James pondered the situation throughout the day, remembering how he’d accused Lucy of putting her life into neat little pockets. She’d broken that rule with him, but clearly there were other pockets which were still buttoned up. Why, was the question. What drove a young woman to divide up her life as Lucy did? What was the mystery about her mother?
She begged off lunch with him, saying she had to buy a birthday gift. The mission neatly avoided an opportunity for personal chat. It grew more and more obvious as the afternoon wore on that she was in a fraught, distracted state. Concern for her safety on the road drove him to suggest she leave early to beat the peak-hour traffic.
‘You don’t mind?’ she asked anxiously, gesturing at the papers on his desk. ‘We’re not finished.’
‘Leave it to me. Go on,’ he urged.
She hesitated, eyeing him uncertainly. ‘I am sorry about this weekend.’
‘Can’t be helped.’ He shrugged and moved to give her shoulders a light, reassuring squeeze. ‘Take care driving. I want you back here safe and sound on Monday. Okay?’
‘Yes,’ she whispered shakily.
He bent and planted a gentle kiss on her mouth.
She barely responded, breaking away quickly. ‘Thanks, James,’ she breathed on a ragged sigh, and was off.
One way or another, he was going to find out what was in this pocket which was being kept so tightly buttoned. Lucy might not consider her family situation his business, but he was going to make it his business. Something was wrong and it needed to be put right.
Apart from which, secrets were bad. They showed a lack of trust. They formed barriers to the intimacy he’d thought he had with Lucy. Those barriers had to be broken down. Right from the beginning he’d wanted to know Lucy Worthington inside out, and having come this far, he wasn’t about to be stopped.
Not by anything!
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
LUCY managed to concentrate enough to get the car and herself over the harbour bridge and into the right lane that would take her north to the central coast. All she had to do then was virtually follow the car in front of her, which was just as well, because she was in a tangle of torment over letting James believe she had her period.
Her period! What a black joke that was! It had been on the tip of her tongue to tell him the truth. All day she had wavered over revealing her pregnancy or keeping it hidden. In the end, the lure of having him as her lover for another month overrode her conscience. She just couldn’t risk a negative reaction. Not yet.
And he wouldn’t guess the truth, not believing her monthly cycle was running as it normally would. By Monday she might get over feeling sick about the deceit. James would think her period was over and hopefully they would go on as before…if she could keep pushing her condition to the back of her mind. In her present mental state, that was a big if.
At least he hadn’t pressed her too much about this weekend with her mother. He’d really been kind about letting her go early, too. Kind and considerate. Like he truly did care about her. Combining that with his assurance this morning that he enjoyed her company, with or without sex…maybe she could tell him the truth without everything blowing up in her face.
The torment of uncertainty continued while the car took her away from Sydney. She wasn’t aware of having crossed the Hawkesbury Bridge and the big dipper of the Mooney Mooney Bridge—landmarks along the expressway. It was a jolt when she saw the exit sign to Gosford. It forcefully reminded her she would soon be facing her mother and she’d better get herself ready to fend off the criticisms that were bound to be aimed at her.
‘What train will you be on?’ she’d been asked last night.
‘You won’t have to meet a train. I’ll be coming by car, Mum,’ she’d answered, steeling herself to argue her way past her mother’s concept of a sensible car.
‘Well, if Josh is giving you a lift, you just tell him he’d better get you here safely in that dreadful old sports car of his. And he’s not to roar into my driveway like a larrikin.’
The steel wilted. ‘Josh is not a larrikin, Mum. And he’s always been safe.’
Safe, safe, safe… Lucy mocked savagely to herself as she took the Gosford exit. Having flouted all the safe rules, she was now looking right down the barrel of the consequences. Which, of course, her mother had warned her about. Compared to falling pregnant to her boss with no marriage in view, showing up in a red Alpha Spider convertible and shocking her mother with it was the least of her worries.
Though the brief sense of cavalier bravado took an abrupt dive when she spotted her mother watering the garden and caught the astonished look on her face as the Alpha turned into the driveway with her daughter in the driver’s seat. Lucy switched off the ignition and sat for several moments, trying to raise her sinking heart.
‘What on earth are you doing in that car and why are you driving it?’ came her mother’s shrill demands.
Taking a deep breath, Lucy hauled herself out of the red sports convertible, shut the door, and stood beside it, her hand gripping it in a show of proud possession. ‘I’m driving it because it’s mine. I won it in a raffle.’ She beamed a smile full of teeth at her mother. ‘Big surprise!’
Ruth Worthington gaped—first at Lucy, then at the car, and back at Lucy, who’d forgotten she’d changed her style of dress in the turmoil of everything else. ‘A raffle,’ she said weakly, clearly not knowing what to make of anything yet.
‘Isn’t it great? It’s an Alpha Spider, an Italian sports car, and I’ve christened it Orlando,’ Lucy burbled on, projecting unquenchable enthusiasm. ‘You know, Mum, I’ve never won anything in my entire life, and to win this…’ She released the door to make an expansive gesture. ‘It was so unbelievable I’m still getting used to it.’
And her mother would take even longer to get used to it. If ever. Oddly enough, Lucy found herself not caring. Josh was right. It was her life.
Ruth Worthington would only be forty-seven tomorrow but somehow she’d made herself sexless, wearing no-nonsense clothes and having her greying, salt and pepper hair cut in a short layered style that required no more than a quick comb through it. She was even wearing grey—flat-heeled grey shoes, grey skirt, grey and white tailored blouse—and if she chose to live a grey life, well that was her choice, but it wasn’t going to be Lucy’s, no matter how things worked out with James.
A wave of belligerent self-assertion lifted her chin at her mother’s continued silence. Judgements were undoubtedly being made and any second now they would start raining down on Lucy’s head. She could only hope some kind of truce could be drawn so the birthday weekend wasn’t a complete disaster.