by Penny Jordan
The condescension of his tone infuriated Kate. Before she stopped to think she said bitterly, ‘You seem to think it amusing that women should want to protect themselves and their families from the effects of a nuclear holocaust!’
‘Oh, come on, a bunch of hysterical females banding together and kicking up a fuss…’
Kate was about to respond, when Jake said steelily, ‘We’re not involved in a debate on the pros and cons of nuclear disarmament right now, we’re talking about the safety standards in existence at this plant. I for one have a busy schedule ahead of me, and don’t intend to waste my time here discussing irrelevant matter.’
Irrelevant matter! Kate’s chest heaved. It might be irrelevant as far as he was concerned, but that irrelevant matter had after all been the cause of their break-up. Had it? a tiny inner voice demanded. Was she being entirely truthful with herself? There was a brief knock on the door and the receptionist and another girl came in with cups of coffee. Kate couldn’t help noticing the warm smile the pretty brunette gave Jake, and her treacherous heart thudded in almost physical agony. Surely she wasn’t jealous?
‘I really admire you for what you’re doing here, Jake,’ Kevin announced when the formal business of the meeting was over and they were all gathered in small groups round the room. ‘Your predecessor wasn’t half as co-operative…’
‘The health and safety of the workforce is as much my concern as the smooth running of the station,’ Jake told him. ‘I personally do not believe that increased efficiency or extra output can be achieved at the cost of endangering human lives. We’re dealing with a very potent force here, and I believe it pays to be extra cautious.’
‘How noble,’ Kate mocked him tauntingly when Kevin had excused himself to go and talk to the resident nursing Sister about the improvements Jake was making to the medical centre. ‘I don’t remember you having this humane attitude when you worked at Carlton.’
‘Perhaps because you never actually bothered to ask me anything about my work when I was stationed there,’ Jake told her explosively. His voice was even, but the tiny muscle flickering in his jaw betrayed him; that and the grim light shining warningly from his eyes. ‘If you had done so I could have told you that my work was primarily on the effects of a nuclear explosion; not the prompting of one. Governments aren’t, in the main, foolish children, you know, Kate. They’re just as aware as you of the potential devastation—possibly more so, but you won’t see, will you, that disarming equates with leaving ourselves completely without protection against nuclear aggression.’
‘You mean, I’ll bomb you if you try to bomb me? I don’t agree,’ Kate responded heatedly, but somewhere inside her was the niggling suspicion that what he said held a grain of truth. Would a world power that didn’t shrink from using violence against its own subjects really be capable of sticking to any disarmament agreement, and if it didn’t how long would it be before the temptation to use its own warheads against an undefended nation proved too much? She was allowing the sophistication of Jake’s arguments to sway her, she thought weakly, but before she could argue further, another man had come to join them, his expression curious as he said, ‘I hope I’m not interrupting anything important?’
‘Only World War Three,’ Jake offered laconically, turning his attention to the newcomer. ‘I just wanted to say how much I admired you for admitting your doubts about your own safety standards,’ he offered. ‘It was a brave thing to do.’
‘Perhaps more foolhardy than brave,’ Jake smiled wryly, ‘but I don’t believe in trying to fudge the truth. In the long run it gains nothing. What I’m concerned with now is for us to work together to make sure that in future the safety standards aren’t just met, but could possibly be bettered.’
Kate slipped away while they were still talking. Her head had suddenly started to pound; a result of her altercation with Jake, or was it the confusion of her own thoughts, suddenly nowhere near as clear as they had previously been? She had embraced the cause of disarmament with a fervour that now unnerved her, because it smacked too much of the fanatical. Nothing would convince her that she was wrong about the potential danger of nuclear missiles and she still firmly believed in multilateral disarmament, but she was becoming increasingly doubtful about whether that could be enforced. Her very choice of the word ‘enforced’ brought its own conclusions, and unknowingly a sigh escaped her half parted lips.
‘Tired?’ Kevin asked sympathetically, ‘We’ll be going soon.’
‘There’s no need for you to take Kate, Kevin,’ Jake said smoothly, somehow materialising at their side, his arm resting lightly but oh so possessively against her waist. ‘She’s coming home with me.’
‘Why did you say that?’ Kate hissed at him ten minutes later when the meeting had come to an abrupt and unexpected halt. They were alone in the conference room, but her cheeks still burned from the glances she had received as the others had left. Much as she had wanted to defy Jake, it had been impossible to do so without causing further speculation as to their relationship, and she was bitterly angry about what she saw as a completely irresponsible action on his part.
‘You must know what everyone thought,’ she added, not waiting for him to respond.
‘Must I?’ he interrupted lazily. ‘Suppose you tell me?’
‘They think that we’re lovers,’ Kate replied recklessly, ‘thanks to Rita. And you’ve only made it worse, can’t you see that?’
‘Does it matter?’ He was busily picking up his papers and carried them through into his own room so that she was obliged to follow him or remain talking to herself.
‘Of course it matters—at least to me,’ she ground out, almost beside herself with rage. ‘Woolerton is my home now… I’ve built a life here; it’s a country community, and…’
‘And you’ve now been branded a scarlet woman.’ Jake was actually daring to grin at her. ‘Well, you know the remedy, don’t you?’ His eyebrows rose in mock disbelief when she stared furiously at him. ‘Come on, Kate,’ he said softly, ‘there’s no reason why I shouldn’t make love with my wife, is there?’ He raised her left hand to his lips, kissing her palm slowly, making her go limp with heated desire. ‘All you have to do is announce that we’re married and voilà, the scarlet lady is pure and unsullied once more…I don’t know why you’re getting so worked up about this,’ he added coolly, ‘after all, we’ve been separated for two years…’ He let the sentence trail away into silence, waiting for her response.
‘You might have had a constant stream of bedmates through your life since we split up, Jake,’ she retorted hotly, ‘but I…’ Just in time she stopped, realising the unstable ground she was on, but Jake was too quick for her.
‘Yes?’ he pressed silkily. ‘You?’ When there was no response he demanded huskily, ‘Are you trying to tell me that there’s been no one since we…’
He swore suddenly as the phone on his desk buzzed, reaching for the receiver with a savagely controlled gesture that underlined his fury at the interruption. Feeling rather like a prisoner suddenly released from being cross-questioned, Kate turned limply to the window. Why must it always be like this when they met? Why couldn’t they meet as adults instead of antagonists? She could hear Jake speaking into the receiver, short clipped sentences, and she shivered, remembering the anticipatory gleam in his eyes when he questioned her. How he would gloat if he knew the truth; that he was the only lover she had ever had—and the only one she ever wanted! Stunned by the enormity of the admission, she stood rigidly in front of the window. What was she thinking? She started to tremble, unaware that Jake had concluded his call and replaced the receiver until she felt the pressure of his presence at her back. She turned round slowly, compelling tense muscles to move. Just for a second his face reflected her feelings, as though he too felt acutely tired and defeated by their constant arguments; their inability to treat one another as strangers.
‘It’s getting late, and I’m tired. I’ll drive you home.’ She wanted to protest, but he s
ilenced her with a small imperative movement of his hand.
‘No, no more tonight Kate. I’m really not in the mood. Do you know what I really want right at this minute?’ he demanded huskily, continuing when she didn’t speak. ‘I want to go home to a woman who welcomes instead of rejecting me; who renews me instead of draining me; who wants to love me, not fight me.’
‘You want to go home to Rita,’ Kate suggested, wondering why her throat should suddenly feel as though someone had tied a tight band round it.
Jake shook his head emphatically. ‘No, Rita’s a taker; as hard as nails and completely without compassion or true femininity; not the sort of femininity you’re thinking of, Kate, but the sort that all men dream of and hunger after; a well-spring of love and compassion that accepts men as they are and loves them for it, not in spite of it. Oh, for God’s sake, what am I saying?’ he muttered wearily. ‘You wouldn’t have the faintest idea what I’m talking about, you never did have.’
It was as though someone had suddenly punched a giant fist into her heart. For a moment she thought it had stopped beating, so great was the pain and distress. Never once in the past had he indicated that he felt like this, and she felt as though suddenly the man she thought she knew had revealed a completely unfamiliar side of himself, a side he had kept deliberately hidden from her because he hadn’t loved her enough to share it with her. What did she mean, ‘enough’? Kate asked herself sardonically. He hadn’t loved her, full stop. Reminding herself of that was the only way she managed to endure the drive back to Woolerton; that and knowing that the only reason he was giving her a lift was to reinforce the humiliating impression that they were lovers.
When he stopped the car outside the shop she thanked him carefully and got out slowly as though she was afraid she was going to fall in pieces if she moved too abruptly and that was exactly how she felt, fragile and far too vulnerable. And why? Because she still desired a man who didn’t love her? Oh no, even she wasn’t that much of a fool. It was because she still loved a man who didn’t love her, and just how much of her defiance and anger against him stemmed not from his job and their conflicting views on it, but from the fact that he had never returned her love, she couldn’t even bring herself to think about right now.
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘UMM, I LOVE that dress, and it really suits you,’ Meg commented when Kate stepped into the living room. It was Christmas Eve and Meg was waiting for Matt to come and collect her. Kate was due at the Christmas Eve party and had elected to drive herself knowing that Kevin, who had offered to call for her, could well be called out. She was wearing the same black Calvin Klein dress she had worn for Kevin’s dinner party, a double strand of pearls fastened with a pretty antique knot encircling a sapphire her only jewellery.
The sapphire picked out the deeply intense blue of her eyes, which already looked huge and dark in the pale framework of her face. ‘You’ve been losing weight,’ Meg told her almost accusatorily. ‘Kate, it’s none of my business, but…’ She broke off as the doorbell rang, and Matt’s entrance put an end to what she had been about to say. When she had waved them both off Kate felt weakly grateful for his opportune arrival. She wasn’t in the mood for discussing her feelings—even with Meg. Her eyes went to the fireplace where an ornate card painted on silk bore Lyla’s signature. She had also sent a very generous cheque, and ominously, for the first time since their break-up, her correspondence carried no reference to Jake. Did Lyla know that he was here in the Dales?
Gnawing thoughtfully on her bottom lip, Kate slipped on her fox jacket, and checking that she’d got her keys hurried out to her small car. She wasn’t going to let herself dwell on how empty the small building seemed; how un-Christmassy, despite the pretty tree she had spent all afternoon decorating. Her fridge was full of festive foods, she had collected the small turkey she would be sharing with Sarah tomorrow, and yet for all her preparations she was conscious of dreading the actual dawning of Christmas morning, dreading the entire Christmas period, in fact. But why? She had already endured two Christmasses without Jake, why should this third one affect her so deeply? Not simply because he was there, surely? No, it wasn’t that, she admitted on an inward sigh. It was because she had finally been forced to admit how much she still loved him. Her life wasn’t complete without him, and to spend Christmas, of all seasons, apart from him, seemed unbearably poignant.
Her car started first time, much to her relief. It had been giving her trouble recently, and she made a mental note to get it booked in for a service. The day had been cold, but bright, three frosty nights in succession hardening the ground to iron and coating the bare branches of the village trees with silver. Now the moon and stars were obliterated by cloud which must have drifted in during the late afternoon, and as she headed out of the village in the direction of the Crabtrees’ Kate realised that it had started to snow. A huge lump rose in her throat; how often as a child had she longed for a white Christmas, for a huge family to spend it with? Her emotions seemed dangerously close to the surface this evening, tears and laughter both not far away, and she wished beyond anything else that Jake wasn’t joining the Crabtrees’ party.
Several cars already lined the semi-circular drive in front of the house when she arrived. The snow was beginning to carpet the gravel, and fleck the grass, and the occupants of the car which had pulled up behind her caught up with her halfway to the house, one of them commenting cheerfully, ‘Looks like we’re in for a white Christmas. Too late to cancel the bikes we’ve bought our kids in favour of toboggans, though.’
They arrived at the front door together, and Kate was relieved to be swallowed up in the general confusion of greetings. She left her coat in the small downstairs cloakroom and made her way into the Crabtrees’ pleasant drawing room. Alan was circulating the room offering sherry, and Kate accepted one, more because it gave her something to do with her hands while she carefully searched the room like a nervous animal wanting to ascertain the whereabouts of its hunter. She spotted him eventually in a corner with Rita and another couple, and unconsciously heaved a faint sigh of relief, quickly overridden by a surge of jealousy so powerful that she wasn’t even aware of Kevin’s approach until he said anxiously, ‘Kate, are you all right, you look quite pale?’
‘Fine,’ she assured him brittlely.
He didn’t look convinced. ‘Umm. You’re losing weight and you look tired.’ He studied her professionally for a few seconds, and on an irrational spurt of anger, Kate demanded curtly, ‘So, what’s your diagnosis, doctor?’
‘Prickly, too!’ he commented with a smile. ‘It’s either overwork,’ he teased with another smile, ‘or you’ve fallen in love.’ He saw her pale and apologised immediately, concern registering in the warm brown eyes as he tried to make amends. ‘Kate, I’m so sorry. That was thoughtless of me, and…’
‘True,’ Kate supplied, grimacing. She saw Kevin glance from her pale face to Jake’s profile as he bent to listen to something Rita was saying to him, her fingers clutching the sleeve of his suit. ‘Oh, I know I’m acting like a teenager deep in the throes of her first crush,’ she told him wryly. ‘I just hope no one else spots it as easily as you did.’
‘I shouldn’t think so.’ His eyes were kind as well as sad. ‘Love gives its own power of intuition.’ It was his turn to grimace. ‘I’m sorry, Kate, forget I said that, will you? It must be Alan’s excellent sherry.’
Tears blurred her eyes, and she opened her bag, searching feverishly for a tissue. What on earth was the matter with her tonight?
‘Kate?’ Kevin saw the telltale moisture and swore softly under his breath. ‘Oh, love, I’m so sorry… come on, no one will miss us if we disappear on to the terrace for a few minutes.’
Holding her arm, he manoeuvred a way for them through the throng, the french windows opening easily as he turned the handle. Outside, snow just covered the flagged terrace where in summer the Crabtrees often gave alfresco lunch parties. As Kate knew, the view from the terrace was magnificent, but
tonight all that could be seen were the outlines of a few bare trees, sprinkled with snow and the edge of the stone parapet round the terrace.
The sounds of the party disappeared behind them as Kevin closed the doors. He glanced doubtfully at one of the wrought iron chairs, frosted with snow. ‘I shouldn’t have brought you out here, you’ll freeze. Here…’ He started to remove his jacket, but Kate shook her head.
‘No, I’m all right. And thanks for the rescue operation. I don’t know what’s the matter with me tonight—one moment I feel like laughing, the next I’m on the verge of tears. I think it must be my hormones, doctor,’ she began in a brave attempt at humour, but Kevin shook his head decisively.
‘No,’ he said softly, ‘it’s just plain, simple old love. You’re in love with Jake, aren’t you, Kate?’
She had already admitted it to herself, so what was the point in denying it? ‘Yes,’ she agreed bleakly.
‘I won’t offer you the usual platitudes. All I will say is that he’s a fool for not…’
‘Loving me in return?’ Kate’s mouth twisted sadly. ‘Life would be so easy if we could all love to order, wouldn’t it?’
She started to shiver and Kevin said solicitously, ‘You’re cold, we’d better go back in. Do you feel better now?’
‘Much,’ she assured him. The cold air at first so invigorating was now chilling her to the bone. Her tears like her heart seemed locked in ice, and cold as she was she dreaded the return to the drawing room and a warmth which would threaten to dissolve that ice causing her to be born again to pain and anguish. ‘You go inside, Kevin,’ she begged softly. ‘I’m okay, I just want a few minutes to myself. I’ll be perfectly safe out here.’
He glanced doubtfully at her but didn’t argue, and when she heard the french windows close behind him she released a pent-up breath of relief. How unfair the world was! She was hurting because she loved Jake and he didn’t love her. She walked towards the balustrade, leaning against the stone, careless of its coldness and the snow melting beneath her hands. As she gazed out into the night the snow continued to fall, white flakes descending slowly to earth, melting when they touched her face. She tasted one with her tongue and felt it melt, absorbed in the wonder of these tiny, fragile pieces of matter which seemed too vulnerable but which when massed together represented a formidable natural force which could and did defy all the technology of man.