‘I’ll wait outside in the car for you,’ Anne Fellows called out to him.
‘Fine,’ he turned to smile. ‘I can get a taxi back when I’m through.’
‘Are you sure you wouldn’t like me to drive you?’ Kelly asked him. ‘I could wait with you and drive you back.’
He shook his head. ‘I don’t know how long I’ll be. I don’t want to keep you waiting around for hours.’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t mind—’
‘Let the man go off with a beautiful woman, Kelly,’ Jordan interrupted firmly. ‘At his age he won’t get many more opportunities,’ he added mockingly.
‘At his age?’ Anne Fellows frowned. ‘But I don’t understand, he’s only—’
‘Private joke,’ Kelly’s father explained. ‘I’ll tell you about it on the way to the hospital.’
The nurse shrugged, turning to look at Kelly and Jordan. ‘It was nice to meet you both again. Perhaps I’ll see you again some time,’ she smiled.
‘I’d take bets on it,’ Jordan smiled back, a smile that tugged at Kelly’s heartstrings. It was a smile completely without mockery or cruelty, the sort of smile he had once given her.
‘You’d take bets on it!’ Kelly stormed once they were alone, the slamming of the front door telling of her father’s departure. ‘You know damn well it’s a certainty.’
‘As long as you do too…’
‘Oh, I do,’ she snapped. ‘I’m certainly not as blind as you think I am.’
‘Don’t you like her?’ he raised his eyebrows.
‘Yes, I like her! Is that supposed to make a difference?’
‘It should do.’
‘Well, it doesn’t. Now what else did you find today apart from Anne Fellows?’ she asked caustically. ‘Or was she the leak to the papers?’
‘Don’t be absurd,’ Jordan dismissed impatiently. ‘I found out damn all,’ he scowled. ‘No one was willing to tell me a thing, about Ben Durston or how he got his information. I spent all morning trying to get someone to talk to me, and then I had a boring lunch with an editor who had no intention of telling me a thing, except that Ben Durston is freelance, and that he occasionally comes up with an exclusive like this. Which is probably the reason for their silence—he must be invaluable.’ His mouth twisted.
‘So we’re no further forward?’
‘No.’
‘Why didn’t you telephone and let us know you wouldn’t be back for lunch?’ she asked waspishly.
‘Probably for the same reason you refused to tell Mrs McLeod where you were going,’ he said tautly. ‘I didn’t consider it any of your business.’
‘I didn’t refuse to tell Mrs McLeod where I was going! I told her I would be out for an hour, I didn’t realise I had to report my every move. Lunch was different,’ she insisted at his pointed glance. ‘You caused a great deal of inconvenience.’
‘Mrs McLeod told me that it was salad for lunch,’ Jordan taunted. ‘Hardly an inconvenience.’
‘It was to me,’ Kelly said tightly.
‘Where have you been this afternoon, Kelly?’ he demanded grimly.
‘Out.’
‘Out where?’
She faced him defiantly. ‘Just out.’
‘You’ve been drinking,’ he said harshly.