Reluctant Date (16 page)

Chapter Fourteen

After a further ten days of hotel rooms and tedious meetings
Daniel finally returned to Dolphin Key knowing that, for the time being at
least, he had saved the family business from yet another crisis. As he drove
off the freeway and pointed his car towards the ocean, all he wanted to do was
to change into shorts and a T-shirt and take his boat out to the islands, but
he knew if he did that then he would only be putting off the moment when he had
to talk to his father. With a sigh he turned towards his parents’ house. Best
to get it over with so he could enjoy the weekend.

He pulled into the driveway and parked next to a golf cart
bearing the company logo. He stared at it in surprise.
 
It couldn’t be Beth because she never
visited, while Scott only ever dropped by if Daniel’s sisters were home from
college, something that wouldn’t be happening again until the summer. Then a
new thought struck him and slamming the car door behind him he hurried towards
the house.
 
Maybe something was wrong,
something that had forced Beth and his father to drop their mutual antipathy.
 
Maybe his mother was ill.

He found her in the laundry room. She was standing at the
deep sink trimming each stalk of a mass of white flowers before placing them
one by one into a large crystal vase. Relieved, he watched her from the
doorway, noticing how she carefully positioned each one and then stood back to
admire the effect.
 
He noticed, too, that
she was smiling, and that there was a hint of colour in her cheeks. He felt his
heart lift just a little. At least that was one less problem to deal with.

“They look beautiful,” he said as she pushed the final stem
into place. And they did because she had always been able to create wonderful
floral displays. Until a few years ago she had taken enormous pride in her
skills as a flower arranger.
 
She had
loved being responsible for the Flower Rota at the local church and for many
years had organized the other members into a disciplined team that provided
displays for fundraisers, weddings and celebration dinners; anything that
needed flowers.

Sadly it had all stopped when his father had started to lose
his sight and demanded she stay at home to be his eyes, which was why the sight
of her smiling over a vase of beautifully arranged flowers had such an
uplifting effect on his spirits.
 
It was
like a whisper from a happier past.

She gave a sudden start when she heard his voice, but when
she turned and looked at him, the smile was still in place. “Goodness, you
startled me Daniel. I didn’t hear you come in. Yes, they do look beautiful
don’t they? And she was so clever to include some greenery, especially the
sprays of ivy. Without them it would just be a vase of flowers, not a lovely
display.”

“Um…yes, I suppose so,” Daniel was completely indifferent to
the niceties of floral decoration.

To his amazement his mother laughed at him as she cleared
away the trimmed stems and the sheets of cellophane the flowers had been
wrapped in.
 
“I know I’m boring you, so
don’t try to look interested. Would you carry them through to the dining room
for me though?
 
They will look wonderful
against the dark wood of the table.”

Picking up the vase he followed her through the kitchen to
the formal dining room and placed the display exactly where she told him. Then
he waited patiently while she adjusted several of the blooms and tweaked a
couple of leaves before asking her if Beth had bought them.

She turned towards him with wide, puzzled eyes.
 
“Beth? No of course not! You know she won’t
come here. It was Claire. She’s in the study reading to your Father.”

* * *

Now it was Daniel’s turn to look wide-eyed and, unexpectedly,
his mother laughed again when she saw the expression on his face.

“Apparently she found a copy of some dry-as-dust biography
he mentioned when you first brought her to see us, and she dropped it in last
week. He was so pleased when she suggested she read it to him. Apparently it’s
beyond my intellectual capacity…your Father’s words, not Claire’s!”

She appeared to be amused rather than offended by her
husband’s judgment, or was it relief? Was she relieved that an irksome duty
had, for the time being at least, been taken away from her. Daniel stared at
her, unable to believe the change that Claire appeared to have wrought in both
of his parents while he was away.

“She’s staying for supper,” his mother added. “Up until now
she’s refused but the last time she came I insisted, hence the flowers.”
 

“You mean she’s been before?”

“Oh yes. She reads to him most evenings.
 
She usually only stays for an hour or so but
we’ve both begun to look forward to her visit. That’s why I persuaded her to
stay for supper tonight.
 
Do you want to
join us or are you anxious to get home?
 
I know you’ve had a busy week.”

Suddenly Daniel’s gray business suit was no longer a hot and
irksome restriction. “I’ll stay,” he said, stripping off his jacket and tie and
throwing them over the nearest chair.

“Good. In that case you can carry a jug of lemonade out onto
the deck. I made it earlier with crushed ice, so it will be lovely and cold.
I’m sure Claire’s throat must have seized up by now. I’ll go and tell her it’s
time she stopped reading.”

As she opened the door into the main part of the house,
Daniel heard the soft cadences of Claire’s voice for the first time.
 
He couldn’t hear the words but the intonation
was clear.
 
She was reading something
that was amusing and his father was chuckling.
 
He looked at his mother.
 
She had
heard it too and as the chuckles turned to a full-throated laugh, she met
Daniels gaze. Her face was ineffably sad.

“I wish I could do that!
 
But I can’t. I’ve tried.”

“I know you have,” he gave her a quick hug.
 
“We all have, but maybe we’re just too close
to the problem.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well Claire doesn’t have any sort of emotional attachment
does she?
 
And she loves books too. So
maybe she is exactly what he needs; someone who doesn’t remember him as he used
to be; someone who likes him for himself and just wants to help.”

“You could be right,” she nodded doubtfully.
 
“She’s even made him promise to think about
trialing the Talking Books Service.”

Shaking his head in disbelief, Daniel picked up a tray laden
with a full jug of lemonade, frosted glasses and a dish of pecans, and carried
it out onto the deck, leaving his mother to interrupt the reading session.

* * *

Claire, who had thought that Daniel was going to be away
from Dolphin Key for at least one more day, flushed pink when she saw him
leaning against the railings that edged the deck, a glass of lemonade in one
hand and a scoop of pecans in the other. Fortunately for her, however, the
sunset had already tinted everything with a matching glow, so her confusion
went unnoticed as he tipped the last of the nuts down his throat before leaning
forward and handing her a glass of lemonade.

She took a sip, and then pulled her sunglasses down onto her
nose from the top of her head. She had pushed them up there while she was
reading but now she was glad that the sunset gave her an excuse to cover her
eyes.

“Hi Dad. Seems that a few things have changed around here
while I’ve been away,” Daniel directed his comment to his father with a smile,
while his own eyes, similarly hidden behind sunglasses, watched Claire. Dressed
in a pale green sundress, and tinted with the rosy glow of the setting sun, she
was even more beautiful than he remembered. His body reacted accordingly,
pushing his blood pressure up to what felt like a danger zone.

His father’s reply was short and to the point.
 
“She likes books.”

“Hmm.
 
Even your dry
and dusty ones?”

“Even those!
 
Now tell
me about your trip.
 
Did you achieve
everything I wanted?”

“I did but I’ll talk to you about it later.
 
Right at this moment I think you should
concentrate on entertaining your guest. After all she’s put in a full day’s
work and then come straight over to read to you, so it’s the least you can do.”

There was a long silence as a number of expressions, each
one blacker than the last, washed across Gordon Marchant’s face. Then it
cleared and he nodded.

“You’re right of course.
 
Sorry young lady. My manners seem to have gotten a little rusty.
 
I haven’t even asked you about your day.”

Mrs Marchant, whose face had frozen with horror at Daniel’s
words, let out a sigh of relief.
 
“Supper
in thirty minutes,” she told them as she hurried off to set the table and
prepare the last minute vegetables.

* * *

The evening was a success on all counts.
 
For the first time since he lost his sight
Gordon Marchant concentrated on being a good host, even insisting on choosing
the wine to go with the meal. Gone was his previous indifference to what was
going on around him.
 
Instead, he
complimented his wife on the food, asked Claire about her family and her
previous job, talked to Daniel about the boat he was renovating, and was
altogether congenial if slightly acerbic company.
 
This had the effect of putting the sparkle
back into his wife’s eyes, and by the time dessert was served she had relaxed
enough to reminisce about the past when her family was young, and when her
husband was making his way in the world.

Claire heard about the hard times when they had to scrimp
and scrape to save enough money for a down payment on their first property. She
heard too about their eventual success and how, when they first moved to
Dolphin Key, Daniel had often been in trouble for cutting school to row out to
the islands long before they became a nature reserve.

The telling was affectionate enough, as were the tales about
Daniel’s older sister who now lived in Texas with her husband and two small
children, and his younger twin sisters who were still at college.
 
Yet through it all Claire could detect a note
of censure, a reproof, a feeling that they didn’t think any of their children
had quite lived up to the standards set for them, that none of them would ever
be able to achieve what their father had.
 

She also noticed that they never mentioned Carl.
 
Not even once. He didn’t feature in any of
the conversations, nor did Beth; so by the time she was ready to leave she was
as intrigued about the complicated family dynamics as she was about the other
thing that had become clear during the evening; Daniel’s obvious reluctance to
talk to his parents about his own company.

Of more importance, however, was what sitting opposite
Daniel was doing to her.
 
Every time his
long brown eyes met her gray ones her pulse sped up, and when he leaned across
to top up her wine glass, or hand her a plate, or hold a serving dish for her,
she felt as if every vein and artery in her body had heated up by several
degrees. Worried that he would see how she felt if she looked at him for too
long, she spent most of the evening avoiding his gaze and concentrating on his
parents instead.

Frustrated by her behaviour, Daniel wondered if it had
anything to do with Scott.
 
If they
were
involved with one another, then
maybe she was embarrassed.
 
He remembered
the vehemence with which she had told him she wasn’t looking for any sort of
date and decided she was probably feeling uncomfortable about how quickly she
had changed her mind. Whatever the reason, he needed to know how things stood.
He needed to know whether he had any sort of chance with her. With this in mind
he rose to his feet when she stood up to leave.

“I thought we were going to talk business,” his father said
sharply when Daniel wished him goodnight.

“Tomorrow Dad,” he told him wearily. “I’m going to see
Claire home now. I’ll come back early tomorrow morning.”

“Make sure you do!” Gordon Marchant’s habitual irascibility
had risen to the surface again.

Daniel ignored him, kissed his mother’s cheek, and held the
door open for Claire.
 
She thanked her
host and hostess, promised to return the following week to continue reading to
Mr Marchant, and then walked past Daniel into the magnificent, high-beamed
hallway that was full of decorative plants and highly polished wooden
furniture. He followed her, inhaling her perfume until he was intoxicated by
it, and by the way her hips swayed as she walked in front of him.

When they stepped onto the gravel driveway she turned and
faced him with a determined look on her face.
 

“I can manage to get home by myself,” she said.
 
“I don’t think much is going to happen to me
in Dolphin Key at this time of night, do you?
 
I’ve already studied the town’s crime statistics and they are virtually
nil. Besides, you would look ridiculous following me in your car at golf cart
speed.”

“I guess I’d look a lot like a stalker,” he admitted with a
rueful grin.
 
“Sorry Claire. I forgot you
had your golf cart parked outside.”