Man About the House

by Alison Kelly

  ‘Let me guess,’ he groaned. ‘You’ve been exercising it while she’s been away and as a result it’s gone to the big car dump in the sky.’

  ‘For your information, smarty, it’s in A1 condition in her garage! It’s just that once Joanna gets her licence, she’ll need it to get to work.’

  He blinked. ‘Who?’

  ‘Joanna Ford—the—’

  ‘Oh, right. The one who helped you out at your last accident scene. Why’s she driving Mum’s car?’

  ‘Because she doesn’t have one and Mum said she could. How else is she going to get to work in the city every day?’

  ‘Well, last time I was here there were these things called buses.’

  ‘Get real, Brett!’ Karessa piped from the back seat. ‘You know what an uphill hike it is from Nan’s place to the nearest bus stop.’

  ‘Nan’s place!’ He straightened in the seat. ‘This Joanna’s living at Mum’s?’

  Meaghan nodded. ‘Has been for about two months now.’

  Oh, great! Here he’d been, imagining himself mentally and emotionally regrouping in blissful solitude, only to find out his absent mother had a model in residence. A damn model of all things!

  ‘Would you mind telling me why Mum would find it necessary to bring in a boarder?’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Brett! Joanna’s not paying to live there. Mum only managed to talk her into taking up the offer by telling her she needed a house-sitter while she was away. Of course, back then no one knew you’d suddenly decide to come home and need somewhere to stay.’

  ‘Gee, the warm welcome got cold fast Not long ago you claimed you were looking forward to having me home.’

  ‘I was—I am.’ She shrugged off the lack of conviction in her voice. ‘It’s just it would’ve been better for everyone if you’d had your own place to go to.’

  ‘Well, I’m not going to disagree there, kiddo,’ he said dryly. ‘But I could hardly tell Glen I wanted him and Tracy to move out of my place when she’s practically one contraction away from giving birth to their fifteenth kid in three years.’

  When he’d first decided to head overseas, renting his house to his newly married cousin for the two years he’d originally intended being away had seemed like a smart thing to do. Then, when he’d deluded himself into believing his future was with Toni, he’d extended the arrangement he’d made with Glen for a further three years. His cousin had since begun reproducing at such a rapid rate Brett suspected the guy had to be ignorant as to what was causing it, but when a guy had three kids under three and a fourth due any minute you didn’t chuck him out in the street.

  So, now he was stuck having to share his mother’s house until he could make alternative arrangements. Wonderful. ‘Exactly how long is this Joanna person going to be staying?’

  ‘As long as she wants to.’ His sister’s look was sharp.

  ‘You’ll really like her,’ Karessa assured him. ‘Won’t he, Mum?’

  ‘Just as long as he doesn’t like her too much.’ There was stiff warning in the statement, but before Brett could say he had no intention of getting tangled up with any woman in the immediate future, his sister launched into lecture mode.

  ‘I mean it, Brett,’ she said. ‘This kid has had a really tough time. When she first came into the agency she had a self-confidence reading of minus one hundred. She’s starting to come out of herself a bit now, but she’s still emotionally fragile. So if you so much as even think about doing a seduction number on her, I’ll personally tear you limb from limb.’

  ‘Trust me, Meaghan, the girl’s safe from my unscrupulous claws,’ he said facetiously. ‘The last thing I need after Toni is another model.’

  ‘She’s not a model. Too short. But she’s as far removed from that witch Toni as any other human being with a heart.’

  Irritated at having his plans disrupted, Brett grunted, wondering how long it would take him to find a decent place to rent. However, his sister and niece were still going on about Joanna and how sweet she was.

  ‘She’s a country girl who came into the agency to enrol in a deportment course right when I was looking to replace our receptionist...’ Meaghan was saying, obviously under the misapprehension that he was interested. ‘She had no job, next to no money and was staying in a bedsit in inner Sydney—’

  ‘Oh, well, it’s easy to see where common sense would advise lashing out on an expensive grooming course in those circumstances,’ he said.

  ‘As it happens, Mr Know-It-All, in Joanna’s case it was the most practical thing she could do! She’s an intelligent, ambitious girl, but she had absolutely no—and I mean zilch—sophistication. Apparently her parents were well into their forties when she was born, and from what I can gather more Amish than the Amish.’

  ‘Yeah!’ his niece endorsed. ‘Can you believe she hadn’t even seen a CD player until she had to learn how to operate the one at the agency?’ Karessa was clearly appalled. ‘She was sooo embarrassed. And I felt sooo sorry for her.’

  ‘What little exposure she had to city life came via a year at some boarding school her older sister dumped her in when their parents passed away,’ Meaghan continued. ‘Unfortunately, she didn’t have any choice but to move back and help her sister run the family business they inherited when she graduated. Apparently it’s been passed from one generation to the next since the turn of the century, or something.’

  Brett frowned. ‘I have a hard time believing the heiress to a well-established family business could be as naive or destitute as you two are making her out to be.’

  ‘You jerk! What are you using for brains?’

  It was unclear whether he or the pale-faced cyclist his sister had only narrowly avoided skittling was the intended recipient of her outburst, but before Brett had uncurled his fingers from the dashboard Meaghan had calmly picked up where she’d left off.

  ‘We’re talking about a feed store here, Brett, not a multinational conglomerate, for heaven’s sake. Besides, she couldn’t access any of her inheritance until she turned twenty-one. The sister sounds like the Wicked Witch of the West with PMS, but to really round off what is the most miserable existence I can imagine, just when poor Joanna thought she’d found true happiness, she discovered the lowlife lump of pond scum she was in love with was married!’

  And that, Brett thought, explained precisely why the girl had been taken under the collective wings of his sister and mother.

  Meaghan had been only nineteen when she’d got pregnant with Karessa, to a long-time boyfriend who had turned out to be someone else’s equally long-time husband. To say she’d been devastated would be a massive understatement. Emotionally she’d come close to having a nervous breakdown as she’d struggled to get past not just the humiliation of having been taken for a fool but her love for a man who’d demanded she have an abortion.

  At the time, Brett had been damned lucky not to find himself charged with assault when, reacting to sibling instincts rather than brains, he’d rearranged the guy’s very pretty face. And it was probably indicative of his baser, less civilised qualities, but he’d never been able to seriously regret that the mongrel had been killed in an accident before Karessa was born.

  ‘Brett! Are you listening to me?’

  Meaghan’s exasperated tone reefed him from his reverie. ‘Huh?’

  ‘I said...I want your word you won’t put the moves on Joanna.’

  She was so intent that if Brett hadn’t been amused he might have been angry. ‘Sure. You want a signed statement to that effect, or will it suffice if I just swear an oath on the Bible?’

  Karessa’s laughter from the back seat didn’t infect her mother. ‘Look, all I’m saying is she’s not up to being hit on by you. I know your love ’em and leave ‘em style, Brett, and, despite everything she’s been through, Joanna’s probably still naive enough to fall for it.’

  Okay, so now he was starting to get angry. ‘I’d like to point out that as debaucherous as you believe me to be, until a couple of wee
ks ago I’d been in a monogamous relationship for over three years. And that even in the most decadent periods of my lust-infested life I have never found anything remotely appealing in gauche, heartbroken country waifs I

  ‘Furthermore,’ he added, over his niece’s hysterical giggles, ‘I currently have about as much interest in getting entangled with another female as I do in being castrated. So your precious receptionist has nothing to fear from me. Satisfied?’

  Wearing a serene smile, and with no respect for the notorious left-hand bend she was taking, his sister reached across and patted his shoulder. ‘Thank you, darling. I knew 1 could count on you.’

  CHAPTER TWO

  JOANNA FORD had the bluest eyes he’d ever seen! was Brett’s first thought as his niece executed a rapid-fire introduction of him in the foyer of his mother’s house. His second was that at about five-seven she might be too short to be a model, but she was also as far removed from his image of a country waif as the climate in the South Pole was from that of the Equator! No wonder the guy Meaghan had collided with had been swayed from calling the cops; Joanna Ford had the looks and body to convince a guy breathing wasn’t in his best interests!

  Her naturally almond-shaped eyes were played up with skilfully smudged eyeliner and long thick lashes that were as dark as the silky jet hair falling over her shoulders. High cheekbones were enhanced to create a dramatic shadow on skin as pale and smooth as alabaster porcelain, and as if to balance the dramatic vividness of her eyes in such a serene face her slightly parted mouth was glossed a slick burgundy. Intriguingly, though, the professional use of cosmetics didn’t overpower the essential, almost angelic innocence in the girl’s face. Although, Brett thought dryly, he doubted innocence was the look she’d been trying to achieve when she’d dressed.

  High, firm breasts were emphasised by a body-hugging black sweater and a waist Brett figured he could have encircled with both hands. The black skirt riding on her hips might have been fractionally longer than the belt adorning it was wide, but he couldn’t swear it because his eyes were too quickly distracted by the black nylon-encased thighs it displayed before he could do a more thorough visual calculation. Being a legs man, by rights his natural curiosity to check out what lay below the over-the-knee boots she wore meant Brett shouldn’t have found them as sexy as he did, but whoa! They sure blew his perceived image of a wholesome country girl in blue jeans and Blundstones to smithereens!

  The four-inch heels had him scaling down his earlier estimate of her height to about five-three in bare feet, but if she was typical of rural Australia these days he was going to have to give serious consideration to getting into agriculture. A warning glance from Meaghan had him schooling his appreciation into a polite smile.

  ‘Hi, Joanna, it’s nice to meet you. Meaghan and Karessa have told me a lot about you.’ Course, not as much as they didn’t tell me, he mentally added.

  ‘Oh! Well... I... Er...that is, it’s nice to meet you too, Mr McAlpine,’ she stammered, blushing furiously as Karessa roared with laughter.

  ‘Mr McAlpine! Oh, God, you make him sound as old as Mum!’

  ‘That’s because he is,’ Meaghan retorted. ‘And thirty-four isn’t that old, young lady; it just means nobody can ground us.’

  Brett could have added that if he was so damned old how come his hormones were acting as if they’d regressed twenty years? But it seemed kinder to put the obviously uncomfortable Joanna at ease. Despite the high fashion make-up and clothes, the way she was twisting her fingers and chewing her bottom lip suggested that in the poise and sophistication stakes even fourteen-year-old Karessa would give her a run for her money.

  ‘Meaghan’s a terrible liar,’ he said, winking. ‘I’m actually four minutes younger than she is, so Karessa’s right—you can drop the “mister” and just make it Brett.’

  The hand she extended to him was tentative, but the touch of her palm in his packed a real wallop.

  ‘I...hope my being here isn’t going to be an inconvenience. If it is just say so and I’ll move—’

  ‘Joanna, you’re not going to inconvenience anyone,’ Meaghan inserted, her tone dragging his eyes away from the blue ones which had been mesmerising him. ‘Is she, Brett?’ One eyebrow arched as she subtly flicked her gaze to his hand, which was still engulfing Joanna’s more fragile one.

  Instantly he ended the handshake. ‘Absolutely not. This house is plenty big enough for both of us, Joanna. Meaghan and I grew up here, and sometimes our paths wouldn’t cross for—oh...a week at a time. Even when I wasn’t trying to avoid her.’

  If he’d been caught off guard by the contrast between her angelic features and sinful curves, it was nothing compared to the impact her sudden smile had on him. The parting of her cupid-bow mouth to reveal perfect white teeth and tiny dimples caused his lungs to seize mid-breath.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I’ll try not to cause you too much bother.’ The smile was turned up another fifty or so watts before she glanced at Meaghan. ‘Meggsie...’

  Her use of Karessa’s pet name for Meaghan further emphasised her youthfulness, and Brett found himself as irritated as he was grateful for the fact. He was honest enough to admit to himself that had Joanna been a few years older his vow to avoid women would have been postponed.

  ‘Meaghan, if you want to cancel our driving lesson to spend time with your brother, I’ll understand. You must have a lot to catch up on. And—’

  ‘Don’t be silly! We’ve loads of time. But c’mon through to the kitchen; I could use a cup of coffee before we go.’

  His sister was already on her way from the room when she tossed over her shoulder, ‘I’d help you bring your luggage in, Brett, but I’m too old. But my darling Karessa will gladly help her equally decrepit old uncle.’

  Though she tossed a teasing smirk at her daughter as she guided Joanna from the foyer, Brett wryly acknowledged the remark was designed to further reinforce the age difference between him and Joanna. Geez, with a sister like Meaghan around a guy could actually end up believing he was a sleaze!

  ‘C’mon,’ Karessa tugged his arm. ‘Let’s get the stuff in before they scoff down all the cake Mum bought’

  Brett laughed. ‘Cute ploy, sweetheart, but I can read you like a book.’ Smiling, he fished a small package out of his pocket, tossed it to her, then staggered as she threw her arms around his neck and kissed his cheek.

  The wrapping was dispensed with in the same excited haste and enthusiasm Karessa always showed for the gifts he brought her whenever he returned from long trips. And, as always, Brett marvelled that her eyes could still light up with the same genuine wonder and delight they’d had when she’d been a toddler.

  ‘Oh, Brett, I love it!’ She pushed the beaten silver bangle onto her left wrist and waved her arm around, admiring it. ‘It’s almost exactly like yours!’

  The moment he saw the stones set in the silver, he suddenly had a colour for those eyes: turquoise. Joanna Ford’s big, beautiful eyes were the purest of turquoise.

  ‘Oh, thank you so much!’ Karessa almost choked him with gratitude. ‘Thank you, thank you, thank you!’

  He laughed. ‘You’re welcome. You’re welcome. You’re welcome!’

  ‘Oh, Brett, I’ve just gotta go show Mum and Joanna now. Then I’ll come right out and help with the luggage, okay?’

  ‘Don’t bother; I can handle it,’ he told her already departing form. ‘Er, by the way, Karessa...is Meaghan really giving her driving lessons?’

  ‘Mmm. Scary thought, huh?’

  ‘You’re not wrong, kiddo,’ he murmured, although the idea of Joanna Ford’s unique beauty being put at even the slightest risk struck him as more criminal than scary.

  It took Brett the better part of three days to shake off his jet lag, during which time he saw Joanna a corresponding number of occasions. Once when he’d been crossing the foyer, en route to the living area of the house from his bedroom, and she’d barrelled into him at around a hundred ‘k’s an hour.

&
nbsp; Automatically his hands had gone to her shoulders to steady her, and in the ensuing few seconds she’d simply stood there looking slightly dazed as she stared up at him. Again, on the surface she’d been glamour personified, but in the depths of her turquoise eyes—oh, yeah, turquoise was their precise colour—he’d seen an ocean of uncertainty. In the next instant she’d pushed him away and started muttering an embarrassed apology, explaining she was hurrying to catch the bus to the North Sydney office.

  ‘Hey, if you wait till I pull on a shirt I’ll drive you down to the bus stop.’ His offer had met momentary wide-eyed confusion, a blush, then a vigorously shaking dark head and a hasty, ‘No, er, thanks. I’m fine. I...I’m in a hurry. Bye!’

  She’d been out of the front door and had it closed behind her before her perfume could catch up with her. He’d liked her perfume... However, on the second occasion he’d seen her he’d been too far away to smell it.

  He’d been on his way out for an evening run just as she’d been climbing into a five-year-old Porsche. Having spent all afternoon in his mother’s study, reviewing various job offers, Brett hadn’t heard her come in from work and had assumed that, it being Friday night, she’d be late home. People who lived on the upper end of the northern Sydney peninsula didn’t usually come all the way home from the city to get changed before going out. Brett had figured the male driver was merely a friend, because if he was a date he’d surely have got out of the car to open the door for her! Plus, she’d been wearing snug-fitting jeans and a bomber jacket, which also pretty much ruled out a romantic dinner at a restaurant.

  The third time his and Joanna’s paths crossed had been some five hours later, just ten minutes ago, when he’d gone out to check what was causing the security sensor light in the front yard to turn on and off every few minutes. He’d expected to find a neighbour’s dog had got out, instead he’d found her, bent over in drizzling rain and heaving her heart out in his mother’s azalea bed.

  She was a wet, tearful and woebegone sight, and he couldn’t do much besides offering her physical support by way of an arm across her shoulders, and emotional support that amounted to verbal assurances that she would live and that everything was going to be all right. Which was pretty much what he’d told Meaghan the first time she’d written herself off—and what old Mr Parsons who’d used to live next door had told him when as a seventeen-year-old he’d been in exactly the same position Joanna was now. No doubt about it, over the years this particular plant had received a more bizarre fertilising compound than any of the others in the McAlpine family garden.