That Special Touch

by Anne Beaumont

  Rafe moved suddenly. Elisa jumped, but he was only switching the engine off. She felt more marooned than ever, more conscious of his threatening physical presence, as the silence and heat closed in on them. He turned towards her and studied her apprehensive eyes. Then he said slowly, 'I haven't been very fair to you, have I?'

  Oh, no, Elisa thought, please don't let him start being kind. Let him go on being rotten so I can hate him. I can't cope when he's being human. I just crumble...

  'I meant to explain Penny's situation so you would understand properly why I need you, but when it came to it, I couldn't. It's not easy to open a closed chapter in one's life,' he began, then stopped. His fingers started drumming on the steering wheel.

  Elisa watched them. They were strong, well-shaped fingers. She yearned to reach across and still them but, with the tension she and Rafe generated between them, it would be easier to reach into a lion's cage than touch him voluntarily. He seemed to have forgotten her again, moved into another world in which she had no place.

  She wanted to bring him back to her, jealous without cause of something he wouldn't share, and she said tentatively, 'If the "chapter" refers to your marriage, surely it could never have been closed? Not with a child involved, I mean.'

  'In theory, no; in practice, I was pretty well shut out, and Penny seems to want it to continue that way. She's remote and I'm—clumsy, I suppose. I can't force affection out of her. We just don't know how to be father and daughter any more.'

  'That shouldn't have happened,' Elisa said, 'not if you had proper access. I deal with a lot of children from split homes at school. They usually look forward to their fathers' visits as a time to be thoroughly spoiled.'

  'Penny was three when Sheena and I split up. Sheena took her to the States. I rarely had the chance to see Penny. She was turned four when they returned to England, and the damage was done. She just couldn't accept me as a father again. Possibly there were so many of her mother's boyfriends in and out of her life, she got confused—or Sheena deliberately turned her against me.'

  'Surely she wouldn't have been that spiteful?'

  'Sheena?' His lips twisted. 'She took Penny in the first place to spite me. She never wanted her, but she knew I did. Penny was just a weapon, something to be dumped with Janet Tilson when her usefulness was over, while she went swanning off with other men. My mistake was divorcing her before she was ready to go. That fractured her belief that she was an irresistible woman, and she struck back through Penny.'

  His bitterness chilled Elisa. 'You're not sorry she's dead, are you?'

  'You've seen Penny. Would you be sorry if she were your child? Sheena's responsible for the way she is, and she wouldn't have let her go. She knew I was burning up over what was happening to Penny, just as she knew I was helpless to do anything about it. That was my punishment for not staying in love with her. Now she's gone, I'm not shedding any crocodile tears. I'm just grateful there's time to turn Penny back into a normal child. A few more years and--' He shrugged.

  'You're bitter,' Elisa began hesitantly, 'and bitterness can warp the judgement. You want a target, and that doesn't make you all that much better than Sheena, does it? I'm not even sure you've got the right one. You said yourself it's Janet Tilson who's brought Penny up.'

  'I've thought of that, but it's Janet Penny turns to as a refuge, not me. She needs her, if nothing else. I'm beginning to wonder if Penny is like her mother, incapable of love for anybody but herself. All I'm certain of is, it will be a fortnight before I can get a reliable replacement from England, and in the meantime she doesn't want me to look after her. She wants you.'

  Elisa looked at his fingers still restlessly drumming on the steering wheel, and couldn't stop herself being swamped with compassion. She sighed and said, 'I can imagine how you feel.'

  He rounded on her, his eyes as cold as chips of ice. 'No, you can't,' he told her savagely. 'I know exactly why Penny wants you. You remind her of her mother. Just make damned sure you don't behave like her while you're in my house, that's all.'

  He switched on the engine, slammed into gear and drove oh.

  'Oh, that's great! Your family is in a mess and it's all my fault!' Elisa exclaimed, spilling out a bitterness that mocked his own. 'Thanks for being so fair and explaining it all, otherwise I might have carried on making a fuss. Now I realise I'm the guilty party, naturally I'll try to behave myself. In my spare time I'll do my best to come to terms with my persecution complex!'

  He stopped the car again, put his hand under her chin and turned her face to his, looking long and hard into her blazingly indignant eyes. 'Elisa,' he said finally, 'you're quite a girl.'

  'Drop dead,' she snarled.

  He released her and drove on. 'Don't spoil a magnificent performance by becoming petty.'

  Elisa gave up. All his words got through to her, and all hers bounced straight off him. He was an impossible man. Bitter, twisted and, now and again, bloody magnificent himself.

  He swung the car off the dirt road on to a track, and began a winding climb through an olive grove. They passed a small white-painted farmhouse with a motley collection of ramshackle outbuildings, and he said, 'That's where Spiro and Maria Pappadoukalis live with their children Angelo and Athene. Maria comes up to act as housekeeper and cook, if necessary, although we mostly eat out. On Saturday she and Athene give the house a thorough clean, so we usually make ourselves scarce. You won't find yourself burdened with any domestic duties, apart from breakfast.'

  'I'm not going to be burdened with anything,' she told him grimly. 'I'll say hello to Penny and explain myself why I can't look after her. I'll tell her my holiday here is over and I have to move on.'

  He didn't answer. She looked at him suspiciously. 'I hope your box of tricks is empty. If Penny's disturbed, the last thing she needs is us quarrelling in front of her.'

  'I knew you'd be reasonable once I got you to Penny,' he replied, and she could cheerfully have strangled him, but he was nodding ahead. 'There it is.'

  From what Rafe had said the house was about thirty years old, but the design had been freely borrowed from classical Greek architecture, giving it a timeless quality. It was two-storeyed, and reminded Elisa of nothing so much as a miniature temple, scaled down to perfect proportions and domesticated. The pillars supporting the veranda at the front extended on either side of the house to form loggias, under which white-painted wrought-iron garden furniture nestled and large flower-filled pottery urns made bold splashes of colour.

  Elisa fell in love with it—almost. What jarred on her was that it was painted pink. As Rafe parked, she said, 'It's beautiful, but it should be white.'

  'It was until Sheena and I honeymooned here. Pink was her favourite colour.'

  He must have been passionately in love with her, she thought, to spoil the effect of his lovely house just to please her. Perhaps he still was, in spite of all he said, and although she was lost to him forever. He had left the house pink.

  She was disturbed. Almost jealous. She was discovering a dark side of herself she hadn't known existed. She couldn't leave well alone, and when he got out of the car and came round to her side, she said, 'You're an architect, I'm an artist, we both know the house is crying out to be white. Why haven't you changed it back?'

  'It's been rented out for summer lets. I haven't been back for four years.' He looked at her searchingly, as if surprised by her interest. Elisa avoided his eyes, afraid of what he might read in them. She mustn't become as involved with the house as she'd become with the man. It would be like another tentacle reaching out to trap her.

  When Rafe opened the back door and hauled out her pack, she said sharply, 'I don't need that. I'm not stopping.'

  'We'll see.' He thrust the plastic bag containing her wet clothes into her hand, took her arm and propelled her towards the front door, carrying the pack himself. As they passed between the slender columns of the veranda, the front door opened. A plump middle-aged woman with a strongly boned face and ready smile emerged
and came towards them.

  'Maria, or Mrs Pappas as Penny calls her,' Rafe explained. 'She's been keeping an eye on Penny for me while I looked for you. She speaks very little English, which makes her unsuitable as a constant companion just now. I need somebody Penny can communicate with.'

  Elisa smiled and greeted the woman, who was smiling and chattering and obviously welcoming her profusely into the house. She thinks I'm stopping, too, she thought with dismay. I'm getting in deeper and deeper, just as Rafe planned.

  Mrs Pappas insisted on taking her plastic bag, and Elisa shot a kindling glance at Rafe. 'You're doing your best to make it impossible for me, aren't you?'

  'Yes.' He was looking beyond Mrs Pappas. Penny stood in the doorway. She was dressed, as she had been on the two previous occasions Elisa had seen her, in an expensive frock with long sleeves and a crisp white collar. She came forward with a curious mixture of hesitancy and eagerness.

  'Hello, Daddy,' she said. 'You've been a long time.'

  'Hello, Penny. It took me a while to find Elisa, but here she is.'

  'Yes,' the child answered seriously, then turned to Elisa. 'Hello. I'm so pleased you could come.'

  Definitely six years old going on sixty, Elisa thought. Such a polite welcome, no sign of childish joy at getting what she wanted; but Penny was going on, 'I'll take you up to your room. I'm sure you'll be very comfortable. It's right next to mine. Mrs Pappas has made up the bed and I've collected some flowers.'

  Elisa cast a despairing look at Rafe's unsympathetic face and swallowed. No use looking for any help there. He'd won every round so far, and now he was within an ace of winning the battle. 'Penny,' she said gently, 'the reason Daddy took so long to find me was because I've finished my holiday here and I was travelling on to somewhere else.'

  'Oh.' Penny's passive face became anxious. 'Can't you stay?'

  'I'm afraid not.' She winced as Rafe's clasp on her arm tightened like a vice. She looked at him and read murder in his eyes. But he couldn't, he really couldn't, have expected to get away with all this.

  Penny's face went blank again. She said, as politely as ever, 'I see. Thank you for coming to see me.' If she'd left it at that, Elisa could have forced herself to walk away, but Penny bowed her head and mumbled, 'I'm sorry if I've been a nuisance.'

  It was her docility, her utter lack of protest, that touched Elisa's heart. She looked down at the fair curls and found herself saying, 'On the other hand, now I've seen what a lovely place this is, I don't think I have to move on. I could have a very nice holiday here. We both could, with the beach and pedalos not very far away.'

  Penny's head shot up, her eyes filling with excitement. 'Truly? Honestly and truly?'

  It was the first time Elisa had heard her sound like a child. She felt Rafe's grip loosen on her arm as she smiled and repeated, 'Honestly and truly. How about showing me my room? I want to see those flowers you've picked for me.'

  'They keep flopping. I'll just see if they're still all right first,' Penny exclaimed, and dashed into the house. Mrs Pappas followed her, beaming and beckoning, but Elisa chose to say where she was for the moment.

  'Go on, gloat,' she told Rafe. 'It worked out just as you knew it would—heads you win, tails 1 lose.'

  But he was looking after Penny. Almost to himself, he said, 'She ran, and I've only ever seen her walk everywhere. It's one of the things that's so unnatural about her.' He seemed to become aware he had been spoken to, and looked at Elisa. 'Did you say something?'

  'Nothing that would have changed anything,' she replied despondently. She didn't exist as a person in her own right as far as he was concerned. She was just a means to an end in the reclaiming of his daughter. She tried to bolster her flagging spirits by reminding herself she was staying for Penny's sake, not his. She needed all the morale boosting she could get, which was why it didn't occur to her the two were indivisible.

  He had heard her previous remark, though, and as it penetrated his consciousness he recalled, 'Gloat? I'm not gloating. I'm too damned grateful for that.'

  And so you should be, she thought resentfully, but knew immediately it wasn't his gratitude she wanted. 'You don't have to be grateful. You're paying me well, remember.'

  'Yes, but that was never a factor, Was it?' His face was inscrutable as he gazed down at her, and she was taken by surprise as he held out his hand. 'Shake on a new beginning, Elisa?'

  Grudgingly she put her hand in his, but she grumbled, 'That's about the third one. By tonight we'll probably be up to the tenth.'

  'No, we won't. We'll get on better now. You keep Penny happy, I'll stay out of your hair. It will work because we both have the same objective.'

  He sounded so sure of himself, but then he always was. She was the one full of doubts, and she was reminded of the worst of them when he once more took her arm and steered her towards the door. She couldn't stop herself responding to his touch, whether it was gentle or cruel, and she was already beginning to feel the strain of hiding her reaction from him. What would she be like after a fortnight of close proximity?

  It had been bad enough with Austyn, but she hadn't had to hide her feelings from him, only from those who might be watching, and they'd both had to do that. They'd been together in an impossible situation. With Rafe it was entirely different. She was on her own...and she distrusted the emotion he aroused in her.

  He'd given her every reason to loathe, not love him. He'd bruised her body, her pride, her own image of herself. If she were a hopelessly romantic girl like Sue, always falling in love with somebody, it would be understandable—but she wasn't. She was nearly twenty-six and she'd only fallen passionately in love once; that it could happen again only nine months later was inconceivable. It was even more inconceivable that she could have fallen for such an unlikable man.

  If it was love for its own sake she wanted, why hadn't she fallen for Rich? He had given her every opportunity, and he was so suitable. Why had she fallen for Rafe? She wasn't perverse enough to enjoy suffering, for heaven's sake!

  No, the truth was as obvious as ever. Rafe had made such a positive impact on her because his contemptuous attitude had challenged all her feminine instincts, awakening her, and opening up a channel through which her frustrated love for Austyn could flow.

  It had to be that. She couldn't possibly love Rafe Sinclair himself!

  Resisting Austyn had worn her down, which was why she was so frightened now. She didn't want to become a pushover for the wrong man. Rafe, bulldozing towards his own objective, neither knew nor cared what he was doing to her—and she had to share a house with him for a fortnight!

  'Oh, God...' she groaned, and was horrified she'd spoken aloud.

  'What's the matter?' They were in a large flagstoned hall. Rafe was leading her towards the stairs at one side when he paused to frown at her.

  'I—I'm not at all sure this is going to work out.' She sounded so lame, and her throat was so dry. She'd let one particularly objectionable man reduce her to this inarticulate and pitiful state. Perhaps she deserved all she got. She licked her lips and continued more positively, 'I might do more harm than good. Penny might need specialist help.'

  'I've had it, and it hasn't worked. I was told she needed time to recover from the trauma of Sheena's death, although she rarely saw her mother. Well, she's had time, but she's getting worse not better. I was told she should play with other children but she won't, and I can't see that forcing her is going to help. All that's happened is that her rejection of me has become more complete and her dependence on Janet Tilson more total. Or so I thought, until she asked for you. It was an impulsive, instinctive request, and I'm backing it. The responsibility isn't yours, so you can stop worrying about it.'

  When Elisa didn't answer, he added, 'I know it's a gamble, if that's what you're bothered about—but it's a gamble in which I'm taking all the risks.'

  She couldn't tell him how wrong he was. She could only follow him tamely up the stairs feeling more personally at risk than she'd ever
been in her entire life. A sound in the hall below made her glance back down. It was Mrs Pappas reappearing to shut the front door. That seemed to make it final, somehow.

  Like it or not, she'd become part of Rafe Sinclair's uneasy household.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Within four days Elisa had stopped dreading each new encounter with Rafe and was beginning to treasure what little time they spent together. They met at breakfast with an intimacy that would have been overpowering if it hadn't been for Penny's presence. As it was, they seemed like any other family getting ready to start the day.

  Elisa knew now what Rafe liked to eat and how he liked it cooked, when he liked to talk and when he liked to be quiet. She also knew what he looked like before he shaved, and he knew how she looked with tousled hair scuffed up in a ponytail while she clattered about the kitchen preparing to get him off to work. She was not the most domesticated of creatures, and he wasn't a man who was used to helping out. Breakfast was a chaotic hit-and-miss affair but, strangely, it was fun.

  They made, consciously and unconsciously, all those little concessions necessary to keep an ill-assorted man and woman living in harmony. It hadn't been as impossible as Elisa had feared. Familiarity had lowered the barriers, enabling them to behave as they'd never managed before—naturally. The sexual tension that might have spoiled all this was dealt with in a very English way. It was ignored.

  That they'd come so far towards an amicable relationship in such a short time was largely due to Elisa. Locked into Rafe's life against her will, the need to survive had forced her to stop fighting the situation and figure out the best way to cope with it.

  In fact, there was only one way. She didn't know how to be Rafe's employee or Penny's nanny, so she could only be herself. In a domestic setting that meant not standing on ceremony with either of them. She behaved exactly as she did in her own home with her own family, and it worked. It took Rafe and Penny longer to respond as naturally, but not all that much longer.