Convenient Brides (37 page)

Ellie grinned. ‘Don’t be silly! You’re very welcome here.’

‘How’s he doing?’

‘Brett? Uh…fine, as far as I can tell.’

‘Any women friends lurking around the ridges?’ Chantal enquired.

‘No-o. Not so far.’
Help!
Ellie thought.

‘Of course, it’s only a matter of time. Guys like that don’t grow on trees,’ Chantal observed wisely.

‘No, I guess not. How’s the revue going?’

Chantal tipped a hand. ‘OK. Not as lavish as Sun City but I’m enjoying it.’

‘Thanks so much for the daisy!’ The colourful flower in its pot was sitting on the terrace table next to the silver wine cooler.

‘So tell me about yourself, Ellie, and how you come to be sharing a house with Brett?’ Chantal invited.

‘Oh, it’s a long story.’ But possibly better than dis-cussing Brett, it shot through her mind. ‘Briefly, though, it happened like this.’

At the end of it, Chantal raised her glass to Ellie. ‘I’m impressed with how you’ve handled your life. Where’s your kid?’

Ellie told her.

Chantal became thoughtful, then she said abruptly, ‘Do you think I’ve got any chance with him, Ellie?’

‘Chantal—’ Ellie reached for the champagne and topped up their glasses ‘—to be honest, I have no idea. Oh!’ She squinted down the driveway and saw Dan Dawson approaching.

‘What?’

‘Um…this man proposed to me recently. This could be a bit awkward,’ Ellie replied helplessly.

‘Tell you what, we could do each other a little favour here,’ Chantal murmured as Dan drew nearer. ‘If you were to ask me to stay on for dinner in the hope that Brett comes home and finds me here all legit, I could take care of it for you.’

‘You could?’ Ellie said blankly.

Chantal winked. ‘It’s all in a day’s work, honey.’

Half an hour later Brett Spencer arrived home to find a jolly threesome on the terrace drinking champagne.

‘Oh, there you are!’ Ellie greeted him. ‘Just in time, I was about to start dinner. Do sit down and entertain the guests while I tinker in the kitchen for a bit.’ She got up and went indoors.

‘Chantal. Dan,’ Brett greeted them noncommittally. ‘Excuse me for a moment, I need to—wash my hands.’ And he disappeared indoors hot on Ellie’s heels.

‘What the hell’s going on?’ he enquired, cornering her in the kitchen.

‘They both came to visit so I invited them to dinner,’ Ellie said innocently.

‘Are you mad—or drunk?’ He looked her up and down, taking in her hot-pink bike shorts and sherbet-yellow stretch top.

She responded with an assessing gaze up and down his attire of moleskins, a check shirt and desert boots and replied with the golden glints in her eyes laughing at him, ‘Neither. Well, I don’t think it would be wise to have any more champagne, but I’m quite sane. Chantal is taking Dan’s mind off things for me.’ She tilted her chin at him.

‘What do you mean?’

‘If you go out there you’ll probably see for yourself—it’s really quite amusing. But I guess men will be men.’

‘Ellie,’ he said dangerously.

‘Look, Brett,’ she returned, suddenly feeling stone-cold sober, ‘don’t start lecturing me or laying down the law, I’m not in the mood—she’s your problem, not mine. It so happens I quite like her.’

‘What about Dan?’

‘Dan…is no longer a problem. Now will you go outside while I get dinner? Otherwise I’m liable to do something I might regret.’

‘Is this all because of what happened the other night?’

‘Oh, that?’ She shook her head. ‘But I am missing Simon, I’m tired, overworked at the moment and it didn’t seem like a bad idea to sit down and have a glass of champers.’ She gestured with both hands palm out. ‘Things just got complicated from there on.’

‘Or three or four glasses?’ he suggested.

‘If I want to have six or eight, I will!’

‘OK.’ A reluctant smile twisted his lips. ‘Calm down. I’ll go and hold the fort.’

Fortunately, she had a frozen dish of stir-fry beef and rice, which she only had to heat and make a salad to go with it. And she set the table in the dining room, lit candles and called the faithful to dinner.

What conversation had taken place while she’d been in the kitchen, she had no idea, nor did she care.

As they sat down to eat, however, it was Chantal’s chair that Dan pulled out. And it soon became apparent that he still couldn’t take his eyes off her—not so sur-prising really, Ellie thought. Chantal in a Lurex boob tube with skin-tight leopard-skin print trousers and very
high gold sandals was enough to poleaxe most men. And she’d hardly had to lift a finger to get Dan in.

Whether Brett was poleaxed, however, was impossible to tell, as was what he made of the situation, although he did play the good host. And Chantal continued to be mesmerizing, funny, gorgeous and she even helped clear up after the meal.

All the same, Ellie felt like Alice at the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party when Chantal and Dan left together, at Brett’s suave suggestion that Dan could see her to her car. And she collapsed into her chair and started to laugh until she got hiccups, although she hadn’t missed the searching, lingering glance Chantal bestowed on Brett and the way he’d countered it—with a severely unreadable one of his own.

‘Here.’ Brett handed her a glass of brandy. ‘It was all your idea.’

Ellie wiped her eyes. ‘Talk about being let off the hook in the most demoralizing way possible!’

He sat down with his own brandy. ‘You might have a better understanding now of the powers and perils of Ms Jones, Ellie. But I agree, it’s a relief to be let off the hook.’

‘Oh, I don’t think you’re off the hook, Brett!’

‘If you didn’t keep inviting her in and fostering a “women of the world unite against men!” spirit, I’d already be off the hook,’ he said with some asperity.

Ellie subsided. ‘Would she be out of the question if she wasn’t a topless dancer?’

‘No, it wouldn’t be out of the question even as a topless dancer, she could well have a heart of gold. The thing is, though, you would probably resent it if I tried to matchmake for you?’ He looked at her with consid-erable irony.

Ellie grimaced. ‘Point taken.’

‘Why have you stayed here for so long, Ellie?’

Her lips parted on the unexpected question and a glint of anxiety came to her eyes. ‘You sound as if you don’t approve—I’m sorry, you have every right not to…’

‘It’s not that at all. But you weren’t very much in favour of the idea at the time and I guess I have to wonder why you haven’t moved on in all these years.’

She swallowed and looked around. ‘I…it became like an anchor for me, I suppose,’ she said, ‘although I have wondered if it wasn’t the line of least resistance. But I seemed to feel safe here, then I grew to love it and I got involved in the garden.’ She shrugged. And sighed. ‘Nor can I ever thank you enough,’ she added awkwardly, ‘although I’m still determined to pay you my kite money.’

He sat down at the head of the table. ‘I don’t want payment, Ellie. And I sometimes think
I
took the line of least resistance. So far as helping with Simon.’

‘Oh, no,’ she assured him. ‘Without what you did for me, our lives would have been so much more difficult.’

‘In pecuniary terms, perhaps. There’s a lot more to life than that, though.’

She said slowly, ‘It’s not your burden, Brett.’

He didn’t answer, he seemed to be far away in fact, then, ‘About what happened the other night.’

But Ellie stiffened immediately. ‘I’d rather we forgot about that,’ she said in a cool little voice.

‘Why?’

‘In case you’re tempted to massage my ego once again.’

‘I wasn’t—’

‘Oh, yes, you were,’ she contradicted and shook her curls at him. ‘Maybe you’ve forgotten; if so, let me refresh
your memory. Like today, I’d gone through two rather demoralizing sessions, one with Chantal Jones and one with Dan Dawson. The difference is that today I’m not feeling sorry for myself at all!’

‘Is that brandy on top of champagne talking?’ he queried with a smile at the back of his eyes.

‘Not at all,’ she denied. ‘It’s pure Ellie Madigan who doesn’t like being patronized, Brett Spencer.’

He raised his eyebrows. ‘Is that what you call it? I would have said it fell into the category of a mu-tual…conniption, which, incidentally, I enjoyed very much.’

She stared at him with pinched nostrils, then retreated to her bedroom with her brandy barely tasted.

She got a phone call from Simon early the next morning. There was a public phone at the camp that the kids were encouraged to use if they felt homesick—not that it was a problem for Simon.

‘How’s it going, Mum?’ he said cheerfully down the line. ‘Not suffering any withdrawal symptoms?’

‘I don’t get your drift, dude,’ she replied.

‘Just thought you might be missing your only son. I’ve never been away for so long before.’

‘Oh. Ah. Well, I’m missing you madly, of course, but I haven’t gone into a decline yet. How’s it going with you?’

‘Super,’ he said enthusiastically. ‘And on account of all the things you baked for me to bring with me, I’m just about the most popular boy in the camp. I tell you, no kid could have a better mum.’

‘That’s very sweet of you, Simon,’ she said a little huskily.

‘Now don’t go all gooey,’ he warned.

‘Wouldn’t
dream
of it!’

‘How’s it going with Brett?’

‘Uh…fine! But…’ she hesitated and frowned ‘…why do you ask?’

‘Why don’t you want him to know you like him a lot, Mum?’

The question down the line took her breath away. ‘Simon, I don’t…know what you mean.’

‘Well, I just reasoned that if you don’t mind him kissing you—’

‘Simon!’

‘OK, I wasn’t spying on you. I had no idea what was going on when I came out that night so I turned round and went back, then I came in again and made more noise about it. It wasn’t hard to see you were kinda shook up, Mum.’

Ellie was speechless.

‘But, look, it’s fine with me,’ Simon went on. ‘I think it’s the best thing that could happen to you. He’s real cool—hey, Mum, my money’s running out, see you s—’ The connection was cut by a series of beeps.

Ellie put the phone down slowly and went to make breakfast.

Brett was already at the kitchen table reading the paper. ‘Morning,’ he said. ‘Who was that?’

She eyed him moodily. Now that he’d recovered, he always got up at the crack of dawn and went for a jog then a brisk swim in the pool and, for some reason, it annoyed her immensely to see him looking so fit and relaxed, big, vital, tousled, blue around the jaw and almost insanely attractive.

‘That was my only son.’ She got out a pan and some bacon and eggs.

He raised an eyebrow. ‘Homesick?’

Ellie put the bacon on, then she removed a segment of mouth-wateringly ripe pawpaw from the fridge, scooped out the seeds and cut it into two segments. She squeezed fresh orange juice over them, a dash of sugar and topped each segment with fresh strawberries. ‘On the contrary, he’s having a ball.’ She placed Brett’s fruit in front of him.

‘I see.’ Brett looked down at the plate, then up into her eyes. ‘Thanks. Ellie?’

But she turned away and went over to the stove where she busied herself with the bacon and eggs.

‘All right,’ she heard him say, ‘how about lunch, then?’

‘I’ve only just started breakfast,’ she responded tartly. ‘Isn’t it a bit soon to be wanting lunch?’

‘I was suggesting that I take you
out
to lunch.’

‘What for?’ She turned from the stove with a frown.

‘It’s Saturday, it’s a lovely day and it may just take your mind off your only son, who is not missing you at all by the sound of it. Not that there’s anything wrong with that,’ he added, his grey eyes dancing. ‘It only points to a well-adjusted kid. You could be a different matter, however.’

Ellie had a spatula in her hand, which she held aloft in outraged amazement. ‘Are you saying
I’m
badly adjusted?’

He grimaced. ‘No. Just a bit lost and lonely at the moment—probably quite natural for a mother of an only child. Uh—something’s burning.’

She turned back to the stove with a smothered exclamation and rescued the bacon.

‘Twelve o’clock suit you, Ellie?’

‘I haven’t agreed to go.’

She heard him get up as she cracked two eggs
and added them to the pan and put some toast on. And the little hairs on the back of her neck rose, indicating he was standing behind her. The next moment the spatula was removed from her fingers and he turned her to face him.

‘Brett!’ she protested.

‘Ellie,’ he replied, ‘I don’t intend to take no for an answer.’

‘You can’t force me to go to lunch with you!’

‘There is an alternative,’ he said softly. His gaze roamed over her flushed face and the spot at the base of her throat where he had kissed her so pleasurably. ‘As an antidote to being lost and lonely, perhaps even having a slightly sore head from a rather generous intake of champagne yesterday, some really rousing sex can work wonders.’

‘D-don’t touch me,’ she stammered.

He smiled, the most enigmatic smile she’d ever seen. ‘How about lunch, then?’

‘All right,’ she said rapidly, ‘but I’ll probably be very annoyed about it!’

‘We’ll see.’ He handed her back the spatula and, adding insult to injury, dropped the lightest kiss on the top of her head. ‘Go to it, Mrs Beeton.’

He took her to a seafood restaurant across the river—and it was impossible to remain annoyed.

They made the crossing in one of the river cats, the fast catamaran ferries that plied the Brisbane River, and were a treat not only as a means of getting from A to B but as a way of experiencing one of Brisbane’s great resources, its river.

In fact, Ellie noted as they sat in the sun and skimmed over the water, the way Brett looked around it was as if
he were taking his home town in through his pores, and loving it.

‘A bit different from the Congo?’ she said.

‘A lot different.’

‘You must have had some good times there, though,’ she suggested.

‘I had some great times and I met some great people, but home’s nice.’

Ellie sighed suddenly.

He looked a question at her.