‘I wasn’t sorry.’ He pushed himself from the fridge and crossed to the sink. Grasping the countertop edge with white-knuckled hands, he stared out the uncurtained window. ‘What my grandmother did—taking you in—was unforgivable.’
‘Your grandmother was a warm and compassionate woman.’ Whitney fought to keep control of her emotions. ‘I know it must have been hard for you to understand her actions—after all, you were only seventeen and had been very badly hurt—’
‘I wasn’t thinking of myself!’ He whirled around and his eyes reflected more than a decade of built-up pent-up resentment at her. ‘I was thinking of my mother. Of what they—my father and your mother—had done to her—’
‘Don’t!’ Shaking, Whitney put up her hands to stop him. ‘Please don’t let’s start all this over again. I do understand why you’re so resentful, but, Luke, for your own sanity you have to put it all behind you—’
‘Don’t you think I’ve tried? Don’t you think I’ve tried to forgive? To forgive and forget? What do you think it did to me, walking away from my grandmother, the one person in the world who meant anything to me? And now—’ he swung an arm out wildly ‘—to come back to this house, and find I’m too late—my God, it’s ripping me apart!’
Taut silence vibrated through the kitchen following Luke’s outburst, a silence suddenly broken by the wavering cry of a baby.
Whitney looked around confusedly.
Luke exhaled a heavy breath, and said wearily, ‘It’s the baby monitor. Over by the bread bin.’
She saw it then, a blue-and-white gadget, with a red light flickering.
‘I haven’t seen one of those before.’ Her voice came out stiltedly, but she kept going. ‘You leave one part in the baby’s room, and set the other up wherever you are?’
‘That’s right. I’ll just go up and fetch him...’
‘What’s his name?’
‘Troy,’ he said over his shoulder, as he left the room.
Troy. Short for Troilus? The names Troilus and Cressida were indelibly linked in literature; had Luke, despite his estrangement from his grandmother, remembered the elderly woman with love as he’d chosen a name for his son?
When he returned, the coffee was ready, and she’d just filled two mugs and put sugar and cream in her own.
She’d been determined to keep any communication between them on a purely impersonal and businesslike level, but she made the fatal mistake of looking at the baby in his arms.
‘Why...he’s dark!’
‘I guess you didn’t see him without his hat yesterday.’ Luke ruffled his son’s wispy black hair, and the child chuckled and blew out a bubble. His lashes were as dark as his hair, but he had his father’s blue eyes. He was wearing a red sweatshirt, with a pair of red corduroy dungarees.
He was beautiful, adorable...and he melted her heart.
‘Could you unhitch that tray,’ Luke said, ‘so I can get him into his seat? Those catches baffled me.’
It took Whitney a couple of moments to get the hang of them herself, but she finally managed. After Luke had seated the baby, she clicked it in place again.
‘So...’ She stepped back, uncomfortably aware of his closeness. ‘What does he have for breakfast?’
‘Today, he’ll have a banana and toast, some milk...’
‘I don’t have any bananas—’
‘I’ve brought enough food to last him a couple of days. Then I thought,’ he went on as he took a brown bag from the fridge, ‘you might drive me into town and I can stock up on supplies. My credit was always good at Stanley’s corner store, so I’m sure it’ll—’
‘Jim Stanley died years ago. His store was bulldozed, and you’ll find a superstore there now. You’ll have to go to the bank, if you’ve no money...and get a loan.’
He toppled the contents of the bag on the table: a bunch of ripe bananas, a small loaf of bread, a container of wheat germ, a pint carton of skim milk. ‘To get a loan, a person needs collateral. Looks as if I’m going to be depending on you for supplies. But Troy and I don’t eat much—do we, monster?’ He grinned down at the baby, and the baby grinned back—showing two small white teeth—as if they were sharing some huge joke.
Whitney felt a violent surge of resentment. So...Luke thought he could stay on here, living off her own meager bank account.
No way.
He’d already peeled a banana and diced it. Now he dipped the squares in milk, rolled them in the wheat germ and began setting them on the plastic tray. Reluctantly intrigued—not only by the economy of Luke’s movements but by his lean, tanned fingers with their smooth rounded nails—she wanted to stay and watch. Instead she set his coffee mug on the table along with the creamer and sugar bowl.
‘I’m going through to the living room,’ she said crisply, as the baby with intense concentration picked up a banana morsel. ‘I have some phone calls to make—’
‘You’ll be calling Maxwell, I guess, and asking him to make enquiries about me. Let me save you both some time.’ After wiping his hands on the seat of his jeans, Luke dug into his hip pocket and took out his wallet. Extricating a couple of business cards, he slapped one down onto the table. ‘Dale Gregg—loan officer at the bank where I stash my money...when I have any, and—’ he tossed the second card down on top of it ‘—Elisa Thomson, a lawyer who’s done some work for me recently. They both know my current financial status. I’ll phone them as soon as I’ve fed Troy, and ask them to cooperate with Maxwell when he calls. They’ll give him all the info you need.’
Whitney picked up the cards and read the addresses.
She looked up at him. ‘You’ve been in California, all this time?’
‘Land of surf and sun bunnies.’
‘A beach burn.’
His only answer to her scornful comment was a slanting smile.
‘So,’ she went on, ‘you’ve nothing to show for your thirteen years away but a tan, an empty bankbook, and—’
‘And a baby.’
Whitney shook her head. ‘Unbelievable.’
‘Isn’t he, though?’
‘Unbelievable that someone with your potential could have screwed up so badly,’ she snapped. ‘It’s commonplace to hear about the self-willed teenage girl who runs away from home because she refuses to live by the house rules—only to come back with her tail tucked between her legs and an illegitimate baby in her arms. It’s unusual to see a reversal of roles...but your case is a perfect example—’
‘You mean—’ his blue eyes were wide and innocent ‘—someone took advantage of me and got me pregnant?’
‘—and it’s people like you who are ripping apart the very fabric of North American society—’
‘Oh, I think that’s a bit of an exaggeration! I’m only—’
‘—with your irresponsible behavior! You want to have your fun, but when things go wrong, you want somebody else to bail you out. Bad enough you behave that way when you’ve only yourself to look after, but when you have a child—’
The baby whimpered.
Whitney jerked her head around and felt a stab of dismay. His little mouth was turned down, his lower lip was trembling and his tear-filled eyes were fixed on her with a look that said better than any words: ‘How could you!’
Which was exactly what she asked herself.