by Natalie Fox
The man, with his impressive bearing and indisputable good looks, had mesmerised her from her first sight of him, but it hadn’t been a pleasant feeling—more disturbing than anything else. He had appeared to be as cold and hard as honed steel and yet that look of pain when Josh had defected…or had she imagined it?
‘W…w…w…’
‘Deep breaths, Josh,’ Karis suggested gently as she put the book down and lifted the boy onto her lap to cuddle him. He’d been standing looking over her shoulder for ages as she’d read but she hadn’t let on she knew he was there. It had to come from him otherwise it was hopeless. She held his forehead as he leaned back against her, taking deep breaths as she had suggested.
They had come a long way. A year ago, when Karis had arrived with four-month-old baby Tara, the boy had been silent, refusing to speak except to stutter abuse at Fiesta. Karis had been shocked and deeply upset by his behaviour, and shaken by Fiesta’s uncaring attitude towards the troubled boy. It was obvious he was an embarrassment to her in front of her guests and she wanted him out from under her feet and frankly didn’t care who unburdened her.
While in England, promoting her exclusive, private Caribbean island holidays, Fiesta had advertised for a nanny and Karis had applied. Though she had no qualifications, Karis had been desperate enough to try for the job. At the interview Fiesta had said nothing about the boy being a problem child. It had only been when Karis arrived on Levos that she’d found out just what a problem he was and, worse, that apparently she was the latest in a long line of nannies, most highly qualified but unable or unwilling to cope with the appalling little boy.
At first Karis had thought she couldn’t cope herself, not with Tara and the sadness and tragedy of her own past to come to terms with as well. But something about the badly behaved boy had tugged so painfully at her heartstrings that she hadn’t been able to leave. And, strangely, having to care for Josh, having to give so much of herself to gain his confidence, she had found he had unknowingly given her much in return. She had arrived on the island a shadow of her former self, rock-bottom low and with little self-esteem, only to find a very frightened little boy with much the same hang-ups and misery. It had brought her up short. In a child, disturbance and melancholia were all the more tragic. It wasn’t natural for a child to be so deeply unhappy.
So Karis had forced her own self-pity behind her, cared for Josh and her own baby daughter, and made life bearable and as much fun as possible for them all. It had been a long, hard, painful haul to win Josh’s trust, and there were still days when he was difficult, but on the whole he was a much happier child than he had been a year ago and Karis was no longer the shadow of grief she had been when she had arrived.
‘W…will he take me away?’ Josh breathed at last.
Karis held him close, smoothing a hand across his hot brow. ‘Will who take you away?’ she dared to ask, wanting confirmation from him that Daniel was who she thought he was. Fiesta wasn’t at all forthcoming about Josh’s past. Karis had asked her about Josh’s parentage once but a tight-lipped Fiesta had told her to mind her own business and do what she was paid to do: look after the boy.
‘My father,’ Josh blurted. ‘Will he take me away?’
So he was Josh’s father. She had thought so when he had removed his sunglasses. They had the same eyes—cold and inhospitable, suspicious, cautious…and yet there were times when Josh’s eyes showed deep warmth and love and bright humour and perhaps the father had the capability of such emotions in him too. The thought gave a curious twist to her senses.
‘I don’t know,’ Karis admitted truthfully. She was always honest with him because he was too intelligent to be fobbed off with excuses. ‘But I’ll find out what’s going on, Josh,’ she promised, hugging the boy to her.
And she would. Daniel Kennedy, Josh’s father, was on the island and the reason must be to see his son and discuss his future with Fiesta, for surely he didn’t expect the wealthy socialite to look after him indefinitely? And where was Josh’s mother? That Simone certainly wasn’t his mother because Josh would have said if she was.
It was so worrying to Karis. Caring for him every day of their lives, she knew that the child needed a stable home life, preferably with a full set of parents, and though she had done her best a nanny’s best wasn’t enough to carry the child through the rest of his childhood. And when he did go? She, with Tara, would have to move on and carve out another new life for them both because they couldn’t go back. Karis wouldn’t be welcomed back; she didn’t want to go back. She’d learnt a lot here—not least that a simple life was worth a king’s ransom in terms of peace of mind.
‘Can we go to the creek?’ Josh asked tentatively. One hand was curved over his shoulder, twisting a strand of Karis’s jet hair around his fingers as she cuddled him. The small, intimate gesture of confidence and caring for her always pulled at Karis’s heart. She knew that in his way the boy cared very deeply for her and if his father had come to take him away…
It didn’t bear thinking about but a small thought stayed around long enough to have Karis grasping at it with both hands. If his intention was to take the child off the island he would still need a nanny—unless, of course, there was a mother around…but no one knew if one even existed. Both Josh and Fiesta were a closed book where Josh’s past was concerned. It was as if he had never lived before his two years on this island.
‘Yes, we’ll go to the creek,’ Karis decided quickly, bear-hugging the boy to her and planting a squidgy kiss beneath his ear, making him laugh.
Daniel might come to the cottage looking for his son but Saffron was here and would tell him where they were. Optimistically Karis imagined telling him all about his estranged son, what a good swimmer he was, how well he could read—an amazing achievement for a five-year-old who a year ago hadn’t been able to string a sentence together.
Yes, she would have so much to tell him, so why was that grey cloud of uncertainty looming? She knew but didn’t want to think about it. One day soon, she and Tara would lose Josh to his cold, unfeeling father and…No, she wouldn’t think about it, not yet. Josh wanted to swim and dive and chase sea turtles under the water and frankly so did she.
‘Are you sure you don’t mind staying on while I’m over at the main house, Saffron?’ Karis asked later.
Saffron lived over at the staff cottages behind the plantation house and Karis had never had reason to ask her to stay late before. She had no social life and there was certainly nowhere to go on the tiny island even if she had. She had never been issued with an invitation to join one of Fiesta’s house parties, of which there were numerous in the holiday season. She was staff after all.
‘Of course I don’t mind,’ Saffron told her as she finished off the washing up and turned to gaze at Karis, who was trying to do something with her unruly hair in front of the kitchen mirror. ‘Best if you find out what that boy’s father’s intentions are.’
‘Yes, indeed,’ Karis murmured thoughtfully. She coiled her hair in a bundle on the top of her head and secured it with a gilt clasp. She had dressed in her best outfit—a slip of a silk dress in dark green with fine shoulder straps. Her feet were bare, though. After a year of tropical island living shoes and even sandals were unbearable on her feet. She supposed she had gone native this last year but the laidback lifestyle of the West Indians had appealed to her after the formality of life in Britain. She was freer here than she had ever been before. But she was bowing to convention now, making the best of herself to face Fiesta and possibly Josh’s father, because it was important that she give a good impression…but blow the shoes!
‘Are you sure Josh’s father didn’t come to the cottage while Josh and I were along at the creek?’ she asked as she tucked an unruly wisp of dark hair back into the clasp.
Earlier she’d told Saffron about Josh’s father arriving on the island and had fully expected him to come to the cottage to see his son once he had unpacked. She couldn’t believe that he hadn’t.
> ‘I’m sure,’ Saffron assured her. ‘I sat out on that verandah all the time and he didn’t come near.’
And yet Karis had been sure they had been watched as they’d swum and practised diving in the tiny creek on the other side of the island, only fifteen minutes’ walk away but far enough to claim seclusion. Fiesta’s guests were generally a lazy lot who never ventured far from the opulent plantation house with its swimming pool and the bar lavishly stocked with every cocktail ingredient imaginable.
She must have been mistaken, unnerved by that dark man’s unyielding eyes as he had stopped and stared earlier, and imagined he must be shadowing her and Josh.
‘It’s awful,’ Karis sighed, and licked her fingers and smoothed them over her dark brows. ‘He hasn’t seen him at all since I’ve been looking after him. It’s the first time I’ve seen him.’
‘He came when you were on St Lucia with Tara for her check-up, six months ago,’ Saffron told her, rubbing her hands on a tea-towel as Karis swung to face her in surprise. ‘You remember the boy was yowling for a week when you came back.’
‘I thought it was because he was angry with me for not taking him,’ Karis stated in astonishment ‘Why didn’t you tell me, Saffron?’ Oh, she should have done. It would have helped to know the real reason for Josh’s distress.
Saffron shrugged without looking at her. ‘No good you vexing yourself about it too.’
‘Hmm. Maybe.’ Karis exhaled. That was Saffron’s reasoning—ignorance was bliss—and perhaps she was right. Karis would have vexed herself over it.
She would have liked to know all the same; after all, she was the closest to the small, troubled boy and she might have been able to draw him out if she had known what was bothering him. It dragged at her heart to think the child was in such fear of his own father.
‘I won’t be long,’ she told Saffron from the open door onto the verandah. ‘If the children wake—’
“They won’t,’ Saffron laughed, and then the wide grin drained from her round face and she grew serious. ‘I wish you were all dressed up like that for a date.’
‘A date with whom?’ Karis laughed softly and added teasingly, ‘One of those ghastly rich old men that fly down from Miami for Fiesta’s vacations? I’d rather court the devil, Saffron.’
‘Wicked girl!’ Saffron chastised her, with humour softening the remark.
‘Not at all a wicked girl,’ Karis muttered under her breath as she followed the path to the plantation house through the subtly lit gardens. The devil himself was a safer bet than the one man she’d allowed into her life, the man she had married and lost so tragically. Poor Aiden. Karis shivered sorrowfully in spite of the cloying heat. He hadn’t deserved what fate had dealt him, no matter what he had done. But he had given her Tara, the one good thing he had done in his life, and for that she couldn’t allow his memory to fade though her memories of him were tinged with sadness and bitterness most of the time.
It was a velvety black tropical night with heavy cloud obscuring the moon and pressing the heat of the day back down to earth, making the air thick and heady. Karis could hear laughter coming from the beach and smell the charcoal grill sizzling T-bone steaks and so she avoided the waterfront route to the house. Fiesta hadn’t got her nickname for nothing. She knew how to throw a beach party.
As Karis strolled unhurriedly through the scented gardens she rehearsed in her head what she wanted to say to Fiesta…and Josh’s father if he was around. The boy needed so much more than he was getting on the island. He needed proper schooling for one thing, though Karis did her best She didn’t want to lose him, dreaded the thought in fact, but his welfare and future were her chief concern and that small thought she had grasped to her earlier was growing in momentum. If this wasn’t just a visit and Daniel was planning on taking Josh back to the States he would need a nanny for him, and who better for the job than the one who had cared for the child and had worked a small miracle on him this last year?
Karis circled the house till she was under the wide wrought-iron balcony of the sitting room, where lights blazed out from the open French doors. She’d checked with Fiesta’s housekeeper where she was and rather than go through the house and run the risk of bumping into any of the house guests, who were usually well on the way to being drunk at this time of the night, she had skirted the house and opted for the balcony and the small flight of wrought-iron steps that led up to it from the rose gardens beneath.
‘What qualifications has she got?’ The brutal query came from above Karis’s head and it stilled her instantly. She flattened herself against the scratchy coral wall of the house, under the balcony where it was shadowy and she couldn’t be seen. The deep, resonant voice was Daniel Kennedy’s and she knew instinctively he was referring to her.
‘Qualifications? You expect someone with qualifications to give your uncontrollable son the time of day? Get real, Daniel. Karis is the only one to have stayed!’ Fiesta argued stiffly.
‘And it’s quite obvious why,’ Daniel stated emphatically. ‘She’s nothing but a child herself, and wild with it—all that hair and barefoot like a native. She must have thought she’d landed on her feet when you offered her this luxurious life. Where the hell did you drag her up from?’
Karis steeled herself, muscles cramping, closing her eyes tightly against the pain of the insult.
‘And the baby on her hip,’ he ground on, not giving Fiesta a chance to explain. ‘I don’t expect her to look after other people’s children when I’m paying her to 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 firm
ly, 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.
