Geoff had also been right about the cold. All around, the tussocks and paddocks were white with thick frost, and the nearby river was swathed in a fog-bank so thick that already the competitors were debating if the trial could even start on time.
Which, eventually, it did. All the novice dogs were removed to a blind so the competitors could get a look at the run. There was a bit of last-minute adjustment, and then the first dog was brought forward and the Novice Stake began.
Bess had been warned by Geoff that she would be well down his list of priorities until Lady had been through her turn, and wasn’t the least bit surprised when he passed her on to one of his friends so things could be explained while he concentrated on the work to come.
The novice competition involved single, marked retrieves at distances Bess thought shorter than she and Geoff had been using while training Lady.
The rules were simple. A dog was brought to one position, walked off lead at heel to the next, then was expected to sit and watch as the bird was cast and the handler fired at it with a blank cartridge. Bess already knew the basics of the judging, which involved how well the dog behaved, how well it “marked” the fall of the bird, and how straight and quickly it could dash out…once commanded to do so…pick up the bird, and return to deliver it gently and tenderly to hand.
What she hadn’t expected was just how obstinate and uncontrolled some of the dogs could be. Most played up horrifically when they were supposed to be walking at heel, one “broke to shot” so quickly Bess thought it would be there waiting to catch the bird when it finally landed, and another “went walkabout” and had a fine wander, totally oblivious to its handler’s whistles and screams, before finally coming back without the bird... or the slightest sign of contrition.
Lady did the first run, to Bess’s inexperienced and thoroughly biased eye, as well any other dog. On the next run, which involved having to swim through a narrow channel and get a bird from the other side, the spaniel messed about on the shore, looking…or so it seemed…for an easier way to manage the task. But eventually she retrieved the bird and brought it back without putting it down to shake the water from her drenched fur. Bess knew that would please Geoff, who had mentioned it was one of Lady’s failings.
On the third and final run, things came totally unstuck. Lady fiddled around so much at the water’s edge that she forgot where the bird had landed, and Geoff had to use whistle and hand signals to direct her. Then she put the bird down on the shore to shake, picked it up, returned to do a perfect delivery, and immediately dashed away to the gallery, where she promptly sat on Bess’s feet and refused to move.
“Too little too late, my little sausage,” Geoff was heard to mutter at the wriggling dog, once he’d walked all the way to where Bess stood, biting her lips to keep from laughing along with everyone else. Geoff put Lady’s collar back on, then shook his finger at the dog in mock indignation. “Hot dogs tonight for tea, and you’re going to be the main course, you mark my words.”
“Geoff, I’m really sorry...” Bess began, only to be cut off in mid-apology
“Not your fault, darling. If this bloody little dog hadn’t done that, she’d have found some other way to stuff things around. She’s a Springer spaniel, aren’t you ladykins? And who’d be silly enough to love a Springer spaniel, eh?”
Which gained him nothing except that Lady promptly sat on his feet, her little rump solid there while every other part of her wriggled.
“Listen, Bess,” Geoff said, after they had enjoyed a lunch purchased from the catering tent. “I’ve been roped in to work a bird thrower this afternoon for the All-Age. Do you think you can handle this idiot dog? Actually, just tether her in back of the Cruiser with the door open. She’s tired enough to sleep most of the afternoon. We could have gone home, but I reckoned you’d want to see the really good dogs work, so I said I’d do this. Okay with you?”
Bess was happy enough to agree, and watched Geoff head off with one of the large, complicated catapults over his muscular shoulder. She tethered Lady and took the few moments of total privacy to shed her jeans. She had earlier removed the heavy jacket, then her sweatshirt, as the sun broke through and warmed the dog trial area to the point where it might have been midsummer. Now it was even warmer, so she braided her thick, unruly hair, fished a barrette from her shorts pocket, and clipped the braids to the top of her head. Almost instantly, she felt cooler.
She watched the first run of the All-Age, and part of the second, then went to check on Lady, whose slumber triggered a similar reaction in Bess. Spreading out a car rug from the Cruiser on the ground directly behind it, she bunched up the jacket as a pillow and lay down in the warm sunlight…just to rest her eyes.
And woke up two hours later with the certain, instinctive knowledge that she was in trouble. Sure enough, a touch at her shoulders told the story. She was thoroughly sunburned both front and back, including her legs, and it would get significantly worse before it got better.
“Bloody oath,” she muttered, and almost smiled at her own use of what was, to her, a very specific Australianism... but an appropriate one. She carefully slid her jeans back up over already tingling legs, then slipped on the over-sized sweatshirt, wincing at its weight across her shoulders.
During the drive home, one in which Geoff was more voluble than usual, Bess was, if anything, far less so. There was good reason; she was too busy swallowing down the urge to be very sick to her stomach and praying they might make it home before she was forced to succumb.
She spent so much of the trip with her eyes closed and her jaw clenched that she didn’t notice the increasingly worried look on Geoff’s face. But when they reached home and the Land Cruiser was parked, she couldn’t help but flinch when he took her arm to help her disembark.
“Ah,” he said, and immediately released her. But she was hardly in her room, staring sadly and guiltily into the mirror at the evidence of her stupidity when there was a knock on the door.
“Are you decent?” Geoff asked.
“No, I’m not,” she replied. Wearing panties and camisole, she strode toward the door, planning to lock it.
Too late. The door was pushed open and Geoff stepped in, his gaze roving over her blotchy body. His eyes held no hint of passion, only a weary acceptance of a problem he had obviously anticipated.
“Decent enough,” he said, reaching out to take her gently by one wrist. “Now come along like a good girl. I’ve run you a nice cool bath and you’re going in the tub if I have to throw you in. Understand?”
She did. The look in his eyes was fierce, piratical, somehow angry without hostility. Geoff meant every word, and Bess allowed herself to be led into the main bathroom, where he gently helped her lower herself into the enormous tub he had filled with water that felt like ice.
“It’s nowhere near as cold as it feels to you,” he said grimly. “Bloody hell, Bess, what do you Yanks use for brains? A complexion like yours and you haven’t got the sense God gave a brown dog. I’d best get a doctor over here.”
“Oh, no. Please, no. It’s not as bad as it looks, honestly it isn’t. I’ve done this before, as you can well imagine. And...”
Then she was choking and his fingers were like brands on her skin as he hoisted her dripping from the water, rushed her next door to the loo, and gently but firmly held her fevered forehead…the same forehead that should have been protected by an ugly hat brim. Slumped forward, anchored by Geoff's strong hand against her ribcage, Bess endured further humiliation as her stomach rebelled, again and again and again.
When she had nothing left, she sagged weakly against Geoff, who half-carried her back to the tub. Where she discovered through now-clear eyes that her camisole and panties were superfluous; could in fact have been nonexistent. Not that Geoff appeared to notice. He no sooner had her settled in the water than he asked if she could cope for a few moments, nodded at her acceptance, and stalked out of the bathroom. Moments later she could hear his voice on the phone, and felt even mo
re mortified when she realized he was seeking advice from Ida. He made another call, this one in a harsh, direct, no-nonsense voice, and then he was with her once again.
“Doctor!” And his expression dared her to refuse.
“It isn’t necessary!” Bess didn’t know if she was lying or not, but having voided her stomach she knew the rest was only sunburn, and that it would pass, could be dealt with. What she wanted most just now was for this man to leave her alone and to stop looking at her as if she was some sort of foreign object floating in his tub.
Because there was no sign of interest or lust in Geoff’s eyes. She could see only sadness and compassion. And anger. His gaze traversed her modest breasts and the tuft of auburn between her thighs as if they didn’t exist, had no relevance. But when he looked at the blotchy sunburn on her shoulders and legs, she fancied she could see her pain in his eyes.
A ringing of the doorbell interrupted his survey of her shame, and he excused himself and went to answer it. Excused himself! Bess could hardly credit her own reactions…one moment the man she loved was observing her almost naked body without a hint of interest, and the next he was excusing himself as if they were residents of some luxurious drawing room.
She looked down and saw, for the first time, how such a thing could be possible. What a mess she was in, and her sunburned body was far from the worst element of it. The man she loved! The thought echoed through her mind like a funeral dirge, which in a way it was. She could accept her love for Geoff, but nothing beyond that, she knew, could ever work. She was damaged goods, and he deserved better, even if she dared to assume he might return her feelings. She would never be any good to a man like Geoff. He needed totality, a woman complete in every respect, who could walk through life beside him and hold her head high with the pride he deserved. And she wasn’t that person, could never be.
“I don’t think you’re going to like this much,” he said as he strode back into the room, hands and arms filled with bags of...
Ice! She didn’t, couldn’t, believe it, until the first shards bounced off her reddened skin like sparks as Geoff dumped one bag of ice into the tub. She shrank from it as if the ice was blood in the water.
Geoff ignored her, opened another bag, and dumped. “If you’re too damned stubborn to have the doctor, which you might well get anyway, damn it, then you'll have to live with this. We’re going to cool you down and then, my dear possum, you're going to get carted off to bed and drowned in anti-sunburn cream. And by all that’s holy, if you’re not one helluva lot better come morning, it’s the doctor’s office or the hospital for you and no room for arguments. Now, move back a bit.”
Bess obeyed, all too aware of the way the move thrust her breasts inside her loosened camisole above the scanty protection of the water, but also aware that Geoff wasn’t looking, didn’t notice, or didn’t care.
He left the bathroom and returned with a thermometer, which he waved in front of her face, demanding that she open her mouth and accept it. By now her teeth were chattering so hard she could only shake her head from side to side.
“Just do it, Bess,” he said. “And stop trying to look modest because I can tell you with certainty that if you are blushing, it sure as hell doesn’t show through the sunburn. Besides, if you don’t mind me saying so, you’re about as appetizing as a scalded cat. So just put this damned thermometer under your tongue and stop playing silly buggers, okay?”
He persisted long beyond what Bess thought was reasonable, alternately adding ice to the bath and taking her temperature until he’d reached some compromise he didn’t bother to explain.
“Right. Up and out of there. Time now for the fun part,” he said.
Leading the way to her room, he removed her sopping-wet camisole and stripped back the covers on the bed.
“Face down first, I guess,” he said. “And then, if you’re a very good, very cooperative young lady, I’ll let you put this goop on the front of you all by yourself.”
Again, Bess obeyed. Not that she had much choice. And she was no sooner flat on her face then she could feel Geoff’s fingers slathering some sort of cream along the nape of her neck. Within moments she was almost purring. Geoff had hands that would have put a professional masseur out of business. He slowly and gently worked the ointment into her shoulders, then down the nubbly line of her spine and out to the sides in strokes that felt like feather touches against her inflamed skin. Somehow, the treacherous sun had sneaked inside the loose cotton of her “prim” camisole. And if she hadn't been so vain, she'd have tied the bodice ribbons tighter. Or worn a different, more modest, more functional top.
Geoff worked his way down her back, seeming to take an inordinate amount of time at the tender dimples above her buttocks, his touch somehow managing to work the ointment not just into her skin, but right through the center of her body. She felt her insides begin to melt, felt a fire totally different from the sunburn flaring up from long-dead coals inside her.
She sighed, heard herself sigh. Purred, heard herself purr. Felt her body stretch like that of a thoroughly satisfied cat. Heard Geoff’s voice in her mind...appetizing as a scalded cat...and stopped stretching, stopped purring, went rigid against his fingers, which paused, but only for an instant.
Moving to the back of her legs, he worked his way up first one, then the other, gently smoothing in the sunburn cream as his fingers worked other magic on Bess herself. When he touched the sensitive skin at the backs of her knees, she felt her insides go all mushy again, felt herself almost doing a Lady wriggle. And when he reached the top of her thighs, his fingertips only a millimeter from the questionable protection of her panties, Bess had to forcibly demand that her body remain still so she wouldn't reveal the effect he was having on her.
“Right. That’s my part of it done,” he said. “Assuming, of course, that you’re sure you can manage the front by yourself. And that you promise me faithfully to do it, and do it now, no drifting off to sleep before you’ve got this stuff worked into every place it’s needed.”
She nodded, knowing that her eyes that had gone somnolent and sleepy at the very mention of the word. And at the pleasure, the sheer bliss of his touch.
“See that you do. I’m going down to beat that bloody traitorous dog within an inch of her young life, and if I come back and find you asleep without having put on heaps and heaps of this cream, you’ll get the same treatment. You won’t want tucker, darling, not the way you’re feeling. But Lady does, although the fickle wee bitch doesn’t deserve it.” His grin belied the gruesome aspect of his words; he wasn’t really upset with the dog and both of them knew it. “I’ll look in on you later, and in the morning I’ll give you a decent brekkie if you feel up to it.”
And he was gone, the door closing softly behind him.
Bess slathered the front of her body with his magic anti-sunburn potion, then sprawled on the bed, arms and legs spread out to allow as much heat as possible to dissipate from skin already forgetting the coolness of the bath. Lay there, staring up at the ceiling as the room seemed to revolve around her, spinning her toward sleep that she feared to approach because of the dreams she knew would be inevitable. She tried closing her eyes, had to open them again to defeat the nausea that seemed to surge up out of the darkness, and finally just let herself drift, her mind no longer either awake or asleep, nor caring or even aware...
Idly, she lifted one hand to touch at her breasts, then moved it lower to trace designs across the now-dry satin of her panties, feeling the simmering inside her as it threatened to erupt, to join the fire that raced across her skin. A fire left over from Geoff’s fingers. She knew it without having to think about it, wasn’t thinking anyway, merely drifting in a half-awake, dreamlike fantasy as the ceiling slowly spun before her eyes.
Was she spinning?
Or the bed?
Her hand slid beneath the satiny fabric to even smoother skin, and she closed her eyes and allowed her fingers to roam at will, fueling the flames inside her, sending
tendrils of ecstasy racing through her already over-heated blood. Eventually, she fell into a deep slumber as fantasy gave way to proper dreams.
Geoff peered into the room some hours later and raised an eyebrow as he took in Bess’s position on the bed. In spite of the provocative position of her hand, she looked like a collapsed puppet, uncoordinated, disjointed. And soon, despite the fire beneath her skin, she'd be cold…the night air had already cooled the room. He shook his head and very gently laid the sheet over her drowsing figure. Then he returned to his office and began to work on the latest spicy scene for “The Deflowerization of Kate.” No. What had Bess decided to call their book? The Flower of something... Ballarat? Bloody hell! Maybe he should change the title to “The Sunburned Flower of Ballarat.”
It came as a surprise to him, although he later wondered why it should have, that the scenario sprang to life almost full-grown, and he knew without question that Bess would have difficulty describing his spicy scenes as staid and Victorian.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Ida stormed in the next morning as Bess was glumly staring at a platter of bacon and eggs. The slender blonde wore ragged jeans and a sweatshirt that had clearly seen better days. Her face was shiny, devoid of makeup, and her hair lacked some of its usual perfection. Yet she still managed to exude an air of profound sexuality, along with a sense of discipline and command.
Geoff was instantly banished to his office, just before Ida poured herself a cup of coffee and straddled a chair across the table from Bess.
Finding Bess Page 14