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'Even worse!' He looked shocked, and she very nearly succumbed to his teasing. Just in time, she stopped the smile.
'David—'
'Let it go, Clare. You really don't want to pursue this.' And suddenly she didn't. He looked all too confident of where it would lead. She wished she had the kind of sophistication that could shrug off what just happened.
'Now, show me nicely to the door and give me a consoling goodnight kiss, and bear in mind when you wake up next morning that I've been incredibly self-sacrificing!'
Smug wretch! He didn't get his kiss, but it didn't seem to bother him. Clare could hear him chuckling all the way back down the hall to his room.
She went over and switched off the stereo, offering a silent apology to Lee's photograph on the back of the album cover.
If only Lee were here to protect her now. The trouble was that he wasn't, and she couldn't help remembering one of the last things he'd said to her, in the hospital, when he knew there was not much time left.
'Life is for living, Clare, you just remember that. You've gotta take your chances as they come. If you don't, you're only half living!'
CHAPTER SIX
'Hello, Tamara, have you seen Grace? She's not in the kitchen.' Clare didn't really hold out much hope of a positive answer from the figure scrunched in the huge, over-stuffed chair by the french windows in the spacious lounge. Tamara ignored people and things that she didn't like, and Grace was not in her good books. The cook's habit of responding in kind to surliness and bad manners was an unpleasant shock for someone who was used to more satisfying reactions of outrage and anger.
'No.' Tamara was frowning morosely at a layout of stunning models in one of the glossy fashion magazines that she had brought back from her last trip to Rotorua. Clare felt a tug of empathy. She, too, had mourned over the world's unreasonable expectations of feminine beauty when she was an adolescent—tall enough to be a model, but not thin or pretty enough. Temporarily abandoning her quest for the dinner menu, she wandered over to where Tamara sat and was about to make some wry comment about air-brushed fantasies when her eye was caught by a burst of activity down on the lake shore.
'What's going on down there?' David and Tim were jumping about on the grassy slope bounded by lake, lodge and bush, flapping their arms loosely, the small, sticklike figure of her son an absurd contrast to the solid, muscular man in a white polo-necked sweater and black jacket and jeans.
'I don't know,' said Tamara with airy indifference, not looking up and thereby revealing that she was very well aware of the two males outside. Had she been hoping that her father would look back up to the lodge and feel guilty at the lonely silhouette in the window, or was she really trying to follow Clare's advice at the gym, and struggling to assert her independence?
Clare nibbled her lip. 'Tim is supposed to be practising his violin. It's his sacred after-school ritual. I'm surprised that even your father could lure him away from it.'
'Dad doesn't have to lure. He just is,' his daughter said with a mixture of childish pride and adult resignation. Then she cast a sly look at Clare. 'People usually end up giving him what he wants. Especially women. It's embarrassing how far some of them will go to try and please him. But in the end he just pleases himself. You'll see… if he really wants to take Tim away to his school, he will… and have you helping him do it.'
Take Tim away. The words echoed in Clare's mind, as no doubt Tamara intended them to. When Tamara had discovered that her father had spent part of the evening two nights ago in Clare's suite, she had reverted to open animosity, until she had noticed that, far from improving the acquaintanceship, whatever had passed between them had stalled it. It had taken Clare a long time to get to sleep that night, and her dreams had been so full of forbidden music that she had been relieved to wake up the next morning. Her vulnerability had appalled her. She had behaved like the proverbial sex-starved widow. Thank goodness he had not taken advantage of her momentary weakness—although, far from being grateful to him, she was outraged. His self-control made her lack of it all the more humiliating. And he had the gall to suggest that her falling into bed with him was a foregone conclusion!
On the other hand, he hadn't renewed his attempted seduction since. On the contrary, he made no attempt to be alone with her or be anything but passingly friendly. That raised Clare's hackles, too. Either he was confident that she would eventually come begging for his attention, or he had had some deeper, darker motive for treating her like a desirable woman. Like Tim. He might not be able to take Tim away from her physically, but there were other ways to loosen the tie between mother and son. Could she trust David, as a confused parent himself, not to use a subtle form of propaganda to pressure Tim's young, impressionable mind into rejecting her parental authority? Or should she trust that other instinct—fear—which warned her to run like hell?
'Well, you may not be interested, but I am. Coming?' Clare opened the french doors and stepped outside, her shoulders set determinedly.
'No, thanks,' said Tamara, content with having stirred the pot. Now her father's playful idyll with the interloper would be broken up and Tamara hadn't even had to lift a finger. She could afford to feel virtuous.
Down at the lakeside, man and boy continued to imitate the birds who winged gracefully above the cold, still waters. As Clare neared their capering she could see Tim's face aglow, his breath whitening the cold afternoon air. He looked quite warm in his down jacket and jeans, but his hair and his sneakers were damp, and she could hear the faint rattle in his throat.
In spite of her determination to be casual, she was aware of the faint bite in her tone as she said, 'I think it might be a good idea if you came inside now, Tim. You know you're supposed to do your homework before you come out to play.'
'But I'm not playing. I'm practising!' He looked surprised at his mother's sharpness, and she couldn't blame him. Usually she was pleased to see him enjoying himself in the fresh air.
'For what? Flying?' Clare refused to look at David, preferring to pretend she wasn't aware of him with every nerve cell in her body
.
'David is showing me some relaxation exercises. He always does them before he plays. He told me to call him David,' he added quickly as he saw his mother frown at the familiarity.
To her annoyance, David moved up beside the boy and put a casual arm across the thin shoulders, as though protecting him. 'Usually I'm called plain Deverenko by my students, but I didn't think that would fit in with Tim's description of your notions of propriety.'
He made her sound like a prig, but politeness was essential when one lived in a hotel. Clare looked at him, her eyes as cool as the mist beginning to form on the lake behind them. 'Besides which, Tim is not one of your students,' she pointed out succinctly.
He inclined his head in silent amusement at her tartness, and the word yet vibrated silently between them, causing the tension in Clare's stomach to coil tighter. He looked uncompromisingly masculine in the soft black leather jacket, with a dark shadow of re-growth on the hard jaw and a glitter of challenge in the dark gaze. His eyes flickered down over Clare's simple grey tailored dress with its flared skirt, cuffed collar and long sleeves. It was very demure, and the white lace bra and briefs she wore underneath were equally demure, so why did she suddenly feel sexy from the skin out? Unconsciously Clare pressed a nervous hand to her chest, and when David's eyebrows rose she snatched it away, angry at the defensiveness the gesture had revealed.
'Well, I think you've done enough for today,' Clare redirected her wayward thoughts to her small son. 'It's getting pretty cold and damp out here and I don't want you catching a cold. Run in and get out of those damp clothes, and I'll get you a hot drink from the kitchen. Then you can settle down to your homework.'
'But I haven't done my practice piece yet. David is going through it with me. He was just showing me how to breathe and loosen up my muscles. And I'm not cold, really I'm not. Feel.'
