His Little Girl

by Liz Fielding

  ‘Are you asking if I make a lot of money?’

  ‘Do you?’

  She could have told him that she had no need to do anything for money. She could have told him that newspapers and magazines had besieged her for her story and that she’d decided to tell it in order to publicise her cause. But she didn’t want him that interested. ‘Not yet.’

  She could see by his switched off expression that he thought she was kidding herself. And he was slipping further down into the chair as the heat made him sleepy.

  Gannon squeezed his eyes tight, pinching the bridge of his nose between his finger and thumb as he fought his body’s urge to sleep. Food would help. ‘I think I’ll take you up on that offer of something to eat,’ he said.

  ‘Help yourself.’ She jotted something down on the pad, as if it was of no interest to her whether he ate or not. ‘You look as if you haven’t had a square meal for a week.’

  ‘I haven’t.’

  ‘Really?’ She finally gave him her full attention. ‘You do look absolutely terrible.’

  ‘Thanks, but I had noticed. I’m not feeling particularly great either, if you’re interested.’

  She leaned forward, as if she might reach out to him. But she kept her hands on the pad in her lap. ‘Look, if you’ll trust me not to poison you, I’m quite willing to cook something for you.’ He regarded her for a moment. While he was sure she wasn’t going to poison him, he wasn’t prepared to trust her much further than that. ‘Just some bacon and eggs, perhaps?’

  ‘An early breakfast?’

  ‘If you like.’ She uncurled from the chair and dropped the pad and pencil on the table beside her. ‘It won’t take long. Why don’t you try that drink? It might help.’

  His untouched glass stood on the table beside him. He picked it up, sipped the liquor and felt its heat seep down inside him. It felt good. Too good. He put the glass down and pushed himself to his feet. She looked round as he followed her into the kitchen. ‘I’ll give you a hand.’

  She shrugged, as if she wasn’t bothered. But it suited her just fine. Anything to keep him downstairs. ‘The fridge is over there.’

  He crossed to the refrigerator and scanned the shelves, taking out orange juice, a box of eggs and an unopened packet of bacon.

  Dora took down a pan and set it on the hob while Gannon opened the packet of bacon she had bought that morning and piled it in. She smothered a yawn and looked at the clock. It was nearly three. She corrected herself. Yesterday morning. And that was the last time she had used the mobile phone.

  She had been waiting for a call and had left it switched on in her bag when she had dashed to the supermarket. And now it was as flat as a pancake. She poured out a couple of glasses of juice and sipped one. How on earth could she have been so stupid?

  Easily, was the simple answer. She did it all the time. And any other time it wouldn’t have mattered.

  She’d put it in the charger beside her bed, and pushed it as far out of sight as she could. But she knew Gannon would keep a close eye on her, and he would be less likely to discover her secret if she kept him away from the bedroom.

  It wouldn’t take long to put some life back into the battery, and once Gannon had some food inside him, and she’d made up the fire, she was certain it wouldn’t be very long before he fell asleep. But she knew he was more likely to co-operate if he thought it was his idea.

  ‘There are some mushrooms if you fancy them.’ She crossed to the fridge and took them from the cooler.

  ‘Field mushrooms,’ he said, looking over her shoulder. ‘Where did you get them?’

  ‘I picked them this morning.’ He glanced at her thoughtfully, and she knew exactly what he was thinking. ‘I’ll eat one myself if you like,’ she offered.

  ‘That won’t be necessary. I’m quite capable of spotting a mistake. Deliberate or otherwise.’ She put them on the centre island and began to break eggs into a bowl. Gannon slid onto a stool opposite her. ‘How did you meet Richard?’ he asked.

  She kept her eyes on the bowl, wishing that she had never started this stupid deception. Her sigh was unconscious, but heartfelt ‘I told you, my sister introduced us,’ she replied, giving herself time to come up with something convincing while she beat the eggs.

  ‘He’s not much of a party-goer.’ She didn’t offer any help. ‘He met his first wife on a shoot.’

  ‘I don’t shoot.’

  ‘No.’ Her skin, with its delicate peach bloom, had none of the weathered look of a dedicated outdoors enthusiast.

  ‘How’s the bacon?’ she asked.

  He crossed to the cooker and checked the pan. ‘Fine.’ He threw in a handful of mushrooms and continued to regard her thoughtfully while she poured the eggs into a small saucepan and joined him. ‘All right, I give up. Tell me.’

  ‘It was through work.’ Dora was glad she had to concentrate on the eggs. She had decided it would be easier to stick to Poppy’s story than invent one of her own. But she didn’t have to like it.

  ‘Your sister worked for him?’

  Actually her sister had been working on a photographic shoot for some outdoorsy make-up ads on the river. ‘Not exactly—’

  ‘Sophie! What’s the matter?’

  Dora turned and saw the little girl standing in the doorway. Something about the way she was fidgeting provoked sympathetic memories. ‘I think she needs the bathroom, Gannon. Do you want me to deal with it?’

  ‘No. She doesn’t know you. And she doesn’t speak much English.’ He bent and picked the child up. Dora, watching from a distance, could have sworn that sweat started on his forehead as he bit down on the pain. The child muttered something to him, but he shook his head and without a word carried her across the living room before disappearing into the front hall.

  They were gone for some time. Dora was just beginning to wonder if he’d fallen asleep beside the child, after he’d put her back to bed, when they both reappeared.

  Sophie was wearing a clean T-shirt that came down to her feet, and a thick cardigan that trailed behind her.

  ‘I raided your chest of drawers. I hope you don’t mind.’ He pulled a little face. ‘She had a little accident.’

  ‘No problem.’ Dora smiled at the little girl. ‘Hello, Sophie,’ she said. ‘Now that you’re up, would you like some eggs?’

  She’d made toast, and now she cut a slice into triangles and spread on the scrambled egg.

  Gannon translated for the child, speaking in a language that sounded familiar, and Sophie’s eyes widened as he propped himself on stool, held her on his knee and offered her the plate. She ate quickly with her fingers, scarcely pausing to chew, gathering up even the smallest crumbs.

  ‘There’s more,’ Dora offered.

  But Gannon shook his head. ‘That’s enough for now.’ He pulled his plate towards him and began to eat awkwardly, with one hand.

  ‘Here, you can’t eat like that. Give her to me.’

  He didn’t argue, but when Dora bent to take her Sophie clung to him. He spoke to her gently, his voice encouraging her, and Dora found herself subjected to a close scrutiny by the solemn-faced little girl. Then, as if satisfied with what she saw, Sophie raised her arms to her in a gesture of absolute trust.

  ‘Oh, sweetheart, you’re cold. I’ll take her by the fire, Gannon.’

  ‘Sure,’ he said, but she hadn’t waited for his permission. Sophie’s feet were freezing, and Dora carried her to the armchair by the fire, curling up with her in her lap. For a moment Sophie stared at Dora’s long fair hair. Then, bolder, she reached out and touched it.

  ‘Hair,’ Dora said.

  Sophie repeated the word, smiled, then, still holding onto a long golden strand, closed her eyes and was immediately asleep. Dora, unable to move without disturbing the child, made the best of it, relaxing back against the chair, and as the heat of the fire began to make her drowsy, she closed her eyes.

  When Gannon came looking for them five minutes later, they were both fast asleep, wrapped
in each other’s arms. He stood over them for a moment, considering whether to carry Sophie back to bed. It seemed a pity to disturb her again, and maybe she would feel safer like this. And he could take the opportunity to have a few minutes’ rest, knowing that Sophie would wake him if Dora moved.

  He made up the fire, piling on logs and replacing the guard, before stretching out in the armchair opposite Dora and Sophie. Yet, despite an almost desperate weariness, he was reluctant to close his eyes, blot out a scene of such utter peacefulness.

  The woman and child had fallen asleep sure in the knowledge that they were safe, that nothing would harm them. For a moment his mind drifted back over the last forty-eight hours, and he knew that the peace was temporary. At least for him and Sophie.

  Dora woke feeling stiff and uncomfortable. Her head was at an awkward angle and her left arm was numb, and for a moment she couldn’t work out where she was. Then she blinked as she saw the man stretched out in the chair opposite, his head thrown back against the cushions, his long, thin body relaxed in sleep, and it all came flooding back. The break-in. Sophie. Gannon.

  Most of all she remembered Gannon, impossible, overbearing and arrogant, and her cheeks heated up at the way she had tried to stare him down in the bathroom. John Gannon was not a man to play chicken with.

  And she remembered the telephone, upstairs in her bedroom. She’d curled up with Sophie in front of the fire because the child had been cold and she must have nodded off. Now it was too late. Or was it? Gannon was fast asleep. Food and warmth had done their work, relaxing him so that the exhaustion that shadowed his eyes had finally caught up with him.

  Asleep he looked so much less threatening. With his head thrown back so that his long throat was exposed he seemed, on the contrary, to be almost vulnerable. At her mercy.

  In repose, the hard planes of his face had lost the taut, hunted look of her midnight marauder. He didn’t look like a marauder at all, she thought. More like an academic, or an artist.

  A lock of dark hair had fallen across his forehead, softening the high ascetic forehead, the hollowed temples, and his watchful eyes, which by some trick of the light seemed to alternate between gold and agate, were lidded and fringed with thick, dark lashes.

  His long straight nose, his firm mouth, the uncompromising chin all suggested a man of infinite strength and endurance. He was, she thought with a little inward flip somewhere in the region of her waist, strikingly beautiful.

  He didn’t look in the least bit dangerous, more like a man who could be anyone’s brother or uncle. She looked down at the child curled up against her shoulder. Or loving father. But looks could be deceptive. And there was more than one kind of danger.

  Sophie seemed absolutely dead to the world too. Heaven alone knew what the child had been through, but she was clearly under-nourished and suffering from exhaustion. Maybe she would be able to carry her up to bed without waking her.

  But as she tried to ease forward those big dark eyes flew open and the little body tensed in her arms. Before she could cry out, Dora placed a finger to her lips with an almost silent ‘Shh,’ and she looked mean-ingfully towards Gannon. Sophie seemed to instantly understand that silence was necessary. Still tense, she turned to look at Gannon. Then, as she realised why Dora wanted her to be quiet, she too put her finger to her lips. Dora smiled approvingly, and as Sophie smiled back her thin face lit up.

  So far, so good.

  She managed to stand, still holding the child, although her cramped muscles complained bitterly at their mistreatment as she stepped carefully over Gannon’s outstretched legs. She tried hard not to look at him, sure that he would somehow feel her gaze on him and stir.

  She crept silently towards the door, sure with every step that his low voice would break the silence to ask her where she was going. But she made it to the door without disturbing him, climbed the stairs, and then she was in the bedroom, her heart pounding like a kettledrum by the time she eased Sophie onto the bed.

  She made another gesture for silence before groping beneath the bed for the telephone, wasting no time about punching in the one number she knew by heart. There was no time to waste calling directory enquiries, and she didn’t have time to look up Sarah’s number in the little book she carried with her. Even if Gannon hadn’t taken her bag away.

  It seemed to take for ever before the distant telephone began to ring, and when finally it was answered it wasn’t her brother but his housekeeper. Well, it was still early.

  ‘Can I speak to Fergus, please?’ she whispered.

  ‘I’m sorry, I can’t hear you very well—the line isn’t too good,’ Mrs Harris said.

  ‘Fergus,’ she hissed desperately. ‘Is he there?’

  ‘I don’t think he’s down yet. Just one moment.’ Dora heard the receiver being placed on the hall table and Mrs Harris’s retreating footsteps across the hall. There was a long pause, in which Dora held her breath.

  Then suddenly she heard the receiver lifted and Fergus’s cool voice saying simply, ‘Kavanagh.’

  And she knew exactly what his reaction would be. He’d be patronising. Just the way he had been when she had first told him about her plans to drive an aid truck into eastern Europe—certain that she’d be on the phone to him within a week begging for help. And she remembered her silent avowal that she would chew glass first.

  Now here she was, with not one but three nightmare journeys into Grasnia with relief supplies safely behind her—three journeys when even if she had screamed at the top of her voice her well-connected brother could have done nothing to help her. She’d survived exhaustion, hostile soldiers, primitive conditions, the lack of clean water and decent food, the horrors of the refugee camps. The gunfire.

  Now, when she was safe home, was she really going to rush to Fergus for help at the first small problem to confront her? He was a hundred miles away, for heaven’s sake. What could he do? More importantly, what would he do? It didn’t take a vast imagination to work that out. He’d call the Chief Constable—he was bound to know him—and demand an armed intervention unit be sent to the cottage to extricate his sister from some terrible hostage situation she had got herself into.

  All right, no one could describe Gannon’s eruption into her life with Sophie as something particularly desirable, but did she really need Fergus to come riding to her rescue?

  She’d gone to Grasnia to give help, not take it. She’d been looking for a challenge. Yet when a full-blown one walked right up and broke in through her own front door all she could think of doing was yelling for help.

  If Gannon was who he said he was, she was in no danger. If she’d been frightened she wouldn’t have come creeping upstairs this morning, she’d have taken the opportunity to make a run for it. If she’d wanted the police, she could have called them herself.

  Sophie was kneeling on the bed, her huge dark eyes solemn as she watched her, her head tilted a little to one side, as if waiting for Dora to decide.

  ‘Hello? Hello? Is there anybody there?’ Fergus’s voice was insistent in her ear. One word, that was all it would take to bring the forces of law and order rushing to her aid. But when he had mocked her plans she had told him that she was all grown up. Perhaps it was time she started demonstrating the fact. Her instincts told her that Gannon would not harm her. And adults had to trust their instincts, didn’t they?

  Gannon and Sophie were in some kind of trouble. Maybe she was being stupid, but she suddenly realised that she wanted to help them as much as any of the wretched refugees she had met in Grasnia.

  ‘I’m terribly sorry, I have the wrong number,’ she mumbled quickly, so that he shouldn’t recognise her voice. And before she could change her mind, she disconnected the call and slotted the phone back into the charger, pushing it back out of sight beneath the bed. Then, raking her hair back from her face with her fingers, she smiled at Sophie. ‘Come on, sweetheart, I think you could do with a bath.’

  Gannon woke slowly, coming out of a deep sleep in a series
of waves, each one shallower than the last until he opened his eyes and was fully awake. He stretched, and although he was still aware of the pain in his side it was less raw. Maybe he hadn’t done as much damage as he thought. Or maybe he just felt so much better with food inside him and the first uninterrupted sleep he’d had in days that he didn’t notice it as much.

  But it was colder, the fire was little more than embers, and he shivered in the early-morning air. What he needed was some hot coffee, then he would be fit to face the raft of problems that were piling up.

  But as he straightened, rubbing his hands over his face to wake himself more fully, he realised that he would have to put coffee and eggs on hold, because one problem wouldn’t wait. The chair on the other side of the hearth was empty. Sophie and Dora were gone.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  GANNON was on his feet and halfway to the back door when he heard laughter. He stopped, completely taken aback by such an unexpected sound. Then there was a shriek, and he spun round and raced for the stairs.

  Dora, kneeling beside the bath and swooshing water through her hands at Sophie, turned as he burst into the bathroom. ‘Hi,’ she said, smiling up at him. She was wearing a huge baggy T-shirt in duck-egg blue and a pair of black leggings that clung to her like a second skin. Her hair was tied back with a band and she was bereft of make-up. There was nothing calculated about the way she looked. But she looked stunning. ‘We’re having fun,’ she said. ‘Want to play?’

  He swallowed, rooted to the spot. Play? Had she any idea what she was saying? ‘I wondered where you were,’ he said, stiffly.

  ‘Where would we be? But it seemed a pity to disturb you,’ she said with a smile, her wide mouth disturbing him altogether too much. ‘You looked so peaceful.’ Really? He wasn’t feeling that way now. ‘And I thought Sophie would enjoy a bath.’

  ‘You would appear to be right.’

  ‘Mmm.’ She moved along to make space for him, and patted the side of the bath invitingly. ‘I warn you, Sophie likes to splash.’