The Unconventional Bride

Yet, contrary to what he’d expected, the attraction he’d experienced the day of the funeral was still there. Even looking so proud and unreasonably stubborn, she stirred him. The line of her throat fascinated him. The way she squared her shoulders, always a preliminary to saying something designed to tell him he wasn’t liked or trusted even if not in so many words, drew his attention to the curves of her breasts, the narrowness of her waist and the flare of her hips.

Was she at all aware of the effect she had on him, though? he wondered. What would her reaction be if he revealed his preoccupation with her figure?

‘OK,’ he said, ostensibly to the dog. ‘I rest my case—for the time being. But if you need me, just let me know.’

‘I will,’ Mel agreed.

‘And now I really must go,’ he said politely but with a glint in his eye that indicated to her he knew she was barely able to wait to get rid of him. ‘Thank you for your hospitality,’ he added, by way, she was quite sure, of adding salt to the wound.

‘I’ll pass your thanks on to Mrs Bedwell. It was all her doing,’ she replied with excessive politeness of her own.

He put Batman down and got up. ‘Don’t do anything I wouldn’t, Mel,’ he said softly.

Although she was five feet eight, he was a head taller, which put her at a disadvantage she rarely suffered. It didn’t stop her from saying haughtily, however, ‘Such as?’ as if it was inconceivable she should do anything she might regret.

But as he took his time about answering she realised her heart was beating a little erratically and that strange mixture of excitement and wariness was coursing through her veins again. Why? she wondered. How could he, just by looking at her in a certain way, produce this result in her?

He wasn’t even looking at her in that certain way right now, not as if he had her trapped in his sights as a woman to ponder about. If anything, he was looking down at her with lazy amusement, which didn’t, most unfairly, stop her new awareness of him flooding her.

‘Such as kicking the dog,’ he said softly.

‘I’ve never kicked a dog in my life!’

‘You just had that look about you. But there’s no reason to be incensed over anything,’ he raised an eyebrow, ‘that I know of.’

She set her teeth then unset them. ‘Goodbye, Etienne.’

‘Au revoir, Mel; not quite the same thing.’

CHAPTER THREE

‘YOU didn’t tell me you’d asked Etienne for a job in your holidays, Justin.’

‘I was going to present it to you as a fait accompli.’

The two younger boys were in bed and Mel and Justin were watching television in the den, the one room in the house that had escaped Margot’s make-over. The one room where you didn’t have to be careful of the furniture, could eat snacks and drink drinks with impunity and no one cared if you put your feet up on the battered old leather couch.

‘Why? I mean, why couldn’t you have told me?’

Justin was tall for his age, exceedingly bright and he had Mel’s blue eyes and chestnut hair. He flicked the remote and changed the channel, causing his sister to grit her teeth.

‘You’re not always reasonable on the subject of the Hurst family, beloved,’ he said, and went on flicking through the channels.

Mel grabbed the remote from him and switched the television off.

‘See what I mean?’ Justin offered.

‘That had nothing to do with the Hursts,’ she denied. ‘I can’t stand the way you switch from programme to programme!’

‘Only to avoid the ads.’

‘I like the ads; well, not precisely but,’ she looked heavenwards, ‘whatever, can we just talk?’

‘OK. It occurred to me that we have a few financial problems and that, as the oldest male, I should try and buck in and help.’

‘Fair enough,’ Mel said slowly, ‘but why Etienne?’

‘You may not know this, Mel, but he’s very successful. He took advantage of Gladstone being the largest port in Queensland and the fourth largest in the country to build up a marine-engineering works and a shipping agency.’

‘Granted,’ she said slowly.

Despite only being a medium-sized town in a rural area, the port of Gladstone handled millions of tonnes of coal, bauxite, alumina and other minerals and substances. It offered a deep-water port protected by close offshore islands, it was only ten or twelve days’ distance from the Asia Pacific region and was endowed with plenty of energy resources—water, coal and natural gas.

‘But still—why Etienne?’ she asked.

Justin looked at her ironically. ‘How many other millionaires do we know, Mel? Not only that but he’s also almost part of the family.’

Mel opened her mouth to deny this but closed it immediately.

‘How bad are things, Mel?’ Justin said into the silence.

‘Not good,’ she conceded.

‘Mrs B told me he came to lunch today.’

‘Mrs B invited him to lunch—well, he did come out to see how we were going.’

‘I never could work out what you’ve got against him!’

‘You’re not a girl,’ she retorted.

‘Plenty of girls find him irresistible, so I hear—is that it?’ Justin enquired. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve always had a crush on him!’

‘I have not,’ Mel contradicted. ‘And from what I’ve heard they’re not precisely girls either.’

‘Women, then,’ Justin said, ‘or whatever the technical term is. What have you heard?’

She shrugged. ‘You know that lighthouse he’s leased and renovated? Apparently there’s been a stream of gorgeous, sophisticated, definitely women more than happy to spend time with him up there.’

‘What a glorious thought!’ Justin laid his head on the settee. ‘I’ll have to ask him how he does it.’

‘Justin,’ Mel warned.

Her brother laughed softly. ‘If you could see your face! OK. Is that why you disapprove of him?’

Mel was truly tempted to tell her brother that she had the sneaking suspicion Etienne Hurst had, out of the blue, taken an interest in her along entirely different lines from the fate of his sister’s stepchildren, but she stopped herself.

‘Uh—no. That has nothing to do with me. He…he’s urging me to sell Raspberry Hill, well, not urging exactly but he pointed out today that there may be no other way to go.’ She stopped and sighed.

‘Oh, hell.’ Justin sat up and reached for her hand. ‘I’m sorry, Mel. I knew things weren’t good but I didn’t realise it was that bad. What will we do? I can’t imagine losing this place.’ He looked around.

Not to mention each other, Mel didn’t say, but it was the core problem she always came back to.

‘I’m certainly not going to give up without a fight! The accountant will have a clearer picture in a few days—’

‘I can always leave school right now,’ Justin broke in.

‘No! I mean, no, it hasn’t come to that yet. And don’t pass any of this on to Tosh or Ewan.’

Justin cast her a speaking look. ‘What do you think I am? I know, you’re still thinking of the rum-rampage, but I’ve reformed.’

‘I wasn’t thinking of that at all, but I hope you have!’

He grinned at her, although a touch ashamedly, and presently took himself off to bed, leaving her alone with her thoughts.

She began to tidy up absently, but one thing Justin had said stuck in her mind. It was something she’d never admitted to herself in so many words but there had been a time when Etienne had occupied her dreams. At fifteen, for a while, she’d thought about him rather a lot. However, she’d been so sure she was beneath his notice, it had all died a natural death.

She stopped what she was doing with a tennis racket in one hand and a pair of roller-blades in the other—or had it? Perhaps she’d resented being completely beneath his notice and it had been a contributing factor to her so-called dislike of him?

She put the racket in a wooden locker and the roller-blades on a shelf. Not an edifying thought, she conceded. But did that explain the effect he was having on her at the moment?

She couldn’t come up with an answer so she took herself to bed, not dreaming that she would have to encounter Etienne Hurst the very next day.

It started out like any other spring day.

Cool, dry and crisp but giving promise of becoming hot and glorious. Until she noticed a plume of smoke coming from one of the ‘resting’ paddocks, and raced down to find a bush fire. She called the fire brigade immediately but the difficulty was water; no convenient mains to hook up to, only a small dam a fair way from the fire.

And she worked as frenziedly as any of the firemen to contain it. There were no casual hands working on the property that day to help so she deployed a bag and a shovel with the best of them, resisting Mrs Bedwell’s entreaties to leave it to the men, until her bag was taken out of her fingers and she was bodily removed from the area of flames.

‘Who…? What?’ she spluttered. ‘Let me go! If I lose this feed—’

‘Shut up, Mel,’ Etienne Hurst said. ‘You’ve done enough.’

‘I haven’t!’

But she was clamped into a strong pair of arms and held there until she subsided, panting, against his chest.

‘How did you know about the fire?’ she asked hoarsely.

‘Mrs Bedwell rang me. She was convinced you were killing yourself.’

‘I wasn’t.’

‘You don’t look too good.’ He held her away and raised his eyebrows.

‘If you think I care how I look—’ But before she could finish tears welled in her eyes and brimmed over, making rivulets in the soot on her cheeks.

He pulled her back into his arms. ‘I think you’re extraordinarily brave. Why don’t you have a good cry?’

‘I will,’ she wept, ‘but only because I’m…I don’t know what! I never cry,’ she added in extreme frustration.

But cry she did for a couple of minutes. Then it occurred to her that she didn’t feel like crying any more; she felt, on the contrary, safe and secure and as if she could stay in Etienne Hurst’s arms for a lot longer.

She moved her cheek against his shirt and was visited by an extraordinary mental image—rather than being hot, tired and dirty, she pictured herself rising out of a woodland stream in filtered sunlight, naked and with water streaming off her body. Natural enough since she was hot, tired and dirty, she conceded, but how on earth did Etienne get into the picture?

Why was he there, waiting for her at the edge of the pool and taking the slim, satiny length of her into his arms?

‘Er—’ she blinked rapidly and cleared her throat as she desperately tried to clear her mind, and she looked up at him bemusedly ‘—th-thank you. How’s it going?’

He studied her pink cheeks then glanced over her shoulder. ‘It’s out. But they’ll stay a while to keep an eye on it. What you need is a wash and a drink.’

He picked her up and carried her over to her ute. ‘Since we’re both dirty this time,’ he said to her with his lips quirking, ‘we’ll use yours.’ He set her on her feet.

Mel gasped as she realised that she’d transferred a considerable amount of her dirt to him. There were black streaks on his otherwise pristine white shirt and mud on his moleskins and shoes. ‘I’m so sorry!’

‘That’s OK,’ he said easily. ‘In you get.’

She climbed in and he drove them up to the house, commenting along the way that she needed to get her suspension and brakes checked.

‘What I need,’ she said ruefully, ‘is a whole new vehicle.’

‘There must be other vehicles—what about the cars your father and Margot drove?’ he queried.

She hesitated. ‘I had to sell them to pay some bills.’

‘You should have consulted me first, Mel.’

‘To be honest, it didn’t cross my mind,’ she replied, ‘but what could you have done? The bank manager explained to me that, whereas my father had a credit rating, I have none. Oh, he was very kind and concerned and he explained that, while he’d been quite sure Dad would have pulled Raspberry Hill through this reverse, I was a different matter.’ She tipped a hand and sighed.

‘I see,’ he said slowly.

‘Not that it’s any of your—’

‘Any of my business,’ he agreed sardonically. ‘Don’t you think you’ve worn that one a bit thin, Mel?’

She glanced across at him and for a moment it crossed her mind to tell him that to have someone like him to lean on during these awful times would be like the answer to prayers she’d yet to pray. But the realisation of this came rather like a blow to her solar plexus and she moved restlessly and sighed in relief when the house came in view. Because it offered the hope of refuge from all the conflicting, bewildering emotions—not to mention strange fantasies—she was subject to.

It was not to be. Mrs Bedwell received her with open arms and immediately began to shepherd her away to get cleaned up.

‘A brandy might be appropriate,’ Etienne murmured.

‘Good thinking, I’ll bring you one too,’ Mrs Bedwell said over her shoulder as Batman screamed out of the house and took a flying leap into Etienne’s arms. ‘Glory be, if nothing else you’ve made a hit with the damn dog!’ she added.

‘This is becoming a habit,’ Mel said as she rejoined Etienne half an hour later. They were on the veranda because, although he’d washed up and scraped the mud off his shoes, his clothes were still dirty.

‘Mmm,’ he agreed and poured her a brandy from the decanter on a silver tray Mrs Bedwell had provided along with a dish of nuts and olives.

Her hair was still wet and she wore her clean jeans and floral blouse. Her feet were bare and her expression was still somewhat dazed.

Etienne waited until she’d sipped some of the brandy before saying, ‘Mel, are there any other unpaid bills?’

‘A couple.’ She shrugged.

‘Why isn’t your accountant helping you to deal with them?’

She looked at him over the rim of her glass. ‘His bill is one of them.’

He paused for a beat, then, ‘I’d like to see them.’

Her gaze clashed with his and she squared her shoulders but he said with soft menace, ‘Don’t.’

‘What?’ she uttered crisply.

‘Tell me it’s none of my business.’

‘It isn’t,’ she insisted.

He looked around, through the French doors to the elegant sitting room that opened onto the front veranda with its beautiful Persian carpet, its antiques and graceful chairs. ‘She was my sister,’ he said, with the planes and angles of his face suddenly hard.

‘She may have been but I don’t want any charity.’ Mel fortified herself with another sip of brandy and raised her chin.

‘You infuriating…’ He drew a breath and forced himself to relax. What was it, he wondered at the same time, that attracted him to this often prickly, difficult girl? Other than the obvious, he thought drily, such as a gorgeous figure she seemed to be unaware of, long, shapely legs she persisted in covering up and a lovely face.

Just that, perhaps? Her lack of awareness of her physical attributes? Along with a good splash of cussed independence, of course, he added to himself, and moved restlessly.

‘Uh—I wasn’t talking about charity,’ he said. ‘There’s a way of dealing with creditors other than selling off the farm, speaking metaphorically. What you need to do is keep in touch, advise them of your difficulties, ask for extensions—and come up with a plan. That’s what I could do for you.’ He looked at her ironically.

Mel lowered her chin and her shoulders slumped. ‘All right. So long as—’

She didn’t finish because the look in his eyes told her it would be dangerous in the extreme to do so. ‘Thank you,’ she said instead with a slight tremor in her voice.

He sat back and finished his drink. ‘What are you doing tonight?’

Her eyes widened in surprise. ‘Nothing. The usual, I mean. The boys will be home from school soon, so… Why?’

‘You don’t think it might be an idea to have a break from Raspberry Hill and all its problems?’

‘As in?’

‘As in dinner at a restaurant, nothing else,’ he said laconically.

‘Just you and I?’

‘Just you and I, Mel. What’s wrong with that?’

‘Oh, nothing,’ she assured him hastily, ‘except that I might fall asleep. I—’ she put her head back, stretched her neck and moved her head round a couple of times, ‘—I guess I did more—’

‘More fire-fighting than you should have,’ he completed for her. ‘All right, we’ll take a rain check.’ He stood up. ‘But I’ll take the bills home with me.’

‘Well,’ she temporised, ‘I—’

‘Now, Mel.’

Despite her stiffness and feeling of exhaustion, she bounced up. ‘Do you have any idea how dictatorial you are, Etienne?’

‘Yes,’ he drawled. ‘It’s a good way to get things done. I’m not going home without them,’ he warned.

She expressed herself colourfully.

He grinned, and added insult to injury by patting her on the head. ‘Just get them, kid.’

‘No! I refuse to be treated like a kid let alone called one,’ she said through her teeth and stood her ground.

‘Well,’ his eyes glinted, ‘there are ways of dealing with stubborn women that you might prefer.’ He put one arm around her, bent her back against it and kissed her thoroughly.

When he’d finished, Mel came up for air absolutely lost for words and unbelievably conscious of a flood of sensations rushing through her right down to the tips of her toes.

Her lips felt bruised; she touched them involuntarily, but although his kiss had been a violation—she’d neither expected it nor asked for it—by some sort of subtle chemistry it had also been fascinating. While she was pressing against him, with his fingers stroking her throat, her skin had felt like silk, her breasts had tightened, and it had suddenly occurred to her that her hips were deliciously curved beneath his hand—something she’d not given much thought to before.

To make matters worse, her woodland-nymph fantasy had come right back to mind…

‘Well,’ he said with a lurking smile, ‘you’re right and I was wrong. You certainly don’t feel like a child.’

His gaze skimmed down her body then he waited as a tide of colour rushed into her cheeks, but words escaped her. He smiled a strange little smile. ‘May I have the bills now?’

Her lips parted and she breathed deeply, but that was a mistake because it brought the whole smoky, wonderful essence of Etienne Hurst to her—as if she wasn’t already dizzy with the taste and feel of him—and all he could think of were her bills.

She made an odd sound in her throat, whirled around and disappeared indoors.

But she didn’t take the bills out to him. She seconded Mrs Bedwell to do it and took refuge in her bedroom.

Several minutes later Mrs Bedwell knocked on the door and came in. ‘He said to say thanks. He said to tell you he’ll be back in a couple of days with a plan… What’s wrong with you, Mel?’

‘Nothing,’ Mel replied, although she was sitting on her bed hugging herself.

‘You look a bit shook up,’ Mrs Bedwell observed slowly. ‘You know, there was really no need for you to go fire-fighting like that.’

‘There’s every need for me to fight certain fires—uh—Mrs B, would you do me a favour?’ Mel stopped hugging herself and looked up at her housekeeper.

‘Sure.’

But Mel took an exasperated breath because to ask her housekeeper to stop calling on Etienne Hurst and inviting him to lunch could have unforeseen consequences, knowing Mrs Bedwell as she did. ‘Nothing.’

‘OK.’ Mrs Bedwell shrugged. ‘What do you mean about “certain” fires?’

‘It was just a figure of speech, Mrs B.’ She got up and tried to collect herself. ‘What’s for dinner?’

‘That’s for me to know and you to wonder about!’ It was Mrs Bedwell’s stock answer and, having delivered it, she bestowed one more curious glance on Mel, and then left her to herself.

CHAPTER FOUR

FOUR days later, Etienne was back.

Four terribly anxious days for Mel, since she’d received advice through her solicitor that, as she had no close relatives, the Department of Family Services would be looking into the situation of her brothers.

This time, she was presiding over coffee and homemade shortbread while trying her best to be composed and as if she’d never been kissed witless by this man.

It was a sparkling day as early spring graced the region, and from the vantage point of Raspberry Hill the waters of the Narrows glinted in the sun and the mock-orange bushes below the veranda were scenting the air.

For some reason she had dressed up for this encounter, well, as much as she ever dressed up, which was to say that she wore a three-quarter flared denim skirt belted into her waist and a fresh white blouse. Her hair was tied back in a white scrunchie.

In contrast, Etienne, in jeans, a khaki bush shirt and short boots, looked much more like a farmer than she did.

He’d greeted her casually and with absolutely no reference to their last encounter. He’d also put a buff folder on the table but made no mention of it, although she couldn’t help her eyes being drawn to it frequently.

So they made small talk while they drank their coffee and Batman made his usual fuss of Etienne.

Then she could stand the suspense no longer. ‘Have you—’ she cleared her throat ‘—have you come up with a plan, Etienne?’

He drummed his fingers on the folder then he put Batman down and got up to stroll over to the railing and stare out over the view for a couple of minutes.

Finally he turned to her, folded his arms and said, ‘I think it would be a good idea if we got married, Mel.’

She stared at him uncomprehendingly. ‘Is that the plan?’ she said eventually then added stupidly, ‘Why me?’

He allowed himself a brief smile and from then on divided his attention between her and the sparkling view. ‘Isn’t it obvious? Raspberry Hill needs a lot of help, the boys need a father figure, and you yourself could do with a steadying hand to steer you down the right path.’

Sheer rage glinted out of her deep blue eyes. ‘How dare you?’

He observed her white face and pinched nostrils with, if anything, a trace of wryness.

‘Mel,’ he said, ‘you obviously have no resources to go on.’ He gestured to the folder lying on the table. ‘The only way to deal with that is either to declare yourself bankrupt or sell the place.’

‘No!’

‘Believe me,’ he murmured.

She started to feel icy cold. ‘But—anyway, I don’t see what that’s got to do with me needing a steadying hand!’

He shrugged. ‘You do have a slightly erratic reputation.’

‘What on earth are you talking about?’

‘Did you or did you not,’ he looked humorous, ‘attempt to ride your horse into the Gladstone Council Chambers last year, thereby causing all sorts of chaos, and what about the famous rum party you gave only six months ago?’

‘Speaking chronologically,’ she replied through her teeth, ‘when I found Rimfire he was just a bag of bones. I couldn’t believe anyone could treat a horse that badly and I didn’t see why they shouldn’t be prosecuted, but getting the council to agree was another matter. So I decided to take it right to their doorstep.’

‘I see. But you not only caused a debacle in the centre of town, you also frightened the life out of the clerk on the door.’

‘If she hadn’t started screaming, Rimfire wouldn’t have spooked. But no one was hurt,’ she pointed out.

‘There could have been an element of luck in that. How about the party?’

‘As I told the magistrate,’ she replied with all the hauteur she could muster, ‘it got gatecrashed by some hoons. They brought the rum and they caused all the damage.’

‘All the same, you’re still saddled with not the Boston tea party but the Raspberry Hill rum-rampage tag—and you didn’t come away without a warning, Mel.’

‘That’s because I…’ she paused and twined her fingers together ‘…well, in the confusion I hit a policeman who was mistakenly trying to arrest me.’

‘I believe you didn’t have permission from your father to hold that party, Mel, because he was away at the time and unable to protect you from hoons and gatecrashers.’