‘Hey, I take exception to that,’ he chided, enjoying teasing her. ‘I’m not usually considered unacceptable to a woman’s parents.’ Not that he had ever met any before; his relationships didn’t usually run along that line.
‘Not to you, to me.’ Meg sighed, laying her head back down on the pillow beside his. ‘Because of Scott.’
‘That’s rubbish,’ Jed dismissed irritably. ‘He’s such a cute kid, no one could feel that way about him. He and your father have definitely bonded.’ David Hamilton’s pleasure in his grandson was undeniable, the two having spent most of the afternoon on the floor playing with Scott’s toys.
‘Yes.’ A smile played over Meg’s lips.
Jed turned to give her a considering look. ‘Do you ever see his father?’
She frowned. ‘Whose father?’
‘Scott’s, of course,’ he came back impatiently, lowering his voice as the little boy moved in his sleep. ‘Do you and Scott ever see his father?’
‘Certainly not.’ Meg sounded shocked at the idea, forcefully so.
Jed held up a defensive hand. ‘Just asking, Meg. It wouldn’t be so unusual.’
‘In this case it would,’ she assured him determinedly, moving back to look at him. ‘Why do I have the feeling that this is all research to you, and we may all appear in your next book?’
He winced, brought back to earth with a resounding bump. ‘I wish,’ he muttered harshly.
‘What does that mean?’ She looked confused.
‘It means I’m not even sure there’s going to be a next book.’ Jed got up restlessly from the bed. ‘What do you think I’m doing at the cottage in the first place?’ He scowled, hands thrust into his jeans pockets. ‘The public, my publishers, both here and in the States, are all clamouring for the next Jerrod Cole book. A book I haven’t even written yet, and don’t know if I ever will,’ he admitted bleakly, putting into words for the first time the doubts he had been experiencing this last year that he could write another book—and fear that he couldn’t.
The Puzzle hadn’t been his first book, but his seventh, the six previous books also best-sellers, but with none of the same worldwide success or the resulting pressure to produce another runaway hit as The Puzzle had been.
Obviously he couldn’t write another book like The Puzzle, had to write something completely different, but at the same time it had to be something that wouldn’t disappoint all those people anxiously awaiting the next Jerrod Cole novel.
Easier said than done. In his case, writer’s block had become a total shutdown. So much so that he had left New York to come to England, hoping the change would ease the pressure, accepting his editor’s offer of the use of his holiday cottage in middle England, and shutting himself away there for the last two months.
It hadn’t helped.
Nothing helped, his growing frustration with the situation only making things worse.
But he had, he suddenly realized, forgotten that frustration for a brief time today as he’d concentrated on Meg and her family.
Meg sat up to look at him concernedly. ‘But can’t you—?’ She broke off, frowning, as a knock sounded on her bedroom door followed by that door opening.
‘Oh!’ A slightly disconcerted Sonia stood in the doorway as they both turned to look at her. ‘Sorry.’ She grimaced, green gaze speculative as it moved from the standing Jed to where Meg still sat on the side of the bed. ‘I just wanted to have a quick word with Meg before dinner,’ she drawled, recovering quickly. ‘But I can come back later.’ She smiled knowingly.
So similar to look at and yet so very different.
Meg possessed none of her twin’s artifice or sophistication, none of that hard gloss, either, that perfection that should have made Sonia the more beautiful of the two, and yet somehow didn’t. Not to Jed, anyway.
He saw the sudden awareness of that in Sonia’s eyes as they narrowed speculatively on her sister, telling Jed that this preference of her younger, less confident twin had never happened to Sonia before. That slight, angry flush to Sonia’s cheeks, in Jed’s opinion, boded ill for Meg.
He moved to where Meg now stood, his gaze challenging Sonia’s as his arm dropped lightly about Meg’s slender shoulders. ‘I think that would be a good idea.’ He nodded. ‘After all, we wouldn’t want to disturb Scott, now, would we?’ he added with soft determination.
Sonia’s expression became blank as it shifted to the sleeping child. ‘No,’ she agreed evenly. ‘We certainly wouldn’t want to disturb Scott.’
Jed could feel Meg’s tension beneath his arm, at the same time knowing that the politeness with which the two women had been treating each other all afternoon had been nothing but another façade.
What was it with the women in this family? Having had only brothers as siblings, he wasn’t as familiar with this female tension as he could have been, but he had been close to his mother all his life, all her sons were, and the strain in this family was completely unknown territory to him.
Except he knew this wasn’t normal, the undercurrents between the three Hamilton women such, he felt, that if any one of them ever came out and told the other two the truth the whole structure would collapse like a house of cards.
The fact that the two sisters were still staring at each other, neither one willing to back down from whatever silent challenge was being waged, only confirmed this belief.
‘We’ll see you later, then, Sonia.’ Jed spoke lightly but firmly, determined to break this impasse.
She flicked him an unguarded angry glance, before drawing in a deep breath and forcing the tension from her shoulders, her smile coolly confident again. ‘Later,’ Sonia echoed coldly before turning and leaving.
Jed’s arm dropped back to his side as Meg moved away from him to stand in front of the window, although he was pretty sure she saw none of the Christmas-card whiteness of the scene outside, several more inches of snow having fallen during the afternoon.
She looked so tiny standing there, that ebony dark hair falling straight and shiny almost to her waist, very slender in the red sweater and black denims. She didn’t look old enough to be Scott’s mother, let alone to have all the responsibility that went along with that role.
‘What the hell was all that about?’ His voice sounded harsh in the silence. More so than he had intended, certainly, but it seemed the more he tried to understand this family, the less he actually knew.
Meg didn’t answer for several seconds, and then she drew in a deep breath, straightening her shoulders before turning to face him, the smile she attempted reaching no further than the curve of her lips. ‘It isn’t important,’ she dismissed.
Jed felt his frustration with the situation building inside him, his hands clenching at his sides.
It was so unimportant there were tears glistening in Meg’s eyes, those eyes huge green pools of emotion in the otherwise pale stillness of her face.
‘Why the hell did you put yourself through this?’ he rasped impatiently. ‘Put Scott through it?’
It was a low blow to bring the child she so obviously adored into the conversation, and Jed couldn’t really say that Scott had suffered any harm this afternoon from his grandmother and aunt’s complete indifference to his presence, his grandfather attentive enough for all of them. But that wasn’t the point, was it? It wasn’t going to help anyone, least of all Scott, if his mother made herself ill trying to cope with what Jed viewed as an impossible situation.
And he probably wasn’t helping the situation by drawing attention to what might, for all he knew, seem perfectly normal to Meg.
‘Oh, to hell with this.’ He threw up his hands in disgust. ‘It’s your dysfunctional family. I’m sure you know how to cope with them.’ He turned on his heel and walked back through the connecting doorway, closing it firmly behind him.
He didn’t want any of this, didn’t need it, had enough problems of his own to cope with.
Meg Hamilton would just have to deal with this herself.
The sooner the weather cleared, and he could leave, the better he would like it.
Chapter 6
Jed was wrong.
So very wrong.
Because Meg had absolutely no idea how to cope with all the unspoken strain in her family.
Her mother and father, she had realized as the afternoon had progressed, barely spoke to each other.
They had never been a demonstrative couple, and her mother had always been the parent whose word was obeyed, but there was a distance between her parents now that Meg didn’t understand, and her father no longer mildly tolerated her mother’s dictates. For instance, several times during the afternoon her mother had suggested that perhaps her father should go upstairs and rest for a while, suggestions he had completely ignored, choosing instead to play with Scott and his toys.
The strain between herself and Sonia was harder to define. Although Jed seemed to have had no difficulty picking up on it.
If not that he was part of the reason for it.
Because that was what was bothering Sonia, she was sure. Meg hadn’t been home or involved with anyone since Scott was born, and now, not only had she come home for Christmas, but had apparently brought Jerrod Cole with her. The fact that she wasn’t and never would be involved with Jed was something, after he had announced to her family that he was a friend of hers, none of them were likely to believe. And Sonia, being Sonia, was probably wondering just how involved with him Meg was, what confidences she might have shared with him.