She lay in bed that night, wide awake and with very mixed feelings as she listened to the mournful cries of the curlews on the golf course.
What had seemed so clear and simple to her in the surf at Mooloolaba was now assuming different proportions.
The polite spiels she got from a secretary saying he was currently unavailable, but she’d be happy to take a message although she had no idea if, or when, Mr McKinnon would return it, were an embarrassment to her. Sitting outside his headquarters was the same—both were entirely out of character and she was finding it hard to live with the almost constant churning of her stomach and nervous tension involved.
Was she doing the right thing? It was all very well to tell herself that she didn’t deserve to be brushed off like this, but if Jack McKinnon didn’t want to be tracked down, should she respect his wishes?
Why, though? she asked herself passionately. Why was she such a persona non grata for him? Had she completely misread their, if nothing else, spirit of camaraderie in those last hours in the shed?
I guess, she thought forlornly, I really want an explanation from him, but that could be as embarrassing, if not to say as demoralizing, as what I’m going through now.
She turned over and punched her pillow, but still sleep didn’t come. She got up and made herself a cup of tea. As she drank it and dawn started to rim the horizon it came to her that she would let it all drop. For one thing, she had no idea how to proceed now. For another, she wasn’t feeling completely happy with herself.
She stared at the rim of light on the horizon and blinked away a sudden tear but when she went back to bed she slept until nine o’clock in the morning.
And it was a relief, although a sad one, the next morning, to have made the decision to stop her search.
Then her aunt Elena came to call, as she did fairly regularly. Maggie invited her in and since it was that time of day asked her to stay to lunch—Elena was always good company.
She prepared open smoked salmon sandwiches drizzled with lemon juice and dusted with cracked pepper and she opened a bottle of chilled chardonnay to add to her lunch.
‘How nice!’ Elena approved.
‘Let’s sit outside,’ Maggie suggested.
When they were comfortably installed on her terrace with a sail umbrella protecting them from the sun, they chatted about this and that until Elena said out of the blue, ‘Your mother mentioned a while back that you’d met Jack McKinnon.’
Maggie went still and swallowed. ‘What did she say?’
‘That he was rather rude to you, so I’m thinking of taking him off my list of eligible bachelors.’
Maggie relaxed. Not that she had any qualms about Elena broadcasting the shed debacle, but she couldn’t help feeling that the fewer people to know about it, the better. ‘Oh, you don’t have to do that on my behalf,’ she said.
Elena settled herself more comfortably and sipped her wine. ‘It’s not only that, he’s extremely elusive.’
Maggie eyed her humorously. ‘That must be irritating for you.’
Elena grimaced. ‘I’ve got some background on him. It’s his love life that’s the problem.’
Maggie hesitated, then she couldn’t help herself. ‘Background?’
Elena elucidated.
Jack McKinnon had been adopted as a baby by a loving but very average family. From an early age he’d exhibited above-average intelligence; he’d won scholarships to private schools and university, where he’d studied civil engineering and marine design.
Despite something of a mania for protecting his privacy, he appeared to be very normal considering his difficult start in life. He certainly wasn’t ostentatious.. no particularly fancy homes, no Lear Jets, et cetera.
‘As for the women in his life—’ Elena sighed ‘—he doesn’t flaunt them and they don’t talk once it’s over.’
‘What about…’ Maggie thought briefly ‘… Lia Montalba and Bridget Pearson?’
‘Both models, both Melbourne girls.’ Elena frowned. ‘I wouldn’t class either of them as one of ‘‘his women’’. They were hired to advertise his catamarans. There’s a big promotion coming out shortly, but both girls are back in Melbourne now.’
‘Is there anyone at the moment?’ Once again Maggie couldn’t help herself.
‘Not as far as I know. He does,’ Elena said thoughtfully, ‘have a hideaway. Maybe that’s where he conducts his affairs.’ She shrugged.
Maggie frowned. ‘How do you know that?’
Elena tapped her nose. ‘My sources are always classified, but he has a holiday home at Cape Gloucester—keep that to yourself please, Maggie! So, you reckon I should leave him on my list?’
‘I…’ Maggie paused as she tried to think straight. ‘It doesn’t matter one way or the other to me. Where… where is Cape Gloucester?’
‘North Queensland. Up in the tropics near Bowen. I believe you have to drive through a cattle station to get to it, that’s all I know.’
* * *
After Elena left, Maggie sat for a long time staring at the lengthening shadows on the golf course.
Was this fate? she wondered.
Everything she wanted to know including, perhaps, Jack’s whereabouts, literally dropped into her lap?
Of course, she cautioned herself, he could also be in Sydney, New York or Kathmandu, but if he was at Cape Gloucester and she went up there, might that be the only way she would ever get the explanation she so badly wanted?
Working on the theory that what her mother didn’t know about she couldn’t worry about, Maggie left her a vague message and she packed her bags again and drove north. At least, she thought as she set off, she would be off the local scene, should a certain P. I. and journalist be looking for the mystery girl found in a shed in compromising circumstances with Jack McKinnon.
Or what might have looked like compromising circumstances, she reminded herself.
The Gloucester passage flowed between the mainland and Gloucester Island, a regal green island with several peaks. The passage, at the northern end of the Whitsunday Islands, was the gateway to Bowen and Edgecumbe Bay. It was a narrow strip of water and you could visualize the tide flowing swiftly through it. There were several sand banks and patches of reef guarded by markers.
It was remote and beautiful and, although you did have to drive through a cattle station to get to it, this was an improvement upon, until recent times, only being able to approach by sea.
There were two small beach resorts nestled into the tree-lined shores of the mainland, one overlooking Gloucester Island and Passage Islet, one overlooking Edgecumbe Bay. Maggie chose the one overlooking Gloucester Island; there was something about the island that intrigued her.
Her accommodation in a cabin was spacious and spotless and it was right on the beach. There was a coconut palm outside her veranda, there were casuarinas and poincianas, some laced with bougainvillea. Many of the trees had orchids growing from their bark; many of them were rather exotic natives like pandanus palms and Burdekin plums.
The coarse, dark crystals of the beach reminded Maggie of brown sugar, but the water lapping the beach was calm, crystal-clear and immensely inviting, especially at high tide. She spent an hour on her first evening sitting on the beach, watching fascinated as ripple after little silvery ripple raced along, tiny imitations of waves breaking on the beach.
Then she caught her breath in amazement as two strange ducks skimmed the water’s edge—ducks that looked as if they were wearing leather yokes when in fact it was a strip of dark feathers on their creamy necks and chests. Burdekin Ducks, she was told, when she enquired.
There was only one other couple at the resort and she ate dinner with them before using a long drive as an excuse for an early night. In fact it was nervous tension making her yawn, she thought as she strolled back to her cabin. Had she done the right thing? Was he even here in his beach house tucked away amongst the trees beyond the resort? Why hadn’t she gone to find out straight away?
&nbs
p; ‘I’ll be better in the morning,’ she told herself. ‘More composed. Less conscious of the fact that this is a man I’d pegged for the kind women rode off with into the sunset because they couldn’t help themselves—and what’s going to make me any different?’
She shook her head and went to bed.
The sun came up at six-fifteen. Maggie was walking along the beach at the time.
Gloucester Island was dark with its southern outline illuminated in gold; trees, beach and rocks were dark shapes pasted on a gold background as the sun hovered below the horizon. Then it emerged and light, landscape and seascape fell into place and fled away from her—and the tall figure walking along the beach towards her carrying a fishing rod was unmistakably Jack McKinnon.
Maggie took a great gulp of air into her lungs and forced herself to walk forward steadily, although he stopped abruptly.
When she was up to him she held out her hand. ‘Dr Livingstone, I presume?’
He didn’t reciprocate.
‘OK, not funny—’ Maggie dropped her hand ‘—but I nearly didn’t find you, which brought to mind the Livingstone/Stanley connection, I guess. Are you not going to say anything?’
He took in her bare legs and feet, her white shorts, her candy-striped top and her pony-tail, and spoke at last. ‘How did you find me?’
‘That’s classified. But if you were to offer me a cup of coffee, say, I’ll tell you why I went to all the trouble I did.’
‘Are you staying here?’ He indicated the resort down the beach.
‘Yep, although I’ve told no one why. Your secret is safe with me, Mr McKinnon.’
‘Maggie,’ he said roughly, then seemed to change tack. ‘All right, since you’ve come this far the least I can do is a cup of coffee, I guess. Follow me.’
His house was only a five-minute walk away and from the beach you’d hardly know it was there. It was wooden, weathered to a silvery grey, two- storeyed, surrounded by trees and covered with creepers. A smart, fast-looking yacht under a tarpaulin was drawn up the beach on rails.
She followed him up the outside steps to the second storey and gasped at the view from his top veranda. Not only the Gloucester Passage lay before her, but also Edgecumbe Bay towards the mainland and Bowen, with its rim of mountains tinged with pink and soft blues as the sun got higher.
‘You sure know how to pick a spot,’ she said with genuine admiration. ‘This is so beautiful.’
‘It also used to be a lot further from the madding crowd before the road was opened,’ he said.
‘Including me?’ She swung round to face him. ‘What exactly is so maddening about me?’ she asked tautly. ‘Correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought a lot of our differences and misapprehensions about each other got sorted when we were trying to get out of the shed?’
He put the fishing line down and checked that the colourful lure with its three-pronged hook was tucked into a roundel on the rod out of harm’s way. ‘There are other differences you don’t even know about, Maggie.’
He straightened and pushed his fingers through his hair. He wore khaki shorts and an old football Guernsey with the sleeves cut off above the elbows. He was brown, as if he’d spent quite a bit of time in the sun, and his hair was streaked lighter by it, and was longer, as if he’d forgotten to get it cut.
‘If there are, why can’t I know about them?’ she countered. ‘Believe me, I am not the spoilt little rich girl you mistake me for and I don’t take kindly to being treated as such.’
His lips twisted and he folded his arms. ‘So you don’t think this exercise has labels stuck all over it shouting ‘‘Maggie Trent has to get her own way’’?’
Her nostrils flared. ‘No. If anything it shouts, ‘‘Maggie Trent deserves better’’.’
‘Better,’ he repeated.
‘Yes, better. As in—why on earth can’t we get to know each other better? For example, I wouldn’t dream of judging you on your father.’ She stopped and bit her lip, then soldiered on, ‘You know what I mean!’
‘Men,’ he said slowly, ‘and their grievances don’t always work that way.’
‘Then perhaps you should take more notice of women,’ Maggie suggested tartly. ‘Come to that, the whole world might be a better place if people did.’
A reluctant smile chased across his mouth and he seemed about to say something, but he merely shrugged and walked inside.
Maggie hesitated, then she shrugged herself, and followed him.
* * *
His house was simple and open plan, but there was nothing rough and ready about it.
The floors were gleaming polished wood throughout. There was a low double bed covered with a faux mink throw and several European pillows covered in dusky pink linen. One bedside table was stacked with books, the other bore a beautiful beaten-copper lamp.
Two corner leather couches sat about a vast wooden coffee-table bearing more books and some model ships, one in a bottle. A big cabinet housed a television, stereo and DVD player. Brown wooden and raffia blade fans were suspended from the ceiling and louvre blinds protected the windows.
The kitchen was all wood and chrome and state- of-the-art with black marble bench tops. There were several cane baskets with flourishing indoor plants dotted about and on the wall facing the front door there was a huge, lovely painting of two gaudy elephants in soft greens, matt gold and dusky pink.
‘Yes!’ Maggie stared at it enchanted. ‘The perfect touch.’
‘Thank you.’ He pulled a plunger coffee-pot out of a cupboard and switched on the kettle.
She watched him assemble ground coffee, mugs, sugar crystals and milk. ‘Where did you get it?’
‘What?’
‘The painting?’
He glanced over his shoulder. ‘Thailand.’
Maggie pulled a stool out from the breakfast bar and perched herself on it. ‘Is there anything I can say to make this easier?’
‘You don’t appear to be having much difficulty as it is.’ He spooned coffee grounds into the plunger and poured boiling water over them.
Maggie inhaled luxuriously. ‘Believe me, never having done this before, I’m a basket case inside,’ she said, however.
He stopped what he was doing and regarded her expressionlessly. ‘Done what?’
She laced her fingers together on the counter. ‘Well, changed my stance on a man rather drastically to begin with. Not,’ she assured him, ‘that I had much to do with that. It just—happened. Unfortunately there’s a whole lot of baggage I carry that makes it—’
‘You’re talking about locking me in a shed first of all, then cornering me here?’ he suggested dryly.
A hot sensation behind her eyes alerted Maggie to the fact that it would be quite easy to burst into tears of frustration—to her absolute mortification should she allow it to happen. It was obviously going to be much harder than she’d anticipated to get through to Jack McKinnon.
‘It’s not that I’m only after your body, nor do I have any agenda to do with forcing you round to my way of thinking on housing estates,’ she said quietly.
He smiled with so much irony, she flinched. ‘That’s just as well,’ he commented, and poured a mug of coffee and pushed it towards her. ‘Because while your body is perfectly delightful, and has even deprived me of my sleep on the odd occasion, I don’t intend to do anything about it.’
Maggie’s eyes nearly fell out on stalks. ‘Say that again!’
He hooked a stool towards him with his foot and sat down on the other side of the counter from her. ‘You heard.’
‘I may have heard, but it doesn’t make sense.’
‘No?’ He shrugged and sipped his coffee. ‘I thought if I removed the thorn from your flesh of me not appearing to return your physical interest, you might feel better about things. You might even go away.’
Maggie stared at him as he put his mug down. Then she stood up on a rung of her stool and slapped his face.
His coffee-mug overturned as he moved abruptly and a
brown puddle stretched between them. Then the mug rolled off the counter in slow motion and smashed on the floor. It was the only sound although the thwack of her palm connecting with his cheekbone seemed to linger on the air.
There was something utterly terrifying in the way his narrowed grey gaze captured hers as she sank back onto the stool; it was still and menacing and full of unconcealed contempt. It was also as impossible to tear her gaze away as it had been the day they’d first laid eyes on each other, until he moved again and snaked out a hand to capture her wrist.
Maggie panicked then. She tore her wrist away and slipped off the stool all set to run away as fast as she could. Two things impeded her: she slipped on the wet floor and yelped in pain. By the time she’d righted herself and realized she’d got a sliver of china in her foot, he’d come round the breakfast bar, grabbed her by the waist and lifted her into his arms.
Forgetting everything but the awful insult she’d received, she launched into speech. ‘Yes, yes, yes!’ she said, her green eyes blazing. ‘Yes, OK, it has been a thorn in my flesh! I went from hating and despising you to liking you and—and—feeling as flat as a tack because all I meant to you was a bunch of flowers, obviously, but there’s a singular difference between what you’re implying and the facts of the matter— what are you doing?’
He strode over to a leather couch and sat down with her in his lap. ‘This.’
Maggie struggled to free herself, but he resisted with ease. ‘Just keep still, Maggie,’ he advised. ‘You can’t go anywhere with a splinter in your foot and I don’t know if you make a habit of slapping men—’
‘I don’t!’ she protested fiercely
‘That explains it, then. You failed to realize it’s just asking for some comeuppance.’ He released her waist and put one arm around her shoulders.
‘Come whatance…?’ she said with a lot less certainty.
His lips twisted into a wry smile as he looked down into her eyes. ‘This, Miss Trent—much pleasanter actually.’ He bent his head and teased her lips apart.
The Millionaire's Virgin (Mills & Boon By Request) Page 23