‘I’m sorry,’ she found herself smiling back, ‘but that subject’s something of a “pass me my soapbox” to me. Are you coming up to the house?’ she asked. Once again she caught that wariness about him.
‘No, I won’t come up to the house today. Maybe another time.’ His eyes moved over her slight figure. ‘I’ll amend that to definitely another time.’ He grinned at the disconcerted flush on her face. ‘My parents have invited people over this evening for dinner and I promised to put in an appearance, suitably attired, of course. Do you think I should change my jeans?’ he asked, and they both laughed.
Danni stood by her car watching his motorcycle as it moved down the track to the gate of their property before picking up speed on the road heading back towards the Gold Coast. She climbed slowly into her car and backed it around in the opposite direction. Shiloh O’Rourke? she thought as she drove towards the sprawling ranch-style house that was just over a kilometre from the entrance gate. There was something about him that worried her. Well, perhaps worried was a little too strong a description, but… She couldn’t put her finger on exactly what it was. At times she had felt he was watching her, gauging her reactions, carefully choosing his words when answering her questions.
It was strange that she couldn’t remember Rick ever mentioning him. Shiloh O’Rourke. It was such an unusual name she surely would have remembered it had she heard it before. And he’d spoken of Rick as though they had known each other well. He’d also said he was at the race meeting on the day Rick had lost his life driving his Formula 5000.
Shiloh O’Rourke. O’Rourke. A tiny niggling memory nudged her mind and floated away before she could take hold of it. There was something there that refused to come to the surface. Oh, well, if she didn’t force it maybe it would return in time, she reflected as she garaged her car and ran up the wide low steps on to the covered patio that ran the length of the house.
She’d have a refreshing shower and then decide what to prepare for her father for dinner. As she opened the screen door the phone rang and she walked into the hall to pick up the receiver.
‘Danni? Dallas here,’ said a familiar voice.
‘Dallas, what’s the trouble? Is Pop all right?’ Danni’s heart jerked painfully. Since Rick’s death over a year ago her father had seemed to grow into an old man overnight.
‘No trouble, Danni,’ chuckled Dallas, sounding most unlike his usual sober self. ‘Your father and I met up with some friends of his at the RSL Club and we decided we’d had a few too many drinks to drive out to Mallaroo tonight. We’re going to stay here in town and head off in the morning. We’ll probably pass you on your way in.’
‘Oh. Well, make sure you both have a good meal tonight,’ said Danni, relieved that her father was all right.
‘Will do. How did the car go today?’ asked Dallas, who was an exceptionally good mechanic and, with Danni, made up the sum total of her racing team.
‘Like a dream, as always,’ replied Danni. ‘You’re a wonder, Dallas, and I’m lucky to have you on my side.’
‘That’s what I keep telling you, Danni. If I say it often enough you’re going to start believing me.’ He laughed again.
Dallas Byrne was a tall and pleasant-looking young man, with fierce red hair, a drooping moustache, also red, and blue eyes in a fair freckled face. Had he been dark and swarthy Danni always thought he would have looked more like a Mexican bandit than a Mexican bandit looked. He was twenty-five and had owned and raced his own cars. However, although his cars had been mechanically first class, he admitted himself that he had been only a mediocre driver and often laughingly said he lacked the killer instinct to take him to the front.
It was a pity, Danni mused as she rang off, that Dallas needed a couple of drinks to allow him to relax his usual staid personality. She had known him for some time, often met him socially, and when she purchased her Formula Ford he had offered his services as mechanic. His skill was well-known and Danni was pleased to have him as he kept her car in perfect condition, teaching her even more about auto-mechanics than Rick had.
He had asked her out with undaunted regularity and on the odd occasion that she had agreed to go she had always enjoyed his company. He accepted her restrictions that they keep their relationship on a purely friendly basis, but he made her aware of the fact that he lived in hope of her having a change of heart.
Because Dallas made no more demands than she was prepared to fulfil Danni had grown quite fond of him and a lot of their friends accepted them as a going couple. Occasionally she had wished she could allow herself to become involved with him as he was such a calm and dependable person, but… Her instincts told her he was far too nice to be taken advantage of and Danni suspected that the idea of her driving the Formula Ford had a considerable amount to do with his admiration.
Maybe Dallas would know something about Shiloh O’Rourke. She should have asked him while he was on the phone. Dallas knew or knew of everyone even vaguely connected with the Motor racing scene. She wished she could remember herself. It was so frustrating.
Shiloh’s face, not handsome, but somehow arresting, came vividly to mind. His remembered attractiveness caused her to catch her breath. She knew she was attracted to him physically, but at the same time, she told herself, there was something about him that irritated her, sparked her usually even temper. He was definitely arrogant, for all the teasing, good-natured impression that seemed to radiate from him.
And he had treated her like a teenager barely out of the schoolroom. Her lips set sternly. He had at first mistaken her for a youth, and yet his eyes told her that he was aware of her attractions, made it very plain, in fact. A tingling sensation moved up her spinal column, as though his fingertips had moved over her body.
Giving herself a mental shake, she strode irritably through the hall to her bedroom. Here there was peacefulness. The colour tones were all restful, subdued pastel-shaded wallpaper and complementary deep-pile carpet. Her bedroom suite was painted white and the single bed was covered by an eggshell blue chenille quilt.
The only vibrant part of the room was a framed poster-sized colour photograph hanging on the wall. It was a shot Danni had taken herself of her brother, Rick, when he’d won a major race at Surfers Paradise International Speedway about three years earlier. He was sitting on the back of the cockpit of his bright red Formula 5000, a colourful lei of flowers had been placed around his neck and a frothing bottle of champagne was clasped in his raised hand. His dark hair was lifting in the breeze and his face was alight with the delighted smile of the victor. In fact, the glow of victory and the exhilaration of the race shone in his dark eyes. The photograph had so much life that Danni had to swallow the lump that rose in her throat.
She turned away, taking a fresh set of underclothes from her drawer, her gaze falling on another smaller framed photograph standing on the top of her dressing table. It was a family study of Pop and herself with Rick, before he had started on his motor racing career professionally.
Danni walked across to the open window of her bedroom and stood gazing out over the tree-covered hills, her eyes not seeing their rural beauty, caught in the distress of bittersweet memories. She would never get over the sadness of Rick’s loss. It was such a waste of a vibrant young life.
Sighing, she collected her towelling bathrobe and made her way slowly to the bathroom. Under the shower, the cool jets of spray playing over her young body, she found her thoughts returning to Shiloh O’Rourke and his possible association with Rick. Perhaps Shiloh could fill her in on the details of that fateful day. He said he had been there.
For some time now she had been trying to find a way to broach the subject of that race with her father, but he still seemed loath to talk about it. And she respected that. She knew just how close her father and her brother had been, and she didn’t want to add to her father’s pain. She had sounded Dallas out about it one day, but he had been embarrassed,
and besides, he hadn’t been at Sandown the day of Rick’s death.
On her return from London, the race, Rick’s death, the funeral and the enquiry had been over and no one had given Danni anything but the barest details. Up until recently she hadn’t wanted to know. It was painful enough to grow accustomed to the fact that they would never see Rick again.
A multitude of unbidden feelings passed through her mind and she had to admit that lately she had felt almost shut out for the first time in her life. Shut out of the family tragedy. And the feeling was not a comforting one, no matter that her father wanted to save her any unhappiness.
Rick had always treated her as an equal, always had time for the little sister who had tagged along after him, asking interminable questions, listening to his answers with bright adoring eyes. Her brother had shared his thoughts with her, his aspirations, his feelings about everything. And yet he had never once mentioned this Shiloh O’Rourke. Not that she could remember. And that was strange.
But then why should Rick have mentioned everyone he met to her? asked a small voice inside her. Rick wasn’t bound to tell her everything. She had grown up, was no longer been his little sister and he, well, he had no longer been the confidant of her teens.
In the half dozen or so years before his death he had taken on other interests and responsibilities, among them a career in motor racing, a very promising career that had been cut short when Danni had been backpacking across the other side of the world. But perhaps she should admit, if she were honest, that she had lost that special part of her brother years before the crashing of his Formula 5000 had taken his life.
Tears rolled down her cheeks to be lost in the shower spray. It was months since she had allowed herself to cry over her brother’s death. She had had to remain calm and in command of herself for Pop’s sake, and now here she was weeping like a baby. And the catalyst was that Shiloh O’Rourke. Her heart felt bruised and a wave of self-pity washed over her.
Determinedly she shook it off, depression giving way to anger directed firstly at herself and then at the attractive fair-haired face that swam before her. ‘Damn Shiloh O’Rourke!’ she said forcefully at the shower spray, then smiled shakily at the ridiculousness of her outburst.
She could hardly, in all fairness, blame him, she thought, stepping resolutely from the shower. She began to towel herself dry on a fluffy blue bath sheet. The dam had been building up inside her for ages and if it hadn’t been the appearance of Shiloh O’Rourke it would have been someone or something else that set off the crack in the wall of emotional restraint she had built up.
But she couldn’t help feeling a lingering unease, that there was something important she hadn’t been told. She’d felt it from the very beginning, from her arrival back in Australia, and Shiloh O’Rourke had only added to that feeling. The urge to know more about the whole thing began to grow within her and she knew now that she wouldn’t rest until she had heard the full story.
And Shiloh O’Rourke would be the most logical person to tackle about it. Her father had suffered enough and she knew in all probability he would only tell her a part of the story, glossing over anything he thought might distress her.
If only she’d been here at the time, then she could have known the proper progression of events, read the newspaper reports. Her eyes flew open. Of course, she could go to the library and look up the back issues of the newspapers. As a library assistant she should have known that this was the obvious thing to do. She would go along to the Southport Library as soon as she could manage it and maybe then she would be in full possession of the facts. And there would be no need to cause her father any distress by mentioning the painful subject.
CHAPTER TWO
Next morning Danni did think she might have found time to visit the main library at Southport before she started work in the branch at Burleigh Heads. However, things didn’t work out that way. By the time she had done a little housework at Mallaroo and then driven down to their house in Broadbeach, where she stayed during the week while she was working, her plans to delve into the back issues of the newspapers had had to be shelved.
Besides, it had crossed her mind all of a sudden that perhaps she wouldn’t want to know all the details of that day. Maybe it would be as well to let it all remain quietly in the past.
Now she had parked her car in the library car park and with a little less than half an hour before she was due to start work she decided to walk across to the shopping centre and relax over a cup of coffee in her favourite coffee shop.
‘Hi, Danni! Danni!’ A voice filtered slowly through her thoughts as she drained her coffee cup. A pretty young fair-haired girl slid into the seat opposite Danni, her face alight with the glow of someone bearing good tidings.
‘Oh, hello, Lisa,’ replied Danni vaguely, dragging her thoughts back from yesterday’s encounter on the practice track. ‘Sorry I didn’t hear you at first, I was thinking about something or other.’
‘By the look on your face you were miles away,’ said Lisa. ‘What deep dark thoughts were you thinking?’
‘Nothing important,’ said Danni quickly, not wanting to discuss Shiloh O’Rourke with anyone, let alone Lisa, who was an inveterate gossip.
Her workmate was four years younger than Danni and she was the junior assistant at the library. Lisa was a pretty girl and Danni liked her very much. They worked well together, although their natures and interests were so very different. Outside of her job Lisa’s main pursuits were pop music and young men. Her practically non-stop chatter about the latter, of which she seemed to have a never-ending stream, sometimes made Danni feel as old as Methuselah.
However, Danni was unaware that the younger girl’s opinion of her bordered very nearly on hero-worship. Lisa admired Danni’s poise, the quiet friendly manner which seemed to draw people of all ages to her, and the enjoyment Danni found in talking to everyone who crossed her path.
The fact that Danni went out at the weekend among a group of men and raced her car against them, mingled with them after the race meetings, knew them all by name and spoke to them on equal terms never failed to impress the younger girl. That only on very rare occasions did any of these young men present themselves at the library to see Danni was always a source of incomprehension and disbelief as Lisa saw it. She knew Danni seldom went out on dates and if she did accept an invitation from one of these young men he was rarely around for more than a few weeks. On the odd occasion that Lisa had tentatively questioned Danni about what she called Danni’s ‘love life’, the older girl had simply laughed and said she wasn’t ready to settle down to anything steady and wouldn’t be for years yet.
Lisa often sighed over the problem. As far as she was concerned Danni was very nearly an old maid, ready to gather dust on the shelf marked “Romance” and, in her opinion, it was a wicked waste. Danni was so attractive and what was more, she was a really nice girl.
‘What brings you over all agog?’ asked Danni.
‘I saw you walk across here earlier and I knew you’d be having a cup of coffee before work, so I raced over in my morning tea break so I could tell you right away about this gorgeous guy who came into the library this morning.’ Lisa’s voice was alive with excitement. ‘And he was looking for you!’ She played her trump card.
‘Someone asked especially for me?’ Danni Frowned, a niggling flash of a thin face topped with untidy hair slid to the front of her mind and her heart began to behave peculiarly. She tried to still the tremble of her lips and quickly raised her empty coffee cup to her mouth in case Lisa should notice.
‘Yes. Specifically for you.’ Lisa was beaming. ‘And he was fantastic, really spunky. Tall and fair. You know how I adore blonds?’ she giggled. ‘He had a lovely smile and was really well-mannered. Where have you been hiding him, Danni?’
‘Did he say who he was?’ Danni asked, all sorts of emotions tossing about inside her. Maybe it was someone with a messag
e about next weekend’s race meeting? But no, they would probably phone her if there were any changes there.
No, he didn’t say. He just walked up to the counter and smiled at me. Gosh, my legs turned to water! Then he said, “Would Miss Danni Mathieson be here?” Lisa sighed. ‘I was planning to turn my charm on him when I noticed him walking in, but after he mentioned your name, well, I never try to cut out a friend, Danni, you know that. It’s one of my steadfast rules.’
Danni suppressed a smile at Lisa’s expression. ‘I don’t suppose he said what he wanted, did he?’
‘No.’ Lisa shook her head. ‘I tried to worm it out of him, but he just smiled away until I couldn’t think straight’ She frowned in concentration. ‘Let’s see now. When I said you wouldn’t be in until ten thirtyâthis was about nine o’clockâhe said that was a pity and he looked quite disappointed. He said he’d hoped to catch you this morning as he was going up to Brisbane on business for a few days and wouldn’t have time to telephone you. Then he asked me what time you were working on Thursday, and when I said you’d be in all day until five o’clock he said he’d call back then. Wow, he’s a dish, Danni! He thanked me and, as he went to walk away, I asked him who should I tell Danni had been asking for her. That was quick thinking, wasn’t it? And do you know what he said?’
Danni shook her head, the picture of Shiloh O’Rourke not fading in the slightest. It just seemed to grow brighter every minute.
‘He grinned and said that if I told you he was sure as eggs you’d find an excuse not to be here. He said he’d keep you guessing. What a sense of humour! Then he left.’ Lisa’s eyes were round. ‘Have you any ideas about who he could be, Danni?’
‘I don’t suppose he had untidy hair and wore ancient jeans, did he?’ Danni asked drily.
‘Well, not exactly untidy, but sort of wavy,’ replied Lisa. ‘You mean you do know who he is?’ When the other girt shrugged her shoulders expressionlessly she continued, ‘His jeans looked brand new. No rips or tears or anything, I don’t think. Oh, and he had on a T-shirt with something written on the front of it. Now, what was it? Some place I’d never heard of. Brand something. Brands Hatch. That was it. Does that mean anything to you? Have you worked out who it is?’
Race For Revenge (Lynsey Stevens Romance) Page 2
