Temporary Parents

‘I repeat. I have my job—’

‘I’m sure Huggy Bear will give you leave under the circumstances,’ he said, sublimely relaxed and watching her as though she was unwittingly entertaining him.

Laura glared. ‘I’ve got two twenty-first birthdays, an eightieth and a silver wedding cake to make this week! Plus a business conference with one hundred men demanding treacle sponges and bread puddings!’

‘Sounds delicious—’

‘Stop patronising me!’ she flared. ‘I’m not part of some huge operation where someone can go off and not be missed! Luke and I need each other—’

‘Yes. I saw.’

Impatient with his curt condemnation, she brushed his sarcasm aside. ‘You’ll have to cope with the situation. I can’t let Luke down.’

‘He’d have to manage if you were ill,’ Max pointed out, angling his dark head in a ‘Mr Reasonable’ attitude. ‘What would happen then?’

‘He’d work overtime or call his sister in to help,’ she admitted. ‘But I couldn’t possibly ask him.’

Then I will. I doubt he’d refuse. He’d look too churlish, wouldn’t he?’

She wondered if Max ever took no for an answer. ‘OK! I need the money!’ she claimed, abandoning her pride and any pretence that she’d made good. He’d seen the flat, hadn’t he? There was no way he’d believe she was madly successful.

‘I’ll pay you.’ Max beamed as though that solved everything.

‘I wouldn’t take money from you if I was homeless and living in a cardboard box in a multi-storey car park in sub-zero temperatures!’ she yelled.

Instead of being suitably offended, he appeared to be fighting down a grin. His eyes positively twinkled at her. ‘Stalemate, I think. Unless you have any bright ideas?’

‘Yes. You could go and play uncle!’ she insisted, feeling hot and bothered.

He shrugged off that idea as ludicrous. ‘I’d probably poison them. I don’t know anything about kids.’

‘Neither do I!’ she cried, her voice quavering with emotion.

‘No?’

He folded his arms. They brushed against her breasts—and she had nowhere to go except through the chipboard door. She made herself as thin as possible, conscious of the heat building up between them. Her eyes pleaded with his. He didn’t budge an inch.

‘No. What would I know?’ she muttered, trying not to breathe heavily.

The dark eyes kindled with warmth. ‘Some women are naturally maternal. You were always looking after the village kids. I called you the Pied Piper, remember?’

Incapable of speech, Laura kept on staring at him as misery gathered like a huge knotted blanket in her throat. Max’s voice gentled and his mouth became unfairly soft and tender.

‘They hung around you as if you were their idol—’

‘No!’ she jerked out in surprise, shaking her dark head emphatically.

‘Of course you were. Didn’t you tell them stories? Invent adventure games? Teach them about the plants and birds and generally mother them—?’

‘They were older! Not infants in nappies,’ she broke in, harshness masking her distress. ‘Seven...nine, ten... I wouldn’t know the first thing a-about...’

She felt treacherous tears welling up and got rid of them through sheer will-power, squashing the fact that she’d boned up on babies once by reading everything she could lay her hands on. She’d wiped all that from her mind. She couldn’t look after little Kerenza. She just couldn’t. It would break her heart.

‘It’d come to you, what to do. You’re a woman,’ Max said, transparently pleased with his logic.

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake!’ she spat, livid with fury.

He touched her rigid shoulder lightly and she jerked his hand off with unaccustomed violence, the calming, protective sensation quite unnerving her.

‘I’m not being chauvinistic,’ he murmured. ‘Your sister aside, women have instincts. They’re genetically programmed to be caring and tender, and they notice things that we men would miss—’

‘Then you’ll just have to try harder, dig down deep and search for some stray shred of love and tenderness and apply it to this situation, won’t you?’ she flung.

‘Meaning?’ he asked quietly, his eyes boring into hers.

It delighted her that he’d been offended at last. ‘I think I’m being as clear as crystal. Work at it. Find your heart, crank it up and use it. It’d do you good.’

‘Hmm.’ For a brief moment, she thought Max was contemplating the idea. Then he shook his head. ‘It wouldn’t work. I’ve got no yardstick. I wouldn’t know about bedtimes or what to feed them.’ He adopted an earnest, searching look. ‘When can babies eat chips and stuff?’

‘You’re not that ignorant!’ she scathed. ‘Ask the fed-up friend when you get there. Do your charming act and she’ll willingly clue you up. In fact she’ll probably stay to help.’

He gave a short laugh. ‘Thanks for your faith in my powers of persuasion.’

‘You don’t need any abilities. You’re just good-looking,’ she snapped. ‘You don’t have to do anything, just stand about in masculine poses and look gorgeous.’ Appalled at her bitchiness, shamed by his stony silence, she blamed her venom on her shredded nerves.

‘Isn’t that look-ist or something?’ he asked tautly.

‘Not when it’s true. You’ve always relied on your appearance to get what you want.’

He studied her with interest, a dangerous glint in his dark, almost luminous eyes. ‘Shall we explore that statement further?’ he suggested, with menace lurking in every word.

‘No. I want to get the children settled!’ she replied, two glowing splashes of colour on her cheeks. The last thing she wanted was a rerun of her helpless crush on him. ‘Max, give it a try,’ she pleaded. ‘You know you could persuade the friend to stay.’

‘Perhaps,’ he conceded. ‘Though I doubt it would be a good move. If she’s prepared to abandon the kids, then she’s the usual sort of person Fay and Daniel gather around them.’

‘You can’t generalise...’

‘I’m drawing a reasonable conclusion, given the facts,’ he drawled. ‘Fay attracts people like her. Fickle. Fey. It wouldn’t surprise me if this friend doesn’t have the first idea about looking after children. Laura, I know from what Daniel told me that you’ve never seen the kids—’

‘Have you?’ she shot back, so sensitive about that fact that she took his remark for a reproach.

‘No. I imagine we’ve missed out for the same reasons. Fay and Daniel have spent the whole of their married life travelling around the back lanes of Britain and picking up their welfare cheques. It’s been almost impossible to keep in touch. Laura, think about this again. Perran would be easily catered for. Treat him as if he’s older, like a seven-year-old without any sense. As for Kerenza, well, babies sleep and eat a lot...don’t they?’ he asked uncertainly. ‘If your sister can cope, anyone can. I’m sure it’s no big deal, looking after them.’

‘I have a better idea. Your best bet is to employ a nanny. Go down and make friends with the children then introduce the nanny—make sure she’s kind,’ she said anxiously, ‘and—’

‘A nanny! That’s a brilliant idea!’ he said, much to her surprise. ‘Only...there’s a flaw in it. I wouldn’t have the first idea about the qualities a nanny should have,’ Max admitted. He studied her anxious, uptight figure and suddenly seemed to be hit by inspiration. ‘Wait a minute!’ he cried, his face creasing into smiles.

Laura took the full force of his charisma and felt a sucking sensation in the pit of her stomach. ‘Why should I?’ she asked ungraciously.

‘I have a compromise solution.’ He extended the smile to one of his dazzling grins.

She frowned, knowing perfectly well that he believed he could get anything from anyone if he just put on that open-faced, beguiling expression.

‘What?’

‘We both go down to Cornwall—’

‘Both? You and me?’ she squeaked, aghast.

‘I wasn’t thinking of asking Luke!’ he replied, his eyes sparkling with humour.

‘The answer’s no.’

‘Laura, we can reassure the children and hand out sweets or whatever you do—’

‘No.’

‘And stay till we’ve found a nanny with your help—’

‘No!’ Would he never accept that as her answer?

‘That couldn’t possibly take more than a few days,’ he went on, unwittingly responding to her silent question. ‘I’ll then fly to Marrakesh and pull a few strings so Daniel and Fay are released.’ And, with what was plainly a carefully judged, coaxing smile, he added softly, ‘It’s either that or the children must go into care. I leave it to you to decide.’

‘Oh, thanks.’

He didn’t know what he was asking. He wanted her to look after his son. She might as well stick knives into herself and be done with it.

She stared gloomily at her feet. From his casualness about Perran’s welfare, it was obvious that Max didn’t know he was the boy’s father. Fay had kept her secret and that was a small consolation.

But...it would be a terrible strain to do what he suggested. She’d be cooped up in a tiny cottage with Max, his child, and a little baby. More worrying, she’d want to cuddle the children and love them—but if she did she’d get terribly hurt.

She’d be forced to watch Max taking his turn—because she’d insist—in rocking the children to sleep or reading them bedtime stories. Simulated parenthood. The reality she could never have. The situation would be too poignant and it would create too many new scars.

No. Impossible.

A few days of longing, heartache, loving. Then emptiness again. The ultimate in masochism.

‘What’s it to be? Your needs or theirs?’ drawled Max cruelly.

Her spiky black lashes flicked up and there was a mute appeal in her brimming Wedgwood-blue eyes.

‘I—I...can’t! I—’ Her voice cracked up and she jammed shut her trembling mouth.

Max’s superficially genial expression changed in an instant. Charm was replaced by tensile steel. ‘It’s Luke, isn’t it?’ he demanded roughly. ‘God! You’re faced with a choice between your sister’s kids and your boyfriend and you choose him? He means that much to you?’

‘Stop browbeating me! I have to think this through,’ she said shakily, abandoning her door-barring pose and walking with unnatural care to sit tensely on the arm of a chair.

‘How long do you need to decide?’ he demanded.

‘I don’t know!’

‘It’s at least a five-hour drive there,’ he pointed out in grim tones. ‘I’d like us to leave in a few minutes. The friend ought to introduce us to Perran before his bedtime. The kiddie would be bewildered and frightened if he woke to find two strangers in the house claiming to be his aunt and uncle.’

So he did have some human concern after all. And he was right. She had to make a snap decision. Her hand wove its way through her hair, mussing it up thoroughly. Her heart was leaping erratically at the prospect that she’d be playing mummies and daddies with Max.

Unable to cope, she slid sideways into the chair and landed with a thump. Untangling her legs and twitching her short skirt back in place, she said with a weird huskiness, ‘You’re asking too much.’

‘No.’ Max folded his arms. ‘Your sister is. She always does.’

‘You really dislike her, don’t you?’ she accused.

‘utterly.’

She glared at his uncompromising agreement. It had been Daniel who’d led Fay astray, Daniel who’d got them into the travelling scene and introduced Fay to drugs. Fay had told her everything.

‘What about your brother?’ she said, rounding on Max, determined not to let an injustice pass. ‘He could have stopped this jaunt if he’d wanted. He’s equally guilty of deserting his children for his own selfish needs—’

‘You’re evading the issue,’ Max reminded her. He pulled out an ultra-slim mobile phone from his inside breast pocket. ‘I’m not wasting any more valuable time. I can ring Directory Enquiries and get the children’s officer to go along and pick the kids up. They’ll be off our hands. An easy solution. What do you think?’

‘You brute!’

‘Practical, though.’ He began to punch numbers. ‘Hello? Directory Enquiries...?’

She shuddered, staring into space. Perran was only four. A total stranger would haul him and his baby sister off to live in some regimented institution. However caring it might be, she doubted that Fay had ever imparted any discipline to her children and it would be a total culture shock.

He rang off, a piece of paper in his hand with a phone number hastily scrawled on it. ‘Do I call them or not?’

A heaviness claimed her limbs as she slumped further in the seat. She had no option. Whatever her feelings, the needs of the children came first. She’d do her best for their sakes.

Pale and tense, her eyes almost silver as she tried to face the stark choice she was having to make, she met Max’s inscrutable gaze and steeled herself to the decision.

‘I’ll have to take my parrot.’

Max visibly relaxed. ‘You can take the entire contents of this flat, if you like, but get moving!’

She felt the whole of her body shaking. She was so weak that she knew it would be an effort to get up.

‘Just Fred,’ she said in a small, unhappy voice.

‘You’ll be back before you know it,’ Max said gruffly. ‘Do you want to ring your mother and let her know?’

‘She’s in New Zealand,’ Laura said, her face soft with affection. And, knowing Max would be astonished that her mother had left her beloved Cornwall, added, ‘She met a tourist from Auckland a couple of years ago and fell in love. They’re very happy,’

‘I’m very pleased—and not at all surprised. She’s a lovely lady. Very caring, well-liked.’ He paused. ‘So there’s only Luke here for you. I can imagine,’ he conceded, ‘how you feel, having to leave someone you care for.’ There was a moment’s silence as though he was thinking of something in his own past. ‘Still, look on the bright side—Luke will realise how much he misses you. That’s always good for a relationship between lovers, isn’t it?’

She stared at him dumbly. Leaving aside the fact that she didn’t have that kind of a relationship with Luke, no, it wasn’t a good thing. When men went away they found new partners. You couldn’t trust them. Out of sight, out of mind. She was so miserable that she didn’t bother to disillusion him about Luke. She didn’t have the energy.

‘I’d better tell him,’ she said wearily.

He put up a hand to stop her. ‘No. I’ll explain. You pack. I want to get on the road immediately—we’ve wasted too much time haggling as it is.’

‘You really believed I’d leap at the chance to babysit, didn’t you?’ Resentful of his assumption and bossiness, Laura heaved herself out of the chair.

‘Of course I did. You always adored kids. I’m surprised you haven’t had any,’ he said, striding to the door and thus not noticing her expression of anguish. ‘Throw some things into a case and I’ll be up to carry your stuff down while you’re saying your goodbyes to Huggy Bear.’

Laura doubled over when he’d gone, burying her face in her hands. She felt ice-cold and sick. This was going to be worse than she’d thought.

For a few moments she breathed deeply. It didn’t do much for her wobbly legs, but the nausea eased. Experimentally she staggered to her feet and, barely able to walk a straight line, she dragged out her suitcase from under the bed. And stared at it helplessly, the seconds and minutes ticking away in the silence.

The last time she’d used the case had been for her escape from Port Isaac, pregnant, afraid, bound for her aunt’s house in distant London—a city she’d never visited in her whole, unworldly life. So scared, so miserable and ashamed...

Her mother had stayed to keep an eye on Fay. Not very successfully...

So much had happened since then. She knelt on the floor, remembering how desperately lonely she’d felt. The week before she’d fled, Max had gone to Paris on business and his parents had turned up, their kind faces full of sympathy for her as they’d explained about the beautiful, sophisticated fiancée waiting for him and how upset they were that Max had sown his wild oats with a decent village girl.

Almost immediately afterwards she’d known she was pregnant. Swearing her mother and Fay to secrecy, she’d gone to London. The noise, the traffic, the greyness had punched into her like a fist. She’d cried herself to sleep every night with homesickness.

‘Need help?’

‘Oh, Luke, I—!’ Longing to confide her fears, she turned around in an almost desperate relief—and then clammed up.

Max was standing next to her boss, a tight frown of irritation on his handsome face. He looked taut, poised like a wound-up spring ready to snap, an air of grim determination about him as if he was coming to a major decision about something then and there.

‘Luke says it’s OK for you to go.’

He met her eyes in an unspoken challenge. She shrank back, suddenly afraid. When her glance slanted to Luke, she was aware that Max’s chest inflated with an inexplicable anger. It couldn’t be jealousy—what did he care? Something else, then. Laura swallowed nervously, drawn back to Max’s face as if by a magnet.

The contrast between the two men was striking. Luke, for all his size, seemed to pale into insignificance, dwarfed by Max’s compelling darkness.

Her eyes remained fixed on Max’s beautifully sculpted features even when Luke came over and knelt beside her, taking her hands in his.

‘Do you think you can cope?’ he asked quietly.

‘I’ll be fine—’

‘I’m not asking her to run an orphanage single-handed!’ scathed Max.

Laura raised her eyes comically to heaven to show Luke that she was equal to anything Max threw at her. ‘Known for his charm,’ she said drily, and Luke grinned in transparent relief. She leapt to her feet, determined not to show her true emotions. ‘Right. Get Fred into his travelling cage,’ she ordered Max, ‘while I pack and tell Luke about the cakes I was supposed to be baking.’

‘I’ve got the list.’ Luke lumbered to his feet too, and pulled the paper from his pocket. ‘I’ll manage fine.’

There was a furious screech from Fred and an even angrier one from Max. Serves him right, Laura thought, and turned around, all innocent enquiry.

‘Did he bite?’ she asked, inanely, since Max was sucking his knuckle and hurling a look to kill at Fred.

‘You know damn well he did,’ Max said, flashing her a look of pure menace from beneath his black brows.

Luke exchanged glances with Laura and chuckled, then ambled over and coochie-cooed Fred, who did his little dance and meekly stepped onto Luke’s hand.

‘In you go,’ he said. ‘I’ll get his food tin, shall I, Laura?’

‘Please,’ she answered vaguely, grabbing handfuls of underwear and flinging them in the direction of her case before moving on to the wardrobe. Old jumpers, jeans...they found their way—well, almost their way—to the suitcase.

When she’d finished and began collecting up her wash bag and make-up, she found that Max was grimly folding her clothes and organising everything sensibly, her shoes being neatly stuffed with briefs and bras...

‘Max,’ she pleaded faintly, disturbed by seeing him touching her most intimate things. ‘Leave that!’

‘I’m trying to get some urgency into the proceedings!’ He shot her a baleful glance. ‘Time is ticking away. I think we must leave.’

Feeling as if a lighted fuse was burning inside her, she dragged her jacket on, grabbed her study folder and pushed books into a plastic carrier bag.

‘I’m ready.’

They all trooped downstairs with their respective loads, and the two men, bristling like rival dogs, packed the dark-chocolate Range Rover which Max had arrogantly left parked on the pavement. Fred screamed in protest at his disturbed routine until Laura cooed to him and threw the night cover over his cage.

‘Say your goodbyes,’ Max ordered curtly, his head stuck under the bonnet, checking the oil level.

Luke drew her into the shop out of sight behind the pasty display. Lord! she thought shakily. She’d be eating Cornish-baked ones in a few hours!

‘You going to be OK? He said a couple of days—’

‘No trouble. I’ve got his measure,’ she pretended. ‘And I’m sorry to muck you about. I’ll be back as soon as I can.’

‘I know that,’ reassured Luke. ‘I’ll be thinking of you. The kiddies need you more than I do. And if you want a friendly ear...’ he fumbled in his waistcoat pocket and brought out a card. ‘This is my home number. My wife’ll be only too glad to chat. She’s one in a million, Laura. You can trust her to understand.’

‘Thanks. You’ve been terrific.’

She reached up and gave him a hesitant kiss on the cheek, and hurried out, wondering if she’d ever regain complete control of her legs again.

Max, ever the superficial gentleman whatever his mood, was holding open the car door for her. It was on the driver’s side. Tucking Luke’s card into her jacket pocket, she looked at him questioningly.

‘I have to make a few calls while we’re going along,’ he explained.

He took her elbow, and she wondered what had made his voice so husky and laced his eyes with...pain? That couldn’t be right—unless he felt nervous about looking after two children. She hoped he was in for a steep learning curve.

‘You drive,’ he prompted.

Laura dragged her mind back to his request. ‘I can’t!’

He was staggered. ‘You...can’t...drive?’

‘It’s not that unusual, surely? I came here straight from home when I was eighteen, remember?’ she replied huffily. He was acting as though driving was essential for anyone who wanted to be regarded as belonging to the human race! ‘You don’t need a car in London. It’s almost stupid to have a car in London. There was never the need.’

‘Hell.’

He stalked around to the passenger side and waited while she struggled up the high steps, flashing, she was sure, a long length of leg.

Not that it would look at all enticing, she remembered with a silent groan. It would have been taken up almost entirely by a ragged ladder, and she wasn’t sure whether she was pleased or dismayed.

They were through Kensington and Chiswick and on the M4 before she’d even steadied her pulses. Max had always been a masterful driver. With every mile they clocked up, his mood lifted a little further and he stopped scowling.

Laura found herself watching how he handled the vehicle, admiring his confidence and quick reactions. He didn’t get angry when other drivers vacillated or invented their own versions of the Highway Code, but dealt decisively with each situation as it came up. He’d be good in a crisis, she thought absently. She stored away that information without knowing why.

‘OK,’ he said, easing himself comfortably in his seat as he cruised past everything in sight. She didn’t like the sound of that OK. There was an air of resolution about it. She gripped the edge of her seat and was surprised when all he said was ‘Lunch.’

‘Are we stopping?’ she asked, confused.

‘It’s in the glove box. I asked Luke to put something in a bag for us.’

Laura cautiously flicked the catch and extracted a ‘Saucy Sandwich’ carton. Two Cornish pasties, smoked salmon on brown bread sandwiches—probably with lemon—chocolate éclairs and an assortment of chocolate bon bons.

‘My favourites! Good old Luke,’ she exclaimed fondly.

‘To hell with Luke. Feed me,’ Max ordered, concentrating on the road.

She sighed audibly, like a martyr forced to do yet another penance, and thrust the pasty in the general direction of his face.

‘Break off bits,’ he instructed.

Driving seemed to take up all his attention. She’d never seen anyone so intent on the traffic before. Certain that this was part of some game he’d devised, she deliberately passed him a chunk of the crimped end which was just pastry and no filling.

Keeping his eyes on the road, he lifted his hand from the steering wheel and closed it over hers, like Ronald Coleman accepting a cigarette from Bette Davis in an old black and white movie.

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