‘Where’s Joey?’ Kit asked as he looked round the kitchen.
‘In bed,’ Nicki told him sharply. ‘It’s past his bedtime and, as I told you this morning, I have work to do this evening.’
Nicki paused deliberately before reminding him, ‘You were supposed to be reading him the next chapter of his book.’
‘Oh, Dad, remember when you used to read my bedtime story?’ Laura smiled, interrupting Nicki, one hand on her father’s arm. She threw Nicki a smugly triumphant look before adding, ‘You never missed a single evening, no matter how busy you were. But of course things were different for us. With Mummy being so ill I really only had you. I expect that’s why we’re so especially close.’
As Nicki listened she could feel herself starting to grind her teeth. She itched to be able to tell Laura that she’d made her point and that there was no need for her to over-egg her bread, but if she did she knew that Laura would immediately turn to Kit for support. The last thing Nicki wanted right now was to be humiliated in front of her stepdaughter!
‘You mustn’t blame Dad for being late, Nicki,’ Laura was saying mock apologetically now. ‘It’s my fault! I wanted to have a daddy and daughter chat with him. Private stuff …’
As Laura leaned into Kit’s side Nicki tried to control the fury building up inside her. She knew that Laura was deliberately manipulating the situation, and trying to cause an argument between them.
‘I loved driving the new BMW,’ she added enthusiastically, ignoring Nicki to speak to her father. ‘And thanks for letting me have the spare set of keys, Dad. I promise I’ll check with you before I borrow it.’
Nicki had had enough.
‘Actually, Laura, I am the one you should be checking with,’ Nicki told her stepdaughter with icy rage. ‘The BMW is actually my car.’
Nicki could feel her face burning with resentment and guilt as she saw the look Kit was giving her.
* * *
Nope, she still appeared the same, Laura acknowledged derisively half an hour later as she peered at her reflection in her bedroom mirror. She had not suddenly turned back into her pony-tailed fifteen-year-old self, even if she had just given a pretty good display of that self to her stepmother.
What was it about the relationship between oneself and one’s family that somehow meant that within minutes of being with them one reverted to childhood, not to mention childish habits? Laura knew that she was not alone in experiencing this unpalatable phenomenon, just as she also knew she was not alone in being guilty of still enacting in adulthood the travails of her teenage step-parent wars!
It was a subject her generation were experts on and a powerful bonding agent. ‘Show me a person who can put their hand on their heart and honestly say that they accepted and welcomed their step-parents from the word go, and I’ll show you an alien. It is a universally accepted truth that a child in possession of two parents is not in need of a step-parent,’ one of Laura’s friends was fond of saying facetiously. But there was a certain black-humoured element of truth in her statement.
Laura wasn’t exactly proud of the way being in her stepmother’s presence made her revert with dizzying speed back to the mindset of her teenaged self, employing deliberately contentious tactics as only teenage girls knew how. It gave her no pleasure now she was back in her adult skin to recognise how quickly and effectively she had stoked the fires of Nicki’s hostility and resentment.
As a girl she had told herself that it was her duty to show Nicki to her father in her true colours, and to show Nicki herself that there was no way she or Joey could ever match, never mind usurp, the place she and her own mother held in her father’s heart.
What must it be like to always have to live with the knowledge that your husband had previously been legally committed to another woman, another family? Was there always a fear lurking on the edge of one’s awareness that one might be less loved … the lesser loved?
Laura knew that her stepmother was hardly likely to give her the answer to such questions!
And as to seeking her input, her guidance, her support on the matter that had brought Laura here, running for cover, seeking safety … A mirthless smile curled her mouth, her grey eyes shadowing.
Her hair, like her father’s, was wheat-gold and thick, just like Joey’s. She shared other similarities with her half-brother as well, she recognised, not least a tendency to be wary of anyone trying to push their way into their family life!
She had felt very sorry for her father earlier when Nicki had made that acrid comment about the BMW. Her smile gave way to a frown. Did Nicki habitually humiliate him like that? Did he always allow her to?
Resurrecting the battle between Nicki and herself had been the last thing on her mind when she had made her decision to come here; she wasn’t an insecure teenager any more, after all, terrified of losing her father as she had already done her mother, and resentful of the woman who in her eyes had been the catalyst for that loss. But listening to the way her stepmother had spoken to her father had swamped her good intentions and reawakened all her old bitterness and hostility.
A little ruefully, she reflected on the generous company car allowance she had given up when she had given up her job. With a little careful handling it would just have stretched—just—to the pretty BMW convertible she had had her eye on!
Still, with her qualifications and CV she knew she would not have too much trouble in getting another job, but not yet … not until … Instinctively she reached into her bag for her mobile, and then grimaced. She had handed it in along with her notice. Much better that way. After all, her mobile, like her job, would be easy enough to replace.
Even so, she couldn’t resist working out just how long it would be before he realised what she had done … Quickly she calculated. He was still away and not due back for another couple of days, and … Stop it! she warned herself, quickly clamping down on the thought and on the sudden give-away surge of her heartbeat.
‘Was that really necessary?’ Kit asked Nicki grimly when he walked into their bedroom, having finished reading Joey his belated bedtime story.
‘Was what really necessary?’ Nicki asked him defiantly, but of course she knew what he meant.
‘That dig about the car,’ Kit told her. ‘You were the one who insisted that I should drive it.’
‘That you should drive it, yes,’ Nicki agreed. ‘But there is no way I am prepared to have Laura driving it.’
‘Nicki!’
The very way he said her name was a weary sigh. Ridiculously, Nicki could feel tears pricking the backs of her eyes. She was a grown woman, for heaven’s sake, and not a teenager!
‘Oh, Nicki … this is crazy,’ she heard Kit saying in a much warmer voice as he walked over to where she was standing, brushing her already neatly glossy nut-brown bob. Standing behind her, he wrapped his arms around her, nuzzling the exposed curve of her throat. Immediately Nicki stiffened and tried to pull away.
‘What is it? What’s wrong?’ Kit demanded.
In the mirror their glances met. Nicki looked away first.
‘I’m
