‘It was all so cruel!’ Callie choked.
Cicely Carrington sighed. ‘My father was never a kind man. He pushed us all too hard, expected too much of us. Charles and I accepted it, Jeffrey never did. He was always the rebellious one. That night, after realising he had lost Caroline for good, he came back to the house, packed all his things and left. Our father swore he would disinherit him anyway. He was in such a temper because Jeffrey had thwarted him that he had a heart attack and died before he could change his will.’
Callie gave a cry of pain. ‘Two people loving each, other caused all that suffering?’
The other woman nodded emotionally. ‘Jeffrey never accepted a penny of the money or his shares in the family business. He wanted nothing to do with us.’
‘Can you blame him?’
‘No. But I missed him.’ Her voice trembled. ‘Were they still very much in love?’ She patted delicately at her cheeks with a silky handkerchief.
Callie could see how much her answer meant to the elderly woman, and she answered truthfully. ‘Very much.’ Her voice was husky.
So much was explained now—the way Jeff had come into their lives almost a year to the day after her father had died, claiming to be an old friend of his. Her mother hadn’t wanted him in their home at first, but after a few weeks she had come to rely on the couple of evenings she allowed him to spend with her each week. Her mother had been happy with her father, she never doubted that, but with Jeff it had always been something special, with him her mother seemed to light up if he just entered a room. And it also explained the reason her mother had lived four and a half years when the doctors had given her a year at the most. Loving Jeff, finally being with him, had given her a reason to live.
‘It’s beautiful,’ she choked, the tears falling unheeded.
‘I think so,’ the other woman nodded. ‘I thought you would like to share in their lifelong love, to let me tell you their story from the beginning.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Will you give my son the same chance to talk to you?’ she asked gently.
‘Logan?’ Callie stiffened.
‘It would be a pity to let history repeat itself.’
‘I’m not a maid, to be browbeaten and discarded, and Logan certainly isn’t an obedient young man of twenty!’
‘He certainly isn’t,’ Cicely chuckled. ‘And he wasn’t. Logan has always had a mind of his own, it’s the way we wanted him to be. He would never have given up your mother—as he doesn’t want to lose you now.’
‘We both agreed we should part, Mrs Carrington,’ Callie said tautly. ‘And nothing has happened to change my mind about that.’
‘Logan wants you, no matter what he believes you to have done.’
‘And what do you believe?’ Callie stood up to pace the room. ‘Do you also believe I deliberately set out to make him fall in love with me so that together we would have control of Spencer Plastics?’
‘Certainly not!’
‘You sound very sure.’ Her mouth twisted.
‘I am. I liked your mother, and I like you. And no matter what Logan may have said in the heat of the moment, he does love you. I can say with all honesty that I’ve seen my son in every mood possible, but never so disillusioned and hurt as he was on Christmas Day. I’ve never seen him drunk before either,’ she grimaced. ‘He spent the entire holiday period in a drunken haze. Not very good company at all!’
Callie had to smile at her expression of disgust. But her suspicions of Logan couldn’t be dispelled so easily, she doubted they ever would be.
‘It wouldn’t work out,’ she told his mother gently, knowing that Logan did still want her, but sure that the shares were a part of that want. ‘We could never trust each other.’
‘You’re sure?’ Cicely Carrington looked very disappointed.
‘Very,’ she nodded.
‘Oh well.’ The other woman stood up to leave. ‘I’ve done my best. I did so hope you would be my daughter-in-law,’ she said wistfully. ‘Logan tells me Jeffrey had a studio here,’ she added almost shyly. ‘Do you think I might see it?’
‘Of course!’ Callie’s agreement was instantaneous.
For the next half hour she showed Jeff’s sister the extent of his skill, giving the other woman the figure of the elderly man, sure that Jeff would have wanted her to have it.
She returned to the studio once Cicely Carrington had left, picking up the sculpture of her mother. Oh, how she and Jeff must have loved each other, a love that had lasted over twenty years despite their not seeing each other. Would her love for Logan last as long, despite his duplicity?