Promise Of A Family

She did not start work straight away, however, but thought back to her meeting with Jack Dangerfield. Though in actual fact it had been more a mutual ruffling up of antagonistic feathers than a meeting! Hardly a meeting either, since it had been none of his making but more his initial halting when she had planted herself full-square in front of him on that pavement.

Leyne was not ashamed of what she had done. It was he who should be ashamed. How dared he deny paternity of Pip? Notwithstanding that they both had the same raven-black hair, one only had to look into those same green eyes to see the resemblance.

How could he walk away? Just like that! While it seemed true that he’d had no idea of Pip’s existence until she had told him of his daughter, to walk off the way he had was inexcusable.

Well, he needn’t think he could fob her off with his condescending ‘My PA will contact you’! She would give him a few days, a week at the most, and if she hadn’t heard from him by next Monday she would again be waiting for him when he came out from J. Dangerfield, Engineers.

Leyne’s resolve to do just that was stiffened when, on collecting Pip and apologising for altering their usual end-of-school-day arrangement, Pip gave her one of her serious looks.

‘What was the hold-up?’ she wanted to know. Oh, crumbs. Leyne glanced at her raven-haired niece, but before she could make any reply, Pip, taking a deep breath, was plunging on, ‘Was it something to do with my father?’

‘Oh, darling,’ Leyne cried. That direct look was there in Pip’s eyes again. How could she lie to her? ‘I’ve—been making enquiries,’ she answered.

‘And?’

As she should have known, Pip would not leave it there. ‘And I’m sorry, love, it’s still going to take some while.’

‘But you’re a bit further forward?’

‘Um—yes,’ Leyne had to admit, and felt as guilty as the devil when a beaming smile broke over her niece’s earnest expression.

‘When you do find out who my father is, will you arrange for me to meet him?’ she asked—and Leyne’s heart sank.

She had no idea how long Pip had been nurturing a need to not only know who her father was but, as Pip’s grandmother had said, would want to meet him too. But it seemed to Leyne then that the least she could do would be to prepare her for the fact that her father was trying to deny that he was her father.

Leyne pulled her to her and gave her a hug. ‘You have to be prepared for disappointment, darling,’ she said gently.

‘How?’ Pip looked puzzled, clearly not understanding.

‘Beautiful though you are, sweetheart, he—um—may not want to meet you.’

Pip’s answer was to break out into a huge grin. ‘He will,’ she said confidently. ‘I know he will. I feel it. I—just—feel it.’ Another huge grin, and, ‘Would you like me to make you some coffee?’

Oh, heavens. Leyne wondered how the child could be so sure, feel so sure her father would want to meet her, when she had attained the age of eleven and he had never bothered to look her up. Pip was not to know that Jack Dangerfield had not—up until today—even known he had fathered a daughter, much less that he was denying even knowing her mother.

Not for the first time Leyne wished that her sister was home, so Max could make the delicate decisions that had to be made.

But, as though conjuring her up, Max rang that night. Though Leyne did not get to know it had been Max until it was too late.

Leyne was in the study at work, intent with complicated matter on her computer, when the phone rang. Absently she reached for it and then heard Pip call, ‘I’ll get it.’ Leyne smiled. Her niece, on her way to bed, may have said ‘bye’ to her friend Alice only an hour ago, but they still had lots to say to each other.

Unusually, Pip was not on the phone for very long, but only a few minutes later came into the study. ‘That was Mummy,’ she said happily. And, as Leyne instinctively reached for the phone extension, ‘She’s gone,’ Pip informed her. ‘Mum said she was in a great hurry, so it was just a snatched call from the nearest landline before they went off again, and goodness knows when she will be able to ring again. She said sorry not to have rung before, but she couldn’t ring us on her mobile because she lost it in the river. She said to give you her love and a hug and to tell you that the beast’—that would be Ben Turnbull, Leyne guessed— ‘has mellowed a bit, though wasn’t too chuffed when she dropped some of his stuff in the river too.’

There was so much Leyne wanted to ask her sister, but it was too late now. ‘Happy, chick?’ she asked softly.

Pip nodded. ‘I wanted to ask Mum about my father—but I couldn’t,’ she confessed. ‘And then Mum said she had to charge off, and something about tribes and the Amazon, but that she just wanted to hear my lovely voice before she and her knight in tarnished armour tried to catch up on a slipped timetable.’

Pip went to bed elated that her mother had made contact, blissfully unaware of the agitation of her aunt’s thoughts.

While Leyne realised that her sister’s lost telephone explained why her phone had been unanswered each time she had tried to contact her, Leyne could not help but wish that Max had rung ten minutes later than she had. If she’d done that then Pip would have been in bed and Leyne would have been able to have some kind of a private conversation with her. A conversation where she could have asked her what she wanted her to do with regard to Pip wanting to know, and meet, her father.

Leyne realised that it was because Max had wanted a few snatched words with Pip before her daughter went to bed that she had rung at the time she had. And, recalling Pip’s overjoyed face, Leyne felt mean that she would have preferred in this particular instance if Max had phoned at some other time. As it was, heaven alone knew when she would ring again.

Leyne’s thoughts drifted to the man who, it was becoming more and more evident, had not been informed that he was a father. What had gone wrong between her sister and Jack Dangerfield Leyne had no clue, but perhaps he was lying. Remembering his astonishment, somehow Leyne did not think he was. Up until today he’d had absolutely no idea that his time with Max had resulted in a daughter.

A daughter he was trying to deny. Well, tough! It was about time he faced up to his responsibilities. The fact that, as chairman of J. Dangerfield, Engineers, he must be a very responsible person had nothing to do with it. Responsible in business he might be; the same could not be said for his private life!

Dianne Gardner was called away again early the next morning, and said she was likely to be away for a couple of days. She was worried because her ex-husband was too committed to have Alice with him, but Leyne assured her there was no need to worry and that she would be pleased to have Alice stay with them. Dropping the girls off at school on Tuesday, Leyne drove on to her office and delivered the work she had finished the previous evening. Explaining that she needed to work from home, she stuffed her briefcase with enough work to keep her busy for the next two days.

As it happened, it suited her very well to work from home. Should Jack Dangerfield’s PA ring, she would be there to take the call.

That call did not come, and by Thursday Leyne had formed the opinion that this had gone on long enough! Only last evening she had glanced up and found Pip’s eyes on her, silently asking the question, Is there any news yet?

Feeling uptight herself as she drove to her office, Leyne could only imagine how much worse it must be for her young niece. That being so, the minute she had the office to herself, she rang the offices of J. Dangerfield, Engineers, and went through the same procedure as before.

This time, though, when she heard voice number three, she changed it slightly. ‘My name is Leyne Rowberry,’ she said firmly. ‘I would like to speak with Mr Dangerfield.’

‘Just one moment, Miss Rowberry. I’ll see if he’s available,’ the efficient-sounding voice answered to her surprise.

Leyne waited, fully expecting to be told that Mr Dangerfield was in Timbuktu, or somewhere equally unlikely, when, to her further surprise, the next voice she heard—was his!

‘Miss Rowberry,’ he said.

‘Mr Dangerfield,’ she replied, and was stumped for the moment by the realisation that she must have previously been talking to his PA, who must know something of her to have let her through her screening position.

‘You rang me?’ he reminded her when she had nothing to add.

‘You were going to contact me!’ she reminded him, hostility starting to enter her tone.

‘I was?’

His PA had been going to, so he said. It was the same thing. ‘Are you playing with me?’ she demanded.

‘Now, there’s a thought,’ he drawled. And while she was chewing on that, and at the same time striving for control—there was more at stake here than the personal antagonism she felt towards this man—his tone suddenly changed to be all tough businessman. ‘You expect me to take you seriously?’ he questioned shortly.

‘Yes, I do!’ she retorted bluntly. ‘There is more here than you and me. I’ve a vulnerable eleven-year-old in my care who is daily hoping I can tell her who her father is!’

There was a pause, as though Jack Dangerfield was taking on board what she had just said. Then, his tone more reasonable, ‘From my point of view, Miss Rowberry, I have told you as plainly as I know how that I am not the child’s father. You, clearly, do not believe me. So why don’t you tell me what makes you so convinced that I am?’ He paused again, but only to come back to demand, ‘You’re trying to tell me that she carries my family’s birthmark?’

‘No, I’m not! Pip doesn’t have a birthmark!’

‘Which is in your favour—there isn’t one.’

‘Are you trying to trip me up?’

‘You’re trying to get me to admit to something that I know is untrue,’ he reminded her. ‘Again I ask—why are you so sure that I fathered the child?’

‘I asked my mother.’

‘Not the child’s mother?’

‘The child’s name is Philippa! We call her Pip!’ Leyne flared, feeling awkward suddenly, but starting to object to her niece being discussed as though she were a parcel. ‘And I told you that her mother is out of the country and likely to be for some while. And that is why I asked my mother.’

‘You were obviously too young when I was—er—sowing my wild oats, but you—’

‘Look here, you!’ Leyne erupted. ‘My sister is not some—some scrubber. She is a responsible and a loving person. And she would not have gone with you for some—er—cheap thrill. You would have meant something to her, and I’m not having you talking as if—’

‘So she told your mother I was the child’s father?’ He cut through her tirade.

Leyne counted to ten. ‘Max did not have to tell her. You were the only man my sister was dating at the time!’

‘I see,’ he said, but was obviously just mulling over in his mind what Leyne had just told him. ‘Then it seems to me,’ he concluded, ‘that I had better come and have a word with your mother.’

‘What for?’ All of Leyne’s protective hackles rose up. ‘My mother doesn’t live with us. But, anyway, my mother has never met you.’

‘I never called at your home for your sister?’

‘You know you did! Only you never came into the house.’

‘Did I never meet your father either?’ He was starting to sound sceptical—as he had last Monday.

‘I don’t think so. It was around that time that my father fell ill—he died less than a year later.’

There was a brief pause, then Jack Dangerfield threw her completely with his next question. ‘Who do you live with?’ he wanted to know.

‘Who…?’ She just wasn’t with him.

‘You said you didn’t live with your mother,’ he replied patiently—as though she were the eleven-year-old under discussion. ‘Are you living with someone—some man?’

‘No!’ she answered abruptly. ‘It’s just Pip and me, and Max when she’s home. We live in the family home—my mother’s home. She thought it best that we stayed put when she remarried four years ago.’ Thanks to their mother allowing them to live there rent-free, they were able to cope financially most of the time. ‘But this isn’t getting anything settled and…’

‘And I’m a busy man.’

He could run if he thought she was going to apologise for interrupting his day. ‘So too am I busy!’ she snapped.

‘You work and look after the—Philippa?’

‘It’s no hardship, and I’m able to work from home when necessary,’ she replied. And, as a sudden dreadful thought struck her, ‘I’m not after your money!’ she told him hurriedly. ‘Please don’t think that for a minute. Pip has everything she needs, I promise you. It’s just that…’ her voice softened ‘…that she’s reached an age where her mind is starting to be more enquiring. And what she wants to know more than anything is who her father is.’ Leyne gave a heartfelt sigh. ‘It could not have come at a worse time.’

‘I can see that,’ Jack Dangerfield commented, and sounded as if he understood.

So much so that Leyne found she was telling him, ‘Not only that, but Pip wants to meet him.’

Instantly Jack Dangerfield’s tone changed. ‘You can count me out on that one!’ he rapped sharply.

‘Trust me, I’d want to know a lot more about you before I let you within a mile of her!’ Leyne retorted.

‘Good!’ he barked. But sounded a touch more polite when he enquired, ‘So what is it you want from me, Miss Rowberry?’

‘I want to be able to tell my niece the name of her father.’

‘Can’t you just tell her he died? That he fell off a cliff or something?’

‘I’m not going to lie about something like that!’ Leyne gasped, appalled at the very suggestion. But, realising belatedly that he probably already knew that, and was most likely just winding her up, ‘You are just not taking this seriously,’ she flared, starting to get furious with this man.

‘Believe me, I find it very difficult to take any of this too seriously,’ he shot back at her. And, before she could say another word, ‘Tell me, where is your sister—correction, your half-sister—now?’

‘I’ve told you. Abroad. She’s a photographer. She’s working all over on this trip.’

‘She frequently travels overseas?’

‘No,’ Leyne admitted. ‘This is her biggest opportunity. When she was asked to assist Ben Turnbull, Max—’

‘She’s with Ben Turnbull? She must be good,’ Jack Dangerfield cut in, clearly having heard of him.

‘She is. She said she wouldn’t go at first. But neither Pip nor I would hear of that.’

‘So she went—and left you to rear her child.’

‘It’s not like that!’ Leyne flew, not liking the way he was making it sound as though Max was running out on her responsibilities. ‘I’ve lived with and helped look after Pip since she was born. She’s almost as much a part of me as she is my sister. It just isn’t any problem taking care of her.’

‘It sounds to me as though you do have a problem.’

Leyne bit her lip. ‘We just hadn’t anticipated that Pip would want to know—’

‘If I’m reading this correctly,’ Jack Dangerfield cut in, ‘the child—Pip—is not going to be satisfied in meekly accepting any male name you pull out of the hat.’

‘It’s you!’ Leyne erupted. ‘It’s your name, not just any man—’

‘It seems to me,’ he again cut in, ignoring her anger and sounding tough again, ‘that you’d better contact your sister and get her to come clean about what she’s been up to. It—’

‘What kind of man are you?’ Leyne exploded. ‘If you had any decency at all, you’d—’

‘It’s because I do have a sense of decency that I’m bothering to speak to you now while my other calls are backing up,’ he chopped her off curtly. ‘As it is, I think I’ve given this—matter—far more time than could decently be expected of me. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll—’

‘Don’t you dare put that phone down on me!’ Leyne blazed, knowing he was about to do just that. ‘I don’t know what went wrong between you and Max that makes you so determined to deny paternity, and I don’t want to know, but—’

‘I’m a busy man, Miss Rowberry.’ He unapologetically interrupted her furious flow. ‘I’ll call and see you in my free time.’

‘No, you won’t!’ she erupted, panic-stricken for the moment.

‘I’ll phone you first,’ he informed her, and, whether she liked it or whether she didn’t—and she didn’t—he terminated the call.

For several minutes afterwards no name was too bad for him. But as her fury subsided she wondered if he meant what he’d said and would call and see her. Fear that he might come face-to-face with Pip began to surge upward, but then Leyne comprehended that by saying he would phone first Jack Dangerfield meant that he would take jolly good care that Pip was not around when he called.

Admitting to feeling very frustrated by the whole business, Leyne began to ponder what she had hoped to get from her phone call to him anyway. She was not yet ready for him and Pip to meet, so supposed that, while wanting him to admit to being Pip’s father, she had also wanted to let off steam that neither he—nor his PA—had been in touch.

Keith Collins stepping into her office and asking her out momentarily took thoughts of Jack Dangerfield from her mind. Keith was at his charming best, reminding Leyne of why she liked him. ‘I thought you’d had enough,’ she answered with a grin.

‘I haven’t begun to have nearly enough yet,’ he replied, adopting a lecherous look.

Leyne had to laugh. ‘As it happens, I’m fairly sure I can be free tomorrow night,’ she accepted, and later phoned Dianne to ask if she could drop Pip off on her way out.

Dianne was only too willing, and Leyne began to look forward to an evening out with Keith. As it would be a Friday, with no school the next day, it would not matter if Pip was late going to bed.

As usual Leyne checked for telephone messages as soon as they arrived home, but telephone messages there were none. Nor did Jack Dangerfield phone that evening. And by morning, as she did the school run with Pip and Alice, Leyne was starting to get cross that she had obviously been fobbed off yet again.

The light of battle entered her eyes when there was no message left on the phone when she arrived home that evening. But she had neither Jack Dangerfield’s home phone number nor his home address, and there was nothing she could do about it until Monday.

Keith Collins did not appear entirely ecstatic when he learned that his evening with Leyne was going to end well before midnight. But, like the normally nice person she thought he was, he appeared to have accepted that if he wanted to date her, it had to be on her terms.

All of which made her warm to him as they dropped her niece off at Dianne’s house and drove on to the eating establishment he had chosen.

Leyne enjoyed her meal, and enjoyed his company. She enjoyed too, because they would soon be picking up Pip, his kiss in the restaurant car park.

‘Are you sure you haven’t time to come back to my place for coffee?’ he asked warmly.

Time to back away. ‘I’m sure,’ she replied pleasantly, and moved towards his car.

She was up early the next morning. Pip always got her swimming gear together herself, but Leyne always liked to check she had everything. Having just driven her car out of the garage, she had just closed the garage doors when Pip came out and said that Alice’s mother was on the phone. Returning to the house, Leyne went to have a word with Dianne.

‘Would you mind if I took the girls this morning?’ Dianne asked. And in a quieter tone—so little ears must have been about, ‘Alice is keen to show me how many lengths of the pool she can swim, and I get the impression that I’ll be the most heartless mother in the world if I don’t go along.’

Leyne said she did not mind one little bit, and, with the whole morning free once she had waved Pip goodbye, Leyne got out the vacuum cleaner and set about a chore she did not care very much for but, since she could not live in an unkempt house, was a necessary one.

She had just switched the machine off, however, when the telephone rang. Max? Leyne made a dive for it. ‘Jack Dangerfield,’ said a voice she was beginning to recognise, and for a moment she did not know if she was glad or sorry it was him.

‘Good of you to ring,’ she said, none too prettily.

‘I said I would,’ he replied urbanely. ‘I can be with you shortly if it’s convenient?’

About to abruptly tell him he was lucky to find her in, she halted. She was the instigator here. And by ‘convenient’ he meant if Pip was not around. ‘As it happens Pip will be out until around twelve-thirty,’ Leyne informed him, and did not have to say more apparently, because the line went dead.

And that niggled her. How soon was shortly, for goodness’ sake? He knew where they lived from her letter, obviously, but not a word of enquiry as to how to find her address.

A second or two later she was realising that, as opposed to her car, which was creakily on its last legs, he probably had an up-to-the-minute car that included satellite navigation amongst its many refinements. All he had to do was to key in the postcode she had written and he would be on his way. Though a few seconds after that and she was calling herself all sorts of an idiot. Of course he knew the address. He had driven a car to this address some twelve years or so before—to call for Max!

Jack Dangerfield certainly hadn’t had any difficulty finding their home anyway, as was proved when, not much more than five minutes later, barely giving her time to do more than put the vacuum cleaner away, Leyne saw a smart black car pull up on the drive and park behind her car. She owned to experiencing a flurry of activity in her insides—she wasn’t ready to see him.

She found a need to check on her appearance, and quickly dived into the downstairs cloakroom. The mirror there showed her long fair hair pulled back from her face, and large blue eyes looking back. Leyne had a hand up, ready to take the band from her hair before—for goodness’ sake, she fumed impatiently—the doorbell sounded and she went to answer it with her hair left as it had been.

‘You found us all right,’ she murmured, remembering her manners as she invited him into her home. He ignored her sociable enquiry. She wondered why she had bothered. ‘Come into the sitting room,’ she said, polite still, and led the way. ‘Would you like coffee?’ she stayed polite to enquire civilly.

He shook his head. ‘I want to be away long before twelve-thirty,’ he replied succinctly.

Well, he needn’t bother. She wanted him out of her home long before Dianne dropped Pip off. Determined to stay civilised, Leyne took a seat on one of the several easy chairs in the room, and relaxed a little when he followed suit. Jack Dangerfield was tall, and somehow, even sitting down, he still seemed to dominate the room.

Leyne was staring at his jet-back hair, her gaze flitting to his eyes, green, and identical to those of her niece, when he interrupted her inventory. ‘Your niece is out somewhere, you said?’

Quickly Leyne gathered herself together. ‘She and her friend Alice more often than not swim on a Saturday morning,’ she replied. And, lest he should think his daughter neglected in any way—for all he had not yet admitted to being Pip’s father, ‘Dianne, Alice’s mother, and I have an arrangement where one or other of us does the ferrying around. Dianne will keep an eye on the girls this morning.’

She could have saved herself the breath, Leyne realised—he was not the least bit interested. ‘You’re still insisting that I’m the child’s father?’

That same raven hair! Those same green eyes! Add that to what her mother had told her. ‘There’s no doubt about it in my mind,’ she answered firmly.

Jack Dangerfield favoured her with an impatient look. Clearly he did not want a daughter foisted on him, particularly a daughter he had never known about. ‘Her mother’s abroad?’ he questioned.

She had already told him that! ‘South America at the moment,’ Leyne informed him.

‘I thought you said she was in Australia,’ he threw her by stating.

Leyne blinked—where had Australia come from? ‘No, I didn’t!’ she replied sharply.