Snowfire

’I—think so,’ she answered now, finding it difficult to say the words with his anxious eyes upon her. She struggled to sound optimistic. ‘Look at it this way—it’ll be a fresh start. And—where your Uncle Philip lives sounds really beautiful. Imagine being able to swim all the year round!’

’I don’t want to go.’ Conor’s response was desperate. ‘I want to stay here. Why can’t I stay here? This house is mine now, isn’t it?’

’Well, yes, but—–’

’There you are, then.’

’Conor, you can’t stay here alone!’ It wasn’t as if her grandmother still lived next door. Last year Mrs Holland had had a stroke, and she had been moved into a retirement home. The cottage had been sold, and Sally had said they hardly knew the new occupants.

’Why can’t I?’ he demanded now. ‘I’ve stayed here on my own before.’

’Not for weeks you haven’t,’ replied Olivia flatly, finding it impossible to sustain his cornered gaze. ‘Conor, you’re only fifteen—–’

’Sixteen,’ he interrupted her swiftly. ‘I’ll be sixteen in three months.’

’No, Conor.’

’Then why can’t I come and live with you?’ he demanded, seizing on the idea. ‘I wouldn’t get in your way, honestly. I could get a job—–’

’Conor …’ She sighed. ‘Conor, you have to finish your education. It’s what your parents would have wanted.’

’In Florida!’ His lips twisted.

’Yes.’ Olivia knew she had to be firm.

Conor sniffed. ‘I see.’

’Oh, don’t say it like that.’ She couldn’t bear his defeated stare. ‘If there was anything I could do—–’

’—you’d do it. I know.’ But Conor sounded horribly cynical. ‘I’m sorry. I should have realised. You’re going to be a hotshot lady lawyer! The last thing you need is a raw kid hanging around your apartment, cramping your style, when you bring clients home—–’

’Conor, I don’t have an apartment, and you know it,’ she protested weakly. ‘I have a room in a house that I share with three other women. It’s just a bed-sit, really. And there’s no way you could live there.’

’Well, why can’t you get something bigger? Something we could share? I’d help with the rent—–’

’No, Conor.’ Olivia squashed that idea once and for all. ‘I’m not your guardian,’ she explained gently. ‘Your Uncle Philip is. Even … even if it were possible—which it’s not,’ she put in hurriedly, ‘he wouldn’t allow you to stay with me.’

’And aren’t you glad?’ Conor’s expression changed to one of bitterness. He swung away from her, thrusting aggressive hands into his trouser pockets, rounding his shoulders against an unforgiving fate. ‘I bet you can’t wait to get in your car and drive away from all this, can you?’ he exclaimed scornfully. ‘It’s not your problem, so why get involved? I don’t know what you came here for. You can’t help, so why didn’t you stay away?’

’Oh, Conor!’

Olivia’s composure broke at last, and, as if her grief was all that was needed to drive a wedge through his crumbling defiance, he turned back to her. For a few tense moments he just stared at her, and she saw the glitter of tears on lashes several shades darker than his hair. Then, with a muffled groan, he flung himself into her arms.

He was shaking. She could feel it. And his thin, boyish frame seemed even bonier than she remembered. One of the neighbours had told her he hadn’t eaten a thing since he had learned that the plane carrying his mother and father to Paris had exploded over the Channel. He had borne it all bravely, but inside it was eating him up.

’I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ he muttered at last, dragging himself away from her. He rubbed the back of his hand across his cheek, looking at her rather shamefacedly. ‘I’ve wet the collar of your blouse.’

’It doesn’t matter.’ Olivia wished the dampness she could feel against her neck was all she had to worry about. ‘I just wish there was something I could do. Your mother was my best friend. I don’t want to let you down.’

Conor’s lashes drooped to veil eyes that were presently a watery shade of green. He had long lashes for a boy, and they did a successful job of hiding his feelings. Dear God, why had this had to happen? The Brennans had been such a close family. They had come to live in Paget when Keith, who was a physiotherapist, got an appointment at the hospital in nearby Dymchurch. Sally, meanwhile, had been content doing social work and looking after her garden, and Conor had been the centre of their universe …

’What time are you leaving?’ he enquired abruptly, and she guessed what it must have cost him to ask that question. But he knew, as well as she did, that it would take her some time to drive back to London. And now that the nights were drawing in again …

’Um—pretty soon,’ Olivia answered now, putting out her hand to brush a thread of lint from his jacket, and then withdrawing it again as he flinched away from her touch. She linked her hands together instead in an effort to control her own anguish, and glanced behind her. ‘I—you will write and let me know your address, won’t you? You know where I live, and I’m looking forward to hearing all about Port Douglas.’

Conor shrugged. ‘If you like.’

There was a flatness to his tone now, an indifference, and inwardly Olivia groaned. It was foolish, she knew, but the thought of leaving him, of not seeing him again for God knew how long, was tearing her apart, and she realised she had to get away before she gave in and said something she would regret. He couldn’t stay with her. There was no way she could support herself and a boy of his age. And it was no use toying with the idea of abandoning her legal training, getting a job down here, and offering to live with him, in this house, as a kind of guardian-cum-housekeeper. Philip Cox would never allow it. And, in any case, the house was probably going to be sold to pay for Conor’s education.

Biting her lip, she took a steadying breath. ‘So,’ she said, striving for control, ‘you’re going to be all right?’

Conor’s mouth twisted. ‘Of course.’

Olivia hesitated. ‘You do—understand?’

Conor shrugged. ‘Does it matter?’

’Of course it matters.’ Just for a moment Olivia lost her hard-won detachment, and a little of her own frustration showed in her voice. ‘I want you to be happy, Conor. And you will be. Believe me!’

CHAPTER ONE (#u01c17df0-6021-5d2c-91a4-0372f18c7d16)

THE small hotel, part of a row of wood-faced Tudor-type dwellings, many of which owed their origins to the days when the Cinque Ports provided ships to fight the Spanish Armada, stood at the end of the quay. Of course, the old buildings had been much renovated and repaired since Elizabethan times, but the Ship Inn’s low doorways and timbered ceilings were too attractive to tourists to be replaced, however inconvenient they might be.

Not that Paget attracted as many visitors as Romney, or Hythe, or Dymchurch. It was too small, for one thing, and, for another, the salt-marshes were not suitable for children to play on. But, as a fishing village that hadn’t altered drastically since the sixteenth century, it was one of a kind, and many visitors, Americans particularly, came to take photographs of its ancient buildings and cobbled streets.

But at this time of the year there were few tourists stalwart enough to brave the east wind that came in over the marshes. The first weeks of February had been wild and blustery, and only that morning there had been a sprinkling of snow over the fishing boats lying idle in their stocks. Storm warnings had been out all along the coast, and the few fishermen willing to venture out into the choppy waters had been driven back again by the gales.

Standing at her bedroom window, her head stooped to accommodate the low lintel, Olivia felt no sense of regret at the inclement weather. On the contrary, it suited her very well that she did not have to put on a sociable face when she went down to the tiny dining-room for breakfast. She hadn’t come to Paget for familiarity or company. She didn’t want to talk to anybody, beyond the common courtesies politeness demanded. Because he hadn’t recognised her name, the landlord had assumed she was a stranger here, and it had suited her to foster that belief. As far as Tom Drake was concerned, she was one of ‘them crazy Londoners’, she was sure. Who else would choose to come to Paget while winter still gripped it in its icy grasp? Who else would book a room for an unspecified period when it was obvious from her appearance that she would have benefited from a spell in the sun?

Of course, the fact that she looked thin and pale and tended to drag her left leg might have given the staff other ideas, Olivia acknowledged. After all, this was hardly the sort of place to come for a rest cure. Perhaps they thought she had some awful terminal illness and had come to Paget to die. It was impossible to speculate what they might think, but in the week that had elapsed since she came here they had respected her privacy and left her alone.

And Olivia was grateful. In fact, for the first time in more than a year she actually felt as if she was beginning to relax. Her leg was still painful, particularly if she walked further than the doctors had recommended. But her appetite was improving a little, and she didn’t always need barbiturates to sleep.

Her lips curled slightly as she accorded that thread of optimism the contempt it deserved. Imagine needing drugs to enjoy a night’s rest, she thought bitterly. She was thirty-four, and she felt at least twenty years older!

But her low state of fitness was not entirely unwarranted, she defended herself. The shock of learning that Stephen had been unfaithful had barely been blunted when the accident happened, and weeks spent in a hospital bed had served to exacerbate her sense of betrayal. If she’d been able to carry on with her work, lose herself in its legal intricacies, she might have weathered the storm fairly well. It wasn’t as if her marriage to Stephen had been ideal from the outset. It hadn’t, and it had taken her only a short time to acknowledge that she had allowed her biological clock to induce her into a situation that was primarily the result of pressure. Pressure from her friends, pressure from her peers, but also pressure within herself at the knowledge that she was twenty-nine, single, and facing a lonely future. In consequence, she had allowed herself to be persuaded that any marriage was better than no marriage at all, and it wasn’t until the deed was done that she had realised how wrong she was.

She couldn’t altogether blame Stephen. Like herself, he had been approaching an early middle age without a permanent companion, and, if some of his habits had been a little annoying, and his lovemaking less than earth-moving, she had determined to make the best of it. No doubt there were things she did that annoyed him, too, and if her grandmother had taught her anything, it was that life was seldom the way one wanted it to be.

But, predictably enough, she supposed, it was Stephen who tired of the marriage first. And, equally predictably, she was the last to find out. Perhaps if her job had not been so demanding, if she had not spent so many evenings visiting clients or preparing briefs, she would have noticed sooner what was going on. But Stephen’s job in wholesaling meant that he was often away overnight, and it wasn’t until a well-meaning friend had asked if she had enjoyed her mid-week break in Bath that she had been curious enough to examine their credit-card statements more closely. What she had found was that Stephen often occupied a double room on his nights away, and that, while this was not so incriminating in itself, another receipt, showing dinner for two at a bistro in Brighton, was. Olivia knew that Stephen had purportedly gone to Brighton to attend a delegates’ conference, and the presentation dinner that followed it had supposedly been a dead bore.

When she confronted him with her suspicions, he had tried to deny it. For all the inadequacies of their marriage, he had still wanted to maintain the status quo. It had suited him to have a wife who wouldn’t divorce him hovering in the background. It gave him an excuse not to get too involved, and he’d enjoyed the thrill of forbidden fruit.

For Olivia, however, the idea of continuing such an alliance was abhorrent to her. She wanted out. She had learned her lesson, and she wanted her freedom, and Stephen’s pleas to give him another chance only filled her with disgust.

Nevertheless, although she moved out of the apartment they had shared in Kensington, Stephen had continued to hound her. Even though she employed a solicitor in another partnership to represent her, Stephen insisted he would fight the petition in court. And Olivia knew, better than anyone, how messy such divorces could be. And how ironic that she should be caught in such a situation which could only be damaging to her career.

In the years since she had become an articled solicitor she had gained a small reputation for competent representation. She still worked for the large partnership with whom she had trained, but her obvious abilities had not gone unnoticed. There was talk of a junior partnership, if she wanted it, or the possibility of branching out on her own. Neither option would benefit from adverse publicity of any kind, and Olivia knew Stephen would do anything to embarrass her. He was bitter and resentful, and, incredibly, he blamed her for their estrangement. He was not going to let her go easily, and his threats were a constant headache.