by Liz Fielding
‘A while,’ he said.
Which was why his mother, even with his father in hospital, had taken the time to make him one of her special steak-and-mushroom pies, just as she’d been doing ever since he’d gone away on his first school trip. More to avoid his own sense of guilt than tease her, he said, ‘Judging by your reaction, I suspect we’ve both had something of a narrow escape.’
‘Escape?’ Annie, swiftly recovering from whatever had upset her, placed a hand against her breast in a gesture perfectly calculated to mime shocked surprise and said, ‘Are you suggesting that I can’t cook, Mr Saxon?’
Despite everything, he found himself grinning at her performance. ‘I sensed a lack of conviction in your assurance that you could do better than Xandra.’
‘That was no more than simple modesty,’ she declared.
‘You’ll forgive me if I reserve judgement until I’ve tasted your mashed potatoes.’
‘Mashed?’ The insouciant air vanished as quickly as it had come. ‘Is that another favourite?’
‘Food for the gods,’ he assured her. ‘At least it is the way my mother makes it.’
‘Well, I’m not your mother, for which I’m deeply grateful since you appear to be as casual a son as you are a father, but I’ll do my best not to disappoint.’ Then, as he scowled at her, ‘I don’t suppose you’ve any idea how long it takes to boil potatoes?’
Which suggested he’d been right about the narrow escape.
‘Sorry. That’s not my area of expertise.’
‘No?’ She lifted those expressive brows, inviting him to tell her what he was an expert in, then, when he didn’t oblige, she gave a little shrug and said, ‘I don’t suppose there’s a lot of call for potato mashing on the beach.’
‘You know how it is with sand,’ he replied, wondering what kind of woman didn’t know how to cook something as basic as potatoes.
The kind who’d never had to cook, obviously. Or close car doors behind her.
Who the devil was she?
‘It gets in everything?’ she offered. Then, because there really wasn’t anything else to say about potatoes, ‘Thanks for bringing in my bag.’
‘I didn’t make a special journey,’ he said and, irritated with himself for getting drawn into conversation, he took a glass from the dresser and crossed to the sink to fill it.
‘Thirsty work?’ she asked, watching him as he drained it.
‘No matter how much water I drink on long-haul flights, I still seem to get dehydrated.’
‘Excuse me?’
He glanced back at her as he refilled the glass.
‘Are you telling me that you flew from California today?’ she demanded, clearly horrified.
‘Overnight. I slept most of the way,’ he assured her. The first-class sky-bed he could afford these days was a very different experience from his early cattle-class flights.
‘Even so, you shouldn’t be working with machinery. What about Health and Safety?’
‘Goods and Services, Health and Safety? What are you, Annie? A lawyer?’
‘Just a concerned citizen.’
‘Is that so? Well, if you don’t tell, I won’t,’ he replied flippantly, refusing to think about how long it had been since anyone, apart from his mother, had been concerned about him. It was his choice, he reminded himself.
‘I’m serious,’ she said, not in the least bit amused. ‘I wouldn’t forgive myself if you were hurt fixing my car. It can wait until tomorrow.’
‘You’re that concerned?’ Then, because the thought disturbed him more than he liked, ‘Don’t worry, I’m only there in a supervisory capacity. Xandra’s doing all the hard work.’
‘Is that supposed to make me feel better?’
‘It’s supposed to make you feel grateful,’ he said, determined to put an end to the conversation and get out of there. ‘Since you’re so eager to be on your way.’ Then, as he noticed her glasses lying on the draining board, he frowned. ‘And actually,’ he said thoughtfully as he picked them up and, realising that they were wet and muddy, rinsed them under the tap, ‘I’m hoping a taste of the real thing will encourage her to reconsider a career as a motor mechanic and finish school.’
‘Always a good plan,’ Annie agreed. ‘How old is she?’
‘Sixteen.’
He picked up a dish cloth and, having dried the frames, began to polish the lenses.
‘In that case, she doesn’t have much choice in the matter. She can’t leave school until she’s seventeen.’
‘I know that. You know that. Which may go some way to explain why she went to so much trouble to get herself suspended from her boarding school.’
Annie frowned. ‘She’s at boarding school?’
‘Dower House.’
‘I see.’
She could sympathise with her father’s lack of enthusiasm at her career choice after he’d sent her to one of the most expensive boarding schools in the country. The kind that turned out female captains of industry, politicians, women who changed the world. The school where, two years ago, she’d given the end-of-year address to the girls, had presented the prizes.
She clearly hadn’t made that much of an impression on young Xandra Saxon. Or maybe the haircut was worse than she thought.
‘Obviously she’s not happy there.’
‘I wanted the best for her. I live in the States and, as you may have gathered, her mother is easily distracted. It seems that she’s on honeymoon at the moment.’
‘Her third,’ Annie said, remembering what Xandra had said.
‘Second. We didn’t have one. I was a first-year student with a baby on the way when we got married.’
‘That must have been tough,’ she said.
‘It wasn’t much fun for either of us,’ he admitted. ‘Penny went home to her mother before Xandra was due and she never came back. I don’t blame her. When I wasn’t studying, I was working every hour just to keep us fed and housed. It wasn’t what she’d expected from the son of George Saxon.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘So am I.’
Then, because he clearly didn’t want to talk about it and she didn’t much want to hear about a youthful marriage that appeared never to have had a chance, she said, ‘So, what did she do? Xandra. To get herself suspended.’
‘She borrowed the head’s car and took it for a joyride.’
‘Ouch.’ Sixteen years old, so she wouldn’t have a licence or insurance. That explained a lot. ‘Attention-seeking?’
‘Without much success. Presumably anticipating something of the sort, Penny had the foresight to switch off her cellphone.’
‘Then it’s just as well Xandra has you.’
His smile was of the wry, self-deprecating kind. ‘I’m the last person she’d have called, Annie. Much as I would have wished it otherwise, I’m little more to my daughter than a signature on a cheque.’
‘You think so?’
George held the spectacles up to the light to check, amongst other things, that they were smear-free before looking at Annie.
‘I know so. I’m only here because my father had a heart attack,’ he said, taking a step towards her and, as she looked up, he slipped her spectacles back on her nose, holding them in place for a moment, his thumbs against the cool skin stretched taut over fine cheekbones.
Her lips parted on a tiny gasp but she didn’t protest or pull away from him and for what seemed like an eternity he simply cradled her face.
There was no sound. Nothing moved.
Only the dark centre at the heart of eyes that a man might drown in widened to swallow the dazzling blue. He’d have had to be made of ice to resist such a blatant invitation, but then, according to any number of women he’d known, he was ice to the bone…
‘The first rule of wearing a disguise, Annie…’ he began, touching his lips briefly to hers to prove, if only to himself, that he was immune.
Discovering, too late, that he was not.
CHAPTER FIVE
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sp; A NNIE’S lips were soft, yielding, as they parted on a little gasp of surprise. Not the response of a seductress bent on luring a man to his doom, he thought, more the reaction of a girl being kissed for the first time.
Arousing in a way that no practised kiss could ever be.
And when, slightly breathless, he drew back to look at her, her eyes were closed and the mouth that had tempted him to take such outrageous liberties was smiling as if it had discovered something brand-new.
‘The first rule of wearing a disguise,’ he tried again, his voice barely audible as he struggled not to kiss her again, ‘is never to let it slip, even for a moment.’
It took a moment for his words to get past the haze of desire but then her eyes flew open and he felt the heat beneath his fingertips as colour seared her cheekbones. Whether at the way she’d responded to his touch or at being found out in her deception, he’d have been hard put to say.
‘H-how did you know?’ she asked, making no effort to put distance between them, which appeared to answer that question. The innocent blushes had to be as fake as her glasses.
‘Since you weren’t wearing them when you checked your messages, it seemed likely that they were purely for decoration,’ he said.
‘Decoration?’ The beginnings of a smile tugged once more at the corners of her mouth. ‘Hardly that.’
‘I’ve seen prettier,’ he admitted, struggling not to smile back.
‘The wretched things fell into the potato peelings. I put them on the draining board and then forgot all about them.’
As clear an admission of guilt as he’d ever heard.
‘You should have tossed them into the bin with the peelings.’
‘I doubt they’d have added much to the compost heap.’
‘Maybe not, but if you’re afraid of being recognised, I’d advise getting yourself a pair that fits properly instead of sliding down your nose.’ He waited, hoping that she might tell him the truth this time. ‘Maybe go for tinted lenses.’
Something to tone down the distracting blue.
‘I bought them on the Internet. I had no idea they came in different sizes.’ She gave a little shrug. ‘Maybe I should get some little sexy ones with lenses that react to the light.’
‘Maybe. I have to tell you, though, that if anyone has put together a photofit of you, you can forget the glasses. It’s the hairdo that’s the dead giveaway.’
‘Oh…’ she lifted a hand to her hair in a self-conscious gesture ‘…no. No danger there.’ She pulled a face. ‘I cut it myself this morning with a pair of nail scissors.’
Well, yes. Obviously. No woman would walk around with hair like that for a minute longer than she had to.
‘I’d have bet on the garden shears,’ he said, accepting that she wasn’t going to trust him with her secret. Or was, perhaps, protecting him from something he was almost certainly better off not knowing?
Just as he’d be wiser not to imagine how her hair might have looked before she’d hacked it off.
Adding long, creamy-coloured silky hair to the image that was building up inside his head was not helping him drop his hands, take the necessary step back.
‘I’d better get back,’ he said, forcing himself to do just that. ‘Before Xandra, in her enthusiasm, strips your car down to the frame.’
He picked up the glass of water he’d abandoned but at the door he stopped, looked back. Despite a natural poise, a look-him-in-the-eye assurance that was so at odds with her innocent blushes, there was a lack of knowingness in the way she’d responded to his kiss that didn’t quite fit with the jealous-partner scenario.
But then, presumably, if she was any kind of con woman, she’d have that down pat.
When the silence, the look, had gone on for too long, he said, ‘You might find the answer to the vexed question of how to boil a potato in one of my mother’s cook books. They’re over there, behind the television.’ He didn’t bother to check that they were still there. Nothing had been changed in this room in his lifetime. ‘And, in case you’re interested, I’m partial to a touch of garlic in my mash.’
‘Garlic?’ She pushed the glasses, already sliding down her nose again, back into place. ‘Good choice,’ she said. ‘Very good for the heart, garlic.’
‘Are you suggesting that mine needs help?’
‘Actually, I was thinking about your father. Isn’t heart disease supposed to be hereditary? Although, now you come to mention it, maybe yours could do with some work in other departments.’
‘What makes you think that?’ He wasn’t arguing with her conclusion, merely interested in her reasoning.
‘Well, let me see. Could it be because you’re the one with your daughter up to her elbows in axle-grease while you stand back telling her what to do?’
The smile that went with this, reassurance that she was teasing, was no mere token but shone out of her, lighting up her face in a way that could make a man forget that she was too thin. Forget the hair. Forget anything…
‘I’m not telling her anything. She wasn’t exaggerating when she said she knew what she was doing.’
Her smile became a look of sympathy. ‘That must be a worry.’
‘My father never forgave me for not wanting to follow him into the business. Given a second chance with Xandra, it’s clear that he hasn’t made the same mistakes with her that he did with me.’
Or maybe, being a girl, she’d had to beg to be allowed to ‘play’ cars with her granddad.
He wondered if his old man had seen the irony in that. Probably not. He’d doted on Xandra since the moment she’d been born. Indulged her, as he’d never been indulged. Maybe that was the difference between being a father and a grandfather. There was not the same responsibility to be perfect, do everything right. And getting it wrong.
‘She might just love it,’ Annie pointed out.
‘I’m sure she does, but there’s a world of difference between doing something for fun in the school holidays and it being your only option.’
‘So if she stayed at school, took her exams, went to university and at the end of it all she still wanted to be a garage mechanic?’ she asked.
‘If only. She wants to drive rally cars too.’ He took a deep breath. ‘I don’t suppose you have a handy Health and Safety regulation you’re prepared to quote on the subject of sixteen-year-olds doing dangerous jobs?’
‘I don’t have one on the tip of my tongue,’ she said, ‘but, even if I did, I don’t think I’d use it.’
‘Not even if I promised to fix your car myself?’
‘Not even then. This is something she wants, George. Something she can do. That she believed no one would take away from her.’
‘That sounded heartfelt.’
‘Yes, well, at her age I had a dream of my own, but I allowed myself to be persuaded against it for what at the time seemed sound reasons. Not that I believe Xandra is going to be the walkover I was. She’s nowhere near as eager to please.’
‘A daddy’s girl, were you?’
She paled, shook her head, but before he could take a step back towards her, say sorry even though he didn’t know why, she said, ‘You do realise that if you close the garage it will make her all the more determined?’
‘It’s not an option. No matter how much he fights it, the truth is that my father won’t be able to carry on.’
‘What about you? This is your chance to prove to your daughter that you’re more than just a signature on a cheque. That you really care about what she wants. Or is there a Californian beach with a Californian beach girl stretched out in the sun who you can’t wait to get back to?’ She didn’t wait for an answer but, having planted that little bombshell, said, ‘I’ll give you a call when dinner’s ready, shall I?’
‘Do that,’ he snapped, turning abruptly and leaving her to it.
Annie didn’t move until she heard the outside door close. Only then did she raise her hands to her face, run her fingertips over the warm spots where George Saxon had touched
her.
He’d been so close as he’d slipped the glasses on her nose, held them in place, his thumbs against her cheek, fingertips supporting her head. There had been an intimacy about the way he’d looked at her that had warmed her, made her pulse leap, stirred something deep inside her so that when his lips had touched hers it had felt like two pieces of a puzzle finding the perfect fit.
And if he could do that with a look, a touch, a tender kiss, what could he do if…?
She whirled around, refusing to go there.
Instead, she crossed to the corner to root through the small collection of old cookery books before pulling out a heavy black bound book that was reassuringly familiar.
She’d kept all her mother’s books-medical textbooks, mostly-and a copy of this basic cookery book had been among them, the inscription on the flyleaf from the foster mother who’d taught her to cook and passed on her own cookery book when she’d left for university.
How much strength of will must it have taken her mother to get to medical school? More than she’d had, she thought, swallowing hard as she opened the book to check the index.
Potatoes…
Potatoes, it seemed, took around twenty minutes to boil, depending on whether they were old or new and, once cooked, should be creamed with a little pepper and margarine. Clearly post-war austerity had still been part of life when this book had been published. And a sprinkle of parsley was as exotic as it got back in the days when garlic was considered dangerously foreign.
But, despite the fact that Mrs Saxon’s cookery book and fridge appeared to be from the same generation, the large bulb of garlic tucked away in the salad crisper suggested that she, at least, had moved with the times. Or had that been bought specially for the prodigal’s homecoming too?
She laid the table, put plates to warm and was energetically mashing butter, milk and finely chopped garlic into the potatoes when she heard the kitchen door open.
‘Perfect timing,’ she said, concentrating on the job in hand. ‘Just enough time to scrub up.’ Then, when there was no answer, she turned round. ‘Oh!’ Not George or Xandra, but a slender middle-aged woman who bore a clear resemblance to both of them. ‘Mrs Saxon,’ she said, wiping her hands on the apron she’d found hanging behind the door and offering her hand. ‘I’m Annie Rowland. I hope you don’t mind me making free with your kitchen, but George thought you’d be tired when you got back from the hospital. How is your husband?’