by Alison Kelly
‘How tall are you?’ Reb looked as surprised by her blurted question as she was. ‘I…er…was just, you know, wondering how tall the baby might be,’ she lied.
‘Six-three.’
For want of any sort of intelligent response she nodded then gave her attention to pouring her tea as if it required the concentration of micro-surgery, all the time constantly aware that the dark gaze of the man opposite was focused exclusively on her.
‘All the Brownes are tall. Even the females. Savvy is five-ten and she’s only fifteen.’
Curiosity stilled her hands, but she managed to stop herself from looking up. ‘Savvy?’ she muttered vaguely.
‘My cousin.’
‘Oh.’
Once her cup was finally filled and she’d stirred in milk and sugar, it occurred to her that the only way she’d be able to drink her tea and avoid lifting her head would be if she requested a straw. Since that was beyond ludicrous, she schooled her face to innocence and mentally braced herself for yet another of the penetrating stares Reb had been giving her ever since she’d left the bank. There was no doubt he was curious about where the money had come from, but there was no way he could possibly know of her plans to renege on their wedding. Perhaps if she started a conversation around their supposed wedding she could distract Reb from suspicions he might have.
Lifting her head to find his eyes studying her from behind his coffee cup, she gave an easy smile and picked up her cup. A swallow later she breathed a sigh of relief when her stomach didn’t immediately revolt. Still the dark eyes studied her, permeating an excited tension within her and an external silence she was helpless to leave alone.
‘I couldn’t believe it when it turned out we were both born on the same day,’ she said. ‘I mean, who’d have credited us both being inflicted with having been born on April Fool’s Day? Weird, huh?’
Reb shrugged. ‘I’d have said that under the circumstances it wasn’t so much weird as poetic justice.’
‘Oh, come now. Even the clerk at the registry was surprised.’
‘Only because of your reaction,’ Reb said dryly. ‘You’d just claimed we’d known each other for years and then you go and act all amazed to discover we share the same birthday. Most people applying for marriage licences know when each other’s birthdays fall.’
‘Well, I couldn’t help it,’ she protested. ‘You might have warned me your birthday was April the first.’
‘It never occurred to me it would be necessary. I was as surprised as you were, but unlike you I didn’t dance about singing, “Isn’t that just too, too amazing?” in that snobby, gushing tone of yours.’
‘Gushing? Excuse me, but I’ll I have you know I’ve never gushed in my life. My stepmother gushes; I don’t.’
‘Does that mean you admit to being a snob?’
She knew he expected her to deny it. ‘Of course I’m a snob. My father spent a fortune sending me to expensive schools and deportment and elocution classes that mastered in snobbery. In fact,’ she said proudly, ‘I have scads of certificates to prove I’m a snob. But for your information snobbery and…er…gushery—if there is such a word—aren’t necessarily inter-dependent.’
‘Gee, it’s true what they say…you do learn something new every day.’ The amusement in his eyes was enough to tell her he was deliberately trying to irritate her with his facetiousness so she forced herself to ignore it.
‘Well, no matter what you say, I think it’s an uncanny coincidence that we were both born on the same day at the same hospital. Especially when you consider my mother was only at the local hospital because I arrived four weeks early.’
‘What makes you think we were born in the same hospital?’
‘Well, the bit of your birth certificate I saw stated you were born in Vaughan’s Landing… You mean your mother had you at home?’ She shook her head wistfully. ‘Natural childbirth might be regarded as the truly maternal thing to do, but I have to be honest, I’m not sure I’ll be able to handle it without pain-killers and knowing there are a dozen doctors and midwives surrounding me.’
His laugh was brittle. ‘I was born in a tent at a rain-sodden rock concert just outside of town. As for pain-killers, according to the old man my mother was so far off her face on illegal drugs she didn’t even know she’d given birth until he told her the next day.’
Amanda-Jayne was shocked beyond a verbal response.
‘So frankly, A.J., I don’t care whether you elect to have natural childbirth or every legal drug known to man, but you better understand right now that, no matter how big a medical team you have during the delivery, when the time comes for you to have our baby I’m going to be there.’
She was still too aghast by the circumstances of his birth and his cavalier attitude towards it to respond to his comment. Their lives had been so completely different from the moment they’d each entered the world that if she hadn’t already been planning to back out of their marriage his revelation would have prompted her to do so. As she reached for her toast, she acknowledged that apart from sharing the same well-ridiculed birthday they had absolutely nothing in common.
‘You look like hell. Are you going to be all right to drive?’ Reb asked fifteen minutes later as she climbed behind the wheel of her car, hoping the fresh air would placate her restless stomach. The toast and tea hadn’t been such a great idea after all.
Though an automatic assurance rose to her lips, something in his expression drew the truth from her. ‘I’m not sure.’ She gave a rueful half-smile. ‘I can never be certain if I’m going to be sick until I am. But I don’t feel as dizzy as I did driving up here.’
‘Dizzy! You were feeling dizzy and you didn’t pull over?’
‘Not pass-out dizzy, just queasy dizzy,’ she said, but her explanation only seemed to intensify his frown. ‘It only hit me about a kilometre before we got here and I knew I’d make it an—’
He reefed her door open. ‘Bloody hell… Get out!’
‘Wha—why?’
‘Because there’s no way I’m letting you get behind the wheel again, possibly endangering your life and anyone else’s driving near you, if you black out.’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake! I wasn’t going to black out before. And I’m not going to now. I just told you, I’m not feeling dizzy any more.’
‘I’m not interested in debating this with you A.J…. C’mon, out.’
‘If you think for one minute I’m going to cause a scene by arriving in town on that,’ she said, indicating his bike, ‘you’re out of your mind. I’d like to attract as little attention as possible.’
Reb said wryly, ‘Considering the entire town already knows you’re carrying my child, that’s shutting the gate after the horse has bolted, don’t you think?’
‘Probably, but I still intend to try and maintain some level of decorum despite the damage you’ve already caused by bragging about your sexual prowess.’
‘You think I’m responsible for broadcasting that we’re expecting a child?’
‘It certainly wasn’t me! I had no intention of telling anyone. Not even—’
‘Not even me,’ Reb inserted, his expression knowing.
Amanda-Jayne sidestepped the accusation. ‘Well, if you didn’t tell anybody, how did it get all around town, hmm?’
‘The usual grapevine, which in this instance had its roots in my cousin overhearing us talking at the garage. Unfortunately she’s like most women and couldn’t resist sharing what she’d heard with her girlfriends.’
‘Pity she wasn’t raised to keep her nose out of other people’s business.’
‘Considering your current circumstances you’re hardly in a position to be judgmental of anyone else’s upbringing. I doubt too many of the town’s mothers are holding you up as a role model to their daughters these days.’
The verbal slap stung for the simple fact that Amanda-Jayne hadn’t intended her comment to be anything more than a rueful observation. But as she mentally replayed her words she realised they had smack
ed of social and moral superiority.
‘I didn’t mean that the way it sounded,’ she said, in lieu of offering an apology. ‘I just wish we could have kept this between ourselves.’
‘No, you wanted to keep me right out of it,’ he countered hotly. ‘But because your ivory-towered life got all screwed up that wasn’t possible, so now you’re prepared to bite the bullet, endure a stopgap marriage to me until you can collect your inheritance and go back to your semi-regal lifestyle.
‘Don’t try and deny it A.J.,’ he said, forestalling her intended lie. ‘I’m not a fool. But understand this… As far as I’m concerned the fact this marriage is a sham is going to be kept between ourselves. Everyone from my cousin to your dragon of a stepmother thinks this is a love match and you’re going—’
‘Don’t be ridiculous! No one in their right mind is going to believe that. For starters I’m hardly ever in Vaughan’s Landing and—’
‘They believe it all right, because I’ve made it a point to let people know we’ve been meeting in Sydney for six months, but were keeping things quiet until your divorce was final.’
‘How dare you slander me that way?’
‘You’d have felt better having everyone know we only shared a one-night stand?’
Reb still didn’t know if he’d been trying to protect Amanda-Jayne’s reputation or trying to avoid looking a fool himself when he’d automatically blurted that lie to his very curious cousin, but he did know he hadn’t expected to complicate it by insisting they get married.
‘Of course I didn’t say that we were going to get married,’ he said. ‘But at least now it’s not going to look like the cold-blooded arrangement it is. People will assume that since you were pregnant we decided that getting married was the right thing to do.’
‘So what you’re saying is that when we’re with other people I’m supposed to fawn over you like some lovesick groupie?’
The mental image of this cool, sophisticated woman draping herself over him in public made him grin. ‘Not if you want to be convincing. That kind of behaviour would be too at odds with your trademark ice-princess routine, but you will have to stop flinching every time I touch you. And while the odd adoring look would probably be too much for your acting abilities to cope with maybe you could practise smiling at me every now and then.’
Amanda-Jayne, deciding it was better to let him think she was resigned to her fate, heaved a sigh. ‘Okay, I guess you’re right. It probably is best if no one knows the truth except us. However, get this straight, Reb Browne… Marriage certificate or not, I will not be sleeping with you. This marriage will be real only in front of others so if you don’t have two bedrooms in your apartment you’d better like sleeping on the sofa.’
‘The apartment has two bedrooms.’
‘Good.’
‘Fine. Well, now that’s settled, get out of the car so—’
‘I told you, I am not getting on that bike!’
‘And I told you,’ he said easily, snatching the keys from the ignition, ‘that I’m not letting you drive when you’re feeling crook. So shift your cute butt into the passenger seat while I go see the mechanic about leaving the bike here for a day or two.’
Before Amanda-Jayne could utter a word, he pocketed the keys and swaggered off to where two overall-clad men were bent over the engine of a car.
‘You lying, conniving rat! You told me there were two bedrooms!’
‘There are two bedrooms. Mine and Savvy’s.’
‘Precisely! And you know as well as I do she’s not going to let me share hers.’
‘Lucky for you I will, huh?’
Amanda-Jayne eyed the turn-of-the-century oak double bed with disdain. ‘It was one thing not to mention your cousin lived with you, Reb, but if you think you can trick me into sleeping with you you’re in for a rude sho—’ She gasped as Reb snaked out an arm and hauled her against him.
‘For God’s sake, keep your voice down,’ he said. ‘You agreed to act like we’re an ordinary engaged couple.’
‘And you agreed we’d have separate bedrooms!’
‘No, I didn’t. You said if the apartment didn’t have two bedrooms I’d be sleeping on the couch. Well, it does have two bedrooms and I’m not sleeping anywhere but in my bed.’
‘You deliberately misled me and you know it.’
‘So sue me! Geez, A.J., I’m not slow on the uptake, you know… You aren’t interested in re-creating the hot sex that got us into this situation in the first place—fine! I’ve got the message loud and clear.’
Amanda-Jayne felt herself blush, but wasn’t sure if it was because he was so direct or so close. She pressed her hands against him to prise some distance between them, but the sensation of his firm, hard chest and beating heart beneath the fabric of his shirt filled her with an indecisive confusion that had her tilting her head back to look at him rather than breaking the bond of the arm around her waist.
As his dark eyes scanned her face, she felt as if all the air and everything else in the room had been vacuumed out and they were the only two physical objects remaining. She could hear nothing but the sound of her own pulse, feel nothing but the rhythm of his heart beneath her fingers. And smell nothing but the inciting scent of his maleness.
‘I’ve never had to force myself on a woman and I’m not going to start now. And since you’re pregnant and presumably not stupid enough to drink alcohol…’
‘Of course not.’
‘Then we shouldn’t have a problem sharing a queen-size bed, should we?’
‘We won’t?’ Her croaky voice drew his lips into a mouth-watering smile even as it snapped her from her sensual lethargy. ‘And how exactly did you arrive at that conclusion?’
‘Well, according to you, the only reason you were so willing to sleep with me before was because you were drunk. So, assuming you don’t succumb to the evils of drink again, there should be no reason you shouldn’t be as sexually averse to me as you are to Lethal. Should there?’
Alone the sexual challenge behind his words would have been sufficient impetus for her to shove free of him, but the mention of his dog at least gave her a less personal point of objection.
‘Fine, we’ll share the bed!’ she snapped. ‘But you keep that dog away from me.’
A wry smile lit his features. ‘I guess I should be flattered that you prefer me to poor old Leth,’ he muttered.
‘That animal is a menace!’ she told him, recalling the way he’d bailed her up against the wall as she’d tried to follow Reb up the stairs from the garage. ‘I mean it, Reb; I don’t want him anywhere near me.’ She wished she could have kept the hint of panic from her voice, but she couldn’t. She’d been utterly immobilised with fear by the dog’s ferocious deep-throated growl until Reb had dropped her luggage and bounded back down the stairs to step between them. Though it had taken only one firm command from him to calm the dog and send him docilely on his way, Amanda-Jayne hadn’t been that easily appeased.
While there was no way Reb could have known that as a teenager she’d seen her best friend savaged by a stray and been terrified of all but the smallest of dogs ever since, unlike others who’d witnessed her fear on similar occasions he hadn’t laughed or accused her of being juvenile. Yet, in hindsight, even more surprising than his reaction to her was hers to him… She hadn’t expected the strength of his arm closing around her to be quite so comforting, nor to have been so affected by his soothing words and the patience he’d displayed as he’d held her until her trembling subsided. Still, even just the thought of the huge hound unleashed downstairs made her uneasy.
‘He won’t hurt you, A.J.,’ he reassured her, once more surprising her with his gentle tone. ‘Savvy’s had him since he was a puppy and I promise you his bark really is worse than his bite.’
‘Yes, well, if it’s all the same to you, I’d rather not have the experience of discovering that first-hand.’
‘Okay, then, I’ll tell Savvy he’s not allowed to come upstairs again u
ntil you get used to him. Fair enough?’
With a curt nod she turned away from eye contact that made her feel too exposed, to survey the room.
This bedroom, like the apartment, was larger than she’d expected if much smaller than what she was used to. The wardrobe and chest of drawers adorned by a portable TV matched the bed’s Federation style, but the two tartan armchairs situated at either side of the large window, while typical of the over-stuffed character of the forties and fifties, were clearly reproductions. On one wall hung a framed two-foot-by-four-foot photograph of a guy in red and black racing leathers on a huge bike, leaning so far to one side his knee appeared to be skimming the ground; the photographer must have snapped it a split second before the rider tipped the whole thing over.
With a colour theme of navy, dark green and white the room was as starkly masculine as Reb Browne, and Amanda-Jayne doubted she’d have been comfortable staying in it even if she hadn’t had to share it and a bed with him. Playing the optimist as best she could, she reminded herself that, with luck, the longest she’d have to endure this ordeal would be a week. Although she suspected a week of Reb’s surly, in-your-face cousin Savannah would undoubtedly equate to a lifetime. Honestly, the girl had all the social graces of a used teabag and less appeal!
What she had found appealing, however, was the horrified look on the face of Patricia’s friend Eliza Montgomery when Amanda-Jayne had waved at her as she and Reb sped by the woman’s house on their way here. No doubt about it, she thought with a smile, the local gossip mill would be working overtime by now… She’d give it three days tops before Patricia started phoning to beg and plead with her to ‘come to her senses.’
And Amanda-Jayne would come to her senses, the instant her stepmother came good with the trust fund. Until then all she had to do was avoid Reb’s obnoxious dog, keep out of the way of his even more obnoxious cousin and, since she clearly wasn’t going to be able to avoid Reb himself, ignore the fact her traitorous hormones kept trying to conjure up memories of a night that had never happened!
‘If you’re up to it…’ Reb’s voice from behind startled her from her thoughts ‘…now would be a good time to come and meet the rest of the crew…’