Woman To Wed?

‘I still wish that you and Dad had had children of your own, you know. I know that Dad always felt that it wasn’t fair to me but he was wrong. You were the one he wasn’t fair to, and I would have loved a brother or a sister or, even better, both...’

‘Sometimes these things just aren’t meant to be,’ Claire had told her huskily.

She loved her stepdaughter as though she were her own child—had loved her from the moment John had introduced them. Sally had then been a solemn, too serious and mature child, who had stood out from her peers with her too big school uniform and the neat plaits which John had copied from photographs he’d had of Sally’s mother at the same age.

It had been left to Claire to explain gently to him that Sally felt self-conscious and different because of them, that such a hairstyle was out of date and could tempt other children to pick on her and bully her.

Those first years of her marriage had been happy, productive years. Years when she had eagerly reached out to embrace the opportunity to put the past behind her—something she felt she had done very successfully and thoroughly.

So why had it now started to force its way past all the careful barriers she had erected to protect herself from it? And, more importantly, why was it Brad who was somehow responsible for the unwanted turbulence and disturbance of her normally calm and easily controlled emotions?

CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_52b3a182-f1a7-50f9-b894-ce011d77503c)

‘SO COME on, then, tell me. What was he like...?’

‘You’ll be able to judge for yourself soon enough,’ Claire told her neighbour placidly. ‘Irene’s bringing him round at eleven to look over the house.’

Hannah had called round ostensibly to show Claire a photograph of the hotel where she would be staying on holiday in Turkey, but Claire was more amused than deceived by her old friend’s ploy to satisfy her curiosity.

‘I’ll go if you want me to,’ Hannah offered, but. without making any real attempt to dislodge herself from her comfortable seat at Claire’s kitchen table.

In order to dispel some of her unwanted nervous energy Claire had been trying out a new biscuit recipe. The results of her work would be eaten by the children at the school, but there was a deeper purpose to her self-imposed task than merely the execution of her culinary skills.

The school, which was privately and voluntarily funded, with some council aid, took, in the main, children from backgrounds where for one reason or another there were certain social deprivations.

In many cases these sprang solely from the fact that the child’s mother had to work and could not be there full-time, and one of the things Claire enjoyed doing was showing the children and teaching them when she could, the kind of simple domestic tasks which they would have learned as a matter of course in a different age.

The biscuit recipe she had been trying out this morning was of the very simplest variety and one she was sure that her children would thoroughly enjoy trying for themselves.

‘Mmm...these are good,’ Hannah opined as she sampled the first of the batch to be removed from the oven.

‘I thought you were supposed to be on a diet,’ Claire reminded her.

‘Tomorrow,’ Hannah muttered through a second mouthful of warm biscuit, turning her head in the direction of the kitchen door as they both heard a car pull up onto the drive.

‘Oh, Hannah...were you just about to leave?’ Irene demanded bossily as Claire opened the door to let her and Brad into the kitchen.

Hannah and Irene were old adversaries, probably because Irene knew that she couldn’t boss the other woman about in the same way as she could Claire, Claire admitted wryly, mentally acknowledging that that was, perhaps, one of the reasons why she had not encouraged Hannah to leave. She didn’t care to think of herself as being manipulative, but there were times...

‘You must be Brad,’ Hannah announced, ignoring Irene’s suggestion to get up and go and shaking Brad’s hand. ‘I’m one of Claire’s neighbours... Your neighbour too, I understand. You’ll love living here with Claire; she’ll spoil you to death,’ she declared. ‘She’s a wonderful cook.’

‘Mmm...smells like it,’ Brad agreed pleasantly.

He was more casually dressed this morning, although not in the jeans and T-shirt in which she had first seen him. This time he was wearing a pair of plain, casual, neutral linen trousers with a white linen shirt and a soft knit neutral unbuttoned waistcoat. On another man such clothes might have looked too stylish and uncomfortable but Brad wore them so easily that they seemed; to be an intrinsic part of him.

There was something about a man who took an interest in his appearance but at the same time managed to look as if he didn’t care if sticky little fingers touched his clothes that was infinitely appealing, Claire recognised. Too appealing, she warned herself hastily as she became aware that Brad had turned his head and was watching her watching him.

‘I...er... Where would you like to start...? The bedroom?’ she suggested quickly, and then for no reason that she could think of immediately blushed so hard and so colourfully that she felt completely humiliated by her ridiculous reaction.