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MILLS & BOON
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Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
Copyright
CHAPTER ONE
‘I’M THINKING of selling Cherry Trees,’ Helen’s father had told her.
Sell Cherry Trees, the house she had been born in, her home until she was nineteen, the place where her mother had, sadly, spent so many months of illness, before finally succumbing to that illness eight years ago. Sell the home that had meant so much to them all over the years? Never!
Of course, she didn’t need two guesses as to who had put the unheard of before idea into her father’s head. Caleb Jones. The man who actually wanted to buy Cherry Trees.
She had heard nothing but ‘Cal Jones’ this and ‘Cal Jones’ that since the man had moved on to the old Rawlings Estate six months ago. Her father seemed to think he was wonderful, had spent many an evening playing chess with him over the months, and so, consequently, he had talked a lot about Mr Caleb Jones during her regular Sunday evening telephone calls to him.
And she had made her own enquiries about the man. What she had learnt certainly hadn’t endeared him to her. Or rather, it was what she hadn’t learnt about him that bothered her so much.
She wasn’t interested in the personal life of the man, although according to her father Caleb Jones was a cross between a saint and the Good Fairy, having taken on the guardianship of his young nephew after his parents had died. And his business dealings seemed to be a closed book. Or too much of an open book.
As a highly placed accountant in London, she had enough contacts in the business world to enable her to discreetly obtain the information she wanted. Oh, there was information enough, but it was all just a little too neat and tidy as far as she was concerned, Caleb Jones was either exactly what he appeared to be, a financial genius, or he was a crook. Nothing but one of the two extremes could have made possible the meteoric rise to the successful millionaire businessman that Caleb Jones was at only thirty-nine. And, despite her father’s admiration for the man, Helen didn’t believe it was the former.
A man like that wasn’t going to buy Cherry Trees if she could possibly prevent it.
Which was why she was driving down to her home on the Hampshire coast for the weekend to try and dissuade her father from the idea.
Sell Cherry Trees!
She still couldn’t believe her father was even considering it!
Caleb Jones had to have exerted some pressure, even if it was only that of supposed friendship, to have got her father to go even that far; he had always claimed in the past that he would never leave the house which, although once the old gatehouse of the Rawlings Estate, had been his home since he’d married her mother thirty years ago.
It was only since Caleb Jones moved on to the estate and began to work on him that he had even contemplated changing his mind. Well, he was about to find out that David Foster’s daughter wasn’t as gullible to his ruthless charm.
Not far to go now. She had been aware of the freshness of the sea air for some miles, had her side-window down in the heat of the July day, knew that she was even now turning down the narrow hedge-sided lane that edged one side of the Rawlings Estate.
It was a vast estate, comprised of thousands of acres, covered all of the land between here and the sea, was one of the last big private estates left intact in England. And now it all belonged to Caleb Jones.
Except the rambling old house that had once been its gatehouse.
Caleb Jones. Even the man’s name conjured up visions of a Godfather-like figure, sitting back smugly among the luxury of the earnings that, on the surface, seemed to have been acquired too cleanly. Not that one of the people she had spoken to about him had made one derogatory remark or cast one suspicion on him. But it was this very lack of open maliciousness that made her so wary; in a business world like London that just wasn’t natural. Not natural at all…
What the——?
Her foot moved desperately to the brake pedal as something wandered across the lane in front of the car. Her panic turned to complete horror as she realised it wasn’t a small animal as she had first suspected, but a very small baby toddling along on unsteady legs!
She turned the wheel sharply to the left, badly shaken as the car came to a shuddering halt on the grass verge, turning quickly in her seat to see the baby picking itself up after a slight stumble, completely unaware of the narrow escape it had just had if its proudly pleased smile was anything to go by.
Helen quickly released her seatbelt and scrambled out of the car, her only thought now to scoop the baby up out of harm’s way before another vehicle came innocently around the corner and perhaps didn’t manage to avoid hitting the tiny dungaree-clothed figure.
Dark blue eyes widened indignantly as Helen lifted the baby up, the pink rosebud of a mouth setting mutinously at what was obviously an unwanted interruption to what had been turning out to be a great adventure.
Once she reached the side of the lane Helen found herself looking into a face so angelically beautiful that it gave her heart a jolt. Above the rose-bud mouth was a tiny button nose, and the dark blue eyes were fringed with long black lashes that fanned down against rosily healthy cheeks as the baby blinked up at her curiously.
Above the heart-shaped face was a riot of jet-black curls of such a length that it was difficult to tell whether the child was a boy or a girl. The dungarees were certainly no indication; children’s clothes seemed to be unisex nowadays. And the parents could in no way be blamed for the indulgence of allowing the glossy black curls to grow so long even if it were a boy; it would be almost sacrilege even to think about cropping such a crowning glory.
But where were the parents? The child couldn’t have walked that far on these unsteady little legs, and Helen knew from having lived here most of her life that there were no houses in the near vicinity. But she had to find the parents somehow, couldn’t just drive off with the child and not——
‘Sam? Sam! Lord, Sam, where the hell are you?’
Helen could hear the panic in the male voice, knew the still rebellious bundle squirming about in her arms had to be the missing ‘Sam’.
‘Over here,’ she called out firmly, crossing the road in the direction of the voice.
The father. It had to be. The likeness between the two was unmistakable, the riotous dark curls, the dark blue eyes, the latter on the man anxious with the desperate worry he was obviously suffering at the disappearance of his child.
‘Sam!’ he gasped, having eyes for no one but the child. ‘Thank heaven!’ His face was pale, his hand shaking visibly as he ran it through his hair, running across the road, taking the eager child into his arms to bury his face in its throat, murmuring words of assurance and thanks for the baby’s safe recovery.
Helen took advantage of these brief few minutes to take a closer look at the father. His hair was slightly wet to look at, the blue and black checked shirt he wore also appearing slightly damp, as if he had been exerting himself beneath the hot sun before the disappearance of his young child.
Well, whatever he had been doing at the time, he had no right to have been doing it when it had obviously distracted his attention from keeping the necessary watchful eye on his baby; she was still shaking from the horror of almost running the tiny child down!
The man, finally reassured that no bodily harm had befallen the child, looked up at Helen. ‘I can’t thank you enough——’
‘Thank me!’ Helen repeated harshly, breathing heavily in her agitation as delayed shock began to set in; she could have killed this adorable baby! ‘What on earth were you doing allowing the child to wander off in that way?’
‘Look, I understand you’re upset——’
‘Upset?’ she cut in again, green eyes bright with anger. ‘I don’t think upset even begins to cover it,’ she dismissed scathingly. ‘I could have—could have——’ She broke off shakily, breathing deeply. ‘Don’t you realise I actually had to swerve to avoid hitting the baby?’ Her voice was slightly shrill.
The man paled again, turning slowly to look at her car parked at an awkward angle on the side of the road. ‘I hadn’t realised…’
‘Obviously not,’ she snapped.
‘I was hedge-cutting when——’
‘You had no right to bring a small child out here with you when you’re working,’ Helen reprimanded him incredulously, too disturbed herself at the moment to feel remorse for the way her bluntness had caused that almost grey tinge to the man’s skin.
‘I had him in a play-pen,’ the man attempted to explain.
‘Obviously not securely enough,’ Helen bit out impatiently. ‘And I’m sure your employer can’t approve of your bringing such a young child to work with you.’
‘I think I should explain, Miss——’ Dark brows rose enquiringly over those deep blue eyes.
‘Foster,’ she supplied impatiently. ‘Although I don’t see what my name has to do with anything,’ she dismissed coldly. ‘I think your employer might be more interested to learn your name——’
‘I should have realised immediately that you’re David’s daughter,’ the man murmured thoughtfully, his eyes warm now. ‘You have the same colouring, and he did mention that you might be coming down this——’
‘The fact that you appear to have an acquaintanceship with my father doesn’t alter for one moment the fact that I intend to see that nothing like this ever happens again.’
‘You have to realise that it won’t,’ he protested cajolingly.
Helen’s mouth firmed. ‘I intend to see that it doesn’t,’ she told him coldly. ‘You may be known to my father but so is Mr Jones—and I intend to inform him of your irresponsible behaviour at the earliest opportunity.’
‘But——’
She held up one slender hand in a silencing movement. ‘I don’t want to hear any further excuses. For now I would suggest you take the baby home where it belongs, preferably leaving it with its mother, or at least someone with more sense than you appear to have——’
‘But if you would just listen to me——’
‘I don’t think you have anything more to say that I would care to listen to,’ she told him coldly. ‘Now if you’ll excuse me,’ she added with haughty dismissal, ‘I would like to complete my journey.’ Her father was just expecting her some time today and wouldn’t even realise she had experienced this delay, but she was feeling too sickened by the horrific accident that had almost occurred to want to talk to this man any more.
‘Of course.’ He nodded, looking more than abashed. ‘I really am sorry for what happened. There must be a fault with the play-pen——’
‘I would say it’s more probable that the baby managed to climb out of it in some way,’ she said disparagingly, one glance at the mischievous smile on the baby’s angelically innocent face telling her the child was more than capable of doing such a thing.
The man glanced down at the baby too, the fingers on one tiny hand pulling playfully at the dark hairs on his chest. ‘You could be right,’ he agreed frowningly. ‘I hadn’t noticed any fault on the pen itself earlier, I just assumed… I’m beginning to realise it doesn’t pay to assume anything with you, you little monkey!’ He tickled the baby’s tummy as he spoke, its shrill giggles quickly filling the air.
‘I’ll be on my way,’ Helen told him abruptly, turning on her heel.
A hand on her arm stopped her just as she reached the car, and she looked up at the man with coolly questioning eyes.
‘I really am grateful,’ he said gruffly. ‘If anything had happened to Sam…’ He re-pressed a shudder. ‘I couldn’t have lived with myself.’ He shook his head.
He wouldn’t have been able to live with himself! Dear lord, if she had harmed one hair on that baby’s head…
‘Just think yourself lucky that I don’t drive on this road often enough to risk speeding along it, otherwise we might have been having a vastly different conversation from this one!’ With that final verbal reprimand Helen got back into her car, firmly closing the door behind her to restart the engine, just wanting to be on her way now that the crisis was over.
She took one final glance at father and baby in her driving mirror before she turned the corner and they were no longer in view.
Irresponsible man, to let a young child wander off in that way.
She still hadn’t found out his name, but there couldn’t be that many men in this area that her father knew with those looks and an adorable baby like Sam. She wasn’t normally a person who interfered in other people’s lives, mainly because she never welcomed any intrusion into her own life, but what had happened this afternoon had been too serious to ignore, let alone forget.
She hadn’t relaxed at all by the time she had driven the two miles further on to Cherry Trees, turning in at the driveway of the mellow-bricked house, taking a few minutes after parking to just sit and look at her childhood home.
She never ceased to feel a warm glow whenever she came back to this house, probably because it had always been so much more to them all: the haven for her parents’ marriage, her own warm cocoon of childhood, the garden and surrounding trees that had given the house its name having been her own private playground.
The house itself was low and rambling, the bricks a mellow sandstone, the windows and twin balconies on the second storey, either side of the front porch, newly painted, she noted.
She had no doubt her father had done the painting himself, despite her request for him not to do so after the last time two years ago when he had fallen off the ladder and broken his ankle. Nagging him didn’t seem to get her anywhere, but she would have to mention it to him again anyway. Maybe just for once he might listen. He wasn’t getting any younger, for goodness’ sake, and it was about time he realised it!
As if her thinking about him had alerted him of her arrival her father stepped out of the house into the sunshine, and it was difficult at that moment to think of him as anything but young. The sunlight glinted on hair as golden blond as her own, his face still handsome and reasonably unlined despite his fifty-five years, his step jaunty, his body having retained the litheness of his youth.
‘Going to sit out here all day?’ he teased lightly, bending down to her open window. ‘I saw you from the balcony in my bedroom,’ he explained, frowning suddenly as he looked at her. ‘How long have you been wearing your hair like that?’
Helen could hear the censure in his voice, one hand moving up instinctively to smooth the neat plait that reached halfway down her back, a feathered fringe lightly brushing her brow. With this coupled with her tailored navy-blue skirt and neat white blouse, she knew she looked very businesslike. But that had been exactly how she had wanted to look when she’d got ready this morning. That her father didn’t like it she was left in no doubt.
‘A few months,’ she said dismissively, getting out of the car. ‘The house is looking marvellous, you must——’
‘I wish the same could be said for you,’ her father cut in bluntly. ‘You’ve lost even more weight. It isn’t attractive, Helen.’
‘Stop changing the subject, Daddy,’ she reproved impatiently, knowing exactly what he was doing. ‘You’ve been working on the house again when I specifically asked you not——’
‘Cal had someone come over and do it,’ he interrupted with steady patience.
Rather than being reassured by that information, Helen bristled resentfully. Oh, she was glad enough that her father hadn’t done the painting after all, but that Caleb Jones should have had a hand in it…
‘You should have told me it needed doing,’ she said shortly. ‘I would have arranged for someone to come in and do it.’
‘I told you, there was no need to trouble you. Cal——’
‘Caleb Jones obviously has his own reasons for wanting to keep this house up to a certain standard,’ she bit out curtly, her eyes flashing. ‘Which is precisely why I’m here, you know that.’ She swung her case out of the boot of the car, her movements very precise in her agitation.
‘And I thought you had come to see me,’ her father said self-derisively.
She straightened abruptly, sighing her disapproval of his levity as she saw his eyes twinkling with amusement. ‘This isn’t a laughing matter, Daddy.’ She shook her head.
‘I couldn’t agree more,’ he grimaced. ‘I haven’t even had my kiss hello yet!’
Her cheeks coloured hotly at the gentle reprimand. ‘I’m sorry, Daddy.’ She kissed him warmly on the cheek. ‘I had a horrible experience not fifteen minutes ago, and I don’t think I can be thinking straight yet.’
Her father immediately looked concerned, demanding to know the full story, waiting until they were seated in the comfort of the lounge drinking a much-needed cup of tea. She could see her father was as horrified as she over what had almost occurred.
He looked disturbed. ‘And the child’s name was Sam, you say?’
‘Mm,’ she nodded, shrugging. ‘I couldn’t tell if it was a boy or a girl, only that it was adorable.’ Her expression softened slightly at the thought of the tiny child.
‘He’s a cute little imp, all right,’ her father mused. ‘A real handful.’
Her eyes widened. ‘You do recognise who I’m talking about, then?’
‘Oh, yes.’ He nodded, looking at her closely. ‘Sam reminds me a little bit of Ben,’ he said softly, the statement almost a query.
Helen felt herself stiffen. It was purely instinctive, and yet she couldn’t help herself. Ben had been a long time ago. And yet she still couldn’t talk about him, not naturally, the way that her father now could.
‘Perhaps,’ she dismissed tightly. ‘But at the moment I’m more concerned with speaking to Mr Jones and making sure an incident like today never happens again.’ She knew she sounded pompous and prim, but the incident had been too serious to simply ignore and try to forget about.
Her father nodded thoughtfully. ‘Speaking to Cal should definitely ensure that.’
Helen looked at him frowningly, a little disturbed about the way he said that. ‘I don’t want to get this man into trouble, or anything like that. But you have to realise how dangerous his behaviour could have been.’
‘Of course I can,’ he agreed unhesitatingly. ‘Cal will too.’
She didn’t feel at all reassured by her father’s attitude. ‘He won’t sack the man, will he?’
Her father raised blond brows. ‘Would it bother you if he did?’
‘Well, of course it would,’ she snapped irritably. ‘Jobs aren’t all that easy to come by in this area, and the man obviously has a young family to support and look after.’
‘He only has Sam,’ her father put in quietly.
‘Even so——’
‘Cal will give him the roasting he deserves,’ he said with certainty.
She had already done that, in no uncertain terms, and jobs weren’t plentiful in this particular area. Besides, she could still see that adorable little face looking up at its father so trustingly…
After all, she had already told the man exactly what she had thought of the whole incident, and she could tell by the stricken look on his face how affected he had been by it all, so surely that constant memory of what might have happened was enough. It certainly wasn’t likely to happen again, she was sure of it.
‘Perhaps it isn’t necessary to discuss it with Mr Jones after all,’ she said lightly. After all, she had plenty of other things she needed to talk to Caleb Jones about—talking about today’s incident would only confuse things! ‘He doesn’t really need to know about it,’ she decided with finality.
‘Hm,’ her father said thoughtfully. ‘There’s only one thing wrong with that, darling.’
‘Yes?’ she prompted sharply, not seeing what the complication was at all.
He nodded. ‘Cal already knows what happened this afternoon.’
‘You mean the man will have told him about it himself?’ Helen frowned at the thought of the man’s having gone to him so quickly.
‘Cal is the man, darling,’ her father explained huskily. ‘Sam is the nephew I told you about, the one he’s become guardian to. And I’ve invited Cal over to dinner tonight, so I’m sure he will want to talk to you again about what happened.’
CHAPTER TWO
CALEB JONES. How on earth could Helen have guessed that was Caleb Jones?
She had questioned her father’s certainty on the man she had met at the roadside’s possibly being Caleb Jones, describing him in great detail, only to have her father insist it had been him, that the adorable toddler was definitely the nephew he was guardian to.
The man she had met hadn’t looked thirty-nine, early thirties at the most, and he hadn’t appeared anything like the cynically hardened businessman she had expected. She couldn’t even imagine him in a suit and tie, and his hair was far too long to be considered ‘respectable’! But he had been resident on the estate most of the last six months, so that could possibly account for the untidiness of the latter.
But even so, it was hard to imagine that man with the overlong black hair, unlined face and muscled body as anything but the labourer she had first taken him to be.
And he was coming here to dinner tonight, before she had even had the chance to talk to her father about his idea of selling Cherry Trees!
Not that she doubted for a moment that the ploy had been deliberate on her father’s part, at least. He had been deliberately evasive on the subject since her arrival, carrying her case upstairs for her and insisting she must feel in need of a shower after her journey. She did feel hot and sticky, but the shower could have waited for a while, except that her father obviously had other ideas.
She could already tell he was going to be at his most stubborn this weekend!
Which was precisely why she had got herself ready for dinner early; she was determined she would talk to her father about selling the house before Caleb Jones arrived.
He was in the lounge pouring himself a pre-dinner drink when she got downstairs, as she had known he would be. There was nothing her father enjoyed more than half an hour or so’s leisurely relaxation with a glass of good whisky before he was due to eat.
He looked surprised to see Helen down so early, although there was none of the censure in his eyes for what she was wearing that there had been earlier. The classic plain black dress that moved silkily about her body as she walked was one of her father’s favourites. And she knew that, but if he wanted to play at being devious so would she!