Maggie Cox - Passionate Protectors?

‘Why did he give it up?’ asked Sara, unable to stop herself, and the housekeeper sighed.

‘Can’t you guess? To pursue his writing career, of course. Rosie was just a baby at the time.’

Sara bit her lip. ‘Was that—was that when his wife left him?’

‘Miss Victor—’

‘Call me Sara, please!’

‘Sara, then.’ Mrs Webb folded her lips together for a moment before continuing, ‘Don’t you think you ought to ask Matt these questions, not me?’

Sara flushed, but she stood her ground. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said a little stiffly. ‘I didn’t mean to pry.’

‘No—’ Mrs Webb turned towards the house, only to pause with her foot on the bottom step. ‘I don’t suppose it will do any harm to tell you that Carol—that’s his ex-wife—wasn’t prepared to give up the comfortable existence she’d had as a doctor’s wife. There was no certainty Matt would have any success as a writer.’

‘But she left her baby behind,’ protested Sara, unable to conceive of any woman doing such a thing, and the housekeeper nodded.

‘Yes, well, she married one of Matt’s partners in the practice just a week after their divorce became absolute,’ she conceded with a grimace. ‘Rosie would have been in the way.’

Then, as if she realising she had already said too much, Mrs Webb disappeared into the house.

MATT stared at the blank computer screen in front of him and scowled. For the first time in his writing career he was finding it almost impossible to concentrate on his work, and it irritated the hell out of him.

He knew what was wrong with him, of course. He was getting far too involved in Sara’s life. Despite the fact that he’d promised her not to say or do anything to alert Max Bradbury to her whereabouts, the temptation to let the bastard know exactly what he thought of him was hard to resist. More than that, he itched to bury his fist in Bradbury’s face, which was totally unlike him.

He’d always considered himself a reasonable man. Hell, when Carol had first left him and shacked up with Philip Arnold he’d never even thought of resorting to violence. Which probably said more about his relationship with his ex-wife than his own character, he conceded ruefully. In all honesty, if it hadn’t been for Rosie they’d have probably split up long before they had.

So what did that say about the present situation? Why did he feel this overpowering need to protect Sara? And what had possessed him to tell Emma Proctor that she was Rosie’s new nanny? By now the news was probably common knowledge throughout the county.

Yet, during the three days that had passed since Emma’s visit, he had to admit that the demands on his time had been eased. Although he hadn’t allowed Sara to pick Rosie up from school, there was no doubt that she had taken much of the responsibility for entertaining his daughter once she was home off his shoulders.

Of course, Sara wasn’t a nanny. But he believed her story about being a teacher now. She was good with the little girl and Rosie liked her. In normal circumstances he’d have considered himself very lucky to have her, but these circumstances were anything but normal.

His scowl deepened. One of his main sources of discontent was the fact that Sara had resisted all his efforts to find out why she stayed with her husband. She insisted that in a few more days she would have to go back, and that was the real cause of his writer’s block. Why did she feel any allegiance towards him? What twisted hold did the man have over her life?

Dammit! Leaving his desk, he walked to the windows, looking out on the scene that usually never failed to soothe his troubled psyche. The North Sea was grey today, reflecting the clouds that hovered over the headland. The mournful sound of a ship’s foghorn seemed to echo his mood, and he lifted both hands to massage the taut muscles at the back of his neck.

He had to stop this, he told himself savagely. He had to stop behaving as if he had any role to play in Sara’s future. Despite that emotional scene in her bedroom, when he’d made such a pathetic fool of himself, their association remained very much that of an employer and an employee. She’d accepted his excuse for staying on with obvious gratitude, but there’d been no further intimacy between them. Indeed, there were times when Matt wondered if he’d imagined the whole thing.

But then he’d remember the bruises he’d seen on her body and know he hadn’t.

He swore again, balling a fist and pressing it hard against the windowframe. He increased the pressure until all the blood had left his fingers and his hand was numb. And then, with an angry exclamation, he withdrew it and thrust it into his pocket, finding a masochistic pleasure in the pain he’d inflicted upon himself.

At least he’d done as he’d promised and let Bradbury know that his wife was safe and well. Or as safe and well as a woman who’d been brutalised could be, he amended grimly. He had a friend at the London Chronicle and he’d merely called in a favour by getting him to deliver the note Sara had written. Of course he hadn’t told her that he’d made the note public property, but there’d been no way he could have risked Max Bradbury burying it and continuing with his bogus concern.

As it was, there’d been a small item in yesterday’s papers. News of the letter had evidently circulated round the tabloid editors, as he’d hoped it would, and Bradbury had had to come up with a convincing explanation.

His story was that the blow he’d suffered to his head when he fell had temporarily robbed him of his memory. Thanks to Matt’s friend, he was able to claim that he’d contacted the Chronicle himself, as soon as he’d remembered that Victoria had told him she was going to visit a schoolfriend in the north of England. He’d had a letter from her now, he said, and all was well.

Until she went back, thought Matt, feeling his muscles tighten again. He’d probably done her no favours by holding Bradbury’s name up to possible ridicule, but it was too late now. It was just something else ‘Victoria’ would have to pay for.

Victoria!

His jaw clenched. One thing she had told him was that Victoria wasn’t her real name. She’d been christened Sara, she said, and Matt could only assume that it hadn’t been sophisticated enough for Max Bradbury’s wife. Not that she’d complained about it to him. Despite the fear she obviously had of her husband, she was absurdly loyal. Even though she must know that by changing her name he had removed another of the props that had made her who she was.

Matt had decided not to show Sara the article in the newspaper. He hadn’t wanted her to be concerned because Bradbury had implied that he knew where she was. The fact that he’d chosen to tell the media that she was in the north of England was just a coincidence. It had to be. But it was another example of how everything seemed to work to Bradbury’s advantage.

Sara’s rental car was no longer advertising her presence, at least. He’d had the garage in Saviour’s Bay pick it up and return it to the local franchise in Ellsmoor, and, although he’d been forced to admit that there’d been nothing wrong with it in the first place, Sara hadn’t complained. Whatever she chose to do after she left here, for the moment she seemed happy to be free of all obligations.

The phone rang before he could indulge in any further introspection, and, tamping down his resentment, he went to answer it.

‘Yeah?’

‘Matt?’

He recognised the voice at once. It was his agent, Rob Marco, and he pulled a wry face. He could guess what Rob wanted: some kind of timeframe for the completion of the new manuscript. The fact that he should have been in the final stages by now was just another cause for his tension.