Loving. PENNY JORDAN
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Название: Loving
Автор: PENNY JORDAN
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Современная зарубежная литература
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What could she say? ‘I don’t know.’
‘Neither do I,’ he said grimly.
She heard him sigh as he levered his shoulders off the door. Even now, exhausted with anxiety and tension, there was a magnetic attraction about him that she recognised and recoiled from. She saw him frown as she stepped back.
‘Look, I really am sorry about what I said to you. There was no call for it. Put it down to tiredness and the frustration of having to fend off my friends’ matchmaking efforts. To have you repeat what they had been saying to me—that Heather needed a mother—’
‘Made you leap to the instant conclusion that I had myself in mind,’ said Claire wryly. ‘Yes, I can understand that, but you were quite wrong. A husband is the last thing I’d want.’
She saw him frown. ‘My remark was crass and uncalled for.’
A silence stretched between them, but it wasn’t an uncomfortable silence. In fact, it was oddly companionable.
‘I’ll come and see Heather later, if I may. Will it be all right if she stays here with you?’
She could see how much he hated having to ask, and that was something else she could understand from her own experience of single parenthood. It bred in one a fierce pride, a determination to manage alone without having to ask for help—but help was sometimes needed, and it wasn’t in her nature to be anything less than generous. Pushing the heavy weight of her hair off her face, she said firmly, ‘Heather can stay here as long as she wants to. I’m genuinely very fond of her, you know,’ she paused, searching for the right words, ‘she’s so vulnerable … and … and wanting. Nothing like my independent little Lucy.’
‘Perhaps because she hasn’t experienced the same security and love.’ Jay’s voice was clipped, his eyes edged with bitterness. ‘I’ve got to go back now. I want to have a few words with Mrs Roberts. I can’t blame it all on her, though; I should have known. But she seemed so responsible. She had such good references!’
‘As a housekeeper, perhaps,’ said Claire gently, sensing his frustration and guilt. ‘But a woman who’s a good housekeeper isn’t always a good …’
‘Mother? No,’ he said bitterly. ‘I can see that—now. I’ll just go up and see Heather before I leave.’
He sounded uncertain and awkward, and Claire didn’t go with him. Some things were too private to be witnessed by anyone else.
‘She’s still asleep,’ he told her when he came down. ‘I’ll come back later.’ Claire walked with him to the front door. As she opened it he turned to face her.
‘I haven’t thanked you,’ he said huskily.
‘There’s nothing to thank me for.’
And she didn’t feel there was. If she hadn’t been there perhaps Heather might never have thought of running away. She hadn’t meant to encourage the little girl to love her, but how much damage had she inadvertently done?
CHAPTER THREE
BOTH GIRLS HAD had their supper and were bathed and pyjamaed when Jay Fraser came back. They were sharing Lucy’s room, but Claire took her own daughter downstairs so that Jay and Heather could be alone.
She had barely been downstairs with Lucy for more than ten minutes when Jay Fraser’s dark head suddenly appeared round her sitting-room door. He looked unexpectedly vulnerable for such a very hard-edged man, his mouth set in a grimly despondent line.
‘Can you come?’ he asked quietly. ‘Heather seems to have cast me in the role of angry parent; I can’t get it through to her that she isn’t going to be punished.’
Claire had always been acutely sensitive to the feelings of others and it was for that reason that she kept her attention fixed on a point to the left of his shoulder rather than on his face. She didn’t need a crystal ball to know that he was finding it very hard to ask for her help.
When she got upstairs Heather was curled up in a small ball, crying. The moment she saw Claire she flung herself into her arms, cuddling up against her. Over her dark head Claire looked at the grimly set face of her father. Strange to think that less than a month ago she had viewed a second meeting with this man with both apprehension and dread. Now she was seeing him stripped of his masculine arrogance, a human being with fears and doubts, and ridiculously she wanted to reassure him that everything would be all right, and that Heather would eventually come round.
Instead, she stroked her soft dark hair, and said quietly, ‘It’s all right, Heather, your daddy isn’t cross with you. He was very worried about you, we all were.’
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