When she didn’t answer he went away, but within seconds the phone was ringing and it went on and on until, unable to stand the noise any longer, she picked up the receiver.
‘You’ve had your say,’ he said without preamble, ‘and now, if I can get a word in edgeways, I have a comment to make. Not about us. That can wait. It’s about the weekend. I shall be calling for you as arranged. Much as you and I aren’t in tune at the moment, I know that you won’t take it out on Ben. So be ready, Hannah.’
‘And if I’m not?’
‘I’ll keep ringing the bell until you appear.’
‘You have some arrogance!’ she stormed.
He gave a dry laugh. ‘Don’t you believe it.’ The line went dead.
When he’d replaced the receiver Kyle threw himself onto the bed and with his arms folded behind his head lay looking bleakly up at the ceiling.
Was he so self opinionated that he couldn’t admit to being in the wrong? he thought raggedly. That he’d had to use Ben as an excuse for asking Hannah to marry him? It was small wonder she’d not been amused.
But he hadn’t meant it to be like that. None of it had gone as planned. He’d intended waiting until they’d got back to her flat and then, after inviting himself in for a coffee, he would have told her how he felt and asked her to marry him.
But for some reason, out there in the magical starry night, he’d started to panic. Supposing she said no. Maybe she didn’t love him. After all, he’d almost ruined both their lives. On the impulse of the moment he’d changed his tactics…with disastrous results.
He needed the coming weekend to put things right, if such a thing were possible. As he closed his eyes to the glare of the light above his head, he knew that if Hannah wasn’t ready to do as he’d asked in the morning, he wouldn’t know what to do next.
It was amazing. She had this effect on him. He was by nature quick-thinking and decisive, yet he’d asked the beautiful woman that she become Ben’s stepmother, rather than his wife.
When he’d asked her she’d admitted that she thought about marriage frequently. Who to, though? There were other men in her life. Maybe it was one of them that she languished over.
For God’s sake! Where was his confidence? It wasn’t usually in short supply, but of late he wasn’t thinking straight when it came to his private life.
When Hannah opened the door to Kyle next morning, dressed in a linen suit the colour of her eyes and holding a weekend case, he felt relief wash over him.
She was coming, thank goodness! He hadn’t entirely put the blight on their relationship. But her expression wasn’t exactly reassuring. The frost warning was still in place and there were no signs of a thaw as they took their seats on the train.
When it was announced that the buffet car was open Kyle got to his feet. ‘I’m going to search out some breakfast. I didn’t have time to eat before we left. Can I get you anything, Hannah?’
He wasn’t going to tell her that he hadn’t slept until dawn was breaking and then, having finally dozed off, he’d been woken up by the alarm.
There was irony in her bright blue gaze and he flinched. Hannah saw it and knew he understood that what she wanted of him was more than he seemed prepared to give. Not a bacon butty or soggy toast, but respect, and if he was capable of it…love.
‘A cup of tea would be fine,’ she said smoothly, and as she watched his broad back moving in the direction of the buffet car her doubts about the weekend ahead returned.
It was lunacy to be allowing herself to be manoeuvred into the bosom of his family. What purpose could it serve? Maybe Kyle thought she would weaken when she was with Ben, but if he did he was mistaken.
The small, fair-haired boy would be hard to resist. But just suppose she did agree to his father’s proposal, what about Kyle’s parents? What would they think of Ben being landed with a mother that he hardly knew?
At last, after what seemed like a lifetime of meaningful silences, the train pulled into the mediocre station that didn’t do justice to the beautiful town of Cheltenham Spa.
Howard Templeton was waiting for them on the platform, with Ben clinging to his hand, and as she watched Kyle’s face light up Hannah thought that he couldn’t be blamed for wanting the best for his son.
But he had a strange way of going about it. Kyle should be aware that if any stepmother that he found for his son wasn’t happy, it would wash off onto Ben.
What was the matter with the man? Why couldn’t he organise his private life as well as he ran the unit? There wasn’t a person there who didn’t admire his intelligence and organisational skills.
As she watched Kyle swoop Ben up into his arms the boy smiled at her over his shoulder and she smiled back, suddenly glad that she’d come.
‘Guess what, Hannah?’ he said as they made their way to the car.
‘What?’
‘Grandma is making me a doctor’s suit like yours and daddy’s.’
‘Really?’ she exclaimed, suitably impressed.
When she looked up Kyle was smiling across at her, and if she’d been sure that it wasn’t because he was sizing her up for the job, she might have felt like smiling back.
His parent’s house, beside a clear stream, was built from the same golden Cotswold stone as all the other buildings in the village, and to Hannah, whose residences for a long time had been of the flat or apartment variety, it was enchanting.
Kyle was watching her expression. ‘So what do you think?’ he asked.
‘Lovely!’
‘Would you like a house like it?’
‘Mmm.’
Then as the thought came to mind that it might be the bonus that went with the job of stepmother, she added, ‘But I’m quite happy where I am.’
His face sobered. He’d got the message, she thought, and if he didn’t like it…
As they went inside his mother came out of the kitchen, her face flushed from the heat of the stove.
‘How lovely to see you, my dear,’ Grace Templeton said. ‘I’m sure you must be weary after the journey. If you’d like to freshen up Kyle will show you to your room.’
When they reached the upstairs landing and were out of earshot, he said grittily, ‘You don’t have to worry about my parents. They haven’t invited you here to look you over as prospective wife material. My mother is under the impression that I haven’t known you long.’
‘Why did you tell her that?’ Hannah asked coldly.
‘Because she knows that I had an unfortunate experience a long time ago that affected my views on the opposite sex, and I didn’t want her to know that you were involved.’
‘How kind of you to protect my reputation!’ she snarled. ‘Except that there’s no need.’
If Kyle had anything to say to that he didn’t get the chance as Ben was leaping up the stairs towards them to say that they would be eating in ten minutes.
Hannah’s room was at the front of the house, next to where Kyle would be sleeping with Ben, and as she looked out across cornfields to the hills beyond, the hustle and bustle of London seemed far, far away.
‘So how are you liking life on the helicopter unit?’ Grace asked as Hannah helped her clear away after the meal.
‘It’s very different,’ she said politely. ‘I’ve worked in accident and emergency for a long time, and usually it’s the casualties that are brought to us, whereas on the fast response unit we go out to them. It’s horrific sometimes what we have to deal with, but the results are fantastic. The badly injured are lifted into care so much faster that lives are saved where they might have been lost.’
‘Yes. I can see that,’ her hostess said, ‘and once your six months is up, what will you do then?’
Good question, Hannah thought, and wondered what Kyle’s mother would say if she were to tell her that until a short time ago she’d had her life planned. But after meeting up with her son again she could no longer see the way ahead clearly.
‘Kyle tells me that you haven’t known each other l
ong,’ Grace went on, ‘which I suppose is understandable if you’re only in training for six months.’
At that moment Hannah had a sudden overwhelming urge for the truth to be brought out into the open.
‘I’m aware that’s what he told you, but the truth is we’ve known each other a long time, Mrs Templeton,’ she said levelly, ‘and have recently met up again.’
With her hands covered in suds from the sink his mother turned slowly. ‘Were you the one who broke his heart?’ she asked quietly.
Hannah sighed. She’d wanted the truth out in the open, but it wasn’t that easy when it came to explanations.
‘Not intentionally, I can assure you,’ she said quietly. ‘I’d lost my twin sister in a car accident, which left her husband inconsolable. As could be expected, he turned to me for support. I looked like her, thought like her, and the rest.
‘Paul had always been a bit neurotic and I gave him moral support for months. He wanted me there all the time, and where at first Kyle understood and kept a low profile he began to be weary of me never being there for him. We were deeply in love and although I sensed he wasn’t happy it never occurred to me that he might think I’d transferred my affections to Paul.
‘Kyle came in one day and caught me in his arms and it was the last straw. I tried to tell him that it had been Paul overreacting again. That he was supposed to have been giving me a peck on the cheek, but it had turned into a full-scale embrace that I couldn’t fight my way out of.
‘Your son was living in hospital accommodation at the time and when I went to his flat the next day he’d gone. I never saw him again until a few weeks ago when he came to take over the unit.’
His mother was leaning limply against the sink, the soapy water from her hands making a small pool on the floor.
‘And how does he feel about you now, Hannah?’ she croaked.
‘I wish I knew. I feel that he still has reservations about me and always will have.’
‘I know that he was bitterly hurt at the time,’ Grace said, ‘but Kyle always kept his affairs to himself and we never got to know much about what had happened. It seems as if it put him off marriage, but didn’t stop him from taking on the role of fatherhood. What do you think about him bringing Ben up on his own?’
‘I think he’s to be greatly admired. Not many men would do a thing like that.’
‘No, they wouldn’t. I’m proud of my son, Hannah,’ Grace said, ‘but he can be very stubborn at times.’
‘I do know that!’ Hannah agreed, and the two women laughed.
‘There has to be a reason why neither of you have married,’ his mother went on, turning back to the sink, ‘and needless to say I shall keep my fingers crossed. I won’t breathe a word to Kyle about our little chat.’
As she went to find the others Hannah wondered what Grace would think if she knew about his proposal of the previous night. But that was something she was going to keep to herself and she hoped he was going to do the same.
‘That was a long chat you were having with my mother,’ Kyle said as they played with Ben in the last few minutes before his bedtime.
‘Hmm, wasn’t it?’
‘Are you going to tell me what it was about?’
‘No.’
‘So I’m still out of favour, am I?’
‘Yes. Even more so now I’ve discovered that you’re sparing with the truth.’
‘I’m not with you.’
‘Telling your mother that we’ve only just met.’
‘I’ve explained why I did that and, also, if I’d told her the truth, Mum would have started asking questions and I can do without that.’
‘Hard lines. Because as I’ve nothing to hide, I’ve told her about the past. Although she immediately guessed who I was when I told her we’d known each other a long time ago. She asked if I was the one who broke your heart.’
He tutted angrily. ‘And what did you say?’
‘I just told her the truth. That the heartbreak you suffered was self-inflicted.’
Hannah watched his face whiten, whether with pain or anger she wasn’t sure, but she immediately felt guilty. What she’d just said wasn’t strictly true.
She knew that she hadn’t been fair to him during the months after her sister’s death. He’d been kind and considerate for many long weeks while she’d been at Paul’s beck and call, and she should have had the sense to have seen that he wouldn’t put up with it for ever. That they’d been entitled to a life of their own.
In the months that had followed Kyle’s angry departure Paul had shown no concern for her anguish as she’d searched frantically for him, and she’d come to the conclusion that her brother-in-law was a selfish manipulator.
‘I’m sorry for saying that, Kyle,’ she said, reaching out to him. ‘I may not have been guilty of what you thought, but I wasn’t blameless. I put Paul before you and our life together, and I shouldn’t have done. If I have an excuse it’s that I wasn’t thinking straight at the time.’
Ben was tugging at her skirt, and as she looked down at him he cried, ‘I’ve lost the ball in the bushes, Hannah.’
‘Then let’s go and look for it, shall we?’ she said, allowing the tensions of the moment to dissolve as the problem of a lost ball took priority.
CHAPTER SEVEN
WHEN Ben had gone to sleep Hannah and Kyle sat in the garden with his parents. While Howard regaled his son with tales of village happenings, Grace gently probed into Hannah’s background.
When she heard that Hannah was alone in the world, that both her parents and her sister were dead, the older woman said gently, ‘Life hasn’t been very kind to you in lots of ways, has it, my dear? Those of us whose families are intact take it for granted, I’m afraid, which makes us seem rather selfish.’
Hannah was conscious that Kyle was tuning in to what they were saying, even though he was giving a good pretence of listening to his father.
‘You must get Kyle to bring you again,’ his mother went on. ‘It’s clear that Ben likes having you here, and that old love of mine has been perkier than I’ve seen him in ages, having a beautiful young woman around the place.’
Hannah’s smile was wry. ‘Which only leaves Kyle.’
‘Give him time,’ Grace suggested. ‘I’m sure that bringing you here today wasn’t just for Ben’s benefit.’
Kyle was getting to his feet and Hannah knew immediately that he was going to break up their chat.
‘Can I get anyone a drink?’ he asked.
Both his parents shook their heads and his father said quizzically, ‘Your mother and I will be having our bedtime cocoa soon. We love having Ben with us, but we’re not as young as we used to be and once he’s asleep we aren’t far behind. That way we’re ready for him when he awakes at crack of dawn.’
Kyle had a worried frown on his face and Hannah thought that maybe having Ben was too much for his mother and father. Perhaps that was why he’d done her the honour of proposing.
By half past nine they were alone in the summer gloaming and Hannah felt her nerve ends tighten. They’d been given this chance to talk and suddenly she couldn’t face it.
She got to her feet. ‘I think I’ll have an early night, too.’
Kyle didn’t move out of his chair, but as she walked past him he reached out and gripped her wrist. ‘Not so fast, Hannah,’ he said softly. ‘What’s the rush?’
Having been stopped in her tracks, she looked down at him. ‘There’s no rush. I’m just tired, that’s all.’
He was on his feet now, still preventing her from moving on and as they faced each other, in defiance on her part and with a calm authority on his, Hannah knew that it was a moment when reason was going to be in short supply, and desire the ruling force.
Their responses to each other at times like this were faster than any force on earth, with Kyle tall, dark and demanding and herself melting in the fire that was sparking between them.
He’d released her wrist and was cupping her face in his ha
nds. There was a hunger in his eyes that matched her own and in that second it was all that mattered. The fact that they never got anything else right was forgotten.
A summer moon looked down on them benignly as they came together, mouth to mouth, breast to breast, thigh to thigh, with the only thing stopping them from making love on the cool green grass of the lawn the fact that Kyle’s parents were preparing for bed in a room overlooking the garden.
It was perhaps as well, Hannah thought as they drew apart at last. It was preventing her from making a fool of herself. She’d come away against her will because of a promise to a small boy. He’d been used as an inducement behind a hurtful marriage proposal, and so far nothing had changed.
The fact that she’d turned Kyle down flat might have something to do with her not having been invited to share Ben’s bedtime story. She’d heard his father’s deep voice reading to him in the next room and gradually it had gone quieter, until at last it had stopped and she’d known that the boy had fallen asleep.
To be left out was only a small thing but it had hurt, and when they’d come face to face on the landing she’d told Kyle that she would have liked to have been part of the nightly ritual.
He’d given her a dry smile and had told her, ‘No point in letting Ben get too close to you. He’ll only be upset when you go.’
She’d stared at him stonily. ‘Go?’
‘Yes. Out of our lives. Don’t forget, you won’t be with the unit for ever, and I don’t want to pick up the pieces.’
‘All this is because I refused to take on the role of his stepmother, isn’t it?’ she’d cried. ‘If you aren’t the most insensitive man I’ve ever met, I don’t know who is!’
And now here she was. Heart thumping, legs like jelly, the age old longing bringing her blood to fever heat. Yet knowing that as things stood there was no future in it.
‘So? Is it all right if I go to bed now?’ she asked weakly.
‘You mean now that we’ve established that we agree on one thing at least…and don’t pretend that you don’t know what I mean, Hannah. It’s better now than it ever was.’
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