Elusive as the Unicorn

‘Remember what I’ve said,’ he said as he finally got out of the car.

How could she forget? She simply wasn’t the type to induce this state of impetuosity in complete strangers. Now, if it had been Marina, beautiful, flamboyant Marina, she might have understood it, but she personally had always managed to remain inconspicuous in a crowd. Maybe Adam Gardener just had a warped sense of humour, although he had seemed perfectly serious at the time …

But she didn’t have to see him again if she didn’t want to, not once she had firmly told Sophy to behave herself in future!

But, to her dismay, Adam proved correct about it not being the last she saw of him! And he turned up again in the most unlikely place imaginable.

CHAPTER FOUR

BY THE TIME Marina arrived the next day, Eve had managed to push Adam Gardener’s strangely disturbing comments from her mind. And, by the time the weekend came around and she had neither heard nor seen any more of him, she had managed to convince herself that she must have imagined the whole incident.

Almost.

It wasn’t really all that easy convincing yourself that a man you hardly knew had calmly sat discussing with you the amount of children the two of you might have!

Sophy had once again been unrepentant about her part in things when Eve had telephoned her the day after the dinner party, the answering machine having conveniently been switched on at the apartment when Eve had tried to call the previous evening, immediately she got home. And any message she might care to ‘leave after the tone’ on that thing would have needed to have been highly censored!

She might just as well have saved her breath when she did finally manage to talk to the other woman; Sophy was convinced in her mind that Paul was all wrong for her, and that anything—or anyone—who could help Eve to realise that had Sophy’s approval! She certainly saw nothing wrong in having suggested to Daniel Wall that the previous evening was as good a time as any to have his will reviewed considering his recent divorce, doing so with the full knowledge that such an occurrence would mean Paul couldn’t join them for dinner.

By the time the call came to an end, Eve was feeling as frosty towards the other woman as Paul always was.

And she didn’t see anything of Adam Gardener over the next few days, either. No unexpected appearances, and so no mo

re caustic observations about her relationship with Paul.

She should be feeling happy. But she wasn’t. Marina had come home in a terrible temper, the latest man in her life having let her down, in her estimation, by refusing to arrange for her to get the television role she had been interested in. The fact that so far Marina had only done a few commercials and a couple of very small parts in the theatre had no bearing on the subject as far as she was concerned.

Consequently, because her own world wasn’t going the way she wanted it to, Marina was out to make trouble during her visit, deliberately antagonising Paul whenever she saw him, a fact he took great exception to. With good reason, Eve knew, but that didn’t change the fact that she felt like a bone being pulled between the two of them, Marina playing on the sisterly affection there had always been between them for all she was worth. The way she was acting at the moment, Marina could have played the bitchy television role she had wanted blindfolded!

‘I do so hope it’s going to be a better day today.’ Her grandmother frowned across the breakfast table to Eve on Saturday morning, Marina having her customary lie-in before Mrs Hodges took up her breakfast on a tray. Eve had never been able to understand how Marina got away with that one, considering all the other work Mrs Hodges had to do, but the housekeeper didn’t seem to mind in the least.

Eve hoped today was going to be an improvement too; after three days of bickering between Marina and Paul every time they met, she was feeling decidedly ragged around the edges. ‘Paul isn’t coming over until this evening,’ she said, as if that might help the situation.

‘Then let’s hope Marina doesn’t decide to find someone else to take her temper out on.’ Her grandmother shook her head ruefully. ‘I can’t understand it. I tried to bring the two of you up the same, to show the same amount of love and understanding to each of you, and yet I never have managed to completely master this temper of Marina’s. Of course it was nowhere near as bad as this when she was a child. It seemed to surface more when she was in her teens, and even then I just thought it was a phase she was going through. She’s been going through it for ten years now!’ she said drily.

‘Talking about me, Grandmother?’ Marina swept into the room like a whirlwind, her attraction more of an impact than mere beauty alone.

Her hair fell in black, luxurious layers to just below her shoulders, dark blue eyes sparkling clearly in a perfect heart-shaped face; she was no taller than Eve, and yet somehow managed to appear so in the pencil-straight white trousers and white cotton sleeveless top.

‘As a matter of fact, I was,’ her grandmother answered sternly. ‘Isn’t it time you snapped out of this mood you’ve been in since you got here?’

‘Oh, that.’ Marina dismissed shruggingly, as if it were of no consequence any longer, bending across the table to pick an apple out of the fruit bowl standing in its centre. ‘I’ve decided Gerald wasn’t worth it, and that there will be other parts for me, better parts.’ She bit cleanly into the apple with perfectly even white teeth. ‘See you both later,’ she announced happily around the mouthful of fruit.

‘Where are you going now?’ Her grandmother’s exasperated question halted her in the doorway.

‘Shopping,’ Marina explained with relish, the front door closing noisily behind her seconds later as she left the house.

‘Oh, dear,’ sighed their grandmother wearily. ‘I don’t know which is worse, Marina morose and sulking, or in her usual bouncing mood and feeling like spending money!’ She gazed after her youngest granddaughter worriedly.

Eve chuckled softly. ‘At least she’s more her normal self today.’

‘Hm,’ their grandmother acknowledged doubtfully.

Eve could sympathise with her grandmother’s doubts; the last time Marina had decided to recover from a bad love-affair in the same way, her ‘shopping spree’ had amounted to the hundreds rather than tens. But, after all, it was her money to spend as she liked. As long as she didn’t come and ask their grandmother for the loan of some money a couple of weeks later, as she had the last time!

With Marina out of the house and her grandmother pottering about her beloved garden, Eve was able to put on her bikini and spend a peaceful morning sunbathing on the patio. It felt so wonderful to relax, to watch the butterflies flitting to and fro among the flowers, to listen to the bees buzzing lazily.

Rather like ‘the calm before the storm’, in fact!