The Final Seduction

Jennie sprang to her feet. ‘Great!’

‘Make him wait,’ said Shelley, sitting her back down again, thinking it ironic that she knew exactly how to keep a man interested. And yet wouldn’t dare try any of these ruses on Drew… ‘While I blow-dry your hair for you.’

Jamie looked suitably impressed when Jennie swung into the room in a cloud of scent, her hair all glossy and neat and providing a perfect contrast to the short black dress she wore, with a sugar-pink cardigan.

She smiled shyly at Jamie, then turned to Shelley. ‘There are phone numbers in the book,’ she said. ‘The doctor and Drew—both helpfully filed under “D”—but God forbid you need the former!’

Or the latter, thought Shelley, but didn’t say anything.

‘You look great, babe!’ Jamie murmured in Jennie’s ear as Shelley closed the door behind them.

And, while Shelley felt delighted at the glowy-eyed looks the two of them were sending to each other, a sense of her own loneliness hit her very hard.

She went upstairs to settle Ellie and found her tossing restlessly in her cot. She seemed a little hotter than she had done earlier. Mind you, the room was quite warm. But that was one good thing about these little houses—they had brilliant insulation!

Shelley took the blanket out of the cot, turned on the musical mobile, and, leaving the door open, she slipped out of the room and went downstairs to make some coffee.

But Ellie wouldn’t settle. Shelley kept checking on her whenever she made a squeak. And when she resumed a particularly miserable grizzling she went upstairs and found her lying on her stomach with her little bottom in the air, making a miserable whimpering sound.

‘What’s the matter, kitten?’ Shelley whispered to her, echoing her uncle’s favourite pet name.

Ellie whimpered.

Shelley carefully snapped the poppers on the sleepsuit and took it off, leaving her wearing just a little vest and nappy. But the baby started to wail loudly, and Shelley scooped her up out of the cot, startled to discover how much hotter she felt in her arms. Her little vest was soaked.

Oh, Lord—did she have a raging temperature, or was she just hot from crying?

Shelley carried her downstairs to the sitting room, cradling her over her shoulder. And the baby was violently sick all over her sweatshirt.

Shelley bit down the panic which rose inside her. She liked babies. She was good with babies. But well babies. Babies who cooed and gurgled and splashed around in the bath a bit and then went to sleep.

Not babies who were hot and bad-tempered and who had just deposited the entire contents of their stomach all over you.

She could…what?

Gingerly strip off her top before she bathed the baby? Except that she didn’t want to put her down—not even for a moment.

Or bath the baby first? But then the baby would get all smelly again when Shelley picked her up in her own soiled clothes. And she was too little to sit up in the bath on her own. Besides which—what if she turned out to be seriously ill? How would she cope then? She wasn’t a single mother—she didn’t have to struggle on her own. She could pick up that phone right now and Uncle Drew would come haring over to help.

And it wasn’t fair to make the baby suffer, simply because she and Drew weren’t speaking. Was it?

With one hand on the baby, she punched out his number.

She thought he sounded sleepy when he answered. ‘Hello?’

‘Drew?’

‘Shelley?’ Did she imagine the wary note which had crept into his voice? ‘What’s happened?’

At least he had the sense to know that she would only be calling him in an emergency. ‘Jennie’s gone out with Jamie and I’m looking after Ellie, only she’s sick—’

‘Sick?’ He fired out the question rapidly and she could hear someone in the background talking to him. ‘How sick?’

‘I don’t know! She’s vomited all over me, and I don’t know whether it’s just an upset stomach, or whether—’

‘Stay right there!’ he barked. ‘I’m on my way over!’

She wasn’t going anywhere! She hugged the baby to her with sheer relief. Because of all the men in all the world who she would choose to cope with any kind of emergency she knew exactly who would be her number one choice. ‘Drew’s coming,’ she whispered against Ellie’s clammy cheek.

She calculated that it would take him ten minutes at the earliest to scramble up the pebbly beach and into his car, and to drive over here.

He made it in five, letting himself in with his own key to find Shelley standing white-faced in the middle of the sitting room while Ellie continued to cry fretfully against her shoulder.