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Not that she was a cynic, exactly; it was just that life had a habit of throwing unexpected curves at her. Being taken in by this man was just one more thing to add to an already lengthy list!
‘You don’t believe me, do you?’ he realised slowly as he studied her with narrowed eyes.
Joey gave him a quick smile. ‘I said it’s fine.’ After all, it had been her own time she had been wasting! Time, she realised after a second glance at her watch, that she no longer had to waste.
‘I hope I haven’t kept you from anything?’ He had obviously seen that second glance at her wristwatch.
‘Not at all,’ she assured him lightly. ‘And please don’t give paying for the haircut another thought.’ She waved a dismissive hand.
‘I’ve said I’ll pay you in the morning, and I will,’ he assured her grimly. ‘I should lock this door after me, if I were you,’ he advised firmly.
Come-to-bed eyes and a caring nature…! Quite an attractive combination.
No way, Joey, she immediately reproved herself. There were enough complications in her life already—finding new premises for her salon, as well as fending off Daniel Banning’s attempts to disrupt the life she had painstakingly built for Lily and herself—without finding herself attracted to a man who had a ‘heavy date’ this evening—and who didn’t even have the money to pay for his haircut!
‘Thanks.’ She followed him over to the door.
He turned in the doorway. ‘I really will be by first thing in the morning to pay you,’ he repeated.
‘Of course you will.’ She nodded, unconvinced.
His mouth tightened at her obvious scepticism. ‘What time do you open?’
‘Nine-thirty. But, as I’ve already said, don’t worry about it—’
‘Oh, but I will,’ he cut in softly. ‘It will probably keep me awake all night,’ he teased, before striding off to get into the dusty pick-up parked outside.
Joey gave a derisive snort as she watched him drive away; he might not get any sleep tonight, but she had a definite feeling it would have more to do with his ‘heavy date’ than it would worrying over the fact that he owed her eight pounds fifty!
‘OK, Daisy, we’re home,’ Joey told her young charge drily. The two young girls seated in the back of the car were talking so much that she was sure neither of them was aware they had reached Daisy’s home.
Joey wouldn’t mind, but the two girls saw each other every day at school, and for a couple of hours afterwards, but as soon as tea and homework were over Lily would be on the telephone to her best friend, talking away as if the two girls hadn’t seen each other for weeks!
Had she ever been like that? Joey wondered ruefully. She didn’t think so. But, for all her faults, her mother had at least been waiting at home for her every day when she came home. Both being children of single mothers, neither Lily or Daisy had that…
‘Thanks.’ Daisy grinned at her before scrambling out of the back of the car.
‘Tell your mother I’ll be here to pick you up at eight-thirty in the morning,’ Joey told her automatically, returning Hilary’s wave as the other woman came out of the house to greet Daisy.
Both on their own, the two women shared the responsibility of their two daughters while they juggled the careers they needed to support them—Joey driving the girls to school in the morning, Hilary picking them up in the afternoons and keeping Lily with her until Joey picked her up after work. The arrangement had worked very well so far.
‘Did you have a good day, Mummy?’ Lily asked interestedly as they drove the extra mile to their own home. She was a tiny replica of Joey—thank goodness Joey could see none of her father in her!
Joey frowned. Until five-thirty it had been like all the other days she had had recently—busy, and dusty. Until she had been taken in by that—But there was no reason to bother Lily with that.
‘It was fine, darling,’ she responded lightly. ‘How about you?’
Her daughter’s face was screwed up when Joey glanced at her in the driving mirror. ‘I’ve brought my spelling test home for Friday.’
Joey held back a smile; the trouble with schoolwork was that it got in the way of Lily’s social life!
‘I’m sure we’ll cope,’ she promised, straight-faced. ‘Now, what do you fancy for tea today?’
‘Pasta and chicken nuggets,’ her daughter answered predictably—she very rarely willingly ate anything else.
Joey smiled indulgently. ‘I think we’ll put a few peas with that, don’t you?’ she teased—Lily’s aversion to vegetables was universal in children her age.
‘If you have to,’ her daughter allowed grudgingly. ‘I—Oh, look, Mummy, there’s a car parked outside our house,’ she said excitedly.
Joey frowned as she looked at the blue car parked at the roadside; visitors were few and far between to the tiny end-terrace house the two shared in a quiet residential part of town. Between work and caring for Lily, with all that entailed, there was very little time for a social life of her own.
‘Perhaps they’re visiting next door,’ she dismissed, parking her own car behind the blue one before getting out and opening the back door for Lily, deliberately not paying too much attention to the parked car. Just because they rarely received visitors that was no reason to stare at the car as if it were a vehicle from outer space!
Her daughter felt no such inhibitions, openly ogling the car as she held on to Joey’s hand and they walked to their front door. ‘There’s a man sitting inside, Mummy,’ she told Joey in a stage whisper.
Joey winced at the loudness of her daughter’s voice, sure the ‘man sitting inside’ the car must have heard her. After all, the car engine was switched off, and it was a warm evening, so the man probably had the window down too.
She unlocked their front door before pushing it open. ‘Come on, Lily’ she encouraged as her daughter still hung back curiously.
‘He’s getting out of the car, Mummy,’ Lily informed her even as she pulled on the sleeve of the light jacket Joey wore over a pink T-shirt and black trousers.
Joey could see that for herself, her gaze narrowing against the evening sunshine as she watched the man slowly unfolding his long length from inside the car.
Tall and blond, with a smoothly handsome face dominated by a pair of analytical blue eyes that raked over her in cool assessment, before moving down to stare openly at Lily. Joey felt as if she had had all the breath kicked out of her as she instantly recognised him.
Lily’s father.
The ominous feeling that had dogged her for the weeks following her terse letter in reply to his own came back in full force.
Because Joey knew, as she put a protective arm about Lily and pulled her daughter close against her, there could be only one reason why Daniel had come here…
CHAPTER TWO
‘GO INSIDE and hang up your school blazer, Lily,’ Joey told her daughter shakily. ‘I’ll join you in a few minutes.’
‘But, Mummy—’
‘Go inside, Lily!’ she snapped, before drawing in a deep controlling breath, forcing herself to smile reassuringly as her daughter’s bottom lip wobbled precariously at her unexpected terseness. ‘I’ll be in shortly,’ she assured her lightly. ‘Go and put a video on for a while,’ she encouraged, knowing this unexpected treat after school would soothe Lily’s ruffled feelings; usually television and videos were banned until the weekend.
‘Great!’ Lily enthused, before rushing into the house without a backward glance, their unexpected visitor already forgotten.
At least, by Lily…
Joey tensed once her daughter was safely inside the house, her shoulders straightening as she raised her head to look across at the man who had created this scene.
She narrowed her gaze, her expression one of puzzlement as she looked at him fully. ‘You aren’t Daniel,’ she realised slowly.
Oh, this man was very like Lily’s father—both men tall and blond, both having those cool, calculating blue eyes—but this man was older than the thirty-two Daniel would now be, was probably aged in his late thirties or early forties. But the likeness between the two men was enough for Joey not to feel entirely reassured by this fact…
‘My name is David Banning.’ The man spoke with a hard American drawl. ‘I’m Daniel’s brother.’
Daniel’s brother…Joey hadn’t even known he had a brother. Although she had no reason to doubt this man’s word. Besides, the likeness was unmistakable.
‘Daniel didn’t have the nerve to show his face here himself, then?’ she scorned.
The blue gaze became even more icy, the hard mouth tightening into a thin line. ‘That would have been rather difficult, in the circumstances,’ David Banning rasped harshly. ‘Daniel died four months ago!’
Joey could only stare uncomprehendingly at David Banning after he made this blunt announcement, unable to take in what he had just said, swallowing hard, swaying slightly, knowing a sudden feeling of light-headedness.
Daniel was dead…?
But how—? What…?
She shook her head as a sudden thought occurred to her. ‘He can’t be,’ she denied weakly. ‘I…He wrote to me. Just two months ago—’
‘That was me,’ David Banning interrupted.
D. Banning. The letter she had received had been signed ‘D. Banning’. This man, Daniel’s brother, was D. Banning too…
She had thought the signature on the letter a little formal, given the circumstances, but, as Daniel hadn’t been seen since the moment he was informed of Lily’s birth, Joey had decided he really was the stranger he obviously preferred to be.
But the letter hadn’t been from Daniel at all. Because he had already been dead two months when the letter was sent…
‘How did he die?’ she breathed huskily.
His brother shrugged dismissively. ‘The same way he lived—recklessly,’ he said harshly. ‘He was driving a high-speed motorboat—too fast—when it flipped over and sank. We recovered his body three days later,’ he added.
Joey thought back to the fun-loving, irresponsible man she had known seven years ago. Yes, she could see Daniel enjoying the power of going along on the water at high speed, could almost hear that huskily triumphant laugh of his as he challenged the sea gods.
And lost…
‘I’m sorry,’ she murmured dazedly.
‘Are you?’ his brother questioned sceptically. ‘I think the two of us need to talk, don’t you?’ he added hardly.
Joey stiffened defensively. She didn’t like the sound of that at all. This man had already told her all that she needed to know—hadn’t he…?
‘As you can see, I’m rather busy at the moment.’ She nodded vaguely in the direction of the house, the sound of the video playing inside audible in the quiet of early evening.
‘As I can see,’ David Banning echoed softly, moving around the car to stand only feet away from her, his light suit obviously expensively tailored, as was the white silk shirt and grey tie he wore beneath it. ‘She’s very like Daniel,’ he murmured huskily.
Joey recoiled at the claim. ‘She is called Lily,’ she snapped coldly. ‘And she is absolutely nothing like Daniel. Thank God!’
‘Just so,’ David Banning acknowledged with a mocking inclination of his head. ‘But I still say we need to talk—Josey, isn’t it?’ he drawled knowingly.
‘Joey,’ she corrected abruptly, desperately trying to take all of this in.
Just how much did this man know of what had happened seven years ago? And exactly what did he want to do about it?
‘Joey,’ he repeated with a hard smile. ‘I realise all this has probably been—a shock for you,’ he drawled. ‘I also accept that you’re tied up with…Lily at the moment, and that our conversation would be better taking place where she can’t be a witness to it.’ He frowned thoughtfully. ‘Perhaps you could meet me later this evening and we could go somewhere quiet and have dinner together—’
‘No!’ she cut in harshly. ‘No,’ she repeated more calmly as he looked at her with raised brows. ‘It isn’t possible to organise a babysitter at such short notice. Besides—’
‘Besides, you don’t want to have dinner with me later,’ David Banning finished. ‘I’ve come over from the States for the sole purpose of talking to you, Joey—’
‘My name is Delaney,’ she cut in forcefully. ‘Miss Delaney,’ she added pointedly. ‘I don’t know you well enough for you to call me Joey.’
She hadn’t known the man at the salon earlier well enough, either, came the unbidden thought, and yet she had invited him to use the familiarity! In retrospect, the fact that he owed her eight pounds fifty for a haircut was nothing when put into perspective with the damage this other man could wreak in her life!
‘Miss Delaney,’ David Banning mused mockingly. ‘It’s Irish, isn’t it?’
‘So what if it is?’ she challenged defensively.
‘No reason.’ He shrugged. ‘Let’s make it tomorrow evening, then,’ he continued hardly, his tone brooking no argument to what wasn’t even meant to sound like a suggestion.
Joey was aware that she had been outside talking to him on the pavement for over ten minutes already, and Lily wouldn’t remain enthralled in her video for long if Joey failed to appear. But she didn’t want to meet this man tomorrow evening!
‘I’m staying at the Grosvenor Hotel.’ He named the best hotel in town—although it was obvious from his tone that it didn’t come up to his usual standards.
Joey knew from Daniel that the Bannings were a very prominent banking family in New York, and that they lived up to that lifestyle one hundred per cent; obviously the little town in which Joey had chosen to make her home, with its three-star hotel, didn’t quite meet those standards!
‘That’s nice for you,’ she returned sarcastically.
David Banning’s mouth tightened at her obvious scorn. ‘I was suggesting that we meet there tomorrow evening for dinner,’ he rasped.
He hadn’t been ‘suggesting’ anything—it had been in the nature of an order! But the Grosvenor wasn’t a place Joey knew well, and the chances were that no one there would know her, either…Besides, she doubted this man would go away until he had spoken to her.
‘Very well,’ she accepted abruptly. ‘I’ll meet you there at eight o’clock tomorrow evening.’ She was sure the neighbour’s teenage daughter, who usually babysat for her on the rare occasions she went out, would be only too pleased to earn some extra money. ‘Now, if that’s all…?’ she added pointedly.
‘For the moment.’ He gave an abrupt inclination of his head.
‘Who was that man, Mummy?’ Lily turned to ask curiously when Joey entered the sitting-room a few minutes later.
‘Just a salesman trying to sell me something,’ Joey dismissed tersely; Lily had never known her father—she certainly didn’t need to know that the man outside was his brother! ‘Tea will be ready in fifteen minutes,’ she added lightly, before escaping to the kitchen.
Once there she took some time to gather her scattered thoughts together. The D. Banning who had written to her had been Daniel’s brother David, not Daniel himself. And now he had travelled all the way from America for the sole purpose of talking to her. There could be only one subject he wanted to discuss with her—Lily!
Well. Joey straightened decisively. He could say whatever it was he wanted to say, and then leave. Neither she nor Lily needed anything from him.
‘There’s a man in the salon asking to see you, Joey,’ Hilary told her lightly as she came out back into the tiny room Joey occasionally used as an office.
Joey instantly paled. David Banning! He hadn’t waited for dinner this evening, after all. Why hadn’t he? What had happened that he needed to see her so early this morning? It would be too much to hope that he had come to inform her he had to return urgently to the States!
‘Thanks, Hilary.’ She gave her assistant and friend a shaky smile as she reluctantly stood up.
The two women had met a year ago, when Hilary came to the salon for a job, and within weeks of working together the two women had worked out their system—Hilary finished work at the salon at three-fifteen every weekday, so that she could go to the school to collect Lily and Daisy, and cared for Lily at her home until Joey finished at the salon for the day. It was a system that worked well for both women.
‘He’s rather gorgeous,’ Hilary murmured admiringly.
