‘No, come first thing in the morning, pet. He’s asleep now. And remember, when you see him, act surprised. Oh, thank you, Sasha!’ The line died.
Act surprised, Sasha told herself as she drove down that familiar driveway with the jacarandas now bare and lifeless-looking, on what was a cold, grey winter’s day.
She had been telling herself this throughout the long drive, to still the inner panic she felt—had felt since she had put the phone down slowly, her mind seething with unanswered questions. It had been all she could do to heed Edith’s request to wait until morning, and the dark, dead hours of the night had dragged unbearably.
But she was here now. She brought her little car to a halt on the gravel beneath the front verandah and took a deep breath. Act surprised …
She made herself jump out and run up the front steps, calling lightly as she went, ‘Anyone home?’ Act surprised. ‘Edith?’ she sang out cheerfully. ‘It’s me— Blossom! The prodigal child returned!’ The front door stood open and she crossed the threshold into the long, dark passageway and stopped as the passage lights sprang on.
‘Edith?’ she said, but this time tentatively, and blinked at the sudden radiance. Then she made out the tall figure leaning against one of the doorways further down and her heart started to pound. Act surprised, Sasha, she told herself tremblingly as she started to walk again, and then thought, I don’t have to act. ..
‘Heath…?’ Her voice came out as a strangled whisper.
He didn’t say a word as she advanced towards him and stumbled once.
Oh, Heath, what have they done to you? her heart cried as her disbelieving eyes took in the tall figure clad in blue cord trousers and a blue sweater that matched his eyes. For this was such a different Heath from her memories of him—as tall as ever, but somehow gaunt and with new lines on his face and a pallor that frightened her. But it was his eyes that frightened her even more and made her stop in her tracks.
Those dark blue eyes that she had seen range through so many expressions. But she had never seen this expression in them—not for her. Never seen Heath looking at her with such a blaze of anger in his eyes that she felt scorched and bit her lip hard enough to draw blood.
He didn’t straighten up, just looked her up and down and then said in a cold, hard voice, ‘I might have known I couldn’t trust Judith.’
‘I … I don’t know what you mean,’ she faltered. ‘Heath, why didn’t you let me know you were home?’
‘Because I didn’t choose to, Sasha,’ he said coolly. ‘Anyway, I won’t be home for long, sweet stepsister, so you may put all your Florence Nightingale instincts back in the box. I presume Edith gave you a full rundown?’
‘No,’ Sasha whispered, and found her throat painfully restricted, ‘she didn’t. But I only have to look at you to know … you’re not well.’ She stopped and winced at the flash of blue fire her words brought to his eyes. I. shouldn’t have said that, she thought dazedly.
Then the fire was gone and in its place a sort of studied cynicism as he seemed to change tack deliberately. ‘I’ve been hearing great things of you, Sasha,’ he said casually. ‘It looks as if you’ve got quite a career ahead of you. You must tell me about it. Let’s see if we can raise a cup of tea for you. Although I suspect Edith might have bolted in fright,’ he added with a curiously unpleasant little smile.
He straightened up then and for the first time Sasha saw the cane in his hand and his knuckles white with effort as he turned slowly and limped painfully down the passage away from her towards the kitchen.
‘I’ll… I’ll make the tea,’ she said breathlessly as she followed him into the kitchen. She unwound her scarf and took off her gloves, trying not to watch as he sat down awkwardly at the big kitchen table.
‘Sasha,’ he said abruptly as she filled the kettle, ‘please tell me truthfully, did Edith get in touch with you?’
She plugged the kettle in carefully and then turned to look at him. ‘Yes, Heath,’ she said simply. ‘But you mustn’t blame her. She was only doing what she felt she had to. And besides, as you mentioned earlier,’ she added with her lips twitching, ‘we are related now, aren’t we? I wonder if that bit of news came as much of a surprise to you as it did to me?’
He looked at her thoughtfully, then shrugged. ‘I guess it did. But I’m very happy for them. And that’s why I’ve got to know if she’s managed to get in touch with them, as well. Because the very last thing I want on my conscience is for them to come dashing home on my account and Edith’s sense of melodrama. I’ve given my mother enough to worry about over the years.’
‘She hasn’t,’ Sasha said reassuringly. ‘But…’ She hesitated and thought, no, as a strange presentiment took her, I might need that weapon myself. ‘But,’ she said with an effort, ‘she’s very worried about you. Won’t you tell me how this happened, at least?’ She tried to make herself speak as matter-of-factly as she could and poured the tea as she spoke.
Heath folded his arms across his chest and stared down at the teacup she had placed in front of him. Then he lifted his eyes and all she could see was a sort of wry amusement in them. ‘I ran out of luck, Blossom, and ran into a couple of bullets. If she wasn’t my mother, I imagine that might even give Stephanie an odd sense of satisfaction, because she’s been trying to warn me off for long enough, hasn’t she? But if you’re going to turn maternal on her behalf, Sasha, don’t bother. All it needs is a little time and I’ll be as good as new.’
He held her gaze deliberately and the mockery in his eyes hurt even more than had the anger she’d seen. She also realised instinctively that he had no intention of telling her any more.
But what surprised her was the intensity of her own physical reaction to this bitter, hard Heath. A longing that almost took her breath away to reach across to him and cradle his dark gold head to her breast, so that she had to look away and clench her hands in her lap.
I thought so, an inner voice murmured. You haven’t got over him, have you, Sasha? Maybe you never will.
She cleared her throat. ‘Edith … said you were going away.’ She looked up to find him watching her.
‘Yes,’ he said after a moment.
‘Where?’
‘Somewhere warm,’ he said idly. ‘I thought I might take a protracted cruise.’
‘Why did you come home, Heath?’ she asked with a catch in her voice.
‘I really can’t imagine, Sasha,’ he said wryly. ‘Ostensibly to tie up some business ends that I’d left loose. But it was a mistake. I’m bored to death already. Listen, enough of me. Why don’t we have a celebratory hello-goodbye dinner tonight? Then I can hear all your news before you whizz back to the world of television and I head for the wide blue yonder that’s beckoning” me so insistently. Provided,’ he added with a faint grin, ‘you can raise Edith from whichever hole she’s scuttled into?’
He stood up, and she noticed the beading of sweat the effort brought to his brow.
‘What are you going to do?’ she asked uncertainly.
‘I’m going to spend the day closeted with the telephone,’ he said ruefully, ‘and via it, my stockbroker, travel agent, etc. See you at dinner, Funny-face,’ he added carelessly, and limped out of the room.
Sasha stared across the desk at Doctor James, her face set and determined.
The doctor returned her gaze a little warily over the top of his bi-focals. ‘Are you sure he’s planning to go away again, Sasha?’
‘Quite sure. But even to me—a layman—it’s obvious he’s in no fit state to be going anywhere. Which is why I came to see you. Edith West tells me you managed to get some information from a specialist Heath consulted when he arrived home.’
‘Yes, I did. Miss West seems to be of the same opinion as you—that he’ll be leaving again. Which is why I took the liberty of … making some enquiries. However, Heath is not my patient and I’m rather concerned about meddling in his affairs, Sasha.’
‘Well, I’m not,’ Sasha said baldly. ‘In fact I fee
l I have an obligation to his mother, who is now also my stepmother, to do all I can for him. But he won’t tell me anything, which is why I’ve come to you. Is he in a fit state to be gallivanting on a Pacific cruise or whatever else he’s planning?’
Doctor James sighed suddenly. ‘Sasha—to be quite honest, no. What he really needs is considerable care and attention, because he has a very trying time ahead of him.’
‘In what way?’ she asked carefully after a moment.
‘For the most part, in the same way anyone convalescing from the injuries he sustained and the operations he underwent. If he looks after himself and takes things slowly, he’ll be as good as new. Even his leg will respond to physiotherapy, but these things all take time. But there’s one area that’s a little more complicated. You see, apparently he sustained a blow to the base of the skull which damaged his optic nerve. And—well, there’s some doubt whether the surgery performed was successful.’
For a few moments it seemed to Sasha as if the world had stopped. She heard no sounds apart from the ticking of the surgery clock. Everything else including the noisy traffic outside the window seemed to be blocked out.
Then she said jerkily, ‘Are you … telling me Heath could go blind?’
‘Not necessarily, Sasha,’ Doctor James said firmly. ‘That’s the very darkest prognosis. But that it’s a very delicate, tricky area I can’t deny. And the important thing now, while they determine whether the nerve is healing or deteriorating, whether he requires further surgery, is peace .and quiet for him, lack of strain and to get him as fit as possible.’
‘Is he … but he isn’t blind now, is he?’ she asked shakily. ‘I mean, I didn’t notice anything,’ she added helplessly.
‘No, he’s not. But he’s experiencing some visual distortions from time to time, consistent with, perhaps, pressure on the nerve.’ Doctor James looked down at his hands and then raised his eyes to Sasha. “‘My dear, I understand and appreciate your concern. And now that I’ve told you this, I must confess I feel a little guilty about not taking a more positive approach myself. I count his mother as a very good friend of mine, you see. But if Heath’s made up his mind I doubt if there’s a great deal you or I can do.’
‘Oh yes, there is,’ she said very slowly. ‘At least, there’s something I can do.’ She tilted her chin resolutely.
‘Well, I wish you good luck. And if you do succeed, having stuck my oar in now, I shall back you to the hilt.’
But that night at dinner Sasha didn’t feel quite so resolute.
Edith, who had dispensed with the services of a cook, had made an extra effort with the meal, and the table and the silver shone brilliantly, reminding Sasha of the night her father and Stephanie had broken their news to her, which added a twist of irony to the situation, she thought.
But there were humorous touches to it as well. Edith, particularly, supplied a few. Never loquacious exactly, she went out of her way to be as charming as possible, although she displayed a tendency to glance at Heath occasionally like an anxious mouse in the presence of a cobra.
Not that Heath gave any indication of wanting to pounce on her. In fact he too set out to charm, and from his manner it was hard to believe he had a care in the world. And he skilfully drew Sasha out about her job and the more out-of-the-way places and people she had encountered, so that to all intents and purposes it was a cheerful dinner.
Then Edith pushed back her chair and said goodnight abruptly and the evening seemed to splinter into fragments. Sasha and Heath were left on their own with an unspoken tension lying between them like an invisible cloud.
Heath spoke first after the silence that had attended Edith’s departure.
He had changed into a navy silk shirt and a tweed jacket, and Sasha hadn’t been able to stop herself from wondering what kind of an ordeal just changing his clothes represented. She herself had chosen a topaz-yellow, fine woollen dress that contrasted brilliantly with her hair and fell in soft graceful folds about her figure as she moved.
‘So you and Brent make a good team, by the sound of things,’ Heath said abruptly as he toyed with his wine glass. ‘I read an article about the two of you and the series.’
‘Oh.’ Sasha remembered the article and the accompanying picture of her and Brent, and wondered where he had come across it, because she couldn’t imagine him being in the habit of reading women’s magazines.
‘Yes. It should be a very good production.’
She smiled, but a little absently. ‘We only have the basics so far. There’s a great deal more to go into the melting pot.’
‘But you’ve worked well as a team?’ he said, and lowered his eyes in the instant that she realised he was ‘ watching her very carefully.
‘Oh yes,’ she said. ‘But I think my period of usefulness has waned now. I found the Australian sites but from here on the experts move in. Scriptwriters—so many different people with talents I don’t pretend to have.’
There was another silence. Then he said, not looking at her, ‘Sasha, I hope you’re not trying to tell me anything.’
‘Heath,’ she took her courage in both hands, ‘I resigned today.’
‘Oh no,’ he muttered through his teeth.
‘Yes,’ she said with a calm she was far from feeling.
‘Sasha,’ he lifted his eyes to hers, ‘don’t make me say it.’ His voice was full of menace and there was a coldness is his eyes that made her shiver inwardly.
But she pressed on. ‘Say what?’
‘You know bloody well what,’ he said contemptuously. ‘But if you have to have it spelt out … I have no intention of letting you sit around here playing nursemaid to me, stepsister. I can find someone far more suitable for that purpose, should I decide I need one. And I can spell out what I mean by suitable if you’d like,’ he added coolly but with a slow, insolent glance that mentally stripped her naked and dismissed her so that she had no doubt of what he meant.
She felt the colour rise from the base of her throat and her first impulse was to run from him and her first thought was that she’d never recover from this wound.
But she stifled these reactions and thought of what Doctor James had said.
And she even contrived a faint smile as she said lightly, ‘That doesn’t sound like a very good idea at the moment. But if there’s someone here, someone who’d stay with you?’ She looked at him enquiringly and thought she detected a gleam of amusement in his eyes.
He said dryly, ‘If you’re proposing to solicit on my behalf, Blossom, thank you kindly, but no. I’m well able to take care of those arrangements myself. And I’m leaving, Sasha, so let’s just forget we had this discussion, shall we?’ The amusement was there plainly now. ‘There’s nothing you can do to stop me, Napoleon,’ he added almost gently.
Sasha took a deep breath. ‘Yes, there is.’
‘Oh?’ He lay back in his chair and studied her from beneath half-closed eyelids while his long fingers twirled his wine glass round and round. ‘I hope you’re not planning to take me by force or .. . deprive me of my clothes, say?’ He laughed at her hot face. ‘Oh, Sasha
‘Heath,’ she interrupted desperately, and stopped abruptly. Then she took another deep breath and said, ‘You’re not going to like this but if you do go, I’ll wire your mother and tell her exactly what’s happened to you. Do you know what that will do to her?’ she asked steadily. ‘Have you any idea how upset she was when you left last time? Well, I’ll tell you, she was brokenhearted, Heath …’
‘Stop it, Sasha!’ he commanded tautly. ‘You’ll do no such thing. Do I make myself very clear?’ He sat up and again she felt the blue fire of his eyes scorching her. ‘Do I, Sasha?’ he repeated violently when she didn’t speak.
She trembled inwardly, but her voice was surprisingly resolute. ‘It’s the other way around, Heath. I don’t think I’ve made myself clear. Because you see, if you go, there’s no way you can stop me from letting
Stephanie know the whole story, the neuro-surgeon
’s … unease, everything. That would be a nice way to end a honeymoon, wouldn’t it?’
She closed her eyes and waited for the explosion .she was sure would come. Then when nothing happened, she opened them to see him staring at her with his lips tightly compressed and a nerve beating in his jaw. And when he spoke finally, the contempt in his voice was frightening.
‘What a busy little bee you’ve been today, Sasha. Just how the hell did you find out about this?’
She compressed her lips.
‘Sasha!’
She looked away and he swore then so that she flinched, but still she refused to speak.
‘Well, I don’t believe you’d do it to her,’ he said finally. ‘Would you, Sasha? I mean what would be the point once I was gone? Or hadn’t you thought of that one?’ he asked with dangerous quiet that didn’t fool her for a moment.
‘Just try me, Heath,’ she said, looking at him steadfastly. ‘And this is the point. Your mother is now my stepmother and we’re a family now whether you like it or not. And I have no doubt in my own mind that she would do anything for me. Anything, Heath. So how do you think I could ever face her again if I let you wander off in this condition? And do you think she’d ever forgive me if you did go and I said nothing? The point is that simple, Heath, and so is the choice. Either you stay here and put up with me, or you go, with the sure knowledge that she’ll, be searching the world for you.’
The silence was intense as they stared at each other like two bitter combatants locked in a mortal struggle.
Then Heath deliberately relaxed his expression, although there was something strangely alert in his eyes which puzzled her.
‘Sasha,’ he said speaking coolly and evenly, ‘we once decided that you had an adolescent crush on me. Don’t you think you’re confusing this … rash of concern and family feeling with some stray remnants of that?’
She moved then to cut off his words before they could inflict any more pain on her. She pushed her chair back and stood up, and in her heart, she thought, I hate you, Heath Townsend. I do. And before she could stop herself she found that spark of hatred speaking for her.
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