An Indecent Proposal

by Margot Early

  Dylan said nothing to relieve his suspicion.

  “She says she knew I was here.” Patrick felt the renewal of all that morning’s doubts—and some guilt that he hadn’t yet told Louisa just whom she was harboring.Well, he wouldn’t tell Dylan before mentioning it to Louisa.

  “Think she wants to get back together?” Dylan asked.

  “She claims to need a job. She was married to a wealthy man, but he died and his money went elsewhere.”

  “Unusual.”

  “Yes. I wouldn’t have let it happen,” Patrick couldn’t stop himself from saying.

  “That sounds protective.”

  “Of her?” Patrick snorted. “This woman can take care of herself, believe me. Well, maybe not financially. Or at least not in the style to which she has been accustomed.” He knew he was being unfair to Bronwyn. After all, she’d worked while she was at university, and before that she’d lived in poverty. She was a survivor.

  “It’s hard being a single parent,” said Dylan.

  He would know, Patrick reflected. Dylan had been raising his daughter single-handed when Megan met him. And he hadn’t done a bad job of it. Heidi was her own person, neither spoiled nor stifled.

  “Does she have a degree?” Dylan asked.

  Patrick didn’t like to admit he’d gotten a look at Bronwyn’s application—half to see the sight of her handwriting, fundamentally unchanged in ten years. “No. She didn’t finish.”

  “What did she study?”

  “Sports Nutrition and Physiology. As I recall, she wanted to help people build self-confidence by getting into shape. But I’m sure she has changed since then.”

  Dylan’s eyes slid in his direction, but the cop said nothing.

  Briefly, Patrick considered confiding more of Bronwyn’s background to Dylan. Then, another thought occurred to him. If Megan saw Bronwyn and recognized her, Louisa would definitely find out Bronwyn had been married to Ari. Megan had been far more forgiving of Bronwyn’s defection than Patrick had; still, his sister would want to protect family—him and Louisa.

  The soccer ball flew toward the foot of the veranda, and the boy, Wesley, ran after it, followed by the puppy.

  Dylan got up to jump down from the veranda and retrieve the ball. Patrick didn’t know how he himself came out of his chair and off the veranda first, his foot passing the ball back to the boy.

  Wesley said, “Will you guys play with us? Then we’ll have four.”

  “Sure,” Dylan answered, and introduced himself to Wesley.

  Patrick’s eyes met Bronwyn’s across the lawn, the stretch of green so recently saved from fire. What surprised Patrick was that Bronwyn looked as displeased with her son’s suggestion as Patrick felt.

  Chapter Four

  “Are you good?” Wesley asked Dylan frankly.

  “I was a footballer. But I can run.” Dylan turned and seemed to size up Patrick.

  Wesley considered. He didn’t want to be on Patrick Stafford’s team, but he also didn’t want Patrick on his mother’s team. He might be mean to her. But before Wesley could choose, Patrick himself said, “Let’s try you and me against Dylan and your mum, mate.”

  Wesley agreed. They began playing, and soon both men had their shirts off. Patrick was pretty good, which surprised Wesley. He began to think his mother and Dylan would be outmatched.

  Bronwyn slid her foot out to steal the ball from Patrick and pass it to Dylan. She didn’t intend to trip Patrick and certainly didn’t mean to fall herself. Suddenly she was down on the still-smoky-smelling grass, and Patrick was sprawled half-across her, saying, “Are you all right, Bronwyn?”

  “I’m fine.” Why did he affect her this way after so long? Why did hearing him say her name start her pulse jumping in her throat? She glanced over and saw the familiar chin with that dent in it, the cheekbones as pronounced as Viggo Mortensen’s, everything about Patrick so damned handsome. And he was in good shape still. She made herself look at her watch. “But I’m due back in the kitchen to help with dinner preparations.”

  “I thought you were a dishwasher.”

  “Yes, well, they’re finding other uses for me.”

  Patrick stood up, then spontaneously offered her his hand.

  She pretended not to see it, but got up on her own.

  His irritation began to simmer anew.

  Dylan was talking with Wesley about the dog.

  Patrick said, “Nothing better go wrong while you’re here, Bronwyn. I think you know the kind of thing I mean.”

  She spun, very white. “Actually, I don’t.”

  “Problems with the horses.”

  Her mouth fell partway open, her eyes wide. Then, she turned and strode across the lawn without another word.

  He had to tell Louisa—before Megan did and gave Louisa reason to doubt his loyalty. He didn’t want to bring the subject up at the dinner table, so he sought out his great-aunt beforehand. Dylan, Megan and Heidi, although invited to dinner, had headed home. They planned to have some family time before Heidi returned to her new boarding school in Sydney, the same school Megan had attended.

  Patrick found Louisa in the barn, talking to one of the grooms about An Indecent Proposal and how he’d done on the morning gallops. Patrick walked through the barn, checking on his own riding horse and remembering the times in college when he’d invited Bronwyn out to his parents’ place—recently become his through their deaths—when they’d ridden the family horses along the beach. Bronwyn had been a novice rider but a natural athlete and had actually taken some riding lessons subsequently, as part of her work on her degree.

  “Were you looking for me?”

  Patrick turned to see Louisa glance past him at Second Chance, his horse, a sorrel with a white star.

  “Yes,” he said. He spoke in a rush, the way he used to with his parents when he’d had to admit something he knew wouldn’t make them happy—a dent in a fender, forgetting a chore, less than a top mark in school. “It’s about your new hire, Bronwyn Davies.”

  “You started to say something this morning.”

  Not for the first time, Patrick marveled at Louisa’s sharpness, which hadn’t been affected by her recent heart problems. Though now she brought a cane with her when walking, he noticed that she used it less as a physical prop than a stage prop. “She’s Ari Theodoros’s widow.” As soon as he said it, he remembered Louisa’s heart condition and feared that the news would be too much of a shock.

  “Actually, I know that.”

  “What?” He stared at her.

  “I’ve seen her at functions over the years. And Megan has mentioned that Bronwyn threw you over for Ari years ago. Well, I hope you’re not holding that against her, Patrick. Childish in someone your age.”

  He felt a head shorter. How had Louisa known all this? “Megan told you…when?”

  “Weeks ago. We were discussing your bachelor status, your doubts about Dylan, all of that. It came up, and she meant no harm by it. She just said she thought you had something against women because of it.”

  “Oh, she did, did she?”

  “I said that I gave you credit for greater maturity than to let the rejection of one woman sour you on the entire sex.”

  “Good. Because it hasn’t.” He’d dated over the years, had a couple of serious girlfriends. No one he’d wanted to marry. But one thing he knew for sure. If he ever did ask another woman to marry him, he would be certain of her answer first. Nonetheless, he didn’t appreciate Louisa’s turning his decision to warn her about Bronwyn into a chance to admonish him for supposedly never getting over her. He asked, “Don’t you think it a little odd, though, that she should show up here now? She says she knew I was here.”

  “Did she?” Louisa seemed only barely interested. “I like her boy. You know, you’d be doing us all a favor if you’d take him riding with you sometime.”

  “Can he ride?” The suggestion had startled Patrick, so he stalled with a question.

  “Well, he has to start somewhere
, and I imagine you’d be a competent person to accompany him. Let him ride Meadow Boy.” Meadow Boy was a twenty-two-year-old dressage horse, mellow, gentle.

  “You think I have so much time on my hands that I should become a child-minder?”

  Louisa glared up at him, and Patrick felt himself shrink again. “I think that you’re the kind of man who has time for a grieving, fatherless boy who is probably desperately in need of a positive male role model.”

  “Do you have an ulterior motive here, Louisa?”

  “Such as?”

  “Encouraging me to tilt a lance at Bronwyn once again.”

  Louisa snorted. “You think I have so much time on my hands that I’ve become a matchmaker? Your love life is no concern of mine, Patrick, as long as it has no negative impact on Fairchild Acres. But I like Wesley Theodoros, and I think there are few things on this earth as important as the raising of children.”

  It was a surprisingly impassioned speech from Louisa. Of course, he’d also seen his great-aunt passionate on the subject of Dylan’s daughter, Heidi. She did care about children. He just tended to forget it, because she cared so much about horses.

  “So,” he asked, “is this in the nature of an order?”

  The older woman seemed to measure him with her eyes. “It’s in the nature of an expectation.” And without another word, she turned and started out of the barn, leaning on her cane.

  Stage prop, Patrick thought.

  Bronwyn liked working in the kitchens. Marie, Helena and Howard had all welcomed her as a friend, and they’d begun a morning exercise class in the living room of the bungalow. None of them had yet had the courage to ask Louisa for a place for their class, though Howard and Helena both thought she might be accommodating.

  On her fourth evening at Fairchild Acres, after putting Wesley to bed with Beckham sleeping on the floor at his feet, she sat out on the cottage’s veranda doing math. How much money could she save? How quickly? How long could she stay at Fairchild Acres? Would she ever be able to afford another home for herself and her son? Was there any chance she could finish school, earn her degree?

  The numbers in her mind kept her thoughts off two subjects.

  One: did she dare do as she’d intended in coming to Fairchild Acres and tell Patrick Stafford that Wesley was his son? She’d remembered Patrick as fun and lighthearted, but there was a new acerbity in his treatment of her; if he had an old score to settle, she couldn’t let Wesley become a pawn in that game.

  And Subject Number Two: Ari.

  Bronwyn had loved him, had been in love with him, and when she’d learned the truth about his criminal activity, eight weeks ago at his arrest, she’d felt like a boat cast adrift with no rudder and no sail. Her world had become completely disordered as the things she’d believed proved false.

  So she added up her future wages and looked forward to the following day, her day off, when she would go register Wesley at the local school. That couldn’t happen soon enough, because Wesley had said today that Louisa Fairchild wanted him to have riding lessons and planned to ask Patrick to teach him!

  That thought made Bronwyn’s head spin.

  A sound startled her, and she looked up into the darkness to see a tall, familiar shape passing on the lawn, carrying a shovel. Patrick wore work clothes and seemed to have been doing something in one of the pastures. He saw her, stopped, stared for a minute, then walked toward the porch.

  “Still here,” he said.

  “Yes.” The safest reply.

  “Hard work is good for you. You can see how the other half lives.”

  Bronwyn couldn’t stay silent. “I’ve never forgotten.” Patrick dear. “If you’ll remember, I was waiting tables while you were flitting to and from classes on the Napoleonic Wars and Ancient Greece and drinking beer in pubs in your free time.” I didn’t say that. I didn’t say that to Louisa Fairchild’s great-nephew. What if her loss of self-control cost her this job? She needed the job. “Look, I’m sorry, Patrick. It’s been a long day. Please forget I said that.”

  He looked as though he required more than an apology.

  “Obviously, you’ve become very practical and industrious,” she added. “So I guess my turning you down all those years ago worked out for the best for you.”

  “Meaning?”

  She had meant that perhaps her rejection had taught him the value of a day job. “You seem content,” she said, and hoped he would let the subject rest.

  “Well, it did work out well for me.” He leaned on the shovel and studied her. “I discovered what I really want in a woman.”

  Inside the bungalow, one of the dogs growled. It sounded like Beckham, but Bronwyn hardly registered it, so intent was she upon Patrick’s words. “And what is that?” she asked.

  “Someone independent, who isn’t looking to me for her next meal.”

  “I’ve already said that’s not—”

  A scream from inside cut short her words. Wesley. She was out of the chair and running, and heavy footsteps pounded behind her. Through the living room cleared of furniture, past the now-growling Lab mix, past Marie’s and Helena’s doors banging open, and into Wesley’s room, where she froze.

  The light on the dresser was on, and Wesley stood on top of the dresser. On the ground Beckham barked and growled at a large brown snake.

  All she could think was, Don’t bite the dog!

  Because the snake’s focus was on the puppy, whose teeth were bared.

  Behind her, Helena screamed.

  One swift movement, a tall shadow looming beside Bronwyn, and the snake lay in two pieces.

  “Oh, God,” gasped Bronwyn, sagging against the body beside her. Patrick had dispatched the snake with the shovel.

  At her shoulder, Marie echoed her words.

  Bronwyn swiftly shrugged away from Patrick as Wesley gamely leaped off the dresser and onto the floor. He hugged his dog, who had sat down and begun absently licking himself. “Brave boy, Beckham. He didn’t bite Beckham, Mum, but Beckham was going to bite him.”

  Patrick picked up the long section of the snake, scooped up the head with the shovel, and carried both out of the room. Bronwyn sank onto her son’s bed, trembling. Don’t bite the dog, had been the beginning and the end in denial. Don’t bite my son. Don’t kill my precious son.

  “Oh, God,” she said again, touching Wesley’s head as Patrick reappeared. Marie and Helena, after making sure no one had been hurt, returned to their own bedrooms.

  “Yes, Beckham’s as brave as Rikki-Tikki-Tavi,” Patrick said.

  “Who’s that?” Wesley asked, staring blankly at the spot where the snake had been.

  “You haven’t heard of Rikki-Tikki-Tavi?” Patrick said. “That was my favorite story growing up. I’ve always been terrified of snakes.” He didn’t add that a snake had killed one of his dogs when he was growing up. He hated snakes, and when he’d cut this one in two with the shovel, sparing Wesley and Beckham, it had also been a stroke for his old Labrador, Snow. “Rikki-Tikki-Tavi was a mongoose in India.”

  “What’s a mongoose?” Wesley asked. He climbed back up into his bed and patted the mattress beside him. Beckham jumped up and joined him.

  Bronwyn gave her son a look, and Wesley deliberately ignored her. Beckham was not allowed on the bed. But how could she push him off after his bravery?

  As though reading her mind, Wesley said, “Mum, he told me the snake was here. He growled, and then I turned on the light, and I climbed up as high as I could to get away from it. I was going to pick up Beckham, too, but I was afraid.”

  Thank God you were, Bronwyn thought.

  “You were smart is what you were,” Patrick said.

  Warmth rushed through Bronwyn as he complimented her son. Their son. How good it would be for Wesley to hear that kind of praise from a man he knew to be his father.

  But Wesley still believed Ari Theodoros was his father.

  Overwhelmed by the situation in which she’d placed herself, Bronwyn remained silent.<
br />
  “What’s a mongoose?” Wesley repeated.

  “If you like, tomorrow we can go up to the big house and get on the computer and look it up. I want to say that they’re related to weasels or ferrets or both, but I could be wrong,” Patrick told him. “In any case, they are extremely efficient at killing snakes.”

  Bronwyn wasn’t sure she’d ever heard Ari utter the words I could be wrong.

  “Would you like to hear about Rikki-Tikki-Tavi?” Patrick asked.

  “Yes,” Wesley answered. He got under his covers and lay back contentedly with his head on his pillow. “Do you know about him?” he asked Bronwyn.

  “Yes,” Bronwyn answered. “But I don’t remember the story perfectly.”

  “Neither do I,” said Patrick, “but I’ll give it a go.” He drew out the desk chair and pulled it up beside Wesley’s bed. “The story of Rikki-Tikki-Tavi was written by a man named Rudyard Kipling.”

  “The Jungle Book!” said Wesley.

  “Very good. Well, Rikki-Tikki was a mongoose, as I said, and he lived in India.”

  Bronwyn was impressed with Patrick’s storytelling. She curled up at the end of Wesley’s bed and listened to Patrick describe Nag and Nagaina and the birds in the garden. The snakes hissed when they spoke and when they moved, and Rikki-Tikki-Tavi chattered and capered and cuddled with the boy whose life he finally saved.

  She couldn’t help enjoying the warm depth of Patrick’s voice. She remembered that voice, remembered the feeling it had always given her. Well, when it wasn’t saying things like, I’m not sure what I’ll do later on…maybe try and write a novel.

  He’d been so impractical! But obviously, he’d gotten over that, was no longer a footloose dreamer with vague plans for the future.

  When the story ended, Wesley said, “I want to see what a mongoose looks like. Why aren’t there mongooses in Australia?”

  “Because they can wipe out all the snakes, which can lead to rodent overpopulation, among other things. But, believe me, I spent a good part of my childhood wondering the same thing.” He gave a deliberate shudder. “I hate snakes.”