Cruel Legacy (37 page)

But he was still her husband.

The phone rang again and she tensed immediately, her hand shaking slightly as she picked up the receiver. If it was Kenneth ringing again then she would tell him that she had changed her mind and that she couldn't meet him. Couldn't ever see him again...

She swallowed hard against the depression and sense of loss constricting her throat. But her caller wasn't Kenneth, it was her sister Daphne.

'Joel still hasn't been round to do that wallpapering,' Daphne informed her.

'I'll speak to him about it,' Sally promised her wearily ten minutes later, cutting through her sister's tirade.

Sally was still smarting from Daphne's criticisms and complaints half an hour later when Joel walked in. She saw him frown as he glanced across at her, and then placed the pile of books he was carrying down on the table. The table she had so recently cleared of all its accumulated clutter.

Her temper, so often recently on a short fuse, flared as she shouted, 'Don't you dare leave those there, Joel. Can't you see that I've only just finished cleaning up in here?'

She stopped abruptly. Her whole body was shaking inside; she felt sick and shocked, her sudden unprovoked outburst both frightening and yet exhilarating her somehow at the same time.

Joel said nothing, made no response to her anger—he just stood there, looking at her.

Couldn't he see that it was
his
fault that she was behaving like this? She could feel the anger surging through her again at his refusal to respond to or acknowledge her feelings.

'I'm going to be working a double shift on Monday,' she told him, turning her back to him as she spoke.

As soon as the words had left her mouth she wanted to recall them. That hadn't been what she had intended to say at all. Her face burned with heat; she felt light-headed and dizzy, like someone in shock, and she waited for Joel to say something, to object or protest, hoping almost that he would.

She had never lied to Joel before, never deliberately deceived him in any way, about anything—had never felt any need to—and yet here she was lying to him so that she could see another man... be with another man...

A man who treated her far better than Joel did, she reminded herself fiercely. A man who valued her... who put her first. A man who could see, as Joel apparently could not, how much she needed someone in her life to support her, to cherish her.

Still, though, she felt shaky and light-headed, frightened by the enormity of what she had done.

She waited for Joel to say something, accuse her, to sense her betrayal, but he was already turning away from her, uninterested in what she had said, unconcerned, unaware of what she was feeling.

The leisure centre seemed more important to him than she did these days, she reflected bitterly. He spent more time there than he did at home. He and Paul—listening to the two of them talking about events and people that meant nothing to her gave her a sense of alienation, made her feel excluded from their lives.

All she was to Joel these days was someone who paid the bills, she decided bitterly. He probably wouldn't have cared if she had told him about Kenneth. He never listened to her when she tried to talk to him.

Angry tears burned at the back of her eyes, but she refused to let them fall.

'Hello, there.'

Philippa tensed as she recognised Joel's voice, replacing the library book she had just been reading. Joel's eyebrows lifted as he read the title.

'Home Maintenance Made Easy'!
Having problems?' he asked her.

'It's the washing machine,' Philippa admitted. 'It isn't spinning properly and the service people charge twenty-five pounds just to come out...'

'I could come and take a look for you,' Joel offered.

Philippa flushed. 'No, it's all right,' she assured him uncomfortably, not wanting him to think that she had been deliberately trying to get him to offer to do so.

Or that she was using the washing machine as an excuse to see him again?

Her discomfort increased. He was a very attractive man and she had found herself thinking about him rather more than she liked. She had, of course, told herself that it was because he had been one of Andrew's employees and because they were, as he had so succinctly said, fellow victims

of Andrew's egomania, but somehow her arguments had not been totally convincing.

'You don't trust me, eh...?' Joel teased her.

'No...no, it isn't that,' Philippa hurried to assure him, laughing herself when she saw the amusement in his eyes.

'You're learning to swim?' she asked him, eyeing his own books.

'Not exactly,' Joel told her, briefly explaining why he wanted the books.

'Coaching—of course, I should have realised,' Philippa responded warmly. 'I thought it odd that you should just be learning...'

'Too old?' he queried wryly.

Philippa shook her head, smiling.

'No, of course not...no, it's just that you don't have.. .that you don't look... Well, you look as though you would be good at sports,' she told him lamely.

What she had actually thought was that he had the kind of body that looked as though he knew how to use it in physical activities, but she had recognised as she'd started to voice the words that her remark could be misinterpreted as being sexually inviting, and the last thing she wanted him to think was that she was trying to flirt with him.

'Coaching,' she continued quickly. 'How did you come to get involved in that?'

Briefly Joel told her, warmed by her interest.

'Of course it doesn't pay anything,' he told her self-deprecatingly, 'and, although Neil thinks I ought to try to get some professional qualifications, there's no guarantee that I can '

'Oh, but that's wonderful!' Philippa interrupted him enthusiastically. 'And your wife must be thrilled as well?'

'Sally? She thinks I'm wasting my time and that I ought to be out looking for a real job,' Joel told her bitterly.

Philippa looked at him. So things were no better between him and his wife. She felt sorry for them both. Everyone involved suffered when relationships went wrong.

'Look, it's really no problem to look at your washing machine,' Joel told her. 'In fact I could come back with you now if you like.' Sally had said something about working a double shift and he had no more classes at the leisure centre today.

'Well, if you're sure you don't mind.'

'I could even throw in a few swimming lessons as well if you want,' he added with a grin.

Philippa laughed.

It was a long time since he had heard Sally laugh, Joel recognised.

'There, that should do it.' Joel grunted as he gave the spanner a final twist. 'A nut had worked loose, that's all,' he told Philippa as he crawled out from behind the washing machine. 'You shouldn't have any problems with it now.'

'I'm really grateful to you,' Philippa told him ten minutes later as she poured him a cup of tea. 'Even with the benefit of the book I doubt that I'd have even been able to locate the problem, never mind fix it.,.'

'It didn't need much skill,' Joel responded wryly. 'Just a bit of brute force...'

'Don't do yourself down,' Philippa told him. 'Do you know how much I would have been charged if I'd called someone in to put it right?'

'Perhaps Daphne's right,' Joel commented. 'She's always telling Sally that I ought to be out trying to make a bit of money instead of wasting my time at the gym.'

'You're not wasting your time,' Philippa protested. 'Not from what you've told me. It must be very satisfying, helping people to achieve something... teaching them...' she said enviously.

'It is,' Joel agreed. 'Before I got involved at the leisure centre I suppose I'd have laughed at anyone who told me how good it would make me feel watching those kids... They really put everything they've got into it, you know. Neil's hoping that next year we'll be able to make up a junior team at competition level as well as the seniors. He's got this idea that if we can pick them out young enough '

He broke off, shaking his head.

'Sorry, you don't want to hear all this...'

'Yes, I do,' Philippa contradicted him.

He paused to look at her and then smiled. 'Neil wants me to help out with the adult classes, but I'm not sure. It's one thing to teach kids...'

'You've got nothing to lose in trying,' Philippa told him.

He paused to take a bite of the cake she had cut him and frowned.

She had been to see the boys at the weekend and thanks to Susie's generosity she had been able to take them some of their favourite carrot and raisin cake. The slice she had just cut for Joel was a piece of it.

'What's wrong?' she asked him. 'If you don't like it...'

'No... I do. I was just wondering what was in it, that's all.'

'Oh, dear—are you allergic to,..?'

'No, it's not that. It's just...well, since I've been reading up on all these training manuals, I've been doing a bit of experimenting... with Sally working, she expects me to get some of the kids' meals and... they've been complaining that the only pudding I give them is fruit salad,' he explained bashfully, 'and I was wondering...'

'Oh, yes. I'm sure you'd be able to make this,' Philippa assured him, guessing what he wanted to ask. 'It's very easy and quite healthy as well... my boys both love it. I'll write down the recipe for you if you like.'

How different she was from Sally, Joel reflected—Sally, who complained that she didn't like the way he had rearranged her kitchen cupboards, who said that he made too much mess when he cooked anything.

'It's quite cheap to make as well,' Philippa told him.

'Like my fruit salad,' Joel responded. 'How are things with you?' he asked her quietly as she got up to get some paper and a pen.

'Oh, not too bad,' Philippa fibbed lightly.

She was still waiting to hear from the bank and the wait was stretching her optimism to its limits. The small sum she received from the social services didn't go very far at all, and, if it weren't for Susie's insistence on constantly inviting her round for meals and then sending her home with the left-overs, Philippa suspected that she would be reduced to surviving on a very meagre diet indeed.

'I'm hoping to study for some qualifications myself,' she told Joel, 'although I'm not sure what it will be yet. I'd thought originally of taking a degree course, but with so many young people leaving university without a job to go to I've begun to wonder if I wouldn't be wiser going for something more practical, although I'm not sure what.

'There.' She gave Joel the piece of paper with the recipe she had written down. 'It's quite easy to make. Do you... does your wife have a mixer?'

'Yes,' Joel confirmed, leaning closer then as he studied the piece of paper she had given him. 'What does this mean?' he asked her. 'Cream butter and... ?'

'Oh, well, you have to...'

Joel listened intently to her while she explained. She was a nice woman, he decided. Warm and kind, and he would have liked her and felt drawn to her on the strength of that alone. But if it was her warmth and kindness that made him feel relaxed and reluctant to leave, that made it easy for him to talk to her and confide in her, it was her femininity, her softness, that small betraying tension he could sense within her, that made him respond to her physically and sexually—and dangerously!

'You see? It's really quite easy,' he heard her telling him earnestly.

He looked across at her. Her face was slightly flushed, her colour deepening slightly as she looked away from him. She was as aware of him as he was of her, Joel recognised. Aware of him and just a tiny little bit afraid. Not in the sense that she thought he might do anything to hurt or abuse her, he recognised, just femalely and intuitively afraid of his maleness and her own response to it.

Once, a long time ago... a long, long time ago... he had seen that look in Sally's eyes, felt her body tremble as he'd taken her in his arms, had known that when he touched her, kissed her, she would melt into eager response, wanting him... needing him.

She was behaving irrationally and ridiculously, as though she were a teenager, Philippa recognised as she tried to control her body's responses to Joel's proximity. She could feel herself starting to tremble, her legs threatening to buckle as she was filled by an overwhelming sensual yearning, a need to touch and be touched, to hold and be held.

Horrified that Joel might guess the effect he was having on her, she looked away, dipping her head so that her hair fell forward. Automatically she reached out to push the fair strands back behind her ear, only Joel beat her to it.

The pads of his fingers felt slightly rough but his touch was gentle and warm, stroking almost as though he was trying to soothe her. As though he recognised how she felt and was trying to comfort her, she acknowledged.

He was a very attractive, very sexy man, and no doubt he was well used to dealing with silly women who came on to him. And she was being silly...stupid, like an archetypal lonely housewife, so desperate for sex that...