The Hidden Years (80 page)

On their way to the hospital they passed a newspaper
vendor. The headline splashed across the front page caught Sage's eye
and she continued reading it with growing shock.

'Chairman of Cavanagh Construction resigns amid conflict
over motorway contract.'

Quickly she darted forwards and bought a copy of the
paper. Scott, who had paused to wait for her, watched her anxiously.

'It's Daniel,' she told him shakily. 'I think he's in
trouble… I can't explain it all right now…'

Daniel, being forced to resign… Daniel who had
come himself to tell her about the change of route. She hadn't stopped
to think how difficult that must have been for him, how
galling… how potentially financially disastrous. She thought
of the house he had bought and the land, the risks he had taken, and,
despite the fact that nothing could alter her relief that the village
was no longer going to be destroyed, she couldn't help wishing that it
could have been achieved without Daniel suffering.

After the noise of the traffic, the silence of the
recovery unit carried an awareness of tension and anxiety. An almost
spiritual sense of how finely the balance hung here between life and
death.

Her mother was in a private room at the end of a short
corridor.

Lewis was already there with her. He looked both haggard
and elated as he came out to meet them, his voice cracking with emotion
as he told them joyfully, 'She's come round. She recognised
me…' There were tears in his eyes. 'She's under sedation at
the moment… sleeping… But she should be waking up
shortly. I've spoken to the specialist. He says she's physically very
strong and now that the danger of the blood clot has been removed he
has every confidence in her making a full recovery. The danger was that
they wouldn't be able to remove the clot, but now that danger's gone it
should be just a matter of time—'

'Can we see her?' Sage interrupted him anxiously.

As though he sensed her inability to believe that her
mother was actually alive until she had seen her for herself, he
nodded. 'Only for a few minutes, mind,' he warned her.

Strange that she, who had always resented authority so
deeply and so intensely, did not resent the authority of this
man—should almost find it amusing, should regard it with such
affection and tolerance.

Her mother's eyes were closed, her body still and small
beneath the stiff white sheet, transporting Sage back instantly to that
moment when she had first seen her in her hospital bed and realised
that she was after all mortal.

Now, as then, she was overwhelmed by a wave of love and
fear, but now those emotions were softened by knowledge and maturity.

She had waited a long time to achieve such maturity, Sage
recognised grimly. Too long, and, with hindsight, she marvelled at her
mother's patience with her.

But then love made great allowances as well as great
sacrifices and her mother had made both.

Without knowing she had done so, she discovered that she
had reached out and put her hand over her mother's.

'I love you, Ma,' she whispered hesitantly, unconsciously
using for the first time the affectionate name only David had called
her before.

Was it her imagination, or had the still hand beneath her
own moved? She searched her mother's face, her body tensing as she saw
her eyelashes flutter… Her eyelids lifted, and she was once
again looking into those familiar grey eyes, but where before she had
always perceived them as cold and disapproving, as unloving and
rejecting, now she saw that in reality they were shadowed with anxiety
and concern, that behind the veneer of self-control was love and need.

'I love you, Ma,' she said again. 'But if you ever dare do
anything like this to us again I'll never forgive you.'

'Ready, Sage?' Scott asked.

They had agreed between them that it was only fair that,
since only one of them could be allowed to remain with Liz, that one
should be Lewis.

If Sage had had any doubts about this, they had been
banished when she saw the look on her mother's face when she opened her
eyes properly and saw Lewis standing beside her bed.

Now Scott was waiting to drive all of them, Sage, Faye,
and Camilla, back to Cottingdean, where he and Lewis were going to stay
until Liz was well enough to come home from hospital.

'I'm not coming back with you,' she told him.
'I… There's something I need to do… someone I
need to see.'

She was still holding the newspaper and she glanced at it
betrayingly. Scott followed her glance and his eyes darkened
compassionately.

'You're going to see him?' he guessed.

Sage nodded.

'Yes.' She didn't want to explain to Scott about the
misunderstanding that had occurred. She didn't need to… It
was enough that he knew she loved Daniel.

'You're going to see Daniel Cavanagh?' Faye repeated in
astonishment when Sage told her where she was going. 'But I…
I thought you didn't like him… ?'

'No, I don't,' Sage told her drily. 'In much the same way
as you don't like Alaric Ferguson.'

They exchanged mutual looks of self-knowledge, two women
who now understood one another a great deal better and who had been
united by their mutual voyage of discovery.

Camilla was frowning at both of them, but she was too
elated by her grandmother's successful operation to question either of
them.

She eyed Scott thoughtfully. He was Sage's twin brother.
His father—Sage's father—had been Gran's lover,
years and years ago… It was all so romantic…so
exciting. She wondered if she'd ever manage to wangle an invitation out
to Australia… She'd always wanted to travel…

Sage took a taxi across London, only realising as she
climbed out of the cab just how late it was. Daniel might even have
gone to bed. It was almost eleven…
A frisson
of sensation curled through her… a softening… an
awareness.

Stop it, she warned herself. You're going to apologise and
explain. You're going as a friend, not as a potential lover…
That's if he'll actually let you in.

He did, but it was plain that he was astonished to see her.

'Sage… What on earth—?'

'I've seen this…' she told him, waving the
paper in front of him. 'Oh, Daniel, I'm so sorry… Was it
because of the house… was that why they made you resign?'

'
Made
me resign?' To her astonishment
he actually started to laugh. 'You thought I'd been
forced
to resign? I
wanted
to resign, Sage. Running a
huge corporation, being stuck behind a desk all day bogged down with
administration and paperwork—that's not for me. My
resignation has been under negotiation for some time. It wasn't easy, I
admit, to give up the reins of the company my father built up. I felt I
owed it to him to at least try… But in the end I knew he'd
understand that I had to be true to myself, my own ideals and
ambitions.'

'So what are you going to do?' she asked him blankly. Sage
wasn't sure she believed him, but he sounded so confident, so relaxed,
so very different from what she had imagined… her visit,
like so many of her impulsive gestures, had been unnecessary, foolish
even. It seemed that the last thing Daniel needed was her compassion,
her concern, her friendship.

'I'm going to do what I've always wanted to do. I'm going
to build small, exclusive developments—one-offs, anything
that takes my fancy. When the company was originally bought out,
financially I did very well. I don't need to work, at least not
financially, but mentally, well, that's a different thing…
but I'm no workaholic. I want other things in my life besides work.
Things like a wife, a family… Why did you come here, Sage?'
he asked her abruptly.

She stared at him, her mouth opening and then closing. Why
had
she come here…?

'Suddenly realised you're wasting your life mooning over
Scott, is that it? Suddenly realised you need something much more than
a mere dream lover can give you?'

Her face went scarlet with temper.

'No, it is not,' she ground out at him. 'And for your
information…' She stopped. 'Why did you buy that house?' she
asked him obliquely. 'Was it because of the road?'

'No,' he told her shortly, 'it wasn't. I bought it because
I want to live in it. Your information wasn't totally accurate. I
bought it, not Hever Homes. Now stop trying to change the subject. Why
did you come here?'

'Well, it wasn't because I want to go to bed with you, if
that's what you think,' she told him dangerously.

'Wasn't it?' he challenged her softly, getting up out of
his chair and coming towards her.

When he reached her he didn't touch her but simply asked
her conversationally, 'Why are you trembling so much, Sage?'

'Because… because I'm angry,' she told him
desperately.

'Angry,' he mused, watching her. 'You've spent a lot of
your life being angry, haven't you? Or wasted a lot of your life on it.
Are you sure it's anger you feel?'

'Of course I'm sure. After all, if I've spent as much of
my life experiencing it as you seem to think, it's hardly something I'm
likely to mistake, is it?'

'Not by accident,' he agreed.

He was standing so close to her that she could feel the
warmth of his breath stirring her hair. She only had to close her eyes
and lean forwards… She trembled violently. This wasn't what
she had come for. And besides, Daniel despised her… he
thought she still loved Scott.

She took a step back from him and said as firmly as she
could, 'It seems I've made a mistake… and it's time I left.
The last train…'

Daniel frowned. 'The
what…
!
What's happened to your car?'

'Scott brought us up. When we left the hospital, he drove
Faye back to Cottingdean… I came straight here…'
She stopped abruptly, realising how much she had betrayed…
but Daniel seemed to have picked up only on one thing.

'Scott… Scott is here…?'

'Not here… At Cottingdean,' Sage told him, and
then as she saw the rejection in his eyes she caught hold of his sleeve
and implored, 'Daniel, please listen—'

'Listen… to what? My God, and to
think… you realise he's married, don't you…
married with two children? Christ, will you never learn? He's not the
man for you…'

'And you are, I suppose?' she flamed back at him 'My God,
you're so arrogant… How dare you try to dictate to me?
Especially when—'

'Especially when what?' he demanded. 'When both of us know
damn well that no matter how much you might cling to some pathetic
belief that you still love Scott McLaren you actually want
me… Damn you, Sage, when will you—?'

'When will I what? Go to bed with you? Never…
Never…'

She turned and headed for the door.

Wrenching it open, she told him shakily, 'And as for
Scott… For your information, he's my brother—my
twin brother…'

To her disgust she discovered that her voice was so thick
with tears and words that they were clogging her throat, burning her
eyes. 'Oh, damn!' she swore under her breath, the hallway obscured by
her tears.

'What?
What
was that you just said?'
she heard Daniel demanding from behind her, his voice rough with
anxiety and shock.

She hadn't intended to answer him—she hadn't
even intended to stay…but somehow or other she found herself
turning towards him and sniffing almost childishly, 'Scott is my
brother, my
twin brother
!' and then, almost as
though he knew what she was feeling, what she wanted to say to him but
couldn't, Daniel's arms came round her and he was hugging her, holding
her… giving her the warmth and security, the compassion, the
tenderness she had yearned for all her life, as he rocked her gently,
and let her howl into the front of his shirt, soaking it with all the
abandon of a lost child.

'It was such a shock, and everything happened so
fast—Mother, the operation…'

She knew she was not making much sense, but Daniel seemed
to grasp what she was trying to say.

'I expect she kept it from you for the best of
motives… Did you really think I'd been forced to resign from
the company?'

She stiffened in his arms as she heard the indulgent
amusement in his voice.

'Yes, as a matter of fact I did,' she told him curtly.

She pushed away from him, holding him at a distance.

'I didn't come here looking for your sympathy,
Daniel… or for anything else,' she told him savagely. 'I
might want you,' she added bitterly, 'but credit me with the capacity
to feel some other emotions besides lust. But then why should you?' she
added self-derisively. 'I've never given you any reason to believe that
I can feel anything else. If you value me so poorly, it's probably only
because that's the way I value myself…but not any
longer—not any longer.

'I came here tonight because I was concerned for you,
worried about you.' Holding her head high, she looked straight at him,
and told him through clenched teeth, 'I came here tonight because… because…
because I love you, and stupidly I thought you might need someone, even
if that someone was only me… a woman incapable of feeling
any emotion other than lust. But you don't need me, do you, Daniel? You
don't need anyone, and I now think I've made enough of a fool of myself
for one night…'

She pulled herself out of his arms before he could stop
her, tugging open the door, running down the steps and flagging down a
cruising cab, while Daniel called her name protestingly and muttered
under his breath, 'Come back, you stupid woman. I do need
you… and I love you, too, damn you!'

He rang her the next day, four times, but on each occasion
she refused to take his calls. There was nothing he wanted to do more
than to go to her and tell her what he felt, to take advantage of her
vulnerability and tie her to him so securely that she'd never be able
to tear herself free, but he was right in the middle of the
negotiations for the takeover of his successor at Cavanagh's and, no
matter how much he might want to do so, there was no way he could
behave like an adolescent and walk out on the meetings to go to her..