Keeping Luke's Secret by Carole Mortimer

Author:Carole Mortimer [Mortimer, Carole]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781488029837
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2002-06-30T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 9

‘YOU’RE a little early—Jeremy!’ Leonie gasped her dismay as, having opened the door to her basement apartment fully, she recognised her visitor, not Luke as she had imagined, but Jeremy.

He gave her a quizzical look as she continued to stare at him. ‘I’m not interrupting anything, am I…?’

She gave herself a mental shake. ‘No, of course not. I just—I wasn’t expecting you,’ she awkwardly excused her unwelcoming behaviour. ‘Er—would you like to come in?’ she offered abruptly.

What on earth was Jeremy doing here on a Saturday afternoon? He hadn’t mentioned anything about calling round today when Leonie had telephoned him midweek and explained she couldn’t meet him yesterday evening. In fact, he had never just called round like this before…

‘If it’s no trouble.’ Jeremy shrugged ruefully. ‘I—what have you done to your ankle?’ He frowned concernedly as Leonie moved back to let him in and he obviously saw the support bandage on her left ankle above the bareness of her foot.

‘It’s nothing,’ Leonie assured him as she led the way through to her sitting-room. ‘I slipped last night and gave my ankle a bad sprain.’

A fact the midnight visit to the hospital had confirmed. But the doctor had insisted she wear the support bandage, and stay off her ankle as much as possible, until it felt easier to walk on. Much to Luke’s satisfaction!

Luke! She remembered with an anxious glance towards the clock that stood on her unlit fireplace.

She might not have been expecting Jeremy a few minutes ago, but she was expecting Luke to arrive in the next twenty minutes or so in order to drive her to her grandfather’s house. The last thing she wanted was for these two men to meet!

She gave Jeremy a bright smile. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘I’m not sure.’ He looked a little uncomfortable, hands thrust into the back pockets of his faded denims. ‘You seemed a little—distant, on Monday evening, and I just—Leonie, I haven’t done, or said, anything to upset you, have I?’ He frowned across at her.

‘Of course not.’ She forced lightness into her tone; after all, it wasn’t Jeremy’s fault she felt so uncertain about the continuation of their relationship. That, she knew, was entirely due to Luke! ‘I’m just a bit—preoccupied, with this Rachel Richmond biography at the moment,’ she dismissed ruefully. ‘I did try to warn you at the beginning that it would take up a lot of my time.’ She grimaced, at the same time giving another surreptitious glance at the clock.

Almost four o’clock, the time Luke had told her he would arrive to pick her up in order to drive her to Devon. Thankfully, in his own car this time. A three-hour drive, with the roof of Leonie’s car down to accommodate Luke’s height, had not appealed to either of them!

‘Actually, I’m really rather busy this afternoon too,’ Leonie continued with a pointed look at the diaries she had spread out on the dining-table as she worked her way through them. So far she had got as far as Rachel’s twenty-fifth birthday.

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