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As he found a parking space close to the offices from which Claudia ran her business, he reflected wryly that knowing the town and its people, news of his arrival would probably reach her office before he did. Although he knew she would have argued to the contrary, pointing out with that chilly, distancing ma
She was a kind counsellor, a good friend, a loving daughter and daughter-in-law, and as a mother …
A female tourist in the town watching him as he climbed out of his car would have wondered who or what it was that could have brought such a pensive look of pain, mingled with compassion, to the face of so sexy a man. Whoever or whatever it was, she didn’t doubt for one moment that there would be plenty of female volunteers to help him banish it.
Maxine Jarvis, Claudia’s assistant, was in the reception area of the offices when he walked in. Recognising him, she told him quickly, ‘I’m afraid Claudia isn’t here. She’s working at home today.’
‘That’s no problem,’ Garth assured her, but Maxine noticed that he was frowning as he turned to leave.
After he had gone, she wondered if she ought to ring Claudia and warn her that her ex-husband had been in looking for her, and then, remembering the shuttered look with which Claudia tended to react to any comments about her ex-husband or her marriage, she decided that she might be better off simply saying and doing nothing.
Like everyone else who knew Claudia, Maxine admired the way she had handled her divorce, which, if the rumours that had gone round the town at the time were to be believed, had been brought on by Garth’s infidelity, and the way she had refused to allow her own feelings to damage Tara’s relationship with her father.
Not many women would be so altruistic, so determined to control their own feelings no matter what the personal cost, and to put those of their child first, but then, Claudia had always been a wonderfully devoted mother. Demanding though her work might be, there had never been a single occasion that Maxine could remember in all the years she had worked for her when Claudia had not put Tara’s needs first, even if that had meant risking losing an important contract by putting a client second to her daughter. In Maxine’s view, the friend who had suggested once when Claudia was out of earshot that if Claudia had more often put Garth’s needs ahead of those of his daughter or even given them parity to hers, then he and Claudia might still be married, in Maxine’s view, was no friend at all.
Garth frowned again as he turned into Ivy House’s driveway. After parking his car, he got out and started to walk towards the front door, and then, on impulse, he changed his mind and turned on his heel to walk round to the rear of the house towards the conservatory—the conservatory they had added to celebrate their tenth wedding a
Appraisingly, he studied it. The heavy bronze frog he and Tara had chosen together as a pre-birthday present for Claudia that same year was still there standing guard to the left of the door. Quickly, he bent down and felt beneath it, his fingers curling over the familiar shape of the key he found there.
He and Claudia had not had the kind of divorce that had necessitated anything so aggressive or traumatic as changing the house’s locks. And some habits, it seemed, lasted longer than others. Quietly, he unlocked the conservatory door and walked in.
It wasn’t that he feared that Claudia would refuse to let him into the house; the relationship they presently shared was civil enough if coolly distant. It was just …
Just what? That he wanted to surprise her—to catch her off guard, to see her face before she had time to hide behind the barrier he knew she would throw up against him?
‘Why?’ he had asked her passionately in the early years after their divorce. ‘Why the hell do you have to treat me with this ridiculous blanket of cold civility, Claudia, after all we’ve—’
‘Why? Because I have to,’ she had flung back at him bitingly. ‘I have to because if I don’t, I might start letting you see how I really feel about you, Garth, and for Tara’s sake, I can’t afford to do that.’
‘Do you really hate me that much?’ he had asked her emotively.
‘Yes,’ she had told him. ‘Yes, I do.’
‘Well, you know what they say,’ he had returned. ‘Hate and love are merely different sides of the same coin, and where there’s hate, there must also be love.’
‘Where there was love, there is now hate,’ Claudia had corrected him. ‘Hate for you and hate even more for myself that I was ever fool enough to love you … to trust you.’
Maxine had said that Claudia was working from home, but there was no sound of any kind of activity coming from the room where he knew she worked, and a sharp prickle of atavistic emotion jarred up his spine.
The mere fact that Claudia had actually telephoned him last night was a clear indication of just how distraught she must have been, not that he had needed any telephone call to warn him of the devastating effect Tara’s news would have on her.
The house felt alien and alarmingly silent, a house he remembered being filled with the sounds of Tara’s childhood. Suddenly impelled by a sharp sense of urgency, he started to take the stairs two at a time, calling her name as he did so.
Later, Claudia told herself that her instinctive automatic response to the sound of Garth’s voice—a response that had her racing to her bedroom door and flinging it open, ignoring the fact that she was still only wearing the towel she had wrapped around her naked body after her shower—was simply a reflex action and nothing more. Just in time, she realised what she was doing, and as Garth reached the landing, Claudia took a deep breath and stepped through the doorway.
‘Garth, what are you doing here?’ she demanded unsteadily, an uncomfortable colour flooding her face and then slowly spreading to her body as she recognised how betraying her presence here at home and still not being dressed must be—especially to someone who had once known her as well as Garth did.
The relief Garth had felt when he first saw her evaporated as he saw the way she was reacting to his presence, her obvious discomfort, the way her face and body had coloured, the way she was looking almost furtively back into the bedroom, as though …
‘Why didn’t you go into work this morning?’ he demanded suspiciously.
Claudia stared at him.
‘That’s none of your business,’ she told him crisply, turning on her heel dismissively and walking back into her bedroom.
Garth followed her.
‘Isn’t it?’ he demanded, and then stopped. The bed was made up, no sign of an alien male presence to sully its immaculate neatness. Claudia’s hair-dryer lay on a chair on top of the clean underwear she had obviously put out to wear.
‘Garth, what are you doing … what are you looking for?’ Claudia demanded sharply as she quickly checked the bedside table, thankful to see that there was no sign of the bottle of sleeping tablets—not that it was any business of Garth’s what she did, not any more, but she knew him and knew he would fuss if he thought …
‘I’m not looking for anyone … anything,’ Garth denied quickly, catching himself up as he realised how much he had betrayed himself and the reason for his male aggression and hostility. Had he really expected to find someone else in Claudia’s bed?
Logically, perhaps not, but emotionally, even after so many years apart, he wasn’t ready for that, for another man in Claudia’s life.