LITMIR.BIZ

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those green eyes.

      Apart from those green eyes, who did that direct look remind her of? No need to guess. ‘My sister is abroad on business for six months. In her absence, I’m her daughter’s guardian.’

      ‘Hmph!’ It seemed, as he gave another quick glance to his watch, that Jack Dangerfield had all the information he required. ‘I’m late for my appointment,’ he told her shortly, and appeared about to stride off.

      ‘Mr Dangerfield!’ She stopped him, her voice sharp in her moment of anxiety. ‘I can’t leave it like this! I—’

      ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to. If you’ve written to me your letter will be on file,’ he stated. And, already on his way, ‘My PA will contact you,’ he added.

      ‘But—’ Leyne protested anyway—a totally wasted exercise. He was gone and she was speaking to herself.

      Feeling door-slammingly frustrated, and not a scrap further forward, and doubting very much if she would be hearing from either Jack Dangerfield or his PA, Leyne went to her car and drove home.

      When she had calmed down sufficiently she rang Dianne Gardner and explained she was home earlier than expected and would collect Pip shortly.

      ‘No need if you’ve work to catch up on,’ Dianne assured her, aware that Leyne quite often worked from home. ‘The girls are fine, and, to tell the truth, having Pip here as her guest seems to bring out Alice’s better manners.’

      Realising she must be referring to the stroppy phase Dianne had told Max that Alice was going through, Leyne put down the phone and glanced at the work she would complete before morning.

      She did not start work straight away, however, but thought back to her meeting with Jack Dangerfield. Though in actual fact it had been more a mutual ruffling up of antagonistic feathers than a meeting! Hardly a meeting either, since it had been none of his making but more his initial halting when she had planted herself full-square in front of him on that pavement.

      Leyne was not ashamed of what she had done. It was he who should be ashamed. How dared he deny paternity of Pip? Notwithstanding that they both had the same raven-black hair, one only had to look into those same green eyes to see the resemblance.

      How could he walk away? Just like that! While it seemed true that he’d had no idea of Pip’s existence until she had told him of his daughter, to walk off the way he had was inexcusable.

      Well, he needn’t think he could fob her off with his condescending ‘My PA will contact you’! She would give him a few days, a week at the most, and if she hadn’t heard from him by next Monday she would again be waiting for him when he came out from J. Dangerfield, Engineers.

      Leyne’s resolve to do just that was stiffened when, on collecting Pip and apologising for altering their usual end-of-school-day arrangement, Pip gave her one of her serious looks.

      ‘What was the hold-up?’ she wanted to know. Oh, crumbs. Leyne glanced at her raven-haired niece, but before she could make any reply, Pip, taking a deep breath, was plunging on, ‘Was it something to do with my father?’

      ‘Oh, darling,’ Leyne cried. That direct look was there in Pip’s eyes again. How could she lie to her? ‘I’ve—been making enquiries,’ she answered.

      ‘And?’

      As she should have known, Pip would not leave it there. ‘And I’m sorry, love, it’s still going to take some while.’

      ‘But you’re a bit further forward?’

      ‘Um—yes,’ Leyne had to admit, and felt as guilty as the devil when a beaming smile broke over her niece’s earnest expression.

      ‘When you do find out who my father is, will you arrange for me to meet him?’ she asked—and Leyne’s heart sank.

      She had no idea how long Pip had been nurturing a need to not only know who her father was but, as Pip’s grandmother had said, would want to meet him too. But it seemed to Leyne then that the least she could do would be to prepare her for the fact that her father was trying to deny that he was her father.

      Leyne pulled her to her and gave her a hug. ‘You have to be prepared for disappointment, darling,’ she said gently.

      ‘How?’ Pip looked puzzled, clearly not understanding.

      ‘Beautiful though you are, sweetheart, he—um—may not want to meet you.’

      Pip’s answer was to break out into a huge grin. ‘He will,’ she said confidently. ‘I know he will. I feel it. I—just—feel it.’ Another huge grin, and, ‘Would you like me to make you some coffee?’

      Oh, heavens. Leyne wondered how the child could be so sure, feel so sure her father would want to meet her, when she had attained the age of eleven and he had never bothered to look her up. Pip was not to know that Jack Dangerfield had not—up until today—even known he had fathered a daughter, much less that he was denying even knowing her mother.

      Not for the first time Leyne wished that her sister was home, so Max could make the delicate decisions that had to be made.

      But, as though conjuring her up, Max rang that night. Though Leyne did not get to know it had been Max until it was too late.

      Leyne was in the study at work, intent with complicated matter on her computer, when the phone rang. Absently she reached for it and then heard Pip call, ‘I’ll get it.’ Leyne smiled. Her niece, on her way to bed, may have said ‘bye’ to her friend Alice only an hour ago, but they still had lots to say to each other.

      Unusually, Pip was not on the phone for very long, but only a few minutes later came into the study. ‘That was Mummy,’ she said happily. And, as Leyne instinctively reached for the phone extension, ‘She’s gone,’ Pip informed her. ‘Mum said she was in a great hurry, so it was just a snatched call from the nearest landline before they went off again, and goodness knows when she will be able to ring again. She said sorry not to have rung before, but she couldn’t ring us on her mobile because she lost it in the river. She said to give you her love and a hug and to tell you that the beast’—that would be Ben Turnbull, Leyne guessed— ‘has mellowed a bit, though wasn’t too chuffed when she dropped some of his stuff in the river too.’

      There was so much Leyne wanted to ask her sister, but it was too late now. ‘Happy, chick?’ she asked softly.

      Pip nodded. ‘I wanted to ask Mum about my father—but I couldn’t,’ she confessed. ‘And then Mum said she had to charge off, and something about tribes and the Amazon, but that she just wanted to hear my lovely voice before she and her knight in tarnished armour tried to catch up on a slipped timetable.’

      Pip went to bed elated that her mother had made contact, blissfully unaware of the agitation of her aunt’s thoughts.

      While Leyne realised that her sister’s lost telephone explained why her phone had been unanswered each time she had tried to contact her, Leyne could not help but wish that Max had rung ten minutes later than she had. If she’d done that then Pip would have been in bed and Leyne would have been able to have some kind of a private conversation with her. A conversation where she could have asked her what she wanted her to do with regard to Pip wanting to know, and meet, her father.

      Leyne realised that it was because Max had wanted a few snatched words with Pip before her daughter went to bed that she had rung at the time she had. And, recalling Pip’s overjoyed face, Leyne felt mean that she would have preferred in this particular instance if Max had phoned at some other time. As it was, heaven alone knew when she would ring again.

      Leyne’s thoughts drifted to the man who, it was becoming more and more evident, had not been informed that he was a father. What had gone wrong between her sister and Jack Dangerfield Leyne had no clue, but perhaps he was lying. Remembering his astonishment, somehow Leyne did not think he was. Up until today he’d had absolutely no idea that his time with Max had resulted in a daughter.

      A daughter he was

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