Instant Father

Instant Father
Lucy Gordon

Driven by ambition and power, Gavin Hunter had sacrificed everything that mattered–including his wife and child–to success. Now his son, Peter, needed him, and Gavin dropped everything to rush across the country to the desolate moors… Only to find that time had erased the boy's memory of his father.Filled with bitter resentment, Gavin watched Peter cling to the woman who was his guardian. Norah Ackroyd's wild beauty reflected the untamed land, and her tender touch enchanted children and animals. Gavin, however, was immune to her charms. He planned to take his son and flee–except that the bond between Norah and Peter wouldn't be easily broken… And soon Gavin, too, was falling under her spell….

Gavin Hunter on Fatherhood:

I guess I had to write to you, son. We don’t seem able to communicate any other way. You won’t talk to me. When I speak, you look at me with eyes that are blank, or puzzled, or even hostile—eyes that seem to reproach me for having been a bad father, although God knows I never meant to be.

I thought being a father would be easy, that loving you would be enough. But then, I thought loving your mother would be enough, and she left me, taking you away and making another man your father.

When they both died I was sure you’d be mine again. But we’d been apart too long. You turned away and wouldn’t speak to me. You still won’t.

So now I have to learn to be a father all over again, to a ten-year-old son who doesn’t want me. I know you secretly wish I’d go away and leave you with Norah, your stepsister, who has your heart. But I won’t go, because I am still your father and I love you. When I seem cold and hard it is because loving you and getting nothing back hurts so much. Perhaps Norah has the key. Perhaps she can teach me. Who knows. I only know that I’ll never give up hope….

Instant Father

Lucy Gordon

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

LUCY GORDON

cut her writing teeth on magazine journalism, interviewing many of the world’s most interesting men, including Warren Beatty, Richard Chamberlain, Roger Moore, Sir Alec Guinness and Sir John Gielgud. She also camped out with lions in Africa, and had many other unusual experiences that have often provided the background for her books. She is married to a Venetian, whom she met while on holiday in Venice. They got engaged within two days. Two of her books have won Romance Writers of America RITA

Awards: Song of the Lorelei in 1990 and His Brother’s Child in 1998. You can visit her Web site at www.lucy-gordon.com.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter One

“You’ve simply got to face facts, Gavin. The figures don’t look good. Hunter and Son is rapidly becoming a paper company—splendid on the surface, but nothing behind it but debt.”

Gavin Hunter’s dark brows almost met as he frowned angrily. “Hunter and Son has always been good for any amount of credit,” he snapped.

The banker, who was also a friend insofar as Gavin Hunter had any friends, pulled a wry face. “That was then. This is now. The great days of property are over. Interest rates rise as prices fall. Some of your hotels are only just hanging on. Since they’re mortgaged to the hilt, it won’t even help you to sell them.”

“I don’t want to sell,” Gavin snapped. “I want a small loan to keep me going. A mere quarter of a million pounds. In the past you’ve loaned me four times that without blinking.”

“In the past you had excellent collateral to back it up. Look, I’m not sure…What’s the matter?” The banker had realized that Gavin was no longer listening to him. His attention was fixed on the television screen in the corner of the room. “Is that disturbing you? I have it on to catch the news, but I can turn it off.”

“Turn the sound up,” Gavin said hoarsely.

The screen was filled with a photograph of an amiable looking middle-aged man. The banker turned up the sound.

“…died today in a car crash that also killed his wife, Elizabeth. Tony Ackroyd was one of the world’s best-known naturalists, a man who’d been prominent in…”

Gavin was gathering his things together, thrusting them hastily back into his briefcase. “Don’t you want to talk some more?” the banker said.

“Not just now. I have urgent business to attend to.”

The banker frowned, then enlightenment dawned. “Of course. Those two in the car crash—weren’t they—?”

“Yes,” Gavin said harshly. “They were my enemies.”

As he headed north out of London he reflected that Liz hadn’t always been his enemy. Once—and it was hard to imagine it now—he’d been in love with her, had swept her off her feet with his ardor and into a doomed marriage. In retrospect he understood that they’d never had a chance, although for a time they’d been happy, or so he’d thought. To all appearances they were a glorious couple, Liz with her long fair hair and ethereal beauty; Gavin with his dark good looks and his ability to turn whatever he touched into gold. They had a luxurious apartment in London, where Liz had given exquisite dinner parties. She was the perfect hostess and Gavin had been proud of her. She’d borne him a son, Peter, whom he’d loved with all the force of his proud, intense nature. He’d built his dreams around Peter, looking forward to the day when he would be the “son” in Hunter and Son.

But Liz had blown the dreams apart when she’d left him for Tony Ackroyd and stolen his four-year-old son. From that day she’d been his enemy.

He could still hear her crying, “I can’t stand you any more. Business and money. Money and business. That’s all you think about.”

And his own reply. “I work for you and Peter.”

“You’re deluding yourself. You do it for yourself—and your father.”

It was true he’d striven to impress his father, but that was because he had a lot to live up to. William Hunter had built up a hotel chain from nothing and reared Gavin in the belief that it was a son’s duty to outstrip his father’s achievements. He’d handed the business on with the implied demand for more, for bigger and better and bolder.

William was still alive, living in a convalescent home on the south coast, because that was the only place where his frail lungs could breathe. But his brain had stayed vigorous enough for him to bombard his son with a stream of letters containing unsolicited advice, most of it useless because his knowledge was out-of-date. Gavin had fielded the advice while expanding the business his own way. The strain had been considerable, but he’d trusted Liz to understand. And she’d failed him.

Cuckolded, he thought, taking a bitter satisfaction in the robust, old-fashioned word. Cuckolded by a sissy, a man with long hair and a beard, who went about with a vague air as if he didn’t know what day it was—a man who talked to animals, of all things! “Tony’s a better man than you,” Liz had flung at him. But that had been just spite.

He stepped on the gas. He wanted to get as near as possible to Strand House before the light faded.

Strand House. He could almost see it before him, exactly as he’d first set eyes on it, the great eighteenth-century mansion looking out over the sea. As a boy William had worked there, doing carpentry for the aristocratic family who owned it. Later, when he’d made his fortune, it had been his dream to own the place. He hadn’t succeeded, but Gavin did. The family had fallen on hard times and he’d badgered them until they sold up. The proudest day of Gavin’s life had been when he could show William the title deeds in his possession. But even then William had found cause for complaint.

“Why isn’t it in your sole name?” he’d snapped.