by Miranda Lee
‘He…he said he was going away to have a holiday.’ Abby’s voice caught at the memory.
‘He told me the same thing,’ Jake said.
‘Instead he went away to die,’ she choked out. ‘Alone…’
Abby couldn’t think of anything sadder than dying alone. It was the main thing which haunted her about Wayne’s death. That he’d been all alone, out there in the ocean, with the storm raging around him and little chance of being rescued. Had he lost all hope in the end? Had despair engulfed him in the moments before he drowned?
Suddenly, a huge wave of grief overwhelmed her, emotional distress welling up in Abby till it could not be contained. Tears filled her eyes so quickly they spilled over and ran down her cheeks.
When a sob escaped her throat, Jake stared at her with a look of horror.
Embarrassment flooded in but there was no stopping her now. When more sobs racked her body, all Abby could do was bury her face in her hands. She simply couldn’t bear to witness her boss watching her whilst she wept her heart out. No doubt she was making a fool of herself. No doubt he thought she was a typically sentimental female to cry over a man she hardly knew.
The feel of strong male arms suddenly pulling her into a comforting embrace shocked Abby rigid. She certainly hadn’t expected a hug. Not from her very aloof boss. Unfortunately, his uncharacteristic kindness only made her weep all the more.
‘There, there,’ he said, patting her back as she clasped the lapels of his suit jacket and sobbed into his shirt. ‘No need to cry. Craig had a good life, with no regrets. He wouldn’t want you crying over him. Craig wasn’t one for tears.’
Abby could hardly explain that it wasn’t just Craig’s death which had set her off, but the way he’d died. All alone.
Oh, God…
Abby was gritting her teeth and doing her best to pull herself together when Jake stopped patting her back and slid his arms right around her, holding her quite close. No doubt he was still just trying to comfort her but for some reason Abby no longer felt comforted. She felt very discomforted. Because she liked him hugging her like that. She liked it a lot. The urge to slide her own arms around his back was acute. She wanted to hug him back, wanted to bury herself in the solid warmth of his very male body and…and…
And what, Abby? Make an even bigger fool of yourself? For pity’s sake, get a grip, girl.
Taking a deep gathering breath, Abby lurched backwards, releasing the lapels of Jake’s jacket as she gulped down a sob of shame.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she choked out, her face flushing as she spun away from him and grabbed a handful of tissues from the box on the kitchen counter, not saying another word till she’d blown her nose and composed herself. She did note rather ruefully, however, that Jake didn’t wait long to hurry back to the other side of the breakfast bar.
Her groan carried more shame. ‘I’ve embarrassed you, I can see. It’s just that… Oh, never mind.’ Her fisted right hand came up to rub agitatedly at her mouth. For a moment she was tempted to confide in Jake about Wayne’s tragic death. But only for a moment. Maybe, if he’d been any other kind of man she might have explained why she’d been so upset at the news of his uncle dying alone like that. But Jake didn’t invite confidences. Why, he’d never even asked her how her husband had died!
Despite his hug just now, Jake didn’t really care about her. She was just his employee, hired to look after his house. His housekeeper. A glorified cleaner, if truth be told.
Craig hadn’t treated her like that. He’d been genuinely interested in her life. Not that she’d told Jake’s uncle the total truth. Abby had become masterful at blotting out the really painful parts in her past. Talking about them wouldn’t have achieved anything, anyway.
‘The thing is,’ she went on, compelled to make some excuse for her emotional display, ‘I really liked your uncle a lot.’
‘He must have liked you a lot too,’ Jake replied.
‘Well, yes,’ she said slowly. ‘He seemed to.’
‘You haven’t asked me what he left you,’ Jake went on, his eyes on her.
‘What? Oh… Some books, I suppose.’
Jake frowned at her. ‘No, no books,’ he said. ‘Nothing as mundane as that.’
‘Then what?’ she asked, perplexed.
‘To be honest, he didn’t leave you anything directly. He left a letter for me with instructions of what he wants you to have.’
She blinked, then frowned. ‘That sounds…weird.’
‘Yes, I thought so too,’ he agreed drily. ‘But Craig was never a conventional man. Look, why don’t we both drink our coffee before it gets cold? Then, afterwards, I’ll fill you in on everything.’
When Jake picked up his coffee mug, Abby did likewise, sipping slowly and thoughtfully. A hot drink always calmed her. And brother, she needed calming after that crazy moment when she’d almost hugged her boss back.
‘I would have liked to go to his funeral,’ she said after a suitably calming minute or two. ‘Was he buried or cremated?’
‘Buried,’ he said.
‘Where?’ she asked.
Jake’s face looked grim as he put down his coffee. ‘Rookwood Cemetery.’
She wasn’t sure where that was. She didn’t have a GPS in the ute and often got lost. ‘I’d like to go and visit his grave some time. Pay my respects. Say a prayer or two. Would you take me?’ she asked him before she could think better of it.
Jake’s sigh suggested that was the last thing he wanted to do.
‘Okay,’ he said with a resigned shrug. ‘But I can’t go till next Saturday. In the meantime, wouldn’t you like to hear about what Craig wanted me to give you?’
‘Oh, yes. What is it?’
‘Well, first of all he wants me to buy you a new car. Something small and stylish, with a decent warranty.’
Shock at this news was swiftly followed by confusion.
‘But that doesn’t seem right,’ she said. ‘As much as I would love a new car, why should he ask you to pay for such a thing?’
‘It’s basically Craig’s money, Abby. He left most of his estate to me. Trust me when I say that my inheritance was considerable. So it’s no hardship on me to spend a seriously small portion of it on you.’
‘But why didn’t he just leave some money to me in his will to buy my own car?’
‘I have no idea. It might have been simpler all round if he’d done that. Apparently, he was worried that you might not spend it on yourself—that you might give it away to relatives.’
‘Oh, dear,’ she said, embarrassed. ‘I suppose it’s because I told him about paying for Timmy’s operation.’
‘No. He didn’t mention anything specific. Who’s Timmy?’
‘My sister’s little boy. She’s a single mum and doesn’t have any private health insurance. Timmy needed his tonsils out but would have had to wait eighteen months to have it done. She couldn’t afford the operation so I paid for it to be done privately.’
‘I see,’ he said, his tone sceptical.
A degree of anger pushed aside Abby’s embarrassment. ‘Please don’t think my sister’s a user because she’s not. She’s doing the best she can under the circumstances. Megan didn’t ask me to pay for Timmy’s operation. That was my idea. She won’t come and live with me, even though I said she wouldn’t have to pay any rent. Your uncle got the wrong idea.’
‘Possibly, but that’s irrelevant now. I have no alternative but to follow through with Craig’s dying wishes. He was most specific in his letter about what he wanted me to buy for you. A new car is the first cab off the rank. Then he wants me to give you twenty-five thousand dollars. For your travel fund, he said.’
Abby’s mouth dropped open. ‘Twenty-five thousand! But…but that’s way too much. What will people think?’
‘Who cares what they think?’ came his arrogantly dismis
sive comment. ‘And who are they?’
‘My sister for starters. She’ll think I’ve done something I shouldn’t have with your uncle to get him to leave me all that money.’
‘Really. Such as what?’
‘You know what,’ Abby shot back.
‘True,’ he said drily. ‘In that case I suggest you don’t tell her about your unexpected windfall.’
Abby gave a snorting laugh. ‘Hard to hide a brand-new car.’
‘True again. So what do you want me to do, Abby? Go against my uncle’s wishes? Forget everything?’
She looked at him with pained eyes. ‘I couldn’t do that. I don’t care so much about the new car, but I couldn’t turn down the travel fund money. It’s my dearest wish to go overseas and see the world. And I’d like to go before I get too old.’
Jake laughed. ‘You’re hardly ancient, Abby.’
‘I might be by the time I save up twenty-five thousand dollars.’
He seemed startled by this statement. ‘Do I pay you that poorly?’
‘No. But I have a house and a lot of bills.’ And the remainder of a debt for porcelain veneers.
Jake frowned. ‘You have a mortgage?’
‘No. My husband’s life insurance paid that off. But I still have a lot of bills. Maintaining a house is expensive.’
‘Tell me about it,’ he said with the first hint of a smile that day. He really wasn’t much of a smiler. Not with her, anyway. He smiled on television a lot though. Abby wished he would smile more. It really transformed his face from cardboard handsome into a likeable human being.
Unfortunately, his smile also did things to Abby which she was finding hard to process. Her stomach curled over and she found herself staring at his mouth and thinking totally unacceptable things. Like what would it be like to be kissed by him? And not just on her mouth.
Lord, but this wasn’t like her. She didn’t even enjoy sex that much, unlike her sister, who couldn’t live without it. Sex with Wayne had been okay, but nothing to write home about. She’d done it whenever he wanted, more for him than herself, because she’d loved him so much. In her mind, making love was a natural part of loving. Of marriage. She’d never been into sex for sex’s sake.
Why then was she looking at her boss and thinking that here was a man who just might change her mind on that subject?
Not that she’d ever have the chance to find out. Not only did he have a gorgeous girlfriend but he was totally off-limits. He was her boss, for heaven’s sake! On top of that, he clearly didn’t fancy her. A girl knew when a man fancied her and Jake definitely didn’t.
Her eyes dropped from his to her near empty coffee cup.
‘I’m still finding it hard to believe all this,’ she said, glancing up again once she had her wayward thoughts under control. ‘In one way it’s like a dream come true. But I still can’t get over your uncle dying like that. And all alone.’
‘Indeed,’ Jake said, that hint of a smile disappearing as quickly as it had come. ‘I’ve been thinking,’ he went on, his face very businesslike again. ‘I’ll put next Saturday aside so that I can take you to visit Craig’s grave in the morning, then we’ll go on and buy you a car afterwards. It’s not far from Rookwood Cemetery out to the major dealerships at Parramatta. Do you trust me to pick out a car for you, or do you want to choose one yourself?’
‘Well, I… I don’t know,’ she stammered, startled by how quickly he wanted to organise everything. ‘I’m not much of a car buff. But if it’s going to be mine I think I would like to look up a few possibilities on the internet.’
‘It’s a good idea to buy something that is cheap to repair,’ he advised firmly. ‘I would suggest you look at the Japanese cars. Or the Korean ones.’
‘All right,’ she agreed. He seemed to know what he was talking about, whereas she was pretty ignorant when it came to cars.
‘And what bank account would you like the twenty-five thousand put into? The same one your salary goes into, or do you want to start up a special travel fund account?’
Abby was taken by surprise when her chin began to quiver. But really today had all been a bit much.
‘Don’t you dare start crying again,’ he commanded.
Abby bit her bottom lip and blinked madly.
‘Sorry,’ she muttered through gritted teeth. ‘I’m not usually a cry baby.’ Which was true. Nowadays, Abby kept her emotions under tight control. There had been a time when she’d cried too much. And too often. But no longer.
Lifting her chin, she speared her boss with a dry-eyed and rather rebellious glare.
‘Good,’ Jake snapped, making Abby want to hit him. How on earth she could have been sexually attracted to this man—even for a moment—was beyond her.
‘You should go home,’ he went on in that same brusque manner. ‘You look tired. Ring me when you’ve decided on the brand of car and we’ll make arrangements for Saturday. You can tell me then what account you want the money put into.’
‘All right. Bye then,’ Abby went on rather sharply, gathering up her things and taking off before she could say or do something which might jeopardise her job. Or Craig’s remarkable legacies.
She almost slammed the front door, just getting control of her temper in time. She did slam the door on the ute and accelerated off faster than her usual sedate speed. But she soon slowed down, telling herself not to be so silly. No point risking her life because her boss was a pain in the butt.
Think about your new car, she told herself. And all that lovely money.
Abby sighed. Yes, it was sad that Craig was dead, but life went on, as she very well knew. You had to search for the positives in life or you would go mad.
Another thought suddenly came to Abby which made her wince. How much of this was she going to tell Megan? As she’d said to Jake, you couldn’t hide a new car. But perhaps it would be best if she didn’t tell her sister about the money. It might make her jealous and, yes, suspicious.
Abby pulled a face at herself in the rear-view mirror. She hated lying to Megan but she just might have to. Oh, dear. Even when things took a turn for the better, life wasn’t easy.
CHAPTER FOUR
‘YOU HANDLED THAT WELL,’ Jake growled as he pulled a bottle of red at random out of his wine rack. ‘I love the way you kept her at a distance.’
Still, what could he do when she started crying like that? Common sense demanded he do nothing. But common decency insisted that he comfort her.
Big mistake.
The moment he’d taken her in his arms, all those good intentions of his dissolved in the face of a desire so strong it took every ounce of willpower not to pull her even closer than he had. He didn’t want to pat her damned back. Or utter soothing words. He wanted to tip up her chin and kiss the tears from her lovely face.
Thank God he hadn’t given in to that desire. Because she would not have surrendered to him as she did in his darkest dreams. She would have slapped him, then resigned as his housekeeper.
Abby didn’t particularly like him. That, he knew.
Which should have been a relief, given his resolve never to act on his secret desire for her. Instead he felt peeved by her indifference. And jealous of her obvious affection for Craig. Which was all perverse, given his own decision not to have anything to do with her on a personal level, a decision which fate—courtesy of his uncle—had now blown out of the water. Next Saturday morning he would be personally escorting Abby to Craig’s graveside, then afterwards he would be personally buying her a car.
That was all pretty personal, in his opinion.
But there was no way out, Jake accepted bleakly as he gazed down at the label of the bottle he’d pulled out and saw it was one of his favourites. A Shiraz from the Clare Valley. Good. Because he needed to get drunk. And he might as well do so on a favourite tipple rather than rubbish.
Not that
he ever bought rubbish, he admitted as he poured himself his first glass. Long gone were the days when he drank rough red from casks. Hell, he hadn’t done that since his university days. And yet they had been good days. Happy days. Carefree days.
Nothing like today, Jake thought ruefully as he lifted the glass to his lips for a deep swallow. Today would not go down as good. Or happy. Or carefree. Today was…what?
He wasn’t sure how to describe it.
Dangerous came to mind. And not in a good way. Jake had enjoyed danger in his life at times. But this was a different kind of danger. This wasn’t physical danger. This involved his emotions. Intense, uncontrollable emotions.
Jake didn’t like intense, uncontrollable emotions. They made you do things which never ended well.
Jake carried the glass and the bottle out to his courtyard, where he placed the bottle on the small circular glass table he liked best then sat down in the chair next to it.
When his phone rang, he saw that it was Olivia.
He didn’t want to talk to Olivia just now. He didn’t want to talk to anyone. So he just turned off the phone and went back to drinking his wine.
CHAPTER FIVE
WITHIN SECONDS OF arriving home Abby rang Megan, not wanting to procrastinate over the call. Megan would only be even more suspicious if she waited too long to give her the good news.
‘Hi there, kiddo,’ Megan answered, a term of endearment which often led people to think Megan was the older sister. And whilst there wasn’t much between them, Abby was actually older by fifteen months.
Abby had already decided that the best way to play this was to sound very happy about it. And she was happy. Just a bit wary about her sister’s reaction.
‘You’ll never guess what’s happened,’ Abby said brightly as she dumped her bag on the floor and plonked herself into a nearby armchair.
‘Something good by the sound of things.’
‘Unbelievably good!’ And she launched into an explanation of the day’s events. As planned, she left out the part about the travel fund money and only mentioned the new car. Naturally, she didn’t include the bit about her bursting into tears and Jake hugging her.