Читать книгу A Kiss To Remember - Miranda Lee - Страница 7

ANGIE sat on the top step of the front veranda, waiting impatiently for her brother to arrive with his exciting-sounding friend. Bud had said in his last letter that they’d be leaving Sydney straight after breakfast. But it was a five-hour drive north up to Wilga, then another twenty minutes out to the farm. Since it was only ten to twelve, they probably wouldn’t be here for at least another hour.

Still, Angie couldn’t seem to settle to anything else. So she stayed where she was, anxiously watching the valley road and hoping against hope that they’d started out earlier than intended.

For the millionth time that morning she wondered what this Lance looked like.

Bud had said in his letters that his friend was very good-looking. But Bud’s idea of good-looking and Angie’s idea of good-looking were often poles apart. Their views on things differed as vastly as did their own looks.

Bud took after their mother, who was small and dark, with black wavy hair, chocolate-brown eyes and an inclination to put on weight easily. Angie, however, was a female version of their father—tall and athletically slim, with auburn hair and widely spaced green eyes.

Their natures were different as well. Bud was easily bored, and craved excitement and companionship all the time. Angie was far more placid and private. She was quite happy with her own company, liking nothing better than to go riding by herself, or to curl up all alone on her bed to write poetry or read a book. She liked to think rather than talk. Bud could talk underwater, like their mother.

A cloud of dust in the distance had Angie jumping to her feet, her hand hooding her eyes from the sunlight as she peered down the hill. A car was coming along the valley road, going as fast as her heart was suddenly beating.

It was Bud and his friend. She was sure of it.

Somewhere at the back of her mind Angie knew she was acting totally out of character, getting excited over a member of the opposite sex. Especially one she hadn’t met yet.

She was not boy-mad, as were most other girls in her class. Her classmates actually thought her shy.

She let them think it.

Angie knew that she wasn’t really shy. Just reserved. She liked her personal space and hated being harassed in any way. Unwanted male attention sometimes embarrassed and always annoyed her. Frankly, she found most boys at school exceedingly adolescent, noisy and irritating. She’d actually been relieved by her father’s edict a couple of years back that she could not have a boyfriend till she was sixteen. It was the perfect excuse for her to turn down the invitations she received from her overeager admirers.

And there were many. For Angie was a very attractive girl. In the past few months some people had started using the word ‘beautiful’.

Yet she never made any attempt to enhance her looks or look older, as some girls might have. She never used make-up, always wore her long straight hair up in a simple ponytail, and was happiest wearing jeans or shorts, plus one of her father’s shirts.

Today was no different. Angie had too much common sense to try to attract someone like Bud’s friend from Sydney. He was twenty-two, after all—one year older than Bud—and wouldn’t look twice at a fifteen-year-old girl. On top of that he was very, very rich—the only son and heir of one of Sydney’s wealthiest families.

Perhaps it was this last factor that Angie found so fascinating. She’d never met any really rich people before, and the things Bud had told her about Lance’s home and lifestyle sounded very glamorous. Totally different from the simple country life the Browns led.

Angie had been amazed to hear that after finishing high school Lance had travelled the world for a whole year before starting uni. He and Bud had not become friends till this last year, and no doubt now that their degrees were finished their paths would soon diverge. Next year Bud would have to go out into the real world and find himself a job, whereas Lance would be automatically given a cushy executive position in one of the family’s companies.

Sterling Industries had many fingers in many pies—from food and cleaning products to furniture, from plastics to various mining interests. Apparently, Lance had offered to find Bud a job, but Bud had refused, and Angie was proud of him for that. Not that she was worried about her brother going out on his own in search of a career. Bud had enough drive and energy to succeed in whatever he put his mind to.

The wire door creaked behind her, and Angie turned to see her mother coming out, wiping floury hands on the apron which was doing its best to circumnavigate her rotund middle. Though not yet forty, Nora Brown had long surrendered to her genes, plus her love of food.

Not that she worried about her weight. Nothing ever worried Nora Brown. She was easygoing, easy to please and easy to love. If she had a fault it was her tendency to be blunt with others at times. She was not rude, just a little tactless on occasion. Still, everyone loved her—especially her husband, Morris.

A very handsome man, Morris Brown could have had his pick of any number of local girls. He’d chosen Nora, who was short, plump, dark, and very ordinary-looking.

It was a tribute to Nora’s totally natural self-esteem that she had never found this in any way amazing. She accepted Morris’s love as her due, and loved him back with all the love in her ample bosom. Twenty-two years later, they still adored each other.

‘Did I hear a car coming?’ Nora asked hopefully.

‘Flying, more like it,’ Angie said.

Her mother stepped forward, dark eyes twinkling, a wide smile on her homely face. ‘I’ll bet that’s my Buddy driving. Dear me, but he’s a naughty boy when he gets behind the wheel of a car. I hope his father’s still down on the river flats and can’t see this.’

The car came into view, sending some gravel flying as it lurched around a corner on its way up the hill to the house. Red and gleaming, it had silver wheels and the top down.

The sounds of its manic approach sent the dogs shooting out from underneath the weatherboard house, barking in force. A motley lot, there was a brown kelpie named Betsie, a blue cattle-dog cross named Fang and a black Labrador who’d been a guide dog reject, suitably called Max, after the hero in Get Smart.

‘Betsie! Fang! Max!’ Nora called out. ‘Stop that racket and get yourselves back under the house before you get run over.’

All three dived for cover just as the red Mercedes Sports came to a screeching halt at the bottom of the front steps. It wasn’t her brother’s Mercedes, Angie knew, since he didn’t own a car, but it was Bud behind the wheel all right; she saw that straight away. He was grinning his head off as he glanced down at his watch.

‘Made it before noon by a whole thirty seconds!’ he exclaimed excitedly, then gave his passenger a smug look. ‘You owe me twenty dollars.’

The sound of a rich laugh sent Angie’s eyes swinging over to her brother’s friend, and her heart just stopped. As she stared his head turned slowly towards them, his hand lifting lazily to comb back his thick blond hair. He tipped up his perfectly sculptured face and set dancing blue eyes upon them, his laughing mouth showing dazzling white teeth and a dimple in his right cheek.

‘Hi,’ he said. ‘I’m Lance.’

‘Hi there, Mum,’ Bud called out. ‘Hope we didn’t scare the chooks too much.’

‘Yes, sorry about the ruckus, Mrs Brown,’ Bud’s friend apologised, still smiling that overwhelmingly engaging smile of his. ‘Your son here is insane when it comes to winning a bet.’

‘That’s all right, young man,’ Nora returned. ‘I already know my Buddy’s weaknesses, as well as his strengths. One seems to be picking very nice friends.’

Bud groaned. ‘For pity’s sake, Mum, don’t flatter him. He’s already got a head as big as the Sydney Harbour Bridge.’

‘I’ll flatter whomever I like in my own house, you cheeky pup,’ Nora pretended to reproach him. ‘Now, get yourself out of that fancy car, come up here and give your old mother a hug. You too, young man. I’m partial to hugs.’

‘Coming right up,’ Lance chuckled, and with an extraordinary amount of grace and athleticism, leapt out of the car without opening the door, landing on long legs which supported a body as perfect as his face. Angie had an excellent view of it, standing there, encased in hip-hugging jeans and a muscle-moulding white T-shirt. When his legs moved to propel him up the three steps it looked even better.

Lance had been long hugged by the time Bud made it out of the car and up the steps, by which time Lance had turned his attention to Angie.

‘Don’t tell me you’re Bud’s little sister?’ he drawled, those brilliant blue eyes of his narrowing upon her in a way which did incredible things to her insides. Her previously stopped heart was suddenly racing like a quarter horse in full gallop.

‘Do I get a hug from you too?’ he asked softly, not waiting for permission but immediately taking her in his arms and squeezing her tight.

After a moment’s shock, Angie closed her eyes and let the feel of his firm embrace wash through every pore of her body. It was an experience alien to anything she had ever felt before, making her face flush and her legs go to jelly.

Fear that she might slide down his body on to the veranda in a melted heap forced her to hug him back. But when she did so, he pulled her even more tightly against him, making her fiercely aware of the physical differences between males and females. Her breasts were squashed flat against the hard expanse of his broad chest, and there was a vague assortment of lumps and bumps pressing into her lower abdomen.

‘You can let her go now,’ Bud said, tapping Lance on the shoulder. ‘And don’t go getting any funny ideas about my sister. She’s only fifteen, you know.’

Lance pulled back to hold her at arm’s length, his hands still resting lightly on her hips as he looked her over a second time.

‘She looks older,’ he said, his voice once again having dropped to that low, lazy timbre which sent little shivers running down her spine.

‘Who, Angie?’ Bud sounded sceptical. ‘Nah, she’s just tall, the lucky devil.’

‘Five foot ten in her bare feet,’ her mother piped up proudly. ‘Takes after her father. Buddy here takes after me,’ she added, tousling her son’s black curly head.

‘Mum, stop that,’ Bud objected. ‘And stop calling me Buddy. You know I hate it.’

‘You liked it well enough for your first eighteen years, me lad. Don’t go letting life in the big city give you airs and graces. You haven’t been giving him airs and graces, have you, Lance?’

Finally, Lance’s hands slipped from Angie’s hips and she gulped a steadying breath. She did her best to look composed but she just knew her cheeks were flaming.

‘Not me, Mrs Brown,’ he said, looking away from Angie’s face at long last.

‘Didn’t think so. You seem a mighty fine boy—even if you are from a filthy rich family.’

‘Mum!’ Bud groaned.

‘Well, we all know money can spoil children,’ his mother stated quite ingenuously. ‘But I can see Lance here has grown up to be a credit to his mum and dad. Where is it that your parents have gone to, Lance?’

‘Europe, I think, Mrs Brown.’

Nora was taken aback. ‘Don’t you know?’

Lance’s shrug was nonchalant. ‘They don’t like to be tied down to a schedule. They just go with the flow.’

‘It seems a strange time to go away, just before Christmas,’ Nora muttered, frowning.

Angie had to agree with her. Christmas was for families.

‘Not to worry,’ her mother went on, linking arms with Lance and smiling broadly up at him. ‘You’re spending Christmas with us. We’ll look after you, won’t we, Angie?’

Vanessa gave a dry chortle. ‘I’ll bet your mother wouldn’t have made such an offer if she’d known how her guest wanted the daughter of the house to look after him. So what happened? How long before he made a pass? And how did you possibly resist him? He sounds gorgeous.’

Angie sighed, then slowed for a set of lights, stopping a little raggedly. ‘He didn’t make a pass. Not once. And he stayed with us most of the summer, right till the end of January.’

‘I don’t believe it! He was obviously attracted to you.’

‘Yes, I thought so too. And I was besotted with him. Followed him around like a puppy. Made every excuse to be wherever he was.’

‘Didn’t your brother mind that—his kid sister tagging along all the time?’

‘No. Our family has always done things together. Bud and Dad spent a lot of time that summer showing Lance how to do country-style things. They taught him how to ride, how to plough, how to shoot. By the end of his stay he could drill a beer can at one hundred yards. It was only natural for me to help. And who else would be stupid enough to stand around putting empty beer cans on fenceposts for hours?’

The lights turned green and Angie eased ahead in the heavy city-going traffic.

‘Did your family know you were ga-ga over him?’ Vanessa asked.

‘I don’t think so. As I said before, I’ve always been a private person. I didn’t wear my heart on my sleeve then any more than I do now. Certainly Dad and Bud never guessed. I think maybe Mum might have suspected something, though oddly enough she didn’t say anything at the time—which wasn’t like her at all. Maybe she was smart enough to see the passing nature of the situation and knew that any comment would have made my eventual agony worse.’

‘But Lance knew, didn’t he?’

‘Oh, yes…Lance knew…’

‘And how did he feel about you?’

Angle shrugged. ‘Who knows? I thought he cared for me. He certainly liked me, and I think you’re right in that he was attracted to me, but only in a superficial sense. I was only fifteen, after all. Of course I used to lie in bed every night fantasising that he was as secretly crazy about me as I was about him. I used to write the most sentimental poetry about him—reams of it. I also used to read something deep and meaningful into even the smallest attention he gave me. Every glance my way was a searing, passion-filled gaze in my adolescent mind. Every conversation we shared had hidden love messages behind it.’

Angie gave a soft, sad laugh. ‘The family had a habit of sitting out on the front veranda every night, looking up at the stars and talking. On a few occasions the others went off to bed, leaving Lance and me alone. You’ve no idea how that set my teenage heart a-beating. Only a fifteen-year-old fool would wind romantic dreams around idle chit-chat.’

‘What did you talk about?’

‘Nothing important. Just general stuff. Movies. Music. Books. Poetry. Looking back, I think Lance was only humouring me by claiming to find my tastes and opinions incredibly sensible and mature.’

‘Maybe not, Angie,’ her flatmate argued. ‘You’re a deep thinker, and maybe too sensible for your own good, I’m beginning to think. Far too sensitive, too. I can just picture you at fifteen. Very beautiful but very intense. Perhaps he didn’t make a pass at you because that very intensity frightened him off.’

‘Did I say he didn’t make a pass at me? Yes, of course I did. Perfectly true, in fact. He didn’t. He didn’t have to. It was stupid me who made the pass. Eventually.’

Vanessa’s head whipped round to stare over at her. ‘You did? Good Lord! When? Where?’

‘It was the night before he went back to Sydney. Out on the front veranda.’

‘What on earth did you do? Do tell.’