Substitute Bride Read online

  ‘I see,’ he said in clipped tones. ‘Well, you’d better assemble that pushchair thing and get him comfortable while I look for the suitcases. Can you describe them to me?’

  Laura stared at him in amazement, unable to believe that he had dismissed the subject of Gareth so easily. True, they were in a public place, and she certainly had no intention of going into details here herself, yet James had given no hint of wanting to tackle the matter later. It was as if it held absolutely no importance for him. She felt her own anger surge so that it threatened to choke her, but she vowed to match his indifference with her own. Her voice was as cold and clipped as his when she replied.

  ‘They’re medium-sized, tan, and there are two of them. And a plastic car seat as well.’

  As soon as he’d found them he picked them up and set off for the car park, with his head down and his long legs covering the ground in gigantic strides. It reminded her of the way he had walked angrily away from her on the beach when he’d still thought that she was Bea. Once again she had to run to catch up with him, but this time the gulf of bitterness and betrayal that settled between them was completely unbridgeable.

  She watched his scowl as he paid for the parking ticket and her heart sank. He still seemed to hate her as much as ever, but why? Why? Surely if there was any hating to be done she was the one who had a right to do it? Hadn’t he hurt her far worse than she had ever hurt him? Or did he think that his action in seducing and abandoning her was a just revenge for her initial deceit? She flashed him a bitter, smouldering look as she lifted Gareth out of his pushchair and felt him snuggle into her neck. Settling him tenderly into the car seat and adjusting the seat belt, she kissed him on the cheek.

  She was just going to climb in beside him when she saw that James was holding the front door open for her. Reluctantly she took her place in the front seat beside him.

  ‘Wasn’t your husband free to come with you?’ asked James as they drove away from the car park.

  ‘I don’t have a husband.’

  ‘You mean you’re already divorced?’ The disapproval in his tone was unmistakable.

  ‘No, I mean I’m unmarried.’

  His eyebrows drew together.

  ‘So you deserted that accountant chap of yours, did you?’

  Laura gave him a startled glance. So that was it! Obviously he thought that Gareth was Raymond’s son, which meant that Bea must have told him about Raymond, in spite of her promise never to discuss her sister with James.

  ‘Yes, if you want to put it that way,’ she agreed coldly. ‘How about you? Are you married?’

  ‘No.’

  The monosyllable was little more than a throaty growl.

  ‘I thought perhaps you and Sue—’

  ‘Sue got divorced and is now remarried happily and living in Western Australia.’

  Laura felt an absurd pang of relief that made her want to kick herself. What did it matter to her whether James and Sue had got married? She was never going to have any more to do with him in any case!

  ‘What happened about the shopping centre?’ she asked, trying to change the subject.

  ‘We blocked it,’ said James.

  His eyes were stony and his jaw looked as solid and unyielding as a lump of granite, so that Laura had to suppress a half-hysterical urge to burst into laughter. Of course he’d blocked it! The developers should have known that they couldn’t cross James Fraser and get away with it! They might as well try to struggle with a solid cliff-face.

  ‘How’s everyone else in the village?’ she asked.

  James shrugged.

  ‘The same as ever, but I won’t bore you with the details. It wouldn’t mean much to an outsider.’

  An outsider. Thanks very much for the reminder, James! Well, it’s a good thing you’re not bothering with small talk because I didn’t come here to be friends with you, you swine. I came here to help my sister.

  ‘What do the doctors say about Bea and Sam?’ she asked abruptly.

  ‘They’re seriously worried about Bea. Apparently the X-rays of her neck show a line across the second vertebra which shouldn’t be there.’

  ‘Well, what does it mean?’

  James’s face looked grim.

  ‘It could mean that she has a fracture of the odontoid process—or, in layman’s language, a hangman’s fracture. If that’s so, then merely turning her head could be enough to make her die instantly.’

  ‘What? But don’t they know for sure? Are they completely useless? What the hell’s happening? Aren’t they doing anything for her?’

  She could hear the mounting hysteria in her own voice and was almost grateful when James’s hand reached across and crushed hers.

  ‘Laura,’ he said sternly. ‘They’re doing everything they can for her. At the moment they’re trying to get her condition stabilised enough to move her to another hospital tomorrow. Once she’s there, they’ll do a CAT scan and we should know what’s happening. Until then you can’t do Bea or anyone else any good by cracking up. Do you understand?’

  Laura nodded and clutched her handbag tightly, struggling not to give way to hysteria. She would just have to be patient and hope for good news soon, but the waiting threatened to be unbearable.

  ‘Who was driving the car?’ she burst out at last.

  ‘Bea was, but the accident wasn’t her fault. A drunken driver lost control on a bend and hit them. Needless to say, he escaped with only minor cuts and abrasions.’

  ‘How unfair!’

  ‘Life’s unfair.’

  As they approached the centre of the city Laura’s thoughts were given a welcome diversion, when Gareth suddenly woke up and began bouncing energetically at the sight of fishing boats and seagulls in the docks.

  ‘Boats!’ he cried gleefully. ‘Ducks!’

  He tried to undo his seat belt and climb out.

  ‘Gareth, stop that!’ cried Laura. ‘Sit properly in your seat. I’ll take you for a walk as soon as we get to where we’re staying. James, I haven’t discussed the matter of accommodation with you. Do you know of a hotel anywhere that would suit us?’

  James glanced over his shoulder at Gareth, who was now trying to squirm underneath the seat belt to make his escape.

  ‘I did have you booked in at the casino hotel—at my expense, of course—but I think that lively little customer in the back seat might be better off staying at Bea and Sam’s house. There’s a garden there, the beach is close by and you could do whatever cooking you feel like. Would that suit you?’

  Laura looked at him with relief. She had never liked hotels, and at the moment the last thing she wanted to do was deal with strangers.

  ‘All right,’ she agreed. ‘Thank you.’

  She felt a twinge of dismay as the car pulled up in the driveway of the house where she had first met James, but if he was sharing her bittersweet memories he gave no sign of it. Lifting the luggage out of the car, he led the way to the front door.

  ‘When can we go to the hospital and see them?’ asked Laura.

  ‘As soon as you’ve had some coffee and settled in,’ he said, ushering her into the hallway. ‘Just choose whatever rooms you want for the two of you. I’m in the green bedroom next to Sam and Bea’s at the moment, but I’m quite happy to have another one if you’d prefer that.’

  A chill settled in the pit of her stomach.

  ‘You mean you’re staying here too?’

  ‘Yes, but don’t worry. I won’t be making any advances to you.’

  Until now James had been more or less polite, but this time there was no mistaking the contemptuous sneer in his voice. Laura’s nerves were already frayed by worry and exhaustion, and her anger ignited like a blowtorch.

  ‘That’s just as well,’ she said venomously. ‘You wouldn’t get far.’

  Their eyes met and hatred surged between them as lethally as a high voltage current. For two pins she would have walked straight back out of this house and climbed on a plane to return to Queensland, but she couldn�
��t do that because of Bea. Well, she might have to stay here, but that didn’t mean she would have to like it!

  What infuriated her most about the whole situation was James’s unfairness. As she saw it, she was the injured party, not him, so what right did he have to glare at her as if she were something nasty stuck to the bottom of his shoe? He was a brute and a heartless, shallow, exploitative swine, and she would like to kill him! Her fists clenched, her breast heaved and her breath came in rapid shallow flutters as she glared angrily back at him. It was all she could do to stop herself from slapping his face and shouting at him, hurling all the reproaches at him which had simmered inside her for almost three years.

  The force of her rage was almost exhilarating, but to her dismay she saw signs of similar tension in James himself. His narrowed eyes, his grimly set mouth, the muscle that was twitching in his cheek as if his teeth were gritted, the white outline of his knuckles clenched on the handles of her suitcases all hinted at a pent-up hostility just as fierce as her own. While they stood motionless in this stalemate Laura suddenly felt an urgent tug on her coat.

  ‘Gaweth go potty. Now!’

  She knew from experience that it was unwise to ignore that summons. Casting a final, burning look at James, she rushed her son into the bathroom. When they emerged, she heard the sound of coffee-cups clattering in the kitchen.

  ‘Laura,’ called James in a cool, controlled voice. ‘Come here, please.’

  She obeyed resentfully and found him setting the kitchen table with a completely serene expression on his face.

  ‘I’m sorry if I said anything to offend you,’ he said. ‘And I’ll offer to move out if you think it will be too desperately awkward for us to remain under the same roof, but I won’t deny that it would cause me difficulties. I’ll have to take over Sam’s job at the woollen mill while he’s laid up and a lot of his files and computer disks are here in this house. It would be a huge job to move them.’

  ‘I can hardly turn you out of the place,’ replied Laura stiffly.

  ‘Good,’ said James, smiling at her with that faintly wolfish baring of his teeth which had once sent tremors of arousal down her spine. ‘Then let’s do our best to get along together. After all, what happened between us is over and done with and no longer very important, so we ought to be able to have civilised dealings with each other. I’ll promise to be pleasant if you will. Agreed?’

  ‘Agreed,’ she muttered, accepting his outstretched hand.

  All the same, a pang of resentment went through her at his curt dismissal of their shared involvement as something unimportant that belonged to the past. If I told you Gareth was your son, would you still think it was unimportant and belonging only to the past? she wondered bitterly.

  A strange feeling seized her as she watched James squat down on the floor with a biscuit tin and solemnly offer Gareth one of the chocolate sticks in it. Gareth was already chattering away a mile a minute in his usual garbled lingo and there was a glint of amusement in James’s eyes as he listened, which disturbed her deeply. No, she would never tell him the secret of Gareth’s parentage out of mere spite. But what if there were good reasons for doing so? Did she really have the right to deprive Gareth of all contact with his father?

  So far he had been little more than a baby, and it hadn’t mattered much to him. But what about the years ahead? And what about James himself? Even if he had treated her abominably, did that mean he had no right to any contact with his son? Yet if she did tell him the truth, what would the results of her honesty be? Would he simply reject Gareth as he had rejected her, or would there be access visits, trips backwards and forwards between Tasmania and Queensland? That would mean years of inevitable contact between her and James and she simply couldn’t bear it. It would tear her in two. A wave of faintness swept over her at the mere thought.

  ‘Are you all right?’ demanded James curtly. ‘You look ill.’

  ‘It’s just tiredness and worry,’ she said. ‘I’ll be better once I’ve seen Bea.’

  A twinge of guilt attacked her at the realisation that she had completely forgotten about Bea for the last ten minutes, but as she sipped the fragrant, reviving coffee her thoughts turned from her own troubles to her sister’s.

  The hospital looked as bleak as Laura’s mood, with puddles of rain lying in shiny mirrors around the car park and bare black tree branches poking up from sodden green lawns. James settled her and Gareth in the waiting room and went off to see if he could speak to a doctor. He returned shaking his head.

  ‘No more information, I’m afraid. But they’ll let you see her for a short time.’

  Nothing could have prepared her for the sight of Bea looking so frail and defenceless in the high bed. There were sandbags packed around her head and some kind of stiff collar on her neck and her eyes were closed. Laura wasn’t sure that her sister could hear her, but she held her hand and spoke to her in a whisper.

  ‘Bea, it’s Laura and Gareth here. Please get well soon. We all love you so much. You’ve got to fight, sweetheart—’

  Her voice broke and she couldn’t go on. She swallowed hard, trying to blink back tears in order not to frighten Gareth. To her astonishment she suddenly found her hand crushed in James’s larger one. She clung to him silently, grateful for the comfort of his grip. Later, when they had visited Sam and were standing in the car park, he looked at her with a deep, scrutinising gaze which puzzled her. But when he spoke his voice was matter-of-fact.

  ‘We’ll go and have some lunch, then I’ll take you both home for a rest.’

  They went to Mure’s fish house on the waterfront, so that Gareth could see the boats and the ‘ducks’. While he pressed his nose against the window pane and gazed at the harbour outside the two adults talked.

  As if by some silent agreement, they avoided the subject of Bea and Sam’s accident and discussed other things: films, travel, the woollen mill, Laura’s new home in Queensland. She felt as if James were drawing her away from the edge of a dark and terrifying abyss, and was thankful for his reassuring presence. Yet she also felt ashamed of her own readiness to lean on him. When they had finished their fried scallops, chips and salad, he ordered sweet black coffee without consulting her.

  ‘Are you feeling better now?’ he asked. ‘You’ve got more colour in your cheeks.’

  ‘Yes. Thank you. I’m sorry to go to pieces like this. I shouldn’t be letting you carry all the problems on your own.’

  ‘That’s rubbish, Laura,’ he said sharply. ‘You’re the one with the greater burden to bear at the moment. Fond as I am of Bea these days, my feelings are nothing compared to your attachment to her. Besides, where would the world be if we couldn’t show a little kindness to each other in times of trouble?’

  Laura’s chin quivered as she looked back at him, and she wished despairingly that she could fathom what was going on in his mind. James had been so cruel to her in the past—why was he being so nice now?

  It was a question which continued to haunt her in the days that followed. To their mutual joy the specialist phoned James with the welcome news that Bea did not have a broken neck, but only a whiplash injury. Although she still faced several weeks in hospital, she was expected to make a complete recovery. They had barely absorbed that joyful message when they learned that Sam had developed pneumonia in his punctured lung, and there was more shared anxiety to face.

  But soon life began to settle into a routine, where their worries were balanced by the need to tackle daily chores. Each morning James went to work at the mill while Laura played with Gareth and looked after the house. In the afternoons she hired a babysitter so that she could go to the hospital and in the evenings they all ate dinner together and visited the invalids again. In many ways it was like being a family and Laura found the experience alarmingly addictive.

  To her dismay she found that she was looking forward to James’s return from work each evening. Worse still, she realised that Gareth was becoming deeply attached to him. The moment he heard Ja
mes’s key in the front door, he would fly to meet him and the pair would hold long, garbled conversations while Laura put dinner on the table. On the weekends James often took the little boy into the garden to play soccer, or read him stories in front of the fire. Laura watched their growing attachment with a feeling of deep uneasiness.

  Matters came to a head one Saturday about a month after their arrival from Queensland. It was to be Gareth’s birthday on the Tuesday and James had offered to take him for a walk around the Salamanca markets while Laura shopped for his present. At about eleven o’clock she emerged from a toy shop in the city with a fireman’s outfit concealed in her shopping bag and walked down to meet them both at a street café in the market.

  ‘Did you have a good time?’ she asked, slipping into a chair with a sigh of relief and resting her aching feet.

  Gareth beamed at her through a milkshake moustache.

  ‘Saw a clown got a wed nose. Balloon go pop. Eat chicken muggets!’ he babbled.

  James met her eyes with an ironical smile.

  ‘Gareth saw a clown with a red nose. His balloon went pop and he ate chicken nuggets,’ he translated.

  ‘Heavens, I thought I was the only one who understood what he said!’

  ‘Ah, but I have a PhD in childspeak,’ retorted James, ruffling the child’s hair.

  Laura suddenly sat motionless, her hand frozen halfway to the menu, unable to take her eyes off the pair of them. James’s gesture, so natural and affectionate, troubled her deeply. And with a painful flash of insight, she realised that it wasn’t only the question of telling him the truth which was worrying her, it was the way she felt about him. I still love him, she thought despairingly. Heaven help me, I still love him. The brute! How can I be such a fool?

  ‘Are you going to have something to eat or drink?’ asked James, beginning to look at her with an attentive frown.

  She had always had the uneasy feeling that he could read her mind, and she knew that any moment now he would begin asking probing questions that she didn’t want to answer. She forced herself to smile and look carefree.