He had actually turned down promotion in America to return to England and take up an inferior job because he loved her! If she hadn’t heard it from a third party with her own ears she doubted if she could have believed it. It destroyed all her preconceived ideas of how he felt about her and their marriage. But…she gnawed worriedly at her bottom lip. Jake himself had said nothing of his reasons for returning to her. Never once had he indicated that he might want her back. Could he have changed his mind? Once he saw her again had he realised perhaps that he didn’t love her after all? Confused and anxious for his safety, Kate continued to pace the room. Dared she ring the station?
At last, unable to bear the enforced inactivity any longer, she picked up the phone. When the switchboard answered she asked to be put through to Jake.
When the ringing stopped it wasn’t Jake’s voice she heard, but his secretary’s. ‘Oh, Mr Harvey’s on his way home,’ she told Kate calmly. ‘Can I take a message?’
Knowing it would be pointless to question the girl, Kate smiled her thanks and said, ‘No.’ When she replaced the receiver her hands were trembling. Jake was coming home. Somehow, before she left this house she had to let him know that the newspaper article had nothing to do with her, and then…if he believed her… She would think about that later, she told herself firmly. First she had to clear herself in Jake’s eyes before she started getting crazily hopeful about the future. Things changed; Jake’s American friend could have caught him at a bad moment. Jake might have bitterly regretted the confidences they had exchanged; and even his decision to come back to Britain. She could hardly ask him outright if he loved her, she thought ruefully, trying not to remember how they had made love. If Jake did love her surely last night had offered him the ideal time to tell her so. But he had not done. He had said nothing to her of love. Her heart sank, and as she glanced down her eye was caught by the newspaper, and apprehension coiled through her stomach. She couldn’t simply launch into an explanation the moment he walked in. He would be tired, unreceptive; probably still mentally involved in whatever had gone wrong at the station. It would be better if she left and then came back later when he was rested.
No sooner had the thought been formulated than Kate heard the now familiar sound of the BMW. Mrs Hillary came in from the kitchen. ‘That’s himself now,’ she pronounced, ‘and I was just on my way to the shops. No doubt he’ll be wanting some breakfast.’ It was plain to Kate that Mrs Hillary was a woman of unshakeable routine, and she offered hesitantly to make whatever breakfast Jake wanted in order that Mrs Hillary need not interrupt it.
‘Well, if you’re sure you don’t mind? Only if I don’t go now, Reg Philips won’t have a decent piece of meat left in that shop of his.’
Assuring her that she didn’t mind in the slightest, Kate tensed expectantly, hearing Jake’s key in the lock almost at the same moment as Mrs Hillary opened the back door. She saw him before he was aware of her. His hair was ruffled untidily, lines of weariness cutting harsh grooves from nose to mouth, dark shadows rasping along his jaw as he rubbed his skin unconsciously. He looked tired and gaunt, and Kate’s heart went out to him, her body melting with a yearning desire to take him in her arms and smooth away the harsh lines, to see him relax and smile. His head lifted and he saw her, his eyes bleak as he demanded curtly, ‘What the hell are you still doing here?’
‘I stayed because I wanted to talk to you about the newspaper article, but now obviously isn’t the time. Mrs Hillary has gone shopping, I volunteered to make you some breakfast…’
‘Very noble of you!’ He said it harshly, and Kate could discern not the slightest trace of anything approaching love in his cold features as he turned deliberately away from her.
‘Is everything all right? At the station, I mean?’ she asked huskily, moistening suddenly dry lips with the tip of her tongue. Her legs had turned to putty, and she felt a cowardly desire to turn and run.
‘Yes. It was a false alarm, thank goodness. Sorry if that disappoints you,’ he added bitterly. ‘I’m afraid you won’t get much newspaper mileage out of a radiation leak that wasn’t. Is that why you were waiting, Kate? Because you thought you might catch me at a vulnerable moment and that I might say something you could use in your campaign against me? Because that’s what it is, isn’t it? It isn’t just missiles you resent, is it? It’s me. No,’ he cautioned when she would have interrupted, ‘don’t say anything. I’ve had plenty of time to think this through during the last couple of years. You can deny it all you want,’ he said flatly, ‘but you weren’t just fighting against nuclear warfare, you were fighting against me.’
She longed to deny it, but with new maturity knew that she couldn’t. ‘I did resent you,’ she agreed, ‘I admit it, but Jake…’ She was about to tell him that she had changed, learned to come to terms with her emotions when an unfamiliar car pulled into the drive. Her first jealous thought that it was Rita died when she saw the man emerging from it.
‘Your friend Barnes,’ said Jake, contemptuously from her shoulder. ‘Nice timing. What did you do? Ring him while I was gone?’
Harold Barnes? What on earth was he doing here? He was the last person Kate wanted to see right now.
Jake was at the door before he rang the bell, opening it to him, his tiredness under control, and a smooth polite mask in its place as he invited him in.
‘I hear there’s been some trouble at the station,’ Harold Barnes began without preamble, although Kate noticed that his eyes had widened fractionally when he saw her.
‘A suspected radiation leak,’ Jake confirmed coolly. ‘Suspected, but fortunately it was nothing more than a malfunction in a piece of equipment.’
‘You say that, but, forgive me, how can we be sure it’s true?’ the editor pressed. ‘We already know that there are serious safety defects at the station.’
‘There are certain safety defects which I myself brought to the attention of the safety committee,’ Jake corrected calmly. ‘They are not serious and the station is not, as you have claimed, below the Government safety standards. It is merely that I should like to be able to say that Ebbdale is the safest nuclear power station in the world.’
‘A rather philanthropic attitude for a businessman! Surely your prime purpose is to increase the station’s efficiency and output?’
‘It’s certainly one of my aims,’ Jake agreed, ‘but as I learned during my time in America, there’s no reason why safety and profitability shouldn’t go hand in hand.’
‘Are you saying then that the information we’ve already printed wasn’t correct?’
‘I think I’d like to say something here,’ Kate interrupted. ‘I know I gave you my personal views on nuclear weapons and power when we talked—privately, or so I thought—on Christmas Eve,’ she told Harold Barnes, ‘but the intimation in your paper that I leaked details of the safety standards at the station to you is something I object to. I never at any time discussed them with you.’
Kate could tell that she had caught him off guard. Perhaps he hadn’t expected her to bring the subject up; he had certainly looked rather disconcerted when he walked in and saw her in Jake’s living room, but surely Rita had told him about their supposed ‘relationship’?
‘I want you to print a disclaimer,’ she added coolly. ‘You see, I do know where you got your information.’ She saw him blench slightly, although it was quickly controlled.
‘My dear Miss Hargreaves,’ he drawled slowly, ‘you yourself told me how abhorrent you find the entire concept of nuclear warfare. I accept that you might not remember our conversation it its entirety. Alan is a most generous host…’
He was suggesting that she had had so much to drink that she hadn’t known what she was saying to him, and Kate’s eyes blazed her anger as she denied his allegation.
‘Besides,’ he continued thoughtfully, ‘it occurs to me that there’s more to this story than meets the eye. I confess you were the last person I expected to find here this morning.’
‘I came
here to…to…’
‘To tell me that she wasn’t responsible for the leak to your paper,’ Jake submitted for her.
‘But why should you bother? You’ve admitted that you’re on opposite sides of the fence. Why should you wish to assure Mr Harvey of anything? The article is good publicity for your cause.’ He was watching her speculatively, and Kate shivered, not liking the questioning look in his eyes. ‘The paper came out yesterday,’ he added, waiting.
‘And Kate came to see me about it last night,’ Jake finished softly. He was standing behind her and she felt his fingers bite deep into her waist as his arm came round her. ‘Didn’t you, darling?’
‘So.’ Harold Barnes was openly curious now. ‘There’s a personal angle to the story as well? That’s very interesting!’
He left ten minutes later, and when Jake came back into the living room having shown him to the door, Kate was shaking with reaction and anger. ‘How could you do that?’ she demanded huskily. ‘How could you let him think that…’