Jack Riordan's Baby by Anne Mather

Author:Anne Mather
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2006-12-07T16:00:00+00:00

It was so quiet.

Even after three weeks at Ballyryan, Jack still hadn’t got used to the absence of cars and traffic jams, of planes flying overhead, of raised voices and the constant sound of phones ringing somewhere in the building.

When he’d first arrived, he used to wake in the middle of the night with his heart hammering, his pulses racing, and his nerves as tight as violin strings. He’d spend the next half-hour straining to hear what had woken him. It had taken him a week to realise it was the silence, the absolute lack of any noise whatsoever, that had disturbed him. In its own way it was deafening, like the sudden pounding of a drum.

He was used to that now, though, used—most nights anyway—to sleeping eight or nine hours at a stretch. No one disturbed him. No one brought him early-morning cups of tea or coffee unless he asked for it. His parents went about their daily lives without asking him a lot of unnecessary questions. They were there if he needed them, but otherwise they gave him all the time and space he wished for.

Nor did they treat him like an invalid, even though Jack had been forced to tell them what his doctor had said. He doubted they’d even heard of arrhythmia until he’d described it to them, and, although his mother hadn’t been able to hide her anxiety at first, she was dealing with it.

A tug on the line Jack had extended into Lough Ryan alerted him to the fact that something was biting. His father was a keen fisherman, and in recent days Jack, too, had discovered the pleasures of just sitting on the bank of the small lake and letting time glide by. His parents’ cottage overlooked the lough, so he didn’t have far to go. Carrying a folded canvas chair and a striped umbrella—because County Wexford wasn’t so green by accident—he’d set himself up with his rod and a flask of iced water, and drift on the soft, scented air.

The catch proved to be too small to bother with and, releasing it, Jack let the quivering fish slide back into the water. It splashed for a moment in the reeds before gliding swiftly away, and Jack resumed his lazy contemplation of the shoreline opposite.

He wondered if fishing made Jude Riordan such a laid-back character. Yet, despite making light of his wife’s fears, his father had instigated a distinctly more in-depth discussion with his son when Maggie wasn’t around. In his opinion, Jack’s problem was a pain in the ass, no doubt about it. But, as the doctors had said, the solution was in his own hands.

His actual words had been that Jack should stop mucking around before he did something really stupid like killing himself. And, although he was sure the Blessed Virgin would be pleased to see Jack, he’d prefer it if it wasn’t quite yet.

It was that kind of simple logic that Jack appreciated. The old man usually talked good sense, even if Jack didn’t always take his advice.

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