by Penny Jordan
Katie’s eyebrows rose.
‘The family means so much, does it? Well he certainly doesn’t show it,’ she told her mother dryly. ‘With the exception of Max and of course Uncle David, I get the impression that he doesn’t care that much for anyone.’
‘Oh, that’s just his way,’ Jenny assured her sunnily. ‘You wouldn’t believe how proud he is of all of you.’
‘No, I wouldn’t,’ Katie agreed wryly. ‘He told me when he learned that Lou and I were going to study law that women and the law simply didn’t mix, and that women were far too emotional to make good lawyers...’
‘He is a bit old-fashioned,’ her mother acknowledged, ‘and since David left...’ She paused and sighed.
‘Do you think Uncle David will ever come back?’ Katie asked her mother curiously. ‘I mean, to just disappear like that... I know that Olivia makes no real secret of the fact that she doesn’t want him to come back, but Jack...’
She paused and frowned as both she and her mother remembered how, when Louise had first moved to Brussels to work, Jack and their brother Joss had illicitly taken time off school to go and search for Jack’s missing father. And then later, undeterred by Louise’s father’s decision that his twin brother should be allowed to make his own decisions as to whether or not to be reunited with his family, Jack had secretly made arrangements to fly out to Jamaica on the same plane as Jon’s eldest son Max.
Max had callously played on his grandfather’s love for him and for his son David on what was to have been, for Max, an all-expenses-paid luxury holiday and an escape from his wife and a difficult situation professionally, all cloaked in the disguise of wanting to look for David at Ben’s behest.
The ensuing near tragedy had resulted, not just in Max’s total transformation and metamorphosis, but also in a much deeper and adult understanding between Jack and his Uncle Jon, but all the family knew that a small part of Jack would also always be scarred by his father’s disappearance and his apparent rejection of him, no matter how much love and reassurance he received from Jon and Jenny.
‘I don’t know if David will ever come back,’ her mother admitted now. ‘We don’t even know where he is. For Ben’s sake...’ She paused and bit her lip but Katie knew what she was thinking.
‘Grandfather is getting very frail,’ she agreed quietly. ‘If Uncle David is going to come back I hope he doesn’t leave it too long...or until it’s too late...’
‘It wouldn’t be easy for David to come back and I’m not sure he actually possesses the courage he would need to do so...’ Jenny replied.
‘Mmm... He and Max were very alike, weren’t they?’ Katie acknowledged. ‘But Max has changed and so...’
‘Max has changed,’ her mother agreed. ‘He and Maddy will be here this evening, by the way. Maddy did say she wanted to have a word with you. They’re hoping to buy another house for the mums and babes and I suspect she’s going to ask you if you’d do all the legal work for them.’
The family charity originally begun by Ben Crighton’s sister Ruth had grown from a single house with individual rooms for young single mothers into an organisation which now provided homes for single parents of both sexes as well as their young children, and which was constantly having to find more accommodation for its protégé’s parents.
One of Maddy’s contributions had been the development of a scheme which allowed the young parents to train for jobs and then to go out to work while their children were looked after safely at an in-house crèche.
And not all of their single parents were female. They now had a small group of young men who, for one reason or another, were the sole parents to their children.
It was a very worthwhile cause and one which all the Crighton women both supported and were involved in to some extent or another. Katie and Louise had both worked voluntarily with the scheme during their university breaks and Katie was not surprised to hear that Maddy, as the charity’s main working executive, was in the process of obtaining further housing.
‘Who else is coming?’ she asked her mother as she scooped up the last few crumbs of her pilfered cake.
‘Mmm... Olivia and Caspar, Tullah and Saul and a handful of other people. Oh, and Chrissie and Guy...’
‘Guy Cooke?’ Katie enquired so sharply that her mother frowned.
‘Yes. Why?’
A long, long time ago, or so it seemed now to Jenny, Guy had made it plain to her that if she had a neglectful husband then she most certainly had a very appreciative business partner and one who, given the opportunity, would like to put their relationship on a much closer intimate footing.
But that had been before she and Jon had sorted out their problems and before Guy had met Chrissie, and so far as Jenny knew, there was now no reason whatsoever for Katie to have that particular note of reservation in her voice when she repeated Guy’s name, and certainly none for her unexpected emphasis on the Cooke part of Guy’s name.
Katie, of both her girls, was the one to whom Jenny felt the closest, the one who was most like her in temperament and yet, conversely, Katie was also the one who was the least forthcoming, the least given to confidence.
For a long time Jenny had been concerned about her daughter, knowing with maternal instinct that she wasn’t happy, but Katie had never been the kind of person you could coax or persuade into discussing anything she did not want to discuss. Jenny had her own ideas and thoughts about what was making her so unhappy and if she was right...
Katie had always tended to idealise people, to put them on a small pedestal, to invest them with virtues of her own making. She had a far gentler and more romantic nature than Louise, her twin, a far less robust attitude towards life—and men.
And now as she looked at her withdrawn expression, Jenny decided that it might not be a good moment to tell her that she had invited Guy to bring another Cooke along to her supper party with him.
Jenny had not yet met Seb Cooke, but she had heard all about him from both Guy and Chrissie. Naturally maternal and warm-hearted as well as being a generous hostess, Jenny had immediately suggested to them both that they should bring Seb with them when they came over to supper. From what Guy had told her about him it sounded as though, despite all his family connections in the town, he might be feeling a little isolated.
‘He isn’t the easiest of people to get to know,’ Guy had warned her. ‘In fact, some folk find him a little bit off-putting and intimidating. He’s a scientist, of course, and very analytical, and like me he’s known the burden of being a Cooke who doesn’t fit into the normal and expected male Cooke mould.’
As Katie went upstairs to change and prepare for the evening she was frowning. Her father had asked her if she would take over one of his few remaining conveyancing cases, explaining that what was to have been a simple court case had developed into something much more complicated, meaning that he couldn’t do the work as quickly as their new client wished.
‘Nice chap. You’ll like him,’ he had told Katie with a smile. ‘Seb Cooke... He...’
‘Seb Cooke! You want me to act for him?’
Her father had raised an eyebrow when he had heard the antagonism in her voice.
‘What’s wrong? I thought...’
‘Nothing’s wrong...’ Katie had fibbed. The situation and her own feelings were far too complicated and personal to be explained to her father. How could she tell him that the main reason she disliked Seb so much was because of his intense sexuality...that something about him, about his power as a man, made her all the more aware of her own incompleteness as a woman.
‘He’s buying the apartment adjacent to mine,’ was all she could allow herself to say.
‘Yes, I know,’ her father agreed, and then wisely decided not to pursue the subject.
Katie had changed since she had reached maturity. Something had happened to her, hurt her
, and much as he longed to help, he felt that it was impossible for him to pry. She was an adult now and if she wouldn’t even confide in her mother then who was he, a mere man—a mere father—to push for confidences she quite plainly did not want to share.
Her father had an appointment with Seb on Monday, an appointment she would now have to keep in his place. Fortunately most of the work had already been done and it was simply a matter of Seb signing some forms and then, hopefully, at the end of the week when completion for the sale would take place, that would be an end of the matter. He would still be her neighbour of course, but there she would be able to keep her distance.
What kind of man was he anyway? she fumed a few minutes later as she stood under the warm lash of the shower. He was buying the apartment in his own name and not putting it into the joint names of himself and his wife. That old-fashioned kind of chauvinism was something she detested and fortunately was rare now. The majority of men accepted that their wives, their partners, were equal to them in every way and behaved financially accordingly.
She might, Katie conceded, be a little old-fashioned when it came to matters of personal intimacy, but she was thoroughly modern in outlook when it came to matters of equality between the two sexes, whether that equality related to financial aspects of a relationship or the emotional and physical ones, and so far as she was concerned, a man who was selfish towards his partner financially, who refused to accept that she had absolute parity with him, was just as likely to be selfish both emotionally and physically.
Max, her elder brother, had once been that type of man and she had seen at uncomfortably close quarters just how destructive an effect that had had on his marriage. What was Seb Cooke’s wife like? Katie wondered curiously. Attractive? Very, she suspected. Seb had struck her as the type of man who would, as an arrogant right, demand perfection in every aspect of his life, and then there was the stunningly attractive daughter as living proof of her parents’ good looks.
Was this wife clever, witty...fun to be with? Did those steel-grey eyes glow with warmth and passion when their glance rested on her?
Katie gave herself a small mental warning shake. If she wasn’t careful she was going to turn into the kind of sad person who, without an emotional focus of her own in her life, worried incessantly and even perhaps a little obsessively, about the flaws of people who were at best mere acquaintances. And that was behaviour that was...what? Typical of what, one hundred and fifty years ago, might have been the ways of the unmarried, and therefore supposedly the unwanted daughter of the family who remained at home to look after her ageing parents.
Well, her own parents were far from ageing and she was living in a time when it was publicly documented that the women who enjoyed the best health and the least stress, both physically and mentally, were those who had elected to remain independent—who had chosen to remain independent, Katie reminded herself inwardly, not those who were forced to confront the unhappy knowledge that they loved a man who did not return that love, and had no option other than to remain alone.
Perhaps it was inevitable in a way that both she and Louise should love the same man since they were twins...but Bobbie and Sam were twins and Bobbie loved Luke and Sam loved Liam.
But then there were certain personal similarities between those two men, both in looks and in character, and there was only one Gareth, could only ever be one Gareth.
Outside the sun was still shining. It was a lovely warm evening and Katie knew from past experience that her parents’ guests would spill out of the house to explore and enjoy the gardens, so she opened her wardrobe door and looked for something appropriate to wear.
The soft chambray skirt she decided upon was both practical and pretty and with it she put on a white cap-sleeve T-shirt which had been a present from Louise.
‘It’s too tight and too...’
‘...sexy,’ Louise had teased her, her eyes sparkling with amusement. ‘It’s meant to be. It suits you, Katie. Since you’ve been working for that charity you’ve started wearing things that are far too dowdy and matronly for you. You’ve got a gorgeous body...much better than mine... Oh, yes you have,’ she had insisted before Katie had been able to protest that the last thing she wanted to look was ‘sexy’, but then Louise had unwittingly touched a nerve when she had added teasingly,
‘Gareth commented the last time he saw you that Ma dresses more stylishly than you do. I know how you feel about ostentatious consumerism when other people are having to do without, but there’s no reason why you shouldn’t wear inexpensive clothes that flatter you instead of opting for ones that don’t. And don’t forget,’ she had added winningly, ‘every time you buy something you’re helping other people to earn...’
Remembering the seriousness of her twin’s voice as she delivered this piece of wisdom made Katie smile as she slipped on the pretty delicate gold earrings which had been Louise and Gareth’s Christmas present to her. They matched the gold bangle they had given her when she had been their bridesmaid.
Arriving downstairs five minutes later, Katie shooed her mother out of the kitchen so that she, too, could shower and get ready for her guests, reminding her, ‘Ma...don’t worry, I’ll finish off everything down here...’
‘Would you? Oh, and Katie, could you do something with the flowers I’ve put in the laundry room. You really have inherited Aunt Ruth’s talent with them.’
‘Mmm...and I wonder which ancestor you inherited your silver tongue from,’ Katie teased her mother as she obligingly headed for the laundry room and the flowers.
CHAPTER FOUR
‘YOU’LL LIKE JENNY and Jon,’ Chrissie told Seb warmly after they had picked him up from the house he was renting, adding ruefully, ‘Oh, but I’d forgotten you’ll have met Jon already, won’t you, since he’s handling the legal side of your property purchase.’
‘As a matter of fact I haven’t,’ Seb informed her. ‘I’ve got an appointment on Monday to sign my contract, but it seems that he’s going to be tied up in court so his daughter will be dealing with it.’
‘His daughter...’ Guy frowned and then smiled. ‘Of course. I’d forgotten that Katie was working with Jon and Olivia now.’
‘Katie... Katie Crighton?’ Seb questioned him sharply so that both Chrissie and Guy exchanged automatic close-couple looks before Guy turned to Seb and asked him,
‘Yes, do you know her?’
‘We’ve met,’ Seb told him brusquely. Then, sensing their mutual curiosity, informed them dryly, ‘As it happens she’s buying the apartment next to mine.’
‘Oh really,’ Chrissie looked interested. ‘Jenny did say when I last spoke to her that Katie was looking for somewhere local. It’s such a shame about her having to leave the charity. She was really enjoying working for them.’
‘Of the two of them, she always was more intensely caring in that sort of way,’ Guy informed Seb. ‘I can remember how when they were children, both of them were involved in sponsoring African orphans, but it was Katie who not only gave her spending money but came down to the shop and insisted on spending all her spare time polishing the furniture to earn extra money for them.’
‘Well, I suppose there is bound to be an element of competition between them,’ Seb commented briefly and with what Guy felt was an unfamiliar and an uncharacteristic note of censure in his voice. Then, before he could correct Seb’s misapprehension and inform him that in fact Katie had insisted on quietly and discreetly sharing the earnings with her twin so that their shared contributions were ultimately ‘equal’, Chrissie was asking Seb if he remembered the family from his own childhood in the town.
‘Obviously I know the name,’ Seb confirmed, adding cynically, ‘After all, it’s almost as synonymous with Haslewich as the name Cooke, although for a very different reason. From what I can remember, old man Crighton was considered to be very much among the great and good of the area,
a very traditional pater familiae... I do once remember going to a children’s party up at Queensmead but it was quite definitely an “us and them” affair, the rich distributing alms to the poor sort of thing...’
‘Mmm... I remember those days,’ Guy confirmed. ‘But things are completely different now. Jon is as different from his father as chalk is from cheese and the current young adult generation of Crightons are a lively multi-talented bunch whose company I’m sure you’ll enjoy.’
Seb forbore to inform his cousin that his two previous encounters with Katie Crighton did not incline him to share his optimism.
He had not exactly been enthusiastic about the evening to start with and had he known just who Katie Crighton was he would’ve made every effort to exclude himself from the event. Now, of course, it was too late.
He started to frown as he had a sharp mental picture of Katie the first time he had seen her. Seb felt his stomach muscles tighten in protest at the feelings that memory evoked. At thirty-eight he considered himself, if not exactly past being sexually aware of and aroused by the sight and thought of a pretty woman, then certainly well able to control the physical effects of such thoughts. But now, as then, his body was proving him wrong.
Irritably he tried to deny the impact of his visual memory of her as Guy drove in through the gates to Jon and Jenny’s comfortable home.
* * *
THE HEADY SUMMER warmth of the evening had prompted Jenny to organise a buffet table under the trees in their pretty orchard and as Seb followed Guy and Chrissie in under the rose and honeysuckle hedge which separated the orchard from the rest of the garden, the first person he saw was Katie.
She had her back to him and was standing beside Saul Crighton, who Seb recognised from work, pouring him a glass of what Seb later discovered was her mother’s special and highly potent strawberry wine cooler. The scene in front of him couldn’t have been more idyllic, Seb recognised. The meadow grass was sprinkled with wild flowers, the breeze was scented with roses and the still warm air hummed with harmonious happy voices. Even a half-dozen or so young children who were playing together in one corner of the orchard seemed to be sharing one another’s company rather than squabbling noisily or quarrelling.