A Marriage In The Making. Natalie Fox
look after Josh.’
‘Tara is her own child.’
There was a gasp of exasperation from Josh’s father. ‘It gets worse! You never told me all this the last time I was here.’
‘I wasn’t going to cook the golden goose, was I? I took her on because she was young and looked capable enough to handle him. Having her own child didn’t matter to me. As it turns out Karis is good for the boy.’
‘Good for him!’ he responded in disbelief. ‘Some unkempt teenager with an illegitimate—’
Karis’s fiercely clenched fists bunched over her ears to shut the world out. She didn’t want to hear any more—she couldn’t; it was unbearable.
Hurt beyond measure by that cutting jibe against her, she stealthily crept away from the house and only broke into a shaky trot when she knew she couldn’t be heard blundering through the vegetation in the gardens. The suffocating humidity of the night quickly drained her and by the time she reached the beach she was breathless, clutching at her throat for air and ripping the clasp from her hair with her other hand and shaking it wild and free.
Unkempt, was she? Wild, was she? What did he know? Just what did he know? Tears streamed down her cheeks and with a sob she lifted her face to the soft, warm breeze to dry them. She was hurt and angry—yes, very angry.
How could he have said all those dreadful things about her? How arrogant, how unfair, he didn’t even know her! And surely Fiesta could have spoken up for her more loyally? She’d done her very best for Josh and Fiesta knew it, so why hadn’t she told him more forcefully?
Her pulse rate levelled and common sense prevailed at last as she kicked surf at the water’s edge. But perhaps Fiesta was even now telling that poor excuse for a father just how good for Josh she was when he should have been doing the job himself! But she had to concede that Daniel Kennedy had sounded, if in a brutal way, caring as to who was looking after his son. At the expense of her emotions and senses, though, Karis thought miserably. Why make excuses for him? He was the father from hell!
‘And while you are out here gazing at the stars who the devil is watching over my son?’
Karis’s heart missed several beats as her elbow was imprisoned in a vice-like grip and she was hauled back from the surf and onto dry sand. She was whirled around to face her accuser, judge and jury! Condemned before she’d had a chance to speak in defence of herself!
Menacing clouds tore apart to reveal the moon and his stern features were clearly visible as he held her firmly, his eyes steely and accusing. Daniel Kennedy.
Recovering quickly, Karis lifted her chin defiantly and shook her arm from his grasp, and when she spoke her voice was clear and controlled because his insults had angered her so much it had fired her adrenalin, spicing up her strength, giving her courage to stand up for herself.
‘Your son is in good hands,’ she told him confidently. ‘He is asleep and I’m not gazing at the stars as if I’ve nothing better to do. I don’t default in my duties as your son’s carer—even if I am seen as wild and unkempt,’ she added meaningfully.
He looked perplexed for a moment, not understanding the last statement. Karis put him out of his misery at the expense of her own. ‘I came over to the plantation house to see Fiesta and overheard you both talking,’ she explained. Her green eyes narrowed. ‘I walked away when you hit the illegitimate bit,’ she added thinly, and then, giving him a last look of indifference, turned and walked away again. He didn’t follow.
She was still angry and hurt but managed to hide it as she dismissed Saffron, thanking her for staying on to watch over the sleeping children and promising her she would tell her everything in the morning. Saffron seemed satisfied with the promise of a gossip the next day and said nothing but a warm goodnight as she left.
Karis poured herself a fruit juice and took it onto the candlelit verandah to drink it and cool herself down after what she had heard from Daniel Kennedy—his angry implication that she wasn’t doing her job properly. How that hurtful remark made her blood boil. That he should come here after goodness knew how long and start—
‘I’d like to see my son.’
Like a spectre, he had suddenly appeared at the rail of the verandah. Karis looked at him with wide, surprised eyes. At least he had asked—or maybe she was misinterpreting his change of tone and that was an order, not a request.
‘He’s asleep,’ she told him quietly.
He stepped up onto the verandah and Karis was able to see him better in the glow of the candles. He wore tropical whites and was an incredibly forbidding creature. Darkly good-looking and charismatic, with an air of mystery about him, he obviously had the capability of charming the birds from the trees, but not with Karis. As his unyielding eyes challenged hers frostily she was chilled through, in spite of the heat of the tropical night.
‘I said I’d like to see him and I wasn’t asking your permission,’ he stated flatly.
Karis hesitantly stood up. She didn’t like this man. She hadn’t liked him before meeting him so nothing was new. He had a serious attitude problem. He had nothing good to say about her and that was unjustified because he didn’t know her. But he was Josh’s father and unfortunately that couldn’t be questioned so she couldn’t deny access to him, whatever the time of night. Without another word Karis lifted a candle in a jar from the table to light the way.
He followed her along the verandah and she felt his dark, disapproving eyes boring into the exposed skin of her back. Again those prickles of awareness played at the base of her spine.
Carefully Karis slid open the door and, holding the candle up, stepped back to let him pass through into the little boy’s bedroom. To her utter surprise he took her elbow and urged her into the room ahead of him and then shocked her deeply by saying under his breath, ‘I don’t want him to awake and be afraid.’
With her heart twisting Karis stood beside him at the foot of Josh’s bed. What an appalling admission that was. What dark past had these two shared? But at least by visiting him while he slept Daniel was showing some concern for his son’s feelings.
Josh slept peacefully on his back, his head turned to one side, the sheet pushed down to his waist in the heat of the night. The child, in sleep, was unaware he was being gazed down on, Karis with love and caring in her eyes for she did indeed love the little boy…but the father? Karis dared take a sidelong glance at the man who gripped the brass footrail of his son’s bed as fiercely as he had grasped the rail of the yacht he’d arrived on.
He didn’t want to be here, she thought despondently. This was a duty call to his son. His face was set, unyielding, showing no emotion as he gazed down at the boy.
Then Josh stirred and in that instant Daniel Kennedy’s lashes flickered. A tiny, fleeting reaction that had Karis’s heart beating wildly in the hope that she might see some of the love this boy deserved from his father.
The flickering reaction to his son’s movement was gone as swiftly as it had appeared. Stiffly he stepped back from the bed and so did Karis, and then the candle flame wavered as the movement of his body turning to face her stirred the still air around them.
‘You have cared for him well,’ he said, his voice so low and throaty, she scarcely caught the words.
A compliment? She hadn’t expected one.
‘To outward appearances,’ he added, so meanly that Karis’s heart nearly stopped with shock.
Once they were back outside on the verandah Karis slid the door shut behind them and lifted the candle so she could see his face more clearly.
‘I don’t think you will be disappointed, Mr Kennedy,’ she said softly but firmly.
‘I’d better not be,’ he said thinly. ‘I don’t want to start my married life putting right all the added damage you might have done this past year.’
He