Karis stood for a long while on the verandah, staring out over the gardens and not seeing anything, trying to cool her anger and to grasp at the reality of what he had said. Starting married life? Daniel Kennedy was married to that beautiful but awful screeching woman and this was their honeymoon?
Was Daniel Kennedy divorced from Josh’s mother and Simone the second wife or even the third or the fourth? Oh, it didn’t bear thinking about. Poor little Josh. He didn’t deserve that.
And it was none of her business, Karis told herself miserably and unconvincingly. The night seemed to oppress her and the cloying heat to press down on her and she was swamped with dreadful thoughts of that Simone taking over and being Josh’s mother.
The pair of them had come to take Josh off the island. They were good-looking but seemed distinctly lacking in terms of character.
And then she felt again that mysterious snap of envy she had been whiplashed with earlier. She did envy that siren Simone. She envied her for being married to Josh’s father and claiming Josh for her own and she envied them all starting a family life together because that was something she had been cheated out of in her own life. But that was all she envied Simone for; the rest of her feelings were taken up with pity. Being married to Daniel Kennedy must be like living with Satan’s first cousin: hell on earth.
‘HEAD tucked in. Beautiful. Bend your knees, Josh. Super. Go for it,’ Karis encouraged warmly from the rocks below.
The boy didn’t hesitate this time. From a higher rock he executed the most perfect dive into the warm, limpid waters of the creek. Karis raced into the water and swam strongly towards him.
‘I did it! I did it!’ Josh spluttered in excitement, his wet face flushed with pleasure as he bobbed up and down in the water, stretching his arms out to her.
‘I knew you could,’ Karis laughed as she hugged him tightly, and then tipped him back into the water and spun round so he could straddle her back. He screamed with laughter as she swam to the shore with him. Once they were on the beach she felt Josh stiffen suddenly. She let him go and he slithered down her back to the warm sand and stood rigid behind her.
Daniel Kennedy stood watching them from another outcrop of rocks, his eyes shaded by sunglasses, so that Karis couldn’t gauge whether he looked pleased with his son’s dive or not.
Josh had seen his father too, hence the stiffening of his slight body and his hiding behind her now. Karis moved aside because to screen him from his father was wrong, but before she could grasp his hand to reassure him he was gone, sprinting in the opposite direction to his father, back towards the cottage where Saffron was watching over baby Tara.
With a sigh Karis picked up her sarong to wrap around her wet, bikini-clad body while she tentatively watched Daniel coming towards her across the sand.
He stopped in front of her and stripped the glasses from his face. He was frowning and really Karis wasn’t surprised. She doubted he smiled very much.
‘Were you responsible for that performance?’ he asked her tightly.
Karis knotted the sarong at her cleavage and tensed in surprise as Daniel Kennedy’s eyes, frown and all, settled on the knot for a few dangerous seconds. For a newly-wed he certainly hadn’t thrown off the cloak of bachelorhood yet, Karis thought ruefully. Obviously a man with an eye for women, which explained a lot. The second or third or fourth wife theory gained strength in her mind. Perhaps this Daniel Kennedy was into serial marriage.
Deliberately folding her arms across her front to hide the cleavage he found so fascinating, she lifted her chin and asked bluntly, ‘The dive or him running away?’
The frown deepened and his concentration shifted to the defiance in her eyes. ‘The dive,’ he insisted quickly and quite challengingly, too, as if he thought her too smart by half even to have suggested otherwise.
Lucky for him, Karis thought. ‘Yes, I’ve been teaching him. It was Josh’s first perfect dive,’ she told him, and then added, ‘I’m Karis Piper by the way. We missed out on formalities last night.’
She forced a smile, trying to warm to him for Josh’s sake. She’d given her own attitude a lot of thought overnight. She didn’t like him and so long as there was an R in the month of April she doubted she ever would, but, putting personalities aside, she had to do her best for the boy and if being nice to his father helped she’d have a go at the very least. She even lifted her hand to him.
He took it and their exchange was brief but long enough for Karis to know he had blood running through his veins, not iced water as she might have anticipated. His touch had been surprisingly warm.
‘Yes. I know who you are, Miss Piper.’
‘Mrs, as it happens,’ she asserted quickly, giving him a warning flash of her green eyes. ‘My daughter, Tara, isn’t illegitimate and I’m not a teenager either,’ she added tightly, reminding him of what she had overheard last night. ‘To classify me correctly you would have to file me under the emotion-weary widow heading. I thought you would have checked with Fiesta by now, seeing as you pay my wages for looking after your son.’
So much for the be-nice-to-Josh’s-father resolve. But hardly her fault, she excused herself; he wasn’t exactly the easiest subject to be nice to.
His steely eyes glared at her hard. ‘You have a lot of spirit. I’m not sure that is enough qualification to be caring for my son.’
Karis’s heart flipped in defence. This man was something else. Not real at all, as Fiesta had suggested when she had overheard them arguing the night before.
She met his cold glare with eyes equally determined not to be put down. ‘I think being spirited is an ideal qualification to be looking after Josh, Mr Kennedy. Lesser spirited people than myself haven’t achieved a smidgen of what I’ve done for him.’
‘And what exactly have you done for him?’
His tone was unremittingly censorious and Karis gave up the struggle not to rile against it. ‘Plenty,’ she stated, and added with a sweet smile, ‘Why don’t you spend some time with him and find out?’
She stooped down to gather up Josh’s towel and hoped her cheeks weren’t flushed with anger. She really had tried but he was impossible.
‘I intend to do just that,’ he told her determinedly.
Karis straightened herself up and looked at him, her eyes narrowed. ‘Not before time,’ she let slip before she could help herself.
He caught her arm as she turned away, a grip so jarring it cascaded droplets of water down from her hair to glisten on her sun-warmed bare shoulders. He let her go immediately after securing her attention.
‘There is a reason for everything,’ he told her quietly and seriously. ‘Choices and decisions have had to be made for my son in the past, all with the best intentions and all unavoidable. Whether those harrowing decisions were right or wrong only time will tell. I care very deeply for Josh and I want what is best for him. I always have and I always will. Please remember that before you pre-form impressions in that pretty little head of yours. Don’t fight me, because I need your help to smooth the path between me and my son before I take him away from here. Have I made myself clear?’
Karis stared blindly at him for a few seconds, wondering whether to argue with that in case he hadn’t noticed she was a human being and didn’t like being spoken to as if she were some newly acquired puppy needing to be housetrained. But she shouldn’t care how he treated her because her feelings were immaterial; it was his son that mattered.
So, he wanted her to smooth the path for him, did he? The request was heart-wrenchingly sad coming from a father to a stranger who had cared for his son. And did he seriously think she would object