by Penny Jordan
‘Sorry.’ His voice sounded gruff. ‘I’d forgotten.’
‘It…it doesn’t matter. I’ll go and make some coffee.’ Claire stood up shakily and hurried into the kitchen. How on earth could she have explained to him that her tension had come not from the warm contact of his mouth against her palm, but from her own totally unexpected reaction to it? She had liked it; she had enjoyed the totally pleasurable sensation that had shot through her body.
* * *
HE WAS AT HOME FOR FIVE days, just enough time to go shopping with the girls to buy advent calendars, and to keep them occupied while Claire sneaked their carefully chosen presents into the house. And then he was gone. Back to Dallas to discuss the final details of the contract.
The American client was a builder, specialising in prestigious new houses, for which he wanted only the finest craftsmanship. Of a neo-Georgian design, their proportions lent themselves well to the reproduction plasterwork Jay’s company produced, but the American lawyers were finicking over every detail, and so Jay and his solicitor had to fly out once again.
It worried Claire how much she missed him. She oughtn’t to have done; after all, she had never wanted a husband—but Jay wasn’t just a husband, he was a person who made her laugh, who treated her as an equal, who filled out and warmed her life in a way she could never have believed possible.
She went with him to the airport, where he was meeting his solicitor, and was surprised by the sudden surge of desolation that struck her as he walked away. She wanted to cling on to him, to… Abruptly her body tensed as she watched his retreating back. Confusion and panic replaced desolation. What was happening to her? She mustn’t become emotionally dependent on Jay as well as financially dependent on him.
The days flew by, excitement mounting as the girls opened door after door on their advent calendars. They were both in the school play—nearly everyone in the school was involved in it in one way or another. Claire went to see them, and took Mrs Vickers with her because Jay was still away.
The last few days before Christmas trickled away far too fast. Jay rang three days before Christmas Eve to warn her that he could only get home at the last minute. Claire, who had put off buying and dressing a tree in the hope that he would be home in time, took the girls to the local garden centre and they chose one together, but it wasn’t the same as it would have been if Jay had been with her.
After Christmas, work would start on the house, but until then she had warmed up the sitting-room with deep pink and blue satinised-cotton-covered cushions and a large, toning rug.
But without Jay in it the house lacked something Claire recognised; she missed his vibrantly masculine presence. A trickle of awareness ran down her spine, a sense of danger and unease. She didn’t want to miss Jay, to be so conscious of his absences. She dismissed her thoughts as foolish, but something lingered, some faint frisson of knowledge that she determinedly forced into the back of her mind to think about later—much, much later.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE NIGHT BEFORE Christmas Eve, they decorated the tree. Claire sat looking at it after the girls had gone to bed, watching the soft dazzle of the tiny pinpoints of light. Everything was ready: the presents were wrapped, including the appallingly expensive desk filing system she had bought for Jay, the turkey was keeping cold in the garage, all the shopping was done, and for once even the weather was in tune with the season. It had been cold all day, and now the night sky had a dull glow that presaged snow.
Everything was ready, but Jay was not here to share it with them. She told herself that she was disappointed for the girls, that it was because of them that that small ball of pain lodged deep inside her wouldn’t go away.
She stretched tiredly and got up to tidy away the debris from the tree decorations. Perhaps if she made some mince pies that might help relax her.
She went into the kitchen and was soon busily engaged in the ritual of making pastry. Through the window she saw the first flakes of snow fall, and was unable to resist the childish impulse to watch. Thick, fat snowflakes fell from a midnight blue sky, whirling and dancing in a pattern that mesmerised her. A fine white blanket covered the ground before she managed to drag herself away.
Snow for Christmas. She finished making her mince pies and put them in the oven.
It was still snowing half an hour later when the pies were cooling on a rack and she had finished cleaning the kitchen. It was too early to go to bed, but she felt too keyed up to sit down and watch television or read a book.
She was just about to make herself a cup of hot chocolate when the back door suddenly opened.
‘Jay!’ She said his name unsteadily, unable to believe it was him. The snow must have muted the sound of his car. Snowflakes clung to his hair and jacket.
Somehow, without knowing how it had happened, she had crossed the kitchen floor, her face alight with pleasure.
She touched his arm and grimaced. ‘You’re all cold and wet!’ She was standing so close to him that when she looked up she could see the dark irises of his eyes. As she looked his expression changed and she felt a strange tension grip her.
‘You’re…you’re back early…’
Her voice sounded rusty, and she seemed to be having difficulty breathing.
‘I managed to get an earlier flight; Christmas is no time to be away from home. Girls in bed?’
‘Yes. Over an hour ago.’
For some reason she felt oddly flat. She moved away from him, checking as he laid his hand on her arm.
‘Claire.’
She turned towards him, her eyes widening as he bent his head and she felt the warm brush of his mouth against her own. It was an odd sensation, that soft touch of warm lips. It made her quiver inside, and realise on a searing wave of pain that never once in her life had she been kissed properly.
The sudden shocking hiss of boiling milk spilling on to the cooker jolted her back to reality, her body stiffening with rejection and fear. Immediately Jay released her.
‘I’m sorry.’ He sounded weary. ‘For a moment I forgot….’
What had he forgotten? That he wasn’t coming home to Susie? ‘It doesn’t matter…’
She just caught the expression of grimness tightening his mouth before he turned away.
‘I was just making myself a cup of chocolate. Would you like one…or something to eat?’ she asked hurriedly.
‘These smell good.’
He had obviously recognised her conciliatory offer and was trying to respond to it, Claire realised as he picked up one of her mince pies and ate it.
‘Chocolate will be fine, and then an early night, I think. I ate on the plane.’
‘Shall we drink it in the sitting-room?’
Those few moments of strained intimacy might never have occurred. On the surface all was as it had always been, but beneath the surface Claire was just beginning to realise that there lurked some very treacherous waters indeed.
What would have happened if the milk hadn’t boiled over? Would he have gone on kissing her? Would she have let him…? It was too uncomfortable an avenue of thought for her to pursue.
‘You go through; I’ll bring the chocolate in a minute.’
The faintly sardonic look he gave her made her face burn. Did he realise how odd his proximity was making her feel? She felt that she needed to be alone to get herself back to normal. That brief pressure of his mouth against hers had unleashed a series of sensations she was till having difficulty coming to terms with.
It hadn’t been dislike or fear she had felt in those few seconds before reality had intruded, far from it. So, what had she felt? Shock, grief for all that was missing from her life, and also a frisson of pleasure so delicate and new to her that even now she wasn’t sure if she had experienced it or merely imagined it. But surely it was impossible to imagine something like that—something she had never known before in her life, or dreamed of knowing? Now she had known it.
Shaking herself free of her confusing thoughts, sh
e put the two mugs of chocolate on a tray and added a plate of mince pies, quickly making some sandwiches from the ham she had roasted that morning.
Jay was sitting on the settee when she walked in, his head relaxed against the cushions. ‘I like the tree,’ he commented, getting up to pull up one of the small coffee-tables for her to put the tray on.
The room had an open fireplace with an immense cream marble surround, part of the original Victorian architecture. Susie had had the fireplace blocked off, and one of the first things Claire had done was to have it re-opened and an attractive coal effect gas fire installed. She switched it on, and paused for a moment to watch the flickering flames.
‘Mmm…very cosy.’ An expression of sadness seemed to cloud Jay’s eyes.
‘The girls wanted to wait until you came home to decorate it, but I thought you might be too late.’
‘There’s nothing on the top.’
‘I couldn’t reach,’ Claire confessed. ‘There’s a fairy in the box that the girls chose.’
‘I’ll put it on for them tomorrow. Mmm, these are good.’
He was eating one of the sandwiches she had made. Without his suit jacket and his shirt open at the throat he looked less formidable. He was tired, she realised.
‘How did it go in Dallas?’ she asked.
‘Come and sit down here beside me and I’ll tell you.’
She sat next to him on the sofa.
‘What an excellent wife you are, Claire: caring, obedient…’
At first she thought he was mocking her and she flushed painfully and started to move away, his hand on her arm stopping her.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘I know…I’m not Susie,’ she said painfully. ‘It can’t be much…fun for you coming home to me, Jay…’
‘Fun?’ His mouth twisted bitterly. ‘Is that what you think Susie and I had, Claire? There’s nothing fun about coming home to find your wife’s out enjoying her self with another man, while your child is left all alone. There’s nothing fun about knowing she’s being unfaithful, about knowing she doesn’t give a damn. I never caught an early flight to come home to Susie, Claire, because I never knew what I was coming home to. If you want the truth, I dreaded coming home.’
His mouth compressed, his eyes focusing on the leaping flames of the fire, as he looked back into the past.
‘Don’t ever thing I’m comparing you with Susie—there is no comparison.’
No, there wasn’t, Claire realised. He had loved and desired Susie, while she was just someone whom he had chosen to marry because of Heather.
‘I have to go back to Dallas after the New Year, and I want you and the girls to come too. John and his wife want to meet you.’
‘Me—but…?’
‘It’s the American way,’ he told her laconically. ‘They’re throwing a big party to celebrate the signing of the contract and we’re invited to be their house guests. It will be during the school holidays, so it shouldn’t be too much of a problem.’
Jay moved to pick up his mug of chocolate, the muscles down his back and arm tautening. His skin where it was exposed by the collar and cuff of his shirt was brown and firm, his wrist very sinewy in comparison to hers.
‘This will be Heather’s first real Christmas; Susie always preferred to go away somewhere.’ He put down his empty mug and relaxed back against the cushions. Somehow he seemed to have moved closer to her, but she felt no compulsion to move away.
‘You look tired.’
He turned his head and she saw the small darker flecks in his eyes. ‘I am,’ he admitted. He closed his eyes and sighed. ‘It was quite a shock to come home and find snow.’
‘My first white Christmas.’
He made a sound in his throat that might have meant anything and Claire turned to look at him. His eyes were closed and she sensed that he was on the verge of falling asleep.
She got up to take their cups to the kitchen, and when she came back he was fast asleep, sprawled out against the sofa. She leaned over him shaking him gently.
‘Jay…’
‘Mmm.’
The shock of his arms coming round her and pulling her down against the relaxed warmth of his body was totally unexpected. Her knees had caught against the edge of the sofa so that she had collapsed on to him, and how he was burrowing his face into the curve of her neck, his breath triggering off tiny convulsive waves of sensation where it touched her skin.
After her initial moment of panic, what she felt was nothing like the terror and disgust she had experienced before. Being held in Jay’s arms was so totally different from that. She felt at once both safe and yet deliciously trembly, her body fitting softly against the hard planes of his.
He was cuddling up to her in much the same way that Heather held on to her teddy, she thought with shaky amusement, and she had no doubt that he was totally oblivious to what he was doing. It would have been the easiest thing in the world to wake him up and break out of his hold of her, but for some reason she felt no compulsion to do so. Instead she raised her hand tentatively and touched the stubbly line of his jaw, held deep in thrall to a curious need to know more of the alien maleness of him. He muttered something in his sleep, releasing her momentarily as he raised his hand to cover hers, his head turning so that he could caress the soft skin of her palm with his mouth. The sensation that shot through her was so totally unexpected, so thoroughly unnerving, that she jerked back instinctively.
Instantly Jay was awake, his eyelids lifting, although he didn’t move. His cheekbone pressed hard against her shoulder, and she was acutely conscious of him in a thousand previously unknown ways. As though some deep inner part of her was waking from a long sleep, she felt the first stirrings of what she sensed instinctively was her suppressed sexuality.
Fear, joy, an exhilaration beyond anything she had previously known quivered through her; she felt as though she wanted to get up and dance, to burst out into a song of pleasure, to open her heart to him and tell him about the miracle his touch had somehow achieved. Because to her it was a miracle that for the first time since she was attacked she had felt like a woman.
A great flood of joy filled her. She wanted to reach out and touch him to communicate to him in all the ways there were her sense of release and freedom, but already he was withdrawing from her, his expression shuttered, as he said curtly.
‘Sorry about that, Claire. I didn’t mean to touch you.’
It was like someone cruelly puncturing a gaily coloured balloon. One moment it was a thing of joy and beauty floating free; the next it was gone. She came down to earth with his curt words ringing in her head, and she shivered violently, suddenly realizing her own folly.
Jay had married her because she wasn’t a sexual woman, and she must not let herself forget that. He didn’t want the complications of any sort of emotional relationship with her, and for her a relationship in the physical sense would have to contain an element of emotional commitment as well.
A physical relationship? What on earth was she thinking? Her face went white with the shock of the realisation that hit her. She licked her lips nervously, unaware of her state of frozen tension or of the interpretation Jay was putting on her stiff silence.
‘Look, Claire, it won’t happen again. It was a momentary aberration, nothing more.’ He got up and paced the floor tensely. ‘Try and put it out of your mind.’
What was he saying to her? Her confused mind tried to sort out the meaning of the words, and failed.
‘I…I think I ought to go to bed.’
She got up, still trembling wildly, retreating from him when he reached out to help her.
Jay watched her as she fled from the room, and then walked over to the fireplace, to stare moodily out of the darkened window. In front of it the tree glimmered softly in all its finery, but he didn’t see it.
A frustrated bitterness glittered in his eyes as he turned to face his own reflection in the giltwood mirror above the fireplace.
‘Dam
n!’ he swore savagely, bringing his fist down on to the marble with a force that threatened to crack the bones. ‘Damn…and damn again…’
* * *
ON CHRISTMAS MORNING they were up early, despite the fact that Claire and Jay had attended Midnight Mass the night before.
Both girls had had small stockings filled with little presents left at the bottom of their beds the night before, but Claire had already stipulated that the rest of the presents, which were piled beneath the tree, were not to be opened until after breakfast. She suspected that was the only way of making sure that Heather and Lucy got something inside them.
There had been another fall of snow, and there had been a magical quality to their walk through the village to the pretty Norman church the night before. Jay, in a fit of impulsive extravagance, had insisted on buying a huge red wooden sledge for the girls on Christmas Eve, and that too was now wrapped up beneath the tree alongside the dolls’ pram Heather had asked for, and Lucy’s bike.
Claire had spent almost every evening in December knitting small woolly garments for the golden-haired doll who was to occupy the pram, and against her better judgment both girls were to receive the much desired, and to Claire’s mind, quite revolting pastel-haired plastic ponies they had both ecstatically requested.
Tastes change, she reminded herself, as she heard the squeals of pleasure coming from their room, and no doubt she had pleaded for things that her parents had found equally incomprehensible.
She was still smiling about this when her bedroom door opened, but it wasn’t the girls who came in, it was Jay, a towelling robe belted over his pyjama bottoms, a cup of tea and some digestive biscuits on the tray he was carrying.
The awkwardness she had anticipated having to cope with after the evening of his return had never materialised. In the morning Jay had been as casually relaxed as he had always been, and she had been too busy to give more than a passing thought to her own reaction to him. In fact she had begun to think she had imagined it, but the way her heart jerked like a stranded fish just because he walked into her room told her better.