A Taxing Affair

by Victoria Gordon

  There was a note attached to the bulky manuscript that emerged from the Jiffy bag.

  I wanted to be sure you’d read this, and couldn’t wait a year or more for it to be published first. So I’m sending it in manuscript form — at great cost for the photocopying of same. My sister the former matchmaker has strict instructions to watch you read it, and if you refuse she is to knock you down, sit on you, and read it aloud, if necessary. I suggest you take the easy way out.

  Vashti snarled aloud and glared over to where Alana was peeping over the top of the paperback, so alert that she almost managed to duck her head without Vashti catching her at it.

  It was an incident that occurred and recurred with ludicrous regularity over the next hour and a half as Vashti forced her way through the manuscript, at first skimming quickly, then making heavier work of it as she became lost — at least occasionally — in the story itself.

  Phelan Keene’s tax book. His tax romance. And yes, the heroine was blonde, small, with grey eyes ... and glasses. And a tiny mole where the author shouldn’t have known it was! Her involuntary gasp at that disclosure brought, she was sure, a muffled giggle from behind the paperback, but her stern glance revealed no eyes peeping over the top.

  And yes, the owner of those eyes was in the book, too, fat ankles and all. That brought a chuckle from Vashti herself, but she must have stifled it well because once again she failed to catch Alana out.

  And, Vashti had to admit, there wasn’t one thing about the tax office or its workings that Phelan couldn’t have found out just by picking up a phone and asking. Much less was there anything he might have gained through using her.

  The romance part, however, was something else again. As was the entire interplay between hero and heroine. All of that, she recognised. Every word, every nuance, every touch, every kiss, every emotion. Even the kitchen knife.

  As she read, she felt at first as if her entire relationship with Phelan had been conducted in a glasshouse, or in front of a movie camera, to be exhibited to the world. Her stomach churned; she had to swallow several times to keep from being physically sick. But gradually she realised that his emotions, too, were just as revealed, just as obvious. To everybody, it seemed, but her!

  And his heroine, to her astonishment, emerged as a wonderfully well-rounded person — a private person, to be sure, but a true heroine, who faced problems and conquered them, who was anything but the sex-object doormats he’d portrayed in his other books.

  When she finally reached the denouement, the part where hero and heroine resolved their differences and figuratively rode off into the sunset together, she had to stop. She was certain for a long, eyes-closed moment that she couldn’t go on. Didn’t dare.

  Forgotten were her divided feelings at finding it all there, all written down for her to review — the love-making, the Japanese bridge, the roast lamb dinner! — all there to be forced upon her, to make her see his side of it, to see aspects of her own side of it that she hadn’t been aware of.

  She wanted to know how it ended, but didn’t dare keep reading. Stop at the end of chapter eight. Stop and don’t ever dare read further, she vowed. It will surely destroy you, destroy everything!

  Slyly glancing up to make sure Alana was still in hiding behind the book, Vashti turned over the last chapter unread, and gathered the manuscript together with what she hoped would give an appearance of having finished it. Then she grabbed up a piece of scrap paper and scrawled a receipt, dashing off the words in an almost unreadable flurry of chicken-tracks.

  ‘You can come out now,’ she said, knowing her voice was furry, trembling. Like her own body. ‘I’m done and I haven’t exploded yet.’

  "Violet eyes, moist with concern, peered over the top of the book. Then a face emerged, but there was no smile, only a rather grimly determined stare. Alana got up and moved cautiously over to exchange the paperback for the receipt, then walked with equal caution over to the door.

  ‘You didn’t finish,’ she called back over her shoulder. ‘You didn’t read the final chapter.’

  Vashti couldn’t lie, but couldn’t admit it, either. Alana didn’t even wait for a reply.

  ‘I know because you’re still here, dummy!’ she cried. ‘Damn it, Vashti. He loves you. L.O.V.E.S. What do you want him to do — grovel?’

  She swung open the office door and stepped out, then back, holding the door open as she scowled fiercely. ‘If we weren’t friends I wouldn’t say this,’ she snarled. ‘But sometimes you are just too … strong and too damned stupid for your own good.’ And she slammed the door behind her.

  Vashti hardly noticed. She sat there, staring into space, into memory and the past and the future at the same time, for the longest time. Then she turned over the manuscript and started again from the beginning, not skimming this time but reading each and every word, right through to the end of chapter eight, and then, before she could talk herself out of it, on into the unknown.

  On to where he ripped up the cheque for his gambling winnings, took the heroine in his arms, and declared, ‘The best things in life aren’t free — they’re shared. I love you, and if I can’t share my life with you it isn’t hardly worth bothering with. I love you, and I’ll wait forever if I have to.’

  Ross Chandler looked up in surprise when she knocked on his door and strode into the office without waiting for his bark of admittance.

  ‘I’m taking the rest of the day off,’ she declared. ‘I’ll make it up some time later.’

  She didn’t wait for his answer either. The taxi she’d called would be downstairs by now.

  Twenty minutes later she was on the road in her own car, crossing the Bridgewater causeway, and turning up the Boyer Road with all her senses alert; this was no time to be taking risks. Not now.

  She held to the speed limit, only too aware it was far slower than the screaming pace in her heart and mind. New Norfolk, Hamilton, Ouse, all passed in a haze as she concentrated only on the ribbon of highway in front of her. What she passed was irrelevant; her destination was the only thing of importance now.

  The tiny church was in sunshine, this day, crouched snugly beneath its sentry pines in a quiet that held its own sound. He rose from the stoop as she skidded to a halt in the gravel turnaround, was smiling, arms outstretched to gather her in as she flew through the gate.

  His auburn hair blazed in the sunshine, and his eyes held a special glow of their own, a glow that not even sunshine could produce, because it came from within.

  Vashti stepped from her car, feeling an instant’s hesitation, a flicker of caution that she flung from her like an intruding insect. Irrelevant!

  She had her priorities right now, and she knew it as she marched straight into arms that closed round her slender waist, lifting her to meet his smiling lips.

  ‘If you tore up that cheque, I’ll kill you,’ she cried when he finally released her mouth, when her heart had slowed down enough to allow speech of any kind. ‘I’m going to have to borrow from it to pay Alana for the tickets.’

  ‘What tickets?’ he asked after kissing her again so thoroughly that she was sure he hadn’t heard.

  ‘The theatre tickets, the night ... you know!’

  ‘Ah ... that night.’ And his grin was infectious. ‘The night of the second-biggest gambling win of my life. You don’t really think I’d have ripped up that cheque? Not really?’

  ‘What do you mean, second-biggest win?’ she countered, visibly sighing with relief not because she cared about the money — it was irrelevant despite the amount — but because she didn’t, couldn’t accept herself as the cause of throwing that much away, like in the book. Damned book, wonderful, wonderful book! The best book, the most important book she would ever read, Vashti knew. And was glad of it.

  Phelan’s first answer was silent, his mouth capturing hers in a reply that was none the less clear.

  Vashti could only accept, her nostrils filled with the scent of him, his touch like lightning wherever his fingers traced intrica
te, intimate designs along her body. She reached up to touch his face, to run her fingers along the strong column of his neck, into the thatch of hair at his nape. Her toes still touched the ground, although only just, but that was enough; elsewhere their bodies seemed to meld into one, each part fitting against the other in a splendid blend of rightness.

  ‘I love you, you know?’ was his second reply. ‘But I’d never make it as a writer if I couldn’t tell the difference between fiction and real life.

  ‘Today was the biggest gamble, by far. And this is the biggest win.’ His fingers crept along her spine, playing an ancient tune that sent music right to her soul.

  ‘For both of us,’ she sighed, trying to move closer into his arms and knowing it wasn’t possible here. Having to let go of him, to have him let go of her, so they could get into separate vehicles just to remedy that situation was like walking into winter. Thankfully, it was short-lived.

  They were considerably closer in the bed at the ancient farmhouse when he finished kissing her for the thousandth time and said, ‘I may give up gambling now. I think I’ve found a much more pleasant pastime.’

  ‘Good,’ she said. ‘This is much healthier for you.’ And her exploring fingers revealed just how much healthier. Phelan seemed suitably impressed.

  ‘Just as addictive. Maybe more,’ he sighed as she reached a particularly sensitive spot.

  "I should hope so.’

  The conversation lapsed for a time, at least in verbal terms, but eventually Phelan slowed the pace sufficiently to allow him breath to speak.

  ‘You can’t pay Alana for those tickets, by the way. Did she really ask you to?’

  ‘Sort of,’ Vashti replied, her mind barely on the conversation, far too engrossed in what his hands were doing while he spoke. ‘Why can’t I pay her?’

  ‘Because you have to pay me. I’m the one who bought them; she shouldn’t benefit just because I didn’t ask you, didn’t think you’d go. So I gave them to her — gave — and only agreed to go myself when she rang at the last minute and said she couldn’t find anybody to go with and didn’t want to go alone. All trickery, and now she expects to be paid, the devious little bitch. I’ll put her in a book — that’ll fix her!’

  ‘Just don’t forget the fat ankles,’ Vashti sighed, then gave herself to the magic of his fingers. Literally.

  #

  About the Author

  Victoria Gordon is the pseudonym and muse for Canadian/Australian author

  Gordon Aalborg’s more than twenty contemporary romances.

  As himself, he is the author of the western romance The Horse Tamer’s Challenge (2009) and the Tasmanian-oriented suspense thrillers The Specialist (2004)and Dining with Devils (2009)

  as well as the Australian feral cat survival epic Cat Tracks.

  Born in Canada, Aalborg spent half his life in Australia, mostly in Tasmania, and now lives

  on Vancouver Island, in Canada, with his wife, the mystery and romance author Denise Dietz.

  More on www.gordonaalborg.com and www.victoriagordonromance.com

  THE BOOKS

  As Victoria Gordon

  Wolf in Tiger’s Stripes (2010)

  Finding Bess (2004)

  Beguiled and Bedazzled (1996)

  An Irresistible Flirtation (1995)

  A Magical Affair (1994)

  Gift-Wrapped (1993)

  A Taxing Affair (1993)

  Love Thy Neighbour (1990)

  Arafura Pirate (1989)

  Forest Fever (1986)

  Cyclone Season (1985)

  Age of Consent (1985)

  Bushranger's Mountain (1985)

  Battle of Wills (1982)

  Dinner At Wyatt's (1982)

  Blind Man's Buff (1982)

  Stag At Bay (1982)

  Dream House (1981)

  Always The Boss (1981)

  The Everywhere Man (1981)

  Wolf At The Door (1981)

  The Sugar Dragon (1980)

  as Gordon Aalborg

  Cat Tracks (Hyland House: Melbourne: 1981)

  (Delphi Books: U.S. edition: 2002)

  The Specialist (Five Star Mysteries: 2004)

  Dining with Devils (Five Star Mysteries: 2009)

  The Horse Tamer’s Challenge (Five Star Expressions: 2009)