Temporary Parents. SARA WOOD
about your brother?’ she said, rounding on Max, determined not to let an injustice pass. ‘He could have stopped this jaunt if he’d wanted. He’s equally guilty of deserting his children for his own selfish needs—’
‘You’re evading the issue,’ Max reminded her. He pulled out an ultra-slim mobile phone from his inside breast pocket. ‘I’m not wasting any more valuable time. I can ring Directory Enquiries and get the children’s officer to go along and pick the kids up. They’ll be off our hands. An easy solution. What do you think?’
‘You brute!’
‘Practical, though.’ He began to punch numbers. ‘Hello? Directory Enquiries...?’
She shuddered, staring into space. Perran was only four. A total stranger would haul him and his baby sister off to live in some regimented institution. However caring it might be, she doubted that Fay had ever imparted any discipline to her children and it would be a total culture shock.
He rang off, a piece of paper in his hand with a phone number hastily scrawled on it. ‘Do I call them or not?’
A heaviness claimed her limbs as she slumped further in the seat. She had no option. Whatever her feelings, the needs of the children came first. She’d do her best for their sakes.
Pale and tense, her eyes almost silver as she tried to face the stark choice she was having to make, she met Max’s inscrutable gaze and steeled herself to the decision.
‘I’ll have to take my parrot.’
Max visibly relaxed. ‘You can take the entire contents of this flat, if you like, but get moving!’
She felt the whole of her body shaking. She was so weak that she knew it would be an effort to get up.
‘Just Fred,’ she said in a small, unhappy voice.
‘You’ll be back before you know it,’ Max said gruffly. ‘Do you want to ring your mother and let her know?’
‘She’s in New Zealand,’ Laura said, her face soft with affection. And, knowing Max would be astonished that her mother had left her beloved Cornwall, added, ‘She met a tourist from Auckland a couple of years ago and fell in love. They’re very happy,’
‘I’m very pleased—and not at all surprised. She’s a lovely lady. Very caring, well-liked.’ He paused. ‘So there’s only Luke here for you. I can imagine,’ he conceded, ‘how you feel, having to leave someone you care for.’ There was a moment’s silence as though he was thinking of something in his own past. ‘Still, look on the bright side—Luke will realise how much he misses you. That’s always good for a relationship between lovers, isn’t it?’
She stared at him dumbly. Leaving aside the fact that she didn’t have that kind of a relationship with Luke, no, it wasn’t a good thing. When men went away they found new partners. You couldn’t trust them. Out of sight, out of mind. She was so miserable that she didn’t bother to disillusion him about Luke. She didn’t have the energy.
‘I’d better tell him,’ she said wearily.
He put up a hand to stop her. ‘No. I’ll explain. You pack. I want to get on the road immediately—we’ve wasted too much time haggling as it is.’
‘You really believed I’d leap at the chance to babysit, didn’t you?’ Resentful of his assumption and bossiness, Laura heaved herself out of the chair.
‘Of course I did. You always adored kids. I’m surprised you haven’t had any,’ he said, striding to the door and thus not noticing her expression of anguish. ‘Throw some things into a case and I’ll be up to carry your stuff down while you’re saying your goodbyes to Huggy Bear.’
Laura doubled over when he’d gone, burying her face in her hands. She felt ice-cold and sick. This was going to be worse than she’d thought.
For a few moments she breathed deeply. It didn’t do much for her wobbly legs, but the nausea eased. Experimentally she staggered to her feet and, barely able to walk a straight line, she dragged out her suitcase from under the bed. And stared at it helplessly, the seconds and minutes ticking away in the silence.
The last time she’d used the case had been for her escape from Port Isaac, pregnant, afraid, bound for her aunt’s house in distant London—a city she’d never visited in her whole, unworldly life. So scared, so miserable and ashamed...
Her mother had stayed to keep an eye on Fay. Not very successfully...
So much had happened since then. She knelt on the floor, remembering how desperately lonely she’d felt. The week before she’d fled, Max had gone to Paris on business and his parents had turned up, their kind faces full of sympathy for her as they’d explained about the beautiful, sophisticated fiancée waiting for him and how upset they were that Max had sown his wild oats with a decent village girl.
Almost immediately afterwards she’d known she was pregnant. Swearing her mother and Fay to secrecy, she’d gone to London. The noise, the traffic, the greyness had punched into her like a fist. She’d cried herself to sleep every night with homesickness.
‘Need help?’
‘Oh, Luke, I—!’ Longing to confide her fears, she turned around in an almost desperate relief—and then clammed up.
Max was standing next to her boss, a tight frown of irritation on his handsome face. He looked taut, poised like a wound-up spring ready to snap, an air of grim determination about him as if he was coming to a major decision about something then and there.
‘Luke says it’s OK for you to go.’
He met her eyes in an unspoken challenge. She shrank back, suddenly afraid. When her glance slanted to Luke, she was aware that Max’s chest inflated with an inexplicable anger. It couldn’t be jealousy—what did he care? Something else, then. Laura swallowed nervously, drawn back to Max’s face as if by a magnet.
The contrast between the two men was striking. Luke, for all his size, seemed to pale into insignificance, dwarfed by Max’s compelling darkness.
Her eyes remained fixed on Max’s beautifully sculpted features even when Luke came over and knelt beside her, taking her hands in his.
‘Do you think you can cope?’ he asked quietly.
‘I’ll be fine—’
‘I’m not asking her to run an orphanage single-handed!’ scathed Max.
Laura raised her eyes comically to heaven to show Luke that she was equal to anything Max threw at her. ‘Known for his charm,’ she said drily, and Luke grinned in transparent relief. She leapt to her feet, determined not to show her true emotions. ‘Right. Get Fred into his travelling cage,’ she ordered Max, ‘while I pack and tell Luke about the cakes I was supposed to be baking.’
‘I’ve got the list.’ Luke lumbered to his feet too, and pulled the paper from his pocket. ‘I’ll manage fine.’
There was a furious screech from Fred and an even angrier one from Max. Serves him right, Laura thought, and turned around, all innocent enquiry.
‘Did he bite?’ she asked, inanely, since Max was sucking his knuckle and hurling a look to kill at Fred.
‘You know damn well he did,’ Max said, flashing her a look of pure menace from beneath his black brows.
Luke exchanged glances with Laura and chuckled, then ambled over and coochie-cooed Fred, who did his little dance and meekly stepped onto Luke’s hand.
‘In you go,’ he said. ‘I’ll get his food tin, shall I, Laura?’
‘Please,’ she answered vaguely, grabbing handfuls of underwear and flinging them in the direction of her case before moving on to the wardrobe. Old jumpers, jeans...they found their way—well, almost their way—to the suitcase.
When she’d finished and began collecting up her wash