breath left her lungs in a silent hiss of shock.
‘Hello.’
The voice awoke dormant memories and sent a flash of heat through her body. Incapable of speech, she nodded and thought,
He really does have the longest eyelashes I have ever seen
. And there was no discernible recognition in the pitch-dark eyes those lashes framed.
This wasn’t happening.
But it was! It was him—the man she had spent that night with.
Two years later and Izzy had rationalised the reckless impulse that had made her act so totally out of character. There was probably some psychological term for what she’d done when she’d been half out of her head with grief, exhaustion and shock, but Izzy had not continued to analyse it, she had simply drawn a line under it.
You could only beat yourself up so much and, as she had felt no desire since that night to rip off any man’s clothes and ravish him, there had been no lasting consequences to her actions—except one, which she could never regret.
How could she regret something that had given her not just her much-loved daughter but a new and wonderfully supportive family? There was a strong possibility that, if she hadn’t found herself alone, pregnant and very aware how fragile life was, the letter sent by the father she had never met might have stayed where she had initially thrown it—in the bin.
Tapping into reserves of self-control she didn’t even know she possessed, the silly smile still pasted on her face, Izzy broke free of the pitch-black mesmerising stare and turned away. Outwardly calm, at least to the casual observer, her body was gripped by a succession of deep internal tremors as she hugged her daughter.
Her shoulder blades ached with tension as she buried her face in Lily’s soft dusky curls. People often remarked on her vibrant colouring, marvelling at the peachy glow of her skin and her liquid dark eyes. The less tactful asked outright if she looked like her father.
Izzy never reacted to the question and her silence had given rise to a great deal of speculation. There werecurrently several theories in circulation about Lily’s father, which ranged from him being a dead war hero to him being a married politician. But whatever people thought, the generally held opinion was that Izzy was the innocent party, the girl who had been abandoned, because apparently she came across as a nice girl.
The irony was not lost on her and Izzy detested the undeserved victim status that had been thrust on her, but, short of publicly announcing that she was actually a shameless trollop, what choice did she have?
It was actually a relief when someone chose to take her to task about her single-parent status. Just the previous evening Michael’s great-aunt Maeve had exclaimed, ‘A child needs two parents, young lady.’
‘In a perfect world, yes, but the world isn’t perfect and neither am I.’
Izzy’s quietly dignified response had taken the wind out of the old lady’s sails, but she had made a quick recovery. ‘In my day a girl like you wouldn’t be wandering around as bold as brass like she has nothing to be ashamed of.’
‘She doesn’t have anything to be ashamed of, Aunt Maeve.’ It was her father who came to Izzy’s rescue, putting an arm around her and drawing her in close.
‘Don’t you go looking at me like that, Michael. One of the few good things about being old is being as rude as I like—would you deprive me of one of my last pleasures?’ She held out her empty glass and glanced at the whisky bottle on the dresser. ‘So, girl, who is the father?’
Izzy had not satisfied the old lady’s curiosity. She hadn’t told anyone the identity of the father—how could she?
Izzy’s blue eyes were shadowed with shamed anguish as she responded to Lily’s cry of protest and loosened her grip just as the organist pulled out all the stops. Izzy knew better than most what it was like to grow up without a father and it was something she had always vowed not to do to a
‘Hello.’
The voice awoke dormant memories and sent a flash of heat through her body. Incapable of speech, she nodded and thought,
He really does have the longest eyelashes I have ever seen
. And there was no discernible recognition in the pitch-dark eyes those lashes framed.
This wasn’t happening.
But it was! It was him—the man she had spent that night with.
Two years later and Izzy had rationalised the reckless impulse that had made her act so totally out of character. There was probably some psychological term for what she’d done when she’d been half out of her head with grief, exhaustion and shock, but Izzy had not continued to analyse it, she had simply drawn a line under it.
You could only beat yourself up so much and, as she had felt no desire since that night to rip off any man’s clothes and ravish him, there had been no lasting consequences to her actions—except one, which she could never regret.
How could she regret something that had given her not just her much-loved daughter but a new and wonderfully supportive family? There was a strong possibility that, if she hadn’t found herself alone, pregnant and very aware how fragile life was, the letter sent by the father she had never met might have stayed where she had initially thrown it—in the bin.
Tapping into reserves of self-control she didn’t even know she possessed, the silly smile still pasted on her face, Izzy broke free of the pitch-black mesmerising stare and turned away. Outwardly calm, at least to the casual observer, her body was gripped by a succession of deep internal tremors as she hugged her daughter.
Her shoulder blades ached with tension as she buried her face in Lily’s soft dusky curls. People often remarked on her vibrant colouring, marvelling at the peachy glow of her skin and her liquid dark eyes. The less tactful asked outright if she looked like her father.
Izzy never reacted to the question and her silence had given rise to a great deal of speculation. There werecurrently several theories in circulation about Lily’s father, which ranged from him being a dead war hero to him being a married politician. But whatever people thought, the generally held opinion was that Izzy was the innocent party, the girl who had been abandoned, because apparently she came across as a nice girl.
The irony was not lost on her and Izzy detested the undeserved victim status that had been thrust on her, but, short of publicly announcing that she was actually a shameless trollop, what choice did she have?
It was actually a relief when someone chose to take her to task about her single-parent status. Just the previous evening Michael’s great-aunt Maeve had exclaimed, ‘A child needs two parents, young lady.’
‘In a perfect world, yes, but the world isn’t perfect and neither am I.’
Izzy’s quietly dignified response had taken the wind out of the old lady’s sails, but she had made a quick recovery. ‘In my day a girl like you wouldn’t be wandering around as bold as brass like she has nothing to be ashamed of.’
‘She doesn’t have anything to be ashamed of, Aunt Maeve.’ It was her father who came to Izzy’s rescue, putting an arm around her and drawing her in close.
‘Don’t you go looking at me like that, Michael. One of the few good things about being old is being as rude as I like—would you deprive me of one of my last pleasures?’ She held out her empty glass and glanced at the whisky bottle on the dresser. ‘So, girl, who is the father?’
Izzy had not satisfied the old lady’s curiosity. She hadn’t told anyone the identity of the father—how could she?
Izzy’s blue eyes were shadowed with shamed anguish as she responded to Lily’s cry of protest and loosened her grip just as the organist pulled out all the stops. Izzy knew better than most what it was like to grow up without a father and it was something she had always vowed not to do to a
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