She breathed deeply, then slowly and deliberately spoke. ‘Dane, I have not been shacked up with Geoff Jones or anybody else. I am not pregnant. I have not been pregnant. I couldn’t be pregnant. I ... I just couldn’t.’ The final words trailed off as she shook her head in bewilderment at his anger, at the whole ludicrous situation.
‘What? All that subterfuge and then you couldn’t bring yourself to sleep with him after all?’ The voice was scornful, but he shook his head as if in sympathy. And then the scorn was gone too, replaced by a bitterness so vivid Helen could almost taste it. ‘But of course, I’d forgotten. You’re a modern girl, aren’t you? So it wasn’t a matter of sleeping with him; just one of taking the appropriate precautions.’
Helen simply didn’t know what to reply. It obviously didn’t matter what she said; Dane was convinced, and nothing short of a miracle would change his mind. And, she thought, why should she bother to do that? All this was none of his business and he had no right at all to be making her the subject of such a male chauvinist inquisition. He had no right!
‘I think you’d better go now,’ she managed to say, holding her voice carefully under control despite the tremors that shook her slender body.
‘I’ve only just got here. And damned if I’m going anywhere until I’ve got the answers I came for.’
‘Until you’ve got the answers you want to hear. Whether they’re the truth or not, of course, isn’t relevant at all.’
‘I know the truth when I hear it; you never could lie to me, Helen and I suggest for your own good that you don’t start now.’
‘My own good? That’s a laugh. And as for knowing the truth ... anybody with your warped sense of honesty wouldn’t know the truth if it jumped up and bit them in the backside. You’ve got a bloody nerve standing there demanding truth after the way you’ve acted.’
Helen’s angry retort might as well have been directed at the wall. Dane seemed not to hear, not to comprehend what she was saying. ‘Are you actually going to sit there and tell me you didn’t come here with Geoff Jones? That you haven’t been involved with him the entire time you’ve been here?’ he asked.
‘I didn’t come here with Geoff, nor have I been involved with him ... in the way you mean,’ Helen replied. ‘I came here to do a job. Nothing more. I didn’t even know Geoff was in Adelaide until a fortnight after I arrived. Not that I expect you to believe that; in fact right now I couldn’t care less what you believe. Now will you please go?’
‘I’ve already answered that question,’ he replied stolidly. ‘Now it’s time you provided some answers. And straight ones, for a change. You say you’re not pregnant, you haven’t been pregnant, and you’re not involved with Geoff Jones. Now if that’s the case, just what the hell is your excuse for running out, doing a total disappearing act only hours before I got back to Hobart?’
Helen didn’t reply. She managed to meet his angry gaze with a sober, steady look of her own, but she didn’t say a word.
‘Well? You must have some excuse. And don’t try to hand me a lot of garbage about the job, either, because we both know there was no reason you had to take the exact flight you did. You were deliberately avoiding me, and I want to know what it was that made you so afraid to tell me to my face.’
‘I left you a letter that explained,’ she replied, only to have him snort in angry disagreement.
‘You left me a letter that explained nothing. Nothing! Now what was the real reason? I know you didn’t make off with the silverware or anything, and you made damned sure the animals were properly cared for ... so what?’
‘I would have thought the reason was patently obvious,’ Helen replied, then snapped her mouth shut, making no attempt to be any clearer than that.
‘If it was so damned obvious, I wouldn’t be here asking, would I?’ he replied. ‘Oh, no, Helen. You were running from something. And I’ll know what it was before I leave this room, I promise you that.’
Helen sat mute. You’ll be here a long time, then, she thought, but mentally determined not to give him the slightest satisfaction.
Dane, after enduring her silence for what seemed like an hour, finally snorted in disgust and turned away to fling open her modest liquor cabinet, jingling bottles and glasses haphazardly as he poured each of them a drink. Helen noticed that he didn’t so much as bother to ask her if she wanted a drink, much less ask what she’d prefer. She got her usual vodka-lime-and-soda.
Dane sipped at his drink, then sat down across the room from her, his eyes locked to her own as if by chains. ‘Well?’ he finally demanded. ‘Let’s have it.’
‘Have what?’ she replied. ‘There’s nothing here for you, even if I do notice that you just take whatever you want anyway.’
‘Let’s have the reason you scarpered without having the guts to explain to me face-to-face,’ he replied, angrily but calmly enough. ‘It’s what you did. We both know it. Now tell me why.’
‘Maybe it’s none of your business,’ Helen said, knowing it sounded evasive . .. knowing it was evasive, but unable to say much else. Obviously he wasn’t going to listen when she ordered him out, and he wasn’t going to listen to the truth about his own accusations.
‘Of course it’s my business,’ he said. ‘Quite obviously the whole performance is because of something I did — or something you think I did, or said or something. Although why you couldn’t wait until I got back and then ask for an explanation, I can’t possibly imagine.’
‘Maybe I didn’t need an explanation,’ she cried. ‘Maybe I already knew the answers. Maybe I was just totally sick of being ... of being manipulated like some puppet.’
‘The man hasn’t been born yet that can manipulate you, dear Helen,’ was the astonishing reply. ‘And I, for one, am too smart to try.’
‘Like hell!’ The vehemence of her response surprised even Helen, but how could he have the audacity to say such a thing?
They sat there, glaring at each other like two pugnacious stray dogs, but it was Dane who finally broke the silence. ‘You were saying?’ he asked in a mild voice, speaking so softly Helen barely heard him.
‘How dare you say you wouldn’t try to manipulate me?’ she flashed. ‘You’re doing it now, damn you. You’ve always done it. You manipulate everybody, but especially me. And how you can have the sheer gall to deny it, when I’ve got proof and you damned well know I have …’
‘Proof?’ His interruption was in that same low, quiet voice, but it was charged now with alertness. ‘What proof?’
It was all too clear to Helen that she was being baited, being deliberately challenged in such a way that he’d get the answers he’d come for, but her flash-point anger betrayed her. She gave in to it.
‘Proof? I’ll give you proof,’ she snarled, reaching out to yank open a drawer in the coffee table beside her. The drawer flew out, landing with a thud on the carpet, contents flying all over, but her trembling fingers quickly sorted out her proof and she flung the handful of letters across the room at him.
‘There’s your damned proof,’ she cried. ‘My job applications that you deliberately didn’t mail. And don’t bother to deny it, because I know better. You knew how much I needed a job, how much I was counting on those letters. And you didn’t mail them, you deliberately gave me the impression I could trust you and then you did that! You lied to me. You did! You deliberately damned well toyed with my career, and don’t bother to deny it because there’s your damned proof.’
‘Ah,’ he said, voice so low she almost missed the sigh. ‘So that’s it. Well, there was a very good reason for that, although I suppose you never thought of it.’
‘Oh, yes,’ Helen sneered. ‘An excellent reason — from your own selfish point of view. I thought of it; I even know what it was. You thought you needed me there on the farm more than I needed a job, that’s what the reason was. All pure selfishness, and not one damned thing else.’
Dane, infuriatingly, only shrugged. ‘I wanted to keep you with me,’ he said. ‘And I suppos
e there was an element of what might be called selfishness, but it wasn’t what you seem to imagine. Not at all.’
‘Not at all? It was nothing else, and I don’t think that, I know it! You deliberately manipulated and schemed to keep me from getting a job. To keep me there on the farm to look after your animals, your home — just so you could trot off on a marathon sex orgy with your brunette friend — and you say it wasn’t selfish? Well let me tell you...’
‘What in God’s name are you talking about?’ Dane shouted, his voice drowning Helen’s diatribe. He was on his feet, looming over her, then one hand had crushed the neckline of her dress as he lifted her to her feet, held her there, her eyes inches from his own. ‘Just where the hell did you get such an insane idea?’
But before she could gasp out any sort of answer, he lowered her gently back into her seat and, with eyes shut as if in agony, whispered the answer himself. ‘Marina! I should have known ... I should have at least guessed. That bitch! That bloody scheming, interfering, rotten, lying bitch.’
Dane flung his hands up to cover his eyes, and added, ‘You don’t even have to tell me the details; I’ll bet you anything I can give them to you chapter and verse.’
And proceeded to do so without error, finally concluding, ‘What 1 can’t understand is how anybody could have the sheer bitchiness to twist it all up like she did — so deliberately and with absolutely nothing to gain.’
‘Maybe she wasn’t properly impressed with your performance in Melbourne, considering she didn’t take long before running off with somebody else,’ Helen muttered scathingly. ‘Maybe you’re losing your touch.’
To her surprise, Dane looked at her after that comment and suddenly burst out laughing, and even though there was a rueful tinge to the laughter, she could tell he really did think that something was funny.
‘Losing my touch. That’s the understatement of the year,’ he said in a voice now strangely void of anger, even of bitterness, ‘I sure as hell did lose my touch, trusting that two-faced bitch when what I should have been doing was trusting my own instincts ... and my feelings about you. All of this could have been avoided if I’d just had more faith.
‘No,’ he said when Helen made to interrupt. ‘No, let me finish what I have to say now. It’ll make everything clear, my love, never worry. Yes, I did meet Marina in Melbourne. But purely by accident — at least on my part. I’m not too sure about her part, with the benefit of hindsight, but it was certainly an accident as far as I was concerned. And we went for lunch, which is hardly unusual, and because I thought she was my friend, I found myself telling her things that maybe I shouldn’t have. Hell, things I obviously shouldn’t have, looking back.’
And he grinned at Helen, the gesture taking her back to when they’d first met, almost, to when they had definitely been — in her eyes — good friends.
‘It’s your fault, that,’ he chuckled. ‘If I hadn’t been missing you so much, maybe I wouldn’t have confided in Marina.’
And before Helen could begin to comprehend that statement, he held up a hand in a gesture that defied interruption, then went on, speaking quickly, positively.
‘What I was doing in Melbourne, by the way, was delivering the latest book and setting up the itinerary for the current tour to promote the one just published. And what I told Marina was that I would have to find somebody competent to look after the place because I wanted you with me on the tour.
‘I had hoped it would be a sort of honeymoon,’ he added, and grinned even wider at Helen’s gasp of understanding. ‘But of course I hadn’t got round to asking you, mostly because I was still, up until I got to Melbourne, just a bit unsure of whether it was fair to even ask you, considering ... well, other things.’
‘You what?’ Helen couldn’t believe what she’d heard. She was on the edge of her seat; then she was across the room to meet him as he rose with arms outstretched to her.
‘I wasn’t sure,’ he said, softly, now, his lips at her ear. ‘Which is ridiculous, I know, considering the whole reason I brought you to Tasmania was to give you a chance ... to give us a chance. Lord, I don’t know what was the matter with me, but I just couldn’t — then — find the words to explain it to you. Too many ghosts, I reckon. I kept feeling that Vivian might come between us, and that our ages ... and the brother-sister thing. Just too many ghosts.’
‘Not the least of which was one with dark hair,’ Helen growled into his throat. ‘And that’s what she’ll be if I ever get my hands on her. She knew ... she deliberately manipulated me into leaving. I can see that now. But why? How could anybody be that vindictive?’
‘Hell hath no fury,’ Dane muttered. ‘And since you arrived, I think she finally got the message that there was no place for her in my life. I’d told her, months before you came, but I guess she saw you as the catalyst ... oh, I don’t know.’
‘Well I do,’ Helen whispered. ‘She wanted to own you, which I see now she couldn’t have done anyway, any more than I could.’
"You could. Very easily,’ Dane replied, holding her away from him so he could look directly into her eyes. ‘But only if you can accept and understand why I played such a dirty trick with your job applications. I just didn’t want you to leave; it’s that simple. But not because of your work ... because of you! Because I loved you, and I wanted you so desperately to find some way of loving me in return.’
‘I loved you almost from the moment I arrived,’ Helen told him. ‘And not the puppy love I felt ... before ... when you were a happily married man and married to a woman I loved and admired and respected. The problem was, I kept seeing ghosts too, only I thought they were in your closet. I’ve never had any doubts about my own feelings, except there when I thought you were ... oh, Dane, I should have known you better. If I hadn’t been so tangled up in my own feelings, I would have seen through that woman’s scheming.’
‘We were both misled. And by an expert,’ he replied grimly. ‘Because of course you can guess who tipped me off to Geoff Jones’ coincidental departure for Melbourne ... after, of course, she was aware that you’d done a bunk without leaving me enough explanations. I knew you were here; it took only a ‘phone call to figure out that much. But I never would have even thought of Geoff without a little help from Marina.’
‘And you really thought I could run off with a, with Geoff Jones?’ Helen sighed. ‘Oh, really.’
‘Well, he’s a good-looking, likely lad,’ Dane said. ‘Up-and-coming, all that sort of thing.’
‘He really is quite charming,’ Helen said, hiding the grin by tucking her head against Dane’s shoulder. ‘But he’s ... well he’s a lightweight. And he’s so young; I quite prefer mature men myself ... or at least one mature man.’
‘Even a rather jealous one who’s losing his touch?’
Dane asked, holding off her reply with a gentle touch of his lips, a touch that quickly became a torch to light the fires inside her.
‘I hardly think I’d call that losing your touch,’ she whispered when he finally relinquished her lips. ‘And as for being jealous ... well I ask you — what good is a fancy sports car on a farm?’
Their shared laughter was, she thought, just the right sort for a new beginning. Dane obviously thought so too, but when it was done there were some practicalities to be considered.
‘Your boss is going to have my guts for garters,’ he said after yet another tantalising kiss. ‘Although I suppose you could stay on here while I finish my tour. We can’t be married in any event without going home to Tassie. Mrs Bowen would never forgive us, for one thing, and for another there’s a mandatory one-month waiting period.’
Helen leaned against him, feeling the heat of him through her clothes, feeling the need, the love, the matching of her own passion. Her fingers laced round his neck, drawing his gaze down to meet her own.
‘You might be able to wait a month,’ she whispered, ‘but I certainly can’t I’m going with you on the rest of the tour and just you dare try to stop me. And as for my
ex-boss, you can invite him to the wedding.’
Dane’s answer was a silent, but none the less emphatic, agreement.
#
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)
Age of Consent Page 18