A Weekend To Remember

A shudder of revulsion ran through Hannah. Now the matter was settled. She could not let Jack marry that revolting woman. She wouldn’t say anything tonight, but first thing tomorrow morning she would take Jack aside and tell him all she had overheard…

I would have, too, Hannah reminded herself valiantly now, as she glanced over at her sleeping boss again. If Jack had come straight downstairs into the office this morning. If he hadn’t gone off instead to the site of the exhibition village Marshall Homes were building at Cherrybrook. And if that damned tile hadn’t hit him on the head, knocking him unconscious and obliterating the last six weeks from his mind.

Lord, she could still see the shock on Jack’s face when she’d announced their new relationship. If his head hadn’t been aching so much, he might have sought to question her further. But his pain, plus his obsessive hatred of hospitals, had obviously kept all the questions she had seen in his eyes from finding voice at that time. His one and only objective had been getting out of there. Then, once in her car, the sedating painkiller the doctor had prescribed had taken over and he’d drifted off to sleep. He hadn’t even woken when she’d made the stops required to complete her outrageous plan.

Now Hannah began to wonder just how long he was going to be out of it. Then she began to worry that it might not be the drugs keeping Jack asleep. Maybe it was a case of severe concussion? Maybe he was going to fall into a coma? Maybe he—

‘Oh, hell!’ she swore, slamming her foot down hard on the brake as the back of a mud-spattered semi-trailer suddenly materialised through the misty rain. Everyone and everything shot forward when the brakes gripped in the wet, the car slewing wildly. A collision was avoided by mere inches.

Jack was instantly but dazedly awake. ‘What in blazes?’ he growled, then shot a most disconcerting glance over at Hannah. It was part-pain, part-disorientation, part-disbelief. Gradually the fog seemed to clear from his eyes and he frowned at her. ‘What in hell do you think you’re doing, Hannah?’

Oh, my God, she thought. He’s got his memory back.

CHAPTER TWO

‘YOU’RE usually such a good driver,’ he added, and Hannah tried not to shudder in relief.

She just wasn’t ready for him to get his memory back yet. It was hard enough to cope with his being awake. She knew he’d been dying to ask questions back at the hospital about their supposed engagement. Now nothing was going to stop him.

‘Sorry,’ she mumbled. ‘Didn’t see the darned thing. This road’s murder in the rain.’ She slanted him a hopefully soothing smile. ‘We’ll be at the cottage soon. Only a few more miles.’

‘What cottage is that?’

‘Don’t you remember? I told you about it back at the hospital, when the doctor insisted that if you were fool enough to discharge yourself then the least you could do was to go somewhere quiet and rest for a few days. When I mentioned the holiday cottage I owned in the Blue Mountains up near Leura, he said that would be perfect.’

‘I can’t really remember. I think at the time I was still too stunned by our engagement to take much in. Besides, I would have blindly agreed to anything to get out of that bloody hospital. So how did you come to own this mysterious cottage? You’ve never mentioned it before.’

‘Dwight bought it several years ago as a getaway. It was part of my divorce settlement.’

‘I see. Well, that explains why I didn’t know about it. You never talk about your marriage or your husband. Or you didn’t before I lost my memory,’ he muttered disgruntedly.

Which was pretty true, although Jack did know that Dwight was a doctor. And she had told him one day about the apartment she lived in, which was right in the middle of Parramatta’s business district, and far beyond a secretary’s salary. It was in a fairly new and prestigious building; the lower floors were devoted to shops and offices, and the upper floors housed exclusive executive apartments.

Dwight had bought one of these apartments only a couple of weeks before Hannah had left him. And had arrogantly—but stupidly, as it turned out—put it in her name for tax reasons. He hadn’t even had time to put tenants in when she’d walked out on their marriage and laid legal claim to it. It had given her a small amount of satisfaction that there hadn’t been a darned thing Dwight could do about it.

As it turned out, it was an ideal spot for her to live, despite Parramatta being a long way from the northern suburb of Mosman, where she’d lived all her married life. Her boys, of whom she had joint custody, were only a short distance away at Kings College, and it was only a ten-minute drive from Parramatta to Marshall Homes’ head office at Castle Hill.

‘Have you brought me up here before?’ Jack asked abruptly, dark puzzlement in his voice.

Hannah tensed. ‘No, I haven’t,’ she admitted.

Jack glanced at his wristwatch, his head snapping up and round in surprise. ‘Good God, it’s almost eight o’clock!’

‘You’ve been asleep for hours. How are you feeling, by the way?’

‘I’ve felt better.’ His hand came up to touch the top of his head carefully.

‘You don’t feel nauseous, do you?’ the doctor had asked her to watch for nausea and vomiting as a sign of a more serious concussion, making her promise to take Jack to a hospital if that happened.

‘No,’ he denied. ‘Just headachy. It’s not nearly as bad as it was, though.’

‘Do you…er…still think it’s May, and not July?’

“Fraid so. And I still can’t believe you and I are engaged,’ he added, shooting her a much sharper look. ‘Hell, Hannah, how and when exactly did that happen?’

A wave of guilty heat filled her face, but she doubted he could see it. It was pitch-black outside, and the light inside the car was dim. ‘Er…only this week, actually,’ she said.

‘Yeah, right, but how did it happen?’

Hannah decided that she had to take control before things got really sticky. ‘Look, Jack, I realise our engagement has come as a big shock to you. Frankly, it came as a big shock to me too. One minute you were just my boss, then something happened, and suddenly I just…we just…’

Hannah wanted to groan her dismay. This was her taking control? Lord, why hadn’t she thought out a believable story to tell him? There again, was there a believable story to tell him?

‘We became physically involved with each other?’ he prompted.

The lack of surprise in his voice sent her eyes jerking round to blink at him.

‘That’s not the part I can’t believe, Hannah,’ he said drily. ‘I always did fancy you.’

Hannah swung her stunned eyes back on the road ahead, before she really ran into the truck in front of them.

‘It was our getting engaged that shocked me,’ Jack went on. ‘Or, more to the point, your agreeing to marry me. You’ve told me more than once you’d never get married again. Frankly, I always believed you wanted nothing more to do with men—in that way or any way at all! So what happened to change that?’

She struggled to find her voice, but her mind was still reeling from Jack’s bald announcement that he’d always fancied her. She found it hard to believe—but why would he lie?

This highly unexpected revelation gave a totally different meaning to the way he’d looked her over sometimes in the office. She’d always imagined he’d been mentally criticising her fashion senseas Dwight had done ad nauseam. Now she saw him undressing her with his eyes, and suddenly she was all hot and bothered.

‘Hannah?’ Jack persisted. ‘Tell me straight. How did this affair of ours start?’

‘I…I don’t know. I mean…Oh, God, I don’t know what I mean.’ She felt totally flustered now, yet she couldn’t pull back. The die was cast and she had to roll with it. ‘It…it happened the day my divorce papers came through,’ she invented shakily. ‘We…we…worked back late together that night. At one point I became upset. You comforted me and…and one thing just led to another…’

‘Are you saying I seduced you at a weak moment?’ he demanded disbelievingly. ‘Hell, I didn’t make you pregnant, did I? Is that why we’re getting married? Because you’re expecting my child?’

Her face flamed as she blurted out, ‘No!’ in a panicky voice. This was becoming awful!

Jack frowned across at her. ‘I presume by that you mean, no, you’re not pregnant.’

‘No, I’m not pregnant. And, no, you didn’t seduce me either. I…I wanted you to make love to me,’ she insisted, appalled at herself for letting Jack think that he’d acted dishonourably, then more appalled at the corner she’d backed herself into.

‘And once we went from friends to lovers, we actually fell in love?’ he suggested. ‘Is that what you’re saying?’

‘Not exactly.’ God, this was going from bad to worse!

‘Mmm. You mean it’s more a matter of compatibility and convenience than runaway romance and passion?’

‘I think it’s more a matter of stupidity,’ she muttered. ‘Look, Jack, I think our engagement was rather a rash decision, and I won’t hold you to any of it. We haven’t even bought a ring yet, so our engagement’s easily called off.’

‘But I don’t want to call it off,’ he said, astounding her all the more. ‘As I said before, I’ve always been attracted to you. And I like you more than any woman I’ve ever known. It was only your attitude to men and marriage that held me back from trying to deepen our relationship.’

Hannah gave him a startled look before wrenching her eyes back on to the road, her heart racing madly. Dear heaven, where would this all end? It was becoming more crazy by the moment!

‘Frankly, my own attitude to marriage has been changing for quite a while,’ he went on thoughtfully. ‘I’d already come to the conclusion that one steady woman in my life would be much preferable to a series of semi-casual relationships. I don’t really have the time to romance one woman after another, and the type who’ll go to bed with you without romance was beginning to lose attraction for me.’

Hannah refrained from rolling her eyes, thinking to herself that she doubted Felicia had needed much romancing before she’d jumped into bed with Jack. Still, she must be superdooper in bed, since he had not only asked her to marry him very quickly, but had even taken the whole of last weekend off work to be with her. Unheard of for Jack to do that!

‘I must admit it is strange, though,’ he added, frowning, ‘not being able to remember anything about this new intimacy of ours. Damned annoying, actually. I wish I could remember our first time together. I feel I’ve missed out on something really special.’

Hannah could feel his eyes moving over her, and she blushed fiercely.

‘Yes, I’m sure it was very special,’ he said slowly, the ‘very’ seeming to slide down her spine, making her skin break out in goosebumps under her clothes.

Hannah was stunned. She had honestly never considered Jack thinking of her in a sexual context before, and the knowledge that he did was sending her into a spin. She hadn’t thought of him in that context either, but suddenly she was very aware of him sitting in the car beside her. His size. His strength. His maleness.

She felt flustered and flattered at the same time.

It had been so long since any man had paid this kind of attention to her—so long since she’d thought of herself as a desirable woman. Dwight had eroded her confidence in her sexuality over the years. Whereas Jack, with his repeated assertions tonight about fancying her, and his hot gaze now roving over her, was very definitely revitalising her self-esteem in that regard.

A startling train of thought jumped into Hannah’s mind and she sucked in a sharp breath. Jack believes you’re his fiancee. He believes you’re already lovers. Maybe he’ll expect you to go to bed with him tonight as a matter of course?

Dear heavens, she hadn’t thought of that!

There she’d been, imagining that she would only have to tuck him into bed, bring hot cocoa and generally play nursemaid till his memory came back. She had never contemplated having to fend off a very virile male who already believed he’d been to bed with her and was wanting to relive what he thought he’d missed.

Hannah had to nip this potential complication in the bud, so to speak, before it blossomed into a full-blown problem.

‘If you don’t mind, Jack,’ she said awkwardly. ‘Till you get your memory back, I’d prefer us to resume the relationship we used to have as just secretary and boss. I don’t think I’d feel comfortable with anything else just now—what with your not remembering anything about our…er…new intimacy.’

‘Really? Well, I guess I can understand that, but I sure hope I get my memory back soon,’ he muttered testily.

Amen to that, Hannah prayed.

‘The doctor said your memory could come back at any time,’ she said soothingly.

‘The sooner the better,’ he grumbled.

A silence descended in the car, which suited Hannah. She was approaching the turn-off, and had to concentrate. Was it around this corner or the next? She wished it would stop raining. It was hard enough to spot in the daytime in fine weather.

The car rounded the corner and, yes, there was the turn-off. Relieved to have done with the highway, Hannah still had to slow appreciably as she turned on to the narrow and bumpy dirt track which led down to the cottage.

The headlights tunnelled through the sleety darkness, showing puddle-filled potholes plus the closeness of the encroaching bushland. They picked up a pair of glassy eyes up in a tree as the road turned. A possum, probably, Hannah thought. Not a koala. Koalas weren’t at all nocturnal.

‘What an isolated place,’ Jack said.

‘Actually, we do have several neighbours, but their homes are set back from the road and you just can’t see them through the bush.’

‘Is the cottage heated? If it isn’t, we’ll freeze to death.’

‘It has two efficient combustion heaters built into the old fireplaces—one in the living-room and one in the kitchen. We’ll be warm as toast once I get them going.’

‘Won’t the wood be wet?’

‘I stacked plenty in the laundry when I was up here last weekend,’ Hannah informed him without thinking.

‘You came up here last weekend?’ he immediately pounced, and she could have bitten her stupid tongue off. ‘Alone?’ he added on a puzzled note.

‘Yes, you were busy working,’ she said, marvelling at the speed with which she could lie. Not that it was all a lie. He had been busy. Busy having a dirty weekend with the treacherous Felicia, at a guest-house not all that far from here. Hannah had booked it for him herself. ‘The place needed airing,’ she went on quite truthfully. ‘It hadn’t been used for a while and I was thinking of bringing the boys up here next schoolbreak.’

‘The boys,’ Jack repeated thoughtfully, and Hannah wanted to kick herself. Why, oh, why had she brought them up?

Jack swivelled to face her. ‘Do Chris and Stuart know about us?’

‘No, they don’t,’ Hannah replied frustratedly. Jack had met her sons during their last schoolbreak, when they’d wanted to come and see where she worked. He had kindly taken them on a tour of the premises and attached exhibition homes, and they’d taken a real shine to him.

‘Remember, we only got engaged this last week,’ she added. ‘Look, Jack, perhaps you should leave all those sorts of questions till after you get your memory back as well, then most of them won’t be necessary. I think that would be less complicated and much less wearing all round.’

His sigh showed a very real weariness. ‘You’re right. I think I’m giving myself another headache trying to work everything out.’ And he slumped down in the passenger seat, his head and shoulders drooping.

She slanted him an anxious look. ‘Are you sure you feel all right?’

‘I’ll live.’

‘You should be in bed, resting.’

‘You could be right.’ He began rubbing his temples.

‘Won’t be long now,’ she said, throwing him a motherly smile. ‘Here we are, in fact.’

The cottage was old and quaint, made of stone, with a pitched iron roof and two chimneys. It had a small enclosed front porch and front door with stained-glass windows on either side. Inside it had a central hall which opened into two bedrooms and one bathroom on the right, and one long living-room on the left. At the end of the hall was a large, comfy country kitchen, whose large pantry had been converted to a sleekly modern laundry, complete with dryer. Out at the back a wide and sunny veranda overlooked thick bushland, with mountain peaks in the distance.

Two paths led from this back veranda—one leading off on a bushwalk the boys called the Boomerang, because it brought one right back to its starting point, and the other going round the side of the house to a small stone shed which had once housed an old dunny and an equally ancient laundry, complete with copper and washboard. Now it was where the wood, the mower and other various tools were kept.

Hannah loved the place—its simplicity and its peace and quiet. The boys had always liked it too—especially the bushwalking. She’d come up here with them as often as she could after Dwight had bought it, mostly without her husband. He had always seemed to find some excuse not to come at the last minute. Hannah had suspected he was having affairs back then, but had turned a blind eye to it till the day had come when she had been forced to face her cowardice and make a stand.

Recalling her husband’s infidelity renewed her resolve to do whatever she could to stop Jack from marrying that amoral woman. She would let Jack believe what he liked about their relationship provided he stayed up here with her, alone and away from Felicia’s influence. Of course, that didn’t include sleeping with him. That was carrying gratitude too far!

Gritting her teeth, Hannah pulled the car up next to the front steps and switched off the ignition.

‘You go on inside,’ she told Jack briskly.

‘There’s a big brass key in the geranium pot on the top step which opens the front door. Your bedroom will be the first on the right. I’ll get your things.’

He frowned. ‘When did you get my things?’

‘While you were asleep. Come, now, no more questions, remember? Just accept I have everything in hand.’

‘My ever-efficient Hannah,’ he said, opening his door. ‘How did I ever manage before you came along?’

Hannah knew what he was referring to. She often did little domestic chores for him, like delivering and picking up his dry-cleaning. She also took care of his personal bills, which he had a tendency to overlook when he was busy on a new project.

‘At least now I’ll never have to manage without you again,’ he said, his smile disturbingly tender.

Hannah sat, transfixed, when he unexpectedly leant back over and took her mouth with his in an incredibly gentle kiss. The softly sensuous contact of his lips brushing hers sent little shivers of delight running up and down her spine. She stared at him as his head lifted, stared deep into those deep blue eyes, true panic welling up within her.

No, no, came the frantic thought. I can’t allow this kind of thing to happen. It’s not fair to him, or to me. I must speak now—tell him the truth before it’s too late.

But then he kissed her again, not quite so gently, and immediately she lost the plot. Common sense kept telling her to keep her lips shut, but her lips didn’t seem to be connected to her brain.

His tongue swept deep into her mouth, and she felt it all the way down to her toes. When she moaned, his hands cupped her face, holding it captive as his kiss grew more and more demanding. And more and more seductive. Hannah ached to surrender to its heat, and to its promise of more to come. It had been so long since she’d been kissed like this. Too long, obviously.

Guilt finally fought its way through Hannah’s scrambled thought-processes, and she wrenched her mouth away from his, pulling back out of his grasp. ‘No, stop!’ she gasped. ‘I can’t let you do this.’

‘Why not?’ he returned thickly.

Because I don’t love you, she could have said. Because you’re not my fiancé. Because my response comes from nothing but years of frustration and neglect.

But Jack wasn’t in a fit state for the truth tonight. And neither was she. Maybe in the morning.

‘Your…your headache,’ she said instead.

‘What headache?’

‘Jack, stop it. You promised. I…I can’t handle this just now. And neither can you. The doctor said you had to rest. You might be suffering from concussion. The last activity you need is anything to get your blood pressure up. Surely this can wait till you’re better?’

Jack let out a shuddering sigh. ‘You’re no doubt right. But damn it all, Hannah, I can’t seem to stop thinking about you, and what it must be like between us. Hell, it must be incredible to have propelled us into a level 01 caring and commitment that didn’t exist six weeks ago. Surely you can understand my curiosity…’

Everything inside Hannah tightened when Jack reached out to lay a tender hand against her cheek. His blue eyes, normally so cool and businesslike, washed over her with a passionate warmth which had a decidedly heating effect on her blood.

‘Now that I’ve had a small taste of what’s to come,’ he said, ‘I have to admit my impatience to have you in my arms. Besides, I rather like the idea of making love to you while I can’t remember. It would be like experiencing our first time over again.’

‘Jack, please don’t make it hard for me to keep saying no,’ she pleaded, and meant it. For, astonishingly, she was tempted to go to bed with him.

It wasn’t love, or even lust, she believed. To be honest, Jack wasn’t her physical type at all. She’d always been attracted to fair-haired, smoothly elegant men like Dwight. It had to be because she just wanted to be wanted. Wanted to be needed. Wanted to be stroked and kissed and told she was desirable and beautiful.

Hannah was amazed—and rather shocked—at how strongly she was tempted to take advantage of the situation she’d created with her impulsive deception. Only the realisation that Jack would eventually get his memory back stopped her. As it was, she was still probably going to lose her job over this. Things had already got further out of hand than she’d ever anticipated.

‘This weekend we’re just good friends,’ she stated stiffly. ‘Nothing more.’

‘We’ll see, Hannah,’ he muttered, his hand dropping away from her cheek. ‘We’ll see.’

‘I mean it, Jack,’ she said, her voice hardening further. ‘Till you get your memory back, our relationship is strictly platonic.’

‘And what if I said I’ve already got my memory back?’ he tossed back, watching her face all the while.

Hannah was only shaken for a split-second. ‘You’d be lying,’ she said, quite confidently.

‘How can you be sure?’

‘I just can.’

‘Hmm. Now, I wonder why that is, Hannah, love? What else has happened during the last six weeks to make you sure I’m still in the dark? No, don’t tell me. I don’t think I want to know. Not tonight. The morning will be soon enough to find out the awful truth. Tonight I think I’d best remain in blessed oblivion.’

CHAPTER THREE

BLESSED oblivion…

I could do with some of that, Hannah thought ruefully as she bent to put another log on the fire.

She stayed on her haunches, staring blankly into the flames, wishing she had never started any of this. It had been a crazy idea. She should have just told Jack the truth right away—all of it-and let him handle the situation with Felicia as he saw fit. He didn’t need a mother to hold his hand. He was a grown man.

It had been a mistake in judgement to embark on this ridiculous deception—a silly, impulsive reaction which she hadn’t thought through at all properly.

But it was not too late to tell Jack the truth. By morning it might be, however. By then he might well have regained his memory, and he would be furious with her. Not only furious, but suspicious of her motives in doing such a thing. He might even harbour doubts over her story about Felicia and Gerald Boynton, which was the last thing she wanted.