His Love-Child. Jacqueline Baird

and sacking everyone on the spot. Until it struck him there was something very odd about Willow’s behaviour. He wasn’t a fool. He knew women, and he knew the sexual tension, the chemistry between them was electric. He could, with very little persuasion, have had Willow in his bed last night.

      Willow might not want to renew their relationship, but all she had to do was say, ‘No’. So why did she feel the need to escape in the middle of the night? That was the real question. He had to give Willow credit—she was crafty. A wry smile twisted his firm mouth. The woman wrote detective novels; he should have expected as much. But the lovely Willow obviously had something to hide, and Theo was not going to rest until he found out.

      It was eight in the morning when the cab pulled up outside Willow’s thatched cottage overlooking the river. Willow paid the driver and, with a sigh of relief, let herself into her home. Stephen was staying with Tess and her husband at their home a hundred yards further up the road, and they were not expecting her back until this afternoon.

      She glanced around the familiar hall and smiled. She had probably overreacted, leaving London in the middle of the night, but she didn’t care. She was home, and it felt great. Running upstairs to her bedroom, she placed her weekend case on the bed and swiftly unpacked. She took a quick shower and washed her hair. Standing in front of the mirror, she set about drying her hair. As she glanced at the naked reflection of herself a vivid mental image of Theo’s dark head lowered over her breasts, his sensuous mouth suckling the rose-tipped peaks, suddenly flashed in her mind. A shaft of heat lanced through her slender body and she almost groaned. No! her mind cried. Sex and all that was behind her, had been for nine years, and that was the way it was going to stay. She continued drying her hair with more force than was necessary.

      Returning to the bedroom, she looked out of the window at the view of the river sparkling in the bright early morning sunshine and smiled again. This was her life now and it was a good one. So what if she didn’t have a man in her life? She didn’t need one. Stephen was more than enough for her.

      She quickly put on clean briefs and a multi-coloured Indian cotton summer dress with short sleeves, the skirt swinging around her calves. She slipped her feet into flat sandals, and with a flick of her long hair she went back downstairs.

      She’d have a quick breakfast and then call at Tess’s and surprise Stephen. Then she would walk him to school as she usually did. Everything back to normal and no more city jaunts for her, she vowed. It was the first time since Stephen was born that she had spent a night away from him, and she had no intention of repeating the exercise.

      Ten minutes later as she opened the gate to Tess’s cottage the front door opened, and her heart expanded in her breast at the sight of the dark-haired dynamo of a boy that shot out.

      ‘Mum… Mum, you’re back. I have had a really great time, you wouldn’t believe,’ Stephen called out as he ran full tilt down the garden path followed by a beaming Tess. ‘The reporter from the local paper called and interviewed me, and he took a photograph of me. He said my picture might be in the paper, and that you were going to make tons of money.’

      Shock held her rigid for an instant. ‘That’s great,’ she finally managed to say, and swept the firm young body of her son up in her arms, and hugged him so tightly he yelped.

      ‘Hey, Mum, put me down. I’m eight, not a baby.’ Reluctantly she let him go.

      ‘I didn’t think you would mind,’ her friend Tess said, grinning. ‘You winning the award is the most excitement this village has ever seen.’

      ‘Thanks,’ Willow said, trying to smile. Inside she was horrified at the thought of Stephen’s photo appearing in a newspaper. But Tess did not seem to notice anything was amiss and continued speaking.

      ‘How did you get back so quick?’

      ‘Well…’

      ‘No, it doesn’t matter. I guess you want to walk Stephen to school. Call in on your way back. I will have the coffee ready and I want to hear every little detail.’

      Stephen continued chattering nineteen to the dozen as they headed for the primary school two hundred yards away and for the first time in his young life Willow was barely listening to what he was saying, feelings of fright and panic already consuming her. She tried to tell herself it was a local paper, very few people read it, and she was worrying for nothing, but mixed in with her fear was guilt.

      She glanced down at her son’s beaming, excited face and wondered if she had made the right decision all those years ago. Stephen had not looked particularly like Theo when he was born. His eyes had been a deep blue, but within months they had turned dark brown. Most of the people in the village, because of his black curly hair, had automatically said he looked like Willow. But as he had grown older the baby curls had some how straightened out, and his skin tone had become much darker than hers. More and more Willow could see his father in his features.

      ‘Anyway,’ Stephen said, ‘when the man asked who my father was, Tess told him to stop, and then he left.’

      ‘What?’ Willow exclaimed, the mention of father registering like a bullet to the brain. ‘Well, that was very wise of Tess.’ She smiled down into his suddenly serious face, and felt even worse.

      ‘Mum, you know you said my father married someone else and then vanished to the other side of the world but you didn’t know where? Well, now you are going to make a lot of money, do you think we could look for him? Today is the last day at school, and next week is half-term holiday, so we could start looking from tomorrow.’ He looked at her with such innocent, trusting eyes her heart turned over in her breast.

      ‘Well, I don’t see why not,’ she conceded, and then felt terrible for lying to him. But was it a lie? She had always known deep in her heart that at some point Stephen would want to meet his dad, and the event of the last twenty-four hours had simply reinforced her belief.

      Smiling down at Stephen, she added, ‘In any case, a holiday will do us both good.’ The idea of taking Stephen away somewhere for a week suddenly seemed a brilliant idea. By the time they returned the press would have hopefully forgotten all about them. Part of her problem solved for the moment, she was relieved to see Stephen’s friend Tommy run towards him as they approached the schoolyard, Stephen’s thoughts of his father evaporating as he eagerly joined in his friend and vanished into the school building, without a backward glance.

      ‘Well,’ Tess exclaimed, ‘tell all! Is the gorgeous Mr Carlavitch as handsome and sexy in the flesh? And is he going to make you rich? And, most important, did you fancy him?’

      Sitting at Tess’s kitchen table nursing a cup of coffee, Willow laughed. It was either that or cry. ‘I don’t know,’ she responded honestly. ‘He was quite attractive I suppose.’ She had had another man entirely on her mind during that time, and still had.

      ‘Are you all right?’ Tess frowned. ‘I thought you would be ecstatic winning the award and everything, yet you look a bit done in.’

      ‘Yes, I am a bit,’ Willow said, getting to her feet, grateful for the excuse to get away and be alone with her turbulent thoughts. ‘I did travel half the night in a car, you know. Thanks a million for looking after Stephen, I really appreciate it. I think I will just nip into the village for some milk, and then go home to rest for a while.’

      ‘Of course. I don’t know what I was thinking of. I’ll catch you later.’

      ‘I’ll pop back in after I collect Stephen from school this afternoon. Actually, I am thinking of taking him away tomorrow for the half-term holiday, down to Falmouth like we did last year, and a trip to France for a day or so. He likes the boat trip and he deserves a treat; he has been so good.’

      ‘Good idea. But in that case you will need all the sleep you can get.’ Tess chuckled.

      But when Willow returned to her cottage thirty minutes later sleep was the last thing on her mind. After she’d accepted the congratulations of what appeared to be half the village, clustered around the post office, someone had complimented Willow on the picture