Читать книгу Scandalous Secrets - Michelle Douglas - Страница 15
ОглавлениеIF EVER THERE was a cure for humiliation piled on humiliation, it was ten days of cooking for shearers. Ten days of pure hard work.
‘We’ve only two more mobs left,’ Matt told her with satisfaction. ‘That’s four days shearing and we’re done. We’ve had the best weather. The best food. The best shear I’ve ever organised. You’re our good luck charm, Penny Hindmarsh-Firth. I’ve a good mind to keep you.’
Matt hadn’t stopped for ten days, Penny thought. He’d worked until after midnight almost every night. He said he went to bed but she saw his light at the far end of the veranda.
She had his situation pretty much summed up by now. Five sheep properties. A bauxite mine worth heaven only knew how much. Responsibilities everywhere.
The drapes in his bedroom were often pulled back. She could see his shadow against the light, sitting at his desk, working into the night.
He had a massive desk in his study. He wasn’t using that.
Because she was here? She knew it was, but he wasn’t avoiding her.
They’d fallen into a routine. Matt left the house before dawn, she saw him only briefly at meals but at dusk she sat on the veranda and talked to the dogs and he’d finally fetch his plate of leftovers from the warming drawer and come out to join her.
He was always dead tired. She could hear it in his voice, in the slump of his shoulders. Sometimes he seemed almost too tired to talk and she respected that, but still he seemed to soak up her company. And for herself? She liked him being here too, and she didn’t need to talk. She was content to sit and watch the moon rise over the horizon, to breathe in the night air and let go of her fast-paced day.
And it was fast-paced. She’d set herself a personal challenge. Each day’s cooking had to be at least as good as the days’ before. It was worth it. ‘Great tucker,’ a shearer growled as he headed back to work. Or, ‘Strewth, Pen, that sponge’s almost as good as my gran used to make.’
And Matt had nothing but praise. ‘I’d have pulled a rhinoceros out of the creek to get cooking like this,’ he’d told her after the first couple of days and she had no idea why that throwaway line had the capacity to make her feel as if her insides were glowing.
The way he ate her food at night was compliment enough. He was always past exhaustion but he sat and savoured her food as if every mouthful was gold. He was enjoying his dinner now, as she sat and watched the moon rise.
She thought about the way he’d smiled at her when she’d handed him his plate. Somehow he didn’t feel like an employer. She wasn’t sure what he felt like, but...
‘Malley doesn’t know what he’s getting.’ Matt’s low growl from where he sat behind her made her jump. She’d been dreaming. Of a smile?
Idiot!
She didn’t answer. There was nothing to say to such a compliment. There was no reason his comment should have her off balance.
Though, actually, there was.
There were four more days of shearing to go. The floodwaters were slowly going down. She could probably leave now, though it’d still be a risk. And Matt still needed her.
But in four days...
‘You are still going to Malley’s?’ Matt asked and she tried to think of a way to say it, and couldn’t.
But he guessed. Maybe her silence was answer enough. ‘You’ve changed your mind?’ Matt put his empty plate aside and came across to where she sat on the edge of the veranda. He slipped down beside her and the night seemed to close in around them, a warm and intimate space that held only them.
What was she thinking? Intimate? He was her boss!
He was a man and she didn’t trust herself with men. Didn’t they always want something? Something other than her? Even Matt. He needed her to cook. She was useful, nothing else.
So stop thinking of something else.
‘Malley changed my mind,’ she managed, and was disconcerted at the way her voice worked. Or didn’t work. Why were emotions suddenly crowding in on her?
And it wasn’t just how close Matt was sitting beside her, she thought. It was more. In four days she wouldn’t be needed. Again.
Wasn’t that what she wanted?
Oh, for heaven’s sake, get over it, she told herself and swung her feet in an attempt at defiance.
As if sensing his mistress needed a bit of support, Samson edged sideways and crept up onto her knee. He was filthy but she didn’t mind. Penny had given up on the bathing. Samson was now a farm dog.
If her mother could see her now she’d have kittens, Penny thought. She was filthy too, covered in the flour she’d used to prepare the bread dough for the morning. She was cradling a stinking poodle.
But Matt was sitting by her side and she thought, I don’t care. Mum has Felicity if she wants a beautiful daughter. I’m happy here.
It was a strange thought—a liberating thought. She tried to think of Brett. Or Felicity. Of the two of them hand in hand telling her they’d betrayed her.
They can have each other, she thought, and it was the first time she’d felt no bitterness.
Ten days of shearing had changed things. Ten days of sitting outside every night with Matt? But there were only four days to go.
‘You going to tell me about Malley?’ Matt asked. He’d given her time. He’d sensed there were things she was coming to terms with, but now he was asking again.
What had she told him? Malley changed my mind.
Yeah, he had, and she’d been upset and she should still be upset. But how hard was it to be angry when she was sitting with this man whose empathy twisted something inside her that she hadn’t known existed.
‘I phoned Malley the night I got here,’ she admitted. ‘He told me I was a...well, I won’t say what he said but the gist of it was that I was a fool for taking the route I did and he was an idiot himself for thinking a citified b...a citified woman could do the job. He said he’d find someone else. He called me a whole lot of words I’d never heard of. I guess I was pretty upset so when he rang back and expected me to drop everything...’
And then she stopped. She hadn’t meant to say any more. What was it about this man that messed with her head? That messed with the plan of action she knew was sensible?
‘Drop everything?’ he said slowly, and she thought uh oh. She went to get up but he put his hand on her arm and held her still. ‘You mean abandon this place?’ He was frowning. ‘Is that what he meant?’
‘He rang me back two days after I got here,’ she admitted. ‘But it’s okay. I used a few of his words back at him. Not...not the worst ones. But maybe the ones about being an idiot for ever thinking I’d take the job.’
‘But why did he ring?’
This was sort of embarrassing. She’d been dumb to say anything at all but Matt was watching her. He was frowning, obviously thinking through the words she’d let slip. She had no choice but to be honest.
‘He ended up almost as trapped as we are, so finding another cook wasn’t an option,’ she told him. ‘And it’s costing him. Malley’s hotel is the base for scores of stranded tourists. He has supplies but no one to cook. He’s losing a fortune.’
‘So?’ Matt said slowly.
‘So he knows one of the chopper pilots who’s doing feed drops up north. I gather for two days he fumed at how useless I was and then he realized he didn’t have a choice. So he bribed the chopper pilot to come and get me.’
There was a loaded silence.
‘So why didn’t you go?’
‘You told me he had mice.’
‘And you told me you could clean.’
‘So I could,’ she said with sudden asperity. ‘But I didn’t see why I should clean for someone with such a foul mouth. The tourists can cook for themselves if they need to. Why should I go?’
‘But you came all the way here to take a permanent, full-time job.’
‘I did.’
‘And shearing finishes in four days.’ He frowned. ‘Why didn’t you accept? I don’t understand.’
And she didn’t, either. Not totally. It had been a decision of the heart, not the head, but she wasn’t about to tell him that.
She reverted to being practical. ‘The chopper pilot was supposed to be dropping food to stranded livestock, so what was he about, agreeing to pick me up? How could I live with myself knowing cows were hungry because of me? Besides, they couldn’t fit my car into the chopper.’
‘You were the one who suggested leaving your car here until after the floods.’
Drat, why did he have to have such a good memory?
‘So why?’ he asked again, more gently, and suddenly there seemed nothing left but the truth.
‘You needed me,’ she told him. ‘And...’
‘And?’
Her chin tilted. This was something her family never got. Her friends never got. She’d been mocked for this before but she might as well say it. ‘I was having fun.’
‘Fun?’ He stared at her in amazement. ‘You’ve worked harder than any shearer. You’ve planned, you’ve cooked, you’ve cleaned. You’ve gone to bed as exhausted as me every night and you’ve got up every morning and started all over again. You call that fun?’
‘Yes.’ She said it firmly. It was a stand she’d defended for years and she wasn’t letting it go now. Cooking was her love, and cooking for people who appreciated it was heaven. ‘But you needn’t sound so amazed. Tell me why you’re here. You own a bauxite mine, one of the richest in the country. You surely don’t need to farm. You’re working yourself into the ground too. For what?’
‘Fun?’ he said and she smiled.
‘Gotcha.’
‘Okay.’ He sighed. ‘I get it, though I’m imagining the work at Malley’s would have been just as hard. So where do you go from here? You knocked back a permanent job to help me.’
‘I knocked back a permanent job because I wanted this one. And, even without the mice, Malley sounds mean.’
‘The man’s an imbecile,’ Matt said. ‘To bad-mouth a cook of your standard? He obviously has the brains of a newt. To lose you...’
And then he paused.
The atmosphere changed. That thing inside her twisted again. To have someone defend her...value her...
It’s the cooking, she told herself. She was never valued for herself.
But suddenly his hand was covering hers, big and rough and warm. ‘Thank you,’ he told her and it sounded as if it came from the heart. ‘Thank you indeed—and I think your wages just went up.’
* * *
Fun.
He thought of the massive amount of work she’d put in over the last ten days. He thought of the drudgery of planning, chopping, peeling, cooking and cleaning. He thought of the mounds of washing-up. How had he ever thought he could handle it himself? In the end he’d hardly had time to help her cart food across to the shed, but she hadn’t complained once.
She was a pink princess, the daughter of one of the wealthiest families in Australia, yet she’d worked as hard as any shearer.
And in four days? Shearing would be over. The water was already dropping in the creeks. Cooking at Malley’s was obviously out of the question. Penny’s long-term plan to set up a catering company would take months. Meanwhile, what would she do?
She’d come a long way to be here, and she’d come for a reason. She’d exposed her pain to him. She’d exposed the hurt her family had heaped on her. She was here to escape humiliation—and now, because she’d decided to help him she had little choice but to head back and face that humiliation again. Even if she went to another city the media would find her. He had no doubt the media frenzy during her sister’s wedding would be appalling.
‘Stay for a bit,’ he found himself saying. Until the words were out of his mouth he didn’t know he’d intended to say them, but the words were said. He’d asked the pink princess to stay.
There was a moment’s silence. Actually, it was more than a moment. It stretched on.
She was considering it from all angles, he thought, and suddenly he wondered if she was as aware as he was of the tension between them.
Tension? It was the wrong word but he didn’t have one to replace it. It was simply the way she made him feel.
She was little and blonde and cute. She played Abba on her sound system while she worked and she sang along. This morning he’d come in to help her cart food over to the shed and found her spinning to Dancing Queen while balancing a tray of blueberry muffins. She’d had flour on her nose, her curls had escaped the piece of pink ribbon she’d used to tie them back and Samson was barking at her feet with enthusiasm.
He’d stopped at the door and watched, giving himself a moment before she realized he was there. He’d watched and listened and he’d felt...
It didn’t matter how he’d felt. He didn’t do women. His mother and then Darrilyn had taught him everything he needed to know about the pain of relationships and he wasn’t going there again. Especially with an indulged society princess.
The label wasn’t fair, he told himself, and he knew it was the truth. Penny had proved she was so much more. But past pain had built armour he had no desire to shed, and right now he felt his armour had to be reinforced. Yet here he was asking her to stay.
‘Why would I stay?’ Penny asked cautiously and he tried to think of an answer that was sensible.
‘I... This place...I was thinking maybe I could open it up a bit. Get rid of a few dustcovers. There’s a possibility my daughter might come and visit.’ That was the truth, though he wasn’t sure when. ‘I wouldn’t mind if it looked a bit more like a home when she came. Maybe you could help. I’d pay.’
‘I don’t need...’
‘I know you don’t need to be paid,’ he said. ‘But I pay for services rendered. The shearers will move on, but I’d need you for another two weeks in total—a few days’ slack then getting the house in order. Of course—’ he grinned suddenly ‘—cooking would be in there as well. Donald and Ron and Harv would kill me if I didn’t say that. They’ve been in heaven for the last ten days.’
And then he paused and tried to think about why he shouldn’t say what came next. There were reasons but they weren’t strong enough to stop him. ‘And so have I,’ he added.
* * *
Heaven...
That was pretty much what she was feeling.
She was breathing in the scents from the garden, watching the moon rise over the distant hills, listening to the odd bleat of a sheep in the shearing pens and the sound of a bird in the gums at the garden’s edge.
‘What’s the bird?’ she asked. It was an inconsequential question, a question to give her space and time to think through what he was proposing. There was a part of her that said what he was suggesting was unwise, but she couldn’t figure out why.
Or maybe she knew why; she just didn’t want to admit it. The way he made her feel... The way his smile made her heart twist...
‘It’s a boobook owl,’ Matt said, quietly now, as if there was no big question between them. ‘It’s a little brown owl, nocturnal. He and his mate are the reason we don’t have mice and places like Malley’s do. Malley’s stupid enough to have cleared the trees around the hotel and he’s probably even stupid enough to shoot them. They’re great birds. Listen to their call. Boobook. Or sometimes people call them mopokes for the same reason. So there’s a question for you. Do you side with mopoke or boobook?’
It was an ideal question. It gave her time to sit and listen, to settle.
‘Mopoke,’ she said at last. ‘Definitely mopoke.’
‘I’m a boobook man myself. Want to see?’
‘You need to go to bed.’
‘So do you, but life’s too short to miss a boobook.’
‘A mopoke.’
He grinned. ‘That’s insubordination,’ he told her. ‘I believe I’ve just offered you a job for the next two weeks. Therefore I demand you accept your boss’s edict that it’s a boobook.’
‘I haven’t agreed to take the job yet.’
‘So you haven’t,’ he said equitably. ‘But you are still employed for four more days. So it’s boobook tonight.’ He pushed himself to his feet and held out his hand to help her up. ‘Come and see.’
She looked at his offered hand and thought...I shouldn’t.
And then she thought: Why not? There were all sorts of reasons, but Matt was smiling down at her and his hand was just there.
She shouldn’t take it—but she did.
* * *
What was he doing?
He was more than tired. By this stage in shearing he was operating on autopilot. He’d averaged about five hours of sleep a night for the past ten days and, apart from the tiny window of time on the veranda at night, every minute he was awake was crammed with imperatives. Most of those imperatives involved tough manual labour but he also had to be fine-tuned to the atmosphere in the shed. One flare-up could mess with a whole shear. Angry shearers usually meant sloppy shearing and the flock suffered.
So far the tension had been minimal. The shearers had worked through each run looking forward to Penny’s next meal, bantering about the last. This shear was amazing and it was pretty much thanks to the woman beside him. So surely he could take a few minutes to show her a boobook?
Besides, he wanted to.
He had a torch in his pocket. It was strong but it was small, casting a narrow band of light in front of them as they walked. They needed to go into the stand of gums behind the house. The ground was thick with leaf litter and fallen twigs so it was natural—even essential—that he keep hold of her hand. After all, she was a vital cog in his business empire. He needed to take care of her.
Even though it made him feel... How did he feel?
Good. That was too small a word but his mind wasn’t prepared to think of another. Her fingers were laced in his and her hand was half his size. His fingers were calloused and rough, too rough to be holding something as warm and...trusting?
That was what it felt like but that was dumb. He’d figured enough of Penny by now to know that she could look after herself. One move that she didn’t like would have her screeching the farm down, and an inkling of Penny in peril would have the entire shearing team out in force.
He grinned at the thought and Penny must have heard his smile. ‘What’s the joke?’
‘I just thought...if I tried a bit of seduction you’d have the team out here ready to defend you. Shears at the ready. Ron was watching you go back to the house yesterday and said you had a nice rear end. Margie told him where he could put his sexist comments and suddenly we had the whole shearing shed coming down on Ron like a ton of bricks. The poor guy had to bury himself packing fleeces into the wool press for the rest of the afternoon. You have an army at your disposal, Penelope Hindmarsh-Firth.’
‘Excellent,’ she said and smiled and was it his imagination or did her hold on his hand tighten a little? She paused for a moment as if she was thinking of something important—or trying to find the courage to say something—and finally out it came.
‘Do you think I have a nice...rear end?’
Whoa. ‘You have a very nice rear end,’ he admitted. Who could argue with the truth?
‘Thank you,’ she told him. ‘Yours isn’t so bad either.’
That set him back. A woman telling him he had a good butt?
‘But don’t let it go to your head,’ she told him. ‘And I’ll try and swallow my conceit too. Where did you say these owls are?’
The calls had ceased. That was because they were standing right under the trees the birds were nesting in.
It took him a moment to collect himself and direct his torchlight up. She disconcerted him. She was so close. She still smelled faintly yeasty, from the bread she’d set to rise. From something citrusy in her hair. From...being Penny?
What was he here for? He was looking for owls. Right.
‘There...’ Penny breathed—she’d caught sight of the first bird before he had. Even though he was holding the torch. Good one, Fraser, he told himself. Get a grip.
‘The other will be close,’ he managed.
‘The other?’
‘This is a nesting pair. They’ve been using the same nest for years, very successfully. Their young populate half this valley. Look, there’s the female. She’s a bit bigger than the male. They’re feeling a bit threatened now. See, they’re sitting bolt upright, but they’ve seen me so often I can’t imagine they think of me as a threat.’
He was concentrating on the birds rather than Penny.
‘Would the shearing team leap to their defence too?’ she asked mildly and he smiled.
‘They might. No one likes their quarters overrun by mice. These guys do us a favour. But I don’t think they’d come quite as fast as if you needed help. You’ve—deservedly—made some pretty fierce friends.’
‘Matt?’
‘Mmm?’
‘Stop it with the compliments. They don’t mean anything and I don’t want them.’
And the way she said it made him pause. It made him stop thinking of how she smelled and, instead, think about where she’d come from.
He got it, he thought. She’d just been through one messy relationship. He didn’t know this Brett guy who’d been such a toe-rag but he could imagine. Somehow, he had a pretty clear idea of her family dynamics by now. In some ways Penny was tough but in others...she was exposed, he thought, and Brett must have sensed that weakness. If he’d said great things to her she would have believed them. She’d believed them all the way to a calamitous engagement.
So now she thought compliments were a means of manipulation and he could understand why. He had to shut up. Except suddenly he couldn’t.
‘Right,’ he told her. ‘No more compliments. But there are a few truths—not compliments, truths, that I’m not taking back. Firstly, your cooking is awesome and I’m incredibly grateful. Second, I’d agree with Ron—you do have a nice rear end, even though it’s an entirely inappropriate comment for a boss to make about his employee. And finally there’s one more thing which I need to say and it’ll make you blush because it’s a ripper.’
‘A ripper?’ she said faintly. ‘A ripper of a compliment?’
‘Not a compliment,’ he told her, throwing caution to the wind. He took her other hand and tugged so she was facing him. ‘Just the truth. Penelope Hindmarsh-Firth, you smell of fresh baked bread and yeast and the aroma of a day spent in the kitchen, my kitchen, and if you think me telling you that you have a nice backside is an empty compliment then the world’s upside down. This is a gorgeous night and I’m holding the hands of a woman who’s saved my butt. She has a beautiful backside, not to mention the rest of her—and she smells and looks beautiful. Messy but beautiful. No more compliments, Penny. Just the truth. So...’
He paused then and took a deep breath and fought for the strength to say what had to be said. Because it was unwise and shouldn’t be said at all but how could he not?
‘So?’ she whispered and somehow he found himself answering. Still telling it like it was.
‘So we need to go in now because if we stay out here one moment longer I’ll be forced to kiss you.’
And there it was, out in the open. This thing...
‘And you don’t want to?’ It was a whisper, so low he thought he’d misheard. But he hadn’t. Her whisper seemed to echo. Even the owls above their head seemed to pause to listen.
This was such a bad idea. This woman was his employee. She was trapped here for the next four days, or longer if she took him up on his offer to extend.
What was he doing? Standing in the dark, talking of kissing a woman? Did he want to?
‘I do want to,’ he said because there was nothing else to say.
‘Then what’s stopping you?’
‘Penny...’
‘Just shut up, Matt Fraser, and kiss me.’
And what could he say to that?
The night held its breath and Matt Fraser took Penny Hindmarsh-Firth into his arms and he kissed her.
* * *
Wow.
Um...
Wow?
This was wrong on so many levels. Firstly, she should still be in mourning for her broken engagement and the betrayal that went with it.
Second, this man was her boss.
Third, she was alone out here, under the gums and the starlight with a man she’d met less than two weeks ago.
The owls above their heads had decided they no longer needed to be wary and were swooping off, dark shadows against the moonlight as they continued their night’s hunt.
Under her feet was a carpet of leaf litter that gave off the scent of eucalypts when she moved. But how could she move?
Matt was tugging her close. Her face was tilting up to his and his mouth met hers.
Matt hadn’t shaved for a couple of days—when would he find time? His clothes were rough, heavy moleskin pants and a thick shirt open at the throat, sleeves rolled back to reveal arms of sheer brawn. His hands were scarred and weathered.
He smelled of the shearing shed. He’d washed and changed before he’d come out to the veranda but the lanolin from the fleeces seemed to have seeped into his pores. He smelled and felt what he was. He owned this land but he stood beside his men. He did the hard yards with them.
He was a man of steel.
He kissed her as if this was the first time for both of them. As if he had all the time in the world. As if he wasn’t sure what it was he’d be tasting but he wasn’t about to rush it.
His hands moved to her hips but he didn’t tug her into him, or if he did it wasn’t hard, and maybe the fact that she was melting against him was an act of her own volition. She could back away at any time.
But oh, the feel of him. The sensation of his lips brushing hers. For now it was just brushing, almost a feather-touch, but it was the most sensual thing she’d ever felt. His hands on the small of her back... The feel of his rough hair as she tentatively lifted her hand and let herself rake it...
Oh, Matt.
Oh, wow.
But he wasn’t pressing. He wasn’t pushing and suddenly she saw it from his point of view.
She was in his terrain, and she was all by herself. He was a man of honour. He was kissing her on terms that said the control was hers. She could pull back.
And with that thought came the most logical next thought.
If she was in control then bring it on. How could she not? This man was gorgeous. The night was gorgeous. She was a twenty-seven-year-old woman out under the stars with a man to die for.
And then, quite deliberately, she let her thoughts dissolve. She raised her hands to his hair so she had his head and she tugged him closer. She stood on tiptoe to get closer still.
She opened her lips and she welcomed him in.
* * *
Penny was melting under his hands and there wasn’t a thing he could do about it.
How could he want to do anything about it?
She’d stood on tiptoe and surrendered her mouth to him. Her hands claimed him. Her body said she wanted this kiss as much or more than he did, and he’d better get on with it.
And so he did, and the sensation was enough to do his head in. The warmth, the heat, the fire... The night was dissolving in a mist of desire where nothing existed except this woman in his arms. This woman kissing him as fiercely as he kissed her. This woman whose body language said she wanted him as much as he wanted her.
A moment in time that was indescribable. Inevitable. World-changing?
The moment stretched on, a man and a woman in the moonlight, almost motionless, welded together by the heat from this kiss. From this need.
From this recognition that something was changing for both of them?
And with that thought...trouble.
It was as if his past had suddenly flown back, a cold chill of memory. Of love given and not returned. Of faith and trust blasted. Of the emptiness of loss. The grief...
He felt it almost as a physical jolt and, as if she’d felt it, she was suddenly tugging back. Maybe she’d had the same jolt of uncertainty, the same frisson that their worlds were both under threat by some new order.
And it almost killed him, but he let her go.
‘W...wow,’ she breathed and he thought: Good description. He couldn’t think of a better word himself.
‘You kiss good,’ she managed. She looked dazed. A curl had escaped her ponytail and was coiling down across her eyes. He couldn’t help himself—he lifted it and pushed it back.
But he didn’t take her back into his arms.
‘You’re not so bad yourself,’ he ventured, but the ghosts had been right to tug him back. He had no intention of getting involved with any woman. He would not face that kind of grief again.
But this wasn’t any woman. This was Penny.
‘We...we should be careful.’ She couldn’t quite disguise the quaver in her voice. ‘If we go any further we’ll shock the owls.’
‘Probably not wise,’ he managed.
‘None of this is wise,’ she whispered. ‘But I’m not sure I care.’
It was up to him. And somehow he made the call. Somehow the ghosts prevailed.
‘I need to be up before dawn,’ he told her.
There was a long silence. Then, ‘Of course you do.’ There was still a tremble in her voice but she was fighting to get it under control.
Somehow he stayed silent. Somehow he managed not to gather her into his arms and take this to its inevitable conclusion.
It almost killed him.
But she had herself under control now. He could see her gathering herself together. This was a woman used to being rebuffed, he thought, and somehow that made it worse. But the ghosts were all around him, echoes of lessons long learned.
He didn’t move.
‘Then goodnight, Matt,’ she whispered at last, and she reached out and touched his face in the most fleeting of farewell caresses. ‘Sleep well. Sleep happy and sensible.’
And she turned and, without a torch, not even noticing the rough ground, she practically ran back to the relative sanctuary of the house.
It was done.
Sense had prevailed.
