Emma Darcy by The Wedding

Author:The Wedding [Wedding, The]
Format: epub
Published: 2011-01-22T11:46:40+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHT

Tessa’s parents lived at Green Point, on the outskirts of Gosford. Fortunately Tessa had caught an express train so the journey had only been a little over an hour. She caught a taxi from the railway station. The sense of impatience, almost urgency to get the issue of Grant Durham over and done with had a lot to do with Blaize Callagan’s card in her handbag, but Tessa kept telling herself she would only be jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire if she let herself get involved with him.

No future there.

Nothing but bed and possibly breakfast. Occasionally. When it suited him.

She had to be absolutely off her brain to even hope that there was a chance of a real commitment between them. Just because he made her blood sing and she had got the better of him a few times didn’t mean his interest would stick beyond the gratification he found with her.

It was a pipe dream.

Sheer pie in the sky.

She was brought sharply down to earth when the taxi pulled up outside her parents’ home. It was a well-presented home with neat lawns and gardens, comfortable and solidly middle class.

Tessa was proud of what her parents had achieved, and proud of the independence she herself had achieved. She simply wasn’t a match for a high flyer like Blaize Callagan. That was reality, and there wasn’t any future in indulging fantasies.

She paid off the taxi driver with a heavy heart and walked down the path to the front door with a dirgelike tread, knowing that the music she had to face was going to be unpleasant. She rang the doorbell and waited, resigning herself to the inevitable in more ways than one.

The door was opened by her mother. She was, as always, neatly dressed in conventional clothes, her hair conventionally permed into rigid waves and curls, lipstick in place, a strand of pearls around her throat, and absolutely everything about her appearance just so. She looked at Tessa, looked past her, then asked, “Where’s Grant?”

It had taken Joan Stockton only a few seconds to assess the undeniable fact that Tessa had arrived at her parents’ door alone. Grant’s car was not in the driveway. Grant was not beside Tessa. Hence, Grant was not here. Her expression instantly became disapproving. Joan Stockton never reacted well to anything that didn’t match up to her sense of what was right and proper.

“He won’t be coming,” Tessa said bluntly.

Chagrin mixed with the disapproval. “I cooked that lasagne he likes especially for him.”

Typical, Tessa thought. Her mother’s outlook was that men had to be indulged to keep them firmly caught. Except the indulgence didn’t run to free sex. “I like it, too, Mum,” she said. “It won’t go to waste.” She kissed her mother’s cheek and pushed through the hallway to greet her father.

He wrapped her in his arms with his usual bear hug. He was an affectionate father, and an indulgent one. Tessa hugged him back fiercely, wishing she could find a man like him.

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