Starting Over

by Penny Jordan

  Instead she felt more alone, more bereft, more frightened than she had ever imagined it was possible for her to feel.

  'Gramps said...' Alex began and then stopped as Amelia shot her a murderously silencing look.

  Amelia had already warned Alex that there was no way she was to upset their mother by mentioning the discussion they had had with their grandfather.

  'Why don't you write to your father?' he had suggested to them but Amelia had shaken her head.

  'No. We can't. Mummy wouldn't like it,' she had told him. 'Besides,' she had added hollowly, 'we don't know where he is.'

  She had got his mobile number, though, carefully written down and hidden away inside her old doll's house. Whenever she felt really bad and lonely about him not being there she got it out, carefully unfolding the small piece of paper and reading off the numbers before just as carefully refolding it and putting it back.

  Frowning Olivia demanded sharply, 'Your grandfather said what?'

  'He said that Grandma was going to go to hospital next week so that they could have a look at the baby,'

  Amelia told her quickly.

  Olivia frowned, making a few mental calculations.

  That must be for tests to check on the state of development with the foetus—as an older mother Honor would, of course, be presumed to be more at risk than a younger woman.

  Olivia had undergone similar tests herself, more routine so far as the hospital was concerned, but she had been more than relieved to have Caspar with her—and if she had been anxious then no doubt Honor would be even more so. For the first time Olivia tried to put herself in her stepmother's position. It was obvious how much Honor loved David and how much faith and belief she had in him. Well, Olivia just hoped he wouldn't let her down as he had done virtually everyone else in his family.

  Apart from her daughters! A leopard never changed its spots, she reminded herself fiercely as she hurried the girls into the house.

  But she couldn't deny the love she had seen in her father's eyes as he looked at his grandchildren. Her children!

  'How is SHE?' Caspar asked in concern as Molly finally emerged into the hospital's waiting room area.

  Tiredly she pushed a hand through her hair, a personal little gesture she only used when she was tired or nervous, as Caspar had discovered. Seeing it now made him want to reach out and tell her not to worry.

  'She's okay. At least—' she paused and shook her head '—the crisis is over but Ginna's still on a ven-tilator and they're not sure which way it will go.'

  Helplessly she bit her lip and turned aside.

  'They can keep her alive but what kind of life...what quality of life will it be for her, Caspar?'

  Caspar shook his head. It was impossible for him to answer such a question.

  'They still don't know until they run some more tests just how badly affected she is going to be. She's had some kind of brain seizure. They don't know why and they don't even know whether or not she could have some more.

  'There's no way I can leave her until I know what's going to happen to her and that could be two or three days. Thanks for bringing me, thanks for everything,'

  she added fiercely. 'But I guess I'd better say goodbye.... I'm going to have to check into somewhere close by.'

  'I'm not leaving you here until you do.'

  Molly's head came up, their gazes locking. The air in the waiting room was heavy with pain—and with love.

  'You don't have to do this,' Molly whispered, her throat tight.

  'Yes, I do,' Caspar contradicted her softly. 'You go back to Ginna if you want to,' he told her. 'I'll go and sort us out some rooms.'

  Some rooms... Ten minutes later as he punched the number the hospital secretary had given him into his mobile he had to grit his teeth against the temptation to ask only for one room.

  THE MOTEL was only a short distance from the hospital, a clean clinical anonymous place and relatively quiet at this time of the night. The clerk registered them disinterestedly, handing them their keys.

  Molly had shaken her head a little over Caspar's insistence on carrying her overnight bag along with his own, desperate to be able to do something for her even if it was only a token gesture.

  Their rooms were on opposite sides of the corridor.

  Caspar waited until Molly had unlocked hers and checked it out before opening the door to his own, fiercely resisting the temptation to cross the space between them. His body ached with tiredness from the drive and its anxiety, coupled with a very different kind of tension.

  Once Olivia had made him ache like this...need like this.... Olivia... Angrily he pushed the thought of her away. She had no place here in the new life she had forced on him.

  The look in Molly's eyes as he had said good-night to her had reminded him of the look in his daughters'

  when something was frightening them. Without her having to say anything he knew both that she was terrified of losing her sister and terrified of her survival.

  Despite his tiredness he knew that he wouldn't be able to sleep. Stripping off his clothes he headed for the shower. He had just put his jeans back on and was drying off his hair when he heard it, a hesitant uncertain tapping on his door.

  He reached it in two strides, pulling it open, expelling the hot, hard, aching breath of sharp desire he had inhaled and held as he prayed who his visitor might be.

  'Molly!'

  White-faced, shaking, she stood frozen in the door-way wrapped in a soft, thick, fleecy robe. Very gently and tenderly he drew her into the room and closed the door. She was looking at him as though she had no idea how, or where she was, or why.

  'What is it?' he coaxed her. 'Has the hospital rung?'

  She shook her head.

  'I was... I was...' He could see her swallow. 'I just wanted to be with you,' she told him huskily, a faint pink colour staining her skin as she looked nervously away from him.

  When she started to remove her robe for a moment Caspar was too transfixed to move. Her skin was the colour of soft cream, her naked breasts full with rose-gilded nipples. As she dropped her robe to the floor it made a heavy clunking noise.

  'My mobile,' she told him, following his downward gaze. 'Just in case...'

  Her eyes darkened, her mouth trembling slightly.

  'I shouldn't be doing this,' she said huskily. 'It's against all the "rules" and against my own rules, too,'

  she admitted. 'It's so wrong.'

  'No, it isn't,' Caspar corrected her gruffly as he stepped towards her and took hold of her.

  'In fact, I can't think of anything that could possibly be more right. Have you any idea just how much I've been wanting you like this?' he whispered hotly as he bent his head to kiss her.

  His erection was hot and tight, straining against his jeans. Sliding his hands downwards until his fingers entangled in the ridiculous scrap of silk and lace pur-porting to cover her deliciously curved behind, he pulled her hard against himself, groaning into her hesitantly opening mouth as he felt the sensual weight and femaleness of her against his aroused body. His tongue rubbed against her lips, parting them and sliding, thrusting, eagerly inside them. Her mouth was as sweet and hot as he already knew her body would be.

  As their mouths meshed, their tongues entangling, then pulling apart to explore further, he waited to feel the sweet savage bite of her teeth against the special sensual place just below his ear, his hands sliding from her buttocks up to her waist and then towards her breasts. Olivia loved it when he touched and stroked them and...

  Olivia...

  Immediately Caspar froze. Shock and self-disgust filled him. He could feel his erection fading, softening, the heat of his earlier desire obliterated by what he was now feeling. In the distance he could hear a noise.

  Molly was disentangling herself from him and reaching for her robe.

  Well, he couldn't blame her. She had every right to be furious with him and worse.

  'My mobile's ringing,' he heard her gasp as she fumbled wit
h her robe.

  Her mobile! So she hadn't...she didn't...

  He could see her hand trembling as she clasped the phone to her ear. Instinctively he moved to help her on with the robe she was struggling with.

  'It's the hospital,' she told him as she ended the call. Ginna has regained consciousness.... I have to go to see her Caspar. I'm so sorry...I didn't...' She looked self-consciously at him and shook her head.

  'There isn't anything for you to feel sorry for,' he told her fiercely as she hurried to the door. What the hell was wrong with him? What was he doing thinking about Olivia like that when his desire, his longing, his need had been for Molly and not for Olivia...? But thank God Molly herself had not realised what had happened.

  'I'm coming with you,' he told her as he opened the door for her. This time she did not demure or protest, saying softly instead, 'Thank you.'

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  'I TAKE it you aren't au fait with modern technology?'

  Sara commented flippantly to Nick as he pushed open the door to his cottage and she saw the pile of mail on his mat.

  Her flippancy was a desperate grab at something—

  anything—to conceal from him just how nervous she was feeling and how much she was regretting the false bravado which had brought her here. It wasn't that she didn't want Nick—she did—but she was now miserably aware that she was masquerading under a false persona and that the feelings she had tried to belittle and dismiss were now showing her their affronted outrage and rebellion.

  Her feelings, she recognised, were mercilessly con-temptuous about the concept of emotionless sex; and worse, they seemed to have decided that they recognised in Nick Crighton everything that they had ever wanted and they were now determined to rush pell-mell into proving to her that there was no way they were going to be prevented from showing what they wanted.

  'Wrong,' Nick contradicted her as he closed the door on the damp mist. 'I do have someone to come in and sort through my mail, but she's obviously not been for a day or so. I couldn't do my job without technology, but unfortunately the nemesis currently hovering over me is in the shape of big brother Saul—

  to such an extent that the merest hint I might have received a fax or email from a client is enough to have him put me under lock and key—for my own safety, of course!' Nick grinned when he saw her expression.

  'Well, no, it isn't quite as bad as that, but as Saul has pointed out, until my GP has given me a clean bill of health, running the risk of getting myself locked up in some insalubrious foreign gaol is not a good idea.'

  'Is that likely to happen?' Sara questioned him.

  'Hopefully not, but I suppose it is always on the cards. The people who hire my services are hiring me to get my client out of such a situation. But...' He gave a brief careless shrug which showed Sara that he was neither exaggerating nor boasting in an attempt to impress her but simply speaking the truth. 'In some countries there comes a time when negotiation isn't going to get anywhere and a more physical form of action needs to be taken.' He started to frown. The hostage case he'd most recently been asked to take on had fortunately resolved itself as the woman had been released.

  'There've been instances—fortunately very few—

  when my client's health has been so damaged by their incarceration that protracted negotiations could have meant that even if they were freed it might have been too late.

  'I had one client...a nineteen-year-old. He was up at Oxford and predicted to get a double first. Unbe-knownst to him the person he was travelling with to the Far East had agreed to act as a drugs mule not for money but for a dare. This person was being used as a decoy and of course, he got caught and my client was imprisoned along with him. They'd both been set up so that the real carrier could get through. The country they were caught in has a death penalty for drug smuggling....'

  He saw Sara's indrawn breath.

  'My client's parents were both distraught and they turned to me as a last resort.'

  From the sudden subtle shadowing of his expression Sara knew intuitively that his story did not have a happy ending.

  'You—you couldn't help?' she guessed.

  'Oh, yes. I got him out and the other man finally got reprieved,' Nick told her. 'But unfortunately my client had been bitten by some insect whilst he was in prison. The wound had not been treated and as a result gangrene had set in and he had to have his leg am-putated.

  'Oh, hell,' he swore when he saw Sara's expression.

  'That was crass of me. I didn't mean to upset you.

  Saul keeps telling me that I'm getting too old for this kind of work—or rather that it's getting too dangerous for me. He thinks I should give it up and settle for something more mundane.'

  'But you don't want to,' Sara guessed, fighting to recover her equilibrium.

  'No,' Nick acknowledged. 'Unlike Saul, I'm not the settling-down kind. I'm too restless...there's still too much I want to do...see....'

  He was warning her off getting involved with him, Sara recognised; letting her know that there was strictly no future for her with him. But she already knew that—didn't she?

  'I'll take your stuff upstairs for you,' Nick was telling her. 'If you want to come up with me I'll show you where everything is.'

  Her heart thumping, Sara followed him up the narrow stairs which led off the attractive square hallway.

  Halfway up the stairs a deep window with a cosy seat looked out across the countryside.

  'On a clear day you can see the sea,' Nick informed her as she paused automatically to look out. 'On a day like today, you can't even see the road.'

  'Do you live here all the time?' Sara asked him curiously.

  'More or less. I'm not as isolated as it may seem.

  My parents live less than an hour's drive away and the estate to which this cottage originally belonged is only a few miles across the hills.

  'I had thought at one time of buying a flat in Chester—but so many members of the family live there that I can always beg a bed for the night when I want to visit.'

  They had reached the top of the stairs now. Four closed doors led off it.

  Nick pushed one of them open. Cautiously Sara followed him inside it.

  'It's a guest room,' Nick told her before she could say anything. 'It's got its own bathroom.

  'I'll leave you to make yourself at home while I go down and make us both a drink. Which do you prefer—tea or coffee?'

  'Coffee, please,' Sara responded automatically. He was putting down her case, turning to look at her as he did so, not giving her time to conceal the surprise his comment had given her.

  'What were you expecting?' he mocked her softly.

  'That I was going to throw you on the bed and have my wicked way with you right here and now?'

  'Don't be ridiculous,' Sara managed to reply, but she knew that her face was flushing and she prayed that her body language wasn't giving away what she was really thinking—and wanting!

  'We've got all weekend, after all,' Nick continued, giving her a wicked smile as he added softly, 'although, of course, if you wish to pounce on me...'

  Refusing to respond, Sara turned her back on him, but she could hear him laughing softly as he left her.

  NICK FROWNED as he made his way back downstairs.

  He had been an almighty fool to ever suggest what he had suggested and, as for bringing Sara here... Wasn't the very reason he had previously never invited a woman to spend time at the cottage with him simply because he had known what a dangerous, a treacher-ous swamp of potential disaster he would be letting himself in for if he did? Ah, yes; but that had been because he had been afraid that such close intimacy with the woman concerned would lead to boredom and irritation. With Sara... With Sara he was fascinated, entranced, driven mad with curiosity and desire, desperate to find some flaw in her which would enable him to step back from her. But instead... Even that unexpected shyness and reserve she had betrayed in the bedroom had idiotically appealed to him. Sharp-ening his
hunting instinct?

  In the cottage's well-equipped kitchen he filled the kettle and switched it on. A timer ensured that the place was warm and centrally heated. He might like the cottage's remoteness but Nick was not someone who saw any virtue in depriving himself of civilisa-tion's comforts unless he had to.

  IN HER BEDROOM Sara looked uncertainly towards the bathroom. She felt grimy after her journey and would have enjoyed a shower. A quick examination of the bathroom revealed that it had a lock and that her privacy could be assured.

  She started to frown. She knew she was inexperienced where 'weekends away for sex' were concerned, but surely it was highly unusual to give one's partner a separate room. Or was that simply a subtle ploy on Nick's part, a deliberate reminder that all they were having was sex and that there was to be no intimacy between them? No intimacy and no preliminaries, either?

  'HELLO THERE,' Nick announced cheerfully half an hour later as Sara emerged into the kitchen. 'I'm afraid the coffee's gone cold. I'll make a fresh one.'

  'I decided to have a shower,' Sara told him and then blushed. Would he interpret her remark as a hint that she was expecting...that she wanted... But to her relief he didn't pick her up on her comment or try to turn it into a sexual innuendo.

  'There's quite a good restaurant in St. David's. I could book a table for us there this evening if you like or if you prefer we can eat here. I've brought some stuff with me.'

  'Er...I don't mind,' Sara told him awkwardly.

  'No?' Nick smiled. 'Well, in that case, we'll have dinner here. A client gave me a case of a particularly good red wine that I haven't touched yet. Will steak be okay for you? I'm afraid I'm no gourmet chef....'

  'Steak will be line,' Sara confirmed.

  Nick's eyebrows rose and Sara tensed as he came towards her carrying a mug of coffee.

  'You've become unexpectedly docile,' he commented as he put the coffee down on the wooden table next to her. 'If I didn't know better I'd begin to think that you were feeling nervous.'

  'Nervous... Of course I'm not....' Sara denied un-truthfully.