Starting Over

by Penny Jordan

  'Come in,' she invited him. 'I was just about to make some coffee.'

  Saul wasn't looking forward to what he had to do and Olivia's uninhibited pleasure at seeing him made him feel even worse.

  He waited until she had made them both a drink before starting to speak.

  'Livvy, there isn't any easy way to do this,' he began quietly whilst Olivia's heart turned over at the ominous tone of his voice.

  'What is it? What's happened? Caspar...' she demanded and then stopped, her face flushing as she realised from Saul's surprised expression just how wrong and revealing her reaction was.

  'No. This doesn't have anything to do with Caspar,'

  Saul denied.

  He took a deep breath.

  'It's David—your father...'

  For a moment it felt as though everything stood still.

  The shock and pain that then rushed over her were confusing and unexpected.

  'He's had another heart attack,' she guessed.

  'No. No, it's nothing like that.' Saul cursed inwardly. He was making a complete mess of this.

  Putting down his coffee he reached across the table and took both of Olivia's hands in his. His grasp felt warm and reassuring. Comforting... The touch of a friend, Olivia recognised ruefully but quite definitely not that of a would-be lover.

  'He and Honor are expecting a child.'

  There, it was out. He had said it.

  'What?'

  The shocked look of white-faced disbelief Olivia was giving him was every bit as bad as the reaction Saul had dreaded.

  'Honor is pregnant.... I can't believe it....' Olivia protested, wrenching her hands out of Saul's grip and standing up to pace the kitchen angrily. 'I can't believe she would be stupid enough to have a child with him knowing the way he treated me and Jack.'

  'People change, Livvy,' Saul told her as gently as he could even though his heart was going out to her for the pain he could see in her eyes.

  'People change.' The blank look on Olivia's face worried him. 'You mean my father's pleased about this baby.... Is that what you're trying to tell me?'

  Saul wished he was anywhere but where he was.

  'From what Tullah overheard him telling Jon—yes, he is,' he was forced to admit.

  'He couldn't have cared less about me and Jack. He couldn't be bothered with us. We meant nothing to him—nothing at all,' Olivia raged.

  So that was why her father had wanted to speak to her.... Not to try to persuade her to allow him into her life and the lives of her daughters, but no doubt to tell her that he didn't need them now...now that he was going to have another child of his own...a child he wanted...a child he would love.

  'Honor's planning to announce her pregnancy to the family at the weekend. She's inviting everyone round.

  Tullah happened to overhear David telling Jon about it at work and she felt...we both felt...'

  The look in her eyes made him ache with sadness for her. What she was feeling had to be compounded by the breakdown of her marriage but Saul knew there was no real comfort he could give her.

  'If we've done the wrong thing...' he told her gently.

  Olivia shook her head.

  'No. No you haven't...I'm grateful to Tullah for sending you to tell me, Saul. It's just...I never thought... When I was a little girl, I wanted so much for him to love me,' she told him, her voice empty of expression. 'I wanted that so much, almost as much as I wanted him and Ma to be happy together, to be normal parents like Jon and Jenny... I wanted that so badly...and I used to feel that I was to blame in some way because they weren't...that it was my fault...'

  'Livvy...' Saul protested, his own voice thickening with emotion.

  'I'm sorry,' Olivia apologised. 'You can't want to hear any of this.'

  'You can talk to me any time, but I can't stay any longer just at the moment,' Saul told her regretfully.

  'Will you be okay?'

  The brittle smile she gave him tore at his heart.

  'Yes. Yes, of course I will,' Olivia told him.

  As he went to hug her she stepped back. For a moment Saul hesitated and then turned and headed for the door.

  Olivia waited until she was sure he had gone before allowing the emotion racking her to have its head, her whole body convulsed by uncontrollable shudders of anguish.

  Honor was expecting her father's child. Her father was going to be a father to someone else. Well she just hoped for the baby's sake that she wasn't a girl, Olivia reflected bitterly.

  Once the baby arrived Honor would soon see David in his true colours and so would everyone else. Her father had no right to subject yet another child to the misery and lack of love she and Jack had experienced.

  But what if this time things were to be different...?

  What if her father were to follow in the path of so many second time around fathers and absolutely adore the progeny of his middle age?

  A cold shudder shook Olivia's body. What was the matter with her? Why should she care how her father behaved? He was nothing to her any more. Nothing!

  Panic. Pain. Fear, abhorrence of her own emotions as well as a furious anger against her father consumed her, refusing to allow her to concentrate on anything else. If Caspar had been here... Caspar... Why on earth was she thinking about him?

  CASPAR GRIMACED as he answered the sharp summons of his mobile phone. Just for a second he had hoped...thought...that perhaps it might be Olivia. He had lost count of the number of times he had been tempted to call her. He ached for the sound of the girls' voices...and for Olivia's.... Grimly he reminded himself of all the reasons their marriage had started to fall apart, the most destructive of which was the fact that Olivia was totally and completely hooked up in her memories of her childhood and that she refused to either let them go or acknowledge how destructive they were.

  Sure, he understood that she had had a bad time.

  He hadn't had the best of childhoods himself, but they were adults now and hell, he had hated and resented the way Olivia had picked on everything she considered he was doing wrong and made a link between it and her father's behaviour as though somehow they were one and the same.

  "Scuse me, are you going to be staying in this parking space long? It is reserved for medical staff at the centre and I do happen to have clients waiting to see me....' The sharp crispening of the soft female voice as its owner reached the end of her sentence alerted Caspar to his transgression.

  'I'm sorry,' he apologised adding truthfully, 'I didn't realise I was in a reserved space. In fact, I only stopped because my mobile was ringing.'

  As he turned to look properly at the woman whose battered station wagon was now blocking his own exit his eyes widened appreciatively. She was every red-blooded male's dream of perfect American woman-hood and then some. Tall, slim but with all the right kind of curves in the right kind of places. Honey-blonde hair, widely spaced dark-blue eyes, a voluptuously full soft pink mouth.

  Dressed casually in jeans and a check shirt she looked about eighteen at first glance but Caspar guessed from her demeanour that she had to be quite a lot older.

  'I'll be out of your way just as soon as you can reverse to let me pass,' he told her.

  'Okay... I can tell from your accent that you're a stranger in town and I guess that the reserved markings aren't too clear, but that doesn't let you off the hook altogether,' she told him severely. 'It says as plain as day over there that this is a medical centre....'

  Ruefully Caspar saw that she was right.

  'I really am sorry,' he apologised again. She wasn't wearing any kind of uniform and he wondered just what she did.

  'You work here, right?' he asked encouragingly.

  'Right,' she told him, giving him a cool look. 'I do work here but I don't pick up strange men, even if they do ride Harley-Davidson motorbikes....'

  Caspar couldn't resist it, a wide grin illuminated his face as he teased her, 'No, but surely that's your job if you work here...picking up strangers, nursing them, doctoring t
hem....'

  'I'm a counsellor...a psychiatrist...not a medic,'

  she responded crisply. 'And since it looks as though you could do with a bit of free advice, let me tell you that that kind of line just doesn't cut it with today's woman.'

  'No? Then what does?' Caspar asked her softly. He couldn't remember when he had last enjoyed himself so much, when he had last felt so alive, so much a man...so challenged and yes, downright excited in a very basic and totally male way by a woman who wasn't Olivia. Appreciatively he watched the delicious sway of her hips as she walked determinedly away from him and towards her car without dignifying his comment with a response.

  Well, what had he expected? She was right not to respond to him. The world was full of potentially very dangerous men and it made good sense for her to be cautious.

  She was in her car now and trying to start it. Trying to start it... Caspar frowned as he recognised from the dull whine he could hear that there was no way the station wagon was going to start without the aid of a mechanic and a new starter motor.

  He watched as the station wagon door opened and she got back out. It was hard for him to repress his totally male smile as she clasped her hands together and told him with obvious irritation and embarrassment, 'It won't start. I'm going to have to call the garage and arrange for a tow.'

  'How long is that going to take?' Caspar demanded, trying to look severe. 'I'm only just passing through here and I need to find myself a room for the night and get something to eat.'

  'It isn't my fault,' the woman told him recovering her equilibrium a little. 'Like I said, you shouldn't have parked here in the first place.

  'Where are you passing through to?' she asked him curiously and then looked self-conscious as though her own interest in him was a betrayal she regretted.

  'Wherever the road takes me,' Caspar told her, promptly adding, 'I'm trying to fulfil a teenage ambition I had to ride from coast to coast.'

  'On a Harley-Davidson?'

  'Yup,' he agreed, giving her a mischievous smile as he added, 'It's a pity you aren't a medic, I'd forgotten that a certain area of my body was a good deal more resilient at sixteen than it is now at close on forty!'

  'Doesn't your wife mind you taking off without her? I can see that you're wearing a wedding ring,'

  she told him, nodding in the direction of his hand.

  'It's over... We... She's gone back to the UK with our daughters. She's a lawyer...a solicitor they call it over there and her parting words to me were that she wanted everything to be "legal." That's how we met...through the law. I lecture in it now and...' Caspar stopped, shaking his head. 'I'm sorry...I guess this is what happens when you've been riding the road solo for too long, you start boring every stranger you meet with your life story.'

  'I'm a psychiatrist. We don't get bored,' she told him. 'I'll have to wait here for the garage but if you like, once they've been I could show you a really great place in town to eat—Italian...they have rooms as well.'

  Caspar took a deep breath. His instincts warned him that he could be stepping into very deep water indeed but then why shouldn't he? He was a free man now, wasn't he? Olivia didn't want him....

  'Sounds good to me,' he responded. 'I'm Caspar Johnson, by the way,' he introduced himself.

  'Molly Reilly.'

  Reilly, so that explained those wonderful Celtic eyes, the flawless skin, though the perfect teeth were pure American, Caspar acknowledged as he went to shake the hand she had extended towards him.

  One of the worst rows he and Olivia had had, had ridiculously been over the girls' teeth. He had wanted them to have orthodontic work done on them and Olivia, he remembered, had been horrified.

  'Why?' he had objected when she had refused.

  'Look, all American kids get their teeth fixed.'

  'Amelia and Alex are not American,' she had responded, 'And / do not want them growing up with a set of teeth that appear so perfect that they look...like they belong to...to a film star.'

  Caspar hadn't understood either her passionate reaction or her argument then and he didn't now.

  'It's taking away their natural character,' Olivia had protested. 'Remaking them, Caspar, and that will make them feel that they aren't good enough, that they have to be perfect to be worthy of being loved and I don't want that for them.'

  'For God's sake, Livvy, we're talking about fixing their teeth, that's all,' he had exploded in exasperation.

  'I THOUGHT you said it was over....'

  Molly's comment caught Caspar off guard, making him change colour defensively.

  'How did you know—?' he began and then stopped.

  'I'm thirty-four,' Molly responded dryly, 'and I guess that's more than old enough to be able to recognise when a married man is thinking about his wife.'

  'Actually, I was thinking about my daughters,' Caspar corrected her. 'Now, about this Italian...'

  'COME ON, Jen, we're going to be late,' Jon exhorted.

  'David said to be there for three and it's gone that now.'

  Jenny shook her head. She hadn't wanted to go to David and Honor's party in the first place and she had told Jon so.

  'Not go! We've got to go. David is my brother.'

  'Yes, and he's also Livvy and Jack's father,' Jenny had reminded him simply. 'How do you think they're going to feel, especially Livvy when she hears about this baby?'

  'Jen, Livvy is an adult,' Jon had expostulated. 'David's invited her and the girls.'

  'She won't go,' Jenny told him positively.

  'Do YOU THINK she will come?' David asked Honor anxiously. There was no need for Honor to question who the 'she' was he was referring to.

  'Don't get your hopes up too high,' she advised him gently.

  'Oh, God, Honor, I just wish... I wanted to tell her myself...before...before anyone else...to make it something special we could share—just as you did with Abigail and Ellen.'

  Honor smiled sadly as she listened to him. The relationship she had with her daughters was a world away from the one David had with his, but even they had expressed shock and in Ellen's case, almost outright hostility to the news that she, their mother, was to have a child.

  'But have you thought of the danger, the risks to both yourself and the baby?' Ellen had demanded practically, 'As an older mother...'

  Abigail had reminded her sister, 'Don't forget, Mum knows a lot more about having babies than we do.

  After all, she's had both of us.'

  'Yes, but that was over twenty years ago,' Ellen had pointed out acerbically.

  Now that she was over her initial shock, though, she had apologised for her original hostility.

  If her daughters, who knew how much she loved them, could both feel slightly threatened and upset about the news that she and David were to have a child, then how on earth was Olivia going to feel?

  It grieved Honor, not just that their child should be born into such a situation but that the birth of a child which should be such a joyful and hopeful event should be the cause of unhappiness and pain.

  She had discussed the matter with Father Ignatius whilst they had been working together in the still room. She loved using the old-fashioned word to describe the room where she stored her herbs and made up her remedies with its connotations of mediaeval times and the skills of its herbalists.

  'I just wish there was a herbal I could make for Olivia that would help her,' she had exclaimed ruefully.

  'The answer to Olivia's ailment surely lies within herself,' the priest had responded. When Honor had looked questioningly at him, he explained, 'Her father's love is there for her and his sorrow and regret for the pain of her past, but David cannot force them on her, he can only offer them to her.'

  .. and if Olivia continues to refuse to accept them?'

  Honor had asked him.

  Father Ignatius had sighed and shaken his head. 'If she does, and I am very much afraid she might, then both she and David will continue to suffer.'

  And now, here she was, com
pounding that suffering for Olivia with the child she was carrying.

  Honor's hand went to her stomach—still flat as yet—her pregnancy might have been unexpected and unplanned but her baby was already a source of great joy to her.

  OLIVIA WASN'T going to come. David knew.

  'We can't stay too long,' Jon was saying. 'Jenny's on grandparent duties tonight at Queensmead.'

  Grandparent. He, too, was a grandparent, a grandfather, just like Jon but he doubted that his granddaughters even knew he existed.

  As he took a sip of his drink he studied the room.

  The priest, predictably perhaps, was chatting with Ben and Freddy. Honor was laughing at something Jon was saying to her. They had deliberately kept the numbers down, just immediate family.

  'JENNY!' David exclaimed warmly as he walked into the kitchen and saw his sister-in-law there.

  'I'm glad you could come. It means a lot to Honor.

  I know how busy you are at the moment with everything. I just wish that Livvy could have brought herself to come.'

  'Livvy can't go anywhere,' Jenny told him quietly.

  'She's got two children to look after, she's working full-time and she doesn't have a husband to help and support her.'

  'Do you really mean Livvy can't go anywhere?' David asked Jenny quickly.

  'Surely you must be aware of the problems she's having,' Jenny insisted. 'Jon must have told you. Normally I'd help but... Jon's told Livvy to take as much time off work as she needs but, of course, she won't....

  She's been trying to find the right kind of help...a nanny...although it's proving hard. But why am I telling you this, David? You're her father. You should know, but you don't care, do you? All you care about is your new life.'

  'Jenny!' The horror in Jon's voice shocked Jenny into silence. She hadn't heard him come into the kitchen but there was no mistaking the anger and chagrin in his expression as he turned to David and started to apologise.