The Story of Us (36 page)

I had read all sorts of stupid hidden meanings into Jack's invitation today. I'd been so sure that he'd invented this whole crazy cookery ruse as an excuse to spend one more day with me. And now, when I got here he was on the internet sweet-talking some nameless woman on the other side of the world. And it was crushingly obvious that whoever she was, he cared about her; that much was clear by the warm and loving tone of his voice when he spoke to her. I'd heard traces of that sometimes when he spoke to me, fleeting glimpses of intimacy, enough to recognise it when it was directed at someone else. So why was I still standing in his kitchen like some pathetic idiot, wearing my brand new jeans and white shirt
(not too try-hard, didn't want him thinking I'd overdressed for the occasion)
, just waiting for him to say goodbye to one woman and then pay some attention to me? I didn't deserve to be treated like this. Not again, not by anyone, and certainly not by him.

Caroline's warning rang like a grim reminder in my head. Well, she needn't have worried; romance hadn't been on Jack's mind at all when he'd asked me to come here today. Apparently, the only reason I was here was to cook his bloody dinner. He'd even directed me straight into the kitchen! I should just go, I thought, already heading back into the hall. Jack was still talking on his computer and with luck I could ease open the front door and make a dash for my car before he even noticed I had gone. I took a step further into the shadowy hall.

‘I've missed you too, honey. It's been far too long this time, but only another five days.'

The woman talking to him on his laptop screen said something which I couldn't make out, and Jack responded with a low rumbling laugh. ‘Of course I will,' he promised. I had to get out of there before he started intimately discussing the reunion they were both no doubt eagerly awaiting. I took a step and the old oak board beneath my foot creaked noisily, giving away my presence. Jack's head spun around.

‘Everything okay, Emma?' he asked, his eyes warm and gentle as he turned away from the screen to look at me. Masochistically I tried to see beyond the breadth of him to catch a glimpse of the woman who made him look and sound so full of tender affection. I could see nothing at all except a mass of pale gold hair. A blonde, that figures.

I realised he was still waiting for a response as I stood in his hall like a cartoon character pantomiming someone stealthily trying to tiptoe away, which actually was precisely what I
was
doing.

‘Yes, fine,' I said, flustered by having been caught. There was no chance now to make an unobserved exit. ‘I was just… just… getting the shopping,' I improvised wildly, hoping he hadn't noticed that the bags I was referring to were already in the kitchen. ‘I have to put some things in the fridge.'

‘Okay,' he said with a slightly bemused smile. Perhaps my voice hadn't sounded as natural as I would have liked. ‘I'm just saying goodbye here, I'll be with you in a moment.'

I knew a dismissal when I heard one. I walked back to the kitchen biting my lip until it actually hurt. What do I do now, stay or go? If I ran out of his house, like some pathetic heartbroken heroine, Jack would instantly know how badly I had misread everything about our entire relationship. He'd just been the Good Samaritan who had happened to be in the fallout zone when my world had crumbled apart.
I
was the one who had mistaken responsibility, friendship and concern for a deep and lasting emotional connection tying us together. It wasn't Jack who couldn't see the difference between a fleeting physical attraction and something so much more. That was all me.

‘Hi, I'm sorry, that was really rude of me,' he said, walking in with the apology already falling from his lips. He bent down and lightly kissed my cheek. That was new. I stiffened, but I don't think he noticed for he was already crossing the kitchen and heading for the kettle.

‘Coffee?'

I opened my mouth to say,
‘No thanks, I can't stay'
,
and instead heard my voice replying, ‘Yes please, black, no sugar.'

As the water boiled Jack crossed to the table and looked down at the two over-stuffed carrier bags. ‘I didn't think you would actually bring all the ingredients with you.'

He looked so calm and unfazed. Moving so easily from his lover to his dumb English friend that something inside me tightened and twisted uncomfortably.

‘Well, that
was
why you invited me here today, Jack, wasn't it? You asked me to cook for you, isn't that what this is all about?'

He looked at me carefully, and I found my gaze drawn to his lower lip, and the way he had drawn it in, considering my question. It was a physical effort to wrench my gaze away from his mouth. Jack looked confused, and it wasn't an expression I was used to seeing on him.

‘Is something wrong, Emma?'

‘No,' I lied, looking him straight in the eye. ‘Why do you ask?'

He looked uncomfortable and wrong-footed, yet another new look for him.

‘You seem… prickly.'

I forced a tight smile past my unwilling lips. ‘No. Just keen to get going.' Jack's eyebrows rose at my words. ‘With the cooking,' I amended.

I knew he didn't believe me, but I really didn't care. I was going to go through with this silly little charade and not let him see just how much more I had thought this day was meant to be about. All I had left was my pride, and I wasn't prepared to lose that too.

He made the coffees while I made a great pretence of readying the ingredients I had brought, lining them up along one side of the kitchen table, as though I was preparing to be filmed for a television cook show.

‘Do you need me to do anything?' he asked, as I hunted for bowls and utensils in the cupboards of his kitchen. I remembered seeing most of what I needed when I had cooked our steak dinner. I closed my eyes briefly on the memory. So much had happened since then, and none of it good. I carried what I needed back to the table and directed him to the other side of the room. If I was going to get through this at all, I needed far more distance between us. In fact the width of the kitchen was still nowhere wide enough. Well, in another five days there'd be an entire ocean between us. And then he'd be with her, whoever she was.

‘It's best you stand well clear,' I advised, pouring flour recklessly on to the scales and momentarily disappearing behind a small white cloud. ‘I'm a pretty messy cook. You should really have asked Caroline here to do this instead of me.'

‘I didn't want Caroline here. I wanted you,' he answered, his voice low. It was just that sort of talk that had led me so hopelessly down the wrong track I had taken.

I cracked an egg into a cup so viciously that I was never going to be able to fish out the pieces of broken shell that had gone in with it. I discarded it and reached for another one.

‘Emma,' Jack said, crossing back across his kitchen and sliding his fingers around my forearm. ‘Will you please just tell me what is bothering you.'

There was that look in his eyes which I had always thought meant so much more than it actually did. I was finally getting wise. It was about time.

‘Why should anything be bothering me, Jack? You tell me,' I challenged, carrying on with my cooking as though he had never interrupted me. ‘So, the oil has to be really hot,' I said, pouring a generous amount in the bottom of a roasting dish and opening the Aga door.

‘You seemed fine on the phone the other day,' Jack said ponderingly.

‘So hot it actually has to be smoking,' I continued, turning back to the kitchen table and picking up a wooden spoon.

‘It sounded like you
wanted
to see me again,' he continued, sounding a little embarrassed.

‘Beat in the eggs and milk,' I said tightly, dropping both ingredients into the flour.

‘And I certainly didn't make it a secret that I
really
wanted to see you again before I left,' he confessed.

‘Then beat it,' I said through clenched teeth. My hand wielding the spoon moved furiously around the bowl, slopping batter mix over the table. I hadn't lied; I was an atrociously messy cook.

‘And when you first got here today, you looked happy.'

‘Add the rest of the milk,' I said, waiting for him to reach the conclusion he was inexorably heading towards. There goes any last chance of salvaging my pride.

‘But when I saw you in the hall just now, you looked…' His voice trailed away as comprehension dawned like a sunrise in his eyes.

Hurt. Humiliated. Embarrassed.
Take your pick, I thought.

‘The person I was talking to—'

‘Is absolutely no concern of mine,' I completed his sentence.

He ignored my interruption. ‘Is my daughter.'

More batter slopped alarmingly out of the bowl. Very gently he reached across and took it from my hands. A wise decision.

‘Your daughter?' My voice was an incredulous croak. ‘Your daughter? You have a daughter?' I queried, as though I might possibly have misunderstood what he was telling me.

He nodded slowly. ‘I have.'

‘But… how… why… You've never said anything about her.' My words sounded more like an accusation than anything else.

‘No, I haven't. Very few people know of her existence, and that's just the way we'd like it to stay. In fact, until just three years ago, I didn't know she existed myself.'

All anger drained from me then, as though a plug had been pulled. ‘What do you mean? How's that possible? How old is she?'

‘She's ten years old, and her name is Carly.'

Ten. She had to be Sheridan's daughter, she just had to be. Jack astutely read the question in my eyes without the need for words.

‘Sheridan was newly pregnant with her when she slept with my best friend. Maybe she knew about it, maybe she didn't. I've never been entirely clear on that one. But she wanted me out of her life so completely, with no ties and connections to hold us, that she never told me about her.'

The spoon fell from my fingers and clattered noisily on to the table top, adding further to the mess I had made. ‘Jack, that's horrible. How could she do that?'

He shrugged, but I could still see how it had hurt him.

‘But you're her father. How could anyone hope to keep something like that a secret? Didn't you guess when the baby was born?'

‘I didn't even know there
was
a baby,' Jack said bitterly. ‘We had the world's fastest divorce and then she simply disappeared for the next nine months.'

‘But then what happened? When she came back with a baby, you must have guessed then?'

His next words shocked me, and explained an awful lot about Jack's mistrust and aversion to marriage and commitment. ‘She never came back with the baby.'

‘What?'

‘She left her with her sister to raise. Her sister lives on a farm and has two kids of her own, one is almost the same age as Carly. They're more like twin sisters than cousins.'

I shook my head at how unbelievably cruel Sheridan had been, not just to Jack but to her own daughter. But when I voiced those words, Jack disagreed.

‘Believe me, she did the kid a favour. Her sister is totally different from Sheridan. She's warm and loving and caring. She's a great mom. Carly adores her, and her cousins are like her siblings.'

‘But still…' I said, grappling to get my head around the enormity of it all. ‘So how did you find out about her?'

‘From Sheridan,' he said, and there was a twist to his lips as he said her name. ‘She was between husbands, short of cash and her sister's farm was in danger of being repossessed by the bank. She needed me – or rather my money – to bail them out. So she had no option but to tell me about the child.'

‘Oh my God, Jack,' I said, reaching for one of the kitchen chairs and sitting down, totally shaken.

‘What am I supposed to do with this, by the way?' he asked, still holding on to the bowl of batter.

‘Pour it over the sausages in the pan,' I answered distractedly.

While he did as I had instructed, I tried to get my head around the complexity of Jack's life. This was the responsibility he had spoken of back home. This was the commitment he had to someone. And it was one hell of a big one.

With the pan returned to the Aga, Jack turned back to me.

‘So what happened when you found out about Carly? Did you apply for custody?'

Jack shook his head sadly. ‘How could I? She was seven years old and her aunt and uncle were the only parents she had ever known. She'd been with them her entire life. How could I pull her away from them, or her cousins? How could I tear her whole world apart like that?'

I felt a lump like a burning hot coal lodge in my throat. I knew I'd been right in instinctively hating his ex-wife. I just hadn't known there were so many valid reasons for doing so.

‘Susan and Mike – Sheridan's sister and brother-in-law – have been really great. They've let me come into Carly's life and over the last three years we've built up a really good relationship.'

I sighed and gave a shaky smile, thankful there was a happy ending to this story. ‘So she knows she's yours?'

He nodded and there was a look on his face that I didn't initially recognise. Then I realised what it was, paternal pride. ‘She's a great kid. She and her cousins come out to the ranch and stay for a few days each month. They love the place. It's never going to be an ideal situation, but we make it work.'

I reached across the sticky table for Jack's hand. ‘She's lucky to have you as her dad,' I said solemnly. He looked slightly embarrassed, but still pleased at my words.

‘Let's go for a walk,' he suggested suddenly. ‘The beach is lovely at this time of day and I think we could both use the fresh air.' He nodded in the direction of the stove. ‘Can we leave this?' I nodded. ‘Then let's go,' he said, getting to his feet and pulling me from my chair.