Read Online Sara's Child by Susan Elle - Free Book Online Page B

he reaches for her hand but she pulls it quickly away to wrap her arms round her drawn up knees. “Do you really know for sure that your father didn’t want or care for you? Things happen between couples that don’t always end well,” he urges, uneasy at her unbending attitude towards a man who just might deserve better.
    Logan isn’t blind to the fact that some parents do indeed walk at the first sign of trouble or responsibility; but he cannot understand why Catherine won’t even entertain the prospect of finding out for herself who her father is and what kind of man he might be.
    “I know he wasn’t there for my mum when she needed him most!” Catherine gets to her feet and starts off, without looking back. Her long legs take her quickly along the water’s edge, the calf length, lemon cotton dress fluttering in her wake. Then she breaks into a run and sprints out of site.
    Logan doesn’t attempt to stop or follow her. There is something eating away at Catherine, but he can’t imagine what. Sure, she’s had a bad start to life on her own, thanks to that bastard, Shipley, he growls audibly. But he didn’t manage to actually rape her, though he isn’t belittling the terror he had inflicted; hadn’t he evidenced that himself just last night! He pushes up from the grass, needing to stretch his legs a while.
    He thinks of Colson, the woman he was introduced to at Arthur and Robert’s office just a couple of weeks ago. She’d had a strong, don’t mess with me, attitude that wouldn’t have allowed a shit like Shipley to get the better of her. Hell, hasn’t she managed to live with the fear that she had actually killed the man for eight years – that is no mean feat. It just does not make sense, he reasons, jamming his hands in to the pockets of his slacks.
    What had she meant about her mother? He knows she died when Catherine was still young; young enough to need foster care – but he hasn’t delved deeply into her past, not wanting to invade Catherine’s privacy beyond the basics.
    He chuckles to himself. I’ll just bet she didn’t do a basic search on me, he thinks sceptically; and makes his way along the lake’s edge in the opposite direction to Catherine.
    It took her an hour or so to get rid of the knot in her stomach. Always physically painful, it could make her vomit when particularly bad. Doctor’s had previously diagnosed a nervous stomach when her carers had forced her to go to one as a child. But she hadn’t needed a doctor to tell her what it was; it always came when she thought of her mother, of the pain and suffering ‘that man’ had inflicted on her.
    Taking a few deep, cleansing breaths, Catherine re-enters the house as she had left it, via the kitchen. There she finds a plump, pleasant looking woman, busy rolling pastry with pans of something delicious cooking on the stove. What a blissful scene.
    “Hi, I’m Catherine,” she introduces herself, not bothering to say Colson as both Logan and Henry insist on using her Christian name.
    The cook looks up and smiles widely. “Yes, I heard from Henry that you’d be staying a few days; I made up your room,” she says in a conspiratorial whisper, “can’t leave such things to Henry, he hasn’t got a clue. Don’t know what he’d do if I didn’t come in to look after things.” Really?
    Catherine smiles, remembering Henry’s earlier comments about the ‘bossy’ Aida Thorpe. She watches as Aida wipes her hands on a damp cloth then takes the kettle to the sink to fill it. “I’m Aida, by the way. Don’t suppose Henry thought to mention me?” Oh yes he did. Catherine manages to stifle a laugh but can’t hide the smile or the knowing twinkle in her eyes before Aida turns back from the sink and catches them. “So…he did mention me,” she eyes Catherine speculatively. “Not all of it complimentary I see.”
    She sounds brusque, but Catherine can see she doesn’t mean it. “Actually, it was,” she lies convincingly, “he