One Hour to Midnight Read Online Free PDF Page B

over that man, have you?"
    "What do you mean?"
    "I'm neither in my dotage nor stupid, child." Kathleen expelled an impatient breath. "You fell in love with Leon Karvasis when you were in a very vulnerable situation. The bastard preyed on that then, and he's preying on you now."
    Kathleen's harsh words were like a knife slipped between her ribs. Veronica pulled her hand free and pushed away from the table. She walked across to the credenza where she'd laid Jordan's photo.
    "Do you expect me to refuse? To not do anything to help my son."
    Kathleen's hand gripped her shoulder forcing her to turn and meet her eyes.  
    "First off, Veronica, Jordan isn't your son. He's not been your son since the moment you relinquished him to Karvasis and his wife." She opened the side door of the credenza to expose the collage of photos hidden there. "Nor is this shrine you've created in any way healthy."
    Veronica sucked in a sharp breath, surprised that Kathleen knew where she kept the photos. Her harsh words battered Veronica's already bruised spirit. Why had she not known Kathleen harboured such bitter thoughts?
    "Do you expect me to just forget about Jordan? To not go to Melbourne to help him?"  
    "No, of course not. I'd be disgusted with you if you did refuse to help." Kathleen made an impatient gesture. "But it's not your help or lack of it that's at play here, is it?"
    "I don't know what you mean?"
    "Don't you?" Kathleen paced across to the window and back. "I've watched you pine over that man since Jordan's birth, despite Tania and Cathy trying to drag you back into the dating scene."
    Veronica looked at Kathleen with dawning comprehension. "You encouraged them to set me up with dates?"
    "I have. It's well past time you started to live again." The older woman gave an inelegant snort.   "You exist, day by day . God forbid, you end up like me."
    Jaw slack with shock, she stared at Kathleen. Tania's joking words echoed in her head. Watch it, Vic. You've got the cat, the cottage and you're looking thirty in the eye.
    "What do you mean?"
    Kathleen paced across to the window and back, her steps bordering on aggressive. "I've never told you this, and now I'm thinking that perhaps I should have."
    "Told me what?"
    "Your mother was my best friend." Kathleen shook her head. "She was very like Tania, with the same spirited, effervescent personality. She lit up a room just by walking through the door."
    Veronica sank down into a wingback chair, watching Kathleen intently. The older woman rarely talked to her about her parents. "And?"
    "I was the opposite in every way, staid, academic and watched life from the fringes. Philip was my first serious boyfriend."
    "Philip? My father?"
    Kathleen sank into the chair opposite. "Yes, your father. He was a professor of medicine at Auckland University."
    She swallowed hard, her gaze trained on the older woman. "What happened?"
    "Hélène was away overseas when I met Philip. He asked me to marry him and I asked Hélène to come home and be my bridesmaid. I so wanted them to meet." Kathleen gave another derisive snort. "My fiancé and my best friend. The morning of my wedding, they eloped. At least they got a message to me before I turned up at the church."
    "No!" Veronica moved and knelt in front of Kathleen and gripped her hands. "How could they do that to you?"
    "Better before we tied the knot than later. At least that's what my father said."
    "So how come I ended up boarding at your school?"
    Kathleen lifted a hand and stroked the hair back from Veronica's forehead. "There was the deuce of a scandal. Things were different then. Philip was asked to resign his professorship and your mother persuaded him to join doctors without borders."
    "I thought they were missionaries?"
    "They were, later. They were in Kenya in the years after Idi Amin was overthrown. You were born there. When you were two, they brought you home to live with your grandparents and they returned to Africa."
    Veronica remembered this. "And