ached to scoop Mandy up in her arms, but she didn’t want to frighten her. Instead, she gently set her own hands atop the child’s small-boned fingers, which were wrapped tightly around the top rail, and in a soft and soothing voice, she started singing Mandy’s favorite lullaby.
The crying stopped.
Mandy froze. And for a long moment, the only sound was a sudden loud hiccup that echoed around the room.
Then slowly, very slowly, she lifted her head up from its lolled-back position, and stared, wary-eyed and open-mouthed, at Felicity.
Felicity smiled. And blinked back a tear.
“Hi, sweetheart,” she whispered. “It’s me.”
Another hiccup. Then a shaky, teary voice that was filled with wonderment and disbelief. “Fizzy?”
Felicity’s smile was watery. “Oh, yes, my darling, darling child. It’s Fizzy. Come to look after you.”
Now she leaned in and tenderly lifted the three-year-old in her arms, and cuddled her against her bosom. Mandy seemed lighter, even more fragile than she’d been last time she’d held her. Poor baby, she’d been through so much.
Feeling a surge of joy as the child’s slender arms wound their way around her neck, Felicity sought the nearest chair—a comfortable armchair by the hearth—and sank down.
“Fizzy?”
“Yes, sweetheart.” Felicity smoothed a hand over the tear-damp hair, and kissed the tear-damp forehead. “What is it, my little love?”
“I missed you.” Mandy started to weep again, but this time in low-strained sobs even more heartbreaking than her loudest most desperate wails had been. “I missed you every day.”
“And I missed you, too, precious. You’ll never know just how much. But we’ll always be together, from this moment on. You can count on it.”
She felt the grip around her neck tighten as the child gulped out an anguished “Promise, Fizzy?”
“Yes, my darling.” Felicity injected all the assurance she could into her words. “I promise.”
If there was one thing he hated, it was the smell of burned toast.
It hailed Jordan as he strolled along the corridor to the kitchen next morning, and set his teeth on edge.
She wasn’t to have known, of course, that toast always stuck in that old toaster; a person had to stand beside it and pop the toast up when it looked ready. Still, she shouldn’t even have been downstairs, far less making toast! She should have had the savvy to stay upstairs till after he’d gone. She must know how he felt about her; and the last thing he’d want was to have to make conversation with Denny Fairfax’s sister at the best of times…and first thing in the morning, before he’d even had his first mug of coffee, was certainly not that.
Surly, and prepared to be curt, though not to the point of rudeness, because dammit, he needed her—at least for the time being!—he shoved the kitchen door open.
And found the room empty.
Oh, she’d been down all right, and not too long ago. The smell of burned toast was even more cloying in here. The sweetish aroma of strawberry tea fought a losing battle for survival under it.
A black-and-red tea caddy, with a pattern of dragons, sat on the counter.
A note on the table read “Your Toaster’s Broken.”
And over by the back door, on the gleaming white-tiled floor, her cat was throwing up.
“Good morning, Jordan!” Bette welcomed him with a cheery smile. “Glad to see you back…and you’re the first one in!” She ran an approving glance over him. “Looking like your old self, too. Nice shave, hair immaculate, no pink hairbrushes peeking out of your pocket! So I gather you’ve solved your problems with Mandy? You’ve found someone reliable? You’re—”
“Yes, yes…and yes, to whatever your third question was going to be.” Jordan ran frustrated fingers through his hair, making a mockery of Bette’s “immaculate” comment. “Java, Bette. Please tell me you’ve made the coffee?”
She raised her eyebrows. “Yes, I have. But you don’t usually have any here till midmorning. You always have coffee at home first thing in the morning to set you up—”
“Not this morning, I didn’t!” He was already halfway to the staff room. Over his shoulder, he threw back, “Not with that darned cat throwing up all over the place.”
The coffeepot was full. He took his mug from the cupboard—the one he’d got last Christmas from Mandy with her picture on it. According to the child, “Fizzy” had had it done at a photo shop, ’specially for him.
He’d never met “Fizzy,” his daughter’s baby-sitter, but he’d appreciated the thought that had gone into the gift. He’d always meant to let her know, but time had slipped away from him…and then…it was too late. The very name “Fairfax” had become anathema to him, and “Fizzy” Fairfax was the last person in the world with whom he’d wanted to become involved in any way, shape or form—
“Cat?” Bette materialized at his side. “You can’t stand cats! What was a cat doing in your kitchen?”
Jordan filled his mug with coffee. “You don’t want to know.”
“But I do.”
Bette Winslow had been married four times, and had, she often said, “Seen it all.” In her early fifties, she had the kind of personality that invited confidences—and all the agents knew that Bette in Reception was closer than a clam.
Jordan was a private person and normally he didn’t talk to outsiders about his personal problems. Today, however, frustration had him wanting to tell someone about his impossible situation. And if anyone would listen and show him sympathy, it would surely be Bette.
He added milk to his coffee, and drank half of the teeming mug in one long swallow.
Only then did he set the mug on the table, fold his arms over his chest, and say, “It’s Felicity Fairfax’s cat.”
Like everyone else in the office, Bette had learned that his wife and Denny Fairfax had been having an ongoing affair during the several months before Denny had smashed up his sports car, killing Marla in the process and sending himself into a coma. And she must know how he would feel about any of the Fairfaxes.
“So,” she said, “you’ve rehired Felicity Fairfax to baby-sit Mandy, and she’s going to live in.”
Bette, he mused, never needed to have things spelled out. “Right,” he said.
“A wise decision.”
“I had no other choice. My hours are erratic, you know I work late more often than not, and I couldn’t go leaving Mandy with her while I’m closing some late-night sale or—”
“I meant it was a wise decision to rehire Felicity Fairfax. I don’t know her, but my cousin Joanne does, and she has only the nicest things
