Norm was a big, lanky man in his seventies, with false teeth that clacked when he spoke. He bred budgies in his spare time. Edie was an equally large, big-boned woman with salt-and-pepper hair. She filled her spare time with gardening, at which she was spectacularly bad. They both were passionate about Scottish dancing, Norm in particular since he’d had one of his knee joints replaced earlier in the year.
‘They nearly lost me in the hospital when I had it done, you know,’ he told Lisa when she followed Slade into the untidy dining area at the back of the house.
Lisa thought she heard Slade groan, but his face was expressionless as he handed his grandfather the tartan kilt that he had collected from the drycleaners.
‘Well, hospitals are big places,’ Edie replied from where she sat at the dining-room table perusing the daily paper. Licking a forefinger, she turned the page.
‘That’s not what I meant, Edie, and you know it!’ Norm cried indignantly.
Edie ignored him and began to do the crossword.
A budgie flew past and landed on the plastic bag covering Norm’s kilt, which he’d hung on the back of a chair. ‘Get off, you cheeky bugger!’ he cried, flapping a hand. It was while he was chasing the budgie into the conservatory at the back of the house that Lisa saw row upon row of sickly-looking pot plants.
‘That’s Nan’s garden,’ Slade said with a pitying look at the drooping plants.
‘Just need a bit of water,’ Edie said defensively.
Lisa looked at the water-logged saucers and saw an opportunity. She promptly offered to take the worst of them home and try to save them, saying she had too much time on her hands and nothing to do.
‘I s’pose so,’ Edie said, looking down her hooked nose. ‘I could sort them out myself, but seeing as you need something to do.’
Slade carried the plants into Dan’s garage. ‘Whatever you do, don’t send them back to Nan.’ He nudged a pot with his boot. ‘They’re the lucky ones that got away.’
Lisa beamed at the ugly, yellowing plants fainting over the sides of the green and brown plastic pots. They were her passport to her father.
Dan’s guilt at leaving Lisa alone had eaten away at him the entire day. Her failure to reply when he’d phoned her on her mobile made him feel worse, but the message to say she was going to Browns Bay nearly gave him a heart attack. In the few days since Lisa had returned from the hospital, Dan had discovered that things happened when she was around, bizarre things that had no rhyme or reason; things that couldn’t be explained or planned for. The thought of her out alone on her crutches made him extremely nervous. But it was the phone call from Edie Cruickshank, his next-door neighbour, warning him that Linda had just ridden off on the back of her grandson’s motorbike that escalated the nervousness into outright fury.
‘I didn’t like to call you at the hospital Dan, but do you think it’s a good idea for her to be riding around on the back of that bike with a broken leg?’ Edie asked.
Dan managed to swallow his anger long enough to thank her and agree that it wasn’t a good idea at all. In fact it was fucking insane—and if the ride on the bike didn’t do some damage to Lisa, then he would. Knowing how Edie felt about Linda, he deeply appreciated her call. ‘At least someone has got some fucking common sense!’ he snarled to himself as he fought his way through the traffic across the Harbour Bridge.
So Lisa wanted to go out, he told himself. She was a grown woman and he could hardly expect her to sit at home twiddling her thumbs until he got home each night. But he’d left her more than enough money to get a cab to Browns Bay and back, so why the hell hadn’t she taken one? A memory tugged at him of her frightened face when she’d climbed into the car the night she left the hospital. So how had a nineteen-year-old boy with a motorbike managed to inspire such confidence?
Admittedly, Simon Cruickshank was the sweetest, most uncool teenager you were ever likely to come across. His biggest display of rebellion was calling himself Slade. Although Dan knew Simon seldom went above fifty kilometres an hour, the thought of Lisa perched on the back of his motorbike with her broken leg and her still-healing brain at risk of being smashed against the asphalt made him feel sick.
Did she care so little for herself? Did she care so little for him?
Dan told himself he was being ridiculous. She didn’t even remember him. But he felt something had begun to build between them, something tenuous but honest. Dan hated losing his temper. On the rare occasion it happened, he always, always regretted it later.
When he arrived home that evening and parked in the garage, Dan thought he’d gone to the wrong house. A row of straggling, sickly-looking pot plants was lined up along one of the garage walls and the delicious smell of roasting lamb was floating through the door from within the house. Due to her vegetarian beliefs, Linda had strong ideas about cooking meat. She usually prepared some sort of a meat dish for him once she’d accepted he was never going to become a vegetarian, but with only two of them in the house there was never any call to cook large pieces of meat. When Dan stepped into the kitchen, Lisa looked like she’d roasted an entire sheep.
‘Hi!’ she called with a big smile of welcome when she saw him hovering in the doorway. She was leaning against the kitchen counter, balanced on her good leg, carving an enormous leg of lamb with gay abandon. As Dan watched, she blithely swiped a carving knife only inches from her abdomen, slicing into the fragrant meat on the board in front of her, steam rising gently about her head.
Dan’s stomach muscles clenched; at any moment he expected to see the lethal blade slice into her soft belly. ‘I’ll do that!’ he exclaimed hastily, dropping his briefcase and crossing the kitchen to take the knife from her.
Lisa shrugged blithely. ‘OK.’ She hopped across to the wall oven, balancing on the backs of the breakfast-bar chairs and the kitchen counter as she went. ‘Hope you’re hungry. There’s heaps to eat.’
He opened his mouth to say he was starving, pausing when he observed she was now pulling a roasting tin full of golden potatoes from the oven with one oven-mitted hand whilst clutching the oven door for balance with the other one. He ground his teeth. It was worse than trying to keep track of a toddler.
‘Give me that!’ Crossing the room, he snatched up a dishcloth and took the spitting pan from her.
‘OK!’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Did you have a bad day or something?’
Dumping the hot tin on the kitchen counter, he turned to glare at her. ‘I had a great day,’ he retorted, ‘right up until I got the phone call to say you’d been riding around Browns Bay on the back of a motorbike.’
‘What?’ Lisa gaped at him. ‘Who told you that?’
‘Never you mind,’ Dan said grimly, rolling the dishcloth into a ball and flinging it into the kitchen sink. Bracing his hips against the counter behind him, he gripped the edge to stop himself throttling her. ‘Just as well they did. Or were you planning on telling me?’ he demanded.
She opened her mouth and closed it again, trying hard to look defiant and failing miserably.
‘Did you lose your common sense as well as your memory, Lisa?’
She sucked in a breath. ‘That’s not fair.’
‘None of this is fair, Lisa!’ he shot back. ‘You think it’s smart to be riding around on the back of a motorbike with your leg in plaster and still recovering from a subdural haemorrhage?’
‘I was wearing a helmet!’ she cried, alarmed by the fury on his face. It was the second time in two days she’d seen him lose his temper, which she suspected he didn’t do a lot. He’d been irritated with her at times in the hospital, but he’d never lost his temper.
Dan struggled to get a hold of himself, breathing heavily through his nostrils for several moments before finally continuing through gritted teeth. ‘All it would take is one crack—’ He banged the heel of his hand against the side of his skull, making Lisa jump ‘—to your head to put you right back where you were a few weeks ago.’ He glared at her. ‘Your brain was bleeding, Lisa, i
t’s still healing. Didn’t you realize that?’
Her gaze flew from his hand to his face. She shook her head and whispered, ‘No—I—I didn’t know.’
‘No,’ Dan growled. ‘What you mean is you didn’t think.’ Thrusting a hand through his dark hair, he turned to face the kitchen sink. Gripping the edge of the counter he stared out of the window above it, his wide shoulders hunched.
There was a long silence.
Suddenly Dan felt the touch of her hand between his shoulder blades, tentatively stroking his knotted muscles. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said in a small voice.
He closed his eyes, savouring the warmth of her hand. Linda had never been able to say she was sorry, because that would have been an admission that she was in the wrong in the first place. Dan turned to face her and she dropped her hand and backed away.
Tucking his fingers into his armpits, he crossed his ankles and looked down into her face. Damn, she was so pretty. With those ridiculous pigtails she had taken to wearing and her face scrubbed of any makeup, she was downright adorable. And sexy as hell. Dan was amazed he had any sexual feelings for her at all. The shock and disgust he’d felt at the sight of her half-naked in Jack Millar’s arms had made it clear that the sexual attraction that had always been such a big part of their relationship was over for Dan.
It was the loss of Linda’s physical hold over him that had made her become increasingly reckless in the last few days before the accident. She had tried to seduce him one last time by wearing the lingerie he most loved to see her in and waiting on the bed where he had taken to sleeping alone. Dan remembered stepping out of the bathroom, naked apart from a towel wrapped about his waist. Linda had climbed from the bed, smiling, and tried to cup him through the towel. He had been so disgusted that the shove he had given her had sent her tumbling backwards onto the bed.
The ensuing argument had been ugly. Linda had told him she would change if only he would take her home to the States.
Dan knew things had gone beyond that. He’d told her he didn’t love her any more.
The colour had drained from her face. ‘No! That isn’t true! I don’t believe you!’
When Dan later discovered that Linda had been pregnant, he had wondered if her plan had been to sleep with him so she could claim the baby was his.
‘It’s ruined,’ Lisa said in a small voice.
Dan blinked and focussed on her. She was staring at the roast lamb and potatoes going cold beside him. It was eerie looking at her. He saw Linda’s beautiful, perfect face. But the sincerity reflected in her eyes and the forlorn expression weren’t Linda’s. They belonged to the Linda who had woken up in the hospital. They belonged to Lisa.
Dan reached out to stroke the back of his index finger across her cheek.
Lisa tensed, her eyes widening in her delicate face as she looked up at him questioningly.
His breath hitched in his chest when she slowly began to stroke her cheek back and forth against his finger like a cat, her black lashes dipping sensuously against her cheeks.
Dan froze. His mouth went dry. His cock went rock hard. Snatching his hand away, he stepped abruptly around her and made for his bedroom, running like an adolescent virgin. Except when he got there, it didn’t look like his bedroom any more. For a start it was tidy and the duvet cover on the bed had been changed, replaced by a lacy white one with frilled pillowcases. His books were gone too. When he checked in Lisa’s room he saw the black-and-white duvet cover with the Japanese symbols was on the king-sized bed and his books were stacked neatly on the bedside tables.
Dan carefully removed his suit jacket and tie. Once he was sure he could trust his dick not to stand up and beg, he went back to the kitchen.
Lisa was putting a plate of food into the microwave. ‘It’s gone cold,’ she said, avoiding his eyes. ‘I’ll just heat it up.’
Dan sensed her hurt and confusion, but told himself it was for the best. The last thing she or he needed was to give in to the spiralling sexual need that seemed to roar to life whenever they touched each other. In some ways it reminded him of when he had first met her. But it was also nothing like it at all. It was sweeter. Stronger. For a start, Lisa was no immature kid. And Dan was a lot more wary and battle-hardened.
‘Lisa, why did you change bedrooms?’
‘I hope you don’t think it’s a cheek.’ She concentrated hard on pushing the buttons on the microwave. ‘But it seemed stupid for you to be sleeping in the small bed while I had the big one.’
Fighting a smile at her quaint turn of phrase, he tried to frown instead. ‘I was fine in there.’
‘Great,’ she retorted, staring at the plate rotating inside the microwave as if it held the secrets of the universe. ‘But I wasn’t fine in the other one. I kept getting lost in that bed. It was like sleeping in the middle of the Bermuda Triangle. It’s too big.’
The microwave beeped and she opened the door to remove the plate, holding it out to him without looking at his face. ‘This one’s yours.’
He reached out slowly and took it from her, his lips curving in a rueful smile. Placing it on the breakfast counter he went to pull a bottle of red wine from the rack mounted on the wall. ‘Would you like a glass of wine?’
She glowered at him. ‘Am I allowed one after misbehaving so badly?’
‘Considering it’s a first offence, I’m prepared to give you another chance,’ he replied, tongue firmly in cheek.
She shot him a poisonous glance.
‘By the way,’ Dan said, ‘why do we suddenly have a lot of sick-looking plants in the garage?’
‘Oh, those.’ Lisa looked down at the plate of food in her hand. ‘They belong to Edie Cruickshank. I offered to rescue them for her.’ She didn’t add that the sight of the dying plants had given her an idea about how she could make contact with her father. From now on she would be on the lookout for every dying, diseased or distressed plant she could get her hands on so she could take them to her father at the garden centre and ask his advice.
‘I see,’ Dan lied.
They sat at the breakfast bar and ate in silence for several long moments.
Dan wolfed down the meal. He was starving and everything was delicious. From the corner of his eye, he was relieved to see she was eating and not indulging in a sulk. Taking a sip of wine, he said, ‘Just promise me you won’t do anything foolish like riding on Slade’s motorbike again.’
Lisa considered his request. ‘Why? Will you ground me if I say no?’
‘No,’ he replied calmly. ‘I’ll just take your crutches away.’
‘You can’t do that!’ Lisa cried.
Dan merely raised his brows and watched her over the rim of his wineglass.
She pushed her plate away. ‘Are the neighbours going to be spying on me every time I step outside the door?’
‘They’re not spying on you, Lisa. Edie was concerned.’
‘Edie?’ Lisa’s expression cleared. ‘Slade introduced me to his grandparents when we came home. His grandfather…Norm?’
Dan nodded.
‘His grandfather showed me the scars from his knee replacement and told me the entire story of the surgery right from the first suppository to the last stitch removal.’
Dan sipped his wine and smiled wryly. ‘Yeah, I’ve heard it too.’
‘And Edie…’ Lisa laughed, pausing to flip a pigtail behind her shoulder before idly running a fingertip up and down the stem of her wineglass. ‘She seems to be a bit of a hard case.’
Dan shifted uncomfortably at the easy way she slipped the local slang into her conversation and the way she was fondling the wineglass.
‘Norm told me they almost lost him in the hospital,’ she continued. ‘I assumed he must have had some sort of crisis, but Edie, who was sitting at the kitchen table reading the newspaper, suddenly piped up and said, “Yeah, well they’re big places, hospitals.” I could hardly keep a straight face.’
Dan laughed.
Lisa sipped her wine and smiled, watching h
im over the rim of her glass, relieved to see him beginning to relax. His grey eyes were smiling lazily, and the deep grooves that bracketed his mouth were less pronounced. Her eyes lingered on his lips. She wondered what he’d do if she leaned over and kissed him. Probably turf her off the chair. But she wished she had the guts to try. She was startled from her reverie when Dan asked, ‘Why did you get on that motorbike with Simon? I left you money to get a cab.’
‘Simon?’ Lisa took a sip of wine and frowned. ‘Who’s Simon?’
‘Slade,’ he explained. ‘His real name’s Simon.’
‘Oh.’ She took another gulp of wine. ‘Ohhh.’
Dan refilled her glass. ‘Some of the neighbours act as if he’s a fully paid-up member of a biker gang.’
Lisa almost choked on her wine. ‘Slade?’ she gasped. ‘Wingnuts! He hardly gets that bike out of third gear.’
Correctly surmising the definition of a wingnut, Dan silently wondered yet again how his American wife had become so fluent in the local vernacular. ‘So why didn’t you get a taxi?’ he persisted.
Lisa toyed again with the stem of her wineglass.
Dan gritted his teeth against the surge of lust that her busy little fingers were provoking, and watched her with an implacable stare that made it clear he wasn’t going to go away until he got an answer.
Lisa sighed. ‘Did anybody ever tell you you’re a pain in the arse?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘Never.’
She smiled.
Dan waited, sipping his wine, his gaze never leaving her face.
‘Being in a car frightens me,’ she said at last. ‘It reminds me of the accident.’
He felt his heart stutter inside his chest. ‘I know you had trouble getting in the car the night you left the hospital, but you seemed to cope OK when we were out on the weekend.’
She smiled wryly. ‘So I’m a good actress.’
Dan’s gaze sharpened. When it came to acting, Linda could have won a raft of Oscars. ‘If you’d told me, I might have been able to help,’ he said carefully.
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