The Marriage Solution. HELEN BROOKS
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got someone living in at the moment.’
‘What’s his name?’ Katie asked tightly. Her sister was the original liberated woman, taking a new man into her life and her bed every few months and then kicking him out when she got bored, which was usually fairly quickly.
‘Donald,’ Jennifer drawled dispassionately. ‘Hell, Katie, Dad’ll hate the humiliation of bankruptcy, won’t he? Not to mention losing the house. He really is a fool—’
‘Don’t you dare say that when you see him, Jen,’ Katie hissed furiously. ‘Not in words or one of those expressions you do so well. I’ll murder you if you do.’
‘Keep your hair on.’ Her sister’s voice was more amused than offended. ‘Why you care so much about him I’ll never know. You’ll never learn, will you, Katie? You’re just like Mum. Well, I’ve got to go, sweetie. I’ll phone tomorrow and tell you what flight I’ll be on. OK?’
‘Goodbye, Jennifer.’ Katie replaced the phone jerkily and strove for control. She should be hardened to it by now—she should, but her sister’s total lack of emotion about anything but her precious job seemed to get harder to take as she grew older. And the casual reference to their mother... Katie could still remember the day she had died—the bleak, total despair and sense of loss that had never really dimmed through the years. She had learnt to live with the ache but had never really got over her mother’s sudden death in a car accident when she was ten. They had been kindred spirits, totally different to look at but twin personalities and, in dark moments, Katie would still have given anything she possessed to gaze upon her face one more time and hug her tight.
It hadn’t helped that her father and Jennifer had seemed almost unaffected either, although Katie had often thought, with her father at least, that it had been a way of coping with grief, to shut it in and refuse to acknowledge that it was there. But perhaps that was wishful thinking? She shook her head. Maybe Jennifer was right after all—she’d never learn, the eternal optimist always wanting to see the best in people. The thought brought the image of Carlton Reef into sudden focus before her eyes and she heard his scornful and derisive voice as though he were in the room with her.
‘Right, enough is enough.’ She rose determinedly from the chair. Tomorrow she would go into school, throw herself into the work there and face all the other mountains in her life when the time came. There was nothing she could do or say that would avert the catastrophe that had befallen them—it was far too late for that—but she was going to need to be strong for her father and herself.
How he would face the shame and humiliation she just didn’t know; he was a fiercely proud man with unshakeable principles and this house in itself meant far more to him than mere collateral. Why on earth had he mortgaged it? She caught herself abruptly. No, recriminations were no good now; she needed to concentrate on the positive.
Over the next few days that resolution was to be sorely tested. News of the disaster travelled quickly in the business world and when she returned home from the school, often exhausted, the phone never seemed to stop ringing. Some of the callers were openly curious, digging for news, others faintly gloating that they themselves weren’t in such dire straits; one or two were sympathetic and concerned and several verged on the abusive. The latter were mainly creditors who were doubting whether they would ever get paid.
Jennifer had called as promised, the day after her father’s collapse, to say that the paper had contacted her shouting for a first-class reporter in France for a few days and would Katie mind terribly if she just did that little job before she came home? Katie had replied that her sister must decide her own priorities and Jennifer had finished the call quickly, saying that she had to run as the plane to France was going to be a tight one to catch.
Altogether, as Katie made her way to the hospital on Friday night for her regular evening visit, four days after her father’s collapse, she felt tired in mind and body and sick to her soul. Her father hadn’t improved as Dr Lambeth had hoped. Indeed, he seemed faintly worse each day, as though the will to live was ebbing away, and, forcing a bright smile on her face as she walked into the small sideward, she dreaded what she would find.
‘Hello again.’ The deep, cool voice hit her at the same moment that her numbed gaze took in the dark, lean body lazily seated at her father’s side.
‘You?’ She barely glanced at her parent, all her energy concentrated on the hard, handsome face watching her so intently. What was he doing here? The answer was obvious—he’ d come to badger a sick man. How dared he? How dared he?
‘Not the most charming of greetings but it will have to do, I suppose.’ And the creep was laughing at her. ‘How are you, Katie?’ he asked softly as he rose and offered her his chair.
‘I think you ought to leave, Mr Reef.’ She forced her voice to remain low but her eyes, daggers of steel aimed directly at his, spoke volumes. ‘My father is a sick man and I won’t have him upset.’
‘Katie!’
She ignored her father’s horrified exclamation and continued to look at the tanned face in front of her, which had lost its mocking amusement as though by magic. ‘Did you hear me?’ she asked tightly.
‘I’m not here to upset your father, Katie,’ Carlton said coldly, ‘although you seem to be doing a pretty good job of that yourself at the moment. Now would you please sit down and stop making a spectacle of yourself?’ he finished coolly.
‘Katie, for crying out loud...’ Her father’s agitated tones brought her eyes to his face for the first time and he nodded at the chair violently, his eyes lethal ‘Sit down, girl,’ he barked angrily, more himself than he had been in days. ‘Carlton is here purely as a friend, nothing more.’
‘Really?’ The word carried all the mistrust she felt for the man and her father shut his eyes for a moment in exasperation, shaking his head silently.
‘Sit’ It was an order and she sat, but as Carlton moved another chair near the bed and stretched out his long legs to within an inch of hers it was all she could do to restrain the impulse to jerk away. She managed it—just. ‘I’m sorry, Cadton.’ David White waved his hand at her as he spoke. ‘She isn’t normally this way but my illness seems to have brought out the lioness-defending-her-cub mentality.’
‘Not altogether a bad thing.’ Carlton smiled back but, as the dark grey eyes moved to her, the smoky depths were as hard as iron. ‘But the exterior doesn’t quite prepare one for the fire and brimstone underneath.’
‘Her mother was the same.’ She glanced at him, utterly astounded as he spoke. She had never in all her life heard him compare her to his wife and it was still more amazing that his tone held a faint touch of embarrassed pride. ‘She was sweetness personified, but if anyone threatened her family all hell was let loose. She was one special woman—’
He broke off, clearly horrified at having said so much, and there was a brief moment of charged silence before Carlton stepped into the breach. Katie was staring at her father open-mouthed, quite stunned. If a choir of heavenly angels had suddenly appeared in the room she couldn’t have been more surprised.
Carlton glanced at Katie whose astounded countenance spoke for itself and then at David who was staring determinedly out of the window, his face ruddy with embarrassment, before shifting slightly in his seat and speaking in a cool, matter-of-fact voice that defused the awkward atmosphere.
‘There are some papers in your father’s study at home that might be important. Katie, and he’d like me to have a look through them in case there’s a way out of this mess. Perhaps we could leave together and I could pick them up on the way home?’
‘I’m in my own car,’ she answered automatically as she dragged her eyes away from her father’s stiff face with tremendous effort and turned to Carlton.
‘No problem.’ He smiled easily. ‘I’ll follow you home in mine. I’d really rather look at them as soon as possible. If anything’s going to be done it’s got to be quick.’
‘You