Read Online MacAllister's Baby by Julie Cohen - Free Book Online Page A

no wonder he had such self-assurance, born into privilege like that. That explained the posh accent he could use when it suited him, too.
    She’d visited Emington as a tourist a few years ago. It was hundreds of years old, with graceful Gothic buildings and students in formal clothing hurrying across verdant quadrangles. She remembered thinking she’d have given her eye-teeth as a child to live at school, in somewhere beautiful like that, steeped in culture and tradition and love of learning.
    ‘It was pretty terrible,’ Angus was saying. ‘You couldn’t ever escape it. As soon as it was legal for me to leave I went to London and got a job in a kitchen. Never looked back.’
    ‘Yeah. I’m not going to, either.’ Danny put away his dustpan and brush with a clatter and started wiping down the counter, too. Elisabeth noticed with amusement that he was imitating the economy of Angus’s movements as he cleaned.
    Angus glanced up and saw Elisabeth watching them. ‘What about you, Miss Read? I’ll bet you loved school. I’ll bet you were born with chalk and an apple in your hand.’
    ‘I liked it,’ she admitted, caught as always by his grey eyes. ‘I always felt safe.’
    ‘How do you mean, safe?’
    With his attention fully on her, she hardly knew how to reply. She found herself wanting to tell him, and, because of that, she resisted. ‘It just was. It was—’
    ‘You know what people expect of you at school,’ Jennifer said, just above a whisper, beside her.
    She turned to stare at Jennifer. ‘That’s it. Exactly. So it’s easy to know what to do. It’s safe.’
    Jennifer flushed slightly and nodded and began rolling out her pastry with fierce concentration. Elisabeth wondered what her home life was like, when school, where she was so terrified, was her safest place. She suddenly wanted to give the girl a hug.
    She’d never been as scared as Jennifer. But all the same, she’d been afraid everything she loved would blow away and scatter at any moment, as fragile as autumn leaves under trees.
    For the first time she noticed a small cardboard box next to Jennifer’s work space. ‘What have you got there?’ she asked.
    Jennifer dusted off her hands and opened the box with reverence. Inside rested two triangles of baklava, the golden filo pastry glistening with honey.
    ‘Angus brought it for me,’ she murmured.
    ‘Jennifer has a sweet tooth, like me.’ Angus’s raspy voice was as tempting as the dessert. He appeared beside them and surveyed the pastry Jennifer was making. ‘Perfect.’
    Jennifer blushed furiously and smiled down at her rolling-pin.
    So Angus had her in the palm of his hand, too.
    ‘I’ll be interested to see how you get on with pastry, Miss Read.’ Angus reached into Elisabeth’s bowl and rubbed the butter and flour between his magician’s fingers. ‘It’s all done by touch. I think you’ll be talented.’
    He held her eye just a little too long, his smile just a little too wicked. And then he winked.
    ‘Danny, mate,’ he called, ‘I found some perfect pears but I left them on the front seat of my car. You want to go get them for me?’ He dug a set of keys out of his pocket and tossed them to Danny, who caught them mid-air and stared at them in astonishment and delight.
    ‘It’s the red Jag,’ Angus added, and Danny’s eyes nearly bugged out of his head. In a shot, he was out the door.
    ‘Jennifer, would you go and help him?’ Angus asked. ‘Just make sure he doesn’t take the car for a ride before bringing back the pears?’ Jennifer nodded and trotted after Danny.
    It wasn’t until the door had shut behind the girl that Elisabeth realised she was alone with Angus MacAllister for the first time in three weeks. She wiped the butter and flour off her hands, and put them on her hips.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.
    Angus raised his eyebrows. ‘Really? About what?’
    ‘You’re doing a great job with the kids. I’m sorry I doubted you.’
    He half bowed in