Reclaimed by the Ruthless Tycoon Page 2

Kevin’s chuckle reached her from the other end of the wire. ‘That’s impossible, I’m afraid, Kate. Nuclear power is here to stay, and that’s a fact of life. If we can just get them to adopt a more aware attitude to the possibilities I’d be well pleased. As soon as I find out who the new Director is I’m going to invite him round for dinner. I was hoping you might cook it for me and play hostess,’ he added, coaxingly. ‘Mrs Mac is all very well in her way, but she isn’t a patch on you. It will give you an opportunity to put forward your views as well,’ he added. When Kate agreed he thanked her and rang off, explaining that it was his evening on call and that he couldn’t stay too long on the phone in case any emergency calls came through. At least Kevin wasn’t like Jake, Kate thought when she had replaced the receiver. He accepted that she had her own views and listened to them, but pleasant though he was Kevin did nothing for her sexually; he was a pleasant, attractive man in his mid-thirties, and she liked him as a friend, but there was none of the electricity Jake had generated. Jake had been thirty when she first met him and even then there had been a forcefulness about him, a raw maleness that alarmed even when it aroused, and she had been young and silly enough to be excited by the fear his potential to dominate and master had aroused inside her. It was only later that she had learned to despise that need to dominate and to despise herself for ever wanting it.

  It was quite late when Meg returned. Kate was already in bed, but she heard her come in, and she was shocked to discover that she was wondering if Meg, like her, ever missed the warm male presence in her bed at night.

  * * *

  ‘SO WHEN’S the wedding to be?’ They were in the shop sorting out the jumpers Kate had collected the previous day, the solitaire diamond on Meg’s left hand winking brightly as her fingers moved deftly through the pile.

  ‘Oh, not until next summer. In the lull between lambing and shearing,’ Meg twinkled, flushing a little as she added half shyly, ‘I still can’t believe I’ve been so lucky. David and I married young and I was so happy with him. I thought I’d never get over his death, and I certainly never dreamed I’d find the kind of happiness with anyone else that I’ve found with Matt.’

  ‘I’ll have to start looking for someone to work in the shop after Christmas,’ Kate told her. ‘Any ideas?’

  ‘What about Lucy?’

  Lucy was Matt’s daughter, a pleasant plump girl of seventeen. ‘She wants to find a job, and Matt and I both think she’s far too young to leave the valley yet. She was thinking of going for secretarial work and finding herself a job at the plant, but she’s a marvellous knitter, and rather on the quiet side.’ Meg glanced thoughtfully at Kate. ‘You know, Kate, the girls at the youth club would enjoy a few lessons from you on the design aspects of knitting. You stay in far too much, and this bee you’ve got in your bonnet about the station. Most of the people round here welcome it. There’s the jobs, for one thing…’

  ‘They welcome it because they have no other choice,’ Kate said fiercely, ‘Do you think they would honestly welcome it if they knew that it could maim and kill their children; that the mere existence of places like Greenham means that Russian missiles are constantly directed towards this country…’

  ‘Ebbdale doesn’t have a missile base,’ Meg told her quietly, ‘It has a nuclear power station, and missiles give protection as well as making us a target.’

  ‘With multilateral disarmament missiles wouldn’t be needed,’ Kate argued, but Meg merely sighed.

  ‘Oh, my dear,’ she said softly, ‘human beings aren’t like that. Can’t you see? You only have to look at children, any group of children, to see the tendencies that are inside all of us to dominate and manoeuvre. Wonderful though it would be if human beings could live in peace with one another, first we all have to be capable of giving and receiving absolute trust, of making ourselves acutely vulnerable, a fundamental something which the majority of the human race is incapable of doing, the flaw that makes us human.’

  Even though part of Kate knew that Meg was right, stubbornly she refused to admit it. These arguments were old and much used ones, but that did not make them right. How vividly she remembered how she had felt when Jake talked about them having a child. A child who would be forced to live and grow under the threat of the nuclear holocaust his own father had helped to build against him. And if that threat was not averted, and there was war, how many generations into the future would be maimed and diseased because of it? It didn’t bear thinking about.

  A phone call from one of their knitters on one of the more remote hill farms had Kate setting out in her small car immediately after lunch to collect the jumpers she had ready. It took her about an hour to reach the farm, and she was warmly greeted by Beth Carr as she got out of the car and walked across the cobbled yard.

  A heavenly scent of baking bread greeted her when she followed Beth into the kitchen. Cookery was another skill Kate had developed since coming to the Dales. When she lived with Jake they had often eaten out, or she had bought convenience foods. ‘Umm, one of the best smells on earth,’ Kate commented as Beth indicated one of the chairs beside the fire.

  ‘I finished the last jumper last night,’ Beth told her, ‘and I’m afraid I won’t be able to do any more for a while.’

  ‘Oh, Beth!’ Kate was surprised when Beth turned towards her, her plump face wreathed in smiles.

  ‘It’s happened at last,’ she told her proudly. ‘I’m having a baby. After all these years, Pete and I had stopped hoping, but Dr Hargreaves has confirmed it, and from now on all my knitting will be white and small.’

  ‘Beth, I’m so pleased for you.’ Kate knew how unhappy Beth had been at her inability to conceive, and was genuinely pleased for her, even though it meant losing one of her best workers.

  ‘I think I’ve found you another knitter, though,’ Beth told her cheerfully. ‘Pete’s cousin—she lives out Highmoor way. I was getting that worried about telling you I couldn’t do any more, Pete went down and asked her. Said he wasn’t having me fretting myself into flinders. Not now.’ Her hand rested fondly against her stomach and Kate was attacked by the most acute sense of pain and deprivation. What on earth was the matter with her? ‘We were happy enough before, I suppose,’ Beth said softly, ‘but there’s nothing like knowing you’re carrying your man’s child inside you. Sort of makes you feel complete, somehow. And as for Pete…’ she gave a warm laugh, ‘well, he’s like a dog with two tails and no mistake. Anyone would think no man had ever had a child before, but then it takes some of them that way, I suppose, and we’ve waited that long.’

  For some reason Kate was glad to escape from the warmth of the farm kitchen, glad of the cold biting wind from the east that burned into her still vulnerable skin and brought the sting of tears to her eyes. What on earth was the matter with her? she asked herself bitterly as she wrenched the car round and headed back towards the road. Just for a moment then in the kitchen she had wished…no, longed, to be able to share Beth’s happiness, to feel Jake’s child inside her, with a feeling just as intense as that she had experienced when she had denied him. She could barely understand her own emotions. It was as though a stranger had suddenly appeared inside her skin, masquerading as her. She hadn’t wanted Jake’s child because she couldn’t bear to think of bringing a child into the world in which they lived—besides, there had been Jake’s arrogant assumption that he could impose his will on hers; that he could simply announce that they would have a child and that was it! He hadn’t so much as consulted her. Treating her like a child, refusing to listen to her views…calling her an idealistic adolescent.

  * * *

  ‘UMM, YOU MISSED a treat,’ Meg told her when she got back. ‘Rita’s just left. She was full of the man who’s taken over from Henry Cousins at the station. You should have seen her, she was practically drooling over him! According to her he’s superman and Apollo all rolled into one, and very, very macho with it.’

  ‘They should make a good pair, then,’ Kate said snappily. She didn’t care ve
ry much for Rita Sutcliffe, the daughter of Woolerton’s wealthiest man. She was reed-slim, blonde, with the instincts of a tigress defending her kill when it came to men, and Kate and Rita had never got on together. Rita had openly taunted Kate for her views about the station. As far as Rita was concerned, it was a new source of men, and since Rita much preferred being a large fish in the very small pool of Ebbdale to living as a very small fish indeed in London, new men were always of interest to her. She was a sensual egotist who made no secret of her enjoyment of the same sort of hedonistic life so much enjoyed by Lyla, and Kate knew that secretly Rita despised her just as much as she disliked the other woman.

  ‘I’m sure they will if Rita has anything to do with it. You didn’t tell me that Kevin is planning to throw a “welcome to Woolerton” dinner party for him? Rita was most put out to learn that Kevin has asked you to act as his hostess for it.’

  ‘Primarily because he wants me to do the cooking,’ Kate assured her dryly.

  ‘Umm. Our dear Rita might be a Cordon Bleu between the sheets, but in the kitchen she’s a real no-hoper!’ They both laughed. ‘By the way,’ Meg added, ‘Rita bought one of the new sweaters. You might not like her,’ she added to Kate, ‘but she’s good for business. We got at least half a dozen sales from the last one she bought. Her father has influential friends all over the Dales, and Rita gets around.’

  ‘In every sense of the expression,’ Kate agreed sardonically. She would have to ring Kevin to find out exactly what arrangements he was making for this dinner party. She grimaced. Rita couldn’t have been too pleased to discover that Kevin had asked her to be his hostess. Until her arrival Rita had looked upon Kevin as very much a member of her court, and she hadn’t appreciated his defection. Not that she needed to worry. Kevin did nothing for her except as a friend. Jake had called her a delightful little sensualist, but that part of her nature seemed to have died with her love for him, and certainly she doubted that any man would see anything sensual about her now, she reflected, studying her reflection subjectively in the mirror which hung in the shop. Small, barely five foot four, her jeans clinging to hips that were almost boyishly slim, accentuating the fullness of breasts Kate had always privately thought too full. Her face, free of make-up, was almost triangular in shape, her eyes large and slightly almond-shaped, a dark, dense sapphire colour, oddly exotic in the creamy pallor of her skin. With her chestnut hair tumbling down round her shoulders she looked closer to eighteen than the twenty-four she would be next month, and Lyla would have a fit if she could see the way she was dressed. Her aunt had always insisted on her wearing sophisticated and expensive clothes. That was one thing she could say about Lyla, she had never stinted when it came to money. Why, the wedding dress she had bought her…

  Kate heaved a sigh. She was dwelling far too much on the past. It wasn’t good for her, especially when she had vowed to put it all behind her. But Jake had been furious about that dress she couldn’t help remembering, saying it was far too sophisticated for her, and demanding to know why pale peach when she had every right to wear white? She could remember how worried she had been, worried about offending Lyla and worried because Jake was so annoyed. She had told him she was still a virgin the day he proposed to her, or rather he had proposed after she had told him. And that in itself ought to have been a warning, only she had been too bemused to see it. According to his views he had probably been doing the honourable thing, marrying her instead of merely making love to her, but in the long run it would have been kinder simply to have taken her innocence, initiated her into womanhood and then gone…kinder and far less painful than a marriage built on desire on one partner’s side and infatuation on the other. Even while adoring him she had resented him, Kate reflected, savouring the knowledge, knowing she had never realised it before. She had resented him for inhabiting a world which was still barred to her, for being adult and experienced, for controlling her as though she were a wooden puppet on a string, for eliciting responses from her body she hadn’t known they could feel…the list was endless.

  ‘Kate, phone,’ Meg called. ‘It’s Kevin. He wants to talk to you.’

  ‘It’s all fixed, Kate,’ Kevin told her. ‘Next Wednesday, if that’s okay with you. I spoke to Harvey myself. He seems quite a pleasant sort, but extremely decisive… Kate? Are you still there?’

  Part of her was, Kate thought numbly, the rest was still trying to come to terms with what Kevin had just said. ‘Did he…do you know his first name?’ she croaked.

  ‘His first name?’ Kevin sounded puzzled. ‘Oh yes, let me see. It’s Jay…or…’

  ‘Jake,’ Kate supplemented, having known the answer long before Kevin gave it. It was too much of a coincidence to expect another man in Jake’s field to share his surname.

  ‘Yes, that’s right…heard of him, have you?’ Kevin chuckled. ‘I’ve warned him about you. Our anti-nuclear firebrand!’ Her palm was moist where it came into contact with the phone. ‘By name?’ she managed through a dry aching throat, ‘or merely by reputation?’

  ‘Oh, by name,’ Kevin told her. ‘He wanted to know who his fellow guests were to be.’

  ‘Yes, he would, and that meant that she could hardly back out now. How he would gloat if she did, knowing that she had preferred flight to fight. Dear God, Jake here! How could it have happened? How could the fates have chosen with such fine irony, destroying the fragile shell she had built for herself? Was Jake planning to turn Ebbdale into a missile storehouse? Her lip curled bitterly. This time she wouldn’t let him toss aside her arguments and destroy all her objections. This time she would show him… And she would start by hostessing Kevin’s dinner. She would show Jake that he couldn’t exert any power over her any longer. She was free and she was adult. Ex-husbands and wives met on countless of thousands of occasions these days; there was nothing of any note in it.

  It was only as she replaced the receiver that the final irony struck her. Rita’s fabulous new man was her husband. So why did she feel more like howling than laughing? And Jake, what was he feeling right now? Nothing, she assured herself tartly, she knew enough to know that in fact he was probably deriving sadistic amusement from the potential of the situation. He must have known she was up here. Lyla would have told him, just as she had kept her informed of his movements. Poor Lyla, for all the fact that she had been married so often herself she had never ceased to try and get them back together, but she had ignored all her well-meaning hints, and presumably Jake had done the same. The last she had heard about him was that he was working in the States, and she had half expected that he would make his life out there. Perhaps he had found the powerful pressure of the American lobbying groups too much for him, she thought grimly, wondering as she did so if she wasn’t being a little too sanguine. Nothing would be too much for Jake; he was tough and he was enduring, and he would relish the conflict.

  Just for a moment she contemplated flight, but the moment was quickly gone. She had built a life here, she would still be here when Jake had gone on to the next prestige appointment. She would not be panicked into flight. Woolerton was now her home, she was accepted, she had friends; tolerant, kind friends who even when they didn’t share her views permitted her to express them, and listened politely, friends who didn’t dismiss her as a fractious child, and she wasn’t giving them up because of Jake!

  CHAPTER TWO

  KATE SHOPPED for Kevin’s dinner party with special care, telling herself that it was quite natural that she should want to impress, but refusing to admit that it was Jake the man her efforts were aimed at and not Jake Harvey, Director of the Nuclear Power Station.

  Two other couples had been invited, and Rita, and Kate wasn’t entirely surprised when the other girl called into the shop and dropped casually into the conversation the fact that Jake was collecting her.

  ‘I hope you’ve got something decent to wear, darling,’ she murmured when she left. ‘I’ve told Kevin to make it formal. We don’t get enough opportunities to dress up in these benighted
parts. He tells me he’s taking you to the Hunt Ball?’ She smiled and inspected her nails, almost purring with pleasure as she drawled, ‘Jake’s taking me. Daddy always makes up a party and of course we’ll be going with them. He’ll be spending the night with us of course.’

  For ‘us’ read ‘me’, Kate thought cynically when Rita had gone. Really, it was almost farcical; there was Rita telling her that she intended spending the night with Jake, not realising that Jake was her husband. Not that she cared who he spent his nights with. She had once, though. Dear God, the pangs of jealousy she had endured, too insecure and vulnerable to deceive herself that Jake cared for her alone, every beautiful woman who glanced at him was a potential rival, and many had glanced at him, and more.

  Kevin’s father had been Woolerton’s doctor before him and his house, which was simply referred to as ‘the doctor’s house’, was a four-square Victorian building just off the High Street, a brick wall enclosing the lawned gardens. The house was still furnished as it had been during Kevin’s grandparents’ time and he had given Kate carte blanche as far as the dinner party was concerned. It wasn’t the first time she had cooked for him, and Mrs MacDonald, who came in to do his cleaning, promised to wash and iron the damask tablecloth Kate unearthed and to help polish the Victorian silver.

  ‘Got some lovely things, the doctor has,’ she sighed as she and Kate worked together in the old-fashioned kitchen. ‘Wasted on a man, they are.’ A speculative glance followed the words, but Kate didn’t rise to the bait, and with another sigh, this time one of disappointment, Mrs MacDonald returned to her polishing.

  Rather appropriate for a sheep-rearing area, Kate had decided to serve rack of lamb with the accompaniment of a special sauce she had discovered in one of Kevin’s grandmother’s cookery books. The first course was to be melon sorbet, made with a puree of the fruit of the melon and cream which was then frozen to the texture of ice cream. She had also decided to serve a fish course and had opted for fresh salmon. To follow the rack of lamb there would be chocolate soufflé which she knew Kevin loved and some delicate meringue swans which looked attractive but which were relatively simple to make. A cheese board and a selection of fresh fruit would take care of those guests who eschewed a sweet finale to their meal.