'I left early.'
'Pity,' he murmured, his firm mouth twisting with derision. 'We shall, no doubt, be seeing each other quite frequently in future, and I shall look forward to every meeting, Megan O'Brien.'
Megan's powers of perception deserted her completely where Chad McAdam was concerned, and she left his bungalow in a hurry, too confused and bewildered to find a suitable response to his statement.
Paper crackled in her skirt pocket as she walked briskly through the moonlit darkness to her bungalow. It was the note she had intended leaving in his lounge to tell him about the meal she had left in the oven, and her fingers curled about it, crushing it into a tight ball in an unfamiliar display of anger.
Late that night, as she lay awake in bed listening to the night sounds, she was confronted by the renewed discovery that there was something about Chad McAdam which she had never encountered in anyone else before. It was dislike; a dislike so intense that it almost bordered on contempt. And it had been directed at her! Why? They were strangers, they knew nothing about each other, so what could she possibly have done that Chad McAdam should dislike her so actively?
Megan was in a disturbed frame of mind when she opened up her shop for business on the Friday morning. She had noticed a blue Porsche parked in the carport alongside Chad McAdam's bungalow, but there had fortunately been no sign of the man himself. An uneasy feeling had manifested itself in Megan since their meeting the previous evening, and she was unaccountably nervous and edgy when Jack Harriman entered the shop some minutes later.
Jack was a lean, wiry man in his mid-thirties, and Megan had seldom seen him when his sandy-coloured hair did not lie untidily across his lined forehead. He wore khaki like everyone else, but the epaulettes on his shoulders signified the rank of chief game warden, and she relaxed considerably when she looked into the smiling blue eyes of this man whose friendship she had come to value over the past five years.
'You're usually out with your patrols at this time of the morning,' she remarked, her glance teasing. 'Are you playing truant today?'
'I believe our resident vet has arrived,' he jolted her back on to that nervous tightrope she had been walking since the night before.
'He arrived last night,' Megan confirmed, and Jack's blue gaze sharpened with curiosity.
'Have you met him?' he asked, following her into her small office to the rear of the shop.
'We exchanged a few words.'
'What's he like?'
She shrugged with an affected casualness, and reached up to take a pile of stock sheets off the shelf above her desk. 'You'll have to decide that for yourself.'
'So it's like that, is it?' Jack laughed throatily.
'Like what?' she asked, schooling her expression before she dared to turn and face him.
'Our resident vet has failed to make a favourable impression on you,' he explained, his eyes twinkling with humour. 'That's it, isn't it?'
'First impressions can be deceiving,' she tried to rectify matters, and Jack's expression sobered a fraction.
'That's true,' he nodded, 'and your opinion of him might change once you get to know him.'
Megan could have told him that she had no desire to get to know Chad McAdam, but she remained silent. She confided in Jack about most things, but her unexpected meeting with Chad McAdam the previous evening was something she did not want to discuss with anyone until she had sorted out a few things in her own mind.
'I have to go,' Jack interrupted her thoughts. 'Byron has arranged a get-together in the committee room to welcome Dr McAdam, and if I don't leave now I'm going to be late.'
He strode out, leaving Megan in a ponderous mood which lasted until Dorothy, a sturdily built black woman, entered the shop. Dorothy had been Megan's assistant for the past three years, and in her presence Megan managed to put Chad McAdam out of her mind to start taking stock of the contents of the shop.
The post was delivered at ten-thirty each morning, and Megan and Dorothy were taking a welcome break with a cup of tea when a batch of letters was deposited on the glass display counter. Megan sifted through them idly, but one envelope in particular made her reach for her letter opener. She slit open the envelope, and her face lit up with excitement as she read the enclosed letter and examined the attached consignment note.
'I'll be back in a short while, Dorothy,' she told her assistant. 'There's something of importance I'd like to discuss with Mr Rockford.'
Megan's heart was beating hard against her ribs as she left her shop and walked across the slate-tiled, thatch-roofed foyer. A vague idea had taken shape in her mind when she had read that letter, but there was no sense in taking it beyond the 'idea' stage unless she knew she had Byron's approval.
'Come in, Megan,' he beckoned from behind his cluttered desk as he saw her hovering in the doorway. 'I have a mound of paperwork to get through before I drive Chad into Louisville to collect the Land Rover he had railed up from Johannesburg.'
'Perhaps this isn't the most opportune moment for the matter I want to discuss with you,' she smiled, quite prepared to shelve this conversation until it was more convenient for Byron.
'Goodness knows I need a break,' he growled with a glimmer of a smile in his tawny eyes as he flung his pen down and leaned back in his chair. 'Sit down and tell me what's on your mind.'
'I'm expecting the first consignment of fashionable safari-type outfits which I designed last year. I also designed the African motifs for the various garments, if you recall, so I'm naturally very excited about it, and I wondered if we might include a fashion show in the Easter holiday programme,' she explained hastily as she sat facing him across the width of his desk. 'It could be an outdoor event, perhaps around the pool area, and afterwards we could serve wine and snacks to enable the models to mingle among the guests to give them a closer look at the quality of the clothes.'
'That sounds like a perfectly good idea to me,' Byron agreed. 'Who do you have in mind to model the clothes?'
'I'm afraid I haven't given that side of it much thought,' Megan confessed with a touch of embarrassment. 'It might be a good idea to get in touch with Alexa Bradstone in Johannesburg, and, if I'm lucky, she might supply the models through her agency.'
'That would add a highly professional touch to this venture of yours,' he agreed gravely. 'Yes, I like the idea of a fashion show being included in the Easter programme, and I'd like to suggest that you speak to Bill Hadley. If you explain to him what you have in mind, then he'll see to the catering side for you.'
Bill Hadley was Izilwane's entertainments manager, and Megan did not envisage any problems in that quarter. Bill was always very helpful and obliging when someone approached him with new suggestions for the entertainments section, and Megan's spirits were high when she finally returned to her shop.
She was impatient to contact Alexa, but when she picked up the telephone she discovered that Chad McAdam was busy on the line. More than an hour passed before the line was finally free, but she had barely dialled Alexa's number when she heard Chad McAdam lift the receiver in his office.
'Please cut your conversation short,' he instructed harshly when he realised that the line was in use. 'I have an important call to make.'
He replaced the receiver abruptly, leaving Megan stunned, and then a heated, unfamiliar fury rose within her. How dared he! How dared he instruct her to cut her conversation short when he had occupied the line for the past hour!
Megan was fuming inwardly, and she had to make a concerted effort to calm herself when Alexa Bradstone's soft, clear voice intruded on her angry thoughts.
'Alexa, it's Megan O'Brien.'
'What a marvellous surprise!' exclaimed Alexa. 'How are you, Megan?'
'I'm very well, thank you. Look, I haven't got much time,' Megan added hastily, 'but I have something in mind and I'm hoping you might be able to help me.'
She explained as swiftly as she could the reason for her call, and afterwards there was an agonising silence at the other end of the line whil
e Alexa consulted her agency's diary.
'I happen to have a few models free over Easter, and they would be ideal for what you have in mind,' Alexa informed her after a few nail-biting seconds had passed. 'I might as well admit that I'm tempted to persuade Revil that we should accompany my models on this trip.'
'It would be wonderful to see you both again,' Megan admitted with an inward sigh of relief. 'I can't tell you how grateful I am that you're going to help me out with this venture.'
'Aren't you finished yet?' an impatient male voice cut in rudely on their conversation, and Megan's latent fury rose to a new level, but she somehow succeeded in controlling it.
'I'll be done in a minute,' she said abruptly, and there was a decisive click at the other end to indicate that he had slammed down the receiver.
'Who was that?' Alexa demanded curiously.
'Chad McAdam,' Megan almost spat out the name. 'He was one of the guests at that function I attended at your home a year ago, so you must know him.'
'Yes, of course,' said Alexa, 'but what's he doing up there at Izilwane?'
'He's been appointed resident veterinary surgeon, and until he gets his own private line he will, unfortunately, be sharing mine.'
'Oh.' There was an odd little silence before Alexa ended their conversation with a hasty, 'I'll be in touch, Megan, and please do be careful.'
Alexa's strange remark echoed repeatedly through Megan's mind. Please do be careful! Of what? Megan wondered, frowning as she replaced the receiver. Or should she ask of whom! Not knowing sent an unexpected shiver of fear racing along her spine, but she shrugged it off and went back to work. There was so much to do, and there was suddenly so little time to do it in that she dared not waste it on imaginary fears.
Megan and Dorothy were jotting down the items of hand-crafted pottery on display when Chad McAdam put in an unexpected appearance. His white shirt and slacks accentuated the tanned, muscular fitness of his body as he cast a brief, appreciative glance about him, and the fact that he had angered Megan earlier that morning was temporarily forgotten, but when those cold grey eyes met hers she felt a strange new tension spiralling through her.
'I'm getting a lift into Louisville with Byron,' he said curtly. 'Take a message if anyone calls, and leave it on my desk.'
He turned on his heel, and Megan stared incredulously at his broad back when he strode out of the shop, then she started to shake in a fit of uncontrollable indignation and anger.
'Who the devil does that man think he is!' she demanded of no one in particular, her blue eyes blazing with fury in her white face as she slammed her clipboard down on to the glass counter. 'He monopolises the telephone for most of the morning, and when at last I get a chance to phone, he rudely interrupts my conversation to order me off the line, then he walks in here and has the gall to instruct me to take messages for him as if I'm his—his confounded secretary!'
Dorothy's eyes widened like saucers in her dark face. 'I think you need a holiday, Miss Megan. You've been working too hard.'
Megan turned on her, that fierce light of battle still in her eyes, but she regained her control, drawing one deep, steadying breath after another in an effort to calm herself, and the angry tremors slowly subsided. Nothing, and no one, had ever succeeded in rousing her to such an intense level of anger, but Chad McAdam's arrogant behaviour somehow had the ability to trigger that hitherto hidden emotion inside her.
'I think you may be right, Dorothy.' She combed her fingers through her hair, ashamed of herself now that she had calmed down. 'Perhaps I do need a holiday, but there's so much to do now that the summer season has passed that I can't possibly contemplate going away.'
'You go home for the weekend and leave me to take care of everything,' suggested Dorothy, her seniority by fifteen years giving her the authority in this instance. 'Go home now, Miss Megan, and don't come back until Monday morning.'
Megan hesitated, but the suggestion that she spend the weekend at home with her parents in Louisville was tempting, and she finally succumbed to it, knowing that she could leave the shop in Dorothy's capable hands.
Her taut features relaxed and she smiled at her assistant. 'Remind me to increase your bonus at the end of this year, Dorothy.'
Megan left a few minutes later, and the midday heat enveloped her like a suffocating cloak when she stepped out of the air-conditioned building. The sun sat high in the fleckless sky, scorching the parched earth and creating a mirage in the shimmering distance amongst the acacia trees to indicate water where there was none.
It had been a long, hot summer with very little rain. The level of the dam in the game park had dropped considerably, and the bushveld heat had never been more oppressive, but the weather had not affected the tourist intake at Izilwane. The game park had lost none of its appeal as a holiday resort, and it had been filled to capacity during the Christmas holidays. The bungalows had been fully booked right through to the end of the summer season, and the Easter holidays still lay ahead of them, when the park nearly always drew a large crowd from the towns and cities.
Megan packed a weekend bag, and half an hour later the security guards at the main exit acknowledged her with a friendly salute as she drove past in her white Mazda.
CHAPTER TWO
The road to Louisville had been tarred with the advent of the game park. The trip took no more than fifteen minutes, and, as always, Megan knew a sense of peace when she arrived at the two-storeyed mansion where her parents lived. The autumn roses were flowering in the terraced garden, but she did not pause to admire them as she walked swiftly from the driveway towards the entrance of the house with its panelled glass windows on either side of the door.
Vivien O'Brien was speaking on the telephone in the hall when Megan walked into the house, and despite Megan's gesticulations that she should continue, her mother ended her conversation abruptly.
'What a lovely surprise, darling!' Vivien embraced Megan warmly. 'It's most unusual for you to arrive home at this early hour on a Friday.'
'Dorothy seemed to think I needed a break, so I left her in charge of the shop.'
'That woman is an absolute gem,' Vivien declared with grave sincerity. 'Have you had lunch?'
Megan shook her head and smiled up into her mother's dark eyes. 'No, I haven't, but I'm really not hungry.'
'Could I tempt you with a salad roll and a cup of tea?'
The smell of freshly baked rolls suddenly wafted towards Megan from the direction of the kitchen, and she relented. 'Consider me tempted.'
She left her bag in the hall and accompanied her mother into the kitchen to help with the buttering of the bread rolls while her mother prepared the salad filling and made the tea.
Her mother had aged well, Megan could not help thinking while she observed the tall, slender and elegantly dressed woman moving about in the large, modern kitchen. Vivien O'Brien was in her late fifties with barely a wrinkle on her striking features and a mere smattering of grey at the temples of her dark hair, which was brushed back in the casual but attractive chignon she always favoured. The dark eyes smiled easily, and always there was this feeling of genuine love and warmth emanating from the woman who, fourteen years ago, had taken Megan into her heart and her home.
'Byron popped in about an hour ago to deliver that crate of fresh vegetables Frances had promised me,' Vivien told Megan casually when they sat down to lunch in the dining-room. 'I also met Chad McAdam, and when we started chatting I realised that I'd known his father.'
Megan digested this information along with a mouthful of her salad roll. 'Did you really?' she asked warily.
'Trevor McAdam was a wealthy industrialist, and I met him for the first time about fifteen years ago,' Vivien elaborated with a frown creasing her smooth brow. 'He was a charming old man, but cynical and disillusioned, and it appears that Chad has inherited those characteristics from his father.'
Megan did not consider it necessary to add to her mother's shrewd observation that Chad McAdam could also be rude
and arrogant. 'Is Trevor McAdam still alive?' she asked instead.
'No… poor soul.' Vivien sipped at her tea before she continued. 'He died four years ago and left behind a vast fortune which had to be divided equally between his two children. I understand that neither Chad nor his sister were actively involved in the business before their father died, but between the two of them they're now in possession of the controlling shares in the Aztec Corporation, and, according to Chad, he's now forced to divide his time between his chosen career as a vet and that of a boardroom director.'
Megan had heard of the Aztec Corporation. It was a vast organisation with tentacles reaching into almost every industry in the country, and she was somehow surprised to learn that Chad McAdam was in control of it. 'What about Chad's mother?' she asked curiously. 'Did you ever meet her?'
'Trevor McAdam had been a widower for a long time when I met him, so I imagine his wife must have died when Chad was still very young.'
Megan felt saddened by what she had been told, but she had come no closer to understanding the man whose face had haunted her periodically for so many months before he had walked back into her life with a vengeance.
That evening, after dinner, she told her parents about her plans for a fashion show at Izilwane during the Easter holidays. They discussed the subject in detail since Peter and Vivien O'Brien were always interested in their daughter's activities, and Megan was pleasantly tired when she finally went to bed.
It was after breakfast on the Saturday morning before Megan had the opportunity to take the flagstone path across the neatly trimmed lawn which led to the two-bedroomed cottage in the spacious grounds of her parents' home. It had been her intention to work on a watercolour painting of a pride of lions lazing in the shade of an acacia tree, but the paint dried on her brushes and the painting on the easel remained nowhere near to completion. She seldom thought about that time of her life before she had come to Louisville, but on this particular morning her mind persisted in raking up those unpleasant memories.
Bridge to Nowhere Page 2
