by Penny Jordan
Wisely he let her go, sensing that to try and talk to her in her present state of near hysteria would do no good at all.
By the time she was close to home, she had herself under proper control. She stopped once to scrub at her damp face with a grubby handkerchief, and luckily when she got back her mother was still out.
All the anticipation and excitement with which she had viewed the evening was gone. She prepared for it with a feeling of resignation rather than pleasure, and, irrationally, it was Luke she blamed for her change of heart. Luke had spoiled it all for her by being so nasty to her.
She couldn't let herself think about those moments in his arms. Half of her wanted to pretend that they hadn't really happened, because she knew, even if she didn't want to admit it, that now that they had, they had changed everything between them, and she didn't want things to change, she wanted them to go on being friends. But how could they be friends when she knew that secretly Luke despised her? He must despise her, mustn't he? Girls didn't go around asking people to kiss them, did they?
All through the rest of the afternoon she goaded herself with recriminations and contempt.
After dinner she and the boys went up to their rooms to change. Defiantly she decided that she might as well wear her jeans. It was, after all, a barn dance, and so what if everyone mistook her for a boy? She didn't care.
She wasn't allowed as yet to wear make-up, and she looked miserably at her reflection in the mirror once she was ready.
Her jeans were old and worn, the denim soft and faded. Used to her mother's condemnation of her tall, slim body, she didn't see the way the denim followed the long lines of her legs, and the smallness of her waist.
David banged on her door as he and Tom went downstairs, and knowing that she couldn't delay any longer she hurriedly brushed her hair and went after them.
'Gemma, you can't go out looking like that! I thought you were going to wear a dress.'
Both her parents were looking disapprovingly at her, and Gemma hovered on the verge of saying that she had decided she didn't want to go after all, but to her surprise David came to her rescue, saying lightly, 'It's a barn dance, Mum. All the others will be dressed casually. She looks fine.'
Both boys were also wearing jeans, and although Gemma could see that her mother wasn't pleased, she made no further comment.
Since Tom had already passed his driving test, it had been decided that on this occasion he would drive. Gemma sat in the back of her brother's small car, wondering why she did not feel more excited as they drove towards their destination.
The dance was being held in the village hall. Several cars were already parked outside it, and they could hear the noise from the group as they got out of the car.
Inside the hall was hot and busy with gyrating bodies. The atmosphere was very smoky, and stung Gemma's eyes. David found them a table while Tom went to the bar and got them all a drink. Gemma had asked for an orange juice and she noticed when he came back with their drinks that Tom wasn't having anything alcoholic either.
When David laughed at him, Tom reminded him that he was driving.
Gemma couldn't help noticing that more than one girl looked across to their table, and she tried to contain her feeling of desertion when David tapped Tom on the arm and drew his attention to a couple of girls standing watching the dancers.
'You'll be OK here on your own for a while, won't you?' David asked her as they got up. And, as he and Tom moved away, to her chagrin Gemma heard her brother saying to his friend, 'I'm sorry that Ma was so insistent that we bring her with us.'
So Tom hadn't wanted her company at all, she thought miserably. It had all been arranged by her mother.
She watched as the hall filled up and her brother and Tom kept on dancing with the same two girls. She was so engrossed in her own feeling of misery and self-loathing that she didn't even look up when the shadow fell across her line of vision.
It took the sound of her name to drag her attention away from the dancers and to the person standing in front of her.
'Luke!' The unexpectedness of him being there, coupled with the fact that he had no doubt witnessed the humiliating fact that she was on her own, put the final seal of misery on the evening.
'Enjoying yourself?'
He had to know that she wasn't, she thought bitterly, tossing her head in defiant misery as she replied in a brittle voice, 'Yes, thanks, are you?'
She saw him shrug, the gesture implying a certain amount of amused disdain as he looked around.
'It's not really my sort of thing,'
'No, I don't suppose it is.'
All the frustration and misery of the day poured out in her voice, two spots of colour staining her skin, her eyes glittering with temper and pain as she said disdainfully, 'I'm surprised they allowed you in here. Most places seem to have banned the navvies from the motorway.'
She was repeating something she had heard her father say about the men from the road gangs, and the moment the cruel words had left her mouth she was horrified and disgusted with herself. Dimly she recognised that all her pain and misery was somehow connected with Luke and that it was because of this that she had hit out at him, but as she watched the quiet contempt settle in his eyes and saw him step away from her, she knew with bitter self-knowledge that she had driven him away, and that she had spoilt their friendship.
As he walked away from her she stood up and called his name, but either he didn't hear her, or he didn't care, because he didn't stop.
After he had gone her eyes felt heavy with tears. Losing Luke's friendship mattered far more to her than the fact that her mother had arranged for her to be here with Tom. In fact Tom, and her feelings for him, suddenly seemed to be the least important thing in her life. How could she have spoken like that to Luke? No wonder he had looked at her the way he did. Tomorrow afternoon she would apologise and explain to him. Just thinking that tomorrow she would see him made her feel better.
When the two boys eventually came back to the table, she was astounded to hear Tom ask her to dance.
They had dancing lessons at school, and it was something she was surprisingly good at.
They left at twelve o'clock, Tom and Gemma going out to the car first, leaving David to follow. When they reached the shadows thrown by the buildings, Gemma was astounded when Tom suddenly and clumsily took her in his arms, pressing his mouth wetly against hers.
His kiss wasn't anything like Luke's. In fact she found that she hated it; hated the wetness of his mouth, and the jarring sensation of his teeth bumping against her own. As quickly as she could she freed herself from his embrace, trembling with a mixture of disgust and anger. She could see that Tom was chagrined by her lack of response, but she no longer cared. Why on earth had she ever thought he was handsome? He wasn't at all. Not when she compared him to Luke… Luke. She stopped dead yards away from the car, feeling her tummy begin to flutter and her heart start to leap violently in her chest. If she closed her eyes she could wipe away the memory of Tom's kiss by conjuring up the things she had felt when Luke kissed her. She shivered slightly, aching for him to be there with her.
Her last thought as she closed her eyes that night was that soon it would be morning. Soon she could be with Luke.
CHAPTER THREE
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Only it hadn't been like that, Gemma reflected grimly, coming out of her reverie and walking over to her bedroom window. When she had gone to the clearing that afternoon Luke hadn't been there, nor the afternoon after, nor the one after that. And so it had gone on for more than a week before she finally accepted that Luke wasn't going to come back, and that through her own folly she had destroyed something infinitely precious.
She must have hurt him very badly indeed, she now recognised with the wisdom of maturity. She had after all thrown in his face the very thing he was fighting so hard to overcome, and his reaction to her cruel taunt had been very much the same as hers would have been had he, for instance, mocked her for her most priva
te insecurities.
She had deserved to lose his friendship. She sighed faintly and stared out unseeingly at the landscape.
Could the Luke she had known and this man her mother had mentioned be one and the same person? Perhaps it was not so far fetched that they might after all. Luke had often expressed to her his desire and determination to make a success of his life. He had had the intelligence to do it, and the willpower. If he was the same person… She felt her heart leap like a salmon leaping upriver, and a wry smile twisted her mouth.
If he was, she doubted that he would be all that pleased to see her—if he remembered her. The summer had been spoilt for her when he had gone, but she had recognised that she had deserved to lose his friendship, and she hadn't made any attempt to seek him out, fearing a further rebuff.
Now when she thought about him it was with a mingling of gratitude and embarrassment. He had been very kind to her. She squirmed a little with embarrassment at the memory of how she had asked him to teach her how to kiss, aware of her very contradictory emotions at the thought of seeing him again.
One part of her hoped that he had made a success of his life and achieved everything that he had wanted, while the other… Even now, she still blushed for her fourteen-year-old self.
She heard a car coming up the drive, and realised that her mother was on her way back.
David and Sophy arrived soon afterwards, Sophy exclaiming enviously over Gemma's outfit.
'You're so lucky to be so tall and slim.' She made a wry face. 'I never manage to look elegant.'
Gemma could see the surprise in her mother's eyes. She wasn't used to other women envying her daughter. In her view, of the two, Sophy was by far the more attractive. Couldn't she see that small Sophy might well have a weight problem later in life? Gemma wondered wryly, standing up and excusing herself.
'Don't forget, will you, darling, that Daddy's bringing people home for dinner,' her mother called after her as she headed for the hall.
Behind her Gemma heard David asking, 'Anyone I know?' while Sophy chirruped that she had better go home and get changed.
She could see why her parents were so pleased about David's marriage, Gemma reflected as she walked into her bedroom. Sophy would make him exactly the right sort of wife. David wasn't like her. He had never questioned their parents' values, or their way of life. David wanted a wife like their mother and in Sophy, Gemma suspected that he had probably found her. Although Sophy was, as her mother termed it, 'well connected', her aunt was relatively poor. Gemma hadn't missed the faintly avaricious gleam in Sophy's eyes when she talked about their new home and the Spanish apartment that her parents had given them as part of their wedding present.
What was the matter with her? she asked herself as she showered. People married for all sorts of different reasons and it wasn't up to her to question or criticise David's and Sophy's motives.
She dressed for dinner with unusual care. It had been a long time since she had been the awkward teenager who had stubbornly refused to wear anything but jeans. It was true that her dinner dates were few and far between, but she had discovered in the years since she had left home that she had quite a flair for choosing the right sort of clothes for her slender height.
The outfit that Sophy had admired, for instance, had been bought as separates from two different shops. The sleek, fitted, fine wool black skirt was one that she could either dress up or down. With it she had been wearing a soft off-white silk-satin blouse, and over that an unstructured black and white open-checked wool jacket.
It had rather surprised her to discover that she liked clothes. As a teenager she had tended to despise her mother's concentration on them but once she had broken free of her own belief that, because she wasn't the daughter her parents wanted her to be, she was ugly she had found that she enjoyed hunting round the shops looking for bargains that helped to stretch out her slender means.
The fact that she was a perfect size ten helped, because it meant that she was often able to buy end-of-the-season models at a very good price.
For dinner she decided to wear a pretty silk suit with a fluid pleated skirt that buttoned provocatively down one side. Its jacket had long cuffed sleeves and a demure Peter Pan collar.
The soft peach colour suited her tawny skin and hair. A mischievous grin tilted the corners of her mouth as she swept the silken length of her hair up into a sophisticatedly casual knot that left soft tendrils framing her face and showed off the delicacy of her tiny ears.
Her only jewellery was the pearl necklet her parents had bought her for her twenty-first birthday, with its matching earrings, and the very plain gold watch they had given her when she left university. The plainness of both these gifts had been bewailed by her mother and father. Hugh Parish liked spoiling his women, but Gemma had been adamant. The only other present she had allowed her parents to buy for her was her small car.
Her father had a 'thing' about punctuality and Gemma knew better than to be late going down for dinner. As she had known she would, she found David and her parents in the drawing-room, her mother and brother talking about the wedding while her father dispensed drinks.
These business dinners had been a feature of their lives for as long as Gemma could remember. Her father preferred to bring his clients home to wine and dine them rather than to use anonymous restaurants. Although her mother was a first-class cordon bleu cook, when her parents entertained, her father always hired staff.
She could see both her parents registering surprise at the way she was dressed and she hid a small smile. Normally when she came home it was only on a very brief visit and she normally dressed for comfort rather than elegance.
'Why, darling, you look really lovely, doesn't she, Hugh?'
'She certainly does. What will you have to drink, Gemma?'
She didn't really like alcohol, and would have preferred a white wine spritzer, but knowing her father's views on all things 'modern' and as far as he was concerned 'faddish', she opted for a dry sherry.
Even that caused a rather raised eyebrow. In her father's opinion women preferred sweet sherry, but he poured a glass of pale amber liquid for her without any comment.
The doorbell rang, and David put down his gin. 'That will probably be Sophy. I'll go and let her in.'
Sophy had changed into a dress that Gemma easily recognised as being chosen by her mother. Sophy should really have been her mother's child and not her, she reflected, watching the two women as they discussed the floral arrangements for the wedding.
The doorbell rang again and this time her father went to answer it, ushering in two middle-aged couples, whom he introduced to Gemma as Moira and Harvey Goldberg, and Frances and James Hart.
'Harvey and James are business associates of your father's in this latest Portuguese development,' Susan Parish explained to Gemma as the four men started to discuss business and their wives gravitated towards Sophy to ask her how she was feeling about the forthcoming 'big day'.
'Senhor Armandez, their Portuguese associate, was over last week to report on progress to them,' Gemma heard her mother saying to her.
'Dad seems to have made quite a success of his overseas ventures.'
'Well, yes, but he hasn't made anything like as much as Luke O'Rourke is going to make from his development in the Caribbean. He's developing some land there that he bought, and your father's hoping that he might be able to persuade Luke to subcontract some of the development out to him.'
The doorbell rang again, surprising Gemma, who thought that everyone must have arrived. Her father had been frowning slightly as he listened to Harvey Goldberg discussing the progress being made on the Portuguese development, but now his frown relaxed, and a rather relieved smile lit his eyes as he excused himself and went to greet the late arrival.
Gemma knew who he was even before she saw him. The years might have obliterated the soft Irish accent she remembered, but the voice was still unmistakable, deep and measured.
From where she was standing
she had a completely uninterrupted view of Luke as he walked into the room. Just for a moment she experienced the most peculiar sensation of déjà vu, while the room turned topsy-turvy on her, and then gradually as it straightened again she was forced to admit that although her Luke O'Rourke and her father's were one and the same man, he had changed considerably from the twenty-year-old she had known.
There was no mistaking the immaculate cut and fit of his Savile Row suit, or his handmade leather shoes. His shirt had probably come from Turnbull and Asser, and his tie wouldn't have looked out of place on the chairman of one of the major banks.
He looked nothing like the jean-clad man she remembered, and yet he was indubitably the same person.
The lines round his eyes had deepened slightly, and his hair was immaculately cut and groomed. His face and hands were tanned, but it wasn't the tan of a man who worked outside in all weathers now, but the tan of a man who spent long periods of time in much hotter climates.
Gemma watched as Luke smiled at her mother, and then more formally acknowledged her father's introductions to his business partners.
'David and Sophy of course you already know, but I don't think that you and Gemma, my daughter, have met.'
Gemma opened her mouth to tell her father that he was wrong and then closed it again obediently as she caught the warning glint in Luke's eyes.
It stunned her that he didn't want to recognise their old friendship, and although she wasn't aware of it her eyes clouded faintly with hurt, as she withdrew her hand from his strong grasp.
'No, unfortunately we have not.'
His voice was deep enough to send small shivers of sensation dancing along her nerves, which was surely rather odd, because she had never reacted to him like this before. She missed that soft touch of brogue in his voice, she realised as she listened to him; it had made him seem softer… more approachable. And then her face burned hotly as she caught him looking at her. At her mouth, she realised, as she took a hurried step backwards. And she knew why. He was letting her know that he had not forgotten that last meeting between them.