For His Little Girl. Lucy Gordon

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СКАЧАТЬ was smiling as that daft, quarrelsome, delightful female danced through his brain. She’d been so passionate about everything that she was exhausting to be with: passionate about her dreams, about food, about every tiny little argument. And she’d argued endlessly! He’d had to kiss her to shut her up. And then there had been no way to stop until he’d explored the whole of her glorious, vibrant body and discovered that she was passionate about him, as well.

      Pippa knew she’d done everything the wrong way. It had been crazy to decide to go to Los Angeles one minute and book for the first available seats the next.

      Now here she was, weary from the long flight, with an inner clock that said it was nearly midnight, the hardest part still to come and the day barely started. And since she hadn’t warned Luke she was coming, he might not even be there.

      Oh, why didn’t she think before she did these impulsive things?

      It was Jake’s fault. And Harry’s and Paul’s and Derek’s. They should have stopped her, especially Jake, who was supposed to be the sensible one. Instead he’d come up with the name of a friend in the airline who could get her a couple of heavily discounted tickets.

      Paul and Derek had checked her medicines repeatedly and given her a list of rules for taking care of herself. Harry had driven her and Josie to the airport in his old car. And they’d all come along because they couldn’t let her go so far away without waving her off.

      If only her bags would appear on the carousel soon. She seemed to have been standing here for ages. She took a deep breath to disguise the fact that she was growing breathless, hoping Josie wouldn’t notice. But Josie was bouncing about in excitement, eager to be the first to spot their luggage.

      “There it is, Mummy! Over there.”

      “Don’t rush.” Pippa restrained her daughter from dashing over and trying to haul the bags off. “Wait for them to reach us.”

      Josie shook her head so that her long, red-brown hair swung jauntily. “I hate waiting. I like things to happen now.”

      “Then there’d be nothing left for later, and then what would you do?” Pippa teased her fondly.

      “I’d make something happen later. I can make anything I like happen.”

      It always gave Pippa a pang when her daughter talked like that, for she remembered someone else who’d thought life was his to invent as he pleased. And he had been right.

      Looking around made her realize how far she’d traveled, in more than miles, since she’d left England. This wasn’t just a part of another country, but another world, another dimension.

      Everyone looked so good. Where was the leavening of dowdiness that existed in any other population? Where were the overweight, the plain? They couldn’t all be wanna-be movie stars, surely?

      What had Luke said once?

      “The cream of the crop came out West to get into the movies, and when they didn’t, they stuck around and married each other. What you see on the streets is the third generation.”

      So much beauty was unnerving, like finding yourself in one of those episodes of Star Trek where nobody could crew a spaceship if they didn’t look good enough to wear short skirts or skintight suits.

      She’d dressed sensibly for the long flight, in old jeans and a sweater. Now being sensible felt like a crime.

      At twenty-nine Pippa was tall and slim, with reddish brown, shoulder-length hair that curved naturally and a heart-shaped face. She had large, luminous eyes and a wide mouth that had always laughed easily. Her charm lay in that laughter and in the hint in her eyes that it came from way down deep inside her.

      But she hadn’t laughed so much recently, not since the doctor had said, “Pippa, I have to be honest with you…” And just now she felt as though she might never laugh again.

      At last she had their baggage, they were safely through Immigration and could head for the airport hotel.

      “Why couldn’t we just stay with Daddy?” Josie wanted to know as they unpacked.

      “Because he doesn’t know we’re coming, so he won’t be ready for us.”

      It didn’t take long to put everything away, and then Josie wanted to be up and going. They found a cab, and Pippa gave the driver Luke’s address. “Will it take long?”

      “’Bout ten minutes,” he told her.

      Only ten minutes, and she hadn’t yet decided what she was going to say to Luke when he opened the door and saw her standing there with his daughter. Why hadn’t she warned him they were coming?

      Because he might have vanished, said a wry voice in her mind. The Luke she’d known eleven years ago had been delightful, but the words serious and responsible weren’t in his vocabulary. Kind was there. So were charming and generous. So, for that matter, were fun, magical, and warm-hearted. But commitment might never have been invented, for all he’d heard of it.

      Which was why, although he’d paid generously toward his daughter’s support, he had never seen her. And that was why they had crossed the Atlantic now, for Pippa was determined that he should meet his child before—she checked the thought there. She was good at not thinking beyond that point. Before Josie grew up too fast, she amended.

      She had made the decision and put it into action without giving herself time to think—or to lose her nerve, as she admitted. Now here they were, almost at Luke’s house. And the enormity of what she’d done was beginning to dawn on her.

      If she could have turned around and gone right back home, she would have done so. But the cab was slowing down….

      The heart of Luke’s home was the kitchen, a stunning workplace that he’d designed himself, knocking a large hole in a wall so that it could run the whole length of the house.

      There were five sinks, so that he was never far from running water, three burners, two ovens and a microwave. Every one of them was the latest, the most sophisticated technology, a mass of knobs that might have seemed excessive on the deck of a spaceship. People who knew Luke only superficially were always surprised by the precision of his kitchen. His looks were the tousled variety, as if he’d just gotten out of bed, and his personal entanglements might tactfully be described as untidy. But the kitchen, where he worked, was a miracle of organization.

      In one corner he had a desk and a computer. He switched it on now and got online to Luke’s Place, the restaurant he’d opened with such pride five years ago. The password got him into the accounts, where he could see that last night’s takings were nicely up. A visit to Luke’s Other Place, open only a year, produced an equally satisfying result.

      His Web site showed a pleasing number of hits since yesterday, when his cable show, Luke’s Way, had gone out. It was a cooking program, and since the first show, eighteen months ago, the ratings had soared. It was broadcast twice a week, and his site, always busy, was deluged in the hours afterward.

      He briefly glanced at his e-mail, found nothing there to worry about and a good deal to please him. Then he noticed something that made him frown.

      The e-mail he’d sent to Josie last night hadn’t been collected on the other end. And that was unusual for Josie, who was normally a demon at reading his mail and coming back СКАЧАТЬ