by Trish Morey
‘I don’t know,’ Tracey said, walking up to her to watch the dust rise behind the car. ‘She’s bottled all that up for so many years, it’s bound to rock her foundations a bit. I’ll give her a call after dinner. Speaking of which, I better get back to my bolognese. What are you and Luke going to do now? You’re more than welcome to stay for dinner, but I’m not naive enough to think you might not want to disappear somewhere together.’
‘Up to you, Pip,’ Luke said, in a voice that sounded almost like a threat. ‘Eat here or we can catch a bite somewhere else.’
A sliver of premonition skittered down her spine. Something wasn’t right. The words sounded normal but there was a quality to his voice that hinted of things unspoken.
He’d been weird in the kitchen too, when he’d been talking to Sally but looking right at her . . .
The hairs on the back of her neck shivered and stood to attention.
‘So, what’s it to be, Pip?’ Tracey asked, missing the sudden crackle in the atmosphere. ‘Dinner for two or feeding time at the zoo?’ She raised her eyebrows. ‘I know what I’d choose, although we’d love for you to stay, being your last night and all.’
It was the easiest decision she’d ever made. She’d just today learned her oldest friend was also her half-sister. Just discovered she had a family, where she’d thought she had none. When every next of kin question on every form for the last fifteen years had been answered with a bold stroke of her pen. Not applicable.
Besides, it wasn’t dinner she wanted from Luke. It was the after dinner she’d been imagining. The replay of last night’s passion. Not conversation. Not when he looked like he wanted to talk . . .
‘I’d like to have dinner with my family on my last night here, if that’s all right? Maybe I could help feed the animals.’
‘Yay!’ Tracey said, answering with her own wide grin and an arm around her waist to pull her in tight. ‘That is more than all right. And then, I suppose, Luke will be wanting to give you a hand over in the B&B. To pack, I mean.’
Pip cast a sideways look at Luke. ‘Well there is –’ just one tiny case ‘– so much to pack.’
He shrugged, with his hands in his jean pockets and the slightest curl to his lips ‘Sure.’
‘Big surprise,’ Tracey said with a grin, hooking her arm in Pip’s and leading her towards the house.
But Pip knew she hadn’t misread him. Something was wrong. Where was the man who’d taken her to heaven in the spa last night, and then cradled her in his arms as they’d lain down on the lawn and watched the stars parade across the sky? Where was the man who’d stood next to her at lunch today to support her when her world was teetering off balance?
He almost seemed like a stranger.
Offhand and brusque.
Like he’d been when she’d first arrived.
At that moment, Craig’s car turned in to the driveway and Luke peeled off to wait for his mate. Pip put thoughts of him aside for a moment and took a deep breath, steeling herself for something that right now was much more pressing, something that had been hovering at the back of her mind ever since lunch at the beach and the big revelation. ‘Before dinner, Trace, there’s something I need to do.’
‘What is it,’ she asked, as they entered the kitchen filled with the hum of the exhaust fan and the scent of tomatoes and basil and garlic, and Tracey picked up a wooden spoon to stir the simmering sauce.
‘I want to call my father.’
Chapter Twenty-eight
Tracey stopped dead, wooden spoon in her hand. ‘You want to call Jacob? You have got to be kidding.’ Her voice was cold, her words smoking like they’d been squeezed through dry ice. ‘Why would you want to talk to that bastard? You know what he was like. I hadn’t even been born and he was sleeping with every woman he could.’
‘I know. But now that I know who my father actually is, I can’t just leave it there. I have to follow through. I have to finish this thing.’
‘Do you? Really?’ Tracey’s blue eyes appealed, beseeching her to put an end to this madness. ‘Why?’
Pip held up her hands. ‘I don’t really know why. I guess I just want to talk to him. To let him know that I know he’s my father. Maybe just to let him know that his sordid little secret is out and he didn’t get away with it. Does that make any sense?’
‘No. It makes no sense at all. But you go right ahead and call. I’m over him. The scumbag couldn’t be bothered coming over for my wedding to walk me down the aisle, even though I’d gone to the trouble of tracking him down. I gave Mum a nervous breakdown and nearly got myself disinherited in the process. I thought he might care that his daughter was getting married, but he burst that little bubble, I can tell you. But why should I be the only one disappointed?’
‘Oh, Trace . . .’
‘No.’ Tracey shook her head emphatically as she held up a hand, the wooden spoon in the other stirring the simmering sauce purposefully. ‘Don’t take my word for it. You do what you need to do and I’ll fix dinner. And because I really don’t want you wasting too much time on this, I’ve actually got his number written down in the address book on the hall table. If he’s still got the same one, that is.’
‘Why would you keep his number if you hate him so much?’
She sniffed, screwing up her nose. ‘It’s like you were saying the first night you were here; like it or not, he is my father. Just in case there was some medical emergency with the kids and I needed to find out some medical history in a hurry. Kind of an insurance policy. I’m hoping that because I’ve got it, I’ll never need to use it.’
But then she threw Pip an apologetic smile. ‘I’m sorry, Pip, I should never have discounted you wanting the same thing. And I should have figured you’d want to try to contact him yourself. He is your biological father. Our father.’ She gave an apologetic smile. ‘You know, this sister thing might take me a little getting used to.’
Pip came over and hugged the woman who was now her sister but who would always, first and foremost, be her friend. ‘I know. And thanks for understanding.’
‘If you want some privacy, use my bedroom. I think the boys are still in the lounge.’
Pip gave her a final squeeze and was heading for the hall when Tracey called behind her, ‘Oh, but don’t look for him under E. His number’s filed under A.’
‘A?’
‘For arsehole.’ She gave a wan smile. ‘What else?’
The afternoon sun lit Tracey’s bedroom through lace curtains that wafted on the light breeze. The room was more a blend of the masculine and feminine than the B&B’s bedroom, the walls painted in a moss green, the furniture a deep mahogany and the coverlet on the bed snowy white, a lace-trimmed cushion resting between the pillows the only real feminine touch.
The effect was restful. Should have been restful. But somewhere on the end of the line a phone was ringing and Pip clung on tight to her mobile, her heart tripping, feeling more nervous than she’d been on her seventh round interview with the investment bank all those years ago, when she’d been so desperate to prove herself and win her first job. She’d been so determined to distance herself from the past that she would have taken a job on Mars if it had been offered.
And no wonder her palms were damp. She was about to talk to her biological father for the first time. The man who’d lain with her mother and made love – and Pip – with her. For all his faults, maybe he had once loved Deirdre. Maybe he still remembered her with some degree of fondness?
Suddenly the phone was picked up. She heard the sound of people talking and the clink of glass and laughter, like he was in a bar somewhere. She held her breath.
‘Hello?’ said a deep voice. A good voice, rich and deep and smooth. In spite of her doubts, she liked it.
‘Is this, um, Jacob Everett?’
‘Yes. Who is this?’
For a second she froze. ‘My name i
s Pip,’ she said, her heart pumping. ‘I hope you don’t mind me calling out of the blue like this –’
‘Now why on earth would I mind you calling?’
She blinked. He sounded charming. He sounded like nothing she said would be too much trouble. More than that. His voice had gone down an octave and he sounded like he was interested.
‘Who is it, Jake?’ said a woman in the background, and he shooshed her and said, ‘Tell me, honey, what can I do for you?’
Honey?
‘I’m sorry, but you’ve got the wrong idea.’
‘Who is it?’ the woman insisted.
She heard a muffled ‘Shut up!’ like he’d turned his phone away, but nowhere near enough to miss the snarl in his voice. ‘Sorry sweetie,’ he said, all velvet over chocolate again. ‘You were saying?’
And suddenly she wasn’t nervous anymore.
‘I heard you were a charmer,’ she said.
She could swear she could hear him smile down the phone line. ‘Did you now?’
‘I also heard you’re an arsehole. I didn’t want to believe it, but I can see it’s true.’
‘Hey, who the hell is this?’
‘Remember Paskeville, Jacob? Remember Sally Buxton and Trace? Deirdre Cooper? Well, I’m your other daughter.’
The line went dead and Pip felt a part of her die with it.
And she sat there on the bed a while, waiting for a frantic heart-rate to slow and for warmth to return to her flesh, and remembered how Tracey had said it was better not to know your father was a scumbag, and thought that maybe she was right.
Because Gerald had been a great dad. She’d never needed to know about her real father, her scumbag father, the one who had left two women pregnant in short order and disgraced a church and who still hadn’t managed to keep his dick in his pants, even when he was married to one of those women.
Who was still out whoring by the sounds of it.
Arsehole.
When she returned to the kitchen, Tracey turned from juggling pots of simmering sauce and bubbling pasta on the stove, took one look at Pip’s crestfallen face and said, ‘Oh, Pip.’
‘I thought he’d be different,’ she said. ‘I really thought that if he ever loved Mum, he might have been happy to hear from me, just a little bit.’ She shook her head. ‘I was hoping . . .’ She looked up at her friend. ‘I’m an idiot aren’t I?’
‘Oh, come here, you.’ Tracey pulled her into her arms, squeezing her tight. ‘He was never good enough for any of us. But bugger him, because I love you, you crazy woman. I wish you didn’t have to go and live so damned far away.’
And Pip smiled against her sister’s shoulder, even as she felt that thing happening inside her, like she had when Fi had driven off, like something inside her was crumbling a little.
‘You know, for what it’s worth, Trace,’ she said, touched by her display of affection, ‘I think you’ve got this sister thing all worked out.’
‘You reckon?’
She pulled back and looked at her beautiful blue-eyed, blonde-haired sister. ‘And discovering I have you for a sister is just about the coolest thing that could have happened to me.’ They hugged again and Pip laughed because what she’d said was true and a million times more important than some dropkick father who’d walked away from them both. And then she sniffed and swiped at her eyes and said, ‘Now, how about I do something really useful and fix us a salad to go with that bolognese?’
It was only when she turned that she noticed Craig and Luke standing just inside the kitchen door. Craig was smiling and said, ‘Well, some people sure are happy with themselves.’
Pip looked at Luke, at the grim set of his mouth and the damnation in his eyes, and knew for a fact that Craig wasn’t talking about him.
Chapter Twenty-nine
Last night they’d barely made it inside the B&B before he’d taken her against the back of the door. Tonight he stood uncomfortably in the B&B, sucking up all the space with his broad shoulders and bad attitude.
Tracey had chased her out when she’d tried to help clean up, telling her that Craig could help her stack the dishwasher because Pip needed ‘to pack’. And Pip had wondered whether, once the two of them were alone, that Luke would be a little more friendly. A little less tense.
Apparently not.
She missed the fevered passion more than she cared to admit.
‘Make yourself at home,’ she said, feeling angry and miffed and confused and thinking she might as well start packing. It was just as well she was leaving. Even without having Luke tangled up in it all, things were getting way too complicated here, with the sudden revelation of the identity of her biological father and all the repercussions. Stupid! She’d known from day one she should avoid him.
Fool.
She pulled her case out from where she’d stashed it inside the wardrobe and unzipped it on the sofa, laying the half shells flat. She didn’t dare put it on the bed. Even if he was in a bad mood, she wasn’t mad enough to discourage him any more than he already seemed to be.
Because she ached for him. She’d thought they had one more night. And already she felt cheated. Because this wasn’t the last night she’d imagined.
By the time she’d turned to gather the first load of clothes from the wardrobe, he was standing in the doorway, those wretched hands that she wanted to feel on her still jammed tight into his jean pockets.
She stopped and looked at his bleak, hard face. The lips and mouth that had taken her to heaven were now set in a thin, hard line as the silence stretched between them. ‘Maybe you should just spit it out, Luke, instead of hovering like a black cloud.’
He sighed. ‘What are you doing, Pip?’
She laughed. ‘I’m flying to the moon. What does it look like I’m doing?’
‘So you’re still going?’
‘Of course I’m going. I’m booked, aren’t I?’ She pulled out one drawer and dropped the contents unceremoniously into a corner of the open shell of her case.
‘People have cancelled fights before.’
‘Only when they change their mind.’
‘I thought you might.’
She raised an eyebrow. ‘Why would I want to do that? I’ve got a job to get back to. I have an interview on Monday.’
‘You’ve just discovered you’ve got a sister and a niece and nephews and a brother-in-law!’
‘And I’m excited about that. Of course, I am. But I still have to go back. I live in New York, remember? I have commitments.’
‘And you have friends here who seem to hold you in much higher esteem than you do them.’
‘That’s rubbish.’
‘Is it? You walk out of people’s lives for years and years and then swan back in and expect everyone to cheer and say how wonderful and clever you are, and as soon as you’ve fed your ego you take off and leave everyone scratching their heads. What’s so good about some place halfway around the world that you can’t stay five minutes with the people who love you?’
Her eyes narrowed. ‘This job means a lot to me. Don’t try to take that away from me. Don’t try to make out my life over there is worth nothing.’
‘And what’s your family worth? For god’s sake, Pip, look at the gift you’ve just been given. You thought you had no connection to this place. You thought you were all alone. Well, now you’ve got family in spades. Don’t throw your family away, now that you’ve found them.’
‘So I’ll come back. I’ll visit.’
‘Will you? When? It took your grandmother dying to get you back this time. What will it take next time? Chloe getting married? Will it be that long before you decide to leave your oh-so-perfect life and oh-so-important job in New York City and come back?’
‘This is rubbish. I don’t have to listen to this. I’m leaving in the morning. End of story.’
�
��You know what your problem is, Pip? Your problem is that you don’t see what’s right in front of your face. You sneak around the edges. You hide in the corners. You turn your face away so you can stay in the dark. All so you don’t see the big fat truth that’s sitting there right in front of your face.’
‘Really. How interesting. And what is this big fat truth, seeing I’m doing such a good job of avoiding looking at it.’
‘You can’t let yourself be happy.’
‘What?’
‘It’s not that complicated a concept, is it?’
‘Oh, I imagined you were going to come up with some kind of revelation.’
‘Isn’t it?’
‘Hardly. I smile. I laugh. There you go, you’re wrong.’
‘Like I said, you don’t let yourself be happy. You deliberately cut yourself off from any chance to be happy. You walked away from me. You distanced yourself from your friends. You ran away from the people who loved you once before and you’re still running now.’
She put a hand to her head. ‘Give me a break. So you were my boyfriend once. Long, long, ago.’
‘More than a boyfriend. We were lovers. We were going to be married.’ He cocked his head. ‘I asked you to marry me and you said yes. Remember that night out at the stone mounds, Pip? Remember making love under the stars and you telling me you’d love me forever? Remember that?’
‘Do you think I’m ever going to forget that night? How could I? But that was before.’
‘Yeah. Before you concocted a reason to hate me, because you had to, to justify walking away.’
‘This is such rubbish. If you want to weasel out of what you did back then, that’s fine, but don’t expect me to come along to your little pity party.’
‘You make it sound like I committed some major bloody crime!’
‘You betrayed me! When I needed you the most, when I was at my lowest, you betrayed me.’
‘I never betrayed you! You needed to believe it though.’
‘Really. And why would that be?’