Читать книгу The Wedding Promise - Grace Green, Grace Green - Страница 8

CHAPTER TWO

SARA screamed.

Lost in daydreams and pampered to the chin in gardenia-scented bath bubbles, she had drifted off to sleep. Now, as the door crashed inwards, with her scream shrilling in her ears, she shot up to a sitting position. And with her heart in her mouth she stared with horrified disbelief and fast-rising panic at the figure in the doorway. She’d always felt nature had dealt her a generous hand in the courage department; now she felt terror squeeze that courage down to the size and consistency of a mini-marshmallow!

Logan Hunter.

Man on the prowl.

Naked man on the prowl!

No, not naked; he was wearing swimming trunks—but they were the same brown as his skin so her error had been understandable. She gulped back the lump that almost closed her throat. His black hair was dishevelled, his jaw dark-stubbled, and his eyes were fixed, with the blank look of a person hypnotised, on the foam frothing up over her breasts.

Sex. He wanted sex. He’d seen Zach leave and had lost no time in coming after her! The man was a raving maniac!

‘Get out!’ she shrieked. Snatching the heavy glass bottle of bubble beads from the rack at her elbow, she threw it wildly at him. She missed by a country mile. It smashed against the wall and clattered unbroken to the floor.

‘Get out,’ she screeched, ‘you nasty, disgusting old pervert—’ She scooped up the giant-sized cake of Heavenly Gardenia soap from the edge of the bath and rocketed it at his face. Her aim was atrocious, but he dodged, and the hard oval bar met his brow with a crack that made him wince.

‘Ouch!’ He staggered back a step. ‘Cut it out.’

To her dismay, she noticed that the bath bubbles had started to deflate. Frantically she threshed the dying suds with the flat of her hands in an attempt to revive them, but in vain. The water had cooled, and the bubbles only grew smaller and smaller, concealed her less and less...

With a quavering moan, she slid down as far as she could go without submerging herself fully, and prayed that the few remaining bubbles would continue to act as a veil.

‘I’ll drown myself!’ she moaned, splaying her hands over her breasts and almost throwing out her back as she twisted her crossed legs away from him. ‘I’ll drown myself, I swear, rather than give in to you and your wicked—’

‘Give in to me?’ His curse turned the air blue. ‘Lady, you’re out of your mind. I saw the boat leave and I merely came down to see what Zach Grant had left behind. What I certainly didn’t expect to find was...you.’ He crossed to the mirror above the sink, swiped a hand over the glass to clear the steam, and leaned forward to inspect his brow. ‘You just missed my eye,’ he accused. ‘Lucky for you—’ he turned ‘—or I’d have sued the pants off you...’

His gaze trailed from her face to her body, and he raised a cynical brow. ‘But I guess,’ he added mockingly, ‘they’re already off.’

Sara felt a sheet of heat skim from her neck to the tips of her toes. She had no idea how much of her was visible through the scanty remaining foam—but she’d have walked barefoot over white-hot coals rather than give this man the satisfaction of seeing her peek to check.

‘All right.’ She tilted her chin regally. ‘Please leave now. Your explanation and apology are accepted—’

‘Apology?’ he sputtered. ‘What apology? You’re the one who should be doing the apologising—’

A loud hammering on the front door stopped him short.

‘Hello?’ The voice was high-pitched, nervous, young. ‘Anyone in there? Is everything OK?’

Sara saw him roll his eyes.

‘My daughter!’ He raked a hand through his already mussed black hair, his expression that of an animal caught in a leghold trap. ‘Where angels fear to tread, she just barges in—’

‘Like father, like daughter!’ Sara’s courage had swelled up again, but too late to give her any feeling of pride or pleasure.

‘I guess.’ The faintest twinkle gleamed in his eyes.

Green eyes. Sara had noticed that when she’d first met him. Then, and moments ago, they’d been cold and hostile. Now, for the first time, she saw a glimmer of warmth, and it kindled an odd spark of excitement deep inside her.

‘For God’s sake—’ his voice was hoarse ‘—don’t tell her about this. I’ll never hear the end of it.’

Without waiting for an answer, he wheeled away, slamming the bathroom door behind him.

Sara slumped, boneless as a drunken jellyfish. Her body trembled; her heart trembled. If that confrontation was a portent of the kind of holiday that lay ahead, perhaps it would indeed have been better if Zach had rented her a de luxe condo in a busy holiday resort...

‘What happened, Dad?’ The girl’s voice drifted into the bathroom through the open window as father and daughter walked along the side of the cottage. ‘I heard the scream and I ran to your room to see if you had too, but you weren’t there, so I guessed you must have come down to investigate.’

Sara held her breath, curious to hear Logan’s answer.

‘It was nothing, sweetie. Zach Grant’s gone—his girlfriend’s here on her own, and apparently when she was in the bathroom she saw a... mouse.’

The voices faded, and once again Sara relaxed.

A mouse. No, Mr Logan, she disdainfully corrected him, what I saw in my bathroom was certainly not a mouse.

It looked much more like a rat.

‘After we finish breakfast, I’m going to start clearing out your mother’s things from the master bedroom.’ Logan watched his daughter carefully from across the verandah table, alert to any sign of distress. ‘Care to help?’

Andy’s huge brown eyes gave nothing away as they met his. ‘No, that’s OK, Dad. You should probably do it on your own. I’ll start packing up the books in the den. Where are the boxes?’

‘Should be a bunch up in the attic. We’ll get them later.’

Andy nodded and, bending her head over her bowl, dug her spoon into her cereal.

Logan felt a wave of weariness wash over him. Andy was a real trooper and he was so proud of her he sometimes could hardly contain it...but he wished new, as he so often did, that she weren’t so adept at keeping her emotions under control. Apart from an outburst of hysterical sobbing when her mother had died, she’d never let go. Not once. At least, not in front of him. If she cried, she cried alone.

In the beginning, he’d tried to talk to her about her Mom, but in the end had given up. She was as closed as a clam. It would have helped her, he felt sure, if they could have shared their sorrow. And it would have helped him too.

Another problem was that everybody they knew avoided talking about Bethany. They probably thought they were being kind, but it would have been more natural to remember her aloud, to recall all the wonderful things about her.

Sometimes it seemed to him as if his beloved wife had never existed...except in his own life.

‘That was a big sigh, Dad,’ Andy murmured. ‘What’s up?’

‘Oh...it’s...’ he searched his brain for an answer that would satisfy her ‘...um...just that woman in the cottage, sweetie—I want you to keep away from her.’

He got up from the table and, shoving his hands into his pockets, looked down at his daughter. Her hair was damp from her shower, and the sun caught copper highlights in the ragged strands. His heart ached as he remembered how Bethany’s long brown hair had glinted in just such a way...

‘Why, Dad?’

‘Why what?’

Andy uttered a sound of exasperation. ‘Why must I keep away from “that woman”?’

She said ‘that woman’ in a tone of dark melodrama, which Logan chose to ignore. ‘Because, daughter mine, rightly or wrongly, society judges people by the company they keep. I want you to stick with people whose values are the same as your own. A good reputation’s worth its weight in gold—and it’s something you can lose only once.’

‘Kind of like virginity, right, Dad?’

Logan cleared his throat, and busied himself with gathering up his dishes. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Darned right.’

A feeling of helplessness and inadequacy almost swamped him. He was no good at this; he was clumsy, awkward—or, to use Andy’s latest expression of derision, ‘pathetic’.

She needed a mother, especially at this stage in her life, where she was herself on the threshold of womanhood. And he did intend to take himself another wife...but only because of his promise to Bethany.

Just the memory of it broke his heart.

‘Darling,’ she’d whispered as she’d lain dying in the stark white hospital bed, ‘promise me you’ll marry again.’ Her voice had caught. ‘I couldn’t bear it if I thought you’d go through the rest of your life grieving...’

He’d have promised her the moon if he’d thought it would give her a moment’s respite from her suffering.

‘I promise—’ the lump in his throat had almost choked him ‘—if that’s what you want, I’ll marry again...’

And the promise had been worth it, to see the quick shine of relief in her dulled eyes, to feel the tiny surge of strength in the fragile fingers clutching his.

He’d had to turn away to hide his tears.

Five years had passed since he’d made that promise.

Five long years, and his failure to honour it weighed on him more heavily with each passing day.

No more.

He’d sworn to himself that this summer he’d find himself a wife.

She’d have to be someone Andy liked.

She’d have to be someone he himself found compatible.

She’d have to be someone sensible. Someone with no frilly romantic notions. Someone willing to enter into a marriage of convenience.

He felt a dark cloud of despair settle over him as he carried his dishes into the house.

Where the hell would he find somebody like that?

Marriage to Travis Wynter had stifled Sara’s creativity. Had all but killed it.

It hadn’t happened straight away, but it had started to happen soon after the honeymoon.

Unhappy memories flowed into Sara’s mind as she tugged the last item from her travel bag—an elegant silk and rayon sweater of turquoise and silver, with the trademark Sally Cole label hand-sewn inside the back neckline.

Her label.

Her design.

Her pride.

She sighed, and ran a gentle hand over the soft fabric. Her marriage had been a mistake; she and Travis had been totally wrong for each other. His possessiveness, the way he’d treated her like an item in his collection of beautiful artifacts...well, that had been one thing... but his dismissal of her talent had been another.

Travis was an accountant; he saw life in terms of facts and figures. His favourite expression was ‘the bottom line’. And she’d discovered, to her dismay, that where their marriage was concerned ‘the bottom line’ was that he expected her to run his home the way he ran his business: efficiently and economically. He’d seen no reason to hire a housekeeper when he had a wife. He’d entertained clients at home on a regular basis, and on those occasions he’d expected her to cook the meal, serve it, and be the perfect hostess. And he’d expected the enormous Wynter house, in Vancouver’s glitziest suburb, to be kept in immaculate condition.

If he’d seen as much as one mote of dust on the furniture, his disapproval had been swift and harsh.

‘For God’s sake, Sara, what do you do all day? All I ask is that you keep house and provide meals for my clients. Make them feel special. How special do you think they feel when they see you haven’t even dusted the damned coffee table before they turned up? This is business—’

‘But my designs, my knitwear—that’s business too,’ she’d protested vigorously in the beginning. ‘I’m not going to give it up!’

‘Nobody’s asking you to give it up. Just for God’s sake get things in perspective. Could we survive on the income from your little sweaters? I think not. The bottom line is, I’m the breadwinner here. If you want to draw and knit, go ahead. But after everything else gets done, mmm?’

His business had been prospering by leaps and bounds, and before very long Sara had found, wearily, that there was no ‘after’. And even if there had been his cold dismissal of her work had shrivelled something inside her.

Life with Travis Wynter had allowed no room for that soaring of the spirit that she needed if she were to create.

She’d wondered, sometimes—and still wondered—if he had not only stifled her creativity, but had killed it.

Inhaling a deep breath, she rose from the bed and slung the lightweight sweater over her shoulders. On her way to the bedroom door, she paused as a movement outside the window caught her attention.

It was the girl from the white house—Logan Hunter’s daughter. She was running down the sloping lawn, towards the cottage.

What could she want?

Sara walked along the narrow passageway to the front door, and opened it. The girl was now just a few feet away, coming up the path. She stopped abruptly when she saw Sara.

‘His,’ Sara greeted her, and thought, What a lovely child...huge brown eyes, smooth clear skin, neat little figure...but oh, that hair! ‘Were you looking for me?’

The girl’s cheeks had turned pink, and she seemed on the point of flight.

‘I was up in the attic,’ she said in a rush, ‘looking for boxes...for packing...and I found this.’

‘This’ was a mouse trap! Somehow Sara managed to keep her face straight. ‘Just what I need!’ She took the trap, gave a dainty shiver. ‘I’m such a coward when it comes to mice. A lion, now...if I saw one of those in the bathroom, I’d just grab a back scrubber and attack with gusto!’

The girl giggled. ‘Oh, yeah, sure...’

‘Would you like to come in...have a cup of coffee?’

‘I don’t drink coffee.’

‘Iced tea, then, or a pop?’

‘No, thanks.’ Her gaze trailed wistfully over Sara’s sweater. ‘That’s a Sally Cole original, isn’t it? They’re way cool...my friend Chrissie’s mom has one; she bought it years ago but she says you can’t get them any more.’ She sighed. ‘Well, I’d better get back...’

‘Ah, yes, the packing.’

‘We’re going to sell. The house and the cottage. Everything. My dad’s putting the property up for sale.’

‘I guess you’re in a hurry to go back and help him, then. Many hands make light work, don’t they say?’

‘Well, he’s upstairs and I’m not actually helping him this morning. He’s clearing out Mom’s things—I thought he’d want to do that on his own.’

A chill prickled Sara’s nape as she heard the catch in the young voice, saw the quickly blinked-back tears in the luminous brown eyes. She wanted to reach out to the child, but without warning the slight figure whirled away and ran off, taking a short cut over an overgrown rosebed. To Sara’s horror, she tripped on a tangled root, and fell forward, to land in a crumpled heap on the ground.

Sara rushed to help her get up, but as the girl put her weight on her right foot she winced and grabbed onto Sara for support.

‘I’ve done something to my ankle,’ she said with a half-sob. ‘It really hurts.’

‘Come inside and—’

‘Thanks...but I’d rather go home. Will you help me walk back? I don’t think I can do it on my own.’

‘Of course. Here, put your arm around my neck.’ Sara grimaced. ‘I haven’t even asked you your name,’ she said as she braced herself to support the slender figure.

‘It’s Andrea. Andrea Beth Hunter.’

‘Andrea. That’s pretty. I’m Sara Wynter.’

‘Miss Wynter, I—’

‘It’s Mrs Wynter, actually, but please call me Sara.’

They started up towards the house, with Andrea hopping erratically on her left leg, and leaning heavily on Sara.

‘Mrs Wynter, I...um...saw you with Zach Grant.’

Sara hid a smile as she heard the wistful note in Andrea’s voice. So... a fan. ‘Yes, he brought me here. I wish he could’ve stayed longer, but he’s—’

‘He’s filming in Vancouver. I know. My friend Chrissie and I—we’re members of his fan club. Will he...be coming back?’

‘He’ll be coming to pick me up in a couple of weeks. Then shortly after he’ll be returning to Los Angeles. He lives there...but of course—’ Sara smiled ‘—you’ll already know that.’

She was heading for the front door, but Andrea said, ‘Let’s use the side door. I don’t want Dad to hear me come in...if he sees me hopping like this...well, he’s a regular old fusspot!’

‘But you’ll have to tell him about your ankle—’

‘Oh, I will. But first I’ll put an ice pack on it. There’s a bag of green peas in the freezer; I’ll use that.’

On reaching the side door, Sara tugged it open, and they entered what turned out to be a small sitting room.

‘The kitchen’s across the hall from here,’ Andrea said.

Sara noticed her face had become very white. ‘Come sit down on this sofa and put your leg up while I get the ice.’

After a token protest, Andrea allowed herself to be helped onto the sofa, where she lay back, her eyes closed. ‘There’s a bottle of aspirin in one of the drawers,’ she said huskily. ‘Could you bring me a couple?’

‘Of course.’

From above came the sound of someone moving about.

‘That’s Dad,’ Andrea offered with a weak gesture of one hand. ‘He’s packing in the master bedroom. Like I said...’ Her voice trailed away.

Sara hurried to the kitchen, and found the bag of peas in the freezer section of the fridge. Locating the aspirin wasn’t so easy. She pulled out drawer after drawer, riffled through the tidy contents of each one, and had reached the last, in a cabinet at the far end of the kitchen, when she heard Logan Hunter’s voice come from the doorway behind her.

‘What the hell,’ he said in a tone of quiet menace, ‘are you doing in my house?’

She put a hand to her throat as she swivelled round, and threw him a shaky smile. ‘You startled me! I’m just looking for—’

‘What you’re looking for, and what you’re going to get, lady, is trouble. You’ll find nothing else here. I don’t keep money stashed in the kitchen, and if you’re looking for drugs in that medicine cabinet you’ve come to the wrong place—’

‘Daddy!’ Horror filled the voice that came from behind Logan. ‘Don’t! Mrs Wynter came to help me—’

Sara looked beyond Logan as he spun round, and saw Andy hopping along the carpeted hallway in her bare feet, bracing her hand against the wall with each jerky hop.

‘Andy? What the—?’ Logan sounded shocked.

‘I fell, Dad, and twisted my ankle, or sprained it or something. I had to ask Mrs Wynter to help me back to the house, and then she offered to get me an ice bag and some aspirin.’ Face ashen, Andrea started to slump, and would have slid to the floor if her father hadn’t moved fast.

He scooped her up in his arms and, muttering under his breath, took off with her in the direction of the small sitting room, leaving Sara standing alone in the kitchen, feeling limp as a wet rag herself.

Her hand shook as she put the aspirin bottle on the countertop. It shook as she set down the frozen peas beside the aspirin. And by the time she had poured a glass of cold water from the tap, and placed it by the peas, her whole body was trembling.

The man, she decided with a rising tide of anger, was an ogre...and he certainty didn’t deserve to have a daughter as sweet as Andrea.

She hoped the child was going to be all right.

But, either way, she herself was going to avoid both father and daughter, for the rest of her time on the island.

And if that turned out to be impossible she’d place a call to Zach and ask him to come back early and pick her up.

No way would her creative juices ever have a chance to start flowing again as long as Logan Hunter was around.

The thought added fuel to her anger, and resentment burned to her very bones as she let herself out by the kitchen door and stomped back down the hill to the cottage.