Rachel dropped down on the bottom stair as relief— blessed, blessed relief—took the strength right out of her. Then she was almost instantly up on her feet again. ‘W-Will you hang on to them for me, please?’ she whispered. ‘I’m on my way. I’m—on my way…’
She dropped the phone, gave an odd, choked little laugh, then a single wretched sob, and then was rushing to go and get Michael.
Rachel arrived at Masterson Holdings just as the lunch-break was coming to an end, and the ultra-modern reception area was teeming with people on their way back to their respective offices.
Her cheeks flushed with rushing, eyes slightly dazed by shock, and still dressed in the same white stretchy leggings and one of Daniel’s old pale blue work-shirts that she had been wearing all day, she came to a halt just inside the plate-glass entrance and stared bewilderedly around her while Michael did the same from his comfortable position on her rounded hip.
The children were nowhere to be seen. Her heart gave a sickening lurch and she started forwards, making for the reception desk she could see across the spacious foyer, where a pretty young girl sat flirting with a young man who was half sitting on the corner of her desk.
‘Excuse me,’ she interrupted a little breathlessly. ‘I’m Rachel Masterson. My children. They—’
‘Mrs Masterson!’ The young girl came to her feet, her brown eyes widening as they took in every detail of Rachel as if she couldn’t quite believe what she was seeing. Rachel didn’t blame her—she knew she must look a sight—but neither did she care. She just wanted to see Sam and Kate—needed to see them.
‘My children,’ she repeated as the young man shot off the desk and almost to attention. ‘Where are they?’ she demanded, unaware that the receptionist’s voice had carried right across the foyer and now everyone in it was staring curiously at her.
‘Oh, Mr Masterson arrived not ten minutes ago,’ the young girl informed her. ‘He has them in his office and said for you to—’
‘I’ll take you up to him if you like,’ the young man offered.
Rachel turned a distracted expression on him and nodded in agreement. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered, and followed him over to the bank of lifts, too distraught to notice the sea of curious faces turned her way.
The lift took them upwards, and ejected them on to a thick grey carpet that muffled their steps as they walked towards a pair of matt grey-painted doors. Rachel followed her guide more slowly, feeling odd inside, trembly and weak-limbed. The young man knocked, waited a moment, then opened the doors before standing back so Rachel could go by him.
She paused on the threshold, glanced warily at Daniel who was leaning against a large grey grained desk, his arms folded across his chest, flicked her gaze to the two woebegone figures who were sitting very close together on a long leather settee, felt the tears flood into her eyes, put Michael to the floor, choked out thickly, ‘Oh, Sammy—Kate!’ then fainted clean away.
She came round to find herself lying on the settee with something cool and damp across her forehead—and four faces with varying similarities about them watching her anxiously. She smiled weakly, and received four varying but similar smiles by return.
Daniel was squatting down beside her with Michael balanced on his lap and one of his hands warmly clasping one of hers. Sammy and Kate flanked him, leaning sombrely against a broad shoulder each. They all looked rather sweet like that, and she wished she had some paper and a pencil close by so that she could catch the scene forever.
‘How do you feel?’ Daniel asked in a gritty voice.
‘Woozy,’ she smiled ruefully, then turned her attention to the two runaways. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered painfully, and received two sobbing bundles into her arms.
They sobbed out their regrets, their apologies, their love, and their fear when they saw her faint. Then they were snuffling out the excitement of their adventure: ringing for a taxi, pooling their saved pocket money, arriving here to find Daddy not here and putting everyone into a panic.
‘And frightening your mother half out of her wits,’ Daniel silenced them d
ampeningly.
He looked hard at Kate, who lowered her head in mute contrition. ‘It was all very neatly worked out.’ Daniel took up the story. ‘They rang the taxi firm you use to ferry them to school when I’m away,’ he explained. ‘Said you were sick in bed and wanted them bringing to me. They even produced one of my business cards with this address on to make it all look official.’ He glared at Kate. ‘All very slick,’ he clipped. ‘Very believable.’
‘Oh, Kate,’ Rachel said gravely, remembering how important Kate had felt when Rachel gave her the task of ringing the taxi firm to order a car to take the twins to school on those mornings Daniel wasn’t around to take them.
But to abuse that bit of responsibility in such a way…!
The poor child’s head sank lower.
‘I thought of using Daddy’s business card,’ Sammy put in, gallantly prepared to share the blame.
But they all knew it was the more precocious Kate who would have thought up the whole thing. ‘I’m sorry,’ the little girl whispered, and Rachel saw with an ache her small hand lift to wipe the tears from her lowered cheeks.
The tension was rife, the fact that Kate wasn’t going to her Daddy for a comforting hug telling Rachel that there had been some tough reprimands before she’d arrived.
Her gaze drifted to Daniel. He looked drawn and pale, his mouth a grim tight line that warned of a simmering anger. He held Michael against him, big hands spanning the little body as though he needed to feel the living comfort of this youngest child of theirs because he was too angry to give in to what was really troubling him— the need to hold the twins close too.
He caught her looking at him, and grimaced. ‘My secretary is preparing some coffee,’ he said. ‘As soon as it comes I’ll have her take the children down to the cafeteria for some lunch. Then we talk.’
That sounded ominous. Rachel dropped her gaze and eased herself into a sitting position, just as a young woman with a pleasant face walked in with a loaded tray.