Looking After Dad

For a moment, he seemed about to choke.

‘There’s always been a rapport between us,’ Jess carried on blithely, and shot him a look, pleased by the fire she saw in his eyes. ‘A strong one.’

‘So you’ll be meeting again?’ Peg enquired.

‘That’s up to your son,’ she murmured, lowering her gaze and acting coy.

Very deliberately—and as if she might be the carrier of the Black Death or some other lethal and highly contagious disease—Lorcan took hold of her wrist and lifted her hand from his knee. He stood up.

‘Time I took Jess home,’ he declared.

‘Already?’ his mother protested.

‘I’m afraid so,’ she said, taking her cue and rising too. Enough was enough. It would be foolish to overdo things and have him complaining to Sir Peter about her behaviour. ‘Thanks for the tea, but I must go.’

Harriet came to stand in front of her. ‘Do you want these?’ she asked, her eyes bright and anxious behind the goggles.

‘No, you can keep them.’

‘Forever?’

‘For ever and ever,’ Jess assured her.

The child gave her a solemn look. ‘Thank you.’

Goodbyes were exchanged, Peg expressed the hope that Jess would come again soon, and they took their leave.

‘Boy, you’re really something,’ Lorcan muttered as he unlocked the car.

Jess made innocent eyes at him across the roof. ‘I was only adding a little colour.’

‘By calling me poppet?’

‘You’d have preferred dearest heart?’

‘I’d have preferred it if you’d kept your lip buttoned. OK, my mother was grilling you and I apologise for that, but there was no need to give her the wrong idea.’

‘The moment she saw me she had the wrong idea. I did warn you.’

‘Maybe,’ he conceded, ‘but now she’ll be asking about you for months, because she liked you!’

‘I’m a likeable person.’

‘Then how come you manage to annoy the hell out of me?’ Lorcan enquired.

‘It’s a gift,’ she replied airily, and climbed into the car. ‘Please don’t bother to drive me home,’ Jess said as he swung the coupé out onto the road. ‘I can easily take the Underground, so if you’d just run me to the nearest station. It’ll be much quicker than driving back through the city and I only have a short walk at the other end.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘Certain.’

‘Thanks, I’ll do that,’ he said. ‘It means I can relieve my folks of Harriet and get her home and in bed at a reasonable time.’

‘Home is where?’

‘West Sussex, and the journey takes around an hour and a half depending on the traffic.’

‘You obviously don’t have a girlfriend,’ she remarked as they turned back onto the main road.

‘No. Much to my mother’s dismay. But as you travel, so I’ve moved around in the two years since my wife died, and what with that and caring for Harriet I haven’t had the opportunity to embark on a relationship.’

A tightness had entered his voice and when she looked at his profile she saw the nerve pulsing in his temple.

‘Nor the inclination?’ she asked.

‘I have my share of raging hormones,’ Lorcan said drily, ‘so I guess I’d be open to a torrid affair with no strings attached. But as far as anything serious goes—no. I’m not interested in commitment. Thanks for sidetracking Harriet about the dress,’ he went on. ‘She can be a little witch at times. And thank you for the goggles. How much did they cost?’

‘I don’t remember, but put them towards the dry-cleaning of your suit.’

He gave a cryptic smile. ‘Will do. I’m also grateful for your cooperation in the charade,’ he said as they reached the Underground station. ‘Correction, fifty per cent grateful.’ Drawing into the kerb, he halted. ‘You don’t mind missing out on the Mauritius job?’

She shook her head. ‘On the contrary, it suits me fine.’

‘It does?’ he asked, sounding suddenly uncertain.

‘My dear Mr Hunter, the last thing I need is three months lurking around you,’ Jess said, and climbed out of the car and walked away.

CHAPTER THREE

AS FAST as suitcases tumbled off the carousel in the arrivals hall at the Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam international airport, the jovial Creole porter hauled them back onto it again. The simultaneous arrival of two jumbo jets, combined with slow Passport Control which delayed the claiming of luggage, meant that the circling belt was vastly overloaded.

Jess watched as a heap of miscellaneous Styrofoam parcels jiggled by. Because they had travelled club class their cases were supposed to have been taken off first, yet although Lorcan had all of his stacked on a trolley her two had yet to arrive.

‘When can we go?’ Harriet asked plaintively.

‘Just as soon as the rest of the bags come through,’ Lorcan replied, in a voice of sore-tried patience.

‘If they came through,’ Jess said.

After the twelve-hour flight with an in-transit stop in the Seychelles, all three of them were weary. It had been an early morning departure and a daytime journey, and no one had slept.

Jess circled a look around. A crowded arrivals hall seemed an unlikely place for villains to strike, but she was being paid to be on the alert—and she refused to screw up this time. Her brow creased. Though who or what she was on the alert for she did not know. His daughter’s ever listening presence had prevented her from asking the architect why, when the job had been cancelled as expected, there had been a last-minute request for her services.

‘We’d better make enquiries,’ Lorcan said, when most of the cases had been claimed and fresh items were no longer appearing.

Jess wiped a slick of moisture from her brow. Outside the rain was sheeting down and the atmosphere in the hall was as hot and humid as a sauna.

‘I suppose so,’ she acknowledged.

At a desk on the back wall, an Indian clerk checked the baggage slips stapled to her ticket, made a phone call and reported the damning news that all goods from their plane had been cleared.

‘Oh, no!’ she groaned.

‘Now you must fill in this form and the airline will put the tracing procedure into operation. Most bags are retrieved within a few days,’ the clerk told her, with a comforting smile, ‘but until then you may buy immediate needs and claim the cost against the allowance.’

By the time they emerged through Customs, the afternoon had slithered into early evening and the airport concourse was almost deserted. A four-wheel drive was parked at the entrance under cover from the rain, with a young man half-asleep inside it.

‘Mr Hunter?’ he called, rousing himself when he saw them.

He was waiting to deliver the Jeep Cherokee which Lorcan had hired, and after paperwork was completed and the luggage loaded they climbed inside.

‘Would you like me to navigate?’ Jess asked, eyeing the map of the island which the car hire representative had handed to her.

Lorcan started the engine. ‘No need, thanks. The house is just a few miles from the hotel site, so I know my way.’

‘My daddy’s been here before,’ Harriet said importantly, from where she was buckled into the rear seat. ‘Three times. When he came my grandma and grandpa looked after me. And Senga. Senga was my nanny, but she’s gone back to Scotland to get married. And now you’re going to look after me.’

Jess darted a glance at her chauffeur. The supposed reason for her presence was just one of a whole raft of questions which she needed to ask and matters which they had to discuss. Soonest.

She smiled at the child. ‘And Naseem,’ she said, referring to the local woman whom Lorcan had told her he had employed as a housekeeper-cum-childminder.

‘S’right,’ Harriet agreed, and smiled back.

The little girl’s original suspicion had gone and she was prepared to be friendly. This could be thanks to the goggles, which had been brought with other treasured possessions in her haversack and which continued to cast a spell, or, more realistically, Jess thought, it was because Harriet had marked her down as paid help. When her status had been unsure she had threatened—who was this strange lady with her daddy?—but now she had become acceptable. Her thought train jumped track. What was the threat which she had been recruited to deflect?

When they first left the airport Jess kept a discreet check to see that no particular vehicle appeared to be trailing them, but after a few miles she gave up. They were almost the only people out on the road. Besides, the relentless tropical rain would deter ninety-nine per cent of kidnappers, she reasoned—and she would take her chance with the remainder. Her gaze went to the strong hands which so deftly controlled the steering wheel and down to the gear-changing flex of a muscled thigh. Though it would take a determined gang to remove his beloved daughter when the well-built Lorcan Hunter was around.

She peered out through the window. The continuous driving rain had made it impossible to see anything of the island when their plane had landed, and now all she could make out were rolling fields where sugar cane had been harvested and the occasional blurred outline of a sharp, rugged mountain. Mauritius was grey, washed of colour, wet.

What was she doing here? Jess wondered. As her luggage seemed to have remained at home, wouldn’t she have done better to have stayed home, too?

‘Sorry, Kev, I’m not interested,’ she had said yesterday morning, when her brother had rung to announce that the Warwick Group had performed an eleventh-hour about-turn and wished to use her. Yet within minutes she had allowed him to talk her into it.

The windscreen-wipers moved in a rhythmic swish-swish. Why had she agreed? Was it a case of old habits dying hard—though she had insisted that this was her very last assignment—or because she had recognised that a stay in the sun did have its uses? Tropical island pictures were perennially popular and during her residence she would be able to build up a portfolio of local scenes. A hopefully saleable and lucrative portfolio.

Jess sighed. Whatever the reason, she had committed herself to joining forces with a man who was iron-willed and bolshie. And a man who, whilst he must have sanctioned her employment, still resented it.

Lorcan Hunter’s resentment was subtle. From meeting her at the airport, he had acted the civilised adult and been polite, amiable and—yes—at times even charming. Yet although they had chatted together and laughed she had been aware of a tightness within him. A basic irritation. He did not want her here disrupting his life and, whilst her presence might be necessary and he was currently co-operating, she sensed there would be battles ahead.

‘Don’t worry about it,’ Lorcan said, all of a sudden.

Jolted from her musing, she shot him a startled look. ‘Sorry?’

‘I’m sure your cases will turn up soon.’

‘Oh... yes,’ Jess agreed, thinking that if she was destined to do battle with him she would survive. He might be a cussed individual, but she could be tough-minded, too.

‘Even if you do seem to be accident-prone,’ he added.

Recognising a reference to the champagne debacle, she flashed a synthetic smile. ‘It only happens when I’m with you.’

‘You’ll have a change of clothes in your hand luggage to tide you over?’

Visualising the sports bag which she had brought, she shook her head. ‘No.’

‘But if you’re travelling long haul it’s common sense to carry a spare set. I do. I have.’

‘Don’t you ever get just the teeniest weeniest bit sick of always being right?’ Jess enquired sweetly.

Lorcan’s mouth quirked. ‘Nope.’

‘Amazing. Even if I’d thought about it, which I didn’t,’ she said, ‘there wouldn’t have been room for spare clothes because my bag is full of painting gear.’

‘You must’ve brought one heck of an amount.’

‘Enough sketchpads, brushes, water colours, pencils, pens and inks to last me for three months.’

His brows lifted. ‘Sounds like you’re keen.’

‘I am.’ She looked down at the white-on-white long-sleeved body which she wore, her slim-fitting black skirt, her black-stockinged legs. ‘But I’m even keener to find a dress shop.’

Because she had felt like a slob at their first meeting, Jess had been determined to be elegant the second time around. The previous evening, she had applied a face pack, waxed her legs and colour co-ordinated her finger and toenails with ‘Pearl Sirocco’ lacquer. And that morning she had swept into the airport with her hair blow-dried into a silky blonde cap and teased into wisps across her brow, her face painstakingly made up and clad in a smart black suit with a sculpted high-necked jacket and high heels.

Her efforts might have been a touch over the top, but they were worthwhile. Lorcan Hunter had looked, done a double take, and looked again. He had seemed bewitched, until he had remembered that La Stupenda was the pesky bodyguard. But after he had brought himself to heel other admiring male glances had swung her way. Glances which, satisfyingly, she knew he had noticed.

However, her elegance had its drawbacks. At the airport, she had been one of a chic minority amongst the ubiquitous jeans and anoraks, and now... Jess shifted and felt her back sticking clammily to the seat. Before they’d landed, Lorcan had shed his sweater to reveal a short-sleeved navy shirt which, worn with stone-coloured cotton chinos, conceded to the climate. She had removed her jacket, but the tight white body, hip-hugging skirt and nylon stockings meant that despite the Cherokee’s air-conditioning she was bathed in steam heat.

The white body was clinging to her damp skin, outlining the high curve of her breasts and—she abruptly realised—drawing her chauffeur’s attention. Jess sat very still. The stroke of his eyes seemed as tactile as the stroke of fingers and she felt her nipples pinch and tighten. She gulped in a breath. He was arousing her with just a look. How could he do that?

‘Is the house which you’ve rented near a town? Close to shops?’ she rattled off. ‘Because I’d like to buy a change of clothes as soon as I can tomorrow.’

‘No, it’s on the outskirts of a small fishing village,’ Lorcan said, frowning as though being bewitched by her again had been an irritating—and curious—lapse. ‘There are a few shops, though I’m afraid I couldn’t say what they are. But until you get fixed up you can wear one of my shirts and a pair of shorts. They’ll be far too big, but you can hoist up the shorts with a belt.’

Jess shot him a glance. The offer of his clothes seemed surprisingly free and easy.

‘You’re trying to impress me with your kindness,’ she said.

‘Wait until you see my gear,’ he responded. ‘It’s nothing special and I may keep the best for myself and restrict you to the rag-bag end.’

‘Gee, thanks.’

‘Are we nearly there?’ Harriet asked as they turned off the metalled road and onto a muddy track.

‘Soon. In about ten minutes, fishface,’ Lorcan told her. ‘The house is an old colonial bungalow,’ he continued, negotiating the Jeep through a deep water-filled pothole. ‘It backs onto fields and is close to the beach and a short walk from the village.’

‘I’m going to go to playschool in the village,’ Harriet said. She hesitated, and when Jess turned she saw that her lower lip was trembling. ‘I don’t think I’ll like it.’

‘It’ll be fun,’ she said encouragingly.

‘You’ll love it,’ Lorcan declared.

‘I might not,’ the little girl said, and put her thumb in her mouth and sucked earnestly.

A couple of miles later, the dirt track smoothed into a surfaced road again and shapes of buildings began to appear through the curtain of rain. Jess peered out. She saw flat-roofed breeze-block houses with ramshackle gardens where large cacti were strung with sodden washing, a Chinese restaurant, a jarring glass and chrome space-ago-style bar and a row of shops. The shops were shuttered, but so far as she could tell there was no dedicated clothing store.

A long bend took them out of the village. To the right, through casuarina trees, were glimpses of a grey swelling sea, while on the left woebegone goats munched in a water-logged meadow. At the end of the meadow was a lane. Turning into it, Lorcan sped up past more affluent houses until they reached two stately dripping palms which stood like sentinels at the entrance to a gravelled drive.

‘This is it,’ he said.

Beyond a circular lawn stood a wide double-fronted wooden bungalow with an all-round veranda. Painted Wedgwood blue, it had white window shutters and a pretty white decorative valence edging the roof. Even in the rain, which had slackened into a steady drizzle, it was a gracious building and would, Jess decided, be an ideal subject for a water colour.

Lorcan drew to a stop beside the short flight of steps which led up to the white-glossed front door. ‘Naseem promised to leave the keys under the plant pot,’ he said, indicating a terracotta tub which spilled with crimson bougainvillea.

‘She isn’t here?’ she asked.

‘No. I agreed she need only come in in the mornings until we arrived. Though as from tomorrow it’s all day.’

‘Naseem doesn’t live in?’ she said, frowning. ‘I realise you didn’t actually say, but—well, I assumed she did.’

‘Does it make a difference?’ he enquired.

Jess unbuckled her seat belt. ‘None.’

The bungalow had spacious lofty rooms, tall, slim windows and ceiling fans. A wide central hall divided it into two distinct areas, with what Lorcan showed her and Harriet were the living room, a study and eat-in kitchen to one side, while three bedrooms lay on the other.

‘I thought this could be yours,’ he said, opening the door onto a square room which overlooked the rain-sleeked greenery of a fenced and private back garden. ‘I’m opposite and Harriet is next to me.’

With white voile curtains, white cotton-twist rugs on the highly polished floorboards and a big old-fashioned wardrobe and dresser, the bedroom was simple but comfortable. Off it was an up-to-date yet period-flavour bathroom which included a glassed-in shower cubicle, huge claw-footed bath tub and basin with gleaming brass taps.

‘Fine,’ she agreed.

‘I don’t like this house,’ Harriet announced belligerently as they went back into the hall. ‘There’s no proper carpet and the furniture’s all old and stinky. Wommie doesn’t like it, either.’

‘The house is lovely,’ Lorcan said, his voice gentle. ‘You’ll think so in the morning after you’ve had a good night’s sleep.’

‘I’ll think it’s horrid!’

‘Who’s Wommie?’ Jess asked.

Pushing out her chin and her stomach, Harriet looked defiant. A pint-sized warrior. ‘My friend.’

‘Her pretend friend,’ Lorcan said, with a weary roll of his eyes. ‘How about a bowl of cornflakes before you go to bed?’ he asked his daughter. ‘I arranged for Naseem to buy some specially.’

The little girl nodded. Her rebellion seemed to have used up her last ounce of energy and all of a sudden she was exhausted.

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