by Margaret Way
Like the young woman who had disappeared back inside the cottage.
Ten minutes later and she still hadn’t come out. What was she doing?
By that stage he was back to his prowling. He knew the house was unfurnished. The Lawsons had preferred to store their furniture—a lot of genuine colonial pieces. He returned to his desk, but such was his mood he made the unprecedented decision to go next door and ask the young woman one or two questions.
He couldn’t explain the need to do so to himself beyond the fact his instincts were exceptionally finely honed. They told him she brought trouble. Or trouble was reaching out for her. One or the other.
He didn’t spend any more time thinking about it. He obeyed the powerful urge.
The brightly painted front door was open. An invitation? He gave a couple of raps. That should bring her.
Maybe, just maybe, she looked nothing like Monika beyond the white skin and the long waterfall of dark hair. He had spent a long time thinking about Monika and her treachery, which had ultimately cost his father and his father’s driver their lives.
His hand on the doorjamb was registering a faint tremor. Some things he couldn’t banish.
He’d realized at some time someone would rent the cottage. He’d hoped for a quiet couple. The sudden appearance of the girl had shocked him out of his complacency. He didn’t want her close. The wrong time. The wrong place. A random visit? Fate?
He heard her light footsteps, then she rounded the corner of the dining room, a half-smile on her face as though she expected someone. A friend? Her eyes—a beautiful iridescent green—at first radiant, suddenly flooded with something he interpreted instantly as panic. He knew all about panic. He couldn’t be fooled.
How very damned odd! Why should she look so shaken? He wasn’t that formidable, was he? Although he’d been told many times he was.
He damned nearly gave his real name—he was only trying to project reassurance. But he didn’t move an inch from the door, all at once wanting to release her from her high tension. He hadn’t considered she would have that effect on him. He had no wish to frighten her, and frighten her he had.
“Evan Thompson. I live next door,” he gestured with his hand. “The colonial.” In the space of about a minute she haunted his eyes.
“Laura…Graham.” She responded so hesitantly it immediately spun into his mind that it wasn’t her real name any more than his was Thompson.
Laura, in turn, realized within the space of a second that this was the fascinating “loner” Harriet had told her about.
“I’m sorry if I startled you.” He was aware his apology was overly clipped and formal. But he couldn’t seem to stop looking at her. The long dark hair, the white skin, the delicate bone structure and petite stature. Otherwise she was nothing like Monika.
Monika had had gold unwinking eyes, like a cat’s. Monika had never looked frightened—even when the game was up and she’d been surrounded by the comrades of the patriots she’d betrayed. Men about to pass instant judgement and there had been no way he could have stopped them.
Laura said nothing for a moment, aware she was under intense scrutiny. “I wasn’t expecting a man at my door,” she explained.
He answered dryly. “I’ll go if you prefer.”
“Oh, no!” She half raised a hand, let it drop. “I’m sorry. I must sound flustered.”
“One wonders why. I’m not that frightening, am I?”
She studied him, thinking Harriet’s description had been excellent. Late thirties. Exceptionally handsome in a dark, brooding way. Deep resonant voice. Thick dark hair. Brilliant dark eyes. Heavy sculptured head. A big man, strongly built.
She sensed he was somehow hostile to women. To her? That didn’t make sense.
Grooves ran from his nose to his mouth, bracketing it and drawing attention to its chiselled perfection. A sensuous mouth. A contradiction.
“Not at all!” She tried hard to suppress her agitation, knowing colour was running beneath her skin. “I thought it was someone else. Someone who knows I’m here, inspecting the house.”
“You like it?”
“I do.”
He regarded her lovely face, clear of that early expression of panic. “May I ask if you intend to rent it?”
“I don’t think I could if I had to get your approval,” She read his mind.
“On the contrary, I don’t care who moves in as long as they’re quiet. May I enquire too if you’ll be on your own?” He couldn’t keep the sardonic note out of his voice.
She stared back at him, trying to formulate an answer. He was formidable, but not threatening. Experienced. Tough. But never the sort of man to lift his hand in anger to a woman. Such a thing would only rouse in him revulsion. All this she saw even as she registered he would be very difficult to know. Very complex.
“It’s not a crime, is it?”
“It is if you play pop music very loudly.” Unexpectedly he smiled, sunlight from behind storm clouds.”
“I don’t know much about pop music at all,” she confessed, lulled by that smile. “I’m a classically trained pianist without a piano. I expect you’ll be grateful for that.”
“Not at all. I grew up in a house of music. My mother is a cellist.”
“Would I know of her?” she asked with genuine interest.
“Could be.” He looked away.
“I thought I might have a career as a pianist,” she found herself confiding.
“So what happened?”
“It didn’t work out.” She too changed the subject. “I’m a friend of Sarah Dempsey, by the way.” She said it as though Sarah’s name could offer safety and acceptance.
“She’s a very beautiful woman and a fine doctor. The town counts itself lucky to have her. I’ve met Dr Dempsey, most notably at her engagement party. I know her fiancé Kyall McQueen better. All in all they’re an extraordinary couple. You and Sarah were at school together? No, what made me say that? You’d be some years younger…”
“It’s not how old you are, it’s how old you feel,” she found herself saying dangerously.
“Really? And how do you feel, Miss Graham?”
“As though I’m being quietly interrogated.” She met the darkness of his eyes.
“‘Quietly’ and ‘interrogated’ are mutually exclusive.”
“You sound as if you know. Have you been in the Forces at some time? Secret Intelligence Service?” She was only half joking. Undeniably he had that sort of presence. Even standing perfectly still he give the impression he was at high alert, ready, engines running.
“I wonder how you ever thought that?” he answered smoothly, though her observation had thrown him.
“Am I right or wrong?”
“You couldn’t be more wrong.” He grimaced. “I’m a humble wood worker.”
“You surely don’t think yourself humble?” What was the matter with her? She was breaking all the rules.
“All right, then, you tell me?”
“I think you’re a casualty of battle.” My God had she said that?
He raised a large, sculpted hand. “Miss Graham, you’ve blown my cover.”
“Sometimes an emotional response can be quite unconnected to appearance or reason.”
“I just happen to agree.” Out of nowhere a complex intimacy was taking hold. “If you think you know something of me, may I ask if in coming out here to the desert you’re making a fresh start?”
His voice was deliberately bland, but it didn’t fool Laura. “I’ve made you angry.”
“You’ve thrown down a challenge. That’s different.” When she had cut through his barriers with frightening ease. Few people had ever done that. Even hardened professionals.
“I won’t bother you, Mr Thompson, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“When you’re the sort of woman who would always bother a man?” His watchful eye caught her tremble. “Forgive me. I’m quite sure we’re going to be good neighbours as long as we keep
to ‘good morning’ and ‘good evening’ over the fence. That’s if you’re going to stay?”
“Unfortunately, yes.” She gave him a tiny smile.
“I’m quite sure it’s not what you’re used to.”
“No more than you, in the old colonial next door. Actually, I was making some notes about what sort of furniture I’d need when you knocked.”
“There’s a good secondhand store in the main street,” he found himself telling her. “The cottage is sound structurally. You’ll need the fireplace from time to time. Desert nights can get very cold. Is this in the nature of a breathing space? Don’t you have people who will miss you?”
“My life can wait.’ She didn’t attempt to say it lightly. He wouldn’t be fooled. “As for you? Don’t you have a story to tell?”
“I suppose I should ask are you psychic?” His voice was deliberately dry. “You have a witch’s beautiful green eyes. Surely a give-away. Then again, you could be a spoilt little rich girl on the run.”
She visibly paled. “And if I were you wouldn’t protect me?”
He was silent for a moment, her words and that spontaneous intimacy hammering away at him. “We’ll deal with that when the time comes. You need have no fear of me, Miss Graham. I don’t know who you are, but I do know you’re taking a risk.”
“Is it possible you’re psychic yourself? You know nothing whatever about me.”
“Quite possibly I’m like you.” He shrugged. “Covering my tracks. I’ll keep quiet if you will.”
She watched him, watching her. “How did this all start?” she asked genuinely taken aback. “I don’t understand how we got into this conversation at all.” For all its curious liberation.
“I do,” he said with surprising gentleness. “Sometimes it happens like that. A shortcut to discovery.”
“It strikes me as very strange, all the same.”
“Have no fears. Though when I saw you in the garden I thought fear would be alien to you. You looked so innocent, I suppose.”
“So why have you changed your mind?”
“You’re too intense, and there’s a haunting in your eyes.”
“All right, you’re a psychiatrist?” She tried to cover her confusion with a banter. “A highbrow writer? Award-winning journalist? You’re very intense too.”
“That comes with things we have to guard.”
“Then both of us have been very revealing this morning,” she said. Certainly nothing like this had ever happened to her before.
“It would seem so. I don’t often meet a young woman so disconcertingly perceptive. Also, you’re something of an enigma. You’re too young to have had much life experience? How old? Twenty-one, twenty-two?” His eyes dipped from her face to take in her slender body in cool white skirt and ruffled top, a mix of cotton and lace. Refined. Virginal.
“Can you deal with twenty-three?” He was clearly much older, with a wealth of experience behind those dark eyes.
“A baby,” he concluded.
“I don’t think so.” Her fingers clenched white. She was quite old enough to have had bad experiences.
He didn’t miss the movement of her fingers. “You know about tragedy?”
“Tragedy spills into lots of people’s lives. Maybe not on the level of what happened to you. What did happen to you?” she asked after a pause.
“Miss Graham, I’d have to know you a whole lot better before you could ever make that breakthrough,” he answered sardonically. “Besides, I’m pretty sure you’re not willing to tell your story.”
“Investigative reporter? Something tells me I should know you.” He had far too much presence to be an ordinary everyday person.
“You don’t,” he assured her briskly. “Anyway, we’re not adversaries. Are we?”
“I hope not, Mr Thompson. It’ll be a whole lot safer to be on your side.”
“You amaze me,” he offered freely. And she did.
“You amaze me,” she admitted in wry surprise. “I hadn’t bargained on more than a brief introduction. Are you always like this with strangers?”
“You’re not a stranger,” he said, with a dismissive shrug of his powerful shoulders. “I hadn’t bargained on liking you either.”
“Ah, so I wasn’t wrong. I could feel the hostility when you first arrived.”
“You assumed that,” he corrected.
“No. It’s true.”
“All right,” he shrugged. “For a few moments you reminded me of someone I used to know.”
“Someone no longer in your life?” At his expression her smile faded.
“Exactly.” The brilliant dark eyes became hooded. “Anyway, apart from a few similarities you’re not like her at all.”
“That’s good. You had me worried until you smiled.”
“That’s it? A smile?” he questioned, with a faint twist of his mouth.
“Yes,” she said simply, almost with relief. She didn’t add that as a big man he was in such possession of the space around him. Necessarily the dominant male. Colin had lacked this man’s presence, for all her husband’s arrogance and physical attributes. How she wished her life had gone otherwise.
Poignancy left its imprint on her face. Women like her always made a man protective, Evan thought. “Well, I’ve got an hour or two to kill,” he found himself saying. “Would you like some help picking out furniture?”
“You mean you accept me as your neighbour?” Her eyes lit up.
“I accept that in some way you’re very vulnerable.”
“You’re accustomed to vulnerable people?”
“I’m not a doctor. I’m not a psychiatrist or a rocket scientist either. But I know a lot about people in pain.”
“Then you know too much,” she said quietly.
That contained emotion caused him to make a further offer. “How about lunch?” He, Evan Thompson, the loner! “Then we look at furniture, if you like.”
“You’re being kind, aren’t you?” Kindness was there, behind the brooding front. People mattered to him. As they did to her.
“Kind has nothing to do with it,” he said crisply. “I’m hungry.”
“Okay, that would be very nice.” She walked towards him as he rested his powerful body against the doorjamb. “Why don’t you call me Laura?” She gave him a spontaneous smile that would have had Colin enraged. Her normal smile, or so she thought. Uncomplicated.
Evan found it captivating. “Then you must call me Evan.” He held out his hand. After a slight hesitation she took it, her hand getting lost in the size of his.
It was warm and firm, but never hurting.
“There, that wasn’t so bad, was it?” he asked, one eyebrow raised. “You didn’t really think I was going to crack your fingers?” He turned her hand over, examining it. “Delicate, but strong. Are you any good as a pianist?”
The effect of his skin on hers was the most electrifying thing that had ever happened to her. She couldn’t pull away. It was as though she was held by a naked current. “People seemed to think so.”
“Conservatorium trained?”
“Wh-a-t?” It was so hard to concentrate when every nerve seemed to be jumping.
He released her hand. “I asked if you were Conservatorium trained?”
“I graduated. I’d begun studying for my Doctorate of Music.” She managed to speak calmly.
“So what happened?”
“Life.”
“An unhappy love affair?” Something had overwhelmed her.
“Desperately unhappy,” she admitted. “But that’s all you’re getting out of me.”
“There are worse things than unhappy love affairs,” he said.
CHAPTER THREE
IT WAS market day in the town. A day to be enjoyed. Street stalls sold their produce: fruit and vegetables, all sorts of pickles, home-made pies and cakes, the town’s excellent cooks vying with one another to come up with some surprises. Stall after stall featured crafts. The town’s two cheerful little coffee shops, one h
ung with red gingham curtains, the other with ruffled pink and white, were crowded.
“Let’s get some sandwiches and have a picnic in the park?” Evan suggested. “Would you like that?” He glanced down at her as she stood at his shoulder. No, not his shoulder. A way down from there. More like his heart. Hell, if he wanted to he could pick her up and put her in his pocket.
“Why not?” She smiled at him as if she were treasuring every moment. “Koomera Crossing is such a pretty place. I didn’t expect it to be so peaceful and picturesque. The pure air! It’s on the edge of the desert, yet lovely warm aromatic breezes are spiraling around us. It’s like a thawing of the heart.”
“Your heart needs thawing?” he asked, dipping his dark head to her.
“Well, I’m relaxed and comfortable here.” she said, looking towards the park, where small children were playing with the balloons they’d been given at the road stalls. “The bauhinia trees are lovely. They’ll protect us from the sun while we eat.”
“So shall I be mother?” Humour lit his fine eyes. “We don’t want to give people too much to talk about.” A trained observer, he already knew tongues had been set wagging at their appearance together.
“You know the town better than I do,” she conceded, happy when the passing townsfolk nodded to her and Evan in their friendly Outback fashion. “Besides, I might get you something you don’t like.”
“Would that matter?”
She was conscious of his penetrating glance on her. “Some people are very hard to please,” she said by way of explanation.
“Like the boyfriend?” After years of dodging bullets and destruction she seemed too young, too innocent, too unseasoned, to survive.
“We’ll have to agree not to talk about him.”