Eventually her mother declared it was impossible to talk to her. Intransigently unreachable. A lost cause. If Tessa had any sense in her head she should call Grant Durham and beg him to take her back. It was her only chance of leading a decent life.
Then she stormed off to bed.
Tessa sat on at the table, white-faced and tight-lipped. Her father sat on with her, his kindly face creased in deep concern, his eyes begging forbearance.
“Your mother doesn’t mean those things, Tessa,” he said quietly. “She’s upset. That’s all. The wedding meant a lot to her.’’
Tessa shook her head. “I’ve always been a disappointment to her, Dad. I guess I always will be.”
He squeezed her hand. “Not to me, sweetheart.”
He had always called her his little sweetheart princess, and somehow the affectionate term meant a lot just now. “Thanks, Dad,” she said, choking.
“There, there, sweetheart. It’s going to be all right. You’ll see,” he soothed. “You mother means well. Sometimes she just gets a little bit upset. But you’re a grand girl. There’ll be many a man who’ll want to marry my little princess.”
“I don’t know. I don’t think I know anything anymore, Dad. All these years... maybe Mum’s right... and all I’ve done is mess up.”
“No, Tessa. Don’t think that, sweetheart.” He coughed apologetically as he made the most defiant statement of his married life. “Things aren’t sometimes as straight and as narrow as your mother would like to have them.”
“Mum didn’t even ask me why I’d changed my mind.”
“Don’t you worry. Everything will be all right,” Mortimer said vaguely. There were limits to how far he could go in opposing his wife. He could see a lot of storm clouds gathering.
“I guess I shouldn’t come home for a while,” Tessa said despondently. “Let the dust settle.”
“I love seeing you.” His eyes were troubled. His was a terrible dilemma.
“Maybe if I got engaged to someone else...” Tessa sighed. It was the only redemption her mother might accept. Unfortunately it could be a long time coming, if ever.
“Don’t go running from the frying pan into the fire,” her father warned anxiously. Things could get very black if Tessa made another mistake.
Her eyes searched his in desperate appeal. “You don’t think I’m bad, do you, Dad?”
“No, Tessa. You’re definitely not bad.” He shook his head. Why did these things happen?
“What do you think I should do?”
“About Mum?”
“Yes.”
Mortimer pondered the matter. “It might be a good idea for you to go back to Sydney in the morning. Give it time for all this to blow over. Your mother will come around. Just a matter of time, sweetheart.”
She nodded. The lump in her throat was too large to circumvent.
“You go to bed now,” her father urged kindly. “You’re worn out. A good sleep. Things always look better in the morning.”
Tessa stumbled from her chair, threw her arms around her father’s neck and kissed his forehead hard. “I love you, Dad,” she choked out huskily.
“There, there, now. It’ll be all right. You’ll see,” he soothed, his voice gruff with emotion.
Tessa went to bed but she didn’t go to sleep. She felt very mixed up in her mind, emotionally drained, and as close to complete despair as she had ever come. She had been blindly infatuated with a man for four years. Both her sister and her father had seen him far more clearly than she had. Grant had not treated her right, and she had taken it from him and come back again and again for more, even to the point of marrying him. How could she ever trust her judgement again?
And Blaize Callagan had to be another wrong choice.
Yet he had a lot of qualities that Grant hadn’t had. He was honest, for a start. She had no delusions about what he wanted. He had spelled it out. No frills. But he had implied that he hadn’t found anyone else who gave him what she did. Which put her ahead of a lot of other women.
Maybe there was a chance with him. Or more likely that was just a delusion because she wanted so desperately to be loved. Perhaps she was one of those foolish women destined always to choose the wrong man.
Nevertheless, despite the high tension between them this afternoon, she had enjoyed sparring with him. He had enjoyed it, too. He hadn’t found her ordinary at all. She had piqued his interest. Got under his skin. Maybe she wasn’t foolish.
Blaize had made his own luck with the Japanese deal. Wasn’t it possible that she could make her own luck with him? Her father was right. Life wasn’t as straight and narrow as her mother wanted it to be. Tessa wished it was. There was certainly nothing straight and narrow about Blaize Callagan. He was a very complex man. Then she remembered that he had said she was complex, too. It brought a smile to her face, the first smile since she had left him this afternoon.
Why not, she thought. As far as her mother was concerned, she was a ruined woman anyway. A weekend with Blaize Callagan was hardly going to ruin her much further. If she was as badly ruined as her mother thought, she couldn’t actually be ruined any further. She had already achieved a hundred percent ruination.
Besides, she should know by the end of the weekend if any future was feasible with Blaize Callagan or not. Better than closing the door without giving it a chance.
What was the alternative? Wallowing in dark emptiness for a long miserable lonely weekend until she could get back to work Monday. It might be stupid, but suddenly a weekend cruising down the Hawkesbury River seemed a lot better idea. It might lead somewhere, and then again it might not. If she didn’t go she would never know.
A bad end, her mother had said.
She was probably right, Tessa thought.
Even so, for better or for worse, it was her life to do with as she chose.
She switched on the bedside lamp, got out of bed, picked up her handbag, extracted Blaize Callagan’s card and went to the living room with a purposeful tread. The house was in darkness. She switched on the light. It was almost midnight.
A heady recklessness was upon her. So what if she woke Blaize Callagan up! If he wanted her, he wanted her. Let him suffer for it. She was through with suffering for a man. This time she would dictate the terms.
She picked up the telephone and dialled the number he had written down. It rang three times before the receiver was picked up at the other end of the line. His voice was not at all sleepy. “Blaize Callagan,” he said crisply.