He almost glared at Anne above the slightly fixed smile. ‘I think Mr Hunter’s going a bit far, don’t you? I tell you what, Beth.’ He dropped to one knee conspiratorially. ‘Why don’t we make it Jake for now, eh? Since we’re going to be neighbours as well?’

‘Neighbours?’ Anne croaked.

He straightened. ‘Oh, yes. I’m going to be living in the house next door—won’t that be cosy? We’ll be able to get to know each other really well.’

Anne fled, almost dragging Beth with her up the stairs, aware with every step of Jake’s eyes boring into her spine.

‘We’re going to make a snowman at the weekend—would you like to help?’ Beth said over her shoulder.

‘My pleasure.’

Anne tugged at the reluctant hand. ‘Come on, young lady, it’s way past your bedtime. Say goodnight.’

She spent as long as she dared tucking Beth up again, but finally she had no choice.

Her heart in her mouth, she made her way downstairs.

Jake was in the sitting-room on the sofa, Beth’s latest drawing in his hands, and as she watched he straightened up and glared at her accusingly, his eyes blazing with anger and recrimination.

His voice was deadly quiet in the stillness.

‘Why the hell didn’t you tell me?’

CHAPTER TWO

ANNE’S legs were trembling, her whole body starting to shake with reaction. This wasn’t the way she had wanted him to find out!

‘I was going to tell you—tonight. That’s why I asked you here, but——’

‘Just tell me something—if we hadn’t been thrown together like this, would you ever have told me?’

She looked away, unable to bear the anger and condemnation in his eyes.

‘It isn’t that simple, Jake——’

‘Of course it is!’ he growled. ‘How much more bloody simple can it get? “You have a daughter”. Four words. Is that really so hard?’

‘Yes!’ she cried. ‘Yes, it is that hard! And what would you have done about it anyway? We were friends, Jake, just simply friends. That night was a fluke, a one-off. How could I hold you responsible? You made your feelings pretty clear, anyway. Your last words to me were, “This needn’t make any difference to us, Annie. You’re going to marry Duncan and I’m going to finish sowing my wild oats and see the world——” ‘

‘But I said——’

‘I know what you said. I know exactly what you said. We were who we were, Jake. It would never have worked.’

‘You weren’t even prepared to give it a try! Damn it, Annie, if I’d known she was mine——’

‘What? What would you have done? For God’s sake, Hunter, you were a playboy, a womanising, hell-raising, over-sexed, overgrown adolescent! You weren’t ready for the responsibility of parenthood, and I wasn’t ready to risk my daughter’s happiness—or mine—on a feckless, footloose itinerant!’

He snorted in disgust. ‘Come on, Annie, that’s a gross exaggeration——’

‘No, it isn’t! You were appalling—you had the morals of an alley-cat, Jacob Hunter! Every night there was a different victim——’

‘Rubbish! You’ve forgotten——’

‘Bull! I’ve forgotten nothing, Jake. Not one single, solitary damn second of that last year have I forgotten, and I certainly haven’t forgotten the number of nights you never even made it home——!’

She broke off, appalled that she had revealed so much.

‘Did you lie awake and wait for me, Annie?’ he asked, and beneath the softly voiced sarcasm she thought she detected a certain wistfulness.

‘Of course not,’ she denied hotly. ‘Why should I have lost sleep over you?’

He stared at her in silence for a moment, then looked away, his breath leaving his body in a sharp sigh. ‘You think a lot of me, don’t you?’

She slumped into a chair. ‘I think a hell of a lot of you, Jake. I always have done, but that doesn’t mean I’ve ever let it cloud my judgement. You were a good friend, the best, but you would have made a rotten husband and father seven years ago.’

‘And now?’

‘Now what?’

‘What kind of a husband and father would I make now, Annie? Because you can be sure of one thing—I’m not letting her go. I don’t want carefully measured visitation rights, or joint custody or some other legal arrangement. I want to be her father, in every sense of the word. I want a say in her upbringing and education, and I’m not convinced I want you out at work leaving her with a stranger for the weekend while you’re on call!’

‘Huh! And how the hell am I supposed to provide for her if I don’t go out to work?’

‘I’ll provide for her—for both of you——’

‘Over my dead body! And anyway, Jenny’s a registered childminder, not a stranger——’

‘She is to me. How do I know if I can trust her with my daughter?’

Anne glared at him. ‘She’s not your daughter, she’s my daughter. I carried her, I gave birth to her, I’ve brought her up and cared for her and made all the decisions for her while you were off seeing the world and getting married——’

‘You could have married me.’

‘Oh, yes—we’ve been through all that. You weren’t ready, Jake. Look what happened when you did get married.’

‘There was no child involved.’

‘Would it have made any difference?’

He met her eyes briefly, then looked away. ‘Probably not.’

‘You see? Just one more example of your feckless attitude to life, but Beth’s one toy you’re not going to pick up and drop—damn it, Jake, I nearly died giving birth to her! She’s mine, and I’m not going to let you have her!’

Her emotions strung to fever pitch, she turned away to hide the sudden rush of tears that cascaded down her flushed cheeks.

Jake’s hand, gentle on her shoulder, was nearly her undoing.

‘I don’t want to take her from you, Annie. I want to share her, get to know her. I want to love her, Annie, and I want her to love me, too. Don’t shut me out. I’ve lost so much of her life already—let me share her with you. Please? Marry me now, Annie—make me part of your lives.’

Her breath caught in her throat. His touch was warm, undemanding, but she knew it could change like quicksilver to become sensual and erotic, giving and yet taking, demanding, searching … Dear God, what was she thinking? She was letting herself be swayed by the soft pleading in his voice, but she could never feel like that for Jake again, could never trust him——

‘Marry you? Jake, are you mad? I wouldn’t marry you if you Were the last man on earth!’

He recoiled as if she’d struck him, walking swiftly away from her to stand broodingly at the patio doors, staring out at the dark, snow-covered garden. His hands were rammed in his pockets, his shoulder hunched defensively.

Immediately Anne regretted her impulsive outburst, but not the emotion that had triggered it. Yes, Jake was Beth’s father, but that gave him no rights over her.

‘You didn’t feel that way about me once,’ he reminded her.

‘Yes, once and only once, and look where it got me!’

He turned and met her eyes challengingly. ‘You could have had an abortion.’

‘No!’ She felt the heat drain out of her at his words. ‘Oh, no. Jake, I loved you. You were the best friend I’d ever had. How could I have killed your child?’

As she watched, the challenging anger faded from his eyes and they glazed with tears. ‘Why didn’t you tell me, Annie? I’ve missed so much …’

He bowed his head, and she watched in horror as a heavy tear slid down his cheek and splashed on to his sweatshirt, all the more shocking for being so unexpected.

She didn’t even stop to think. Her arms were round him, his head against hers, offering him wordless comfort while he struggled against the roiling tumult of his emotions.

After a while he lifted his head and tilted her chin, staring down searchingly into her eyes. His lashes, impossibly long, were spiked with tears, but his eyes were clear now, his emotions firmly back in control although his voice was gruff.

Thank you—for having her, for taking care of her, for not taking the easy way out.’

She shook her head. This was the easy way out—but not only that, for me it was the only way. Don’t thank me. I didn’t do it for you.’

‘I’m thanking you for my daughter,’ he reminded her softly, and then with a sigh he pulled her close again. ‘You said you nearly died …’

She nodded. ‘It was awful. Really she’s lucky to be alive. She was an awkward presentation, and I just didn’t have the pelvic capacity to cope with it.’

Jake led her to the sofa and sat, his arm still round her, while she told him about the fight to bring his daughter into the world.

‘Why didn’t they do a section?’ he asked in bewilderment. ‘Surely they could see you’re too tiny to deliver anything but a straightforward presentation?’

She shrugged. ‘It was a young doctor, and he kept saying she’d turn any minute. I knew he was wrong, I’d done my obstetrics, but you’re very vulnerable lying there, and you don’t feel like arguing. In the end I was too weak to argue, and then he called the consultant and they got her out in the nick of time. It’s a miracle she isn’t brain-damaged.’

‘Don’t,’ he groaned, and hugged her hard against his side. ‘Oh, Annie, love, I’m sorry. I should have been there.’

She laughed, a little shakily. ‘I’m glad you weren’t—you would have killed him!’

Jake chuckled. ‘Probably.’ He tipped her chin up with his fingers, and looked searchingly into her eyes. ‘Poor darling,’ he murmured, and then his mouth found hers, his lips soft and undemanding, his kiss a gift of devastating tenderness that brought a sigh to her lips.

Her body felt like liquid, melting against him as he deepened the kiss. She had missed him—oh, how she had missed him, but it had never been like this. Apart from that one wild, unforgettable night there had been only hugs and kisses of friendship, but this—there was something so right about it that it didn’t occur to Anne to stop him.

Gradually the pressure increased as the kiss became more demanding, and Jake eased her down until she was stretched out on the sofa, his body pressing against hers so she could feel the hard imprint of his desire.

With a moan of frustration she arched against him, and he lifted his head and stared down at her, his eyes almost black with passion.

‘What about Beth?’ he asked, his voice roughened with need.

‘What about her?’ Annie asked absently, her eyes locked with his, drowning in the deep, peaty pools that mirrored her own desire.

He laughed softly. ‘I’d hate her to come down and catch us—is there a lock on your bedroom door?’

‘Bedroom?’ she echoed stupidly, then suddenly reality came crashing back and she pushed ineffectually at Jake’s solid chest.

‘Dear God, what are we doing? Jake, let me up.’

He stared at her in disbelief for a second, and then with an untidy sigh he eased away from her and let her go.

She sprang off the sofa, her arms hugged around her waist, her whole body trembling. Dear heaven, what on earth was she thinking about to let things get so out of hand? And it wasn’t as if she could avoid him—he’d made it perfectly clear he was going to be part of her life as long as Beth was at home. That meant ten or fifteen years of his constant presence, countless hours of discussion over Beth’s upbringing and the direction of her life, and there was no way she could cope with that and an affair with Jake into the bargain.

Because that was all it would be. She knew him well enough to know that he was never satisfied for long with a woman, and that as soon as one had succumbed to his undoubted charm another would take her place.

No, life would be untidy enough without her own emotions torn to shreds by his devil-may-care attitude to sexual relationships.

‘Come and sit down, Annie. I won’t bite you.’

She laughed shakily. “It’s not your teeth I’m afraid of, Jake.’

‘What is it, then? I won’t hurt you, darling. Come here—I only want to talk.’

She hugged herself tighter and stared out of the window. ‘You weren’t talking just now.’

She could see him reflected in the glass, stretched out full length on the sofa, one arm bent, propping his head. He looked lazy and relaxed, like a big cat, and like a cat he was watching her steadily.

He came to his feet in one easy, graceful movement and came to stand behind her, his eyes never leaving the reflection of hers.

‘What’s the matter, Annie?’

She closed her eyes as he laid his hands on her shoulders and eased her back against him. ‘Jake, we mustn’t …’

‘Why?’ His voice was softly persuasive, his breath warm against her cheek. ‘What harm can it do? I meant what I said, Annie. I want to marry you, and adopt my daughter, and look after you both.’

‘No!’ She pulled away from the warm haven of his arms and crossed the room, turning to face him like a cornered animal at bay. ‘Jake, I meant what I said, too. I won’t marry you——’

‘You said you love me.’

‘Loved—a long time ago, when I was just a foolish girl, but that girl’s long gone, Jake. I’m a woman now, and I know what I want and need, and it isn’t you.’

His brows quirked. ‘Are you sure? That’s not the message I was getting a few minutes ago.’

‘Well, it’s the message you’re getting now, and that’s the message you’re going to continue to get.’

He laughed softly. ‘Is that a challenge?’

‘Challenge?’ she scoffed. ‘Jake, I live a celibate life. I wouldn’t be much of a challenge to a man of your undoubted sexual prowess——’

‘You’re exaggerating again—flattering though it is, I ought to draw your attention to the fact that there have been precious few women in my life in recent years.’

She laughed. ‘I’m sure it’s like riding a bicycle, Jake, and let’s face it, you devoted the majority of your youth to honing your skills in that department.’

‘You’re wrong, Annie, but I can’t be bothered to argue.’

‘Well, there’s a relief!’ She sat down in a chair and curled her feet defensively under her bottom. ‘Look, I don’t want to fight with you. We have to find some way of being together peaceably so that you can get to know Beth——’

‘So you at least agree I should?’

She was shocked. ‘Of course! I’d always intended to tell you about her, but somehow it never seemed the right time.’

He gave a soft grunt of laughter, and dropped back on to the sofa, sprawling out across it with one leg flung up on the cushions, one arm bent, head propped on his fist. His jeans, as always almost indecently tight, were stretched lovingly over his thighs, accentuating the power of his legs and blatantly outlining his masculinity.

She looked away.

‘So where do we go from here, Annie?’ he asked quietly. ‘You seem to want to make the rules. What do you suggest?’

She shrugged, unsure of how to proceed. ‘Play it by ear? You’ll be living next door, so you should be able to have lots of casual chats with her and gradually make friends. Drop in for tea, invite us round for coffee, perhaps the odd walk at the weekend? She wants you to help her build the snowman, too.’

He was watching her again with that curiously intense look that was so unnerving.

‘You are, I take it, including yourself in these arangements?’

‘Of course—I have to, Jake! I can’t just suddenly encourage her to spend hours with you without any reason. Normally I try and stop her from wearing out her welcome with friends, because she’s very open and natural and can’t imagine that anybody wouldn’t want her.’

‘I want her. Make no mistake about that, Annie.’

Her shoulders sagged. ‘Just one thing, because remember I know you, Jacob Hunter. Don’t encourage her affections and friendship and then decide paternity is too boring and fly off into the sunset. Do you understand? I don’t care how you behave with your women, this is a different relationship, and, like it or not, it’s for life. If you don’t think you can hack it, then get out of our lives now. I won’t have her hurt—is that clear?’

‘As crystal.’ He came fluidly to his feet and stood over her menacingly, his voice deathly quiet. ‘There’s one thing you should understand. I intend to be an active parent, Anne. She’s my daughter and before long she’s going to know she’s my daughter——’

‘No!’

‘Yes. Oh, yes. I’m not having her calling me Mr Hunter or Uncle Jake. I want her to know who I am, and that I love her.’

‘But you don’t!’

‘Because I’ve never had the chance, but that’s all changed now, because you’re going to give me that chance. I want to know everything—when she cut her first tooth, took her first step, said her first word—all of it, down to the last sleepless night, and you’re going to tell me if I have to wring it out of you!’

‘That won’t be necessary. I have a book,’ she told him quietly. ‘I knew you would want to know one day, so I recorded everything meticulously. I’ll get it for you. There are also videos of her as a toddler, and in the playgroup Christmas concert, and later in school plays and up at my parents’ during holidays. Do you have a video player?’

He nodded. ‘Yes, I brought it up last night.’

She rummaged in the cabinet under the television and brought out three video tapes, and then from the bookcase she produced a baby album and six other photo albums.

‘One for every year,’ she told him. The last one has a few more to go in it.’

‘It must be her birthday soon, I suppose—God, I don’t even know the date of my own daughter’s birthday!’ he said heavily.

‘Sunday,’ she told him, ignoring the anguish in his voice. ‘The twenty-first of February.’

She produced a carrier bag from the kitchen and put all the tapes and albums in it.

‘What have you told her about me?’ he asked.

‘I told her you’d gone away to America. By the time she was old enough to ask, you were married and in private practice, so we could hardly write to you and say, “There’s something you ought to know”.’

‘And when you heard I was divorced?’

She shrugged. ‘It just proved everything I’d always known about you and your relationships with women. I decided then that I didn’t need the aggravation of telling you about Beth and having to deal with transatlantic flights and custody and access battles and all the other trauma. Frankly, Jake, we were better off without you.’

He glanced around at the meagre surroundings, and she felt his disdain for the marked walls, the threadbare carpet, the tatty old furniture.

‘Pretty spartan, Annie. I wouldn’t say you’d done that well.’

She was stung, her pride hurt. ‘I’ve done my best, and there’s more to life than money, Jake, odd though you may find that coming hot-foot from the Big Apple—or should I call it the Golden Nugget?’

He opened his mouth to argue, and then shut it with a snap. Taking the carrier bag from her, he strode down the hall and flung open the front door.

‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’

He stepped out into the night, and as she moved to push the door to behind him, he slapped it back against the wall and spun to face her.

‘Incidentally, about that piece of scrap iron on the drive …’he gritted furiously.

She frowned in confusion. ‘Scrap iron? You mean my car——?’

‘Car?’ he snorted. ‘It’s a wreck! The first thing I’m doing is buying you a decent one, because there’s no way my daughter’s riding round in that ancient death-trap!’

Anne was furious. First the house, now the car! ‘How dare you? Just where the hell do you get off calling my car a death-trap?’

‘Look at it! The thing’s lethal—if it has an MOT certificate I’d stake my life it’s cooked. You’ve got no business taking a child in a vehicle like that——’

‘How dare you? It’s none of your business what I do with Beth——’

‘Rubbish!’ he roared. ‘Of course it’s my business! She’s my daughter, damn it!’

‘No, she isn’t!’ Anne screamed, almost beyond endurance. ‘She’s my daughter, and I won’t have you interfering—what are you doing?’

She ran after him, holding his arm as he wrenched open the driver’s door and pulled the bonnet catch.

‘Jake, what the bloody hell do you think you’re playing at?’

‘Disabling it is what I’m playing at. If you won’t be responsible, then I’ll have to be responsible for you.’ He opened the bonnet, undipped the distributor cap and pocketed the rotor arm.

‘Damn you, give that back!’ she shouted.

‘No.’ He slammed the bonnet, and lights came on all round the quiet little street.

‘What’s going on out there?’ someone called.

‘Damn it, Jake, give it back!’ she pleaded.

‘Anne, are you all right?’

That was Jenny’s husband, out in the snow in dressing-gown and slippers with a torch in his hand.

‘I’m fine, Phil. Just a silly joke. Sorry to disturb you,’ and then in an undertone, ‘Jake, please, be reasonable!’

‘No. Evening!’ he called to Phil, then, turning on his heel, he scrunched over the snow to his front door.

‘Goodnight, you little hell-cat. I’ll give you a lift to work in the morning. Be ready at eight.’

The door banged behind him, and Anne was left standing foolishly in the front garden in bare feet, suddenly desperately conscious of all the hidden eyes watching her from round the street.

‘Sure you’re OK?’ Phil asked from the safety of his front door.

She nodded. ‘I’m fine. Sorry!’

She closed the door behind her and sagged against the wall.

What a scene! How was she going to face all those people the next day? It was all right for Jake, he never had cared what people thought of him, but she had to live here and the way he was carrying on she wouldn’t be able to!

Oh, damn you, Hunter, she thought bitterly. Why did you have to turn up and throw everything into confusion?

She went into the sitting-room and warmed her feet in front of the fire, then straightened the cushions, made herself a cup of tea and took it up to bed, realising as she did so that she hadn’t offered him so much as a glass of cold water in the three hours or so he had been there.

Sighing heavily, she prepared for bed, checked Beth and slipped between the cold sheets with a shudder.

She could have been warm, of course, if she’d let Jake stay—but what kind of an option was that? She punched the pillows into shape and sat up, cradling her tea in her hands and wondering how she was going to cope with having Jake as a next-door neighbour.

Not well, was the answer.

She could hear him moving about in the house, and after she had drunk her tea she lay down and tried to sleep, but her ears were straining for the sound of his movements on the other side of the wall.

After an age he came to bed, in the room that adjoined hers, his headboard against hers so that if she could have put her hand through the wall she could have touched him.

The thought unsettled her, and she turned over, punching her pillow viciously.

‘Having trouble sleeping, Annie?’ he asked mockingly. That’s what comes of having secrets.’

Damn you, she thought heatedly, but her soft heart went out to him. He might be the most awful rake God ever frowned on, but she loved him, and just now he must be hurting.

‘Goodnight, Jake,’ she said quietly.

‘Goodnight, Annie. See you in the morning. Oh, and Annie? Don’t think you’re going to win. I get what I want in the end, and make no mistake, I want you.’

‘I want you’. Three simple words, yet they had the power to ruin her entire night’s sleep!

It seemed she had hardly dozed off before she heard a knocking on the wall.

‘Rise and shine, sweetheart—seven-thirty!’

‘Go away,’ she mumbled, and through the wall she heard his soft laughter.

‘Not a morning person, are you, my darling?’

‘I’m not your darling!’ she said clearly, and, throwing back the bedclothes, she stumbled out into the frigid air.

Beth was still fast asleep, her dark lashes heavy on her softly flushed cheeks. Anne reached out a hand and stroked her hair back tenderly.

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