Part 7 (2/2)

Instead, to her shock he said quietly, 'You're a good driver.'

'For a woman, you mean?' she taunted, trying to subdue the spurt of pleasure his words gave her.

'No, that was not what I meant,' he responded tersely. 'Why is it that whenever I pay you a compliment, Heather, you throw it back in my face? Do you really detest me so much that you can't even accept a few words of praise from me?'

Was that how she seemed to him? She heard the tiredness in his voice and suppressed a faint sigh. As a child, she had grown up wary of his quick, clever tongue, and so she had taught herself to be mistrustful of everything he said. Now it seemed that she had been wrong.

'Seen much of Hartley, have you?'

She frowned and glanced at him, looking for signs of contempt, but his eyes were closed, his mouth a hard taut line.

'No,' she replied evenly, 'although his mother did call round this morning.'

'Ah... warn you off, did she? She's very protective where her precious son is concerned.'

The bitterness in his voice was understandable, Heather acknowledged, especially in view of his own early childhood.

'I think it was more a recon than a warning-off exercise,' she told him good-humouredly. 'I must admit I don't envy the poor girl who will eventually become her daughter-in-law.'

'Does that mean you don't have any ambitions in that direction yourself?'

'After one meeting? Come on, Kyle!'

'And yet you seemed ready enough to leap to his defence,' he retorted smoothly.

'He was very kind to me,' she told him shortly. 'Kyle, is it true what you said about him having an illegitimate child?'

There was a hard silence and then he said coldly, 'What are you trying to ask me Heather? If I lied?'

'No. No, of course not. I know that you wouldn't. It's just that, sometimes, gossip can exaggerate.'

'This wasn't gossip. I know the girl concerned. She's the daughter of some friends of mine. Only eighteen and barely out of school. Hartley deliberately encouraged her infatuation with him. The poor little fool thought he was going to marry her. Of course, he denies the whole thing, and she, poor kid, is left with a ruined reputation and a child she can't bear to give up for adoption, when she's barely more than a child herself.'

It was a pitiful story, although not particularly uncommon, and Heather's tender heart ached for the other girl.

'As she's so young, perhaps it would be better for her if she moved away... had a fresh start.'

'That's what her parents would like her to do. They've offered to adopt and bring up her child, but the silly little idiot believes that he's going to go back to her. She's infatuated with him, as only an eighteen-year-old can be infatuated.' He frowned and glanced thoughtfully at her. 'You must have gone through that stage yourself?'

Had she? She must have done, but she couldn't remember it. Her hatred of Kyle had taken up so much emotional s.p.a.ce in her life that there hadn't been any room left for anything else... or anyone else.

She s.h.i.+fted uncomfortably in her seat, frowning to herself. Had it really been like that? Had she really been so obsessed with Kyle that he had occupied all of her mental and emotional energy? Had resenting him really taken over so much of her life?

'I suppose I must,' she agreed carelessly.

'But in your case, without any lasting damage?'

She felt that he was pus.h.i.+ng her to admit something, but had no idea what. She shrugged her shoulders, her eyes narrowing slightly as she concentrated on the snowy road.

'Obviously not.'

'Tell me, Heather, how many men have there been in your life since that first one?'

She was glad she was concentrating so hard on the road, otherwise she must surely have betrayed her shock. She willed herself not to look at him, nor to demand to know what business her personal life was of his.

'You can't honestly expect me to answer that,' she countered instead.

'Why not? If you were to ask me the same question, I'd answer it.'

'You mean you can remember them all?' she demanded drily.

She heard him laugh. 'You've been paying too much attention to the gossip columns. I could count on the fingers on one hand the number of serious emotional attachments I've had, and still have fingers over to spare.'

He was waiting for her to make some sort of response, but she had no idea what to say. The very thought of admitting to Kyle that, not only had there been no serious attachments, but also there had not been any physical attachments, made her skin s.h.i.+ver with goose-b.u.mps.

'I... Oh, isn't that the sign coming up for our turn-off?' she questioned him thankfully, glad of a legitimate means of changing the conversation. 'I don't want to miss it, otherwise we'll be late for visiting time.'

'Your father's allowed open visiting hours, surely?' Kyle challenged, but to her relief he made no further attempt to direct their conversation into more personal channels.

They arrived at the hospital just as the nursing staff changed over. A small, smiling nurse directed them to her father's room. Although he was still wired up to a drip and monitoring machine, already his skin had a much healthier hue. Her mother stood up and rushed over to hug them both, tears thickening her voice as she welcomed them.

Heather stepped back for a moment as Kyle embraced her mother, unsure if she really wanted to probe the sensation of jealousy darting through her. Not jealousy of her mother's obvious love for Kyle, but jealousy of the look of concern and love in Kyle's eyes for her mother. Just for a moment she wished she was the one in his arms, that she was the one being comforted with the security of his caring.

Stop being so self-pitying, she chided herself briskly, turning away to give her father a final, lingering look before heading for the door.

'Don't worry. He'll be fine.'

Kyle's quiet words of rea.s.surance startled her, and she looked round, half expecting to see that her mother had followed them out into the corridor and that they were for her, they held so much understanding and compa.s.sion.

But the corridor was empty apart from the two of them, and colour crawled betrayingly over her throat as she remembered how acutely perceptive Kyle had always been. Had he seen the look of lonely envy in her eyes as she'd watched him comfort her mother? She turned her head away, unaware of the sudden weary compression of his mouth as he watched her silent rejection of his words of comfort.

She had always been stubborn, yes, and proud too, and for a long time he had told himself that it was guilt and his love for her parents that had kept him away. But seeing her. now, as a woman...

He cut the thought off, not wanting to pursue it. 'Come on, it's time we were on our way.' Mutely, Heather followed him.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

HEATHER and Kyle had been inside the hospital just over an hour, but during that time an alarming amount of snow had fallen. Already the car park was completely white, a sharp, mean wind blowing the flakes into ominous drifts.

One side of the Jaguar was almost completely white, and Kyle had to brush the snow away before they could get in.

It was still snowing, and the temperature had dropped. The air was crisp and cold, their breath sending small clouds of vapour into the darkness. Every time they moved, the snow that had already fallen crunched noisily underfoot.

'Would you prefer to drive?' Heather asked Kyle, but he shook his head.

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