A Marriage In The Making

‘Are you sure Josh’s father didn’t come to the cottage while Josh and I were along at the creek?’ she asked as she tucked an unruly wisp of dark hair back into the clasp.

Earlier she’d told Saffron about Josh’s father arriving on the island and had fully expected him to come to the cottage to see his son once he had unpacked. She couldn’t believe that he hadn’t.

‘I’m sure,’ Saffron assured her. ‘I sat out on that verandah all the time and he didn’t come near.’

And yet Karis had been sure they had been watched as they’d swum and practised diving in the tiny creek on the other side of the island, only fifteen minutes’ walk away but far enough to claim seclusion. Fiesta’s guests were generally a lazy lot who never ventured far from the opulent plantation house with its swimming pool and the bar lavishly stocked with every cocktail ingredient imaginable.

She must have been mistaken, unnerved by that dark man’s unyielding eyes as he had stopped and stared earlier, and imagined he must be shadowing her and Josh.

‘It’s awful,’ Karis sighed, and licked her fingers and smoothed them over her dark brows. ‘He hasn’t seen him at all since I’ve been looking after him. It’s the first time I’ve seen him.’

‘He came when you were on St Lucia with Tara for her check-up, six months ago,’ Saffron told her, rubbing her hands on a tea-towel as Karis swung to face her in surprise. ‘You remember the boy was yowling for a week when you came back.’

‘I thought it was because he was angry with me for not taking him,’ Karis stated in astonishment ‘Why didn’t you tell me, Saffron?’ Oh, she should have done. It would have helped to know the real reason for Josh’s distress.

Saffron shrugged without looking at her. ‘No good you vexing yourself about it too.’

‘Hmm. Maybe.’ Karis exhaled. That was Saffron’s reasoning—ignorance was bliss—and perhaps she was right. Karis would have vexed herself over it.

She would have liked to know all the same; after all, she was the closest to the small, troubled boy and she might have been able to draw him out if she had known what was bothering him. It dragged at her heart to think the child was in such fear of his own father.

‘I won’t be long,’ she told Saffron from the open door onto the verandah. ‘If the children wake—’

“They won’t,’ Saffron laughed, and then the wide grin drained from her round face and she grew serious. ‘I wish you were all dressed up like that for a date.’

‘A date with whom?’ Karis laughed softly and added teasingly, ‘One of those ghastly rich old men that fly down from Miami for Fiesta’s vacations? I’d rather court the devil, Saffron.’

‘Wicked girl!’ Saffron chastised her, with humour softening the remark.

‘Not at all a wicked girl,’ Karis muttered under her breath as she followed the path to the plantation house through the subtly lit gardens. The devil himself was a safer bet than the one man she’d allowed into her life, the man she had married and lost so tragically. Poor Aiden. Karis shivered sorrowfully in spite of the cloying heat. He hadn’t deserved what fate had dealt him, no matter what he had done. But he had given her Tara, the one good thing he had done in his life, and for that she couldn’t allow his memory to fade though her memories of him were tinged with sadness and bitterness most of the time.

It was a velvety black tropical night with heavy cloud obscuring the moon and pressing the heat of the day back down to earth, making the air thick and heady. Karis could hear laughter coming from the beach and smell the charcoal grill sizzling T-bone steaks and so she avoided the waterfront route to the house. Fiesta hadn’t got her nickname for nothing. She knew how to throw a beach party.

As Karis strolled unhurriedly through the scented gardens she rehearsed in her head what she wanted to say to Fiesta…and Josh’s father if he was around. The boy needed so much more than he was getting on the island. He needed proper schooling for one thing, though Karis did her best She didn’t want to lose him, dreaded the thought in fact, but his welfare and future were her chief concern and that small thought she had grasped to her earlier was growing in momentum. If this wasn’t just a visit and Daniel was planning on taking Josh back to the States he would need a nanny for him, and who better for the job than the one who had cared for the child and had worked a small miracle on him this last year?

Karis circled the house till she was under the wide wrought-iron balcony of the sitting room, where lights blazed out from the open French doors. She’d checked with Fiesta’s housekeeper where she was and rather than go through the house and run the risk of bumping into any of the house guests, who were usually well on the way to being drunk at this time of the night, she had skirted the house and opted for the balcony and the small flight of wrought-iron steps that led up to it from the rose gardens beneath.

‘What qualifications has she got?’ The brutal query came from above Karis’s head and it stilled her instantly. She flattened herself against the scratchy coral wall of the house, under the balcony where it was shadowy and she couldn’t be seen. The deep, resonant voice was Daniel Kennedy’s and she knew instinctively he was referring to her.

‘Qualifications? You expect someone with qualifications to give your uncontrollable son the time of day? Get real, Daniel. Karis is the only one to have stayed!’ Fiesta argued stiffly.

‘And it’s quite obvious why,’ Daniel stated emphatically. ‘She’s nothing but a child herself, and wild with it—all that hair and barefoot like a native. She must have thought she’d landed on her feet when you offered her this luxurious life. Where the hell did you drag her up from?’

Karis steeled herself, muscles cramping, closing her eyes tightly against the pain of the insult.

‘And the baby on her hip,’ he ground on, not giving Fiesta a chance to explain. ‘I don’t expect her to look after other people’s children when I’m paying her to look after Josh.’

‘Tara is her own child.’

There was a gasp of exasperation from Josh’s father. ‘It gets worse! You never told me all this the last time I was here.’

‘I wasn’t going to cook the golden goose, was I? I took her on because she was young and looked capable enough to handle him. Having her own child didn’t matter to me. As it turns out Karis is good for the boy.’

‘Good for him!’ he responded in disbelief. ‘Some unkempt teenager with an illegitimate—’

Karis’s fiercely clenched fists bunched over her ears to shut the world out. She didn’t want to hear any more—she couldn’t; it was unbearable.

Hurt beyond measure by that cutting jibe against her, she stealthily crept away from the house and only broke into a shaky trot when she knew she couldn’t be heard blundering through the vegetation in the gardens. The suffocating humidity of the night quickly drained her and by the time she reached the beach she was breathless, clutching at her throat for air and ripping the clasp from her hair with her other hand and shaking it wild and free.

Unkempt, was she? Wild, was she? What did he know? Just what did he know? Tears streamed down her cheeks and with a sob she lifted her face to the soft, warm breeze to dry them. She was hurt and angry—yes, very angry.

How could he have said all those dreadful things about her? How arrogant, how unfair, he didn’t even know her! And surely Fiesta could have spoken up for her more loyally? She’d done her very best for Josh and Fiesta knew it, so why hadn’t she told him more forcefully?

Her pulse rate levelled and common sense prevailed at last as she kicked surf at the water’s edge. But perhaps Fiesta was even now telling that poor excuse for a father just how good for Josh she was when he should have been doing the job himself! But she had to concede that Daniel Kennedy had sounded, if in a brutal way, caring as to who was looking after his son. At the expense of her emotions and senses, though, Karis thought miserably. Why make excuses for him? He was the father from hell!

‘And while you are out here gazing at the stars who the devil is watching over my son?’

Karis’s heart missed several beats as her elbow was imprisoned in a vice-like grip and she was hauled back from the surf and onto dry sand. She was whirled around to face her accuser, judge and jury! Condemned before she’d had a chance to speak in defence of herself!

Menacing clouds tore apart to reveal the moon and his stern features were clearly visible as he held her firmly, his eyes steely and accusing. Daniel Kennedy.

Recovering quickly, Karis lifted her chin defiantly and shook her arm from his grasp, and when she spoke her voice was clear and controlled because his insults had angered her so much it had fired her adrenalin, spicing up her strength, giving her courage to stand up for herself.

‘Your son is in good hands,’ she told him confidently. ‘He is asleep and I’m not gazing at the stars as if I’ve nothing better to do. I don’t default in my duties as your son’s carer—even if I am seen as wild and unkempt,’ she added meaningfully.

He looked perplexed for a moment, not understanding the last statement. Karis put him out of his misery at the expense of her own. ‘I came over to the plantation house to see Fiesta and overheard you both talking,’ she explained. Her green eyes narrowed. ‘I walked away when you hit the illegitimate bit,’ she added thinly, and then, giving him a last look of indifference, turned and walked away again. He didn’t follow.

She was still angry and hurt but managed to hide it as she dismissed Saffron, thanking her for staying on to watch over the sleeping children and promising her she would tell her everything in the morning. Saffron seemed satisfied with the promise of a gossip the next day and said nothing but a warm goodnight as she left.

Karis poured herself a fruit juice and took it onto the candlelit verandah to drink it and cool herself down after what she had heard from Daniel Kennedy—his angry implication that she wasn’t doing her job properly. How that hurtful remark made her blood boil. That he should come here after goodness knew how long and start—

‘I’d like to see my son.’

Like a spectre, he had suddenly appeared at the rail of the verandah. Karis looked at him with wide, surprised eyes. At least he had asked—or maybe she was misinterpreting his change of tone and that was an order, not a request.

‘He’s asleep,’ she told him quietly.

He stepped up onto the verandah and Karis was able to see him better in the glow of the candles. He wore tropical whites and was an incredibly forbidding creature. Darkly good-looking and charismatic, with an air of mystery about him, he obviously had the capability of charming the birds from the trees, but not with Karis. As his unyielding eyes challenged hers frostily she was chilled through, in spite of the heat of the tropical night.

‘I said I’d like to see him and I wasn’t asking your permission,’ he stated flatly.

Karis hesitantly stood up. She didn’t like this man. She hadn’t liked him before meeting him so nothing was new. He had a serious attitude problem. He had nothing good to say about her and that was unjustified because he didn’t know her. But he was Josh’s father and unfortunately that couldn’t be questioned so she couldn’t deny access to him, whatever the time of night. Without another word Karis lifted a candle in a jar from the table to light the way.

He followed her along the verandah and she felt his dark, disapproving eyes boring into the exposed skin of her back. Again those prickles of awareness played at the base of her spine.

Carefully Karis slid open the door and, holding the candle up, stepped back to let him pass through into the little boy’s bedroom. To her utter surprise he took her elbow and urged her into the room ahead of him and then shocked her deeply by saying under his breath, ‘I don’t want him to awake and be afraid.’

With her heart twisting Karis stood beside him at the foot of Josh’s bed. What an appalling admission that was. What dark past had these two shared? But at least by visiting him while he slept Daniel was showing some concern for his son’s feelings.