Penny Jordan (20 page)

'Oh, Max, no one would expect you to do that,'

Jenny told him.

'Maybe not,' Max acknowledged quietly, 'But I'd certainly expect it of myself.'

As
HE TURNED
into the narrow street with its mixture of medieval, Tudor and Georgian buildings, Jack began searching for the door he wanted, examining the houses until he saw the one he was looking for.

It had been dark when they dropped Annalise off last night, but he still recognised it.

When he woke up this morning, the last thing on his mind, the last
person
on his mind, had been her. But then Joss had persuaded him into going to church. As boys, they had both sung in the choir, and although Jack was loath to admit it, there was something comfortable and familiar about the age-old ritual of being inside the ancient church with its unique scent of damp stone, wood, velvet and flowers.

Whilst Joss was talking with his sister Katie, her husband Seb and their delightful—if quite a handful—twin sons, Jack had seen his chance and slipped away.

The street was empty. A little hesitantly, he approached the house and rang the bell.

Annalise jumped nervously as she heard the doorbell ring, her hopes soaring that maybe Pete had had a change of heart and come round to beg her forgiveness.

Her father, fortunately, was out and her two brothers were squabbling heatedly over the computer.

Quickly pulling the clip out of her blonde hair, she smoothed it down with trembling fingers and hurried to the door. When she opened it to see Jack standing on the doorstep, the excitement faded from her eyes.

'What do you want?' she demanded ungraciously.

Shrugging dismissively, Jack told her tersely,

'Nothing. I just happened to be walking past, so I thought I'd call and see if you were all right.'

'All right? Why shouldn't I be?' Annalise challenged him defensively.

It was bad enough that her visitor wasn't Pete, but for it to be Jack Crighton and for him to remind her of her humiliating loss of face last night made it ten times—no, a hundred times—worse.

Annalise was just about to close the door on him when there was a wail of protest from the living room followed by a loud crash.

Immediately fearing the worst, knowing what her brothers were like, Annalise hurried down the hallway and into the room, unaware that Jack had followed her. She saw in dismay that the crash had been caused by something being thrown at the fish tank, which now had a large jagged hole in it. Water and fish were flooding onto the chair and carpet until, above the boys' protests that it was not their fault, she heard Jack saying crisply,

'One of you go and get a bucket and keep away from that broken glass.'

'A bucket won't do any good,' Annalise protested.

'Yes, it will,' Jack told her calmly as he made his way towards the tank. 'The hole's less than halfway down, and if we can patch it up tempo-rarily, we can lift the tank up and put it in the bath. That way, if the glass does give way, at least the fish should be safe.'

Before she could say anything, one of her brothers, Teddy, rushed in with the bucket, and Jack deftly used it to catch the growing flood.

'The fish are all over the floor...dying!' the boy said in panic.

'Here, you hold this,' Jack instructed Annalise, moving to one side so that she could take the bucket from him. He knelt down on the floor and carefully picked up the squirming fish. 'No. Don't you touch them,' he warned Teddy firmly. 'You might cut yourself on the glass,' he went on to explain as he carefully slipped the rescued fish back into the now nearly half-empty tank.

'Will they five?' Teddy asked anxiously when Jack had rescued the last of them.

'We'll have to see,' Jack answered calmly, adding, 'If you've got some newspaper and a roll of cling film, we can fix the hole whilst we carry the tank upstairs.'

Half an hour later, with the fish tank safely placed in the bath, Jack shook his head at the boys' offer of a game on their computer.

'Sorry, but Aunt Jenny will be wondering where I am. Look,' he suggested, 'I think there might be a tank in the garage at home. If we've still got it, I could bring it round and you could use it until you get another one.'

'Did you used to have fish?' Teddy asked.

'Yes, we did,' he replied.

'What happened to them?' the younger of the two boys, Martin, asked with interest.

'My mother didn't care for fish, so I had to get rid of them,' Jack told him briefly. 'Fortunately, Aunt Jenny said that Joss could have them.'

'But...' Annalise began, then bit her lip. She had been about to say that she assumed that he had always lived with his aunt and uncle.

'Look, if I can find the tank, I'll call round with it tomorrow evening after work, if that's okay with you. With any luck, the cling film should hold until then.'

'Well, if you're sure it's no trouble...' Annalise accepted a little reluctantly.

As Jack had calmly repaired the damage to the fish tank and while they had carried it upstairs, she had tried to visualise Pete doing what he had done, but she knew that there was just no way Pete would have bothered to involve himself in their small family drama.

It still made her heart ache with sick misery to think that everyone would know by now that he had dumped her. She would have to face her classmates all too soon.

'Come on, you two,' she urged her brothers now. 'I've got to go out to work and you have to tidy up your rooms...'

'You work?' Jack frowned. 'I thought you were still at school.'

'Yes, I am,' Annalise agreed, telling him curtly,

'but some of us have to work, as well, you know.

We don't all have rich families.'

The look Jack gave her made her flush uncomfortably.

'Where are you working?' he asked her.

'For my aunt, Frances Salter. They own the restaurant in town.'

'Oh, she's Guy Cooke's sister, isn't she?' Jack asked.

'Yes,' Annalise said. 'But if you're thinking that because I'm part Cooke that that means...'

She stopped and turned on her heel. 'I'll show you out.'

As he followed her, Jack made to catch hold of her arm, demanding quietly, 'What did you mean...what you just said?'

'I didn't mean anything,' Annalise denied, shrugging, but she could see from his expression that he wasn't going to be fobbed off. 'There's a thing they say in town about Cooke girls that...

that they're easy,' she burst out, red-faced. 'And if you're thinking that I—'

'Now just a minute,' Jack said, putting out his free hand to stop her from opening the front door whilst he held her arm with the other. 'You're the one who mentioned it, not me. I...I had no idea that you
were
a Cooke and even if I had... Is that why you think I've come round here? Because I...because I'm looking for someone easy? I'm not that desperate for sex,' he declared loftily. But to his bemusement, instead of looking relieved, Annalise's eyes immediately filled with tears, her hands bunching into small, anguished fists.

Trying weakly to strike him, she exclaimed passionately, 'It isn't my fault that I'm not sexy...or that I don't...that I haven't... I hate you,' she cried out to Jack's astonishment. 'I hate you.'

What on earth had he done? All he had said was that he hadn't thought of her as being easy and she was behaving as though he had somehow insulted her, when in fact...

'Hey, come on,' he told her gruffly as he reached out to grasp her flailing hands. Tears were pouring down her face and her whole body was shaking. Her hands, her wrists, were so small and fragile, her bones so delicate and fine. 'Please don't cry,' Jack begged her huskily. 'I didn't mean...'

Somehow without meaning to do so, Jack discovered that he was holding her in his arms, pressing her wet face against his shoulder. She was crying in earnest now, deep, racking sobs.

'I know what everyone believes, but it isn't true,' she wept against his shoulder. 'And when Pete tells them, they're all going to be laughing at me.'

'When he tells them what...that he's given up a girl like you for someone like Patti? It won't be you they'll be laughing at,' Jack assured her positively.

Annalise lifted her head from his shoulder and gave a small hiccup. 'You can't mean that,' she said blankly. He was lying to her, she knew. No boy could possibly prefer her to a girl as sexy and experienced as Patti.

She really had the most gorgeous eyes, Jack decided a little giddily. Maybe so, but she was far too young for him, he told himself sternly. He was nineteen and she...

'How old are you?' he asked her huskily.

'Eighteen,' Annalise lied promptly, then when she saw the look he was giving her, admitted reluctantly, 'Seventeen, but I'll be eighteen in March.'

Eighteen in March, but she'd be a very young eighteen, Jack could tell, which meant that a man who became involved with her would be taking on a serious responsibility—making a serious emotional commitment—because she certainly deserved much better than what Pete Hunter was giving her. Much better, Jack warned himself grimly, and that meant, no matter what message his body was giving him and no matter what her relationship with Pete might have been, that she was strictly off limits so far as he was concerned.

He had his education to think about; he couldn't afford to get emotionally involved.

'You shouldn't be running around with people like Hunter,' he told her sternly. 'And if I were your father—'

'My father!' Annalise's eyes widened.

'Well, your brother,' Jack amended.

It made his blood run cold to think what might have happened to her at last night's party. Didn't her family realise what kind of risks she was taking? When Olivia's girls, his nieces, were that age, there was no way he wouldn't have something to say if
they
started getting themselves tied up with bad'uns like Pete Hunter.

After he said goodbye to her, Jack was struck by the awesome, heavy responsibility that being a man involved.

'I'VE GOT TO SEE
a potential new patient today,'

Honor told David as they ate breakfast.

'Well, I'm going to make a start on stripping back the rotten roof timbers where the slates are missing to see just how extensive the damage is and then when I've done that I'll walk over to Fitzburgh Place and see the estate manager. It might be an idea for you to look into the question of that generator we were both talking about,' he added thoughtfully.

'Mmm...' Honor agreed. 'It's probably time to update the central heating, too, as we discussed.'

After talking over Honor's plans for the house for another half an hour, she announced that if she didn't go upstairs and get dressed she was going to be late for her appointment.

'I'll see to these,' David offered, indicating the breakfast things on the table, then, as Honor stood up and leaned across to kiss him, she reflected that they were so comfortable with each other, so compatible, that an unknowing observer might have assumed that they were a couple of long-standing.

'I
DON'T CARE
who
this woman is. I'm
not
seeing her. Herbalist...hocus-pocus, if you ask me,' Ben grumbled when Maddy told him that Honor was coming to see him.

'Well, you're the one who's in pain,' Maddy agreed calmly, 'and if you don't think—T

'She won't be able to do anything,' Ben persisted, but Maddy could see that he was speaking less aggressively.

'Well, no, perhaps she won't,' she acknowledged cheerfully, 'and I must admit that Dr Forbes thought I was being silly in consulting her—'

'Forbes said that?' Ben interrupted her. Smiling to herself, Maddy looked away, busily dusting the already dust-free surface of his desk. The antagonism that Ben felt towards their long-suffering local GP was no secret to her.

'Well, he seemed to think that there isn't any reason for you to be experiencing pain,' Maddy continued sunnily.

'He thinks that, does he?' Ben roared. 'And just how the hell would he know? It isn't his ruddy body, is it? What does this woman say?' he asked Maddy suspiciously.

'Well, she said she would have to talk to you first, but she seemed to think she might be able to do something to help,' Maddy replied cautiously.

'If she starts thinking I'm going to drink some filthy concoction...'

To Maddy's relief, she saw a car coming to a halt outside the house. Ben really was becoming increasingly difficult.

'Problem?' Max asked her a few minutes later when she stepped into the hallway and closed the door to Ben's study behind her. 'I did warn you,'

he added as he collected the post and started to sift through it.

He was spending the day working at home and Maddy knew that his father was coming over to see him to discuss his plans to buy some land.

Personally, she would hate to have to move from Queensmead, especially into a brand-new modem house, but at the same time she fully accepted that Queensmead belonged to Ben.

'You did,' Maddy agreed as she went to open the door. 'Please come in,' she welcomed Honor warmly. 'This is...'

As she turned round to introduce Honor to Max, she realised that her husband had conven-iently disappeared.

'It's this way,' she said instead, guiding Honor towards Ben's study. 'I'll introduce you to my grandfather-in-law and then I'll leave the two of you alone together. He normally has his tea and biscuits at eleven, so—'

'So if I need help before then, I'll shout,' Honor responded with a smile.

Ben Crighton was every bit as difficult as his daughter-in-law had warned, Honor acknowledged, but she could also see that he was in a lot of pain. She suspected it was not so much caused, as he believed, by his hip-replacement operations but by the fact that prior to them he had perhaps not been using his body properly. Whilst she could offer him no outright cure, a carefully balanced diet underpinned with various herbs and creams could make a significant improvement, not just in lessening his discomfort but also in increasing his mobility.

'What kind of diet?' Ben demanded suspiciously. 'Not expecting me to live on some kind of vegetarian mush, are you? A man needs red meat.'