Husband By Arrangement

His head was perpetually filled with the consequences of the disaster. The disruption to his life. His enforced return to Portugal. The destruction of thousands of valuable stock plants in the nursery and the knowledge that he was the only person who could build the business up again.

The forest fire had devoured several thousand acres of eucalyptus trees around the Fitzgerald estate. It had swept on to the eighteenth century manor house, the Quinta, which had been in its path. The majority of their land had been laid to waste and his distraught grandmother had summoned him from Brazil to recreate the farm and the nursery-garden business from the ashes.

Of course he’d agreed to come. Whatever had divided them before, his grandmama was elderly and she needed him.

But he felt trapped. Missed his travels. The joy of plant hunting, obtaining permissions for propagation and seed collection, organising production and despatch. A life of freedom and independence. The life he had chosen when his beloved mother had deserted him for Maddy’s father, Jim Cook, when his safe haven had suddenly become cold and unwelcoming.

Wretched with grief after the terrible accident had wiped out his parents and Maddy’s, he’d turned his back on everything he’d once loved. He didn’t miss his macho, authoritarian father, who’d made it no secret that a reserved, myopic son had been a disappointment. But his mother had loved him for his kind heart and his passion for plants. Until Jim Cook had turned her head.

If it hadn’t been for the fire, he wouldn’t be here. His grandmother wouldn’t have nagged him about producing an heir. And he wouldn’t be fending off the avaricious daughter of the man who’d seduced his mother and enticed her away…

He stopped himself from thinking further. Too painful.

Anger surged through him. His jaw tightened and his dark eyes glittered with loathing. The last person on earth he’d marry was the daughter of Jim Cook.

Even before he’d met her, he’d decided to make her feel completely unwelcome. Ensure that her stay was unpleasant. And he knew just how he could do that. By the time he’d finished with her she’d be hitching a lift back to the airport and taking the next plane home.

He wasn’t going to marry anyone from the Cook family. Especially a gold-digger. More important, he wasn’t ever going to marry again. Full stop.

CHAPTER THREE

GRIMLY plotting mayhem, Dexter lobbed Maddy’s luggage with studied carelessness into the back of the pick-up, on top of the equipment he’d collected from the builders’ yard.

‘Gosh,’ she said, with an appealingly infectious giggle. ‘You could get work as a baggage handler any day.’

Dex met her amused glance with a blank stare. Privately he’d expected Maddy to have changed—but not this much! Maddy had rarely spoken unless given permission by her bullying grandfather.

Old man Cook had ruled his family like a dictator. For the first time it occurred to him that this might be why Maddy’s gentle, plant-loving father might have wanted to escape the evil old tyrant’s influence.

‘Get in,’ he said curtly.

Just in time, he remembered not to open the door for her, or to offer to help her up the high step. He had to give her the maximum of aggravation. And in that skirt she had a serious handicap, he thought with malicious satisfaction.

‘This’ll be fun. I’ve never been in a pick-up before!’ she declared enthusiastically. ‘Right.’ She took a deep breath that threatened the fragile construction of her straining top. ‘Here we go. Avert your eyes.’

He did nothing of the kind. Sourly he watched while she hitched up her soft leather skirt to eye-blinking heights, slipped off her spiky shoes and hauled herself onto the first step.

Perfect thighs. Toned and firm and clearly the result of high-maintenance work-outs in the gym. Cynically he saw her wrench open the buckled door a few inches and virtually limbo-dance her way in through its reluctant gap.

He couldn’t believe that Maddy could be so uninhibited. Or assertive. But he steeled himself not to show his grudging admiration.

‘Crikey! It’s very dirty in here,’ she commented, when he clambered into the driver’s seat beside her.

Illogically it annoyed him that she was stating a fact and didn’t seem in the least bit put out by the mode of transport, or its ramshackle nature.

‘Been too close to a fire,’ was all he offered, starting up the engine.

‘Oh. Camp?’

‘No. I’m straight,’ he replied, deliberately misinterpreting her.

She gave a little gurgle of laughter.

‘I mean was it a camp fire?’

‘Forest.’

‘Were you in it?’

‘The forest or truck?’ he drawled, annoyed to be enjoying the exchange.

‘Truck!’ She laughed in delight.

‘No.’

‘Lucky for you,’ she said, sounding surprisingly heart-felt.

Other than that, she made no comment about the fire. He assumed that was because his grandmother had already warned old man Cook about it—and also reassured him that the Fitzgerald wealth could easily weather the disaster.

Dexter’s mouth grew cynical. Maddy had come, even though she’d known she’d be making do in a small cottage on the estate. She must be desperate to marry a fortune!

Breaking the silence that had fallen, she sighed and shot all his nerves to pieces by stretching wantonly in a flurry of sensual limbs and writhing curves.

‘I’m absolutely shattered,’ she confided. ‘Don’t be surprised if I fall asleep on the journey. No criticism of your conversational skills. It’s tiring being on show,’ she added absently.

What the devil did she mean by that? He frowned and deliberately drove fast over the humps in the road in an effort to get back as quickly as possible. But behind them the scaffolding clanged up and down in metallic protest and she let out a squeal.

Mistakenly he flicked a quick look at her and then concentrated fiercely on the road again. Unfortunately his vision retained the image of two firm, flawless breasts quivering seductively as the truck bounced over the uneven surface. And his body responded with the kind of enthusiasm that any self-respecting male would expect.

‘Sit tight,’ he growled irritably. ‘This truck isn’t designed for women.’

‘You can say that again. My bits are going everywhere. So why did Dexter send it for me?’ she demanded, yanking up her bodice indignantly.

‘I was coming to Faro for supplies,’ he clipped, annoyingly unable to forget the alluring sight of her ‘bits’. ‘No point in two vehicles making the journey. Takes two hours to the Quinta.’

She groaned. ‘My bones’ll be jumbled into a completely different person if we go on like this! If you don’t want to end up with a Quasimodo next to you, I suggest you attack the bumps with less vigour.’

He intended to do just that. His libido was giving him enough trouble as it was, without witnessing another seismic shift of her body.

‘Got to hurry. Get back to work,’ he muttered in excuse.

‘Doing what?’

‘This and that.’

For a moment she looked floored by his reticence, then gamely started the conversation again.

‘I used to live here, you know.’

‘Mmm.’

As sure as hell, he wasn’t going to encourage reminiscences.

‘Yes,’ she said, undeterred. ‘My grandfather and Dexter’s grandfather set up the garden centre together. They’d been friends since childhood and chose to go out to Portugal because it was an up-and-coming place for ex-pats to settle,’ she told him, and paused for his comment.

Hoping his silence would shut her up, he just glared at the road. Annoyingly she launched off again, clearly in a chatty mood.

‘Grandpa was the business brain, Mr Fitzgerald was the plantsman. They married Portuguese women. So did my father, so I have Portuguese blood,’ she announced. ‘I was born on the farm, like Dexter. I was there for the first eleven years of my life.’

‘Really?’

He didn’t want to think about it. Unfortunately she ignored his plainly uninterested comment and forged on, opening old wounds, old memories.

‘Mmm. Our two families lived together because it was cheaper than running two houses and they could put more money into the actual business. I suppose it was more convenient, too. Not so far to commute.’

She went quiet for a moment and he shifted uncomfortably. There had always been tensions between the two grandfathers. One saw the Quinta purely as a commercial venture, the other as a wonderful way of life.

‘My grandpa says Mr Fitzgerald senior died a year or so ago.’

‘Yes.’

She wasn’t put off by his curtness. ‘I liked him. Those were the days,’ she continued dreamily. ‘We all mucked in together at the Quinta. Not much money, but bags of hope and mega-size dreams—built on the back of the new villa developments in the Algarve which needed their gardens landscaped. We were two close families, working all hours to build up the business.’

Close families! Too damn close. Grimly he turned on the radio, not wanting to hear any more. He had enough to deal with. Memories could stay where they were.

‘You’re very grumpy. I thought you’d be interested,’ she said, sounding hurt.

He snorted but didn’t reply. Privately crushed by his abruptness, Maddy watched him scowling at the road ahead as if it deserved his revenge.

And yet despite his sullen, antisocial manner, he was quite a dish in a basic kind of way: tall, well-built and undeniably handsome.

The smell of smoke hung around him and he clearly hadn’t washed his clothes for days or cleaned his fingernails. His hands were ingrained with dirt and there were streaks of black decorating his broad forehead and strong cheekbones. Even his voice sounded husky, as if he’d chain-smoked all his life.

But his profile was to die for: a dark and brooding eye beneath a lowered black brow, the firm jut of a nose and a chiselled mouth that Michelangelo would have been proud to have created. Though, she mused, Michelangelo might have stopped short at the designer stubble, however sexy it looked.

This was a true labouring man, she decided. Rough and ready. No conversationalist. And yet passion lurked in those dark eyes. Pity Dex couldn’t be more like him instead of detached and distant. Thinking of their imminent meeting, she shuddered with apprehension.

‘If you’re cold, there’s a sack in the back you could put over your shoulders,’ he suggested sardonically.

Her mouth twitched at the caveman offer and, thinking of Debbie’s instructions to stay in character, she raked up a reply to suit her personality.

‘A sack? Moi? I’d rather freeze,’ she said with a giggle and, in the absence of a decent chat, opened her book on getting her man for some quick revision.

The truck suddenly lurched forwards and she struggled to find her place as the Hunk hurtled along the motorway with scant regard for the suspension—either the truck’s or hers.

All she needed to do, she reminded herself, dismissing her grumpy companion for more important things, was to make sure her behaviour was the exact opposite of what the book advised.

She mustn’t be a woman with wife potential. She had to be a ‘good for now’ kind of girl. That was a task she felt was within her grasp, since she’d practised on the rugby team. They’d been hugely appreciative and their delight in her company had given her confidence a huge boost.

It had been fun, too. The most fun she’d had ever. Nothing heavy, just wall-to-wall flirting and endless laughter. All perfectly harmless.

Frowning with concentration, she delved into the chapter on how to charm a man with sweetness and submission. Always agree, always defer. Hmm.

Her eyes gleamed as she planned her tactics on going completely against her character and doing nothing of the kind.

By putting a spanner in the attempted matchmaking, she was only being kind. Her subterfuge was all for the best. Dexter needed a battleaxe of a wife who’d stand up to his domineering grandmother.

Maddy smiled wryly to herself. Just as she needed a gritty, assertive husband who wouldn’t shake like a jelly when he met her stern grandfather.

None of her boyfriends had stood the Grandpa test. They had all run a mile at his first bark and hadn’t even made it to his bite. But they’d been pretty lacklustre, if she was honest.

Her face grew wistful. When would a gorgeous, independent cuss of a man ever look twice at a mouse like her? Of course, she could probably lure a guy who fell for her brassy, extrovert image, but where would that get her? She was really quiet and shy. Would she want to live a lie for the rest of her life?

She checked her useless thoughts. This was ridiculous! It was silly to even contemplate the idea of marriage. It would never happen.

Sadly she closed the book, the corners of her bright mouth drooping. She wanted to be someone’s wife. Wanted babies, loads and loads of them. Like her friends, who seemed to be forever swelling or giving birth or pushing buggies and wailing about sleepless nights. But she couldn’t have children and that was that. She knew the score.

Her hand came to rest on her abdomen. Her mouth tightened in suppressed anguish as she remembered vividly the agony of the infection which had ruined her chances of motherhood some ten years earlier, when she was just twenty.

Despite her efforts, she couldn’t stop herself reliving those mind-numbing moments when the doctor had sat on the end of her bed and sympathetically said…

‘Feel all right?’ asked the Hunk abruptly.

She jerked and hastily drew her hand away, startled that he’d noticed her mournful expression. She’d thought he’d been intent on glaring the road into abject submission.

‘OK,’ she mumbled unconvincingly, unable to lift the dullness of her voice.

Unexpected tears welled up in her eyes. Over the years she’d had to accept the fact that she’d never have a child, but somehow coming to Portugal had unsettled her emotions.

Her teeth clamped together as she tried to crush her useless, destructive thoughts. But she would have given anything to have a baby. Anything.

Without comment, he swerved to the inside lane and took an exit which led them to a small, bustling village. Struggling fiercely with her stupidly wayward emotions, Maddy didn’t recognise it at all but was too choked up to ask what he was doing.

And yet there was something calming about the twisty cobbled roads lined with crumbling white houses. The village clearly was a poor one, but roses trailed around the wonky wooden doors and geraniums tumbled down from pots on rickety balconies.

Everything came flooding back to her. This was the old Portugal, the one she’d known as a child, and far more recognisable than the smart motorway and huge villa developments they’d passed so far.

Trundling beneath the lines of washing which hung across the street, the truck finally stopped in a small square surrounded by orange trees. A wonderful silence descended, broken only by the sound of birdsong. It was heavenly.

The truck driver turned to her and scowled. ‘Out!’

Grimly he walked around and jerked at her door, the metal screeching in protest as his brute strength levered the door completely open.

She stared at his unfriendly face in dismay as it became apparent that he wasn’t intending to have a potentially weepy woman in the cab and had decided to abandon her, then and there.

He pinned her with his cold and uncompromising stare. And then anger gave her the courage to fling herself in the direction of the driver’s seat. For a moment she found herself intimately linked with the gear stick and then she was tumbling into place and switching on the ignition.

Which was just as quickly switched off by a large, warm hand which clamped down on hers and deftly twisted her fingers in an anticlockwise direction till the engine died.

‘What do you think you’re doing?’ he enquired, his deep, throaty voice somewhere in the region of her right ear.

‘Isn’t it obvious?’ she husked, suddenly swamped, it seemed, by the smell of smoke and warm, body-tingling man.

‘Do you know how to drive a truck?’ he growled.

‘No, I don’t!’

‘Then why try?’ he asked, not unreasonably.

Her stormy eyes flashed angrily to his. His face was close, invading her personal space. Trying not to be intimidated, she said, ‘It was me or you and I chose me!’

His forehead furrowed. ‘What?’

‘You were going to dump me by the road!’ she cried hotly.

He looked exasperated. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. I was going to take you into that bar for a coffee or a brandy.’

Startled, she jerked her head around to peer at the building behind him. There was, indeed, a bar.

‘Why?’ she asked, utterly confused.

Only inches away, the dark eyes bored into hers without compassion or sympathy. She felt suddenly weak, blasted by his intense masculinity.

‘You’re tired. Or upset. It doesn’t matter which,’ he muttered gruffly. ‘It was all I could think of.’

‘Oh!’ She moved back to escape his compelling power. Her brain began to work and as it did her anger subsided. He was being kind in his curt, funny way! She smiled gratefully. ‘Sorry. My mistake. That’s very thoughtful. Thanks. I would like a coffee.’

He narrowed his eyes and considered her with care. The scrutiny caused a frisson to ripple through her, taking her unawares. But then few gorgeous men ever paid her any attention normally, she reasoned. And decided that it was all very unsettling.

‘Would you really have driven away and left me here?’ he murmured, obviously intrigued.

‘Yes, of course!’ she declared, still a little amazed at her own nerve. ‘How else would I get to the Quinta?’

He let out a bark of surprised laughter and then hastily stifled it as if it was something forbidden. Then he swung himself out again, onto the step.

‘I think,’ he said in steel-trap tones, ‘I need a brandy.’

For a moment she lowered her eyes in feminine acquiescence of male rights, before she remembered who she was and blurted out her initial thought.

‘Good grief! Your driving’s energetic enough without it being fuelled by alcohol!’ she reproved daringly.

He stepped down. ‘I’m taking a lunch break,’ he drawled. ‘I intend to soak up the brandy with a large plate of fresh, chargrilled sardines on pão integral.’

‘Local bread,’ she remembered wistfully, her mouth watering as she recalled the enormous, tasty sardines on chunks of rough wholemeal. ‘That sounds wonderful. I’ll join you.’

Grabbing her shoes in one hand, she began to clamber out, and found herself stuck on the lower step above a large puddle, just where she’d land if she jumped down. She noticed then that the leather of the truck driver’s working boots were stained with water where he’d already walked through the puddle.

So she waved her bare feet at him and smiled expectantly. He did nothing. Just stood back and watched her, hatchet-faced and ungallant. Sir Walter Raleigh he was not.

Just as she was resigning herself to an impromptu paddle in what might be sewage for all she knew, a group of males appeared as if from nowhere. They were unshaven and grinning, all ages from teens to nineties, and clearly encouraging her to leap into their arms.

She dithered, feeling both flustered and touched by their concern. ‘Oh, you’re very kind. I don’t—’

Two firm hands came to settle around her waist. Before she could protest, she was being lifted into the air as the truck driver swung her up and over the puddle then deposited her safely on a strip of grass.

‘Thanks!’ she husked, stooping to slip her shoes on and going pink from the interest caused when she bent down.

Oddly, she felt dizzy and disorientated, and she didn’t know if it was from the driver’s intense masculinity or because she hadn’t eaten for hours. Probably both. And the swooping sensation had been due to being lifted and deposited rather quickly. A kind of inner-ear problem.

‘Come on,’ he muttered.

Meekly she followed his broad back. Patently unwilling to miss the entertainment on offer, the village men swept into the bar behind them. They sat close by, raising their glasses to her and looking openly admiring.

There was an audible, communal sigh when she unthinkingly crossed one leg over the other, forgetting she was wearing something tight, short and revealing, instead of her usual grey and shapeless skirt.

‘I’m going to the washroom. I’ll put in our order on the way,’ the truck driver said curtly.

‘Oh,’ she whispered, suddenly nervous. ‘Don’t leave me! I feel like an exhibit.’

He grunted. ‘You ask to be ogled, wearing those clothes,’ he told her heartlessly. ‘And I’m not eating till I’ve washed.’

He had some standards, then. She watched him stride to the counter, and felt sympathy for the starry-eyed waitress who could hardly keep her eyes off the ultimate alpha male who was growling out his order as if it were a request for a suicide pill instead of sardines.

Rehearsing her role as a shameless hussy, Maddy studied him boldly. The muscles in his back rippled wonderfully when he moved. His rear was small and tight and he walked as if he was used to the freedom of the open air.

A wicked thought came into her head. Suppose, when she was talking to Sofia, she let slip that she was wildly attracted to the company’s truck driver?

With a giggle of horror at her audacity, she mulled this over while the man in question freshened up. A few minutes later the door to the men’s room opened and she hastily pretended to be studying her book again.

The hairs on the back of her neck tingled. She heard the firm stride of those heavy boots, the scrape of the chair opposite her as it was pulled to the table and then the faint smell of soap wafted to her nostrils.

She kept on reading, absently threading her hands through her hair until she was aware of a lot of deep breathing from the men around her.

‘You trying to be provocative?’ muttered the driver crossly.

She let her arms drop and bit back an indignant no. It would be safer to stay in character. Her behaviour might be reported back to the family. She racked her brains for what a siren might say.

‘No, I’m not trying. Comes naturally,’ she cooed.

He looked down his nose at her in disgust.

‘Unlike your hair colour.’

She smiled and batted her eyelashes in response.

‘Do you think it suits me?’ she asked coyly.

And, to her astonishment, she found herself holding her breath, hoping he did.

‘You’d look better blonde,’ was his laconic verdict.

Her natural colour! She decided to be blunt in return. He’d clearly scrubbed his hands and had tried to brush the dust out of his hair but he still looked grubby.

‘Why don’t you bother to keep yourself clean?’ she ventured curiously.

His frown deepened, the hard line of his mouth unutterably grim.

‘Don’t have time. Stopped work, drove to Faro, rushed to the builders’ yard, then the airport.’

‘You could have set the alarm earlier,’ she said, realising to her horror that she was unconsciously echoing her grandfather.

Before she could apologise profusely, she saw that the dark eyes suddenly looked tired and that there was a deeper tightening of the muscles around his mouth.

‘Four o’clock’s early enough for me,’ he growled.

‘Four…!’ She planted her hands on her hips indignantly, faintly conscious of a swell in the murmuring of the village men around them as she did so. But she was annoyed with the autocratic Fitzgeralds for taking advantage of their employee. ‘That’s outrageous!’ she declared hotly, totally forgetting who she was supposed to be. ‘I’ll speak to Dexter and tell him to stop exploiting you—’

‘You’ll be wasting your time. I have to get through the work somehow,’ he said tersely.

Her tender heart was touched. She imagined that he had a family to support. A dark-haired wife—very pretty but careworn—and four children, she imagined. Perhaps a widowed mother.