What did he…? Surely he didn’t mean…? He did, one look at those penetrating blue eyes told her.
‘If you could transfer Scott’s presents from my car to your Range Rover without Scott seeing you, I’ll go and pack our things,’ she told him evenly.
‘I had a feeling you might,’ Jed drawled, his throaty laugh following her up the stairs.
Well, she hadn’t exactly handled that well, had she? Not that she had ever made a pretence of appearing cool and sophisticated; it simply wasn’t her.
The fact that she had Scott, that all of her time the last three and a half years, when she hadn’t been working, had been spent taking care of him, meant that she hadn’t had much chance for a social life of her own, except the occasional cup of coffee with another young mother. Oh, she had dated before Scott was born, but she couldn’t say any of those men had remotely prepared her for a man like Jed Cole.
If anyone could be prepared for a man like him.
He was older, more assured, probably a lot more experienced too, than any of the young men she had previously dated.
Not that she was dating Jed Cole, she mocked herself derisively. But she was attracted to him, had responded to his kiss, had felt a surge of pleasure at his touch, had no idea where that desire might have taken them if Scott hadn’t interrupted them when he did.
But it was just as well that he had interrupted them now that Jed had offered to actually drive them to her parents’ house.
Not an ideal arrangement, in itself. After the things she had already told him about her family, her mother’s lack of interest, the fact that neither of her parents had ever met Scott, her twin sister Sonia, Meg didn’t particularly want to introduce Jed to any of them. Something she would have no choice about once he had driven them to her parents’ home. She could hardly expect him to just turn around and drive back to the cottage without so much as offering him a hot drink.
Oh, well, seeing as she had no choice in the matter anyway, perhaps it was a small price to pay for finally reaching her destination.
Although she wasn’t quite so sure about that half an hour later as Jed struggled to keep the vehicle from sliding off the lane and into the hedgerow at its side, his face grim with concentration, Meg tense beside him as she sat in teeth-clenched silence, Scott the only one unconcerned by the danger—he had fallen asleep several minutes ago, obviously tired from his earlier exertions building the snowman.
But Meg understood now why Jed had been gone so long on his walk this morning, with drifts five feet high or so on some sides of the lane, only Jed’s skilled driving keeping them from disaster.
In fact, she discovered shortly when Jed had turned the Range Rover onto the main road, she had kept her hands so tightly clenched during that hair-raising journey that she had imprints of her nails in the palms of her hands.
‘Phew,’ she breathed her relief, glad she didn’t have to do that again.
Although the same couldn’t be said for the man at her side, she knew, when he returned in a couple of hours or so.
‘This is better, isn’t it?’ She relaxed slightly in the leather seat, actually able to see the road ahead now, huge piles of snow cleared to bank its edges.
No wonder she had got so lost the evening before.
‘Slightly,’ Jed muttered, his face pale from the strain of battling with the slippery lane.
Meg took the silence that followed as an indication that he didn’t want to talk any more but concentrate on his driving.
She had no argument with that, couldn’t think of anything to say, anyway, that wouldn’t sound trite. Besides which, the nearer they got to the village of Winston, the more she could feel her own tension rising.
The truth was, she would have been so much happier remaining in London for Christmas, just Scott and herself, as it usually was. Added to which, she was sure her mother wouldn’t have issued the invitation at all—she hadn’t any other year—if Meg’s father hadn’t recently been ill.
A heart attack.
Her father had suffered a heart attack two weeks ago, only a mild one according to her mother, but even so she hadn’t let Meg know at the time, only telephoning her on Sunday with that news and the invitation.
She didn’t understand her mother. Never had. Had always found her emotionally distant, her father by far the easiest of her two parents to relate to as she’d been growing up, although his job as a civil servant working in London had meant she’d really only seen him at the weekend, and once she and Sonia had gone to boarding school at thirteen she hadn’t even seen him then.
But if Sonia had been her mother’s daughter, then Meg had definitely been her father’s, and she had been deeply hurt that her mother hadn’t bothered to let her know of his illness sooner. To which her mother had replied, ‘There was nothing you could do, so there was no point in bothering you.’
She really was that duckling amongst swans that Jed had mentioned last night, had to admit that as a child she had sometimes wondered if they could possibly be her real family at all; if not for her twin she would seriously have doubted it.
‘We’re entering Winston now,’ Jed told her grimly some time later. ‘You’ll have to give me directions from here.’
Meg felt her nervous tension return as she told him to turn right out of the town, a fluttering sensation in her stomach at what lay ahead.
For Scott’s sake this visit had to go well, and she was more than willing to play her part, if only she could be sure the rest of the family would do the same. Because if they didn’t, this could be a very short visit indeed.
‘Here?’ Jed rasped incredulously as she told him to turn into the driveway to the left.
‘Yes,’ she confirmed woodenly, deliberately not looking at him, knowing he couldn’t help but notice the grandeur of the imposing house and grounds they were now approaching down a driveway that had been totally cleared of snow.
But even though she wasn’t looking at him she could feel Jed’s narrowed gaze on her for several long seconds, probably wondering how this single mother, with a hire car for transport—a damaged hire car that the company had agreed to have towed away as soon as the weather cleared, and only a holdall with her own and Scott’s clothes in for their short stay, could possibly come from a family of such obvious wealth.
She might even have found his incredulity funny if she didn’t feel quite so nervous about facing them all again.
Oh, she heard from Sonia from time to time, as both of them lived in London, awkward conversations where they said nothing of any importance. She had even met her sister for coffee once or twice while Scott had been at playschool—all right, once!—but she couldn’t claim that either of them had enjoyed the experience, too much between them left unsaid.
And their lifestyles were so totally different, Sonia with her socialite friends and showcase house, and Meg with her other young-mother friends and often untidy apartment, so they weren’t likely to meet socially either.
She could feel Jed’s gaze on her again, so intense now it was impossible to withstand.
‘What?’ she prompted irritably.
‘This is where you were brought up?’ he rasped disbelievingly.
Meg looked out the window as the house loomed closer, a huge four-storey mansion in mellow stone that was bigger than the whole building she lived in, and that housed eight flats.
‘Yes,’ she confirmed heavily. ‘Look,’ she continued irritably as his silence seemed brooding, ‘my mother was a Winston before she married my father. The Winstons had the manor here for generations, the village is named for them, then they built this house a couple of hundred years ago.’ She was babbling again, she knew she was, but Jed’s silence made her feel uncomfortable. ‘My mother was an only child, and so when her parents died she inherited.’
‘Was it lonely living out here so far away from the rest of the village?’ Jed frowned as he looked round at the bleak, unpopulated landscape.
‘Yes,’ she confirmed huskily, ‘apart from Sonia, it was very lonely.’ Once again this man had surprised her with his perception.
Because he had guessed perfectly last night when he’d talked of the older and younger twin, and now, instead of envying her this obviously privileged background, he was commenting on how lonely it must have been.
She blinked back the sudden tears caused by his understanding of the situation. ‘Wasn’t it lonely on your parents’ farm?’
‘With two younger brothers and too many cousins to count?’ He snorted dismissively.
It sounded wonderful to Meg, the sort of childhood she would have wished for Scott but knew he would never have.
Jed was still scowling as he brought the Range Rover to a halt in front of the house. ‘No wonder you decided not to come back here to bring Scott up.’
Meg gave a brief, humourless laugh. ‘Believe me, it was never an option.’ Her mother barely managed to remember Scott’s birthday, and when she did the gift was usually a cheque pushed inside his card, very useful to a child of three.
Jed’s mouth tightened. ‘I don’t think I’m going to like your mother very much.’
She wasn’t sure her mother was going to like him, either. There was only room for one bluntly autocratic person in the Hamilton household, and her mother was definitely it.