by Dani Atkins
‘It’s best you stand well clear,’ I advised, pouring flour recklessly on to the scales and momentarily disappearing behind a small white cloud. ‘I’m a pretty messy cook. You should really have asked Caroline here to do this instead of me.’
‘I didn’t want Caroline here. I wanted you,’ he answered, his voice low. It was just that sort of talk that had led me so hopelessly down the wrong track I had taken.
I cracked an egg into a cup so viciously that I was never going to be able to fish out the pieces of broken shell that had gone in with it. I discarded it and reached for another one.
‘Emma,’ Jack said, crossing back across his kitchen and sliding his fingers around my forearm. ‘Will you please just tell me what is bothering you.’
There was that look in his eyes which I had always thought meant so much more than it actually did. I was finally getting wise. It was about time.
‘Why should anything be bothering me, Jack? You tell me,’ I challenged, carrying on with my cooking as though he had never interrupted me. ‘So, the oil has to be really hot,’ I said, pouring a generous amount in the bottom of a roasting dish and opening the Aga door.
‘You seemed fine on the phone the other day,’ Jack said ponderingly.
‘So hot it actually has to be smoking,’ I continued, turning back to the kitchen table and picking up a wooden spoon.
‘It sounded like you wanted to see me again,’ he continued, sounding a little embarrassed.
‘Beat in the eggs and milk,’ I said tightly, dropping both ingredients into the flour.
‘And I certainly didn’t make it a secret that I really wanted to see you again before I left,’ he confessed.
‘Then beat it,’ I said through clenched teeth. My hand wielding the spoon moved furiously around the bowl, slopping batter mix over the table. I hadn’t lied; I was an atrociously messy cook.
‘And when you first got here today, you looked happy.’
‘Add the rest of the milk,’ I said, waiting for him to reach the conclusion he was inexorably heading towards. There goes any last chance of salvaging my pride.
‘But when I saw you in the hall just now, you looked…’ His voice trailed away as comprehension dawned like a sunrise in his eyes.
Hurt. Humiliated. Embarrassed. Take your pick, I thought.
‘The person I was talking to—’
‘Is absolutely no concern of mine,’ I completed his sentence.
He ignored my interruption. ‘Is my daughter.’
More batter slopped alarmingly out of the bowl. Very gently he reached across and took it from my hands. A wise decision.
‘Your daughter?’ My voice was an incredulous croak. ‘Your daughter? You have a daughter?’ I queried, as though I might possibly have misunderstood what he was telling me.
He nodded slowly. ‘I have.’
‘But… how… why… You’ve never said anything about her.’ My words sounded more like an accusation than anything else.
‘No, I haven’t. Very few people know of her existence, and that’s just the way we’d like it to stay. In fact, until just three years ago, I didn’t know she existed myself.’
All anger drained from me then, as though a plug had been pulled. ‘What do you mean? How’s that possible? How old is she?’
‘She’s ten years old, and her name is Carly.’
Ten. She had to be Sheridan’s daughter, she just had to be. Jack astutely read the question in my eyes without the need for words.
‘Sheridan was newly pregnant with her when she slept with my best friend. Maybe she knew about it, maybe she didn’t. I’ve never been entirely clear on that one. But she wanted me out of her life so completely, with no ties and connections to hold us, that she never told me about her.’
The spoon fell from my fingers and clattered noisily on to the table top, adding further to the mess I had made. ‘Jack, that’s horrible. How could she do that?’
He shrugged, but I could still see how it had hurt him.
‘But you’re her father. How could anyone hope to keep something like that a secret? Didn’t you guess when the baby was born?’
‘I didn’t even know there was a baby,’ Jack said bitterly. ‘We had the world’s fastest divorce and then she simply disappeared for the next nine months.’
‘But then what happened? When she came back with a baby, you must have guessed then?’
His next words shocked me, and explained an awful lot about Jack’s mistrust and aversion to marriage and commitment. ‘She never came back with the baby.’
‘What?’
‘She left her with her sister to raise. Her sister lives on a farm and has two kids of her own, one is almost the same age as Carly. They’re more like twin sisters than cousins.’
I shook my head at how unbelievably cruel Sheridan had been, not just to Jack but to her own daughter. But when I voiced those words, Jack disagreed.
‘Believe me, she did the kid a favour. Her sister is totally different from Sheridan. She’s warm and loving and caring. She’s a great mom. Carly adores her, and her cousins are like her siblings.’
‘But still…’ I said, grappling to get my head around the enormity of it all. ‘So how did you find out about her?’
‘From Sheridan,’ he said, and there was a twist to his lips as he said her name. ‘She was between husbands, short of cash and her sister’s farm was in danger of being repossessed by the bank. She needed me – or rather my money – to bail them out. So she had no option but to tell me about the child.’
‘Oh my God, Jack,’ I said, reaching for one of the kitchen chairs and sitting down, totally shaken.
‘What am I supposed to do with this, by the way?’ he asked, still holding on to the bowl of batter.
‘Pour it over the sausages in the pan,’ I answered distractedly.
While he did as I had instructed, I tried to get my head around the complexity of Jack’s life. This was the responsibility he had spoken of back home. This was the commitment he had to someone. And it was one hell of a big one.
With the pan returned to the Aga, Jack turned back to me.
‘So what happened when you found out about Carly? Did you apply for custody?’
Jack shook his head sadly. ‘How could I? She was seven years old and her aunt and uncle were the only parents she had ever known. She’d been with them her entire life. How could I pull her away from them, or her cousins? How could I tear her whole world apart like that?’
I felt a lump like a burning hot coal lodge in my throat. I knew I’d been right in instinctively hating his ex-wife. I just hadn’t known there were so many valid reasons for doing so.
‘Susan and Mike – Sheridan’s sister and brother-in-law – have been really great. They’ve let me come into Carly’s life and over the last three years we’ve built up a really good relationship.’
I sighed and gave a shaky smile, thankful there was a happy ending to this story. ‘So she knows she’s yours?’
He nodded and there was a look on his face that I didn’t initially recognise. Then I realised what it was, paternal pride. ‘She’s a great kid. She and her cousins come out to the ranch and stay for a few days each month. They love the place. It’s never going to be an ideal situation, but we make it work.’
I reached across the sticky table for Jack’s hand. ‘She’s lucky to have you as her dad,’ I said solemnly. He looked slightly embarrassed, but still pleased at my words.
‘Let’s go for a walk,’ he suggested suddenly. ‘The beach is lovely at this time of day and I think we could both use the fresh air.’ He nodded in the direction of the stove. ‘Can we leave this?’ I nodded. ‘Then let’s go,’ he said, getting to his feet and pulling me from my chair.
We walked right to the end of the cove, and he kept hold of my hand the entire way. I kept looking up at him as we walked, seeing him through new and wiser eyes. I felt touched that he trusted me enough to share his secret with me.
‘So perhaps now
you can see why I’ve steered clear of relationships, unless they were casual or undemanding, since my divorce?’ he asked.
I looked up at him, trying to commit everything about him to memory. It was a film I would want to replay a great many times in the months to come, when it was all I had left of him and our unique time together. So I took care to drink everything in, from the way the wind gently lifted the thick black strands of hair from his forehead, to the way his eyes crinkled at the edges when he smiled. I felt something slowly begin to tear inside me; he was going to be almost impossible to forget.
‘I’ve learned to be more careful now in my choices. It’s much easier when everyone wants exactly the same thing. That way no one gets emotionally attached… and no one gets hurt.’
It sounded like a cold and empty existence to me and I think he must have seen that in my eyes. ‘But that’s not your way, is it, Emma, not at all?’ I was startled to have the conversation directed at me and was wondering how to respond as he continued, ‘Even after everything that’s happened with you and Richard, you still believe in finding that happy-ever-after ending, don’t you?’
He wasn’t mocking me, or even trying to be deliberately cruel; he couldn’t know how hard it was to hear that he and I were at polar opposite ends of the earth when it came to relationships.
‘Well,’ I said slowly, ‘my faith in its existence has been tested lately, that’s true enough.’ I swallowed past the small and unexpected lump in my throat. ‘But I’d like to believe that someday… there’d be someone’ – you, a voice in my head screamed out – ‘who could make me a believer again.’
He nodded his head, as though he’d received a doctor’s prognosis, which wasn’t great news, but not entirely unexpected. ‘The ring, the chapel, the wedding… you still want all that?’ It wasn’t so much a question, more of a statement.
I was going to deny it, but why bother? We both knew it was the truth. ‘I guess I’m just an old-fashioned girl, at heart.’
He gave a gentle smile and steered me to the flight of steps leading back to his cottage. I was pretty sure there’d been a test hidden in our conversation, and I was equally sure I’d just failed it.
He climbed the stone steps ahead of me. ‘Watch out on these,’ he warned, ‘they can get a little slippery. Just stay close to me.’
‘I’m right behind you,’ I said, wondering why the words sounded so familiar and significant and then I remembered the first time he had said them to me; it was on the night of the accident, when he’d been pushing me away from the exploding car. I opened my mouth to remind him, and then suddenly my foot slipped on the worn and crumbling step and I began to fall. I scrabbled for a handhold on the surface of the wall but there was nothing to grip on to. Jack spun around, his face horrified. His hand reached out to grab me, but it was too late. This time he couldn’t save me, and I flew backwards off the steps, landing with a breath-stealing thump on not just the sand, but on something sharp and hard that was hidden beneath its soft surface.
‘Emma!’ Jack cried out, jumping from the steps and rushing to my side. ‘Are you okay?’
I gave a sound which was supposed to be a laugh but which sounded perilously like I was about to cry. I’m not a baby, but it really hurt.
‘Are you hurt?’
‘Just my pride,’ I lied. There was no way I was going to say anything about the rock or whatever it was that my bum had connected with so painfully. He held out his hand and pulled me to my feet. I tried to turn my wince of pain into a rueful grin. I don’t think he was fooled.
‘Goodness, are you all right?’ An elderly couple who had been taking an early evening walk on the beach had rushed over to lend their assistance. It really was beyond embarrassing.
‘I’m fine,’ I lied once again, somehow managing a more genuine-looking smile for the anxious newcomers.
‘Do you need us to call for help?’ asked the woman, already pulling a mobile phone from her pocket.
‘No, no, no. I’m just a bit winded, that’s all. Please don’t worry about me,’ I reassured her.
‘We’ll be fine, thank you,’ Jack reiterated, and the couple seemed to accept our word and headed back down the beach. Jack waited until they could no longer hear us before turning to me. ‘What have you done, and how bad is it?’
‘I’m fine. I was more shocked than anything.’
‘Emma Marshall, don’t lie to me. I’m the guy who pulled you out of a car wreck; I know when you’re hurt or not.’
There was no point in lying. He was going to find out in a minute when he saw me limp up the steps. ‘I think there was a rock or something where I landed on the sand.’
Jack looked at the damp sand which, embarrassingly, still held a perfect impression of my behind. He kicked the area with the toe of his boot and revealed a large sharp jagged stone buried a few centimetres beneath the surface.
‘Shit,’ he muttered. He turned to look at the rear of my jeans. ‘How bad is it, are you bleeding?’
‘No, of course not. I’ve got enough natural padding back there to cushion the blow.’
He didn’t smile as I had hoped.
‘Bruised?’
I shrugged. ‘Probably.’
‘Show me.’
‘No,’ I said, horrified. He raised his eyebrows as though he was daring me to challenge him. ‘This is just a kinky attempt of yours to see my arse, isn’t it?’ That did make him smile. ‘Look, let’s get back to the house and let me have a look at it, before we start deciding who else should be allowed a peek.’
My progress up the steps was slow, but I adamantly refused his offer to carry me. I think he only let me get away with that for fear that holding me in his arms might actually hurt me even more. Of all the areas to have injured in my fall off the steps, why couldn’t I have twisted an ankle or sprained a wrist like any sensible person, why did it have to have been my bum? Eventually we reached the warmth of his kitchen and he shut the door firmly behind him.
‘Okay, Emma,’ he said, having watched me limp painfully across the tiled floor. ‘That’s enough. Are you going to show me your fanny now or not?’
Despite the throbbing pain from my rear end, I burst out laughing. ‘No, Jack, I’m not. And I really have to warn you that that word has a totally different meaning over here, and asking a question like that is likely to get you either slapped or arrested, possibly both.’
He looked a little taken aback, but quickly recovered. ‘If you’re not going to show me—’
‘Which I’m not,’ I completed.
‘Then at least go and have a hot shower. It’ll help to take the sting away and bring out the bruise. There’s a full-length mirror in there, so you’ll be able to assess the damage.’
‘You seem obsessed with getting me undressed,’ I said flippantly, and then ruined my sassy answer by blushing as I said it. ‘But if it makes you happy I’ll have a shower and check out what I’ve done, just as long as we’re clear that I’m the only one who gets a look. Okay?’
‘Okay,’ he reluctantly agreed. ‘I’ll make us some tea while you shower. You’ll find clean towels in the cupboard at the top of the stairs.’
‘Thanks,’ I said, and hobbled out of the kitchen.
On a scale of one to ten, my bruise scored about an eleven. I winced as I eased down my jeans and lacy briefs and surveyed the damage, looking over my shoulder into the mirror at the bluish-purple discolouration. It was roughly the size of a saucer and covered most of one buttock and inched on to my lower back. And despite what Jack had said, I didn’t think I needed that shower to bring it out, it was doing that quite well all by itself. Nevertheless, I dropped my shirt and bra on to the rest of my clothes on the floor and turned on the dial inside the cubicle. I winced as the hot jets ran over the damaged skin, but after the initial sting, it began to feel a little more comfortable. There was a rack inside the double-size shower, and I couldn’t resist taking a small handful of the shower gel, which smelled so reminiscently of Jack, and s
moothing it over my naked body. I closed my eyes and let the water fall on to my head, losing myself in an x-rated daydream where I wasn’t alone in the steamy closet, and that he was behind me, his strong fingers running along my slippery limbs, his mouth claiming mine beneath the cascading water.
The noise of the bathroom door opening made me jump so much that the bottle of gel slipped from my fingers and clattered noisily on to the cast-iron tray.
‘Are you okay?’ Jack called through the door’s opening.
‘Don’t come in,’ I cried out in panic, instinctively trying to cover myself. ‘I’m naked.’
I heard his small chuckle. ‘I always find that best for showering.’
I dropped the hands that were ineffectively trying to shield my breasts from view. ‘Very funny.’
‘How are your injured bits?’
‘Colourful,’ I replied, ‘but the shower is definitely helping.’ It was completely unsettling to be having this conversation with him while totally nude, and only a metre or so away.
‘I’ve brought something to help.’
My hands instinctively flew back up to cover me, but the small gap through which he was talking didn’t widen. Just his hand came into view, as he placed first a tall bottle of lotion of some kind and then a steaming cup of tea on to the tiled floor.
‘If you need help with the cream…’
‘I have a lousy sense of direction, but I think I can find my own backside,’ I joked.
‘Okay then, see you downstairs.’ I heard his footsteps disappearing down the wooden floored hallway. He hadn’t even attempted to come in. It was respectful, courteous and completely honourable of him. It was also somewhat disappointing.
