Читать книгу Falling For Jack - TRISHA DAVID - Страница 7

CHAPTER TWO

THEY found Harry fifteen minutes later and Harry was neck-deep in trouble. Or rather he was neck-deep in dung.

The cattle pavilions were the last place they searched. Bryony nosed her way through the cows, Maddy clinging to her side, and there was Harry rolling with canine delight in a pile of fresh manure.

The dog looked up as he saw Bryony. Bryony! Source of dog food, toast and electric blankets. He struggled to his feet, cocked a mucky eyebrow at his mistress, quivered all over from nose to stump—and launched himself at her with love. Straight into her arms. It was the only trick Bryony had been able to teach him—to fly straight up into her arms. He trusted her absolutely to grasp him and not to let him fall as he jumped.

So Bryony had no choice. She grasped as expected and Harry wagged himself all over in her arms. Green dung dripped straight down the front of her cream sweater and further, onto her white leggings.

Bryony stood on the concrete floor of the cattle pavilion, thinking longingly of goldfish as pets and wondering whether schnauzers made good goldfish food.

‘He is a bad dog!’ By her side, Maddy was breathless in horrified awe.

‘He certainly is.’ Bryony took a deep breath—then decided she didn’t need to breathe again for a while. Harry looked adoringly up through his bushy eyebrows and wagged his stump of a tail. It was too much. Around them there was shocked silence as the cattlemen saw what Harry had done, but Bryony’s mouth was curving into a grin she couldn’t contain. She either laughed here or she sat down amid the dung and howled. So she laughed and, with relief, the cattlemen laughed with her.

‘Can I give you a hose down, miss?’ one of them asked her—semi-serious—and Bryony thought, Why not? She held her dog before her as the farmer directed his hose full blast. After all, it would serve Harry right and it couldn’t make the mess worse. Could it?

It could. The dung had soaked in too far to be rinsed off by a spray with cold water. Now, instead of being almost dry and manured, she was soaking wet and manured. The dung mixed with the water and soaked right in to her skin. Now she was smelly and sodden, and Harry was even soggier.

‘I guess it’s just not my day,’ she told the wide-eyed Maddy and the almost pop-eyed cattlemen. ‘Some days you just shouldn’t get out of bed in the morning, and this is one of them.’

‘Bryony!’

Uh-oh...

Bryony turned cautiously to find her friend, Myrna McPherson, watching her from the pavilion door. Myrna had her six-week-old twins inside a pushchair; Peter, aged five, was clinging to one side of the babies and Fiona, aged six, was holding the other side of the pushchair handle. All of them were gazing at Bryony as if she’d taken leave of her senses.

‘Hi...’ Bryony faltered, and started to laugh again.

Myrna didn’t laugh. She regarded her friend with resigned horror, as if Bryony had done something dreadful, but what did she expect? This was Bryony, after all.

There are sheep loose all over the fairground,’ Myrna said carefully, ignoring Bryony’s laughter. ‘Someone said a little grey dog was chasing them. Would that be Harry, then?’

‘Hmm.’ Bryony stopped chuckling and met her friend’s look with a guilty smile. ‘It might be.’

‘I see.’ Myrna rolled her eyes. ‘You don’t think you could have held on to him?’

‘I got distracted.’ Bryony didn’t say with what, or with whom, and by the look in Myrna’s eyes she didn’t need to. Myrna was a very good friend.

Now she was focusing on something other than the disgusting Bryony and her even more disgusting dog. She’d spotted the child at Bryony’s side and she smiled a welcome.

‘Hi, Maddy.’

‘H-hi.’ Maddy’s thumb came up and wedged into her mouth, and she backed imperceptibly behind Bryony.

Bryony could feel the fear. She frowned, feeling as protective as a mother hen. A sodden, smelly mother hen.

‘Do you two know each other?’ Bryony asked, looking from Maddy to Myrna.

‘Maddy’s in the same class as Fiona at school.’ Myrna gave her small daughter a gentle push forward. ‘Say hi to Maddy, Fiona.’

Maddy dived completely behind Bryony, and Myrna’s eyes widened.

She looked at Bryony, her eyes asking a question, and Bryony gave her head an almost imperceptible shake. Don’t push it.

Myrna was anything but stupid; she got the message loud and clear. She put a restraining hand on Fiona’s shoulder, stopping her daughter from walking forward.

‘On second thoughts, go no further, Fi,’ she ordered. ‘Bryony stinks.’

Bryony glared. ‘Gee, thanks.’

‘What are friends for if they can’t give each other gentle hints about body odour? You weren’t thinking of going home in my car, were you?’ They’d come together, packed like sardines in Myrna’s small Fiat—four children, two adults and one dog.

‘Well, yes...’

‘Well, no.’ Myrna screwed up her nose in distaste. ‘I’d have to sell the car if I let you near it, or your stink would mingle with the petrol fumes and blow us all up. Heaven knows what that chemical combination is.’

‘But...’

‘We were squashed before,’ Myrna said definitely. ‘And now...Bryony, that dog is definitely not coming in my car—and neither are you!’

‘Myrna...’ Bryony stared helplessly at her friend. ‘You have to.’

‘No, I don’t.’ There was a twinkle behind Myrna’s eyes that said she was enjoying herself. ‘I’ll send Ian back for you with the truck.’

Ian was Myrna’s husband, and Bryony was torn between laughter and dismay.

‘Myrna...Ian’s busy. Don’t you dare.’

‘Ian’s sowing barley this afternoon.’ Myrna gave Bryony her sweetest best-friend smile. ‘But he’ll be finished about six and I’ll send him to fetch you then. I don’t see what else you can do. The local taxi sure won’t take you.’ She screwed up her nose some more and looked around to where the farmer with the hose was spraying dung from the concrete floor. ‘At least you’re among your own kind here among the cows. I’ll tell Ian just to follow his nose when he comes to find you, shall I?’

‘Myrna, you rat...’ Bryony took a hasty, laughing step forward and discovered Maddy was clinging to her leggings, tightly, dung and all. Myrna’s eyes widened still further, but she made no comment.

‘Come on, children,’ Myrna told her troop, grinning widely and turning her pushchair with the air of a woman with purpose. ‘Let’s get out of here. Aunty Bryony has finally gone too far—and I don’t want to stick around to see the consequences. I can see from here that they’ll be far from pretty.’

With a last, mischievous chuckle, Myrna swept from the pavilion, leaving Bryony with Harry—and Maddy—until six o’clock... Two more hours. Oh, great. Two hours of wandering round the fairground looking and smelling like a pile of dung.

‘Won’t she take you home?’ Maddy was still tucked safely in behind her, and her hand still clung.

‘No. She won’t.’ Bryony sank down on a hay bale with Harry in her arms, and Maddy sat sympathetically beside her. ‘Do you know what a fair-weather friend is, Maddy?’

‘No.’

‘That.’ Bryony gestured to the departing Myrna’s back. ‘She’s a great example. I come halfway around the world to rescue her business and she doesn’t let me in her car because I smell a little.’

‘You smell a lot,’ Maddy said truthfully.

‘Gee, thanks.’

‘Jack’ll take you home.’

Now that was a thought. Why hadn’t that occurred to her? Bryony cringed inwardly at the prospect.

‘I’ll just bet your D—I’ll bet your Jack drives a lovely new car with cream leather seats.’

‘Sometimes he does, but today he’s driving a truck. A big one, with little houses built on the back for the dogs.’

‘Well, that’s a possibility. Maybe I could use a dog house.’ Bryony grinned down at Maddy and, to her delight, the child smiled back.

‘Silly. You could sit up front with us. I’ll go ask.’

Before Bryony could stop her, the child had slipped away and was racing nimbly around assorted cows and out of the pavilion door. She disappeared. Oh, help... Bryony rose, with Harry. Now what should she do?

Myrna had said Bryony was among her own kind here, and she was, up to a point. The pavilion was full of magnificently groomed cows and bulls and calves, and everything had the faint odour of dung. Here, if Bryony sat quietly on her hay bale and waited for Myrna’s husband, she’d attract not much more than the odd disgusted glance.

But...

But she’d promised Jack she’d deliver Maddy back to the dog-trial ground. Maddy was now on her own, and the trial ground was on the other side of the fairground. So there was nothing for it but to tuck Harry more firmly under the arm of her disgusting sweater and take off after her.

‘Maddy, wait for me. Maddy...’

Bryony’s boots weren’t meant for running and Harry, although small, weighed a ton. Maddy beat her by a country mile. By the time Bryony puffed her way into the trial ground, Jack Morgan was listening to his daughter’s tale with an expression on his face that told Bryony he was trying to conceal anger that she was alone. Bryony could tell at a glance that he was furious.

‘I don’t understand,’ he was saying. The trial ground was deserted and, as Bryony reached the stands, she could hear every word. Then Jack looked across and saw her.

‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Nice of you to join Maddy.’ It was sarcasm at its most pointed.

‘She ran ahead.’ Bryony tried to glare, but it was hard to puff and glare all at the same time. She stopped where she was—twenty feet away—and concentrated on her glare-puff technique. Then she checked out Jack’s disdainful glance and figured she didn’t have to be there at all. She’d seen Maddy back. Even if she had to puff a bit more to leave, it was worth it. This man thought she was a cross between a caterpillar and a maw-worm.

‘I’ll see you later, Maddy,’ she called between puffs. ‘Maybe at the next dog show. Thanks for helping me find Harry.’

‘Don’t you dare be at the next dog show,’ Jack growled, and even Maddy looked dismayed. But she grabbed her father’s arm and pulled.

‘No!’ Her voice was urgent. ‘I told you. We have to take Bryony home because she smells.’

She did smell, too. Jack remembered. She smelled really good.

‘Honey...’

‘The bad dog got cow muck all over her and then a man sprayed her with the hose and now she and Harry smell so bad that Fiona’s mummy won’t take her in the car. Bryony has to sit with the cows until someone comes with a truck, and that won’t be for ages and we have a truck.’

Jack stared down at his little daughter. Then, slowly, his eyes moved again to Bryony, and he registered what Maddy had been trying to tell him.

Bryony’s hair was sodden. Her white clothes were stained green and disgusting. The dog in her arms was even worse. If he’d tried for the rest of his life to think of a suitable punishment for this woman, he couldn’t have come up with a better one than this. She was foul.

Or maybe...maybe not quite. Bryony was mired and wet and out of breath, but she stood, her chin tilting with defiance and her green eyes flashing—and Jack thought suddenly that he’d never seen anything more beautiful. Or more ridiculous.

‘She says she can go in one of the dog houses on the back of the truck, but she can come in the front of the truck with us, can’t she, Jack?’

Jack’s shoulders shook.

‘Don’t you dare laugh,’ Bryony said carefully.

‘Why not?’ Jack’s eyes twinkled with pure Machiavellian enjoyment ‘You appear to have met your just deserts.’

‘Thank you.’ Bryony spun on her heel.

‘Miss Lester.’

Bryony ignored him. She stalked away, boots squelching water, and three seconds later was stopped by a large hand on her shoulder. She wheeled around and discovered Jack’s wicked laughter directed straight down at her.

‘Whew,’ he said. ‘I can see Fiona’s mother’s point of view.’

‘Thank you,’ she said, with as much dignity as a lady with an armload of manured dog could muster. It didn’t help that Harry was wriggling fiercely, trying to get down to greet Jessica.

‘Will this help?’

Jack produced a collar and lead from his pocket—Harry’s. When Harry had slipped his collar, Bryony had dropped it as she’d tried to grab him back.

‘Someone found it in the grandstand and gave it to me.’ Ignoring the smell, Jack reached out and fastened the collar around Harry’s neck. Harry raised his eyebrows, wriggled his backside, and looked eagerly down at Jessica, still standing obediently at Jack’s side.

‘Your taste in women might be impeccable, but your choice of aftershave leaves something to be desired,’ Jack told him as he lowered Harry onto the ground with a ruffle behind his disreputable ears. The two dogs greeted each other with joy. Harry’s choice of aftershave obviously suited Jessica down to the ground. Jack wasn’t looking. He was looking at Bryony.

‘Can we drive Bryony home?’ Maddy’s voice was urgent and entreating.

Jack frowned.

‘Why?’

Blunt and to the point. Bryony couldn’t think of a single reason why he should.

‘Because I like Bryony,’ Maddy said stubbornly. ‘And it’s not her fault Harry’s bad.’

‘He’s not trained.’

‘You could help train him,’ Maddy said eagerly, but even Bryony thought that was going a bit too far.

‘Thanks, Maddy,’ she told the child. ‘But I’ll just go back to my cows and wait for Ian.’

Jack hesitated. ‘Ian who?’

‘McPherson.’

Jack’s face cleared. For some reason, the thought of Bryony meeting a man he knew as safely married eased a tension he’d hardly been aware was building.

‘Ian McPherson’s sowing crop this afternoon,’ he told her. ‘I passed him on the way here.’

‘I know,’ Bryony said politely. ‘But when he finishes he’ll come and get me.’

‘He won’t finish until dusk.’

‘Then I’ll wait until dusk.’

Jack sighed and ran a hand through his hair, barely lifting his hat as he did.

The knot of tension tightened again. There was something about Bryony Lester that told him he should pick up Maddy and Jessica and leave now, have nothing more to do with her.

But Maddy was tugging his hand with an urgency he’d never seen in the child before.

‘I like Bryony,’ she’d said.

Well, he didn’t like Bryony. A more useless, ornamental, smelly... She had great eyes. He didn’t like women’s eyes. He liked Bryony’s. She had great legs. Ditto. Her hair was fabulous! Oh, brother...

‘Come on,’ he growled. ‘I’ll take you home.’

Bryony bit her lip. As an invitation it lacked some polish. She should refuse.

But she was wet and she stank—maybe it hadn’t been such a good idea to be hosed down. Despite her run, she was now feeling just a bit cold, and promising to get colder.

‘The offer’s good for two minutes,’ Jack said, seeing her look of reluctance. ‘We’re going home now. Take it or leave it.’

She didn’t want to stay here for two more hours. Even if Jack Morgan was an arrogant toad he was a really good-looking arrogant toad. With a great smile... When he could be bothered to produce it. And he loved Maddy; even a fool could see that. So he couldn’t be all bad. She managed a smile herself.

‘Thank you,’ she said submissively. ‘I’d like to go home. Harry and I will sit on the back so the wind takes our smell backward.’

‘No. I want you to sit in the front with me,’ Maddy said stubbornly. ‘We don’t mind the smell—do we, Jack?’

‘We might.’ Jack’s tone was cautious. ‘In fact...’

‘When we found that sick lamb last week I nursed it all the way back to the house in the front of the truck and it smelled horrid,’ Maddy said hastily. ‘You put it in the stove and it smelled all the time until it was warm enough to go back to its mother. My lamb was nice—but Bryony’s better.’

She had a point there. Jack looked hard at Bryony and gave himself a swift mental shake. Get a hold on yourself here, boy! Get this over with. Fast.

‘My truck’s behind the grandstand,’ he said bluntly, then he called his dog, took Maddy by the hand and strode off towards it, as if he couldn’t care less whether Bryony followed or not. Which was about as far from the truth as it was possible to get.

The ensuing drive was tense, to say the least. At Maddy’s insistence, Bryony sat inside the cab, but she was acutely aware that she smelled, that she was soaking the upholstery and that Jack Morgan thought she was some sort of bad joke low life.

Which, all in all, managed to put a stop to Bryony’s normally cheerful chat.

The two dogs stayed in their enclosures on the truck tray and, by the end of the ride, Bryony would almost have preferred to be back there with them.

She gave brief directions to her cottage on the outskirts of town, then huddled herself and her aroma in the corner and concentrated fiercely on not moving. Every time she did, a fresh wave of dung wafted over the cabin. Jack had both windows down as far as they’d go, but even Maddy was looking uncomfortable by the time they pulled up. Bryony was out of the cabin door practically before the truck had ceased moving.

‘Thank you very much for the ride,’ she told them, managing another smile. They seemed to be getting harder. ‘I’ll just get Harry off the back...’

And then she stopped. Jack had carefully placed Jessica in one enclosure and Harry in another. Now they were lying in the one enclosure, side by side, and the pong wafted out from both of them. Jack jumped down from the cabin to help release Harry—and when he saw the dogs his jaw dropped a foot.

‘What...?’ he said, and his tone was back to being dangerous. ‘Who...?’

‘It wasn’t me!’ Bryony’s voice was practically a yelp. ‘They were in separate enclosures when I saw them last, I swear.’

‘It was me.’

Maddy had hardly talked all the way home, answering Bryony’s questions in monosyllables. Now she climbed carefully down from the cabin. She addressed Jack in an ‘I cut down the cherry tree so pack me off to the colonies on bread and water’ tone that made Bryony cringe. ‘I did it while that man came over to talk to you after you’d put the dogs up,’ she continued. ‘Bryony was looking at you and no one was looking at the dogs and Jessica looked lonely.’

Jack closed his eyes, defeated. He would have liked to yell at Bryony, but he had to admit this wasn’t her fault and he couldn’t yell at Maddy. He could still be annoyed.

‘Well, that’s the end of Jess sleeping on your bed tonight, young lady. She’ll smell almost as bad as Harry. We’ll bathe her in the morning.’

Maddy’s face fell, and Bryony had the sudden feeling that, for Maddy, maybe the colonies on bread and water were preferable to a night in bed without a dog.

‘Hey, you can bathe her tonight,’ she volunteered.

‘She takes hours to dry,’ Jack snapped.

‘So use a hairdryer.’

Maddy and Jack both stared at Bryony as if she were talking a foreign language.

‘A hairdryer?’ Bryony looked from one to the other and frowned. ‘You know—a neat little electric gadget that blows hot air on wet heads?’

Maddy looked doubtfully up at Jack. ‘I don’t think we have one of those—do we?’

‘We don’t.’

Bryony sighed.

Escape wasn’t easy.

‘Well, I have two,’ she confessed. ‘You’d better come in and we’ll bathe Jess here. But I get first go at the hot water.’

‘Two...?’

‘Two hairdryers.’

Jack stared. ‘Why on earth do you have two hairdryers?’

‘In case you haven’t noticed, I have rather an oversupply of hair.’ Bryony grinned. ‘I hold the hairdryers one on each side of my ears and my hair flies straight up like something out of Star Wars. It’s a great sensation, and a lot quicker than using one.’

Jack had a sudden mental image of Bryony—fresh out of the shower—naked and glowing, with a hairdryer in each hand, red hair flying upward. He felt dizzy.

‘I don’t know...’ His voice came from a long way away.

‘Oh, stop quibbling. My dog has made your dog smell, so I’ll fix it.’ Bryony leaped lightly up onto the truck tray, released the dogs from their cage, then jumped down again and grabbed Maddy by the hand.

‘Come on in,’ she said cordially. ‘If you give me ten minutes while I wash myself, then I’ll wash both dogs and send you home with a sweet-smelling Jess and a clear conscience. It’s the least I can do—and I always do the least I can do.’

She and Maddy marched forth, dogs following adoringly behind, and this time it was Jack who was left to follow, whether he liked it or not.

Bryony left the dogs outside and Jack and Maddy in her sitting room while she showered. By the time she emerged, Jack was starting to wonder just what sort of madhouse he’d got himself into.

Bryony’s cottage was like no other he’d ever seen. From the outside it was ordinary enough, though the two vast ceramic elephant legs—one on either side of the entrance—were a fair indication of what was to come.

And inside...

This lady was a chronic collector, a magpie, and what she collected was extraordinary. There were furnishings here from all over the world.

The furniture itself was huge—way too big for such a tiny cottage. The lounge sofa and chairs didn’t match. Each was vast and overstuffed and in a different colour of some sort of vivid silk. A riot of huge, squashy cushions tumbled over them and onto the floor. The floor itself had about ten rugs, layered one on top of the other. Each was in a different fabric or texture and the effect was one of some sort of crazy comfort cocoon.

And the paintings...

Weird, wonderful paintings—some of which were astounding, some just plain beautiful and a couple...well, if Jack had his choice he’d turn them to the wall while Maddy was in the room.

And there were things... Sculptures, some big, some small. An array of glasses on the sideboard, none of them matching but each one individual and wonderful. Small tables of exotic wood, with seashells and carvings and strange-looking seed pods...

Maddy wandered about the room, open-mouthed, and Jack sank into one of the vast chairs and just plain stared. This lady was a nut! A complete, utter nut! What sort of person put eight rugs on a floor hardly big enough to hold one?

They heard her in the shower next door, making enough noise to suggest there were a couple of whales in the bathroom. She dropped the soap and they heard her attempts to pick it up with astonishment. Maddy got the giggles.

‘Close your.ears, Maddy,’ Jack growled. ‘You’re not to learn those words.’

‘She doesn’t think we can hear.’

‘No.’

Maddy found this extremely satisfactory. She checked out each seat, chose the highest and clambered into it. Definitely into. You didn’t sit on any of Bryony’s furniture, you sank.

‘This is the best room...’ Maddy sighed. ‘You know you said we could decorate my room? I’d like my room just like this.’ She giggled. ‘Jack, take your hat off. See that horn? I think it’s a hatstand.’ She clambered off her seat, lifted Jack’s hat from his head and took it over to place it on what looked like some sort of bugle, stuck on a bamboo pole. Ridiculous!

But Maddy was grinning, and she’d removed Jack’s hat. For a child who only went near Jack when she had to, it was a beginning. Then Bryony burst back into the room, clad in jeans and an oversized white T-shirt that said ‘No Fear’ in huge red letters. Her amazing hair was turbaned up on her head in a white fluffy towel. She looked fresh and scrubbed and bare-toed—and absolutely gorgeous.

Jack blinked.

‘Your house is wonderful,’ Maddy told her before Bryony could speak. ‘Is the rest like this?’

‘Well, the rest is a bit crowded.’

‘You mean this isn’t?’ Jack stared around in incredulity and Bryony grinned.

‘I collect things. I have visions of one day living in a big house and needing all this. When I moved from New York I tried to sell a bit but selling things is okay in principle. It’s only when you pick up each thing and look at it and remember where you found it that it gets impossible. And storing... I know I should put some of these rugs into storage, but they’re sort of fun like this.’

‘You brought all this from America? It must have cost you a fortune.’

‘Mmm. But I couldn’t leave it behind.’ She grinned down at Maddy. Could I, now? Want to see my bed?’

‘Oh, yes...’ Maddy bounced across the room and grabbed Bryony’s hands. ‘Please...’

Bryony grinned at Jack. ‘You can see it, too, if you’re interested,’ she offered. ‘Otherwise, go grab a beer from the kitchen straight down the hall. I should have offered you one before I showered. I’m sorry. All I could think of was getting rid of my smell.’

Jack forgave her. Just like that. He got up in a daze and found himself not getting a beer but standing by Bryony’s bedroom door staring in amazement at the bed.

It was vast, king-sized or bigger, carved in some sort of deep red wood—mahogany or something similar—with huge posts at each corner and all hung with gold and purple drapes—like something out of a sultan’s palace.

‘It’s ridiculous.’ Bryony chuckled. ‘I’ll have to sell this. Roger says he won’t sleep in it in a fit and it’s hardly a guest bed.’

‘Roger?’ Jack was finding it hard to catch his breath.

‘My fiancé.’

A fiancé. Yeah, right. Jack managed to catch his breath on that one. For some reason, it made things seem more in control.

‘I’d like to sleep in it,’ Maddy announced, unaware that a spiral had just stopped mid-spin for Jack. ‘Very, very much.’

‘Well, if Jack says you can, then maybe one night you can spend the night with me and Harry.’

‘Harry sleeps here, too?’

‘Actually,’ Bryony admitted, ‘Harry and I swim in this bed. I told him he should really have been a giant wolfhound just to fill it up. We thought of letting out pillow space.’ She ruffled the little girl’s pigtails, and Maddy, who normally cringed when touched, wiggled her head as if she thoroughly enjoyed being ruffled. ‘Okay, miss. Let’s cope with these dogs. Harry first because he’s the worst. And then your Jess.’

What followed was a very silly hour. If anyone had ever told Jack he’d enjoy himself so much washing and blowdrying a couple of smelly dogs he would have thought them ridiculous. But Bryony had them all in fits of laughter. They ended up—all of them—back in her crazy sitting room, knee deep in rugs with damp dogs and hot air going everywhere.

The dogs thought it was wonderful and so did Maddy. Jack was just plain hornswoggled. Who the hell was Roger? Finally he could bear it no longer.

‘So tell me,’ he said as the overfluffed and pristine dogs rolled on the rugs with Bryony and Maddy. ‘What the hell are you doing here in Hamilton? Is Roger a local?’

Bryony’s laughter died a little.

‘Roger lives in Sydney.’

‘But...you’re marrying Roger.’

‘Not until next year.’

‘I see,’ he lied. He didn’t see at all. But...presumably you came from New York to marry Roger?’

‘Well, sort of.’ Bryony grabbed a passing dog and started brushing. She sighed. ‘Roger and I have known each other for ever. He proposed years ago, but I hadn’t seen the world yet so I took off to America. I’m an interior designer.’ She grinned. ‘If you hadn’t guessed.’

Silence. Bryony cast a swift look at Jack. He was frowning, and for some reason Bryony found herself fighting for words.

‘I built up an interior design agency in New York, but I missed Australia,’ she continued, talking too fast now. ‘And Roger kept visiting and giving me all the good reasons I should marry him. And then Myrna—I met Myrna at university and we started in business together way back in the Dark Ages—wrote that she was having twins and her interior design business here would have to close if she couldn’t find anyone to look after it for a while. So I figured I’d come home in stages. Twelve months living here getting used to not being in New York—and then Sydney and marriage to Roger.’

‘but...I thought you were American.’ Maddy didn’t like this turn of events. Bryony moving on...Bryony an Australian...

‘I’m half American,’ Bryony told her. ‘My mom was American, but she married my dad a long, long time ago and he’s an Australian.’

‘Oh.’ Maddy’s face cleared. ‘You’re still like me, then.’

‘Yep.’

‘But...you’re going to live in Sydney?’ The disappointment in Maddy’s voice was poignant and Bryony reached to give her a hug. Jack stared. Maddy... Hugs...

‘I’m not going to Sydney for yonks.’

‘What’s yonks?’ Maddy asked, bewildered.

‘Yonks is so far ahead I refuse to think about it.’

‘Don’t you want to marry Roger?’

‘Sure I want to marry Roger.’ Bryony’s voice was defensive. ‘He’s cute.’

‘So’s Harry,’ Jack said dryly, and Bryony grinned.

‘Yeah, well, Roger has certain advantages over Harry.’

‘What?’ Maddy demanded.

Bryony’s green eyes twinkled. ‘Well, for a start he’s a rich lawyer. He can keep me in the manner to which I wish to become accustomed.’

‘Jack’s rich,’ Maddy retorted. ‘You could marry him.’ Yeah, right. All of a sudden, the silence was loaded. Bryony scrambled to her feet. ‘Tea,’ she said. ‘I’m starving. Are you?’

‘Yes.’ Maddy was definite, but Jack rose too, and took her hand.

‘We have to go, Maddy.’

‘I’m not offering a seven-course meal here,’ Bryony told him, and grinned. ‘I can’t. Cooking is not my forté. I’m offering toasted cheese sandwiches.’

Maddy’s face set into obstinacy. ‘Cheese sandwiches are my favourite.’

Jack looked down at his small daughter and sighed. He shouldn’t be here. This woman was beautiful. This woman was intelligent and funny. This woman was eccentric. This woman was engaged to another man.

He should get the hell out of here—right now.

But Maddy had come alive. His daughter had been with him for three months now and she’d been flat and listless and uninterested the whole time.

Bryony had made her laugh. You could forgive a lot of a woman who made your daughter laugh.

Besides, there was a part of Jack that wanted to spend more time here, wanted to sit on the other side of the kitchen table and watch Bryony make toasted cheese sandwiches—watch Bryony do anything...

‘If you have enough bread and cheese,’ Jack found himself saying weakly.

‘I have enough to burn,’ Bryony said cheerfully. ‘And I hope that’s not prophetic.’