THE DATING GAME

by Stephanie Anne Street

  “Great.”

  “Poor baby.” She grinned. “Dig in and I’ll be back later. I’ve just noticed some more latecomers.”

  James stared at the array of cold meats and salads with little interest. Nothing looked appealing. He replaced the plate on the stack of clean crockery and slipped back out of the room.

  In the breakfast room, his nieces were watching television.

  “Hi, Uncle James, come and watch the pretty ladies,” said Claire, the seven-year-old.

  “What are you watching?” he asked, ruffling her curls.

  “Swan Lake. It’s a ballet.”

  “Not my scene, kiddo.”

  “It’s got Auntie Lyn’s sister in it,” declared his older niece Ashley. “She’s that one. Odette.” She slipped out of her chair and stabbed a finger at the screen, leaving a sticky smear.

  The camera at that moment zoomed in for a close up. There staring back at him was the beautiful girl he’d seen in the photographs at Fen’s flat. Her eyes were large and dark, reflecting the Swan Queen’s deep sadness.

  He’d seen a pair of eyes very similar just the night before. Fen shared her sister’s eyes—endless blue pools of loveliness.

  But while the beautiful ballerina exercised an enchanting allure, James wanted his own beautiful Fen. He didn’t want to spend Christmas Eve watching her sister dancing on TV. A sister whom he’d never met and hadn’t known existed.

  He went back to the party and singled out Lynette. “I’ve been trying to get hold of Fen all day to find out where she’s staying over the holiday period.”

  “She’s at home, babysitting my terrors.” Lynette grinned. “I tried to get her to come tonight but she was sensitive about her black eye.”

  “Is it a shiner?”

  Lynette grinned. “A beauty.”

  “Is she feeling any better after her fall?”

  “She’s sore,” said Lynette, her gaze flicking away.

  “Do you think she’d mind if I joined her babysitting?”

  Lynette cocked her head on one side, musingly. Her eyes began to twinkle. “I think she’d be bowled over.”

  Regarding her doubtfully, James said, “I’ll take that as a yes, then.”

  “Do.” Lynette hesitated. “Take our backdoor key. Just let yourself in. Don’t bother knocking. You might wake the children.”

  James wasted little time driving over to the farm. Snow began to fall as he parked the car in the yard and killed the lights. As quiet as the fat, flakes tumbling from the dark sky, he approached the farmhouse and let himself into the big warm kitchen. He listened. The strains of Swan Lake floated through the house. Fen was watching her sister on the television. It figured. He followed the music to its source.

  Stretched out full-length on a floral print couch, Fen’s face was bathed in the soft light from the large open fire, fairy lights of the Christmas tree and the glow of the television. But in the dim light, James could make out the floor was covered in scrunched up tissues. The music filled the room; the screen was alive with dancing swans.

  Fen broke the spell by blowing her nose hard and tossing another tissue onto the carpet.

  “Fen?”

  She shrieked and shot in the air, clutching her chest. “My God, James! You frightened the life out of me.”

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  “How the goodness did you get in?” Fen gabbled like a cornered Christmas turkey facing the axe. “Are Lynette and Mike with you? I wasn’t expecting them home yet. They’re usually out ages.” She flicked off the television with the remote control and twisted in her seat, her eyes huge and wary.

  “No. Lynette gave me the key and said I could help you baby-sit. Don’t turn the ballet off for me. Carry on.”

  “No. It’s okay.”

  “I don’t mind. I know you must want to watch your sister.”

  “My sister?” A puzzled crease appeared between her brows.

  “Ashley, my niece, told me she was in it. Please, turn it back on.” James shrugged off his overcoat and tossed it on to a nearby armchair. His gaze then alighted onto the crutches. “Crutches? You did hurt your leg yesterday.” Guilt washed through him. He shouldn’t have listened to her last night but acted on his instincts and taken her to hospital.

  “The accident wasn’t that bad,” said Fen and she grabbed the TV’s remote control.

  He watched her fumbling with the controls. She hit a button so a rock’n’roll clip roared on hollering about bats and hell, so she hit another and an old black and white movie flicked on. “Here, let me.” James sat next to Fen and took the controls from her. He flicked through the channels until he relocated Swan Lake.

  “We don’t have to watch it. It’s almost over and I have seen it before. Loads of times.” Her voice sounded reedy.

  “Ssh. Enjoy the last act.” James settled an arm around her narrow shoulders and cuddled her to him, dropping a kiss on her cropped hair. He gave a sigh of contentment. At last, he was happy.

  ****

  They sat there in silence. Fen was zinging like a tuning fork while she could feel James heavy and relaxed next to her.

  She barely registered the images on the screen. She was too consumed with panic. How could this be happening? He’d seen her crutches. He was watching her dance. It looked like the final curtain was coming down on her fragile subterfuge. Her stomach churned like an overloaded washing machine.

  She was so preoccupied, nibbling her lower lip and working on ways to fox James, she didn’t cry like she invariably did when watching one of her old ballet performances. And she didn’t realize the credits rolled until it was too late.

  “Turn if off!” she said with uncharacteristic sharpness when she saw them. She lunged for the remote control.

  But James dodged her hand and stared transfixed at the screen. “Fenella Grant,” he said in a flat tone. “Fenella Grant?” he repeated, this time sounding puzzled. He turned his head slowly to stare at Fen. “The Swan Queen was you!” His eyes had widened in shocked confusion. The skin was pale and taut around his mouth. Those usually smiley lips were in a grim, harsh line.

  Fen gathered her courage. This was one of the hardest moments of her life. She cleared her throat and said a quiet, “Yes.”

  James reacted swiftly, his disbelief still evident in the tense lines of his face and body. He wanted to deny it, she realized. “But she didn’t look like you. Similar, but not quite the same.”

  Fen shook her head and tried to lighten the mood to make it easier for James. “Make-up. Don’t you know ‘A little bit of powder, a little bit of paint, makes a girl just what she ain’t.’ ”

  “Oh. I see.”

  Fen could tell by his tone he didn’t. “Theatrical make-up changes a person,” she said. “I could be made to look ninety if the make-up artists put their minds to it.”

  His eyes were still wide and confused. “Why haven’t you ever mentioned your dancing? It was obviously a major part of your life. You’re famous, for goodness sake!” He waved a hand at the screen.

  “Not that famous, James,” she said with what she hoped was crushing scorn. “Anyway, it’s no big deal. I’ve moved on.”

  “Do you still dance?” he asked.

  Her throat constricted and she made a superhuman effort to speak through the tightness. “No.”

  “Why?”

  What could she say that wouldn’t cause a raft of awkward questions? She chose the easiest, most cowardly explanation. “I’m too old.”

  He disclaimed and hugged her. “You’re still a child.”

  “Only compared to an ancient forty-year-old.”

  “Ouch! You know how to fight dirty.”

  The hall clock chimed eleven. James glanced at his watch and groaned. “Already? I’ve got to go, I’m afraid, and just when things were getting interesting. I suppose you don’t fancy coming to Midnight Mass with me and then we can carry on this conversation in the car?”

  “I’d like nothing better,�
� Fen lied and hoped her relief at his leaving wouldn’t be obvious to him. There were still things she didn’t want James finding out. “But it must have escaped your notice I am here to baby-sit.”

  “Damn, I forgot. I have to go. I promised to take the others to church. My turn to be the skipper this year otherwise I would ring and cancel it.”

  “Both of us have our family responsibilities mapped out for tonight. Such is life.”

  “Maybe next year we’ll be overlapping them.” He gave her such a tender smile, followed by the longest most lingering kiss ever, that Fen was frightened to wonder what he meant.

  As James drove away, she sat by the light of the fire and listened to the throaty roar of the Jensen.

  What did he mean by overlapping family responsibilities? Herding all their nieces and nephews into one place and looking after them together?

  Or having their very own family unit?

  She dropped her head in her hands. She would love nothing more than to marry and have James’ babies. He was everything she looked for in a man: strong and sensuous, kind and generous, and with a warm, quirky sense of humor which made his eyes twinkle and mouth curve in his special sexy, contagious smile. He was her soul mate, she was certain of it.

  But there was another deep, dark secret she’d kept hidden even from her own sister and parents—the possibility she couldn’t carry a child.

  Her pelvis had been crushed in the accident. When the car knocked her over, another drove right over her, unable to brake in time. She was lucky to have survived at all. Later the doctors had mentioned the injuries could affect her ability to have a baby.

  She knew James adored his sister’s children. It was only logical to suppose he would expect to have his own.

  If he did, it wouldn’t be with her.

  She grabbed the tissue box and pulled out the very last one and gave a very big squelchy blow.

  ****

  The old flint-stone church was packed. James and Annabelle, with her husband and children, crammed into one of the back pews. Everyone was rugged up against the cold as the church heaters wheezed out minimal warmth.

  “Just made it,” said Annabelle, shivering in her jacket. She was then drawn into a conversation with the family sitting in front of them.

  “Did you see the ballet?” Ashley asked the little girl of the family.

  “Yes, it was brilliant. Do you think Mrs. Shaw’s sister will teach us how to dance that part if we asked her nicely?”

  “No, my mum says she’ll never dance again.”

  “What’s that, Ashley?” interrupted James. “Why

  won’t she dance again?”

  “’Cos she’s crippled.”

  Fen? Crippled? And wasn’t that another thing Chrissy had thrown at him? He tried to remember her entire conversation but at the time he hadn’t been paying full attention. But Fen crippled? No way. Ashley must be dramatizing. She was so like Annabelle. A right chip off the old block. “I think you’re exaggerating, kiddo,” he said mildly. “Fen said she was just getting a little old to dance.”

  “But she uses crutches,” said his niece.

  “Only because she fell over and hurt her leg yesterday,” he said patiently.

  “But Mum says she was run over and left for dead.”

  “What? When?” Instant, suffocating panic ballooned in his chest. He’d left her safely on the couch, snuggled up by an open fire. She didn’t look like someone who’d been run-over and left to die in the gutter. He clenched his jaw and was about to race back to Fen, when commonsense took over. Fen was okay. Hurt from her fall, but otherwise all right. His panic subsided. “You had me going there for a second, Ashley,” he said and flicked her cheek.

  Ashley wrinkled her nose. “It happened ages ago, Uncle James.”

  He gaped at her. “When?” But he was silenced by his sister.

  “Ssh,” said Annabelle. “The service is about to start.”

  James paid little attention to the service. He joined in the responses and sang the traditional hymns, but his mind was racing, focusing on Fen, trying to slot together all the pieces of the puzzle.

  He thought of the time when she’d sounded in so much pain over the phone. He remembered how her friends had assisted her from the nightclub, as had Lynette and Mike from his party. Then there was Lucinda’s wacky Christmas speech and Gail’s partner’s throwaway comment. And he recalled what Fen’s friend had said at the same party and her hint there was something about Fen he should know.

  So was it this? Was she disabled? If she was, why on earth hadn’t she told him? As if he wouldn’t have found out. Didn’t she trust him? Perhaps she thought it would put him off? No way. He loved her!

  As soon as possible, he would confront Ms. Fenella Grant and demand the truth.

  ****

  “You’re kidding! You still haven’t told him?” Lynette knelt by the Christmas tree surrounded by mountains of torn, brightly patterned wrapping paper which she’d been stowing in a big black plastic sack. She stared at Fen in amazement, her mouth open, her eyebrows high in her hairline, her hands suspended over a pile of paper.

  “I wanted to keep it secret,” said Fen. With a defensive hunch of her shoulders, she leaned forward, picking at her red wool dress and avoiding her sister’s accusing expression. “You know that, Lynny.”

  “Yes, but you’ve been spending so much time with him, I presumed he knew. He’s been talking to Annabelle about buying a property around here and maybe starting his own little dynasty.” She shook her head. “I thought it was because of you.”

  Oh God! Fen closed her eyes in despair. He had been thinking of happy families.

  Fen hung her head. The realization made her feel worse. When Annabelle had given James’ particulars for the Discreet Liaison’s files, she had mentioned he was fatally shy of commitment and had no intention of settling down. Well, hadn’t James come a long way in a few weeks! Now he talked of marriage and babies and with a woman who was a cripple and unable to give him what he wanted. The whole thing was sickeningly pathetic. How had she let it get this far? She should have cancelled his membership from day one and avoided any further contact. But no, she hadn’t, and the result was a mess.

  “I can’t see how you’ve kept it secret,” said Lynette as she half-heartedly resumed her tidying, her brow still furrowed.

  Fen couldn’t blame her for wondering. “I didn’t say it had been easy.”

  “Good grief.” Lynette’s eyes widened and she stopped mid-thrust with a ball of paper in her hand. “What’s he going to say when he finds out?”

  “Why the hell didn’t you tell me, that’s what,” said James, his voice coming from the doorway.

  Fen yelped and her heart yammered hard against her ribs. Dread uncurled in her belly and crawled through her bloodstream.

  James gave her a tight smile and then transferred his attention to Lynette. “Merry Christmas, ladies. I hope you don’t mind me intruding. Mike said it would be okay.”

  “Of course it’s okay. You’re always welcome. Do come and sit down while I go and help Mike with some drinks.” Lynette scrambled to her feet and bounded towards the door.

  James side-stepped to let her pass and then continued to stand in the doorway. “Not going to come over here and welcome me, Fen? Fling your arms around my neck and wish me Merry Christmas under the mistletoe?” He waved a hand at the sprig in the arch above his head.

  Fen worried her bottom lip and wished the couch would morph into a giant fish, swallow her up and take her out to sea and away from this agonizingly awkward scene.

  “Well?” There was steel behind the question.

  “You know I can’t,” she said flatly.

  “Only by default, thanks to my ten-year-old ballet-mad niece. When were you planning on telling me?” His voice rose. “Soon? Sometime? Never!”

  Fen wrapped her arms around her small frame and sucked her lip some more. Ice filled her veins where once warm blood had flowed. She was frozen in
her unhappiness. What could she say to make it any better between them? She’d betrayed them both because of her own sense of pride. She couldn’t blame James for being mad because she was mad at herself, and at fate, for dealing her such a hand.

  “Didn’t you think I’d notice? God, do you take me for a fool, Fen?”

  “No.” All she could manage was a whisper.

  “So why the big smokescreen?”

  “I had my reasons.”

  “Which were?” He flung off his coat and strode up and down the length of the room, kicking at the waste wrapping paper. His brows were drawn together in a deep frown, a pulse hammered in his cheek and his mouth was a thin, straight line. He picked up her two crutches and stared at them, his lip curling in disgust. Fen’s nephew had tied tinsel on each crutch for a humorous festive touch. He threw them away from him.

  Fen winced, dread heavy in her stomach. He looked so scrumptious in his black jeans and green sweater, his hair curling from the damp weather. She yearned to run to him and envelope him in her arms, tell him she hadn’t meant to hurt him, that she would love him always.

  But she couldn’t.

  He wanted a family and she wasn’t the one to provide it.

  Best to let him go now, before they got in any deeper.

  Chapter Nine

  “Tell me, Fen. Help me understand.” James took two long strides towards Fen and squatted in front of her. He reached for her upper arms and held her firm, staring deep into her eyes. “Tell me. I need to know.”

  She ducked her head and, with halting, half finished sentences, told him about the accident and the months of lying in a hospital bed, the operations and endless, grueling physiotherapy. She spared him nothing and watched his expression softening as she spoke.

  “You poor darling,” he said, and he gathered her to him so Fen could nestle into his secure warmth. “But why have you kept me in the dark about it? Didn’t you think I’d care? That I wouldn’t understand?”

  Fen raised her head and recognized the empathetic pain in his eyes, witnessed the pity shining out of them, and her heart sank. “Because of what I see in your face,” she said with tragic simplicity.