www.millsandboon.co.uk

Her Parenthood Assignment

For Andy, my own grumpy hero.

Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER ONE

STUPID map!

Gaby stood on the deserted quay and cursed herself for being on the wrong side of the river. She reached through the open car door for the map book and squinted at it. Then she turned it sideways and squinted again.

David had always said she was useless at map-reading. Mind you, her ex-husband had said she was useless at most things. She’d spent the last year doing her utmost to prove him wrong and it rankled that one of his thousand-and-one reasons to leave her had some foundation.

She slammed the car door and looked back across the river.

Lower Hadwell was only a quarter of a mile away as the crow flies, but it would take her at least an hour to drive to the nearest town with a bridge and navigate her way back to the little village.

Botheration! Her first prospect of a proper job in almost a decade and she was already late for the interview. And not just fashionably late. She was all out, start-calling-the-hospitals late.

David’s mocking face filled her mind. ‘Shut up!’ she said out loud. Stupid, but it made her feel better.

She looked down at the map and a slow smile crept across her face. A little line of blue dashes. There was a ferry! Not so useless after all. Hah!

On one side of the quay a steep ramp led down to a shingle beach exposed by the receding tide. How on earth was she going to get the car down there without it rolling into the river? She blessed her sensible driving shoes and walked halfway down the ramp to get a better look.

‘Afternoon.’

The gravelly voice that came out of nowhere almost had her speeding back to London on foot. She put a hand over her stampeding heart and faced the stocky man who’d stood up from inspecting a rather unseaworthy-looking boat. He was so much a part of the scenery she hadn’t noticed him before. She half expected him to be covered with the same vivid green weed and barnacles as the ailing boat.

‘Oh, good afternoon.’ She smiled. ‘I was wondering about the ferry. Do you know what the timetable is?’

‘This time of year it don’t have one.’

‘Oh.’

He went back to examining a broken bit of wood and she waited for him to continue, hands clasped in front of her. When it became apparent that he believed their conversation to be over, she crunched her way across the shingle towards him and stopped a few feet away.

He looked up at her again, his face crinkled against the February sun. She had no idea how old he was. The tattooed skin of his arms was smooth, but his face was etched like an old man’s. He looked as if he’d spent most of his life scrunching his face against the reflection of the sun on the water, and the salt and wind had weathered it into deep furrows.

He didn’t speak, but nodded in the direction of a large post in the car park. A brass bell crusted with verdigris hung from it. There was a sign, but she couldn’t read it from down here on the beach, so back up the ramp she went.

Underneath the brief timetable was the following information: ‘30th October to 30th March—Please ring bell to call the ferryman.’

Great! South Devon was obviously still operating on medieval principles.

She took hold of the frayed rope that hung from it and flung the clapper hard against the brass. The salty-looking boatman looked up, wiped his hands on the back of his jeans and sauntered up the slope.

‘Yes?’ he said, folding his face up even further.

Gaby shook her head and looked at him hard. Perhaps all those stories about in-breeding in rural communities were true. She spoke slowly, pronouncing each word carefully. ‘I want to take my car across on the ferry.’

He threw his head back and laughed and suddenly she had the horrible feeling the tables had been turned and she was the one with the single-digit IQ. She brushed the thought away and stood a little taller.

‘There’s a ramp, isn’t there?’

He rubbed a stubby hand across his mouth and brought the rumbles of laughter to a halt. ‘Yep. And that over there is the ferryboat.’

She turned to where he pointed. A small boat, maybe fifteen feet in length, with a square cabin at the front and wooden benches round the back was tied to a ring near a mossy flight of steps.

The map book was still in her hand and she pulled it back in front of her face.

Passenger ferry, it said. Okay, so it wasn’t just map-reading she had a problem with, but reading in general.

She lowered the book to find him still looking at her. He obviously thought she was unspeakably dim, but he was grinning. Probably glad of the entertainment.

‘Hop in,’ he said. ‘Your car’ll be fine here. Last ferry back has to be before six, mind. I go off duty then.’

Her lips pressed together while she thought of something to say. Phrases whirled round her head and the moment slid away until anything she said would just sound forced. So, in the end, she just smiled back, locked her car and followed him down the steps to the ferry.

When he turned to start the motor she scrubbed her face with her hands and half-sighed, half-chuckled. You had to be able to laugh at yourself, right? One thing she’d learnt since her divorce was not to be so worried about doing or saying the wrong thing. Nobody was perfect, after all. Now, if only she could remember that on the next visit to her parents. Especially when they sighed and exchanged glances.

She knew what they thought. She must have been a terrible wife if she couldn’t keep a ‘catch’ like David happy. Her husband had traded her in for a newer, more compact model and it must be her fault. Nothing to do with the fact he was a self-centred, tyrannical little…

She turned her face into the wind so it blew her long brown hair behind her and stuffed her hands into the pockets of her fleece.

Lower Hadwell sat hibernating on the far side of the river, the ice-cream colours of the cottages muted by the winter sun. A narrow road separated a row of houses from the beach, then curved up a steep hill lined by cottages and shops, tightly packed as if huddling together for warmth.

Strange, that a picture-postcard village like this could contain a man with such a dark past. She wondered if they knew. Did the locals close ranks and whisper when he walked into the pub, or had they welcomed him into their little community? She hoped it was the latter. He deserved a fresh start, far away from the twitching net curtains of the suburbs.

Soon the ferry came alongside the string of pontoons that trailed down the beach from the village. The tide was so low that only the last two or three were floating. The rest lay helpless on the shingle, waiting for the murky water to rise and give them some purpose.

Gaby paid the ferryman and hopped out of the boat. No one was around. Well, almost no one. A lone figure in an oversized red fleece stood at the edge of one pontoon, hunched over and staring into the water. It was a girl, not more than eleven or twelve years old, her long dark hair scraped into a severe ponytail. Now and then she looked up and just stared into the distance.

Gaby knew that look. She’d spent many hours as child staring out of her bedroom window wearing the same heavy expression. Wishing her life were different, wishing she’d been born in a different time or a different place.

The girl looked up when she heard Gaby approaching but turned away instantly, more out of sheer disinterest than embarrassment. After a minute or so she lifted a string out of the water to reveal a hook, a small circular weight and some long, stringy bait. She stared at the lonely hook and her shoulders drooped even further.

Gaby itched to say something, to let the girl know the feeling wouldn’t last for ever. One day she’d be free. In the end she said, ‘Never mind. Maybe you’ll catch a fish next time.’

A small huff was her only answer.

‘What’s that stuff on the hook, anyway?’

The girl dropped the line back into the water with a plop and wearily turned to face her. ‘My dad told me not to talk to strangers.’

‘Very sensible advice.’

Advice she should follow herself. The girl turned away and focused her attention on the fishing line once again.

Gaby frowned and wondered whether she was transposing her own childhood worries on to this lone figure. Perhaps she should just leave the girl alone to catch whatever it was she was trying to catch, even though her intuition told her that what the girl really wanted was not going to be found at the end of some orange twine.

Come on, Gaby! You’ve already given yourself a stern talking to about getting too embroiled in other people’s business. You don’t have time to comfort sad little girls on the jetty, no matter how big their eyes or how lonely they look. You’ve got a job to grovel for.

She’d only taken a couple of steps when the girl spoke.

‘It’s bacon.’

Gaby stopped and walked back a few steps. ‘What kind of fish like bacon? Don’t tell me there are sharks in there.’

The girl almost smiled. She started hauling the string out of the grey-green water again. ‘Not fish! Look.’

On the end of the line were three small crabs, the largest the size of the girl’s hand. They were beautiful colours—shades of rust, green and slate. All three were hanging on to the string for dear life and fighting for the turgid bait. The girl shook the line over a water-filled bucket and two plopped into it to join a seething mass of crabs, all struggling to work out where that darn bit of bacon had gone.

The girl gave the line a more vigorous shake to dislodge the stubborn one still clinging on in hope of a square meal. This was a crafty little sucker, though. When the line shook a second time it catapulted itself beyond the rim of the bucket and scuttled towards Gaby’s feet. She shrieked and ran down the pontoon.

The girl burst out laughing.

Meanwhile, the kamikaze crab ignored the commotion and lobbed itself off the edge of the pontoon and sank without a trace. Gaby edged back towards the girl and her bucket. It was good to see her smiling, but she reminded herself she needed to get on. Perhaps the girl could help her find him. She pulled a scrap of paper from her pocket and read the hastily scribbled address.

‘Do you know where the Old Boathouse is, by any chance?’ she asked, keeping as far away from the bucket as possible.

The smile faded from the girl’s face. She gave Gaby a long hard look and tipped her head to one side. ‘Why do you want to go there?’

‘Um…it’s business.’ That was vague enough to cover all eventualities. The girl looked unconvinced. Still, she pointed to a stone building that seemed to be sitting on the curving shore about a quarter of a mile away.

‘How do I get there? Is there a boat?’

The girl shook her head. ‘There’s a lane opposite the Ferryboat Inn.’ She stopped and looked at Gaby’s suede trainers. ‘It’s a bit muddy, though.’

She thanked the girl and walked up a ramp and on to the main street. The opening to the lane wasn’t hard to find. Before her view was blocked by a line of trees, she looked back towards the river.

The girl picked up her bucket, tipped the angry contents into the river and started all over again.

Muddy? It was practically a swamp!

Gaby lifted her foot and tried to work out whether she could actually still see her trainers through the mud boots she seemed to be wearing. The cold was seeping though the suede and into the bones of her feet.

She was hardly going to look the picture of professionalism when she reached her destination. Her thoughts strayed to the nice jacket and sensible-but-smart shoes still in her car. It might have been a good idea to spruce herself up before she’d got on the ferry, but she’d figured that, since she was almost two hours late, the absence of correct footwear and her one good jacket were the least of her worries.

Soon she caught glimpses of the Old Boathouse through the leafless trees. It was a large building made of local stone. Even to her untrained eye it was obvious that it had once been what its name suggested. Over the years—she wouldn’t like to guess how many—it had been extended, and the half of the house that faced the lane had the appearance of a quaint country cottage with leaded windows and a dry stone wall enclosing the garden.

She was just nearing the sturdy gate when a man appeared from behind the house. She stopped in her tracks. Who was that? The gardener? He looked dishevelled enough, but something about the clothes was wrong.

An image from a TV news bulletin flashed across her mind.

That was him? The man she’d come to see?

Her feet sank further into the mud and she listened to the sound of her own breath. He didn’t even notice her. He just loaded a large cardboard box into the back of a Range Rover and disappeared back inside the house.

He looked different. Leaner. Harder.

His sandy hair was longer and messier and he obviously hadn’t been near a razor in a couple of days. Gone was the respectable-looking doctor, replaced by a wilder, more rugged-looking man. Oh, yes, five years in prison had definitely changed Luke Armstrong.

Suddenly he reappeared. And this time he saw her.

At first his face registered surprise, but it quickly hardened into something else. He dumped the box he was carrying in the boot of the car and strode towards her.

‘What do you want?’

He barked the question out and her heart started to gallop inside her chest. She’d never been very good at confrontation and he seemed ready for a fight. As she struggled to make her lips form her own name, he looked her up and down. And if looks were anything to go by, she knew she’d been fired even before the interview.

‘Mr Armstrong?’ she stammered.

‘You know full well who I am.’

Well, of course she did! She was hoping to be his new nanny.

‘I’m sure you know what brand of toothpaste I use, so don’t turn up here looking all innocent and pretend you’ve lost your way. I’ve heard that one before.’

She certainly didn’t know what toothpaste he used! What was he trying to imply? A sudden rush of heat behind her eyes told her she was more ready for confrontation than she’d suspected. ‘Mr Armstrong, I assure you—’

‘I wouldn’t believe a word that came out of your lying mouth.’ The fury in his eyes stopped any retort she might have had to hand. His face twisted as he shook his head, then he just turned and walked back towards the house. Gaby was so shocked that it didn’t even occur to her to move.

Just before he disappeared from view, he turned to look over his shoulder. ‘You’ll just have to tell your editor you blew it,’ he yelled. And then he was gone.

Editor? He’d said editor, she was sure of it.

Oh…

Now she got it. He thought she was a journalist. She looked down and tried to see what it was about her appearance that had set him down that path. Slightly ageing fleece, go-with-anything black trousers and a pair of comfy driving shoes under a layer of mud. Didn’t look much like a journalist to her. But then, she didn’t look much like a top-notch nanny either.

She let out a long breath and her anger turned tide. No wonder he’d reacted the way he had. The tabloids had given him a really rough ride before, during and after his trial. She’d followed the story in the papers and it hadn’t been pretty.

Luke Armstrong had been charged with his wife’s murder after she’d been found dead in a hotel room in Kent. Each gory detail had been received more thirstily than the last.

‘DOCTOR KILLS WIFE IN CRIME OF PASSION!’ the headline had screamed.

The prosecution had argued that he’d followed her, leaving his young daughter in the care of a neighbour, and found his wife enjoying the luxuries of a country house hotel with another man. In a fit of rage he’d struck out. Mrs Armstrong had fallen and hit her head. And, while she lay bleeding all over the Chinese rug, he’d fled and hadn’t returned home for hours.

Of course, he’d denied it. And he’d been so convincing in court the jury would probably have acquitted him if it hadn’t been for the forensic evidence. When he’d stood in the witness stand, he’d sworn he’d only got as far as the hotel lobby, where he’d seen his wife and her lover lace fingers and climb the stairs together. He said he’d driven off on to the North Downs and sat in his car, trying to work out what to do next.

But DNA evidence had made his words into a fairy tale. He’d been in the hotel room the night his wife had died.

Then, five years later, when the public had forgotten all about the doctor in his prison cell, there had been another headline:

‘DOCTOR CLEARED OF WIFE’S MURDER!’

She remembered something about cross-contamination of samples at the lab.

Of course, now the nation was truly sorry. Never had believed it anyway. He’d always looked like such a nice man…

But he didn’t look so nice any more, thought Gaby, as she remembered the way he’d towered over her only seconds before.

It was strange. After reading all the newspaper reports, even though they’d never been introduced, had never chatted, she felt as if she knew this man. Not the stupid details, like his favourite colour or how he liked his coffee. But she knew he was honest and caring and fiercely loyal to those he loved. She knew the things that mattered.

And it was for this reason, and this reason alone, she was going to make him listen to her, rather than walk back down the lane and head home.

CHAPTER TWO

WELL, if she was going to face him, she couldn’t just stand here getting muddier by the second. But, as much as she wanted to help, she didn’t relish facing the snarling man who’d just stomped into the house, either. It was that look in his eyes, the look that said she was worthless, stupid and way out of her league.

Of course, the look really wasn’t for her. It was for the phantom journalist he’d taken her for. But she’d seen the same look in David’s eyes many a time, and it made something inside her wither. When her ex-husband had looked at her like that, he’d known exactly who he was talking to.

Gaby smoothed her hair back with her hands and walked up to the front door. Her heart pounded in time with the three sharp raps she gave with the knocker. She waited, ears straining for a sound, but there was nothing. Just as she was about to knock again, she heard a door slam somewhere inside, and she thought better of it.

He knew she was out here; he was just ignoring her.

She sighed and rubbed her face with her hands. She’d driven for over seven hours to get here. She was cold and her feet were soggy, and she wasn’t going to just turn round and go home again because Luke Armstrong was in a strop.

She followed his footprints round to the back of the house, where she found the back door slightly ajar. He’d probably been too fired up to make sure it had clicked shut behind him.

It gave a creak as she nudged it with her fingertips. ‘Mr Armstrong?’

She peered inside and found a small room, with an even smaller window, full of sturdy boots and sensible-looking coats on hooks.

‘Mr—’ She swallowed the rest of her sentence as the door leading into the rest of the house crashed open.

‘You people never give up, do you?’

Gaby gulped and fumbled to get her bag off her shoulder. In this tiny space he seemed much more menacing, like a caged animal.

‘Get out before I call the police!’

He took a step towards her and she backed away, glancing down at the bag as she rummaged inside it. When she looked up at him again, his jaw was set like steel. Now would be a really good time to do exactly as he’d suggested and run out through the door and down the lane without looking back.

She held her breath as the air fizzled with his barely harnessed anger. And then her fingers felt the corner of the business card she’d been searching for and she pulled it out of her bag, surprised by the deftness of her own movements.

He looked slightly taken aback and she used the split-second opportunity to wave the card within his line of vision. ‘Bright Sparks Agency, Mr Armstrong.’

He stared at the card, then stared at her, then stared at the card some more.

‘I’m here for the interview.’

He looked at her once again, clearly astonished.

‘For the nanny’s position,’ she offered.

The penny finally dropped. She saw a small change in his features as he marshalled his thoughts. He was still giving her a hard stare, but it lacked the zinging fury of the last one. This one felt like a defensive position rather than an attack.

‘You’re late.’

‘I know, I’m sorry. I got a bit—’

‘You’d better come inside, then.’ He turned and went through the small door leading into the house and disappeared down a corridor. Gaby was about to follow him when she remembered the state of her shoes. Now her future employer—fingers crossed—had calmed to simmering point, she didn’t want to do anything to raise his temperature again.

She sat down on a low bench and tried to work out how to take her shoes off while keeping her hands mud-free. Eventually she succeeded and placed them side by side under the bench. Then she hung her fleece on a hook.

Come on, Gaby! Nothing to be frightened of. He should be apologising to you, really. But she stood motionless, her feet feeling the cold of the tiled floor. Somehow, the prospect of being interviewed in her socks made her feel at a disadvantage.

Luke’s face reappeared through the open door and she flinched.

‘It’s this way.’

He pointed down a small corridor. The only thing she could do was scurry through the house after him until they reached the kitchen.

‘Coffee?’

He didn’t wait for her answer, but turned to fill the kettle.

How bizarre! It was as if the whole scene outside had never happened. She’d bet there was only a slim chance of getting an apology too. But that was okay. It was so long since she’d heard anything like that pass a man’s lips, she was starting to think they were genetically incapable. At least she knew what she was getting if he acted like that. Seven years of marriage to David had given her plenty of practice.

She leaned over the kitchen counter slightly to look out of the window. The river was as smooth as glass. Off in the distance she could see the jetty in the village, but no smudge of red fleece was visible.

Slowly, she became aware that he was watching her. She turned and straightened, feeling instantly as if she’d been summoned to stand in front of the headmaster. He didn’t smile, but he didn’t look fierce either. He just seemed to be taking her in. Assessing her.

‘They said they’d try to send someone, but I thought our luck had run out.’

‘Pardon?’

He frowned. ‘The agency. Mrs Pullman said she’d try a long shot, but she wasn’t hopeful. When you were late, I assumed the long shot hadn’t paid off.’

‘Well, here I am—at last.’ Far too bright and chirpy. She was overcompensating. ‘Don’t worry about…earlier. I totally understand.’

Old habits died hard. She was apologising for being in the right, yet again.

‘So, as you know, I’m Luke Armstrong. Mrs Pullman didn’t get around to telling me your name.’

‘Gabrielle—well, Gaby, really. Michaels. Gaby Michaels.’

‘Like the angels.’

‘The what?’

‘The archangels—in the Bible. Gabriel and Michael.’

She creased her forehead and looked at him hard. Was he making fun of her? His face was blank. In fact, he looked as if he’d forgotten how to laugh. Definitely not a joke, then.

‘I’d never thought of my name that way.’

He nodded.

Boy, this guy was cryptic! She had no more idea of what he was thinking than she had of when high tide was. They were never going to get through the interview if they carried on like this.

She took a deep breath. ‘How old is your daughter, then?’

‘I thought I was supposed to be interviewing you.’

She shrugged. ‘Interview away. But there are a few things I need to know before I decide if I’m…what you need.’ She had been going to say staying, but something had stopped her. Maybe it was the fact that she suspected he hadn’t always been like this, that he needed a second chance. Heaven knew she was an expert at that. Her ex had used up second, third and three-hundredth chances.

He plonked a mug of coffee in front of her and she saw his eyes glaze slightly as he slipped into autopilot. This definitely wasn’t the first time he’d done this. He asked her the usual stuff at first, but then he put down his mug and looked at her.

‘If you don’t mind my saying, you’re not what I expected. Most of the nannies I’ve seen have been younger and—er—dressed a little differently.’

She didn’t think for a minute it would matter if she did mind, and decided she might as well be equally straightforward.

‘Well, Mr Armstrong, just because I don’t look like Mary Poppins, it doesn’t mean I’m not competent at my job. Some children find meeting new people a little unsettling, especially if they look all starched and pressed. I find it helps if I’m more casually dressed.’

It was one of her strong points—the fact she could still remember that situations adults took for granted could be very uncomfortable for a child. It was why the agency had liked to send her off to deal with some of the ‘problem’ cases when she’d been working full time as a nanny. And why Mrs Pullman had phoned her up out of the blue when every available nanny on her books had baulked at taking this job. She’d jumped at the chance. It had to beat her temporary job at the riotous soft-play centre in Croydon.

‘As for my age, well, I’m returning to work after a few years’ break.’

‘Oh?’ He looked suspicious.

‘When I got married, my husband preferred I didn’t work.’

‘And he doesn’t mind now?’

‘It’s none of his business. We’ve been divorced for nearly a year.’ She didn’t add that her husband had got the seven year itch and had scratched it enthusiastically.

‘And now you’re back on the market? Job-wise, I mean,’ he added hastily.

‘I am.’ She gave a little smile, a real one. ‘Actually, I’m really looking forward to being a nanny again.’

‘Well, I’m glad you decided to come out of retirement for us. Heather definitely needs an experienced hand. How soon can you start? We could do with you right now.’

She’d been planning to visit one of her old school-friends who lived in Exeter after the interview. She hadn’t seen Caroline for years and was looking forward to a week of coffee and gossiping.

‘Oh. I’m not sure I…Don’t you want some time to think? To check references?’

His mouth pulled down at the corners and he shook his head. ‘If you’re good enough for the Bright Sparks Agency, you’re good enough for me. And besides, I’m desperate.’

Her chair scraped on the slate floor as she stood, but before she’d even managed to say she needed time to think, the back door slammed open. She was facing the oposite direction but, from the grim look on Luke Armstrong’s face, she had no doubt that his experienced-hand-needing daughter had just made her entrance.

‘Heather, this is—’

A red fleece swept past the kitchen table and out into the living room. Moments later heavy feet pounded the stairs in a distant part of the house.

Luke shot to his feet, his eyes blazing.

‘I’m sorry about that. She’s having a difficult time adjusting at the moment. I—I’ll explain later.’

With that, he forged out of the room. More heavy footsteps. Must be genetic. She couldn’t have made that much noise if she were wearing lead boots. Muffled shouting. A door slammed. Then footsteps in tandem.

Luke nudged Heather into the room. Her eyes were on the floor and her bottom lip stuck out like a toddler’s. ‘Luke says I’ve got to say hello.’

‘Heather!’ The rising volume of his voice had Gaby shaking, but it seemed to flow off the girl. Her chin jutted more decidedly into her chest.

‘Heather, I would like you to say hello to Gaby. She’s going to be looking after you when I start work.’

Gaby spluttered. ‘Actually, I—’

At the sound of Gaby’s voice, Heather lifted her head just enough to peer out from under her fringe. ‘Oh, it’s you. The crab lady.’

Luke looked between the pair in astonishment.

Gaby waggled a hand in the air while she waited for the words to come. ‘We met…earlier…on the jetty.’

If it were possible, his face got even more thunderous. ‘Heather! I’ve told you never to—’

‘God! Take a chill pill, Luke. I was only crabbing!’ Then she spun on her heel and stomped off again. Luke looked as if he’d been slapped in the face. Gaby swallowed.

He slumped down on a chair and rubbed his face. The start of his next sentence was muffled by his hands. ‘I don’t know how much Mrs Pullman told you, but we’re facing a rather difficult set of circumstances with Heather.’ He looked up at her, his eyes pleading. ‘Please, don’t let that little outburst put you off. She’s a good kid underneath it all. But she’s had a lot to deal with in the last few years.’

Gaby smiled gently at him. ‘It’s okay. I know about the trial and…everything.’

Luke let out a long breath. He seemed very relieved not to have to run through the details. ‘Good. If that hasn’t put you off, I don’t know what will.’

‘Oh, I—’

He didn’t seem to hear her.

‘She took her mother’s death very hard. And then she had to deal with me being…away. We’ve only been living together again for a couple of months, so we’re still getting to know each other again, really.’ He looked down at the table, as if he hadn’t meant to say all of that in front of her.

The silence stretched. If only there were something to say, something she could do to make it all go away. This was the point at which her alarm bells should be ringing. That little tug at her heartstrings always meant trouble. She’d promised herself she wouldn’t fall completely in love with her charge again this time.

If getting inside a child’s mind was her strength, the fact she let them too far into her heart was her weakness. Too many times she’d been left heartbroken when a family moved overseas or didn’t need her any more.

She was older and wiser now; she should be past this. And maybe, if David hadn’t kept putting off the issue of children, she would have been. It was probably down to the overly-loud ticking of her biological clock that she was ignoring all the old warning signals. If she had any sense, she would excuse herself and return to London—leave this family to someone who could look at them objectively, help them without getting too emotionally involved. It would be better for Luke and Heather in the long run too.

‘I’d better go and see to my errant daughter.’ He pushed the chair back and stood up.

He looked so lost, so unsure of what to do, that Gaby put a hand on his arm to stall him. ‘Let me go.’ The least she could do before she left was help defuse the current situation.

He started to shake his head, but then he said, ‘Okay. Heather’s room is on the left at the top of the stairs.’

She crept up the stairs, stood outside the door, took a deep breath and knocked gently.

‘Go away! I don’t want to speak to you!’

‘Heather? It’s me—Gaby.’

‘Oh.’

‘Can I come in?’

The door edged open and Heather poked her nose in the gap. ‘It’s a bit messy.’

Gaby smiled. ‘I wouldn’t worry about that. You should have seen my room when I was your age. My mum used to have an awful go at me. In the end I just shoved it all in the cupboard and hoped no one opened the door. If they had, they would have been buried in an avalanche of clothes and toys!’

Heather gasped and her eyes got even bigger and rounder.

‘Believe it, kid, you’ve got nothing on me.’

The door swung wide and Gaby walked in. She perched on the edge of a bed decked in pink and frilly bed-clothes. Heather grimaced. ‘He thinks I’m still a baby.’

‘I’m sure he doesn’t think you’re a baby. He was probably trying very hard to make things nice for you.’

Heather made a gagging noise and rolled her eyes, but when her face returned to normal her expression had softened. ‘Are you really going to be my nanny?’

‘Well—’

‘I don’t need looking after, you know. I’m all right on my own.’

Did no one in this house ever let you finish a sentence?

She swivelled to face Heather. ‘I know that. But your dad has to have someone in the house while he’s out at work. He’s not allowed to leave you alone, you know.’

‘’Spose so.’

‘Why don’t we go downstairs and chat to your dad about it?’

‘You can talk to him, if you like.’

It might have sounded as if Heather were reluctant to make peace with her father, but Gaby saw the ache in her eyes. She desperately wanted to be able to open up to him; she just didn’t know how. What had it been like for her while her father had been in prison? How often had she seen him? Had she been carted along in her best dress and told to tell him she was being a good girl?

No wonder they couldn’t communicate with each other. They’d probably spent years being on their best behaviour, each making sure the other didn’t know how they were suffering.

When they reached the kitchen, Luke was so surprised his mouth dropped open. Gaby thought it was a shame he recovered quickly. Too quickly. It would have done Heather good to see the look on his face—that same aching expression she’d been wearing just moments before.

Heather opened the fridge door and stuck her head inside. ‘I’m hungry.’

Luke looked at Heather and then at Gaby. ‘Would you like to stay for dinner? It would be a good chance to get to know us better. Start afresh.’

She was going to decline, say she needed to get back to her car, but she saw Heather’s face above the fridge door and stopped short. The girl’s eyes were wide, as if she were waiting for something important, like the results of a spelling test. When Gaby nodded, she glowed.

‘Heather, why don’t you show Gaby the house, while I get the food ready?’

Heather let the fridge door swing closed and tugged Gaby by the hand.

‘Come on. I’ll show you the terrace. It’s cool.’

Gaby thought the terrace was way more than cool. The flat roof above the kitchen had been turned into a seating area with railings and a stunning view of the River Dart. The light was fading and a gold sun glowed through dense grey clouds. Gaby breathed in the salty air. She could tell it was only a couple of miles to the estuary.

The terrace could be reached directly from two of the bedrooms on the first floor: the master bedroom, which she didn’t look in—it felt too much like snooping—and a guest bedroom. A flight of stairs led down to the kitchen door, making it a great place to have breakfast when the weather improved.

She went still. It looked as if her subconscious was already planning on staying, whether the rest of her liked it or not. That wasn’t a good sign.

The rest of the house was just as impressive. It had an unusual layout and a kind of quirky charm. The best feature by far was the little area just outside the back door. A flight of steps led down to a flat area with rings to tie boats to. At that moment the tide was out and she could see more steps that led down on to the stony beach. But when the tide was up, you could row right up to it and skip straight into the house—like Venice!

Gaby frowned. Another rogue thought of her ex intruded. The only time she’d been to Venice had been with David. He’d liked the first-class holidays and exotic destinations. Although she suspected it was more for the dinner party stories he could tell later, than for the experience itself. He hadn’t stopped moaning the week they’d stayed in Venice; it had sucked all the joy out of it for her.

Both Gaby and Heather didn’t need to be called when dinner was ready. Smells were emanating from the kitchen and Gaby’s tummy suddenly rumbled. She hadn’t stopped to eat on the journey down here—not even a plastic sandwich at a service station. She’d been too intent on making it to Lower Hadwell before dark.

They arrived back in the kitchen just in time to see Luke slapping pizza slices on to plates. Her appetite took a nosedive. It looked like the worst sort of convenience food. Luke and Heather didn’t seem to mind. They attacked their share with relish.

Gaby gingerly put a slice to her lips. Anaemic cheese and a cardboard base. Yuck! Still, she wasn’t going to be rude. She took as big a bite as she dared and chewed the minimum amount of times before swallowing.

‘Is there any salad?’

Two pairs of eyes locked on to her. She might as well have asked them if they wanted a side order of slugs. Vegetables were obviously a foreign concept in this household.

‘Never mind. This is…lovely.’

She looked out of the window to try and take her mind off the artificial taste. The sky was a beautiful slate-blue. It was getting quite dark. Suddenly she stopped chewing and scanned the kitchen for a wall clock.

She gulped down her mouthful. ‘What time is it?’

Luke looked at his watch. ‘Just gone six.’

Drat! Just when she’d thought the day couldn’t get any more complicated.

‘Is something the matter?’

‘I think I just missed the last ferry.’

Luke put his pizza slice down. ‘You came over on the ferry?’

‘I left my car across the river.’ She stood up. ‘It’s a long story. I’m not very good with…If I run, do you think I can catch the ferry guy?’

She started off in search of her shoes. Luke followed her into what Heather had called the ‘mud room’ during their tour.

‘It’s too late. Ben will be in the Ferryboat Inn by now and the only thing that’ll move him is the bell for last orders.’

Gaby dropped her face into her hands and massaged the kinks out of her forehead. ‘Today was not supposed to be like this!’ Her return to being a nanny was going to be marked by a new, calm professionalism. Not ferries and mud and little girls with big round eyes. Suddenly everything felt so tangled and messy.

Luke’s voice was taut. ‘Are you saying you don’t want the job?’

‘Yes!…No. I mean, I’m not sure I’m what you and Heather are looking for. I need time to think.’

Silence.

Her hands dropped to her sides. He was staring at her, but he didn’t look angry, he just looked…defeated.

‘Of course, I understand your decision. Not everyone is comfortable taking on a family with a history like ours. That narrowed down the candidates considerably in the first place.’ He swallowed. ‘Heather will just have to go and stay with her grandparents while I sort something out.’

Now it was her turn to swallow. The look on his face was all her fault.

‘Are you sure you can’t stay, Gaby? I know it might not look like it, but Heather has taken a shine to you. She didn’t manage to speak at all to the other interviewees. She just grunted and tried to evaporate them with her laser vision.’

Gaby let out a little giggle. Luke seemed completely taken aback, as if he’d forgotten he could be funny and had just surprised himself. She put a hand over her mouth and tried to stifle her growing smile. It was no good. The smile accelerated into a laugh.

‘I can just see it!’ she blurted between giggles. ‘Heather plotting to put crabs in their beds…’

And then Luke was laughing too. That was all she needed. It started her off again. And while she leant against the wall for support, her mind drifted free and she wondered if this was the same kind of hysterical laughter that attacked people at funerals, because there truly wasn’t anything to laugh about.

The laughter finally ebbed away and they stood there looking at each other in the gathering gloom. Luke sobered.

‘It’s a pity. I have the feeling you could be very good for us…for Heather, I mean.’

Gaby felt her heart beating in her chest and knew she was going to say something truly stupid.

‘I’ll do it. I’ll take the job.’

CHAPTER THREE

LUKE checked the digital clock on the oven. Five forty-five. Much too early to make breakfast, or wake Heather, or do anything else he could think of to fill the time. He carefully opened the kitchen door and went outside.

It was dark, really dark. He still hadn’t got used to that. In prison, there had always been the harsh yellow glow of a bulb somewhere. Always a clang, or a hum, or a shout to break the silence.

Here on the river it was completely still. The water was glassy and inky black, reflecting the myriad stars above. On a clear night here you couldn’t even see the main constellations, there were so many stars in the sky. Like now, he could see the dusty sweep of the Milky Way and, if he kept really still, sometimes he could see a satellite cutting its way through the overcrowded sky in a clean even line.

He shivered and looked back at the water. He couldn’t spend too long watching the sky when it was like this. It felt too big.

If only he could sleep better. It might stop him feeling as if he had to hold himself together, as if the world had too many possibilities and he had to stop himself from thinking about all the choices, the different avenues life could take. Right now he had to concentrate on being still, on being solid. On being someone Heather could depend on.

Having Gaby here was going to help. He looked up at the guest room windows and envied the long, unbroken sleep she was having. There had been nothing for it but to have her stay the night. Her car was the other side of the river and there was nowhere to stay in the village. He supposed she would have to return home and collect some things before she moved in full time.

Thank heavens she’d changed her mind at the last minute. He was starting work at the medical centre next week and, if he hadn’t managed to sort something out, Heather would have had to stay with Lucy’s parents again, and then they’d be back to square one.

Since it was low tide again, he went down the steps outside the kitchen and on to the beach, careful to keep close to the house so the lights from the kitchen gave him some idea of where he was treading.

Heather had changed so much in the last few years. When he’d left, she’d been in her first year of school. Her uniform had been too big and Lucy always used to do her hair in cute little bunches.

Lucy’s parents had brought her to see him on visiting days and he’d seen her change over the years. Not smoothly and slowly, hardly noticing the little differences, but in fits and starts, like flicking through a series of snapshots. He smiled when he thought of the time she’d arrived and shown him her first missing tooth, announcing proudly, ‘Look Daddy, my tongue has a window!’

Over time, the gaps between visits had got longer. Her grandparents had begun to send notes saying it was upsetting Heather too much to come and see him. They thought she needed to have a normal life, as much as possible. And, in their book, seeing your father across a dingy prison table, being artificially bright and pretending nothing was wrong, was obviously not normal. Hell, it wasn’t even normal in his book.

He picked up a handful of small flat stones and concentrated on throwing them into the water. The reflected stars distorted and scurried away. He kept throwing until the light turned a milky grey and the thoughts he didn’t want to stir were lying at the bottom of the river with the pebbles.

Gaby could see him out there on the beach—a dark figure, barely visible in the dull glow of the kitchen lights. What on earth must he have gone through to make him turn out like this? It didn’t bear thinking about.

But she would have to face it sooner or later, because she was pretty sure she wasn’t going to be able to help Heather unless she helped Luke first. In her experience, the parents often needed training more than the children did.

She walked away from the window and got back into bed. The sheets were still warm and she snuggled down and thought about the future. Luke seemed to want her to start as soon as possible. And since she was here—with a bag packed for a week—and she’d started to bond with Heather, it seemed daft to leave so soon.

She could always go and visit Caroline in a couple of weeks. Now she’d be closer, she could go for the weekend or something.

She rolled over and tried to ignore the fact she was already making little sacrifices for this family, already putting their needs before her own. It always started this way…

‘I don’t want to go to Jodi’s to play! I hate her.’

Heather’s voice was clearly recognisable through the closed guest room door. Gaby tried not to listen as she brushed her hair, but there wasn’t much chance of escaping the exchange between father and daughter.

‘It’ll be good for you to get to know some of your classmates better. You’ve been there half a term and you haven’t made any friends.’

‘Good for who? You just don’t want me here!’

‘Heather! You know that’s not true!’

The only answer Luke got was the slam of Heather’s bedroom door.

Gaby closed her eyes. She felt like collecting her car this morning, then driving back to London at eighty miles an hour, without stopping. She wanted to tell Luke she couldn’t take the job after all. It was all too close, too raw. What if she couldn’t do this?

But if she left, Heather and Luke would be separated again and their relationship might not survive. The thought that she might be able to turn the tide and see father and daughter happy together made her wrap all of her own feelings of insecurity in a bundle and pack them away somewhere dark inside herself.

Luke had offered her a lift down to the village to get her car. Not because it was too far to walk, but because it was drizzling on and off and her most sensible shoes were still slightly damp from the day before.

When Gaby got outside, Heather was already in the back seat of the Range Rover, arms folded and looking as if she were willing it to sink into the mud. Luke locked up the house, opened the driver’s door and got in without a word.

She turned to smile at her charge and Heather rolled her eyes. Gaby pressed her lips together to stop herself smiling. She wasn’t going to encourage Heather to be cheeky, but she was glad the girl saw her as an ally, not another enemy.

It was only a matter of minutes before the Range Rover had ploughed through the muddy lane and arrived in the village. Luke pulled in near to the jetty to let Gaby out.

‘Just out of interest, why exactly did you leave your car over the other side of the river and get the ferry over?’

Gaby shuffled in her seat and bent to pick her handbag up from the footwell. ‘Well…it’s a little difficult to drive and navigate at the same time in these lanes.’

‘In other words, you got lost.’

‘No! Well, just a bit. I was following directions for Lower Hadwell. I just didn’t notice the little boat on the signs.’

Luke sighed. It was a world-weary noise that said typical very eloquently. Why couldn’t he just laugh at her, like the ferryman had? She could handle that. He shook his head and pulled out of the parking place.

Where were they going now?

Obviously Luke had made an executive decision of some kind and didn’t think it was worth discussing with a dimwit like her. She was tempted to roll her eyes à la Heather, but she just clutched her handbag with rather more force than necessary and looked out of the window. They were climbing up the steep hill that led out of the village.

‘Where are we going? I need to get my car.’

Luke didn’t bother looking at her when he replied. In fact, it seemed as if he was taking it as a personal affront that she should dare ask. ‘I’m going to drop Heather off at Jodi Allford’s, then we are going to get the ferry and fetch your car round.’

‘We?’

‘I don’t want my new nanny ending up in Cornwall when I need her here.’

She glanced across to see if that was a joke. His mouth was set in a hard line.

He was treating her like a child! And if this was only a fraction of what he dished out to Heather, she could see why father and daughter were getting along so famously. Talk about a complete sense of humour failure!

But then, this man didn’t have a lot to smile about. Her fingers loosened their grip on her innocent bag. She wasn’t being fair.

‘Are you going to navigate, then?’

‘That’s the plan. Don’t worry. You’re not putting me out. We’ll pass through Totnes and I was intending to go to the bank there this morning anyway.’

Her put him out!

Old resentments bubbled below the surface. She did not need another man treating her as if she only had one brain cell. She slumped down into her seat and fumed. No would you mind if I came along…? or what do you think if…? She ought to tell him to drive himself to the flipping bank. She could do just fine on her own.

Instead she just nodded and said, ‘Okay.’

Then she rolled her eyes at herself. Why did she always do this? Swallow what she really wanted to say and give the nice, polite, acceptable answer?

That little exchange set the tone for the whole journey. Luke merely nodded at Ben, the ferryman, when they hopped aboard his little boat, and he hadn’t said much more than ‘next left’ and ‘second exit’ since they’d driven away from the quay in her battered old car.

There was hardly any traffic in the lanes this time of year and Gaby had time to let her mind wander. What was wrong with Luke this morning? Yesterday evening, once the storm with Heather had blown over, he’d been polite and, while not chatty, she’d thought they’d begun to form an acceptable sort of working relationship. Even outbursts of frustration were better than this stony silence. He seemed so distant.

‘Straight on at the crossroads.’

There it was again! That little edge in his voice that made it seem like an order and not a request. As she slowed to wait at the junction, she looked sideways at him. His face was blank and he was staring straight ahead.

At least he wasn’t criticising her driving. David had always had something to say about how fast she was going. Well, how slow, to be exact. He always had an opinion on how things ought to be done. But he’d seemed so charming and knowledgeable in the early days of their relationship—and she’d been so young—that she’d deferred to him on everything. He’d been her husband, after all, and she’d wanted to make him happy.

A little dig here, a cutting remark there, and David had moulded her into the image of the perfect corporate wife. And the really tragic thing was she’d let him, without hesitation or question, because she’d been so stupidly grateful a dashing young banker like him had even looked at her, let alone wanted to marry her.

She suspected now he’d just seen her as a blank canvas. And when they’d separated she’d gone about changing herself, scrubbing away the traces of his influence on her.

She’d lost quite a bit of weight. That had given her a grim satisfaction. David had always made little remarks about how she should get down the gym more. And now she dressed how she wanted to dress, in comfortable clothes, not a designer label or a gold earring in sight.

She had never really loved him, she knew that now. She’d just been so terrified of losing him that she’d erased her own personality. And, in doing so, she’d paved the path to rejection herself. He’d run off with Cara, a career woman, who was exciting and intelligent and unconventional…All the things she wasn’t, according to David.

She’d become a suburban version of Frankenstein’s monster. A patchwork person, put together with all the right bits in the right places, but somehow the life—the spirit—had been missing.

Luke’s voice boomed in her ear. ‘I said, “Get into the right-hand lane.”’

‘What?’ She came to and realised they’d reached the outskirts of a town. ‘Sorry. Must have drifted off.’ She didn’t look at him, but she could tell he was giving her a long hard stare. When he thought he’d made his point, he folded his arms and looked straight ahead.

She turned right, following his directions, and managed to park near the town centre without further embarrassment. Luke unfolded his long frame from the passenger seat and got out, slamming the door as he did so. When she’d finished untangling her handbag strap from around the gear stick and joined him, she found him staring down the street.

‘I’ll meet you back here in half an hour,’ he said and marched off without looking back.

He walked into the car park and spotted her leaning against the car, a crowd of shopping bags at her feet. She looked like so many of the other shoppers in her jeans and hooded jacket. If he hadn’t been looking out for her, he probably wouldn’t have given her a second glance. She looked quite ordinary.

But he was looking out for her. And, as he looked more closely, he noticed something. Even without make-up and her hair scragged into a ponytail, she looked fresh and vibrant—not in the same way as Lucy, who’d been packed so full of restless energy she had hardly been able to contain it—but in the sense that she seemed full of untapped potential. On the cusp of something. He envied her that.

He’d expected to shed the sense of hopelessness with the regulation uniform when he’d walked out the prison gates. But it still weighed him down and he didn’t know how to shake it off. And now, here was this woman doing it all so effortlessly. He wasn’t sure whether he was fascinated or frustrated.

She turned to him as he neared the car and he said something—anything—to hide his confusion. ‘What have you got in those? Clothes?’

‘Food.’

‘But we don’t need any—’

‘Luke, I looked in your freezer this morning. It’s full of cardboard boxes and shrink-wrapped nasties. It’s about time you and Heather ate something with nutrients in it. Goodness knows, it might improve both your moods.’

Luke was about to protest that his mood was just fine, thank you very much, but then he remembered how tightly clenched his intestines were all the time and how Heather just had to give him one of her glares and his head would swim with the effort of keeping a lid on his temper.

He grunted and saw a small smile appear on Gaby’s lips.

‘Just you wait. Your taste buds will sing.’

‘Pretty full of yourself, aren’t you?’

Still, she was probably right. The food inside had been even worse than the contents of his freezer. In comparison, the ready meals tasted like ambrosia. Perhaps he shouldn’t have subjected his growing daughter to such a limited diet.

‘I didn’t hire you to cook, you know. I’m not paying you any extra.’

‘I like cooking. And besides you did hire me to look after Heather. And I feel I would be failing miserably if I let her eat fast food and junk all day long.’

‘I’ve looked after Heather just fine up until now, thank you.’

‘I didn’t mean…’

She rummaged in her pockets and pulled out the car keys. He watched her unlock the car, shaking her head as she did so, obviously deciding it wasn’t worth the effort to answer him.

He picked up the shopping bags and put them in the boot. He hadn’t meant to bite her head off like that. It was just that he should have thought of the quality of the food he was giving his daughter, not left it up to a stranger who’d been in their lives less than twenty-four hours. It was just another area he was failing in.

He wanted to say sorry, but the words wouldn’t come. Too many years of burying all sense of civility had left their toll on him. It had been too dangerous to show any sign of weakness, so he’d had to act tough to survive. He’d blithely thought that, once he was home, he’d be able to flick a switch and return to the man he’d once been, but it wasn’t that simple. What had once been a choice had now become a habit.

As they climbed in the car and drove away, he looked across at Gaby. Two little creases had appeared between her eyebrows while she concentrated on the winding roads. He sighed and scrubbed his face with his hands. He’d been like a bear with a sore head this morning and she’d just taken it. No screaming, no temper tantrums. She seemed to understand that he was struggling with a new addition to the household and gave him space accordingly.

He cranked the handle by his side to open the window a little. The air was cold and very fresh, but he needed a break from the smell of her. Nothing fancy. No perfume or expensive cosmetics, just the scent of a clean woman. A good woman. She had to be a saint to take his family on. And perhaps this good woman could help him remember how to be a good father. Once it had been so effortless.

But that was the problem. He wanted Gaby here for all the obvious practical reasons, but a part of him was resisting her presence. There was something about her that eroded his barriers while he didn’t even notice. He’d laughed with her. Had actually laughed. He’d opened up with her. Those kinds of things were dangerous. If he didn’t look out his iron-plating would buckle and then he’d lose control—and that would be no good at all for Heather.

However much this Gaby made him want to breathe out and smile, he had to resist it.

‘Next left.’

Gaby didn’t move.

‘Gaby, I said next left! Now look…We’ve gone past the turning. You’ll have to stop in the passing place up ahead, then go back.’

He watched her fingers tighten over the gear stick and she jerked it into place. His eyes widened slightly.

So, he was getting to her. Perhaps she wasn’t as au fait with his sore-headed-bear routine as he’d thought. Well, good! It would be easier to keep her at arm’s length that way. Then he wouldn’t be bothered by her clean smell and the warmth in her eyes.

CHAPTER FOUR

A LASAGNE was bubbling away in the oven. Gaby fished her mobile phone out of her pocket and dialled a number while she had a spare minute.

‘Hello, Mum. It’s me.’

‘Good grief, Gabrielle. What are you doing calling at this hour? You know we always sit down to dinner at six-thirty sharp. Your father will only get difficult if his soup goes cold.’

‘Sorry, Mum. This won’t take long.’

‘Well? What’s the emergency?’

‘I just wanted to let you know that I’m going to be away for a while.’

‘Oh, good heavens! You’re not going on holiday with that Jules you share a flat with, are you? She seems the sort to get into trouble in a foreign country, if you ask me. Always got too much flesh on display.’

Gaby closed her eyes, took a deep breath and answered. ‘No, Mum. I’m not going away with Jules.’

‘Just as well. I don’t know, Gabrielle. Your father and I didn’t raise you to go gallivanting off at the drop of a hat. I just don’t know what to think since you broke it off with David.’

‘Mum, David was the one who—’

‘Well, that’s beside the point, isn’t it? I don’t know why you can’t make another go of it—let bygones be bygones. Goodness knows, your brother and Hattie have had their problems, but they’ve been able to make it work. Look at them now, two lovely boys and another baby on the way. You’re running out of time, you know, if you want a family. And at your age it’s going to be hard to find a nice man to take you on with all your history.’

Gaby tuned her mother out and made the appropriate noises at the appropriate moments. Why did every conversation always end up with her mother pointing out that she wasn’t making a success of her life like her golden-boy brother? Next to him she just felt ordinary.

Once her mother had given up on her following Justin to Cambridge, she’d hatched a plan to train her up as a nanny and pack her off to look after Lord and Lady So-and-so’s kids. What a coup that had been at her afternoon teas.

Gaby sighed. She’d done everything she could to make her parents proud of her, but it was never good enough. She even wondered whether one of the reasons she’d married David, one of Justin’s university buddies, had just been so she could bask in some of the reflected glory.

She was jerked back to the present by the raised pitch in her mother’s voice. ‘I’m going to have to dash. Your father has just started bellowing.’

‘Bye, Mum. Send my love to—’

But her mother had rung off. Gaby walked over to the fridge, still staring at her phone. Her mother hadn’t even asked where she was going, or how long for. She popped the phone back in her jeans pocket and got on with making the salad dressing. There was a creak by the door as she measured out the vinegar.

Luke.

She wasn’t sure how she knew it was him, she just sensed it. She carried on pouring the oil into the dressing mixture and waited for him to say something. The fine hairs on the back of her neck started to lift and she became so self-conscious she whisked the dressing into a tornado.

In the end, she couldn’t stand it any more and she turned slowly. Her eyes met his.

‘Is there anything I can do to help, Gaby?’

She shook her head. ‘No. It’s just about ready. You could call Heather, though, if you like?’

He just stood in the doorway and kept looking at her. She looked back, doing her best not to fidget. And then he disappeared without saying anything. A shadow seemed to hover in the doorway where he’d been standing, as if the intensity of his presence had left an imprint in the air. The whisk in her hand was hanging in mid-air, dripping dressing on the floor. She quickly plopped it back in the jug and reached for the kitchen towel.

By the time Luke returned with Heather, the lasagne was on the table and Gaby was ready and waiting with an oven mitt in one hand and a serving spoon in the other. Heather slid into a seat and eyed the serving dish suspiciously. Gaby gave her a small portion, then spooned a generous helping on to a plate for Luke.

She waited, eyebrows raised and spoon poised to cut through the pasta, waiting for him to signal if he wanted more. He nodded so enthusiastically that Gaby couldn’t help but smile as she dolloped another spoonful on to his plate and passed it across.

‘Do start,’ she said, serving herself.

The Armstrongs weren’t ones to stand on ceremony, it seemed. Both Luke and Heather started to demolish their dinner without further hesitation. Gaby, however, took her time and watched. She tried with difficulty to keep the corners of her mouth from turning up as Luke closed his eyes and let out a small growl of pleasure. It was the first time she’d seen him genuinely forget his troubles and live in the moment.

She shook her head and stared at her own plate. Get real, Gaby! A nice lasagne is hardly going to undo five years of emotional torment. But when she looked up at Luke and Heather, both on the verge of clearing their plates, she couldn’t help feeling just a little triumphant.

‘This is even better than Granny’s,’ said Heather, her mouth only half empty before she shoved in another forkful.

‘I thought you were boasting this afternoon, but you were right. My taste buds are serenading you. Where on earth did you learn to cook like this?’

Gaby flushed with stupid pride. Luke’s approval shouldn’t matter. He was talking about her cooking, not passing judgement on her as a person. She really needed to calm down. ‘Just cooking courses at the local adult education college.’

Six of them. Including the Cordon Bleu one. David had insisted. He’d liked the idea of hosting dinner parties for his business associates. But he’d never savoured her food the way Luke was doing now, as if every bite was a small piece of heaven. Perhaps their marriage would have been salvageable if he had, but everything had been too salty, lumpy or cold for David.

Not for the first time, she sighed with relief that catering to David’s fussy eating habits was now Cara’s job. Or perhaps it wasn’t. She doubted that Superwoman did anything as mundane as cooking. The thought of David tucking into a plastic-wrapped meal with his silver-plated cutlery made her feel strangely warm inside.

A small smile still lingered on her face as she started to stack the plates at the end of the meal. This kitchen seemed warm and inviting and cooking for Luke and Heather had been a joy. She’d thought she’d be treading on eggshells while she stayed at the Old Boathouse, but it all felt very natural.

She balanced the plates on top of the serving dish and picked the pile up, only to find Luke step towards her and place his hands over the top of hers. The tingle where their fingers made contact was unexpected—so unexpected that her smile flickered out and she stared hard at the pile of dishes and tangle of fingers. They both went very still.

The tingling got worse and she gripped harder.

‘Thank you, Gaby. I really appreciate you doing that for us. It was the best meal I’ve had in a long time.’

Now pins and needles were travelling right up her arms until they broke through her skin in big pink blotches on her neck. She could feel it. That always happened when she was…

‘I’ll do the dishes,’ he said, giving the stack a little tug.

She nodded her response. The words wouldn’t come.

He smiled. ‘You need to let go of the plates, then.’

‘Of course.’ But her fingers were blatantly ignoring his very logical suggestion. ‘I’ll make the coffee.’

Then, before she knew it, fingers and dishes were whisked away. She wiped the remnants of the tingles away on the front of her jeans.

‘How do you take it?’ she asked him as the last of the plates were being stacked on the rack and the kettle was bubbling madly.

Luke dried his hands and looked over his shoulder. ‘Black, one sugar.’

The same as she did.

Somewhere inside, all the silliness to do with plates and fingers and lasagne and black with one sugar consolidated into a glow in the pit of her stomach. She tried to quench it, but the embers warmed her all the same.

She handed Luke his coffee and started to walk out of the room with her own.

‘Gaby?’

She turned.

‘Aren’t you going to stay and drink it in here?’

‘Um. No. I’ve got…things I need to do. Upstairs.’ She looked up at the ceiling and caught her breath. ‘I’ll see you in the morning, Luke. I think I need an early night.’

He sat down at the table and supported his chin with his hand.

‘Okay, then,’ he said, breaking eye contact. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’

Gaby took a short trip back to London the next weekend to collect more of her things, and to let Jules know she wouldn’t need her spare room for a while. Jules was a friend from her art classes at the adult education centre.

She’d been lovely while the divorce had been going through and had offered Gaby her spare room when the marital home had been sold and Gaby had needed somewhere to stay while she’d looked for something more permanent.

She suspected she’d been cramping her flatmate’s style recently. Jules had just started dating a guy she’d had a crush on for months, and would probably be glad of the extra privacy.

Since most of Gaby’s larger possessions were already in storage, it was just a case of packing a couple of bags and she’d be ready to go. She was just stuffing the last few bits into a holdall when the phone rang.

‘Hello?’

‘Gabrielle?’

‘Mum!’

‘I thought you were going away with that Jules person.’

‘No, Mum. I—’ Hang on a second. ‘Why are you calling if you thought I’d be away?’

‘It’s obvious, dear. I was going to leave a message on your answer phone about Justin’s birthday for when you get back.’

‘Justin’s birthday,’ she said slowly. That wasn’t for another two months.

‘Just so you don’t double-book yourself.’

Of course. Harriet was having one of her big parties, but then Harriet always made a fuss about Justin’s birthday.

‘Well, Mum, I’ve got a new job. I’m not sure I’m going to—’

‘Don’t be ridiculous! You can’t miss your own brother’s party. It’s the sixteenth, dear. Are you writing it down?’

‘Of course, I am,’ Gaby replied, looking at the pad on her beside table and doing nothing to move towards it.

‘I’ll be in touch in a few weeks to fill you in on all the details. Bye now.’

Then all Gaby could hear was the dial tone purring in her ear.

Luke tugged frantically on the strings of the kite, but it was too late. It fell out of the air and crashed on to the deserted beach. He sighed and trudged towards it. Gaby might be a bit of a shrinking violet at times, but she could talk an Eskimo into buying snow, and what was more, he’d love her for it!

This outing to the beach with Heather had been her idea.

You’re not working this Sunday, she’d said. The weather report says it’s going to be sunny but windy, she’d said. Great weather for flying kites. Heather would love it…

And before he knew it, he was buying a multicoloured contraption in town and spending his Sunday afternoon watching it nosedive into the shingle again and again.

Heather had lost interest after ten minutes. So now he was left to keep up the pretence while she and Gaby wandered along the shore, arm in arm, and collected shells and bits of quartz.

He stopped to watch them. They were deep in conversation, sharing girl-type secrets, no doubt. His heart squeezed a little. Gaby had made such a difference to their home in the last three weeks. He still had to duck when Heather was in a foul mood, but more and more she was laughing and smiling, and he’d even caught her singing to herself.

He could see glimpses of the happy little girl she’d once been. That same cheeky smile she’d had, aged three, when she knew she’d said something funny or cute. The way she stroked a strand of her own hair when she was tired.

And it was all down to Gaby. He couldn’t take credit for the tiniest bit of it. All he managed was to stretch his mouth into a smile when it was required, and to say the right things—as if he were reading from a script—and watch his daughter blossom.

Gaby was getting closer and closer to Heather and, miracle of miracles, Heather was letting her.

And, all the while, he stayed on the fringes and watched. He was just as much on the outside of his daughter’s life as he’d been all those years behind bars. Why he couldn’t work his way into the centre—where all the laughter and warmth was—was more than he could fathom.

He watched as Gaby and Heather broke into a run and chased each other along the edge of the surf. The wind was cold and it blew their scarves in front of their faces, which only made them laugh all the more.

How did she do it?

The woman he’d thought at first seemed ordinary, nothing special, had the ability to reach out to a heart and see it respond. A very rare thing indeed. He caught himself studying her, trying to work out what her secret was, where all that warmth and courage came from.

He alternated between admiring her and hating her for it.

He tore his gaze away and returned it to the kite lying a short distance away on the small round pebbles. It seemed injured, lying there fluttering half-heartedly. He walked over and surveyed it with dismay.

The two figures walking along the shore hadn’t even seen it crash.

It was all in a tangle and he didn’t know what to do with it.

Heather sat in the passenger seat of Gaby’s car and fiddled with the catch on the glove compartment.

‘Come on, Heather. You’re going to be late if you don’t actually get out of the car and walk through the gates.’

Heather grimaced and opened and shut the glove compartment a few more times. ‘Twenty’ she said, casting Gaby a weary look.

Okay. Heather was taking a cryptic tack again. Gaby was getting used to this. Heather had problems expressing her fears. Rather than blurting out how she felt, she would leave a trail of crumbs, making her interrogator work for answers she was actually desperate to give. But they didn’t have time for this; the school bell was going to ring in less than a minute.

‘Twenty what, Heather?’ Twenty more slams of the glove box and the whole car would fall apart? She took hold of Heather’s hand gently and removed it from the glove box catch. Heather pulled her hand away and tucked it under the school bag on her lap.

‘Twenty school days until the Easter break.’

Gaby’s heart went out to her, it really did, but she could see where Heather was going with this, and there was no way she was going to let the girl manipulate her. She was going to school today, and that was that.

‘It won’t be as bad as you think, sweetheart.’

‘How would you know? It was probably at least a hundred years since you were at school! You don’t know anything about it. Nobody does.’

Heather was giving her what Gaby always referred to as a laser vision stare—thanks to Luke’s apt description. She refused to take the bait, especially now she’d worked out that Heather created conflict when she didn’t get her own way. So she leaned across, pulled the handle and opened the door for her.

‘Come on, miss. Out. One foot in front of the other, walk through the door, sit your bottom on a chair and stay there. It’s not hard. And then, when you come out again, it’ll be nineteen days and counting.’

Heather flounced from the car, as only a disgruntled pre-teen could, dragging her bag behind her.

‘I’ll see you after netball practice,’ Gaby yelled after her. But Heather was too busy ploughing a path though her schoolmates to hear.

She pulled the door closed and started the car. Heather was making progress, but there was still a long way to go. She and Luke were enjoying a turbulent truce. They still didn’t know how to resolve their differences when a spat erupted, but at least in the in-between times she could see they were both trying.

Although she was very fond of Heather, she was determined to keep a professional distance. There were so many reasons why she couldn’t afford to lose her heart to this needy little girl and her silently aching father.

Distance. That was what they all needed. Luke certainly needed time and space to sort himself out. At least, that was the reason she gave herself for keeping out of his way in the evenings, and always, always leaving the dinner plates on the table for him to clear away.

Back at the Old Boathouse, she parked her car near the back door and let herself in. Seven and a half hours until she had to pick Heather up. It seemed an awfully long time. But she had a shopping list to write and she might as well check whether Heather had put her school uniform from last week in the laundry basket, rather than stuffing it under her bed.

By noon her shopping list was written in a small neat hand and every last sock of Heather’s had been accounted for and deposited in the washing machine. The beds were made, a pot of home-made soup sat bubbling on the hob and she had organised the contents of the freezer.

She sat at the spotlessly clean kitchen table and stared out of the window. It was a typically grey March day. Even so, the colours on the river here were wonderful. Steel greys, mossy greens and slate blues. And the light!

There was inspiration everywhere you looked, no matter the time of day or the weather. When she was younger, she’d have been out there on the beach, brush in hand, like a shot.

Gaby sat up a little straighter.

Why not? What was there to stop her? She’d missed the watercolour classes she’d taken while married to David. Since the divorce she’d had neither the time nor the money to lavish on things like that. But with Heather in school most of the week, she’d have plenty of time to unearth a talent she thought she’d buried for good, and still get all her work done. She jumped up, grabbed her keys and drove into town grinning all the way.

Down a cobbled street she found a shop selling art supplies. She emerged with a carrier bag full of paint tubes, brushes, paper and her head full of ideas for her first project.

She wandered through the town without really paying attention to where she was going and found herself in Bayard’s Cove, a little dead end street near the ferry. One side was open to the river, and a squat, ruined turret of an old fort built to guard the estuary sat where the road ended.

She dipped down and entered the fort through its low doorway. A row of arched windows framed the view up to Dartmouth Castle on the rolling headland.

She would just fit nicely in one of those arches, she decided. Soon her legs were dangling over the ledge, the water lapping below. She pulled a sketch pad and pencil out of her shopping bag and set to work capturing what she saw: bulbous clouds pushing across the sky like an armada, sail boats criss-crossing the water and the higgledy-piggledy houses of Kingswear on the other side of the river.

This was heaven. It had been so long since she’d done something just for her own pleasure. What started out as a quick sketch, rapidly grew in scale and detail. It was only when she glanced up and noticed the light was starting to fade that she checked her watch. Four o’clock. She had time to head home, drop off her bags, then run up to collect Heather from netball practice.

She took a second to consider her sketch, then flipped the pad closed, praying the traffic warden hadn’t slapped a ticket on her windscreen while she’d been sketching.

When she returned to the Old Boathouse, she was surprised to see Luke’s car parked at an angle in the lane. He wasn’t due home until at least seven o’clock. She wanted to show him what she’d been up to, so she fished the pad out of her bag as she walked up to the back door. Once in the mud room, she called out, ‘Hi there! What are you doing back so—?’

The look on Luke’s face as she entered the lounge brought her up short.

‘Where the hell have you been?’

CHAPTER FIVE

WAS he yelling at her?

Gaby took a quick look over her shoulder, just to double-check no one had walked in behind her, but they were alone in the room.

‘Well? Where have you been?’

Her fingers twitched as she waited for her voice to work. She waved the pad a fraction of an inch. ‘I’ve been sketching…’

Her voice trailed off. He’d lost his rag with Heather over the last few weeks, but never had she seen this kind of raw fury in his eyes. A familiar feeling crept over her. She’d experienced it many times when David had lost his temper with her, but she’d never expected to get it from Luke.

‘You know Heather gets out of school at three-thirty! You’d better have a bloody good reason for leaving her standing in the playground with her teacher, while you were out messing around with crayons!’ Luke took the pad from her, gave it a cursory look and tossed it behind him on to the sofa. It bounced and skittered across the floor.

Gaby stood rooted to the spot, although inside she felt as if she was backing away. He just ploughed on.

‘The school called me at work, wanting to know why nobody was there to pick my daughter up!’

Finally her tongue unwelded itself from the top of her mouth. ‘Oh, my goodness! Heather…’

She looked frantically round the room then tried to rush past him to look in the kitchen. Luke lunged forward and put a restraining hand on her shoulder. ‘Now you’re worried. Why weren’t you thinking like this an hour ago?’

‘But…but she had netball…’

‘No. She didn’t!’

‘But she always has netball on a Monday afternoon! It’s right there—’ she waved a hand towards the kitchen ‘—on the calendar!’

‘Not this week. There was a letter to say it was cancelled because Miss Blackwell is on some training course.’

Her hand flew in front of her mouth. ‘I didn’t know,’ she stammered through her fingers.

‘It’s your job to know!’ Luke ran his hands through his hair and shook his head. ‘What kind of nanny are you? Unbelievable!’ With that, he turned and marched to the bay window.

Gaby ran to the kitchen and tugged at the sheaf of papers clipped beside the calendar. A list of the term dates, a letter about the school choir and a reminder to bring household rubbish in for recycling were all she could find.

She ran back out into the lounge and stopped a few feet away from Luke. He was ignoring her, staring out across the river. The way the muscles of his back clenched told her he was better left alone.

‘Luke? Where’s Heather?’

He turned round and gave her a look that made her want to shrivel.

‘When the school phoned I gave them permission to let Jodi’s mum take her home. It was going to take me at least half an hour to get there, and Patricia Allford had offered to give her tea, so it seemed like the least painful solution for everyone.’

Gaby’s stomach quivered. ‘So…you came back here to look for me?’

Luke just blinked, long and slow. She swallowed.

‘There was me thinking you were lying unconscious on the bathroom floor or something. Stupid, huh?’

She closed her eyes. ‘Luke, I’m sorry. I really am. I just don’t know how I could have—’

‘Forget it.’

The look on his face said it was anything but forgotten.

‘Let me go and pick her up. I can apologise to Mrs Allford in person then.’

Luke marched out into the hall and she heard the rattling of keys. ‘I’ll go.’ The door slammed and she flinched.

This was awful! How could she? She’d been so caught up in herself that she hadn’t spared a thought for Heather. She crossed the room to where her discarded sketch book lay, and stared at it.

Luke was right. She was useless. Sure, he hadn’t said as much, but she could see it in his face. That same look that David had always had when he was about to go on one of his rants. Only this time it wasn’t over something as trivial as a suit left at the dry cleaners. This time she’d really screwed up.

She picked up the pad and flipped the cover to look at the drawing. Suddenly it appeared awkward and childish. She ripped the page out and threw it on the cold but waiting fire. Kindling was all it was good for. Then she fetched the matches. Two minutes later, her afternoon of joy was a plume of smoke snaking its way out of the chimney.

Luke made himself ease off the accelerator. Driving at this speed in winding country lanes was not a good idea. But if he allowed the adrenaline surge to subside, he was going to have to face thoughts he was trying to avoid. Like the fact that Gaby had made a simple mistake. It could easily have been him in her position. He only half-remembered the letter in question himself, and probably would have forgotten all about it if the school hadn’t phoned.

He also didn’t want to face the fact that anger had been bubbling under the surface since the beach trip. Unreasonable anger. Jealousy, if he put the proper label on it. Stuipid, childish jealousy he could do nothing to quench.

He tapped the lever for the windscreen wipers. The good weather had held on long enough and now the rain was falling thick and fast. It was too early to go and get Heather. Patricia Allford had said to pick her up at six, and it was only just five o’clock.

He drove into the village and parked his car along the front. A walk on the beach might clear his head. It would serve him right if he got drenched. Part of him welcomed the punishment.

He ran to the boot of his car, got his waterproof out of the back, and set off down the shingle beach, enjoying the cold wind on his face. Before long his hands grew icy and he stuffed them in his pockets. He hadn’t worn the coat for a couple of weeks and was surprised to find the spare keys for the back door in the right hand pocket, along with a scrumpled piece of paper.

He spent five minutes or so feeling the pattern of the wrinkles as he walked. Finally, he grew curious and pulled it out to investigate. As soon as he saw the school’s logo on the top of the page, he knew he was in trouble. He didn’t even need to read the letter to know what it was.

He folded the paper up precisely and put it back in his pocket. He’d picked Heather up from school the Wednesday before last. It had been raining then too. She’d run out through the school gates and waved a letter under his nose.

Oh, hell!

He was feeling bad enough about letting rip at Gaby as it was, and now it turned out the whole episode was his fault alone. No wonder she hadn’t remembered the letter! It had been sitting in his pocket the whole time, stuffed inside after he’d given it a quick once-over.

Gaby would be livid with him. At least, she ought to be.

He frowned.

She should have given as good as she’d got earlier on—but she hadn’t. She’d just taken everything he had to hurl at her, yet again. She’d apologised and hadn’t even answered back. Why was that?

He turned and headed back to the car. A thorough soaking was not going to atone for his behaviour this afternoon. He was going to have to do some quick thinking to stop Gaby whizzing back up the motorway to London. He’d do anything to get her to stay.

His stomach bottomed out. She’d only been with them a few weeks, but the Old Boathouse without Gaby seemed a hollow prospect. Heather would be devastated if she left. And he wasn’t ready to handle his daughter without her yet. Strike that. More like he was too scared to handle Heather without her. What if he failed?

There was only one thing for it. He would have to convince her to stay. He needed her.

Luke hatched a plan on the way to collect Heather—who was surprisingly unfazed by the afternoon’s turn of events. She didn’t even mention how much she hated Jodi on the drive home.

Heather rushed into the house as usual, once they’d parked the car, but he took his time hanging his coat up and ridding himself of his dirty shoes. He had no idea what the atmosphere was going to be like inside.

By the time he reached the kitchen, Heather was pestering Gaby for home-made cake. But he needed a chance to talk to Gaby. Alone.

‘Heather, you can’t possibly be hungry already. You’ve only just had dinner.’

Heather gave him a ya-think? kind of look.

‘Anyway, it’s homework time.’ He picked up her school bag and handed it to her. ‘Finish your geography, and then we’ll talk about banana cake.’

She took the bag and sloped off in the direction of her room without saying a word. Too wary of spoiling her chances of cake to answer back, he supposed.

Gaby had her back turned to him, stirring something that looked like onions in a frying pan.

‘Gaby?’

‘Mmm-hmm.’ She kept stirring and didn’t turn to face him.

‘Well, I just wanted to apologise…for what I said earlier. I shouldn’t have reacted like that, no matter what had happened.’

The stirring stopped. ‘It’s fine, Luke, really. You shouldn’t be apologising to me.’ The wooden spoon started moving again, slower this time. ‘It was my fault. I got it wrong.’

‘Well, actually…’He couldn’t stand talking to the back of her head any more. Three strides and he was across the kitchen, right next to her. He took the spoon out of her hand and rested it in the pan. ‘What I’m trying to say…’

Where had all his effortless charm gone? Before he’d gone away the right words would have been there, waiting for him to pluck them out of the air. Now it was an effort to string more than one or two together. At times like this he realised just how much polish had been sandblasted off him in prison. Especially when faced with a large pair of brown eyes with ridiculously long lashes.

He took a deep breath and started again. ‘What I’m trying to say is that it wasn’t your fault, it was mine. And I’m truly sorry I spoke to you the way I did.’ He offered her the crushed letter he was holding.

Brown eyes that hadn’t looked away all the time he’d been talking now fluttered to the piece of paper in his hand. She took it from him and smoothed it out.

‘I found it in my coat pocket earlier. As I said, it really was my fault.’

She looked back at him. Something inside her seemed to swell, and then the shutters came down.

‘It’s fine,’ she said, blinking once. But he knew they were empty words. There was no sense of release, no closure. She broke eye-contact, picked up the spoon and toyed with the onions some more.

He didn’t move away, but watched her in silence. Then he realised he’d seen her do this before—shut herself away and gloss over something. He didn’t want this. He wanted her to shout, to cry—anything but smile and tell him everything was fine.

That was what Lucy had used to do. No, nothing’s wrong, everything’s fine. And it clearly had been anything but fine if she had been sleeping with her boss the whole time. He hated that word with a passion now.

It would do Gaby some good to admit what she was feeling, really let rip. He stepped back and rested against the counter. What the hell did he know? Letting rip was the only way he seemed able to communicate these days, and it wasn’t helping matters in the slightest.

Maybe Gaby was better off the way she was. He certainly couldn’t do the warm and fuzzy stuff she did.

He finally admitted defeat and headed upstairs for a shower. Maybe she just needed time to cool off. He shouldn’t expect her to snap out of it just because he was ready for her to.

When he came back downstairs, Gaby hadn’t moved. The onions had been joined by tomatoes and herbs and what looked like the start of a pasta sauce was bubbling away on the stove. She was stabbing rather violently at lumps of tomato to break them up.

‘That smells good. What is it?’ Oh, yeah, really smooth.

‘Just a basic tomato sauce I was going to add some things to. Tonight I was going to—’

Luke reached over and turned the knob on the stove to off. ‘Tonight, Gaby, you are going to sit down at that table, put your feet up, and take a night off cooking.’ He pulled out a chair and motioned for her to sit in it, which she did, a bemused look on her face.

‘But the tomato sauce—’

‘Will keep until tomorrow, won’t it?’

She nodded.

‘Great. I’m in charge of food this evening.’

She started to stand again. ‘No way! I’ve tasted your so-called cooking, remember?’

‘Trust me. You’ll live.’

He opened a bottle of wine and poured a glass for her. ‘First, you are going to sip this. Then you are going to have a long, hot soak in the bath while I make sure madam has finished her homework and gets ready for bed. Then we’ll eat. Deal?’

Gaby took a sip of wine and looked up at him through her lashes, evidently wary of this new, polite Luke. ‘Deal.’

Luke scraped the pasta sauce into a large bowl and left it to cool. He could feel Gaby watching him as he washed up the sauté pan. She must think he was ready to revert to his grumpy old self at any time.

He picked up a dish towel to dry his hands. Her teeth were biting the corner of her lip, as if she were trying to decide whether she should say something or not.

‘From now on I’m not going to call you Dr Armstrong. I’m going to call you Dr Jekyll.’

Luke grinned, and then he laughed. Even Gaby gave a reluctant smile and looked away.

‘I’ll be back soon,’ he said, and walked out of the room.

Gaby tried to turn the hot tap with her toe, but it was wedged fast. She swiped some of the bubbles away and reached forward to top up the bath with hot water.

Luke Armstrong was a surprise. It took a real man to be able to admit when he was wrong. David had raised his voice to her on a predictably regular basis, yet he had never once said sorry. How she’d ever thought he was a man worth sticking around for was a mystery to her. She shook her head and picked up a book to read while she waited for the water to go cold.

Later, as she was dressing in her comfy old tracksuit, she noticed the house was oddly quiet. She walked across to Heather’s bedroom, knocked gently on the door and turned the handle.

Heather looked up from the book she was reading. ‘Hi.’

‘Hi there. You’re being very quiet.’

‘I’m allowed to stay up fifteen minutes longer if I read quietly in bed. Luke…Dad said I could.’

Gaby smiled. It was great to hear Heather call him Dad, even if it didn’t yet fall out of her mouth naturally. She kissed Heather on the forehead. ‘I’ll be up later to turn out the light, okay?’

‘Okay. But don’t rush. This book is really good.’ With that, she turned the page and carried on reading, and Gaby crept out and made her way downstairs. Luke was nowhere to be seen. She padded into the lounge, sank into one of the large comfortable sofas and tucked her legs up under herself. The fire had been lit, and the feel of its glow on her face was soporific. She hadn’t even realised she’d closed her eyes until she heard the front door bang and they snapped open.

It was Luke. He stuck his head through the lounge door and smiled at her. Her stomach did a weird little bellyflop. What was that all about?

‘There you are.’ He walked into the room and deposited a couple of plain carrier bags on the coffee table.

‘What have you got there?’

One side of his mouth drew upwards in a wry smile. ‘Humble Pie.’

She smiled back at him as he unloaded the bags. From the delicious smells wafting her way, she was certain it was Chinese takeaway. He opened all the cartons and disappeared into the kitchen for plates and chopsticks, while Gaby peered in each container to see what was what.

Salt and pepper king prawns! Her absolute favourite.

Luke returned and they set about demolishing his ‘pie’. She almost forgot as she sat there, legs crossed on the sofa, that he was her employer. A very stupid thing to do. But, as they talked and ate and laughed, she couldn’t help seeing him as the man who was slowly becoming her friend.

Luke watched Gaby as she reached over for the last king prawn. She looked totally at home here. In fact, this old house hadn’t felt like a home at all until she’d arrived. And, all he’d done was grump and bark at her. He’d been a Grade A pain in the backside. Well, from tonight, all that was going to change. It was about time he polished up his social skills, and Gaby certainly deserved to be the one who got to see them first.

So he made a real effort to be nice and charming and talkative. And all of a sudden, he wasn’t trying, he was just doing it. And it all felt so natural that he couldn’t believe he’d forgotten how. With Gaby it was easy.

Just look at her now, smiling as she pushed her plate away and took a sip of her wine.

‘I haven’t really told you how much I appreciate all you’ve done with Heather.’

‘I haven’t done anything special.’

Oh, no? Then why couldn’t he duplicate it? Why was it so hard for him to connect with his daughter the way she did? He threw the carton he was scraping out back on to the coffee table.

‘Do you think we’re ever going to find some common ground, Heather and I?’

‘Luke—’ Gaby shook her head and laughed ‘—I can’t believe you don’t see it! The pair of you are so alike, you’re practically carbon copies. Of course, you’ll find some common ground.’

‘We are? I mean, we will?’

‘Yes! She’s a mini version of you. A baby control freak.’

‘I’m sorry. Did you say “control freak”?’

Gaby nodded. She looked as if she were trying not to laugh. ‘That’s why you clash so much. Neither one of you is willing to give an inch sometimes. She needs to be in charge of her destiny just as much as you do.’

He opened his mouth to contradict her, but closed it again and stared at the ceiling. ‘You think?’

‘You just need to ease off a bit and she’ll calm down. Stop trying to do everything for her. She’s not the little six-year-old you left behind any more. And you can’t make up for lost time by treating her as if she were.’

‘And you think this will improve things?’

‘It certainly won’t hurt. You’ve already started doing it a little. Just keep going, a step at a time.’

‘How do you know all this stuff? Is this what they teach you at nanny school?’

Gaby shuffled in her seat a little. She seemed to be embarrassed. ‘Let’s just say that, as a child, I used to feel a lot like she did. I know what it’s like to have your whole life mapped out for you. It’s suffocating. Every little thing had to be just so, or it was the end of the world. I don’t know how I stood it as long as I did.’

Somehow the conversation had shifted and he knew she wasn’t talking about her childhood any more. It had to be the ex-husband. What an idiot.

‘Earlier on…’

‘I thought we weren’t going to talk about earlier on, Luke.’

‘Let me finish, woman. I was going to ask you about your drawing—the one you had in the pad when you came in.’

‘It wasn’t very good. I threw it away. I’m a bit rusty.’

‘Better than me. I have problems drawing a straight line.’

‘Painting is what I really like to do. I was planning to start again in my free time. The colours on the river are just so beautiful.’

Were they? He couldn’t say he’d noticed that much. Too busy looking inside to notice the world around him.

‘What’s your favourite colour, then?’ Okay, sparkling conversation was still out of reach, but she didn’t seem to notice. She looked as if she were enjoying herself as much as he was.

‘Green, I think. It’s hard to choose. But not that garish bright green. Soft mossy greens and deep emerald greens are my favourite. What about you?’

He was mesmerised by her. When she talked about things she loved, she sparkled. How had he ever thought of her as ordinary? She was looking right at him and her eyes were positively glowing…

‘Brown.’ The word was out of his mouth before he had a chance to think about it.

‘Brown? Your favourite colour is brown. Seriously?’ She pulled a face.

‘No, not brown, I mean…’

Then he looked back into her eyes. Polished chestnut, warm and dark with gold lights. At that moment he couldn’t think of a colour to top it.

CHAPTER SIX

A NOISE dragged Gaby from sleep. She propped herself up on an elbow and listened. The clock showed it was some time past three.

There it was again.

Suddenly, she was very much awake. She flung back the duvet and jumped out of bed. Her movements were swift and silent as she crossed the room and eased the door open. Everything was quiet again. All she could hear was her own magnified heartbeat. She crept towards Heather’s door and pushed it gently.

Heather was fast asleep, one leg out of the duvet and an arm around a toy rabbit. Poor kid. She might act tough, but underneath she was a scared little girl who hung on to security anywhere she found it.

Gaby was just pulling the door closed again when she heard a shout. The hairs on the back of her neck immediately stood to attention.

Luke! Was he ill? You could never be too careful with Chinese takeaway. All it took was one dodgy prawn.

She ran across the landing and knocked lightly on his door. There was no answer, but she could hear him groaning and moving around inside. She stayed frozen to the spot, fingertips resting on the door, not wanting to intrude, but reluctant to go back to bed without offering help.

One more loud noise from inside the master bedroom was all it took. She pressed the flat of her hand on the door and pushed. The room was pitch dark. The door swung closed behind her and it took a good few seconds before her eyes adjusted to the blackness.

‘Luke?’ she whispered. ‘Are you all right?’

He muttered something unintelligible.

She tried again. ‘Are you ill?’

This time she managed to work out a few words. ‘…can’t get out…’

‘Do you need help getting to the bathroom?’ Panic began to register in her voice. ‘Luke, please! Tell me what’s wrong.’

She moved closer to the bed and laid a hand on his bare shoulder. Luke sat bolt upright and she jumped back, almost falling over.

His eyes were open and he was staring—not at her—but at a bare patch of wall directly in front of him.

He was still asleep.

This was a nightmare or something. She vaguely remembered Justin sleepwalking and having what her parents called ‘night terrors’ when he was a boy. He used to scream and shout. Sometimes he’d walk around the house and do the strangest things—like put his wellies on and then just go back to bed as if nothing had happened.

Trying to wake Luke was a bad idea. He’d probably lie down in a second and move into a deeper phase of sleep. She would just sit on the edge of the bed and watch him for five minutes, just to make sure it wasn’t the prawns after all.

Her bottom had only just started to make a dent in the mattress when he moved his head in one swift turn to stare at her. She held her breath. If he’d just woken up, she was going to have a tough time explaining her presence in his bedroom—on his bed, no less—wearing nothing but an oversized T-shirt.

But she needn’t have worried. He turned away again and shuffled over to the other side of the bed. She was on the verge of breathing out her relief, when she realised he was getting out. And she watched open-mouthed as he walked calmly to the door that led out on to the terrace, opened it and went outside.

Gaby shot after him. The cold air hit her like a wall, but Luke didn’t even seem to notice. Thank goodness he was wearing pyjama bottoms. She hadn’t been able to tell while he was in bed. She wasn’t sure she could handle coaxing her naked boss back to bed. Seeing him shirtless was bad enough. It wouldn’t have been quite so uncomfortable if he were awake—in fact, under other circumstances, seeing such a finely toned torso would have been a definite bonus—but while he was unaware of her existence it felt voyeuristic.

And she couldn’t think that way about this man.

He stood motionless at the railing. Coming outside seemed to have soothed the dreams that had him tossing and turning a few minutes ago. But it had to be close to freezing outside; they’d both be hypothermic if they stood here much longer. She couldn’t leave him. What if he wandered down the steps? The tide was in. He could drown!

The only option was to try and get him back inside. An image of her father leading Justin back to bed when he’d had one of his sleepwalking episodes floated to the surface of her memory.

Luke still hadn’t moved and she walked over to him and gently took him by the hand. His fingers closed over hers, a gesture she found oddly warming, even though it was just a reflex.

She moved towards the open door, tugging him gently. He didn’t budge. There was no way she was going to manage to drag him back inside. Over six foot of solid male, versus five-foot-five of slightly out of shape female wasn’t a fair contest.

‘Luke?’ She tried to keep her voice low and steady. ‘It’s time to go back inside now.’ Then she moved again and, amazingly, this time he let her lead him. ‘That’s it. We’re almost there now.’

She ushered him into the room and shut the door behind them. Then, as an afterthought, she turned the key in the lock, removed it and searched for somewhere sensible to leave it. She could hear him moving around the room, pacing, and she didn’t want to waste time, so she just left it on the dressing table. Luke would scratch his head when he found it there in the morning.

Now inside, Luke began to show signs of distress again. He walked over to the door and rattled the handle, obviously desperate to escape. What was she going to do? And what was going on inside his head? Was he was back in prison, feeling trapped and powerless?

He just kept working the door handle, each attempt more frantic than the last. The top half of the door was glazed and he started banging on it with the flat of his hand, muttering something about needing to find her. She had no idea whether it was Heather or his wife he was talking about, and she didn’t have time to work it out. If he kept slamming his hand against the pane like that, it was going to shatter. And she couldn’t unlock it and let him go outside to freeze or drown. Think, Gaby!

‘Come on, back to bed.’

She placed her hands on his upper arms and tried to turn him round, but he just kept banging the glass and growling in frustration. The only thing she could think of was to get between him and the door. Luckily she was small enough to duck under his arms, and wedge herself into position.

The next blow from his hand hit her clean across the cheek. He stopped and she took the opportunity to grab his hands and push him back a step or two. ‘Come on, Luke. Please. Just get back in the blasted bed, will you?’

But he wasn’t having any of it. He tried to walk through her as if she wasn’t there. She stumbled backwards, landing against the door with the handle sticking into her back. She was trying to keep calm as she talked, she really was. But now her cheek was stinging, her back was sore and Luke was seriously starting to cheese her off—asleep or not!

‘Will you just do as you’re flipping told?’ She was just going to have to get bossy. She shoved Luke hard and it seemed to stop him in his tracks. While he wasn’t trying to engineer a break-out, she grabbed him by the hand and dragged him to the edge of the bed. Then she gave him another hefty push so he sat down.

‘Luke.’ This was ridiculous. He probably couldn’t hear her anyway. ‘You’re not going anywhere. Just give up.’

Even in the dark she saw his shoulders droop. His chin dropped on to his chest and he gave a great shuddering sigh. More gently now, she guided him until he was lying on his side and got him to swing his legs on to the bed.

Flushed with triumph, she stood there, grinning in the darkness. Luke Armstrong was going to get what was good for him—whether he liked it or not!

And then she heard a sound that broke her heart. This big strong man, who had been through so much, was crying. It started as just a sniff, but pretty soon the sobs were coming thick and fast.

She couldn’t stand it any more. Just couldn’t bear to hear him take one more gulp. It twisted inside her like a knife. So she clambered on to the bed beside him and put her arms around him. Tears were streaming over her lashes too.

‘Please, Luke. Please don’t cry. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.’

It didn’t matter that she had nothing to apologise for, that none of what had happened was her fault. It just seemed right that somebody should say it, somebody should care.

She stroked his hair and rubbed his back and gradually his tears subsided. She lay there, listening to the sound of his breath as it slowed and grew more even.

She was kidding herself. For the past few weeks she’d been telling herself that she was making a difference, helping him put his life back together, but the scene this evening had made that a farce. His wounds went deeper than she could ever imagine. All her notions of being able to make a difference seemed so pathetic.

He seemed to be more deeply asleep now. She started to wriggle away, but the instant she did so, he started to mumble and fidget again. Soothing words alone didn’t do the trick, so she pressed her cheek against his back and snaked an arm around his waist. Physical contact seemed to calm him. Somewhere in his brain the sensations must register and tell him he wasn’t totally alone.

She breathed in the smell of him and felt the smooth skin of his back against her face, the contours of his muscles under her fingers.

This man deserved so much more than this.

He deserved love and happiness and a daughter who idolised him. Not this battered mess of a life. Luke let out one more heart-wrenching sigh and then she felt his muscles slacken. She was pretty sure he was over the worst now, but she’d better stay put for another few minutes, just to make sure.

How arrogant she’d been to think she could fix this family. In truth, she didn’t know where to start. She was way out of her depth. One thing she could do was make sure he got a good night’s sleep. She’d bet he didn’t get too many of those.

So she lay snuggled against him and cried for the wasted years and the horrors he must have endured. And, when she had finished, she placed one tender kiss on his back and closed her eyes.

Something was tickling her face.

She swatted it away, but it didn’t do as it was told. A few seconds later a small puff of air lifted a strand of hair that lay across her cheek. Stupid David! He was always waking her up by breathing on her like this.

And then it struck her that she had been divorced for nearly a year and it wasn’t David who was breathing on her. Her eyelids shot up.

Luke! She was in bed with Luke.

She fought the urge to bolt out of bed and kept completely still. She would just have to do her cringing on the inside. If he woke up and found her here, she’d never be able to face him again.

She took a calming breath—well, as calming as she could—and tried to work out which arms and legs belonged to her and which didn’t. She was lying on her back and Luke was facing her, one arm draped possessively across her torso. Pale grey light was filtering through the curtains. It was only just dawn and she had a good chance of escaping unnoticed if she kept her cool.

She inched out from under his arm, holding it aloft slightly so it didn’t drag across her, then placed it carefully back down on top of the duvet. Moments later her feet touched carpet. She almost smiled with relief. Almost. Luke stirred and she froze. His hand searched the empty space next to him. Thankfully, it landed on the extra pillow she’d thrown aside and grabbed that.

Gaby held her breath for a few seconds more and, when she was convinced he had settled back down, she tiptoed out of the room.

The toast had just popped out of the toaster when Gaby heard Luke enter the kitchen. She blushed. Thank goodness she was leaning over the counter and he couldn’t see her face.

‘Morning, Gaby.’

‘Morning,’ she replied, lowering her head slightly as the blush raged more fiercely.

Anyone would think this was a different kind of morning after!

The thing was, her brain was refusing to recognise last night for what it had been—a friend helping a friend in need. It had all seemed so simple at the time. But now her emotions were weaving themselves into complex knots. She wasn’t sure what she felt. Only that she was embarrassed and aware of him in a way she hadn’t been before.

Sharing a bed with someone, even if it were just for comfort, was an incredibly intimate thing. The barriers she’d erected to stop herself becoming emotionally entangled had been mown down by one nightmare.

Professional distance? Give me a break!

Worst of all, she couldn’t stop thinking about the feel of his skin against hers, the warmth their bodies had generated together. It had been so nice to hold him, to have some of the human contact she had missed in the last year.

Yes, that was it. She was just starved of affection. She was just reacting as any normal person would in the situation.

And normal people got into bed with their bosses, did they? Who was she kidding?

Well, whatever had happened, she was finding it hard to see him as her boss any more. Or the poor downtrodden man she’d come to save from himself. She let out a little huff of a laugh as she buttered her toast. Luke had put his finger on it the first time they met. In some grandiose daydream she’d seen herself as his guardian angel, swooping in to rescue him, then flitting off again when the job was done.

Only she wasn’t an angel. She was just a woman. And now she was having trouble forgetting Luke was just a man underneath all the labels she’d pinned on him: employer, struggling father, charity case. The realisation he possessed a Y chromosome was starting to fuzz her brain.

‘Could you pop a couple of slices in for me, please?’

Gaby swung round to face him. ‘Huh?’ She must look completely gormless, standing there with a buttery knife aloft and her mouth hanging open.

‘Toast. Could you stick some in the toaster for me?’

‘Oh! Of course.’ She smiled.

‘What’s so funny?’

‘Nothing, really. It’s just that you said “toast”.’

He eyed her suspiciously. ‘And toast is hysterically funny, because…’

She reached for two slices of bread and dropped them in the slots. ‘It’s stupid really. I always say I’m going to put toast in the toaster, but really it’s bread that goes into the toaster. It’s only toast when it pops out again. It used to drive me mad when…someone I knew…insisted on correcting me. Never mind. I told you it was silly.’

And now she was babbling.

Luke was smiling. And that made the babble reflex even worse.

‘Sorry, I’m wittering on, aren’t I? I don’t think I slept very well and it always has this kind of effect on me.’ And now look! She’d swerved on to the subject she’d been determined to avoid. Oh, nicely done, Gaby.

‘Really?’ Luke ran his hands over his face. ‘I think I slept pretty well last night—at least much better than I usually do.’

Her eyebrows shot up.

He must have seen them, because he added, ‘I have nightmares sometimes. And…other kinds of sleep disturbance.’ He was saying it so matter-of-factly. As if it were nothing. ‘Not unusual for ex-prisoners, I’ve been told. I didn’t wake you up, did I?’

She was saved from answering by the toast popping up.

‘Marmite or jam?’ she said, reaching for the knife and contorting her face into a perky smile.

‘Neither. Just butter, if that’s okay.’

He stopped and looked at her for a few silent seconds. His eyes narrowed. Gaby’s heart began to pound.

‘What?’

‘I just thought I remembered…’ He looked off into space, as if he were trying to capture a fleeing memory. ‘No. It’s gone. Never mind.’

Gaby turned to pick the toast out of the toaster. What if he remembered something? She was pretty sure he’d been in another realm of consciousness the whole time, but she was no expert on these kinds of things.

She placed the toast very carefully on the bread board, lining the crusts up with the edges of the wood. When she turned to get the butter out the fridge, Luke was still watching her.

CHAPTER SEVEN

GABY was mixing watercolours to try and match the uncompromising blue of the sky when she heard Heather approach. She could tell who it was without looking round. Luke’s footsteps always announced his arrival. They were loud and firm, only stopping when they had to negotiate obstacles, then they always picked up their former rhythm.

Outside of an adrenaline surge—when the stomping was world class—Heather was very different. She would often creep up on Gaby. Not to spy, but almost as if she were worried her presence would not be welcome. Like now. Heather hovered in the doorway that led out of her room on to the terrace.

‘What’s up, Heather?’

Heather came closer and looked over her shoulder. ‘Hey, that’s really cool. It almost looks like a real painting!’

Gaby smiled to herself. Ah, yes. Trust a child to help keep your feet on the ground.

‘How come you’re so good at that? Did you have lessons?’

‘I took some classes a few years ago, but I’ve always loved painting. In fact, I wanted to be an artist when I was your age.’

‘So, why aren’t you an artist, then?’

‘Well. Let’s just say my mum and dad had other ideas.’

Heather did her trademark eye-roll. ‘Parents are so like that!’

‘Believe me, Heather, compared to my parents, your dad is an absolute gift. He really loves you. It’s just that he’s a bit rusty at being a dad and it’s taking him time to get used to it again.’

Heather looked unconvinced.

‘He’s been better recently, hasn’t he?’

There was a short pause, then the girl nodded.

‘Well, there you go! I wanted to do painting at college, but my dad refused to let me, so I ended up—’

‘Being a nanny?’

‘I enjoy my work. Don’t think I don’t.’

And she particularly liked being here at the Old Boathouse with Luke and Heather. She liked who she was around them. It was the closest she’d ever come to being accepted for herself.

‘Anyway, you didn’t come out here for art appreciation, did you? What’s on your mind?’

Heather visibly wilted. ‘I’ve been invited to a party on Saturday, but I don’t want to go. I think Luke is going to make me. He says I need to socialise more.’

That was the pot calling the kettle black, in her opinion.

‘Why don’t you want to go?’

Heather shrugged.

‘Well, whose party is it, then?’

There was a long pause. ‘Liam’s.’

‘What? Liam who you go all soppy about when you think no one’s watching?’

Heather looked ready to bolt.

‘Steady on, sweetheart! You’re almost twelve. It’s normal to start noticing boys at your age.’

‘Really?’ Heather looked so relieved that it almost made Gaby laugh, but she kept her smile under wraps.

Heather really needed a mother to confide in. Luke was no help. He’d probably flip his lid if Heather ever mentioned boys, or sex, or any of the things adolescent girls were curious about.

‘Yes. But only from a distance, you understand. Now, what have you got to wear?’

Heather pulled a rather grotesque face. Now we’re getting somewhere, thought Gaby. She put her brushes down and took her charge by the hand.

‘Let’s check out your wardrobe.’

She dragged Heather into her bedroom and flung the doors of the wardrobe wide.

‘Let’s see.’

She pulled out a dress and held it up. Heather looked as if she were about to cry.

‘Granny bought me that. And the rest of my dresses.’

Gaby took another look at it. Crumbs! No wonder Heather looked so despondent. It was a beautiful dress for a seven-year-old, all frills at the hem and a big bow at the back, but Heather would be the laughing stock of the party if she turned up in something like that.

‘What about your dad? Surely he’s bought you some clothes while you’ve been living with him?’

Heather walked over to a chest of drawers, pulled out a collection of too-large fleeces, some jeans and a sturdy pair of boots.

Gaby nodded sagely. ‘I see. Well, there’s nothing for it, then.’

‘I won’t go to the party?’ Heather said hopefully.

‘No, better than that. It’s an absolute necessity we have a girly shopping trip.’

Heather’s smile was so wide Gaby reckoned she could have swallowed the coat hanger she was holding.

‘I’ll ask your dad if we can go on Saturday. Then you’ll be all kitted out for the party that evening.’

‘Really?’

‘Sure. I’ll ask him when he gets in from work later. Now, it’s about time you got on with some of your homework.’

Heather practically skipped off to her desk and Gaby left quietly, closing the door behind her. She sighed and set off downstairs to see if the chicken she’d planned for Sunday dinner was properly defrosted.

Of course, rescuing Heather from a serious wardrobe malfunction was all fine and dandy, but it meant she was going to have to have a proper conversation with Luke. For almost a week now she’d managed to avoid any real social contact by being bright and breezy and incredibly busy.

Luke wasn’t due home until ten o’clock this evening. That would mean she’d have to talk to him alone. At night.

She prodded the now-defrosted chicken. ‘So, it looks like we’re both in trouble, kid.’

When Luke came through the door later that evening she had a plate of cold roast chicken, potatoes and salad waiting for him.

‘Hungry?’

‘Starving. Thanks, Gaby.’

She watched him while he set about clearing his plate. After almost a month of hearty home cooking, his appetite showed no sign of slowing and she hoped it never would. But of course, sooner or later, she would have to leave, and then who knew what the pair of them would be eating? She couldn’t stand the thought of them reverting to cardboard pizzas.

When it became too uncomfortable to sit there doing nothing, she fetched a basket of laundry and piled it into the washing machine.

‘Gaby, you’re not a servant, you know. I don’t expect you to do the washing and pick up my dirty socks.’

‘I don’t mind, honestly.’ She grinned. ‘And I promise you this, I wouldn’t go within three feet of your socks.’

He smiled back and stabbed a new potato. ‘Anyone would think you were trying to get into my good books. Is there something awful you’ve done that you haven’t told me about?’

Gaby swallowed. ‘I’d like to take Heather clothes shopping at the weekend, if that’s all right by you. She could do with a few new things.’

He looked up, puzzled. ‘Heather has plenty of clothes.’

‘Well, yes. But it’s that party she’s been invited to on Saturday. She doesn’t want to go because she hasn’t got anything fashionable to wear.’

‘Fashionable,’ he echoed.

‘Yes. You want her to mix a bit more with the other kids, don’t you? I thought I would take her in to Torquay and we could buy an outfit, maybe even get her hair trimmed.’

‘And being fashionable is important to eleven-year-old girls, is it?’

‘Well, the fact she’s bothered about the party means she actually wants to try and fit in, be part of the crowd. That’s a good sign, isn’t it?’

‘As long as you don’t let Heather go out looking like one of the Spice Girls, I’m okay with it.’

‘The Spice Girls split up years ago.’

‘Of course they did.’

Oh, well done, Gaby! Remind him he’s lost a whole chunk of his life, why don’t you?

He looked down at his plate and cut the next bit of chicken. ‘I’ll give you some money on Friday to cover it.’

‘Great.’

Now the washing was in, she turned her attention to the dry dishes left over from lunch. Cupboards crashed and tins rattled.

‘Gaby?’

She started sorting cutlery into its drawer. ‘Yes?’

‘Are you all right?’

‘Yes. Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?’

‘It’s just that I get the distinct impression that something is going on I don’t know about. And you seem to be avoiding me.’

Her poor little heart juddered with fright. Spoon in this space. Knife in that one—crash, clatter.

‘Of course I’m not avoiding you.’ Only she was. She risked a glance at him. His face was serious and his eyebrows puckered.

‘And you’re sure there’s nothing wrong?’

‘Absolutely.’ She performed her best breezy smile. ‘Everything’s fine.’

Luke could hear the giggling all the way from his study. Gaby and Heather had obviously returned from their all-day shopping trip. Why it took so long to trim a fringe and get a pretty party dress was a mystery. But it sounded like they’d had fun.

Without him, of course.

What he wouldn’t give to hear Heather laugh like that when she was with him. He put the medical journal he’d been reading down. At least her laser vision had gone into hibernation. He should just be grateful for every little bit of progress.

He took his reading glasses off and folded the magazine closed. If there was one thing he knew about female shopping trips, it was that the male of the species was required to grunt his approval at the spoils. It was as if the whole hunter-gatherer thing had been reversed.

Extra Brownie points would be earned if he appeared to inspect each and every purchase without them having to come and drag him out of his study. He’d learned this much from Lucy. From the day they’d been married, she’d managed to spend money faster than he could earn it. He’d come to realise that it hadn’t been about the things she’d bought, it had been about the buzz.

Lucy had lived for excitement. She’d been dazzling when he’d first met her. Beautiful, vivacious and always on the verge of some new adventure. He’d been amazed she’d looked twice at him. Later, when their relationship got serious, he’d assumed that her reckless, thrill-seeking personality and his more cautious nature had been the perfect complement. He’d been devastated that night at the hotel when he’d seen her check in with her boss, Alex. Obviously he hadn’t been able to offer his wife enough of the thrills she sought, after all.

He stood up, sending the office chair skidding backwards, and marched out of the room. How was it that he could still feel the sting of her betrayal when he’d forgotten how to feel the everyday stuff—like how to be a normal, rational human being?

Perhaps seeing Heather in her party dress would cheer him up.

His study was tucked away round the back of the house, down a little passageway that ran past the mud room. As he approached the hall, he could hear scuffling and squealing. Gaby entered through the doorway that led to the entrance hall and stood with her back to it.

‘Could you hold on a second?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Could you just wait here for a minute or two?’

He made a move for the door handle, but she blocked him.

‘What the hell is going on?’

‘Heather would like you to see the whole effect in one go, so we just need to give her a chance to go upstairs and get changed.’ Heather’s distinctive thump could be heard on the stairs.

‘I’m upstairs now! You can let him out,’ she yelled.

Gaby moved away from the door knob to allow him to pass. Unfortunately, the passage had been built in an earlier time, when the residents’ space requirements were obviously meagre, and she came close enough for him to smell the perfume she must have splashed on in the department store.

The daft thing was, it made him angry. She didn’t smell like Gaby any more—of soap and fresh air. She smelled like Lucy used to, drenched in expensive scent. In the days between her death and his arrest, Luke had opened all the windows in their London home. Lucy’s perfume had only reminded him of how she had dabbed it on that last night she’d gone out to meet him, telling her husband she was off for a night out with the girls.

It had been her best perfume. The one she saved for really special occasions. The fact she’d chosen to wear that one had solidified the half-doubts and questions he’d been having for some time. It was that scent that had caused him to jump in his car and follow her.

Gaby was looking at him. He ripped the door open, walked through it and kept going across the hallway and into the lounge.

He didn’t want to analyse why making comparisons between Lucy and Gaby should bother him. He just knew he wanted Gaby to be different. He didn’t want to find out that the warm, caring, serene person was a front for something else.

He was so lost in stewing over the past, he almost didn’t notice Gaby enter the room a few minutes later. He looked up and knew from her reaction that he wasn’t wearing his happy face. Too bad. It was the best he could do now the dark memories had started circling round him.

‘Presenting Miss Heather Armstrong,’ Gaby announced, with a flourish of her hand.

Luke was definitely not ready for what he saw next. It could have been someone else’s daughter standing in the doorway, a hopeful expression in her large eyes. Gone was his little girl, and in her place was a stranger, her hair cut in some kind of layered style that ended around her shoulders. A stranger who no longer wore a familiar scowl, but sparkled and shone.

There was no sign of the baby pink dress he’d expected. Instead he could see hot pink jeans and a glittery silver top. True, it had sleeves, not straps, and it didn’t reveal any flesh, but it was far too grown up for his little Heather.

He stood up. ‘My God, what on earth are you wearing?’

Heather’s face fell. ‘Don’t you like it? Gaby helped me pick it out.’

He shot an accusing look at her partner in crime, but Gaby didn’t look one bit repentant. Instead, she looked as if she were about to rip his head off.

‘She looks lovely. Doesn’t she, Luke?’

He opened his mouth to reply, but a flash of something sparkly in Heather’s ear caught his eye. He marched towards his daughter and lifted her hair away from the side of her head.

‘Pierced ears! At your age? Take them out right now!’

Heather’s hands flew over her ears. Now she wore a more familiar expression. The one with seven kinds of hatred for him in her eyes. So why didn’t that make things better?

‘You always spoil everything!’ she screamed, then she spun around and raced out of the room and up the stairs.

He turned his attention to Gaby, whose face was a shade of pink he’d never seen before.

‘How dare you? How dare you do that to my little girl?’

Gaby’s jaw clenched.

‘I’m waiting. What on earth were you thinking?’

She looked at the floor. He had a feeling she was about to unleash the torrent she’d been holding back since he’d first opened his mouth. But when she looked up at him again, she merely said, ‘You’re right to be angry. I was wrong to let Heather get her ears pierced without your permission. I’m really sorry. We just got carried away…’

That was it? How about telling him to get a grip, that it wasn’t as if she were wearing a three-inch mini-skirt and a crop top? Or that ninety per cent of the girls in Heather’s class had their ears pierced. She was just going to suck up all that righteous anger and buckle under?

It was then that he realised he wanted her to fight with him. He was sick of seeing her sweep all her negative emotions under the carpet and pretend they didn’t exist. The childish urge to push the issue was so strong it was practically irresistible. He wanted to see the ever-calm Gaby lose her cool. And, underneath the layers of bluff, he thought maybe she wanted it too.

‘You’re such a coward, Gaby!’

‘I’m what?’

Her chin trembled, but not with the threat of tears. It was the effort of holding back her anger. The knowledge only spurred him on further.

‘You heard. You think I’m being unreasonable and you’re too gutless to say it.’

She’d be right, of course, if she did tell him he was being unfair. Maybe that was why he wanted to hear it from her. Perhaps it would help stop the rollercoaster his emotions were riding on at the moment. Heaven knew he was powerless to do it himself.

But that wasn’t it, and he knew it. He wanted to see her skin flush and her eyes flash, just as they were doing now.

‘Too gutless?’

‘That’s right. You’re too scared to tell people what you really think, in case they don’t like you any more. Well, get over it!’ He knew he was pushing her too far, but he couldn’t stop himself.

‘You want to know what I really think?’

‘Yes, I do.’

She faltered when he said that, as if she hadn’t actually expected anyone to be interested in what she had to say. But he could see she was revving up to it, and the adrenaline surge that hit him made him feel triumphant at the prospect.

‘Okay, okay. Just give me a second.’ She was all jittery, hardly able to keep still. She plunged her hands into her jeans pockets, pulled them out again and smoothed down her hair. He almost laughed at the gesture. Even when she was about to yell, she couldn’t help making some part of herself more presentable.

‘I think…I think you’re too hard on Heather!’ The words fell out in a jumble. He wasn’t sure whether he thought she looked surprised or relieved she’d got the sentence out.

‘Too hard?’

‘Yes.’

‘How?’

She shoved her hands back in her pockets.

‘Come on, Gaby, don’t lose it now! Don’t water it down and make it nice. Just let the words come out the way they want to.’

He saw fire glint in her eyes and his stomach rolled. He’d better be ready for what he was prodding her into unleashing.

‘You are a control freak, Luke Armstrong! If you can’t get your own way, you have a tantrum. And you wonder where Heather gets it from!’ She wasn’t shouting, or at least not speaking at shouting volume, but her words carried the same vehemence as if she were shrieking at the top of her lungs.

‘I think you bully her. I think you push and push to make her match the idea of the perfect daughter you have in your head. But it’s stifling her, Luke! Suffocating her. One day you’ll open your eyes and realise you’ve snuffed out the wonderful spark inside her, and she’ll never forgive you for it. You’ll never forgive yourself, either. So if you want that for her, just keep going the way you are, but don’t expect me to hang around and watch you do it!’

All the time she’d been speaking her eyes hadn’t left him. She’d fixed him with an intense, burning stare and he was unable to look away. She broke eye contact and looked at the ceiling.

‘You need to give her space to be herself, Luke. To love her, you need to let her be free.’

Her eyes returned to him as she spoke the last phrase. She wasn’t quite so heated now and her breathing was fast and shallow. Somewhere along the line they’d stopped talking about just Heather.

Adrenaline from the row was still crashing through his system. In the silence, he could hear it inside his head, throbbing in his ears. And all he could see were those chestnut eyes, waiting for him to respond. But, instead of being shuttered, they glowed with a defiant light.

She looked incredible. Lit up from the inside. In fact, she looked so alive that the only possible response was to close the distance between them, cup her face in his hands and kiss her.

CHAPTER EIGHT

HIS lips met hers and she reeled with shock. One moment she’d been ready to punch his lights out, now her hands were moving from where they’d been dangling at her sides to smooth over the muscles of his shoulders. She shouldn’t be hanging on to him like this! She ought to be slapping his face.

And she probably would have done, if the kiss had been different. In the split second before he’d kissed her, she’d thought it was going to be as forceful as his journey across the room, but she was wrong.

His lips were soft and tender and working a crazy kind of magic inside her. His hands moved from her face to cradle the back of her neck and run through her hair. Any self-respecting female would melt at this point—and she didn’t think she was far from it. There was already a worrying tingling in the tips of her toes.

She didn’t have any choice in the matter. She had to kiss him back. And as she did, everything seemed to spiral in slow motion. She clasped her fingers behind his neck and relaxed into the kiss.

Oh, wow!

The pins and needles that had started in her toes, now prickled behind her knees. You couldn’t lose consciousness from a kiss, could you? Luke’s mouth moved from her mouth to her neck and she decided it was entirely possible.

They were perfectly in tune with each other and, for once in her life, everything seemed to be a perfect fit. Being here in Luke’s arms felt so natural, so right. She forgot all the reasons why this was sheer madness and lost herself in the moment.

The sound of a door banging upstairs made them spring apart like a pair of guilty fourteen-year-olds caught behind the bike sheds. They stared at each other, eyes like saucers. If it were any consolation, he looked twice as shocked as she felt.

‘Heather,’ she managed to croak.

His tore his eyes from her and focused on the door. ‘Yes. Heather. Right. I’d better go and—’

‘Yes, you’d better.’

And then he was gone. Gaby slumped into the nearest chair and put trembling fingers to her lips. They pulsed as if he were still kissing her.

Luke paused on the landing to muster his scattered emotions. Had he lost his mind? A quick look at the haggard face in the mirror at the top of the stairs told him he wasn’t far off.

He’d kissed Gaby. The nanny!

Except she was more than that. Only he didn’t know what. He only knew she got inside his skin and he didn’t know why. But he didn’t have time to ponder that right now; he had a daughter to sort out. Her sobs were audible though her closed bedroom door.

What had he done?

He knocked lightly on the door. ‘Heather?’ Some unintelligible wailing was his reply. He pushed the door open gently and stepped inside. She was curled up on the bed, her back to him, hugging her cuddly rabbit.

‘Heather, sweetheart? I’m so sorry.’

She lifted her head to look at him with surprise. And no wonder. Usually, after he’d yelled at her for no good reason, he just brushed it away and never talked about it again. All this time he’d never once apologised. Somehow it had seemed like it was admitting failure and weakness, and that wasn’t what she needed from him. How could he have got it so wrong?

‘I really am sorry, darling. Will you forgive me?’

Now she sat up and looked at him. ‘Me? Forgive you?’

‘Yes. Dads make mistakes sometimes too, you know. And I think I’ve been making far too many since we’ve been living together again.’

Heather sniffed and he offered her a tissue from the box on the dressing table.

‘I wish I could start it all again, go back a few months and be a different kind of dad. A better one, anyway. I know it’s difficult to understand, but being away…in prison…made it hard for me to be anything but angry—at everyone and everything, not just you. And I wish I hadn’t, Heather.’ His voice began to wobble. ‘I love you so much. And I’m so sorry.’

Heather reached out and touched the place where a tear was trailing down his left cheek. She followed it with her finger, clearly astonished at the sight of it. And then her face crumpled and her own tears came hot and fast. He pulled her into his arms and she clung on to him. They stayed there, rocking almost imperceptibly, for what seemed an age.

When finally it didn’t seem like an impossible task to loosen his arms, he pulled away from her and looked into her eyes. She was still confused, but the rage was no longer there.

‘I meant it, sweetheart. I want to try and do things differently from now on. I can’t promise I’m going to get it right all the time, but I’m going to try my hardest. You’re all I’ve got and I don’t want to lose you.’

She nodded, then smiled a little. And he knew she’d forgiven him. Just like that. All he’d needed to do was open up to her a little, show her it was hard for him too, and then they could weather the storms together.

‘Stand up and show me your outfit again.’

Heather shook her head and curled forwards slightly.

‘I’m sorry I shouted at you earlier. I was just surprised at how grown-up you looked. Scared I was going to lose my little girl before I got to know her again, I suppose.’

Heather didn’t stand up, but she stretched out a little so he could see her top.

‘It’s very pretty,’ he said. ‘And you look beautiful in it. A lot like your mum, in fact.’ That had to have been the first time he’d talked about her mother with her since his release.

‘Really?’

‘Sure. You’re going to be the belle of the ball.’

She blushed and looked away. ‘It’s only a stupid party, Dad.’

He smiled and stroked her hair. ‘Well, you’ll be the belle of the stupid party, then.’

She giggled and smiled back at him, her eyes still wet and pink.

How had a little honesty been so hard? Why hadn’t he just said all of this months ago? He didn’t know, but he had a sneaking suspicion that Gaby had something to do with unlocking the things trapped inside him.

Gaby.

What the hell was he going to do about Gaby?

More to the point, what the hell was he going to do about the fact that, not only had he just had the most mind-blowing kiss of his life with her, but that he was dangerously close to running downstairs and doing it again?

He ran his hands through his hair and looked at his watch. He had to take Heather to the party in half an hour. Perhaps when he got back they could talk, although he had no idea what he was going to say.

I think I like you? I want to get to know you better?

It all sounded pretty pathetic.

Gaby closed the bedroom door behind her and leant against it. Luke had left to take Heather to the party and she’d crept upstairs from where she’d been hiding in the kitchen. Her fingers wandered to her lips again.

Before she could lose herself in yet another slow-motion replay of the kiss, she marched herself to the wardrobe and pulled her biggest suitcase down from on top of it. The she opened a drawer and started flinging things inside. What things exactly, she wasn’t sure, but as long as belongings were filling up the case she was heading in the right direction.

She couldn’t stay here now. Not just because Luke had kissed her, but also because she’d sunk into it with such enthusiasm. And, more than that, the deal clincher, was that she knew it wasn’t just a physical thing.

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