Wife in the Making

by Lindsay Armstrong

  ‘I take it they didn’t get on?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And you were often the one in the middle?’

  ‘Yep. Anyway, when this modelling offer did come my way, I took it.’ She looked rueful. ‘All those classes must have paid off because I was flooded with more offers; my mother was thrilled, and even my father was happy for me. And it was fun to an extent although much harder work than people realize. There was also,’ she spread her hands, ‘a dilemma for me in that there was, is, a studious side to me and sometimes I couldn’t believe it was really me, strutting my stuff down a catwalk in all these gorgeous clothes or wearing Versace against a background of Kakadu, for example, for a photo shoot.’

  ‘So I was right about the steel-trap mind? Let me guess—a straight-A student?’

  She looked rueful. ‘Almost.’

  ‘Let me also guess,’ he said and watched her narrowly for a moment, ‘that’s when the high-life began. The champagne and roses, wealthy men, the races, your acquaintance with five-star island resorts and the like?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said simply. ‘But, contrary to what you have suggested, there has only been one man in my life in that way.’ There was also a challenging little glint in her blue eyes now.

  But Bryn Wallis didn’t apologize for anything. He said instead, ‘He must have done an awful lot of damage.’

  ‘What he did do,’ Fleur said evenly, ‘was appear to fall in love as much with me as I did with him. We were together for a year.’ She shrugged. ‘What I gradually discovered was, we had quite different expectations of where it would lead.’

  ‘Marriage, six kids?’ Bryn hazarded. ‘Whereas he wanted a perpetual glamour girl on his arm?’

  ‘Precisely.’

  ‘Are you telling me you’re gorgeous, studious and—seriously—a contented little homebody all at the same time?’

  Fleur stared at him for a long, fraught moment and then she stood up. ‘I don’t know why I’m telling you anything,’ she retorted crisply, and put her hands on her hips. ‘Why should you find that so hard to believe?’

  His gaze travelled up her bare legs, took in the curve of her hips and swell of her breasts beneath her shirt and shorts and finally arrived to clash with her own. ‘I could be the same kind of man.’

  ‘You certainly…you confuse the life out of me,’ she said frustratedly. ‘One minute you’re trying to help, the next… Oh, what the hell!’ She picked up her towel and costume and marched away.

  He wasn’t far behind her. ‘Watch your step, Fleur,’ he advised. ‘This path is tricky at the best of times and shouldn’t be marched over in a temper.’

  No sooner had he said it than she lost her footing and collapsed in a heap. But she sat up almost immediately to drag her tumbled hair out of her eyes, which were blazing.

  ‘Fleur.’ He knelt down beside her but she interrupted him.

  ‘If this is one of those…situations out of a romance novel where I’ve conveniently sprained my ankle and you…have to pick me up and clasp me to your manly chest, I’ll…I’ll scream!’ she threatened furiously.

  Not a muscle moved in his face but his eyes were a different matter. ‘Do you have a sore ankle?’ he asked gravely.

  ‘And don’t you dare laugh at me either, Bryn Wallis!’ she commanded.

  ‘I’m not—’

  ‘Oh, yes, you are! I can see it in your eyes.’

  He allowed himself the faintest smile then was all seriousness. ‘Uh…should we just concentrate on any injuries you might have sustained?’

  She gritted her teeth.

  ‘What say I just help you up?’ he suggested.

  She started to protest that she didn’t need any help but he picked her up and set her on her feet. ‘How’s that?’

  She put her full weight on both ankles, one of which was sore, to her disgust, but, after testing it for a few moments, not that sore, she discovered. ‘I’ll be OK,’ she told him.

  He grinned crookedly down at her. ‘What a pity. Although I’m not seriously wishing a sprained ankle on you, and, to be honest, I’m relieved on another front.’ He looked up the headland. ‘Clasping you to my manly chest is one thing but carrying you over that would be quite a task. Not that I wouldn’t be capable or manly enough to do it,’ he assured her, ‘but it would be quite a task.’

  Fleur set her lips but they refused to stay set. Hard as she tried, she couldn’t escape the humour of the situation, as she had set it out and he had contributed to it. ‘It’s not funny really,’ she said. ‘I mean, I just…’ She stopped and had to laugh.

  And it happened again, they were laughing together then they were kissing each other. In a warm and friendly way at first. He kissed the tip of her nose and remarked that one of the things he liked about her was her sense of humour. She replied that it was impossible not to have a sense of humour around him! He laughed and put his arms around her to hug her—and that was when it started to turn serious.

  They sobered and stared into each other’s eyes and she knew she couldn’t hide what being in his arms did to her. To feel the length and strength of his legs against hers, the hard muscles of his diaphragm against her slim figure, to be able to drink in his dynamic masculinity, through all her senses, even her pores, was too much to withstand. She simply couldn’t resist when he started to kiss her deeply. She could only kiss him back fervently.

  Nor was she helped by the fact that she had no underwear on beneath her shorts and T-shirt—it had seemed pointless to put on her costume beneath her clothes. So there was nothing to hinder his fingers as they explored her breasts, nothing to stop him touching her nipples and sending shivers of rapture through her as they rose to twin aching mounds, so sensitive that she sighed with a mixture of pain and pleasure.

  But she wasn’t alone in being vulnerable to physical delight. As often, Bryn wore no shirt, and she found that it was not only intoxicating to her to trail her lips over the smooth tanned skin of his shoulders, to allow her fingertips to twirl through the coppery curls on his chest, but also caused him to breathe unevenly and hold her even closer. He cupped her hips and she slipped her hands around his neck and tipped her head back.

  He kissed her throat and she opened her hands and slid her palms down his chest. He released her hips and moved his hands, beneath the elastic waist of her shorts, to the most secret, intimate part of her. She gasped and her eyes widened but he continued to kiss her throat, and she slid her hands round him to smooth them up and down the long, powerful muscles of his back, and to quiver throughout the length of her at what he was doing to her as wave after wave of exquisite sensation ran through her.

  ‘Take it off, your T-shirt,’ he said barely audibly against the corner of her mouth, at the same time as he gave her a brief respite, which made her bite her lip on the urge to tell him not to stop—anything.

  ‘I…’ She couldn’t go on and she closed her eyes, completely swamped by the powerful effect he was having on her. And she withdrew her hands from his body, crossed her arms protectively over her at first, then found the hem of her T-shirt, and pulled it off over her head.

  He stared down at the delicate skin revealed with a faint tracery of salt on it, at the perfection of her breasts with their unfurled velvety tips, and kissed her deeply. Then he slipped one arm around her waist, holding her into him but allowing her to tip her head back again. She did so, and his lips moved down her throat towards her breasts, like a trail of fire. And that most intimate exploration of her commenced again at the same time as he tugged each full nipple in turn with his teeth.

  She made a small husky sound that was halfway between despair and joy, then she gasped again and shuddered in his arms as he held her hard to him, and she felt him shudder too.

  They stood like that, together, breathing as one, until she opened her eyes at last and her lips parted to allow one word to escape. ‘Don’t…’

  ‘Only when you’re ready,’ he murmured.

  But it seemed to take an age f
or the sensations to subside within her. When she sighed at last he picked her up, took her back down the track and walked straight into the sea with her.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  WHAT have I done?

  The words ran through Fleur’s mind more than once during the day. But what was she to think, she wondered, in the strange aftermath to such passion that had overwhelmed them equally?

  They had floated side by side for a short distance then climbed out of the water and, by mutual, unspoken consent, started up the path again. The sun had been well above the horizon and her clothes had started to dry on her body.

  Bryn had given her his hand several times to help her over the rough patches and there’d been consideration and concern in his eyes when she’d stumbled a couple of times. He’d steadied her gently and asked her if she was ready to go on. He’d even looped her tangled hair behind her ears a couple of times, and wiped the sweat off her face with his towel when they’d paused to catch their breath. So that she still felt so physically close to him, but they’d said nothing to each other about what had happened between them.

  Then Clam Cove had come in sight, and she’d thought they must pause and somehow put into words their feelings. But no words had come to her, or to him. And halfway down they’d seen Tom on the beach waving to them energetically and starting up the path towards them…

  ‘Why didn’t you take me with you?’ he demanded when they met up.

  ‘You were asleep, old man,’ Bryn said to him.

  ‘You could have woken me up!’ Tom pointed out aggrievedly. ‘If you were going to wake Fleur up, why not me too? I hate being left out of things.’

  ‘I didn’t wake Fleur up. She didn’t know I was going over the headland.’

  ‘Didn’t you, Fleur?’

  ‘No, Tom. It was just a coincidence.’ With devastating consequences? she wondered. Was there to be no communication between them at all?

  ‘Oh, well,’ Tom shrugged philosophically then grinned impishly. ‘I forgive you this time! Bryn, don’t forget, we’re having a clean-up-the-garden day at school today and you promised to come and help.’

  ‘For my sins, so I did,’ Bryn murmured.

  ‘Would you like to come too, Fleur?’ Tom asked. ‘Mums and dads are coming!’

  Fleur looked over his head to his father as the implication of Tom’s words hit her. To see her own shock mirrored in Bryn’s eyes for a moment. Then he blinked and said to Tom, ‘Fleur has her own work to do, mate, so we won’t bother her. She’s also got a sore ankle.’

  Tom put his arms around Fleur’s waist. ‘You poor thing,’ he said. ‘I’ll walk you to your bungalow. Do you think that stuff you rubbed on me when I had chickenpox will help? There’s some left.’

  Fleur’s face softened and she went to stroke Tom’s head but stopped herself. And she tried to say lightly, ‘Thanks for the thought, Tom, but I’ll be fine! You two had better get on your bicycles! I’ll see you when you get back.’

  Fortunately, there was plenty to do for the rest of the day.

  Julene’s special evening that she’d promised the diners of the previous evening’s disaster was to take the form of a luau. Eric dug a pit for the fire over which a pig was to be roasted. Trestle tables were set up on the beach with colourful cloths, and Fleur spent her lunch hour helping to make leis.

  ‘I’m wearing a sarong,’ Julene announced. ‘So should you,’ she said to Fleur. ‘We want them to feel like castaways on a Pacific island.’

  ‘Sounds nice but I don’t happen to have one.’

  ‘I’ll lend you one! Sarah and Rose are happy to wear them.’ Sarah and Rose were the waitresses engaged for the evening. ‘And Eric is going to wear a lap-lap.’

  Fleur smiled. ‘Well, I guess I can’t let the team down. What about Bryn?’

  ‘Bryn will wear whatever he chooses. It’s no good telling him what to do or wear.’ This was said with something of a bite in her voice because there were times, despite looking over the fence, as she had admitted to once, when Julene did not see eye to eye with Bryn and it required Eric to keep the peace. She shrugged, however, and went on, ‘But I’ve got a lap-lap for Tom. There!’ She surveyed the pile of leis. ‘I think everything is under control—and there’s a full moon tonight. Avail yourself of it, kid, if you’ve got any sense.’

  Fleur blinked. ‘Do you mean me?’

  ‘Yep. Give him some of his own damn medicine. You in a sarong with flowers in your hair and around your neck, with a full moon—no better way to show Bryn Wallis a thing or two!’

  ‘I…I’m not sure I know what you mean.’

  Julene reached across to pat Fleur’s cheek. ‘Honey-child,’ she said affectionately, ‘you just let him know that if he wants you he’s going to have to come clean with you. See, take Eric, now; he’s like an open book, he’s just straight up and down, but Bryn is a different matter altogether—he’s much more complex and driven. You only have to look at all the things that bug him to know that!’

  Fleur raised her eyebrows heavenwards. Only a couple of days ago Bryn had thoroughly enraged the shire council with a letter to the local paper detailing to the last cent how their salaries had gone up in direct proportion to how services on Hedge Island had declined—she had been the one to field all the irate phone calls.

  ‘Damn!’ Julene continued, looking past Fleur. ‘Talk of the devil, there they are now! Bryn and Tom. Bryn told me this morning this could be all my show and he’d be happy to take orders, but that’s like asking a tiger to be a good little pussy cat! I was hoping they’d stay out longer.’ She marched off militantly.

  Fleur stared after her with an involuntary smile on her lips but a frown in her eyes. Come clean about what? she wondered. And how to handle an evening beneath a full moon wearing a sarong and flowers in the company of a man who had, that morning… She stopped her thoughts deliberately, and stood up to return to her office. The movement caused her to wince slightly as she put some weight on her ankle, but almost immediately she welcomed that little tremor of pain.

  In the normal course of events, it wouldn’t be enough to stop her doing much, but who was to know that? So she had the perfect excuse to miss the luau, and fully intended to use it…

  ‘There’s the sarong, Fleur!’

  Julene popped into the office at about four o’clock, to add, ‘Now promise me you’ll pick some flowers for your hair! By the way, Tom mentioned your sore ankle—should have told me earlier but I’ve got the perfect stuff for it.’

  She produced a tube of anti-inflammatory cream and an ice pack. ‘And anyway, all you’re designated for this evening is to be guest liaison officer and all you have to do is sit around, talk to the guests and look beautiful! So hop off to your cabin now, rest the ankle with the ice pack on it and we’ll see you around six. That’s when everyone is coming!’

  And she popped out, full of energy and determination.

  Fleur looked at the sarong, a lovely silky concoction in a pale ice green with vivid pink flowers on it, at the tube and the ice pack, and swore beneath her breath. Talk about being outgunned, not to mention having her mind read, she reflected bitterly.

  At half-past five, she reluctantly started to get ready.

  She’d slept for half an hour, and had a visit from Tom, who was delighted with his lap-lap and full of excited anticipation.

  ‘They’ve put up fairy lights in the trees and they’re going to play music,’ he told Fleur. ‘Bryn’s rigged up the speakers from the CD player on the beach and they’ve put down a dance floor. This is going to be a damn good party!’ he added.

  ‘Tom,’ Fleur murmured, hiding a smile, ‘I don’t think you’re old enough to use that kind of language.’

  He wrinkled his nose at her. ‘I heard Eric say it.’

  ‘Eric is a lot older than you are.’

  ‘Does that mean it’s not wrong but you’ve got to be twenty-one or something to say it? Why? I know I can’t drive a car because I can’t reach the pedals, so that�
�s a good reason, but I don’t understand this.’ He looked to her for enlightenment.

  ‘I hear what you’re saying, dude,’ she replied. ‘A lot of things kids are not allowed to do are because they’re not big enough or strong enough or it might stop them growing. But swearing, you see,’ she paused for inspiration, ‘well, some people believe that swearing is not good for anyone, it’s just not nice. That’s why kids are discouraged from it. But when you’re grown up you can make up your own mind about it.’

  Tom thought for a bit then shrugged. ‘If it’s good enough for Bryn and Eric, it’ll probably be good enough for me, when I’m grown up. OK, I’ll wait until then. Oh, I forgot!’ He ran onto the veranda and returned with a bucket of hibiscus and frangipani blooms. ‘Julene said these were for you!’

  At five to six, she stared at herself in the rather inadequate mirror. Her hair was loose with one flower pinned in at the side. She’d tried tying the sarong several ways and opted for a halter style and wore a swimsuit underneath. She was just about to put the lei round her neck, when footsteps sounded on her veranda.

  ‘Knock, knock,’ a voice said—Bryn’s. ‘Are you decent?’

  She hesitated and her hands tightened on the lei, crushing some of the flowers. She put it on anyway and said, ‘I’m just on my way down—if you’ve been deputized to come and get me. You go on; I won’t be a moment.’

  But he appeared in the doorway. ‘I’ve brought you a drink.’

  She looked across at him and swallowed. As Julene had predicted, it was no good telling Bryn what to wear. He had blue jeans on and a freshly pressed khaki bush shirt. His hair was brushed and he was neatly shaved. There was no bandanna, no pirate shirt, no attempt to look as if he were a castaway on a south-Pacific island. This was yet another Bryn, a stranger. He also had two glasses in his hands.