Wife in the Making

Fleur stared at him incredulously, trying to sort through it all, then she closed her eyes and shook her head. ‘It’s like being in a madhouse,’ she said.

‘On the other hand, we just might be able to help.’

Her lashes lifted and a sudden thought came to her. ‘Who do I remind you of? What part does that play in it all?’ she asked slowly.

He finished his coffee and stood up. ‘Oh, that was only fleeting and not really important. What is important, Fleur,’ he paused and looked at her with a mixture of sympathy and seriousness—with absolutely no hint of that electric tension that had flowed between them before—and went on, ‘is that you can talk to us. You really don’t have to soldier on alone. But that’s enough for one night—I’ll leave you to finish your coffee in peace. Goodnight!’

Fleur listened to him walking down the veranda steps, then there was silence as the beach swallowed up his footsteps. She blinked several times, lay flat then sat up, shaking her head, and reached for her coffee with her mind in turmoil. How had she not realized that she came across as so obviously isolated and damaged? To the extent that people would gossip about it behind her back? Apart from Bryn’s hostility to cope with, she’d thought she’d appeared tranquil and even enjoying her sojourn at Clam Cove—apart from him, she had been, damn it!

So was it another frustrating example of give a girl a pretty face and figure—and you only acquired those because of your genes—and, without a constant supply of men dancing attendance, people immediately assumed there was some trauma?

Well, there was, she thought ruefully, but whose business was it but her own?

She drained her glass and stood up to pace around her bungalow for a while. On the other hand, could she have landed amongst a bunch of fruit loops? And why did she have this conviction, despite Bryn’s disclaimer about her reminding him of someone not being important, it was much more of a key to things than he’d been prepared to admit?

She stopped abruptly in the middle of the cabin as her conversation with Julene just that morning came back to her. What was it Julene had said—‘You could have knocked us over with a feather when he produced you…’ Yes, her exact words. Did this mean Julene and Eric knew who she reminded Bryn of? And to produce such a hostile reaction in him from the first moment they met—it had to be another woman in his life, she reasoned, a woman who had left her mark most unhappily on him…

Right on cue Tom’s little face floated into her mind. Tom, whose mother was never mentioned, which in itself meant there had to be trauma, for whatever reason, associated with her memory. Was that what she’d walked into? Reminding a man of the mother of his child when he’d much prefer to forget her?

She came to life and turned off the oil lamp, shrugged out of her robe and slipped into bed as exhaustion suddenly hit her. Then she remembered what he’d said about being a journalist in a former life.

She sat up and pondered this. It explained the laptop Tom had told her about in his bungalow. It probably explained the light on in his bungalow at all hours. So did he still practise journalism? If so, why did he never mention it?

And before she fell asleep another dilemma raised its head with her. Her physical reaction to Bryn Wallis, and his to her, unless it had been her imagination…

Julene was up and about and apparently restored to normal when Fleur surfaced a little later than usual the next morning.

‘Some night,’ she said chattily as she sat down with a cup of coffee while Fleur ate her breakfast. ‘I have to tell you Eric was most impressed.’

Fleur opened her mouth to ask what with, but decided to save her breath.

‘He can’t remember anyone giving Bryn as good as they got quite like that before,’ Julene went on. ‘Of course, I knew you had to crack eventually, he was being totally unreasonable and impossible but—raspberries and cream! Way to go, kid.’

Fleur smiled feebly.

‘You’re not feeling guilty?’ Julene enquired with a frown. ‘You see, it’ll clear the air tremendously—by the way, all your clothes washed up on the beach. I reckon the shoes are ruined but a bit of bleach will get the stains out of his shirt; not so sure about your dress, though. If you don’t mind me saying so, it wasn’t the most attractive dress, so that could be a good thing—What’s the matter?

Fleur had stopped eating abruptly. Now she put her hands to her head and started to laugh helplessly. Finally she looked up at Julene with streaming eyes. ‘Does this place ever strike you as a madhouse?’ she asked.

‘Well, now,’ Julene started to laugh too, ‘can’t say things are ever boring around Bryn!’

Fleur sobered. ‘I gather you’re all worried about me? There’s no need. OK, yes, I’m not into men at the moment—’

‘They can be bastards,’ Julene broke in sympathetically.

Fleur smiled mechanically then frowned. ‘Can I ask you something?’

‘Fire away, honey!’

‘Surely it’s better, after you’ve—’ she shrugged ‘—got your fingers burnt, in a manner of speaking, to…retire for a bit? That’s, well, one thing I’m doing, trying to build another life, I guess.’

‘What was your previous life?’ Julene asked curiously.

‘Two years studying computer science and statistics after school then receiving an offer from a modelling agency I couldn’t refuse—or so I thought at the time. But it all palled, so,’ she spread her hands palms outward, ‘I decided to get my feet back on the ground.’

Julene reached for the percolator and poured herself another cup of coffee. She stirred sugar into it. ‘You still need friends, hon,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘And what about your family?’

Fleur made a curiously helpless little gesture and said wryly, ‘My parents are overseas travelling the world and I do keep in touch with them regularly via e-mail. The same with friends.’

Julene shrugged. ‘I’d still feel happier if you got some letters or phone calls.’

Fleur bit her lip and for a moment was tempted to tell Julene why it made her extremely happy to receive no mail, no phone calls and especially no flowers at Clam Cove. But she stifled the urge—it was like living in a fishbowl here anyway.

So she changed the subject. ‘Julene, who do I remind Bryn of?’

A flicker of indecision passed through Julene’s eyes then she shrugged. ‘Tom’s mother, but that’s something you should ask Bryn about.’

Fleur started to say something then changed her mind. ‘Where is he? The place seems to be very quiet.’ She looked around.

‘He took Tom across to the mainland for a checkup.’

‘Any spots?’

‘Nope.’ Julene stood up. ‘He was as bright as a button this morning. Might have been a false alarm but he wanted to be sure. Oh, well, guess I’ll finish clearing up the mess—by the way, the boss has decreed that we are closed tonight even though it’s not a Monday.’ Monday was the one day of the week the restaurant didn’t open.

‘Glory be,’ Fleur said with feeling. ‘I’ll give you a hand with the mess.’ Her lips curved into a rueful smile. ‘Since I caused a lot of it.’

Bryn didn’t arrive home until late afternoon—minus Tom.

He came into Fleur’s office just as she was preparing to knock off for the day and was massaging the back of her neck. She didn’t hear him come back, didn’t know he was in the office behind her until he said, ‘Tired?’

She dropped her hand and turned to face him slowly. ‘A little. How…how is Tom?’

Bryn looked her over thoroughly before replying. If anyone looked tired, he did, she thought in the pause, in his moleskins, check shirt and deck shoes. There seemed to be shadows beneath his eyes and more lines beside his mouth than she remembered, and she flinched inwardly because she didn’t want to notice things like that about this man but didn’t seem able to help herself.

‘Tom appears to be fine,’ he said at last. ‘But friends of mine are holidaying on the mainland. They have a couple of kids round about his age and he knows them well, so I left him with them for a couple of days. They’ve both had chickenpox and their mum knows what to look out for in Tom.’

‘Oh. Well, I guess he’ll enjoy some company of his own age.’

Bryn smiled twistedly. ‘So he gave me to understand. Like a drink?’

Fleur blinked. ‘I…’

‘Eric is setting up a barbecue on the beach and Julene is going to cook. We’ll have the pleasure of Clam Cove to ourselves this evening.’

‘That sounds…that sounds wonderful,’ Fleur heard herself say with more enthusiasm than she could explain.

And after a moment Bryn Wallis smiled down at her more genuinely than he ever had before, causing her to catch her breath—and pray he hadn’t noticed.

It was a wonderful evening. They swam, while the water was smooth, silky and coloured oyster with touches of fire from the setting sun. Eric built a fire and Julene grilled fillets of fish, heated crusty bread in the coals and provided a delicious risotto as well as a fresh salad to go with the fish, plus her homemade tartar sauce. They opened a couple of bottles of wine and sat in deckchairs on the beach—more relaxed than Fleur would have thought possible only a day ago.

Bryn built up the fire after they’d eaten and the swift darkness of the tropics fell. Then, in a rather orchestrated way, Fleur felt, Julene and Eric yawned simultaneously, claimed they needed an early night in the same breath, and departed for bed.

She was still looking surprised when Bryn started to laugh softly.

‘What was that all about?’ she asked.

‘I have to agree they’re lousy actors,’ he said, still grinning.

‘But why?’ She looked even more puzzled.

‘Fleur, your steely mind must be taking a break—I should have thought it was obvious.’

‘Not to me. I feel as if I’ve suddenly acquired body odour.’ She shrugged whimsically.

‘Not at all. I’d say that Julene and Eric, with a consummate lack of subtlety, have decided to throw us together.’

Fleur’s lips parted incredulously. ‘But…I don’t understand… Why?’

‘They’ve obviously come to the conclusion we’d be good for each other.’

‘Only last night,’ she said, ‘and for the past three and a half weeks it’s been—’ She stopped and gestured helplessly.

‘The other side of a certain coin?’ he broke in to say. ‘Perhaps.’

In the silence that followed his statement, Fleur wished with all her heart that she could feign misunderstanding or deny it. She moved restlessly in her deckchair and shuffled her bare feet in the sand. It was another beautiful night with the Southern Cross hanging above their heads, and the fire was casting leaping shadows on the beach.

‘You and I,’ he said quietly at last, ‘may have a better understanding of things, though.’

‘Such as?’

‘Such as why we don’t wish to pursue the other side of the coin—I’m talking about the attraction that lies just beneath the surface.’

She released a deep breath and glanced at him through her lashes.

He had on the same football shirt and khaki shorts of the night before and he was lying back in his chair with his legs sprawled out, looking up at the stars.

He was, it would appear, relaxed and in a contemplative frame of mind, as if he was talking about something quite abstract and he was not, at that moment, prey to any physical attraction to her. Whereas just looking at his big frame sprawled in the chair as he gazed up at the stars brought a strange clenching to the stomach for her, for example.

‘Go on,’ she said, when she could keep her voice cool and calm.

He glinted a quizzical hazel glance at her and resumed his study of the heavens. ‘Well, the reason you may not want to pursue it is because you, for whatever reason, have given up men.’

‘And you?’ she queried.

‘Ah. It couldn’t be said that I’ve given up women.’

‘I had noticed that.’

He smiled. ‘On the other hand, I have given up Stella.’

Fleur blinked. ‘Why?’

‘The same reason that would make it unforgivable for me to take up with you, Fleur. I’m perfectly happy to continue my bachelor existence. I don’t say this with any pride but I’m a hard man to pin down—’

‘I’d say there’s a lot of pride in that statement, Bryn,’ she interjected sharply. ‘How did you fail to make Stella aware of this before you took up with her—or didn’t you even try?’ She looked across at him sardonically. But something in his expression arrested her. Something in the way he fleetingly lowered his eyelids made her wonder whether he was actually hiding cool amusement—and she’d walked into a trap of his devising.

‘Bryn,’ she said slowly, ‘I’m not really interested in what reasons you may have for not wanting to take up with me—I’m just glad you have them.’

He sat up at last, to clasp his hands between his knees and subject her to a penetrating gaze that was also quite enigmatic. ‘So we understand each other quite well?’ he said at length.

‘We do.’

‘Hmm…’

A smile trembled on Fleur’s lips but she forced it to disappear at the same time as she thought, Got you there, Bryn Wallis! Perhaps he read her thoughts, though, because the glance he then bestowed upon her was loaded with irony. ‘So be it,’ he murmured. ‘By the way, I’ve decided to close again tomorrow night. Could you see your way clear to taking a day off, Miss Millar?’

Fleur frowned. ‘I—’

‘It’s just that Eric and Julene want to take their yacht for a spin and there’s a beach on the mainland with this marvellous waterfall and pool. It’s a great spot for a picnic.’

She thought for a bit. ‘And you don’t think Eric and Julene will come up with another novel way to “throw us together”?’ she queried.

He grinned. ‘What do they say—forewarned is forearmed? I was also thinking of getting my friends and Tom to join us. They’ve got a four-wheel-drive, so they can get to this beach by road—track really. I would imagine all that should be sufficient to dampen any suspicious ardour we might feel for each other, don’t you?’

‘Bryn,’ she responded swiftly and through her teeth, ‘don’t make me mad enough to want to throw another drink over you with that kind of clever satire!’

He blinked, looked at her fingers clenched around her wineglass and said gravely, ‘Sorry. My ego just took another little dent, you might say.’

‘You mean it’s all right for you to tell me you don’t want to pursue me but it’s a bit different for me to tell you I’m happy about it?’ she responded tartly.

‘I told you you had a mind like steel trap, Fleur, didn’t I?’ he marvelled, looking glum.

She stood up. ‘Not really. But I do have some experience of men and their egos.’

His false expression of glumness faded, to be replaced by something alert and probing. Fleur bit her lip and wished she’d held her peace rather than making inflammatory remarks—she also knew enough about men to know that what she’d said would invite curiosity at the least. She discovered almost immediately that she was not wrong.

‘How many have there been?’ he queried. ‘Men, I mean.’

‘I’ve known dozens of men,’ she replied.

‘Allow me to rephrase.’ He looked up at her as if to say, Two can play that kind of game. ‘How many have you slept with?’

‘It was not a profession with me, if that’s what you’re implying.’ The firelight made her eyes look bluer—and very cynical.

Bryn swore beneath his breath and stood up to put his hands on her shoulders. ‘Don’t—’

‘Don’t you try to manhandle me again, Bryn Wallis,’ she said through gritted teeth.

His fingers dug into her shoulders briefly then he shook his head savagely and released her. ‘I was about to say, don’t read things into everything I say before I’ve had a chance to say it, Fleur. But, even if it wasn’t a profession,’ he continued grimly, ‘it’s a road to destruction, Fleur. Hell, now look what you’ve done!’ he finished bitterly.

She blinked several times and looked around in utter confusion. ‘What?’

‘I knew you’d get me all worried about you—that’s why I didn’t want you for the job!’

‘I…I…but you hardly know me from a bar of soap,’ she said confusedly.

‘I know the type all too well,’ he replied. ‘Too gorgeous for your own good, Ms Millar, not to mention walking man-bait.’

Fleur’s mouth fell open, then she snapped it shut. ‘All right!’ She was so angry it amazed her that her words came out crisp and crystal-clear. ‘This was meant to be the path to redemption, Mr Wallis. But I can travel it on my own; I don’t need help or anyone to worry about me—least of all you. In which case it might be an idea for you to go back to Stella, if that’s what this is really about.’ She put her hands on her hips to stare at him levelly, and saw him react sharply.

Then he took hold, folded his arms leisurely and summed her up comprehensively from head to toe. She’d put a thin white pullover on over her swimming costume, so her legs were bare, and his gaze lingered on them. Finally he drawled, ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

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