INNOCENT SECRET by Josie Metcalfe

Author:Josie Metcalfe
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2013-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVEN

‘I’M SHATTERED!’ Vicky groaned as she slumped back into the passenger seat of Joe’s car. ‘I was only looking after three little boys until they fell asleep. I can’t imagine how you must be feeling after operating under pressure.’

‘I think I got the easier job,’ he joked as he set off out of Edenthwaite. ‘Those boys could show Torquemada a thing or two about interrogation techniques. And they were watching cartoons at the same time!’

‘That’s par for the course with Luke and Jake. They’re real live wires,’ Vicky said fondly. ‘Heaven only knows how Francine is going to keep up with four of them. It’s a good job the boys have started to go to school part time.’

‘You’re very close to them, aren’t you?’ he said quietly.

‘I’m their honorary aunt, and proud of it. It means I get to do all the fun things with them, then return them to Francine hopelessly hyped up just in time for bed.’

Joe chuckled. ‘Every mother’s worst nightmare. I suppose you’re looking forward to having a brood of your own some day, or would the position of honorary aunt be enough for you?’

‘I’d love to have some of my own,’ she said fervently, and was suddenly struck with the image of a little boy with his father’s changeable hazel eyes and a mischievous smile. Was there any chance that he might one day exist?

Tiredness loosened her control of her tongue.

‘How about you, Joe? Have you got plans in the future for a wife and family?’

He was silent for so long that Vicky had begun to think that he wasn’t going to answer. His voice was chillingly expressionless when he did.

‘No. No plans,’ he said briefly, his tone enough to discourage any further questions. Then, out of the blue he went on bitterly, ‘As the saying goes, been there, done that, got the T-shirt, done the jig-saw. I won’t be doing it again.’

‘What, never?’ she said on a gasp. That was something Denison Memorial’s grapevine didn’t know. She’d noticed more than one single woman casting her eyes his way even if Joe hadn’t.

And why did his absolute certainty make her feel as if he’d just betrayed her? It was ridiculous when he’d made her no promises, but she’d been so sure that there was a special awareness between them.

‘Marriage is all very well but it’s the rest of it that isn’t worth the candle,’ he said heavily in a voice that told her as clearly as his words that he had no intention of doing it again.

Vicky subsided, almost stunned with the sudden realisation that there was going to be no happy-ever-after in her life after all.

She’d thought she’d been in love with Nick, but once she’d met Joe and had got to know him, she’d realised the world of difference between an overblown infatuation and what she felt for the man beside her in the car.

Her passion for Nick had endured through nearly fourteen years of turbulence until she’d come to her senses. Her feelings towards Joe would probably go with her for the rest of her life and beyond.

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