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sister, by any chance?’ he asked smoothly. ‘This—’ he gestured towards her, managing to convey that she wasn’t particularly feminine ‘—has the taint of sour grapes about it, if you’ll forgive me for saying so.’

      Lydia smiled with genuine amusement. ‘Not in the slightest, Joe! I hope that doesn’t disappoint you. But the fact of the matter is, my sister has plans that you may be unaware of, plans that might not feature on your agenda at all.’

      ‘Such as marriage plans,’ he said wearily. ‘Look, I can—’ But he stopped at the sudden look of searing contempt in Lydia’s eyes.

      ‘You can—take care of yourself?’ she suggested gently. ‘I’m sure you can.’

      ‘Bloody hell,’ he muttered, and rubbed his jaw. ‘Daisy and I have made no commitments whatsoever, Miss Kelso,’ he added. ‘So if you’re imagining I’ve led her up the garden path, you’re wrong,’ he finished flatly, then frowned. ‘Isn’t she your older sister?’

      ‘Daisy is twenty-nine going on nineteen. I’m twenty-six. What you may not understand, Mr Jordan, and I can’t blame you for this, is…’ Lydia paused and wondered how best to explain.

      ‘Do go on, I’m agog,’ he murmured with considerable irony.

      ‘OK. Our father is a poet. Our mother, a pianist, died when we were little and we were raised by an aunt. She’s my father’s sister and she’s a sculptress—’

      ‘An artistic family,’ Joe Jordan commented, looking only one step away from utter boredom as he doodled desultorily. ‘Daisy plays the violin—I can’t wait to find out what you do, Miss Lydia Kelso! Wrestle the double bass?’

      ‘Oh, I’m quite different,’ Lydia said flippantly. ‘I’m a vet.’

      She had the satisfaction of seeing sheer surprise in his hazel eyes. He said slowly, now looking at her rather intently, ‘So? Where does all this lead?’

      ‘I’m the only one of the family who is not in the least artistic and happens to have her feet planted squarely on the ground.’

      ‘Are you saying your whole family is mad?’ He blinked at her.

      ‘Not at all. But I can’t deny they can be quite—eccentric and naive at times, then madly passionate at others, and, well, given in those moments to doing some rash things. Otherwise they’re warm and wonderful and I would kill rather than see them get hurt.’ Lydia folded her hands in her lap and looked at him serenely.

      ‘What…’ Joe Jordan could have killed himself for the slightly nervous way he said the word ‘…um—rashness has Daisy concocted towards me? I gather that is the problem?’

      Lydia smiled at him. ‘At least you’re quick on the uptake, Mr Jordan. I’ll tell you. She’s decided to have your baby, with or without the benefit of wedlock.’

      Joe Jordan’s jaw dropped involuntarily, although he snapped it shut immediately. But before he could utter the cynicism he was prompted towards—I’ve heard that one before!—Lydia went on.

      ‘At the moment she’s rather in favour of out of wedlock, I have to tell you. I think she looks at herself and sees Jodie Foster, Madonna—there are quite a few famous single mums around—and when you’re as devoted to your career as Daisy is, it’s certainly easier if you only have a child to worry about. She also adores kids, and although twenty-nine is not old, she’s not getting any younger.’

      ‘Why me?’ Joe Jordan asked faintly, after a long pause.

      Lydia smiled quite warmly at him this time. ‘You should feel complimented. She’s gone into it very seriously, so she tells me, and she feels that you may contribute the brains she—not exactly lacks, but you’re obviously very clever.’

      Joe Jordan stood up and planted his fists on the desk. ‘I said this before but—bloody hell! So that’s why she suggested going to bed when…’ He let the sentence hang unfinished in the air, and had to suffer Lydia Kelso looking at him with obvious sympathy—something that annoyed him all the more. ‘Are you sure you’re not making all this up?’ he said then, through his teeth.

      ‘Quite sure.’

      ‘What if I did decide to marry her?’

      ‘I’d be only too relieved, Mr Jordan,’ Lydia said sincerely. ‘Provided you love her, of course. She really needs someone to look after her, especially if she has a child, and I can’t always be there. You know, she’d make a wonderful wife.’

      ‘How can you say that?’ he demanded bitterly. ‘You’ve just led me to believe she’s as mad as a March Hare! Something the whole Kelso clan could suffer from, if I’m not mistaken, despite your assertion to the contrary,’ he added pointedly.

      ‘Look,’ Lydia responded coolly, ‘it’s not that I approve, necessarily, but it’s a choice a lot of women are making—and not because they’re mad but because they deem it a viable option in today’s society, where women can aspire to having careers and continuing to have them instead of retreating to the kitchen sink once they start a family.’

      ‘Go on,’ he ordered tersely.

      She shrugged. ‘Some can cope with it, but I don’t think Daisy would be one of them. And, whilst a lot of mistakes you make in the heat of the moment can be corrected, a fatherless child is not one of them.’

      Joe Jordan sat down, propped his chin in his hands and considered that this rangy twenty-six-year-old girl knew how to pack her punches. She shot from the hip and was unusually mature, perhaps. ‘You said you didn’t necessarily approve—apart from Daisy. Why not?’

      ‘I happen to believe a child needs both its parents. Of course it can’t always be helped, as in my own case. And it’s not that being a natural parent makes one automatically a perfect parent. But at least if you have kinship with a child it has to help.’

      Joe raised his eyebrows thoughtfully. ‘It so happens I agree with you. Nor would I countenance being used as a stud. Do you happen to know whether Daisy intended to put me in the picture? Or did she plan to disappear out of my life with a little bundle of joy I was never to know about?’

      ‘It’s the one thing that’s causing her a bit of a problem,’ Lydia said gravely. ‘Well, there are two. While she feels she may be in love with you, she can’t be sure that you are with her. If you were, then I’m sure she’d abandon all this nonsense.’

      ‘I’m speechless,’ Joe Jordan remarked with considerable feeling.

      ‘Would you like to tell me exactly what you do feel for Daisy?’ Lydia suggested.

      ‘No! That is,’ he corrected himself irritably and ironically, ‘I have no intention of marrying her. I have to be honest. Or anyone at the moment,’ he said moodily. ‘But—look, this has been a light-hearted—I couldn’t even call it an affair. She was the one who…dammit!’ He glared at Lydia.

      ‘Well, now you know why. But you must have liked her? Or do you pop into bed with every woman who indicates they’re willing?’ She eyed him innocently.

      He swore, seriously this time.

      Lydia waited, looking absolutely unruffled.

      He gritted his teeth. ‘I like her. She’s fun to be with, she’s extremely decorative, but…’ He groped for the right words, then sighed savagely.

      ‘You don’t miss her when she’s not there?’

      He narrowed his eyes. ‘Is that a true test? You sound as if you…know what you’re talking about.’

      ‘I got married when I was twenty,’ Lydia said quietly. ‘We had a year together before he was drowned in a boating accident. That’s how it happened for me. He was always on my mind. Tucked into the background at times, yes, but always there.’

      Joe Jordan swallowed visibly and

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