Penny Jordan Tribute Collection. PENNY JORDAN

her, Claire acknowledged, and it was obvious that he was none too pleased with his sister’s disruption of his life. But, in reality, what else could he do other than agree to her demands that he return home with her? Claire acknowledged.

      It was plain to her, even without knowing Mary-Beth or having met her husband, that it would need all of Brad’s skilled counsel and wisdom to heal the rift in his sister’s marriage.

      ‘Claire,’ she heard him saying quietly, his hand touching her arm lightly, as though he wanted to draw her away from Mary-Beth and the children. As though… as though… what? Claire asked herself ruefully. As though he wanted to isolate both of them from his family, as though he wanted to have her to himself. That’s some imagination you’ve got there, she warned herself.

      ‘I really am sorry,’ he told her in a low voice. ‘If I thought there was any way I could persuade Mary-Beth to go home on her own—’

      ‘She needs you, Brad,’ Claire interrupted him gently. And so do I, her heart cried silently, but of course she couldn’t allow herself to voice such words and wouldn’t have done no matter what the circumstances; to have done so would have been immature and selfish. ‘She’s obviously very upset about… about her husband,’ Claire felt bound to add.

      ‘Yes.’ Brad looked rather grim. ‘She always has a tendency to flare up over nothing and I doubt that this will be any exception. Abe’s just not the type to stray from his marriage.’

      ‘Mary-Beth obviously doesn’t share that view,’ Claire pointed out wryly.

      ‘No,’ Brad agreed heavily, glancing at his sister, who was trying to soothe the children’s fretting. ‘This couldn’t have happened at a worse time…’ he began to say; his hand was still resting on her arm but now the light grip of his fingers had somehow or other become a gentle stroke.

      An automatic reflex action to the feel of her skin beneath them or the tender, soundless reassurance of a lover? Claire wasn’t sure.

      ‘Brad,’ Mary-Beth called out impatiently, ‘you’re going to have to get to that supermarket.’

      Was she imagining the regret she could see in Brad’s eyes as he released her arm and moved away from her? Claire wondered.

      ‘And so Brad’s gone back to America with his sister?’ Hannah asked as Claire started to unload her dishwasher.

      ‘Yes, that’s right,’ Claire agreed woodenly.

      Hannah had come round half an hour ago, two hours after Brad and Mary-Beth had left with the children. By now, no doubt, they would be airborne and on their way back home.

      ‘I’m not sure when I’ll be coming back but it should be within the week,’ Brad had told her before he’d left. They had been standing in the hall, Brad frowning down at her, his expression grimly sombre—because he was concerned about his sister or because he was regretting what had happened between them the previous night? Claire had wondered.

      She flinched now as she recalled her own brief moment of weakness when she had almost reached out to him and begged him to…

      To what? To tell her that their lovemaking had been as earth-shaking, as cataclysmically, emotionally and physically intense for him as it had been for her? That, like her, he had been confronted by a revelation of emotions for her—love for her so strong that he knew his life would never be the same again?

      Fortunately, she had been able to stop herself before she had done anything more than stretch out her hand towards him.

      Mary-Beth had hugged her warmly before she’d left, thanking her appreciatively for all that she had done, but Brad hadn’t made any move to touch her, Claire had noticed.

      ‘How long will he be gone for?’ Hannah pressed. ‘You’re going to miss him. There’s something about having a man about the house…’

      ‘He’s only been here a couple of days, Hannah,’ Claire reminded her neighbour tersely, and was instantly ashamed of herself when she saw the hurt expression in Hannah’s eyes. The trouble was that Hannah was right—or almost…

      It wasn’t just a matter of her going to miss Brad, she was already doing so—missing him, aching for him, yearning for him, filled with all manner of insecurities and doubts, wondering if as far as he was concerned his sister’s marital difficulties had occurred most opportunely—contrary to what he had said before he’d left. It was a galling thought and an extremely painful one.

      So you went to bed with him and had sex, Claire taunted herself later when Hannah was gone. So what? Why should that have had any deep meaning for him?

      Did Brad even remember what had happened between them? she pondered starkly. He had, after all, been in the grip of an extremely strong fever earlier in the evening.

      Which was the worst scenario for her? she wondered painfully. For him not to have remembered a single thing about them being together, or for him to have remembered but to have decided that it was something that he simply felt had no real meaning for him?

      And, given the choice, which would she have preferred—to have experienced all that she had in his arms, to have discovered her capacity for emotional and physical love and endure all the pain that must surely now follow, or to have remained in celibate obliviousness?

      It was a question she didn’t feel she could answer, not with all the long, empty nights ahead of her without Brad beside her.

      CHAPTER NINE

      A WEEK went by without Claire hearing anything from Brad, and then another, and then halfway through the third she received a telephone call from Tim advising her that Brad had been in touch with him.

      ‘He did try to ring you but he said there was no reply. His uncle—the one who runs the business—has had a heart attack and is in Intensive Care and Brad has had to step in and take over from him, so obviously there’s no question of him returning here in the immediate future.’

      ‘But what about his things? They’re still here,’ Claire protested. Her body felt numb with shock; until she’d heard Tim telling her that Brad wouldn’t be coming back she hadn’t realised how much she had been depending on him returning… how strongly she had been clinging to that frail link between them.

      Now Tim had severed it, leaving her feeling that she was crashing through space, tumbling helplessly from a great height, her stomach seized with fear and nausea as her whole world dissolved around her.

      ‘I expect he’ll want us to make arrangements to ship whatever he’s left behind out to him,’ Tim told her. ‘Just let me know what there is and we can sort all that out for you.’

      After she had replaced the receiver Claire went upstairs, moving like a sleepwalker as she went into the room that Brad had occupied. Was she imagining it or did the very air in there still carry a faint scent of him—of his soap, his skin, himself? Her whole body bowed with misery and loss.

      She went across to the bed, smoothing her fingertips over the pillow, hot tears filling her eyes.

      It was ridiculous for her to be behaving in this fashion, she derided herself. She was a grown woman. Grown women didn’t fall intensely and passionately in love in the space of a handful of days—or at least they weren’t supposed to. Their hearts weren’t supposed to ache with all the intensity and anguish with which hers was aching right now, and nor were their bodies.

      Their bodies… her body… Her body. Oh, how it had deceived her, led her into a trap of false security, letting her believe that it was impossible for it to feel, to want, to need the way it was doing right now.

      Brad had said that he’d tried to ring her, Tim had told her. Her head dipped defensively as she remembered those last, frantic hours before he had left, his sister’s resentment at what she had seen as Brad’s support of her husband in his insistence that she needed to return home to talk to him and that it wasn’t fair on her children—on their children—simply to walk out, no