Short and Sweet (18 page)

‘Whatever it is that’s upset you, you’re wrong to think I’d cheat you,’ he growled. ‘But before we discuss it, you’re going to help me clean this mess out of my hair.’

She glared at him and pulled away, but he kept hold of her arm and dragged her into the kitchen. As they passed the serving bench, she had visions of pouring the jug of iced water over him, of emptying the bowl of cream over him, of . . .

‘Don’t even think about it!’ he snarled, before releasing her near the sink.

For a moment, anger flickered hotly within her, then she pressed her lips together and grabbed a clean tea towel. I’ve blown it now, she thought, beginning to calm down. How could I have been so stupid! When will I ever learn to control my temper?

He stood quietly as she dampened the towel and tried to clean his hair and face, but she could see that he was still angry. Well, so was she!

When she’d finished, she tried to move away, but he caught her shoulders again, shaking her slightly. ‘I thought we were getting on well, really well. What happened today, Tacie?’

‘You were just using me, you – you unscrupulous, conniving mole!’

‘Why on earth should you think that?’

Her hands felt sticky as she clenched them into fists. ‘When I cleaned your room today, I saw a letter—’ She saw his eyes narrow and shouted, ‘It was on the floor – I wasn’t prying!’ She sniffed away a tear.

‘Go on!’

‘It was from Richard – to you – describing me and my h–home. Suggesting how to approach me.’ Tears welled in her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. It was all too much. From anxiety to love to betrayal in two short days. She blinked in shock. Love! She didn’t love him! And he certainly didn’t love her!

He closed his eyes for a moment. ‘Aaah!’ Then he opened them again and said more gently, ‘Come and sit down, you crazy redhead. We need to talk.’

But he kept hold of her arm still, and his touch stopped her thinking clearly.

‘Let go of me, then.’

‘Not till this is sorted out.’ He grinned. ‘I might not be safe. You might have more fruit salad in the fridge.’

She nearly smiled, but held back in time. People like him didn’t deserve to be safe.

On the couch, he took both her hands in his. ‘Tacie, I’m not here on your ex-husband’s behalf. I’m here purely as a representative of the bank. But,’ a wry smile crept across his face, ‘I am here under false pretences.’

Pain lanced through her and her hands jerked in his.

‘The bank only asked me to have a quick look over your property on my way to Bunbury, not to stay and do a thorough analysis.’

‘But that letter said—’

‘The letter from your ex-husband came out of the blue just before I left Perth. How he found out about my visit, I don’t know. I certainly haven’t replied to the letter, nor have I agreed to help him and his backers to acquire this property. I don’t operate that way, Tacie.’

He sounded sincere. She looked at him through a haze of tears.

He brushed one wet trail away from her cheek with a fingertip. ‘It’s the truth, Tacie!’

She sagged against him. ‘But Daniel, I—’

‘I’m coming off duty this very second,’ he breathed in her ear, his hands molding her body to his. ‘I’m sticky, I smell of that damned fruit salad, but I’m about to kiss you until you beg for mercy. Then we’re going to discuss our future plans. You have a dreadful temper, woman, but I’m afraid I’ve fallen in love with you.’

‘What?’ It came out as a whisper, but she could feel happiness surge through her.

He smiled and nuzzled her neck. ‘When I go back on duty tomorrow, Tacie, I’ll go over your accounts, but I expect to present an extremely favourable report on you to the bank.’ He feathered a series of kisses along her eyelids and down her cheek to her lips. ‘Even without feeling this way about you.’

She gasped aloud as she clung to him.

‘Though you won’t need the mortgage now, will you, with a rich backer of your own?’ He nipped delicately at the lobe of her ear.

‘A rich backer?’ She was finding it increasingly hard to concentrate.

‘Yes. Me.’

‘But – why would a man like you—’

His eyes gleamed in the moonlight. ‘I’m absolutely crazy about fruit salad – however it’s served.’

A long time later, she murmured in his ear, as she brushed a sticky strand of hair from his forehead. ‘I think I’m going off fruit salad, personally. If you’ll come along to my bathroom, Daniel Gregory, I’ll help you to wash the fruit juice off.’

A Summer Romance

Anna’s Notes

This story is based on how a lot of people I’ve met have started trying to write novels. They read a bad book and feel sure they can do better. And some of them can. Even if they can’t, it doesn’t matter, because it’s such fun trying.

People don’t feel intimidated by the thought of writing a shorter book, a modern romance, so it’s what a lot of people start with. I was one of them. I tried to write Mills & Boon romances and soon found it wasn’t at all my cup of tea. It’s a lot harder than it looks and I put in too many characters and my stories are too long. I learned a lot trying, though, which I carried over to other sorts of books I’ve had published.

You learn a lot from writing just by doing it, so I’d encourage anyone to have a try. After all, you don’t have to show your work to anyone unless you want to. But be warned: writing/storytelling is addictive. I confess to being totally addicted. Keep me from writing for a few days and I become a grouch.

Like my heroine, I’ve been to quite a few romance writers’ conferences and they’re great fun, with very friendly people who welcome newcomers. It was at one of them that I got the original idea for this story.

This is a fairy tale, really – but well, sometimes fantasies do come true.

K
atie closed the novel with a sigh of sheer delight. There was nothing she enjoyed as much as a good romance. The heroines always led such interesting lives, nothing like hers. Since her mother’s death last year, it was just work, TV and reading – spiced up with a good bit of daydreaming.

The next day on the way home from the office, she picked up a romance novel from the supermarket, her favourite form of reading. But the new book was so awful, she tossed it aside after a couple of chapters. ‘I could do better than that myself!’ she muttered.

There was nothing interesting on TV that night, either. She felt cheated, and found herself imagining ways to improve the romance she had tossed aside. This led to another dream, of a man – and he didn’t have to be tall, dark and handsome – coming into the office, paying his account, smiling at her. She sighed. Dream on, Katie! You’re thirty-eight, unmarried and past your prime. Who’s going to fall in love with you now?

If she hadn’t been so shy, maybe she might have tried Internet introduction sites or speed dating. But the one time she’d gone to a singles gathering, she’d left early because one of the men, who must have been at least sixty and wore his hair in a comb-over, kept pestering her. She wasn’t that desperate.

On an impulse, she got out her pad and began to scribble down her own ideas, telling the story as she wished it would happen. It was such fun designing her own romance and a hero so luscious he made her toes curl that she was startled to realize it was eleven o’clock. Where had the evening gone?

After that, things fell into place as if they were meant to be. She found a book on line called,
How to Write a Romance
. That helped a lot. She hadn’t realized there was so much to it.

The evenings had never passed so quickly. She simply had to finish telling her story. Something seemed to be driving her.

She no longer watched much television or read as many novels. But she enjoyed a whole range of wonderful dreams, each about the same dark-haired hero. Every day she longed for evening to come, so that she could get home and follow the adventures of Brett and the lovely Helen.

Her heroine was all Katie had ever wanted to be – confident, tall, with a cloud of dark hair. Not short with reddish hair and rather ordinary blue eyes. And Helen didn’t have to watch every penny she spent, either. Oh, no! She wore designer clothes and ate in the very best restaurants.

In her lunch break, Katie went and read the menus in the windows of fancy restaurants to find out what sort of meals they served. Some of them didn’t even show prices. Imagine buying something without asking how much it cost?

‘What have you been doing with yourself lately?’ her boss asked her one day. ‘You look much happier. Met a fellow?’

But at that moment he saw his wife arriving and forgot Katie. Enviously, she watched them kiss and walk out hand in hand.

‘Isn’t love sweet?’ her friend Wendy mocked.

‘I think it’s wonderful for them to be so happy after twenty years of marriage,’ Katie said, still watching them as they crossed the car park and he swung her round into his arms for a quick kiss.

Wendy snorted. ‘It doesn’t happen to many. You’re better off single, Katie, believe me.’ She’d caught her husband being unfaithful and was in the process of divorcing him.

A few months later, Katie saw an advertisement for a conference of romance writers in London during the autumn. She hesitated, then tore it out of the newspaper. Her story was nearly finished now and she wasn’t quite sure what to do with it. Maybe she could take some of her holiday leave and go to this conference? Only – it was rather expensive and she was just starting to get on her feet again financially after the expenses of her mother’s funeral and a move to a new flat.

Then she bought a scratchie and won a thousand pounds. This was meant to be, she decided, and wrote to book a place at the conference. Prudently, she decided to share a room, to save money, and put her name on a list for that.

But she felt so nervous about going to the conference; she went and got her hair restyled at a fancy hairdresser’s she’d never tried before.

‘What a beautiful red-gold colour!’ the stylist enthused. ‘Let me just put a few lighter streaks through. You’ll not recognize yourself.’

‘I don’t know . . .’ Then she thought of Helen and stiffened her spine. Her heroine would never have been so wimpish. ‘All right.’

Afterwards, Katie stared at her face in the mirror and blinked in astonishment and delight. ‘Oh, you’ve done a marvellous job.’

That success encouraged her to take step number two: buying herself some new clothes. Goodness, her mother would have had a fit at the way she was spending the money she’d won. But she couldn’t, she definitely couldn’t, face a crowd of strangers in her ordinary clothes.

The next day at work, she had lunch with Wendy, who was always ferociously smart. ‘Um – where do you get your clothes from? You always look great.’

Wendy turned to stare at her. ‘Why do you say that?’

‘Well, I’ve won a bit of money and – and I’m going to this conference in London next month and I need some new outfits.’

‘I’ll come shopping with you.’

‘I can’t ask you to do that.’

Wendy gave her a quick hug. ‘I’m delighted to help. It’s about time you stopped dressing like a mouse in camouflage. You’ve got a great figure. You should show it off more.’

Katie wound up with a subtle green silky dress for the cocktail party and a snazzy blue outfit for daytime, with two different tops. They went rather well with her new ‘sun-gilded’ hair. She hung the cocktail dress on her wardrobe door and beamed at it every time she went into her bedroom.

On the train to London, however, Katie grew more and more nervous. What if no one talked to her? What if she made a fool of herself? What if she was just fooling herself about being able to write a novel?

At the hotel, she found herself sharing a room with a woman from Scotland, an extrovert who never stopped talking. When they’d unpacked, Kate decided to get an early night and took out a book.

Jenny took the book out of her hand and tossed it aside. ‘You surely aren’t going to sit up here alone all evening?’

‘Well, I don’t know anyone.’

‘Neither do I. That’s half the fun of it. Anyway, you know me now. Come on, we’ll go down and have a drink.’

Talking all the way, Jenny swept her into the bar. ‘First shout’s on me. Go and grab that empty table in the corner, quick.’

Katie rushed across the room, tripped over someone’s foot and landed in the lap of a man at the next table.

‘Sorry!’ She blushed hotly and for a moment couldn’t move.

He smiled down at her. ‘You can fall into my lap any time, gorgeous.’ He helped her up and stuck out one hand. ‘I’m Jake.’

‘Katie.’ She shook his hand, thinking what a lovely smile he had. In fact, he was so like her hero that she sneaked a few more glances at him after she’d sat down at her own table. Fairly tall, dark, good-looking and with a whimsical expression that made you want to talk to him and find out what he thought about the world.

Jenny plonked two drinks down and nudged her. ‘Bit of all right, isn’t he?’

‘What?’

‘You’ve been staring at Romeo over there ever since you fell into his lap. Nice move, that.’

‘I didn’t fall on purpose!’

Jenny grinned. ‘I suppose not. I wouldn’t blame you if you had, though. I’d certainly like to find him under my Christmas tree.’

‘He looks exactly like my hero,’ Katie confided.

Jenny studied him openly. ‘Does he? My hero’s blond and six feet three.’

By this time the man was looking rather embarrassed by their scrutiny. ‘Please stop staring at him!’ Katie begged.

‘Spoilsport!’

Luckily a group of women came in at that moment wearing conference badges and Jenny waved to them and pointed to her own badge.

‘Do you know them?’ Katie whispered.

‘Not yet.’ Jenny laughed at her expression of shock. ‘You have to make the effort to meet people at these conferences. You just walk up to them and say hello.’

Soon there were eight at their table, talking and laughing. They were all so friendly Katie began to relax.

A little later, Jenny nudged her. ‘He’s not stopped staring at you.’

‘What?’

‘Romeo. He’s been staring at you all night. Give him a wave.’