The Marriage Merger (4 page)

A long silence hovered as she became aware
that the mood between them had subtly altered. Although his eyes
still held hers she became conscious that his gaze was taking in
her flushed cheeks, her breasts rising and falling beneath the
clinging fabric of her tee-shirt.

He was very still, his body tensed as though
assessing a situation that was new to him. Suddenly she realised he
was no longer thinking about Caitlin. Had the attraction, the
compassion she felt for this man been conveyed to him by some word,
some gesture she had made? As though to distance herself from the
thought she stepped back towards the penthouse door.

“You don’t want to be late for your meeting,”
she said, deliberately looking at her watch.

Without a word he strode past her into the
penthouse. He took a notebook and wrote down phone numbers and put
the sheet of paper on the table. Jenna watched him say goodbye to
Caitlin. His gentle, tender manner was in such sharp contrast to
what he had displayed to Jenna that she wondered again what she had
done to be shown such cynicism and suspicion. Was it only her, or
was he like that with all women? And why was she letting him get
under her skin?

Over the years she had learned to control her
hot temper, and very rarely in a work situation had she allowed
anyone to annoy her to the degree that Braden did. She shook her
head. This was not going to be an easy job.

Mrs Jenkins had left everything in such good
order that it took Jenna very little time to do the small amount of
housework necessary. Vacuuming the floors gave her an opportunity
to explore the penthouse more closely than the perfunctory glance
she had had with Braden. Further up the hallway from the room she
had slept in and then Caitlin’s bedroom was the main bathroom,
spacious and light in tones of cream, pale apricot and gold. Then a
laundry, Braden’s bedroom with ensuite, and a study.

She noted the absence of any personal touches
- no photos, mementoes. Perhaps his own home showed more of the
personality of the man. After all, this was only a company place of
residence. The cream and apricot tonings continued with added
shades of soft green. Jenna looked through the sliding glass door
leading out onto the courtyard that surrounded the penthouse.
Bricked up gardens overflowing with palms and ferns created a
private oasis just outside the bedroom and study.

The study was obviously used as a second
office by Braden. She compared the austerity of his bedroom to the
clutter before her. Computer, printer, fax, photocopier, phone,
answering machine, filing cabinets. Yes, there was no need for him
to feel cut off from the billion dollar empire he presided
over.

Jenna’s thoughts concentrated on the man
behind the companies as she pushed the vacuum cleaner around. If
what she had seen was any indication, Braden lived for his work.
Did his money give him happiness? He certainly didn’t seem to have
found trust, not, at least, as far as she was concerned. But then
he had left Caitlin in her care, hadn’t he? And she certainly meant
a lot to him.

Caitlin came looking for her just as Jenna
put the vacuum cleaner back in the laundry cupboard. Her thin
little face with its sombre eyes seemed to be pleading with Jenna,
looking to her to find the answer to the sadness in her soul.

Jenna bent down to the child. “I have a
problem, Possum.” she said.

Delicate eyebrows lifted over grey eyes so
like Braden’s that Jenna could see his face etched clearly in her
mind. She answered the child’s unspoken query.

“I want to make some biscuits for when your
Uncle Braden comes home. The problem is I need some help. I haven’t
made animal biscuits in a long time. Do you think you could show me
if I’m doing it wrong?”

Jenna only intended making one batch of
biscuits, but Caitlin indicated she wanted to do more and Jenna
gave in, delighted by the first spark of pleasure she had seen in
the girl’s eyes as she pressed nuts and sultanas into the dough to
form the faces.

Although the child had not smiled, Jenna
could see a lessening in the tense look of the little face. After
lunch Caitlin started to fall asleep on the lounge and Jenna
carried her onto her bed.

It was a warm day, and felt doubly so to
Jenna, her body still acclimatized to England’s winter. In the
courtyard large potted palms and ferns scattered green against the
fawn patio furniture. A green and fawn striped shade cover extended
over the furniture and the swimming pool. The pool beckoned
invitingly.

Jenna changed into her bikini and dived in.
The cool water was bliss and she revelled in the change from heated
indoor pools that had been her norm for the past six months. Her
long graceful limbs slipped into the well-remembered dance rhythms
of the water ballet she had learned in her youth. Pointed toes,
sleek body gliding through the water in a series of turns and
pirouettes, losing herself to her inner music.

Her thoughts strayed to the memory of
Braden's powerful body slicing through the water, and she tried in
vain to stop the desire that shivered through her. Her imagination
taunted her with images of Braden's hard-muscled body sliding over
hers, dark-haired thighs against her smooth limbs, and she thrust
them away, grateful for the water's coolness on her suddenly
overheated body.

Gradually she became aware of a small shadow
falling on her. She glanced up to see Caitlin standing at the edge
of the pool, eyes wide with wonder. Jenna executed a few more
turns, then swam leisurely over to the child.

“Would you like to learn water ballet?” she
asked casually, as though it was of no consequence to her if
Caitlin refused. The child’s small white teeth bit into her bottom
lip as she looked at Jenna, then the water. Jenna could read the
longing there; the longing, and also the fear. Slowly, the longing
won, and the small head nodded gently.

“Better put your swimmers on then,” Jenna
said and slipped lithely under the water in a series of twists and
turns before Caitlin had time to protest. When she surfaced and saw
the little figure limping back inside she held her breath.

She had taken a gamble when she’d seen the
yearning in the child’s eyes. If she could get Caitlin in the water
she would have a chance to start her on some exercises which would
help build up the muscles in her thin little legs and strengthen
the damaged one.

As she moved with dolphin-like agility
through the water Jenna kept her eyes averted from the penthouse.
She didn’t want Caitlin to sense how anxious she was to have her
join her. So when Caitlin lowered herself awkwardly onto the
built-in steps sweeping down one corner of the pool Jenna kept
swimming about for another minute before she approached the child.
She sat on the step next to her, careful to avoid looking at the
ugly scars on Caitlin’s thigh.

“When I was five years old,” she said “I used
to get asthma. Do you know what asthma is?”

Caitlin shook her head.

“Well, sometimes there are funny smells in
the air that affect certain people, and make it hard for them to
breathe. Their lungs aren’t strong enough to suck the air in.” It
wasn’t quite an accurate description but one she felt Caitlin could
understand. The grey eyes looked at her with grave interest.

“To help me get stronger lungs so I wouldn’t
get asthma so much my mum used to take me to the pool to learn how
to swim.” Jenna continued. “I had to do a lot of swimming before my
lungs could get strong enough so I could hold my breath and learn
to do water ballet.”

She slid off the step and floated out in
front of Caitlin, looking up into the trusting face. “You are going
to have to do lots of exercises to get your legs strong enough
before you can do water ballet, Possum. Will you trust me to teach
you how?”

There was a slight hesitation, then Caitlin’s
arms reached out to Jenna.

For the next half hour Jenna eased Caitlin
into simple exercises such as leg swings to gain her confidence in
the water. They also had the benefit of gently loosening the hip
and lower back joints. In the days to come she planned for Caitlin
to do them more quickly in order to strengthen her buttock and
thigh muscles. But for now she took it slowly.

Occasionally Jenna would interrupt the
routine to inject a little fun into the procedures. Caitlin was too
small to go into the deeper end of the pool so Jenna had her hold
on to her around her neck and swam the child around on her back,
blowing bubbles and making “fishy” noises. Although there was no
audible reaction from Caitlin, Jenna could feel her tense grip
relax as she let herself glide along easily on Jenna’s back.

After dinner that evening, Jenna settled on
the lounge with Caitlin. In spite of Caitlin’s lack of speech they
seemed to have no trouble communicating. Rather than let the child
lose herself in front of the television set, Jenna read her story
books while Caitlin’s small finger traced the illustrations.

At eight o’clock the phone rang. Braden's
husky tones had Jenna's heartbeat skittering out of kilter and she
barely registered his words.

"I won't be able to get back tonight, Jenna.
The meeting has to be continued tomorrow morning." From the
vexation in his tone Jenna guessed today had not gone well. "How's
Caitlin?"

"She's fine. We baked biscuits today and
she's made some special ones for you."

There was a small silence. When Braden spoke
again Jenna thought she detected a wistful note in his voice. "She
used to help Alicia make gingerbread men."

A sudden urge to reassure him, to soothe the
worry from his voice, swept Jenna, but she didn’t tell him about
the exercises in the pool. Caitlin was listening and she didn’t
want her to realise their importance.

She wished Braden good luck with the meeting,
and wondered, as she hung up the phone, if he was alone. Then she
chided herself for her curiosity. It was none of her business,
really. But the thought still lingered.

A suspicion was forming in Jenna’s mind. Her
years of working with children had taught her they didn’t always
react to trauma in the same way adults did. Often in the case of a
divorce children would blame themselves for the break-up of their
parents’ marriage, mistakenly believing their behaviour had caused
the rift.

When it came to injury-related trauma
children could feel surprisingly guilty for causing their parents
anguish. Jenna was beginning to suspect Caitlin’s refusal to do the
exercises in hospital might stem from guilt feelings that she was
to blame for being injured and causing her mother to reject her. So
by not getting better she was subconsciously punishing herself.

During discussions with the psychiatrist in
the clinic where she'd worked in Sydney Jenna had learned logic
didn’t always come into children’s assessment of situations.

The relief she expected to feel at not having
to see Braden again so soon didn’t come. Instead she was irritated
to find herself disappointed. And her innate honesty made her admit
that another reason she hadn’t told him about Caitlin’s exercises
was she wanted to show him she wasn’t the inept, bumbling young
woman he so obviously thought she was.

Why did she feel she had to prove herself to
him? His opinion didn’t matter! The important thing was getting
Caitlin as strong as possible. Jenna knew a lot could be achieved
if only Caitlin would co-operate.

She had spoken for only a few minutes on the
phone to Jeff yesterday, but something he had said had lingered in
the back of Jenna’s mind. Reassuring herself that Caitlin had gone
into her bedroom, she dialled her parent’s home number. Jeff
answered on the second ring.

After spending a few minutes catching him up
on her change of plans, Jenna challenged her brother. “Jeff, why
did you wait all day at Mascot Airport if you thought I was still
sticking to my original flight plans?”

“Well, um, I wasn’t sure what they were.”

“Mum would have told you.” Suspicion tinged
Jenna’s tone. “You did get my text message, and my email and fax,
didn’t you?”

“What email? What fax?”

“The ones I mentioned on the phone yesterday.
The ones letting you know I would be staying with you for a week
rather than a few hours.”

An exasperated sigh echoed down the phone
line. “It’s damn hard to lie to you, Sis. Yes, I did get them, and
I’d left a message at the flight desk in Brisbane for you to take a
bus up to the penthouse in Maroochydore.”

“You did what?” Jenna could feel her temper
rising.

“Before you blow your stack, Sis, will you
please listen? Braden needs you. He’s nearly been going out of his
mind with worry over Caitlin, and I knew if anyone could help the
kid, you could. I’d actually planned to fly up to Brisbane and meet
you and take you up there myself, but I couldn’t get away, so I
hoped if you just turned up and saw Caitlin you’d offer to help. I
was going to phone Braden just before you arrived and tell him
about you and that there’d been a mix-up and -”

“Hold it right there!” Jenna fought to stay
calm. “I phoned you.”

“Sorry.” Jeff sounded sheepish. “I had this
... friend ... over and she -”

“I don’t want to know,” Jenna interrupted.
“Let me get this straight. You plotted to have me arrive here, take
one look at Caitlin and offer my services?”

“I was going to let Braden know first. I knew
you wouldn’t push yourself on him.”

Jenna felt a surge of heat at the mental
image those words created. “Why?” she spluttered.

“Braden’s my friend, but he’s also very
stubborn. If I’d suggested him going down to pick you up from the
Airport he may have thought I was trying to interfere in his
private life and refused, but I knew he wouldn’t leave you at his
front door with nowhere to go.” His voice brightened. “And I was
right, wasn’t I? Do you think you can help Caitlin?”