Her hands froze midair.
“Mummy, you’ve stopped rubbing!”
“Sorry.” She resumed her rubbing, but with her ears pricked, trying to pick out what the two men in the kitchen were saying. Why had Cain Templar come back? Had he left something behind? Or had he already changed his mind about tomorrow? Maybe he’d remembered something more important he had to do.
Mardi tightened her lips, wondering if he was in the habit of letting his son down. She just hoped he hadn’t told Ben in advance that he intended to visit Nicky.
She frowned, straining to hear. She could only hear Grandpa’s voice now, and she would have sworn he was thanking the other man for something. But for what? Had Cain told him about tomorrow’s planned reunion for the two boys? Grandpa knew how much Nicky wanted to see Ben again. But would he be thanking Cain for bringing that Jezebel’s son back into their lives?
She heard her grandfather calling out goodbye with a gusto she hadn’t heard from him for some time, then firm footsteps—not Grandpa’s—sounded again in the passage and a moment later the front door slammed shut. Cain Templar had gone.
She released the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. Well, he obviously hadn’t come back to see her. She wasn’t sure if she felt disappointment or relief.
She heard the tap-tap of Grandpa’s stick coming from the kitchen, and a moment later his head poked round the bathroom door. “That was your friend again. He brought us dinner.”
“He brought us what?”
“He said it was his fault you burned our dinner, and he’s brought us another pie and another cake, from some homemade cake shop, he said.”
Mardi rose slowly to her feet, touched, despite herself, by Cain’s thoughtful gesture. Or was it more that he felt sorry for her, because he’d guessed that she was hurting financially? She flushed, glad that she hadn’t had the embarrassment of having to accept his offer herself. She didn’t want anyone’s charity! Especially not his.
“Wow! Let’s go and look!” Nicky made a dash for the kitchen, with Grandpa, broadly smiling, hobbling behind. Mardi didn’t follow immediately, cleaning the tub and tidying up first. But despite her misgivings about accepting charity from a virtual stranger—from a Templar—it was a load off her mind to have another pie and cake to give to her family for dinner.
She hadn’t had too many loads taken off her mind lately.
Chapter Three
“Are we nearly there, Mummy?”
“Nearly, darling.” Mardi glanced over her shoulder at her fidgety, bright-eyed son and smiled. If she’d had any doubts about accepting Cain Templar’s invitation to his home today, the glow on Nicky’s face since she’d told him he’d be seeing Ben again had chased them away. If there were to be any consequences in the future, she would worry about them then. “Here’s Ben’s street now.”
“Yippee!” Nicky strained forward. “I see it! It’s the house with the high wall.” He’d been here before, of course. With his father.
Mardi slowed down. “I think I’ll park here in the shade of this tree. We can walk from here.” Not that anyone behind that long high wall would be able to see her car, wherever she parked it.
Nicky undid his seat belt and jumped out the second she pulled up. “Come on, Mummy. I want to see Ben.”
Mardi was anxious to see Ben, too. She just hoped that Nicky’s presence would have a calming effect on the troubled boy and that Ben’s tantrums and uncontrollable behavior wouldn’t rub off on her son. She had enough problems!
One was the thought of seeing Cain Templar again. I don’t want this any more than you do, he’d said, stressing that his invitation was purely for his son’s sake. He didn’t want her there, as well, but she’d given him little choice. And she didn’t regret the stand she’d taken, little as she’d wanted to come herself. There was no way she was going to dump Nicky on Cain Templar’s doorstep and just leave him there—no matter how grand his home was or how lofty his standing might be in the community. She didn’t know or particularly like the man, and she had no idea if she could trust him to look after her son, let alone cope with two lively five-year-olds.
Oh, Mardi, who are you kidding? She sighed, knowing she had a deeper, more shameful reason for not wanting to come today. What if he could read the embarrassing truth in her eyes? The truth that she subconsciously lusted after him.
Subconsciously… That was the key word. She stuck out her jaw. Consciously, she would no more want to get tied up with him than with…than with another Darrell Sinclair.
When they reached the Templars’ gate—a solid timber gate as high as the wall—she paused to take a breath and collect herself. She was wearing her best tailored slacks and a neat white blouse, with a tote bag slung over her shoulder. Somehow her old faded jeans and a T-shirt hadn’t seemed right for a visit to the Templars’ luxurious home.
She saw a security intercom beside the gate and pressed a button. A woman with a foreign accent answered, brusquely telling her to come in and to proceed to the front door of the house. Mardi assumed she must be a maid or a housekeeper. Or Ben’s latest baby-sitter? The woman didn’t sound young enough, or refined enough, to be a special woman friend of the lofty Cain Templar.
The thought that he might have a woman friend brought a frown to Mardi’s brow and an unaccountable twinge, which annoyed her so intensely that her thoughts turned vicious. She wondered if he’d had a mistress while Sylvia was still alive, and if the humiliation had driven his wife into the arms of another man—Mardi Sinclair’s ruthlessly ambitious husband!
Mardi shook the thought from her mind and pushed the gate open, ushering Nicky through.
Her eyes widened as she saw Cain Templar’s home. She knew that the house faced the harbor down below, but even from the back, the massive white-walled double-story mansion was a sight to behold.
There was a lock-up garage and what looked like a guest house to one side, and a paved terrace and neat garden beds between the street wall and the house. A row of Italian stone urns, spilling over with brightly colored flowers, led to a covered porch.
The door suddenly burst open and a small boy hurtled through. Mardi recognized him immediately as Ben. Tall, dark-haired and blue-eyed, he was a miniature version of his father—but with noticeably more warmth and enthusiasm.
“Hi, Nicky!” Ben cried out as he spied his long-lost friend.
A smile lit up Nicky’s small face as he broke free of his mother and darted forward. “Hi, Ben.”
Not a trace of shyness from either boy, Mardi noted with a faint mistiness in her eye as Ben grabbed Nicky by the hand and dragged him inside. A swarthy, middle-aged woman with no trace of a welcoming smile was standing by the door, but she stepped aside as the boys burst past her.
“I apologize for my—” Mardi began, but the woman had already turned on her heel.
“Follow me,” she said, without pausing to introduce herself.
Mardi found herself in a spacious circular reception hall, with a sweeping staircase that brought Gone with the Wind to mind. Above her was the largest, most impressive crystal chandelier that she’d ever seen.
The boys, their shoes clattering on the gleaming, marble-tiled floor, were fast disappearing along an unbelievably wide, seemingly endless central passage, heading for the harbor-facing front.
So much marble, Mardi noted in wonder. Italian, for sure. She wondered what her young son thought of all this magnificence. He probably hadn’t even noticed. He’d only be interested in Ben. And of course, he’d been here before, with his father.