Legally His Omnibus (10 page)

‘The only person you have is me!’ Sean told her abruptly. ‘Unless, of course, you want to get in touch with Oliver’s father,’ he added harshly, shattering her fragile fantasy.

Kate felt sick with rage and pain. She wanted to scream at him that she did not need anyone, and that if she did need someone she would die before she let that someone be him.

‘Carol will help me,’ she began sharply, but Sean immediately shook his head.

‘She has her own family to look after; you know that! And besides—’

‘Besides what?’ she demanded angrily.

‘Besides, I don’t think it would be in Oliver’s best interests.’

For a few seconds Kate was rendered speechless with disbelief. When she did find her voice she could hear it trembling with the intensity of her rage.

‘You don’t think—! Since when have you concerned yourself with Oliver’s best interests? Or don’t you think it would be in Oliver’s “best interests”,’ she mimicked, ‘to be acknowledged and loved by his father?’

‘Oh, for God’s sake.’

Kate flinched as she heard the savagery in his voice.

‘Regardless of who Oliver’s father is, you are his mother and Oliver should be near you. If Carol were to look after you both that would necessitate her having Oliver spending a great deal of time at her house, away from you. I’m not denying that she would do her best for both of you, but...’

Kate closed her eyes. She knew exactly what Sean was saying, and what he was not saying—and, even worse, she knew that he was right.

‘So who are you proposing will look after us?’ she asked defeatedly.

‘Me.’

Kate lifted her head and stared at him. ‘You? No... That’s not possible!’

‘On the contrary, as I think I have proved these last few days, it is perfectly possible.’

‘But you have to work. You’ve got your business to run,’ Kate reminded him wildly.

‘I can run my business from home,’ Sean answered laconically. ‘And it seems to me that I can look after you and Oliver and work much more easily in a house with more than two bedrooms. At least that way I’ll have my own bed to sleep in.’

His own bed!

Kate could feel her anger giving way to panic. This was definitely not a line of conversation she wanted to pursue.

‘So where is this house with more than two bedrooms?’ she forced herself to demand. ‘Oliver is very happy at nursery, and I don’t want him upset.’

‘Oliver won’t be upset. It’s only for a short while, and he needs to get used to change as he’ll soon be leaving nursery anyway, to start school.’ He started to frown. ‘Your nearest infant school is nearly ten miles away...’

‘I know that,’ Kate snapped at him. Of course she knew it! Hadn’t she been worrying herself sick for the last year about the fact that the village was too small to have its own school?

‘Oliver has got used to having me around,’ Sean said abruptly as he walked away from the bed and stood with his back to her, looking out of the window. ‘It seems unfair and definitely not in his best interests to subject him to further changes. He’s naturally been very upset by your illness, but he’s looking forward to the three of us being together.’

The three of us!

A fierce pang of sharp pain stabbed at Kate’s heart. How could she deny her son the opportunity to be with his father?

CHAPTER SEVEN

‘N
OW
,
DON
’
T
WORRY
about the cottage. I’ll keep an eye on it whilst you’re away, and it will be here waiting for you when you come back,’ Carol assured Kate comfortingly as she bustled around Kate’s bedroom, packing her clothes in the suitcases Sean had provided. ‘That is if you are coming back,’ she added slyly, giving Kate a questioning look. ‘Sean’s made no bones about telling everyone that the two of you were married.’

Carol’s teasing expression changed to one of anxious concern as she saw the tears filling Kate’s eyes. ‘Oh, Kate, I’m so sorry,’ she apologised.

‘It’s all right,’ Kate assured her. ‘I suppose feeling emotionally weak is just another manifestation of this wretched virus. Why has this had to happen to me? All I want is for the next three weeks to be over and for me to be back on my feet,’ she told her friend fiercely.

‘Mmm. Well, Oliver is certainly enjoying having Sean in his life,’ Carol said with gentle warning. ‘On the way to school this morning I overheard him trying to convince Sean that a puppy was an essential addition to his life.’

Kate groaned. ‘He’s been on about having a dog ever since he saw the puppies at the farm last year. I’d love to get him one, but it’s just not possible with me working.’

‘Heavens, I think Sean’s bought you and Oliver enough clothes to last twelve months, never mind three weeks.’ Carol laughed, ruefully. ‘He’ll be back soon, and I know he wants to get off as soon as he can. Where is this house you’re going to be staying, by the way?’ she asked Kate conversationally, and she ruthlessly squashed the last of the new clothes Sean had insisted on buying for Kate and Oliver into the new cases, whilst Kate looked on unhappily.

‘I don’t know,’ she admitted, for the moment more concerned about her irritation with Sean for bringing yet more new clothes that morning than the location of his home.

‘Oliver and I aren’t charity cases, you know,’ she had thrown bitingly at him when he had arrived back from his shopping spree. ‘We don’t need you to buy clothes for us, Sean.’

‘Oliver is outgrowing virtually everything he has,’ Sean had replied quietly. ‘And, so far as I can tell, your own clothes—’

‘Are my own concern,’ Kate had snapped viciously.

Sean hadn’t made any further response, but Kate had seen the warning grimness of his mouth as he listened to her churlish outburst.

* * *

‘Okay, that’s the car packed.’

Kate forced a smile for Carol and her husband, Tom, who had come round to see them off. Her smile turned to an anxious frown as Oliver and George came rushing towards them, and Oliver missed a step and fell.

Tom was standing closest to him and automatically bent down to pick him up, smiling reassuringly at him as Oliver’s bottom lip thrust out and began to wobble.

‘I’ll take him!’

Kate’s head swivelled round in Sean’s direction when she heard the curtness in his voice, and she saw the immediate and determined way in which he went to take Oliver from the other man. When he held Oliver there was a look in his eyes that made Kate’s heart turn over. Sean had resented the fact that Tom had gone to Oliver’s rescue!

The scuffed knee and bruised pride attended to, Sean put Oliver down whilst he helped Kate to the car. She could walk a few yards now, but she had to admit that it was easier to lean on Sean than to insist on walking by herself. There was surely no real need, though, for Sean to fasten her seat belt for her?

In the enclosed space of the car she was acutely conscious of the scent of his skin, and of the way the dark bristles of his beard were already roughening his jaw. If she leaned forward only just a little she would be able to press her lips to his skin. Her heart turned over and she gazed at him whilst he was absorbed in his task of making her comfortable. The dark thick fans of his eyelashes cast shadows over his skin, making him look unfairly vulnerable. His concentration on his task reminded her poignantly of Oliver whenever he was engrossed in something.

A small sound bubbled in her throat and Sean turned to look at her. At her and into her. His gaze fastened on her eyes and then dropped with merciless swiftness to her mouth. Kate felt her lips parting as though he had willed them to do so. A small, fine shudder ran through her, and she knew exactly why Sean was no longer looking at her or through her, but at her breasts. She could feel the tight betraying stiffness of her nipples as they responded to her sudden arousal.

‘When are we going?’

Oliver’s impatient demand brought Kate swiftly back to reality.

‘We are going right now,’ Sean answered him, standing up and closing the passenger door.

* * *

Not even the comfort of Sean’s luxurious saloon could completely prevent her body from aching, and by the time they had been travelling for three hours all Kate wanted to do was to be able to lie down and go to sleep, but when Sean asked her if she was all right she nodded, refusing to admit how very uncomfortable and exhausted she felt.

‘I’m fine,’ she insisted doggedly, refusing to look at him even though she knew he had turned his head to look at her.

‘There’s bound to be a hotel somewhere round here,’ was Sean’s undeceived and clipped response. ‘We can stop there and you can rest.’

‘No,’ Kate protested. Hotels, like the new clothes Sean had bought for them, cost money—and she was determined that somehow she was going to repay him every penny he had spent on them.

She hadn’t realised that Sean’s house was going to be so far away, but her pride would not allow her to ask him exactly where it was or how long it would take them to get there.

Oliver, though, had no such inhibitions, and demanded, ‘Are we nearly there yet?’

‘Almost,’ Sean assured him, without turning his head, and Kate knew that he was smiling because she could hear the smile in his voice.

A wave of tiredness swamped her and she started to slip in her seat, unaware of the anxious look Sean was giving her.

‘Not much further now,’ she heard him saying quietly. ‘Just another couple of junctions on the motorway and then we’ll be turning off. We can stop then, and—’

‘I’ve already told you that I don’t want to stop,’ Kate burst out irritably. ‘I never even wanted to go to this wretched house of yours in the first place!’ she reminded him bitterly.

As she struggled to make herself comfortable she intercepted the wholly male look her son and his father were exchanging. Anger and anguish tore at her in equal measures—because these two males who shared one another’s blood had bonded against her. Her anguish grew to fear that she might not be able to prevent her son from ultimately being hurt by his father.

She should never have agreed to allowing Sean to do this, she berated herself inwardly, as she tried to keep awake and failed.

‘Mummy’s sleeping.’

Sean gave Oliver a reassuring glance as he pulled off the motorway. ‘She’s still not properly well.’ Inside, he was more anxious than he wanted Oliver to know—and not only because of his concern that the journey might have been too much for Kate.

Perhaps it was just as well that she was asleep, he acknowledged as he drove down the familiar lanes, slowing for the small villages they passed through until finally they came to the one that was their destination.

* * *

The slowing movement of the car woke Kate, and she stared out of the passenger window, blinking away her tiredness and then freezing as she recognised her surroundings.

Accusingly she turned towards Sean, but he was concentrating on his driving as they went through the pretty little village she had sighed so ecstatically over the first time they had come here. Nothing had changed, she acknowledged numbly. Everything was still the same, right down to the small river and the main street of huddled soft stone houses with their mullioned windows.

They had reached the end of the village now, and Sean had turned, as she knew he would, up past the ancient church and along a narrow lane. A high stone wall guarded the house from her sight, but already she could see it in her memory. She felt sick, shocked, betrayed as Sean turned in through the familiar gates and the car crunched over the gravel drive.

This was the house he had promised he would buy for her; the house she had fallen so deeply in love with; the house she had talked so excitedly to him about as being the home where they would bring up their children. The house she had never lived in because he had told her that their marriage was over before she had had the opportunity to do so.

The savagery of her pain gnawed at her stomach and anger boiled up inside her. If Oliver hadn’t been with them Kate knew that, however unwell she felt, she would have insisted that Sean turn the car round and take her back to her own home.

Instead she had to content herself with an acid whisper. ‘I can’t believe you would do something like this.’

Without replying Sean opened the car door and got out. The early-evening sun was already warming the soft cream stone of the house, and the scent of the lavender and roses filled Kate’s nostrils the moment Sean opened the passenger door for her.

‘I’ve told Mrs Hargreaves to prepare rooms for you and Oliver,’ he informed Kate distantly, as he moved to help her out of her seat.

‘Don’t touch me,’ Kate almost spat at him, hurt eyes glowing with the heat of her rage.

How could he do this to her? How could he bring her here, to the home she had thought they would be sharing? She had to swallow against the nausea in her throat.

Oliver got out of the car and danced up and down on the gravel, announcing excitedly, ‘Sean, I think a puppy would like it very much here.’

‘I’m sure it would,’ Sean agreed gravely, but Kate could see that he was grinning, and a wave of fury swept her, making her tremble from head to foot.

‘Don’t you dare—’ she began again, and then had to stop as the door to the house opened and a pin-neat middle-aged woman came hurrying towards them.

‘I’ve done everything you asked me to do, Sean,’ Annie Hargreaves told her employer, glancing discreetly at Kate and Oliver as she did so.

‘Thanks, Annie,’ Sean responded easily. ‘We won’t keep you any longer. I know that Bill will be waiting for his supper.’

‘I’ll get off, then, shall I?’ she answered, turning and starting to walk away from the house.

‘Annie and Bill Hargreaves look after the place for me,’ Sean told Kate quietly. ‘They don’t live in, though—they prefer the staff quarters above the garage. I’ll take you up to your room and get you settled, and then Oliver and I will bring everything in—right, Oliver?’ Sean asked the little boy.

‘Right!’ Oliver agreed, with a worshipping smile.

Numbly Kate let Sean take her arm and start to guide her towards the house. She wanted to cry very badly but she was not going to allow herself to do so. Not now. Not ever whilst Sean was around.

The large double doors opened up onto the pretty oval hallway she remembered, with its fairy-tale return stairway, but Kate almost faltered and missed a step as she stared around the room. She remembered it as being painted a depressing muddy beige. Now the walls glowed softly in warm butter-yellow—the same yellow she had excitedly told Sean she wanted to have it painted.

The linoleum floor had been replaced with black and white tiles, and an oval pedestal table stood in the middle of the room. As she looked round the hallway Kate started to tremble. Everything in it was just as she had told Sean she wanted to decorate it, but instead of giving her pleasure the realisation that he had opted for her choice of decor made her feel acutely sick.

As Sean studied Kate’s colourless face and blank eyes, she started to sway. Cursing under his breath, he swept her up into his arms. She had always been delicate and slender, but now she felt frightening frail, he acknowledged as he ignored her husky rejection of his help and carried her up the stairs, taking them two at a time.

The rooms he had asked Annie to prepare for her and Oliver connected with one another. Kate herself had told him laughingly when they had first viewed the house that the larger of the two would make an ideal master bedroom, with the smaller one perfect for a nursery.

‘The nurseries are upstairs,’ Sean had told her, tongue in cheek.

Immediately she had turned her face up towards his, and, laughing, told him, ‘You can’t fool me, Sean. You’re going to want to have our babies close to us.’

‘Our babies,’ he had murmured huskily. ‘You know, just hearing you say that makes me want to start making them right here and now...’

‘We haven’t bought the house yet—and anyway there isn’t a bed,’ Kate had reproved him, mock primly.

‘Since when have we needed a bed?’ Sean had asked.

Even so she had refused to make love in the house, saying firmly that it wasn’t proper since it didn’t belong to them.

‘I suppose that’s another of those “good manners” rules, is it?’ he had teased her. But in reality he had been very grateful for the tactful and loving way she had helped him acquire some necessary social polish.

When they had got home, though, it had been a different story. He had wrapped his arms around her the moment they were inside their front door, and the only sound she had made had been one of eager approval...

‘Put me down—I can walk!’

Kate’s fiercely independent demand told Sean that she was certainly not sharing the bitter sweetness of his sensual memories.

‘Maybe you can walk,’ he countered grimly. ‘But on the evidence of what just happened I doubt that you could have made it all the way up these stairs unaided.’

Kate wanted to argue with him, but she was too conscious of the frantic beat of her heart. She could still remember how she had teased Sean when they had first started dating about the way he loved picking her up, accusing him of wanting to show off his superior male muscle power. But secretly inside a part of her had been thrilled by such evidence of his strength.

Now, though, it was resentment that was responsible for the rapid flip-flopping of her heartbeat, she told herself firmly, determinedly ignoring the small, conscientious inner voice that cautioned her that her resentment was desperately self-defensive.