Kitty told the older woman about her car. ‘If he said an hour, he’ll probably be two,’ Jessie said confidently. ‘This is my day off. You can come home and have a cup of tea with me.’
Five minutes later they walked into a small pin-neat terrace at the top of the hill. Jessie held out a hand for Kitty’s coat, casting an impatient glance down at Tina, who was clinging possessively to a corner of the fabric.
Kitty gently detached the small hand. ‘It’s only because she’s seen me on TV. I’m a novelty.’
Jessie sat the child down with a jigsaw in the lounge. ‘You stay here while Kitty and I make the tea.’
‘I wanna stay with Kitty,’ Tina whispered.
Kitty’s ‘I won’t be a minute,’ was matched by Jessie’s ‘Do as you’re told and no nonsense!’
Kitty was shown to a seat in Jessie’s scrupulously tidy kitchen. ‘Little pitchers have big ears,’ she said meaningfully.
‘Why do you have her on your day off?’
‘Merrill’s supposed to be keeping her, but she’s got a hospital appointment today.’
‘It must be awkward for you when Mrs Tarrant’s away,’ Kitty remarked.
‘She didn’t mean to smack Tina that hard, you know.’ Jessie spoke abruptly. ‘She’s got no patience with her. She’s not used to kiddies…had a nanny and boarding schools for her own, didn’t she? She can’t help the trouble she has with her nerves.’
Kitty nodded understandingly and Jessie’s anxious look cleared. ‘I don’t mind her being away. A break at her sister’s does her good.’ She paused before continuing, ‘She doesn’t know that you’re staying at Lower Ridge.’
Kitty shrugged. ‘Why should she?’
‘I would have said if Jake hadn’t told me not to mention it. Funny, I thought.’ Jessie’s gimlet gaze, brimming with curiosity, rested on Kitty’s perplexed face. ‘What Miss Sophie doesn’t like, she’s always had to live with. Jake goes his own road.’
Tina sidled in and attempted to inch on to Kitty’s lap.
‘Can you not give Kitty peace?’ Jessie scolded, and Tina fled in tears before Kitty could intervene. Jessie sighed. ‘There’s no sense in letting her get too attached to you. She’s done nothing but talk about you since you brought her home.’
‘Surely she’s more attached to Paula?’
‘Paula’s not got your soft way with her.’
Unable to stand Tina’s sobs from the next room, Kitty went through to pluck the child from the settee.
‘See what I mean? Soft.’ Jessie stared at her intently. ‘Don’t hurt him.’
‘Hurt?’ Jake, she was talking about Jake, Kitty registered in disbelief. Hurt Jake, she reflected incredulously as she sipped at her tea. Jake was invulnerable. She might annoy him, she might have made a few unwelcome ripples in his well-ordered existence, but that was the height of her influence.
Jessie had an air of stubborn purpose. ‘I’ve known both of you since you were children,’ she pronounced. ‘I see what I see. There’s a bond between you and there always will be.’
‘Maybe…when we were very young. But it’s a long time gone.’ Lowering her head, Kitty was stabbed by a pang of painful regret for the child she had lost. That last bitter blow had concluded her obsession with Jake…hadn’t it? Tina requested help with her jigsaw and provided a very welcome distraction from her uneasy thoughts.
Kitty only had to cross the road to the veterinary surgery. She followed the sound of voices coming from the waiting-room. The slim redhead in the doorway gasped, ‘Kitty! I’d heard you were up here but I couldn’t believe it! How long are you staying? For heaven’s sake, don’t you know me, Kitty?’ Round blue eyes hardened with annoyance. ‘We went to school together for years and years.’
Kitty smiled. ‘Isabel.’
‘Isabel Stevens that was. I’m a Hollister now.’ Isabel preened herself on the announcement.
Kitty had to plumb her memory to recall that the Hollisters owned a chain of hotels on the Yorkshire coast.
‘Look, we’re having a big party tomorrow night. I’ll absolutely die if you don’t come,’ Isabel gushed.
‘I really don’t think—’
‘George and I throw terrific parties and we’d adore to have you,’ Isabel interrupted insistently. ‘But I simply can’t stop to chat now. I’ll see you tomorrow night, then. Dress formal, but I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that these days.’
With a wave of a hand glittering with rings, Isabel and her cat-box surged out to the white Porsche parked outside on double-yellow lines.
‘Isabel and hit-and-run drivers have a lot in common.’ Drew Matcham strolled forward, grinning. ‘I recognise that dazed look on your face. She has the same effect on me.’
Kitty laughed. ‘You never could get a word in edgeways with her. Is Jake here?’
‘He’s outside. I’ll give him a shout, shall I?’
From the window Kitty could see Jake and Paula standing talking in the rear car park. She shook her head. ‘I can wait.’
‘You really should go to the Hollisters’ party. I’m going myself. On my own,’ he admitted cheerfully. ‘If you like…’
Kitty’s attention was still helplessly pinned to the window. Paula’s hand rested on Jake’s sleeve, unconcealed urgency in her upturned face, an intrinsically feminine and yielding quality in the curve of her body into his. Kitty turned her head away sharply, swallowing back the sick fullness closing up her throat.
‘I could pick you up at eight,’ Drew was saying.
‘Eight?’ she echoed.
‘For the party. No sense in both of us going solo,’ Drew pointed out lightly. ‘Well, what do you say?’
Kitty was seized by a sudden impulse. Her smile was blindingly bright. ‘Why not?’
A phone rang and Drew grimaced as he went to answer it. Jake strode in. ‘Sorry. Have you been here long?’
‘A few minutes.’ Kitty was unable to kill the defensive ice in her voice.
‘My apologies, milady.’ He was unconcerned by her tone; mockery gleamed in his assessing gaze.
Just outside the village he swerved to avoi
d a dog. The movement threw Kitty against him and she flung out a hand. It landed on lean, supple thigh. His muscles contracted to steel and she snatched her fingers away again, hot, burning awareness shock-waving through her tensed frame.
A desperate need to break the silence forced her into speech. ‘Do you think the snow’s here to stay?’
He flung his dark head back and laughed with rich appreciation, shooting her a brilliant glance of acute understanding. ‘Why don’t you talk about what you’re thinking about? For a woman who freely admits that she enjoys making love, you’re strangely reticent all of a sudden…’ Heat flamed below her cheekbones. His animal-direct dark eyes issued an invitation that was rawly sexual, underplayed by the sardonic line of his sensual mouth. ‘And oddly silent.’
‘We’ve got nothing to talk about,’ she snapped.
He drew up outside the cottage. ‘At least, nothing that you could feel safe talking about,’ he completed, lazily provocative.
CHAPTER FIVE
THE same clothes Kitty had brought from Los Angeles had travelled north with her. For the party, she selected a sapphire-blue and black Valentino that would have been a disaster on anyone with a less than perfect figure. It screamed expense and daring and Kitty donned it like a suit of armour, brushing her hair into a mass of burnished silk and dabbing Giorgio to her pulse-points.
The Hollisters lived in a split-level, ultra-modern house on the other side of the village. Isabel and her plump, balding little husband pounced on Kitty just inside the door. ‘I’ve simply got to introduce you to everybody. What a ravishing dress! Valentino, isn’t it? I’m into Saint Laurent this season.’
The party was an elegant crush, kept afloat on champagne and carefully selected mood music. Kitty was conscious of abrupt little silences and bursts of speech as she was carried deeper into the room by her determined hosts. She smiled and chatted until her jaw ached, radiating the scintillating allure that had enabled Heaven Rothman to steal every scene on camera.
In the end it backfired on her. She found herself circling the floor, gripped in an over-enthusiastic embrace by George Hollister. He had had too much to drink and her temper was sparking when Jake appeared out of nowhere and cut in. ‘Excuse me, George.’