Chattie studied the stunning girl on Steve’s arm, the way he was looking down at her, then handed the picture back.
‘Mrs Jackson, would you like a cup of tea? And perhaps a sandwich? I’d be happy to bring it to your room.’
Joan Jackson beamed at Chattie. ‘That would be so kind, my dear! I don’t get these wretched headaches often, but when I do…!’
But as she cut up the sandwiches and brewed some tea all Chattie could think of was Steve Kinane’s failed marriage and the way he’d been looking down at his bride.
At six o’clock drinks were in progress in the lounge, the dining room was candlelit and resplendent, the kitchen was a model of good management—and the lights went off.
‘Power failure,’ Merlene said laconically. ‘Happens all the time out here.’
‘You’re joking!’ Chattie stared at her through the gloom. ‘There are no storms in the offing, are there?’ she asked nervously.
‘No. It isn’t only storms that do it, though.’
‘What is wrong with this day? It seems determined to…flatten me!’
Steve came into the kitchen. ‘We have a back-up generator, Chattie, don’t panic.’ He strode out of the back door.
Chattie took several deep breaths. ‘I’m not panicking,’ she assured Merlene. ‘Well, only slightly.’
‘We’ve still got the stove.’ Merlene pointed to the wood-burning range. ‘It’s one reason why they kept it.’
Chattie nodded but thought of the use she’d planned to make of the microwave, the toaster, the electric coffee machine, the electric blender, and felt a little faint. ‘How long does it take to get the generator going?’
‘No time at all, usually.’ Merlene shrugged. ‘But I’ll get some candles and paraffin lamps just to be on the safe side.’
The words struck a little chill in Chattie and, sure enough, fifteen minutes later Steve came back into the kitchen wiping his hands on a rag and looking grim.
‘Don’t tell me!’ Chattie pleaded.
‘Sorry, but the bloody thing has blown a fuse and it’s short-circuited completely. It’s a major repair job now that’ll take hours. Look—’ he looked around ‘—just size things down to what’s ready, they’ll understand, and I’ll send Harriet in to give you a hand.’
Merlene snorted but Chattie had taken several deep breaths.
She said. ‘If Harriet would help with the serving, we’d be most grateful, but I will not allow this day to defeat me even though it’s been trying to do so all day!’ She raised her chin. ‘Please tell everyone dinner will be delayed by about half an hour but otherwise everything is fine.’
‘Chattie—’
Steve Kinane paused and sighed as he observed his housekeeper. She’d chosen to wear slim floral trousers on a white background with an apple-green shirt. Over it, at the moment, she had a clear plastic apron, her hair was drawn back in a bunch and her feet were encased in green leather flat shoes. There could be no mistaking her determination from her expression, but she was so lovely at the same time, she reminded him of an avenging goddess of the very slim, very young variety.
‘Hang on,’ he said abruptly, and walked through to the dining room. He came back minutes later with two glasses of champagne, one of which he handed to her, the other to Merlene.
‘There you go, troops,’ he said with a wicked little smile. ‘That should ease the pain a bit.’
‘Why, thank you!’ Chattie said in a genuine rush of good cheer. ‘That’s the best thing that’s happened to me all day!’ She raised her glass to toast him. ‘Off you go, then; we’ll be fine now!’
And, in due course, a delicate asparagus soup was served, followed by a magnificent beef Wellington and vegetables including cauliflower au gratin. And for dessert, a baked lemon cheesecake, topped with glacé lemon slices and a fruit salad, was served with hand-beaten cream.
By the time the dessert had gone into the dining room—Harriet had done all the ferrying in and out of food and dishes and tried to be as helpful as possible—the kitchen resembled a battlefield and Merlene was swearing audibly because she couldn’t locate the manual coffee grinder.
‘How are we going to grind these damn beans? I know there’s one somewhere!’
‘Merlene,’ Chattie said, sinking into a chair, ‘I’ll let you into a little secret. A dash of something like Tia Maria gives a whole new meaning to instant coffee. Glory be—let there be light!’ she added as the lights came on. Then she looked around and started to giggle. ‘Let’s go back to candles!’
Steve came in at that moment and looked around ruefully, and as the lights went out again said, ‘That was a false alarm, thankfully, I agree with you. Uh—your presence is required in the dining room, Miss Winslow.’
Chattie put her hands to her cheeks, which were shiny with perspiration, touched her hair and knew it to be out of control, looked at her fingernails, and said decidedly, ‘No way!’
‘Then I’ll bring them in here,’ he murmured.
‘Who?’
‘The shire chairman and his lady—they’re very desirous of making your acquaintance.’
‘Don’t you dare!’ Chattie and Merlene chorused, with Merlene adding, ‘Wash your hands, spit on your eyebrows, push your fingers through your hair, Chattie, but don’t let ’em see this mess—I’ll never live it down. And take your apron off,’ she recommended.
Chattie did it all, even to licking a fingertip and smoothing her eyebrows, although she favoured Steve Kinane with a dark glance along the way. ‘This is blackmail.’
‘You’ll probably change your mind when you hear what they have to say. One thing, don’t accept any job offers—I wouldn’t appreciate you leaving me in the lurch.’
‘Well, ma’am,’ the shire chairman, who was a large man with a large belly, said on Chattie’s arrival in the dining room, and paused to do a double take, ‘I have to tell you, you are going to make some lucky man a magnificent wife and I really would like to introduce you to my son!’ He turned to his wife. ‘Wouldn’t you, Beryl?’
Beryl nodded enthusiastically. Ray Cook, Jack Barlow and John Jackson raised their glasses in heart-felt agreement, causing Harriet Barlow to look oddly thoughtful—and Sasha Kelly to look bored to tears. But the other women seconded this sentiment heartily and insisted Chattie sit down with them for a moment.
Two hours later when those driving had gone home and those staying had all gone to bed, Steve found his housekeeper asleep at the dining-room table.
She’d obviously been setting it for breakfast, but she was now sitting at it with her head on her arms and dead to the world.
He surveyed her for a moment, and then said her name.
No response.
‘Well, I can’t leave you here all night,’ he murmured wryly, and carefully manoeuvred her out of the chair and into his arms. She didn’t wake as he carried her to her bedroom, and he quietly recommended to Rich to think twice about attacking him.
Then he went to put Chattie down on the bed, but she made a murmur of dissent and cuddled up against him with her arms around his neck, so he sat down on the bed with her in his lap instead. ‘Chattie?’
‘Mmm?’ Her lashes fluttered but she was only half awake and she rubbed her cheek against his shoulder with a sigh of pleasure, and closed her eyes again.
A nerve flickered in his jaw as he looked down at the curvy, half-folded length of her. She was completely relaxed and felt soft and boneless against him. Her hair smelt of lemons, there was a streak of gravy down her blouse and a blob of blueberry on one knee of her trousers. She’d abandoned her shoes somewhere along the line.
But despite her exertions or even because of them—did it add a strength of character that made her irresistible?—she was quite lovely. Smooth-skinned, beautifully curved, delicately tinted—and from nowhere a vision came to Steve Kinane of the shire chairman’s son, Ryan.
He grimaced at the thought. Ryan Winters was a brawny, good-looking young man of considerable ego. He was
also considered the local stud, but had all the finesse of a front-row forward and it was simply unthinkable to imagine Charlotte Winslow in his arms.
Come to that, he thought grimly, he would have difficulty imagining her in anyone’s arms but his own and therein lay a contretemps of the highest order for him.
Not only on account of her connection with his brother, he acknowledged, but because he’d considered himself immune from emotional entanglements now…
So how the hell, he asked himself, had he fallen for a girl who cherished the same negative sentiments about his state of mind as his ex-wife had?
Chattie moved in his arms, said drowsily, ‘This is so nice after a hard day at the office!’ And opened her eyes.
For a moment nothing registered in their grey depths, then comprehension dawned, consternation became shock and shock was coupled with deep embarrassment.
‘Pardon me,’ she whispered, going scarlet and scrambling to sit up. ‘I…I don’t know what you must think! I didn’t realize it was you. I…’ She got unsteadily to her feet at the same time as she anxiously patted her blouse into place, checked the buttons and smoothed her trousers. ‘I am sorry but I guess I was overtired—’
‘Or you thought I was Mark?’ he suggested dryly.
‘I’m not sure what I thought—’ She stopped abruptly and her eyes widened.
‘Unless you make a habit of it.’
‘What?’
‘Enjoying any man’s arms around you,’ he said flatly.
Indignation rushed to the surface. ‘I do not!’ she denied. ‘How can you say that? You know, there are times when I quite like you, Steve Kinane, and times when you make it impossible!’
He shrugged. ‘Then we’ll have to go with the Mark scenario.’
It occurred to Chattie in a blinding instant that there was another scenario. Subconsciously she’d known all along it was Steve, and, again subconsciously, had felt safe with him yet again. Safe—and as if she belonged in his arms…
‘I think,’ she said, and patted her cheeks to hide her mortification, ‘we should put it down to a long—extremely fraught, in fact—day. That’s all.’ She tilted her chin.
He smiled unexpectedly, and briefly. ‘You’ll be asking for danger money next.’
‘I’m not saying it was above or beyond anything I expected to be called upon to do!’ she countered with a flash of irritation. ‘I’m using it to explain—oh, what’s the use?’ She turned away and sniffed. ‘I think I better go to bed,’ she said huskily, ‘since we’re destined to misunderstand each other completely, by the look of it.’
The moments ticked by as he said nothing and something compelled her to turn back. And she became conscious as they stared at each other of a rising tide between them of something elementary, something dangerous and disturbing but powerful at the same time. Like the peril of an emotional and physical storm about to break between them whether they liked it or not, whether they could rationalize it or not—and she certainly couldn’t.
Because there was no way she felt safe with Steve Kinane at that moment. No way to guarantee that those dangerous, disturbing sensations racing through her at the way he was looking at her wouldn’t push her into his arms unsure if she loved him or hated him but unable to resist him…
Her lips parted and her eyes widened in a stunned reaction. Never before in her life had a man stirred her like this for one thing, but to be unsure whether she hated him—or loved him, to have that spring into her mind was unbelievable.
He stood up and cut the eye contact. ‘Might be a good idea for both of us to go to bed, but please don’t think I haven’t appreciated your efforts today. Even Slim would have been proud of you and he has very high standards. By the way, the bypass operation was successful and he’s resting comfortably.’
It seemed to Chattie that her tongue was stuck to the roof of her mouth for some strange reason, so she swallowed visibly. ‘That’s good news.’
‘Yes. Goodnight.’
She stared at the door after he’d closed it behind him, and wondered if she was going mad.
This roundabout of physical attraction, of liking, even respecting at times, and certainly feeling safe with Steve Kinane, then disliking him intensely, was impossible.
She shivered and got ready for bed distractedly. As she slid under the rose-red eiderdown it occurred to her that she might never get this man out of her system because, not only he, but also his damn cattle station was getting under her skin.
Face it, Chattie, she told herself, this would be a very fulfilling lifestyle for you, but how could it ever be?
Then another thought crept into her mind. She might not have had time to assess the impact it had had on her, but she couldn’t get Steve Kinane’s wedding photo out of her mind. Or the conviction that he’d been deeply in love with his bride.
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHATTIE was making an omelette for breakfast the next morning—full power had been restored—when someone came into the kitchen through the back door. Because it was very early, too early for Merlene normally and she was sure it had to be Steve, Chattie dropped the bowl and the egg, milk, mushrooms and finely diced onions spread in a wide, yellow-and-black-dotted stain across the floor.
It was Merlene, however, who stopped at the outer edge of the stain, looked down at it, then looked across at Chattie standing pale and transfixed. ‘You OK, kid?’
‘I’m jittery,’ Chattie confessed ruefully. ‘I don’t know why but I feel as if something terrible is going to happen and it’s all my fault.’
‘Bloody hell,’ Merlene replied.
Chattie grimaced. ‘Don’t take any notice of me, it will pass. Could you hand me a cloth?’
‘What will pass?’ It was Steve who came in this time, from the opposite direction. He also stopped at the outer edge of the stain, studied it, then studied Chattie and finally raised an eyebrow at Merlene.
‘Chattie reckons the world’s about to end and it’s all her fault,’ Merlene explained.
Sheer amusement lit his eyes but he said gravely to Merlene, ‘Would you present my compliments to Miss Winslow? Would you also tell her that I had hoped to catch her before she started breakfast, to apprise her that she doesn’t have to do a thing because I’ve organized a barbecue breakfast for the entire present population of Mount Helena down at the bunkhouse?’
‘Good thinking, boss!’ Merlene applauded. ‘Seems to me our young godsend may have stretched herself a wee bit too far over the last couple of days.’
‘I told her not to—’ Steve started to say exasperatedly but concluded, ‘Well, be that as it may, how does she respond?’
Chattie said it in her mind but the words echoed like a foghorn so it seemed impossible that the other two wouldn’t hear—That has nothing to do with it! I’m bothered and bewildered because I don’t know what’s going on between, to be precise, Charlotte Winslow, spinster, and Steve Kinane, divorcee.
‘She’s really got the wobblies,’ Merlene said for her after a moment, ‘but I’ll accept on her behalf. Why don’t you take her out to…smell the flowers or something while I clean up the mess? Looks like she could do with it.’
Chattie came to life. ‘Thanks, but that won’t be necessary—I was only joking.’
Steve started to say something but the phone rang. Merlene picked it up, then handed it to him. ‘Jack. He’s got a bit of a problem.’
Steve listened for a couple of moments, then said down the line, ‘I’ll be there in five.’ He handed the phone back to Merlene. ‘You’re in charge of getting this mob down to the bunkhouse, mate, and you—’ he turned to Chattie ‘—can come with me.’
‘Why? What’s happened? Why do you need me?’ Chattie asked dazedly.
‘I do, that’s all. Out you go.’ He pushed her in the direction of the back door.
She was about to protest vigorously but she caught sight of Merlene out of the corner of her eye. And Merlene was clearly indicating by way of her thumb that Chattie sho
uld do as she was told.
‘I still don’t understand,’ Chattie said breathlessly once she was in the Range Rover and Steve was climbing in beside her. Then her eyes grew suddenly fearful. ‘It’s not anything to do with Brett, is it?’
He switched the motor on and revved the engine. ‘No, he’s fine as far as I know. My favourite horse has got herself cast in her box.’
‘Cast?’ she repeated. ‘What does that mean?’
‘That she lay down or rolled over too close to the wall and now she’s got no space to push off so she can’t get up.’
‘Why doesn’t she just roll over again?’
‘Sometimes that logic doesn’t occur to a horse,’ he said wryly. ‘Sometimes they get so frightened they don’t think straight. Sometimes, in their struggles, they really get themselves wedged in.’
Chattie’s eyes all but stood out on stalks. ‘You’re not expecting me to help you, are you? I don’t know a thing about horses!’
‘No, I’m not expecting you to help,’ he replied, ruefully this time. ‘Just thought it would be good for you to get out and about a bit. Can’t have my ace housekeeper worried about the end of the world.’
So that’s the way it’s going to be, Chattie thought as she stared down at her hands and the shiny red apple in them that she’d plucked from the fruit bowl while being propelled out of the kitchen. Swept under the carpet, unless I was imagining all sorts of weird things last night.
Then the supreme irony of that thought came to her. He was doing precisely what she’d tried to do after he’d kissed her on the night of the storm.
‘You don’t wish to comment?’ he said.
She shook her head. ‘But thanks for organizing me out of breakfast.’
‘What else were we talking about?’
Chattie gazed at him coolly. ‘I have no idea.’
The Australians Convenient Bride Page 9