Jenna blinked. She found she had to blink several times.
Karli was gazing at Riley with stars in her eyes.
‘And now it’s mine?’
‘It’s yours to do with as you like, Karli,’ he told her. ‘If you like, when you get to a city you can take it to the museum and ask them to tell you exactly how old it is. You can look at the other rocks and see what else has been found from long ago. Sometimes museums really like rocks like this and maybe if it’s very, very special they’ll ask if they can borrow it and put it in a glass case so that everyone can see your special rock. If they do that then they’ll put a notice on the bottom of the case saying where it was found and that it’s your rock. It’s your very special birthday gift, Karli. Your starfish and your sea-snail.’
Karli turned to Jenna, her face glowing.
‘My sea-snail. My starfish.’
‘Yes.’ She was having a bit of trouble with her voice.
‘It’s dirty,’ she told Jenna. ‘I’ll be able to wash it with my new soap.’
‘You can do that.’
‘It’s lovely.’ Karli turned back to Riley. ‘It’s the bestest present. Now let’s eat some cake.’
CHAPTER SIX
THE cake was not great. The cake, in fact, was ghastly, but Karli would have eaten cardboard if she’d been told it was birthday cake and Riley manfully got his down. Then, with the excitement over, Karli drooped and Jenna took her off to bed while Riley did the washing-up.
She came back into the kitchen as he was stacking newly washed plates on her newly washed shelves. He was fingering each plate as if he couldn’t believe it.
She stood in the doorway for a moment and watched him. He was so big. His masculinity filled the room, she thought. And here he was, polishing his plates as if they were giving him pleasure. The man was seriously…nice?
He turned and found her watching, and she found herself starting to blush.
‘What?’ he demanded and she hesitated, searching for the answer. What? She didn’t know what the question was. What?
‘I like to see a man immersed in domesticity,’ she told him at last, and she managed a smile. ‘There’s been little enough domesticity around here to make me notice it when I see it.’
‘Hey, I’m domestic.’
‘Would Maggie agree?’
‘Sure she would.’
She knew nothing about him, she thought. Nothing. She was in his house, he was supplying their food and accommodating them and being wonderful to her little half-sister and she knew nothing about him at all.
‘Where’s Maggie?’ she asked.
‘At Munyering.’
‘Where’s Munyering?’
‘Out the back of beyond,’ he told her, and then, as she looked exasperated, he motioned south. ‘It’s about five hundred miles thataway.’
‘So you and Maggie have a distant relationship.’
‘About as close as I ever want with a woman,’ he told her, and then looked as if he didn’t understand why he’d just said what he’d said. He caught himself. ‘I mean… We suit each other just fine.’
‘But she’s not your wife.’
‘No.’
‘You’re definitely not married?’
‘No.’
‘Have you ever been married?’
‘What is this?’
‘Twenty questions,’ she told him. ‘You know far too much about me and I know nothing about you. Have you ever been married?’
‘Once. It didn’t work out.’
‘Kids?’
‘No.’
‘Dogs? Guinea pigs? Budgerigars?’
‘No and no and no.’
‘Friends?’
‘No.’ That was out before he could stop it. He stilled and she met his eyes across the room and their gaze locked and held.
‘No friends,’ she said softly. ‘Apart from Karli, who’s your devoted friend for life. She’s gone to sleep clutching her fossil like other kids go to bed clutching their teddy bear.’
‘Why hasn’t Karli got a teddy bear?’
The question came out of left field, turning the tables neatly.
‘I imagine she’s been given several,’ she said slowly. ‘Nicole would have lost them or given them away or simply left them behind in hotel rooms because they were a nuisance. She’d buy more on a whim. Then when she and Brian split, Brian would have replaced whatever Nicole supplied by something that would have annoyed the hell out of Nicole. And so on. I learned as a kid never to show affection for any of my toys. If my father gave it to me then my mother would destroy it and vice versa. In the end it was easier not to get attached at all.’
‘So you were left with nothing?’
‘I escaped,’ she told him. ‘We’re talking about Karli.’
‘How can you say you’ve escaped?’ he said gently. ‘You don’t escape the past.’
‘Says the man with no friends.’ Two could play at turning the tables. ‘I can’t believe you have no friends. That’s a crazy statement.’
‘I don’t exactly live in a place where friends drop in.’
‘You don’t live here, though, do you?’ she said cautiously. ‘I mean, not all the time. This is a place you come to work.’
‘The place where I base myself is just as isolated.’
‘But not as dusty.’
‘No,’ he admitted, smiling a little. ‘Not as dusty. You really have done an amazing job.’
‘It was fun.’
‘I’ve never met a single woman who’d think this was fun,’ he told her and she shrugged.
‘You move in the wrong circles.’
‘Unlike you. Child of rock star and racing driver.’
‘They have nothing to do with me. My friends aren’t their friends. My friends are mostly nurses and, yes, most of us know what hard work is and we know it can be a pleasure all by itself.’
He was staring at her as if he couldn’t work her out.
‘Are you really a nurse?’
‘I really am a nurse.’
‘How the hell does Charles Svenson’s daughter end up being a nurse?’
‘I don’t think you understand anything about me,’ she said softly.
‘No. I don’t. So tell me.’ He left the sink and sat down, gesturing to the chair on the other side of the table.
‘You’re tired.’ She hesitated, but sat down as well. ‘You don’t want to listen to my life history when you should be going to bed.’
‘Sure I’m tired,’ he said, and he threw her that gorgeous, disconcerting smile. ‘I need a bedtime story.’
‘I…’
‘Just tell me,’ he said gently, and suddenly his hand came across the table and gripped hers. Strong and sure and compelling. ‘I want to know.’
‘I don’t know why,’ she said, trying to haul her hand away, but still he held.
‘I don’t know either,’ he admitted. ‘But tell me. Tell me about your parents.’
‘I don’t… I don’t know my parents. I never have.’
‘Why not?’
She faltered. How to describe the relationship or the lack of the relationship? How to tell anyone?
But his hand was warm and strong and he’d given Karli a gift that Jenna knew she would treasure for ever.
She owed him the truth.
‘Nicole gave birth to me, but that was it,’ she told him, tugging once more on her fingers and then giving up. She liked her hand being in his, she decided. It didn’t mean a thing, she knew-but she liked it.
‘And your father?’ he prodded and she made herself go on.
‘Charles fathered me but there wasn’t any attachment there either. I was the only link they had to each other. They hated each other and I was a financial obligation. I was placed in boarding-school when I was younger than Karli. Then they fought over who should pay-and who had to shoulder responsibility for me during the long holidays. Which of them had to fork out for hotel bills for me.’
‘Hotel bills?’
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‘You don’t think they’d care for me themselves, do you?’
‘I guess not.’
She shrugged. ‘I didn’t mind the hotels so much. But school… Every now and then the school would ask that I be taken away as no one had paid the fees. The kids gave me a hard time about my celebrity parents who refused to pay and never came near me. Then, when I was fourteen, the school said I couldn’t stay any longer. My fees were so far overdue that the school wrote to my parents and said to come and collect me.’
She hesitated, but she’d gone this far. She might as well tell him everything. ‘So I lied and forged a letter from Nicole and told the school authorities I had to catch the train and meet my mother in London.’
He frowned. Still his hand held hers. ‘Why did you lie?’
‘Because no one was ever coming to get me,’ she said, and the old anger echoed in her voice. ‘Every girl in the school knew that my fees hadn’t been paid. I hated it. I think… I hated everyone then. Anyway, I caught the train and went to London and tried to get work. I lived on my wits for months until a reporter from a tabloid daily found me.’
Riley was rubbing her fingers, caressing each in turn. ‘How did he find you?’ he asked gently, and she flinched at the gentleness in his voice.
‘Don’t you dare feel sorry for me.’
His lips curved into a half-smile. ‘I daren’t.’
‘I was fine,’ she told him, almost belligerently. ‘I had a job washing dishes in a little Chinese restaurant where they didn’t ask any questions and they paid cash. Neither of my parents even knew I was missing. That was okay by me. But I was stupid enough to talk about my background to one of the kids in the squat I was living in and he told the press what Nicole Razor’s daughter was doing. For money. The press had a field-day.’
‘Tough,’ Riley said softly, and she flashed a suspicious glance at him. But his face was almost impersonal. That was how she needed him to be, and somehow he knew it.
‘So what happened then?’ he asked, and she made herself continue.
‘My parents were mortified. Of course. Their daughter living as a street kid. But they weren’t as mortified as I was. I was dragged back to school by one of my father’s employees. My mother’s agent rang me and told me I was ruining Nicole’s career and I should be ashamed. I had to put up with the girls at school reading the whole story in the scandal pages of the newspapers.’ She shrugged and managed a small smile. ‘Okay, you can feel sorry for me now a little bit, if you like.’
He smiled back, just a little. ‘How much can I feel sorry for you?’
‘Minimum,’ she told him. ‘I don’t need it. I didn’t need it then.’
‘Why not?’
She grinned. ‘Because from then on it was better. It was like I’d hit a wall and managed to get through. I’d learned some street smarts and the bullies at school learned to leave me alone.’
‘I might have guessed they would,’ he said, and there was no mistaking the sudden admiration in his voice. ‘Any woman who conquers my roofing iron must have run rings around a few school bullies.’
‘I did,’ she said, and her smile deepened. This man had the capacity to lighten her spirits. Lighten her…life?
‘So then what?’ he prodded, and she had to force herself to remember where she was in her pathetic little story.
‘I’d had enough,’ she told him. ‘I stayed at school until I was old enough to get into a nursing course, and then I was out of there so fast you couldn’t see me for dust. I didn’t talk about my parents and they sure as heck didn’t talk about-or to-me. I worked my way through my nursing training and I’ve asked for and accepted no help from either of my parents since. That’s it. End of story. If it wasn’t for me finding out-via the tabloids again-about Karli’s existence, I’d have had no contact with them since.’
Silence.
It had been a long speech for Jenna, she decided as she sat still with her hand still in his. She’d so seldom talked about her life. Just once, as a lonely fourteen-year-old, she’d told someone the story of her upbringing. She’d thought the kid in the squat was a friend and he’d sold her story for money.
She’d learned the hard way to shut up.
Riley could sell this story for money, too, she knew. The tabloids would have a field-day with what was happening, especially now with Nicole recently dead.
She looked across the table, absorbing the fact that he was still holding her hand and he didn’t look as if he intended to give it up.
‘I…you won’t tell? I mean, it’s private. I don’t…’
‘Do you really think I’d sell you out?’
She blinked. Riley was looking at her as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. But the expression on his face…
She could trust this man. She knew she could trust him.
‘You really are on your own,’ he said slowly, but she shook her head.
‘I’m twenty-six. I have a career, and back home I have friends. I’m not alone any more. It’s only Karli who’s desperately alone. Nicole’s dead, but Karli’s still legally dependent on Brian. I don’t know what will happen to her now.’
His eyes were on hers, asking questions. Receiving answers? Maybe. He could see into her, this man. The more she saw of him, the more she knew she was exposed.
He was still holding her hand.
‘You’ll try and keep her with you,’ he said softly, as if he was stating the obvious, and she nodded.
‘Yes.’
‘And who’ll pay?’
But it was a mistake. She’d been telling all, he’d been pushing the boundaries and suddenly here was a boundary she didn’t want broached.
‘Back off,’ she said, and her anger startled her as well as him. But it was the way to go. In truth she had no answer to his question and she’d learned-the hard way-that in times of crisis it was infinitely better to attack rather than defend. She hauled her hand away from his and stared at him across the table-to see him looking astonished.
‘Hey, I’m not about to push. If you don’t want to talk about it, that’s fine by me.’
He looked taken aback.
Maybe she had overreacted.
‘Um…whoops.’ She gave a rueful grin, but she kept her hand very firmly on her side of the table. ‘Sorry. It’s just I’m not used to people helping. I’m not used to people asking questions when they don’t want something of me.’
‘I don’t want anything of you.’
‘I know that.’ She did.
‘You really are by yourself.’
‘No,’ she said, and, despite her regret at her reaction, the anger was still there, try as she would to fight it. ‘Alone I can cope with. I’ve learned that alone is a really good way to be. But now I have Karli and it’s a whole new world. Somehow I have to figure out a way to keep her safe. If she’d been left money…’
‘But Brian’s robbed her of that.’
‘As you say.’ Her face closed. It was time to move on. For heaven’s sake, what was she thinking of, telling her personal problems to this man? Just because he was big and kindly and he’d given a gift to Karli that had made her want to weep…
He was exhausted. She could see it in his face-and she was none too perky herself. She’d worked very, very hard today.
‘It’s time we went to bed,’ she said, attempting briskness. ‘I’m sorry about the life-story bit.’
‘I asked.’
‘Yeah, people do,’ she told him. ‘And I’m usually not stupid enough to answer.’
‘I don’t think you’re stupid.’
There was a moment’s silence. A loaded silence. She stared down at her hand that had so recently lain in his. She missed the contact. The warmth. The strength.
She had to be sensible. She needed to be sensible.
‘You’ll go out again in the morning?’
‘I have more work to do.’
‘Us, too. We thought we’d attack the bedrooms in the morning.’
&
nbsp; ‘There’s no need.’
‘Call it payment for board and lodging. There’s only one more day before the train comes through and Karli and I are having fun.’
‘Fun?’
‘Yeah, it is.’ She smiled, moving on. ‘We’re enjoying ourselves. And…it’s time out before we face what we have to face.’
‘You know you’ll have paparazzi all over you the minute you get on that train.’
She stilled. ‘Pardon?’
‘They know you’re here.’
‘The press knows I’m here?’
‘I was talking to the Territory police today and there’s huge press interest. You could sell your story-’
He got no further. She was standing, her face blazing anger. ‘You told them. You radioed them and told them I was here. So I’ll have every newspaper reporter and every cameraman known to man in Karli’s face the minute I get on board that train. You toe-rag. You low-life, belly-crawling worm. You lying, cheating, dirt-bag.’
‘Hey, steady on,’ he said mildly, but she was in full swing.
‘How much did they pay you? How much have you embellished the story? And are you going to head out to your radio right now and add in what I’ve just told you for good measure? I thought I could trust you, Riley Jackson. I’m stupid, stupid, stupid. Of all the two-timing, low-down, bottom-feeding-’
‘You don’t feel you might just be being a teensy bit over-dramatic?’
She paused for breath. The man was looking amused. Amused!
‘Dramatic?’ She grabbed the first thing to hand-the remains of one sad chocolate cake-and threw it straight at him. It hit him fair in the chest. It rolled to the floor.
It bounced.
His lips quirked.
‘If you laugh I’m going to have to kill you,’ she said carefully and his lips quirked again.
‘Death by chocolate cake. I can see that.’
‘It’s nothing to laugh about.’
‘No, but it’s nothing to yell about either.’ He rose and retrieved the cake. ‘We ate some of this,’ he said, examining it doubtfully from all angles. ‘It looks like it’s turning to concrete. What do you reckon it’ll do to our insides?’
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