She herself hadn’t registered the fact that all six people, men and women, had taken a second look.
She’d had no idea that her black top particularly suited her, that her tangle of curls was breathtaking and the make-up she’d applied had added the gloss to a highly desirable girl, now glowing in her second trimester of pregnancy…
She didn’t realise that Rafe Sanderson was thinking some rather grim thoughts along the lines of-safe from her?
That was becoming highly debatable because it was becoming increasingly difficult to divorce Mairead Wallis from the infuriated waif he’d fished out of the water. It was becoming increasingly obvious that he not only felt protective, but more…
Above all, though, how the hell could he spend another night, even in a separate bed, chastely with her when the stirring of his body told him he wanted her? Wanted to run his fingers through her curls and down her body, that smooth pink-and-white lovely little body. And that he rather urgently needed to see the reaction in those green eyes to the things he did to her, to test his suddenly-formed theory that he could make her sparkle in the act of love-for him alone?
He moved restlessly.
‘What have I done now?’
He came out of his amazing thoughts to see her watching him a little nervously.
He shrugged. ‘Nothing. But here’s what I suggest: I might have a nightcap in the bar while you take yourself to bed.’
Maisie blinked and examined the feeling that she’d been metaphorically slapped in the face. Then she closed her eyes and castigated herself for being ridiculous. It was the obvious answer for two people sharing a room in the circumstances they were. So why did she feel chilled and shut out?
She folded her napkin and put it on the table. ‘Good idea. Incidentally, when are you going to tell me what you know-about things? I mean, now I’m here, you might as well.’
There was a cool silence, then he said abruptly, ‘Tomorrow, Maisie. Goodnight. Sleep well.’ He stood up.
She had no option but to follow suit. She murmured ‘Goodnight’ and made her way back to the room.
But she stopped halfway and looked up at the moon, and was struck by a feeling of loneliness that nearly took her breath away…
She tossed and turned for over an hour but he didn’t come.
She wondered what impression this would make on the staff. A reluctant husband? How ironic was that?
She wondered about all sorts of things. She’d set out on this trip full of a crusading spirit on her baby’s behalf, not to mention full of righteous indignation.
Then, under the influence of his company, she’d forgotten all about that until she’d been brought rather sharply back to earth by him.
But had it been even worse than that? she asked herself.
Had she given off the vibes of a girl who fancied Rafe Sanderson because she just couldn’t help herself? Was that why he’d decided to shut a metaphorical door in her face?
The thought was mortifying and made her feel helpless and confused. It also presaged a feeling of doom as she remembered that attack of loneliness she’d suffered in the moonlight…
Would she ever get over Rafe Sanderson?
No, no, it could hardly have come to that yet, she assured herself. Even if she couldn’t stop herself from loving his company, even if she felt so restless and unloved, yearning, even burning a little to be loved…
She finally fell asleep with it all going round and round in her head.
When she woke the next morning she realised she hadn’t heard him come to bed although his bed had been slept in. But there was no sign of him.
Instead, there was a note on the pillow.
She reached for it groggily. It said,
Something’s come up; I’ll be gone until tomorrow morning. I’ve booked you on a whale-watching cruise-have fun. I think we’ll be going home tomorrow. Rafe.
She lay back and closed her eyes. She thought about how she’d sparkled last night in his company, quite unwittingly but, perhaps, quite revealingly. And now this.
Yet another disengagement. Could the message be louder or clearer? He didn’t want anything more to do with her.
CHAPTER SIX
A T FIVE o’clock that afternoon, Maisie came back from her whale-watching cruise in a much better frame of mind than when she’d set out.
Hard not to be, she reasoned, on a glorious day when she’d got to within metres of three humpback whales-a mother, a day-old calf and an escort-for the islands of Vava’u were right in the path of the annual whale migration north from the Antarctic.
She did have one regret. The stronger swimmers of the party had actually snorkelled in the crystal-clear Pacific waters with the giants but she’d, at the last minute, changed her mind about it although she was a good swimmer. But it had been made clear to everyone that they did so at their own risk.
‘I’m pregnant,’ she told the girl guide, ‘so maybe I shouldn’t.’
‘If they suddenly start to breach and you have to get away fast it can be really strenuous, so no, I wouldn’t,’ the girl agreed. ‘It’s also not that easy to get back on the boat in a hurry. But you could probably snorkel later at the Swallow Caves.’
So with that Maisie had had to be content, and it had still been a unique experience.
Once the swimmers were back on board the boat, their three whales had put on a magnificent display of breaching, propelling themselves backwards out of the water in an arc, and flapping the water with their tails. The calf had copied everything its mother and escort did and was especially endearing, looking so small against the other two.
Maisie decided it was an emotional experience that actually brought a lump to her throat, and she discovered that her fellow cruisers, all from the resort, felt the same.
She didn’t realise amidst all the clicking cameras as everyone photographed the whales that one of the cameras was trained on her as much as the whales.
She failed to notice that one of the guests, a man in his late twenties who’d actually been in the dining room the night before but had left before she and Rafe had, was studying her curiously from time to time and he continued to do so throughout the day.
She had no idea that he’d heard her tell the guide she was pregnant.
After that they’d cruised around the islands, stopped on a perfect white beach for lunch and finally snorkelled in the fabulous Swallow Caves.
Their boat dropped them off on the Tongan’s jetty and she was still exhilarated as she walked to the room. She even stopped to look around affectionately at the Tree House built on stilts over the beach and used for private dinners, at the red-gold leaves of the cotton-wood trees that lined the beach, the Sand Bar with its beach-sand floor, the distinctive shape of the palm thatch roof of the dining room.
But then it hit her that she was the only one alone, all the others were couples, and she didn’t even have anyone to describe her wonderful day to.
She closed herself sadly into her room, actually dabbing at a couple of stupid tears, to find Rafe stretched out on his bed, but awake with his hands crossed behind his head.
He sat up as she dropped her holdall in her surprise.
‘You!’ she gasped.
He sat up and frowned. ‘Yes, me. What’s wrong?’
‘N-nothing,’ she stammered. ‘I mean, I’m all sandy and salty, some of it must have got in my eyes, and I really need a shower, but-that’s all.’
He got up and came over to her. ‘You looked as if you were crying.’ He shrugged as he inspected her closely. ‘How was your day?’
Relief flooded Maisie and her face lit up with genuine enthusiasm. ‘Absolutely marvellous. I didn’t actually swim with the whales-’
‘Why not? Oh,’ he added as Maisie looked down at her stomach, ‘of course. Well, at least you’re acquiring some wisdom along those lines.’
‘Yes and thanks so much for organising it-it was still wonderful! But,’ she paused, ‘I wasn’t expecting you until tomorrow.�
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‘Change of plans,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you have a quick shower? Are you particularly starving?’
‘No, I had a big lunch on the boat so I can wait for dinner, but-’
‘I’ll wait outside,’ he interrupted.
Maisie showered and changed into khaki shorts and a loose primrose blouse. She tied her hair back and slid her sandals on.
Rafe got up as she let herself out onto the veranda. ‘Let’s go for a walk,’ he murmured.
She looked surprised then shrugged and fell into step beside him.
They walked to the main entrance, a set of gates with a fence climbing the hillside on one side and a rock wall groyne extending into the sea on the other. At the end of the groyne was a little thatched hut with wooden seats.
As they approached the gates, a man got out of a car parked on the other side and opened the gate-and Maisie suddenly stopped dead.
Rafe stopped, too, and watched her intently as all colour left her face and her mouth worked. Then she blinked and closed her eyes experimentally and, as her lashes fluttered up, she said in a trembling voice, ‘R-rafe? I mean…’
‘No,’ the man beside her side said on a harsh breath. ‘It’s my cousin, Tim Dixon.’ He took hold. ‘Maisie, here’s what I suggest. That you and Tim discuss things in the hut. I’ll leave you alone. But I’ve booked the Tree House for dinner and you and I can-talk.’
He turned on his heel and walked away.
Some time later Maisie stood on the beach on her own, staring blindly out to sea but with the sensation that the scales had fallen from her eyes.
Tim Dixon did bear quite a resemblance to his cousin and he’d admitted to impersonating Rafe. As he’d done so, she’d glimpsed a biting hostility towards Rafe.
But why? she’d asked.
He’d shrugged and told her that Rafe had a lot more than he deserved, a lot that was rightly his, Tim Dixon’s.
He wouldn’t bore her with too many details, he’d gone on to say but, he’d added with a charming smile, the irony of the fact she was one girl who apparently had never heard of Rafe Sanderson hadn’t failed to strike him.
Maisie had been struck dumb.
Then he’d sobered and told her some of his background. He’d also said he had nothing to offer her, he was on his uppers with a string of debts around his neck, that was why he was in Tonga working as a diving instructor, but he would acknowledge he was the baby’s father.
Throughout it all, along with his golden good looks-his hair was bleached fairer by the sun and was now longer, and a pair of board shorts and a T-shirt showed off his tan as well as his physique-she’d got bewildering flashes of the man who had swept her off her feet.
But as he spoke, even sometimes with the wry humour, the charm and the whimsy she’d loved, the knowledge had grown in her heart that Tim Dixon was like a rogue leopard, beautiful, mesmerising, but a loner with only his best interests at heart.
She hadn’t said much at all.
She hadn’t given him a piece of her mind or called him any of the hard names he deserved.
She’d agreed that there was no point in pursuing a paternity suit, but at that point he’d really stunned her when he told her Rafe would make some settlement on her anyway.
But you hate him, she’d cried then.
He’d agreed coolly.
That was when she’d stumbled to her feet and walked away from him.
But he’d had the nerve to call out, ‘So it’s settled, Maisie?’
‘Yes. Just go away!’
That was why she stood on the beach for so long with her sandals in her hand, viewing everything that had happened to her through new eyes.
Then she turned to go back to the room, but one of the waitresses called out to her as she passed the dining room, to tell her Rafe was waiting for her in the Tree House and she was just about to serve the first course.
It was a still, perfect night and the candle flames in the thatched Tree House hardly wavered as the water lapped softly on the beach below.
Rafe had changed into jeans and a blue shirt and he rose as she appeared. After taking one look at her face, he poured her a glass of wine.
‘No,’ she murmured.
‘Yes.’ He put the glass in her hand. ‘One glass is not going to hurt you. I’m sorry I did it that way but I wanted you to be sure I wasn’t covering anything up.’
‘I don’t think however you did it would have made any difference.’ She sniffed and licked some salty tears from her lips. Then she looked across at him bravely. ‘How did you work it out?’
He looked away briefly. ‘Right from the start Tim was at the back of my mind. We have been mistaken for each other occasionally. He does bear me a grudge.’
‘But you didn’t tell me-’
‘Maisie,’ he interrupted, ‘I didn’t know for sure it was Tim, but if it was, I had no way of knowing you weren’t in cahoots with him.’
She digested this with widening eyes, but in light of the revelations she’d so recently been party to, she had to concede he had a point.
‘How did you get him to agree to acknowledge the baby?’
‘Don’t ask.’ He rubbed his jaw. ‘So?’
‘He said-’ She stopped as she heard the waitress climbing the stairs. The first course she brought was asparagus soup.
‘He said?’ Rafe prompted as she left them alone.
‘He said that he had good cause to bear you a grudge. That you’d inherited what he should have and he’d had to grow up in your shadow and he’d had to-grin and bear it.’
Rafe picked up his spoon. ‘It had nothing to do with me. Tim’s father was my mother’s brother. In the natural course of events he would have inherited the Dixon empire. But he fell out with his father, my grandfather-he was caught red-handed siphoning off profits, and worse-and disinherited. Most if it went to my mother as the oldest child, and all the others were girls. Eat something, Maisie.’
She crumbled the roll on her plate and tasted the asparagus soup; it was delicious but she had no appetite, although she forced herself to take a few spoonfuls.
‘Then,’ Rafe went on, ‘Tim’s father, my uncle, died in a parachuting accident when Tim was about six. My mother took pity on Tim, and his mother, and she brought them into the family; my grandfather had died by then. She paid for Tim’s schooling and university and she set up a trust fund for him and his mother. And he and I did spend a lot of time together at Karoo as we grew up.’
‘Did you realise how much he resented you?’ Maisie asked.
Rafe looked out over the darkened water for a long time. ‘He kept it to himself until my mother died. We were in our mid-twenties. Then he dropped a bombshell-that he intended to sue me for what he claimed was his rightful inheritance.’
Maisie put her spoon down and pushed her soup away and took a sip of wine.
‘It was settled out of court,’ Rafe went on. ‘Not that we felt he had any leg to stand on, particularly since it was my father and a lot of Sanderson money that had saved the Dixon empire from collapse because of drought and low wool prices by then-something Tim wasn’t aware of.’
Rafe finished his soup and reached for his wine. He swirled his glass and looked down at the pale gold depths before looking at Maisie. ‘But we decided to make Tim a settlement on the condition that he made no more claims. He agreed. Sad to say,’ Rafe paused, ‘it looks as if he’s gone through that, as well as the trust.’
Tears brimmed, causing Maisie’s green eyes to sparkle in the candlelight. ‘It wouldn’t-it wouldn’t have been easy for him, though.’
Rafe studied her and thought his own thoughts. Was she still a little in love with his cousin? His mouth tightened briefly.
‘Does that mean you want him back?’ he asked abruptly.
‘Oh, no.’ Maisie shook her head.
‘It sounds as if you’re feeling sorry for him, all the same,’ he pointed out.
‘No.’ Maisie cupped her face and propped her elbows on th
e table. What had she meant? she wondered. It fell into place unexpectedly. She wanted some mitigating circumstances for the father of her baby. Some way not to think of him with utter bitterness and contempt because he was going to be a part of her baby, whether she liked it or not. But how to explain that?
She sighed. ‘No. It’s over.’
‘Tim Dixon,’ Rafe said slowly, ‘can be irresistible, until you really get to know him.’
‘Thank you,’ she whispered.
They were on their next course, fish of the day which happened to be delectable fresh-caught wahoo, when Maisie started to feel a little less traumatised and able to think of other things.
‘So I guess this is the end of the line for us,’ she murmured.
‘Maisie.’ He paused.
She allowed her gaze to roam over him briefly, taking in the angles and shadows of his face, as he appeared to debate internally with himself. Not only was it a good-looking face, but it could also be alight with intelligence, breathtakingly attractive when he laughed and frustratingly enigmatic in repose as you wondered how really to reach this man.
Plus there were the lean, strong lines of his broad shoulders beneath his shirt, his long, lovely hands-and she felt an awful pang in her breast because there might not be many more occasions for her to feast her eyes on Rafe Sanderson.
If she wasn’t for him, and she knew she could never be-how could he ever forget, how could she ever forget she was carrying another man’s child, and not only that, but also whose child it was. He touched something within her that, she now realised, Tim Dixon had never touched.
What a time and what a way to find it out, she thought.
‘Maisie,’ he said as if he’d rethought what he’d been going to say moments ago, ‘where will you live? You said something about selling your parents’ house.’
Surprise caused her to blink, and, she was to realise later, caused her to answer incautiously, ‘I’d love to be able to stay on in the house. I don’t feel so lonely there now as I first did and it brings back-’ she tipped her head ‘-memories I cherish. But it’s not possible, so I’ll probably rent a place once it’s sold, where I can give piano lessons.’
From Waif To His Wife Page 8