What Love Sounds Like by Alissa Callen Page B

things work between you and Tilly.’
    The tense lines bracketing his mouth didn’t ease.
    She had to find the right thing to say to ease his uncertainty and to help him. ‘There isn’t anything to worry about. Tilly will love you, whatever mistakes you may make along the way. Her acceptance is unconditional. All you need to do is to make room in your life for her.’
    But instead of relief relaxing his features, his mouth settled into a firmer line. ‘That’s not going to happen. Tilly needs her own life. A life full of balloons, ferry rides and all the things I can’t give her.’
    He returned the black box into the cupboard. ‘Now I’ve kept you awake long enough. I hope the gelato helps you sleep.’
    ‘Thanks.’
    Kade’s emotional withdrawal was as potent as if he’d physically pushed her away. Back rigid, he returned the gelato to the freezer and quit the kitchen.
    She picked up the book from the bench and pressed it close to her chest. She’d been right to feel on edge when she’d crept along the hallway imagining all sorts of night terrors. All her fears had come true. In the dim light of this kitchen filled with the memory of a small boy’s love for his grandmother, she’d come face to face with the unthinkable. Somewhere between the easy companionship of their gelato taste testing and staring into Kade’s tortured eyes she’d broken her unwritten rule.
    Don’t cross the line.
    But she had. Kade wasn’t merely Tilly’s uncle anymore. He was a man, a man whose vulnerability and pain acted as a conduit between them. Like a spark along a fuse, his humanity had incinerated her feelings of disapproval and dislike. Her heart pounded against the hard cover of the book held against her chest. The wall between Kade and Tilly wasn’t the only thing tumbling.
    The barricades protecting Mia from Kade were also falling.

Chapter Seven
    HE NEEDED to be careful what he wished for.
    Kade stole a glance at his front-seat passenger. Mia sat still and silent. From the minute she’d buckled herself into the dual-cab farm ute and donned her oversize sunglasses she’d withdrawn into a private world. A world he didn’t feature in. Last night, as he’d left the kitchen, he would have given a small fortune to never again have her gentle words lure him along a road he just didn’t travel. He never talked about his past. Now he’d pay an even larger fortune to hear her speak.
    He checked on Tilly in his rear-view mirror. Her little nose was pressed against the window as she scouted for long-legged emus running along the fence line. Eyes bright and curious, she turned in her seat to look back at an old corrugated iron tank and windmill as the wind turned the windmill’s blades. Mia was right. Tilly did love being out here. And if he was honest, he did too.
    He looked back at the dirt track that stretched before him. But he hadn’t taken the morning off work to admire the vivid, sunburnt landscape through which they drove. He’d atone for his inappropriate money comment with a gelato picnic, then he’d high-tail it back to his office in the homestead. After his unsuccessful focus-finding trip to the city it was now the only trench he’d left to bunker down in.
    ‘Is the river much further?’ Mia asked. ‘Maybe we should have placed more ice in the cooler to keep the gelato cool?’
    The ice in the cooler wasn’t the only thing having a chilling effect. Mia’s distant tone lowered the car’s air temperature at least a degree.
    He scanned what he could see of her closed expression. She’d pulled her hair off her face into a tight pony-tail and wore a collared, no-nonsense, white tee tucked into denim shorts.
    ‘We’re almost there. We’ll eat, have a short swim and then return to work.’
    He waited for a lecture about play being as important as work, but all she said was, ‘Great.’ He cast her another sideways glance. She stared out the windscreen at the passing cattle-dotted paddocks as though he