DESPIT
E THE FACT that Katie had insisted there was no need for her to do so, Hazel was up at six the following morning to drive her daughter to the nearest station.
‘Honestly, Ma, there was no need for you to do this,’ Katie protested. ‘I don’t know if I’ll be able to make it home again before Christmas.’
‘That’s OK,’ Hazel assured her, adding drily, ‘I’m a big girl now, you know. You don’t need to come running home every other weekend to check up on me.’
That made Katie laugh at her and tease, ‘Oh, yeah?’
Before she drove off, Hazel looked uncertainly towards the house. There was no light on as yet in the room which Silas was occupying.
After she had kissed Katie goodbye and waved her off, Hazel returned to the house.
Today she would have to make some time to turn out her father’s study and bedroom, and to remove some of the junk which had accumulated inside them since her father’s death.
She would also have to do some shopping. Since Katie’s departure for university she had grown used to buying much smaller amounts of food, but now with Silas…
That’s it, she told herself as she walked reluctantly back into the house. Keep your mind occupied with trivia, with mundane household chores; that way you won’t have to think about other things. About Silas himself or what had happened between them.
She made herself a fresh jug of coffee and sat down on a stool, nursing her mug.
It was just as well that she hadn’t started her new commission yet. That would give her time to turn out the study and do her shopping. She also had some gardening to catch up on, and with Christmas not so very far away perhaps it was time to start thinking about beginning her Christmas shopping.
Anything…anything at all which she could think of to do to keep her mind and her hands busy.
Half an hour later, when she was standing in the middle of the study carpet rubbing her back where it ached from pushing and tugging at the heavy old desk, so that she could clear out its drawers, she heard the sound of the shower running upstairs.
When they had first moved into the house, her father had had two new bathrooms installed, one in what had originally been a small box-room adjacent to his own bedroom and the other next to her own bedroom and the room which had originally been Katie’s nursery.
When Katie had been in her teens, a shower and basin had been installed in her room, and partitioned off to provide her with a minute private bathroom of her own.
Silas was still sleeping in the old nursery where she had originally made up a bed for him, which meant that he was using her bathroom.
It gave her an odd sensation in the pit of her stomach to know that he was there, standing under the shower, his body glistening with soap and water, his dark hair plastered to his scalp. She had never been attracted by the thought of overly hirsute men, but suddenly she had a very vivid and erotic mental image of Silas’s body; of a narrow pathway of dark hair arrowing down its centre, across the taut flatness of his belly.
Stop it, she berated herself frantically, stop it at once.
The best way to chase away such dangerous and uncontrollable thoughts was to work so hard that she couldn’t indulge in them, and, clinging determinedly to that belief, she started pushing at the heavy desk again, trying to manoeuvre it into the centre of the room, so that Silas could sit behind it and get the benefit of the light and the view from the window, and at the same time enjoy the heat from the open fire.
After her father’s death, she had gone through his papers, meticulously keeping those which needed to be kept and transferring them to her own desk, throwing away those that were unnecessary, but keeping in carefully marked files those personal things such as old photographs and letters belonging to her father and which she thought in years to come Katie’s children might enjoy having.
The desk had then been pushed back against the wall, and the room filled with an assortment of things, including her father’s favourite chair and footstool, and several other odd pieces of furniture.
The chair and stool could stay, she decided, the bookcases lining the one wall were already filled, but the cupboards beneath them were empty and could be used by Silas to store his own papers.
As she struggled with the heavy, old-fashioned partner’s desk, she wondered if he used a computer or word processor and, if so, whether there would be room on the desk for it.
It was just as well she had taken down the curtains in the spring and had them cleaned. She would have to bring them down from upstairs and rehang them, and…
She had almost got the desk where she wanted it; one final push, that was all it needed, but the wretched thing refused to move, and she ended up banging her hip bone quite painfully on it as she leaned her full weight against it.
The pain made her cry out in irritation and frustration. She had realised that the shower had stopped running, but she hadn’t realised that Silas had come downstairs until he opened the door and demanded tersely, ‘Hazel, what’s wrong? I heard you cry out. Are you all right?’
Hot and flushed, self-consciously aware of how dreadful she must look with her curls all tangled, and her top clinging stickily to her skin, her jeans dusty, and her face free of make-up, Hazel swung round to face him. ‘I’m fine,’ she told him shortly. ‘I didn’t realise you were down. I’ll just get cleaned up and then I’ll come and make your breakfast.’
‘I’m not a child, you know,’ Silas returned coolly. ‘There’s no need for you to wait on me. I’m perfectly capable of making myself a cup of coffee and eating some cereal. What exactly are you doing in here?’
‘Isn’t it obvious?’ Hazel asked him tartly. Her arms were beginning to ache, warning her that she had probably overdone things in her attempt to move the desk. ‘I want to get this room straight so that you can work in here, but this damned desk…’