LITMIR.BIZ

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to stay to lunch? I believe Mrs Holt said it’s chicken salad. I like chicken salad. Do you like chicken salad, young man?’

      Jinx felt her heart contract at her father’s childish pleasure in such a small thing as having chicken salad for lunch, her gaze instantly becoming guarded as Nik turned to her with a frown.

      ‘Mr Prince isn’t staying to lunch, Daddy,’ she was the one to answer quickly. ‘In fact, I believe he was just on his way…?’ She gave him a pointed glare.

      Nik’s expression was deliberately bland. ‘I’m not in any particular hurry,’ he said slowly.

      ‘Good. Good.’ Jinx’s father beamed, his blue eyes pale and watery now, lacking the sharp intelligence they had once had. ‘I’ll just go and tell Mrs Holt that there’s one extra for lunch.’ He shuffled off in the slightly overlarge carpet slippers.

      Silence followed his departure. Jinx was loath to look up at Nik and see the questioning look she was sure would be on his face, and Nik remained quietly patient as he waited for her to say something.

      But what could she say? Excuse my father, but he isn’t quite himself nowadays?

      Not quite himself! Her father had once been one of the foremost experts on Jacobite history in this country, had taught the subject for over forty years, was consulted by other learned minds as to his opinion on certain events.

      But that had been once…

      Nowadays her father seemed to have trouble remembering what day it was, let alone what year, and if he still had his knowledge of history then it was buried somewhere behind the vagueness of his expression.

      But how could she say any of that without having Nik feel sorry for her father?

      Because she didn’t want Nik to pity her father. Didn’t want anyone to pity him, when he had once been a man so respected and revered by his peers.

      ‘Jinx…?’

      Her head rose defensively as she finally looked up at Nik, her gaze challenging him to say anything that could be interpreted as pitying or—worse!—condescending.

      Whatever he said next had to be the right thing, Nik knew, or Jinx would cast him from her life and never see him again. And that, he realized, was totally unacceptable to him.

      Because of the movie he wanted to make of No Ordinary Boy?

      The movie didn’t even come into it! In fact, if he was honest, it hadn’t been a factor for some time now. Jinx was what mattered. And at this moment, the reporter outside apart, he was walking on very shaky ground where she was concerned…

      ‘What happened?’ he asked gently.

      ‘What makes you think something happened?’ If anything her chin rose even higher.

      But unless Nik was mistaken, the new brightness to her eyes was due to unshed tears and not the anger of a few minutes ago. ‘I—your father—’ He drew in a deep breath, very aware of that knife edge he was balanced upon. ‘Did he have a breakdown of some kind?’ He decided briskness was probably the way to go; pity he knew Jinx would totally reject, gentleness probably the same.

      ‘Of some kind,’ she admitted, every inch of her seeming to be covered in defensive prickles. ‘What are we going to do about the reporter and photographer outside?’ she abruptly changed the subject.

      Nik shrugged. ‘Have lunch with your father, and then see if they’re still there?’ He was pushing it, he knew, but he really did want to find out more about this situation than he knew now.

      Although just seeing Jinx’s father answered a lot of questions for him. There was no way that Jack Nixon could withstand the sort of publicity that would prevail if it were known that his daughter was the author of No Ordinary Boy. The press could be dogged, intrusive, stripping one’s life down to the bare bones, and still carry on looking for more. Nik had no doubts that Jack Nixon’s delicate mental health wouldn’t be able to cope with something like that.

      Something he was sure Jinx was all too aware of, too…

      ‘I have a better suggestion,’ she came back tartly now. ‘You leave, taking the reporter and photographer with you, and I’ll go and have lunch with my father!’

      Nik grimaced, having expected her to say something like that. And on the face of it, it must seem like the practical thing to do. Except that it had been Jinx the reporter and photographer had been following.

      Which meant they must have some idea that she was the author J. I. Watson.

      As far as he was aware only three people, possibly four, knew that Jinx was the author J. I. Watson: himself, Jane Morrow, James Stephens, and possibly James Stephens’s secretary, none of whom benefited in any way by revealing that information to the press.

      But, nevertheless, Nik was sure that the information had leaked out somehow.

      He just wasn’t sure it was a good idea to tell Jinx that just yet. She was already as jumpy as a cat, and furiously angry with him. If she thought that he was somehow responsible—!

      He smiled. ‘I think I like my plan better.’

      Her cheeks flushed angrily. ‘Well, that’s too bad, because—’

      ‘Lunch is ready!’ Jinx’s father came back into the hallway to announce brightly.

      Nik’s gaze narrowed thoughtfully as it rested on the other man. Jinx hadn’t answered his question earlier concerning what had happened to make her father like this. Because he was pretty sure that something had. Something of a highly emotional nature.

      Something that had affected Jinx, too…?

      He wasn’t sure yet. But he definitely wanted to find out.

      Which was extraordinary in itself, he admitted wryly. Most people would call his single-mindedness where his work was concerned arrogant, but he preferred to think of it as being focused. Maybe that was an arrogance in itself? Probably, but it was the way he worked. One thing at a time, everything compartmentalized.

      But Jinx, with her fiery hair, violet-blue eyes, and a body that answered his, made a nonsense of that compartmentalization, causing everything that was important to him at this moment to overlap itself; the movie of No Ordinary Boy, the puzzle of Jackson Nixon, but, most of all, Jinx herself.

      She interested him more than any of those other things!

      ‘Lunch is ready,’ he told her.

      She shot him an impatient glance, but was obviously very aware of her father waiting for them at the end of the hallway.

      ‘Jinx…?’ Nik prompted.

      ‘Fine,’ she snapped. ‘But you and I will definitely talk later,’ she muttered so that only he could hear.

      There were much pleasanter things he could think of to do with Jinx than talking, but if that was all that was on offer at the moment—and he was pretty sure that it was!—then he would take what he could get.

      ‘I’ll look forward to it,’ he assured her huskily, raising innocent brows as she looked up at him with brief suspicion before following her father through to the back of the house.

      The three of them had lunch outside sitting at a table under a sun umbrella in the well-maintained back garden—a garden that was, thankfully, completely closed in by a six-foot-high fence. Nik knew better than most exactly how tenacious reporters could be once on the scent of a story—they were quite capable of looking through windows and over fences in order to get what they wanted. And they obviously hadn’t given up on Jinx yet…

      Despite the fact that Jinx obviously wished him well away from here, that her father’s conversation lacked the intelligence he was so well known for, Nik enjoyed the next hour spent in their company.

      He saw a gentler side of Jinx as she conversed with her father, that gentleness obviously a

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