The Return of Her Past

Unless they didn’t recognise her.

She took a deep breath and put her shoulders back; she could do it.

But all her uncertainties resurfaced not much later when she moved the Wedgwood tureen with its lovely bounty of hydrangeas to what she thought was a better spot—her last act of preparation for the Lombard/ Miller wedding—and she dropped it.

It smashed on the tiled floor, soaking her feet in the process. She stared down at the mess helplessly.

‘Mia?’ Gail, alerted by the crash, ran up and surveyed the mess.

‘I’m s-sorry,’ Mia stammered, her hand to her mouth. ‘Why did I do that? It was such a lovely tureen too.’

Gail looked up and frowned at her boss. At the same time it dawned on her that Mia had been different over the last few days, somehow less sure of herself, but why, she had no idea. ‘Just an accident?’ she suggested.

‘Yes. Of course,’ Mia agreed gratefully but still, apparently, rooted to the spot.

‘Look, you go and change your shoes,’ Gail recommended, ‘and I’ll clean up the mess. We haven’t got much time.’

‘Thank you! Maybe we could get it fixed?’

‘Maybe,’ Gail agreed. ‘Off you go!’

Mia finally moved away and didn’t see the strange look her assistant bestowed on her before she went to get the means to sweep up what was left of the Wedgwood tureen.

The wedding party arrived on time.

Mia watched through the French windows and saw the bride, the bridesmaids and the mother of the bride arrive. And for a moment she clutched the curtain with one hand and her knuckles were white, her face rigid as she watched the party, particularly the bride’s mother, Arancha O’Connor. She took a deep breath, counted to ten and went out to greet them.

It was a hive of activity in the bridal suite. Mia provided a hairdresser, a make-up artist and a florist and in this flurry of dryers and hairspray, perfumes both bottled and from the bouquets and corsages, with the swish of petticoats and long dresses, laces and satins, it seemed safe to Mia to say that no one recognised her.

She was wrong.

The bridal party was almost ready when Arancha O’Connor, the epitome of chic in lavender with a huge hat, suddenly pointed at Mia and said, ‘I know who you are! Mia Gardiner.’

Mia turned to her after a frozen moment. ‘Yes, Mrs O’Connor. I didn’t think you’d remember me.’

‘Of course I remember you! My, my, Mia—’ Arancha’s dark gaze swept over her comprehensively ‘—you’ve certainly acquired a bit of polish. Come up a bit in the world, have we? Although—’ Arancha looked around ‘—I suppose this is just an upmarket version of a housekeeping position, really! Juanita, do you remember Mia?’ She turned to her daughter. ‘Her parents worked for us. Her mother in the kitchen, her father in the gardens.’

Juanita looked absolutely splendid in white lace and tulle but she frowned a little distractedly. ‘Hi, Mia. I do remember you now but I don’t think we really knew each other; I was probably before your time,’ she said. ‘Mum—’ she looked down at the phone in her hand ‘—Carlos is running late and he’ll be coming on his own.’

Arancha stiffened. ‘Why?’

‘No idea.’ Juanita turned to Mia. ‘Would you be able to rearrange the bridal table so there’s not an embarrassingly empty seat beside Carlos?’

‘Of course,’ Mia murmured and went to move away but Arancha put a hand on her arm.

‘Carlos,’ she confided, ‘has a beautiful partner. She’s a model but also the daughter of an ambassador. Nina—’

‘Nina French,’ Mia broke in dryly. ‘Yes, I’ve heard of her, Mrs O’Connor.’

‘Well, unfortunately something must have come up for Nina not to be able to make it, but—’

‘Carlos is quite safe from me, Mrs O’Connor, even without Ms French to protect him,’ Mia said wearily this time. ‘Quite safe, believe me. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll get back to work.’ She turned away but not before she saw the glint of anger in Arancha’s dark eyes.

‘It’s going quite well,’ Gail whispered some time later as she and Mia happened to pass each other.

Mia nodded but frowned. Only ‘quite well’? What was wrong? The truth was she was still trembling with suppressed anger after her encounter with Arancha O’Connor. And it was impossible to wrest her mind from it.

Her skill at blending the right music, her talent for drawing together a group of people, her adroit handling of guests had deserted her because Arancha had reduced her from seasoned professional to merely the housekeeper’s daughter.

‘But he’s not here!’ Gail added.

‘He’s running late, that’s all.’

Gail tut-tutted and went on her way, leaving Mia in her post of discreet observer but feeling helpless and very conscious that she was losing her grip on this wedding. Not only that but she was possessed of a boiling sense of injustice.

She’d actually believed she could show Arancha that she’d achieved a minor miracle. That she’d begun and prospered a business that had the rich and famous flocking to her door. Moreover she could hold her own amongst them; her clothes bore designer labels, her taste in food and décor and the special little things she brought to each reception was being talked about with admiration.

But what had she proved? Nothing. With a few well chosen words Arancha had demolished her achievements and resurrected her inferiority complex so that it seemed to her she was once more sitting on the sidelines, looking in. She was no closer to entering Arancha and Juanita’s circle than she’d ever been. Not to mention Carlos’s…

She’d believed she could no longer be accused of being the housekeeper’s daughter as if it were an invisible brand she was doomed to wear for ever, but, if anything, it had got worse.

From a dedicated cook, a person to whom the smooth running of the household—the scent of fresh clean linen, the perfume of flowers, the magic of herbs not only for cooking but infusions as well—from that dedicated person to whom all those things mattered, her mother had been downgraded to a ‘kitchen’ worker.

Her father, her delightfully vague father who cared passionately about not only what he grew but the birds and the bees and anything to do with gardens, had suffered a similar fate.

She shook her head, then clamped her teeth onto her bottom lip and forced herself to get a grip.

That was when the snarl of a powerful motor made itself heard, not to the guests but to Mia, whose hearing was attuned to most things that came and went from Bellbird, and she slipped outside.

The motor belonged to a sports car, a metallic yellow two-door coupé. The car pulled up to a stone-spitting halt on the gravel drive and a tall figure in jeans jumped out, reached in for a bag, then strode towards her.

‘I’m late, I know,’ he said. ‘Who are you?’

‘I…I’m running the show,’ Mia replied a little uncertainly.

‘Good, you can show me where to change. I’m Carlos O’Connor, by the way, and I’m in deep trouble. I’m sure I’ve missed the actual ceremony but please tell me I haven’t missed the speeches!’ he implored. ‘They’ll never talk to me again.’ He took Mia’s elbow and led her at a fast pace towards the house.

‘No, not the speeches,’ Mia said breathlessly, ‘and now you’re here I can delay them a little longer while you change. In here!’ She gestured to a doorway on the veranda that led directly to the bridal suite.

Carlos turned away from her. ‘Would you let them know I’m here?’

‘Sure.’

‘Muchas gracias.’ He disappeared through the doorway.

Mia stared at the door with her lips parted and her eyes stunned. He hadn’t recognised her!

Which was what she’d hoped for but the awful irony was she hated the thought of it because it had to be that she’d meant so little to him she must have been almost instantly forgettable…

She swallowed, then realised with a start that she still had a wedding to run and a message to deliver. She straightened her hat and entered the dining room and discreetly approached the bridal table, where she bent down to tell the bride and the groom that Mr O’Connor had arrived and would be with them as soon as he’d changed.

‘Thank heavens!’ Juanita said fervently and her brand new husband Damien agreed with her.

‘I know I didn’t need anyone to give me away,’ Juanita continued, ‘but I do need Carlos to make the kind of speech only he can make. Not only—’ she put a hand on Damien’s arm and glinted him a wicked little look ‘—to extol all my virtues but to liven things up a bit!’

Mia flinched.

‘Besides which, Mum is starting to have kittens,’ Juanita added. ‘She was sure he’d had an accident.’

‘I’d have thought your mother would have stopped worrying about Carlos years ago,’ Damien remarked.

This time Juanita cast him a speaking look. ‘Never,’ she declared. ‘Nor will she ever rest until she’s found him a suitable wife.’

Mia melted away at this point and she hovered outside the bridal suite to be able to direct the latecomer to the dining room through the maze of passages.

She would have much preferred to delegate this to Gail, not to mention really making Gail’s day, no doubt, but she was not to be seen.

After about five minutes when Carlos O’Connor still had not appeared, she glanced at her watch with a frown and knocked softly on the door.

It was pulled open immediately and Carlos was dressed in his morning suit and all present and correct—apart from his hair, which looked as if he’d been dragging fingers through it, and his bow tie, which he had in his hand.

‘I can’t tie the blasted thing,’ he said through his teeth. ‘I never could. Tell you what, if I ever get married I will bar all monkey suits and bow ties. Here!’ He handed Mia the tie. ‘If you’re in charge of the show, you do it.’

Typically Carlos at his most arrogant, Mia thought, because she was still hurt to the quick.

She took the tie from him with a swift upward glance that was about as cold as she was capable of and stood up on her toes to briskly and efficiently tie the bow tie.

‘There.’ She patted it briefly. ‘Now, if you wouldn’t mind and seeing as you’re already late as it is, this wedding awaits you.’

‘Wait a moment.’ A frown grew in Carlos’s grey eyes as he put his hands on her hips—an entirely inappropriate gesture between guest and wedding reception manager—and he said incredulously, ‘Mia?’

She froze, then forced herself to respond, ‘Yes. Hi, Carlos!’ she said casually. ‘I didn’t think you’d recognised me. Uh…Juanita really needs you so…’ She went to turn away but he detained her.

‘What are you mad about, Mia?’

She had to bite her lip to stop herself from blurting out the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Chapter and verse, in other words, of every reason she had for…well, being as mad as she could ever recall.

She swallowed several times. ‘I’m having a little trouble getting this wedding going,’ she said carefully at last. ‘That’s all. So—’ She tried to pull away.

He slipped his hands up to her waist and said authoritatively, ‘Hang on. It must be—six—seven years—since you ran away, Mia.’

‘I didn’t…I…well, I suppose I did,’ she corrected herself. ‘And yes, about that. But look, Carlos, this wedding is really dragging its feet and it’s going to be my reputation on the line if I don’t get it going, so would you please come and make the kind of speech only you can make, apparently, to liven things up?’

‘In a moment,’ he drawled. ‘Wow!’ His lips twisted as he stood her away from him and admired her from her toes to the tip of her fascinator and all the curves in between. Not only that but he admired her legs, the slenderness of her waist, the smoothness of her skin, her sweeping lashes and delectable mouth. ‘Pardon my boyish enthusiasm, but this time you’ve really grown up, Mia.’

She bit her lip. Dealing with Carlos could be difficult at the best of times but she well recognised him in this mood—there would be no moving him until he was ready to be moved.

She heaved an inward sigh and mentally gritted her teeth. All right, two could play this game…

‘You’re looking pretty fine yourself, Mr O’Connor,’ she said lightly. ‘Although I must say I’m surprised your mother hasn’t found a wife for you yet.’

‘The last person I would get to choose a wife for me is my mother,’ he said dryly. ‘What brought that up?’

Mia widened her eyes not entirely disingenuously but in surprise as well. And found she had to think quickly. ‘Probably the venue and what’s going on here,’ she said with an ironic little glint. ‘Mind you, things are about to flop here if I don’t pull something out of the hat!’ And she pulled away, successfully.

He stared at her for a long moment, then he started to laugh and Mia felt her heart pound because she’d gone for so long without Carlos, without his laugh, without his arms around her…

‘I don’t know what you expect me to do,’ he said wryly.

‘I don’t care what you do, but if you don’t come and do something, Carlos,’ she threatened through her teeth, suddenly furious although she had no idea if it was with him or with herself, or the situation, ‘I’ll scream blue murder!’

CHAPTER TWO

‘FEELING BETTER?’

Mia took another sip of brandy and looked around. Everyone had gone. The bridal party, the guests, the caterers, they’d all gone. The presents had all been loaded carefully into a station wagon and driven away.

Gail had gone home in seventh heaven because she’d not only seen Carlos, she’d spoken to him. And the wedding had been a success. It had livened up miraculously as soon as Carlos had made his speech and Juanita had thrown her arms around Mia and Gail and thanked them profusely for their contribution to her special day as she’d left.

Carlos had driven away in his metallic yellow car and Mia had kicked off her shoes and changed her Thai silk dress for a smock but, rather than doing any work, she’d sunk into an armchair in the foyer. Her hat sat on a chair beside her. She was perfectly dry-eyed but she felt as if she’d been run over by a bus.

It was quite normal to feel a bit flattened after a function—she put so much into each and every one of them—but this was different; this was an emotional flat liner of epic proportions. This was all to do with Carlos and the fact that she’d been kidding herself for years if she’d thought she’d gotten over him.

All to do with the fact that the feel of his hands on her hips and waist had awoken sensations throughout her body that had thrilled her, the fact that to think he hadn’t recognised her had been like a knife through her heart.

That was when someone said her name and she looked up and moved convulsively to see him standing there only a foot or so away.

‘But…but,’ she stammered, ‘you left. I saw you drive off.’

‘I came back. I’m staying with friends just down the road. And you need a drink. Point me in the right direction.’

Mia hesitated, then gestured. He came back a few minutes later with a drinks trolley, poured a couple of brandies and now he was sitting opposite her in an armchair. He’d changed into khaki cargo trousers and a grey sweatshirt.

‘Feeling better?’ he asked again.

She nodded. ‘Thanks.’

He frowned. ‘Are you sure you’re in the right job if it takes so much out of you, Mia?’

‘It doesn’t usually—’ She stopped and bit her lip.

‘Doesn’t usually affect you like this?’ he hazarded.

She looked down and pleated the material of her smock. ‘Well, no.’

‘So what was different about this one?’

‘I don’t know.’ Mia shrugged. ‘I suppose I didn’t think any of you would recognise me.’

‘Why the hell wouldn’t we?’ he countered.

She shrugged. ‘I’ve changed.’

‘Not that much.’

She bridled and looked daggers at him before swiftly veiling her eyes. ‘That’s what your mother tried to tell me. I’m just a souped-up version of the housekeeper’s daughter, in other words.’

‘I didn’t say that,’ he retorted. ‘Since when did you get so thin-skinned, Mia?’

She took a very deep breath. ‘I’m not,’ she said stiffly.

‘I can’t work out whether you want us to think you have changed or not.’

‘Don’t worry about it, Carlos,’ she advised coolly. ‘In fact, thank you for getting me a drink but I’d be happy if you went back to your friends. I have a lot to do still.’

‘Short of throwing me out,’ he replied casually, ‘which I doubt you could do, you’re going to have to put up with me, Mia, until I’m ready to go. So, why don’t you fill me in on the missing years? I’m talking about the years between the time you kissed me with considerable ardour then waltzed off to uni, and now.’ His grey gaze rested on her sardonically.

Mia went white.

‘I’m waiting,’ he remarked.

She said something supremely uncomplimentary beneath her breath but she knew from the autocratic set of his jaw that he wouldn’t let up until he got the answers he wanted.

‘All right!’ She said it through her teeth but he intervened.

‘Hang on a moment.’ He reached over and took her glass. ‘Let’s have another one.’

With the deepest reluctance, she told him about the intervening years. How her mother and father had retired and were living in the Northern Rivers district of New South Wales. How they’d started a small tea shop in a country town that was becoming well known, not only for the cakes her mother baked but the honey her father produced and the herbs he grew.

How she’d finished university, spent some months overseas; how a series of catering jobs had finally led her to taking the plunge and starting her own business.

‘And that’s me up to date,’ she said bleakly and added with irony, ‘how about you?’

He avoided the question. ‘No romantic involvement?’

‘Me?’ Mia drew her finger around the rim of her glass. ‘Not really. Not seriously. I haven’t had the time. How about you?’ she asked again.

‘I’m…’ He paused and grimaced. ‘Actually, I’m currently unattached. Nina—I don’t know if you’ve heard of Nina French?’ He raised a dark eyebrow at her.

‘Who hasn’t?’ Mia murmured impatiently. ‘Top model, utterly gorgeous, daughter of an ambassador,’ she added.

‘Yes.’ He nodded. ‘We had a relationship. It fell through. Today, as a matter of fact.’

Mia choked on a sip of her drink. ‘Today?’

He nodded.

‘Is that why you were late?’ she asked incredulously.

He nodded. ‘We had a monumental row just before we were due to set out—to be here on time.’ He shrugged. ‘About fifty per cent of our relationship consisted of monumental rows, now I come to think of it.’

‘Oh. I’m sorry,’ Mia said. ‘But that probably means a…a grand reunion.’

‘Not this time,’ he replied perfectly coolly, so coolly it sent a little shiver down Mia’s spine.

He was quiet for a time, rolling his glass in his hands. ‘Otherwise,’ he continued, ‘I’ve worked like a Trojan to fill my father’s shoes since he had that stroke. He died a few months ago.’

‘I read about that. I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be. It was a release—for all of us, I guess. After the stroke he became embittered and extremely hard to live with. He was always a hard man. I never felt I was living up to his expectations before he became ill but even less so afterwards.’

He sat back and tasted his drink. ‘I’ve even branched out in new directions, successfully, but—’ he paused and shrugged ‘—I can’t help feeling he wouldn’t have approved or that he would have thought of a different way of doing things.’

‘I didn’t know him much,’ Mia murmured.

‘The thing is—’ Carlos drained his drink and looked out into the sunset ‘—I don’t know why I’m telling you this; maybe weddings generate a desire to understand things—or maybe monumental rows do it—’ he shrugged ‘—but I don’t know if it’s thanks to him and his…lack of enthusiasm for most things, including me, that’s given me a similar outlook on life.’

Mia frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

‘There’s something missing. Hard to put my finger on it, though.’

‘Maybe you’d like to take a year off and live amongst some primitive tribe for a change? Is it that kind of an itch?’

He grimaced. ‘Not exactly.’

‘Then it could be a wife and family you’re lacking,’ Mia said in a motherly sort of way and was completely unprepared for what came next.

He studied her for a long moment, his eyes narrowed and very intent. Then he said, ‘You wouldn’t like to take Nina’s place?’

Mia’s eyes widened and her mouth fell open. ‘What do you mean?’

‘You wouldn’t like to get engaged to me? Not that I was engaged to Nina, but—’ He gestured.

She swallowed, choked again on a sip of her drink and came up spluttering.

He eyed her quizzically. ‘An unusual reaction,’ he murmured.

‘No. I mean yes. I mean…how could you?’ She reached for a napkin from the trolley and patted her eyes and her mouth. ‘I don’t think that’s funny,’ she told him coldly.

He raised a dark eyebrow at her. ‘It wasn’t meant to be. I’m in rather desperate need of a—what should I call it?—a shield at the moment. From Nina and the whole damn caboodle of them.’ He looked irritated to death.

‘Them? Who?’ Mia queried with a frown.

‘The set she moves in, Juanita too, my mother and all the rest of them.’ He gestured. ‘You saw them all today.’ He paused, then smiled suddenly. ‘In comparison, the housekeeper’s daughter is like pure sweet spring water.’

Mia moved abruptly and went white to her lips. ‘How dare you?’ she whispered. ‘How dare you patronise me with your ridiculous proposal and think you can make me laugh about being the housekeeper’s daughter?’

‘Mia—’ he sat up ‘—it may be seven years ago but you and I set each other alight once—remember? Perhaps it didn’t mean a great deal to you, but it happened.’

‘M-may not have meant m-much to me?’ Mia had trouble getting the words out. ‘What are you saying?’

‘You ran away, remember?’

‘I…Carlos, your mother warned me off,’ Mia cried, all her unspoken but good intentions not to rake up the past forgotten. ‘She told me I could never be the one for you, no “housekeeper’s daughter” would be good enough to be your wife. She told me you were only toying with me anyway and she threatened to sack my parents without references if I didn’t go away.’

‘What?’ he growled, looking so astounded Mia could only stare at him wide-eyed.

‘You didn’t know.’ It was a statement rather than a question.

‘I ended up in hospital that night, remember? When I got home you’d gone. Listen, just tell me how it happened,’ he ordered grimly.

Mia stared into the past. ‘She came home first, your mother,’ she said slowly. ‘The storm had passed but I was still—’ she hesitated a moment ‘—I was still lying on the settee. I hadn’t heard her. You were asleep. She was…she was livid.’ Mia swallowed and shivered. ‘She banished me to the service quarters after I’d told her what had happened and she rang for a medevac helicopter. I don’t know when you woke up. I don’t know if you had concussion but the next day was when she warned me off.’

‘What about your parents?’

‘I never told them, not what had happened with you. But I had just received an offer of a place at a Queensland university. I hadn’t been sure I’d take it—it would mean I’d be a long way from my parents—but that’s what I told them—that I’d made up my mind to do it. I left two days later,’ she said bleakly. ‘You hadn’t come back. I didn’t even know if you would. But I couldn’t risk them losing their jobs.’ She looked at him long and steadily. ‘Not both of them at the same time. I just couldn’t.’

He closed his eyes briefly. ‘I’m sorry. I had no idea. I must have been quite groggy because I don’t remember much about the medevac. But I did go back to West Windward after all sorts of tests and scans and—’ he shook his head impatiently ‘—palaver to determine whether I’d cracked my skull but you’d gone. That was when she told me you’d got a place at a Queensland university, that your parents were so proud of you and what an achievement it was for you. So I congratulated them and they told me they were so proud of you and there seemed to be no trauma attached to it.’