The Collector's Edition Volume 1 (42 page)

“H
E’S
here, Mum!” Jamie’s excited voice rang through the house.

Rowena’s heart skittered. It was not quite ten o’clock. Keir was five minutes early. Not that it mattered. She was ready. They were all ready. But she couldn’t help worrying how Phil was going to react to her involvement with Keir Delahunty. Her ebullient mood of yesterday had wilted overnight.

She heard the front door open, Jamie running out to greet his father. His real father. Whom he had a right to know. Impossible to stop that now.

“Come on, Emily,” Sarah urged, her voice high with excitement, too. “The prince is here to take us to the castle.”

Rowena winced. She shouldn’t have embellished the fairy tale in Sarah’s mind. Maybe she was doing everything wrong.

“I’ll wait for Mummy.”

Sarah dashed through the kitchen to follow Jamie.

Emily hung back, unsure of her place in this new situation.

Rowena picked up her handbag from the counter. Her gaze fell briefly on the large crystal bowl of big black cherries. It had been delivered
by taxi yesterday afternoon. From Keir. He had remembered her favourite fruit. Flowers, cherries, the trust accounts, a house…She took a deep, calming breath. It was good to feel valued again, she told herself, even if it was a risky business.

She turned to Emily with an encouraging smile and held out her hand. “Keir is a nice man,” she assured her. “You’ll like him.”

“Will he like me?” Emily asked, trustingly slipping her hand into Rowena’s.

Rowena squeezed it lightly. “Of course. He has to or he’s not a prince.”

That was the truth of it, though Rowena instantly wished she hadn’t said it. This fairy tale business had to stop. It was too facile, too fertile a ground for future disillusionment. She didn’t want her children subjected to another, possibly worse, disappointment in their young lives. If Keir didn’t live up to the expectations he’d raised, how was she going to explain it all away, compensate?

As she and Emily stepped onto the front porch, he was coming up the path with Jamie and Sarah dancing around him. He was wearing blue jeans and a red T-shirt, and Rowena was instantly struck by a sense of déjà vu, Keir as a university student in happier times, coming to collect Brett for a football game or a cricket match, her at her parents’ front door, waiting to ask if she could tag along, too.

He smiled as he saw her, just as he always had, and her heart turned over. Keir…Then Jamie’s
and Sarah’s voices reminded her that time hadn’t slipped back, and the years of separation from that age of innocence made their former relationship irrecoverable. Emily’s little hand gripped hers more tightly. It rammed home that the past was gone.

“Good morning,” Keir greeted them warmly, his gaze sweeping from her to the little girl hugging her side.

“Hello, Keir,” Rowena returned as naturally as she could. “This is my daughter Emily.”

“I’m happy to meet you, Emily.” He crouched to be more her height. “What lovely blue eyes you have!”

“They’re like my daddy’s.”

“So they are.”

“Do you know my daddy?”

Rowena tensed. Emily was clearly fixated on her father and holding Keir at a distance.

Keir gave her a reassuring smile. “Yes, I know him. He works with me.” The open establishment of a link made him less of a stranger.

“I’ve got green eyes like Mummy,” Sarah piped up.

“I noticed that, Sarah. They’re lovely, too,” Keir assured her.

“Your hair is the same as Jamie’s,” Emily said, stepping forward to touch the cowlick at his left temple.

Keir laughed. “Well, I guess we’ve all got a bit of everyone. That’s what families are like.”

“Yes, they are,” Emily agreed, pleased at having found a familiarity that made Keir properly acceptable.

Rowena’s inner tension eased. The initial awkwardness with Emily had been smoothed, and Keir had managed to end it on a positive note.

He straightened to include Jamie in the group. “Now what I need to know is can you all swim?”

“Mum and I can but the girls can’t,” Jamie informed him.

“Aren’t we going to the castle?” Sarah demanded.

“We most certainly are, but the castle has a moat.”

“Keir,” Rowena reproved.

“I mean the house has a swimming pool,” he swiftly corrected, but the whimsy was still there as he added, “It doesn’t matter if you can’t swim because we can float across it on a raft, but you will need swimming costumes. Have you got some?”

“Yes,” they all shouted and dived into the house, Emily as eager as the other two.

“You look breathtakingly beautiful in green,” Keir said softly.

It caught Rowena off guard. She flushed. The emerald-green linen skirt with gingham trim on its pockets, teamed with a white T-shirt and a matching green overblouse, was the kind of smart-casual outfit she had thought suitable for today’s outing. She hadn’t expected a compliment, hadn’t anticipated the warm male appreciation
in Keir’s eyes. It made her feel nervous, unprepared.

“I thought we were looking at a house,” she said.

“We are. I own it, so we can do as we please. If you and the children like it, it’s yours.”

Just like that! Speechless, Rowena searched his eyes and found nothing but steady conviction. “I didn’t mean it,” she said in helpless agitation. “Not really.”

“I do.”

He was serious. Deadly senous. Rowena flailed around for an adequate explanation for the way she had behaved, the wild demands she had made. “It felt like everything was crashing around me, Keir. And Phil…”

“I’ve spoken to Phil. You have nothing to worry about, Rowena. He accepts that I’m seeing you and the children. He sees quite a lot of advantages to him if you marry me.”

“You told Phil you were going to marry me?” Rowena squeaked. Keir was moving too far, too fast.

“I informed him it was what I wanted.”

“What about what
I
want?” Her mind whirled chaotically around the image of Phil happily shifting all his responsibilities over to Keir, not only Jamie but…“Our home. He’ll sell it up.”

“I’ll provide you with another home, Rowena.”

The affirmation of his seriousness threw her into total panic. “But that ties me to you, Keir,
and I’m not ready to make such a huge decision. You can’t expect it of me. We…it’s been so long and…and there’s the children…”

“Rowena, you’re tied to me anyway. Through Jamie,” he stated quietly.

That was true. She steadied for a moment. That was unavoidably true. And she could no longer count on Phil for anything. He had undoubtedly passed the buck to Keir. But
she
was not going to be passed to him. Keir had better believe that.

Her eyes flashed a fierce autonomy. “Don’t take me for granted, Keir.”

“I don’t. I never will,” he replied gently.

The soft, caring expression in his eyes reduced her insides to mush. A deep yearning welled up, making her chest ache. A passionate cry filled her mind.
Please let it be true. Please
…

“What about towels?” Jamie called out.

“No need,” Keir called back, not missing a beat.

The immediate practicalities of the present snapped Rowena out of the thrall of emotional need. She had to be wary of a rebound effect from Phil’s desertion. She had to take stock, be sensible, not surrender to the weakness of leaning on Keir just because he was here and offering her all his strength. How could she know it wouldn’t be a mistake that she’d rue as time went on?

“Rowena, why not relax and simply enjoy the day?” Keir suggested quietly. “There’ll be no pressure from me. Not for anything.”

“Promise?” It sounded hopelessly childish, the kind of thing she’d said to him in their teens when she’d desperately wanted him to grant her a favour.

He grinned. “Promise.”

Did he remember, too? His grin was like a burst of sunshine, warming her with the happy beams of the past, making her feel like a teenager again. And this was their first date, just Keir and her, without Brett…without Phil.

The children broke the dreamy bubble, rushing out of the house, urging her to get her swimming costume so they could go. As she went to collect it, she told herself very sternly to keep her feet firmly planted on the ground. Keir had always been attractive to her. He still was. But that didn’t mean everything in the garden was rosy.

She automatically stuffed her costume, a comb and sunblock cream in a beach bag while she tried to calculate the dangerous pitfalls in Keir’s plan. She would lose her independence if she accepted Keir’s house.

It was different with this home. She felt she had earned half of it over her years of marriage to Phil, and he owed the rest of it to their daughters. It was his choice as much as hers to have a family, and he shouldn’t be able to slide out of it now.

It offended Rowena’s sense of justice.

No doubt Adriana would profit by it, too, and that scraped raw wounds. What had the wicked witch ever done to deserve to pick up the fruits
of Rowena’s hard work?
Love Phil as he wanted to be loved,
came the sobering answer.

Rowena sighed away the pain of it. She had to stop thinking of Adriana as the wicked witch. If Phil hadn’t wanted Adriana, nothing would have happened. The plain truth was Phil regarded her as the wrong woman for him, and he had certainly proved the wrong man for her.

Better to concentrate on Keir.

He was definitely going too fast for her. She didn’t want to reject him, but she did want to slow him down as far as big commitments were concerned. It was important for her to have time to sort herself out and figure out her best future course.

It was an easy matter not to like his house, she decided. There was sure to be something wrong with it, unsuitable for the children, too small a kitchen, a shower stall instead of a proper bath. That was enough to stop Keir from putting the property in her name, which he might be mad enough to do. The experience with the trust accounts demonstrated he was not fooling around.

Satisfied she had wrested back some control of her life, Rowena emerged from the house to find the children already packed into the back seat of Keir’s BMW. Keir was standing by the open front passenger door, waiting for her. Rowena’s heart skittered again as she locked the door of the house that represented her marriage to Phil Goodman. Somehow it seemed fateful.

R
OWENA
loved
Keir’s house.

Set on a battleaxe block of land and overlooking a nature reserve leading down to Lane Cove River, it was constructed in a widened U shape to take full advantage of the view. The high central section made an impressive entrance, with tall columns flanking the front doors. Rowena was fascinated by the graduation of roof levels that ran down the two wings of the house. The entire roofline was suggestive of a phalanx of birds rising up to the sky. She knew intuitively that Keir had designed it.

“It’s big,” Jamie commented.

“Castles are always big,” Sarah said authoritatively.

“Will we get lost in it?” Emily asked, her insecurity showing.

“No,” Keir assured her with a warm smile. “Once you see how it’s planned inside, you’ll know how easy it is to get where you want to go, Emily.”

They entered a spacious foyer backed by a wall of panelled Western red cedar. Dominating it was a breathtaking Pro Hart landscape, spotlighted for immediate impact. Keir ushered them to the right, where a gallery overlooked a wonderful,
homey living area, leather lounges, television set, a log fireplace, thick fluffy mats on the slate floor, a breakfast setting in front of glass doors that opened onto an extensive sundeck, and behind the foyer wall a state-of-the-art kitchen and pantry, which left absolutely nothing to be desired.

“This is the heart of the house, Emily,” Keir explained. “You start here and always come back to here. Now if we go farther along the gallery we come to the bedroom wing.”

There were four bedrooms, two with private ensuites and two sharing a bathroom that had both bath and shower facilities. The master bedroom featured a walk-in wardrobe, and the cupboard space in the other rooms was more than ample. The wing also contained a laundry with every convenience, a boxroom for extra storage and a private study with a computer, photocopier and fax machine.

Jamie’s eyes lit up at seeing the computer. “Do you play games on it, Keir?” he asked eagerly.

“No. But we can soon buy some, Jamie,” came the obliging reply.

“Great!”

A father-and-son activity was cemented. It was just what Jamie needed, Rowena thought, and becoming familiar with computers also had to help with his education for today’s world. Whatever else happened, it was good, for Jamie’s sake, that he had gone to Keir.

Rowena could find nothing to criticise. It would be very easy to be seduced by Keir’s castle, she reflected, as he led them to its heart and then down the left wing. A powder room off the foyer was followed by the formal dining room and lounge. Both had a casual elegance that pleased the eye without being intimidating.

The piece de résistance was the completely enclosed pool and spa room, which also had a bar, a change room with piles of towels and an adjoining shower and toilet. Comfortable cane furniture was spread around for easy entertaining. The entire area was roofed with fibreglass shingles to let in the sunlight. The walls were mainly of glass bricks, and a profusion of ferns and exotic plants gave it a wonderful, tropical atmosphere.

Keir had every conceivable safety aid ready for the children, floaties to go on the girls’ arms to make them unsinkable, inflated tyres and rafts. Simply for fun he also supplied a water polo ball and plastic ducks and boats. The children were wild to instantly try out “the moat,” clamouring to get changed as fast as possible. Which, of course, meant Rowena and Keir getting changed, too.

Rowena suffered some initial disquiet at seeing Keir nearly naked in his brief, black swimming costume. The sheer male beauty of his body had always had the power to set her hormones racing, and it was disconcerting to find it was no different now. It made her acutely aware of her own body, clad only in a sleek yellow maillot, but the
self-consciousness gradually eased under Keir’s relaxed and friendly manner.

The water was heated to a lukewarm temperature. It invited swimming. With no initial chill factor to overcome, it made slipping into the water a real pleasure. Keir helped with the girls, laughing and playing with them, teaching them how to move their arms and legs to propel themselves around the pool. They were soon confident of manoeuvring themselves to wherever they wanted to go. Jamie teased them into being braver.

“This is marvellous, Keir,” Rowena happily enthused as she watched the girls frolic like born waterbabies with Jamie pretending to be a submarine. “What made you think of an indoor pool?”

They were sitting on the steps that led into the water, ready to go to the rescue if needed.

She turned to him quite naturally, appealing for the answer that hadn’t come. “I don’t remember swimming being a passion for you.”

His smile held a touch of irony. “I guess it became a habit. The kind of injuries I had led to a lot of hydrotherapy. And swimming was the best exercise for strengthening my leg muscles again.”

She had noticed the faded but still discernible scars on his legs and wondered how many operations it had taken to put everything right. It had been a long time since she had considered
how much pain he had suffered, not only physical but emotional, as well.

“What was in the letter you wrote me, Keir?” she asked, suddenly impelled to know, to understand what he had felt in those sad, broken months following Brett’s death.

He grimaced.

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want,” she said quickly, realising she had contravened the new-start agreement and not really wanting to dredge through the past again. It wasn’t fair, after all this time. People did change. She had changed. Probably for the worse, she thought ruefully.

“I wanted to know how you were,” he answered slowly, as though feeling for the words. He scooped up a handful of water and watched it trickle through his fingers. “I knew Brett’s death would have hit you hard,” he continued. “The shock and the grief, the sudden empty hole in your life. It worried me…how you were coping. With everything.”

With him gone, as well? Had he any idea how much she had missed him? He lifted his gaze to meet hers, and the deep, dark regret in his eyes made her heart miss a beat. It also convinced her he spoke the truth as he went on.

“It worried me that I hadn’t used any protection on New Year’s Eve. I hadn’t planned what happened between us that night, Rowena. You were simply irresistible to me. Afterwards…Well, I asked you in the letter if you’d fallen
pregnant. And to contact me immediately if you were.”

“What would you have done if I had?” she asked, glad he had thought of the risk they’d taken and the possible consequences.

“Got my parents to fly you to the States so we could plan what was best for you.”

“No marriage?” she mocked lightly, disappointed with the answer.

“I didn’t think it would be right to tie you to me in the circumstances, Rowena,” he said softly. “It was more likely than not that I’d be crippled for life.”

“Oh!” She turned away as she felt the hot burn of a flush race up her neck. He had been thinking of marriage, but caring more about
her
future.

“I also wrote, if you weren’t pregnant to get on with your life, go to university as you’d planned and do your arts course. Since it might be a very long wait before I could come back to you, I said to feel free about going out with other guys and having fun. I wanted you to enjoy all there was to enjoy because that was what being young was for, exploring life and finding out what you really wanted.”

“Didn’t you believe I wanted you?” she asked in a very small voice, wishing she had never started this conversation.

“Rowena, I didn’t want you to waste the years if I could never walk again.”

“And that’s why there was only one letter,” she said sadly. “You set me free.”

“I thought I’d done that, yes.”

She had to know it all now, had to know the truth. “How long did it take for you to walk again?”

“Eighteen months. I worked very hard at it so I could come back to you.”

“Then why didn’t you?” She turned to him with anguished eyes. “What were the good reasons, Keir?”

“Rowena…” He didn’t want to tell her. She could see the reluctance, the uncertainty over her reaction. Then he took a deep breath and said, “Your parents…”

“Go on,” she urged.

His eyes focused intensely on hers, willing her to listen and accept what he said. “They showed me a photograph of you with a baby in your lap. There was a man crouched beside you. They said you were married, Rowena.”

Her heart stopped. She had the numb sense of totally suspended animation. Her mind floated back, and she could see it—the terrible turning point in her life, Keir’s life, that her parents had forced upon them in their bitter vendetta against Keir, the photograph she had sent them in the hope of healing the rift with the gift of their grandchild. And it was her cousin, Aunty Bet’s son, who had been squatting beside her, playing with Jamie’s toes to make him smile. She could see it all. And then her mind shattered under the dreadful enormity of what had been done to them.

The lie—not Keir’s, her parents’. And she had accused him, blamed him, rejected him out of hand for dismissing her from his life. The awful injustice of her behaviour towards him rushed in on her. And still she hadn’t killed his feeling for her. She couldn’t bear the shame of it, the guilt. Tears spurted into her eyes.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” she gulped, then turned and fled into the pool, swimming hard, thrashing the water with her arms and legs, her chest hurting with so much pent-up feeling, her heart bleeding from all the might-have-beens.

She reached the other end of the pool. There was nowhere to go, nowhere to hide. She clutched the ledge just below the water level and tried to catch her breath. The water erupted around her as Keir’s head and shoulders emerged from it.

“Mummy won!” she heard Sarah crow.

“Keir gave her a good start,” Jamie pointed out.

“But Mummy won,” Emily said with pride.

Rowena felt proud of nothing. She hadn’t won. Too much had been lost.

“It’s not your fault,” Keir said in a low, intense voice.

She looked at him with agonised eyes. “But I said…I thought…”

“It’s not your fault, Rowena. It was your parents’ doing. And they’re probably not going to like any reconciliation between us, either.”

“They’re dead.”

“How? When?” He looked concerned.

“My father said my mother died of a broken heart. That was when Emily was one. My father then proceeded to drown his sorrows and his liver. He died last year.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m not. I’m glad they’re dead,” she said savagely. “I’d never forgive them if they were alive. They had no right to interfere so…so—”

“They were hurting,” Keir cut in quietly. “Some people can’t ever put the hurt behind them, Rowena. If you can’t forgive them, you’ll never be able to put it aside and move on, either.”

How could he be so understanding when…?

“They’re beyond hurting now,” he softly pointed out. “Let it go, Rowena. Let it all go. We can make a new start.”

“Can we? Can we really, Keir?” She felt as though her life was a total mess.

“Just give us time, Rowena. You’ll see.”

He was so sure, so confident, it eased some of the sick churning inside her. If he could forgive and forget, maybe she could, too.

But the sense of having been cheated of the life she should have had remained with her, and it was difficult to maintain a facade of good humour for the children, who were unaware of what had transpired between Keir and herself.

The excitement and exercise in the pool soon made them hungry. They changed into their dry clothes and Keir led them out to the sundeck in front of the kitchen where he barbecued sausages, which he served with an array of tempting salads
and crispy bread rolls. This was followed by ice cream, scooped into cones for easy licking. It was a relaxed and happy family luncheon, thoroughly enjoyed by the children. Even Emily’s blue eyes sparkled at Keir.

He should have been their father, not just Jamie’s, Rowena couldn’t help thinking. She was haunted by the words Keir had thrown at her.
Is it my fault that the woman I loved married someone else? That the children I wanted with her are Phil Goodman’s?
Would he ever be able to forget the girls were Phil’s and treat them as his own?

He was good with them. Would he always be?

She felt a fierce love for her daughters. Even though Phil was their father, they were very much part of her. Keir had said that, too. Maybe he could put aside the fact they’d been fathered by another man. On the other hand, Phil had seemed to do so with Jamie, but when it had come to the crunch…

But Keir was different to Phil. It wasn’t fair to judge him by another man’s failings. Despite the passage of all these years, Keir remained steady in his love for her. Or was he clinging to a dream that had been lost a long time ago?

Time. Time would tell. She had told Jamie that.

“I wish I could swim like Jamie,” Emily said with a wistful sigh.

“Would you like me to teach you?” Keir offered.

“Can you?” Her eyes lit with hope.

“Well, I taught your mother when she was a little girl.”

“Did he, Mummy?”

“Yes, he did, Emily.” How she had adored him, even as a little girl. He had been kinder and far more patient with her than her brother, Brett.

“Can you teach me now? This afternoon?” Emily pressed.

“We could have your first lesson. It might take a few before you take off like a mermaid,” Keir warned.

Emily giggled. “Mermaids have tails, Keir.”

“Legs are probably better,” he returned with a grin.

He hadn’t lost his giving nature, Rowena thought warmly.

They cleaned away the luncheon dishes and returned to the pool. Sarah was flagging, ready for her afternoon nap. She was happy to curl up on one of the cane lounges and watch Emily’s swimming lesson. Rowena sat with her. Jamie elected to help Keir by showing Emily how to follow his instructions. Learning how to float was the first step, and Keir quickly earned her trust.

“Is teaching Emily how to swim a brave deed, Mummy?” Sarah whispered.