‘There is no us…’
‘Oh, but there is,’ he drawled, and moved towards her again.
She stiffened. ‘Rick, you promised, you said…’
‘I said I wouldn’t be so obvious or naive as to assume you would sleep with me tonight.’
‘You also said, no drama or trauma—something about that.’ She stared at him, her eyes dark and tormented, her face paler than usual, her lips trembling.
‘You’ve obviously chosen to forget what else I said… although you danced with me with all your senses,’ grated Rick, and his green eyes were brilliant and cruelly taunting.
She put her hands to her face, then realised she was still holding his totems. And sudden tears brimmed as she looked at them, brimmed and overflowed.
He said, ‘Am I right, Evonne?’
She swallowed. ‘No..
‘You don’t lie very convincingly, my dear. He must have been a real bastard to leave you like this—the way you are.’
Before she even saw the trap, Evonne reacted instinctively and in the same manner she would have ten years ago, and by the time she stopped to draw breath it was too late—she’d not only given herself away in an unmistakable defence but she had cursed Rick Emerson again in the rough, tough language he and only he seemed to be able to draw from her after all these years.
She stopped with her breath catching in her throat, her lips working, her loose hair subsiding like a dark curtain, and the colour rose in her cheeks at the cool, absent smile twisting his lips, the quizzical light in his green eyes she remembered only too well.
And when he drawled, ‘That’s better—I like the way you… er… pull no punches when you get riled!’ she only just restrained herself from screaming with frustration, and turned away pre-cipitately, only to trip and have to bear the ignominy of having him catch her.
‘Let me go!’ she panted.
‘In a minute—don’t exhaust yourself, we’ve been there and done this once before, if you recall.’
‘You…’ But she couldn’t break his grip on her shoulders, and finally she flung her head back and stared at him mutinously, contemptuously, her lips clamped tightly shut.
He laughed softly. ‘I wouldn’t dream of trying it he mocked, ‘but one day I will because you’ll want me to, you won’t be able to help yourself, and none of the excuses you’re concocting to explain the way I affect you will work any more— and none of the ashes of this dead love you carry in your heart will help you then, Evonne.’
‘I wouldn’t count on it if I were you!’ she spat at him.
Rick smiled faintly. ‘That’s only because you don’t really know what a persistent bastard I can be, as well as all the other kinds you tell me I am. You really have a most colourful vocabulary!’ He released her suddenly and involuntarily she crossed her arms and her hands crept up towards her shoulders. To her amazement, she still had the emu and the giraffe in one hand, and in an angry, stony gesture, she held them out to him.
He ignored them and said abruptly, ‘I’m sorry if I hurt you—or am I? Perhaps that’s just the nature of things between us—extreme frustration. Incidentally, don’t feel constrained to sit up all night editing my book, will you? And if you decide to pack up and run again, I won’t be far behind.’
She stared at him and said just one despairing word, ‘Why?’
‘I thought I told you how I feel about unfinished business,’ he murmured, and he put his hand over her still outstretched one and closed it over the two little wooden animals. ‘You keep them. Take them to bed with you.’
CHAPTER SIX
EVONNE awoke the next morning at nine-thirty.
She sat up, brushing the hair out of her eyes, and was conscious immediately of a feeling of unease and of being overburdened even before the events of the previous night fell into place in her mind. Then she lay back on her side with a sigh, gripping the corner of the pillow and staring at another bright new day through the open curtains she had neglected to close last night. It was a few minutes before she noticed the message light blinking on her phone.
She stared at it for a full minute before picking up the receiver.
‘Yes, Miss Patterson,’ the concierge said. ‘The message reads—“Please meet me in the Cortile at eleven a.m. with the manuscript.” It’s signed “Emerson”.’
‘Thank you,’ answered Evonne. She thought of ordering breakfast, winced as she remembered the way she’d started the day yesterday, and got up and made herself a cup of tea instead. Then she soaked in the bath, trying not to think but with the same thought circling her mind— was this the end? Had Rick, after last night and with the rest of the night to either sleep on it or think it over, decided to give up after all?
If so, why am I not rejoicing? she asked herself. Even if he’s right about me, there’s no future for us. What am I thinking? He’s not right—he’s just dangerously attractive, and I’m…it’s been a long time, and perhaps it takes a very long time to put your senses to rest…
‘Oh, hell!’ she muttered, and climbed abruptly out of the bath.
She dressed very conservatively in a dull clay-pink, straight linen skirt and a long-sleeved white silk blouse. Her leather shoes matched the skirt but had wooden heels and she wore a string of tiny carved, polished wooden beads. She put her hair up simply and severely. But she still had nearly an hour to kill, she found, and with a sudden burst of resentment, she decided to pack. But even that left her with half an hour, and she sat down on the bed with Rick’s manuscript in her lap and leafed through it until finally it was five to eleven. Still she hesitated, staring at the little wooden animals on the table beside the bed, and she reached out to touch them, but her hand fell back and she got up hastily, snatched up her shoulder-bag and the manuscript and left the room.
Rick was sitting with an older man, deep in conversation as Evonne approached, and only when she was right upon them did they look up.
For an instant her eyes clashed with Rick’s, and in that instant, she knew that nothing had changed from last night, knew that his mood was impatient and dangerous and his eyes were very green and tiger-like.
She tensed inwardly as both men stood up and Rick drawled, ‘This is Patterson, Len. She’s my…’ He stopped and subjected Evonne to a narrowed, satirical look. ‘I don’t quite know how to describe it, we have this rather tortured relationship, you see. The minder of my manuscript as well as my…other aspirations,’ he finished, then added with a suddenly malicious glint in his eyes, ‘Yes, my minder. This is Len Woodward, Evonne—my editor.’
Evonne could not control the faint flush of humiliation creeping up her throat, but she contrived to ignore it and accept Len Woodward’s hand, even murmur, ‘How do you do?’ although she was smarting inwardly.
Len Woodward, however, was used to Rick’s ways, apparently, because he held Evonne’s hand in both of his and said with a warm smile, ‘I gather he got out of bed on the wrong side this morning. I’m very happy to meet you, Evonne, and I believe I owe you a large debt of gratitude. I’m sure it was no small task rendering the masterpiece legible!’
‘Do sit down, Evonne,’ Rick invited. ‘Tea? Coffee? Or something stronger?’
‘Coffee, thank you,’ she told him.
‘Rick tells me you’ve had some experience in this game, and that he thinks you could edit it down to the length we have in mind…’
‘She might have changed her mind about that,’ Rick put in lazily, and subjected Evonne to a bland look of enquiry.
Evonne gripped her hands in her lap. ‘I do have one or two ideas,’ she said to Len Woodward. ‘But I’m sure you don’t need an amateur—and I really am—to tell you…’
‘Did you make a copy?’ Len Woodward broke in keenly.
‘Yes, I did, but..
‘Then here’s my suggestion. You keep one, I’ll take one—you do your editing and I’ll do mine, and we’ll see what we come up with. I promise,’ he turned to Rick, ‘to listen to Evonne’s suggestions if they d
iffer from mine, and of course your preferences, but I should point out, the final say is mine.’
Rick opened his mouth to answer, but Evonne said quietly, ‘You really can’t argue with that.’
He shot her a green look that said, Can’t I? then seemed to think better of it and said to Len Woodward with a wry grin, ‘Is this what’s called humouring the author?’
‘Something like that,’ the other man agreed. ‘But I would also be interested to hear Evonne’s ideas. You seem to be so sure they’ll be good.’
Rick smiled twistedly and shrugged, ‘I don’t know why.’
Evonne stared at her lap, embarrassment stamped into every line of her figure, while Len Woodward glanced from her to Rick and back again, made his own, correct deductions, unbeknown to either of them, decided it was about time Rick Emerson had to fight for what he wanted, fond as he was of him—and remembered with an inward little sigh of nostalgia the good fight his wife had put up. Then he decided that if he was ever going to get this manuscript on the road he had better attempt to defuse this immediate situation.
‘Well, that’s sorted out,’ he said genially. ‘Funny thing, Rick, just a few days ago an advertising agency got in touch with me, asking for you. I think your Geography Department put them on to me.’
Rick raised an uninterested eyebrow.
‘They’re looking for an expert on Papua New Guinea, someone in touch with the local people, someone who would know the pitfalls for any advertising campaign up there.’
‘There’d be plenty of those,’ said Rick. ‘I sometimes used to think no two of them spoke the same language!’
‘But Pidgin is the sort of lingua franca, is it not?’
‘Ah, Pidgin,’ Rick drawled, but there was a sudden spark of curiosity in his eyes. ‘What are they trying to sell?’
‘I don’t know. I think this is just the advance planning stage. In fact they’re holding a two-day convention with the main theme being the marketing of Australian products outside Australia to our near neighbours—something like that. They wanted you to give a couple of talks.’
‘Why the hell did they come to you?’
‘I seemed to be the only person they could lay their hands on who had some idea of your whereabouts and availability,’ Len Woodward said gently. ‘I told them I doubted you’d be available, but one never quite knew. They said they’d live in hope until the last minute and keep a spot for you. Imagine my surprise when you rang me this morning, three days before our original appointment was scheduled…’
‘Don’t go on, Len,’ Rick said wearily. ‘I seem to be surrounded by people ramming my volatility and every other failing down my throat,’ he added with a glance at Evonne. ‘Anyway, why would I want to spend two days at a stuffy convention?’
‘Stuffy? I don’t know about that,’ Len Woodward retorted. ‘The opposite, I would have thought. They’ve certainly chosen a lovely spot for it. You know Peppers, don’t you? Peppers at Pokolbin in the heart of the Hunter Valley?’
Rick had started to interject, but he went suddenly still and stared at his editor. Then he said slowly, ‘Did you say Peppers? When?’
‘Tomorrow and the next day. They expressly assured me they wouldn’t expect you to spend all your time at the convention. Have you been to Peppers, Evonne?’ Len Woodward turned to her suddenly.
Evonne blinked. ‘I…no.’
‘Never?’
‘N-no,’ she said uncertainly. ‘Why…do you ask?’
‘Marvellously peaceful spot for a bit of editing, that’s all.’
The battle raged all the way up in the lift, for all that it was mostly silent—they weren’t alone in the lift—but Evonne was saying to herself steadily, no, I will not, and communicating this fact with her eyes and her taut stance. Whereas Rick was suddenly almost relaxed, yet with a curiously devilish gleam in his eyes that frightened her.
They stepped out on the twenty-first floor, and Rick immediately took her hand and marshalled her implacably into his room, where he took up the attack in his own inimitable manner.
‘You haven’t lived until you’ve been to Peppers.’
‘That’s nonsense, and you know it!’
‘I don’t. You wait, there’s something special about the place.’
‘The most special place on earth is not going to change how I feel. I don’t want to go anywhere with you. I’m beginning to be sorry I ever laid eyes on you…’
‘Because I told you some home truths about yourself? Because any cauterising process is inevitably painful, because you’ve been dead from your beautiful neck down for a long time, like some citadel to a lost love, and I’ve managed to storm that citadel? Who was he, Evonne? I feel as if he ought to be written up in the Guinness Book of Records, such a man among men.’ Rick folded his arms, leant his broad shoulders back against the door—they’d got no further than just inside the room—and waited impassively.
Evonne tightened her lips and turned her back on him.
‘Tell me something else, then—are you packed?’
‘Yes!’
‘Good. So am I… once again we’ve read each other’s minds.’
‘No, we haven’t. I’m going home.’
‘Like an ostrich?’ he said drily. ‘Or do you really enjoy hurting yourself?’
Something in the way he said it made her turn slowly with a frown in her eyes. ‘What…?’ She stopped.
Rick stood upright. ‘What do I mean?’ he said softly. ‘That you’d be far better going in the opposite direction, which Peppers is.’
‘To what?’ she whispered. ‘Opposite to what? I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Don’t you?’ Rick smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. ‘I’m talking about Robert Randall, Evonne.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
FOR a moment Evonne thought she was going to faint. She swayed slightly and all the colour drained from her face, which Rick observed, but he made no move to touch or steady her.
‘How…how?’ she stammered, and put a hand to her throat.
‘I consulted the oracle. On the phone. This morning,’ he told her, then as her eyes widened in bewilderment he added impatiently, ‘I rang my beloved uncle.’
She licked her lips. ‘But he didn’t know…’
‘Didn’t he? Perhaps you’re right, but he gave it to me as his considered opinion. Incidentally, if you’ve wondered about it at all, that’s why he sent you to me—that’s why, in his opinion again, you consented to come on what must have seemed to you a mad mission. I believe there’s some dinner on down there you would normally have attended, that the Randalls are attending.’
‘He… Did you know any of this… before?’
‘No. I would have thought that was obvious,’ Rick said roughly. ‘But it wasn’t long before I began to suspect another lure. I doubt if even Uncle Amos expected it to be so successful,’ he added grimly.
‘Do you mean… do you… are you saying he threw us together for…to…’ Evonne couldn’t go on.
‘Precisely. He decided you needed shaking out of your preoccupation with a man you couldn’t have, and that I just might be the one to do it. He decided I needed the love of a good woman for a change.’
‘I don’t believe this,’ Evonne said shakily, turning away again and groping her way towards a chair.
He followed. ‘You wouldn’t be contemplating going home for that dinner, would you? He has a wife and two children.’
‘I know that.’ Evonne stared blindly at her hands, twisting in her lap. ‘No…’
‘Then come to Peppers with me. What have you got to lose?’
Why she did just that, she didn’t really know, except for the fact that she simply didn’t seem to have the will to go on battering herself against him.
Nor the will to be surprised by or curious about anything much from then on. So that, when they were downstairs outside the main entrance, surrounded by their luggage, and an attendant brought a sleek blue Porsche to a halt opposite
them and she realised it was Rick’s, she merely blinked.
‘I arranged to have it brought out of mothballs last week,’ he explained as he nosed the car down the ramp, around and out into MacQuarie Street. ‘Comfortable?’
Evonne nodded.
‘I think we’ll take the Putty Road. I know it’s a bit winding, but the thought of negotiating the traffic through Hornsby doesn’t appeal.’
‘Whatever you like,’ she shrugged.
‘You don’t care which road to hell we take, in other words?’
‘Rick…’ She said his name on a breath and put a hand to her mouth.
He glanced at her and said quietly then, ‘Sorry.’ He switched on the radio and didn’t attempt any further conversation.
It was well past Windsor and deep into the Putty Road and the Blue Mountains that Evonne found herself feeling oddly guilty for her silence, for having sat so mute and miserable for the past couple of hours. She turned her head to look out of her side window, then raised her hand to massage the back of her neck. And slowly, the beauty of the scenery they were driving through got to her—the haze that even so close made the mountains blue, the white and yellow-barked huge gum trees beside the road, the banksias in the bush.
She said tentatively at last, ‘It’s lovely, isn’t it?’
Rick nodded.
They flashed past a road sign. ‘Do we go as far as Singleton?’ she asked.
‘No. We take the Broke turn-off. It’s probably,’ he shrugged, ‘half an hour from there. Feeling better?’
‘Yes.’
Once they were on the Broke turn-off, they were undoubtedly in vineyard country, and it was also beautiful, although different from the Putty Road, cleared and husbanded but still country, hilly but much gentler.
‘Broke gets its name from these hills,’ Rick told her. ‘The Broken Back range.’
‘Tell me about Peppers,’ she invited.
‘It’s a guesthouse. It’s designed in just about every respect to resemble an early Australian Colonial farmhouse, the decor inside as well as out, and it’s run on guesthouse lines with all mod cons, discreetly disguised. It has a wonderful diningroom, beautiful grounds and gardens— and sometimes the air is like champagne. And it’s situated amid some of the Hunter’s best known wineries—Tyrrell’s, Tulloch’s, the Rothbury Estate, Hunger ford Hill, Lindeman’s— as well as a lot of smaller ones.’
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