‘So,’ Fleur groped for the right words, ‘you see yourself as a “love ’em and leave ’em but leave ’em with a smile on their faces” type?’
‘Thanks.’ He grimaced. ‘Even at two o’clock in the morning your steel-trap mind is functioning well, Fleur. No,’ he raised a hand to forestall her, ‘you’re right. But, as Stella demonstrated perhaps, I’m losing my judgement. Or, what’s worse, I had done it before and not known it.’
‘I see.’
‘That’s,’ he looked at her wryly, ‘not a steel-trap reply, Ms Millar.’
‘Then perhaps this is,’ she countered. ‘I think you’re trying to say that, like your sister, I’m desperately looking for love, or was, and got battered in the process by the kind of man you are yourself?’
He drew in a breath and something almost savage glinted in his eyes for a moment. Then he murmured, ‘Once again I’m suffering from the “it’s OK for me to admit these things but not so OK for you to agree” syndrome. That’s it in a nutshell, however. It’s also complicated by Tom’s growing affection for you, Fleur.’
‘Then I better pack my bags and go tomorrow, Bryn,’ she said.
He stood up abruptly. ‘Damn it, why don’t you put up a fight?’
She blinked. ‘You’ve just told me—’
‘I’ve tried to explain why I’m…in some difficulty with you, Fleur Millar. All I’ve had from you is a watery version of one man’s failings! There’s got to be more to it than that.’
She shot up off the bed. ‘Then how about I tell you about my failings, Bryn? I should have known! He was divorced, he already had children, he’d been through all that and was not about to go through it again. But I didn’t see it. And when I finally came to my senses and broke it off I was tempted to…to give as good as I had got, and I did for a while.’
‘How?’
Her eyes blazed. ‘No, I didn’t sleep with them, Bryn, but I went out with a few men, trying to be the party girl, the always sensationally dressed social girl they seemed to want, the girl they’d be happy to be seen with in the society pages. But it always came back to one thing—not one of them was interested in the real me; all they wanted was my body. And, what was worse, I started to realize how easy it was to move from one man to the next, looking for real love, perhaps just as your Alana did, Bryn.’
He closed his eyes. ‘So you retreated.’
‘I retreated. Too late, as it turned out, or,’ she shivered suddenly, ‘who knows?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘If you’d really like to know why I wanted to bury myself on your miserable island, I was being stalked. I…’
She stopped as, to her horror, hot painful tears were choking her.
‘Oh, Fleur,’ he said on a despairing breath, and took her in his arms, ‘why didn’t you tell me?’
CHAPTER SIX
‘TELL me about it,’ Bryn said gently.
Fleur was lying in his arms on the bed, where he’d taken her and simply held her until the paroxysm of tears had subsided.
Then she did tell him, gradually reliving the sense of claustrophobia, of always looking over her shoulder, the frustration, the fear and all the rest of it.
‘Did you go to the police?’
‘Yes, but it’s like fighting a shadow. He never showed himself, I didn’t recognize his voice, they had no idea where to start. He used to send me flowers but he used a false name when he ordered them. He used to ring me from a phone box and tell me what he’d seen me doing but it was always something dozens of people could have seen. He never threatened me, all he said he wanted to do was talk to me but…’ She shivered.
‘Go on.’
‘So I moved, I changed my job and got a silent number. A month later he rang me at work.’ She sighed. ‘It was only a few days after that that your job came up. That’s why…I really wanted it.’
Bryn moved restlessly. ‘What about your parents? Couldn’t they have helped?’
‘For the first time in years, that I can remember, they’re really close to each other. My father had a minor stroke but it seemed to bring them both to their senses and they decided to go overseas for a year. I think they’re really happy travelling the world and I didn’t want to bring them home with something I thought I could cope with.’
‘How did they take your affair with a divorcée?’
‘They weren’t that happy about it but they didn’t know how… I mean, I managed to persuade them I was fine when it ended.’
He reflected on this for a moment then he said, ‘I should have thought of that,’ he said. ‘I should have tied it up. I did sense how eager you were to get the job. I did suspect you were running away from a man, but not a stalker…then you stopped biting your nails. And you never seemed to want to leave Clam Cove. Why couldn’t you have told me, Fleur?’
‘At the interview?’ She shook her head. ‘Who wants to take on that kind of problem with an employee?’ She smiled tearfully. ‘There were enough things you didn’t like about me, anyway.’
He grimaced. ‘Well, later, then?’
She breathed unevenly. ‘I don’t know. I didn’t even want to think about it. I had started to feel so safe here.’
‘You are but there’s one way to make you even safer… You need a protector, Fleur. Here’s what I propose. That we just do it.’
‘Do what?’ she queried, smiling faintly because this was Bryn Wallis at his most ‘in charge’.
‘Get married, have six kids, spend the rest of our lives not hammering things to death but living the undoubted attraction we have for each other.’
She raised her head and looked at him quizzically. ‘That’s sweet and I know I should have expected the kind of solution only you could propose but I also know you’re not serious, so—’
‘On the contrary, I am.’
‘Bryn?’ she whispered, stunned.
‘I’ve made up my mind, Fleur,’ he warned. ‘Look, I know you love this place, right?’
‘I… How do you know that?’ she asked dazedly.
‘I see a deep sense of contentment in you at times, when you’re bird-watching, for example. When you’re looking at the gardens as if you would love to get in and do some gardening yourself. When,’ he paused, ‘it moves you to swim in the nude because it’s so beautiful.’
She rubbed her cheek on his shoulder and sighed. ‘Yes, I do. But—’
‘Then there’s Tom—’
‘No, Bryn,’ she sat up, ‘please. If Tom were your son and motherless I—’ She stopped suddenly.
‘That would make it all right?’ he said quietly. ‘Fleur, do you know what kind of an admission that is?’ he asked intently.
She closed her eyes and he pulled her back into his arms. ‘Tom has got to be told something soon, and all we can tell him is the truth, but should Alana ever come back we can never lose Tom entirely. And despite what I said, I don’t think the fact that he’s not my son is going to change the way you feel about Tom. After all, I am his uncle.’
‘How much harder is it going to make it for Tom, though, if she does come back?’
‘It’s never going to be easy for Tom,’ he said. ‘I don’t even know what will be harder for him—a mother who suddenly reappears in his life or one who doesn’t. But we can always give him our love and support.’
Fleur said nothing for a couple of minutes, then, ‘I can’t believe I’m even having this discussion with you, Bryn. You just don’t marry someone because they’re being stalked.’
He looked down at her, at his most enigmatic. ‘You think that’s all there is to it?’
‘Not that long ago you were telling me you’ve never found a woman you could contemplate spending the rest of your life with.’
‘Not that long ago I was fighting you, Fleur, for all sorts of reasons. As you were fighting me. But I think, each in our own stubbornness, we overlooked the most important thing of all. This.’ He took her chin in his hand and drew the outline of her mouth. ‘We have mad
e exquisite love to each other without even doing it. If you know what I mean.’
She searched his eyes at the same time as some delicate colour rose to her cheeks.
‘We have,’ he said barely audibly, ‘been united in an act so special and we were so stunned that we couldn’t find one damn thing to say about it, and it wasn’t even the final act between a man and a woman. We, Fleur Millar, are united whether we like it or not.’
‘Like that, yes,’ she said unsteadily, ‘but—’
‘But me no buts. Let it speak for itself.’
‘Bryn,’ she said on a breath, ‘have you no idea how impossible this is?’
He smiled faintly and untied the sash of her robe. ‘Tell me that later.’ He freed her from her robe and slid his hands beneath the wisp of silk that was her nightgown. She trembled as they roamed over her body and knew she should resist what was to come, but the truth was, she couldn’t. Because there was no pleasure on earth like the pleasure Bryn Wallis brought her, no rapture to equal it. And there was no way, she discovered, to tell herself that she hadn’t fallen in love with this often difficult, sometimes funny and charming, always fascinating man—and believe it.
But did that mean what he felt for her was the same?
Then she arched her body beneath his hands, and could think no more. He slipped her nightgown over her head and kissed her breasts, tugging at her nipples with his teeth as he’d done before. And when that became too much for her he stroked parts of her body that she’d never before thought of as erotic, with the lightest touch until, mysteriously, she felt more desirable than she’d ever felt before, like a siren or a mermaid, celebrated and unique.
She ran her hands down his back because the need to give as she was getting overwhelmed her, and felt him wince.
‘Oh,’ she gasped, ‘all your scrapes—’
‘Forget ’em.’ He looked into her eyes with those dancing glints in his good eye. ‘I never felt better in my life.’
‘You don’t look it.’
‘Then let’s concentrate on you. I once told you you were competence personified. I was wrong. You’re perfection personified. You’re…exquisite,’ he said unevenly.
‘I didn’t mean that; I just don’t want to hurt you.’
‘That should be my line,’ he murmured. ‘Does this…hurt?’ He eased his weight on to her.
‘No. I don’t think you’ve ever hurt me less. I mean…’ She stopped confusedly.
‘I know what you mean.’ He kissed her and slid his hands down to the tops of her thighs. ‘How about this?’
She felt herself grow warm and wet beneath his touch as her breathing grew ragged and she moved sensuously. ‘It’s…heavenly,’ she whispered. ‘Bryn—’
‘Don’t worry. I’m in the same situation,’ he said into her hair. ‘Dying, in other words.’ And he entered her at last.
‘Oh, thank heavens,’ she breathed. ‘It was so lovely last time but I think I would have died a little without…without…this.’ But there was no need to say any more as he moved on her and the rhythm of their lovemaking claimed her deeply and powerfully and she had never felt more abandoned, more wanton, more willing to participate in the lovely act they were performing.
When it came, their release was the only road left to them and it claimed them simultaneously, taking them to a height that was a soaring explosion of pleasure.
‘What was so impossible about that?’ he said huskily and unevenly when they could speak again. He still had her wrapped in his arms, she was still trembling in reaction. And she tried to reply several times but couldn’t frame any adequate words.
He kissed her then lifted his head to study her. ‘You remind me of a flower, you always did, but more of a bud then. A slim cool mysterious bud whereas now you’re a beautiful bloom. Say yes, Fleur. There’s no other way for us to be now this has happened.’
Two weeks later, Fleur studied Bryn secretly.
His black eye had faded, his knuckles had healed and she knew for a fact that his other cuts and scratches were healed. And she thought, as she studied him, about life and how strange it could be. Two years ago she’d thought herself deeply in love with a man she knew well, and had longed for marriage and children with him. Two days ago she’d married a man she’d known for less than two months and about whom she knew very little. Well, she temporized, one thing she did know, when he set his mind to it she was unable to resist him…
It had happened because he’d laid siege to her in a way that had overwhelmed her. Snatches of it came back to her as she lay beside him and studied him secretly…
‘We don’t know each other well enough to get married, Bryn.’
‘Nonsense, Fleur. You know exactly what I’m like! You’ve seen the worst of me—more than most, come to that.’
‘But…’ She paused.
‘The other thing is, you handle the worst of me like no other,’ he said with a crooked little smile.
They were sitting side by side on a log on the beach only hours after they’d made love and he’d proposed—if that was what you could call it. The sun was rising but there were high, feathery clouds in the sky promising wind and a perhaps less than balmy day. In fact, he’d raided his wardrobe after they’d realized it was a going to be a cooler day, and brought her one of his jumpers.
She pushed a far-too-long sleeve up and rubbed her nose on the back of her hand.
‘And there’s not much I don’t know about you,’ he continued.
‘You never talk about yourself, though,’ she said quietly. ‘Julene reckons you’re complicated and driven whereas Eric is like an open book and “straight up and down”.’
He looked amused. ‘What would you like to know?’
‘Are you driven and, if so, why?’
He took his time. ‘I was driven once. I used to report wars. I used to think that if people knew the truth of things it might make it a better world. Then I realized that I was no better than the rest of us at finding and recognizing the truth. So I came here.’
‘Had you planned to open a restaurant?’
‘No,’ he said ruefully. ‘I planned to be a castaway fiddling around with bits of wood, being self-sufficient and being here for Tom. Then I found it wasn’t enough, that I needed a challenge. I guess I inherited a cooking gene, so it seemed logical to think of a restaurant.’
‘There are times, though, when I could swear you hate cooking for the public.’
He put his arm around her shoulders. ‘There you are, you see. You do know me.’
‘How long will that kind of conflict be…liveable, Bryn?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said honestly. ‘I do know I still love this place but it could be that we move on in the future.’
She trembled against him. ‘You sound so sure we should do it.’
‘I am.’
Two days later, she said to him, ‘What are you doing when I see your light on in the early hours of the morning, Bryn?’
He looked surprised. ‘Don’t tell me we’re two of a kind in that as well?’
‘I… Sometimes I find it hard to sleep,’ she confessed.
‘So would I in your circumstances, but once we’re married you’ll never have to worry about that again. Mind you,’ he said ingeniously, ‘if our past record is anything to go on, sleeping may not always be top of the agenda for us.’
She smiled and coloured at the same time. He had just made love to her, and drawn an ecstatic response from her.
‘OK?’ he said and held her gently.
‘Oh, yes.’
‘So why did you blush?’
‘Perhaps I feel a bit foolish. I…it’s getting harder not to say yes,’ she conceded.
‘Good.’ His eyes danced wickedly.
‘You still haven’t told me what you do in the dead of night,’ she returned with some asperity.
‘Ah. I decided of all the causes one could espouse,’ he paused and it was almost as if he withdrew from her into another place, ‘the ab
olition of land-mines would be the one I should pursue. So I write a lot of letters and articles, that’s all.’
‘I salute you,’ she said very quietly.
He looked down into her eyes then drew her hard against him. ‘Thanks. Will you marry me, Fleur?’
Something she couldn’t identify stopped her in her tracks as she opened her mouth to temporize yet again. Something from an inner depth in him seemed to reach across to her, and suddenly she couldn’t refuse to be reached. ‘Yes…’
What was it, though, she wondered as she watched him secretly, that indefinable something that had reached across to her?
On the other hand, why she was unable to resist him was not nearly so obscure. She’d done the one thing she hadn’t thought she was capable of doing again—she’d fallen in love. She could tell herself, she thought, that it had more to do with the protection he offered from the awful nightmare of being stalked. It was certainly a valid point. Even back here in Brisbane as they were, she felt totally safe with him.
But the fact remained that she had married him only knowing the bare bones of his background. She’d married him without telling her parents, who were somewhere in Mexico, but that was all she knew, and before she’d met his father—something she was due to do today.
Then Bryn stirred and his eyes opened. ‘Why, Mrs Wallis,’ he murmured, ‘you’re awake early.’ And he pulled her from her position of watching him, with her head propped on her elbow, into his arms. ‘What were you thinking?’
‘All sorts of things,’ she replied.
‘You looked awfully serious.’
She shrugged and he kissed her bare shoulder.
‘Don’t tell me, let me guess,’ he said gravely. ‘You were wondering what the hell you’ve got yourself into?’
Her lips twitched. ‘I was pondering the strange twists and turns life can take, yes.’
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