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‘All of this is speculation, anyway. Mum couldn’t possibly cope—’ she began sharply.
‘Well, now, dear, that’s not quite true,’ Paula interrupted mildly. ‘I coped while you were away, and Susie has indicated she could work quite a few more hours. And there’s Dot, of course. And if we needed any handiwork doing there’s always Fergus—and he could help with the business end as well!’
Jennifer stared at her mother in consternation. Was she going mad?
‘I don’t see how a one-legged budgie is going to be much help when the roof needs patching, and I doubt that he can count to one, let alone do double-entry bookkeeping!’
She heard Rafe shout with laughter as her mother said, ‘Not Fergus the bird. Fergus McDonald, from the Gourmet Club. I’m sure you met him, Jen, at one of the church dinners. He’s a retired builder and he says he’s always looking for something useful to do.’
‘And someone to do it with,’ added Dot darkly.
Jennifer watched as her mother turned pink and patted her hair.
Her mother? And a man?
She turned her accusing gaze on Rafe. This was all his fault. He was the one turning her life inside out and upside down, and now he was dragging her family into the conspiracy!
CHAPTER EIGHT
HE KNEW.
He knew.
All day, Jennifer couldn’t shake off the uneasy feeling that Rafe knew more than he was letting on. It wasn’t anything he said, it was rather what he did. He trailed her everywhere, helping her make the beds and change the towels, do what laundry could go in the drier, because she didn’t want to risk hanging anything out in the still hazy air, relighting the fire and washing the windows with carefully measured amounts of water.
He insisted on sweeping the ash off the verandahs and rinsing down the paths and parking area himself, with buckets of water from the garden pond, because he didn’t think a pregnant woman should breathe in too much dust—‘It would be as bad as smoking’—and when she wrapped up warmly and took Bonzer for a walk in the gardens, and to fetch the mail from the end of the drive, he accompanied her, asking innumerable questions about Paula and her father and, when she mentioned him, her brother Ian, managing to ferret out of her the reasons for her broken engagement.
‘So your first love turned out to have feet of clay.’ He dismissed Michael with a contemptuous shrug. ‘If he wasn’t prepared to stick around when the going got tough, what kind of husband would he have made?’ he growled. ‘If I was in love with a woman and we had a problem, we’d work it out together.’
Jennifer felt a frisson of hope at his words. But then she reminded herself that any woman who could make a cynic like Raphael Jordan fall in love with her would have to be very special—and very brave! ‘I didn’t think you believed in love and commitment, or making promises.’
‘It’s not love and commitment I have the hang-up about, it’s marriage. Watching my father ring the changes was a great incentive to bachelorhood. And I have no problem making promises; I simply refuse to make any that I know I won’t keep.’
‘What about your mother, hasn’t she married again?’
‘Twice, not happily. I think she was looking for another Sebastian. He was the one she really loved, but she had too much pride and self-respect to live with a man she couldn’t trust, and he couldn’t forgive her for not forgiving him.’
Of the three of them perhaps it was the child, Raphael, who had ultimately been the most damaged by the breakup, she thought as they walked the lolloping dog back to the house, her heart aching at th
is new insight into his character. No wonder he was so determined not to marry; to Raphael, family life was synonymous with uncertainty and turmoil rather than security and happiness. But now that he was faced with the reality, not just the abstract of fatherhood, he was being forced to confront issues which had shaped his adult values, perhaps realising that he had deep-seated needs that his prejudices had hitherto refused to acknowledge.
Her tender feelings didn’t stop her feeling exasperated when Rafe continued his campaign of friendly helpfulness, especially when the helping always managed to involve some kind of touching. Finally, when she was setting up the ironing board in her usual spot by the fire in order to do her most disliked chore in comfort, she got fed up with his hovering and snapped at him that it was a one-woman job.
‘In that case I’ll just quietly read my book while I keep you company,’ he said, taking the wind out of her sails.
Which he did. He sprawled full-length on his back on the couch and read his Lacey Graham, the shush of the turning pages competing with the angry hiss of the steam iron and the crackle of the fire. Every now and then, when Jennifer looked at him out of the corner of her eye, she would find pensive green eyes staring at her over the top of the open book, then the thick lashes would fall and she would see the rapid flickering movements under his lids as he read on down the page.
Jennifer could feel the pressure inexorably building in her skull, like lava pushing up a blocked vent.
‘Do you have to stare at me like that?’ she erupted at last, after scorching one of their best table napkins trying to second-guess his thoughts.
‘Sorry, was I staring?’ His reflective gaze sharpened as she flicked her hair behind her ear and nervously adjusted her spectacles. ‘I was just wondering...’
‘Well, wonder in another direction,’ she said, picking up another napkin.
‘Listen to this.’ He put a finger to the page. ‘“The man in the shadows stepped into the light—”’
‘Those books aren’t written to be read out loud,’ she interrupted hastily, certain he was going to taunt her with her boldly explicit prose.
