The Collector's Edition Volume 1 (39 page)

I
T WAS
best to keep busy, Rowena told herself, setting out all the ingredients for the Christmas pudding. Apart from which, just because Phil would not be with them for Christmas didn’t mean that anything else had to change. She would proceed as though everything were normal. It would be less upsetting for the children if they saw her carrying on as usual.

“Sultanas for me, please, Mummy?”

She smiled at Sarah, wriggling excitedly on the stool behind the kitchen counter, her big green eyes agog at all the fruit that went into a pudding. “In a minute, darling. Wait until I weigh what I need, and then you can have what’s left in the packet. Okay?”

“Okay.” Blissful contentment.

Sarah was so easily pleased, delighted with the world and everything in it Rowena hoped her bright little girl’s happy outlook on life wouldn’t be too dimmed by her father’s absence.

Emily would take it the worst. She would need a lot of loving reassurance. Her disappointment when Phil wasn’t here again this morning had put her in a sulky mood. She had started to whine about Daddy being away too much. Jamie had
cut her off, telling her to stop acting like a baby and get ready for school.

Jamie, the man of the house, protecting her.

Rowena sighed. She couldn’t let Jamie shoulder her burdens. Emily had to be told the situation. They each had to be told. Was it better done all together or separately?

Rowena pondered the problem as she poured sultanas onto the kitchen scales. Having measured the right quantity, she tipped them into the mixing bowl and handed the largely emptied packet to Sarah. The currants were another simple measuring job, but the raisins, dates and cherries needed cutting up.

After considerable thought, Rowena decided to leave the dreaded announcement for one more day. The school term finished tomorrow. She didn’t want Emily upset in front of her friends and classmates. This was strictly a family problem, and it was better for Emily to have the whole Christmas vacation to come to terms with it.

As for Jamie…Rowena sighed again. How was she going to tell him his father didn’t want him any more?

The door chimes sounded.

“I’ll go, Mummy,” Sarah cried eagerly, scrambling off the stool in her hurry to greet a visitor.

But who was visiting? Rowena wasn’t expecting anyone. “Wait, Sarah. We need to wash our hands first.”

A quick trip to the sink, and the stickiness of the fruit was removed from both sets of hands. The door chimes rang again. Rowena hastily threw a cloth over the mixing bowl. She glanced at the wall clock as she ushered Sarah out of the kitchen. Almost lunchtime. Who would be calling at this hour? Well, there was only one way to find out.

Sarah skipped down the hallway ahead of her but pulled up in the foyer, waiting for Rowena. The front door was always kept locked for security. There were two shapes visible through the stained-glass panels. One was considerably shorter than the other, about the same height as Jamie, in fact. For some reason this was reassuring. With her sense of apprehension fading, Rowena opened the door.

Shock hit her like a cannon ball.

Keir Delahunty and Jamie together. Keir, eyeing her with steady resolution, holding Jamie’s hand as his claim of passage. Jamie, who should be at school, looking at her with an air of triumphant satisfaction.

“He knows. I told him,” her son announced as though it was a deed well done. “He’s going to help you, Mum.”

“May I come in, Rowena?” Keir’s request was politely put, but he emanated an air of relentless purpose that clearly said no amount of wild horses would drag him away.

“Who’s he?” Sarah inquired of her older brother.

“His name is Keir Delahunty and he’s my real father,” Jamie declared with pride.

Rowena closed her eyes. She felt the blood drain from her face as her world spun out of control. Keir’s voice rang in her ears. “Jamie, look after your little sister. Your mother needs to sit down.” An arm came around her waist, hugging her close to a wall of warmth and strength, supporting her as she was walked into the lounge and settled onto the closest armchair. “Head down, Rowena.”

“What’s wrong with Mum?” Jamie demanded in alarm.

“A little faint, I think. Nothing serious,” Keir answered. “Did she eat any breakfast this morning?”

“I didn’t see her have anything except coffee.”

“Mummy’s making a Christmas pudding,” Sarah supplied helpfully.

“Jamie, could you make your mother a cup of coffee and find some biscuits or cake for her?”

“Sure I can. You’ll look after Mum?”

“Yes.”

“I want some biscuits, too, Jamie.”

Rowena lifted her head, her eyes clearing enough to see Sarah trailing after her brother, leaving her alone with Keir.

“Take a few deep breaths, Rowena,” he advised gently. “I’ll just go and shut the front door so everything’s secure.”

Secure? Rowena felt a bubble of hysteria rising and hastily clamped down on it. Her mind
whirled around the realisation that Jamie must have eavesdropped on all that had been said between her and Phil last night, and bringing Keir into their lives was his solution to the situation. But it was no solution at all. It was a massive complication!

Then Keir was back, crouching in front of her, taking her hands, rubbing them between his.

“I’m all right,” she croaked.

“I’m sorry about the shock, Rowena. There was no easy way.”

Concern and caring in his voice. Of course he cared! He’d just been presented with a son, hadn’t he? Jamie would impress anyone as a boy a man would be proud of fathering. Any man except Phil! And now everything was going to be ten times worse.

“Jamie shouldn’t have—”

“He had your interests at heart, Rowena.”

She looked up wildly, her eyes filled with chaotic torment. “Then he’s hopelessly mistaken, isn’t he?”

Keir held her gaze steadily. “Give me the chance to show he’s not.”

“Phil threatened to sell this home and put us out of it if I got involved with you. Even if I wanted you, I can’t afford you in our lives, Keir.”

“I’ll give you a home that no one else can sell. I’ll put it in your name. Absolute security of tenure.”

It was a mind-boggling offer, too big to be believed, tossed off as though it was the easiest thing
in the world for him to do. She stared at him, the seeds of mistrust growing, multiplying. Was it another grandiose lie to impress her?

“Why on earth should you do that?” she asked suspiciously.

His gaze didn’t waver, direct, intense, compelling. “If for no other reason, I owe it to you and Jamie.”

Maybe he felt some indebtedness right now. Rowena could accept that he did. But things changed when it came down to the nitty-gritty. Phil had left her in no doubt of that.

“You’re in the first flush of finding out you have a son, Keir. What about tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow? How long will the sense of responsibility last?”

“For the rest of my life,” he said quietly.

She wanted to believe it. She wanted to but she couldn’t. She wrenched her eyes from his and looked at her hands, still warmly enfolded. She pulled them out of his grasp and shrank into the deeply cushioned armchair, frightened of letting him get too close to her. It was too tempting to swallow the dream he was offering.

“I’ve heard promises before. I’m sitting in the middle of broken promises,” she said, more to herself than him. “I think I’d rather manage my own life than count on support that doesn’t stay true.”

He stood up, very tall, very formidable, rock solid in his purpose. “There is Jamie to consider, Rowena.”

“And my other children,” she fiercely insisted, her maternal instinct rushing to the fore. “I won’t have my children separated by fathers who only care about their own. If you think you can overlook the rest of my family in your plans for a future with Jamie—”

“I have no intention of overlooking anything. Not this time,” he said grimly.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means I want you in my life, Rowena. I want Jamie in my life. I don’t want to lose out on any part of either of you. And that includes your daughters, Jamie’s sisters.”

She steeled herself against any melting towards him. “I heard the same from Phil. About Jamie. Only now it suits him to disown the son he adopted.” The still raw pain of that rejection flashed out at Keir. “We’re not pieces of baggage to be passed around.”

“I’m not Phil.”

He was right. Keir was more powerful, more self-assured, more focused on her and her needs than Phil had ever been. And probably more capable of answering them. She didn’t doubt he had the wealth to buy her a house. She suspected he was harbouring the expectation of living in it with her, too. Yet he couldn’t want her that much. It had to be the idea of having Jamie that was spurring him on to such sweeping declarations.

“You think you can just walk in here and take over me and my family?” she asked, trying to
gauge how far he had considered what he was doing.

“No, I don’t. I think I have to earn those privileges.”

“It will take a lot of earning, Keir,” she warned.

“I’m not acting on impulse, Rowena. I’ve had many years to consider what is meaningful in my life. I don’t come here lightly.”

He looked unshakable.

She remembered how convincing he had been about his love for her all those years ago. It hadn’t proven true. Words were easy. They were also empty unless backed up by real substance.

On the other hand, maybe she was being too harsh, too sweeping in her demands. Expecting too much. Ideals were fine, but when they didn’t work, compromises had to be made. Jamie was entitled to have a father in his life, and since Phil had abdicated the role, why not Keir? He could give Jamie more advantages in a material sense than she ever could alone. But if he let Jamie down, as he had let her down…

“Are you sure you want to be father to Jamie, Keir?”

“Yes.”

“Are you aware of how much it costs to bring up a child, physically, financially and emotionally?”

“Whatever it takes, I’ll meet it.”

His confidence niggled her. He was untried, inexperienced, and words were cheap. Promises
were cheap. “In that case you won’t mind making provision for him,” she said, driven to make him realise the consequences of commitment.

“No problem.”

Put him to the test, a mutinous little voice whispered. “As an act of good faith, you could open a trust account for Jamie that will cover his keep and his education,” Rowena rattled off. “When you show me how committed you are to being his father and all it entails, I’ll agree to your seeing Jamie on a regular basis.”

He didn’t so much as blink. “And you, Rowena?”

“I come at a higher price,” she said loftily, determined to test him to the limit. “You see, I’ve been supposedly loved and discarded once too often. You’ll have to buy me a house of my own before I even begin to think of involving myself with you on any personal basis.”

He observed the hard glitter in her eyes for several moments before answering her challenge. “Would you then begin to think, Rowena, or is this simply an act of vengeance for what you’ve suffered?”

Was it vengeance? She hesitated, not liking that image of herself. No, it was common sense, the little voice whispered. To let herself be fooled again would be too damaging, both to herself and her children.

“Call it what you will,” she answered him, grimly resolved on keeping her feet on the ground. “I want protection for my children. Give
me that, Keir, and I’ll certainly consider you worth having in my life. You can risk it or not, as you please, but I’m not risking anything more.”

“The hurt goes so deep,” he murmured, his eyes softening with compassion.

It made Rowena squirm inside. But she had nothing to be ashamed of. It wasn’t she who had betrayed her commitments. “I didn’t ask you to come here,” she said resentfully.

“No. Jamie did. He was worried for you. With good reason.”

“I’m not a basket case. I can cope. I’ve done it before and I can do it again.”

Though she was hopelessly rusty on her secretarial skills. She would have to do some computer courses to update herself before applying for a job. If that became necessary. She didn’t know what the law was on maintenance payments. Phil was seeing a solicitor today. Maybe she should see one, too. At least find out what her position was.

“You don’t have to cope this time,” Keir said, shrewdly reading her uncertainties. “Just let me do it for you.”

How could he be so confident of delivering what Phil had found too oppressive? “You’re welcome to try, Keir. But let me tell you, when you really get hit in the face with the difficulties, it can be another story. I’ll be more impressed with action,” she informed him, her eyes broodingly sceptical.

“Did it ever occur to you to act yourself, Rowena? To let me know you were pregnant?”

The softly spoken challenge sliced through the bank of defences she’d been feeding. It plucked at her heart. There was pain in his eyes, pain she couldn’t dismiss.

“If only you’d told me,” he went on, such infinite regret in his voice, the pain of loss, all the years he had been deprived of knowing Jamie, the baby years and the wonderful little-boy years, starting school, sports days where Jamie always won his races, the fun and the joy of so many things.

Rowena was suddenly gripped by guilty confusion. She had blamed Keir for not coming back to her, but was the blame all his? What did she know of his life in the years following the accident? The need to justify her own course impelled her to speak.

“I was only seventeen, Keir, and my parents…It was so bad, I was frightened of even mentioning your name, let alone…” She winced at the memory of endlessly fraught days, weeks, months. “And you didn’t write to me, didn’t let me know.”

“I did, Rowena,” he asserted quietly.

He’d said that yesterday, too. He could have written, for all she knew. She shook her head in helpless anguish. “You don’t understand. Everything to do with you was destroyed. It was like living in a nightmare, and when Mum realised I
was pregnant and I had to tell her you were the father, she was so unbalanced—”