The Girl he Never Noticed

by Lindsay Armstrong

  He was Bob Collins, stud master, and he greeted Cam and Liz distractedly. ‘I’ve lost it again,’ he divulged as the cause of his distraction. ‘The whole darn program seems to have disappeared down some bloody cyber black hole!’

  Cam glanced at Liz. She grimaced, but pulled up a chair next to Bob and, after a few questions, began tapping the computer keys. Within a few minutes she’d restored his program.

  Bob looked at her properly for the first time, clapped her on the back, and swung round to Cam. ‘I don’t know where you got her from, but can I have her? Please?’

  Cam grinned. ‘Maybe. She has to make up her mind.’

  They were walking back to the house, not talking, both lost in their own thoughts, when his phone rang.

  ‘Yep. Uh-huh… This afternoon? Well, OK, but tell Jim he’ll have to fly straight back to Sydney.’

  He clicked the phone off and turned to Liz. ‘Change of plan. Our legal adviser needs to see me urgently. He’s flying up in the company helicopter and staying the night. I—’

  ‘How will I get home?’ Liz interrupted with some agitation.

  ‘I wasn’t planning to keep you here against your will,’ he said dryly. ‘You’re going back to Sydney on the chopper.’

  Liz went red. ‘Sorry,’ she mumbled.

  He stopped and rested his hand on her shoulder, swinging her round to face him. ‘If,’ he said, ‘you really don’t trust me, Liz, we might as well call the whole thing off here and now.’

  She drew a deep breath and called on all her composure. ‘I haven’t had time to wonder about that—whether I trust you or not,’ she said. ‘I was thinking of Scout and my mother. I’ve never been away from them overnight before.’

  His hand on her shoulder fell away, and she thought he was going to say something more, but he started to walk towards the house.

  She hesitated, then followed suit.

  The helicopter was blue and white, and the legal adviser looked harassed as he climbed out of it. The helicopter pad was on the other side of the house from the menagerie.

  Liz felt harassed as she waited to board, but hoped she didn’t look it. It was now late afternoon. She’d spent the rest of the afternoon in Mrs Preston’s company, being shown over the house. It was impossible not to be impressed—especially with the nursery wing. There was a playroom that would be any kid’s dream. All sorts of wonderful characters in large cut-outs lined the walls—characters out of Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland and more—and many toys. There was a small kitchenette and three bedrooms…

  On the other hand Cam Hillier, waiting with her beside the helipad, looked casual and relaxed. He had Archie with him, and it was obvious the little boy was delighted at this unscheduled change of plan.

  ‘Can I think this over?’ Liz said.

  ‘Sure,’ he agreed easily, and advanced towards the legal adviser. ‘Good day, Pete. This is Liz, but she’s on her way out. In you get, Liz.’

  Is that all? Liz found herself wondering as she climbed into the chopper and started to belt herself up. Then she stopped abruptly.

  ‘Uh—hang on a moment,’ she said to the pilot. ‘I forgot to ask him—can we just hang on a moment?’

  The pilot shrugged rather boredly. ‘Whatever you like.’

  So Liz unbuckled herself and climbed out, and the two men on the pad turned back to her, looking surprised.

  ‘Uh—Mr Hillier, I forgot to ask you if you’ll be in the office tomorrow and at what time?’

  ‘Not sure at this stage, Liz.’

  Liz paled. ‘But I’ve rescheduled some of today’s appointments for tomorrow!’

  ‘Then you may have to reschedule them again.’

  She planted her hands on her hips. ‘And what will I tell them this time?’

  He shrugged. ‘It’s up to you.’

  Liz took an angry breath, but forced herself to calm down. ‘OK,’ she said with an airy shrug. ‘I’ll tell them you’ve gone fishing!’

  And with that she swung on her heel and climbed back into the chopper. ‘You can go now,’ she informed the pilot, her eyes the only giveaway of her true mental state. They were sparkling with anger.

  He looked at her, this time with a grin tugging at his lips. ‘That was telling him—good on you!’

  ‘You—you find him hard to work for?’

  The pilot inclined his head as he fired up the motor and the rotors started to turn. ‘At times. But on the whole he’s best bloke I’ve ever worked for. I guess we all think the same.’

  ‘And that,’ Liz said to her mother later that evening, having summed up the salient points of her day, ‘is a sentiment shared by I would say his housekeeper, his stud master, and his secretary Molly Swanson. He can be difficult, but they really admire and respect him. His nephew adores him.’ She shook her head in some confusion. ‘I really didn’t believe he had that side to him. Not that I’d actually thought about it.’

  ‘Take it,’ Mary said impulsively. ‘Take the job. I say that because I see it as a career move for you. I see it as a way that may open all sorts of opportunities for you. If it doesn’t, you can always come back to this. Anyway, the money alone will take a lot of the stress and strain from you. And I’ll come with you!’

  ‘Mum, no,’ Liz said, and explained about the note she’d read. ‘If I take it, one of the reasons I’ll do it is so that you can have more of a life of your own, doing what you love and are so good at.’

  Mary looked stubborn, and the argument went backwards and forwards until Liz said frustratedly, ‘He may even have changed his mind by tomorrow—he can be annoying at times, and I more or less told him so today. He can certainly be an arrogant multi-millionaire.’

  But when she went to bed she was thinking of Archie, and that brought his uncle into a different light for her. Arrogant Cam Hillier could certainly be—but when you saw him with his nephew he was a different man. Different and appealing…

  Unaware that he’d just been categorised as an arrogant multi-millionaire, Cam Hillier nevertheless found himself thinking of Liz as he poured himself a nightcap and took it to his study. His legal adviser had gone to bed and so had Archie—a lot earlier.

  She was a strange mixture, he decided, and grinned suddenly as he recalled her parting jibe on the helipad. So bright and capable, so attractive… He thought of her slim, elegant figure today, beneath her jumper and jeans, and the easy, fluid way she walked. He thought of the way she could look right through you out of those chilly blue eyes, but on the other hand how she could light up as she had over his gardens and with Archie.

  He sobered, though, as he thought that there was no doubt she had a tortured soul.

  No wonder, he reflected as he stared into the amber depths of his drink, and remembered with the stabbing sense of loss it always brought his sister Amelia, Archie’s mother, and what single motherhood had done to her…

  He sighed and transferred his attention to the paintings on his study walls—horses and trawlers and Shakespeare. And one trawler in particular, Miss Miranda, because it had been the first trawler his parents had bought. There was a new Miranda now, Miss Miranda II, much larger than her predecessor, and yet to be immortalised in paint.

  He shrugged as he strolled back to his desk and sank down into his swivel chair. He found himself thinking back to his parents’ early days.

  They must have made an unlikely couple when they’d first married: the girl from an impoverished but blue-blooded background, and the tall, laconic bushman who’d grown up in Cooktown in Far North Queensland on a cattle station, with the sea in his veins and a dream of owning a prawning fleet.

  In fact they’d made such an unlikely couple to his mother’s family, the Hastings clan, they’d virtually cast her off—apart from Narelle, his great-aunt. Yet his parents had been deeply in love until the day they’d died—together. It had been a love that had carried them through all their trials and tribulations—all their hard days at sea on boats that smelt of fish and diesel and often broke do
wn. Through days of tropical heat in Cooktown, when the boats had been laid up in the offseason, and through nights when the catch had been small enough to break your heart.

  Somehow, though, his mother had managed to make wherever they were a home—even if only via a hibiscus bloom in a glass, or a little decoupage of shells, and her warm smile. And she’d been able to do that even when she must have been longing for more temperate climates, a gracious home and great gardens such as she’d known as a child. And his father, even when he’d been bone-tired and looking every year of his age and more, had always seemed to know when that shadow was not far from his mother. He’d always been able to make the sun shine for her again—sometimes just with a touch of a hand on her hair.

  Cam drained his glass and twirled it in his fingers.

  Why did thinking of his parents so often make him feel—what? As if he was playing his life like a discordant piece of music?

  Was it because, although he’d taken the strands of all their hard work and pulled them together, and gone on to make a huge fortune from them, he didn’t have what they’d had?

  On the other side of the scale, though, was the memory of his sister Amelia, who’d loved unwisely and been dumped, never to be the same girl again. And now there was Archie—both motherless and fatherless because Amelia had taken the secret of who his father was to her grave.

  If that wasn’t enough to make one cynical about love and its disastrous consequences, what was?

  He grimaced. Hot on the heels of that had to come all the women who pursued him for his money.

  Funny, really, he mused, but in his heart of hearts was he as cynical about love as Liz Montrose?

  He stretched and linked his hands behind his head, and wondered if the fault was with him—this feeling of discord with his life. Were his expectations of women way too high? Was that why he’d stopped even looking for his ideal woman? Was it all underpinned by the tragedy of his sister?

  And in a more general sense was he frustrated because he felt he wasn’t doing the right thing by Archie? Yes, he could give him everything that opened and shut—yes, he could come up with ideas like the menagerie—but his time was another matter.

  He unlinked his hands and sat up abruptly as it came to him that it wasn’t only Archie who needed more of his time. He himself had got onto a treadmill of work and the acquisition of more power that at times felt like a strait-jacket, but he didn’t seem to be able to get himself off it.

  He took up his glass and stared unseeingly across the room.

  Was it all bound up with not having a permanent woman in his life or a proper family? he wondered. He set his glass down with a sudden thump at the thought. Was that why he was making sure Liz Montrose couldn’t ride off into the sunset? Because of more than a physical attraction he couldn’t seem to eradicate? Did he have at the back of his mind the prospect of creating a family unit with her and her daughter and Archie? Was that why he’d broken the unspoken truce between them just before offering her a job?

  He hadn’t planned to do that. He’d been needled into doing it because she could be so damn cool—and he not only wanted her body, he wanted her.

  But what if a tortured Ice Queen turned out to be the one he really wanted and couldn’t have? he asked himself.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  LIZ WAS LATE for work the next morning—thanks to an uncharacteristic tantrum from Scout. She hadn’t wanted to get dressed, she hadn’t wanted breakfast, she hadn’t wanted to do anything she usually did.

  Since she wasn’t running a temperature, and had no other symptoms, Liz had concluded that her daughter had picked up her own uneasy vibes after another restless night.

  ‘Go,’ Mary had said. ‘Well, finish getting dressed first. She’ll be fine with me. And remember what I said,’ she’d added pointedly.

  So Liz had hurriedly finished dressing, thanking heaven she’d chosen a simple outfit—the ultimate little black dress, with a square neck, cap sleeves, a belted waistline and a short skirt. She’d slipped on high-heeled taupe shoes, dragged on two broad colourful bangles, grabbed her purse and run for the bus.

  She was only fifteen minutes late now, after a lightning call into the staff powder room to put on some make-up and check her hair. Therefore it was a rather nasty surprise to be told as she greeted Molly that her boss was waiting for her.

  ‘W-waiting?’ she stammered. ‘I didn’t think he’d be in today—well, not this morning anyway.’

  ‘He’s been here over an hour. Grab the diary,’ Molly recommended.

  Liz did as she was told, and, after taking several deep breaths, knocked and let herself into Cam Hillier’s office.

  He was on the phone and gestured for her to sit down.

  She put the diary on the desk and not only sat down but tried to regroup as best she could, while he talked on the phone, lying back in his chair, half turned away from her.

  She pushed her hair behind her ears, smoothed her skirt and crossed her ankles. She did some discreet facial exercises, then squared her shoulders and folded her hands in her lap and studied them.

  ‘Ready?’

  Her lashes flew up and to her consternation she realised that she hadn’t noticed him finish his call. ‘Uh—yes. I’m sorry I’m late.’

  ‘But you weren’t expecting me to be in?’ he suggested.

  ‘It wasn’t that. Scout was a little off-colour. Mind you,’ she added honestly, ‘I wasn’t expecting you to be in.’

  He watched her for a long moment, his dense blue eyes entirely enigmatic. ‘I decided,’ he said at last, ‘that my reputation might not stand a “gone fishing” tag.’

  Liz coloured faintly. ‘I wouldn’t have done that,’ she murmured.

  ‘Yesterday afternoon you would have,’ he countered gravely.

  Liz moved a little uneasily and said nothing.

  He got up and walked over to the wide windows that overlooked the city. Gone was the informality, clothes-wise, of yesterday. Today he wore a navy suit, with a grey and white pinstriped shirt and a midnight-blue tie. Today he looked every inch the successful businessman who’d diversified from a fishing fleet into many other enterprises.

  He turned to look at her. ‘So? Any decision?’

  Liz licked her lips. ‘Well, I’ve discussed it with my mother, and she—’ She broke off and cleared her throat. ‘No,’ she amended. ‘I’d like to take the position—if you haven’t changed your mind?’

  He shoved his hands into his pockets. ‘Why would I?’

  Liz grimaced. ‘Because of the “gone fishing” tag?’ He smiled briefly. ‘I was being bloody-minded. I probably deserved it. No, I haven’t changed my mind. Go on? I take it you’d like me to believe you and not your mother made the decision?’

  ‘Yes,’ she admitted, and smoothed her skirt again. ‘To be honest, I couldn’t in all conscience turn it down. Financially it would put me in a much better place. It would be like working from home, and it would mean I don’t have to take part-time weekend work. Career-wise—as you said—it would look much better on my résumé. It would give me so much more time with Scout, and…’ She paused and swallowed. ‘Overall, I think it would make me look like a much more suitable mother—able to offer Scout much more, sort of thing.’

  ‘If Scout’s father decided to contest your suitability, do you mean?’

  She nodded.

  ‘So you’re going to tell him?’

  ‘No. But…’ Liz hesitated. ‘He has moved back to Sydney.’ She explained how she’d come to know this. ‘So that’s another reason I’d be happier somewhere else.’

  ‘You can’t keep running away from him, Liz.’

  She spread her hands. ‘I know that. Still, I would be happier. And I think a better job like this would make me feel I had more…stature—would make me feel a lot better about myself, my life, et cetera.’

  He brooded over this for a moment, then, ‘And your mother? What’s her opinion?’

  ‘She’s all for it—althoug
h it took a bit of persuading to get her to agree to stay in Sydney and take up the costume design job. But I pointed out that she’s only fifty and she needs a life of her own. Of course she’ll come up and spend time with us—if that’s OK?’

  ‘Fine.’ His lips twisted. ‘Are you looking forward to it, though? All the pragmatism in the world isn’t going be much good to you if you hate it up there. If you feel it’s beneath your skills or whatever.’

  ‘Hate it up there?’ Liz repeated wryly. ‘That would be hard to do.’

  ‘Or if you feel lonely.’

  Their gazes caught as he said it, and Liz found she couldn’t look away. Something in the way he said it, and the way he was looking at her, held her trapped.

  She moistened her lips. ‘I plan to be too busy to feel lonely.’

  But she knew immediately this wasn’t the right response. It didn’t answer the unasked question he was posing—the question of, as he had put it, the electricity that sometimes sizzled between them. Even now it was there between them as he stood watching her, so tall, so—She sought for the right expression. So dynamic that she couldn’t help being physically moved by him—moved and made to wonder what it would be like to be in his arms.

  She actually felt all the little hairs on her body stand up as she wondered this, and realised to her amazement that she’d given herself goosebumps again.

  But there was more.

  Lonely, she thought on a sudden indrawn breath.

  She’d been lonely for years. Lonely for that special companionship with a man who was your lover. And she had no doubt that Cameron Hillier would meld those two roles brilliantly. For how long, though, before another Portia crossed his path? Well, maybe not a Portia, but—Stop it! she told herself. Don’t go there…

  ‘Liz? Are we going to play games about this?’

  She trembled inwardly, but it struck her that she’d only ever been honest with this man, and she’d continue to be so.