His Pregnancy Bargain by Kim Lawrence Page B

Megan.
    â€˜I thought for a second you were your mother. I’ve been outside to have a couple of puffs on a cigar. You couldn’t sleep either, huh?’ He looked sympathetically at Megan, who was seated at the long scrubbed table in the cavernous kitchen.
    Megan shook her head and nursed her mug of tea, which had gone cold while she’d sat there. She summoned up a weak smile and hoped her face had recovered from the worst of the tear damage. ‘Bad night, Uncle Mal?’
    â€˜I never sleep in the country. Quite frankly I don’t see how anyone does. It’s so darned noisy,’ he complained, dragging himself up a chair.
    Despite her bleak frame of mind Megan was amused by his comment. As a country girl born and bred she couldn’t let this comment go unchallenged.
    â€˜What about London traffic?’ Even she, a sound sleeper— normally —found that hard to cope with sometimes.
    â€˜You can tune out traffic noises—wild animals making all sorts of unearthly noises through the entire night you cannot. Frankly, it gives me the creeps. Mind you, it’s not as bad here as where Luc lives.’ He gave a shudder. ‘You have the sound of the sea to cope with there as well. God, the sound of the sea has to be the loneliest sound in the world.’
    â€˜That’s really quite poetic, Uncle Mal.’
    â€˜Yes, I thought so too,’ he agreed, looking pleased. ‘Is there any tea in the pot?’
    She shook her head. ‘No, it’s cold,’ she said. ‘I thought Luc said he lived in London.’
    â€˜Told you that, did he? Not like Luc to tell you anything beyond name, rank and serial number. He must have taken a shine to you.’
    Megan laughed uncomfortably and said lightly. ‘I doubt it.’
    â€˜No, the London place is a new thing. When he isn’t traveling—a bit of a gypsy, our Luc is. You never know when he’ll have the urge to take off. It’s in his blood.’
    Megan, who had heard the Land Rover revving up at three in the morning, lowered her gaze to the cold depths of her mug. She had seen the note on the hall stand addressed to her mother in a strong scrawl. It wouldn’t be long before Malcolm discovered that Luc had taken off again…and good riddance!
    â€˜Normally he buries himself out in the wilds of the country, some place with a name I can’t pronounce…Welsh. Not big on his fellow man, is Luc, but then,’ he reflected, ‘who can blame him under the circumstances?’
    â€˜What circumstances would those be?’ Megan enquired.
    â€˜Said too much,’ said Malcolm, looking alarmed.
    â€˜No, you’ve not said enough,’ Megan corrected forcefully. She was sick to the back teeth with all this secrecy.
    Malcolm sighed heavily. ‘You’re very like your mother sometimes,’ he said. ‘Now you must promise that what I tell you stays between us…?’
    Megan gravely nodded.
    â€˜Luc had a successful business, engineering, he had a partner and, to cut a long story short, the partner had been draining the firm of funds for ages. The chap finally did a runner and left Luc to face the music.’
    â€˜Music…but I thought you said it was the partner…?’
    â€˜True, the only thing he had done wrong was trusting the wrong man. The police were very good, he said.’
    â€˜The police were involved!’ she exclaimed.
    â€˜Sure, there was a full investigation and Luc was totally vindicated. It might have stopped there but one of the investors killed himself when he realised his life savings were down the toilet. Apparently the guy was pretty unstable to begin with, but when someone leaves a couple of kids and a pretty widow the press are not going to mention that. The press did a real job on Luc.’
    The information was a lot for Megan to take in at once. ‘Why don’t I know about any of this?’
    â€˜It happened during