Читать книгу Yesterday's Bride - Alison Kelly - Страница 12

CHAPTER FOUR

‘YOU stupid, great useless animal!’ Taylor muttered as the huge, lumbering St Bernard raced to beat her up the stairs. ‘I’m not going to bed! I’m only getting changed!’

‘You better hurry,’ Melanie advised from the floor of the family room. ‘Daddy’ll be here in seven minutes.’

Taylor forced a smile. Like she needed reminding! Mel had been acting like the countdown voice for Mission Control ever since they’d got home from basketball practice. She on the other hand had been hoping for a phone call from Craig saying he had to cancel.

Glancing across at her daughter carefully colouring a picture intended for Craig, Taylor instantly regretted her selfish thoughts. It was important to Melanie that her father come—vitally important. She bit her lip as doubts that had kept her sleepless since she’d arrived back in Sydney assailed her yet again.

Had she done the right thing in coming back and practically forcing Craig to acknowledge Melanie’s existence? Even more disturbing was the question that had kept her awake each night since she’d walked into his office. Had she really come for her daughter’s sake, or was she simply using Melanie as an excuse to get Craig back into her own life?

Melanie called her and held up the drawing she’d been working on. ‘I tried to stay inside the lines. Do you like it?’ she asked.

‘Yeah! I think it’s great!’ Taylor replied.

‘It’s for Daddy to put in his office. Think he’ll like it?’

‘I’m sure he will.’

Realizing she was still in her bathrobe, her hair wet, and wasting time, she hurried up the stairs. Would Craig see any merit in the less than artistic scribbling of a five-year-old?

‘He’d better!’ she said, sliding open her wardrobe. ‘Or he’ll wear the meal he all but invited himself to!’ And that was something she meant to have out with him. His manipulative use of Melanie was inexcusable!

After extracting a simple white flared ankle-length dress in embroidered cotton, she tossed it onto the bed, next to the sleepy-looking dog now sprawled across it.

‘There, Bernie,’ she said. ‘No one could accuse me of dressing to impress! In fact,’ she added smugly, ‘I’m not even going to bother putting on make-up.’

Sitting on the bed, she plugged in the blow-drier and began drying her hair, but even the appliance’s droning hum didn’t drown out her daughter’s excited yell. ‘He’s here!’

Pulse skittering, Taylor dropped the drier and jumped to her feet. Already? Dammit, she wasn’t ready!

Craig owned up to more than a touch of apprehension as he climbed out of his car. He’d been sweating on this night for five days and now it was here he wasn’t sure he was ready for it. He didn’t know what to expect, or more importantly, what was expected of him.

As he made his way up the path, the front door opened and Melanie stood waiting for him.

‘Hello,’ she said, offering a smile.

‘G’day, Melanie,’ he said, then wondered if it was acceptable to hand a bottle of wine to a five-year-old. He was still considering this when she tugged at his arm and led him from the tiled entrance foyer into a modern, comfortably furnished lounge.

‘What’s in the bag?’ she asked.

‘A bottle of wine.’

‘I’ll put it in the ’frigerator,’ she told him, extending two small hands towards it.

‘Well, it’s red wine. You don’t put it in the fridge.’

She frowned up at him. ‘Are you s’posed to drink it hot?’

‘Eh, not exactly. It’s supposed to be served at room temperature.’

‘So how do you know the temperature of the room?’

Craig blinked. ‘Um, where’s your mother?’

‘Upstairs. Uncle Bernie hasn’t come down yet so she’s probably still getting dressed.’

Knowing Taylor had no living relatives and he had none called Bernie, the child’s casual revelation that there was a man upstairs while Taylor was dressing did ugly things to Craig’s blood pressure.

‘Who,’ he asked through clenched teeth, ‘is Uncle Bernie?’

‘My dog. He’s really, really big, but don’t worry,’ she advised. ‘He’s friendly.’

The force of Craig’s relieved sigh was such that he marvelled that it hadn’t blown the tiny girl off her feet. Yet his original anxiety hadn’t been caused by a fear of canines; a killer Rottweiler upstairs wouldn’t have worried him as much as a flesh-and-blood man! He wasn’t shocked by the strength of his possessiveness towards Taylor; many a night he’d tortured himself by imagining her in the arms of another man and felt pain and anger claw at his gut. Yet only now did it occur to him that in five years there may well have been more than one. Looking at Melanie, he fleetingly speculated whether she could provide him with an answer to the question foremost in his mind. Was she his only rival for Taylor’s affections or was there another?

No! He would not stoop so low as to pump the kid about her mother’s love life. It was a sleazy, underhanded thing to do. He tuned out the inner voice suggesting his pseudo-nobility only disguised his real reason for not quizzing Melanie—fear she might tell him things he didn’t want to know!

‘Hi, Craig, sorry I wasn’t ready when you got here.’

He pivoted at the voice of the woman he’d been aching to see for five days. Now he was seeing her, the ache intensified rather than lessened. Her hair was seductively tousled as if someone in the throes of passion had run eager fingers through its soft, tawny length, but how those hands could have strayed from the tempting curves of her body, detailed by the short black stretch dress she wore was beyond Craig’s comprehension. He swallowed hard, his eyes following the shapely lines of her naked legs down to the spike-heeled shoes on her feet.

‘Dinner shouldn’t be too much longer,’ she informed him. ‘Unfortunately I’m a little behind schedule, but I’m sure Melanie will keep you occupied until I’m ready to serve.’

Her glossy smile was smooth, but the quick flick of her tongue at the corner of her mouth was enough to tell Craig she wasn’t as cool or collected as she pretended. Past experience also told him she was every bit as hot as she looked.

He grinned at her. ‘Well, I’m not averse to pitching in and helping with dinner,’ he offered. ‘You used to find me pretty...handy in the kitchen.’

Taylor blushed, her traitorous mind immediately flashing back—as he’d intended—to the times in their marriage when the kitchen counter had been utilized for purposes other than cooking. She tried to produce a patronizing look. ‘No thanks. These days I manage very well on my own.’

He raised an eyebrow. ‘Effective, but not nearly as much fun.’ Taylor gasped so hard she started to choke. ‘At least let me fix the drinks,’ he insisted.

Her eyes still watering, she spoke to her daughter. ‘Melanie, show your father where the bar is, please.’

‘Then can I take him upstairs and show him Uncle Bernie?’

Then you can take him to hell! she thought. ‘Sure, honey, whatever you want.’ Without so much as glancing at Craig, she turned and hurried to the kitchen.

Taylor crouched in front of the open refrigerator, a thousand different emotions exploding within her, but anger held centre stage. Anger at herself. Looking down at the dress she’d hastily changed into at Craig’s arrival, she wanted to scream. Dammit to hell, she was supposed to be trying to establish a relationship between her daughter and Craig! Not re-establish her own! And he’d been amused by her obvious attempt at self-promotion. Smugly amused! What was worse was that she still found his cocky, self-assured attitude as arousing as she had as a teenager! When he’d suggested giving her a hand in the kitchen, she’d damn near salivated.