Love Thy Neighbour

by Victoria Gordon

Her fingernails were still a disaster; only time could repair the worst of the damage there. And her knees ... well, the dirt might come out eventually, along with the variety of cuts, bruises and other minor injuries.

  The physical damage, including the blisters which kept her fingers gingerly cramped around the steering-wheel, would heal with time; that didn’t worry her. But her feeling of guilt could only get worse with time.

  ‘And well you know it, too,’ she muttered aloud, easing off the clutch to put the vehicle in motion again. In the deepening darkness, the road before her seemed vaguely threatening, overshadowed by the flanking rows of Radiata pine and Lombardy poplar.

  Again Fiona paused, the revealing moonlight giving her a choice of routes. She could discern a gigantic shearing shed, seemingly dozens of other outbuildings, and then, finally, the bulk of the enormous homestead itself.

  Even in the uncertain light, it was impressive although, like her own new home, well-hidden from the highway. A two-storey structure apparently constructed of huge sandstone blocks, it loomed taller as she approached, dominating its surroundings.

  She pulled to a halt in the circular driveway, self-consciously glancing down at her fresh, clean T-shirt and trousers, shaking back the loose mane of her hair.

  Even after her bath, she felt grotty. Or else it’s just guilt and nervousness, she thought. I am not looking forward to this, but I guess there’s no way out of it.

  Turning off the engine, she practically flung herself out and walked determinedly to stand before the tall, carved front door.

  She made a fist, wincing at the pressure on her blisters, and knocked loudly before noticing the heavy brass knocker just above her head.

  For a moment there was only the silence around her. Not even a dog had barked at her arrival and now she found herself wondering if Fraser was home. She was reaching for the knocker, determined to do it properly this time, when the door suddenly opened.

  But it wasn’t Dare Fraser!

  The woman who stood looking down at Fiona was nearly his height, and, Fiona couldn’t help but admit, was at the very least classically beautiful,

  A model. And if she wasn’t she should have been. Raven-black hair, loosely styled, spilled over her shoulders but was brushed back from a high forehead. Catlike eyes of a startling green peered from beneath perfect eyebrows, perfect lashes in a haughty, almost aristocratic stare.

  The woman stood there, arms folded across a revealing décolletage with, Fiona couldn’t help noticing, perfect fingernails of extraordinary length.

  Classic beauty! The hair, the dress, the make-up, the stance — this woman had it all. Fiona kept her ruined hands at her sides as the woman finally spoke.

  ‘You wish?’ And even from the two words she picked up a hint of an accent, though not enough to guess at the origins.

  ‘Mr Fraser, if he’s available,’ Fiona replied, wishing now that she’d left this chore until some other time, any other time. The woman’s entire attitude accused her of interrupting something.

  ‘It is ... important? He is ... busy right now.’

  Too busy for you, the voice implied. And also, somehow, implied just what he was busy at. And the accent, Fiona decided, was probably Spanish, or perhaps Latin American.

  ‘1 ... 1 just wanted to return something,’ she began to explain. ‘I didn’t mean to intrude.’

  ‘It’s no great intrusion,’ came that husky, too soft voice, and Fiona looked up to see Fraser’s tall form looming up behind that of his ... guest?

  ‘I’ve brought back your crowbar,’ she began lamely, then strengthened her voice along with her resolve. ‘Thank you very much for the lend of it.’

  And despite the difficulty, the lack of privacy for such a disclosure, she was about to add her apology for being such a boor. Fraser gave her no chance.

  ‘There was no need to return it this promptly,’ he replied, ‘although I’m sure you’ll be glad to see the last of the thing, from the look of your hands.’

  Easing past the tall woman who slid gracefully, sensuously to one side, he stalked down the stone steps to reach into Fiona’s vehicle and heft out the heavy bar.

  He leaned it casually against a porch support, then turned back to address Fiona.

  ‘We were just having a drink, and you certainly look as if you could use one. Will you join us?’

  The last thing she wanted, but before she could say so he was taking her arm and guiding her into the hallway. Behind them, his guest closed the door, then followed with a silent tread.

  The room they entered was first off the hallway on the left, an enormous yet somehow intimate room, typical of its period and appropriately decorated in leather furniture and heavy, beautifully carved wood.

  ‘I’ll just introduce you two, then see about that drink,’ Fraser said, turning to his tall, beautiful companion.

  ‘Miss Consuela Diaz ... Miss Fiona Boyd.’ The two women nodded, murmuring appropriate civilities, but each was aware beyond any doubt that there was nothing civil about their immediate reaction to one another.

  The green cat’s eyes of Consuela Diaz flashed arrows of blatant contempt and condescension; Fiona simply felt overwhelmed by the other woman’s elegance because she, herself, was so conscious of the ravages of her weekend.

  ‘Fiona’s my new neighbour,’ Dare explained as he turned to hand Fiona a well-filled brandy balloon. ‘She’s been busy all weekend building kennels.’

  The explanation roused only a casual lifting of one perfect eyebrow, as did his continued dissertation, which to Fiona’s astonishment ranged across her entire time in Hobart; her hobbies, her dog-training business and her television work — all got a mention in Fraser’s potted biography.

  Only the mention of the television work seemed to draw a glimmer of interest, and Fiona felt she’d have been totally dismissed by the elegant Diaz woman had it not been for that.

  But worse was the fact she was given no opportunity at all to apologise for her rudeness, not that she expected to under the scrutiny of those glass-green eyes. Not now, she decided. Not in front of this woman!

  It was, she decided, unnerving enough to listen to how much Dare Fraser had found out about her in such a short time, to wonder why he should have undertaken such a thorough investigation.

  But to make her planned apology now? No, she decided. And worried even more because this was the first time in her adult life that another woman, any woman, had managed to make her feel, well, gauche!

  Fiona knew she was attractive enough. She brushed up quite well, and did so regularly enough for her own taste just to handle the requirements of her work. But she had never been a clothes-horse, had learned to use make-up properly more through necessity than desire, and had never found fashion more than peripherally interesting.

  But this Consuela Diaz, she thought, must live for fashion, for physical perfection. The woman’s skin, a creamy olive tone perfect for her ebony hair, was flawless even without the exactly applied make-up. Every stitch of her clothing was just right for her, had obviously been created specifically for her.

  All of which made her a perfect match for Dare Fraser’s immaculate grooming, for the tailored dinner-jacket, the dark trousers with their razor crease, the shoes with their military perfection of shine.

  His rugged good looks and athletic bearing set off the woman’s elegance, emphasised her beauty, made her classic sense of style all the more stylish.

  All of which combines to make me look like the stable hand, Fiona thought to herself, contriving to hold the brandy balloon with appropriate dignity and hide her work-ravaged hands at the same time.

  It was a waste; Consuela Diaz had noticed them immediately and her clumsy attempt to disguise the damage now drew Dare Fraser’s attention, as she ought to have known it would.

  She was staring into the brandy, still shaken by the man’s extraordinary study into her background, when the glass was suddenly plucked from her fingers and her right hand grasped gently but firml
y by the wrist.

  Fiona could only force herself to meet his eyes as Dare turned over first one hand, then the other, before staring down at her, head shaking as if he were admonishing a child.

  ‘Are you a masochist, or just immune to pain?’ he asked, surprise evident in the softness of his voice.

  ‘Neither,’ Fiona replied bitterly. ‘Just short on time. I only had the weekend to get finished in; tomorrow it’s back to work as usual.’

  ‘More time than brains, I reckon,’ he muttered in reply, thankfully keeping his voice so soft that only she could hear. But he spoke louder when he excused the two of them and steered Fiona out into the hall and along to where a bathroom held a thoroughly stocked medicine chest.

  There, she was thrust impatiently into a chair as Dare carefully examined her fingers one by one.

  ‘I suppose you’re at least smart enough to have kept your tetanus shots up to date?’ he asked roughly, though his fingers were incredibly gentle as he smeared first one, then another ointment into her fingers and the blisters which had now started to throb unmercifully.

  Fiona nodded, but wasn’t sure he even noticed. Nor did he notice when she tried to resist the light gauze dressings he wrapped round each hand at the base of the fingers, where the blisters were worst.

  ‘You’ll keep these on until morning, at the very least,’ he ordered. ‘Longer, if you can manage it, although I suppose if you’re on camera tomorrow night they’ll have to come off.’

  ‘I’m not,’ she muttered in reply, not that it was any of his business. The dressings would come off as soon as she was home, whether he liked it or not.

  ‘Good.’ He grunted his reply, but his voice softened to an entirely different tone as he continued. ‘But if you do have to, make sure they keep the camera above here.’

  And his fingers traced a slow, entrancing line from one shoulder to the other, touching like a tendril of ice across her collarbones, ice that turned to fire as his eyes burned into her own.

  Fiona couldn’t move. She sat there, mesmerised as much by his eyes as by his touch, as much surprised by the gesture as by the incredible physical effect it had on her.

  Their eyes met, locked, held.

  For one incredible instant she thought he was going to lower his hand, to take her breast into those strangely gentle fingers — as she suddenly wanted him to.

  For another, she thought he was going to bend down and kiss her, and her lips were shaping for the kiss while her mind was steeling itself to resist it.

  Or both.

  Then the instant was lost, thrust away into oblivion with the lightest of scratches outside the door, with the sound of Consuela Diaz’s voice lilting, ‘Daaaarling, we are going to be late, I’m afraid.’

  Fiona jumped to her feet, thrusting away Dare’s fingers as she scuttled towards the door, unwilling to look at him, afraid to speak.

  His touch was on her like a brand, an unwelcome, unwanted brand. But, like his voice, memorable now, unforgettable ever.

  Fiona swung open the door, oblivious to the pain as she closed her fist around the handle. She forced her spine straight, forced herself to smile calmly at the face of the woman who stood, one dark eyebrow raised, looking down at her as she passed.

  ‘Thank you for the medical attention,’ she forced herself to say to Dare Fraser, who followed her from the room, followed her down the hall to the front door. ‘I’ll take more care next time.’

  And she would! More care wherever he might be involved.

  She held her poise until she was in the station-wagon, until she’d carefully started the vehicle, carefully driven round the circular driveway, carefully avoiding the gleaming sports sedan whose ownership she needn’t question.

  But by the time she reached the shadowy aisle of trees that formed his main driveway, Fiona was shaking. And she kept shaking, kept feebly brushing at the tears which insisted on forming at the corners of her eyes, until she finally reached her own driveway, finally halted the car and stumbled back to close the gate, shutting out the world, but not the unwanted memories of the evening.

  She heard the throaty growl of the sports car as it passed in the darkness while she was walking back to the house, heard it but tried not to think of it as she thrust her key into the door.

  ‘Damn,’ she muttered. And repeated the curse as she lurched through the welcoming dog pack, for once not warmed by the enthusiasm of the dogs’ riotous greetings.

  The brandy no longer warmed her tummy; it burned inside her with a fire fuelled by bitterness, by embarrassment. Walking angrily to the bathroom, she stared glumly into the mirror, seeing the tiredness in her face, the weariness in her posture. Seeing also the thrust of her breasts, the hardness of her nipples with their individual memories of the wanting his touch had created.

  But seeing also the elegance she could never match, would never — normally — want to match. Annoying!

  She slept fitfully that night, her rest broken by spasms of conscience, moments of wakefulness. Her body, racked by the efforts of that weekend, was also affected by the spectres of her dreams, the memories of Dare Fraser’s touch.

  Morning brought little improvement. She woke late, had to hurry through her ablutions, didn’t have time to give the dogs more than a perfunctory exercise run before rushing off to work.

  And throughout the morning, she kept finding her mind wandering, kept finding herself thinking not so much of Dare Fraser himself, but about how he had managed to learn so much about her so quickly. And why.

  ‘Perhaps he fancies you, although I can’t imagine why,’ said her lawyer, grinning at her across his desk without a hint of chagrin about being asked to give up his lunch-break just so Fiona could pick his brains on the subject.

  ‘Somehow I doubt it,’ she replied, refusing to be drawn to the bait. ‘But there must be some reason for it, John.’

  ‘I’m sure there is,’ he replied. ‘And most likely it’s the logical one—you’re a new neighbour and Fraser quite rightly was curious.’

  ‘More than just curious—downright nosy is what I’d call it.’

  He shrugged. ‘Same thing. Don’t forget you’re living in the country, now. People in the country like to know about their neighbours. It’s important.’

  ‘Well, I don’t like it.’

  ‘Well, there Isn’t much you can do about it, is there?’ was the reply. ‘It’s hardly against the law or anything, and besides, you haven’t got heaps of skeletons in your cupboards... or have you?’

  Fiona winced inwardly. Her earlier marriage and the messy divorce that had followed were matters of public record, in Queensland, but she had never mentioned either since coming to Tasmania, not even to John.

  ‘Nothing but a raft of ex-husbands,’ she replied lightly, ‘and certainly nothing that’s any of Dare Fraser’s business.’

  ‘And of course you’re not at all interested in knowing Fraser’s background, are you?’ Her lawyer was looking at her with a suspicious glint in his eye, and this time Fiona couldn’t resist the bait.

  ‘Every gruesome detail,’ she admitted, leaning forward eagerly in her chair.

  His laugh was almost sinister. ‘I thought you’d never ask.’

  By the time Fiona got back to work that afternoon, she had an entirely new perspective on her neighbour, and most of what she’d learned did little to ease her suspicions that Dare Fraser might yet prove to be a serious problem in her life.

  Her lawyer hadn’t needed to breach any confidences in compiling a detailed dossier on Fraser; it had been more a case of just gathering in threads of common knowledge.

  ‘Hobart’s just a big country town, really,’ he’d said. ‘In fact, you could say much the same thing of Tasmania as a whole. Anybody who’s anybody knows anybody else who’s anybody, and your new neighbour certainly meets all the criteria.’

  Indeed he did! Dare Fraser, she found, was a classic example of Tasmania’s landed gentry. His family went back to the early days of the island’
s settlement, and his property had been passed through generations of Frasers.

  ‘And your little block is the only bit that’s ever been sold; the old families here didn’t believe in such things,’ her lawyer had said. ‘There’s a story behind it, but very few details, this Boyd woman apparently lived there with her brother, who was a worker on the property. He was killed in a tree-felling accident nearly forty years ago, and Fraser’s father, for whatever reasons, partitioned off the block and turned it over to her. There’s some suggestion that he felt responsible for the accident, but nobody seems to know for sure.’

  There had also been rumours, he’d said, that Amanda Boyd had been the older Fraser’s mistress, ‘Although,’ he’d cautioned, ‘I wouldn’t be mentioning such a thing if I were you. It’s possible, of course, but...’

  ‘None of my business and of course I wouldn’t mention it,’ Fiona had replied. ‘But the real issue, I gather, is that Fraser wants the land back now just because it used to belong to his family?’

  ‘That’s my interpretation, anyway. These old families have fairly rigid ideas about things like that.’

  ‘Well, you could hardly blame them. I’d imagine with so much tradition involved there would be very strong feelings about such things.’

  But it was neither history nor tradition that caused Fiona the most concern. It was the present, and Dare Fraser’s place in it.

  Dare Fraser, it seemed, had spent most of his adult life in South America, returning when his parents had died within a week of each other a year earlier.

  He had stepped into his inheritance with strong views about the responsibilities involved, and already was being spoken of as a force to be reckoned with in the district.

  His range of interests had been wide, according to John, and had covered various aspects of agriculture and land development. But he’d also been deeply involved in urban renewal and planning aimed at improving the lot of the rapidly increasing numbers of urban poor.

  Fraser was described as a man of strong principles, a truly broad general education, and the character to be involved, rather than sit on the sidelines and reap the benefits of other people’s work. A leader, a man who would forge his own path in life, but it wouldn’t be a path that involved treading on those less fortunate, from what was said.