by Susan Napier
She clenched her teeth on a smile. ‘Good morning,’ she parroted. She accepted Alice’s offer of freshly squeezed orange juice and a dish of sliced fresh fruit in yogurt and looked around the table.
She had been so preoccupied with her effort not to react to Joshua that she had barely registered anyone else in the room, and now she felt a shock of recognition as she stared into a pair of familiar light brown eyes, gazing at her from across the table over the top of a tall stack of buttermilk pancakes.
He smirked at her surprise. ‘Hi.’
‘Hello, Ryan,’ she blurted. ‘Were you at the party last night? I didn’t see you.’
‘Nah—I have exams starting on Monday, I had to swot.’
In the act of reseating himself beside the youth, Joshua snapped up his head. ‘You two know each other?’
‘Sort of,’ hedged Regan, praying that the sly humour that had entered the young man’s eyes didn’t mean he was going to rat on her for the pleasure of seeing an adult squirm. Today he had his hair slicked back into a neat ponytail and was wearing a brown T-shirt that made him look even more like a beanpole.
‘We ran into each other yesterday and had a bit of a chat, didn’t we, Ryan?’ Her eyes silently begged him to play it casual.
‘So, did you see any more of those birds?’ he said loudly.
Sir Frank frowned. ‘There’s no need to shout, lad, we’re not deaf.’
‘Sorry, but I thought Regan was hard of hearing.’ Ryan’s eyes were owlishly innocent behind his wire glasses.
The wretch! Regan gave him a speaking look which he returned with a pious grin as he stuffed another pancake in his mouth.
‘Why on earth should you think that?’ asked Hazel.
Ryan moved his thin shoulders up and down, pointing to his bulging cheeks to explain why he couldn’t answer.
‘He must have misunderstood something I said,’ Regan supplied hurriedly, ‘We were bird-watching, so we were whispering—’
‘Bird-watching?’ Joshua’s eyebrows shot up. He looked sceptically at the young man munching innocently at his side. ‘Since when have you taken up such a tame hobby, Ryan? I thought Cyberspace ruled your life. Although I suppose staring at native flora and fauna could be considered an advance on staring at a computer screen all day. At least it gets you out in the fresh air.’
‘Nothing’s tame to a young, enquiring mind,’ Regan objected at his disparaging sarcasm. If he was going to be a father he needed to buck his ideas up. ‘I think children should always be encouraged to find everything interesting and not be stuck with labels that inhibit them from wanting to learn…’
Ryan gulped down his pancake to protest. ‘I’m not a child.’
‘I was speaking generally. Whether you’re five, fifteen or fifty, you’re still someone’s child,’ she countered, dipping her spoon into her fruit.
‘Yes, but not a child. A child is someone between the ages of birth and puberty,’ he argued.
She recalled his water-dripping-on-stone technique of wearing her down from the previous day.
‘According to the dictionary, a child is also a human offspring—’ she persisted.
‘But not in the first meaning of the word,’ he interrupted stubbornly. ‘I bet if you looked it up you’d find my meaning listed before yours.’
‘Don’t take that bet,’ came Joshua’s dry advice.
‘I wasn’t going to,’ dismissed Regan. ‘OK,’ she told Ryan, finding it amazingly easy to sink to his level, ‘you win—you’re far too boringly pedantic to be a mere child. You have to be at least ninety before you get to drive other people crazy by arguing endlessly over such irritating trivia with such single-minded intensity.’ She smiled at him sweetly. ‘I guess that puts you somewhere in your second childhood.’
Ryan thought about that for a moment, his eyes narrowing behind the round rims of his glasses in a way that struck a faint chord of uncomfortable resonance in Regan’s brain.
‘You kept arguing, too…’
‘That’s because I was right, but I showed my maturity by letting you win in deference to your mental age. When I was a child, I was taught to respect my elders…’
She tilted up her nose at him and he grinned, attacking his pancakes again. ‘You didn’t let me win.’
‘If you say so, dear,’ she said, in the indulgent, forgiving tone that she knew men—both young and old—hated to hear.
Ryan opened his mouth.
‘Give it up, Son. Women are genetically programmed to have the last word. They can never bear to allow a man to feel that he’s won an argument.’
‘But, Dad…you told me never to give up on a fight when I believe I’m in the right!’
Son? Dad?
Regan’s spoon clattered to her plate, splattering fruitjuice and yoghurt over the pale yellow tablecloth.
‘He—You—You’re father and son?’ she said stupidly, dabbing at the tablecloth with her napkin in order to disguise her shaking hands.
Her eyes darted from face to face, suddenly seeing the echo of the boy in the man and the foreshadowing of the man in the boy…the similar angle of their cheekbones, the narrow, intelligent temples, the strong line of their noses.
Joshua’s eyes narrowed, exactly as his son’s had a few moments earlier. She must have been blind not to have seen it before!
‘I thought you said that you and Ryan had talked?’
‘Yes, but not about you!’ He had been the single subject she had been desperate to avoid.
An unholy amusement filtered across his face as enlightenment dawned. ‘Let me guess…you didn’t realise who he was because you never got around to exchanging surnames? Seems to be a habit of yours…’
Regan seethed as he picked up his cup of black coffee and took a leisurely sip.
‘You mean it’s just what happened when you and Regan met the first time?’ chuckled Hazel, who had been following the conversation with lively interest. ‘A case of like father, like son!’
Flustered violet eyes clashed with thunderstruck grey as they shared a moment of mutual consternation. Visions of their torrid sexual encounter danced between them.
‘God, I hope not,’ muttered Joshua fervently, and Regan knew that she was going to blush as Ryan sat up in his chair, his precocious antennae twitching at the silent interaction. She quickly cast around for an innocuous change of subject.
‘So…where’s Chris this morning?’ she asked.
Bad choice. Hazel’s eyes lowered as she thoughtfully stirred a lump of sugar into her tea and Sir Frank stared out of the window and made a gruff remark on the blustery day.
‘Still sleeping off last night,’ said Joshua. ‘Why? Were you hoping to see him?’
‘No—oh, no…I just wondered, that’s all.’ In her haste to disassociate herself from the question she allowed Alice to persuade her to a salmon cake she didn’t really want. ‘If he’s a doctor I suppose he must work very hard…’ She trailed off, seeing that she had only compounded her error as Joshua’s expression hardened.
‘Works hard and plays hard. He’s not sleeping because he’s tired; he’s sleeping because he behaved like a total idiot.’
‘Uncle Chris fell into the canal coming home last night,’ supplied Ryan. At least her diversion had worked on one level. ‘I saw him from my window, splashing and yelling. Dad told him to stop whining for help, that he had two choices: sink or swim. So he swam to the boardwalk and Dad hauled him out.’
‘Goodness!’ Hazel covered her mouth, and Regan couldn’t decide whether she was concealing a gasp of horror or a smile.
‘Serves the young fool right!’ pronounced Sir Frank.
‘But he could have drowned!’ Regan thought she was the only one showing any compassion. ‘Particularly in his state.’
‘You mean drunk,’ said Joshua.
‘Why didn’t you help him straight away?’ Regan chastised, her eyes flashing. ‘Instead of standing there taunting him.’
‘Because I believe in tough
love,’ he said laconically. ‘He’d got himself into a jam and there was no reason he shouldn’t at least try to get himself out of it. Besides…I didn’t want to risk ruining my clothes,’ he drawled with a baiting smile. ‘I was wearing some recently acquired items of great sentimental value.’
‘It was OK, really—Uncle Chris used to be a champion swimmer at his school,’ offered Ryan, torn between his natural loyalty and the delightful novelty of seeing his father being sternly lectured on behaviour by a slip of a woman. ‘And Dad did throw him a lifebelt from the dock.’
‘How kind of you,’ Regan bit out at the mocking face across the table, fuming over the veiled reference to his cufflinks. Whatever sentiments he attached to them, she knew they wouldn’t be the tender ones that he was implying!
‘I was aiming for his head,’ he said succinctly, and suddenly she couldn’t help the quiver of a smile escaping her control. She chewed it off her lips, totally bewildered by her reaction. How could he make her feel like laughing when she was so angry with him?
‘I wonder what’s keeping Carolyn? She did know you were coming, didn’t she, Joshua?’ interrupted Hazel, squinting at the exquisite diamond watch whose face was a trifle too dainty for her aging eyes.
‘I don’t think I specified an exact time. I know she was planning on going yachting with the Watsons this afternoon, but I’m afraid some work has come up…’
‘On a Saturday?’
‘Money never sleeps, Hazel,’ Sir Frank trotted out. ‘Wade can’t afford to be out of touch with what the market’s doing. You can use the library again if you need it, Joshua.’
‘Thanks, but I have everything back on-line at the condo again—thanks to Ryan’s genius for electronics. If I get time I might even call in and see how things are going in the sales office.’
Hazel was looking unimpressed. ‘Oh, dear, Carolyn will be disappointed.’
‘Maybe she’ll change her mind about going sailing once she sees how windy it is,’ said Regan. She would have thought that the last thing anyone suffering from the nausea of early pregnancy would enjoy would be a ride on a rocking boat. How far along was she? Three months? Four? Obviously not long enough for her body to have stabilised to the added flow of hormones raging through her increased volume of blood.
‘No, she won’t—the girl loves a good blow! Got a great pair of sea legs,’ beamed Sir Frank.
‘I wonder if I ought to go and wake her?’ Hazel was pondering dubiously. She had quietly divulged to Regan over last evening’s sherry that Carolyn had been unpredictable in her moods of late, and extremely touchy about her privacy. From which Regan had deduced that she was disappointed that her daughter’s daughter, whom she had brought up from babyhood after her parents were killed in a plane crash, was not co-operating wholeheartedly on the home front.
‘I suppose it’s all part of her growing up and preparing to move out into her own separate life, but it makes it a bit difficult when I’m trying to work out what she wants for the wedding,’ she had admitted. ‘She’s so inconsistent—one minute she’s madly enthusiastic; the next minute she’s yawning with boredom. One day she seems happy; the next everything’s a tragedy. Perhaps it’ll be good for her to have another young woman in the house who can relate to something of what she’s going through…’
‘Would you like me to nip up and see if she’s up and about—and let her know that Joshua’s here?’ asked Regan now.
‘Not if you haven’t finished your own breakfast, dear,’ demurred Hazel.
‘But I have.’ She smiled, pushing back from the table and trying not to look too eager to escape. ‘I don’t usually have a great appetite in the mornings—’
‘You save it all up for the evenings?’ murmured Joshua, rising to his feet in unison with his son as she stood up. Whatever else kind of father he was, he had made the effort to teach his offspring old-fashioned manners. The top of Ryan’s dirty-blond head only reached Joshua’s eyes, but he was obviously still growing, and Regan guessed that one day he would be even taller than his father. There also seemed to be a mutual respect and easy affection between them that spoke volumes about their relationship.
‘Well, it was nice meeting you again, Ryan,’ she said, concentrating on the safer of the two. ‘Good luck with your exams.’
‘Luck should have nothing to do with it,’ his father answered for him. ‘But don’t make it sound as if you’re saying goodbye, Regan. Didn’t anyone tell you that the condominium I’m living in at Palm Court is the one I bought as my personal investment in the project?’ He paused a moment to let her sense the axe that was hovering over her head. ‘And my visit here is proving so…fruitful and enlightening…that I’ve decided to stay on at the condo while Frank and I sort out the fine print on our deal. I can commute down to Auckland whenever I need to touch personal base with my staff, and Ryan’s school holidays start in another week, so he only has to commute daily until his exams are over, then he has two weeks of freedom.’
Weeks! Regan’s face paled slightly above the cherry-red dress as fresh panic fluttered in her chest. She had thought that it was only the weekend she would have to endure. Joshua lurking around for two days taunting her with his veiled threats and stalking suspicions was bad enough, but now he was talking about weeks of having to cope with him breathing down her neck, monitoring her behaviour and possibly thwarting her attempts to put her plan into action. Not to mention arousing forbidden desires!
‘Dad says I can fly down and back in the company helicopter every day,’ Ryan informed her.
‘Won’t that be rather expensive?’ she said faintly.
‘Perhaps, but I can afford it,’ said Joshua. ‘I look after my own, and I don’t consider it extravagant when you consider what I’m getting in return.’
‘And what would that be?’ she braved.
‘Peace of mind.’
‘And of course you’ll be able to spend much more time with Carolyn,’ chirped Hazel.
‘There is that,’ Joshua replied gravely.
‘I’ll just go and see what’s keeping her,’ said Regan, and fled.
I look after my own.
Regan wasn’t one of his own. She was an outsider, a threat to his established order, and it seemed he was prepared to go to any lengths to neutralise her as a possible source of trouble.
There was no answer to her brisk tap on the door, but when she tentatively poked her head into the bedroom she found Carolyn lying on her back in bed, wide awake. She had propped herself up on her elbows as the door opened.
‘Oh, it’s you,’ she said, letting herself collapse back against the heap of pillows.
‘Your grandmother just wondered if you were coming down to breakfast,’ said Regan, taking that as an invitation to enter. The bedroom was twice as big as her own, with a prime view over the lake from the bed itself, and furnished in feminine but unfussy style in eggshell-blue and white.
‘I’m not hungry,’ said Carolyn listlessly. In her white batiste nightdress with her hair in a single plait she looked girlishly young, emphasising a natural beauty that didn’t depend on cosmetics. She probably never woke with sleep-creases on her face or an embarrassing crust in the corners of her eyes, thought Regan enviously.
‘You should eat something. Perhaps it might make you feel better…’
‘Nothing can make me feel better!’ was the vehement declaration.
‘Maybe I could slip down to the kitchen and bring you up a piece of toast, and perhaps a cup of tea—’
Carolyn looked at her suspiciously. ‘Why should you?’
Regan offered her a friendly smile. ‘Well, if you’re feeling nauseous, it might help to settle your stomach…’
Carolyn’s lightly tanned face had gone from pale and wan to glowing pink in the space of a few seconds. ‘What makes you think I’m feeling sick?’
‘Uh…last night—you said you might be.’
Carolyn swore: a very unattractive, unladylike phrase. ‘He told you, didn’t he?’
She thumped an angry fist against the bedclothes. ‘It was supposed to be a secret and he told you!’
‘No—’
‘Oh, don’t bother to lie!’ she cried shrilly. ‘I saw you two huddling together. He told you! And he has the nerve to call me immature and vindictive! He gave away an intimate detail of my life to someone he doesn’t know from Adam!’
Her emphasis gave Regan a nasty jolt. ‘Honestly, Carolyn, he didn’t give away anything—I guessed. In the circumstances…and after the way you were talking about feeling sick for half the day…I just jumped to the obvious conclusion. Joshua didn’t tell me anything I hadn’t already guessed.’
‘Joshua?’ Carolyn looked disconcerted, the flags of temper in her cheeks fading.
‘Yes, who did you think I meant? I didn’t think anyone else knew…’
Carolyn smoothed her manicured nails over her rumpled covers. ‘No one does…that is, only Chris—’
‘Oh, is he your doctor?’
‘No, of course not!’ Carolyn looked horrified at the idea. ‘He’s still doing his residency. He wants to be a cardiac surgeon.’
‘Nothing as lowly as wanting to specialise in caring for the mothers of our species, huh?’ joked Regan.
Carolyn’s reluctant laugh was tinged with bitterness. ‘You’re not kidding!’
‘So, is your own doctor up here or in Auckland?’
Carolyn picked at the batiste ruffle on the scooped neck of her nightgown. ‘I’m not sure yet who I want to use…’
Regan was shocked. She sat down on the side of the bed. ‘You mean you haven’t been seeing a doctor?’
Carolyn’s eyes flashed. ‘There’s no need to yet. I know I can’t be more than three months along—’
‘But you must have had a pregnancy test?’
Her lips tightened. ‘The test was positive; I’m going to have a baby. There’s nothing any doctor can do about that!’
They both knew that there was. ‘So you—you never contemplated not going ahead with the baby…?’
‘Of course not!’ said Carolyn fiercely, her hand going to her stomach. ‘Why do you think I’m in this mess? If I’d gone quietly along and got rid of it I suppose everyone would have been much happier…’
