Lorna-this is Guy Carver.’
Lorna was out on the veranda now. She’d pushed her wheelchair though the doorway, rolling to the edge of the ramp but no further. Lorna had once been a blousy, buxom blonde. Her hair was still determinedly blonde, and her eyes were still pretty and blue, but a stroke had withered one side of her body. One side of her face had very little movement and her speech was careful and stilted.
‘Mr Carver,’ she managed.
‘He says we can call him Guy.’
‘Why are you manhandling my daughter-in-law?’ Jack barked, and the lurking laughter behind Guy’s eyes was unmistakable.
‘I was just turning her in the right direction. Towards you.’
‘It’s okay, Jack,’ Jenny told him. ‘Mr…Guy’s just leaving.’
‘Look at the car,’ Lorna said, suddenly distracted. ‘What is that?’
‘A Ferrari,’ Guy said, bemused, and at that the screen door swung open again.
‘Don’t come out, Henry,’ Jenny said quickly, but it was too late. Henry was already on the veranda.
She winced. She badly didn’t want Guy to see Henry. He’d already shown himself to be insensitive. How much damage could he do now?
For the crash that had killed his father had left Henry so badly burned that for a while they’d thought he might not live. The six-year-old was slowly recovering, but the scars on the right side of his face were only a tiny indication of the scars elsewhere. His chest and his right leg bore a mass of scarring, and he was facing skin graft after skin graft as he grew.
Henry should be a freckle-faced kid facing life with mischief and optimism. There were signs now that he could be again, but the scars ran deep. His thatch of deep brown curls stopped cruelly where the scarring began, just above his right ear. His brown eyes were alive and interested-thank God his sight had been untouched-but he’d lost so much weight he looked almost anorexic compared to most six-year-olds. His right leg was still not bearing weight, and he used crutches. His freckles stood out starkly on his too pale skin. Standing on the veranda in his over-big pyjamas-Lorna was sure he’d have a growth spurt any minute, and she sewed accordingly-he looked a real waif. The surgeons said that in time they’d have his face so normal that, as he matured, people would think of him as manly and rugged, but that time was a long way off from now.
‘I want to see the car,’ Henry said.
She held her breath, waiting for Guy to respond. If she had her druthers Jenny would keep her private life absolutely to herself. A private person at the best of times, these last two years had been hell. She’d been forced to depend on so many people. The locals had been wonderful, but now she was finally starting to regain some control of her shattered life, and the look of immediate sympathy flashing into Guy Carver’s eyes made her want to hit him.
What’s wrong with your little boy…?
How many times had that been flung at her since Henry had recovered enough to be outside the house? It was never the locals-they all knew, and had more sense than to ask about his progress in front of him. But the squillionaires who arrived for a week or two were appalling, and she wanted to be shot of the lot of them.
Maybe now she’d sold the business she could move, she thought. She could get a great place if she was prepared to go inland a little. But Jack and Lorna had lived here all their lives. She and Henry were all they had.
She couldn’t leave.
So now she flinched, waiting for Guy to say something like they all did. What’s wrong? or, Gee, what happened to your kid? Why is he so scarred? Or worse, Oh, you poor little boy…
But Guy said nothing. He had his face under control again, and the shock and sympathy were gone. Instead he glanced at the Ferrari with affection. ‘It’s a 2002 Modena 360 F1,’ he told Henry, man to man.
‘It’s ace,’ Henry whispered, and something in Guy’s face moved. Something…changed.
‘If it’s okay with your mother, would you like a ride?’
Henry’s small body became perfectly still. Rigid. As if steeling himself for a blow.
‘I…Mum…?’
‘You’re kidding,’ she said to Guy.
‘I don’t kid,’ he said, and his voice had changed, too. It had softened. ‘I mean it. I’m assuming this is your son?’
‘Yes, but…’
‘I’m Guy,’ he told Henry. ‘And you are…?’
‘Henry,’ said Henry. ‘Is this your car?’
‘It’s borrowed.’
‘Do you have a car like this?’
‘I have a Lamborghini back in New York.’
‘Wow,’ Henry breathed, and looked desperately at his mother. ‘Is it okay if I take a ride with him?’
‘It’s dinnertime.’
‘Dinner can wait,’ Jack growled. Jenny’s father-in-law was looking at the car with an awe that matched his grandson’s. ‘If anyone offered me a ride in such a car I’d wait for dinner ’til breakfast.’
‘You’re next in the queue,’ Guy said, and grinned. ‘I’d take you all at once,’ he added apologetically, ‘but it’s hard to squeeze three people in these babies. Jenny, you can go third.’
‘I don’t want to go.’
‘Is it okay if I take Henry?’
‘Of course it’s okay,’ Jack snapped, as if astounded that anyone could ask that question. ‘Isn’t it, girl?’
‘Fine,’ she said, defeated, and Henry let out a war-whoop that could be heard back in Main Street. Then he paused.
‘You don’t mean just sit in it?’
‘Of course not.’
‘Can we go out on the coast road?’ Henry asked, eyeing his mother as if she’d grown two heads. Never go with strangers… Her consent meant she knew this guy and trusted him. His mother had a friend with a Ferrari. She could see she’d just raised herself in his estimation by about a mile. ‘The coast road winds round cliffs. With this car…it’ll go like it’s on rails.’
‘You won’t go fast?’ She knew her voice was suddenly tight, but she couldn’t help it.
‘We won’t go fast,’ Guy told her, and there was that tone in his voice that said he understood.
How could he understand?
The remembrance of his hands on her shoulders slipped back into her mind. Which was dumb.
‘Henry’s in his pyjamas,’ she said, too quickly, but suddenly that was how she felt. As if everything was too quick. ‘Does he need to change?’
‘No one notices who’s in a Ferrari,’ Guy told her. ‘They only notice the Ferrari. If you’re in a Ferrari you can wear what you d-whatever you like. You’re cool by association. Are you ready, Henry?’
‘Yeah,’ Henry breathed, and tossed aside his crutches and looked to his mother for help to go down the ramp. ‘Yeah, I am.’
‘He seems lovely.’
‘He’s not.’ Back inside, Jenny was trying to explain the extraordinary turn of events to her in-laws. ‘He won’t do Kylie’s wedding. She’s not good enough to be a Carver Bride.’
‘Kylie is a bit…’ Lorna said, and Jenny glowered and tossed tea into the pot with unnecessary force.
‘Don’t you come down on his side. Kylie and Shirley were great to us.’
They had been. All of those dreary months when Jenny had needed to be in the hospital-for three awful weeks Henry had not been expected to live-Kylie and Shirley and a host of other locals had run this little farm, had ferried Lorna and Jack wherever they’d wanted to go, had filled the freezer with enough casseroles to feed an army for years, had even taken over the organisation of local weddings. The town had been wonderful, and Jenny wasn’t about to turn her back on them now.
‘I know they’re fabulous,’ Lorna told her. ‘And of course I promised we’d do Kylie’s wedding. But they won’t hold us to more than that. I was just so upset. With Ben dead, and we thought we’d lose Henry…’
‘You would have promised the world,’ Jenny said. ‘Shirley knows that. She tried it on with Guy this afternoon-
