Читать книгу A Father in the Making - Ally Blake - Страница 11

THE UPPER GUM TREE HOTEL bustled with activity. Barflies lounged at the bar. Families conversed at a smattering of snug round dining tables. Local teenagers played snooker. And Ryan sat all on his lonesome in a secluded high-walled booth at the back of the room.

By the time six o’clock came and went he was onto his second beer and a young boy at the next table had taken a liking to him. The kid continued to stare over the top of the booth, and Ryan had no idea how to get rid of him.

He’d never had much experience dealing with kids. He had been nine years old when Will was born, and in boarding school by the time Will was three. By the time Ryan had left for university and beyond, they had spent little time together; Will, so quiet and shy, and intensely studious, had been practically a stranger to him. And to Jen’s and Sam’s kids he was merely cool Uncle Ryan, who brought presents whenever he came back from overseas.

But now he had another niece—a walking, talking remembrance of his little brother—and for some reason he felt an obligation to get to know this one properly. Half of him was energised by the prospect, and the other half wanted to wring Laura Somervale’s pretty little neck for not trying harder to track his family down.

What reason could she possibly have for telling them about the little girl and then never contacting them again? It would have made more sense if she had never tried to contact them at all. It didn’t add up, and as a guy who worked with checks and balances he planned to stick around at least until it did.

Perhaps she had simply found herself a new father for her daughter in the meantime. A strange sort of uncomfortable heat formed in Ryan’s gut as he realised that she could even be married. Affianced. Living with someone. He hadn’t counted on having to get through another man as well as Ms Somervale. He dearly hoped that he still wouldn’t have to. Either way, if Laura Somervale didn’t show in the next five minutes he was heading back out to the little weatherboard worker’s cottage and he wasn’t leaving until he had his answers.

Ryan gave in and crossed his eyes back at the kid who was still staring him down. He poked his tongue out and even added a humped back for good measure.

‘So, did you find our Laura all right?’ a female voice asked. Ryan uncrossed his eyes to find a short, round lady with boyish grey hair and bright button eyes leaning against the edge of the booth, beaming down at him. Jill Tucker. He had a feeling the woman knew exactly how he had found Laura, and what had transpired word for word.

‘Yes, thanks,’ he assured her with an unadorned smile. ‘She was right where you told me she would be.’

‘Of course she was,’ she said, and her own smile grew larger. ‘She’s lived there since she was born. A dear girl, Laura. Would do anything to help any of us in a pickle, and if anyone ever dared to hurt her, or her little possum, they would have to deal with the rest of our town as well. Can I get you something to eat while you wait?’

Ryan blinked. It seemed Miss Somervale was not the only one who could so adeptly change tack mid-spiel. Perhaps the idiosyncrasy could even be considered part of the local dialect.

‘I’m happy with my beer,’ he said. ‘Thanks, anyway.’

Jill gave him a sympathetic smile before moving on to the next table. Before he even had the chance to take another sip, he was struck by the intoxicating scent of freshly baked apple pie. He had a famously sweet tooth, and the scent was so delicious he actually sniffed the air as a pair of cake boxes slid across his bench. In their wake came Laura Somervale. He was fairly sure it was her…

Gone were the messy curls, pulled back under a red bandana, and the graceful cotton dress had been replaced with an excessively frilly white shirt. She looked over her shoulder at the little boy peering over the next booth. ‘Liam, your dessert is getting cold.’

The little boy disappeared from sight. Just like that. Wow. He would have to remember that trick. As she sat, Ryan opened his mouth to ask why she had gone to such trouble to dress in disguise, but when their eyes met he was rendered speechless yet again by the most startling difference from her earlier appearance. The sexiest dark smudges of eyeliner framed her pale brown eyes, making them glitter like gold. A searing flash of awareness overcame him. Had the flash come from him or from her?

‘Sorry I’m late,’ she said, her voice as crisp and curt with him as it had been with the little boy, Liam, and he figured any sort of responsiveness had been his alone. ‘I had to get Chloe settled in at a friend’s place first.’

So she hadn’t left Chloe at home. She had sequestered her away somewhere unknown. No matter how promising her words, how valiant her smile, this woman was not as calm and trusting as she made out.

‘So there’s no one else at home who could have looked after her tonight? Your husband, perhaps?’

Laura coughed out a sorry laugh. ‘Hardly,’ she said, flapping a ring-free hand under his chin. ‘Chloe and I are perfectly happy on our own.’

And, just like that, the uncomfortable lump in Ryan’s mid-section faded away.

‘Where are you staying?’ she asked, shifting her weight on the soft leather seat.

‘I have a room upstairs.’

‘Nice?’ she asked, still not looking him in the eye.

‘Not sure. I haven’t seen it yet. I came straight here from your place.’

‘Oh, I just can’t stand this,’ she said suddenly, scrunching her eyes tight and banging her fists on the old wooden table.

Ryan’s hands zoomed out to catch his glass of beer and stop it from overturning.

‘I’m not bred for small talk,’ she said, her voice earnest, her expression pleading. ‘I’ll be honest. Your being here scares the living daylights out of me.’

Ryan tried to disregard the divine scent of apples and sugar, and something else—an unexpectedly exotic perfume wafting from the direction of the woman in the equally exotic costume. ‘You have no reason to fear me, Laura.’

‘I have every reason!’ She snapped her mouth shut, her fists closing tight atop the table. She seemed to collect herself, to temper her anguish. When she looked back at him from beneath her smoky lashes he knew she had found the calm in the eye of the storm.

‘I had no brothers or sisters,’ she continued, her voice now more controlled, though a tiny vibration gave her away. ‘I have no aunts or cousins, distant or otherwise. I understand that there are other people out there who are family to Chloe. You. You are her family. As such, you are the answer to her very dreams. And at least a very tiny, small but noisy part of me is relieved that you have finally come. But, at the same time, you also represent my very greatest fear. Losing her.’

Her anxious words brought about the image of tear stains on lavender paper, and he found it hard not to stare as he reconciled the heartfelt prose on that page with the plucky woman three feet from him now. Her honesty in that letter had amazed him, even while the news shocked him. Several years on, she was just as unwilling or unable to hold back her feelings as she had been then, and just as able to surprise him in person as she had been in print.

‘I need to know your intentions,’ she said. ‘I can take it. I might not like it, but I can take it.’

His intentions? It was such an old-fashioned term but, coming from this wide-eyed country girl, it fitted. Though it made him feel like a rogue, he gave her the only truth he could. ‘I don’t exactly know.’

Her golden eyes glinted back at him in the low light. ‘You’re going to have to give me more than that if you think we can take this matter further.’

‘What more do you want?’

‘Proof that you are as nervous as I am.’ She leaned forward, pinning him with her candid stare. ‘I am an even mix of morbid embarrassment and stiff terror right now. When you wandered up onto my property, in your clean shirt and your new jeans, you must know I didn’t for a second expect you to be…well, you. If you had, in fact, been a male stripper it would have shocked me less.’

‘A male what?’

Laura bit her lip to stop herself from saying anything else she oughtn’t. She filtered back through all the things she had mentally accused him of being, including an aluminium cladding salesman, but, no, the male stripper idea she had managed to keep to herself. Until now. She fluffed a hand over her face to try and divert him from her terminal case of foot-in-mouth disease.

She did want Chloe to meet her uncle. Really she did. For Chloe’s sake how could she not? She was trying to think outside of her own selfish desire to keep her contented little existence intact because the big picture of Chloe’s life meant so much more. Even though none of his superstar family had ever cared enough to write, to call, or to ask if Chloe was okay, she had to give him a chance. But, even so, there was a noisy little voice in her head that told her that he in particular was dangerous. Not cruel. Not insensitive to her fears. But somehow dangerous to her precariously balanced contentment. For a girl who felt as though a wonderful life was never quite within her grasp, she had no idea how to deal with a perpetual winner like the one seated before her.

‘Stick to the subject, Mr Gasper. Why now? Why after all this time have you come?’

‘Your letter brought me here, Ms Somervale.’

Her cheeks warmed as she thought of the words she had written in that letter. The words of a hormone-riddled, deeply sad, terrified, lonely and desperate teenager. But before she had a chance to ask to see the letter, which of course she would shovel into her mouth, chew and swallow so that no one else would ever know it existed, a shadow passed over the table. She looked up to find a man in dark trousers and a grey pullover smiling down at them.

‘Hi, there, Father Grant,’ she said, saving her request for when they were alone again. She glanced over at Ryan and had no idea how to introduce him. Friend? Hardly. Chloe’s uncle? She could barely believe it herself, much less say it aloud. Male stripper in the making? Now, that would probably cause less gossip in town than any of the other options on offer!

‘Dress rehearsal tonight, Laura?’ Father Grant asked.

Laura only then remembered her get-up. Oh, Lord! While Mr Perfect sat there looking so flawless, in his blue button-down shirt that did distracting things to his bluer than blue eyes, she was decked out in a mass of white frills and tight purple pants, with knee-high black boots jiggling skittishly below the table.

‘Pirates of Penzance,’ she blurted, for Ryan’s benefit, flicking at a ruffle. ‘The Country Women’s Association is putting on the musical and I am playing the Pirate King.’

Ryan must have thought she was utterly insane, coming to meet him in such a get-up. And for singing to magpies. And for batting her eyelids at a stranger while all on her own out in an isolated Outback property…If he were intent on finding reasons to take her daughter away, he would surely have the beginnings of a list already.

‘Isn’t that a singing part?’ Ryan asked.

Father Grant nodded. ‘It is.’

Laura saw Father Grant shoot Ryan an ironic smile, and she all but harrumphed in response.

‘The musical was all Laura’s idea,’ Father Grant continued. ‘The local CWA are raising money for drought aid for local farmers who have been hit pretty hard over the last couple of years. Last year they did Chicago, and Laura’s Matron Mama Morton brought down the house!’

‘I’ll bet it did,’ Ryan said.

Laura didn’t need to look at him to know that his face would be the picture of disbelief at Father Grant’s kind words. She kept her head down as she picked at a flake of old paint on the tabletop.

‘Our Laura is involved with numerous community projects,’ Father Grant continued. ‘She is President of the PTA and a volunteer firefighter, as well as infamous for undercharging for catering every event we throw in town. I don’t know what we would do without her. Or little Chloe. They are family to all of us. We’ve just up and adopted them since Laura’s dear father passed—haven’t we, Laura?’

‘Of course, Father Grant. You’re the best.’

‘Now, I’d better be off. Enjoy your meal.’ He shot them a parting smile and Laura let out a shaky breath, thankful she had not had to introduce her companion.

‘He seemed nice,’ Ryan said. ‘He certainly had a lot of good things to say about you.’

Laura brushed the praise away. ‘Mr Gasper, if we keep beating around the bush like this I am likely to explode on the spot. Mr Gasper—’

‘Call me Ryan, please.’

There was something in his voice, something low and intimate, that had her forgetting what she had been talking about in the first place. ‘I just…’ She took a moment to swallow. ‘I know that this moment had to come. I only wonder why, seven years after the fact, that silly little letter of mine has sent you out looking for us.’

‘I only just found your letter, Laura,’ he explained. ‘A couple of days ago. As the fates would have it, your letter never came to our attention at the time in which you sent it.’

Oh, God! Had they truly never known about her? About Chloe? She had never, not even once, thought that might be the reason why they had not come looking for her.

‘I’m back in Australia for an extended stay for the first time in years,’ he continued. ‘At my family’s request I have been cleaning up Will’s effects. Seven years having passed since Will…died, no financial records need be kept any more. I discovered your letter unopened in amongst the great host of condolence letters.’

‘Unopened?’ Laura repeated, still coming to terms with Ryan’s bombshell.

‘At the time, my family received so many condolence letters—from friends, acquaintances, readers of my sister’s magazine, fans of my parents’ documentary films, even many of your neighbours. My family read as many as they could, but after a couple of weeks found they couldn’t keep up. It was too much. Too hard. In the end they posted a half-page thank-you note in the Australian newspaper to all who had Will in their thoughts.’

Laura noticed Ryan’s dulcet voice was unnaturally even. Though he held eye contact with her the whole time, the poor man was struggling just as she was with the situation. Nevertheless, she fought back the desire to take his fisted hand in hers, to unpeel his tightly clenched fingers and rub some warmth back into them.

‘Mum and Dad went back to Brunei to finish the film they were working on,’ he said. ‘Jen was already back on a musical tour of the United States. And Sam had just had her second child and couldn’t cope with the task. All of Will’s correspondence was forwarded to our family accountant, who kept on track with bills and tax correspondence, and simply filed everything else. When cleaning out the files this week I found one folder with several unopened letters. Including yours.’

Laura realised he hadn’t included himself in the list of people available to read the letters and look after the formalities. Where had he been when his family had needed him? she wondered. Why hadn’t he been at the funeral? But she heard the steady thread of regret in his voice that he was trying so hard to mask. So she let it go. ‘And…and your family?’ she asked, when she found her voice again. ‘Your sisters and parents? Do they know about me?’

‘Only Sam. She was with me when I found your letter, and would have come too if not for having three kids under ten herself. As to the others, no. Not yet. We thought it better to find out if you had—’

He stopped, and for the first time was discomfited enough to look away.

‘If I had gone through with the pregnancy?’ she finished for him, biting down the bitter taste the very thought brought. But it wasn’t his fault. He was only being honest. ‘And now that you know that I did?’

He looked back at her, the deep, steady blue gaze creating patches of warmth on her skin wherever it touched.

‘Well, now I think it would be best for Chloe to get used to me first,’ he said, ‘before the whole Gasper gang descends upon her. We can be formidable as a united front.’

A tiny portion of the tension in Laura’s shoulders eased. Surely, if that was his ultimate plan, he would have brought the might of the Gasper clan down on her with a vengeance? It seemed there was a streak of compassion within the self-assured outer shell.

The bell over the door jingled as a group of chattering women in pirate garb jumbled into the restaurant. Their beady, kohl-smudged eyes searched the restaurant.

Ryan felt the chance to get to his own questions slipping away. Somehow, with her smoky eyes and bold honesty, her bare feet and knee-high boots, her glossy curls and red bandana, she had managed again and again to keep the conversation as one-sided as she pleased. She had found out his side of the story and he still knew nothing of hers. He wondered if it was entirely accidental, or whether, despite all her I really want you to meet Chloe promises, she would be happier if that never eventuated at all.

‘That lot are looking for me,’ Laura said. ‘I’m sorry to leave this hanging mid-air, but I do have to go.’

She stood, and he grabbed her hand. ‘So when do I get to meet her?’ he asked.

Laura stared at their entwined fingers for a few moments before her glittery golden eyes swung to face him, her head cocked to one side.

‘Chloe,’ he clarified. ‘When do I get to meet her properly? I hoped that was what this secret meeting was all about.’

‘Half the town is at this restaurant, Mr Gasper,’ she said. ‘This meeting is hardly a secret.’ He knew then that she was wilfully misunderstanding him. Her obstructiveness was no accident. Behind the pretty eyes, this woman’s mind had not stopped ticking all night.

If he could figure a way through her labyrinthine thinking, maybe he would end up on her side rather than three steps behind. At least now he knew what made the Upper Gum Tree Hotel at six o’clock on a Sunday night so special. She’d figured that if he was going to make demands, she would have half the town as witnesses.

‘Well, obviously my presence here is not a secret. Why else would I have had people lining up to give you glowing testimonials?’

She made to protest, then seemed to realise what Father Grant’s speech had been about. So that at least hadn’t been her doing. A soft blush crept across her cheeks—a pretty blush, seriously becoming, distracting enough for him to forget what he was accusing her of in the first place. ‘That had nothing to with me,’ she said, giving his hand a light tug. ‘Though I have some idea who to blame.’

Realising her hand was still in his, he let go, the feel of smooth skin slipping across his palm momentarily unsettling. Enough! he scolded himself. He stood, determined to get them back on an even footing.

‘It’s a meeting secreted away from the one person for whom the meeting is most important,’ he said, his voice stern and implacable. ‘Make a time. Set a date. Now. Or I may decide not to believe all your promises that you do want me to meet Chloe. How about tomorrow morning?’

She blinked, and he saw the moment her ticking mind switched into overdrive. ‘Tomorrow is Monday. She has school.’

‘What about after school?’

‘Pony club. Then violin practice.’

Violin. Just like Jen. She had known he was an economist. Did she know about Jen, too? Could that have prompted the choice of instrument? The thought warmed him more than he thought sensible. ‘And dinner time?’ he asked, determined not to let her sway the conversation again.

‘She has homework. And her bedtime is eight o’clock.’

She was relentless. He bit back a smile.

‘Soon,’ she promised, obviously realising as much herself. ‘But on my terms. She’s a cluey kid, outrageously bright, and even more sensitive for it. We need to tread carefully.’

He nodded. She could have been describing Will at Chloe’s age. ‘So when?’

The twittering sound of pirate-garbed women grew louder behind him, and when Laura all but melted with relief he knew he was too late. ‘Saved by your merry men,’ he said under his breath, and she had the good grace to blush even more.

‘Laura!’ one of the women called out. ‘If you’re not ready to rehearse we could grab a quick shandy?’

‘No, no, no. I’m done here,’ Laura said, moving into the protective haven of the colourful group.

‘Laura is such a darling,’ one of the ladies said out of the blue. ‘I can’t read so well any more, so she always helps me with my lines.’

Ryan had a feeling she had been helped with her current lines as well. ‘Does she, now?’ he asked, unable to stop the smile tugging at his mouth.

‘I was overseas last spring when my daughter fell ill,’ another said, after getting a nudge in the ribs. ‘And, even though spring is the worst time for Chloe and her asthma, she and Laura made the long trip via my daughter’s house every day to get her little ones to school.’

Ryan could tell Laura wanted to slap a hand across each of their mouths, but she just stood back and let them vent. It reminded him of a passage from one of Will’s e-mails to Sam, which she had shared with him when they were going through Will’s papers:

The people here are amazing, Sam. Kind, generous, selfless, opinionated, and meddlesome! You can’t scratch your nose without somebody knowing about it. And you can be sure that within the day everyone in town will know about it too. I thought it might be infuriating, but it’s not. It means that there are people who care about you. So, no matter how far away we all actually live from one another, we know that we are never really alone.

It seemed that Will had been right on the money. The town knew exactly who he was, and had turned up in force to make sure he knew exactly who Laura was too.

‘Our Laura is an angel,’ the ringleader said.

‘Esme, seriously, that’s enough,’ Laura murmured.

‘From what I have heard tonight,’ Ryan butted in, ‘I would say sainthood is not far away.’

The ladies all grinned back at him, knowing they had all successfully played their parts in the night’s hastily organised small play.

‘Will you be coming to see the musical?’ Esme asked.

‘You never know your luck,’ he responded with a wink, and with that the three grey-haired pirates left in a twitter, and he and Laura were again left alone in the room full of people.

‘So,’ he said.

‘So,’ she returned. ‘I’d better go after them. If I’m not there within a minute they’ll be back for shandies. And their husbands will all be onto me first thing in the morning complaining that the play is just a front for the Country Women’s Drinking Association.’

She reached over and grabbed her cooling apple pies, turned and walked away. It seemed their meeting was over.

‘Isn’t the Pirate King a male part as well as a singing part?’ he called out curiously, not yet wanting the encounter to end.

Laura spun on her knee-high black boots but kept walking away from him. ‘Not so many males in the Country Women’s Association,’ she explained.

‘Isn’t that discriminatory?’

‘So join!’ she said, throwing out her hands. ‘Be my guest. You can even take my part.’ She tore off the bandana and a mass of auburn curls spilled onto her shoulders. She fluttered the bandana towards him, and when he didn’t accept the offer she spun about and walked away.

‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’ Ryan warned.

‘I don’t doubt it,’ she called, as she waved the bandana over her shoulder and headed out of a side door, slamming it behind her.

Ryan stood staring into space. The image of those tight purple pants would take some time to dissolve from his memory. But all he had was time. For the first time in…for ever he had nothing planned: no jobs lined up, no reports to complete, only the final edits on the textbook with the complementary CD to turn in to his editor.

He slid back into the booth and nursed his now warm beer. Chatter and laughter from the other patrons filtered back into his awareness. And he was left…wanting.

The last sentence of Will’s e-mail to Sam came back to him.

…no matter how far away we all actually live from one another, we know that we are never really alone.

Had his brother really felt so alone in the great hustle and bustle of Melbourne? Had he needed his scattered family around him that much? And had living around these people really made all the difference?

Ryan remembered the last time he and Will had spoken, and tried to see if he had missed the signs of Will’s isolation even then…

Ryan’s hotel room phone rang. He was on his way to a black-tie function in the piazza in front of the Pantheon in Rome. He thought about not answering, but a quick glance at his watch showed he had time.

‘Ryan Gasper,’ he answered.

‘This is a collect call from Tandarah, Australia,’ the operator said in English, with a strong Italian accent.

‘I’ll accept,’ Ryan said, slumping down onto the side of his bed. ‘Will, is that you?’

‘Yeah.’ His little brother breathed out.

‘Excellent. So, are you coming? I’m off to Paris in three days, so I can just meet you there. My PA back in Melbourne is ready to book everything the second you say yes.’

‘Well, actually, bro,’ Will said, his voice so heavy and glum Ryan pretty much knew what was coming before he even spoke, ‘that’s what I was calling about. I’m not coming.’

Ryan rubbed his hand across suddenly tight eyes. ‘You can’t possibly tell me you’ve had a better offer.’

‘Actually, I have.’

For the briefest of moments Ryan’s heart skipped a beat. ‘You’ve taken the scholarship offer at Oxford?’

‘Umm, no. You see, there’s this girl…’

Ryan leapt off the bed and strode back and forth across the room, as far as the telephone cord would allow. ‘Will, do we have to have this conversation again? You don’t know how good you have it, kid. I don’t know how many more times any of us can stick our necks out for you. You can’t keep turning away the opportunities we have created for you.’

‘But, bro, this is an opportunity I have created for myself.’

‘Considering who you are, I would hazard a guess she is the opportunist in this scenario.’

‘That’s way harsh, bro, and so far off the mark it’s funny. Maybe you should give up the Paris thing and come visit me instead. Meet her. See this place. It’s phenomenal.’

‘Be serious.’

Will’s exasperation broke through. ‘God, you just don’t get it, do you? I can never be you! Out here I feel like I don’t have to be, either. I can be somebody new. Somebody I like.’

The red light on Ryan’s phone began to flash. His taxi was waiting downstairs. ‘Look, Will, I have to go. Just tell me you’re still considering Paris, okay?’

A deep heartfelt sigh wafted down the phone line. ‘Sure,’ Will said. ‘Okay.’

‘I’ll talk to you again in a couple of days, and by that time I hope to hear better news. Take care.’

Ryan hung up the phone, his whole body thrumming with frustration. It hurt so much that the kid was letting this time slip through his fingers. The last thing he wanted was for his little brother to look back on his wasted youth with regret. He should have been studying, travelling, networking, embracing the world—not some hick chick in the middle of the Outback.

He picked up his keys, slipped his wallet into the hidden pocket in his tuxedo jacket and left. Next week. Next week when he was in Paris he would call him back and try to talk some more sense into the kid.

Of course by that stage Will would probably be done with the whole farming dream. He would have become bored with the girl and decided to become a fire-stick twirler in Byron Bay.

Tremendous…

Coming back to the present, Ryan caught Jill’s eye at the bar and she came straight over.

‘Another beer?’ she asked.

He shook his head. ‘But there is something else you can do for me.’

She raised an eyebrow and waited.

‘Who is the local real-estate agent?’

‘That would be Cal Bunton.’

‘Let’s get Cal Bunton on the phone, then, shall we? Let him know I have some business I need to conduct. It has to be tonight, but I will make it worth his while.’