by Margaret Way
“How tragic!” she mourned. Just what sort of a man had Great-Uncle Howie been?
“It is, in its way,” he said. “On the other hand, who needs a mansion way off in the wilds?”
“I do,” she proclaimed flatly.
He shot her mutinous profile a glance. “Then you’re asking for trouble.”
“From you?”
“Fiery little thing, aren’t you?”
“I have Italian blood,” she said, proud of it. Secretly she was thrilled with the farm’s Italian connection.
“So that’s it,” he said. “The golden skin and the dark eyes. I’m not sure if I’m game to ask if you bleach your hair.” He was certain she didn’t, but he wanted to see her take the bait.
She did. “Suppose you just check these roots.” She tipped her head sideways for his inspection. “You’ve checked everything else.”
“I have to say not much escapes me,” he laughed. “Actually, though your tawny colouring is fairly rare, I have seen it before—in northern Italy. I’ve seen a lot of the world.”
“I bet!” She spoke as if it marked him as a pleasure-seeking, self-indulgent globetrotter. “I haven’t even seen the Great Barrier Reef.”
“If you’re especially good I can fix that.” He gave her a smile that was all sardonic dazzle and danger.
“Why? Have you got a big yacht?”
“Big enough to take you sailing.” He realised he was deliberately trying to provoke her, just for the reaction. “Of course if you can’t swim there’s always the Lady Ashlee II, named after my mother. It’s the family speed yacht. Australian-built, like a lot of the world’s top yachts. A hundred and forty-eight footer. She can travel at twenty-nine knots.”
“How modest,” she said sweetly.
“Well, I guess there are some modest billionaires, but not my dad. The Lady Ashlee is a great boat. Great lines. Tons of space. We’ve had wonderful times aboard her.”
“You take your girlfriends?” He was sure to have women falling over themselves for him.
“Not one of them doesn’t love it. Now, what about your boyfriends?”
“Friends, thank you. I don’t have a particular boyfriend.”
“Now, how could that be, young Nyree?” He slanted her a mocking glance.
“I wish you wouldn’t patronise me. I told you I’m nineteen.”
“And that’s an answer?”
“Oh, shut up.”
On the fork road it got a whole lot bumpier. She guessed in the wet season, which was due to begin, the track would become hazardous.
“And Great-Uncle Howard lived out here?” she marvelled.
“When he wasn’t dossing down in town. You realise when the rains come you’d need a four-wheel drive to get in and out? Any little cheap car and you’d do the back end in. Even a four-wheel drive wouldn’t have a chance in a flood.”
“I can see that. I’m not stupid,” she said severely.
“Just foolhardy. Tell me, do you consider yourself a good driver?”
“I think I am.” Though she wasn’t so hot on reverse parking.
He made a jeering little sound. “You’ve barely had time to find out.”
That infuriated her. Never in her life had she met anyone who could so get under her skin. Worse, it had been immediate.
“What the heck are those grey veils hanging off the trees?’ she asked, twisting her head.
“Don’t you know? Spanish moss.”
“Thought it was. I wasn’t expecting it around here. More Gone with the Wind sort of stuff.”
“Lots of it grows in the district. Someone must have brought it in. It thrives in a tropical climate with high humidity. It gets its nutrients from the air and from rainfall. Actually, it’s not really a moss at all. It’s part of the bromeliad family. My grandmother is something of an authority on tropical plants and flowers. Very well known in her circle. She’s had a number of books published. Though that was years back.”
“Really?” She approved of the note of pride in his voice. “How interesting. What’s her name? I might know of her. I’m very interested in tropical plants and flowers myself. I lived with—” She broke off, afraid to speak of Miss Em without becoming emotional.
“Go on. You lived with—?” She’d said she didn’t have a boyfriend, but did she? A lover? She might look very young and virginal, but she was extremely beautiful, with a sexual aura she hadn’t a hope in hell of hiding.
“A great lady who was very kind to me,” Nyree managed after a pause. “We shared that great interest. She had many books on flowers, tropical flora, and flower paintings all over the house. She passed away recently. I can’t bear to speak of it just yet.”
“I understand. I’m sorry.”
The dark flow of his voice soothed her. He sounded sincere. “Does your grandmother write under Hollister, or does she use her maiden name?” She quickly changed the subject.
“As a matter of fact she does. Alena—”
“I know,” Nyree burst out, delighted. “Don’t tell me. Alena Kalenin?”
He nodded. “She’s at home. Want to meet her?”
“I’d be honoured to meet her,” Nyree said, stunned by the connection. “That’s amazing! I’ve always had an idea she was Russian?” That would explain his cheekbones and the exotic look. Genetics.
“Russian descent,” he said. “Her father, Andrei—my great-grandfather—was a Russian aristocrat in the employ of the last tragic Czar, Nicholas II. Andrei just managed to get his family out before the Bolshevik revolution. They had to leave everything, including their estates. They arrived in Paris penniless. Over the years they moved from Paris to London. My Hollister grandfather actually met my grandmother in Hong Kong. They were married within a month. The rest is history.”
“But that’s fascinating!” She was much intrigued. “And Grandfather Hollister?”
“He died several years ago,” he said briefly. “He and Alena had a good life together.” He too changed the subject. “So, who was your ‘great lady’?”
“Professor Emilia Scott. Miss Em.” She swallowed the hard lump in her throat. “She was Principal of Swinton College for Girls. I went there from age five to seventeen. Does that clarify things for you?”
“Now, now!” He tutted. “No need to get your back up again. Could I ask if you’re expecting any boyfriends—excuse me—male friends to come visiting?”
“Listen, I have enough on my plate without complicating life.”
“You must have a hard time beating want-to-be boyfriends off,” he remarked dryly. “Or perhaps you freeze them out?”
She knew he was trying to take the mickey out of her. “Well, freezing you out would be a pleasure.”
“Wishful thinking, young Nyree.” He laughed. “You sound like you crave your own company?”
“I like my own space, yes.”
A self-immured Rapunzel, perhaps? “So, what’s hiding behind the defences?” He shot her a searching glance.
“Nothing that need matter to you,” she returned tartly, and looked away.
Her new home was jungle. He hadn’t been exaggerating. The homestead was almost invisible beneath an incredible burden of tropical vegetation gone mad. Parasitic tropical plants had taken over, revelling in their undisputed ownership: figs, bougainvillaea, ferns great and small, pandanus, heliconias, gingers, crepe myrtles, hibiscus. Real mosses clung to the rising front steps and adhered to timber balustrades covered in a gorgeous display of flowering vines.
“Gosh!’ she said in an awed trance, raising her eyes to the corrugated iron roof.
Beautiful orchids were bursting out of the broken guttering, white with golden throats. On the ground, cymbidiums ruled the roost. She had never seen a display so magnificent. Certainly not in the open ground. Generally they were grown in pots. Cascading down the massive fig that acted as a flying buttress for the house were purple dendrobiums, the state flower, hardier than she had imagined possible. She had often bought a small bunc
h of them, four or five stems with a little bit of fern, for over six dollars. In this one place alone there was enough to stock a dozen florists.
“Well, are you game to get out?” He had been watching her carefully, attracted by the picture she presented. She was like a flower herself. But, boy, did she have her prickly little thorns!
“I am if you are,” she said hardily. “Do you think those steps will hold us?”
“Difficult to tell. Come on, then. Let’s get it over.” Outside the car, he bent to pick up a small fallen branch, beating the grass with it before pitching it into a great thicket of Bird of Paradise which had spread out all over. “Don’t stand there looking bewitched with your strange deserted house. I guess you can take one look inside.”
“Thank you so much.” She joined him, looking around almost furtively. Her first impression was of a haunted house, or the witch’s abode in a fairytale. Her second was of massive neglect. Lots of windowpanes were cracked, some missing altogether. The air was a luminous light green. Like incense. Spooky. She was almost afraid to call out, Anyone at home? Someone might answer.
Brave as she tried to be, she found herself almost shrinking against him. Now she could fully appreciate his height and strength. “It’s a wonder Great-Uncle Howie didn’t get strangled by all the plants as he slept. Oh, look—look!” Before their eyes fluttered an enormous blue butterfly, its upper wings a marvellous iridescent blue with black margins. It was huge!
“Ulysses,” he said casually. “You’ll see plenty of butterflies up here. They love the lantana. Come along, now. Shall I hold your hand?”
She was determined not to touch him again and set off the fire crackers. “I’m sure I can manage without,” she said, putting on a spurt of pace and bravado. She danced up the rickety steps, grateful they held beneath her weight. At the top she gave a shriek. “Oh, my gosh!”
He was with her in seconds, sweeping her off her feet.
Brant didn’t find it difficult. She was a featherweight. “Relax. That’s a common ordinary garden snake.”
“You’ve checked, have you?” she asked shakily. “It’s disappeared.”
He laughed. He was really enjoying himself. “Like me to carry you over the threshold?”
“Don’t be an idiot.” Her heart was pounding so hard in her chest she thought it might jump into her throat.
“Don’t say that to your groom,” he warned.
Something about her appearance had been teasing him. Now he knew what it was. His grandmother had a very valuable oil painting hanging in her bedroom—an Alma Tadema. It was in his famous classical style. Ms Nyree Allcott might have posed for him, with her masses of light hair, small classic features, great dark eyes and all. The thought made him smile into her face, dark eyes wary, cheeks aglow.
Just a smile, but it pierced Nyree like an arrow. She was terrified. It wasn’t as though for all her talk she hadn’t enjoyed many a mild flirtation. She hadn’t as yet broken her vow—no sex before marriage—but she knew what it was to be hotly desired. Now she was feeling pretty darn hot herself. It simply wouldn’t do. It was foolish and embarrassing. And he was the enemy. Most probably he was prepared to do anything to get her to sell up and get out. Who knew what was in anyone’s mind? Who knew their real intent?
While she was speculating, he pushed open the front door, holding her all the while. She might have been a neatly wrapped package.
“No key?” Her voice sounded as agitated as she felt.
“No key,” he confirmed. “Hard to keep anything out. Nothing worth stealing.” Taking his time about it, he lowered her to her feet. “You won’t have any electricity. It will have been turned off.”
“Haven’t you ever heard of candles?” she asked, doing another impersonation of her grandmother.
“I dread to think of a fire.”
So did she. “So, can we look around?”
“Why ask me, Ms Allcott? You’re the owner.”
“Indeed I am,” she said, with the greatest satisfaction. “There’s no future whatever in your trying to get rid of me. I’m here to stay.”
He lifted a mocking brow. “I’ll be amazed if you stay one night.” As he spoke he began walking before her, to check things out. “Would you like to wait here a minute?”
“No, I wouldn’t!” She was keeping the powerful friction between them going. “You must know some very timid women?”
“I’d say they all know how to protect themselves better than you,” he returned crisply.
“On the contrary, Miss Em was proud of me.” She stalked after him. “She said I have all the brains, the commitment and the backbone that’s needed to make a success of my life.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t meet Miss Em.” He caught sight of an enormous but harmless spider. Even as he looked, it disappeared into the woodwork. “But she doesn’t know what you’re taking on now.”
“Miss Em would be disgusted you’re trying to take this house from me,” she said wrathfully, instinctively following his gaze upward. “What are you looking at?” Just as she said it something snaked around her leg. “Oh, my God!’ she moaned, her whole body freezing.
He spun, his dynamic face showing a flash of real concern. It swiftly abated. “For crying out loud! It’s not a lion. It’s a cat.”
She exhaled noisily, glancing down at the ugliest, most battered moggie she had ever seen. “You poor old thing!” she cried, reaching down to lift the piteously meowing cat into her arms. “Poor old girl!” she crooned, then her head flew up as she gazed accusingly at Brant Hollister. “Is this Great-Uncle Howie’s cat?”
He held up defensive hands. “Forgive me, Ms Allcott, I wouldn’t know. It’s obviously not feral. It knows the house, so I would have to guess, yes. Don’t think it will have starved.” He moved close in to make his own inspection, gently scratching behind the cat’s ear. “Plenty of things for a cat to eat. There must be hundreds if not thousands of mice.”
“Do you mind?”
“Frightened of mice too?” His turquoise eyes sparkled with outright mischief.
“Most women are. I’d sooner face a Doberman than a mouse.”
“Don’t worry. A Doberman might just turn up.” He knew of two to fit the bill. Jupiter and Juno—splendid guard dogs.
There was a rustling noise from the top of the timber staircase. The both looked up—Nyree, it had to be admitted, on the fearful side. Not so the cat. It sprang abruptly out of her arms and sped up the stairs towards the sound.
“Probably birds,” Brant said, thinking Ms Nyree Allcott was too young to be on her own in the world. Young, but gallant. Feisty too. What was her story? Plenty of tragedy, by the sounds of it.
“It’s not going to kill a bird, is it?” she asked, staring back at him, her heart in her eyes.
“Cats do, young Nyree.”
“So they do,” she lamented—then fired up, as he’d expected. “Listen, I’m a woman, not a kid. Certainly not young Nyree.”
“Great. Terrific. You’re a woman.” The hell of it was, she was! A God-sent beautiful young woman. Brant’s will-power gave way. He shot an arm around her waist, pulling her towards him.
“Don’t you dare touch me!” she said, fire in her eyes.
“I am touching you.” There was amusement not lust in his gaze.
“Kiss me, I meant,” she clarified sternly.
“My dear Ms Allcott, I’d rather kiss the cat.”
She never did get a word of disgust out, because he did something truly astounding. He cupped her face with one hand, fingers closing around her chin, then lowered his dark head…
She was swamped—temporarily at sea….
It was just the fiercest, sweetest, most terrifying kiss of her life. A chastening, not to say punishing kiss. And it burned her. It burned her mouth. It boiled her blood. It sent bright sparks and shooting sizzles along the network of her veins. An enormous lassitude came over her. She was losing all strength in her limbs. She thought she clutched at him. Sh
e wasn’t sure. The momentum of excitement had reduced her to a captive.
One kiss to open a Pandora’s box! One kiss to make a woman burn!
When he finally released her she shook her head violently to clear it. Curly tendrils of hair sprang Medusa-like to frame her dazed and dazzled face. “How could you do such a thing?” she gasped.
“Don’t be silly.” He tucked a long curl behind her ear. “I’m absolutely certain that wasn’t your first kiss.”
“I don’t remember inviting it!” A rosy blush mantled her cheeks.
He gave that a moment’s consideration. “I’m not sure that’s true, Nyree. Think about it. You’ve been provoking me from the first minute.’
“Provoking you, is it?” She was all the more furious because the charge was true. She had known all along she was pushing the boundaries.
He nodded. “Anyway, don’t worry about it. You never know—it might change your attitude.”
“Which is what?” She was feeling so shaky and strange.
“Hostile, antagonistic, wary. Want me to go on?’
“And you wonder why?” She swept on, not waiting for his answer. “I’m not afraid of you, Brant Hollister. I can stand up to you. No matter what you do.”
He saw the determination in her face, the strength of character that no doubt had helped her survive tragedy and emotional deprivation. “What I’m thinking of doing, God help me, is quite weird. In fact it’s only just occurred to me. I could build you a brand new house some place else. Somewhere you’d be safe. I’m sure we could arrive at some agreement.”
“And wouldn’t that suit you?” she scoffed. “I don’t need a brand-new house. I have this.”
The atmosphere between them from the word go had been charged with an edgy tension that was, at its core, sexual. Brant was forced to confront the fact. Ms Nyree Allcott had arrived without warning out of nowhere! How much easier it would be to deal with an older woman. Not this beautiful displaced nineteen-year-old girl. It shocked him, but he realised he was battling to keep his hard head above water.