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He was watching her again with that curiously intense look that was so unnerving.
‘You are, I take it, including yourself in these arangements?’
‘Of course—I have to, Jake! I can’t just suddenly encourage her to spend hours with you without any reason. Normally I try and stop her from wearing out her welcome with friends, because she’s very open and natural and can’t imagine that anybody wouldn’t want her.’
‘I want her. Make no mistake about that, Annie.’
Her shoulders sagged. ‘Just one thing, because remember I know you, Jacob Hunter. Don’t encourage her affections and friendship and then decide paternity is too boring and fly off into the sunset. Do you understand? I don’t care how you behave with your women, this is a different relationship, and, like it or not, it’s for life. If you don’t think you can hack it, then get out of our lives now. I won’t have her hurt—is that clear?’
‘As crystal.’ He came fluidly to his feet and stood over her menacingly, his voice deathly quiet. ‘There’s one thing you should understand. I intend to be an active parent, Anne. She’s my daughter and before long she’s going to know she’s my daughter——’
‘No!’
‘Yes. Oh, yes. I’m not having her calling me Mr Hunter or Uncle Jake. I want her to know who I am, and that I love her.’
‘But you don’t!’
‘Because I’ve never had the chance, but that’s all changed now, because you’re going to give me that chance. I want to know everything—when she cut her first tooth, took her first step, said her first word—all of it, down to the last sleepless night, and you’re going to tell me if I have to wring it out of you!’
‘That won’t be necessary. I have a book,’ she told him quietly. ‘I knew you would want to know one day, so I recorded everything meticulously. I’ll get it for you. There are also videos of her as a toddler, and in the playgroup Christmas concert, and later in school plays and up at my parents’ during holidays. Do you have a video player?’
He nodded. ‘Yes, I brought it up last night.’
She rummaged in the cabinet under the television and brought out three video tapes, and then from the bookcase she produced a baby album and six other photo albums.
‘One for every year,’ she told him. The last one has a few more to go in it.’
‘It must be her birthday soon, I suppose—God, I don’t even know the date of my own daughter’s birthday!’ he said heavily.
‘Sunday,’ she told him, ignoring the anguish in his voice. ‘The twenty-first of February.’
She produced a carrier bag from the kitchen and put all the tapes and albums in it.
‘What have you told her about me?’ he asked.
‘I told her you’d gone away to America. By the time she was old enough to ask, you were married and in private practice, so we could hardly write to you and say, “There’s something you ought to know”.’
‘And when you heard I was divorced?’
She shrugged. ‘It just proved everything I’d always known about you and your relationships with women. I decided then that I didn’t need the aggravation of telling you about Beth and having to deal with transatlantic flights and custody and access battles and all the other trauma. Frankly, Jake, we were better off without you.’
He glanced around at the meagre surroundings, and she felt his disdain for the marked walls, the threadbare carpet, the tatty old furniture.
‘Pretty spartan, Annie. I wouldn’t say you’d done that well.’
She was stung, her pride hurt. ‘I’ve done my best, and there’s more to life than money, Jake, odd though you may find that coming hot-foot from the Big Apple—or should I call it the Golden Nugget?’
He opened his mouth to argue, and then shut it with a snap. Taking the carrier bag from her, he strode down the hall and flung open the front door.
‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’
He stepped out into the night, and as she moved to push the door to behind him, he slapped it back against the wall and spun to face her.
‘Incidentally, about that piece of scrap iron on the drive …’he gritted furiously.
She frowned in confusion. ‘Scrap iron? You mean my car——?’
‘Car?’ he snorted. ‘It’s a wreck! The first thing I’m doing is buying you a decent one, because there’s no way my daughter’s riding round in that ancient death-trap!’
Anne was furious. First the house, now the car! ‘How dare you? Just where the hell do you get off calling my car a death-trap?’
‘Look at it! The thing’s lethal—if it has an MOT certificate I’d stake my life it’s cooked. You’ve got no business taking a child in a vehicle like that——’
‘How dare you? It’s none of your business what I do with Beth——’
‘Rubbish!’ he roared. ‘Of course it’s my business! She’s my daughter, damn it!’
‘No, she isn’t!’ Anne screamed, almost beyond endurance. ‘She’s my daughter, and I won’t have you interfering—what are you doing?’
She ran after him, holding his arm as he wrenched open the driver’s door and pulled the bonnet catch.
‘Jake, what the bloody hell do you think you’re playing at?’
‘Disabling it is what I’m playing at. If you won’t be responsible, then I’ll have to be responsible for you.’ He opened the bonnet, undipped the distributor cap and pocketed the rotor arm.
‘Damn you, give that back!’ she shouted.
‘No.’ He slammed the bonnet, and lights came on all round the quiet little street.
‘What’s going on out there?’ someone called.
‘Damn it, Jake, give it back!’ she pleaded.
‘Anne, are you all right?’
That was Jenny’s husband, out in the snow in dressing-gown and slippers with a torch in his hand.
‘I’m fine, Phil. Just a silly joke. Sorry to disturb you,’ and then in an undertone, ‘Jake, please, be reasonable!’
‘No. Evening!’ he called to Phil, then, turning on his heel, he scrunched over the snow to his front door.
‘Goodnight, you little hell-cat. I’ll give you a lift to work in the morning. Be ready at eight.’
The door banged behind him, and Anne was left standing foolishly in the front garden in bare feet, suddenly desperately conscious of all the hidden eyes watching her from round the street.
‘Sure you’re OK?’ Phil asked from the safety of his front door.
She nodded. ‘I’m fine. Sorry!’
She closed the door behind her and sagged against the wall.
What a scene! How was she going to face all those people the next day? It was all right for Jake, he never had cared what people thought of him, but she had to live here and the way he was carrying on she wouldn’t be able to!
Oh, damn you, Hunter, she thought bitterly. Why did you have to turn up and throw everything into confusion?
She went into the sitting-room and warmed her feet in front of the fire, then straightened the cushions, made herself a cup of tea and took it up to bed, realising as she did so that she hadn’t offered him so much as a glass of cold water in the three hours or so he had been there.
Sighing heavily, she prepared for bed, checked Beth and slipped between the cold sheets with a shudder.
She could have been warm, of course, if she’d let Jake stay—but what kind of an option was that? She punched the pillows into shape and sat up, cradling her tea in her hands and wondering how she was going to cope with having Jake as a next-door neighbour.
Not well, was the answer.
She could hear him moving about in the house, and after she had drunk her tea she lay down and tried to sleep, but her ears were straining for the sound of his movements on the other side of the wall.
After an age he came to bed, in the room that adjoined hers, his headboard against hers so that if she could have put her hand through the wall she could have touched him.
The thought unsettled her, and she turned over, punching her pillow viciously.
‘Having trouble sleeping, Annie?’ he asked mockingly. That’s what comes of having secrets.’
Damn you, she thought heatedly, but her soft heart went out to him. He might be the most awful rake God ever frowned on, but she loved him, and just now he must be hurting.
‘Goodnight, Jake,’ she said quietly.
‘Goodnight, Annie. See you in the morning. Oh, and Annie? Don’t think you’re going to win. I get what I want in the end, and make no mistake, I want you.’
‘I want you’. Three simple words, yet they had the power to ruin her entire night’s sleep!
It seemed she had hardly dozed off before she heard a knocking on the wall.
‘Rise and shine, sweetheart—seven-thirty!’
‘Go away,’ she mumbled, and through the wall she heard his soft laughter.
‘Not a morning person, are you, my darling?’
‘I’m not your darling!’ she said clearly, and, throwing back the bedclothes, she stumbled out into the frigid air.
Beth was still fast asleep, her dark lashes heavy on her softly flushed cheeks. Anne reached out a hand and stroked her hair back tenderly.
‘Beth? Wake up, sleepyhead.’
The impossible lashes fluttered and lifted, and Beth smiled and stretched sleepily.
‘Hello,’ she said through a yawn, and Anne hugged her.
‘Hello, darling. Time to get up now.’
She rummaged in the drawers for some clean underwear, and laid it on the bed with Beth’s uniform. ‘Here you are, darling. Get dressed quickly, there’s a good girl, and I’ll see what I can find for breakfast.’
Anne washed hastily in the chilly bathroom, scrubbed her teeth, and then rummaged for her own clothes.
It was time to get out the ancient twin-tub again and battle with the laundry, she thought with a sigh. There was no chance it would dry outside with the weather as cold as it was, which meant either a trip to the launderette or having everything hanging around the house on airers for days on end.
And there was no food in the house.
She went down to the kitchen and looked in the cupboards, like old Mother Hubbard.
Cereal, but not enough milk to go on it. Sunflower spread, but no bread. Porridge oats, but Beth wouldn’t eat porridge without syrup, and guess what?
The doorbell pealed, shockingly loud in the stillness.
She heard Beth throw herself down the stairs.
‘I’ll get it!’
Anne shook her head and went out into the hall.
‘Hi, Jake!’ Beth said with a grin. ‘Come in!’
He ruffled her hair, and looked over her head to Anne.
‘Morning, ladies. I brought some hot doughnuts—I’m sure you hate them and would much rather have toast, but perhaps you’ll help me eat them up?’
‘Ye-es!’ Beth positively bounced on the spot, her eyes alight.
Anne was irritated. ‘I know I said invite yourself round,’ she hissed while Beth was preoccupied with the baker’s bag, ‘but I never mentioned breakfast!’
‘Seven,’ Beth said, and then screwed up her face. ‘Two each—who gets three?’
‘I do,’ Jake told her, and poked his tongue out.
‘Don’t teach her things like that,’ Anne snapped.
Beth giggled. ‘That’s very rude, you shouldn’t do it!’
He pretended to look chastened while Anne found three plates and set them down at the rickety table.
‘Coffee?’ he suggested.
‘It’ll have to be black. Beth, do you mind squash?’
She shook her head. ‘Are we going shopping today? There’s never any food here.’
Anne could have ground her teeth with annoyance.
‘That’s not strictly true,’ she said defensively, but Jake leant back in his chair, sank his teeth right into the jammy middle of his doughnut and smiled with evident delight.
