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Children, even very young ones, were dismayingly quick to pick up on things like that and to suffer through it, Claire knew, often blaming themselves for the problems between their mothers and fathers.
A small sound from upstairs checked her and she paused to listen to it... Was it the baby crying?
As she went towards the door she heard the sound of a car pulling up outside.
Brad? She had expected him to telephone her, not to come straight back. A small flutter of apprehension gripped her stomach.
This would be the first time they had seen one another since last night—the first time since... But this was not the time for her to become involved in her own feelings; she...
She tensed as the kitchen door opened and Brad came striding in. When he saw her anxious expression his forehead creased in a frown and he hurried towards her.
‘Claire, what is it? What’s wrong?’ he asked, starting to reach for her as though he was going to take her in his arms, Claire recognised, her throat tight with emotion, her colour starting to rise self-consciously as she fought the temptation to move closer to him, her body already reacting to his presence, his proximity, to its need to recreate the intimacy they had shared last night, its need to encourage the physical bond it wanted to establish between them.
Claire acknowledged how easy it would be simply to close the distance between them, to walk into his arms as though it was her right to do so.
Against her will she found herself looking at his mouth, her glance lingering on it betrayingly as she felt her own lips start to tremble slightly. Last night’s intimacy had left her so sensually, so sensitively attuned to him that she could almost feel the warm pleasure of his mouth on hers.
‘Claire...’
The hoarse urgency with which he said her name brought her back to reality, her body tensing as she heard sounds from the hall.
‘Brad—’ she began warningly, but the door was already opening and Mary-Beth was rushing into her brother’s arms, erying emotionally,
‘Oh, Brad, thank the Lord you’re here...’
‘Mary-Beth...?’ Claire could hear the surprise in Brad’s voice as he held his sister and looked questioningly at Claire over her head. ‘What...?’
Quietly Claire left the room and closed the door behind her. They would have things to say to one another that needed to be said in private, without her.
She could hear the baby starting to cry and moved instinctively towards the stairs to go and comfort him.
When she went into the bedroom Tara had obviously just woken up.
‘Where’s my mommy?’ she asked Claire uncertainly.
‘She’s downstairs talking to your uncle Brad,’ Claire told her, and then asked, ‘Do you know where the spare nappies are? I think your brother needs changing.’
‘Nappies?’ The little girl’s face creased in confusion whilst Claire quickly tried to recall the American word for what she wanted.
‘Diapers,’ she remembered with relief, then gently but firmly involved Tara in the job of cleaning and changing her small brother, deliberately drawing it out as long as she could to give Mary-Beth a chance to talk to Brad. Claire suspected that she would not want Tara to overhear what she had to say to Brad about her husband’s infidelity. The little girl was obviously already distressed enough by what was happening.
As Claire picked up the now dry and cooing little boy to give him a cuddle she saw the way Tara kept glancing anxiously towards the door and guessed that she wouldn’t be able to keep her distracted for very much longer.
To her relief she heard the kitchen door opening and Mary-Beth’s and Brad’s voices on the stairs.
‘Mommy,’ Tara demanded as soon as her mother came into the bedroom, ‘when are we going home? I want my daddy...’
Mary-Beth had obviously been crying and Tara’s mouth started to tremble ominously as she looked at her mother. It was Brad who saved the situation, following his sister into the room and swinging the little girl up into his arms, saying cheerfully, ‘Hello, pumpkin...’
‘Uncle Brad... Uncle Brad...’ Tara squealed in obvious pleasure, hugging him tightly round the neck.
‘I’ll get on to the airport and see how quickly they can get you a return flight,’ Brad was saying to Mary-Beth over Tara’s head.
‘I’m not going back—not on my own, not without you,’ Mary-Beth insisted.
‘Mary-Beth, I’ve already explained why I can’t come with you,’ Brad told her firmly. ‘I have commitments here.’
‘Maybe, but they aren’t as important as your commitment to your family; they can’t be, Brad,’ Mary-Beth told him quickly. ‘You know the uncles will understand. I need you.’
Claire could see that Brad was frowning.
‘Mary-Beth, I can’t.’
‘Then I’m not going back,’ she told him determinedly. ‘Not on my own.’
‘Abe—’ Brad began, but Mary-Beth refused to listen.
‘I don’t want to talk about him, or to him.’
‘You have to talk,’ Brad told her quietly. ‘For the kids’ sake, if nothing else. He is still their father and he does have certain rights—’
‘He has no rights. He lost those the day he started fooling around with that—that...’ Mary-Beth had started to protest bitterly but Brad shook his head warningly as Tara looked at her mother in anxious concern. ‘If you want me to talk to him then you’re going to have to be there too,’ Mary-Beth insisted.
Claire could see that Brad wasn’t too pleased about his sister’s demands.
‘There’s no way I want to so much a
s see him again after what he’s done...’ she announced.
It was plain to Claire that Brad’s sister’s temperament was as tempestuous and fiery as her dark red hair suggested, and there was no doubt also that she was deeply hurt by her husband’s infidelity. Beneath her very obvious anger Claire could see the misery and pain in her eyes.
‘You said Abe denied being involved with anyone else,’ Brad was reminding her. ‘He said—’
‘He would say that, wouldn’t he?’ Mary-Beth derided bitterly. ‘He knows what he stands to lose. Oh, Brad, how could he... I thought he loved me... us...’
Tears welled up in her eyes and Tara, seeing her mother’s distress, started to cry noisily in sympathy.
‘Would you like me to take the children?’ Claire offered quickly. ‘You must both still have things you need to discuss...’
‘I’ve said everything I want to say,’ Mary-Beth said fiercely. ‘I don’t care what you say, Brad; there’s no way I’m going back to him and I didn’t come all the way over here to have you make me...or to listen to you defending what he’s done. I thought you’d be more understanding...more sympathetic...’
She was crying in earnest now. Quietly Claire held out her arms to Tara, trying not to let the revealing flush of pleasure she could feel heating the pit of her stomach flood betrayingly into her face when Brad smiled at her with appreciative relief as he handed his niece over to her.
‘I want to stay with my mommy...’ Tara started to protest as Claire took hold of her, but Claire had enough experience from her work at the school to know how to deal with her apprehensive need to remain with her mother.
‘Do you?’ she said calmly. ‘Oh, dear. I was hoping you’d come downstairs with me and help me make some special bis...er...cookies. I expect you’re very good at baking, aren’t you?’ she asked.
‘Yes. I’m very good,’ Tara agreed, and then asked, ‘What kind of cookies?’
