Lucky Stars (29 page)

Then he rested his forehead to hers, his thumb stroking her cheekbone and he commented, “I think I’m going to very much like Sunday afternoons.”

She tipped her chin up, pressing her own mouth against his.

Jack smiled in triumph against her lips and slanted his head to deepen the kiss when a sharp, urgent knock came at the door.

Both of them froze.
Jack with extreme irritation.
Belle, he suspected, with something else entirely.

Jack moved first, knifing away from her. He leaned down, pulled her to sitting and fully righted her skirt.

Then he turned to the door, wondering with
unamused
annoyance if he needed to resort to placing a do not disturb sign on the knob.

He pulled open the door to see his mother standing outside and this surprised him.

She knew better.

“What’s –?” Jack started but Joy talked over him.

“Darling, we have a wee problem.”

“And that would be?” Jack asked impatiently as he felt Belle arrive at his side.

Jack looked down at Belle to see she’d tidied her ponytail and was wearing an enquiring expression but her mouth was swollen from his kisses and her grey eyes were soft and languid.

She looked, exactly, like she’d just had an immensely pleasurable orgasm.

Jack had seen that look before. He very much liked it and it gratified him that he’d given it to her.

However, he didn’t like sharing it.

Especially with his mother.

His mother looked at Belle then at Jack and she bit her lip before she said, “I’m sorry to interrupt.”

Jack was sorry too.

More than he could say.

However nonverbally he spoke volumes and he knew his mother read his face because she nervously kept biting her lip.

Jack slid an arm along Belle’s shoulders and pulled her close, suggesting to his mother, “All right Mum, maybe you’d care to explain
why
you’ve interrupted.”

“Well, see…
erm
…” she stammered.

“Mum,” Jack warned.

Quickly, not looking at Belle, she whispered, “Rachel’s seen Myrtle and Lewis and she’s a bit…” her eyes slid to Belle then back to Jack, “
upset
.”

Jack sighed and asked a question to which he already knew the answer, “You explained they don’t exist, didn’t you?”

Joy Bennett had been “seeing” Myrtle and Lewis for forty years. It was sporadic and infrequent but she claimed the first time she saw them was within days of moving to The Point after she married Jack’s father.

Therefore Jack was relatively certain, since Joy believed they existed, that she wouldn’t explain to Rachel, who was a sight more odd, loud, if not more dramatic than his mother, that she didn’t.

“
Erm
…” his mother mumbled, answering without actually answering and Jack clenched his teeth.

Then he looked down at Belle. “Did you tell your mother you’d seen them?”

Belle shook her head as Joy asked in a breathy voice, “You’ve seen them?”

Belle nodded at Joy. “Yesterday,” when Joy didn’t respond, Belle added, “they
weirded
me out.”

“Oh dear.
They usually aren’t this active. Sometimes
its
years between times I see them and I saw them only the other day,
twice
. And they’re pretty choosy who they show themselves to.” Joy’s eyes moved to Jack. “What do you think this means?”

“I think it means I need to hire a counsellor to come to The Point for a group session,” Jack answered dryly.

“Jack!” both Belle and his mother cried.

“There are no such things as ghosts, Mum, and I’d appreciate it if you didn’t fill Belle’s head with that rubbish,” Jack returned.

Joy gave him her patented affronted mother look. “I haven’t uttered a word.”

Jack was about to speak when Belle put in, “She hasn’t.”

Jack looked down at Belle to assess if she was lying in a misguided attempt to assist his mother or if she was serious.

With one look, he knew she was serious.

He found this mildly surprising.

However, considering the sum total of melodramatic femininity which was currently housed under his roof, he didn’t find it troubling.

“I didn’t say anything to Rachel or Lila either,” Joy added. “You, and your father before you I might add, always get so foul tempered when I even mention it. So I usually don’t bother.” She turned to Belle and added conversationally, “Though, it’s a fascinating story.”

“Mum,” Jack warned when he felt Belle’s body tense at his side.

“Well, it is,” Joy defended.

“It doesn’t matter. They scare Belle and I don’t want you saying another word,” Jack asserted.

Joy turned to Belle. “Oh darling, there’s nothing to be scared of. I promise, they’re actually quite –”

“Mum!” Jack clipped sharply and Joy jumped.

“Um, I hate to interrupt your chitchat but my daughter is
freaking out!
” Lila called from down the hall while walking toward them. Her eyes were on Jack. “And you better do something about it, my man, because she’s upstairs, in Belle’s room, packing her things, mumbling about haunted houses and how her
pregnant daughter
was getting
as far
as she could
from
this creepy place
.”

“Fucking hell,” Jack muttered.

At the same time, Belle mumbled an alarmingly experienced, “Uh-oh.”

When Lila arrived at their group, Jack made a swift, acutely irritating but necessary decision and asked, “What does she drink?”

Lila blinked up at him and parroted, “Drink?”

“Rachel,” Jack went on with slipping patience. “What does she drink?”

Lila looked at Belle and mumbled, “Better question is what
doesn’t
she
drink?”

Belle giggled, it wasn’t with humour but with nervousness and Jack’s patience slipped further.

“Lila,” he said low and her gaze snapped to him.

“I’d say this was a tequila moment,” Lila answered.

“I think we have tequila,” his mother informed them quickly.

“Get it,” Jack ordered and looked at Lila. “You get Rachel.” Then he told them both. “Meet us back here in the study.”

“Gotcha, big man,” Lila said breezily and moved down the hall.

Joy looked at Jack and asked, “What are you going to do?”

Jack pulled Belle closer to his side and answered, “I’m going to do nothing.
You’re
going to tell the story of Myrtle and Lewis.”

Before she could think better of it even in the face of Jack’s visibly slipping patience, Joy exclaimed excitedly, “Oh goody, I’m going to call Yasmin.”

“If you call Yasmin, I’ll break your fingers,” Jack clipped out his empty threat with as much menace as he could muster which was rather a lot at that juncture.

Joy ignored the considerable menace and smiled radiantly at him. “No you won’t, darling.” Then she looked at Belle and confided, “Yasmin
loves
this story. She’s never seen Myrtle and Lewis but she’s
dying
to. She’ll be
so jealous
.”

Then Joy hurried away in search of tequila.

Jack looked down at Belle and saw her face was pale and her eyes were locked on his mother’s departing back.

“Poppet,” Jack called and her head tipped to look up at him.

“Do you think the baby could withstand a shot of tequila?” She paused briefly before finishing, “Or three?”

“No,” Jack replied instantly.

Belle’s gaze dropped to his throat.

“I didn’t think so,” she muttered with disappointment.

In any other mood, Jack would find this amusing.

Considering he’d just been interrupted in his continuing efforts to win Belle’s trust at the same time making their situation significantly more complicated, so complicated it was a knotted mess from which she could never extract herself, he was not in such a mood.

Therefore Jack guided Belle back into the study wondering if he could politely rid The Point of his mother, Lila and Rachel without overly upsetting Belle.

At the very least for Sunday afternoons.

Chapter Twelve

The Thunderstorm

Belle

Belle stared out the window of Jack’s study, both her hands resting on her baby bump.

The white-capped waves were rolling out as far as the eye could see and the wind had picked up. Even though there were only fluffy, white clouds in the sky, Belle knew from ten years of living in England, five of those in Cornwall, that the weather was going to turn.

Jack had gone somewhere. He told her he’d return shortly but didn’t tell her where he was going.
 

Belle only hoped it wasn’t to break his mother’s fingers though she couldn’t imagine Jack would do that even though he sounded like he very much wanted to.

She was contemplating how she felt about her day with Jack (indeed, her last
three
days with Jack) and everything that had happened.

In other words, she was trying to figure out how she felt about the fact that Jack clearly didn’t dislike her frequent, quiet reveries. This was something Calvin hated and thought was weird and shared these thoughts frequently.
Frequently enough for Belle to stop doing it when he was around.

In fact, Jack seemed not only to accept them but, on some strange level, to
enjoy
them. After Calvin’s persistent avowals of hatred for them, Belle couldn’t believe this was true. Nevertheless, the more she fell into them around Jack, the more she sensed Jack’s contentment when they happened.

She was also trying to figure out how she felt about Jack hiring a shop assistant for her, driving her to work and spending a day in her store not because he wanted to but because (she was certain) he was protecting her from the media.

This was beyond nice, polite, simply protecting the mother of my unborn child thoughtfulness. It was something else, something more.

Much more.

Additionally, she was trying to figure out how she felt about the fact that it was very clear…

No.

It was
vehemently
clear that Jack was thrilled he had fathered a child during a one night stand. Belle thought that was every man’s worst nightmare.

Not Jack’s.

But further, he seemed just as thrilled (if not more so) that he’d fathered that child through Belle.

Most men would
not
be thrilled about this in any way, shape or form.

Jack seemed delighted.

Belle found this weird though, she had to admit, it also made her secretly happy.
Not only for herself but also for their child.

And she was trying to figure out what Jack meant when he told her she’d meet his PA, Olive, saying this in a way that inferred Belle would be around for a while. Not the while it would take for her successfully to birth their child but the kind of while that said she’d not only meet Olive, she’d get to know her.

Which would mean Belle would be a fixture in Jack’s life and not the kind of fixture that he’d see when dropping off their son at her cottage or picking him up or speaking with her on the phone to discuss his grades.

A different, extremely more fixed, fixture.

She was also trying to figure out how she felt about the fact that she was letting him sleep with her and she’d allowed him do the delicious things he’d done to her on the couch.

But mostly, she was trying to figure out how she felt about him
not
thinking she was the brazen hussy she thought she was behaving like but instead that he was a “very lucky man” that she behaved this way with him.

The memory of him saying that (and calling her “my love” while doing it), made her scalp tingle and her belly curl in a way that was nearly (but not quite) as nice as the amazing orgasm he’d given her. Something which didn’t embarrass her in the least (well, not after he’d said the things he’d said and held her so tenderly after she’d had it).

She was further trying to figure out how she felt about living in a haunted castle. Something that seriously
weirded
her out but something she seemed to be able to do (with Jack around, that was).

And, lastly, Belle was trying to figure out what her next move was.

She could either trust Jack would keep her safe and believe in all the things he was saying not to mention the way he was behaving.

Or she could flee to the wilds of South America and live in a tree house in the rainforest.

She was coming to no conclusions but considering the many dramas that seemed to befall her moment to moment and thus befall the baby she was carrying, she felt it important to reassure her child.