Bridge to Nowhere
By
Yvonne Whittal
Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
'I'm a very persistent man,' Chad explained, his narrowed gaze flicking over her. 'When I see what I want, I make sure that I get it, and I happen to want you, Megan.'
'I can't give you what you want, Chad,' she said flatly, her candid glance not wavering from his.
'Can't, or won't, Megan?'
'I can't and I won't,' she clarified her statement quietly. 'I don't want the kind of relationship you envisage.'
'If it's marriage you're holding out for, then you're looking at the wrong man.'
First published in Great Britain 1989
by Mills & Boon Limited
© Yvonne Whittal 1989
Australian copyright 1989
Philippine copyright 1989
This edition 1989
ISBN 0 263 76478 8
CHAPTER ONE
The Post Office technician and his assistant gathered together their intricate equipment and prepared to vacate Megan O'Brien's curio shop as the hands of the wall clock shifted towards five. Megan had remained calm throughout the day, taking their lengthy intrusion in her stride, but she was immensely relieved when she finally saw them leave.
It had taken several hours that day to install a telephone in the newly erected veterinary building, and it was now linked to the telephone in Megan's shop. She had not objected to this temporary arrangement, but Byron Rockford's dark eyebrows met above his tawny eyes in a display of glowering displeasure as he stood observing the departure of the two men.
'I'm sorry about this, Megan,' he muttered, directing his frowning glance at Megan's small, slender frame as he thrust his big hands into the pockets of his khaki pants and leaned his tall, wide-shouldered frame against one of the glass-topped display counters.
Megan waved aside his apology. 'It was my suggestion, don't forget,' she reminded him, the corners of her soft mouth lifting in a smile as she tilted her head back to meet his steady gaze.
Byron Rockford was a ruggedly handsome individual in his late thirties and the sole owner of the Izilwane Game Park. He was married to Megan's cousin Frances, and over the past three years Megan had succumbed to an affectionate warmth for this man who had become such a vital member of her adopted family.
'I've been wanting to have a word with you all day, but there've been so many distractions.' Byron smiled apologetically, his glance holding Megan's. 'I wanted to thank you for making my old bungalow habitable for our resident vet.'
Megan's wide, candid blue eyes could sparkle with laughter as easily as they could cloud with compassion, but at that moment it was curiosity that lay in their depths. 'Has he arrived?' she asked.
'Not yet,' Byron replied with a shake of his head. 'I had a call from Chad McAdam about an hour ago to tell me that he's been delayed and wouldn't be arriving at the camp until late this evening.'
Chad McAdam! This was the first time Megan had been told the name of the man who was to be the resident veterinary surgeon in the game park, and a tiny shiver of shock rippled through her. She had no reason to believe that this would be the same man she had met very briefly almost a year ago in Johannesburg when she had attended a function at the home of Revil Bradstone and his attractive wife, Alexa, but hearing the name Chad McAdam still seemed to have the power to shake her considerably.
'I'll have to arrange that some of the restaurant staff remain on duty until McAdam arrives,' Byron intruded on Megan's scattered thoughts, and she pulled herself together sharply.
'The restaurant staff deserve a break,' she argued calmly. 'My bungalow is right next door to the one Dr McAdam will be moving into, and it would be no trouble at all to prepare a meal and leave it in the oven in his kitchen.'
Byron hesitated, an odd look flashing across his face, then he shook his head. 'That won't be necessary.'
'I'd like to help, Byron,' she insisted, taking a pace towards him, and in the shaft of afternoon sunlight coming through the shop window her honey-gold hair assumed a touch of brilliance as it curled softly about her small oval face. 'Honestly I would,' she added persuasively.
'You're a very giving young woman, Megan.' Byron scowled down at his dusty boots. 'Frances was right when she said that one could so easily take advantage of your kindness and your generosity, and I'd hate to think I might fall into that category by taking your assistance for granted.'
'Don't be silly!' She laughed off his remark with a touch of embarrassment. 'And don't take everything my dear cousin says so seriously. Frances set herself up as my defender and protector when we were children, and I shall always adore her for it, but I know I have more gumption than she sometimes gives me credit for. I enjoy doing things for the people I care about, but I absolutely draw the line at becoming a willing, mindless slave.'
Byron nodded with understanding, but he was still frowning when he left the curio shop a few minutes later and walked off in the direction of his office which was situated across the spacious foyer of the main building.
Megan closed up shop some minutes later. It had been a tiring and frustrating day, but that did not stop her from making her usual detour down a dusty Land Rover trail to where a small, makeshift enclosure was now situated within the confines of the new veterinary building. She had had the enclosure erected a few months ago when she had taken on the task of fostering an orphaned duyker, and it was a task which had afforded her a great deal of satisfaction.
The young duyker gambolled towards Megan when she entered the enclosure. It was eager for the handful of wild grass which she always picked along the way, and the late afternoon sun lengthened their shadows across the earth when Megan went down on her haunches to speak to the animal in a lowered voice.
'It's almost time for you to move out and fend for yourself.'
The duyker stared back at her with those uncomprehending, soulful brown eyes while it munched delicately on the succulent grass, and the pain of parting tugged mercilessly at Megan's heart. She reached out with the desire to stroke the smooth, greyish-brown coat, but the small antelope darted aside with an inherent wariness which had not dimmed during the course of rearing the animal in captivity.
'You'll be OK,' Megan murmured reassuringly to the watchful duyker, but she knew that her reassuring statement had been directed mainly at herself.
Byron had warned that the most difficult part of fostering an orphaned animal was having to set it free into the wild, and Megan sighed as she rose from her crouched position to leave the enclosure. The duyker would soon have to be released to roam free in the game park. But not yet, she told herself with agonising reluctance. Not yet!
The familiar smell of the bush was all around her, and she drew it deeply into her lungs as she paused in her stride along the concrete path which led to her bungalow. Her appreciative glance strayed across the large hillside camp with its attractively thatched bungalows, recreational facilities and shady mopani trees. In the distance, silhouetted against the blue, cloudless horizon, she could see the baobab trees which had fascinated her since her arrival in the bushveld town of Louisville. Their branches looked like roots jutting into the sky and, as a child, she had promptly dubbed them 'upside-down trees'.
Megan laughed inwardly at herself. She was now a woman of twenty-four, and she felt far removed from that insecure ten-year-old orphan who had arrived in Louisville fourteen years ago. She had grown to love the South
African bushveld and its people, and she was always impatient to return to her home when her illustrative work forced her to spend a few days in Johannesburg.
She had moved out of town to live with her cousin for a while on the farm, Thorndale, which Frances had purchased four years ago. Thorndale adjoined the game park, and Megan had enjoyed sharing the old stone homestead with her cousin, but it was time for her to move out when, less than a year after buying the farm, Frances married Byron Rockford. Both Byron and Frances had tried to persuade Megan to stay on, but she had been adamant. A bungalow which was within walking distance of her curio shop at Izilwane would be ideal, and Frances and Byron had finally agreed, knowing that she would be safe within the confines of the camp in the game park.
A smile of pleasure lifted the corners of Megan's soft mouth when she finally went into the one-bedroomed bungalow which was now her home. The curtains at the window matched the design of the woven rugs which lay scattered across the tiled floor in the small lounge, and she had added a few personal items to the customary cane and pine furnishings to give the bungalow a homely, lived-in appearance, but it was not the decor she was thinking about as she quickened her stride through the lounge into her bedroom. It had been a long and suffocatingly hot day, and she was eager for a shower and a change of clothing before she ventured into the kitchen to prepare dinner.
Half an hour later, refreshed and considerably cooler in a floral cotton skirt and white blouse, she was moving about efficiently in the small kitchen which Byron had had built on for her to make the bungalow more comfortable. She enjoyed cooking for herself in the evenings and seldom had a meal in the restaurant. It was a form of therapy, but on this particular evening she felt vaguely disturbed.
Her thoughts insisted on drifting back almost a year to that occasion when Revil Bradstone, chairman of Bradstone Promotions, had summoned her urgently to his offices in Johannesburg to commission her to do the illustrations for one of his company's many projects. It was during her week-long stay in the city that she had been invited to attend a function at Revil's home, and it was there that she had encountered the man who was to blame for the turbulent thoughts coursing through her mind.
Chad McAdam had been one of the many guests on that warm night who had spilled out on to the wide terrace from the Bradstones' spacious living-room. They had not been introduced, Megan had heard his name quite by chance, but for some obscure reason she had never entirely forgotten him. She had glimpsed him leaning nonchalantly against a pillar at the far end of the well-lit terrace, a drink in his hand and a stunning brunette hovering at his side, and she could remember thinking that he was the best-looking man she had ever set eyes on.
Megan had stared, she could not help it, and when he had looked her way, sensing her appraisal, she should have felt nothing stronger than mild embarrassment, but instead she had been mortified. His warm, assessing gaze had touched her with an arrogant intimacy that had made her blood clamour hotly through her veins in response, but just as swiftly he had subjected her to a cold, almost contemptuous stare.
Chilled and shaken to the core, she had seen his firm mouth curving in a cynical smile as if, in some uncanny way, he had been aware of every confusing emotion which had spiralled through her, and, after all this time, Megan still cringed inwardly when she recalled the stinging heat which had suffused her cheeks. She had left the Bradstone residence soon afterwards, determined to forget that brief encounter with Chad McAdam, and she thought she had succeeded. Until now!
The man who was taking up the position of resident veterinary surgeon at Izilwane could not possibly be the same cold-eyed, cynical-mouthed man she had met a year ago. That would be just too much of a coincidence, she told herself sternly, but she could not halt those tiny shivers of apprehension that were racing along her spine.
'Don't be an idiot, Megan O'Brien!' she reprimanded herself sternly while she added the diced potatoes and carrots to the meat stewing on the stove. 'You're jumping to conclusions, and that isn't like you at all!'
She somehow shrugged the matter aside, and channelled her thoughts in a positive direction. Now that the busy summer season was behind them she would have time to take an inventory of the stock in her shop. March through to May were always relatively quiet months, with the exception of the Easter holidays, and perhaps she would also have the opportunity to do the landscape painting which Frances had asked for so long ago.
It was seven-thirty that evening when Megan collected the key to the bungalow which had been allotted to the vet and, balancing the tray on one knee, she unlocked the door and went inside. The interior was spotless, she had seen to that personally, but she was filled with dismay when she went into the kitchen and flicked the light switch against the wall. One of the kitchen windows had been left open, and the cupboard tops were covered with a layer of dust after the freak wind which had ripped through Izilwane the day before.
Megan saw to the food she had brought across on the tray, then she set to work, wiping the surface of the kitchen cupboards and rinsing out the cloth in the water she had tapped into the sink beneath the window. She worked swiftly, in a hurry to get back to the sketches she had started after dinner, but she was wiping down the last cupboard when she heard a car door slamming, and the sound jarred her nerves.
She drained the sink hastily and wiped it while her glance darted anxiously at the door, considering it as a possible means of escape. It led out into a small, gated courtyard from where she could dart across to her own bungalow, but it was too late. She could hear footsteps in the lounge, and they were rapidly approaching the kitchen.
Megan had never before been nervous of meeting strangers, but for some peculiar reason her natural calm deserted her on this occasion when she realised that she was no longer alone. Her heart was beating wildly in her throat, almost suffocating her, and there was a visible tremor in her hands as she wrung out the cloth and draped it across the dish rack to dry.
She turned slowly, forcing a smile to her lips and desperately trying to compose herself, but her smile froze about her mouth as she faced the dark-haired man who had paused in the doorway leading from the lounge. He was casually dressed in a white, open-necked shirt and beige slacks, but her gaze shifted higher, and it was with a sense of renewed shock that she found herself looking into those cold, assessing grey eyes she remembered so well.
Tall, broad-shouldered and lean-hipped, Chad McAdam seemed to fill the kitchen with his daunting presence when he stepped forward, and Megan's insides were in the grip of an unfamiliar vice as she faced him with the width of the circular wooden table between them. He smiled cynically, and Megan once again had that odd conviction that he was aware of every damning thought and emotion that was flitting through her.
'I wasn't expecting a welcoming committee.' His voice was deep and well-modulated, but Megan detected a ring of mockery in its depths as he lessened the distance between them, and she could almost swear that the kitchen was shrinking in size with every step he took towards her.
'You weren't expected until much later,' she pointed out with an admirable show of outward calmness. 'I live next door and, since the restaurant staff are not on duty this evening, I offered to prepare a meal for you. You'll find it in the oven, and there's a fruit dessert along with a litre of fresh milk in the refrigerator. The tea and coffee canisters are in the corner cupboard if you would like to make yourself something to drink.'
There was something about this man's demeanour that awakened in Megan a strange and intense desire to turn and run. She had never felt awkward in anyone's company before, but Chad McAdam somehow had the ability to make her feel jittery and gauche.
'I believe one good turn usually deserves another,' he remarked scathingly. 'Were you hoping to share the meal you'd prepared, and then perhaps a little more as a reward?'
Megan was not accustomed to having her charitable actions misconstrued, and she stared up at him, convinced that she must look as stupid as she felt. What kind of woman di
d he think she was? she wondered distastefully when she managed to regain her composure.
'I had dinner almost two hours ago, and it wasn't my intention to hang around here and act as a welcoming committee when you arrived.' Her honesty was wasted on this man. There was cynical disbelief in those cold eyes raking her slender body from her honey-gold hair down to her sandalled feet, and she felt a little sick inside as she picked up the tray she had left on the table. 'Goodnight, Dr McAdam,' she added coolly, turning towards the door.
'Wait!' His imperious command halted her when she had gone no more than a few paces, and she turned warily to find him observing her intently with that hint of cynicism still curving his perfectly chiselled mouth. 'I pride myself on the fact that I seldom forget a face-especially a woman's face—and I'm convinced we've met somewhere before. What's your name?'
'It's Megan O'Brien,' she answered him stiffly, reluctant to prolong this confrontation.
'Ah, yes! You're the young lady from the curio shop with whom I shall be sharing a telephone line for a period of time.' His glance trailed over her with renewed interest, but that quizzical frown lingered between heavy eyebrows which were curved in a permanently cynical arch. 'Have we met before?'
Megan hesitated, not quite sure how to answer him. He was quite capable of mocking her for remembering if she told him where they had met before, but it would not take him long to discover that she had lied if she said something to the contrary. It seemed that, either way, she was bound to be mocked.
'We haven't exactly met before.' Her gaze did not waver from his, but it took an effort to sustain his piercing, probing glance. 'We were both guests at a function in Johannesburg which was hosted by Revil and Alexa Bradstone, and that was almost a year ago.'
'Yes, I remember now.' His smile deepened with that stinging mockery she had feared. 'You looked as if you were trying to hide among the potted plants at the other end of the terrace when I caught you staring, but when I looked for you afterwards you'd gone.'
Bridge to Nowhere Page 1
