Six Australian Heroes

Ryan Armstrong had set off warning bells in her head from the first moment they had met, which was why she made an extra effort every Friday to down-play her looks even more than had become her habit during the last few years.

Not that she needed to worry about his making a play for her. It had been obvious from the start that he didn’t like her any more than she liked him. That was why she’d been surprised today by his suddenly being nice to her. He’d got under her guard a couple of times already and now here she was, about to have drinks with him.

It was all very perverse.

‘Let’s sit outside,’ Ryan said, and steered her out to the alfresco area where the sun was still shining, providing enough warmth to counter the freshness of the harbour breeze.

‘What would you like to drink?’ Ryan asked as he pulled out a chair for her at an empty table right by the water’s edge.

‘Bourbon and coke,’ she replied, which made him raise his eyebrows. But he made no verbal comment before turning away and returning to the bar inside to order the drinks.

Being left alone gave Laura even more time to think and to worry. Not about her virtue—no way could she ever be seduced by the likes of Ryan Armstrong—but about the confession which Ryan was seemingly intent on getting out of her.

She still could not believe she’d been stupid enough to do what she’d done. And now it had backfired on her, big time. Not that she could have foretold that the doctors would be proved wrong and that her grandmother would come out of her coma and remember every single word that her granddaughter had said as she had sat by her bedside. Laura’s intentions at the time had all been good, but what did that matter now?

A weary sigh escaped her lips. What was that old saying? ‘The road to hell was paved with good intentions.’

The sight of Ryan walking towards their table with the drinks in his hands reminded her of why she’d chosen him to lie about to her grandmother. He really was the epitome of what her grandmother would think the perfect partner for her favourite granddaughter. First there was the matter of his looks. Gran had always said that she liked a man to look like a man, advising Laura to steer clear of pretty boys whom, she’d said, invariably had no backbone and, more importantly, no muscles to speak of.

‘And they usually go bald early,’ Gran had claimed with a perfectly straight face.

Laura had never been overly impressed by her grandmother’s tendency to make superficial judgements when it came to the opposite sex. Though perhaps she should have listened, since the two men who’d broken her heart had both been pretty boys.

Ryan certainly wasn’t a pretty boy. All his facial features were large and masculine. He had a broad forehead, an aquiline nose and a strong, square jaw which wasn’t softened at all by the dimple in the middle of his chin. His hair was dark brown and would have been thick, if he ever grew it past his military-style crew cut. He certainly wasn’t in danger of going prematurely bald, with no sign of a receding hairline.

Gran also liked men with blue eyes, for some reason.

Ryan’s eyes were blue, though they were so deep-set under his thick dark brows that they sometimes looked black from a distance. Up close, however, their blue was the colour of a bright summer sky—but not nearly as warm. His eyes carried a hardness which no doubt served him well when he was negotiating a deal.

His body would have gained Gran’s tick of approval as well, being tall and broad-shouldered, with muscles in all the right places. Admittedly, Laura had never seen him dressed in anything but a business suit—the kind he was wearing today—but she had seen him jacket-less with his sleeves rolled up and there was no hiding the fact that the man was very fit, with a flat stomach and no flab anywhere.

It was no wonder that she’d chosen him as her imaginary Mr Right, she realised as she watched Ryan walk towards her. He fitted the bill perfectly. Not only did he look like a man physically, but he was financially secure, charming when he wanted to be and, yes, old enough to be experienced in life.

Gran always said that a girl should never marry a man around her own age.

‘Boys mature much later than girls, Laura,’ she’d advised her granddaughter on more than one occasion. ‘They need to experience life before they’re ready to settle down.’

Of course, when she’d been waxing lyrical about Ryan by her Gran’s hospital bed, she hadn’t mentioned just how ‘experienced’ he was, Laura thought caustically. She didn’t think her rather old-fashioned grandmother would approve of a man who’d had more women than underpants. And who changed them just as often.

Frankly, it always amazed Laura why women kept getting sucked into having a relationship with Ryan Armstrong. If you could call what he had with women ‘relationships’. They were just ships passing in the night from what she’d heard. And she’d heard plenty over the past two years.

He smiled as he placed the drinks down on the table, a wickedly sexy smile which gave her a glimpse of how dangerously attractive he could be. If one was susceptible to that kind of thing.

‘I decided to have what you’re having,’ he said as he sat down and swept up his own bourbon and coke. ‘Cheers!’

She picked up her drink, clinked it against his, then took a deep swallow. Their eyes met over the rims of their glasses. His glittered with wry amusement whilst she kept hers as cool as always. But, underneath the silk lining of her black jacket, Laura was startled to feel her heart beating a little faster.

Maybe she wasn’t as immune to the man’s charms as she imagined. But it was not enough to worry about.

Nevertheless, she glanced away at the harbour. It really was a spectacular setting for a city, especially on a warm spring afternoon. Lots of boats were out on the sparkling water, creating a visual feast for all the tourists who’d flocked to the quayside area to take holiday snaps of the bridge and the Opera House.

‘Sydney’s a truly beautiful city, isn’t it?’ Laura said with pride in her voice.

‘It surely is,’ he agreed. ‘You only have to live in other cities in other countries to know how lucky we are.’

She looked back at him. ‘You sound like you’ve lived in lots of other countries.’

Ryan shrugged. ‘Quite a few. But no more prevaricating, now,’ he said as he put down his glass. ‘Tell me what’s going on in your life which has sent you into such a spin today.’

‘I’m not in a spin,’ she said defensively.

‘Laura, you’re sitting here having a drink with me. That’s evidence enough that something has thrown you for a loop. So stop denying it. Given you’re not the sort of girl to make a professional mistake, it has to be a personal problem. And I’m involved in some weird way. Am I right about that?’

‘Yes,’ she said, seeing no point in lying. It was obvious Ryan wasn’t going to let up until he knew every depressing detail, so she took a deep breath then launched into her tale of woe.

‘It’s a bit of a long story, so please be patient with me.’

Patience, she knew, was not one of Ryan’s strong points. But he didn’t say a word, the expression on his face showing genuine interest. He might feel differently when he learned the part he’d played in her disaster, albeit unknowingly.

‘Two weeks ago, my grandmother had a bad fall down some steps and ended up in a coma in hospital. Not in a Sydney hospital—In John Hunter Hospital in Newcastle. Gran lives up in the Hunter Valley. Anyway, the family was told she wasn’t likely to pull through. In fact, the doctors didn’t even expect her to last the night. So I sat with her all that night and, because I didn’t want to go to sleep and not be with her if and when she did pass away, I kept talking to her. And, because I thought it wouldn’t matter, I told her all the things that I knew she’d always wanted to hear: that I’d finally found Mr Right and I was very, very happy.

‘Of course, it didn’t take very long to make that simple announcement, so I was forced to elaborate somewhat to fill in time. Unfortunately, I’ve never had a great imagination; creativity is not a talent of mine. So I thought of all the men I knew and worked with and came up with the one who fitted the bill of Mr Right from my grandmother’s viewpoint. Superficially, that is,’ she added with a rueful glance Ryan’s way.

‘Good God,’ he said, sitting up straight. ‘You’re talking about me, aren’t you?’

‘Unfortunately, yes,’ she admitted dryly.

He laughed, then laughed again. ‘Damn it, but that is funny, Laura. In an ironic way,’ he added. ‘I don’t think what happened to your poor grandmother is funny. I have a soft spot for grandmothers.’

Indeed, his eyes did soften with his words.

‘I must be missing something here,’ he went on, his forehead crinkling into a frown. ‘What harm did it do for you to invent a fictitious Mr Right on your grandmother’s deathbed? Frankly, I think it was rather sweet of you to do what you did.’

Laura sighed. ‘Sweet, but stupid. I should have known that Gran would pull through. She’s always been a fighter. Not only did she pull through, but somehow she remembered every single word I said when she was supposed to be unconscious. Well, perhaps that’s a slight exaggeration. But she did remember my saying that I’d finally met Mr Right and his name was Ryan Armstrong. Now she’s out of hospital and wants me to bring you home to meet her this very weekend.’

‘Naturally,’ Ryan said, then laughed again.

‘Don’t laugh—it really isn’t funny, because she’s still not at all well. The doctors found out that she’d had a small stroke, and that was probably why she fell. The family’s been warned that she could have another stroke at any time. Or even a heart attack. They did lots of tests whilst she was in hospital and things are not good, artery-wise; there are a few serious blockages. But she refuses to have a bypass or any kind of invasive treatment. Says she’s had a good life and is quite happy to go.’

‘Oh dear,’ Ryan said with some genuine sympathy in his voice. ‘You really have landed yourself in a right pickle, haven’t you?’

‘I really have. But it’s not your problem. I only told you because you insisted.’

‘So what are you going to do?’

‘I guess I’ll delay things for as long as I can. I’ll make up some excuse for why you can’t come to meet her this weekend—a business trip, or an illness. But I can hardly keep on saying that. In the end, I’ll have to tell her the truth—though I don’t want to say that I lied about our relationship. She’d be so disappointed with me. I’ll have to say that things just didn’t work out between us after all.’

‘You can say that I didn’t want to marry you. Which is true, after all,’ he added, smiling.

‘Very funny.’

‘It is, rather, if you stop to think about it. I can’t imagine two more unlikely lovers.’

‘Well Gran doesn’t know that, does she?’ Laura snapped, piqued by his remark.

‘No, she doesn’t. Of course, there is one other solution to your problem.’

‘I can’t imagine what.’

‘Of course you can’t. You don’t have an imagination.’

Laura rolled her eyes at him. ‘Then enlighten me, oh brilliant one.’

‘I could go with you to your grandmother’s place this weekend and pretend to be your Mr Right.’

Laura almost spilled the rest of her drink, but she soon gathered her usual poise and gave Ryan the drollest look. ‘And why, pray tell, would you do something as sweetly generous, but as patently ridiculous, as that?’

CHAPTER THREE

WHY indeed? Ryan wondered as he quaffed back a good portion of his drink.

He suspected it was because the idea amused the hell out of him. He rather fancied the prospect of Laura having to act the part of his doting girlfriend.

But of course he could hardly say that. And there was another reason, one which might convince the surprisingly sentimental Laura into going along with his suggestion.

‘As I mentioned before,’ he said, ‘I have a soft spot for grandmothers. Mine was marvellous to me. I don’t know what I would have done without her.’ He certainly wouldn’t have gone on to be a success in life. She was the one who had first taken him to soccer—even though he was a little old at thirteen to take up the sport, which was why he ended up a goalkeeper. And she was the one who had made him believe that he could put the past behind him and become anything he wanted to be.

‘I’ve always regretted that she died before I could give her all the good things she deserved in life,’ he added. More than regret—remorse was more like it. He hadn’t realised until she was gone just how much she’d done for him, and how much she meant to him. He’d cried buckets when he found out she’d died, though not in front of any of his teammates. He’d been a very selfish twenty-two at the time and had just been signed to his first contract with a premier league English team. He hadn’t returned to Australia for his grandmother’s funeral, another deep regret.

He’d been touched by Laura sitting with her grandmother all night, not wanting to leave her to die alone. Clearly, the old lady meant a lot to her.

‘It’s obvious that you’re very close to your grandmother,’ he said.

‘I am,’ Laura said, her voice sounding a little choked up. ‘She raised me after my parents were killed in a plane crash.’

‘I see …’ And he did see. His grandmother had raised him after his own mother had died.

Damn it all, but he didn’t want to think about that!

‘So what do you say to my suggestion?’ he asked, not feeling quite so amused any more. But it was too late to retract his offer.

Laura’s expressive eyes showed considerable reserve. ‘I have to confess that I’m tempted. But I’m not sure we could bring it off—pretending to be lovers, that is. I mean, we don’t even like each other.’

‘True,’ he said bluntly.

‘You don’t have to agree with me so readily,’ she snapped. ‘What is it, exactly, that you don’t like about me?’

He smiled. ‘You don’t really want me to tell you that, do you?’

‘I certainly do.’

‘Okay, you asked for it. First there’s your appearance.’

‘There’s nothing wrong with my appearance!’

Ryan raised an eyebrow sardonically and infuriatingly she felt herself blush. He continued, ‘Then there’s your manner.’

‘What’s wrong with my manner?’

‘Well, “ice queen” would be an understatement. Of course,’ he went on, unbowed in the face of her outrage, ‘If I could persuade you to let your hair down in more ways than one, then it’d be a breeze. Do you think you could do that?’

‘I’m not going to tart myself up for the likes of you, Ryan Armstrong,’ Laura pronounced huffily.

‘And there we have the main reason that I don’t like you: because you don’t like me.’

‘No,’ she bit out. ‘I don’t.’

‘Why not?’

‘You don’t really want me to tell you that, do you?’

He chuckled. She might not have an imagination but she did have a sharp wit. ‘Actually, I’m not so sure that I don’t like you,’ he said. ‘You are very amusing company.’

She made no comment, just gave him another of her dry looks.

‘Do you have a boyfriend, Laura?’ he asked abruptly.

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she retorted. ‘If I had a boyfriend do you think I would be in this damned awful predicament?’

‘Having a boyfriend does not equate with your finding Mr Right. But let me rephrase that—are you sleeping with anyone at the moment?’

Her eyes grew even colder, if that were possible.

‘I’m between boyfriends at the moment,’ she said tartly.

‘Ah.’

‘And what does that mean?’ she demanded to know.

‘Ah just means ah.’

‘I very much doubt that. You think I’m not capable of getting a boyfriend, don’t you? You think I’m too cold.’

Wow, he thought, how right you are. But rather fascinatingly frosty. What he wouldn’t give to have the chance to melt some of that ice. Unfortunately, a man could get frostbite trying.

He’d have to watch himself with her this weekend.

‘What I think,’ he said after careful consideration, ‘Is that you’ve been hurt by some man in your past which has given you a jaundiced view of the male sex.’

The slight widening of her eyes showed him he was on the right track with his analysis of her character.

‘Lots of attractive women who’ve been badly treated by men subconsciously do things to make themselves less attractive so that they won’t be hit on. Some change their appearance by putting on weight. Some dress in a manner which hides their femininity. Which I think—’

The sound of his phone ringing interrupted his spiel.

‘Excuse me,’ he said to Laura as he fished the phone out of his jacket pocket and glanced at the identity of the caller.

Damn. It was Erica.

CHAPTER FOUR

LAURA welcomed the interruption. Ryan’s interpretation of her character was too close to the bone for her liking. Because of course he was right. Subconsciously, she knew why she dressed the way she did and acted the way she did. But no man had said as much to her out loud before.

She didn’t like it. It made her feel vulnerable and weak. A coward, even. Yet she wasn’t a coward—was she?

The thought tormented her. Alison was always saying that she should give the male sex another chance. But then what would Alison know? She was married to a great guy who was loving and loyal and would never hurt her. She’d never known what it felt like to have one’s heart ripped out, not just by one man, but two. Laura knew she couldn’t afford to open herself to hurt of that kind ever again because if she did, and disaster struck a third time, she suspected she would not survive.

Admittedly, sometimes she was very lonely. Sometimes, she wished her life had been different; if only she’d found someone decent when she’d been younger and still full of hope. Life’s experiences, however, had finally turned her into a hard-hearted cynic, but quite a good judge of character. Nowadays, when she met an attractive man, she quickly saw through his looks to the man beneath.

She knew exactly what sort of man Ryan Armstrong was: the sort who would break a girl’s heart and never lose a moment’s sleep over it.

But he was not totally bad, she accepted as she glanced over the rim of her glass at him. Clearly he was capable of kindness.

‘Hi,’ he said into his phone. ‘How’s things going?’

He’d turned his body away from the table to answer the phone but Laura could still hear him clearly enough. The bar was beginning to fill up but the noise wasn’t too bad, and the music hadn’t yet started.

‘That boring, huh?’ he went on. ‘No, I’m down at the Opera Bar having a drink with a friend from work.’

Laura frowned, knowing instantly that Ryan was being evasive to whomever he was talking to on the phone. His girlfriend, perhaps? He was sure to have one. He always had some girl on tap from what she’d heard. She’d forgotten about that when he’d offered to pretend to be her Mr Right this weekend.

What on earth did he plan to tell the girlfriend if she agreed to his suggestion? Laura couldn’t imagine any female enjoying their boyfriend pretending to be another woman’s boyfriend, no matter how innocent it really was.

‘I’ll ring you later tonight, sweetheart,’ she heard him saying, confirming her suspicion that he was talking to his current girlfriend. ‘Bye for now.’

He hung up and swung back to face her. ‘Now, where was I?’ he said as he put his phone away.

Laura decided to put a spanner in his works with some much-needed honesty.

‘Your girlfriend wouldn’t like you pretending to be my Mr Right,’ she said with chilly disdain in her voice. ‘Or were you thinking about not telling her?’

His eyes grew even colder than her own, if that were possible. ‘Erica does not own me, Laura. Besides, she’s in Melbourne this weekend for a conference.’

‘You mean what she doesn’t know doesn’t hurt her?’

‘Actually, I have every intention of telling Erica when I ring her back later tonight.’

‘Really.’ Laura could not keep the sarcasm out of her voice. In her experience, lying to their girlfriends was second nature to men like Ryan.

‘Yes, really. But I can see you don’t believe me.’

‘Does it matter what I believe? It’s all irrelevant anyway, because I’ve decided not to accept your kind offer.’

‘And why’s that?’

‘Because it can only lead to further complications. Gran’s eightieth birthday is coming up soon. If her health improves, the family is sure to throw her a party and she’ll expect me to attend, along with my newly found Mr Right. I can’t honestly expect you to go along to that as well. By then, we’ll be asked eternal questions about when we’re getting engaged and when the wedding’s going to be. Everything will snowball and you’ll wish you hadn’t started it in the first place. Much better I go home this weekend and say we’ve already broken up.’

Ryan shrugged. ‘If that’s what you want to do. But it wouldn’t worry Erica.’

‘If you think that, Ryan, then you don’t know women very well. I think I should go now,’ she added, becoming nervous that people from her work would start arriving any minute now. ‘Thank you for the drink, and for your offer. It really was very nice of you. But not a good idea.’

She finished her drink and stood up. ‘I’ll see you next Friday at three,’ she said.

‘I tell you what,’ Ryan said before she could escape. ‘I’ll give you my private mobile-number just in case you change your mind. Do you have a biro in that bag of yours? I’ll bet you do,’ he added with a quick smile.

‘Yes, but …’

‘Just write it down, Laura,’ he said with a hint of exasperation. ‘You never know.’

‘Oh, very well,’ she said, and did what he asked, writing the number he gave her down on the back of one of her business cards.

Then she bolted for the exit, thankfully not spotting anyone she knew on the way out. Laura was out of breath by the time she made it to the quay and onto the Manly ferry for the ride home, glad to subside into a seat in a private corner, glad to be alone with her still-whirling thoughts.

But, once her head settled and her heart stopped beating like a rock-band drummer, Laura knew she’d made the right decision, knocking back Ryan’s offer. It was ridiculous to keep such a deception going, no matter how tempted she’d been.

What was that other saying, now? ‘Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive’?

As she’d spelled out to Ryan, it would have been extremely difficult to carry off such a pretence without their dislike for each other shining through somehow. No, she’d done the right thing. The only thing. But she still winced at the thought of telling the family that she’d lied about finding Mr Right. She did have her pride.

No, she’d do what she originally said she’d do: make some excuse why Ryan couldn’t join them this weekend. Then later on, if Gran continued to recover, she could say that they’d broken up because Ryan refused to get married. That would save her pride too. If Gran didn’t recover—Laura’s heart contracted fiercely at this thought—then it wouldn’t matter. Gran would at least have died happy.

CHAPTER FIVE

BY THE time the ferry docked at the Manly wharf and Laura started off up the hill for the walk home, she’d become reconciled to her decision, except for one small regret. It would have been seriously satisfying to go home with a man like Ryan on her arm, she thought with a rather wistful sigh, just to see the looks on the faces of her aunt and uncle, both of whom never let an opportunity go by to point out what a loser she was in the dating department.

Of course the truth was that they didn’t like her. Uncle Bill had resented her from the moment she’d been brought home to her grandparents’ place to live and it had became obvious that his mother preferred her estranged daughter’s daughter to the son he and Cynthia had produced.