Grounds For Marriage

‘No, thanks!’ Lacey said decisively, and saw unexpected anger flare deep in his eyes. She supposed her vehemence had been less than tactful. ‘We’ve discussed all that,’ she reminded him.

‘Not for a long time. Years, in fact.’

‘Nothing’s changed.’

‘But apparently it has. Or it’s about to. You can’t tell me that everything will stay the same if you marry this... Julian.’

She moistened her lower lip with her tongue. ‘That’s why I wanted to talk to you. I don’t want Emma to feel she has to choose between you and him. I need you to help her understand that it’s okay to grow fond of her new... her stepfather.’

For a while she was afraid he wasn’t going to answer, then he got up off the chair again and went to lean back against the counter, one foot hooked over the other ankle, his thumbs thrust into the waistband of his jeans. It was a casual attitude but he didn’t look casual. He looked like a large, wary, wild animal debating whether or not to attack. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘It’s not as simple as that.’

A prickle of annoyance ran along her spine. ‘It’s for Emma’s sake,’ she said. ‘Surely you can see that?’ She assured him, ‘It won’t make any difference to your time with her. Julian knows that you have access to Emma, and he thoroughly approves.’

‘Good of him.’

‘I wouldn’t have considered marrying him if he’d suggested you stop seeing Emma,’ Lacey said quietly. ‘You know I’d never do anything that might hurt her.’

‘You won’t. How do you know what he might do?’

‘He’s not that sort of person. And it will be good for Emma to have a man in the house.’

‘I thought you were quite satisfied with our arrangement.’

‘It was the best we could do for her, and of course she will still feel the same about you.’ She hesitated, then said, ‘Tully, you’re not jealous, are you?’

‘Jealous?’ He cast her a strange, surprised look. His eyes were nearly opaque as they drifted from her face to the baggy T-shirt and faded jeans disguising a figure that had long since lost its teenage chubbiness but would never be really slim, although the generous swell of her breasts and hips made her waist look smaller than it actually was.

‘Emma,’ Lacey said hastily, ‘loves you. Julian doesn’t want to replace you in any way.’

‘Oh yes, he does,’ Tully murmured almost absently, his gaze still on what he could discern of her body, not her face. ‘In at least one way he does.’

Made uncomfortable by his scrutiny, Lacey stood up and swept the coffee cups off the table to dump them in the sink. Turning on the hot tap, she said crossly, ‘You know that’s nonsense.’

Tully remained leaning on the counter beside her, his eyes thoughtful as he watched her rinsing the cups. ‘Did you tell Emma not to mention Julian to me?’

‘No, of course not!’ She stepped back to take a tea-towel from the wall. ‘Why would I do that?’

He shrugged. ‘I just think it’s a bit odd that she’s never said anything. Seeing you and he are so...close.’

Lacey was vigorously drying a cup. ‘Maybe she has talked about him but you didn’t notice. She chatters a lot.’

A smile momentarily curved his mouth. ‘She does. But if she’d mentioned anyone who’s special to you I’d have noticed.’

Carefully, Lacey hung the cup on a hook and picked up the remaining one. ‘She hasn’t seen all that much of him. We’ve been meeting each other mostly when Emma’s with you.’

‘And you haven’t told her that?’

‘Not every time.’ Why was she feeling so defensive? ‘She isn’t all that interested in what I do when she’s away. Children are pretty self-centred.’

Once or twice Julian had offered to include Emma in an outing. She had politely declined a visit to the zoo, saying she’d seen it before and didn’t think zoos were a good idea anyway. And although she’d enjoyed Kelly Tarlton’s Underwater World on Auckland’s waterfront, most of her knowledgeable comments on the sharks, fish and other denizens of the deep had been addressed to her mother. All Julian’s remarks had been answered in monosyllables.

When Lacey had asked Julian to come to the house for a meal, hoping that he could get to know her daughter better, Emma had made it obvious without being in the least bad-mannered that staying around the grown-ups bored her, and had asked permission to go off and do her own thing.

After Julian left, Lacey had asked her casually, ‘Do you like Julian, Emma?’

Emma, her eyes innocent and surprised, shrugged. ‘He’s all right, I s’pose, for a grown-up.’

‘I think he’s very nice,’ Lacey said cautiously ‘He likes you very much.’ He’d said she was a nice, well-behaved child.

‘He’s your friend,’ Emma said with patent indifference, ‘not mine. Can I have Riria over to play after school tomorrow?’

And that just about summed up their conversations about Julian, Lacey realised. Either Emma was oblivious to the fact that Julian was different from her mother’s other friends, or she was deliberately shutting out the possibility. Lacey suspected the latter, which was why she needed Tully’s help.

‘I want you to reassure her,’ she said, ‘that it isn’t going to cause any change to your relationship.’

‘How can you know that?’ Tully sounded slightly edgy, almost irritable.

Turning from hanging up the tea-towel, Lacey stared at him, perplexed, and with a hint of foreboding in the pit of her stomach. ‘You wouldn’t let it, surely!’

He stopped lounging against the counter and his hands gripped it behind him. ‘I may not have the choice,’ he said. ‘You don’t think you can just foist a stepfather on the child and expect it to make no difference, do you?’

‘I’m not foisting Julian on Emma! I’m trying to go about this in the most sensitive way possible. That’s exactly why I wanted to talk to you first! So that you could help her to make the adjustment.’

‘You’re taking a lot for granted.’

She said coldly, ‘I thought I could take it for granted that you love Emma and want what’s best for her.’

Tully shifted his position, folding his arms as he leaned back on the counter again. His eyelids drooped a little and his voice was clipped when he said, ‘That’s exactly why I want to know more about this prospective bridegroom of yours. How can I be sure he’s a suitable stepfather for my daughter?’

‘I’d have thought you’d trust my judgement!’

His brows lifted in derision. ‘Your judgement?’ he queried, with the faintest emphasis.

‘I might have been lacking in it when I was seventeen,’ she said somewhat waspishly, ‘but I’ve developed some discrimination since then.’

He gave a silent whistle, a gleam of appreciation in his eyes. ‘You pack a punch when your dander’s up, don’t you?’ He added thoughtfully, ‘I can’t recall that I’ve ever seen you in a real temper.’

‘Don’t push your luck.’

He laughed. ‘I’m only thinking of Emma’s welfare—and yours.’

‘I can look after my own welfare, thank you. And Emma’s. You know I wouldn’t risk making her unhappy.’

‘Not knowingly,’ he conceded. ‘But the soundest judgement can be clouded by love.’

‘You’d know.’ He had enough experience.

He laughed again, shortly. ‘I’m not in love with Julian. Maybe I should meet him.’