This family wasn’t just unforgettable; they were also dangerous. All of them!
‘I shouldn’t listen to anything Jordan has to say, on any subject, if I were you, Gaye,’ Jonathan told her merrily. ‘It’s inevitably suspect.’
‘That’s all the thanks I get for delaying Gaye’s departure until you had parked the car,’ Jordan muttered, his irritated tone belied by the mischievous twinkle in his eyes.
A family conspiracy! Gaye had thought she might have been being fanciful where Abbie Hunter was concerned, but as the other woman gave her an apologetic smile she knew her first suspicion had been correct. This family certainly wasn’t mad!
Just what had Jonathan told them about her for them all to be behaving this way...?
‘Remind me to thank you for that later, Jordan,’ Jonathan rasped, giving his brother a narrow-eyed look of warning before turning back to Gaye. ‘Have you had a good two days off?’ His tone softened as he spoke to her.
‘Busy,’ she bit out abruptly, challengingly; after all, wasn’t that what he had told his relatives?
She felt sure that, under normal circumstances, Jonathan’s family wouldn’t even have been aware of her existence; she would just have been a woman he’d asked to go out with him and had turned him down. She was sure his family didn’t usually get to hear about his rejections! Or, perhaps, it had never happened before...?
Men like Jonathan Hunter were rare, she acknowledged: handsome, charming, self-confident, incredibly rich, and, best of all, still single. Most women wouldn’t have turned down an invitation from him! But she had her reasons, very good ones, and no amount of cajoling from either Jonathan or his family would change her mind.
Although, she had to admit, being around the Hunter family certainly kept one on one’s toes!
‘It gets easier,’ Abbie assured her gently, seeming to sense Gaye’s mental turmoil.
Gaye had no intention of staying around long enough to find out! ‘For your sake, I sincerely hope so,’ she returned with feeling. Thank goodness, for her own sake, Abbie Hunter would be discharged from the clinic soon. ‘I’ll leave you now to talk with your two visitors,’ Gaye added, keeping her gaze firmly averted from Jonathan as she knew he continued to watch her with those enigmatic golden eyes.
He did make her nervous. There was about him the same air of self-confident stillness she had sensed earlier in Jarrett Hunter, a quiet determination that ensured he arrived at wherever it was he wanted to go. As she looked at him now, the forceful glint in his eyes seemed to imply that the silence of the last two days had merely been a pause, not an end, in his pursuit—
She was being fanciful now. He had asked her out, she had refused; that was the end of his pursuit. There were too many women out there willing to say yes for Jonathan Hunter to bother with the ones who said no.
She felt a heavy weight settle inside her, and knew it was the responsibility she carried around with her. Always...
‘Try not to tire yourself out,’ she advised Abbie before turning sharply on her heels and leaving the room, aware that she was once again very close to tears. What was it about Jonathan Hunter that affected her in this way?
What on earth was wrong with her? she chastised herself later as she accompanied Mr Gilchrist on his round. But she knew the answer to that all too well. She had chosen a life for herself in the last two years, a life that was necessarily apart from friendships of any kind, and Jonathan Hunter and his family, with their witty dialogues and underlying kindness, broke through that defence, showing her all too vividly glimpses of what she was missing. Just those brief glimpses made her yearn for something she couldn’t have: friends, stimulating conversation, a social life that at times could become too hectic. All gone now. And in its place was loneliness, silence, pretence—and the latter was something she had, ironically, never been good at!
She drank her morning coffee alone in the canteen. Through choice. She had only worked at the clinic for six months, but she had already learnt during that time that making friends with any of the other midwives meant familiarity, and familiarity encouraged questions, questions she had no intention of answering. So she kept herself aloof. And alone...
‘Mind if I join you?’
She looked up sharply at the familiar sound of that voice.
‘Jonathan...!’ She recognised him instantly, looking about them uncomfortably, noticing several curious glances being cast their way by other members of staff also taking their coffee-breaks, the female glances openly admiring as they looked at Jonathan.
Most of the staff were aware that Abbie Hunter was staying in the clinic, and they possibly also recognised Jonathan as having visited his sister-in-law during the last two days. His presence here now wasn’t going to comply with Gaye’s wish for a quiet, unobtrusive life at all!
‘I’m afraid you’ve come into the wrong room, Mr Hunter.’ She deliberately made her voice slightly louder than normal. ‘The visitors’ tea room is—’
‘But I don’t want the visitors’ tea room,’ he cut in smoothly, uncaring of the interest they were engaging. ‘I want to have coffee with you,’ he announced determinedly as he sat down in the chair opposite hers at the table.
Gaye closed her eyes, groaning softly, only to find Jonathan looking across at her with calm query when she opened them again. ‘Not here,’ she told him with soft intensity, willing him to get up and leave.
Which he didn’t, of course, do! This man, she decided, had a habit of being in the wrong place at the wrong time—and he had the ability to take her with him!
‘Why not?’ He looked about the room curiously, a large, well-lit room, its windows facing out over the clinic gardens. ‘It seems very pleasant in here.’ He turned back to Gaye, looking down into her cup. ‘The coffee looks good too.’
‘It is,’ she confirmed impatiently. ‘But you aren’t supposed to be in here. And you’re drawing attention to the two of us,’ she told him more forcefully.
Jonathan tilted his head as he gave her a considering glance. ‘And you don’t like that, do you?’ he said slowly, obviously completely unconcerned himself at the attention his extreme good looks were drawing in their direction. ‘They’re only curious, Gaye.’ He shrugged dismissively. ‘It isn’t important.’
‘It is to me,’ she insisted. ‘I don’t like being the subject of gossip and speculation.’ She shuddered at the thought of it
There had already been enough of that over the last two years without it all starting up again. Anonymity was the reason she lived the way that she did; she had no intention of having that taken away because of this man’s determination to make a nuisance of himself!
Jonathan gave a smile. ‘I’ve got news for you, Gaye: there is no way on earth you will ever stop people gossiping or speculating about you, or anybody else! I learnt that years ago, and I’ve learnt not to let it bother me.’
‘Well, it bothers me!’ She pushed away her half-drunk cup of coffee before standing up. ‘I think I’ll go back to work now.’
It was only once she was outside in the corridor, and found Jonathan at her side, that she realised he must have followed her from the room. She was tall herself, but he towered well over her, and the broad width of his shoulders in his fitted suit seemed to offer a protection she so badly needed—No! She didn’t need anyone, least of all a man like Jonathan Hunter, a man who, in his own words, had the newspapers and gossip-mongers following his every move. She didn’t want any part of that!
‘Shouldn’t you be getting back