Convenient Brides (42 page)

‘OK, I’ll be back. That should give you plenty of time to sort this out.’ He slung on his baseball cap, back-wards, and disappeared through the kitchen door.

‘There are times,’ Ellie said slowly and with perfect enunciation, ‘when…’ She paused and looked suddenly stricken.

‘You could strangle him?’ Brett suggested. ‘Don’t worry, my mother had the same problem with me.’

‘I can believe that!’ Ellie replied fervently and looking slightly less stricken. ‘Between the two of you, you’re enough to drive me insane!’

‘What’s so bad about bringing home a redundant computer that would only gather dust otherwise?’ he asked.

‘Couldn’t you have returned it and got a refund?’

He shrugged. ‘Probably. As a research tool for your profession, though, I thought it would be—helpful.’

Ellie moved a couple of pots around on the stove, not quietly. ‘When do I get the time for that?’ she asked bitterly.

‘Well, that’s my other point. Once you have some help in the house, you should have a lot more time for doing the things you enjoy.’

Ellie sighed and turned away from the stove, to study him. ‘Brett, you’re trying to
buy
me.’

‘Why would I want to buy you, Ellie,’ he countered with a dangerous glitter in his eyes, ‘when I could have you free, gratis and for nothing?’

She flushed brilliantly but soldiered on. ‘You’re making it impossible for me to tear Simon away, you’re using Simon to keep me as a hostage and you’re doing it deliberately. You went back to the drawing-board and this is what you came up with! It’s
blackmail
. You even d…You even diabolically,’ she repeated as her voice got clogged up, ‘hit on the one breed of dog Simon adores.’

‘There was nothing diabolical about it,’ he denied. ‘I had no idea he was such a fan of that dog but most boys love dogs, they love the companionship, and you were the one who was trying to round out Simon’s life as much as you could, although disastrously to date. No pun on words intended,’ he added with irony. ‘Or was there? Some of your dates were obviously disasters.’

Ellie literally saw red at this piece of logic—for all that she herself had thought along exactly the same lines, at times. ‘If you say one more word about dates—’ she gripped the handle of an empty pot ‘—I’ll do something I won’t regret!’

He eyed the pot warily, then moved forward and prised her fingers off the handle. ‘Ellie, you’re overreacting.’

‘I’m not,’ she whispered as he towered over her. ‘I’m doing everything I can to prevent us making an awful mistake, Brett, that’s all.’

‘What could possibly be so awful about it?’ he asked dryly.

She stared at him.

‘Do you object to living with me as we are and have been for the past few weeks?’ he persisted.

‘No, but—’

‘So I don’t have any habits that drive you crazy or make your skin crawl?’

Ellie licked her lips. ‘No…Well, you do like to get your own way.’

He smiled briefly. ‘Is there anything I’ve done that hasn’t benefited both you and Simon?’

‘Brett, all right.’ She swallowed. ‘Most things you say make sense but what happens when you fall out of lust with me? What happens to Simon then?’

‘Or—do you mean—what happens to Elvira Madigan then?’

‘I can never separate myself from Simon,’ she said, wilfully choosing to misunderstand him because she was terrified that he’d seen right through to her heart.

‘Who doesn’t take that risk, Ellie?’ His gaze was in-tent and probing. ‘But is it only lust between us?’

‘I’ve been here for eleven years, Brett.’ It came out against her better judgement and she closed her eyes briefly.

‘Things change,’ he said slowly. ‘Then again, others don’t. You were fascinating then although I chose not to act on it; you’re fascinating now.’

‘And in between times?’

‘We both got on with our lives. Why don’t you just give in, Ellie? Believe me, you’d love it.’

Something flickered in her eyes. ‘Simon…’

‘There’s something else I had in mind for Simon but I’d never do it without consulting you first.’

‘What?’ she asked. ‘Not boarding-school—I’d never agree to that!’

‘I’d hardly be suggesting getting him a dog and sending him to boarding-school in the same breath.’ He paused and studied her. ‘I don’t know if you remember
but I was the one who packed Tom’s things up and settled his affairs?’

She took a breath. ‘Yes.’

‘I’ve still got them—his personal things. Some photos, his cricket bat, his golf clubs, his old school tie, the pen he won as a maths prize at school—odds and ends like that. I thought, the next time Simon mentions him, we might, all three of us, go through them together.’

This time Ellie exhaled deeply and there was a suspicious dampness about her eyes.

‘Would that be a yea or a nay, Ms Madigan?’ he asked softly.

Her shoulders slumped and she looked at the floor.

He put his arms around her and rested his chin on her head. ‘There are so many things I admire about you, Ellie. Your spirit and grit, the wonderful home you make, your dedication to your career, the free soul I see in you when you fly your kites.’

He moved her away a little so he could look down into her eyes and disturbed a look of surprise in them. ‘You didn’t realize I saw it?’

‘No.’

‘I did. Then,’ he went on, his gaze moving lower, ‘well, I won’t go into details, this being the G-rated hour before dinner, but—well, we both know how—expressive—you can be.’ He waited, his gaze firmly fixed on her breasts.

But for once fate, or something, was on her side. She was wearing a dress. Sleeveless, with a square neck, loose, apricot and white gingham with a fine blue stripe added, but not only was it loose, it was made of seer-sucker cotton, full of little bobbles of fabric, in other words, that made it quite concealing.

When this began to dawn on Brett he raised his eyes
to hers to find the little golden points in her eyes gleaming in a way that told him she had scored against him and not only knew it but was amused by it.

What followed took him even more by surprise, how-ever. She freed herself from his arms and stood gazing at him with her expression rearranged to serious. Then she stepped forward, cupped his face in her hands and murmured, ‘Two can play that game, Brett Spencer.’

‘Undoubtedly,’ he agreed, but found himself suddenly mesmerized by the sheen of her lips, the clean shine and perfume of her hair, the slender line of her throat.

‘And this.’ She drew her palms down to his chest and moved closer.

Almost of their own accord, his arms circled her and she moved even closer so that the slender lines of her body were imprinted on his—and his immediate reaction was to take an unexpected breath at the involuntary response this drew from him.

She smiled, not in triumph but something wiser and eternally feminine. And she stood on tiptoe and rested her lips against his, but just as he made a move to crush her to him she slipped away from him.

‘Ellie,’ he said huskily, ‘what was that all about?’

She shrugged delicately. ‘Something for you to think about, perhaps?’

‘Think?’
he repeated.

‘It’s what I get told to do a lot and I’m sure it’s good for anyone to shake up their thoughts occasionally.’ She looked at him gravely. ‘For example, you seem to be so sure of a lot of things in relation to me, Brett, but what do you
really
know about it?’

And she moved serenely into the dining room where she began to set the table.

‘What about the computer?’ He stood in the doorway watching her.

She looked over her shoulder. ‘It can stay so long as there are no more similar gestures.’

‘How kind of you, Ellie,’ he said harshly.

But not even that dented her composure. She glinted him an enigmatic little look and went on with what she was doing. And Simon came noisily through the back door.

A
TRUCE
reigned for the next few days.

Brett and Simon consulted on a suitable kennel for the new dog and decided to build one themselves.

The computer was installed and a cleaning lady, rec-ommended by Delia, was acquired. A vigorous woman in her mid-forties who’d come armed with a list of the products she preferred to use. After her first day, Ellie felt jittery and as if her privacy had been invaded despite the gleaming floors and absence of an overflowing ironing basket to make her feel guilty.

‘What’s wrong?’

Brett stopped on his way out to the garage where the great kennel construction was under way with a lot of banging. He had a saw in one hand and a metal tape measure in the other, having requested leave to borrow them from her kite-making tools.

She was sitting at the kitchen table in a brown study. ‘Nothing.’

‘You don’t seem to be jumping for joy over your clean house,’ he observed.

‘I am, well, I found it a little hard to handle, that’s all.’

He hesitated. ‘Perhaps you’d be better away from the house while she’s here—is that the problem? Feeling underfoot all the time?’

‘That,’ Ellie agreed, ‘and the fact that she rearranged all the ornaments and I found it hard to…give orders, I suppose.’

‘How do you treat a cleaning lady kind of thing?’ he hazarded. ‘Simple. Be friendly, have a cup of tea with her occasionally, but be quite clear on what you want her to do. Don’t leave it all up to her, in other words. That’s a sure way to lead to complacency.’

‘How do you know all this?’ Ellie enquired with a glimmer of humour.

‘Handling staff requires a universal technique whether they’re lab assistants, interns or cleaning ladies. A friendly but firm touch.’ He looked at the tools in his hands and became rueful. ‘Building kennels, on the other hand, is not my area of expertise.’

‘Why did you agree to it, then?’

A look of frustration crossed his face. ‘It’s only a box with a roof on it, I thought it would be a piece of cake!’

‘Would you like a hand?’

‘No. Thank you, but no,’ he said with dignity. ‘My pride has taken a bit of a hammering as it is so I intend to succeed here.’

‘Your…?’

‘As you very well know,’ he said softly.

Ellie looked away first and he went back to the kennel.

But in the peace of the kitchen she pondered the na-ture of the truce that reigned at 3 Summerhill Crescent. Had she really given Brett something to think about? If so, what was he thinking? What would be his next step?

His very next step was to hammer a finger instead of the nail he’d been intending to bang into the kennel, with an accompanying yell and a string of curses that nearly took the roof off.

When the tumult had subsided somewhat, i.e. he’d been taken to hospital, had it X-rayed to establish whether he’d broken it—he hadn’t but it was severely bruised—and had it bound up securely with all his fingers
on that hand immobilized on a splint for pain relief, and they were back home, she said, ‘I thought doctors were particularly nimble-fingered?’

He looked at her broodingly over the tea she’d made to revive them all. ‘Surgeons are. I’m a different kind of doctor.’

‘But surely all doctors learn to operate to a certain level?’

‘There’s a vast difference between building a kennel and operating on a human being, Ellie!’

‘Mum, leave it,’ Simon advised. He turned to Brett. ‘I wouldn’t worry about it, mate,’ he said kindly. ‘We can’t all be good at everything and Martie’s dad has all the right tools. He’ll finish it off for us. I’m going to bed, I’m worn out. Goodnight.’

‘Goodnight,’ Ellie and Brett chorused.

‘He’s right,’ Ellie said reasonably. ‘We can’t all be good at everything.’

‘When has your son being right, even if you damn well know it, not produced a sense of ire in you if not to say all the indignity of role reversal?’ he enquired acidly.

Ellie hid a smile. ‘It can be a bit demoralising, I agree. But—’

‘Hell! Don’t
you
start humouring me, Ellie!’

She sat back. ‘OK. I won’t say another word.’

He watched her darkly as she sipped her tea then folded her hands in her lap. ‘That doesn’t mean to say you have to stop talking to me!’

‘What would you like to talk about?’

He regarded his immobilized left hand with huge ir-ritation. ‘As a matter of fact I don’t want to talk at all. What I would really like is something quite different.’

‘Such as?’ she asked, unwisely as it happened.

‘I’d like someone to take me to bed and make love to me very gently, then hold me in her arms until I fell asleep. I’d like some TLC, in other words.’

For a moment Ellie was truly tempted as they stared into each other’s eyes. To be able to kiss away his blues and lead him down a path of delight for both of them would be heaven, she freely acknowledged. To know that he actually needed her…No, don’t even think about it, she advised herself.

She stood up. ‘Brett, if I were ever to do that, I think you would be much happier to have full use of both hands. But I do have a light sedative they gave me at the hospital in case you had trouble sleeping.’

Several expressions chased through his eyes. ‘I told you this once before, but you’re a hard woman, Ellie. It’s going to take more than a light sedative to get me to sleep now.’

‘Don’t you believe it. Goodnight,’ she said.

He stood up himself. ‘Before you go, Ellie.’ He slipped his good arm around her waist, pulled her close with surprising strength and said to her look of surprise, ‘Just thought I’d give you a demonstration of what I can do one-handed.’ He bent his head and started to kiss her in a way that told her plainly he wouldn’t take no for an answer.

In fact he kissed her breathless and managed to bal-ance his injured hand lightly on her shoulder at the same time. Then he let her go. ‘There. Take that to bed with you, Elvira.’

She licked her bruised lips and put her hands to her heart in an attempt to slow it down while her body was racked with sensual anticipation that was going to go unrequited because, apart from anything else, she was quite sure she hated him at the moment at least. And her
eyes were distinctly stormy as she said tautly, ‘Talk about a boyish attempt to salvage your pride!’

‘Oh, I don’t know about that,’ he drawled. ‘Some pride may have been involved.’ His lips twisted. ‘But if you can’t take the heat with a real man, perhaps you should get out of the kitchen?’

Ellie looked around wildly. They so happened to be in the kitchen.

Which caused him to look briefly amused. ‘That was a figure of speech.’

‘It had better be,’ she said between her teeth and clenched her fists. ‘What’s more, if you weren’t already injured, I’d…’

She stopped as he took one of her hands and uncurled her fingers. And to her great surprise he lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed her fingers. Then, with a rather weary sigh, he said, ‘Go to bed, Ellie. This is getting all out of proportion.’

He returned her hand to her and turned away.

She went to bed but not to sleep, for ages, anyway.

First of all, she was still seething about men. Men, who could kiss you against your will and issue insults when their pride got trampled—when had she ever in-sulted him? she asked herself bitterly. Surely her remark about doctors being nimble-fingered couldn’t have dented his ego to that extent? And then, she marvelled, they could accuse you of making mountains out of molehills.

But finally the seething gave way to some inexplicable tears and a tired feeling of confusion—and loneliness. So lonely and muddled and unhappy, in fact, she even got up once and stood beside her door desperate for some kind of relief…

If anyone needs some TLC, she thought ruefully, it’s me.

But in the end she didn’t have the nerve to do it, and she went sadly back to bed.

‘What the hell happened to you?’ Archie McKinnon stared at Brett’s hand.

‘Don’t ask,’ Brett replied. They’d just met up with the McKinnons outside the cinema complex.

‘Could have happened to anyone,’ Simon offered.

‘Thanks, pal,’ Brett said. ‘In fact it probably could not, but the least said the better. Shall we?’ He gestured for them to enter the cinema foyer.

Causing Delia to cast Ellie a laughing little look of enquiry as they dropped back a bit behind the rest of the party.

Ellie explained briefly, finishing up, ‘But don’t tell him I told you. He’s not in a very good mood.’

‘Cross my heart,’ Delia promised. ‘Men!’ she added with so much feeling Ellie had to laugh, and found herself feeling a lot better. A process that had actually be-gun on seeing Grace in a denim overall dress with a red and white striped T-shirt and her hair in two bunches with red ribbons—and the way Simon’s face had lit up at the sight of her.

And, satisfyingly laden down with popcorn and Coke, they all made their way to their seats.

Approximately ninety minutes later they emerged and even Brett was still laughing.

They had a lively dinner at a pavement restaurant and finally took their respective offspring to their respective homes.

‘Thank you for that,’ Ellie said to Brett. ‘I hope it wasn’t too…young for you.’

‘I enjoyed it and I especially enjoyed seeing Grace and Simon enjoy it so much. You too,’ he added rather wryly.

Ellie grimaced. ‘There is still, obviously, a bit of a kid in me. How’s your finger?’

‘Throbbing a bit.’

She hesitated.

He waited, giving her his grave attention.

‘Er…nothing,’ she said lamely.

He smiled like a tiger at play; lazily, humorously, but never leaving you in doubt that, verbally anyway, he could demolish you.

‘I’m going to bed,’ Ellie said hastily.

‘Why not?’ he mused gently. ‘We both probably need a good night’s sleep.’

Ellie set her lips at the innuendo—that she had spent as uncomfortable a night as he had—and decided to counter it. ‘I certainly do.’ She shrugged. ‘It’s my market morning tomorrow so I have to be up at the crack of dawn.’ And she strolled away to her bedroom.

She’d always loved a market atmosphere, and to have her own stall amidst the bustle was an extra pleasure.

There were a myriad products for sale: clothes, fresh produce, pot plants, cut flowers, art and craft work, homemade jams, chutneys and preserves, biscuits and cakes—but only one kite stall. And she’d recently ac-quired a folding canopy so she and her kites were pro-tected from the elements. She also had two folding chairs and a picnic hamper. In fact, during a lull, she was pouring herself a cool drink from a Thermos flask when Chantal strolled past, did a double take, and came back.

‘Ellie!’

Ellie looked up, and froze for a moment. ‘Hi!’ she
said belatedly. And added, because she felt guilty on several fronts in regard to Chantal Jones, ‘Have you got time for a cold drink?’

‘Sure do!’ Chantal plonked herself down in the other chair, removed the picture hat she wore with very short, tight shorts and a bikini top, and fanned herself with it. ‘It gets bloody hot in this part of the world!’

Ellie delved into the basket and produced another plastic glass. ‘Here you go. Very cold, home-made lem-onade. Chantal…’ she paused and sat down herself ‘…I hope you don’t hate me?’

Chantal studied her glass, then raised her remarkable violet eyes. ‘I thought about it,’ she said slowly, and Ellie held her breath. Then the other girl giggled suddenly and went on, ‘Do you have any idea how persis-tent Dan Dawson can be?’

Ellie grimaced. ‘I’m afraid I told him to be…well, I actually told him to be persistent but not too obvious,’ she confessed.

‘That explains why I’m here—’ Chantal looked around ruefully ‘—at a market.’

Ellie’s eyebrows shot up. ‘You’re here with Dan? At his suggestion?’

‘Yep! Nice, clean,
not too obvious
fun, I guess. Although we are going to South Bank for lunch.’

Ellie’s lips quivered, although she still looked a bit mystified. ‘But he knows I have a stall here—and where is he?’

Chantal waved a hand. ‘There’s a toy-train exhibition over there. He was entranced so I left him to it—told him I’d wander around on my own for a bit. And he obviously doesn’t mind the thought of me bumping into you—men are really weird sometimes.’

Their gazes locked.

‘What did Brett tell you about us?’ Ellie asked nervously.

Chantal continued to study her. ‘He told me he was going to marry you come hell or high water, Ellie,’ she said at last.

Ellie’s mouth dropped open.

Chantal frowned. ‘You didn’t know?’

Ellie looked confused. ‘I know now—I mean, not the come hell or high water bit, although I’ve started to sus-pect it lately—but, for Simon’s sake, he’s decided it’s a good idea.’

‘And for your sake?’

Ellie dropped her gaze from the acute little query in Chantal’s eyes and sipped some lemonade.

‘How long have you been in love with him?’

Chantal’s words hung in the air.

‘From the day he rescued me beside a parking meter eleven years ago,’ Ellie said barely audibly and closed her eyes briefly. ‘That is so unbelievable,’ she added.

‘Why?’

Ellie hesitated. ‘I told you about Tom? Well, he’d barely gone from me, it was only a few months so it makes me feel…terrible.’

Chantal sat forward. ‘Honey, these things happen.’ She grimaced. ‘If it’s any consolation, I was coming home to get engaged to a guy when I happened to sit next to Brett Spencer on a plane. Next minute,’ she said dryly, ‘I’ve forgotten all about that guy.’

Ellie had to smile, although faintly. And she said, ‘I know you’re trying to help but that makes it worse, not better. I feel as if I’ve joined a club.’

‘Oh, eleven years puts you into a category of your own, Ellie,’ Chantal assured her, and paused thoughtfully.
‘But, for all that I sometimes go over the top there’s one thing I hold very dear.’

Ellie looked at her questioningly.

‘In relation to men especially—my self-esteem.’

Ellie glanced up and down the gorgeous length of Chantal Jones. ‘You…you have the firepower to be able to do that,’ she suggested.

‘Don’t you believe it. If I let myself, I could be just as vulnerable as the next girl, if not more so. I don’t. If I make a mistake, I pick myself up and start all over again. What I’m trying to say is, don’t feel guilty because you fell in love with another man when you thought you shouldn’t. If
that’s
what’s colouring your feelings for Brett, a lack of self-esteem because of
that
, throw it out of the window with the bath water because it happens, is all.’