Many sons would be basking in the glory of old money and working for the family business. However, Tim worked as a vet and that, she knew, galled his mother. It was what she described as a working class position and not befitting a Clarke.
Personally, Cindy admired Tim’s chosen profession. Animals didn’t get half the help they needed.
Maybe she should look into doing something with animals. She loved them but since her old cat, Bast, had passed away four months previously, she had no pets. Maybe it was time she got another cat. She missed not having a fur-ball romping and sleeping around the house. A house just wasn’t a home without some cat hair.
She wondered if Tim had a pet. Somehow she doubted it. He seemed to be out most times picking up dubious women, loving and leaving them in his typical cavalier way. From her understanding, and what she’d seen of him in the distance at clubs, pubs and more upper crust parties, the women he chose were hard in nature and no strangers to climbing the ranks of the rich by sleeping and clawing their way there. It was just that none had managed to capture Tim in a web of marriage, which seemed to be his main aim.
So why the hell he hung around with them, she’d never understand. She’d certainly never had much to do with him apart from a nod of recognition at parties, and once or twice a couple of words when she met him while visiting Maddy. That was more than enough for her.
Shaking her head, Cindy rubbed the cocoa butter into her arms. There were more things to think about than that ass. Such as her cousin’s wedding and the fact that she had no one with which to go. Well, she could take her housemaid/cook, but even her mother, as sweet as she was, would shake her head and empathically declare “No!”
Darn it.
Yawning, she walked across to the dresser and sat down, reaching for the face moisturiser and massaging it into her cheeks. The scent was lovely and she made a mental note to buy Maddy some for her birthday. Plaiting her hair into a long braid, she went to bed.
~*~
Stumbling into the kitchen the next morning, she squinted at the bowl of diced fresh fruit topped with a dessert spoon of cream. “Wow, fruit and dairy, two of the main food groups.”
Sam, her very crotchety housemaid/cook, glared at her from where he stood at the kitchen sink. “Fruit is good for you.”
“Never said it wasn’t.” She sat down and picked up the cup of tea. Taking a mouthful, she almost gagged. “What the hell…?”
“Green tea. Lengthens our lifespan.” Sam placed one gnarled hand on a scrawny hip. “Got a complaint about it?”
“Yeah, I have. I want my regular tea.”
“Can’t. All I bought is green.”
“Geez.” Cindy placed the tea cup back on the dainty saucer and stood up. “I’ll have orange juice.”
With a grunt of disgust, Sam crossed to the table, picked up the tea cup and swallowed the contents in several gulps. “There. Now I’ll live longer than you.”
“I doubt that.” Cindy poured the orange juice into a tall glass. “You’re seventy years old already. I’m less than half your age.” She saluted him with the glass and a grin. “So I guess I win.”
Grumbling to himself, Sam took the cup and saucer to the sink and commenced washing it with renewed vigour.
The door opened and the tall, thin, angular body of Ruth, Cindy’s gardener and wife of Sam, entered.
“Take those boots off!” Sam barked out. “My floor is clean.”
Ruth sourly toed off her boots on the mat.
Cindy continued eating, not really taking notice of the morning ritual in her home. It was played out on Ruth and Sam’s three work days a week.
Padding across the floor, Ruth sat down at the opposite end of the table in front of the bowl of fruit her husband placed in front of her. Sam put a generous dollop of cream atop it and returned the cream pot to the ‘fridge. “Want a cup of tea, Ruth?”
Ruth looked across the table at Cindy, who shook her head. Taking the hint, she replied in her slow drawl, “No thanks. I’ll have orange juice.”
“Humph.” Sam gave Cindy a narrow-eyed look as he poured out the juice.
Cindy grinned back at him.
“I planted those roses,” Ruth stated. “The red ones.”
That sobered Cindy. “You don’t need to be doing that digging, Ruth. We can hire someone-”
“I’m the gardener here.” Ruth spooned up some fruit. “I’m not too old, Miss Cindy. I may be old in years, but I’m strong.”
Taking in the pull of wiry muscle in the lean arms, Cindy had no doubt about it. It was also an old argument, so she shrugged. “Okay.”
Sam glanced over at her and nodded. There was no doubt that if it got too much for his wife, he’d let Cindy know, but the older couple were so healthy and strong that she had no doubt they’d be going for many years yet.
Ruth commenced to fill her in on what she had planned for the garden that day, just as she did every work morning. Cindy nodded, commented and made a few suggestions, and by the time Ruth started on her bacon and eggs, she was a happy gardener. Well, as happy as she’d ever display, her gaunt face and placid expression showing only a slight smile of approval and contentment.
“So what are you doing today?” Sam whisked the empty bowl off the table.
“I’m going to pick up a present for Maddy’s birthday and drop it off to her,” Cindy replied. “Then I might call in and see Mum and Dad. How about you?”
“Mop the floors.”
“Exciting day for us both.”
Sam eyed her sourly. “Maybe you need to get a hobby.”
“I’ve got one. It’s paying you to insult me.”
“Har-de-har.”
“Anything you want me to pick up at the shops?”
“Like I’d trust you to do the shopping? You’d come back with pavlova for tea and chocolate cake for dessert.”
“I suppose you want something like brussel sprouts for tea and carrot cake for dessert.”
“You’d suppose correct.”
“You know I wouldn’t touch a brussel sprout with a ten foot pole.”
“Precisely why I don’t waste them on you.”
“But you won’t give me pavlova for tea, either.”
“I have to amuse myself in my own way.”
Laughing, Cindy left the kitchen. Running up the stairs, she went to her bedroom and took off the dressing gown and nightie. A quick shower later, she stood in her lacy pink panties and bra in the walk-in wardrobe to contemplate the clothes hanging neatly on the racks. Finally she chose a pale blue sun dress that swirled lightly above her knees. Once dressed, she applied lipstick and mascara - her two main staples of make-up on what she considered a ‘light make-up day’ - pulled her hair into a jaunty pony-tail high on the back of her head, tied it with a big, wide, blue bow, slipped a pair of dangling earrings on, and slid her feet into a pair of silver stilettos with just a wide strap across her toes.
Pivoting in front of the mirror, she surveyed herself in satisfaction, gave a happy nod, picked up a dainty, pale blue shoulder bag and tripped down the stairs into the wide entry.
“I’m going, Sam!” she shouted.
“Okay.” His voice drifted back from somewhere towards the back of the house.
Going through into the kitchen, she went through a side door and into the garage. Climbing into her little Hyundai, she lovingly ran her hands over the steering wheel. Man, she loved her car. Pressing the control where it was attached to the dashboard, she waited until the garage door had opened fully before backing out into the sunshine.
Pulling out into the drive, she waved at Ruth who was standing with a row of roses in pots behind her. Ruth waved back before returning to her beloved gardening.
Turning up the radio, Cindy drove into the city and to one of her favourite shopping centres. Pulling into the car park, she hopped out and went to the ticket machine. Humming to herself, she paid for her ticket, then, spotting a harassed-looking mother towing a crying child behind her and push
ing a pram, she slid more coins into the slot and pressed the ticket button before leaving. As she neared her car, she glanced over her shoulder and saw the bewildered mother holding the ticket in her hand, and she smiled.
As her mother always said, spread the cheer.
Once inside the coolness of the shopping centre, Cindy made her way to The Body Shop and browsed among the goodies, finding the lotions she wanted quickly. While having them gift-wrapped, she watched a dispirited-looking man sit down at a nearby coffee table. In his hands he held the employment page. He glanced once at the menu board with the names and prices of the food and drink on sale, and with a small sigh, he started pursuing the paper with pen in hand.
After paying for the present, Cindy ambled over to the coffee counter, ordered a hot coffee and salad roll and paid for it, and pointed to the man at the coffee table who still had his head down as he circled employment options. The waitress, Maryanne, knew Cindy, and she grinned and nodded.
Yep, nothing like spreading the cheer, Cindy thought as she left the coffee shop. A glance over her shoulder showed first bewilderment, then pleasure on the man’s face as he looked up at Maryanne. She was pleading ignorance of who paid for his meal, and when she left the food at the man’s table, the smile on her face was genuine delight.
Yep, that bit of cheer had touched two people.
With a bounce in her step, Cindy returned to the car.
Her next stop was Maddy’s home. As she pulled into the driveway, she hooted her musical horn. Immediately she spotted Chaz in the window, his big Siamese head pushing up the curtains as he peered out at her. Beside him a much smaller head reared up, and little grey-furred Yamaha stared at her before being side-tracked by a butterfly that flitted past the window.
Cindy couldn’t resist running her finger along the glass, laughing as Chaz tried to remain dignified in front of Yamaha, but finally he succumbed to the lure of fake prey and slammed his seal paws against the glass, chasing her movements.
“Teasing cats now?”
Surprised, Cindy froze for several seconds before straightening to face Tim. His car was parked behind hers, a low-slung, two-seater with ‘playboy’ practically screaming from the black leather interior.
“Well, hello, Timmy,” she said cheerfully. “Loving the shirt, sunshine. Suits you.”
Tim ran his hand across his chest. His shirt proudly proclaimed I’m a nut who needs screwing. “Glad I don’t disappoint you.”
“Never.”
His gaze skimmed across her, taking in everything from the jaunty bow in her hair to the tips of her silver stilettos. “Going to a party?”
“Not today.” She held up the gaily wrapped present. “Maddy’s birthday.”
“Ah.” He rocked back on his heels.
Cindy studied him. Dressed in t-shirt, battered jeans and sneakers, with his dark hair carelessly - or maybe artfully - tousled, he looked boyishly handsome…if one didn’t notice the sharp intelligence in his brown eyes. His face was lean, his jaw strong, his lips a little too full for a man, but saved from being too girlish by their firmness.
Yeah, it would be easy to dismiss Tim Clarke as a boyishly handsome, charming man. Luckily she knew him to be a real hound dog with women, or she could just as easily be suckered.
“You two coming in?” Mike’s voice rumbled from the doorway. “Or are you just going to stand there, eyeballing each other?”
Cindy smiled brightly up at him, genuinely glad to see him. Mike was a bear of a man, but he loved her best friend unconditionally and that made him almost perfect in her eyes.
“Hello, Mike.” She didn’t miss the way he watched almost warily as she hurried up the stairs, finding it immensely amusing that men kept waiting for her to fall flat on her face due her high heels.
“Cindy,” he greeted her, standing aside so that she could walk right past him. “Tim.”
“Got the tools ready?”
“Yeah. Let’s start on it.”
Obviously the men were going to be tinkering with a car engine or something, and that suited her just fine. Hurrying into the kitchen, she saw Maddy straightening up from where she was crouched checking something cooking in the oven.
“Mads!” Cindy flung herself at her best friend and hugged her tight. “Happy birthday!”
“Thanks.” Maddy laughed as Cindy gave her a resounding kiss on the cheek, taking the present that she pressed into her hands. “Oh, Cindy, you shouldn’t have.”
“Of course I shouldn’t have.” Cindy dropped into a chair and stretched her legs out, crossing her ankles and placing her hands behind her head. “Open it!”
She waited impatiently as Maddy peeled the sticky tape off and neatly unwrapped the lotions. The delight on her friend’s face just tickled her pink.
“Oh, Cindy, thank you!” Maddy moved across the kitchen and gave her a hug. “It’s beautiful.”
“Trust me, Mike will get one whiff of the scent of that moisturiser on your skin and he’ll eat you right up.” Cindy winked. “In every way.”
Maddy laughed. “He does that now.”
“Really?” Cindy arched a brow. “Do tell.”
“Not on your nelly.” Maddy opened the ‘fridge. “Diet Coke?”
“Absolutely. I’m parched.” Cindy watched her friend open the cans and place them on the table as she sat down. “So what did Mike get you?”
A slight blush of pleasure tinged Maddy’s cheeks. Pulling the chain out from around her neck, she showed the elegantly set, small amethyst that exactly matched her ring. “This.”
Leaning forward, Cindy fingered it carefully. “It’s beautiful.”
“He’s taking me out to dinner as well.”
“And so he should.” Cindy took a sip of Diet Coke. “Where are you going?”
“Well, if the car gets fixed, the Steak House. If it doesn’t, then its pizza delivery, because I refuse to ride that monstrosity of a motorbike he’s so fond of.”
“Your car is broken down? Why don’t you get a mechanic out to look at it?”
“Because Mike reckons he and Tim can fix it.” Maddy smiled wryly.
“Don’t you need it for work?”
“I’ve got a week of holidays, so that’s not a problem.” Getting up, Maddy crossed to the stove and opened the door. Sticking a thin, wooden stick into the cake, she nodded approval as it came out dry and clean.
Cindy chewed her bottom lip as she considered how to make an offer without offending her friend.
Guessing correctly, Maddy said as she placed the cake tin on the wire rack, “We can afford a mechanic, don’t worry.”
“Then this is just a man thing?”
“This is just a man thing.”
“Promise?”
Maddy levelled a look at her.
“Fine.” Cindy held up both hands, palms outwards. “Peace, sister. I’ll keep my nasty old money.”
Maddy grinned. “You do that.” Placing a plate on the counter, she opened a container of home-made muffins.
“Oh, man.” Cindy’s mouth watered. “Chuck one of those here, please!”
Without missing a beat, Maddy tossed a muffin through the air and Cindy caught it unerringly. Taking a bite, she moaned. “Yummy.”
“I thought I’d take some out to the blokes.” Maddy carefully placed four muffins on the plate and added some biscuits before deftly covering the plate in gladwrap. “Could you grab some iced coffees out of the ‘fridge?”
“I have to pay for the muffin by being your servant?”
“Nothing is for free.”
“Why don’t you just call the blokes in?” Cindy retrieved two cartons of iced coffee.
“Because once Mike starts something, he’s loathe to stop.” Maddy picked up the plate and walked out into the hall.
Following her through into the lounge and the newly made archway that entered into what was once Mike’s half of the duplex, Cindy glanced around. “What are you going to do with all the furniture?”
“W
e’re still deciding.”
“You could always buy new.”
“Nah. Mike’s a big man, his furniture is pretty tough. We’ll probably keep his lounge suite.”
“What are you going to do with the extra rooms? Still making one into a library?”
“We’ll probably make this the library, a nice quiet room to sit and read.”
“Don’t you mean a place you can escape to when he’s watching car racing?” Cindy asked dryly.
“That too.” Maddy laughed and led the way out of the door and onto the veranda.
Now they were on the side that was once Mike’s, and going by the sounds coming from his garage this was where the repairs were happening.
“I told him he could mess his garage up,” Maddy informed Cindy, “But he’s to leave mine nice and clean.”
“Laying down the law. I like it.”
“Laying down the law to a cop like Mike?” Maddy laughed louder. “Are you kidding me?”
“Mike’s putty in your hands.”
“He can be stubborn when he wants to be, trust me.”
“You like it.”
Maddy’s grin grew wider.
They rounded the corner and came to a stop in front of the open garage door. Inside it the two men were bent over each side of the open bonnet while tinkering with the mysterious innards of engine pieces. They straightened at the same time and looked from the engine to each other, discussing the problem.
Cindy glanced at Maddy and saw the softening of her face, her rounded cheeks flushing slightly as Mike glanced around at her. Mike’s eyes softened as well, but the glow that lit them held a lot of desire.
Yeah, Mike loved Maddy, loved every bit of her lush curves and voluptuous body, as he termed it just to make her blush and laugh. But there was no joke about the desire that burned in his eyes every time he looked at his fiancé. The desire and the love, the total acceptance.
Cindy wondered if anyone would ever look at her own overly generous hour-glass curves like that, but somehow doubted it. Oh well, it was something that she never allowed herself to dwell on if she could help it. She’d made her decision a long time ago to enjoy life and live it to its fullest, and not worry about what other people thought. Most times she managed it. Life was too short.
Vet's Desire Page 3
