Liz Fielding - The Baby Plan

How could she have missed him? He must have seen her confusion because he was smiling as he took her arm. ‘I’m parked over there.’ Her eyes widened as she took in the opulent lines of a classic wine-red Jaguar parked on the far side of the hotel entrance. She’d been so intent on looking for a Mercedes, for Daniel, that she hadn’t even noticed it. Amanda smiled apologetically at the driver of the Mercedes and walked with Daniel across to his car. ‘Well, this is different,’ she said.

‘Someone rear-ended the Mercedes this afternoon.’

Concern brought her to a halt and she looked up at him anxiously. ‘Were you hurt?’

‘Hurt?’ Then he shook his head. ‘Oh, no. I wasn’t driving it when it happened.’ They reached the car. ‘I hope you don’t mind this old jalopy.’

‘Mind?’ She glanced at him. ‘Why should I mind? She’s absolutely beautiful. A real classic.’ Whether the Jaguar merited quite that amount of breathy admiration was a moot point. But Amanda needed some excuse for her breathlessness.

‘Well, I’m glad you like her because there is a bit of a problem.’ Then he did that thing with the smile that made simple breathlessness seem like a piece of cake. ‘Because she’s rather mature, there are no seat belts in the rear, so you’ll have to sit up front with me.’

‘That’s not a problem. That’s a pleasure.’ She surrendered her laptop and document case to Daniel, and as he opened the door for her she stepped into the leather-scented interior. ‘My father had a car like this,’ she said, when he joined her. ‘It was dark green.’

‘The height of luxury in its time.’

‘It’s still luxury. A real treat after a dull day.’

‘I wish I’d had a dull day.’ There was a world of feeling in his voice as he started the car.

‘A baby and a rear-ending. Yes, I can see how that might complicate your life.’

‘They were the easy problems. After all, the baby isn’t mine and someone else’s insurance company will be paying for the damage to the car.’

‘There’s more?’

‘They say things happen in threes. My daughter chose today to drop out of school.’

His daughter. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. And she meant it. In more ways than one. The happy haze evaporated as quickly as it had formed at the sound of his voice. He had a daughter. Well, what was the big surprise in that? She’d asked about his wife and he’d been evasive. She should have remembered that before she’d made an utter fool of herself with her stupid That’s a pleasure …

Well, that would teach her to let her mind go awandering. He had a wife, and a wife almost inevitably meant children. But the inevitability of it didn’t stop her heart from sinking like a soggy sponge.

‘Was there any special reason?’ she asked. Well, she had to say something. ‘For the dropping out?’

‘She flunked her GCSEs last summer. I’m hoping she’s just a bit fed up because all her friends have moved on to the sixth form while she’s stuck with re-sits.’ Daniel pulled out of the parking bay and headed for the gates.

‘Hoping?’

‘I suspect it may be a symptom of something worse.’ There was what seemed like an endless pause as he reached the gates, waited for the traffic, then pulled out into the lane.

She couldn’t ask. Could she? ‘A symptom?’ Amanda prompted, once they were cruising.

Daniel Redford glanced at her briefly. Then, as if coming to a decision, he said, ‘Her mother abandoned her when she was eight years old. The divorce was a long time ago, but I have the feeling that it’s finally caught up with her.’

‘Oh, I am sorry.’ And she was. She might be glad that Daniel was unattached. The soggy sponge might be making a miraculous recovery. But she couldn’t be happy that a little girl had been abandoned by her mother. ‘That’s a terrible thing to happen to any child. What’ll you do?’

‘With Sadie?’ He glanced across at her and quite unexpectedly grinned. Sadie might have taken her mother’s abandonment hard, but she didn’t get the feeling that Daniel Redford was too bothered. ‘I’ve put her to work cleaning cars at the garage. I’m hoping a week of that might help to change her mind.’

‘It would certainly send me scurrying back to my books. But shouldn’t you be at home with her now, helping her sort out her life, instead of chauffeuring me about the place?’

‘I should. In fact you were rescheduled for another driver, but what with the shunt and a baggage handlers’ strike delaying a couple of airport jobs, it all got a bit complicated. Don’t worry about it. I’ve no doubt she’s very grateful for the opportunity to avoid me for another hour or two.’

Amanda was grateful too. So grateful that she sent a silent thank you to the striking airport baggage handlers, wherever they were.

‘Well, you’ve got all weekend to talk. Maybe it’ll seem clearer after a good night’s sleep.’

‘Maybe. And, since the urge to dropout was precipitated by a week’s suspension from school, there’s no rush.’

‘You certainly seem to have your hands full.’ Well, they were big, capable hands and she was rather hoping to fill them herself. The thought came from nowhere, and Amanda made a determined effort to drag her subconscious back onto the straight and narrow. ‘What’s she been suspended for?’

‘Oh, nothing too dreadful. She dyed her hair.’

‘That’s all?’

‘Not quite.’

Amanda found it disgracefully hard not to laugh when he told her what Sadie had done. The fact that Daniel’s mouth was betraying his own amusement didn’t help, and her repressed giggle erupted without warning.

‘Horrible child,’ she said, when she had recovered her breath.

He grinned. ‘Do you know, I have the feeling that is exactly what the formidable Miss Garland would have said if she were here?’

‘Is that what you think?’ She laughed at that, too. In fact she was laughing rather a lot, she noticed. The seminar might have been dull but in every other way the day was turning out very well indeed. ‘I can see I shall have to be very careful, or I’ll become just like her.’

‘Sure,’ he said. They were stopped at traffic lights and he turned on the full force of that killer smile. ‘When shrimps learn to whistle.’

‘Er, excuse me? Was that supposed to be compliment?’

‘Well, you know Miss Garland. What would you say?’

Any number of things, Amanda thought, none of them what he expected. But why risk spoiling things? ‘I’d say, I’ve had a boring day and you’ve had a fretful one. Why don’t we stop somewhere and I’ll treat us both to a cup of coffee and a sticky bun as a treat?’

Daniel didn’t answer, and for a moment she thought perhaps she’d gone too far. Then he signalled a left turn and pulled onto the forecourt of one of those bright, cheerful little restaurants that provide coffee and comfort food twenty-four hours a day for busy travellers. Only then did he turn to her. ‘Was this what you had in mind?’

‘What do you do for an encore?’

‘Sorry?’

‘After the mind-reading trick.’

‘If I could read minds I’d know what to do about Sadie,’ he said as he opened the door for her.

If you could read minds, Amanda thought, I’d be in big trouble.

She picked up a tray, but Daniel took it from her. ‘I dare say you’ve been running about with cups of tea for spoilt executives all day. Go and sit down. I’ll get the coffee.’

‘Garland Girls don’t make coffee,’ she said, surrendering the tray but following him along the counter. Then added, straight-faced, ‘Well, not unless it’s Jamaica Blue Mountain.’

He stopped by the self-service capuccino. ‘You’re sure you want to risk this?’