by Nicola West
'She's my personal assistant, and I don't want any cracks about that either,' Luke told him. 'We're on our way down to see the Albany site and I thought I'd let her see what hotels were like in Australia before I came on the scene.'
'Huh, very funny,' the old man grunted. 'He thinks we're a real slum here,' he confided to Flair. 'But I tell him, that's the way we are and it's the way people seem to like us. Folk don't have to stand on ceremony when they come here for a bit of rest. Crabbing, fishing, bit of beachcombing—that's what our guests like to do, and they don't want nothing posh for that, just a comfortable bed and some good tucker. And that's what we give 'em. I'll admit we don't make a fortune—not like old Luke here—but what'd we do with it if we did? We don't want to live no other way.'
'All right, cut the sob-story,' Luke remarked. 'We've had a long drive and we're ready for a meal as soon as you can get it together. Which rooms are you putting us in?'
'Let's see now,' Lance consulted a chart. 'Couple at the end of the row suit you?' He handed Luke the keys. 'See you a bit later in the restaurant, then.' He smiled at Flair, showing even white teeth. 'Hope you'll be comfortable, Flair—if there's anything you want, just come along and ask. See you later—we'll have a talk then, maybe.'
'They're a great couple, Dougie and Lance,' Luke observed, leading the way to the end of the row and fitting a key in one of the doors. 'But they'll never make anything of this place. Just haven't got the drive. It's never been any different all the years I've known them, and it never will.'
'But that's how they like it,' Flair said indignantly. 'And so do I—it's got an atmosphere all its own. And the people come here for that, I'm sure, just like Dougie said.'
'Well, of course,' said Luke, looking faintly amused. 'I never said anything else, did I?' And he stood back for Flair to go into the room. 'Here's your key. I'll be next door if you want anything. Dinner in about an hour, shall we say?' And before Flair could speak, he had bowed himself gravely out of the room and closed the door.
Flair stood quite still. She wasn't sure what she had. expected—after all, Luke hadn't put foot or finger wrong all day, had been an ideal companion. But now, alone after what must have been a pleasant day for him too—she just hadn't expected him to leave her quite so abruptly.
Of course, he wouldn't stay too long because of Dougie and Lance—though surely if they knew Luke well they knew his reputation with women. Perhaps he wanted to go along and talk with them before dinner. In any case, she had to start accepting that he just wasn't interested in her any more. She had rejected him yesterday—it was hardly likely he would risk another snub like that. Especially with Roxanne Ryan only too eager to co-operate. No— as far as Luke Seager was concerned, Flair was nothing more than an employee now. And wasn't that, after all, what she'd wanted from the start?
She was ready when Luke banged on the door an hour later, wearing a soft aquamarine dress with a cowl neck, its clear colour complementing her smooth bronze hair and matching her sea-green eyes. Luke was casually elegant in dark brown shirt and cream slacks, his hair still damp from the shower. He smiled at her but looked abstracted. Chilled, Flair walked silently beside him to the restaurant.
There she discovered that Dougie and Lance were eating with them. The food, she was told, had been cooked by Dougie in honour of their coming, but was being finished by the regular cook. Dougie, she discovered with some surprise, was an accomplished chef and had worked in some quite large hotels.
'Too much for me, though,' he told her as they began on a delicious dish made of local crab. 'Too much rush and fuss. I got out as soon as I could afford this place. I like a quiet life.' He shot a look at Flair and his face crinkled with mischief. 'Mind you, if I thought I could have a personal assistant like you, I might think again about going for the big time, what do you say, Lance?'
'Suits me,' Lance grinned. He'd been gazing at Flair with open admiration ever since their arrival in the restaurant, and Flair gave him a quick smile, liking his cheerful, open face and direct glance.
'Well, any time you've got a job going,' she said, and Lance took her up quickly.
'Chance'd be a fine thing! But you can bet we'd let you know straight off.'
And Dougie, looking from one to the other with a sudden shrewdness in his bright gaze, added quietly: 'We just might, at that. We just might.' And then, to Luke: 'You'd better watch the way you treat this sheila, Luke. My boy's got his eye on her already, I can see that.'
There was a sudden, tiny silence. Flair looked quickly up at Lance and saw that he had flushed a deep red. Luke's face was still and emotionless, Dougie's unwontedly serious. With a sudden need to get things back to the joking banter of a few minutes earlier, Flair said brightly: 'Well, I can't come to you yet, I'm afraid—I have to give Luke a month's , written notice to leave. And I don't happen to have brought a pen with me!'
The tension eased and the evening continued with a good deal of laughter. But as it grew later, Flair found herself growing increasingly aware of Luke's eyes fixed on her and Lance as they sat, a little apart from the other two, talking quietly.
An awareness that went with her as Lance walked her back to her room, slipping a friendly arm round her shoulders as he did so. And that she felt with some force as he gave her a tentative goodnight kiss and she looked past him to see Luke standing at the restaurant door and gazing into the darkness.
Whether he could actually see them or not, she wasn't sure. But—just in case—s she slipped her arms around Lance's neck and responded with an enthusiasm that surprised them both.
CHAPTER SIX
Flair breakfasted alone next morning, making coffee and pouring milk over the small pack of cereal provided in the room. She ate by the window, looking out over the small beach where already people were beginning the day's activities, preparing for crabbing or fishing expeditions or just setting up deck chairs. For Australia it was still only spring, though to Flair it was pleasantly warm and summery, but she guessed that with such a climate there were always a few people taking advantage of the beaches.
As she finished breakfast and checked to see that she'd packed everything, she noticed Lance approaching the chalet, tall and brown in clean white shirt and shorts, and went to the door to meet him.
'Good morning—isn't it lovely?' She smiled at him, thinking again what a pleasant young man he was. 'I was just thinking of a walk along the beach— I think there's about half an hour before Luke wants to leave.'
'That was my idea, too,' he answered, and they both laughed, then set off towards the sea, talking easily and naturally like old friends. It was a pity she couldn't fall in love with someone like Lance, Flair thought wistfully. Someone easygoing, kind-hearted and unfussy. Life could be very pleasant with such a man.
When they returned, she found Luke already packing their bags into the car. He glanced up and gave her a brief nod before continuing his conversation with Dougie. Her heart sank. Things had been so easy, so friendly yesterday. Now it seemed that they were back to the strained silences and abrasiveness -of the day before. And why? Just because she'd talked with Lance—kissed him goodnight— walked with him on the beach? Just why should Luke Seager object to that?
'Now, don't forget, Flair,' said Dougie as she took her leave of him, 'you come back here any time you like. We might not be up to much, but we know how to make people feel welcome, ain't that right, Lance?'
'Too right,' Lance nodded, and he took Flair's hand shyly. 'You come back as soon as you can.'
'I will, I promise.' Flair hesitated, then reached up and gave him a kiss. 'Maybe I'll bring Dad when we have our holiday. It would do him good to be here.'
Luke got into the estate wagon and reached over to open Flair's door. She got in beside him and Lance closed it. The car accelerated smoothly away.
'That was nice,' said Flair after a moment's silence. 'I enjoyed meeting Dougie and Lance.'
'And especially Lance,' Luke commented.
'Well, why not? He
's about my own age, he's pleasant and friendly—why shouldn't I enjoy meeting him?' She glanced at Luke and noted the stiff line of his face, the tension in his jaw. 'Why should it bother you, anyway? Do you think I'm going to seduce him?'
'How should I know what you're going to do?' he demanded savagely. 'You open those big green eyes of yours, flutter your eyelashes a bit and what's a man to do—any man? You're not just dynamite, Flair, you're atomic, or maybe you hadn't realised that. That's what you'd say, anyway—with your sweet-little-innocent act. Your come-on glances and sighs, your teasing and drawing back. I told you, you'll do it once too often.'
'I don't --' Flair began, but he went on as if she hadn't spoken.
'You tried it on me first, thinking you'd be clever and show me I wasn't the Casanova you'd been told I was. Then when things started to get out of hand, you got scared. Now you're doing it to young Lance, thinking he'll be easier game, no doubt. String him along, tease him a bit—a glance here, a kiss there, a bit of handholding and cuddling under the stars. And when you've got him so that he doesn't know what to do, you'll be off, won't you, off and away, with another broken heart to dangle from your belt.'
'No!' To her dismay, Flair felt tears spring into her eyes, brimming over before she could stop them. 'No, it's not like that—I've never—you can't think I --'
'Can't I?' Luke-answered grimly. Then, with a glance at her tear-streaked face, he added in tones of disgust, 'And that's all I need—a whingeing woman. My God, why did I ever bring you on this trip?'
'I can't imagine!' she flung back at him. 'Oh, yesterday was fine—you seemed almost human—but today we're back to normal, aren't we? You know what you are? You're a mixture between a bully, a slavedriver and a—a sex-maniac. In fact, that's what you are most. It's all you ever think of, when you're not actually planning how to make more and more money. It's all you seem to think of when I'm around, anyway, and I can't see that it's just me. And you talk about me being a tease—what about you? You don't want me—but you don't want anyone else to have me either. Talk about dog-in-the-manger!'
Luke drove in silence, his mouth tight, for another mile. Then he swung the big estate wagon off the main road and into a dirt road, running between the great trees that Flair only now fully noticed. Still shaking with anger and with fear at what might be going to happen next, she stared in awe at the huge giants that rose all around them. The tingle, trees, she realised dimly; and at the same time noticed that the sky had darkened and it was beginning to rain.
The rain was cascading down by the time Luke stopped the car. It streamed off the trees like a waterfall, gathering in foaming pools around their roots. It formed a curtain in front of the windscreen and lashed at the wide windows. Luke let the car bump slowly down a track between the great trunks until they reached a small glade; he steered the vehicle into the vast hollowed-out bole of the largest tree Flair had ever seen, and in the comparative shelter he stopped and turned to her.
She did not wait for more. With a stifled gasp of pure fear, she wrenched open the door and almost fell from the car in her desperation to escape. Where she would go, or how, she had no idea—her one driving need was to get away-—away from this man who had such a devastating effect on her, whose eyes burned into hers, whose arms were like iron bands yet filled her with longing when they held her. His passion left her weak and trembling; his anger was something she dreaded to the depths of her soul.
'Flair!' he shouted as she ran off through the dense foliage that grew between the huge trunks, her head down against the torrential rain. 'Flair, come back— you little fool ‑'
The rest of his words were lost as Flair found herself tangled in a web of undergrowth, fighting with twining green leaves that showered water over her, drenching her to the skin. Her shirt and jeans clung to her as she twisted and turned, sobbing frantically in her now totally irrational terror. It was as if they were animals, living tentacles that caught and gripped her, entangling her arms and legs, snaking round her waist and neck, tightening their hold as she struggled. They seemed to menace her and, suddenly frighteningly aware of the alien nature of this strange forest with its monster trees and sinister, huge-leaved plants, she began to scream.
'Flair! Stop panicking, for God's sake, and let me get you free of that lot!' Gently, Luke held and disentangled her, unwinding the clinging stems from her limbs and setting her carefully back on the path. 'There, you silly little owl . . .' He caught her to him and Flair, grateful only to be free and unaware of the rain that streamed over them both, buried her face in his shirt and clung to him, feeling with relief his arms around her, holding her safe. 'What on earth did you run like that for?'
'I thought—you were so angry, I thought you—I was scared,' she stammered. 'Oh, Luke --'
He stared down at her. Rain turned his hair a dull gold and flattened it against his head; drops quivered on his brows. Then, as if compelled by some outside power, he bent his head and laid his lips on hers. Flair felt a tingling in her stomach, a tingling that spread rapidly as fire through her body. Then she was responding to him, matching ardour with ardour. She slid her arms up round his neck, holding him close, straining her body against his. It doesn't matter what happens after this, her mind sang, it just doesn't matter. This is all that matters. And she didn't notice the rain that cascaded over them, so that they seemed to be standing beneath a tumbling waterfall; didn't notice that Luke's hand was wet as it slipped over her swelling breast. She only knew that whatever the conditions, wherever they might be, this was her place. And when her mind told her that it couldn't last, she pushed the thought away. If it didn't last, she would at least have had it. At that moment, that was all that mattered.
'Flair,' Luke muttered huskily at last, taking his lips from hers with reluctance. 'Flair, what are we doing to each other? Why do we keep fighting?'
'I—I don't understand,' she whispered, acutely conscious of the thumb that gently stroked her neck, sending shivers down her back.
'I'm not sure I understand myself.' He smiled crookedly. 'I've been fighting this ever since that day at the swimming-pool, Flair, didn't you realise that?' His fingers tightened a little, drawing her closer. 'Do you know what I mean?'
Wordlessly, Flair shook her head. The rain poured over them, its pounding matched by the pounding of her blood.
'I swore I'd never say this to anyone,' Luke said quietly. 'When I saw you there, looking at me with those great green mermaid's eyes, and I knew what you were doing to me, I hated you for it, can you believe that? I didn't want it to happen—but I couldn't help myself. Whenever you came close --' he groaned and buried his face in her breasts, 'I wanted to drive you away. When I sent you back from the island, I spent the rest of that day cursing myself.'
That wasn't Roxanne's version, Flair thought. But the American girl had no place here and the thought faded as quickly as it had come. She looked up into Luke's eyes and her heart turned over at the expression in them.
'What—what is it you want to say?' she murmured, half aware of the answer, half afraid of it, yet knowing that the moment had come for absolute truth between the two of them.
Luke smiled at her, a smile that held a depth of tenderness that she had never dreamed of finding. His fingers traced the lines of her face and then his hand slipped round to the back of her head as if to hold her ready for his kiss. When he spoke, his voice was low.
'Flair, I love you. I can't go on like this, fighting you, driving you away. I want you with me, now and for always, by my side, sharing my life, my ambitions, my bed. Is that what you want too, Flair? Tell me it is, darling—tell me now!'
Flair stared at him, unable to take in what he said. The surging of her blood blotted out all other sound, all other sensation. He loved her. He wanted to marry her. It couldn't be true. . . .
'Flair?' Luke said urgently, and she closed her eyes and nodded.
'I love you, Luke,' she whispered, and sighed with delight as his lips touched hers at last.
&nb
sp; Luke's kiss, at first tender, became more demanding, and happiness flooded Flair's body as she eagerly moulded herself against him, moving herself against his hardness, arching her back so that her breasts thrust against the wall of his chest. It was as if she had forgotten how to breathe, had no need to, as' if Luke's mouth breathed his own vitality into her, filling her with a sensuous desire so powerful it shocked her and left her gasping. As his lips left hers to travel fiercely over her face, nipping gently at her earlobes, burning their path down her neck to her breasts, she let her own hands move over him, unbuttoning his shirt so that she could feel the soft golden hairs, slide her arms right round him and pull him nearer still; and gasped as she discovered that at some point her own shirt had been unfastened, and skin met skin.
'Luke,' she whispered. 'Luke, I love you. . . .'
Slowly, still kissing her as if he couldn't stop, Luke drew away from her. He glanced down at their streaming bodies and smiled. 'We're soaked right through,' he muttered. 'Do you mind?'
Eyes dancing, Flair shook her head. 'I'll need to change, though—get out of these wet clothes. . . .'
'You know what you are?' he muttered, pulling her close again and fiddling with the waistband of her jeans. 'You're a she-devil. Did Lucifer have a wife, do you know?'
In unspoken agreement, they moved back towards the car, pausing to kiss at every other step, their arms closely entwined about each other's waists. Flair's heart hammered as they reached the wagon and Luke opened the door. It was the work of a moment, she knew, to release the back seat, making a wide, comfortable bed. She turned wide eyes on him, imagining the final climax of their love, here in the strange semi-darkness of the tree's hollow trunk with the sound of water foaming at its roots. Shivering with anticipation, she allowed him to slide her wet jeans down her legs; watched, trembling, as he stripped himself, then turned to her with darkened eyes and a grave face.
And then she realised that the rain had stopped, as abruptly as it began. The sunlight broke through and knifed through the shining trees, streaking the forest with shafts of dazzling gold and bringing colour even to the darkness of the hollow tree where they stood. And from somewhere along the track floated the sound of voices—laughing, chattering voices. A sound that grew louder and closer every moment.