Finally Home

by Taylor, Helen Scott

  “And make him happy?”

  “Of course.”

  Imelda leaned back. “That’s exactly how I feel about Jack. He may be a man, but to me he’s still my little boy. I’ll do whatever’s necessary to make him happy. What do you know about Jack’s past?”

  Melanie blinked at the sudden change of subject but gathered her thoughts gratefully. Anything was better than discussing her problems. “Emily told me about his father leaving and the effect it had on him.”

  “Then you know I was all he had, as you’re all Ryan has. What has Jack told you about himself?”

  “He told me a little about his football career and the problem with his knees that forced him to retire.”

  Imelda nodded and raised her eyebrows inquiringly. Melanie racked her brain for something else, but she didn’t remember asking him about himself. She’d been so wrapped up in her own problems and fears that she hadn’t ever taken the time to find out what really made Jack tick. She swallowed hard and bit her lip.

  Imelda gave her a disappointed look. “You know about Stephanie of course. That was my fault. I wanted to see him happy, so I encouraged them to get together. I thought she’d be perfect for Jack, but I think he only agreed to marry her to please me. Thank goodness he didn’t see it through.” She paused to take a sip of coffee and Melanie saw tears gleaming in her eyes. “You don’t know about Marianne, then?”

  Melanie shook her head. She’d never even heard the name before.

  “I thought you might have looked Jack up on the internet. It’s all old news, of course, but there’s quite a lot about him from his days of football fame. I know there’s information about Marianne because I’ve checked.”

  Another wave of shame washed through Melanie. She knew he’d been well known during his sporting career, but she hadn’t even thought to do a search or ask him questions. “Who was Marianne?”

  “His first love. They were due to marry just about the time he was declared unfit to play any longer. Marianne obviously didn’t love Jack. She loved the idea of being a footballer’s wife. She left him standing at the altar.”

  “Emily did mention her to me but I didn’t know her name. How terrible for him.” Melanie imagined a young, eager Jack waiting for his bride, the embarrassment and hurt he must have felt when she didn’t arrive.

  “The press had a field day with that disaster. I didn’t think he’d ever get over it.” Imelda pressed her fingers to her mouth for a second before she could continue. “Although he carried on with life and appeared to recover, he never settled with a woman. That’s why I pushed him towards Stephanie, but you’re the first woman since Marianne he’s been in love with.” Imelda leaned forward and gripped Melanie’s sleeve. “I can’t let you walk away and break his heart again. If you must get away for a while, come and stay with me. There’s more than enough room at Hazelwood House for you and Ryan now that I’ve given Marco his marching orders.”

  Melanie rubbed her temples. Ryan chose that moment to wander into the room. He stopped in the doorway and angled his head coyly. “Hello, Matt and Sam’s mummy,” he said to Emily. He looked at Imelda from beneath his lashes.

  “Come here, pet.” Imelda beckoned Ryan, who shuffled closer. She took his hands and smiled at him. “You’d like to come and have a holiday at my house, wouldn’t you, Ryan?”

  He jumped with a slap of his shoes on the tiles. “Can we, Mummy? Will I get to play with Matt and Sam?”

  “All the time,” Imelda said, smiling. “You can sleep over with them.”

  Melanie watched Ryan jump around with excitement and shook her head. Imelda had outmaneuvered her again. Her chest burned with a mix of emotions, some good, some bad—all of them painful.

  Ryan bounced back to Imelda and rested his hands on her green-silk-clad knee, seemingly unaffected by her intimidating presence. “If you’re Jack’s mummy, does that mean you’ll be my grandma?”

  Heat rushed up Melanie’s neck into her face, embarrassment mixing sharply with the pain of what might have been. “Ryan!”

  Imelda took his face between her hands. “Not just yet, my pet, but one day soon, I hope.”

  Emily looked at Melanie and rolled her eyes. Melanie forced a smile. It was either that or bang her head on the table.

  Chapter Ten

  To give Melanie time to unpack and settle into Hazelwood House, Emily volunteered to take Ryan swimming with her two boys. Imelda had him bundled out of the house before Melanie had a chance to say yes or no.

  While Melanie unpacked her clothes and put them away in the walnut wardrobe and chest of drawers, Imelda paced around the large pink-and-cream room she’d assigned to her. Imelda straightened four small paintings of the River Dart that were already straight, and brushed imaginary specks of dust from the back of two pink velvet chairs. “As soon as you’re ready, there’s something I want to show you.”

  Melanie decided to unpack Ryan’s clothes later as she couldn’t concentrate with the older woman clucking around her like a mother hen.

  Imelda led her along the wide corridor and down the stairs into a library stocked with shelves of ancient leather-bound books. The sun gleamed off the waxy sheen on the bookshelves and desk while the pleasant smell of beeswax polish filled the air.

  “Here we are.” Imelda stooped and retrieved three buff leather folders from a cupboard. “Hold out your arms.” Melanie did as instructed and Imelda dumped the books on her like a heap of laundered sheets. “Some reading material for you.” Imelda arched an eyebrow at her that was not entirely friendly. “Long overdue in my opinion.”

  “What are they?” Melanie struggled to put them on the desk without dropping the whole lot.

  “Jack’s history, courtesy of Fleet Street.”

  “Huh?” Melanie opened the cover of the top folder and realized they were scrapbooks full of newspaper cuttings, all neatly trimmed and glued onto the pages.

  “They’re in date order.” Imelda pointed at the spines, indicating rectangles of cards inscribed with years and months. She walked over to a set of French doors and threw them open. “If you’re careful with them, you can take the folders outside and sit in the garden. I’ll have my housekeeper, Connie, bring you a sandwich for lunch.”

  A little bemused, Melanie watched Imelda leave and shut the library door behind her. Everything had happened so fast today. She’d woken intending to leave for Brighton to take refuge with her grandma, then Imelda had swept in like a whirlwind and Melanie found herself at Hazelwood House.

  She wandered into the garden and sat on the shady swing seat under an oak tree, looking over the lawn. Memories of the first time she’d been in this garden flitted back, when she’d sat here with Emily watching Jack play with the three boys. She’d deluded herself that since then she’d got to know the different facets of Jack’s personality. She acknowledged now, she’d not looked beneath the surface and really discovered who Jack was or what he wanted from life.

  Had she subconsciously held back from really getting to know Jack in case she had to leave?

  The sun beat down and, although she sat in the shade, sweat prickled her skin. The jeans she’d donned for traveling now felt clingy and uncomfortable.

  Once she’d eaten the sandwich the housekeeper brought, Melanie chose the oldest book and leafed through the pages. She’d expected all the cuttings to be about Jack’s football career, but they started when he was still at school. Small yellowing snippets of newspaper told of minor ac
hievements such as winning a creative writing contest and taking part in the Ten Tors endurance hike on Dartmoor.

  The books didn’t just contain newspaper cuttings either, there were programs from his school speech days, many listing Jack’s name among the prizewinners, and not just for sporting achievements. He’d won academic prizes as well.

  She examined a photo taken when he must have been about ten. He stood on the steps outside an old building, smiling, wearing a stripy school blazer and holding up a silver cup in one hand and a shield in the other. He looked like an angel with his golden hair and blue eyes. He hadn’t changed much. Anyone knowing him then would easily recognize him now.

  When she reached the time his football career began, the cuttings were few and small at first, but as the months went by, the pictures became bigger and the articles longer. He was either hailed as a hero or vilified. There seemed to be no half measures for sporting heroes.

  As he became more famous, the sensational exposés started: tales of women, being accused of taking drugs—which he denied, his diet, his exercise regime, his clothes. At the height of his career, the poor man obviously couldn’t get out of bed in the morning without someone criticizing him. Eventually she found a photo of him taking a swing at a member of the paparazzi. She didn’t blame him, with the weight of evidence in her hands of how much he’d been pestered.

  Before she started the third book, she took a sip of her icy soda and kneaded her tense shoulders. Poor Jack. How awful it must be to have the world watching your every move. She’d only had a small taste of this treatment, but he’d put up with it for years. The strange thing was, she couldn’t equate the man they wrote about with the easygoing, happy Jack she knew. How could he have gone through all this stress and now be so laid back?

  In the third book, she discovered the first photos of Marianne, a tall, leggy blonde—similar in appearance to Stephanie. If that was Jack’s type, Melanie didn’t fit the mold. But then, she’d always thought he was too good-looking for her.

  Marianne obviously loved the camera and the camera definitely loved Marianne. There were numerous pictures of her shopping, jogging, sunbathing, clubbing, on Jack’s arm aiming sultry looks towards the camera. Jack with his arm around her waist, Jack hugging her, Jack kissing her. Melanie’s chest tightened in sympathy as she read the numerous newspaper reports of his aborted wedding. The press’s pursuit of the truth was merciless, whether they speculated on the guilt of the wife of a drunken doctor accused of murdering his patients or a young man publicly humiliated by his fiancée. In the accompanying photographs, the desolation on Jack’s face as he pushed through the crowds to get out of the church tore at her heart.

  She teared up as she read the final reports of Jack’s injury and retirement from professional football.

  After that, there were still a few press cuttings about him. One magazine did an article on him buying Greyfriar House to convert into a hotel. Then nothing for twelve months until the hotel opened. The local paper reported on the opening and printed a photograph of the Jack she knew now standing in the doorway smiling.

  She put the book down to blow her nose and became aware of someone standing just behind the end of the swing seat. She leaned forward and to her mortification, Jack stood there, casually dressed in shorts, T-shirt and trainers. She closed the final folder with a snap and put it on the seat beside her, feeling as though she’d been caught prying.

  He tilted his head towards the scrapbooks. “Mother’s airing my dirty laundry in public, I see.”

  Flashes of unwanted sensation raced through Melanie at the sight of him, the sound of his voice. It was so wonderful to see him. So wonderful and so difficult. She couldn’t think logically with Jack here. “Did Imelda call you?”

  “What do you think?” Jack came around the seat, placed the books on the ground and sat beside her.

  Melanie sighed. “I need time to think, Jack.”

  “Then think.” He held his hands up. “I’m not stopping you.”

  “I can’t think with you here.”

  “Perhaps you should ask yourself why.”

  “I know why.” She loved him. Melanie closed her eyes and concentrated on breathing. Even when she couldn’t see Jack, she was acutely aware of him.

  “Tell me why.”

  “It isn’t going to help.”

  “I love you, Mel, and you love me.” The husky emotion in his voice whisked her back to the night in her bed, their bodies pressed intimately together as he whispered words of love in her ear.

  “That’s not what my leaving is about and you know it,” she said quickly, trying to banish such memories from her mind.

  “Yes! It is.” His emphatic tone of voice forced her to look at him. Casually slouched in the opposite corner of the seat, tanned, muscular arms and legs relaxed, a smile curling the corners of his lips—his presence wiped all sense from her mind. “I’ve given this a lot of thought and realized something. You’re frightened of me, Mel. Frightened of how I make you feel.”

  “Don’t talk rubbish!” She stood up and glared at him in annoyance. She was not a silly teenager, frightened of her feelings. She was a responsible adult doing the best she could for her son. She bent and fumbled with the heavy folders as they slid around, then decided to collect them later. “I need to find a safe place for Ryan and me.”

  “This is a safe place.”

  Melanie glanced around the quiet, sunny garden in frustration, her thoughts running rings around her head. She couldn’t think what to say. “Look. I’m sorry I hurt you. That was not my intention, but I can’t stay here forever. Not when people know who I am.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t want a stranger telling Ryan about his father.”

  His gaze softened. “I understand that, but it’s not the main reason you’re running.”

  “Blast it, Jack. Don’t keep on at me.” Melanie stomped off towards the house and didn’t look over her shoulder. What did the man mean—she was frightened of him. She’d never heard anything so stupid in her life.

  * * *

  Jack’s heart raced from just being close to Melanie. Thank goodness she’d gone inside because the urge to pull her into his arms and kiss her had been almost unbearable. It had nearly killed him to walk out of her house and leave her last night. He’d thought he’d lost her forever, now here she was, in the home where he’d grown up.

  He rubbed the sweat off his face with the back of his hand, rescued the remains of her soda from the small table beside the swing seat and downed it in one.

  He hadn’t intended to make Melanie cross, just to make her think. He needed to shake her up, break her out of her usual pattern of behavior. Make her mentally stand back and look at her situation objectively, rather than be ruled by the fear she carried from the past.

  Jack had trodden a similar self-destructive path after he lost his career. He hadn’t run like Melanie; he’d hidden, wallowed in self-pity. But he understood how easy it was to slip into a bad habit. He’d finally realized this morning that if he was to help Melanie he would have to be cruel to be kind, shock her out of her mindset.

  As he placed the glass back on the table, his gaze fell to the three scrapbooks his mother insisted on hoarding. Why did women have to hang on to everything? He’d thrown out all reminders of his past long ago.

  He grabbed the books up and dumped them on the seat beside him, opened one at random and flicked through the pages. Sensationalist headlines he’d
forgotten jumped out at him, making him shake his head. What a load of crap they’d written about him. It was like reading about someone he didn’t know.

  Although the editorial was inaccurate, the photographs did make him pause. Every picture took him back to a time and place, many he’d almost forgotten. Snapshots of a different life. When he found a photograph of Marianne, a shadow of the pain and anger he’d felt then rushed through him. Amazing how revisiting the past stirred up old emotions.

  He closed the book and tossed it back on the seat. Maybe he could persuade his mother to have a ceremonial burning of the books as an example to Melanie. After his football career ended and he lost Marianne, a wise friend told him to draw a line beneath the past, find a new direction and move on. Nobody had helped Melanie do that yet. He hoped it wasn’t too late for her to start again.

  If he burned the scrapbooks, he would try to persuade her to burn her journal. He’d read her heartbreaking notes and hated to think of the distress she’d suffered, but talking about it and rehashing the past would only make her feel worse.

  Before they could be happy, he had to make her move on emotionally.

  * * *

  Jack and his mother sat in the shade of the oak tree, chatting. Upstairs, Melanie unpacked Ryan’s clothes. She found herself standing at the bedroom window staring at Jack lounging in his chair all tanned and relaxed, and gave herself a mental shake to get back to work. She promised herself she wouldn’t look out the window again until she was finished.

  Despite her good intentions, she didn’t achieve her goal. Within a few minutes, the delighted squeals and shouts of three small boys drew her back to stare into the garden. Ryan, Sam and Matt all gathered around Jack, shouting and jumping around as Emily strolled across the garden to join them.

  Melanie rubbed her temples. This was what she feared most. Last night she’d gone through the difficult task of making the break with Jack, and started to ease Ryan back into their old routine. Now all her heartache was wasted and she’d have to start again.