Woman To Wed?

by Penny Jordan

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CLAIRE woke up with a start. She could hear the front doorbell ringing and the sun was streaming in through her uncurtained bedroom window. Groggily she lifted her head from her pillow and was appalled to discover that it was gone ten o’clock.

  Throwing back the bedcovers, she reached for her robe, pulling it on over her naked body, avoiding looking at her reflection in the dressing-table mirror, her skin flushing slightly as the slow, almost voluptuous movements of her body silently betrayed the events of the previous evening.

  As she hurried along the landing she saw that the door to Brad’s bedroom stood open. The bed was empty and neatly made up. No need to ask herself why Brad had not woken her before he had left, she thought grimly.

  Whoever was outside the front door was obviously getting impatient; a finger pressed the bell in a long, imperious ring.

  As Claire went to open the door she could see through the glass panes a woman she didn’t recognise standing outside with two small children—a young girl at her side and a baby in one arm.

  When she pulled open the door to her she could see that the young woman was frowning anxiously and that she looked tired and drawn. The baby had started to cry and the girl joined in, the young mother closing her eyes in exasperation as she tried to calm them.

  ‘Is Brad here?’ she asked Claire anxiously, her frown returning as she appealed urgently, ‘This is where he’s staying, isn’t it? He did give me the address but I wasn’t sure I’d written it down properly.

  ‘Yes...it’s all right,’ she soothed the baby, her soft, transatlantic accent so very similar to Brad’s that just to hear it made Claire’s susceptible heart turn over.

  ‘Yes. You’ve got the right address,’ she reassured the young woman, standing back to usher her inside and at the same time automatically offering to take the baby from her.

  ‘Oh, yes...Thanks... He’s very damp,’ she informed Claire ruefully, ‘and pretty hungry too...’

  Claire wasn’t really listening; her heart was turning over painfully inside her too tight chest as she looked into the baby’s now fully opened eyes and saw just how like Brad’s they were.

  A spasm of deep, wrenching pain like nothing she had ever known seared through her, her eyes too dry for the tears she ached to cry, the small sound of protest she could feel rising in her throat luckily suppressed.

  ‘I’m Brad’s sister, by the way—Mary-Berth,’ the young woman introduced herself as she ushered the little girl inside and then reached for their luggage.

  His sister. As Claire focused on the other woman’s back she could feel herself starting to tremble with relief. Just for a moment, looking at the baby and seeing Brad’s eyes in his small and as yet not really fully formed face, she had thought...assumed...

  ‘He is here, isn’t he? I had to come. I had to see him,’ she told Claire emotionally, her eyes suddenly filling with tears.

  ‘No, I’m afraid he isn’t,’ Claire informed her. ‘He’ll probably be back soon, though,’ she added comfortingly. ‘I can give you the office number and you can ring him there,’ she offered helpfully, but the other woman shook her head.

  ‘No...no, I’d better wait until he gets back... You see, he...he doesn’t...he isn’t exactly expecting us...’ She paced the hall edgily, avoiding Claire’s eyes.

  Something was very obviously wrong, Claire guessed. No one, however impetuous, came rushing across the Atlantic with two small children, one of them still too young to walk, just on a mere whim.

  ‘You must be hungry and tired,’ she said quietly. ‘Let’s go into the kitchen and see if we can find you something to eat, shall we?’ she suggested softly to the baby, who had stopped crying but was gnawing hungrily on his fingers as he focused wonderingly on her unfamiliar face.

  ‘I guess we are,’ her unexpected visitor agreed, but Claire sensed that food was the last thing on her mind, and now that she had had the opportunity to study her a little more closely she could see the tell-tale signs of strain and unhappiness etched into her face and eyes. The little girl too, clinging so closely to her mother’s side, had an expression in her eyes that had been caused by something more than the confusion of a long transatlantic journey.

  Mary-Beth had said that she would wait for Brad to return, but Claire suspected that whatever had brought her rushing to find him meant that she needed to see her brother more urgently than that.

  Her heart started to thud a little too fast at the thought of telephoning him. What would he think when he heard her voice? That because of last night she was making unfounded assumptions about him...about them...?

  His sister’s obvious need was more important than her own pride, Claire told herself firmly as she led the way to the kitchen, settling Mary-Beth in one of the comfortable Windsor chairs and then going to retrieve from the laundry room the high chair she kept for emergencies, still holding the baby, who was now quite contentedly gurgling up at her.

  ‘You’re obviously very good with children,’ Mary-Beth told her ruefully, watching her. ‘He’s screamed practically the whole way here.’

  ‘And he was sick three times,’ a small voice piped up from Mary-Beth’s side, the little girl’s face stern with big-sisterly disapproval.

  ‘This is Tara.’ Mary-Beth introduced her daughter. ‘And that smelly, damp bundle you’re carrying is Abe junior...’

  ‘Abe senior is my daddy,’ Tara piped up. ‘But he hasn’t come with us. He’s—’

  ‘Hush now, Tara,’ Mary-Beth interrupted quickly. ‘I’m sorry,’ she apologised to Claire. ‘We’re putting you to an awful lot of trouble. I should have rung Brad before we left but...’

  Tears suddenly filled her eyes, and as she looked away Claire felt her own throat closing up in sympathy for her.

  Half an hour later, when the children had both been fed and were soundly asleep upstairs in one of the bedrooms, Claire poured her unexpected visitor a fresh cup of coffee and tried again to persuade her to let her telephone Brad.

  ‘No, no... Oh, where is he? I need to see him to talk to him. He’s the only one...’

  Fresh tears filled her eyes.

  ‘When everything you thought you could rely on—everyone you thought you could rely on—lets you down and it seems that there’s only one person left for you to turn to, you don’t always think things through properly... Brad’s always been more than just a brother to us. He’s the one we always automatically turn to when things go wrong for us...and I guess that’s why...’

  She bit her lip and looked directly at Claire as she went on huskily, ‘You’ve probably already worked out why I’m here... I found out three days ago that Abe, my husband, has been having an affair with a girl at work.

  ‘He tried to deny it, of course, but they were seen downtown in a bar by a close friend of mine. He told me that he had to work late...and I believed him, even though I knew she’d been making a play for him. I thought he loved me, you see,’ she said sadly.

  ‘Look, you’ve had a long flight. Why don’t you go upstairs and lie down?’ Claire suggested gently. She could see from the deep unhappiness in the other woman’s eyes just how much her husband’s infidelity had hurt her.

  ‘Abe kept insisting that it wasn’t true—that he was simply trying to help the girl sort out her personal problems. He said he hadn’t told me because he knew the way I’d react...He said that I never had time to listen to him any more anyway, because the children were more important to me than he was. He even said that Brad mattered more to me than him...that I paid more attention to what Brad had to say...that it was Brad I always turned to for help...’

  As her emotions caught up with her she swallowed painfully and then said huskily, ‘I think I will go up and have a rest, if you don’t mind. I’m beginning to feel that so much has happened that I can’t even think straight any more...Abe doesn’t even know I’m here,’ she added tiredly. ‘I just wanted to see Brad so much... I needed him so much... I just kinda grabbed the kids and
some stuff and phoned the airline and the next thing I knew we were all on our way...’

  As she stood up she stifled a yawn, her eyes dark with exhaustion.

  Claire waited until she was sure that Mary-Beth was asleep before telephoning the office.

  Brad, she discovered, wasn’t there and so she spoke to Tim instead, who informed her that Brad was expected back within the hour.

  ‘Could you ask him to give me a ring as soon as he comes back?’ Claire asked her brother-in-law, without explaining why she needed to speak to him. Brad’s family was his private affair and she didn’t think it right to discuss what had happened with anyone else.

  A quick check upstairs confirmed that her visitors were all still asleep.

  As she put fresh towels in the bathroom she wondered how long they were likely to stay, and also wondered, half-enviously, what it must be like to have someone like Brad to turn to—someone you could rely on so completely that you could simply walk out of your home with two children and a couple of suitcases, knowing that if you could get to him he would solve your problems for you.

  She was being a little unfair, Claire reproved herself. No amount of brotherly concern could surely compensate for an unfaithful husband and a broken marriage. And she had seen the apprehension and confusion in little Tara’s eyes. An uncle, no matter how loving and concerned, could not replace a father.

  Not that she blamed Mary-Beth for feeling as she did. To discover that your husband—the man you love and to whom you had committed yourself and who you believed had committed himself to you, the father of your children—had been seeing another woman...had been making love with her...must be one of the most painful experiences that life could hold.

  As she went back downstairs Claire checked her fridge. From the way Mary-Beth had toyed with the food she had had earlier Claire doubted that she would have much appetite, but the children were a different matter, especially the baby.

  She had plenty of fresh vegetables and fruit that she could cook for him and put through the blender, Claire decided, and as for Tara—well, with a bit of luck the little girl might be enticed into helping her, which would give her mother the chance to have some private conversation with Brad.

  Claire suspected from the anxious looks that Tara had given her mother when her father had been mentioned that the little girl was already aware that something was wrong between her parents.

  Children, even very young ones, were dismayingly quick to pick up on things like that and to suffer through it, Claire knew, often blaming themselves for the problems between their mothers and fathers.

  A small sound from upstairs checked her and she paused to listen to it... Was it the baby crying?

  As she went towards the door she heard the sound of a car pulling up outside.

  Brad? She had expected him to telephone her, not to come straight back. A small flutter of apprehension gripped her stomach.

  This would be the first time they had seen one another since last night—the first time since... But this was not the time for her to become involved in her own feelings; she...

  She tensed as the kitchen door opened and Brad came striding in. When he saw her anxious expression his forehead creased in a frown and he hurried towards her.

  ‘Claire, what is it? What’s wrong?’ he asked, starting to reach for her as though he was going to take her in his arms, Claire recognised, her throat tight with emotion, her colour starting to rise self-consciously as she fought the temptation to move closer to him, her body already reacting to his presence, his proximity, to its need to recreate the intimacy they had shared last night, its need to encourage the physical bond it wanted to establish between them.

  Claire acknowledged how easy it would be simply to close the distance between them, to walk into his arms as though it was her right to do so.

  Against her will she found herself looking at his mouth, her glance lingering on it betrayingly as she felt her own lips start to tremble slightly. Last night’s intimacy had left her so sensually, so sensitively attuned to him that she could almost feel the warm pleasure of his mouth on hers.

  ‘Claire...’

  The hoarse urgency with which he said her name brought her back to reality, her body tensing as she heard sounds from the hall.

  ‘Brad—’ she began warningly, but the door was already opening and Mary-Beth was rushing into her brother’s arms, erying emotionally,

  ‘Oh, Brad, thank the Lord you’re here...’

  ‘Mary-Beth...?’ Claire could hear the surprise in Brad’s voice as he held his sister and looked questioningly at Claire over her head. ‘What...?’

  Quietly Claire left the room and closed the door behind her. They would have things to say to one another that needed to be said in private, without her.

  She could hear the baby starting to cry and moved instinctively towards the stairs to go and comfort him.

  When she went into the bedroom Tara had obviously just woken up.

  ‘Where’s my mommy?’ she asked Claire uncertainly.

  ‘She’s downstairs talking to your uncle Brad,’ Claire told her, and then asked, ‘Do you know where the spare nappies are? I think your brother needs changing.’

  ‘Nappies?’ The little girl’s face creased in confusion whilst Claire quickly tried to recall the American word for what she wanted.

  ‘Diapers,’ she remembered with relief, then gently but firmly involved Tara in the job of cleaning and changing her small brother, deliberately drawing it out as long as she could to give Mary-Beth a chance to talk to Brad. Claire suspected that she would not want Tara to overhear what she had to say to Brad about her husband’s infidelity. The little girl was obviously already distressed enough by what was happening.

  As Claire picked up the now dry and cooing little boy to give him a cuddle she saw the way Tara kept glancing anxiously towards the door and guessed that she wouldn’t be able to keep her distracted for very much longer.

  To her relief she heard the kitchen door opening and Mary-Beth’s and Brad’s voices on the stairs.

  ‘Mommy,’ Tara demanded as soon as her mother came into the bedroom, ‘when are we going home? I want my daddy...’

  Mary-Beth had obviously been crying and Tara’s mouth started to tremble ominously as she looked at her mother. It was Brad who saved the situation, following his sister into the room and swinging the little girl up into his arms, saying cheerfully, ‘Hello, pumpkin...’

  ‘Uncle Brad... Uncle Brad...’ Tara squealed in obvious pleasure, hugging him tightly round the neck.

  ‘I’ll get on to the airport and see how quickly they can get you a return flight,’ Brad was saying to Mary-Beth over Tara’s head.

  ‘I’m not going back—not on my own, not without you,’ Mary-Beth insisted.

  ‘Mary-Beth, I’ve already explained why I can’t come with you,’ Brad told her firmly. ‘I have commitments here.’

  ‘Maybe, but they aren’t as important as your commitment to your family; they can’t be, Brad,’ Mary-Beth told him quickly. ‘You know the uncles will understand. I need you.’

  Claire could see that Brad was frowning.

  ‘Mary-Beth, I can’t.’

  ‘Then I’m not going back,’ she told him determinedly. ‘Not on my own.’

  ‘Abe—’ Brad began, but Mary-Beth refused to listen.

  ‘I don’t want to talk about him, or to him.’

  ‘You have to talk,’ Brad told her quietly. ‘For the kids’ sake, if nothing else. He is still their father and he does have certain rights—’

  ‘He has no rights. He lost those the day he started fooling around with that—that...’ Mary-Beth had started to protest bitterly but Brad shook his head warningly as Tara looked at her mother in anxious concern. ‘If you want me to talk to him then you’re going to have to be there too,’ Mary-Beth insisted.

  Claire could see that Brad wasn’t too pleased about his sister’s demands.

  ‘There’s no way I want to so much a
s see him again after what he’s done...’ she announced.

  It was plain to Claire that Brad’s sister’s temperament was as tempestuous and fiery as her dark red hair suggested, and there was no doubt also that she was deeply hurt by her husband’s infidelity. Beneath her very obvious anger Claire could see the misery and pain in her eyes.

  ‘You said Abe denied being involved with anyone else,’ Brad was reminding her. ‘He said—’

  ‘He would say that, wouldn’t he?’ Mary-Beth derided bitterly. ‘He knows what he stands to lose. Oh, Brad, how could he... I thought he loved me... us...’

  Tears welled up in her eyes and Tara, seeing her mother’s distress, started to cry noisily in sympathy.

  ‘Would you like me to take the children?’ Claire offered quickly. ‘You must both still have things you need to discuss...’

  ‘I’ve said everything I want to say,’ Mary-Beth said fiercely. ‘I don’t care what you say, Brad; there’s no way I’m going back to him and I didn’t come all the way over here to have you make me...or to listen to you defending what he’s done. I thought you’d be more understanding...more sympathetic...’

  She was crying in earnest now. Quietly Claire held out her arms to Tara, trying not to let the revealing flush of pleasure she could feel heating the pit of her stomach flood betrayingly into her face when Brad smiled at her with appreciative relief as he handed his niece over to her.

  ‘I want to stay with my mommy...’ Tara started to protest as Claire took hold of her, but Claire had enough experience from her work at the school to know how to deal with her apprehensive need to remain with her mother.

  ‘Do you?’ she said calmly. ‘Oh, dear. I was hoping you’d come downstairs with me and help me make some special bis...er...cookies. I expect you’re very good at baking, aren’t you?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes. I’m very good,’ Tara agreed, and then asked, ‘What kind of cookies?’