Lucky Stars (22 page)

“Thank you,” she murmured back and saw his smile deepen.

She was staring at his mouth, her own lips parted, her eyes glazing over, her body starting to lean into his magnetic pull when she heard her grandmother’s call.

“Morning kids!”

Belle’s body jerked and she snapped out of the trance. As she did this, she saw Jack’s mouth go tight and his head turned to look in the dining room.

Belle turned too and she saw everyone there, including Yasmin. And all of them were watching Jack and Belle like they were viewing an awe-inspiring, award winning play.

“Yasmin,” Belle smiled at the other woman shyly. She hadn’t seen her since that awful morning and she hoped her reaction to Belle being pregnant with Jack’s child and living at The Point would be a far sight better than Miles’s had been. “It’s lovely to see you.”

Yasmin responded as Jack’s hand moved to the small of Belle’s back and he guided her into the room.

“Not as lovely as it is to see you. After the drama and the resulting media brouhaha, I thought I might be persona non grata at your shop. Now, seeing as Jack got you up the duff, I can come shopping anytime.”

Belle did a little stutter step at her words and heard Joy emit a soft giggle, her mother laughed outright but her grandmother was glowering at Jack’s hand at Belle’s back.

Jack pressed more firmly into her back, his warm body got protectively closer and he led her to the empty chair to the right hand side of the head of the table. He pulled it back for her and she sat in it, looking up and over her shoulder at him as he assisted her with pushing it back in.

Then she watched him seat himself at the head of the table.

Then she recognised she was falling into another trance so she shook herself out of it and looked at the table.

Everyone was watching her again.

She realised she didn’t reply to Yasmin and belatedly, she said softly, “You’re always welcome at the shop.”

“Goody,” Yasmin smiled. “I’m coming today. I hope you’re stocked up because I got my allowance from my trust fund last week and I can’t ask Daddy for a supplement unless I use every last penny.” She turned to Gram. “I do that every month. It drives Daddy insane.”

“I bet it does,” Gram mumbled but she was grinning.

“Well, he was practically absent during my childhood. He was two hours late to my first wedding because of some urgent meeting. And he didn’t show
at all
at my second wedding because someone was doing something in Geneva that he had to sort. A monthly supplement soothes the pain,” Yasmin blithely replied, her words meant to be amusing but Belle heard the hurt under them and her eyes slid to Jack.

Jack was watching Yasmin, a look of tender concern on his handsome face and at the sight of
it,
Belle’s stomach did another sweet, little dip.

Then his head turned, he caught her gazing at him, she felt the warmth hit her cheeks and she immediately looked down at her place setting.

“Belle,” he called and her eyes went to his ear.

“Yes?” she asked.

He didn’t speak for a moment then he said quietly, “Poppet, look at me.”

With some effort, her eyes met his.

And he didn’t look annoyed or impatient.

He looked amused and affectionate.

It was a good look.

She licked her lips.

Then he enquired. “What did you do with my dogs?”

“Your dogs?” she asked, forgetting entirely that he had dogs, that she liked his
dogs, that
she spent a good deal of time with his dogs and she also forgot her first name.

“Baron and
Gretl
?” he prompted, his mouth twitching. “I left them in your room this morning.”

She gave herself a mini-mental shake and told herself to pull it together.

“Yes, of course, um… I let them out.”

“Did they eat?”

“Eat?” she parroted stupidly as she’d again lost the thread of the conversation because she’d become fascinated with watching his mouth form words.

“Yes, eat,” his mouth said then he grinned.

She tore her eyes from his mouth and muttered, “No, I didn’t think of that.” Her gaze lifted to his eyes. “Do you want me to go do that now?”

He shook his head but looked like he was trying not to laugh. “No, love, you don’t have to feed my dogs.”

“Okay,” she whispered and for some reason this made him chuckle.

Belle hadn’t heard his chuckle in a long time and she forgot how very much she liked it.

Elaine, the housekeeper, came in at that point and as Belle and Jack ordered their breakfasts, Belle decided it was a much better plan to engage someone else in conversation before she made an even bigger idiot out of herself.

However, when her eyes moved to the others at the table, they were all again watching her and Jack. Yasmin was doing it with a broad smile. Joy was pressing her lips together but you could see her eyes dancing. Mom was looking at Jack in a way that Belle just knew she was getting a feeling in her bones. Gram was glaring at Jack
and
Belle with a look on her face that heralded Belle, at some point during the day, being given the third degree.

And therefore Belle decided instantly the table was no safer than Jack.

Though, Belle had been wrong about the third degree coming from Gram at some point during the day.

She’d decided to dish it out right then.

“Can I ask, at this juncture, what you were doing in Belle’s room this morning?” Gram demanded of Jack.

Belle felt her heart sink and she knew it was only courtesy that drove Jack to answer her grandmother.

“We had a chat.”

“I can
see
you had a
chat
. Everyone can
see
you had a
chat,
” Gram snapped. “Yesterday, you two were entirely different beings than you are right now.
If
you were in each other’s presence, which was rare, the animosity veritably crackled. At least it did from
you.
” Her eyes narrowed on Jack. “Today you two are all sweetness and light. What gives?”

“Mom, cut it out,” Belle’s mother, as usual, unwisely decided to go head to head with Gram and entered the conversation.

Gram glared at Mom. “Don’t tell me to cut it out.”

“I’m telling you to cut it out,” Mom returned. “Leave them be.”

“I won’t
leave them be
. Leaving them
be
got Belle knocked up!” Gram’s voice was rising.

Belle put her elbow to the table and rested the side of her head in her hand.

Regardless of her
embarrassed
posture, her family didn’t let up.

“In her current condition that can hardly happen again,” Mom returned, Gram’s eyes bugged out and Belle closed her own eyes before opening them again when her grandmother retorted.

“That’s not the point!” Gram snapped.

“Then what
is
the point?” Mom snapped back.

“I don’t know!” Gram shouted and looked at Jack. “
You
were present at this
chat
. Maybe
you
can tell us the blasted point!”

“Oh
lordy
,” Mom muttered at the same time Yasmin giggled and Joy mumbled, “Oh dear.”

Belle wished silently for the floor to open up and swallow her just as Jack spoke.

“I think the point, right now, Lila, is that you’re embarrassing your granddaughter and I’ll ask you to stop doing it.”

Belle’s head snapped up and her neck twisted so fast it made her dizzy.

The air in the room took on an edge.

“Jack…” Belle whispered.

His eyes moved to hers and he said gently, “I’m speaking to Lila now, poppet.”

“You shouldn’t rile her,” Belle advised.

He turned his torso toward her and asked, “Are you enjoying this conversation?”

She hesitated before responding honestly, “Not really, no.”

He turned back to the table, his gaze moving in the direction of her grandmother and stated firmly, “Then this conversation is over.”

Belle chanced a glance at the table and saw Gram looked fit to be tied but Mom was grinning ear to ear.

“Told you!”
Mom announced, pointing at Gram then her finger moved to Belle.
“Told you too.”

“Told them what?” Joy asked and Belle saw her mother’s body give a small twitch as her face lost a goodly amount of colour.

She dropped her hand and muttered, “Nothing.”

Everyone at the table was silent for several long moments.

The only one who moved was Jack and this was so he could pour Belle some coffee.

Belle plucked up the courage to break the silence and said in a quiet voice to Jack, “I don’t drink coffee because of the baby.”

He stopped himself from filling his own cup and replied, “Of course.”

He put down the silver service and took her cup from her place, lifted it to his lips and took a sip.

Belle watched Jack sip from a cup she didn’t even use but was somehow still hers and felt, weirdly, the intimacy of this act almost equalled him putting his hand on her pregnant belly for the first time.

The pleasant feeling this gave her was so overpowering it scared her half to death.

She tore her eyes from Jack drinking coffee and caught Yasmin openly staring at her with a huge grin on her face.

Then Yasmin declared, “I’m coming to breakfast every day. This is fun!”

Belle didn’t think it was fun. Belle thought it was torture.

She didn’t share this.

Instead, she caught Joy gazing at her with a bright but pensive look in her eyes.

“I must say,” Joy added, not moving her gaze from Belle. “I agree. I’m glad you’re all here. It definitely livens up the place.”

Belle knew Joy liked her Mom and Gram, like, a lot.

Belle also knew she wasn’t really referring to them.

She felt a warm rush slide through her system and she smiled at Jack’s Mum.

Joy smiled back.

Chapter Ten

Belle and Jack and the Sea

Belle

Belle sat on a thick, woollen rug on the rocks outside The Point watching and listening to the waves smashing against the cliffs.

She was silently asking the sea for peace.

Unusually, the sea wasn’t giving it to her.

That was because her life had again turned on its head.

And it was all Jack’s fault.

After breakfast two days before, he had, as he told her he would do, driven her to her shop in St. Ives.

She didn’t understand
why
he needed to drive her to her shop. She was temporarily pregnant, not temporarily blind.

However, she did not ask him this.

The drive had been silent which made Belle intensely uncomfortable. What made her more uncomfortable was that it appeared
not
to make Jack uncomfortable in the slightest.

He’d pulled his sleek, maroon Jaguar around the cobbled street that lined the sea and without her giving him the first direction, stopped at the winding path that led to her shop in town.

She’d turned to him to offer her gratitude for the ride and saw he was already turned toward her.

Before she could speak, he did. “I’m going to London now, poppet. I’ll be home late. Rachel’s picking you up.”

Belle nodded, a little surprised he was driving to London and back in a day (it was over five hours away) but she wasn’t going to comment.

She was about to twist away to exit the car when his hand came up, his fingers curled around her neck and he pulled her close as he leaned in.

He touched his mouth to hers and when his head moved back a half inch, he murmured, “Have a good day.”

She nodded again and replied, “You too,” but her reply came out all breathy like she’d just run the two hundred yard dash in record time.

This made him grin which made a trill slide up her spine which made her shiver which she knew he felt because his grin deepened to a smile.

Then he slanted his head and kissed her again.

This kiss was not a touch of the lips but harder and longer. If not an open-mouthed, make out fest, it still worked on her. By the time he lifted his head, she wasn’t breathing.

“Go to work,” he muttered, she nodded and with all due haste exited the car.

She knew, as she walked around the hood of the Jag, along the sidewalk and up the winding, cobbled alley that he watched her. She knew this because, the entire time, her scalp was tingling.

Her day was uneventful except for Yasmin, who came and spent an unbelievable amount of money on clothes and jewellery. Then she spent an even more unbelievable amount of time hanging out with Belle and chatting like they’d known each other for years. She eventually left because, she told Belle, she had a meeting with her divorce attorney. Belle had learned, during the chatting, that marriage number two was even worse than marriage number one and marriage number one had been
nothing
to write home about.