by Mather, Anne
‘Who said that?’ Mrs Redfern wasn’t convinced. ‘Stone by name and Stone by nature, if you ask me. Not to mention the fact that she makes me feel like I’m an unnecessary encumbrance.’
‘Oh, Mum, you’re exaggerating!’
‘What is Grandma ‘xaggerating?’ asked Hannah, getting impatient. Then tugging on her mother’s skirt, she pleaded, ‘Can I have a banana split, please?
Can I? I promise I’ll eat all my supper.’
‘May I?’ corrected Rachel automatically. ‘I don’t know how many times I’ve told you that.’ She sighed again. ‘Oh, I suppose so. But I’ll have to get it myself. Steph’s already gone home.’
‘So early?’ murmured Mrs Redfern, waiting until the last two customers had left the cafe before wheeling Hannah’s chair across to the counter.
‘She had some shopping to do,’ said Rachel levelly, not rising to the bait. Her mother considered that Stephanie didn’t pull her weight in the cafe. And it was true that the other woman was inclined to take advantage of the fact that she and Rachel were friends.
‘Shopping!’ Mrs Redfern snorted, but, seeing that her daughter was not in the mood to bite, she changed the subject to one Rachel liked even less. ‘By the way, you’ll never guess what I heard this morning: there’s a rumour that the reason Gabriel Webb is living at Copleys now is because he’s seeing a consultant neurologist at a hospital in Oxford.’
Rachel was stunned at her reaction to this news. Anxiety blossomed in her stomach, and she didn’t know how she controlled the urge to demand that her mother tell her where she had heard such a thing. God, she thought, turning away to take the ice cream out of the freezer, giving herself time to recover. Was that why he looked so pale and drawn? Because he was ill? Dear Lord, what was wrong with him?
‘Can I have some of the fluffy cream that comes out of a can as well?’ Hannah’s request was sobering. She had wheeled herself round to the other side of the counter and had dipped her finger into the sauce her mother had poured over the fruit. ‘Ooh, that’s lovely, Mummy. You make the bestest banana split ever!’
‘You’d better not let Stephanie hear you say that,’ said Rachel, forcing herself to put her concerns about Gabriel Webb to the back of her mind. But she was aware that her voice wasn’t quite as playful as it should have been and she felt her mother watching her with shrewd eyes.
‘I always like the things you do best,’ declared Hannah staunchly, clearly sensing that she was on to a winner. ‘Do you think I could have a milkshake as well?’
Rachel pulled a wry face. ‘Don’t push it, sweetheart,’ she advised, handing the dish containing the banana split to her mother and guiding Hannah’s chair to the nearest table. ‘There we are.’ This as Mrs Redfern set the dish down in front of her granddaughter. ‘Now I’ll go and make us a nice cup of tea.’
‘All right.’
Hannah accepted her mother’s decision good-naturedly, and Rachel was leaning down to give the little girl a swift hug when the café door opened behind
A draught of damp air issued into the room, but it wasn’t the sudden drop in temperature that caused Rachel to straighten and glance round in wary understanding. It was her mother’s sharp intake of breath and the shocked expression that had crossed her face.
‘Am I intruding?’
Gabriel Webb stood just inside the door, his dark hair sparkling with drops of rain, the familiar overcoat hanging open over black jeans and a V-necked cream sweater. Ironically enough, he looked less drawn today, his eyes surveying the scene he had interrupted with narrow-eyed consideration.
‘Oh, Mr Webb.’ Rachel was aware of feeling totally out of her depth. Aware, too, that her mother was watching her reaction closely and probably not liking what she saw. ‘I— I’m sorry but we’re closed.’
Gabriel turned and flicked the card that still displayed the ‘Open’ sign. ‘Is that right?’ he murmured. ‘I didn’t realise. When I saw you still had customers.
Rachel couldn’t look at her mother. She was fairly sure Gabriel Webb knew exactly who her ‘customers’ were, and she could sense Mrs Redfern’s antagonism from across the table. But, short of calling him a liar, she had no choice but to introduce them.
‘Um—this is my mother and my daughter, Mr Webb,’ she said awkwardly. Then, with a hopeful glance in her mother’s direction, ‘Mum, this is Mr Webb.’
She hesitated a moment before adding reluctantly, ‘Andrew’s father.’
Mrs Redfern didn’t get up. ‘Yes, I know who Mr Webb is, Rachel,’ she declared stiffly, without offering him a greeting. ‘Hannah, watch what you’re doing.
You’re dripping ice cream all over the table.’
‘Who’s Mr Webb?’ Hannah hissed to her grandmother in the kind of stage whisper that had to be audible to their visitor, and Rachel stifled a groan.
‘Hannah!’ she reproved, before Mrs Redfern could say anything more provocative, and then caught her breath when Gabriel left his position by the door to approach the table where the older woman and the child were sitting.
‘Hi, Hannah,’ he said, squatting down beside her chair and regarding her with warm approving eyes. ‘That looks good.’
Hannah cast a nervous glance up at her mother and then, apparently deciding there was no harm in answering him, she said, ‘It’s a banana split.’
‘Yeah, I know what it is.’ Gabriel grinned, and Rachel realised it was the first time she had seen him so relaxed. ‘I used to love them when I was younger. Banana splits and strawberry milkshakes! I think those were my favourite things.’
‘Do you like strawberry milkshakes, too?’ asked Hannah, wide-eyed. ‘They’re my very favourite drinks. Only Mummy says that having a milkshake as well as a banana split will spoil my supper.’
‘Well, I guess Mummy knows best—’
‘Eat your ice cream, Hannah.’ Mrs Redfern had evidently had enough of this interruption to their routine. She looked at Gabriel. ‘I’m sure you’ve got better things to do than waste time talking to a six-year-old, Mr Webb. As Rachel told you, the cafe’s closed. It was my fault. I forgot to lock the door.’
Gabriel got to his feet. ‘No problem,’ he said easily, his eyes moving from the older woman’s tight closed face to Rachel’s embarrassed one. ‘You’ve got a very pretty daughter, Rachel,’ he appended. ‘I envy you.’
Rachel’s lips parted. She didn’t know what to say. Or, at least, she knew what she ought to say, what her mother was expecting her to say, but she couldn’t do it.
‘Thank you,’ she murmured instead, conscious of him in a way that was totally personal, totally inappropriate. ‘I’m sorry about—about the sign.’ ‘Yeah.’
He held her gaze for a moment longer than was necessary and Rachel felt as if the world around her had shifted on its axis. Then, with a murmured word of farewell for Hannah and a polite nod in Mrs Redfern’s direction, he started towards the door.
Rachel hesitated only briefly before going after him. She had to lock the door, she defended herself, but she could tell from her mother’s expression that she wasn’t deceived. Mrs Redfern looked as if she knew exactly what her daughter was thinking, and Rachel wished she wasn’t so transparent.
It was still raining, heavily, and Gabriel halted in the doorway. ‘Do you have transport?’ he asked, his eyes on her averted face, and Rachel quickly nodded.
‘Oh, yes,’ she assured him, wondering what he would have done if she’d said no. ‘Um—do you?’
It was a stupid question and she knew it. The Webbs owned a fleet of cars. They employed a chauffeur, for heaven’s sake. He would think she was a complete idiot for asking.
But instead of answering her, he asked her a question. ‘What would you do if I said no?’
Rachel’s breath caught in her throat. ‘I don’t know.’ She moistened her lips. ‘Offer to call you a taxi, I suppose.’ ‘Ah.’ His mouth took on a sardonic curve. ‘I imagine it would be awkward if you suggested anything else.’
Rachel’s han
d sought an unruly strand of her honey-streaked brown hair and tucked it behind her ear. Then, ‘Like what?’ she asked rather breathlessly, and he smiled.
‘Well, it’s obvious I’d not be your mother’s favourite choice of travelling companion,’ he remarked drily. ‘That is, if you were thinking of offering me a lift home.’ He paused. ‘Which, of course, you’re not.’
Rachel straightened her spine. ‘I think you’re teasing me, Mr Webb. I’m sorry you’ve had a wasted journey—’
‘It wasn’t a wasted journey,’ he contradicted her softly. ‘It gave me the opportunity to meet your charming little daughter.’
‘And why would you want to meet Han—my daughter?’ asked Rachel tensely, aware that her mother was getting more and more irritated with this exchange. With good reason, she acknowledged wryly. She should have avoided any attempt to prolong this conversation.
‘I didn’t say it was my prime objective,’ he retorted now, turning up his collar against the rain and contemplating the weather with resignation. ‘Meeting Hannah was a bonus.’
Rachel stared at him then. In profile, his face had a harsh beauty despite its strength. Narrow cheekbones hollowed beneath heavy lids and his lean mouth had a sensual appeal. His appearance disturbed her and she knew again that unwelcome twinge of panic at the realisation. She didn’t want to feel the emotions he aroused inside her.
‘I think you’d better go, Mr Webb,’ she said stiffly, scared she might betray herself in some way, and flinched when he turned his narrow-eyed gaze upon her.
‘Call me Gabriel—or Gabe, if you’d prefer it,’ he said, his eyes on her mouth. Then, before she could object, he added, ‘There’s my car,’ and strode purposefully across the street to get into the back of a silver-grey Mercedes that had been idling in the ‘No Parking’ area. He raised his hand as the car drove away but Rachel didn’t respond. She was still trying to come to terms with the fact that it was she he had wanted to see.
CHAPTER THREE
‘Have you seen that man again?’
It was Sunday evening and Rachel was in the process of bathing her daughter. Hannah loved being in the tub, and although Rachel knew it was wishful thinking, she sometimes thought the little girl actually moved her legs in the soapy water.
Mrs Redfern had come to stand in the bathroom doorway and Rachel glanced briefly over her shoulder. She and her mother and Hannah shared this house in Maple Avenue, which had been the Redferns’ family home for the past twenty-five years. Her father had died over ten years ago, and when Larry had been killed in the car accident that had paralysed their daughter it had seemed sensible for Rachel to move back in with her mother. The house was big enough to accommodate a family, goodness knew, and Rachel had never regretted her decision.
Without her mother to look after Hannah she could never have returned to college or gone into business for herself. She wouldn’t have had the security she enjoyed now without the older woman’s help, and she felt instantly guilty for the resentment that swelled inside her at her mother’s words. Mrs Redfern had said little about Gabriel Webb since she’d offered her opinion of his character after he’d left the cafeon that Thursday afternoon, but Rachel realised she had been waiting for her to refer to him again.
‘What man?’ asked Hannah at once, ever alert to any gossip, and Rachel gave her mother a telling look.
‘No one you know,’ she said shortly, justifying the lie to herself. Then, with another warning glance in her mother’s direction, ‘No, I haven’t. Have you?’ Mrs Redfern’s lips pursed. ‘There’s no need to take that attitude, Rachel. It was a perfectly reasonable question. But, if you insist on burying your head in the sand—’
‘Why would you bury your head in the sand, Mummy?’ Hannah was puzzled. ‘Does Grandma mean at the seaside?’
‘Something like that,’ said Rachel shortly, soaping the sponge and applying it rather aggressively to the little girl’s shoulders. Hannah protested, and Rachel was instantly contrite. ‘I’m sorry, sweetheart,’ she exclaimed. ‘I wasn’t thinking.’
‘Well, I think the truth is that you were,’ retorted Mrs Redfern tersely, going out of the bathroom and slamming the door behind her, and Rachel expelled a weary breath.
That was all she needed: for her mother to get it into her head that she was interested in Gabriel Webb. It was ridiculous! Ludicrous! He was Andrew’s father, for God’s sake! He had to be at least twenty years older than she was. ‘Is Grandma cross?’
Hannah’s anxious question reminded her that she had a sensitive child to deal with, and Rachel quickly rescued her expression. ‘Grandma’s not cross with you,’ she assured the little girl with a bright smile. ‘Now, come on. Let me lift you onto the seat and we’ll shower you off.’
It was comparatively easy to divert Hannah’s attention, but later that evening Rachel was forced to face her mother’s censure again. With her daughter safely tucked up in bed there was no third party to provide a distraction, and although Rachel had got out her account books in the hope of avoiding a confrontation she soon found she had wasted her time.
‘Stephanie tells me Gabriel Webb has been into the cafe more than once in the last two weeks,’ Mrs Redfern remarked, carrying the cup of coffee she had just made herself into her late husband’s study, where Rachel was working. ‘That’s without that evening he came after the girls had gone home.’
Rachel knew a momentary twinge of anger towards her friend for relating something so potentially explosive to her mother, and then chided herself for blaming anyone else for this situation. ‘So?’ she said managing to adopt an indifferent tone. ‘I told you he’d been in.’
‘Not three times,’ retorted Mrs Redfern, taking the chair across the desk. ‘What does he want?’
Rachel was glad the lamplight shone down on the account books and not on her face. ‘Why should he want anything?’ she protested. ‘Other than a decent pot of tea, of course. You won’t deny that I serve one of the best cups of tea in the area?’
‘Oh, Rachel!’ There was a wealth of impatience in Mrs Redfern’s voice. ‘I know you’re not as naive as you’d like me to think. I saw the way he was looking at you the other afternoon. I find it hard to believe, I admit, that a man like him—a man with his money, with his background,’ she amended quickly, ‘should be interested in someone his son—’
‘Don’t,’ said Rachel shortly. ‘Please don’t.’
‘Don’t what?’
‘Don’t say anything more,’ said Rachel, aware that her nails were digging into her palms. ‘It’s not true, so why torment yourself over it? Gabriel Webb is not interested in me.’
‘Then why is he always in the cafe?’
Rachel gasped. ‘He’s not always in the cafe,’ she exclaimed frustratedly. ‘As you said, he’s been in three times in as many weeks. That’s hardly a record. I have customers who come in two or three times a day!’ ‘Well, according to Steph—’
‘Look, I don’t care what Steph thinks,’ replied Rachel, wishing her friend would mind her own business. ‘Ask yourself the question, Mum. Why would someone like him feel anything but—but curiosity about me?’
‘Curiosity?’ Mrs Redfern considered this possibility seriously, and Rachel had the feeling she’d said the wrong thing. But then, discarding that thought, her mother returned to her original opinion. ‘You’re an attractive woman, Rachel. If you had more confidence in yourself you’d see that I was right.’
‘Oh, Mum!’ Rachel was weary of this conversation. ‘I’m too tall, I’m too thin, and I have a hairstyle that was in fashion ten years ago. I’m not beautiful or sexy. I appreciate your loyalty, but I fear it’s misplaced.’
‘That’s the trouble with you,’ responded her mother at once. ‘Always putting yourself down. You’d never have married Larry Kershaw if you hadn’t had such a low opinion—’
‘No more, Mum.’ Rachel groaned. This was an old argument and one she had no wish to get into tonight. Then, because she had to, ‘If I hadn’t marr
ied Larry I wouldn’t have had Hannah. And even you can’t deny that she’s been a delight ever since she was born.’
‘If Larry hadn’t spent as much time in the pub, Hannah would still be a normal little girl,’ retorted Mrs Redfern tightly. And then, seeing Rachel’s shocked face, she hastily recanted. ‘I know, I know. Hannah is a normal little girl.’ She took a sip of her coffee. ‘I just wish—I just wish—’
‘Don’t we all?’ said Rachel flatly, determinedly picking up her pen. ‘I’ve got to get on, Mum. I mean it. It’s nearly nine o’clock and these accounts won’t calculate themselves.’
Monday and Tuesday passed without incident, and Rachel was beginning to think that both her and her mother’s fears had been groundless when Gabriel Webb turned up again. He came into the cafe on Wednesday afternoon, just as she was about to close. Stephanie and Patsy had already gone—thank goodness, thought Rachel fervently—and as it wasn’t a day that Hannah and her grandmother were coming to meet her Rachel was on her own when he appeared.
He was wearing dark trousers and a leather blouson jacket this afternoon, and a dark blue tee shirt that highlighted the olive cast of his skin. His face was still drawn but Rachel was uneasily aware of the hard strength in his lean features. It was an awareness that had come to her gradually, but she couldn’t deny he possessed a sort of magnetism that no amount of self- denigration on her part could dismiss.
She didn’t want to notice these things but she couldn’t help it. It was her mother’s fault, she thought crossly. And Stephanie’s. They had put these thoughts into her head. Yet in her heart of hearts she knew that it wasn’t anything either of them had said that had reduced her to this state of nervous apprehension every time he came into the cafe. And she was very much afraid he knew it, too.
‘I understand,’ he said, when she recovered herself sufficiently to glance at the clock. ‘You’re closing.’ He paused. ‘I hoped you might be.’ He pushed his fingers into the waist-line pockets of his trousers and she instantly noticed how his thumbs pointed to the taut fabric that shaped his sex. ‘I wondered if you’d like to have a drink with me for a change.’