The Sister Swap Page 6

  CHAPTER FOUR

  ‘ARE you telling me that you left a helpless baby alone in the flat?’ Hunter’s expression was one of grim disapproval.

  Anne drew herself up defensively. So it was to be the easy questions first!

  ‘Only for a few minutes. He was asleep when I left and I was only a few metres away, for goodness’ sake! I heard him cry, didn’t I?’

  ‘Where did he come from?’

  ‘The stork brought him, where do you think he came from?’ she snapped, patting Ivan’s nappy, automatically checking it for dampness.

  Hunter’s black brows descended even further over his hooded gaze as he observed the practised familiarity of her actions.

  ‘You mean he’s yours? You’re his mother?’ He sounded sharply incredulous and the next words were blurted out in an almost violent repudiation of the very concept. ‘How in God’s name did that happen?’

  Anne hesitated on the brink of correcting his stupendous mistake. Then the memory of Katlin’s im- passioned pleas locked her hasty words in her throat.

  She had faithfully promised her sister that she would look after Ivan until Katlin had finished her book or until the grant ran out, whichever was soonest. It could be as little as a few months or as long as a year. Another year of her life wasn’t so much to ask, not when it came with a glittering bribe—the opportunity for Anne to do exactly what she had planned to do with her freedom anyway: live and study at the most prestigious university campus in the country.

  Katlin’s whole future, she had claimed, hinged on Anne’s taking her place at the Auckland flat, because if the recipient of the Markham Grant didn’t take up the offered residency then he or she forfeited both the income and—more importantly as far as Katlin was concerned—the associated publishing contract. To Katlin, now clinging to the conviction that Golden Bay was the mystical source of her inspiration and the only place she would be able to reproduce the powerful intensity of writing that had characterised the first three chapters of her book, Anne was the perfect solution.

  To her secret chagrin, a cowardly part of Anne had actually welcomed the emotional blackmail that ensured she didn’t have to venture out into the big, wide, unknown world completely alone. Ivan was a wonderful human security blanket, comforting her with the con- stant reminder that if her dreams failed her there was always family and home.

  If she told Hunter that Ivan was only her nephew he would inevitably want to know more about her sister and Anne didn’t trust herself not to get impossibly tangled up in lies. And if it became generally known that Katlin had a son…well, the foundation wasn’t aware that she’d become a solo mother in the months between her posting them the first three chapters of her book for consideration and their awarding of the prize. Perhaps it wouldn’t make any difference, but Katlin had refused to take the risk. ‘Keep your head down and your mouth shut’, had been her final anthem.

  Anyway, Anne had probably been more of a mother to Ivan so far than Katlin and she even had an official maternal title, albeit only as godmother.

  ‘Babies don’t just happen,’ she pointed out sarcastically to the impatiently waiting man. ‘I would have thought that a man with a university education would have at least some idea of how babies are made—’

  ‘I was speaking geographically and you damned well know it,’ he growled.

  Anne’s pleasure in thwarting his curiosity was beginning to eclipse her guilty apprehension. ‘Ivan was born near Nelson—’ she began primly.

  Hunter smothered an expletive. ‘Where has he been until now?’ he cut her off rudely. ‘Who’s been looking after him for you?’

  ‘No one. He’s been living here with me ever since I moved in,’ she said with some relish. ‘You just never noticed him before.’

  His black brows tilted sharply as he contemplated the statement, obviously rerunning all of their previous encounters through his formidable brain. ‘Because you made damned sure I didn’t,’ he realised slowly.

  ‘Ivan is a naturally placid baby,’ Anne replied calmly, and then flinched as Hunter suddenly reached out and pulled her left hand away from the baby’s squirming back. She wrenched it free as she realised what he was doing—checking her finger for a non-existent ring. No doubt she was now being filed in his mind as careless or sexually irresponsible.

  Sighing, Anne decided that there was no point in trying to settle Ivan down with a pit bull snapping and snarling about her for information. She murmured soothingly to her whimpering nephew as she swept back out into the long room, Hunter dogging her heels.

  ‘You were hiding him,’ he accused. ‘Isn’t that a bit Victorian? An illegitimate baby is hardly a reason for shame these days.’

  She whirled on him, making Ivan gurgle at the sudden motion. ‘I’m not ashamed of him!’

  ‘Then why pretend you’re living here alone?’

  Before she could think of a suitably smoke-screened answer he found the logic of it himself.

  ‘Good God, the Markham people don’t know you have a baby, do they?’

  She glared at him, feeling cornered.

  ‘Do they, Anne?’ he insisted.

  She got the feeling that he would question her all night if she didn’t answer. ‘No,’ she said sullenly, her mouth offering the suggestion of a defiant pout, her arms in- stinctively holding Ivan tighter until he coughed, a gentlemanly hint.

  ‘You’re holding him too tightly.’

  She bristled at his critical tone. Was he going to accuse her of child abuse now? ‘Don’t tell me how to hold my…my…’ She couldn’t quite get the word out and kissed the silky top of Ivan’s head instead, her fiercely protective love speaking the lie for her.

  ‘Your son,’ Hunter provided obligingly. His black eyes narrowed as he minutely inspected their faces. ‘He doesn’t look anything like you.’

  Anne flushed guiltily. The family were agreed that Ivan had Katlin’s nose and square face, but he certainly didn’t have her blonde colouring or highly strung personality.

  ‘Does he take after his father?’

  ‘I…I suppose…I don’t really know,’ she floun- dered, wondering, not for the first time, whether if she had met Dmitri and explained a bit about her sister’s background things would have turned out differently for Katlin. But in her love-affair, as in most aspects of her life, Katlin had been highly secretive, only admitting it when she could no longer hide her pregnancy.

  ‘You don’t know what he looks like?’ He pounced on her uncertainty and naturally drew the most insulting deduction possible. ‘Do you even know who the father is?’

  Anne stiffened at the slur, angered on her sister’s behalf. ‘Of course I do! He was a sailor.’

  ‘Was? You mean he’s dead?’

  ‘No. He’s just…not around any more. He…he sailed off again with his ship,’ she said vaguely. At least, she assumed that he had. Katlin had kept most of the details to herself.

  ‘Is that all you know about him? That he was a sailor? What about his name? Do you at least know that?’

  Anne felt her flush deepen, torn between fresh outrage and bubbling amusement.

  Hunter was making her sound utterly amoral, which was laughable since her sexual experience was limited to a few back-seat tussles when she was fifteen. After her mother’s accident she had had precious little time for the kind of freedom that Katlin and her older brothers had taken for granted during their teenage years.

  ‘His name is Dmitri and he’s Russian.’ It was everything that she knew and she sought for a way to get him off the awkward subject of Ivan’s conception. ‘Look, Hunter—’

  ‘Is that why you’re studying Russian, because of Ivan’s father?’

  ‘No, of course not!’ This time she was offended on her own behalf. ‘I’ve always been interested in Russia and Russians—’

  ‘Obviously,’ he cut in, with a pointed look at Ivan, who was now starting to fuss in her arms.

  ‘Not in that way. Shush, darling…’

 
‘I beg your pardon?’ he drawled mockingly.

  ‘Not you…Ivan.’ She couldn’t imagine anyone daring to call Hunter Lewis darling. ‘I think he must be getting another tooth…he’s usually so good. I told you, he hardly ever cries…’

  ‘Mmm. Let’s have a look.’

  To her shock Hunter bent over and stroked a strong masculine finger down Ivan’s flushed cheek before slipping it into his fretful mouth, rubbing it firmly back and forth across his lower gums.

  Ivan immediately grabbed at the thick, furry wrist and hung on with both hands, gnawing enthusiastically at the strange finger with his two upper teeth.

  ‘Steady on there, Tiger…Mmm, definitely a cutting edge emerging among the bumps.’ Hunter withdrew his finger and casually wiped off the sticky drool against his shirt with none of the distaste that Anne normally observed in males. However, she had no intention of allowing him to see that she was charmed.

  ‘Thank you for the second opinion, Dr Spock.’ Her voice was heavy with lofty sarcasm.

  ‘Actually I am a doctor, but not of the medical variety,’ he said meekly, amusement flickering across his hard face as she gave him a look which said she was supremely unimpressed with the information. She wasn’t going to let on that she had looked up his scanty biographical details in the university staff information booklet as soon as she had discovered his identity.

  ‘I suppose you’re as much an expert on children as you are at cooking,’ she said dismissively, hitching a wriggling Ivan higher on her hip. ‘Have you got any of your own?’

  ‘My wife couldn’t have children,’ he said, his amusement abruptly dying.

  ‘Oh.’

  Was that the reason that he was no longer married? She longed to pry but the coldness in the deep black eyes was warning enough. She looked down at Ivan, and imagined what it would be like to know that this was as close as she would ever get to holding a child of her own flesh. A hollow formed in her heart and was immediately filled with a sympathetic ache of loss.

  ‘I’ve got some gel here somewhere…to rub on his gums,’ she muttered, suppressing the surge of unwilling empathy.

  ‘Why don’t you go and find it? I’ll hold the young chap.’

  He reached for the squirming bundle and Anne stepped back, startled. ‘That’s OK, I—’

  ‘You like to be independent, yes, I’ve gathered that. Very commendable of you, but there’s no need to carry it to extremes. Give him to me.’

  His hands were as firm as his tone as he slid them around the nappy-padded hips, and the small, undignified struggle for possession came to its natural conclusion when Anne felt the hard knuckles digging in and rubbing against her soft breasts. The friction made her nipples unexpectedly tingle and tighten and she hurriedly released her burden, hoping he hadn’t noticed her body’s small, betraying reaction.

  Of course, he had. As he stepped away with Ivan his eyes flickered downwards and it took an effort of will not to wrap her arms protectively over her chest. He can’t really see anything, she told herself. Although the elasticated neck of her white blouse was fairly low, it puffed out over her breasts and there was also her bra forming a second line of defence. Unfortunately his gaze proved to be as disturbing as his inadvertent touching and she could feel her breasts continue to tighten. It was a delicious, alien sensation that made her remember with uncomfortable vividness the splendour of his earlier semi-nudity.

  His eyes rose again to hers and she was impaled by the blade-sharp curiosity she saw there, recognising it instinctively as sexual. She was suddenly acutely aware of the physical differences between them. Was this how he had felt when she had run her eyes over him? Heaven forbid!

  ‘I’ll just get that gel…’ She spun away and rushed into the bathroom to fossick in the cabinet.

  ‘Control yourself,’ she scolded herself in the mirror as she found the small tube and snapped the cabinet closed. Her reflection looked shamefully hot and bothered. ‘Or he’s going to think you’re promiscuous as well as irresponsible.’

  ‘Don’t tell me you’re hiding someone else in there?’

  She jumped at the sound of his amused voice, floating in through the open door.

  ‘Just talking to myself,’ she said as she briefly held a cold flannel to her cheeks before re-emerging from the bathroom, hopefully looking more serene. The serenity received a sharp nudge at the sight of Hunter and Ivan, so perfectly matched in colouring and sharp-eyed in-quisitiveness as they watched her approach.

  ‘Do you do that often?’ he asked.

  ‘Talk to myself? All the time. I have more interesting conversations that way,’ she said, giving him a pointed look before turning her attention to Ivan.

  ‘Open up, darling. This is going to make you feel so-o-o good. Oh, yes, isn’t that nice…?’ She rubbed the gel into his eager gums, alternately babbling encouragement and instructions for Hunter to hold still. ‘Yes, that feels so good when I do that, doesn’t it, darling…? Oh, yes, oh, yes, oh, yes…’

  ‘You know, anyone eavesdropping on this conversation might get the wrong idea about what’s going on,’ murmured Hunter drily.

  ‘Hmm?’ Her incomprehension lasted only the few seconds it took to register the wicked smirk behind his bland expression. ‘I doubt it, not if they knew you were in here. You’re nearly forty after all,’ she said wither-ingly, remembering his knee-jerk reaction to her last taunts about his age.

  ‘If I recall rightly, you’re not all that young any more yourself, in spite of those surprisingly dewy-eyed, ingénue looks,’ he replied, uncrushed. ‘Most people subscribe to the wisdom that youth is a poor substitute for experience.’

  ‘Yes, well, I happen to prefer younger men,’ Anne said, thinking that if she was going to lie she might as well go the whole hog. She longed to snatch Ivan back out of Hunter’s powerful arms and wondered how to do it without risking more physical contact.

  ‘Like Dmitri?’ he asked, taking her off guard.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The baby’s father,’ he clarified wryly.

  ‘Oh, him. Yes.’ Out of an inexplicable desire to shock him she said blithely, ‘Dmitri was so young and handsome…’ She gave what she hoped was a blissfully reminiscent sigh. ‘Barely out of his teens…’ She cast him a sly look from under her lashes. ‘No experience but tons of youthful energy and enthusiasm!’

  There was an answering smoulder in the dark eyes during the short silence that followed. Uh-oh, had she laid it on a bit thick?

  ‘No experience at all?’ he drawled at last. ‘Did you take advantage of an innocent young lad, then, Anne? Seduce him before he realised what was happening?’

  The idea was highly comical—the blind leading the blind. Her mouth curved, displaying a dimple in her left cheek, and her eyes danced, very blue under their winging brows.

  ‘Oh, I don’t have to seduce men. They usually find me irresistible.’ She laughed at the absurdity of the notion and tossed her head, the glossy rope of hair snaking forward over her shoulder, revealing the frivolous red bow that bound the end of the plait.

  ‘So you whistle and they eagerly dance to your tune?’

  ‘Oh, no, I’m the dancer. I simply teach them to whistle the right tunes,’ she said pertly.

  His gaze followed the red bow as it bounced to rest against her hip. ‘A thoroughly devious, manipulating woman, in fact.’

  The way he said it, in that slow, gravelly rough tone, it sounded dangerous and daring. Anne rather liked the idea of being considered dangerous, she who had always been boringly safe. Apart from the joyful absurdity of it, maybe if Hunter thought she was a vamp who enjoyed ensnaring helpless victims in her scheming toils he would be more inclined to give her a wide berth and stop pestering her with questions she didn’t want to answer.

  ‘Exactly. So you’d better beware,’ she drawled throatily, recalling the old movies that her mother had loved to watch on video while she was still imprisoned in her bed. She fluttered her eyelashes at him. ‘I might decide th
at you could do with a music lesson.’

  He didn’t turn a hair. ‘I suspect our divergent musical tastes might prove an insurmountable stumbling-block, but thank you for the offer,’ he murmured politely. ‘If I’m ever desperate for light relief I’ll know where to come.’

  Light relief? Was everything he said a double-entendre or was it her sinful subconscious at work again? ‘It wasn’t an offer,’ she snapped.

  ‘No? A threat, then.’ He made it sound negligible.

  ‘More of a friendly warning,’ she said, hanging on to her patience by a thread. Whatever had happened to that volatile temper of his? Why was he suddenly so frustratingly difficult to provoke?

  ‘Kind of you. But as you pointed out I’m no longer in my first flush of impulsive youth. I doubt if you’d find me as susceptible as a teenage virgin.’

  The casual dismissal of her womanly wiles sounded very much like a challenge and for a moment Anne was tempted recklessly to accept it. Fortunately, however, her innate common sense came to her rescue. Taunting Hunter had been asking for trouble; pitting herself against him further would be the equivalent of kneeling down and begging for it!

  ‘May I have Ivan back now?’ she asked steadily.

  ‘Why? He’s happy where he is.’

  He was. He lay cradled in Hunter’s big arms as if he belonged there, staring up, wide-eyed, at the dark, jutting profile. One plump fist was stuffed in his mouth and he was sucking noisily, providing Anne with the perfect excuse.

  ‘He’s hungry. It’s time for his feed.’

  ‘What does he eat?’ He swept a comprehensive look across at her empty kitchen. She suddenly remembered she had told him she had her dinner on.

  Later, Anne attributed her stupidity to pure panic. She was afraid that Hunter was going to insist on staying until she had answered all his questions. She just wanted to get rid of him—fast.

  ‘He mostly still drinks. Milk. I…I’m feeding him myself.’

  She was horrified as soon as the words popped out of her mouth. She stared at him, aghast, and could feel herself going beetroot-red as he stared back. A faint answering colour bloomed beneath his olive complexion as his eyes were drawn inexorably back down to her chest.