Kitabı oku: «Her Secret, His Child», sayfa 3

CHAPTER FIVE

NICOLAS’S mind wasn’t on his surroundings as he set out for the half-hour drive to Rocky Creek. It wasn’t as though he didn’t know the way. There was only the one road which connected Port Macquarie to Wauchope: the Oxley Highway. His thoughts were on Serina’s attitude on the phone.

She hadn’t seemed too upset by his return, though clearly she hadn’t wanted to be personally involved with it. She’d sounded rather reluctant to go to lunch with him today. But she couldn’t really say no, not without being rude.

Her daughter would not have been pleased with her mother if she’d been less than hospitable, something Nicolas was well aware of when he’d rung.

Nicolas smiled when he thought of the emails he’d exchanged with Felicity. What a delightful and intelligent child she was. But very strong-willed, if he was any judge. A handful for a widowed mother. What Felicity wanted, Felicity would contrive to get.

Nicolas knew first-hand about wilful children: he’d been one.

His own mother, who’d been a widow of sorts, had given up with him entirely by the time he was thirteen. After which he’d run his own race, on the whole, very successfully.

Only with Serina had he failed. Twice he’d let her get away. The first time through fate. Her father’s stroke had made it very difficult for her to leave Australia with him. He had eventually understood that, as he’d understood how loneliness might have forced her into the arms of someone else. He hadn’t exactly lived a celibate life over the years himself.

The second time he’d let her get away, Nicolas had blamed himself entirely. He should have gone after her, regardless of what she’d said in that note. He should have rocketed back to Rocky Creek, made a scene and demanded she marry him instead. He should have left no stone unturned in trying to win back the woman he loved.

Because, of course, he’d still loved her back then.

It seemed totally illogical that he still wanted her today. But he did, heaven help him.

‘And you’re not going to let her get away this time, Nick, my boy,’ he muttered determinedly.

Nicolas suspected, however, that Serina wasn’t about to fall into his arms the way she had that night in Sydney. Thirteen years had gone by since then, thirteen long years, and ten since they’d last met. Though one could hardly count that occasion, with her husband hovering in the background.

But there was no husband now. No one to plague Nicolas’s conscience if he was reduced to using sex to win her, which he might have to.

The Serina he’d spoken to just now was a lot more self-assured than the teenage Serina who’d willingly gone along with his plans.

But she was still his Serina. She might not think that there was anything left between them but she was wrong. The girl who’d never said no to him—at least where sex was concerned—was about to be awakened once more.

Nicolas’s flesh stirred as he recalled the things they’d done together. In the beginning, their lovemaking had been extremely basic. But with time and practice they’d gradually known no bounds. Sometimes when he’d come home from Sydney for the weekend and Serina’s parents had been out playing golf, they’d spent the whole afternoon making love all over her place… though never in her parents’ room.

Nowhere else, however, was deemed sacrosanct from their increasingly erotic activities: the guest bedroom where there was a brass bed; the large squashy sofa; the rug in front of the fireplace; the coffee table…

And she’d been with him all the way.

It had been amazing—and highly addictive.

Which was why she’d come to him that night less than a month before her marriage. Because she hadn’t been able to forget how it had been between them. Because she’d missed the way he’d been able to make her lose herself whilst making love.

She’d called it self-destructive, what they’d shared.

Maybe it had been. Because he’d never been totally happy with any other woman. Now that he thought about it, Nicolas suspected Serina hadn’t been happy with her husband, either. The day of his mother’s funeral, Serina’s tension had been more than fear that she might expose what she’d done to her husband because that old chemistry had been there simmering between them.

That was what he wanted to believe, anyway. And until he had proof otherwise, Nicolas was going to believe it.

Damn it all, he had an erection now. He really had to stop thinking about sex with Serina, or things might become embarrassing.

The temperature outside was hovering around thirty degrees already. He’d boarded the plane in chilly London wearing a suit, cashmere topcoat and scarf. In Sydney, however, he’d had to start taking things off, after having to board the connecting domestic flight by exiting the air-conditioned terminal and walking across a short space of much warmer tarmac. It had been even hotter by the time he’d landed at Port Macquarie, with the clear blue sky promising an even higher temperature later in the day. Which was why he’d changed into light trousers and an open-necked shirt rolled up to the elbows.

When he’d first climbed into the rented four-wheel drive for the trip to Rocky Creek, Nicolas had felt both refreshed and relatively relaxed.

Not so anymore.

Grimacing at his discomfort, he bent forward to turn up the air-conditioning to the max. Some very cold air blasted forth and it helped clear his mind from thoughts of Serina so he could concentrate on where he was going.

Wauchope loomed up ahead, the town closest to Rocky Creek, where Nicolas had attended high school and where most of the people in Rocky Creek came to shop. He glanced around left and right, not noticing the kind of major changes he’d seen in Port. The railway crossing was still the same, as was the main street. It wasn’t till he was heading out of town along the highway that he could see that the houses went farther out than they had before. There was also a big new shopping centre opposite the Timber Town tourist park.

Wauchope’s prosperity had once relied solely on the timber from the surrounding forests. The trees would be cut down and the logs brought out of the hills by bullock trains, then floated down the Hastings River to Port Macquarie. Not so anymore. But you could still see demonstrations of the old ways at Timber Town, as well as buy all kinds of wood products.

Nicolas was thinking about the wooden bowl he’d once bought his mother for her birthday when he drove right past the turn off to Rocky Creek. Swearing, he pulled over to the side of the road, having to wait for several cars to go by before he could execute a U-turn. Finally, he was back at the T-intersection and heading for home.

No, not home, he amended in his mind. Rocky Creek had never been his home.

Nicolas had been born and bred in Sydney, the offspring of a brief affair between his forty-year-old mother—who’d been working as wardrobe mistress for the Sydney Opera Company at that time—and a visiting Swedish conductor who’d had a wife and family back home and a roving eye whenever he was on tour.

The conductor’s eyes had landed on Madeline Dupre, who’d still been an attractive-looking woman at forty. Her lack of success so far in relationships, however, had left her somewhat embittered about the male sex, giving her a brusque manner that men had found off-putting. She’d been rather taken aback, but secretly elated, by the conductor’s interest in her and had happily comforted him in bed during his stay in Sydney, deliberately deceiving him about being on the pill. She’d waved him off a few weeks later at the airport, well satisfied with her rather impulsive but successful plan to have a child by a man who would be conveniently absent from her life, but who was both handsome and intelligent. She hadn’t realised at the time that raising a child by herself—especially one like Nicolas—would be so difficult.

After quitting her job during her pregnancy, she’d set about earning her living as a dressmaker. That way she could be home to look after her son. She’d already had the foresight five years earlier to get into the property market, purchasing a small though rather run-down terraced house in the inner-city suburb of Surry Hills. The deposit had taken her life savings and there was a twenty-five-year mortgage, but it had given her a sense of security. She’d patted herself on the back now that she was having a baby.

Sydney, however, was a harsh city for a woman alone. Madeline’s parents had passed away—longevity did not run in her family—and her only brother had moved to western Australia to find work and had not exactly been a good communicator. All her friends had drifted away when she stopped being part of their working and social life, leaving her increasingly lonely. All she’d had in the world was her son, who’d proved to be more than she’d bargained for.

When Nicolas had been eleven—and becoming more difficult to control with each passing day—she’d made a dress for a regular client’s sister who was visiting from a small town on the north coast called Rocky Creek.

‘If there was a dressmaker of your skills in my home town,’ the woman had gushed, ‘she’d never be out of work.’

Madeline had often thought about living in the country, but just hadn’t found the courage to make such a big change. She herself had been born in Sydney and had known nothing else but city life. But the problems she was encountering with Nicolas—he was getting in with a gang of boys who roamed the streets at night—forced her to look seriously at getting him away from the bad influences in the less than salubrious suburb where they lived.

Assured that she’d be able to buy a house in Rocky Creek for half of what her Surry Hills place was worth, Madeline made the massive decision to up stakes and move from Sydney to the country.

Nicolas had been furious with her. He was a city boy through and through. He didn’t want to live out in the sticks. He didn’t want to go to a school that had less than sixty children. He complained—and played up—at considerable length.

Till Mrs Johnson—and the piano—came into his life.

Despite being known as Mrs Johnson, the piano teacher was actually a childless spinster who lived in the house next door to the small cottage in Rocky Creek that his mother had bought. She gave private piano lessons for a living and had reputedly once been a not so very famous concert pianist. As fate would have it, her music room was just over the fence from Nicolas’s bedroom. He could not help hearing the music.

For ages, Nicolas had not understood why he liked it so much. Up till then his musical taste had stopped at rock and heavy metal. One day—he’d just turned twelve—he hadn’t been able to resist the pull of the music any longer, so he’d asked his mother if he could have piano lessons.

Despite not having any spare money for music lessons—or a piano—a delighted Madeline Dupre had quickly come to an agreement with Mrs Johnson, who would teach Nicolas for nothing if Madeline made her a dress whenever she needed one. As for a piano, Mrs Johnson had also agreed that Nicolas could practise on hers whenever it was free. Once she’d realised she had a prodigy on her hands, the ecstatic teacher had even gave him a front door key so that he could let himself in when she was out playing bridge.

Soon Nicolas was practising every chance he got. He’d rarely done any of his homework but he’d excelled at the piano. At the age of fifteen he’d passed seventh grade with honours. By seventeen he’d received his Licentiate Diploma of Music, the highest musical exam one could take in Australia. During his last year in high school he’d sat for—and won—a scholarship to the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.

Mrs Johnson had been extremely proud of him, as had been his mother. But no one else in Rocky Creek had cared all that much. Why? Because he was an outsider. He’d always been an outsider, not a true local. At school, he’d never joined in, or played sports, made friends, had a girlfriend. All he’d cared about was playing the piano.

Serina was the only girl he’d ever bothered to speak to.

Serina again…

Nicolas scooped in a deep breath, then let it out very slowly. It was a toss-up, he decided, who had seduced whom that first night. Serina had confessed to him once that she’d had a wild crush on him since their paths had crossed when he was twelve and she was only nine. She’d told him she used to organise her own music lessons so that they came after his. She would arrive early and sit in Mrs Johnson’s lounge room and listen to him play. He’d hardly noticed her back then. Gradually, however, they had exchanged a few words and in the end he’d quite looked forward to their conversations. Once, Mrs Johnson had taught them a duet, which they’d performed at the Rocky Creek annual fete to much applause.

Though not as good as he was, Serina had been an accomplished pianist. It did not surprise him that her daughter was taking piano lessons now. What did surprise him was that Mrs Johnson was her teacher. She’d have to be about a hundred years old by now.

Well, at least over eighty. She must have been about sixty twenty-five years ago. Or so Nicolas had thought at the time. Still, when you’re young, anyone over forty seems old.

Now he was almost forty himself. The years were flying by. And so was this rotten damned road.

Hitting a pothole reminded him to slow down and to put his mind on his driving. He slowed down even further to negotiate a series of hairpin bends, which he knew would take him down into the valley and Rocky Creek.

It had always been a pretty little town, he’d give it that, and quite conveniently located, being only ten minutes from the train line at Wauchope and half an hour from Port Macquarie, with its beaches and airport. But it was too small for his liking. Too small in size and in thinking. Everyone knew everything about everyone in Rocky Creek. He hated that. He loved the privacy—even the anonymity—that cities like London and NewYork could provide. Not to mention the wide range of entertainment. He could not imagine ever living anywhere else.

So what are you doing here, Nicolas? came the sudden thought.

Serina’s not still in love with you and she’s never going to come with you. Not ever. You know that. She is a local and so is her daughter.

You’re wasting your time.

It was a bitter pill to swallow, the truth. But swallow it, Nicolas did. He also faced another truth, the real reason why he’d come, why he’d rented that luxury apartment. Why he’d contrived to be alone with her today.

Because he just had to be with Serina one more time.

Nicolas glanced at his scarred and thumbless left hand and remembered how it had been for him, accepting that he would never play the piano again. For a while he’d been in total despair. But in the end he’d had to accept it, because he couldn’t change that. He couldn’t grow another thumb.

But he could be with Serina again. Maybe only for a few hours, but it was possible. And whilst it was possible, nothing short of death was going to stop him from achieving that end.

The road swung round one last bend before straightening and heading down a more gentle incline. The thick bush on either side thinned out a little and Nicolas caught a glimpse of house after house between the tall trees.

Nicolas’s eyebrows arched. They certainly hadn’t been there ten years ago. His surprise increased as he drove slowly over the wooden bridge that forded the creek and led straight into the main street of Rocky Creek. Now his eyes widened as he noted the massive number of shop fronts. There was a tea house he’d never seen before, an antique shop and a very swish-looking beauty salon. There was another new café, with alfresco tables and chairs on the foot path. Even the old general store—which had been built in 1880—had been modernised with a separate fruit-and-vegetable shop next door to it.

The butcher was basically the same, as was the bakery.

But everything looked brighter and more prosperous.

The old garage at the end of the main street had received a facelift as well. But none of those things prepared him for the changes to Ted Brown’s Lumber Yard.

Firstly, it wasn’t called that anymore. The new sign facing the road shouted Brown’s Landscaping and Building Supplies in bold red letters. The old shed, which had once housed a ramshackle office, had been replaced by a smart cream brick building. To the right of this building sat huge piles of sand, gravel, coloured stones and mulches of various kinds. To the left was a large array of brick, tiles and paving samples to choose from. In front was a tarred car park, the parking spaces neatly marked out with lines, a far cry from what had once been a dirt paddock with a rutted driveway that turned to mud in the wet weather. Visible over the roof of the cream building stood the timber supply section, which had to be double the height and size that it used to be.

Nicolas smiled a wry smile as he angled his vehicle into one of the parking spaces. Serina could have warned him. But he supposed seeing the changes for himself was worth a thousand words.

A sudden and not very nice thought popped into his head.

Maybe Rocky Creek wasn’t the only thing that had made massive physical changes during the past ten years. Maybe the Serina he remembered had changed, too. Maybe she’d put on weight. Maybe she’d cut her lovely hair short and started wearing polyester tracksuits.

‘Surely not,’ he muttered as he switched off the engine and extracted the key. It wasn’t in her nature to let herself go. She was a perfectionist, like him. He only had to see what she’d done with the family business to know that she’d become a right little powerhouse in her own way. A woman like that would still look after her appearance.

Feeling relieved, Nicolas pushed open the driver’s door, only to be met by a great whoosh of warm air.

It’s hot, he thought as he climbed down from behind the wheel. Swelteringly, blisteringly hot.

Admittedly, his blood was thick because he’d been living in the northern winter. But still… how had he stood it here every summer? None of the houses or shops in Rocky Creek had had air-conditioning back then.

Nicolas shook his head and moved quickly over to the cream brick building, grateful to see two cooling units sitting by the side wall.

The girl behind the rather high and very long reception desk looked up as he entered the chilled space, her plump, plain face lighting up into a welcoming smile.

‘You must be Mr Dupre,’ she said chirpily.

‘I am,’ he agreed.

‘I’m Allie. He’s here, Serina,’ she called out over her shoulder into the open-plan office.

Nicolas stepped closer to the chest-high counter and followed the direction of Allie’s eyes.

And there she was.

His Serina, sitting behind a wide, wooden, sun-drenched desk.

His heart virtually stopped when she stood up and made her way across the room. She hadn’t lost her gorgeous figure, he noted as his gaze raked her body from head to toe. She was just the same as she’d looked at his mother’s funeral: lush and beautiful.

This time, however, she wasn’t wearing black. Far from it. Her dress was extremely bright, emerald-green with large multicoloured flowers printed around the hem of the gathered skirt. The top was sleeveless and square-necked, a wide white belt cinching in her waist, highlighting her hourglass shape. As she walked, her hair, which was slightly shorter at shoulder length, swung like a sleek dark curtain around her slender shoulders.

The only thing that had really changed was her face. It was the face of a woman now, a woman who was clearly determined not to be bowled over by an old flame hitting town. Her eyes were decidedly cool as she approached, and there was a hint of annoyance in the firm set of her lips.

‘You got here more quickly than I thought you would,’ she said.

‘I was anxious to see my home town again. Which, I might add, is looking wonderful. As are you,’ he added, and looked hard at her mouth, that same mouth that had known every inch of his body.

Her lips pressed even more firmly together. ‘You’re looking very well yourself,’ came her somewhat stiff reply. ‘Look, I’ll just get my handbag and we’ll go straight over to the school, where you can meet everyone and find out where and when you have to go tomorrow.’

‘Fine,’ he replied, not sure what to make of her impersonal manner. ‘And then we’ll drive to Port for a long lunch by the water,’ he added whilst he had her where he wanted her—in public. ‘We can catch up on old times. That’ll be all right, won’t it, girls?’ he said, smiling at Allie then at the other girl he’d spotted sitting at a desk not far from Serina’s. ‘You can cope without the boss for the rest of today, can’t you?’

‘Absolutely,’ they chorused, beaming back at him.

‘Great,’ he said, and totally ignored Serina’s scowl.

‘Your handbag?’ he prodded with a smooth smile when she just stood there, glowering at him. Sucking in sharply, she spun on her heels and stalked back to her desk.

‘I’m Emma, by the way,’ the other girl piped up during the time it took Serina to collect her bag.

She was the more attractive of the two, though Nicolas could have guaranteed that she was not a natural blonde. Her short spiked hair had decidedly brassy ends with dark roots.

‘Lovely to meet you, Emma. And you must call me Nicolas,’ he said to both of them. ‘So will you two girls be at the talent quest tomorrow afternoon?’

‘Are you kidding?’ Emma answered. ‘We wouldn’t miss it for the world. Everyone in town’s going, and quite a lot of people from the surrounding areas. Felicity’s done a great job at promotion. She printed out hundreds of fliers on her computer and she and her friends delivered them to every post-box for miles.’

‘Yes, and it cost me a small fortune in paper,’ Serina grumbled on rejoining him. ‘Come on, let’s go.’

‘See you tomorrow night, Nicolas,’Emma called after them.

‘Looking forward to it,’ he called back…