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She would walk Meg, and then she would have an early night. Not that she was expecting to get much sleep—her father’s operation was scheduled for early in the morning and would take up the major part of the day. Once it was over, though, he should start to make rapid progress, or so the specialist had said. She could only pray that he was right. If anything should happen to her father… Suddenly and inexplicably, she longed for Kyle to be there with her. She needed his strength to lean on, she admitted, surprised by the discovery. The phone rang on the wall beside her, and she lifted the receiver hesitantly.
‘Heather?’
She gave a small start.
‘Kyle. Where…where are you?’
He sounded so close that he might almost have been in the next room. She heard him laugh.
‘New York. But I should be back some time tomorrow evening. How’s your father?’
‘Apprehensive, but determined to go through with it.’
‘Good…I spoke to your mother earlier. She knows that they’re doing the right thing, but naturally she’s worried. I only wish I could be there with you…’
‘So do I.’
Was that really her saying that? Kyle must have been surprised, too, because she caught his indrawn breath and startled silence.
‘You almost sounded as though you meant that.’
How well she recognised the mocking derision in his voice, but for once she was too tired, too worried to respond to it in kind.
‘I do,’ she told him honestly, her voice low and pained.
There was another silence and then he said mockingly, ‘Can this really be the Heather I know and love, actually wanting my company? What’s happened? Caught you at a weak moment, have I?’
His mockery jolted her back to reality. She almost slammed the receiver down on him, and then caught herself in time. The tears that had been threatening cleared as though by magic, her tiredness falling away, her voice suddenly crisp and acid as she responded in kind. ‘You must have done, but it’s gone now.’
‘So you don’t want me to fly home on the next available flight to hold your hand, after all?’
His voice was still mocking, but there seemed to be an odd degree of seriousness behind the mockery. Dismissing it, Heather said flippantly, ‘No way!’ And then for good measure, she added, ‘Actually, if I need any hand-holding done, you seem to have a neighbour who’d be quite happy to oblige.’
Heaven alone knew what made her make that silly little boast, however true it might be. There was silence from Kyle’s end of the line, and then when he spoke his voice sounded distant and cold.
‘I take it you mean David Hartley?’ he demanded, his voice hardening.
‘Yes, we met when…by chance,’ she amended hastily, not wanting to admit the demise of the van or the lateness of her arrival.
‘Don’t be deceived by that mock-naïve farmer’s boy air, Heather,’ Kyle told her curtly. ‘David Hartley is already responsible for the arrival of one illegitimate child, and I dare say he wouldn’t be averse to fathering another, not if local gossip is anything to go by.’
All the breath hissed out of her lungs. Surely Kyle wasn’t telling the truth? David hadn’t looked the type… She paused, confused and disturbed. Why was Kyle telling her this, anyway? She and David Hartley were nothing more than mere acquaintances!
But she had stupidly implied that out of that acquaintanceship a deep intimacy could easily grow, she admitted, angry with herself for her folly, and Kyle had always had an overdeveloped sense of responsibility where she was concerned.
She could still vividly remember the way he had waited up for her long after her parents had gone to bed, after her first adult ‘teenage party’.
She was just about to make some comment when suddenly and clearly she heard a feminine voice in her ear.
‘Kyle, darling,’ it purred impatiently. ‘How much longer are you going to be?’
‘Heather…’
‘Oh, don’t let me keep you,’ she said acidly. ‘And please try to remember, Kyle, I’m not thirteen any more, and I don’t need you to act the role of big brother and guardian of my morals.’
With that, she slammed the phone down, her good intentions forgotten. How dared he sit in judgement on David, when he was just as bad? What was she like, the woman who called him ‘darling’ so confidently?
It was none of her business, she chided herself. Besides, she was probably as anonymously beautiful and plastic as all the other women who had passed through his life.
