The Collector's Edition Volume 1 (53 page)

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Authors: Emma Darcy

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Beth didn’t care. Jim Neilson deserved to feel like a fool. It might give him pause to reconsider his record of not making big mistakes. It would do him good to realise he wasn’t so damned infallible in his calculations and judgments. For once in his life, he could count the loss, not the profit.

She stirred as though waking. “Where are we?” she asked, peering around for recognisable landmarks.

“Almost there. Coming up to the turn onto Epping Road,” he answered, shooting her a quirky smile. “You woke too soon.”

Not soon enough, where he was concerned. Dreams always put too rosy a complexion on things, and hope was a treacherous feeling. Reality was something else.

Beth gathered together the papers on her lap, ready for decisive action. She reached for her handbag, resting near her feet, and set it on the side of her seat closest to the door. Two more sets of traffic lights and they were turning off Epping Road, heading straight for the entrance into the hotel grounds.

Instead of continuing around the driveway to the doors leading into the foyer, the Porsche headed straight into the parking area for guests. Fortunately, there was an empty slot in a direct line with the driveway, and Jim Neilson did not look any further. Beth realised she should have anticipated the intention to accompany her to her room. Cooling his heels was not his style.

At least she didn’t have far to walk. She released her seat belt, ready to move as he switched off the engine. Having slid her arm through the strap on her handbag, she opened the door.

A hand descended on her thigh, arresting movement. “I’ll come with you,” he said.

She stared at the hand, resenting its power to touch her and create more physical havoc than any other hand. “No, you won’t,” she stated with incisive emphasis.

“The waiting game can be played too far, Beth,” he warned.

“I’m not playing.” She lifted her gaze to his, golden daggers of scorn stabbing into the windows of his soul. “You extracted the wrong data to key into your computer, Jim Neilson. You brought up the wrong chain of logic. You made the wrong call.”

He frowned. “You’re not making sense.”

“I didn’t come to ask you for anything. It was you who made the running.”

“Oh, come on.”

She tossed the sale papers onto his lap. “No deal. Not now. Not ever.”

While he was still caught by surprise, she pushed her door open, swung her legs around and was out of the car in one fluid motion.

“Wait!” he called, making a grab for her skirt.

She swished it out of reach and glared at him, hurling her bitterness in his face. “In the game of life, Jim Neilson, you lost the lot. Keep your precious profits. They’re all empty of any heart. Like you.” Then she stepped back and slammed the door.

Chin up, shoulders straight, back rigid, she marched towards the entrance to the hotel. She heard his door open and close but didn’t turn her head. He strode after her and caught her by the upper arm, forcing her to a halt. Still she didn’t turn, didn’t look at him.

“Release me at once,” she commanded, her voice seething with passionate intent. “If you follow me any further I will have you charged with harassment.”

“It’s stupid to cut off your nose to spite your face,” he growled. “You want me as much as I want you.”

“Let me go or I’ll call the doorman for help. Believe me. I’ll do it.”

His grip slackened. “Look at me, Beth!” he demanded, his voice harsh with urgency as his hand dropped away.

“If I never see you again, it will be too soon.”

Without the slightest glance his way, disdaining any further acknowledgment of him, she walked on... out of his life.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

I
T WAS more an ordeal than a pleasure for Beth to sit through the elaborate Sunday lunch put on for her by Aunty Em’s son, Martin, and his wife, Lorraine. Naturally they wanted to know the outcome of the auction. It seemed incomprehensible to them that she’d been unable to strike a reasonable arrangement with Jim Neilson over the property.

After all, why would he want it? And surely, even if he’d left the persona of Jamie in his past, didn’t he appreciate how much the old place meant to the Delaney family?

Aunty Em, thank heaven, kept her own counsel, not joining in the round-table discussion except to say her version of
que sera
—what was not to be, was not to be. Beth was grateful for her restraint.

Eventually Beth managed to turn the conversation to happier topics. She always sent copies of her books to Martin’s and Lorraine’s children, and they were easily encouraged to recount which were their favourites, and why, and make their suggestions for future stories. There were times, Beth decided, when fantasies were much better than realities.

It was a relief when the family socialising was over. Her aunt drove her to the airport to catch her three-thirty flight to Melbourne. Beth made the effort to say what she felt needed saying.

“I’m sorry it didn’t work out, Aunty Em. I know you must be disappointed.”

“Not to worry, dear,” came the quick and kind assurance. “It would have been nice to have Tom close, but I’m really quite happy in my granny flat at Martin’s. And there’s no harm done, since Tom didn’t know about the auction, anyway.” Determinedly looking on the bright side.

Beth wished she could see a bright side. She’d been in a trough of dark despondency ever since she’d locked herself in her hotel room yesterday evening.

They stopped at a traffic light, and her aunt threw her a sharp and concerned scrutiny. “Are you all right, Beth?”

She managed a rueful smile. “I’ll survive. Just a bit bruised at the moment.”

Her aunt nodded sympathetically. “It’s hard to let go. I hoped.... Well, never mind. Water under the bridge now.”

The traffic light changed, and they were off again.

Beth knew what her aunt had hoped—that her niece would find what she wanted with Jamie. Perhaps the breakup with Gerald had triggered the thought, undoubtedly strengthened by Beth’s impulse to see Jim Neilson at the gallery. The speculation had certainly been in her aunt’s eyes after the auction yesterday. It would have been a nice, sentimental outcome on every level.

Beth had given it every chance, with a zero result. Worse than zero. Aunty Em was perceptive enough to close the door on it. There would be no more press clippings about Jim Neilson. What good could come of opening wounds?

“Well, it clears the decks for something else, doesn’t it?” Beth remarked on a lighter note.

“Yes, it does,” her aunt quickly agreed. “Best way to look at it.”

The forced optimism closed the conversation. When the little Mazda pulled up outside the domestic terminal, there was a heavy sense of leave-taking. Their eyes ached with all the unspoken things.

“Take good care of yourself, Beth. And Tom.”

“I will.”

They hugged and kissed. Beth collected her luggage, then waved her aunt goodbye. Once inside the terminal she automatically went about the business of getting her seat allocation, then moving to the departure lounge. It was good to finally get on the plane and feel it lift off from Sydney. These past few days were really behind her now. She was in transit to another time and place.

During the flight, Beth tried to keep her mind turned to the future. She had the means to move herself and her father somewhere else, but where? Would any country property do? The lure of buying the old family farm had kept her from thinking of other options. She’d hoped to give her father an exciting surprise. Probably the most sensible course now was simply to discuss the future with him, try to arouse an interest in some new enterprise.

It didn’t matter where she was. The only requirement for her writing was a personal computer and a printer. Her imagination went with her. No restrictions on that. With Gerald out of her life, she had no attachments in Melbourne, nothing to keep her there.

She’d never really had the time to make close friends—looking after her brothers and sisters, attending classes at night, studying in any spare hours she had. Then, in later years, Gerald, who had drawn her into mixing with a social circle that had been more his than hers. Somewhere along the line, she’d missed a boat other people took, and she didn’t know how to change that. She knew she lived too much in her mind.

Perhaps it was the sense of apartness that had seeded the need for Jamie to still be there for her, regardless of the years that had passed. To her it had been a very special relationship. An ideal. Never achieved with anyone else. But she had probably idealised it beyond any reality.

She shrugged away her disillusionment as the plane landed at Tullamarine Airport. It didn’t take her long to get to her car in the parking station. The drive home passed in a weary haze. As she heaved her luggage across the pavement to the iron gate that led into the terrace house where her family had lived for the past fifteen years, she couldn’t help thinking how unimpressed Jim Neilson would be with it. Definitely low-life compared to his penthouse. But it still had more heart in it than his material luxury had.

She manoeuvred through the gateway, stepped on the porch and used her key to open the front door. No sooner had she pushed into the hallway than her father was calling, “Is that you, Beth?”

“Yes, Dad. Home safe and sound,” she answered, shoving the door shut behind her.

To her surprise he came to the end of the hall from the living room, apparently stirred out of his usual apathy to welcome her home. His face was beaming with pleasure. He must have really missed her, Beth thought.

“Leave your bags. I’ll carry them up later.” He beckoned excitedly. “We’ve got a visitor.” He laughed and shook his head. “You’ll never guess who it is.”

Whoever it was had certainly perked him up. Had her sister Kate flown home from London? Beth dropped her bags and hurried forward, her mind abuzz with happy anticipation. She needed a lift in spirits. If it was Kate...

Her father stood back and waved like a master conjuror working a gasp-worthy illusion. Beth was grinning as she stepped into the living room, her eyes delightedly seeking...

Jim Neilson?

Her skipping heart skidded to a dead halt. So did her feet. Her eyes glazed with shock. She felt the blood draining from her face, strength draining from her thighs. Her father was saying something, but his words were a vague buzz in her ears. Her mind registered only the booming reality of Jim Neilson standing by the table in the living room of her home. He was too magnetically solid to be a phantom of yesterday.

Her father flung an arm around her shoulders, hugging her with an exuberance that probably saved her from fainting. It jolted her into taking a deep breath, swallowing hard, fiercely willing the tremulous feeling to recede. Her mind clutched at what her father was saying, needing information.

“Not often Beth is knocked speechless.” His tone was jovial, brimming with good humour. “It’s like a bolt from the blue, your descending on us after all these years. You’ll have to excuse her, Jim.”

Jim! Very chummy. Plus complete ignorance of
Jim
having seen her yesterday and the day before.

Jim
didn’t correct him, either. He moved forward, hands lifting in charming appeal, white teeth flashing in a dazzling smile, dark eyes compelling compliance with his deceit. He was even dressed in sheep’s clothing, smartly tailored navy trousers, a fashionable Fair Isle sweater in navy, dark red and deep green, a white shirt with a collar. Very conventional.

“Beth.” A throb of sound, mesmerising in its expression of deep emotion. “You’ve grown into such a beautiful woman, you take my breath away.”

Hardly, since he could speak with such glib ease.

She gave him a smouldering look that should have scorched him into nonexistence, but he kept coming at her with unshaken purpose.

Her father chuckled, delighted with her supposed effect on her childhood friend.

Jim Neilson had the unmitigated gall to take her hands, his fingers caressing her palms, making her skin tingle—no, crawl with revulsion. It had to be revulsion.

“Your father’s been telling me all about you,” he said, his tone full of warm admiration, his eyes boring into hers with challenging intensity. “How you took over your mother’s role when you were only sixteen, what a great job you’ve done with your brothers and sisters, the long haul to getting your university degree. And making a wonderful success with your children’s books. You are one amazing lady, Beth.”

She found her tongue. “Oh, I think I could safely say you’re more amazing.”

Her eyes sizzled with outrage at his pumping her father for information about her behind her back. She extracted her hands and pointedly wiped them down the sides of the long tunic she wore over her comfortable travelling trousers, eradicating the disturbing sense of his touch. Her mind raced through a bank of words, seeking the most effective, the most telling, the most scathing terms she could use to cut his feet out from under him and show him up for the conscienceless cad he was.

“You don’t know the half of it, Beth,” her father crowed. “Jim saw that our old family farm was up for auction and he went and bought it. He says it’s shamefully run down and he wants me to go into partnership with him to build it back up to what it should be. How about that!”

In one killing stroke, the urge to blow Jim Neilson’s charade into blistering smithereens was hopelessly undermined. The wild energy burning up her brain lost its direction, totally subverted by red-light signals that forced it down other paths.

To destroy her father’s joy without first investigating what had been said and done in her absence would not be a good thing. She wasn’t the only person to be considered here. It was not in her character to dash anybody’s dream, especially that of someone as dear to her as her father.

This had better be real
. Her eyes flashed the message to Jim Neilson with fierce intent. If it was some manipulative game, she’d boil him in oil and feed him to pigs.

“Well, you’ve quite taken
my
breath away,” she said, inhaling deeply, then sighing at length to cover the frenzied activity in her mind.

“Jim’s got it all worked out,” her father went on.

I bet he has
, Beth thought venomously.

“Come and sit down, love. I’ll get you a cup of coffee. You’re probably dry from your flight,” her father said with surprising consideration. “Then I’ll tell you what the plan is.”

“We’ve got so much to catch up on,” Jim Neilson said eagerly, stepping back to draw out a chair from the table for her, showing gentlemanly courtesy to impress her father.

It didn’t impress Beth one bit!

Nevertheless, she dutifully sat, hating the sense of him hovering behind her, her teeth gnashing in vampirish blood lust if he dared to touch her again.

“Like another coffee, Jim?” her father asked, collecting two empty mugs from the table.

“Yes, I would, thanks.”

He moved out of the danger zone, to the chair he’d obviously occupied before Beth’s arrival. The distance restored a modicum of control over the violent impulses he stirred in her. She studiously ignored him, noting what information was readily available about what had been going on here.

The mugs hadn’t been the only objects littering the table. In front of her father’s usual place were the sale papers from the auction. A plate of cake crumbs indicated that Jim Neilson had been enjoying hospitality for quite some time. More disturbing was the family photograph album, a pictorial history that had undoubtedly filled in some of the past fifteen years for him. Probably bored him out of his mind. Though it served him right for pretending an interest. The press clippings Aunty Em had sent were laid out for him, too, embarrassing evidence of their interest in him. Some of the children’s books she’d written had also been proudly produced for display.

He picked one up. “I hope you don’t mind. Your father said I could take these to read. I’d like to see what you’ve done, Beth.”

From anyone else it would be a compliment. Her eyes derided his sincerity. “You’re welcome. I have plenty of spare copies,” she said, letting him know he wasn’t taking anything irreplaceable from her. She waved at the mess on the table. “You must have been here for a while.”

“Yes. A few hours.”

“Did you have difficulty in finding us ... after all these years?”

“No. No problem.”

Beth seethed with anger. No problem once he set his mind to it. He’d probably got her address from the hotel. She put on a saccharine smile. “I’m surprised you remembered us.”

“I never really forgot you, Beth.” His eyes seared hers with very recent memories. “I guess you could say our lives took different turns.”

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