Carole Mortimer - Tall, Dark & Gorgeous

His mother gave a shy smile at his obviously stunned expression. ‘Not exactly the way you see me, is it, Logan?’ she ventured ruefully. ‘Maybe if we had been closer the last twenty years or so—’

‘As you are well aware, Mother, I despised Malcolm Slater, the man you chose to marry after my father died, preferred to live with Grandfather rather than with you and him,’ he revealed with distaste.

‘I despised Malcolm myself by the time we were divorced,’ she admitted.

Logan was surprised. ‘You did?’

His mother gave a wistful smile. ‘I did. Mainly because I lost my son during the five years we were married. Logan, why do you think I feel so strongly about having Darcy’s approval to her father marrying me? It’s because I know how it feels to lose your child in those circumstances,’ she continued firmly. ‘I lost you for that very reason, because of the way you felt about Malcolm,’ she said emotionally. ‘And although it may be too late to do anything to salvage our own relationship, I won’t do that to Daniel and Darcy!’

Logan stared at his mother, wondering, just wondering, if he could have been wrong about her all these years…

She looked at him with unwavering blue eyes. ‘I need your help, Logan. I need you to help me persuade Darcy that I really do love her father, that I intend making him happy. Will you help me?’

Would he?

Wasn’t his mother, a woman he had kept at an emotional distance for more years than he cared to think about, asking him to take on the role Darcy had already cast him in at lunch-time—that of championing his mother?

Did he really want to champion his mother? Could he believe the things she was saying to him?

More to the point, didn’t Darcy already hate him enough…?

‘Call for you, Darcy,’ her grandmother called up the stairs.

A call for her…?

Who from? Apart from her father, no one else knew she had been staying with her maternal grandmother the last couple of days; and her father only knew because her grandmother had thought she ought to tell him.

Again, it was only a temporary arrangement, Darcy having found an apartment to rent that very afternoon. Unfortunately the current tenant wasn’t moving out until next week.

She ran down the stairs to pick up the receiver in the hallway. ‘Yes?’ she prompted warily.

‘Darcy,’ Logan McKenzie greeted with satisfaction. ‘You’re a very difficult young lady to track down.’

Darcy had stiffened as soon as she’d recognised his voice, her hand tightly gripping the receiver. ‘Why did you bother?’ she returned coldly.

‘I thought you might be interested to know that I’m in hospital with a broken shin-bone,’ he came back mildly.

‘You’re what?’ she gasped, remembering all too vividly the way she had kicked him on the leg at the restaurant two days ago.

‘That got your attention anyway.’ He chuckled. ‘Actually…’ he sobered ‘…I exaggerated slightly.’

‘How slightly?’ Darcy ventured warily.

‘I’m not in hospital. And my shin-bone isn’t broken.’

‘In other words, it was a total lie!’ Darcy came back disgustedly.

‘Fabrication,’ he corrected smoothly. ‘It isn’t nice to call someone a liar, Darcy.’

‘Logan,’ she sighed wearily, ‘what do you want?’

‘To have dinner with you this evening,’ he returned lightly.

She was taken aback at the unexpected invitation. ‘Why?’

‘You really are the most suspicious young lady!’ he opined dryly. ‘Why not?’

The reasons for that were too numerous to go into. And some of them were reasons she couldn’t possibly tell Logan! As in, she found him too disturbingly attractive. As in, she dared not run the risk of having him kiss her again. As in—

‘Oh, come on, Darcy,’ he cajoled at her continued silence. ‘It’s only dinner.’

Only dinner…

But what were the implications behind the invitation? What was it supposed to achieve? Because she had no doubts that under ordinary circumstances—such as his mother not being about to marry her father!—Logan would never have thought of asking her out to dinner! He must already be aware, she had no influence with her father whatsoever!

‘Logan, my father is a grown man, an adult, perfectly capable of making his own choices and decisions without any help from me,’ she told him decisively.

‘Yes?’

‘Yes!’

Was he being deliberately difficult? Didn’t he realise how much it hurt her to be at odds with her father like this?

Apart from picking up her things from the house, telling her father where she was staying for the moment, the two of them hadn’t spoken to each other for two days. And this man’s mother was responsible for the estrangement between the two of them.

‘I don’t see what your problem is, Darcy,’ Logan told her. ‘You’ve got what you wanted, by fair means or foul, so why—?’

‘What do you mean?’ she cut in.

‘My mother has broken off her engagement to your father,’ Logan revealed.

‘She’s done what?’ she gasped, suddenly feeling lightheaded, so much so that she sat down abruptly on the chair beside the telephone.

‘Yes, it’s all off,’ Logan told her happily. ‘My mother broke the engagement last night.’

‘Why?’ Darcy breathed dazedly.

‘Does it matter?’ Logan replied. ‘It’s what you wanted, isn’t it?’

She hadn’t wanted her father to marry Margaret Fraser, no, but until she knew the reasons for the broken engagement she could feel no satisfaction in its ending. If the couple had simply decided they had made a mistake after all, that was okay, but if it were for any other reason—such as her own objections to it!—then it wasn’t okay at all. If Margaret Fraser had been the one to break the engagement, how must her father feel now?

‘I must say,’ Logan continued at her silence, ‘I expected you to be happier about it than this.’

But how could she be—when she knew her father must be totally miserable?

This was awful. A mess. It was a mess she had helped create…!

‘Then you thought wrong, Logan,’ she responded. ‘And if you think I’m going out with you this evening to celebrate—’

‘I think celebration is far too strong a description of my invitation,’ he returned mildly. ‘Admittedly, we can no longer drink a toast to the happy couple, but—’

‘How can you be so unfeeling?’ she interrupted accusingly. ‘I have no idea how your mother feels, but my father is probably devastated, and all you can do is—’

‘Now just a minute, Darcy,’ he put in impatiently. ‘You’re the one that wanted an end to this engagement, and now that you have it, you—’

‘You wanted it as much as I did,’ she defended heatedly. ‘You were the one who thought my father wasn’t good enough for your mother!’

‘I don’t think I ever said that—’

‘But you thought it!’ Darcy persisted. ‘And now it seems, no doubt with more than a little help from you, that your mother is of the same opinion. How dare you presume—?’

‘Stop right there, Darcy,’ Logan told her firmly.

‘I most certainly will not,’ she retorted angrily. ‘You made it perfectly obvious that you were not happy about my father marrying your mother—’

‘As obvious as you did that you weren’t happy about my mother marrying your father. Now we’ve both got our wish, so what are you complaining about? You’ve won, Darcy,’ he taunted. ‘Defeated the dragon. In fact, she’s turned tail and run!’

Except Darcy didn’t feel as if she had won anything—she felt terrible! Not that she had changed her opinion about the older woman’s unsuitability for her father, she had just realised—with blinding clarity!—that she didn’t have the right to decide those things for another person, least of all her father.