by Anne Mather
Jacob liked to pretend that in Jake's position, he'd have deserted. He wouldn't believe that his younger son might just have handled it without resorting to dope. All that stuff about bodies decomposing in swamps, and kids with their heads blown away, had to be an exaggeration. Hell, how bad could it be? He was alive.
Still, it had annoyed him when he'd heard that Jake had gone cold turkey and kicked the habit. It had given his father another reason to admire him, and he was mad as hell when Jacob offered to pay for him going back to school. But in the event, Jake wouldn't take the old man's money—an-other reason for his father to bug him—and when he'd gotten his law degree, Jacob had been as proud as if he'd taught the guy himself.
It wasn't as if Jake had done anything startling since he left college. Nathan had laughed his head off when he'd discovered Jake was working for the public defender's office. All that education, and all he was doing was defending punks and freaks. In his place, he'd have taken off for California. Lawyers there earned million-dollar salaries just for helping some poor little rich kid to get a divorce.
Maybe he should have gone in for law himself, but at the time, the old man had had some notion of him staying here and running the lumber yard when he retired. What a joke! As if he'd have been content to stay in Prescott. As far as he was concerned, the sawmill was just a millstone round his father's neck.
In the event, it had all been academic anyway. What with a shortage of investment and a slump in the manufacturing industry, Varley's Mill had become just another statistic. Like the rest of the town, it had folded beneath the weight of its own debts.
He was still brooding over the past when his father appeared in the doorway. Nathan had thought he had gone to bed, which was why he'd felt at liberty to help himself to a drink. He knew the old man was unlikely to miss it. Since Jacob had given up hitting the bottle himself, it was just there for medicinal purposes.
"I should have known I couldn't trust you," Jacob muttered now, coming heavily into the room and snatching the bottle out of his son's hand. "How long do you expect to stay here, hiding out like some petty criminal? Why don't you find something useful to do, like telling the Websters Jake's not you?"
Nathan's mouth compressed. "Get real, old man. And don't pretend you can't afford to buy whisky. You're not spending your money on anything else."
"I'm feeding you, aren't I?" Jacob thrust the bottle back into the drawer of his desk. "And what I choose to spend my money on is no concern of yours. I suggest you find another bolt-hole. Before those lowlife friends of yours come to flush you out."
Nathan started. "What the hell do you mean? Has someone been in touch with you about me?"
"And if they had, do you think I wouldn't have told them where you are?" Jacob sneered. "No, you can relax. There haven't been any funny phone calls. But you must have gotten the stuff from somewhere, and my guess is, they won't give up just because the plane went down."
He had been afraid of that himself. Afraid that when Carl found out Jake was in London, he might decide to collect his dues. It didn't worry him that Jake might be in trouble. But what if Carl sent Lisa to deliver the news? She would recognise, where Caitlin obviously hadn't, that the man still in shock from the crash was not Nathan Wolfe.
He swallowed now, and as if sensing his son's uncertainty, Jacob frowned. "You know what I'm talking about, don't you? You don't think they'll forget who was carrying the stuff."
He tried to bluff it out. "It's not my problem."
"It's not Jake's, either," said Jacob harshly. "I suggest you think about this seriously. I wouldn't want to have to call the cops."
Nathan snorted. "Oh, yeah. I should have known. It's not my hide you're worried about, it's my sainted brother's. What did Jake ever do to earn his halo? Except escape being brought up by you!"
"Why, you—"
"What? What?" His son goaded him. "What's to stop me taking off right now? I've got Jake's passport. I could go to Pine Bay. It would serve him right if I pretended to be him."
"Well, I wouldn't fancy your chances if Fletch Connor came around," said Jacob contemptuously. "Face it, boy, you haven't got a hope of pulling it off."
"So what do you suggest?"
"You know what I suggest."
"And what will that achieve, short of getting us both arrested?"
Jacob stared at him. "What do you mean?"
"If I go to the police, Jake will still be in deep trouble." Nathan sneered. "Particularly if I tell them what I believe he had in that case."
18
When Caitlin awakened, she was alone.
It was morning. A watery sun was already streaming through the cracks in the curtains, and although she didn't know exactly what time it was, she suspected it was quite late.
But for a moment, she was perfectly content to lie there and contemplate the day. She didn't want to get out of bed. She didn't want to do anything to spoil the delicious sense of wellbeing that she was experiencing. She felt relaxed and vaguely lethargic, and although her limbs felt weak and languid, it was not a sensation she had any wish to change.
She knew why she was feeling that way, of course. The moment she'd opened her eyes, the memories of the night before had come flooding back to her. A faint warmth invaded her cheeks at the remembrance. Dear God, she thought, after three years of marriage, she was finally Nathan's wife.
But that was melodramatic, and she knew it. For heaven's sake, it wasn't as if he had never made love to her before. In the early days of their marriage, he had abused her body all too frequently, appalling her with his brutal possession and with the sordid things he had expected her to do.
She caught her breath uneasily.
So why wasn't she appalled now? Why wasn't she stricken by the memory of allowing a man like that to take possession of her again? He was the same man—she had to believe that. Or run the risk of losing what little sense she had.
Her breath escaped in a wisp of sound, and thrusting any doubts to the back of her mind, she turned onto her side and surveyed the unoccupied half of the bed. The pillow was faintly dented, and the quilt was crumpled where he had got out of bed, but it wasn't just this proof of his presence that assured her he had really been there. She could feel him; she could still feel his touch upon her. The heat of his body warmed her senses. The scent of his maleness was on the sheets.
She tried to think rationally. Her husband had changed; the accident had changed him. That was why she'd had that sense of alienation when they'd made love. He had been different; he had been gentle, and oh, so wonderfully passionate. Dear God, any woman would have responded to him no matter how disillusioned they had once been.
It was incredible, but from the moment he'd kissed her, she'd been incapable of resisting the inevitable. The revulsion he'd once inspired in her had all been gone, and she'd found herself responding to emotions she hadn't even known she possessed. Her lips, her tongue, her skin, had all been electrified by the needs he'd aroused in her, and she'd been desperate to feed his hunger, and in so doing assuage her own.
Her limbs tingled still with the remembrance of how it had felt to feel him upon her. Between her legs, a tiny pulse throbbed at the thought of his powerful invasion, and of how eagerly she had welcomed him into her sheath. Muscles, slick with her arousal, had contracted and clenched around him, much as her legs had circled his hips and held him urgently inside her.
A wave of heat enveloped her at the memory, and those same muscles ached with remembered need. With one tremulous hand, she traced a path from the erect tips of her breasts, down over her quivering midriff, to the warm nest of blonde curls that hid her womanhood. Oh, God, she thought, she wanted him. She had never wanted him—or any man—before.
It was time to get up, she told herself, not wanting to face the thought of how vulnerable it made her, particularly as there was still the problem of Lisa Abbott to deal with. All right. She accepted he didn't remember her, but that didn't alter the fact that she was there. Imp
atient enough to call him at Fairings, she acknowledged resentfully. How long would it be before the woman plucked up enough courage to come to the flat?
Caitlin threw back the covers and got determinedly out of bed. There was nothing she could do about that for the present, she decided firmly, and until her husband recovered his memory, there was little Lisa Abbott could do, either. For the moment, she had the advantage, and instead of worrying about the future, she should live for the present. Nathan wanted her; he had proved that conclusively last night. Her wisest course should be to try and profit from it. To prove to him she was not averse to his lovemaking, and hope that when his memory did come back, he'd still feel the same way.
She was momentarily arrested by the sight of her own nakedness. For so long, she had avoided the demands of the flesh, and seeing herself unclothed seemed vaguely indecent somehow. Yet her pale skin was not unpleasing, and the sight of faint bruising on her breasts and thighs didn't make her feel any sense of dismay. The memory of how those bruises came to be there was far too disturbing, and she wondered if her husband had realised she had never had such feelings before.
She dressed in suede trousers and a skinny-rib sweater, choosing the most attractive items she had brought with her. She hadn't expected to be in the position of wanting to attract her husband's interest, and apart from the dresses she'd worn for dinner, which she'd had for some time, most of the clothes she'd packed had been chosen for their warmth, rather than anything else.
It was after eleven by the time she appeared downstairs. A shower and a careful application of make-up had taken almost another hour, and she was not surprised to find her mother and father sharing a pot of morning coffee in the conservatory.
"You're late," remarked her mother, breaking out of the conversation she had been having with Caitlin's father to offer her daughter a cup. But she left Caitlin with the impression they had been talking about her and Nathan, and it wasn't easy to sit down and act as if nothing momentous had happened.
"I'm afraid I slept in," she admitted ruefully. "It must be the air down here." She glanced about her with what she hoped was casual interest. "Where's Nathan?"
"He and Marshall have gone for a walk," replied her father rather tersely, and Caitlin wondered if he objected to her husband monopolising his assistant's time. Or was it Nathan himself he resented? She wished she knew what the South American problem was all about.
"Yes, your husband was up very early," observed Daisy Webster with rather less tolerance than she usually showed. She tossed her head. "He had the nerve to ask Mrs Goddard whether the family went to church!" She sniffed. "I suppose he was hoping to see that Kendall woman again. I can't imagine any other reason why he might want to confess his sins."
Caitlin's tongue clung to her upper lip. "I—I don't think Nathan was interested in Nancy Kendall, Mummy," she declared at last, accepting the cup of coffee her mother had poured for her. "He was just being—polite, that's all. And you know how flirtatious she always is with men."
"Hmm." Mrs Webster didn't sound convinced, but Caitlin's father chose to use another tack.
"Has he said anything to you about why he went to the United States in the first place?" he demanded, clearly more concerned about her husband's business dealings than any dalliance he might or might not be having with the schoolteacher. "I can't believe he doesn't remember anything. He's so—so perceptive in other ways."
"Perceptive?"
Caitlin frowned, and this time her mother intervened. "We're just concerned about you, darling," she said, giving her husband a warning glance. "So—tell me—did you sleep well? Mrs Goddard told me you'd asked her to prepare another room."
Caitlin's face suffused with colour. She couldn't help it, and it annoyed her that at twenty-nine she was still so hopelessly immature. But she'd forgotten all about her instructions to the housekeeper, and it was too late to go and muss the covers on the spare bed, even if she'd wanted to.
"Oh—I slept very well," she mumbled, hoping her parents would think it was the heat of the coffee that had caused the redness in her cheeks. "As a matter of fact, I—I stayed in my old bedroom." She licked her lips. "Nathan had a dizzy spell—" that, at least, was true "—and I didn't like to leave him alone."
Her parents exchanged glances and then, to her relief, she heard the sound of approaching footsteps. Looking up with what she hoped appeared to be only casual interest, she encountered Marshall O'Brien's inquiring gaze, and she quickly looked away again, annoyed that the anticipation in her gaze had been directed at him.
Matthew Webster asked the question that hovered on her own lips. "Where is he?" he demanded, and no one had any doubt to whom he was referring.
"I believe he's gone upstairs," replied Marshall, waiting for Mrs Webster's invitation before sitting down. "I don't suppose he'll be long. D'you want me to fetch him back?"
"Not particularly," said Caitlin's father broodingly. "You didn't get anything more out of him, I suppose?"
"I'm afraid not," declared Marshall, accepting a cup of coffee from his hostess. "As a matter of fact, he asked me some questions. He was curious about—about what he used to do."
"Huh."
Mr Webster was impatient, but for her part, Caitlin was wishing she hadn't left their room. Had Nathan gone to look for her? Surely he must have expected her to be up by now. There was no way she could excuse herself without arousing curiosity. In consequence, she was compelled to remain and indulge in small talk with her mother until Mrs Goddard announced that lunch was ready.
"Would you let Mr Wolfe know that we're ready to eat?" Mrs Webster asked the housekeeper a little peevishly as they left the conservatory, and Caitlin took the opportunity to intervene.
"I will, Mrs Goddard," she said, already heading for the stairs, but before she could attain more than the bottom step, she saw her husband coming down the stairs towards her.
Her heart flipped a beat, and she hoped no one else was aware of the nervous flutter in her stomach. Her knees felt weak, and there was a disturbing quivering in her thighs. All she could think about was what they'd done the night be-fore, and she knew a crazy urge to fling her arms around him and scandalise them all.
"Looking for me?" he asked of no one in particular, and Mrs Webster forgot her indignation in the enveloping warmth of his smile.
"Well, we were getting a little worried about you, darling," she admitted, usurping Caitlin's position by tucking her arm into the curve of his sleeve. "Though I must say, it seems unnecessary. I've never seen you looking fitter."
"Thanks."
He cast a rueful glance in his wife's direction as her mother insisted he escort her into the dining room. Caitlin supposed she should be grateful that he had evidently disarmed her mother, but the frustration she was feeling wouldn't go away.
It was compounded when they left in the late afternoon.
Both her parents came to see them off, but as Marshall was driving back to town with them, Caitlin couldn't be sure her father was there for their benefit or his. Apparently, Marshall had ridden down to Fairings with his employer in Matthew Webster's chauffeur-driven limousine, and to Caitlin's irritation, her husband had been far too eager to offer the other man a lift.
She had been looking forward to the journey. It was going to be the first time they had been alone together since the night before. When she'd gone to do the packing, her husband had been talking to her father, and Marshall had insisted on carrying down their cases because, as he said, Nathan was still recuperating from the crash.
In consequence, Caitlin had anticipated the journey with some enthusiasm. She'd hoped they'd have a much more satisfying replay of the conversation they'd had on the way down. She'd been trembling with excitement ever since she'd caught his eye across the lunch table. She hadn't mistaken the dark anguish in his gaze, which she was sure indicated he was as impatient to be alone with her as she was with him.
Marshall's inclusion in the party had been a total anticlimax. She could
n't believe it when she heard her husband suggesting that he drive back with them. All right, so they had two spare seats, but what of it? Why couldn't he take the train from Princes Risborough? She was sure that's what he'd expected to have to do.
Still, there was nothing she could do about it. Politeness forbore any alternative being offered, and she reassured herself with the thought that she and Nathan would have the rest of the night to themselves. It was dark already, and the prospect of a cosy evening at the flat was something to treasure. And probably all the more exciting because their being alone together had been delayed.
They dropped Marshall at the nearest tube station. He insisted that he preferred to make his own way home, and Caitlin was in no mood to argue with him. On the contrary, as soon as Marshall got out of the car, she felt as if an enormous weight had been lifted from her shoulders, and with a certain amount of daring, she moved her hand from the gear lever and let it rest on her husband's knee.
His reaction was hardly flattering. "Be careful," he said as she skirted a parked car with only inches to spare. "Concentrate on the road," he added, moving his knee so that his intentions were obvious. "How much farther is it to Knightsbridge? I'm not so familiar with this place in the dark."
Caitlin pressed her lips together. Her fragile ego had just taken a small battering, and she was not confident enough to believe it was only because he was concerned about the other road users. She hoped he wasn't angry about what had happened between them. It would be ironic now if he regretted it instead of her.
He went with her to park the car, and they took the lift from the underground level to the tenth floor. Despite her protests, he insisted on handling the cases himself, carrying them into the living room and leaving them on the rug.
Caitlin wondered if he had left them there intentionally; whether it was his way of giving her the option of putting them into separate rooms. After all, she had been so adamant before they went away about them having separate bedrooms. Was it any wonder he was confused when she had changed the rules to suit herself?