Mending Jodie's Heart (When Paths Meet Book 1)

by Sheila Claydon

  It was a thought that sometimes made her heart ache in the middle of the night when she couldn’t sleep. If it was this painful bringing up a sister, trying to get her safely through childhood and into adulthood, then she didn’t think her battered heart would ever be able to cope with caring for children of her own.

  Chapter Eight

  When he heard the gate rattle Marcus poked his head out of the trailer door.

  “It’s not locked,” he called.

  Startled by his voice, Jodie looked up, teetered on the top bar, and then tumbled down onto the driveway.

  With a muttered exclamation he jumped down the steps and ran over to where she lay sprawled on the ground.

  “Are you okay?“ he asked, putting his hand out to pull her up.

  Ignoring it, she stood up in one lithe movement and rescued her riding hat from where it had rolled across the path.

  Marcus found himself openly staring at her hair. Until now it had always been tucked up out of sight, and despite wondering what color it was, he hadn’t given it much thought. If anyone had asked him he would have guessed dark brown to match the bitter chocolate of her eyes, but he would never have imagined this. Black, and glossy as a raven’s wing, it hung in a thick plait that reached down to her waist, and he wanted to touch it.

  Hurriedly averting his eyes he forced himself to speak. “Are you sure you haven’t hurt yourself?”

  “I’m fine. If you ride horses you get used to falling. I rolled. How was I meant to know the gate was unlocked though?”

  He pointed as he unlatched it so she could lead her horse through. “No padlock, plus you could have called to let me know you were coming. I gave your sister my cell number.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “I was passing. Why the change of heart?”

  “It’s just a short term thing. I decided it wasn’t doing a very good job keeping out unwanted visitors.”

  She looked slightly shamefaced. “I guess you mean Izzie and me.”

  He smiled down at her. “No harm done. I’m sorry I was so scratchy last time you were here. Come on in and have a coffee and let’s see if we can start over.”

  “Maybe it would be better if I sat on the trailer steps,” she said with the trace of a wicked smile.

  He laughed. “I’ll risk my reputation if you will.”

  She followed him into the trailer and sat on the couch. “Izzie isn’t usually so stupid. I think she thought it would impress you if she turned up looking like her version of a celebrity. Oh I nearly forgot; you sweater is in Buckmaster’s saddlebag. I’ll go fetch it.”

  She started to get up again.

  He caught her arm. “Give it to me later. There’s no rush.”

  Then they both tried to pretend the physical contact meant nothing; that a spark of electricity hadn’t just travelled down his arm and into hers. After a long moment he moved away and busied himself with mugs and coffee. When he turned back to her she didn’t quite meet his eyes as she began to question him.

  “What did Izzie say to you?”

  “Mostly that she wants me to teach her stage craft. She says she has a fantastic voice.”

  She gave a wry smile. He could see she was deciding what to say to him. She sat forward once she’d made up her mind.

  “Did she tell you our mother died?”

  He nodded.

  “Did she tell you she was a singer too?”

  “No, she didn’t. She spent more time telling me why she needed to sing than filling me in on family stuff.”

  He could see the relief in her eyes when he told her that. It wasn’t strictly true of course, but true enough. He’d only gotten an outline from her sister, something about an accident and how Jodie had brought her up ever since.

  “She did tell me you’re her guardian though, and she said she’d be in trouble once you knew she’d been here.”

  Jodie nodded, “She got that right! The thing is, Izzie’s just like my mother. She was very beautiful and very talented too, but she was impulsive as well, and…and it destroyed her.”

  “And you’re frightened the same thing will happen to your sister if she becomes a singer.”

  “Yes.”

  He waited.

  “It’s complicated. Izzie was in a car with her when it crashed. She saw her die. By then it was just the two of them because Izzie’s father was dead and my mother’s new boyfriend had abandoned them. I’d abandoned them too. I was working on the other side of the country and I was so caught up in my own life I hardly ever contacted them, so it was hours before anyone could track me down.”

  “By the time I reached the hospital Izzie was a complete basket case. She wouldn’t speak or eat. She fought the nurses and doctors every time they touched her, so they had to sedate her most of the time. It was terrible. Fortunately she doesn’t remember much about it but it doesn’t mean it’s gone away. She’s nervy, and she’s highly-strung. She doesn’t sleep well. She can’t sleep at all unless I’m close by. I’m already worried about how she’ll cope when she goes away to university, so you see there’s no way she’ll ever be able to lead the life of a professional singer, however much she thinks she wants to.”

  She stopped suddenly, as if she had run out of steam. He could see from the turmoil in her eyes she had given him an edited version of something she rarely spoke about.

  “You must have been very young when all this happened,” he said gently.

  She gave a tired smile. “I was the same age Izzie is now. It’s something she keeps bringing up every time I ask her to concentrate on her schoolwork and forget about her singing.”

  “That must have been tough. Was there no one else?”

  “Nobody. But we got by. We’re still getting by despite the teenage hormones because, underneath it all, she’s a good kid.”

  He frowned. Although there was probably not much more than ten years between them, she seemed decades older than her sister. He wondered what she’d had to give up to come home. He wanted to ask her but he sensed the subject was closed. She’d told him what she thought he needed to know and now she wanted to talk about something else. He couldn’t resist a final comment though. It was the same one he’d made to Izzie.

  “You don’t look much alike.“

  “Different fathers is all,” she shrugged as she repeated word for word what her sister had already told him. “Izzie’s Dad, my stepfather, had Swedish ancestry from way back, so he was tall and handsome with blue eyes and fair hair. My father was short and dark apparently, not that I ever saw him.”

  “What happened?”

  “He died before I was born.”

  He stirred his coffee thoughtfully. “Why didn’t you tell the newspapers about Luke?”

  She stared at him, thrown by the change of subject. “Why would I?”

  “Because I won’t open up the bridleway. It wasn’t until after I told you about him that it occurred to me you might use it to get your own back.”

  “Not when you told me in confidence, I wouldn’t. Anyway it’s not Luke’s battle is it, even though the newspapers would try to pretend it is? If they ever got hold of the story they’d hang around all the time trying to get pictures of him and that wouldn’t help anyone, least of all me.”

  He took a long drink of coffee as he struggled to come to terms with the sudden rush of gratitude that washed over him. He wasn’t used to people being discreet or worrying about what was right or wrong. In his experience people usually just wanted to make money out of him.

  “Thanks Jodie. I owe you.”

  “You really don’t; but if you want to make Izzie happy, then listen to her sing.”

  “I will if that’s what you want,” he said. “But I don’t want it to cause grief between the two of you.”

  “It won’t do that. Refusing to let her do it would be what would destroy us. So against my better judgment, I’m saying yes.”

  “Do you want to come too? As chaperone.”

  She laughed and shook her hea
d as she stood up. “I’ll just make sure she wears suitable clothes and you can leave the door open to protect your reputation. Remember what I’ve told you about her problems though and don’t raise her hopes too high. I don’t want her to abandon her plans for university. If you really want to do me a favor then tell her a singing career is a really bad idea.”

  Instead of answering he scribbled something on a scrap of paper. “Here’s my cell number. Tell her to call me. After I’ve listened to her I’ll talk to you before I make any promises. That’s if she’s good enough of course.”

  “Oh she’ll be good enough. She was right about that if nothing else.” She twisted her plait up onto the top of her head and jammed her riding hat back on as she stood up.

  He followed her to the door, grabbing an apple from a bowl of fruit on the way out. “I’ll open the gate for you.”

  Buckmaster whickered as she walked up to him. She rubbed his nose. Then she reached into his saddlebag, pulled out the sweater, and handed it to Marcus.

  He took it from her and then offered Buckmaster the apple. The chestnut gelding’s response was so delicate that if he hadn’t been watching he wouldn’t have felt him take it from his outstretched palm.

  “Hey, a new friend Bucky!” She put her foot into the stirrup and swung herself onto the horse’s back.

  Marcus smiled up at her as he opened the gate. “See you then.”

  He watched her go and tried not to imagine what she might look like with her hair loose around her face. Then he clicked the gate shut and walked back to the trailer with his nose buried in the jumper.

  Chapter Nine

  For the next two weeks Izzie was like a tightly drawn bow. She had contacted Marcus the moment Jodie gave her his cell number and then been devastated when he told her he was going to be away for ten days and she should phone him when he returned.

  “I don’t know how I’m going to wait,” she wailed.

  “You’ll manage. You’ve enough homework to keep you busy. Marcus Lewis or no Marcus Lewis, you know I expect you to do well in your exams.”

  “Okay! Okay! You know I always work hard.”

  “Yes, I do.” Jodie ruffled her hair. “I’m proud of you. Just don’t get your hopes up too much about the music because Marcus Lewis is a busy man.”

  Izzie nodded. If that was what it was going to take to keep Jodie happy then she would nod until her head fell off. She would do anything for her except give up her plans because she knew that once he heard her sing she would be one step nearer to her dream.

  * * *

  Marcus knew it too. He knew it within the first few notes although he still put her through her paces. He made her sing a lot of different songs. He introduced jazz and soul. He played slow melodies. He played ragtime. It didn’t matter. She was pitch perfect in all of them. And more confident than she had any right to be. The quality of her voice was mesmerizing too. Unexpectedly deep, it had a husky catch to it that was going to send a million teenagers crazy. She was raw and untrained of course, but that was almost incidental. Highly strung or not, he knew she had what it took to get right to the top.

  When they had finished he left her to clear up the sheets of music scattered around his keyboard and walked over to the window. Outside he could see the shell of his music studio. Surrounded by scaffolding it was growing fast. He had made it his priority. That, and the ground floor suite he was having built for Luke. Everything else could wait. He was prepared to camp out in the trailer for as long as it took.

  “I’m going to be away for a while,” he told her, knowing she was waiting for him to say something. “I’ll talk to Jodie when I get back.”

  When she didn’t speak he turned around to look at her. Her face was pale and her fists were tightly clenched. Remembering what Jodie had said, he softened his tone.

  “You don’t need me to tell you you’re good Izzie. But you do need Jodie on side, and you also need to wait until my studio is finished. We can’t achieve much inside this trailer with an electric keyboard. It’s fine for composition but it doesn’t do a lot for performance.”

  “But you are going to help me?” Her voice was little more than a hopeful whisper.

  He nodded. “Oh yes, I’ll help you if Jodie will let me, but you’ll have to work hard. It’s a tough life out there, with a lot of competition.”

  She nodded, her face tight with determination. “I’ll do whatever it takes and nothing Jodie says will stop me.”

  * * *

  Marcus sighed as he watched her wheel her bicycle towards the gate. What had he let himself in for? Just when he and Jodie had reached a truce of sorts he was going to have to unpick it all again by telling her it would be a crime to silence her sister’s voice. Somehow he was going to have to persuade her to ignore her own fears and give Izzie a chance.

  He looked at the numbers Izzie had scribbled on the pad on his desk. One was Jodie’s phone number. His hand hovered over his cell. Should he call her now or should he wait until she’d had a chance to talk to Izzie? An inexplicable need to hear her voice overruled common sense and he keyed in her number.

  * * *

  Jodie didn’t recognize the number that flashed up on the screen when her phone rang. She knew it was Marcus Lewis as soon as he spoke though.

  “I don’t want you to say it,” she told him, feeling her stomach plummet. “I don’t want you to tell me how good she was. I don’t want to think about it.”

  Hearing her echo his own thoughts, he gave a wry smile. “I won’t then, but that’s not why I called. I called to invite you to lunch.”

  Her silence was unnerving. Had he made a mistake? Was it just his imagination that had persuaded him the attraction was mutual?

  “If it’s not convenient now then we can make it later, when I come back.”

  “You’re going away again?” His spirits rose when he heard the flatness in her voice.

  “Yes, for six weeks. I have to go to America.”

  “What happens to Luke when you’re away?”

  Surprised by her question, he hesitated before he answered. “He stays at home in London with his care workers, just like he does when I come up here.”

  “How does he cope when you’re not there?”

  “Pretty well. I’m fairly incidental to his life. All he cares about is his daily routine.”

  He wondered if he was imagining disapproval in the silence that followed. Then she sighed. “Okay. I’ll meet you for lunch but I’ve only got half an hour so it’ll have to be a sandwich. I’ll see you in the bar at the Station Inn at twelve-thirty.”

  He frowned as he pushed his cell phone back into his pocket. Somehow she’d managed to turn his lunch invitation around so that she seemed to be doing him a favor. It was almost as if she had only agreed to join him because she felt sorry for him. He gave a wry smile as he remembered all the girls who used to throw their underwear at him in the days when he still performed on stage, and the others who waited outside gigs for hours, even days, to get a glimpse of him arriving. And yet here he was, reduced to feeling grateful, because a spiky woman who barely reached his shoulder was grudgingly prepared to spend half-an-hour with him; a woman who had caused him nothing but irritation and extra work ever since he met her; a woman who hadn’t had a clue about him or his music until he closed her damned bridleway.

  * * *

  Marcus arrived at the inn twenty minutes early and sat at the bar nursing a glass of beer. It was quiet. No lunchtime crowd, which suited him. He glanced at the menu. All good rustic fare: a ploughman’s platter with local cheeses; sandwiches with homemade bread; vegetable soup with fresh rolls. He wondered what Jodie would choose. Then he wondered if she often had lunch at the inn. Then he wondered why he couldn’t stop thinking about her. He was still wondering that when she pushed open the door and stepped inside.

  Apart from dispensing with her riding hat she had made no concessions at all. No makeup, same clothes, same tidy plait down the centre of her back. It was
quite obvious she didn’t consider this a date. And if the frown on her face was anything to go by she didn’t want to be here one little bit either. Feeling his good intentions begin to ebb away, Marcus waited for her to notice him. When she did, she approached him without a smile.

  He slid off the bar stool and stood up. “We’d better order straight away or you won’t have time to eat. What would you like?”

  “Just an orange juice please. And a cheese sandwich.”

  Last of the big spenders! Why didn’t it surprise him? He placed their order and then nodded towards a nearby table. “Let’s sit over there.”

  Looking as if she was about to be sick, she followed him, sat down in the chair opposite and immediately went on the attack. “Tell me what you’ve promised. Tell me what you said to Izzie. I need to know before I see her.”

  He shook his head, trying not to notice the soft swell of her breasts as she unzipped her shapeless fleece. Up until then he wouldn’t have considered an emerald green T-shirt with some sort of official logo on the pocket to be one of fashion’s great come-ons, but on Jodie it looked spectacular.

  “Stop worrying. There’s nothing to tell at the moment except what you already know, which is that your sister has a wonderful voice. I’m not about to spirit her away on a tour or anything. If she’s serious about her singing then she has a lot to learn, and I can’t even start thinking about it until the builders have completed my studio.”

  “You are going to help her then?”

  “Maybe…but not before she’s taken her exams. After that we’ll take it one step at a time, and not without discussing it with you.”

  Seeing the tension drain out of her face he knew he’d said the right thing. Now was not the time to tell her how exciting Izzie’s voice was, how much it had thrilled the musician in him, and how, with the right advice and support, she had it in her to make it in the international music scene. One step at a time was what he was going to have to take with Jodie too.