been advantageous to me.”

      “Well, you would say that, wouldn’t you?” Kimberly retaliated. “Anything to shunt me out of the way. You think I don’t know when I’m not wanted?”

      “That’s enough, Kimberly,” Nick warned. Rachel had tried to reach out to his niece. There just didn’t seem to be any meeting place. Or she wasn’t granted one.

      “Why boarding school, Uncle Nick?” came the pointed challenge. “If it’s only education you’re thinking of, why couldn’t I go as a day pupil? PLC is right here in Sydney.”

      “You’re on your own too much, Kimberly,” he answered. “I thought the companionship of other girls would round out your life more.”

      “You thought?” An accusing glare at Rachel. “Or Ms. Pearce suggested?”

      “I was going to discuss it with you after Christmas.”

      The accusative glare swung onto him. “You told her to go ahead and try to get me in.”

      “That’s still not decisive, Kimberly. And you shouldn’t have been eavesdropping.”

      “If Mum had wanted me to go to an expensive, private boarding school, she would have booked me in years ago.” Tears glittered in her eyes. “You don’t want me. Not like Mum and Dad did.”

      The recognition of unresolved grief was swift and sharp. His stomach clenched. He couldn’t replace her parents. No one could. He missed them, too, his only sibling who’d virtually brought him up, and Colin who’d always given him affectionate support and approval. It had been a struggle this past year, trying to merge his life with a twelve-year-old’s, but not once had he begrudged the task or the responsibility.

      “I do want you, Kimberly,” he assured her gravely.

      She shook her head, her face screwing up with conflicting and painful emotions. “I was dumped on you and now you want to dump me somewhere else.”

      “No.”

      She swiped her eyes with the back of her hand, smearing the wetness aside. “You won’t have to do anything if my real mother wants me. You can give me up and have your lady friend free and clear of somebody else’s daughter.” She glared balefully at Rachel. “I don’t want to be stuck with you any more than you want to be stuck with me, Ms. Pearce.”

      Rachel heaved a sigh and rolled her eyes at Nick, powerless to stop the hostility aimed at her.

      “Just go, Rachel,” he advised quietly.

      “Sorry, Nick.”

      “Not your fault.”

      “No, it’s my fault,” Kimberly cried, her voice rising toward shrill hysteria. “I spoil it for both of you. So I’m the one who should go.”

      The arm Nick swung out to stop her was left hanging uselessly as she rushed to the doorway and ducked past Rachel into the living room. He swiftly followed her but she ran full pelt to the front door, pausing only to yell back at him.

      “If you care anything at all about me, Uncle Nick, you’ll do it. You’ll get my real mother for me for Christmas! Then maybe it could turn out right for all of us.”

      CHAPTER TWO

      IT HADN’T come today, either... the letter from Denise Graham with news of Kimberly and the photographs spanning another year.

      Meredith Palmer struggled to fight off a depressing wave of anxiety as she entered her apartment and locked the rest of the world out. Again she shuffled through the stack of mail she’d just collected from her box; Christmas cards, bank statement, an advertising brochure. She opened the envelopes and extracted the contents, making doubly sure there was no mistake. Nothing from Denise Graham.

      The packet usually came in the last week of November. It had done so for the past eleven years. Today was the fourteenth of December and the uneasy feeling that something was wrong was fast growing into conviction. Denise Graham had come across to Meredith, even in her letters, as a very precise person, the kind who would live by a strictly kept timetable. Unless the packet had somehow been lost or misdirected in the volume of Christmas mail, something had to be badly wrong in the Graham household.

      Illness? An accident?

      The tight feeling in her chest grew tighter as disastrous possibilities flew through Meredith’s mind. Not Kimberly, she fiercely prayed. Please...not Kimberly. Her little girl had to have a wonderful life ahead of her. Only by believing that had Meredith managed to repress the misery of not having kept her daughter.

      She shook her head, fighting back the worst-case scenarios. Maybe something had happened to the solicitor who had handled the legal aspects of the adoption

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