INTERRUPTED LULLABY

by Valery Parv

  The single mother with the triplets had been the talk of the hospital and as soon as she was discharged, Tara had buried her aching sense of loss while making telephone calls to colleagues and persuading them to donate clothes for the babies. One of her favorite designers had gone further, creating an adorable miniature wardrobe for the triplets. The resulting publicity had led more of Tara's colleagues to offer money and assistance, and before long the foundation was a reality.

  She had never expected to become the charity's spokesperson. At first she could barely be around children without falling apart, but slowly it dawned on her that there was healing here, too. Seeing so many babies and children being given hope for the future had renewed her own sense of hope. Her pain had slowly eased to a distant ache that only caught her unawares every now and then.

  In helping others, she had helped herself to go on. She called on that strength now to keep her voice steady and her body language serene, describing work the foundation had done and the work still to do, and how the audience could play a part.

  When they broke for coffee she was immediately surrounded, but even as she answered questions she was aware of Zeke across the room, a coffee cup untouched in his hand, his gaze on her. His look felt like a flame, licking at her body.

  Time to take the bull by the horns. Excusing herself, she strode up to him, her own coffee cup held like a shield in front of her. "Hello, Zeke."

  "Nice talk. Very persuasive," he said evenly.

  "Wasted on you."

  "I didn't come to be recruited," he denied. "You know my philosophy—charity begins at home."

  "Then why are you here?" she demanded.

  In the confined space, his body brushed hers and she felt her pulses leap in instant response. When they were together, his hard body hadn't always been encased in expensive tailoring. More often, it had been encased in nothing at all and the image sent shards of desire spearing through her.

  Chemistry, that's all it was, she told herself desperately. Zeke had never had to do much to send her into orbit. Sometimes merely touching her was enough. This time she owed it to herself to keep her feet firmly on the ground.

  "I want to learn about your work," he insisted, his deep voice close to her ear.

  The warmth of his breath curling around her nape made the room seem to recede.

  "Isn't it a bit late?" she managed to whisper around a throat as arid as the Australian Outback. They both knew she wasn't referring to her work.

  "According to our speaker, it's never too late to do your bit," he murmured. He shot a deliberate look at the reporter taking notes at the back of the room. "Unless you don't practice what you preach."

  Of all people, Zeke should know she did, she thought with a sinking heart. "I suppose you hope to make a fool of me in front of the magazine people."

  He looked mildly insulted. "I don't need Australian Life as a mouthpiece. My column has as many readers a week as they do in a month."

  Her spirits sank even further. "You're writing about the foundation in your column?"

  His smile twisted her insides in an instant, an unwelcome response but she forced it away as he said, "It's possible."

  "For your series on charities that help themselves more than others."

  It wasn't a question. The leaden feeling in her stomach told her she was right even before his smile became wolfish. "Since starting that series, I've visited charities whose headquarters would make the Taj Mahal look modest. Debunking them has been a pleasure."

  "Model Children isn't a publicity stunt," she denied, keeping her voice low although it was an effort. "We've saved whole families by helping the children."

  "Too bad our family wasn't one of them."

  Stopped in her tracks, she stared at him. "You can't blame me for what happened. You were the one who went to America, then moved in with someone else." His eyebrows lifted and she added, "Gossip travels fast in the media. How is Lucy, by the way?"

  "You'll have to ask her new husband," Zeke said flatly.

  For the first time she saw genuine pain cloud his startling pewter eyes. "I'm sorry, I didn't know."

  A cynical smile tilted his full lips. "If you'd come with me to the States you would have known. Of course, if you'd been with me in the States, I wouldn't have turned to Lucy."

  She felt anger flash into her gaze and didn't care if he saw it. "You're saying it was my fault?"

  "Wasn't it?"

  "I couldn't go with you." She was well aware that the desire to keep this between them wasn't the only reason her voice came out as a strangled whisper.

  "You never did say why."

  "I told you—"

  He cut across her savagely. "You gave me excuses but no real reason."

  "I had my work."

  He glanced around the room, part of a technical college by day. There was little of glamour about it and she saw his gaze absorb the fact. "Nineteen months later you're not modeling at all. You're stumping around the country talking business people into parting with their cash. Yet you couldn't take the time to come with me where your career could have really taken off. Were you afraid of failing or succeeding?"

  "Neither," she insisted, feeling her heart gather speed. She hadn't been able to share her reasons with him then, and there was no point now. "I had other priorities."

  His mouth twisted into a sneer. "Evidently I wasn't among them."

  "Must we always bring this back to you?"

  His finger stabbed the air. "This time it's to you. You were the one holding the reins. You could have come with me but you refused."

  "So you drowned your sorrows in Lucy. It took what? Just over a year to love her and leave her. You didn't pine for very long." Not nearly as long as Tara herself had.

  At his startled look she wondered what she had said wrong. "I didn't leave her, she left me," he stated, astonishing her. "It seems I wasn't sufficiently in touch with my feelings."

  The cynical way he said it turned it into a denial. Bitterness threatened to swamp Tara. "You actually care what a woman thinks? This is certainly new behavior." Her opinion never carried much weight with him, she recalled.

  "I make a point of learning from my mistakes."

  Tara felt her breath rush out. What did he consider a mistake—his behavior toward the other woman, or—she could hardly bear to think it—leaving Tara?

  Signs of the coffee break winding up caught her attention. "We can't talk now. What about after the meeting?"

  His slow smile, alight with masculine interest, instantly made her regret the suggestion but it was too late to retract it now. "Going to make a personal appeal to me, Tara? I could get to like this foundation of yours."

  "You don't have to like it. You only have to give it a fair appraisal," she snapped, and stood up purposefully to move to the podium again. It was just as well she had already given this talk many times before, because her concentration was well below par. She was too aware of Zeke Blaxland leaning back with his arms folded across his broad chest, his expression daring her to put a foot wrong.

  * * *

  Potent with memories, the scent of her perfume lingered in the space around Zeke and he inhaled slowly, cursing himself for a fool, but unable to stop himself. Poême, he thought, automatically putting a name to the heady fragrance with its reminders of the foolish satin and lace scraps she called lingerie. Did she still wear that stuff?

  From where he sat, the new Tara McNiven looked all business. She had never been skeletal, like some models, but her new curves were a definite improvement. The glimpse of satin skin and hint of décolletage her businesslike jacket afforded him set his pulses hammering. His imagination began to work overtime on the rest.

  Her hair was shorter, too, brushing her shoulders in a waterfall of gold he knew from experience would feel like silk. His fingers twitched with the need to touch her. He turned it into a drumming gesture on his knee, saw her notice and frown, and stilled his hand.

  What had possessed him to gat
e-crash the meeting? His lack of faith in charities was no secret, but he didn't really believe Tara's foundation belonged in his series. He'd researched them, and had no doubt that they were on the level. It didn't mean he believed in what she was doing, but neither did he think she was in it for her own benefit.

  So why was he here?

  If he was honest, the answer was pacing up and down in front of him as she urged the group to put themselves in the children's places. "It's easy to say that one person can't make a difference, but all it takes is the willingness to try."

  Amid the rueful nods, Zeke felt himself frown. Was Tara sending him a message? When they were together Zeke had been guilty of shutting himself away in his study for long periods. The only place she had had his undivided attention was in bed.

  Her gaze bored into him. "We've all heard the saying about charity beginning at home." She took a breath. "Tonight, I want you to go home and look at your own children, and imagine their lives if you couldn't provide for them. Then when you're in bed tonight, spend five minutes imagining what it would be like not to have that bed."

  Zeke felt a growl well up in his throat. He didn't have to imagine what it would be like. He knew from his own experience, and no charity had come along to rescue him. He pushed the unwelcome memory aside, preferring to picture himself in Tara's bed. Arousal throbbed through him at the very thought. Considering that it felt like a lifetime since he'd been with Tara, he was amazed how clearly he remembered every moment together, starting with the day he'd met her.

  She had been the celebrity attraction at a car show where he had gone to check out the latest model Branxton convertible. He had barely been able to find the car for the spotlights and cameras aimed at her as she posed alongside it.

  Irritated at having to wait until the publicity shoot ended, he had voiced his disapproval to a colleague he spotted in the throng. "Do they still have to sell cars by draping them with bubble-brained women in low-cut clothes?"

  "Depends whether you're selling the lowered sports suspension or the viscous drive differential," came a throaty voice in his ear. Startled, he'd noticed that the photographers had been dismantling their gear and trying not to grin as the model cornered him with fire in her eyes.

  He'd felt himself flushing. "You heard?"

  "Enough to know that you're wrong about me on at least one count."

  His gaze had slid over her breasts swelling so tantalizingly in the low-cut gown that his throat dried in automatic response. "It obviously isn't the dress."

  Her lips had begun to twitch. "Obviously."

  "Doesn't it bother you to be used as a prop to sell cars?"

  She had shrugged, somehow imbuing the gesture with grace and beauty. "Doesn't it bother you to write about chicken farming?"

  "Battery hens," he had corrected her, unwillingly pleased that she had connected him with his latest piece. "It's my job."

  "For the moment, this is mine." She'd offered her hand. "I'm Tara McNiven."

  Her fingers had felt cool in his and he found he didn't want to let her go. So he hadn't. "Zeke Blaxland. Shall we continue this discussion over coffee?"

  To his relief she had nodded. "There's a Green Room behind the main stage. We can go there. It's more private."

  Private had sounded good. "My place is even more private."

  She had given him an old-fashioned look. "I already told you I'm not bubble-headed."

  He soon discovered it was true. Apart from a masters in business, she had a burning curiosity about everything including him, he was humbled to find out. He was still astonished by how good a team they made, out of bed as well as in it. Her refusal to come with him to America had been all the more devastating because he had finally thrown caution to the wind and started to trust her. He had even started imagining a future together.

  His memories weren't only of the good times, either. He recalled nursing her through a bad bout of flu, the first time he'd done such a thing for anybody. He'd been worried about getting it wrong, and had probably gone overboard with the chicken soup and the funny videos, not to mention watching over her while she slept.

  When she awoke and found him there, she had protested that she looked awful. He couldn't convince her that he found her beautiful even when her nose was as red as a beacon and her glorious hazel eyes were streaming with cold.

  She was all fire and brimstone now as she urged her audience to be aware of the world outside their own, and Zeke's body responded to her passion automatically. He was glad he had a folder of notes to hide the reaction. He could almost see the headlines if his response was noticed—Charity Spokesperson's Most Upstanding Convert. When had he started thinking in headlines? Maybe he'd been writing the darned column too long.

  He tried to focus on her words. Despite what she evidently suspected, he had come with an open mind, knowing that if anyone could give him another slant on the charity story, Tara could. He'd been open-minded in approaching all the groups he'd included in the series. It hadn't been his fault that, upon closer investigation, they had been found wanting.

  He'd meant it when he told Tara that he learned from his mistakes. He was starting to suspect that one of them had been accepting the offer to file his column from the paper's parent publisher in America. What had seemed like the chance of a lifetime was beginning to look like the biggest mistake of his life.

  After the emotional tug-of-war he'd endured as a child, he had never wanted anyone to become as important to him as Tara had. Was that why he'd headed for another country? He hated to think so, but the longer he was in the same room with her, the more he was forced to question his decision to leave.

  When she'd let him walk out, he had convinced himself he was doing the right thing. Love was a fool's paradise. Relationships never lasted. His disastrous involvement with Lucy was further proof if he needed any. So why was he back here, hanging on Tara's every word? Was he some kind of glutton for punishment?

  Must be, to have agreed to stay and talk after the meeting, he decided. He resolved to make it brief, snare a few quotes for his column, then get the hell out.

  Remembering why he was here, he dragged his attention back to what Tara was saying, although it wasn't necessary. Even while he was thinking about their relationship—former relationship, he amended inwardly—the journalistic side of his brain had absorbed every word. His mind had always worked that way. Compartmentalized. Tomorrow if he had to, he could give her entire speech himself.

  That left the greater part of his thoughts free to focus on Tara herself, noting the graceful way she moved on the podium and the innate sexiness she projected like a beacon. Part of it was her training as a model but mostly it was natural. She was totally unselfconscious. Except when her eyes rested on him, then she tensed in a way he didn't like at all. As a result, she didn't look at him half as often as he found himself wanting her to.

  He was annoyed to find his thoughts straying to their talk after the meeting. Maybe he wouldn't hurry away, after all. They had a lot to catch up on, purely as friends. Perhaps they could do some of it at his new apartment overlooking Sydney Harbor. By night, the view was truly spectacular.

  His body stirred again and he knew the view had nothing to do with it, other than the one right in front of him now. Remember what Tara had always said, he ordered himself angrily. "Modern women want more from a relationship than sex." He had to remind himself again that he and Tara didn't have a relationship anymore. She probably didn't want anything from him except the sight of his back as he left.

  She had been happy to see it once, when he went away, he reminded himself. When she refused to discuss coming with him, he had been so furious that he had gone without a backward glance, sure that there must be someone else. When he demanded a name, she had gone quiet, leaving him to draw his own conclusion.

  It was partly why he'd turned to Lucy. She was all the things Tara hadn't been, malleable, loyal, deferring to him in everything. Until he got exhausted doing her thinking for her
, and demanded that she develop a mind of her own. Then she changed into a tigress who was never satisfied with anything he did. Coming from a wealthy family, she couldn't understand his need to take care of himself, and that his job sometimes took him away from her at inconvenient hours. Her daddy could take care of them, she insisted, refusing to accept that Zeke might prefer to make his own way.

  So the relationship had ended and he wasn't particularly sorry, except for having to face the rare fact of his own failure. Lucy had a new partner, her daddy's right-hand man, who had none of Zeke's pigheadedness when it came to accepting a house, a job and support from her daddy. Zeke wished them well.

  When he let the paper lure him back to Australia with the promise of the chance to write features of his own choosing, he hadn't meant to see Tara again, at least not consciously, but some part of him must have planned it all along. When he read about this meeting, it had seemed like fate. He had already started the charity exposé so it had seemed logical to add Tara's group to his list of targets.

  Except that this target was proving elusive. He knew if he wrote up the foundation as worthwhile, he might be accused of going easy on his former lover. But he wasn't sure he could condemn her work as bunk, either. Too many things she'd said touched an unwelcome chord with him. There was nothing for it but to investigate further before he made up his mind. But first there was the talk she had promised him. Zeke was amazed how much he looked forward to it.

  * * *

  Chapter 2

  « ^ »

  Zeke took his time clipping his notes and Tara's handouts into his folio while the room emptied around him. The journalist and the photographer had left, disgruntled by his refusal to be interviewed. Now only one other man remained. Todd Jessman, Zeke thought, his brain automatically supplying the name. Tara's foundation had helped him and his family, he recalled. From old journalistic habit, he tuned his ear to their conversation.

  "I'd love you to send me photos of the baby," he heard her tell the man. A slight catch in her voice made Zeke frown. Didn't she know she shouldn't get emotionally involved with the people she was supposed to help? Zeke had always prided himself on his objectivity. Emotional involvement was a weakness that clouded judgment. Another point they disagreed on.