heart-muscles. ‘What is it, Beth?’ she demanded huskily. ‘Is something wrong at home? My mother, Mark?’
When had she started calling her stepfather Mark? To strangers it might seem that she used his Christian name to hold him at a distance, to differentiate between her stepfather and her natural father, but that wasn’t the case. She had picked the habit up from Jake of course, probably almost before she realised what she was doing.
Jake had been her god in those days; a magnificent and awe-inspiring creature whom she was privileged to call ‘brother’…her mouth twisted a little bitterly. It seemed incredible that she had ever been that naïve.
‘I shouldn’t have said anything,’ Beth told her guiltily. ‘It’s Mark, Jamie. He’s been suffering from chest pains for some time and the doctor’s diagnosed a heart condition—at the moment it’s not too serious, but he’s been told he has to take things more easily—not to worry so much. Your mother’s persuading him to retire, to hand control of the company over completely to Jake.’
It was no use pretending that it did not hurt to receive this information second-hand from her cousin, but she had no one to blame for that pain other than herself. She was, after all, the one who had deliberately distanced herself from her home, who had intentionally set out to carve herself a career that would take her as far away as possible. But she rang home regularly to speak to her mother.
‘Your mother didn’t want to worry you,’ Beth told her sympathetically, seeing the pain in her eyes. ‘She knows how close you are to Uncle Mark.’
‘Umm. I don’t know how on earth she’s going to get him to slow down.’
Beth’s expression lightened. ‘Jake said exactly the same thing. Funny how the two of you invariably come up with the same reactions at the same time, and yet put you together and you can’t agree on a single thing. I remember at our wedding, I thought you were about to come to blows.’
Jamie looked away from her, studying her nails thoughtfully before reaching for the lacquer bottle to apply a final coat.
‘Yes,’ she said carefully, her attention all for her nails, ‘It’s always been like that.’
‘No, it hasn’t.’
Her heart lurched at the quiet challenge in Beth’s voice.
‘Why don’t the two of you get on any more, Jamie?’ Beth pressed. ‘It hurts your mother and Uncle Mark dreadfully. They both love both of you so much. Whenever there’s a family gathering it’s noticeable that either you or Jake will be there—but never both of you. It’s almost as though it’s pre-planned.’
‘Well, it isn’t,’ Jamie told her harshly, apologising with a wry smile when she saw her cousin’s faintly hurt expression. ‘I’m sorry. I’m a bit on edge. I hate flying, especially across the Atlantic. I think I’m still suffering from jet-lag.’
Jet-lag? Anguish and humiliation was closer to the mark but those emotions belonged to a Jamie long dead and buried, whom she was not going to disinter for anyone.
Observing the silken gleam of her cousin’s straight fall of dark red hair as she bent over her nails, Beth tactfully changed the subject, asking enviously, ‘How on earth do you get your nail-polish like that?’
‘It isn’t hard. It just takes a good eye and a practised hand,’ Jamie told her, grinning as she deftly applied the last stroke and studied the finished effect. ‘Besides, who’s going to employ me as a decorator if they see I can’t even paint my nails?’
‘But I can’t even get mine that long, never mind anything else.’
‘Ah well, you know what a sybaritic life I lead,’ Jamie mocked, lifting one eyebrow slightly.
It wasn’t fair that one person should be given so much, Beth thought, sighing for the waste of all her cousin’s feminine attributes on someone who declared openly and coolly that she had no intention of marrying and that she did not believe in love.
Maybe Jamie wasn’t beautiful in the accepted sense of the word, but she had something more than mere beauty. Looking at her was like looking into a pool of deep, very still water; so still that you found yourself holding your breath and waiting for the faintest ripple across its smooth surface. Jamie carried with her an aura of calm and quietude, but she hadn’t always been like that. Beth could remember the tomboy teenager she had been, climbing trees, running races, always covered in bruises and cuts. In those days the violet eyes had laughed, the full mouth had been mobile, her movements quicksilver.
At ten she had been desperately envious of her fourteen-year-old cousin and the closeness she shared with her stepbrother. Even though he was at university Jake had still spent a large part of his free time with his young stepsister. They had been close in a way that she as an only child had longed to imitate, but somewhere along the way something had happened to that closeness, and now…what? Now, whenever she mentioned Jake in Jamie’s presence, she could almost feel her cousin closing up on her, and when she mentioned Jamie to Jake his mouth would curl in that cynical way of his, his eyes as hard as chips of ice.
‘Sybaritic?’ Beth questioned, trying not to let Jamie see what she was thinking. ‘Since when? Oh, I know you like to give that impression, Jamie, but you work hard. Too hard, Uncle Mark thinks.’
‘Mark’s a darling, but he’s a bit old-fashioned when it comes to women. He thinks we should all be like my mother and crave only a husband, home and family.’
As she looked away from her cousin, Jamie hid her expression with long lashes that fanned her high cheekbones, giving her, although she did not know it, a look of vulnerability. Once she too had craved those things, had wanted nothing more from life than to love and be loved in return.
‘Try calcium tablets.’ She turned to face Beth, smiling lightly, as she firmly dismissed the past from her mind.
‘Calcium tablets?’ Beth looked thoroughly confused.
‘For your nails,’ Jamie told her, gently mockingly.
‘I haven’t made any plans for the weekend,’ Beth told her, changing the subject. ‘I thought you might fancy an early night tonight, and then tomorrow some friends of ours are coming round to dinner—I’m longing to show off my clever cousin…and Jake, of course,’ Beth added absently. ‘I didn’t tell you, did I, that his latest girlfriend’s family live only a short distance away.
‘She’s a nice girl—but young for Jake, though, I would have thought. Very pretty and quite ambitious.’
Thank God she had been looking the other way, Jamie thought, as she tried to still the frantic thudding of her heart. Jake…coming here…her first impulse was to leave, immediately, but she was trapped, she knew that. If she left now Beth would guess. It was one thing for the family to know that she and Jake disliked each other, but…
‘Jamie, are you all right? You’ve gone dreadfully pale.’
‘Redheads are supposed to be,’ Jamie told her wryly, slipping defensively behind her sophisticated mask. ‘If Mark’s ill, I’m surprised that Jake can spare the time to spend a weekend away.’
‘Oh, well, I suppose it’s partly business, Amanda’s father’s company is merging with Brierton Plastics, apparently. That’s how Jake and Amanda met. It’s no secret that her parents are hoping they’ll get married, but personally I think Amanda’s too young—she’s only nineteen, and a nice child, but somehow not what I thought Jake would choose, if you know what I mean.’ She wrinkled her nose slightly and added, ‘Of course, Uncle Mark would love to see him married. He and your mother complain every time I see them that you don’t seem to be going to provide them with grandchildren.’
‘It does seem unlikely,’ Jamie agreed levelly, praying that Beth wouldn’t see past her defences to what lay behind. Jake married… Pain exploded inside her, tearing her apart, making a mockery of the barriers it had taken her six years to perfect. What was the matter with her? She had known