by Janet Gover
Bring Me Sunshine
Janet Gover
Where heroes are like chocolate - irresistible!
Copyright © 2013 Janet Gover
Published 2013 by Choc Lit Limited
Penrose House, Crawley Drive, Camberley, Surrey GU15 2AB, UK
www.choc-lit.com
The right of Janet Gover to be identified as the Author of this Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher or a licence permitting restricted copying. In the UK such licences are issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Barnards Inn, 86 Fetter Lane, London EC4A 1EN
ISBN- 978-1-78189-159-9
This story is dedicated to the man who taught me about books and boats.
I’m back, Dad.
Contents
Title page
Copyright information
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
About the Author
More Choc Lit from Jane Gover
Introducing Choc Lit
Acknowledgements
The idea for Bring Me Sunshine came from a journey made by my friend and sister-in-law. Mary Woodward, this book exists because of you. Thanks so much.
Before embarking on the fictional journey, I went on a real cruise. It was all research – honestly. Thanks to the wonderful people on board the Trollfjord for answering all my questions and letting me in on some of the stuff the passengers don’t always get to see.
I also want to thank Clive and Maureen Willis for so generously sharing their experiences with me.
As always, my grateful thanks go out to my friends and fellow writers of the RNA who have always been there when I needed them. There are far too many of you to mention by name … but you know who you are and you know that I love you.
Thank you to the Choc Lit team who helped to make this the best book it could be. And also to the other authors who are friendly and supportive and such fun. It is a pleasure to be part of the family.
Last - but never least – my husband John, a tough and honest critic but always my strongest supporter. That’s just one of the reasons I love you.
Chapter One
Two weeks before Christmas, Jenny Payne lost her lover, her job and her home all in one day.
It was not a good day, but it started well.
Jenny woke to a beautiful early summer morning. The sky was so blue it almost hurt to look at it. The sun was shining, but hadn’t yet developed the energy-sapping heat that would come in the weeks ahead. Jenny threw herself through the shower and emerged clad in her favourite red cotton kimono. Grabbing some orange juice from the fridge, she stepped out onto the flat’s tiny balcony, her short wet hair wrapped in a towel. As she sipped her juice, she looked out across the western Sydney suburbs, loving the green of the gum trees, interspersed with the brilliant purple of the Jacaranda flowers. She always smiled when she saw the Jacarandas. When she was a student, the purple blooms had struck fear into her heart, signalling the approach of exams. Now she was a tutor, the Jacarandas meant the students were heading home, and she was free!
Jenny danced a few steps and twirled around; managing not to trip over the potted palms and Bougainvillea plants that almost filled the balcony. She downed the last of her juice and headed back into the kitchen and her brand new coffee machine.
Today she had time for coffee. She was in no hurry to get to her office at the university. In fact, she was pretty sure she wouldn’t be going to work at all today …
‘That’s because today is THE day,’ she told the African violet on the kitchen windowsill as she plugged in the coffee maker.
That’s when the noise started. Sounds of enthusiastic lovemaking coming from the small flat’s other bedroom. The bedroom where her sister Mandy slept, but seldom alone of late. This morning the noise, embarrassing though it might be, didn’t bother her one bit. She wasn’t jealous. Not anymore. In the past there had been moments – nights when Ray had failed to appear at her door as promised, mornings when she’d woken alone because Ray never spent the whole night with her. In those moments she had been jealous of Mandy and her boyfriend Peter. But not today, because everything was about to change!
The noise was getting a trifle loud.
‘I think I’ll have breakfast by the river,’ Jenny told the house plants.
She ducked back into her room; to reappear a few minutes later dressed in a pair of faded jeans and a T-shirt that Ray had given her, a souvenir from one of his research trips to the Great Barrier Reef. Her hair was still wet, but it would dry soon enough. She would cycle down to the Lane Cove National Park, picking up coffee and an almond croissant from the new bakery on the way. Breakfast by the river was a great way to start the day and it would give Mandy and Pete the privacy they needed for the next hour or so. Jenny would be back in plenty of time to go and meet Ray. They were having lunch together at a tiny out-of-the-way restaurant that they both loved. There was a rather posh hotel nearby, and Jenny felt a tingle of pleasure at the thought that they might spend the afternoon there as they had a couple of times in the past. Even when they could make their relationship public, she’d still suggest they went there occasionally to recapture the thrill of those stolen hours in the luxury hotel suite.
She took her bike out of the garage it shared with Mandy’s ancient blue Honda and set out. She had long ago mapped out all the possible routes to the National Park. It was one of her favourite places. She had never been there with Ray, but as soon as everything was out in the open, she’d take him there for a picnic. It would be so good to be free at last to do things like that.
As a professor, Ray had always been afraid to let the world know he loved a former student. He wasn’t thinking of himself, of course. He was afraid Jenny would be hurt by the revelation. She had tried to tell him she didn’t care, but he was firm. He didn’t want her to take the risk.
It wouldn’t be for much longer.
‘Look out!’
The sudden loud blast of the car horn made her start and the bike’s front wheel began to wobble. She clenched her fingers around the brakes and let one foot drop to the ground. The car she’d almost hit drove away, the driver’s abrupt gesture out the window making his feelings abundantly clear. But today that didn’t matter.
Jenny had never meant to fall in love with a professor, but that was before she walked into that packed lecture hall and saw him. Professor Ray Allen was handsome and erudite, with sparkling blue eyes and skin tanned to a golden sheen by his numerous ocean research voyages. There was much of Indiana Jones about Ray Allen – all he needed was
a hat. He was everything her innocent and eager heart could possibly want. Sexy. Older – but not too old. Experienced. A little bit dangerous. There were times she was certain his eyes had rested on her a little longer than was absolutely necessary – and each time her heart beat just a little faster. As a student, Jenny had adored him from afar; safe in the knowledge that she was as unavailable to him as he was to her. All that changed when she graduated and joined the university as a tutor.
A teenage student was out of bounds, but a twenty-three-year-old fellow staff member was technically – well – not quite out of bounds.
For more than a year, nothing had happened, but then Jenny had changed the focus of the dissertation she was writing. She turned her attention to marine plants, and in turn Ray turned his attention to her. Jenny closed her eyes, remembering those heady weeks when she and Ray had discovered each other. Eyes meeting across the room. Hands touching as if by accident, as they worked in the tiny cubicles where science unravelled the secrets of the world. Tiny cubicles where she could almost feel his breath on her flesh as they worked. Almost hear his heart beating. Tiny cubicles where she lived out her romantic fairy tale.
They had fought it for a long time. Ray was afraid a relationship with him would taint Jenny’s career. She was technically still a student, working towards her PhD. If it was known she was dating her professor … They had to wait, he told her, until she had her doctorate. But their feelings had been just too strong, and one wonderful afternoon, by unspoken agreement, they had both fled the university, and lost themselves in each other. They had been lovers now for a little over five months. Christmas was coming, and Jenny just knew that she and Ray were going to spend it together. Because everything was about to change.
‘Today!’ She wanted to shout it to the skies. It just had to be today. She had felt something different about Ray in these past couple of weeks. Now the lunch. This was going to be the best day of her life.
She leaped back aboard the bike, and turned off her usual route, heading for the bakery. She hadn’t been there before, but a friend had recommended it. The friend was right. The bakery offered a mouth-watering selection of pastries. As today was a special day, Jenny weakened and bought an apricot Danish to go with her almond croissant. She wouldn’t worry about the extra calories. But soon … she almost shivered with delight … soon she’d have to start being careful. There was a wedding dress in her future!
Jenny was so caught up in her thoughts as she left the bakery, that for a few seconds she didn’t recognise the car that pulled up across the road, at the gates of a very posh school. She did recognise the man who got out from behind the wheel. Ray! Her heart skipped a beat. He looked so handsome. Unusually for him, he was wearing a light linen jacket, with a shirt and tie. Of course! He had dressed especially for her. For today. Their day.
Jenny remained still for a few seconds more, just enjoying the sight of him. He walked around the car, with the casual, easy stride that always set her pulse racing. He opened the passenger’s door and stepped back.
The woman wasn’t particularly tall, or pretty, or even elegant. But she was familiar. Jenny had seen her at the university. Her father was the vice chancellor. She’d even been sitting next to Ray at one of the faculty dinners. Jenny had assumed it was just because of her father. Why then was Ray with her now?
On the other side of the road, Ray’s arm was around the woman’s shoulders in an almost possessive manner as he steered her towards the school. They paused at the gate. The woman put her hand protectively over her stomach in a manner that was universally recognised.
She was pregnant!
Ray kissed the woman tenderly, before they turned and walked into the school; the very picture of a happy couple planning a future for their child.
Jenny froze as a red hot arrow, shot from some invisible bow, tore through her.
Her chest was agony. She opened her mouth and gasped for air. Her legs were trembling. She had to get out of here in case he came back, but her feet seemed rooted to the ground. She looked down at her coffee cup. The steam rising from the hole in the plastic lid suggested it was hot enough to burn her hand, but the only pain she could feel was the pain in her chest. She looked about for a rubbish bin. Not seeing one, she simply placed the coffee and bag of breakfast on the ground. She wasn’t a litter bug, but she just had to get away.
She forced her legs to move. One step at a time. She made it as far as the place where her bicycle leaned against a power pole. She gripped the handles as if she was drowning.
Ray and the vice chancellor’s daughter? Whatever her name was? She couldn’t believe it. And she was pregnant. Jenny knew she was jumping to conclusions – but it wasn’t a very big jump. Deep inside she knew she was right. Pushing her bike, she started walking away from the brown croissant bag that lay on the pavement – looking as lost as her dreams.
How? Why?
When?
Oh God! Ray had slept with that woman at the same time as he had been with her … Jenny felt her gorge rising. Any minute now she was going to be physically sick.
A baby … A baby!
The words pounded in her head like a drumbeat. A baby. Somewhere in her dreams, Jenny had imagined a baby too. A baby with her own dark hair and Ray’s blue eyes.
How had this happened? Ray loved her. She knew he did. Perhaps it was all a terrible mistake. A moment of weakness. A drunken one night stand … And now he was just doing the right thing.
As she groped frantically for excuses, Jenny knew deep in her heart of hearts, there was no excuse. Ray had cheated on her. And he had cheated on her with the woman who was … it hurt to even think the words … carrying his child.
He was a total bastard. A slime-ball and a prick!
Which made Jenny a victim. An innocent victim. A fool!
She pushed the bike into the road and swung herself aboard. Out of sheer habit, she turned in the direction of the university and set off, still in a shocked daze. Somehow she managed not to ride under a passing car and a short time later she arrived at the familiar and much-loved campus. She had barely dismounted from her bike, when she heard a voice calling from behind.
‘Hey. Jenny. Heard the news about Professor Dreamy?’
It was another of the post grad students. A friend of sorts who had, during their undergrad days, shared both her college and her admiration for the Indiana Jones professor.
Jenny didn’t reply. That was beyond her.
‘He’s going to marry the vice chancellor’s daughter. What a loss to us all.’
Jenny’s feet stopped moving for several seconds.
Marry?
With a supreme effort of will, Jenny kept moving. She mumbled something to her friend before making her excuses and hurrying away.
Why was she surprised? Of course he would marry the woman who was carrying his child. It was the honourable thing to do.
Ignoring the other voice in her head, the one with a tendency to call Ray rude names, Jenny walked in the direction of the tiny cubicle where she worked. On the way she had to pass Ray’s much grander office. Knowing he wasn’t there did not make it any easier. As she neared his door, her steps faltered. She wanted so much to go inside. To feel herself near him. To try to regain whatever she had felt yesterday. Or this morning. Before …
The door opened. The girl who walked out of Ray’s office was tall and blonde, wearing a short denim skirt that showed every inch of her long legs. ‘I was … just … looking for Ray. I mean, for Professor Allen …’ The girl blushed furiously as she stumbled over the words.
Jenny stood rock still and looked at the girl. She saw the embarrassment in the girl’s flushed face. Saw the guilt in her eyes.
‘I was just leaving my paper for him to look at,’ the girl said, before hurrying away.
Jenny felt her legs start to tremble as the truth finally struck home with a force that could not be ignored.
What an idiot she’d been!
She put a hand out
to steady herself against the wall. She knew that girl. Not her name or where she fitted into the university’s hierarchy. She knew that girl because that girl was her … as she had been when Ray had first looked at her with those twinkling eyes and she had fallen for him. Fallen for a man who was obviously about to replace her with another woman. Fallen for a man who …
An image flashed into her mind. The school. Ray’s fiancée. And that blonde girl? Was Ray already …?
Self-loathing gave way to anger.
The bastard!
What had she been thinking? Ray wasn’t in love with her. She was just another conquest. One more on what she suddenly realised was probably a very long list.
That unmitigated bastard!
Jenny felt a sudden surge of sympathy for the woman who even now was planning her future with a man who was a serial adulterer.
The total and unutterable prick!
Wrapping her anger around her like a protective blanket, Jenny made a beeline for the safety of her office.
If she hurried, she would be able to clear all her stuff out of there. She’d be gone by the time Ray got back. She could not – would not – face another day here. She never wanted to see him again. And if anyone ever found out that she … It was too horrible to contemplate. Better that she leave. Now.
Her office was about the size of a toilet, but that had never mattered. She loved working here. The research for her dissertation on the effect of heavy metal pollution on marine plants might not have been the stuff of most people’s dreams, but to her, it was important. And so were her students. She loved teaching. Loved guiding them towards their degrees, as she had once been guided. Still, the semester was over. Her sudden disappearance wouldn’t cause the students any problems. By the time they got back from holidays, someone new would have taken her place in the faculty.