Wolf at the Door

by Victoria Gordon

  It was difficult to sleep that night. She kept reliving those horrid moments, and seeing the mocking look in Grey’s eyes as he had put her firmly and properly in her place. And to have the absolute effrontery to admit his aversion to scalloped potatoes ... it was absolutely maddening!

  Maddening, and so tauntingly superior that she spent most of the next day in a flaming temper that nobody in the kitchen missed. Kelly thought up dozens of vengeful comments, many of them outrageously silly, and wound up ordering that scalloped potatoes would be served with dinner. She felt silly once she’d done so, and as the day progressed she began to feel increasingly small and petty.

  ‘I just can’t do it,’ she muttered aloud about ten minutes before the dinner gong. ‘I ... can’t!’

  The next few minutes was a bit of a scramble, but when Grey sauntered into the servery to collect his meal, she was unexpectedly pleased to be able to bypass the scalloped potatoes and give him the hash-browns she had personally prepared at the last minute.

  ‘Thank you, Kelly. That was very nice of you to take such trouble,’ he said with a perfectly straight face and without a hint of mockery in his eyes.

  Kelly, barely able to contain her shyness after spending considerable effort to put on a brave face for the occasion, could have wept. Even in victory, he showed his superiority, and she felt more petty than before. For the first time since her arrival at Kakwa camp, she began to seriously doubt the wisdom of trying to continue managing the catering of any camp where Grey Scofield held the reins of control.

  I hate him, I hate him, I hate him! she told herself silently in bed that night, knowing the lie as she said it but unable to admit that knowledge even to herself.

  Grey’s absence at breakfast next morning did even less to improve Kelly’s humour, especially when old Baldy remarked that the camp boss had left at first light to drive into Grande Prairie. The fact that Grey hadn’t even mentioned it to her, though he must have known it was her day to drive into the city for supplies, nagged at Kelly throughout the long drive north. Of course it was none of her business what he did, but it would have been nice, she thought, if they could have at least arranged to meet somewhere for coffee, or lunch, or something!

  By the time she reached Grande Prairie and threaded her cautious way through the masses of heavy truck traffic to the hospital, she was in such a blue funk herself that she wondered briefly if she should visit her father at all in such a mood. But of course she had to visit him, since he would have been expecting her, she reasoned, and indeed he was.

  ‘You look absolutely wonderful,’ he grinned when Kelly walked softly into his hospital room. ‘Looks like the bush agrees with you, which shouldn’t really surprise me, I guess. But after what Grey said about you working so hard, I expected you to be looking all pale and peaked.’

  ‘He said what?’ Kelly immediately feared the worst, and she awaited her father’s report with twinges of conscience that made her overly apprehensive.

  ‘He said you’ve been working like a Trojan,’ Geoff Barnes replied with a grin, ‘and that the results have been nothing short of miraculous.’

  He laughed aloud at Kelly’s look of bewilderment. ‘It looks like you’ve done everything right,’ he said. ‘Grey’s been singing your praises to the skies. He thinks you’re the greatest thing since sliced bread.’

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ Kelly replied in a stunned voice. ‘Practically all we’ve done since I got there is fight, and after … just when was he being so complimentary, anyway?’

  ‘About half an hour ago, the last time. But he’s dropped in a couple of times since you moved south, just to reassure me everything was okay, I guess. Just as well, since you’ve obviously been too busy to make the trip.’

  Her father’s voice held a slightly reproving note that tugged at Kelly’s emotions. It had only been just over a week, but he was right, she had been too busy even to feel guilty about not making the drive in to see him.

  ‘Now don’t go feeling guilty about it,’ Geoff Barnes said with a grin. ‘I know you’ve been too busy and I know why. And I’ve already had words with Marcel about those two drunken cooks he hired when I took sick. You’ve done a splendid job, Kelly, but now that you have everything under control I just hope the weather holds good so you can be sure of getting up here every few days for a visit. I’m getting awfully sick of this hospital.’

  Kelly promised faithfully to try and get up at least twice a week, and for the rest of their visit they talked about the work she was doing and the people at the camp.

  Geoff Barnes admitted that Grey seemed to be overreacting just a bit about Kelly’s need for protection, but he was adamant that she should honour Grey’s wishes in the matter. ‘It’s far better to be safe than sorry in this case,’ he said. ‘And while it may seem a bit restrictive, you should be flattered that Grey thinks enough of you to be so careful.’

  ‘He’s only thinking of his stomach,’ she retorted. ‘And he is over-reacting. I’ve got to know most of the men, well … reasonably well anyway, and I’m positive in my own mind there isn’t a single one of them that would even think of harming me.’

  ‘Fair enough, but I’ve spent a lifetime in these camps, and let me tell you, my girl, there are some strange characters on some of these crews. You can argue with Grey if you like, but he’s got my support in this and I’ve told him so.’

  ‘Thanks a lot,’ Kelly said tartly. ‘That’s all I need is for you to give him carte blanche authority over my private life, not that I’ve got much time for any private life anyway, but it’s the principle of the thing.’

  ‘You couldn’t be in better hands,’ her father replied calmly. ‘Once I’m back on my feet it’ll be different, but until then I’m just happy that Grey was willing to take on the responsibility.’

  ‘But I don’t want to be his responsibility,’ she cried. ‘I’m twenty-four years old. I’m not a child and I resent him thinking I am and treating me like one. And really I think it’s unfair of you to put me in such a position.’

  ‘Gently with the temper, Kelly. I’m supposed to be a sick man,’ her father replied. ‘And as for Grey treating you like a child, I got the distinct impression from him that he thinks of you as anything but a child, for whatever consolation that is.’

  ‘None whatsoever! He’s the most autocratic, chauvinistic man I’ve ever met,’ Kelly snapped.

  ‘Are you just angry because your little scheme failed, or is it because you’re falling for him a bit yourself?’ her father replied with a knowing grin.

  ‘Oh. How did you ... you know?’ Kelly stammered. The nerve of Grey Schofield to tell her father about that ... that horrendous, dismal failure of a revenge! She was first angry, then shyly contrite as her father laughed out loud.

  ‘Of course he told me,’ Geoff Barnes laughed. ‘He thought it was tremendously funny. And so do I but only because he did.’ His voice took on a warning note. ‘In actual fact, it was extremely petty of you, Kelly, and I’m not amused by that. I would never have thought you to be a vindictive person.’

  ‘And I’m not, usually,’ she sighed, ‘But Grey Scofield just gets my hackles up like nobody I’ve ever met. And what’s worse, he never seems to even have to try. It just happens. But you’re right, it was petty, and I’m sorry and I shall try not to blot my copybook again. But he just makes me so angry ...’

  ‘That’s probably because you have no sense of humour,’ drawled a gravelly voice from the doorway. ‘But I’ll make it up to you by buying you lunch.’

  Kelly turned with a startled cry to find Grey Scofield lounging carelessly against the door jamb, his eyes wrinkled with wry amusement at her surprise. How long had he been there, she wondered immediately, and worse, how much had he heard?

  Dressed in clean khaki shirt and trousers, with the shirt sleeves rolled above his powerful forearms and the front undone to reveal a thatch of dark chest hair, Grey seemed to exude an air of intense masculinity and a youthfulness that belied his
silver hair. His mouth was quirked in a mocking half-smile and his grey eyes clearly awaited Kelly’s response to the invitation.

  ‘I’m sorry, but I’ll be too busy to take time for lunch,’ she finally blurted after an over-long delay that fooled neither Grey nor her father.

  ‘Suit yourself,’ he said with a shrug, revealing that he hadn’t expected her to accept in the first place.

  Kelly, for some reason she couldn’t work out, was strangely hurt by his abrupt reaction, and immediately after he had spoken briefly to her father and left the room without another word to herself, she was wishing she had accepted the invitation.

  ‘You should have,’ said Geoff Barnes, as if reading his daughter’s mind. ‘You’ll never get anywhere with Grey Scofield by fighting, I can tell you that right now.’

  ‘I’m not interested in getting anywhere with Mr Scofield, thank you very much,’ Kelly replied tartly. ‘I would much prefer it if he would just stick to his job and leave me to mine.’

  ‘Well, if that’s your story, you stick to it,’ her father replied with a grin. Then he immediately changed the subject, and whenever Kelly brought Grey’s name into the conversation during the rest of her visit, he adroitly changed the subject again. It was frustrating, but she could hardly insist upon discussing a man in whom she professed no interest at all.

  Soon she could tell that the strain of the visit was telling upon her father. He needed to rest, not talk to her, and she withdrew as graciously as she could without making him feel guilty about his weakness. Returning to the downtown shopping area, she began the long and tiring task of filling her supply list.

  She was placing the last of the non-perishables into the back of the truck when a strangely familiar voice called to her, and she turned to meet the approach of Marcel Leduc, striding across the parking lot with a broad smile on his handsome face.

  ‘Your dad said I’d likely find you here,’ he said with a grin. ‘And you’ve finished just in time for lunch, so let’s be off.’

  It wasn’t the most favourable suggestion; Kelly could have thought of more enjoyable companions. She didn’t entirely trust Marcel and she didn’t really like him much, though she had no solid reason for either reaction.

  But she also had no valid reason for refusing him, and when he gently and gallantly took her arm, she hesitated only for an instant before flashing him a broad smile of acceptance.

  As they approached Marcel’s chosen restaurant, already starting to fill with the lunch-time trade, Kelly had a brief twinge of regret. She could have been lunching with Grey Scofield, except for her own perverseness, she thought, and then was immediately angry with herself for thinking of it. Until they were seated at a remote corner table and she looked up to see that familiar silver hair reflected in a mirror on the opposite wall.

  Her first response was to bow her head; it would be the height of embarrassment if Grey were to find her lunching with somebody else after refusing his invitation. But after a moment she realised that Marcel’s presence gave her a perfect excuse, even if she hadn’t mentioned it at the time Grey had asked her to lunch.

  Besides, his back was to her in the mirror, and she found a certain smug satisfaction in being able to watch him without his knowledge. She was enjoying that somewhat illicit pleasure when an audible hush fell over the restaurant, which was mostly filled with roughly-dressed bush workers and oilmen. The image in the mirror rose to its feet, and Kelly turned to view the arrival of the most stunning blonde she had seen since leaving England.

  Tall, perhaps five foot nine without the three-inch heels that gave added grace to slender, shapely legs, the girl had shag-cut, flowing hair of such a light blondeness that it could only be natural. And she was extraordinarily beautiful, with classic features and large blue-green eyes. She wore a close-fitting white outfit that outlined every detail of a magnificent figure, and Kelly was immediately jealous of the response this creature spurred from every single man in the room.

  ‘Grey darling!’ the blonde trilled in a husky, throaty voice. ‘I’m so sorry I’m late. But you don’t really mind, do you?’

  Kelly couldn’t hear the muted response as Grey Scofield seated his lovely companion, but she felt the sigh of disappointment that swept the room once the blonde was seated where most of the men could no longer admire her long legs. Angered as much by her own jealousy as anything else, Kelly turned her attention back to her meal, but it had lost its allure, and she looked up to find Marcel Leduc’s eyes roving past her to complete his own assessment of the statuesque blonde.

  His attention was so rapt that Kelly’s resentment grew dangerously violent, and she had to restrain the impulse to kick him under the table. Instead, she waved her hand in a childish gesture beneath his nose, saying, ‘Hey! Remember me?’

  ‘Remember you? But it was you that 1 was thinking of,’ he lied blandly, unaware of her knowledge, via the mirror, of where his attention had actually been directed.

  For the balance of the meal, however, he was typically Gallic in his attentions to Kelly, paying her outrageous compliments throughout a seemingly innocent conversation that delved quite deeply into her intentions about the business and her own place in the future scheme of things. Kelly wasn’t fooled for a moment; she had already decided that her presence might prove difficult for Marcel’s future plans, and she sensed that he rather resented her arrival in a business that had otherwise promised him a lucrative and independent future.

  Marcel was aiming for a full partnership, she knew, and indeed had been taken into her father’s business with that in mind, since Geoff Barnes had only half believed in Kelly’s own determination to make a new life in Canada. But Kelly was also aware of Marcel’s interest in her as a woman, an interest that had taken a severe nose-dive with the arrival of the blonde vision across the room.

  When they had finished lunch, Kelly followed Marcel to the reception desk and the doorway, thinking as she did so that it was fortunate Grey Scofield’s attentions were fully diverted. He would never notice her in any event, since her tiny figure in jeans and a light cotton blouse didn’t stand out with anything like the flamboyance of his blonde companion.

  She had reckoned without the mirrors, however, and even as she turned towards the doorway after Marcel had paid the bill, she found herself meeting Grey Scofield’s eyes as she looked into the mirror by the door and found it reflecting his image in yet another mirror across the room.

  One dark eyebrow raised in a scornful, or maybe it was a mocking gesture of acknowledgment. Kelly didn’t wait to find out. She turned and dashed through the door without revealing that she had seen Grey, breathing quickly as she reached the sanctuary of the busy street outside.

  But her day was entirely spoiled by the encounter, and she found herself lying desperately to get rid of Marcel as quickly as possible, then scurrying around the supermarkets to pick up her perishable groceries and get herself out of town as quickly as she could.

  All the long way back to Kakwa camp, she kept seeing those grey eyes, mocking her, laughing at her, tormenting her. And worse, she kept wondering as she guided the large truck over the rough gravel track, if Grey had made his date with the gorgeous blonde after he had asked Kelly herself to lunch, or before.

  It was a question she didn’t enjoy facing at all, but she couldn’t get it out of her mind. When he didn’t .show up for dinner that night, she lay awake later in her trailer, listening in vain for the sound of his arriving truck and wondering how he and the blonde were spending the evening. She fell asleep, finally, without knowing if he had even come back to camp that night.

  CHA PTER FOUR

  By the time Grey Scofield returned to camp, just barely in time to sit in at the tag end of breakfast, Kelly had firmly decided she couldn’t care less about his associations with the mysterious blonde or indeed any other woman. It wasn’t her business, and since she didn’t think much of him anyway, it was patently ridiculous to let him bother her no matter what he chose to do.

/>   With her new cooks well under control, she was treating herself to the unaccustomed luxury of a breakfast prepared by somebody else, and when Grey arrived she was seated alone at a small table in the corner of the dining hall.

  She had noticed several of the men, especially the young blond giant she had noticed the first day of her arrival, working to build up the courage to join her, but she was determined to maintain the cool distance she had thought best to keep away from any kind of man trouble in the camp. Much as she detested Grey’s insinuations about possible problems, she knew in her heart that he was actually right, and she was determined to give him no cause for complaint on that score, at least.

  But when the tall, grey-eyed man walked into the dining room, the cat-that-ate-the-canary look on his face brought an abrupt surge of spitefulness rushing through her, and just for an instant she wished she had been surrounded by his men when the camp boss arrived.

  She wished it even more when Grey loaded his breakfast tray and coolly strode over to sling himself into a chair across from her without so much as a thought about whether she might have preferred to breakfast alone. Had she been closer to being finished, Kelly might have been able to conceive an escape, but by the time she thought of that, it was far too late.

  ‘Morning,’ he grinned cheerfully, bold grey eyes roving across her face in undisguised appraisal.

  For just an instant, she couldn’t help but think of the obvious comparisons between herself and the gorgeous blonde Grey had lunched with the day before, and she very nearly flushed at her own vulnerability. Then she steeled herself to return his greeting as casually as possible, and without consciously planning it, added: ‘You look as if you had a good night.’

  There was a flash of something in his eyes, a flash that flickered so quickly she couldn’t tell if it was anger, amusement or just what. A tiny grin quirked up the corner of his strong, passionate mouth before he replied.