From Waif To His Wife

by Lindsay Armstrong

  Maisie’s hands flew protectively to her stomach. ‘I didn’t stop to think,’ she breathed. ‘But the doctor did tell me there was no need to cosset myself.’

  He raised an eyebrow. ‘His version of cosset could differ from yours. However, that seems to answer both my questions.’

  ‘Both?’

  ‘Yes. Not only are you pregnant, but you also don’t like the thought of losing the baby.’ His eyes searched hers.

  ‘No, I don’t.’ Maisie sipped her coffee and tried to find the words to explain.

  Because out of the blue, amidst the shock and growing horror of finding herself pregnant and abandoned, the thought had dropped into her mind that she would not be alone in the world now.

  She’d examined it carefully from all angles, but none of the obstacles, and her life was going to be strewn with them because of this baby, could douse that thought and it had grown stronger…

  ‘I-I-would have someone, you see,’ she said at last.

  He said nothing but she felt as if that steady grey gaze was probing right through to her soul. Then, ‘How old are you?’

  ‘Twenty-two.’

  He grimaced. ‘So are you hoping for some kind of a settlement from this-this man?’

  ‘No.’ She tilted her chin. ‘If he doesn’t want anything more to do with me, I certainly don’t want his charity. But if he has no good reason other than he’s a-a cad and a bounder,’ sudden tears shone in her eyes, ‘who goes around preying on girls, I want to be able to tell him he’s a-he’s a-’

  ‘An utter bastard?’ he supplied.

  She nodded then moved her hands expressively. ‘Not only that. I need, even if he doesn’t want anything to do with us, him to agree to having his name on the baby’s birth certificate. I feel I owe the baby nothing less-to at least know who its father is-wouldn’t you?’

  He didn’t comment on that directly. He said instead, ‘You’ve obviously given it a lot of thought.’

  ‘I’ve had several increasingly miserable months to think of nothing else.’ She wiped her eyes impatiently at the same time as she added an admonition to herself in an undertone, ‘No more tears, Maisie!’

  Then she was struck by another thought. ‘But now I haven’t even got a name-unless there is another man with the same name out there!’

  Rafe Sanderson watched her and thought his own thoughts. Was she a superb actress he wondered.

  Had she hit on an original twist for an old and sorry story? Such as finding herself pregnant and abandoned and deciding to make the best of it? Such as picking his name at random, well, from amongst the suitably well heeled, and concocting a likely tale along the lines of-he said he was you and I really believed him.

  His eyes narrowed as he followed the thought. It would have taken a bit of planning. First of all, she’d have had to come up with an uncommon name-she’d probably have had to check that out in Queensland at least-and his did fit the bill. But if so, and the rest of it was a pack of lies, what had she been hoping for?

  That he’d be so touched by her plight and her pluck, he’d hand over some cash to help her out?

  He smiled a grim, austere little smile then looked across at her to find her studying him intently.

  ‘You’re not believing me again,’ she said huskily.

  ‘Maisie,’ he gestured, ‘whatever, and I’m sorry for anyone in this position, but it’s not my affair.’

  ‘Did you ever live at a place called Karoo Downs?’ she queried. ‘A sheep station out west somewhere?’

  He frowned. ‘How did you know that?’

  ‘As a matter of fact, it’s common knowledge if you’d like to look it up on the internet. Apparently there was a South African connection in the Dixon family in the early days and Karoo comes from the Great Karoo in South Africa, also sheep country.’

  ‘You’ve done your research well,’ he said flatly.

  ‘Oh, I knew about Karoo Downs before I started searching,’ she said. ‘R…he told me about it. He also told me about his two favourite dogs, Graaff and Reinet.’

  Rafe Sanderson suddenly drummed his fingers on the table.

  ‘I asked about the names,’ Maisie continued. ‘He said Graaff-Reinet is the main town in the Karoo and these two dogs were ridgebacks, a South African breed originally, and that’s why he chose the names.’

  This time Rafe Sanderson swore. ‘Who the bloody hell have you been talking to, Maisie?’

  ‘No one. No one else. Oh, a Dixon who shut the door in my face, only two days ago as it happens.’

  ‘You must have been. Family, staff.’ He narrowed his eyes on her. ‘Listen, Maisie, I want the truth and now,’ he said through his teeth.

  ‘The truth?’ She stared at him with her lips parted and her eyes widening. ‘There must be some man out there going around impersonating you…’

  He banged his fist on the table and made the coffee mugs jump. ‘Now I’ve heard it all.’

  ‘But for a few minutes I thought you were him,’ she protested. ‘I mean, now I’m quite sure you’re not and if you hadn’t been dripping wet and so angry I might have realised sooner…’ She stopped bewilderedly. ‘But I did think so at first.’

  He opened his mouth to retort but the VHF radio above the charting desk came alive and intervened. ‘Mary-Lue, Mary-Lue-Lotus Lady, six seven,’ a deep, disembodied voice said.

  Rafe shut his mouth with a click then got up to answer the call. ‘Lotus Lady-Mary-Lue, six nine.’ And he changed channels.

  ‘Rafe-Dan here; we’ll be over in about twenty minutes. Melissa wants to know if there’s anything you need-and we’ll pick up Eddie and Martha on the way.’

  Rafe Sanderson hesitated and glanced darkly at Maisie. Then he depressed his PTT button and said into the mike, ‘Don’t need anything, thanks, mate. See you soon.’ He hung up the mike and came back to the table.

  Maisie swallowed and suddenly looked desperately tired and uneasy. ‘How are you going to explain me to your friends?’

  He took in her wan complexion. ‘I’m not. Are you sure you’re feeling all right?’

  ‘I’m fine but tired, that’s all. I-I didn’t sleep last night and I probably only had an hour here before you came on board. I also-sometimes I just feel like a cat who needs to curl up and go to sleep.’

  ‘Then go to bed, kid,’ he said, not unkindly. ‘Use the aft berth. With a bit of luck no one will even know you’re here. We can get down to brass tacks again,’ he looked impatient for a moment, ‘later.’

  ‘Oh, thank you,’ Maisie said with real gratitude.

  ‘Just one thing.’

  She looked a query at him.

  ‘I need you to promise me you won’t try to drown yourself again, you won’t try to drown me or do anything else outrageous.’

  Maisie had to laugh. ‘I promise,’ she said, ‘unless, that is, your behaviour is outrageous, Mr Sanderson.’

  He studied her with a faint frown in his eyes, as if he didn’t quite know what to make of her. Then he shrugged and got up.

  Maisie fell asleep with no difficulty.

  She tried not to. She told herself there was too much to think about, too much to attempt to clarify, not least her reaction to a man she’d only just met, but nothing could keep at bay the tide of weariness that overcame her.

  She didn’t hear the lunch party come aboard, she didn’t hear anything until she woke a couple of hours later.

  She stretched, yawned and looked around with no idea where she was until the toffee and peppermint décor struck a chord.

  She sat up abruptly in time to hear a female voice above deck, saying,

  ‘Why, Rafe, you’ve got a girl in your cabin!’

  Maisie froze, and realised that it must have been the opening, or more likely the closing, of the cabin door that had woken her.

  ‘Melissa,’ Rafe’s voice sounding irritable, ‘hasn’t anyone told you to wait for an invitation before you nose about?’

  A tinkle of laughter, then, ‘Darling, life
’s too short to wait for invitations. And, unless I’m very much mistaken, she’s a redhead.’

  Maisie waited with bated breath.

  ‘She’s also a stowaway I’d never laid eyes on until she made her presence known and nearly drowned me,’ Rafe replied coolly. ‘What’s more she’s going back from whence she came, wherever the hell that is, pronto, which is why I’m about to throw you lot off. I need to get underway.’

  ‘Well, darling,’ Melissa said, ‘however you want to call it is fine by us. And thanks for a lovely lunch. We might toddle off and spend the night at Blakesley’s anchorage. Oh. Will we see you at Tricia’s party on Wednesday?’

  Rafe Sanderson replied in the negative.

  Maisie waited, as she heard the sound of an outboard motor revving then receding, before she got up and made her way to the main saloon, not at all sure of her reception in light of Rafe’s blunt and truthful explanation of her presence, and how he planned to handle her dismissal.

  He surprised her. He came down the steps at the same time, raised an eyebrow at her and asked her if she was hungry.

  Maisie closed her eyes. ‘I-I’m starving! No breakfast, no lunch.’

  ‘That’s what I thought, so I kept you some food.’ He withdrew some foil-wrapped plates from the fridge and set them on the table.

  A minor feast greeted her eyes as he unwrapped the foil. Smoked salmon and melon; cold lobster in a salad studded with black olives and feta cheese, accompanied by a crispy chicken leg and a slice of quiche which he removed and warmed in the microwave. He also warmed two rolls.

  ‘Thank you so much,’ she murmured as she gazed hungrily at his offerings. She hesitated. ‘I rather thought you were going to make me walk the plank.’

  ‘You heard?’

  ‘I heard. She must have woken me when she closed the door.’

  ‘She can be the most infuriating woman, but Dan is a good friend,’ he said. ‘As for making you walk the plank, I’m feeding you and making you a cup of tea instead because cruelty to pregnant ladies is not amongst my vices. However,’ he paused to fill the kettle, ‘as soon as you’ve eaten, we are going straight back to Manly.’

  Maisie ate the salmon and melon. ‘Where you intend to wash your hands of me?’

  He looked at her expressionlessly over his shoulder then lit the gas and put the kettle on the hob. ‘As a matter of fact, I intend to leave no stone unturned until I get to the bottom of this.’

  Maisie demolished the lobster and the quiche then she picked up the chicken leg and sank her teeth into it. When she finished, she wiped her fingers fastidiously on the paper napkin he’d supplied.

  ‘You were hungry,’ he commented.

  She smiled ruefully. ‘For weeks I was as sick as a dog and could hardly look food in the face; now I’m ravenous most of the time.’ She hesitated. ‘Does that mean you believe me?’

  He poured two cups of tea and came to sit down. ‘No, but neither do I disbelieve you. You could say I’m reserving judgement, but if there is some bastard going around out there impersonating me, I intend to nail him.’

  Maisie shivered involuntarily.

  He noted it and pressed home his advantage. ‘But if there isn’t, this is the time to come clean, Maisie Wallis,’ he added quietly, but in a way that left her in no doubt he meant it.

  ‘That’s exactly how it happened.’ She lifted her shoulders. ‘Why would I make up such a story?’

  ‘Do you really need me to answer that?’

  ‘Yes, I do!’ Her green eyes were indignant.

  ‘OK, then, women have been throwing themselves in my path for years,’ he said deliberately. ‘Don’t think I enjoy it or flatter myself that my money isn’t the draw, I don’t. And this could be an original way of doing it.

  ‘No,’ he added as Maisie drew a deep breath, ‘the time for furious displays of anger is past, straight-talking is what we need now, Maisie. For example, when you said the only Rafael Sanderson you could come up with was me, does that mean the name meant nothing to you when this man introduced himself as me?’

  ‘No-yes! I’d never heard of you.’

  ‘So why would anyone masquerade as me to a girl it meant nothing to?’

  Maisie’s eyes widened. ‘I have no idea,’ she whispered.

  ‘But you assumed there was a bit of substance in his background all the same?’

  ‘I honestly didn’t give it much thought but I suppose so. He was well-spoken, he’d travelled, he was,’ she grimaced, ‘a lot more sophisticated than anyone else I’d ever dated.’

  He smiled a lethal little smile. ‘Well, that’s the kind of thing I’ll be digging into, as well as your background and so on. Do you really want me to go on with it?’

  For a moment, Maisie was in two minds as it struck her that this Rafael Sanderson had an aura his impersonator-and it had to be that-had lacked.

  Yes, there were physical similarities, colouring, height and so on.

  This Rafe had changed again, after rescuing her and kissing her, during which a fair bit of her drenched condition had transferred itself to him, into jeans and a grey, fine-wool round-necked sweater.

  With his thick, ruffled dark-blond hair, those unusual eyes, his lean, strong lines beneath his jeans and sweater, and with his beautiful hands, she noticed suddenly, he was just as attractive.

  Similar build-glorious physiques in other words, similar good looks, but-two very different characters, she reflected.

  The first Rafe had been charming, he’d been easy-going, he’d really made her laugh at the same time as he’d made her feel desirable and able to view the world a little less darkly in his company.

  Yet, despite allusions to a wealthy background, she would never have taken him for the CEO of a minerals corporation, whereas the man sitting opposite her struck her as exactly that.

  He definitely had the aura of a clever, powerful businessman who knew what he wanted and got it. It was there in the way he spoke, in his gestures and the way he handled people. It had been there in the few images she’d brought up on her computer that had puzzled her and made her wonder if they were one and the same man.

  In other words, beneath those good looks, and wonderfully honed, tall body, there was a lot more substance to this man, there was even a faintly dangerous edge to him that made you stop and think twice about tangling with him.

  But she was telling the truth, she reminded herself, so what did she have to lose?

  ‘You may do your darnedest, Mr Sanderson,’ she told him quietly. ‘I have nothing to hide.’

  ‘I see.’ He said it quite neutrally, but his gaze was extremely penetrating and acute.

  So penetrating, Maisie found herself thinking some bizarre thoughts.

  How was he seeing her?

  Simply as a troublesome thorn in his side? A girl who’d got herself into trouble and was therefore beyond the pale?

  Or, had any of the deliciously feminine sensations he’d aroused in her got through to him? Something had prompted him to kiss her, after all, so he’d been the one to make the first move, but…

  ‘Good,’ he said, breaking into her thoughts. ‘Well, now that we’ve got that settled, let’s make a move.’ He got up and picked up her plate.

  ‘Oh, I’ll do that-unless you need me up top?’

  ‘Thanks, but I can manage.’ He turned away and ascended the steps to the deck two at a time.

  Maisie watched him go and she drew a sudden, startled little breath to discover that it was far from settled for her.

  His athleticism stripped away his sweater and jeans in her mind and presented her with an image of him unclothed, and her imagination ran riot.

  She pictured herself on the aft berth with him laughing down at her with tender, wicked amusement as if at an intimate joke only they could share.

  Her thoughts roamed on and she realised that if that amusement changed to Rafe Sanderson looking at her with heavy-lidded desire, it would send her to the moon…

  Even just the thou
ght of it, and the images that accompanied it, raised her pulses to fever pitch and left her awash with sensation all through her body.

  Maisie, Maisie, she thought in some desperation, don’t let this happen to you! Think of your fatherless baby if nothing else.

  CHAPTER THREE

  T HEY didn’t make it to Manly-they didn’t manage to leave Horseshoe Bay.

  Maisie started to clear up her late lunch, waiting expectantly to hear the yacht’s motor fire, which it did, only to be cut off after a few minutes and without them moving.

  She glanced expectantly at Rafe as he came downstairs, to see him looking annoyed.

  ‘Trouble?’ she hazarded.

  ‘Yep, the motor’s overheating.’ He started to roll up a section of carpet in the saloon and she realised he was going into the engine room through the floorboards. ‘I haven’t been out on her for ages, and that’s always a bad thing to do to boats.’

  ‘I know. A problem with the cooling system?’ she hazarded.

  ‘Most likely. You’re a mine of unexpected information, Maisie. How come you know so much about boats?’

  She told him.

  ‘So that’s how you got onto the berth, I wondered.’ He heaved up a section of floorboard. ‘Could you put the engine-room light on from that switchboard?’ He pointed. ‘Could you also bring me the torch that’s in the locker under those stairs?’ He pointed again.

  ‘Aye, aye, skipper!’ She did it all, then sat down on the carpet to watch as he worked in the confined space.

  After a time, she said as she heard a muffled oath, ‘You’ve found it?’

  ‘Yes. A broken fan belt. Listen, Maisie,’ he half rose out of the depths of the engine room, rubbing his hands on a piece of waste cotton, ‘this is going to take a bit of time to fix but I’ve got a spare. And we do have to fix it before we can move because what little wind there was has died right down, so there’s no chance of sailing.’

  ‘And fan belts can be the devil to fit,’ she said ruefully. ‘Just getting to them in that confined space can be a nightmare.’

  ‘You’re not wrong. So, we’ll either be late or we might not make it at all.’