When he had first come into their lives almost six years ago her mother had tried to repulse him, had been deliberately hurtful at times, but Jeff had remained adamant about wanting to marry her, and had more or less camped on their doorstep. Finally her mother had relented enough to allow him to spend time with them. But it still wasn’t enough for Jeff—he wanted marriage, and nothing else would satisfy him. Her mother had been so confused, she had wanted to marry him, and yet didn’t think it fair that Jeff should be marrying a woman who was dying. In desperation she had finally asked Callie what she should do, and Callie’s reply had been unreserved.
The three and a half years her mother had been married to Jeff had been some of the happiest for them all, some of the saddest too. It became a game to Jeff to think up new ways to entertain her mother, especially towards the end when she was bedridden.
Jeff’s family had obviously never been told about the marriage, and wouldn’t know that it had been another Caroline Day, her mother, who had been the woman Jeff loved, the woman he lived with, the woman he married.
But they would pay for their degradation of a love that had been so pure and beautiful that Jeff and her mother might have been teenagers loving for the first time. And Logan would pay the most.
‘Can I come in?’
Callie swung round at the sound of his voice, knocking the stand in front of her, the sculpture of her mother falling, as if in slow motion, towards the floor. But it never made contact; Logan’s reflexes were quicker than her own as he caught the sculpture inches from the ground.
‘I knocked,’ he told her abruptly, looking closely at the figure in his hand, ‘but you didn’t hear me.’
‘No.’ She snatched the sculpture out of his hand and put it back on the stand. Then she stood up, running her hands down her denim-clad thighs. ‘What do you want?’ she asked coldly.
His eyes were narrowed to grey slits; he was wearing a sheepskin jacket over a sweater in the cold of the day, looking big and powerful, droplets of melting snow in the darkness of his hair. Callie noticed everything about him at a glance, feeling a familiar stirring of her senses, a feeling that she instantly dampened.
He moved to stand beside the sculpture. ‘I came to see if I might not have misjudged you,’ he murmured slowly, seemingly mesmerised by the sculpture of her mother. ‘I don’t think I have.’ His eyes were raised accusingly.
Callie looked at the sculpture too, seeing what Logan must see—a sculpture of herself! Jeff had shown her mother as she was to him, still beautiful, with none of the suffering etched into her face. That Logan saw the sculpture as being her, Callie, she had no doubt.
‘Good, isn’t it?’ She looked tauntingly up at Logan.
‘Very,’ he agreed tightly. ‘Very lifelike.’ One of his hands moved suggestively over the uptilting breasts.
‘Stop that!’ Callie angrily slapped his hand away. ‘How dare you?’ She glared up at him with tear-filled eyes.
His mouth twisted. ‘Considering I’ve touched the real thing I’m surprised at your outrage,’ he taunted.
‘You may have touched the real thing, Mr Carrington,’ she told him haughtily, ‘but you never touched the real me.’
‘Didn’t I?’ he challenged sceptically.
‘No,’ she stood her ground. ‘When you’ve been loved by an expert an amateur can only ever be second-best.’
‘Is that so?’ His eyes glittered dangerously.
‘Yes.’ She gave him a considering look. ‘You look very like Jeff in some ways, you know.’
She hadn’t realised it before, but he did in fact have a look of his uncle about him—the same thick dark hair, a powerfully built physique, piercing eyes, although in Jeff they had been a deep blue. There was even a similarity about the features, although in pure good looks Logan had the advantage.
‘You might even have liked him,’ she added thoughtfully.
‘I doubt it,’ Logan snapped, frowning suddenly. ‘This work looks familiar.’ He picked up another of the sculptures, an old man bowed down by years of hard work. ‘Thornton, right?’
‘Right,’ she acknowledged tightly.
‘You know him?’
‘I did.’
‘So my uncle hasn’t been the only man in your life,’ he said accusingly.
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Callie snapped. ‘Jeff Thornton was your uncle!’
His eyes widened. ‘My uncle did this?’ He carefully replaced the sculpture on its stand.
‘Yes.’ She moved pointedly to the door, waiting for him to leave.