Yuletide Reunion

Clemmie boiled the kettle and made tea, then cut slices of dark, sticky gingerbread and laid them out in a pattern on the plate. The frantic thump, thump, thump of feet on stairs heralded the arrival of her two daughters, and as Clemmie carried the tray into the sitting room she gave them a slow smile of contentment.

They looked as fresh as daisies, she thought proudly, and not as though they’d stepped off a transatlantic flight just hours earlier. They were, quite simply, the lights of her life.

For, no matter what else she achieved in her life, she had done this—and mostly on her own, too. Produced two beautiful, intelligent and charming little girls—though she conceded that she might be a little biased! Now she had to raise them to be happy. Nothing else really mattered.

‘Mummy, I’ve chosen my bedroom!’ sighed Justine. ‘It’s really cool!’

‘Why does she always get to choose first?’ complained Louella, scowling.

‘Because I’m ten and you’re only eight!’ crowed Justine.

‘But it’s not fair!’

Clemmie bit back the temptation to inform her younger daughter that life often wasn’t fair—she didn’t want to turn her into a cynic at such a tender age! ‘Don’t you like your bedroom, Louella?’ she asked softly. ‘It’s the one that I used to have when I lived here. It isn’t the biggest, but it has the best view in the house, in my opinion.’

‘It’s neat,’ nodded Louella, so that her waist-length brown plaits jiggled up and down. ‘I can see right over the wall to that big garden at the back—the one with the swimming pool. And there was a girl there, playing on a swing.’

‘Was there?’ asked Clemmie absently, pouring out the tea.

‘I waved at her—and she waved back!’

‘That’s nice, darling.’

‘So would she be our nearest neighbour?’

‘Yes, she would.’ Clemmie handed over a thick slice of cake and watched while Louella took a bite. ‘It’s good that someone’s living there at last—it was empty for years and years.’ And then fragments of a long-ago conversation swam up to the surface of Clemmie’s memory, and Aleck Cutler’s perfect eighteen-year-old face imprinted itself there.

She shook her head, trying to get rid of it, wondering why the recollection still had the power to shake her. Because there could be nothing more pathetic than a woman of twenty-nine carrying a torch for a man who was married to someone else.

And Aleck had married Alison.

‘It’s not really like moving somewhere completely new, is it, Mom?’ observed Justine slowly. ‘Since I guess you must still know lots of people here?’

Clemmie shook her head. She still wore her thick, red-brown hair long, but most days, like today, she didn’t have time to do any more with it than drag it back into a ponytail. ‘Not really, honey,’ she said softly. ‘I left when I was eighteen, so I kind of lost touch. Friendships don’t thrive unless you invest time in them, and I never really had the time. I went away to college and then—’

‘Then you met Dad?’ asked Louella brightly.

‘That’s right,’ agreed Clemmie steadily, and kept her face poker-straight. It was difficult, she had decided, to be a mature and generous human being where her ex-husband was concerned, but she was trying. Oh, Lord, how she was trying! She understood that it was in a child’s nature to love its parents absolutely, as Justine and Louella loved their father. But Bill had let the girls down so many times over the years, whittling away at that love every time he did so, that Clemmie had to force herself to say anything positive about him.

‘And once I went to the States to live with your dad, then I didn’t get to visit very often at all.’

‘So you don’t know very much about Ashfield, Mom?’ asked Justine thoughtfully.

‘I know where the church and the shops and the schools are—but that’s about it! I’m relying on you two to find out where all the excitement is—think you could do that for me?’

‘You bet!’ grinned Justine.

The three of them sat on the floor, drinking their tea and eating cake. Clemmie was reluctantly thinking about unpacking another case when there came the sound of a girl’s voice, calling, ‘Hello?’

Justine and Louella looked at one another excitedly before springing to their feet and running into the hall.

‘Our first visitor!’ smiled Clemmie, as she followed them out, and then her mouth dried as she stared at the young girl who was standing on their doorstep.

She looked about ten, the same age as Justine, but she was tall for her age, with pale hair which fell neatly to her shoulders and pale, creamy skin. But it was her eyes which made Clemmie’s mouth fall open in an unconsciously shocked reaction.

Greeny-blue mesmeric eyes, fringed with thick dark lashes. There could not be another pair of eyes in the world which were that beautiful. Clemmie swallowed. This was Aleck Cutler’s daughter, she realised, with a certainty which astonished her almost as much as her own heart-racing reaction.

‘Hello,’ said Clemmie, hoping that her voice didn’t betray her shock. ‘Are you our new neighbour?’

‘I am,’ answered the girl politely, in a remarkably grown-up voice. ‘I live in the house at the back. I’m Stella Cutler.’

So she had been right! Clemmie felt her nails, concealed in the back pockets of her jeans, dig hard through the denim into the soft flesh of her buttocks, while the world threatened to sway intolerably before righting itself once more. Aleck’s daughter! Here!

‘I’m Clemmie Maxwell. I used to be Clemmie Powers. And this is my daughter, Justine.’ Clemmie swallowed as she indicated both her daughters. ‘And her sister Louella. Say hi, girls!’

‘Hi!’the two chorused shyly.

‘We were just having a tea break, Stella,’ continued Clemmie, trying to behave as she would normally behave if a young neighbour came to call. ‘Can you stay for a while and join us? Or do you have to get back?’

‘Oh, I can stay,’ said Stella quickly.

‘Shouldn’t you check with your parents first?’ Clemmie forced herself to ask.

Stella shook her blonde head, her face curiously lacking in emotion. ‘No, that’s okay. I was home alone—so there’s no one there to ask. But I’d love some tea,’ she added winningly.

‘Well, then, tea it is!’ Clemmie led the way into the sitting room and wondered if she had suffered some kind of emotional block all those years ago. Why on earth was she feeling so disorientated just because Aleck’s daughter had come to visit? He was a guy she had had a mad crush on and they had shared a kiss twelve years ago! Nothing more than that. So why was she making such a big deal out of it?

‘Our mom makes fantastic cake! You should see what she does for our birthdays! She makes rainbow frosting that tastes like heaven!’ Louella was confiding to Stella, her freckly face so like Clemmie’s as she babbled away excitedly.

‘Are you American?’ asked Stella curiously.

Justine shook her head. ‘Our dad was—is,’ she corrected herself hurriedly. ‘But he still lives in America, with his new girlfriend and their baby, and we live here now! But that’s where we grew up, and that’s why we’ve got accents. Do you suppose we’ll get teased by the other kids?’

Stella shook her head. ‘No way! All the girls will be jealous! If you speak with an American accent everyone thinks you’re a movie-star over here!’

‘You’re kidding?’

‘No, I’m not!’

Clemmie left them chattering while she went to refill the kettle, but before it had begun to boil she heard footsteps on the stairs and Justine shouting, ‘We’re taking Stella upstairs to show her round. Is that okay, Mom?’

‘Okay, that’s fine!’ Which would give her time to tackle some of these boxes...

Clemmie began to unpack the cases which were stacked haphazardly all over the kitchen floor, humming to herself as she did so. She had been torn—wanting to bring every single stick of furniture with her, mainly so that the girls would feel safe and surrounded by the familiar, but there had also been a side to her which had wanted to throw everything away. To start anew—without any objects which would remind her of Bill and the marriage she had struggled so long to sustain.

In the end she had just brought their favourite things—the good set of china which had been a wedding present, the rocking chair which Bill had carved for her in the early, happy days, and some small Shaker knick-knacks she had collected over the years. Amazing, she thought, as she pulled a jug out of the case and carefully peeled away the protective paper from it. You could spend ten years of your life in another country, and come back with very little to show for it.

Just two gorgeous daughters and a fierce determination to steer clear of men! Men were nothing but trouble and heartbreak. Men chewed you up and spat you out.

Even so, it seemed a rather cruel irony that Clemmie was now faced with the prospect of having to confront Aleck and Alison Cutler over the garden wall!

Still, she told herself briskly, as she placed a vase on the window-ledge. She had survived isolation and desertion and infidelity in a foreign country—she was damned sure that she could endure seeing her schoolgirl crush and the woman he had courted and married!

The morning seemed to fly by, so that Clemmie was able to accomplish plenty. She spent much of it wiping down the walls and the paintwork. She might think about giving each room a lick of paint once the girls had gone back to school.

Having Stella certainly helped keep them out of Clemmie’s hair, and she seemed like a very self-contained child. She had organised Justine and Louella into tidying up their giant doll’s house, and when Clemmie had stuck her head round the door a couple of minutes ago it had been to see three heads bent over it in industrious play!

At one-fifteen Clemmie washed her hands, put the kettle on, and was just thinking about getting some lunch for them all when there was a loud and peremptory knocking on the front door.

She stole a quick glance at herself in the mirror and grimaced at her jeans and old yellow tee-shirt, wishing that she’d made a bit more effort. She wasn’t best dressed to impress any of her new neighbours! Her dusty hair could do with a wash, and her face was completely bare of make-up, which only drew attention to the freckles which spattered her nose and cheeks and which were the bane of her life.

She pulled the front door open and the welcoming smile froze on. her lips as she realised the identity of the man who stood so tall and so broodingly on her doorstep. Clemmie stared up at Aleck Cutler.

Twelve years was a long time in anyone’s life—particularly the years between eighteen and thirty, when adolescents became adults—but all Clemmie could think about was how the essential characteristics of the man remained unaltered.

He was even taller, yes, and he had filled out, that was for sure. The snake-hipped teenage Aleck had been transformed into a big, strong man with hard, firm flesh and shoulders so wide you felt you could have rested the world there. Just a few silver strands ran through the abundant thickness of his dark hair, but the eyes were as remarkable and as mesmerising and as vibrant as they had been all those years ago, and Clemmie felt her face suddenly grow heated...

‘A-Aleck!’ she stammered. ‘Aleck Cutler!’

He stared at her, but made no greeting in response. Just clipped out coldly, ‘So it’s true. You’re back.’

If his eyes hadn’t been spitting unfriendly fire, Clemmie might have smiled. As it was, the hostile vibrations she was getting from him made her stiffen her shoulders defensively. ‘Obviously,’ she responded, her own voice chilly.

‘Have you got my daughter here?’

‘Y-you mean—Stella?’ she managed, stung and confused by his combative air.

‘Since I only have one daughter—yes, I do mean Stella,’ he told her with icy emphasis.

Clemmie could tolerate all kinds of things, but rudeness was not one of them. Years of being insulted within a failing marriage had reinforced her determination never to let a man treat her that way again. She stared at him. So he could wipe that disdainful look off his face right now!

‘Yes, she’s here!’ she snapped back. ‘And how was I supposed to know that you only have one daughter? Telepathy isn’t one of my particular talents!’

He looked at her properly then, the green-blue eyes taking their time as they slowly surveyed her from head to toes, and Clemmie was left feeling as though they had stripped her bare.

‘No,’ he said carefully. ‘As I recall you had many talents, Clemmie, but telepathy wasn’t one of them.’

‘Just what are you implying?’ she demanded, furious at that critical look on his face, and even more furious at the unconscious quickening of her heart when she realised that he did remember her name.

He gave a disparaging smile. ‘Oh, you surely don’t need me to spell it out for you, do you?’

‘Oh, I do,’ she mocked sweetly. ‘I can’t stand innuendo! So if you’ve got something to say, Aleck, why don’t you just go right ahead and say it?’

He raised his dark brows so that they slanted in arrogant surprise. ‘You mean relate the simple fact that if we hadn’t been discovered, then we probably would have ended up making love—with you straddled over one of the classroom desks, your panties down by your ankles?’

All the heat drained from Clemmie’s face—she was so shocked and horrified by his crude portrayal of what had actually happened. What a way to put it! ‘How can you say something like that?’ she whispered, in a hollow voice. ‘How can you?’

He shrugged, apparently not bothered by her white face, nor her trembling mouth. ‘How can I not? It’s what happened, isn’t it, Clemmie? Or would you prefer to define the episode as true love? Maybe that’s how you usually justify your behaviour to yourself—I don’t know.’

He managed to make the word ‘love’ drip with such venomous sarcasm that Clemmie stared at him in horror. ‘But it was just a kiss!’ she protested.

‘Really?’ His eyes narrowed alarmingly. ‘Is that what it was? Some kiss! Do you normally let men who kiss you for the first time touch your breasts like that, Clemmie?’

She wanted to hit him. Because at least hitting him would detract from the way her body responded when he said ‘touch your breasts’. How could he? How could he? Her fingers itched to claw at him in some frighteningly primitive way, but to do that would be to compound his opinion of her as some emotional loose cannon.

‘Why are we discussing something which happened twelve years ago?’ she demanded, swallowing back her lust and her anger and attempting to transform them into dignity.

‘I thought that was what you wanted,’ he observed. ‘You were the one who persisted with the subject, weren’t you? After all, I came over simply to fetch my daughter—’

‘Then I’ll go and find her,’ said Clemmie tonelessly.

‘Before you do, Clemmie...’ He lifted his fingers and, annoyingly, Clemmie found herself halting in her tracks. ‘Didn’t it occur to you that I might be worried? Didn’t you consider ringing me to say that Stella was here?’

‘Of course I did!’ she defended. ‘And Stella told me that it was okay! She told me that she was home alone—’

‘She was not alone!’ he shot back repressively. ‘I was working in my study, and she was probably bored and saw you arrive. She’s ten years old, for God’s sake—didn’t it occur to you to check with me first?’

The trouble was that he was right. She should have checked, should have got Stella to ring her father, or should have done so herself. She hoped that he would have done the same if her girls had turned up unexpectedly at his house. And she wondered if she would have been so reluctant to ring if the father in question had been anyone other than Aleck Cutler...

He threw her a look that was distinctly insulting. ‘Though maybe you decided that it would suit you to have her stay so long.’ His eyes glinted. ‘Was that it?’

‘And why would I do that?’ she queried steadily, her heart pounding away in her head as she began to realise just what he was getting at.

‘Maybe you were hoping that I would come looking for her and...’

‘And what?’ she goaded, needing to hear him say the unbelievable.

‘And maybe you wanted to finish off what we started all those years ago?’

Clemmie came closer to hitting someone than she had ever done in her life, but she fought the feeling as if she was fighting for her life. She was not about to start brawling like a fishwife! She managed a tight, supercilious smile. ‘I don’t think so, Aleck. I grew out of teenage fumblings a long time ago. Besides, even if I was still turned on by heavy petting—I’ve always made it a rule not to fool around with married men.’

His eyebrows disappeared into the thick, dark hair as he feigned surprise. ‘Really? Then you must

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