Claiming His Child

Yet there was wonderful exhilaration in his new discovery. Wonderful sport in swimming with her as if they were a pair of dolphins. Afterwards they pulled themselves up onto the sandy bank, their dark heads, an identical near black, sleek as seals.

“That was marvellous. Just what I needed.” Suzannah, towelled herself off quickly, passing her towel to him because he always managed to forget his.

Not surprisingly he didn’t answer, taking the towel extended to him from her long outstretched slender arm. Life is never going to be the same again, he thought. Never innocent and sweet as it once was but fraught with tension. He recognised it easily for what it was. Sexual tension. He couldn’t hold his feelings back. He had fallen in love.

“Nick?” she asked in such a strange voice. Not the usual glorious confidence, the self-assuredness befitting Marcus Sheffield’s adored daughter.

“We won’t ever come back here,” he said. “Not on our own.” The words were out in a spontaneous rush. The decision made.

“Oh, Nicko, it’s our place,” she said with a great wail. “I don’t want to stick with the others.”

“Your father won’t want us to come here,” he maintained.

“You can say that again!” Abruptly she laughed. “He’d kill us.”

“So you know what I mean, Suzy.” He looked at her, his expression barely veiled.

He remembered she stood perfectly still, fragile as a water nymph. “I’d be safer with you than anyone else in the world.” Tears suddenly shone in her blue-violet eyes.

“Yes, you are, but I’m not going to do anything that could possibly harm you. You’re a child”

“So are you.” She flashed with anger.

“No, I’m not I’ve never been a child like you and your friends are. In a way you’re all the same.”

“Well hell we are! I’m different.” She advanced on him, her cheeks stained red.

“But you don’t see what I see,” he protested. “You don’t feel as I do.”

“I know I love you.” She flipped back her silky black mane. “You’re my best friend in all the world.”

“Stupid baby. I swear I’m going to look after you.” He turned away abruptly, unaware of the muscles that rippled like a panther’s along his dark golden back.

She made the mistake of laying her hand along his bare skin. “Nick?”

“How about your clothes? Get them on,” he all but barked, outraged by his body’s powerful response.

“Nick, don’t turn angry,” she implored.

“I’m not angry. Never with you. Get a move on,” he urged. “You said yourself your father wouldn’t like us to be here.”

“I’ll be fourteen soon.” Obediently she turned away. “The same age as Juliet.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” He tried to speak calmly, failed, and moved fast to collect his own clothes. He stepped into his trousers, zipped them, then reached for his dreary maroon shirt with the white trim. His mother had only just bought it and already it was getting too small. His father had stood over six foot three. He would be the same.

“No need to jump on me.” Anger leapt in her voice. “You’re not my big brother.” Something else in her voice made him think she was about to cry. Suzannah cry? She never cried. Even when she came a cropper from her horse.

“Ah, Suzy, come on. I never meant to upset you,” he relented.

“Well you have. I don’t like anything about this being an adult. I don’t understand what it’s all about.”

Until today.

It was then that he kissed her. Wrapping his hands around her small gilded face, touching her mouth with his own. It tasted so fresh and sweet, the shimmering joy that was Suzannah.

When he released her she held onto his wrist, the rosy delicacy of her lips pouting about to form words. Words that never came because an angry young male voice smote their ears, shouting, quivering with a kind of primal rage.

“What the hell are you up to, Konrads?” Martin White was dressed in a white shirt, jeans and sneakers, the light radiating off his thick golden hair.

He launched himself down the bank, a solid young man but no match for Nick. “Is this where you two get to?” he demanded, scarcely containing his jealousy. “Suzannah, I’m shocked at you. Wait until your father hears about this. Do you let this guy paw you?”

For answer she leapt into action, fists bunched, throwing her arm and hitting Martin squarely on the shoulder. “This guy here,” she yelled, “is worth any ten of you. He’s far and away the cleverest boy we’ve ever had in this town and probably ever will. He’s not only clever he’s highly principled and hard working. His father, the other kraut, was a distinguished man. His mother is a beautiful. talented lady. She plays the piano wonderfully. You’re the pathetic ignoramus with your offensive name-calling. Heck, you couldn’t even read until you were six. I could read when I was three!” She was so angry she was alight, pulses beating in her throat and at the blue-veined temples. “As for telling my father about anything!” she shouted. “Do that and I swear I’ll never speak to you again for the rest of my life.”

It was a threat Martin White was to take profoundly to heart. A handful of years later he married her.

Nick’s Suzannah.

CHAPTER TWO

HEADLIGHTS coming up the driveway woke her up, illuminating the bedroom. Suddenly alert to every sound, Suzannah turned her head quickly to glance at her bedside clock: 2:35. The right side of the bed was empty, the bed linen unruffled. Martin returning home. Whatever has happened to my life? she thought bleakly. I’ve tried, God knows I’ve tried, but our marriage was doomed from the start. The lies and the heartbreak. The wounds that ran deep and wouldn’t heal. She still cared for Martin even now but she had never loved him. All along Martin had known it.

The headlights didn’t swerve away to the garages as she expected. Now it occurred to her the car’s engine sounded different. It crunched around the broad loop of the driveway and stopped at the front porch.

She started up. The first hint of dread struck her. For quite a while now Martin had been drinking heavily. Had he been involved in an accident? Suzannah threw on her dark blue robe, thrust her feet into bedroom slippers then rushed through the open French door and out onto the upper balcony looking down.

A police car stood parked in the driveway, lights flashing.

Dear God! Suzannah whirled about almost overcome by the terrible trembling in her limbs. Was there anything more frightening than seeing a police car parked at one’s door in the early hours of the morning? It could only mean trouble. Perhaps tragedy. On her flight down the hallway she paused to shut Charley’s door lest her little daughter be disturbed. Her father, she knew, would be sleeping heavily. He had been taking medication since his mild stroke. She was almost at the bottom of the stain before the door chimes rang.

“Suzannah! Terribly sorry to disturb you.” It was Frank Harris, the local police chief, kneading his hat, his deputy Will Powell’s kindly rugged face totally without his usual smile, two paces behind him. “May we come in?”

Suzannah stood back wordlessly, her sense of foreboding deepening with every second. She watched them move into the entrance hall with its grand divided staircase soaring to the upper level, then turn to face her ready to show their hand.

“What’s wrong, Frank?” A voice came out, husky, strained. Not hers. “Is it Martin?” She could see it in his eyes.

“Mind she doesn’t faint,” Will Powell cried out warningly, starting forward.

Somehow they were in the drawing room, Frank gently supporting her. “I’m so sorry, Suzannah.” His voice was deep, kind, distressed. He eased her into a chair. “It was an accident. Martin ran off the River Road Piled up against a tree.”

“Oh God, no!” Her whole body sagged and her face fell into her hands. No, not Martin. Life taking another tragic twist.

“I’m so sorry,” Harris repeated, reminding himself there was worse news to come. Martin White hadn’t been alone. His passenger had been killed as well. Cindy Carlin from the town. He had known her instantly from her long blond hair. Hell, he knew them all. Knew them from when they were kids. Suzannah, Martin, Cindy, the migrant boy, Nicholas Konrads, he had all but run out of town. On Marcus Sheffield’s orders. Had to be seven years ago but he still felt terrible about it. Konrads had turned out to be a business genius. Suzannah had married the wrong man. Marcus Sheffield, arrogant, wealthy, the master manipulator had lost his substantial fortune and his once robust health. Now his son-in-law, picked by his own hand, Suzannah’s husband, little Charlotte’s father, was dead. For all its grandeur, Bellemont Farm, the town’s historic landmark, was a sad place.

Suzannah could barely remember the events leading up to the funeral. She put herself on autopilot and somehow she got through. She never heard all the rumours and gossip that swept like a bushfire through the town. She refused help, gently turned her well-meaning friends way, explained about Daddy to Charlotte, discussed matters briefly with her father and organised all arrangements herself. Martin was gone and it was all her fault For all that her world had fallen apart years ago.

The day of the funeral there were no tears from Heaven. Martin White was laid to rest in brilliant sunshine with family, friends, just about everyone he knew, attending his funeral at the Anglican Church where he and Suzannah had been married. It was a big funeral conducted with sombre dignity as the families closed ranks. People spoke quietly, no matter what their feelings, huddling together in groups. Cindy Carlin’s funeral the day before was just the opposite with the girl’s parents loud in their condemnation of Martin White and the Sheffield family who thought they still owned the town. How young Nick Konrads had been run out of town was rehashed. A great many long-standing scandals were aired.

This isn’t happening, Suzannah thought as she listened to the minister drone on in what seemed to her in her grief, a mindless fashion. Her father, tall, gaunt, a shadow of his former handsome powerful self, stood by her side. Across from them Martin’s family were ranged all golden haired, all distraught inwardly but steady as she was herself. Martin was to be buried in the White family plot in deference to his family’s wishes. Suzannah had always got on very well with Martin’s mother and sisters but they weren’t looking at her now. Because of her Martin was dead. It would never be said. Just buried in hearts. The prominent families of the district stuck together. They left it to people like Cindy Carlin’s family to air their dirty linen.