by Maggie Cox
His voice grew deliberately husky on that last statement, and his blue eyes burned into Caroline’s panicked dark gaze with the kind of hot sparks that started forest fires. She turned boneless and hot in an instant. Jack had always had the disturbing ability to look at her and make her feel as though she were practically having sex with him at just a glance. But why should he regard her like that, when he’d already made his dislike of her crystal-clear?
In spite of her confusion, Caroline could barely tear her gaze away from him as he leant towards her and provocatively brushed the side of her cheek with his lips. The stubble on his jaw lightly scratched the delicate tenderness of her own soft skin, and the smell of his cologne acted like a flame-lit arrow fired straight into her womb. Inside her dress, Caroline’s breasts grew exquisitely tender and achy.
‘Did I?’ she answered nervously, embarrassed to recall a tendency to be clumsy in front of both men. But, that aside, she couldn’t believe that Jack had kissed her. It had been seventeen interminably long years since she had known his touch, and now that the drought had ended she couldn’t help but feverishly crave more. She felt an intense surge of joy rush into her blood, despite knowing that her craving was probably doomed to remain unsatisfied.
‘Well…I’d better be going.’ Sending her another maddeningly provoking glance—that made Caroline’s breath catch and seemed to suggest that he had a lot more on his mind than coffee and work—Jack turned and left her alone with her clearly disgruntled dinner companion.
Had he meant it when he’d commented so casually that they would be bound to bump into each other again? Or had he simply said it to annoy Nicholas? Caroline suspected that Jack had taken an immediate and intense dislike to the man who was a family friend and wondered why. Maybe it was the association with her father that irked him? Maybe he’d intuited that he must have been the subject of some discussion between them at some point in the past, and of course strongly resented it. Certainly Nicholas had made no effort to hide either his negative judgement or his disdain for Jack.
When Jack had walked away from them, Nicholas wasted no time in warning her for a second time about seeing him again.
‘If you know what’s good for you, Caroline, you’ll steer clear of that man,’ he said disapprovingly across the table. ‘I’m rarely wrong about people, and I confess I don’t particularly trust him. To my mind he can bring you nothing but trouble.’
She resisted the urge to hotly disagree, because underneath the profound agony of need that was burning anew for Jack in her blood Caroline silently conceded that her friend was probably right. What if Jack was up to something? What if seeing her again had prompted the idea of some kind of revenge in his heart for what she’d done?
Wondering how she was going to eat when she’d completely lost her appetite, Caroline merely toyed with her delicious meal when it came, until it was time to go…
The following day, having finished teaching her Friday arts and crafts class, Caroline hurried to catch up with a distracted-looking Sadie Martin as she headed out of the school gates, feeling a stab of concern that needed answering. In fact, the girl had been dreamy-looking all through the afternoon’s lesson, and had not given her work her usually eager attention.
Thoughts of Jack suddenly banished, Caroline released her brightest smile as she drew level with the schoolgirl. ‘Hey, there! You’re in a big hurry…going somewhere nice?’
Slowing down her stride, Sadie guiltily dipped her head and blushed furiously.
Caroline’s undoubted curiosity as to what might be the matter was piqued even more. ‘Is everything all right, Sadie?’
The girl waited until the sea of girls behind them surged through the gates ahead of them, then continued a little way up the road with Caroline before gradually slowing to a stop.
‘Everything’s fine, Miss…really.’
It was the really that spoke volumes to Caroline. Her dark eyes narrowed in concern. ‘Do you want to talk? We can go to the park, if you like? I’m not in any hurry.’
‘Thanks, Miss…I’d like that.’
There was a flash of gratitude in the girl’s surprised glance, and Caroline intuited she’d done the right thing in catching up with her.
In the park, after finding a suitable bench situated beneath a large sheltering oak that was liberally shedding its golden and brown leaves on the grass beneath it, Caroline surveyed the younger girl with another undeniable throb of concern as she sat down beside her.
‘I’ve met a boy…a boy I—I like very much.’
Her concern expanded into a disturbing lightning bolt, and Caroline stared in astonished surprise. It was the last thing she would have expected Sadie to say, and for a long moment she just sat there, bereft of words.
‘Miss?’
‘So…’ Caroline cleared her throat, then took a deep breath to calm the wild fluttering in her stomach. Sadie was sixteen…the same age Caroline had been when she’d lost her heart to Jack. ‘When did all this happen and how did you meet?’
Again, Sadie’s pale complexion was suffused with visible heat. ‘I’ve been seeing him for about a month now. His name is Ben and he goes to the local art college. A friend of mine has an older sister who goes there, and she got us tickets for a dance they were having. That’s when we met.’
‘He’s obviously older than you if he’s at college?’
‘Only by three years, Miss…that’s not much of an age difference, is it?’
‘No.’ Quickly gathering her scattered wits, Caroline combed her fingers through her mane of blonde hair. ‘That’s not much of an age difference at all. So now I know why you’ve seemed particularly distracted lately. Is everything going all right? Have your parents met him?’
‘Yes, they have. I wouldn’t see him behind their backs, Miss! Besides…I’m not one for going out much usually, and lately…well…I’ve been going out quite a lot, so they’d immediately know that something was going on if I didn’t tell them. My dad likes him very much, as it happens…and my mum’s slowly coming round to the idea that I’ve got a boyfriend…I think.’ Sadie shrugged self-consciously. ‘She’s a bit of a worrier, my mum. I think she’s afraid that I might get into trouble.’
‘What kind of trouble?’ Even as the words left her mouth Caroline knew that Sadie meant becoming pregnant. For a moment anxiety made it hard to breathe. Oh, God, don’t let history repeat itself, she thought in anguish. Sadie deserved her bright future, untarnished by the pain of a romance that had gone wrong or a man who’d rejected her before she had really even grown into a woman…
She took another deep, steadying breath. At least Sadie had parents who loved her…who would in all likelihood stand by her should things go wrong. It was a very different scenario from her own cautionary story.
‘You know…I meant getting pregnant, Miss.’ Her pale hands tightening around her dark blue school bag, Sadie grimaced a little. ‘But even though I’m only young, I’m much more sensible than my parents give me credit for. Ben and I are just really getting to know each other still. We haven’t slept together, and when and if we do I’ll go to the doctor and get protection. I won’t jeopardise either of our futures.’
‘That sounds…extremely sensible, Sadie.’
Swallowing hard, Caroline forced a smile to her lips. If only she and Jack had been nearly so sensible… But unassailable passion had made them its willing slave, and they’d been like pieces of driftwood afloat on a stormy ocean of insatiable lust. The word ‘sensible’ hadn’t even been in their vocabulary. Her stomach flipped over at the bittersweet memory.
‘But even when you’re trying to be sensible, sometimes things can get a little out of hand. You know that the Head of Sociology at school—Glynis Hopkins—does relationship counselling for teenagers? Why don’t you go and have a word about things with her? She’s very kind, and anything you tell her will be in the strictest confidence, I promise.’
Sadie’s face lit up with touching beauty. ‘Thanks, Miss…i
t’s been great to have you to talk to. I knew you’d understand.’
If only I didn’t understand half so well, Caroline reflected painfully as she reached out to squeeze Sadie’s hand. ‘As your teacher and your friend I only want you to be happy,’ she replied softly.
Later that evening, although on edge, and once more consumed by thoughts of Jack after Sadie’s revelation that she was seeing a boy, Caroline did not have the heart to visit the little cove in search of some calm. Instead she opted to go for a drive—anything to try and distract herself for a while.
Usually the ocean would call to her whenever she was remotely upset, but not tonight. She was simply feeling too anxious about the parallels she’d drawn with Sadie to even summon up the energy to walk on a deserted beach. Instead she drove by it, barely even glancing over at the waves that were splashing onto the shoreline.
The evening was drawing in, and the air had the sting of frost in it when she finally returned home and parked the car on the drive. Retrieving her bag from the passenger seat beside her, she locked up, then proceeded to walk wearily up to her front door.
‘Do you usually stay behind this late at school?’
Her heart in her mouth at the sound of that voice, Caroline felt her knees react as though they might fold like paper beneath her—just like a marionette when the puppet-master stopped working the strings. Spinning round in shock, she found Jack just a scant foot behind her, his face unsmiling, his blue eyes seeming to drill into her like lasers.
‘Jack! What are you—? How did you know I was teaching today?’
Feeling a hot shiver go right through her, Caroline helplessly focused on his mouth—on the little diagonal scar just above his top lip that he’d acquired when he was seventeen, after a fight with another boy who’d had a flick-knife. The way Jack had told it, the boy with the knife had come off far worse than he had, and had never bothered him again after that night. Looking at him now, Caroline could easily believe it. To her, he had always been like electricity…utterly necessary, but at the same time dangerous and unpredictable too…No doubt that teenage boy had completely underestimated what Jack was capable of.
‘I knocked next door and asked your neighbour.’ He smiled, but the gesture lacked warmth. Instead it was the lethal, purposeful smile of a man who knew he had the upper hand where she was concerned…would always have the upper hand as long as she couldn’t resist him. ‘She was most obliging too.’
Nicolette was an attractive forty-something divorcee who regularly combed the lonely hearts ads in the local paper with steely-eyed determination, in search of ‘husband number three’. Caroline didn’t doubt she had been only too happy to tell Jack practically anything he wanted to know. But—as much as she was overwhelmed by his presence—she wasn’t up to raking over old coals tonight, if that was what he had in mind. Like the boy who had attacked Jack with the knife, she knew she would come off the loser.
Clutching her bag to her chest, Caroline frowned, secretly longing to get out of the biting wind and into the warmth of her centrally heated house. ‘What is it you want? It’s—it’s cold out here.’
‘Then why don’t you invite me in?’
Stepping towards her, Jack shrugged beneath the expensive leather of his dark brown jacket, the material making a soft creaking sound as he raised his arm and pushed back his hair.
Confusion, then resignation crept into her expressive eyes. Jack couldn’t deny his moment of triumph. He’d had a very brief moment of doubt, when he’d thought she might refuse him, but the tension between them was palpable and he knew immediately how to manipulate it in his favour. She was as jumpy as a newborn kitten around him, he realised, and he had no compunction…none…in taking the utmost advantage of the fact.
‘All right, then…just for a minute.’
The house was warm and inviting, and Caroline’s perfume—a mixture of jasmine and roses, if Jack wasn’t mistaken—lingered enticingly in the air. It was the kind of home that Jack had dreamed of living in growing up. There was a real sense of permanence and beauty about it, which no doubt Caroline’s artistic soul had liberally contributed to over the years.
Following her into the spacious hallway, he watched her hang up her jacket and bag on the coatstand and free her long curling hair from the back of her knitted cardigan, where it had become trapped. The perfectly blonde curls unravelled down her back with a jaunty bounce, and Jack had to slip his hand urgently into his jacket pocket to prevent himself from acting on the almost irrepressible urge to grab a handful of those luscious curls and twine them possessively round his fingers…
Turning to face him, she clearly had no inkling of the impulse that had gripped him so hard. ‘Would you like a cup of tea or something?’
He had a mind to tease her…to ask her what she meant by ‘or something’ and insinuate a very different agenda to the one on offer. But when Jack studied that beautiful and, it had to be said, guileless face of hers, he was suddenly filled with the memory of how devotedly and ardently he’d loved her, and how she had taken that pure, passionate love he’d offered and destroyed it in one shocking, irretrievable act…
‘Jack?’
He shouldn’t have come. But he’d been as unable to resist seeking Caroline out again as a drug addict was unable to turn down a free fix. He was playing a dangerous game that could only end in unqualified disaster, but he asked himself what he had got to lose when he’d already lost everything that truly meant anything in his life a long time ago.
‘Tea will do fine,’ he said, combing his fingers through his dark hair. But he said it without a smile, and he knew that she knew too that the past had suddenly bitterly intruded into his thoughts.
Crestfallen, she lowered her liquid dark gaze and turned determinedly away. ‘I hope you don’t mind drinking it in the kitchen,’ she threw over her shoulder, her voice falsely bright as she hurried ahead of him down the long, echoing hall…
CHAPTER FIVE
‘YOU’VE obviously got a good reason for being here, Jack, so why don’t you tell me what it is?’
Cupping her hands around her hot mug of tea at the kitchen table, Caroline decided there was nothing for it but to face head-on whatever was on his mind. She’d spent seventeen years racked with an inordinate amount of guilt about what she’d done…guilt and fear…so much so that she had been unable to form a lasting relationship with anyone. Every time she’d tried…every time she’d met someone she’d started to feel herself attracted to and who had been attracted to her…it hadn’t been long before that dreadful burden of guilt and terror had submerged any growing feelings of pleasure or hope in the relationship continuing, and eventually—inevitably—it had come to an end.
Hadn’t she carried that debilitating burden for long enough? Her heart longed to be able to love again, to give itself wholeheartedly to the right man without fearing that she might fall pregnant and be forced to terminate again. But, looking into Jack’s stare—Caroline was convinced it was contemptuous—it was obvious he didn’t think that she’d suffered nearly enough.
‘You live here alone?’ he asked, ignoring the question.
‘Yes.’
‘I always wondered what this place looked like on the inside,’ he commented, glancing around him, his gaze alighting on the beautiful Irish dresser with its eye-catching display of highly collectible blue and white china. ‘Your father would never let me over the threshold.’
Feeling shame at the memory, Caroline dipped her head.
‘So…you’re not in a relationship?’
Her head shot up.
‘No.’
She could have said more, but she didn’t. Whatever she said, Jack would no doubt draw his own conclusion as to the reason for her still single status anyway, and she didn’t need to hear his self-righteous judgements against her.
‘So…you and the disapproving doctor aren’t an item?’ His lip curled slightly as he put his emphasis on the word ‘doctor’, and Caroline knew he was only lo
oking for an opportunity to ‘put her in her place’ and keep her there.
Suddenly resentment welled up in her heart, for all the pain he had caused but clearly took no responsibility for, and she could barely speak over the abominable tightness that locked her throat.
‘That’s totally irrelevant. What interest can it possibly be to you who I’m seeing or not seeing? Let’s have this out for once and for all, shall we? You must have looked me up again for a reason and if that reason, is merely to drive home your point that you can’t ever forgive me for what happened between us, then save your breath! I already got that point—loud and clear. We were both so young when it happened, and we’ve both moved on a long way since then. You clearly got everything you wanted in life, so why come back here simply to dig up old unhappy memories?’
Leaving her mug on the table, her tea untouched, Caroline pushed to her feet and, hugging her arms across her chest in her dark green sweater, walked unseeingly over to the darkened kitchen window that only reflected back her own unhappy solitary reflection.
She tensed when she heard Jack rise from the table, sensing immediately that he had moved up behind her.
‘How do you know that I got everything I wanted, huh?’
His voice was hoarse with accusation and Caroline hardly dared breathe. Instead, his rage wrapped itself around her and held her prisoner in an icy vice, so that it was impossible to move out of its powerful sphere.
‘All I meant was that you look like you’ve made a success of your life, Jack…I didn’t mean that I—’
‘You think because I’ve got money now, and I’m clearly not the poor boy from the wrong side of town any more, that I’m a success?’
Turning towards him, everything in her taut with trepidation, Caroline was utterly dismayed by the desolate and savagely bleak expression she saw written across his remarkably striking features.
