She had to brush away a tear before once again searching out the relevant information and marking each phrase with a very fine pencil line.
Then, working with total concentration, and not a little shame when she compared her scrawling handwriting with that of Amanda Boyd, Fiona struggled to write down in detail her own interpretation of the chain of events.
It took her an hour and several false starts, but when the list was completed it made so much sense, so much very tragic sense, that she could only sit and stare in wonder at how easily grown people could mismanage their own lives and that of a child as well.
Just the thought of Dare Fraser, growing up as he must have with confused emotions about a woman he’d obviously liked yet not been allowed to know, made Fiona want to cry at the total waste of it all.
She looked at the letters, at her own conclusions, and made her decision without undue thought. He had to know; he deserved to know. Picking up the telephone, she began to dial without giving herself a chance to change her mind. It was late, but not all that late, she thought. And even if it did mean waking him — her reasons justified it.
She didn’t wake him. She didn’t even get to speak to him. What she did get, once the phone had rung twice, was, of all things, his answering machine!
Fiona faltered; how could she be expected to leave a message about something so personal? Then, as the pips signalled her to speak, she found herself doing so without time to think.
‘I ... I have to see you,’ she began. ‘It’s important ... I think, to you, anyway. I ... oh, this is so stupid — I just hate trying to talk to a machine. Forget it ... it’ll wait until the morning.’
As she rang off, feeling ridiculously stupid about the whole thing, now that she’d made the attempt to put it into words. It would wait until morning; it would wait, come to think of it, for years if necessary. It already had!
He probably wouldn’t be back until morning anyway, she thought, and then tried to wipe from her mind the possible reasons why. She’d never thought of herself as a jealous person and, besides, she had no claim on Dare Fraser; nor did she want one.
The thought was small consolation as she prepared for bed with the knowledge that she probably wouldn’t sleep anyway. And she thought. Damn the man. He was disturbing her sleep, disrupting her entire life — and he wasn’t even there!
And then he was. Typically, as soon as she’d finally got to sleep, there he was hammering on the door.
CHAPTER NINE
‘Are you all right?’
The concern on Dare’s face was unquestionable, and the dark eyes that roved quickly across Fiona’s body in its flimsy nightgown were concerned also.
‘All right? Of course,’ she replied, trying to stifle a yawn. ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’
‘You didn’t sound very right on the phone, that’s why,’ he replied grimly.
‘Only because I cannot abide being expected to talk to a machine,’ she replied. ‘There’s something ... well ... just not right about it.’
‘I’ll accept that,’ Dare replied, ‘but they do have their good points. If it weren’t for my answering machine, I’d have missed knowing about this important ... whatever it is.’
‘Which wouldn’t have mattered in the least,’ Fiona yawned. ‘It could have waited until morning; it could have waited a week, for all the difference it would make. I just thought, well, at the moment it seemed very important.’
‘But not now?’
‘Now? Well, I suppose...’
‘Right!’ His voice now took on a different, somehow more intimate tone. ‘Well, if it’s important now, perhaps you wouldn’t mind. A, letting me in, and B, putting on something just a bit less distracting.’
Fiona glanced down, then up to meet eyes that were no longer concerned, but instead were frankly appraising as they roved over her figure.
Fiona felt the colour rising to her cheeks as she suddenly realised how revealing her nightgown was, but perversely felt a thrill at being able to attract this man despite being tousled and far from her best.
She stood back and allowed him entry to the kitchen, but didn’t speak. Instead, she pointed at the kettle and the jar of instant coffee, then fled to find something more suitable to wear.
She returned, hair combed and the nightgown replaced by jeans and sweatshirt, to find Dare had coffee ready for both of them.
‘Is this better?’ she asked after he’d looked up at her.
His grin was brief. ‘Infinitely worse,’ he replied. ‘But for the moment I suppose it’ll do. No way we’d have any sort of logical conversation with you in that other outfit.’
‘I suppose that’s a compliment,’ Fiona muttered, then looked hurriedly away as she realised she’d spoken aloud.
Dare didn’t seem to notice. He sipped at his coffee, looked at her, took another sip, looked again, sighed heavily.
‘You look tired,’ she heard herself say, and realised she was thinking more about the state of his health than about why he was here.
‘Tired of waiting. Are we going to get to this important whatever, or what? Because if not, I have some important things I’d like to discuss.’
‘Well, go ahead, for goodness’ sake.’ Fiona suddenly felt any adjournment would be welcome. She knew he had every right to see the Boyd letters, knew he had to see them, but that did nothing to ease her nervousness at being involved in something she considered so terribly private.
‘Oh, no. This is your party — not mine,’ he replied. ‘Now let’s have it. What’s the problem ... pregnant ... in love ... or have you suddenly discovered one of your dogs is a sheep-killer?’
‘Don’t be stupid,’ she replied hotly, impatient now with herself and the easiness with which he could provoke her. She grabbed up the biscuit tin and shoved it across the table at him with the disclaimer, ‘I probably shouldn’t have looked inside, but then if I hadn’t I wouldn’t have realised how important it was, would I?’
‘I suppose not, but I won’t know if you don’t give me a chance to read whatever this is, will I?’ he replied with forced sarcasm. ‘So it’s your turn to make the coffee, if you can manage to do it quietly.’
She snorted furiously, her nervousness making her angry and self-defensive, but managed not to reply in words.
Instead, she silently rose, turned on the kettle, made the coffee, served it, found the remains of a loaf of bread, made some toast, served that, made him yet another cup of coffee, then finally had to sit and fidget while he continued to read through the letters, occasionally referring to her synopsis of conclusions.
Dare said nothing except to grunt a vague thanks for the coffee and toast as it arrived, and his silence only served to increase Fiona’s nerviness.
But finally the waiting ended; he looked up to lock her gaze with his own and said quietly, softly, ‘I can see why you thought this was so important and I thank you for it, but don’t you think it’s pretty much water under the bridge?’
‘Do you?’
He dropped his gaze, shook his head as if to clear away the cobwebs, then looked up again. ‘I’d like to think so; after all, we’re going back more than thirty years. In fact, the way you’ve got it worked out, we’re going back longer than that.’
Fiona paused, then made her decision. If he didn’t think it was important, then she certainly did. It was, after all, part of the history of her property.
‘I do think it’s important,’ she said sternly. ‘It must surely resolve any claim you have to this place. Clearly your father deeded it to Amanda Boyd because he felt guilty about her brother’s accident.’
‘Was guilty; there’s not much argument there,’ he admitted. Far too freely, she thought, but couldn’t say so because he went on.
‘The details aren’t here in these letters, of course, but it isn’t hard to read between the lines. Dad was inexcusably careless, and it was his carelessness that led to Amanda’s brother’s death. No doubt of it, and from these letters it’s obvious she
knew it, so Dad must have admitted it to her at some point.
‘I have some vague memory that the brother was hard of hearing, so I suspect there was a warning given he didn’t, or couldn’t hear, or something like that. I suppose we’ll never know the details, but I’d bet Amanda did, and that she chose forgiveness over vengeance, which must have been damned hard for her.
‘And quite clearly there was nothing romantic between them, either, because there’s no doubt where her affections lay ... and died. I suppose I’m happy to have that cleared up, although it hasn’t bothered me, really, since I was a kid.’
‘Well, it certainly must have bothered your mother, because the letters make it fairly clear that suspicion was the reason Amanda Boyd — formerly a firm family friend — was quite literally forbidden your family home.’
Dare once again shook his head, trying to breach the years. ‘Probably menopausal, I can say with hindsight. She started to go fairly strange about a lot of things during that period, but of course I was only twelve or thirteen then, and couldn’t spell menopause, much less understand it.’
Fiona felt appalled — not for the present, but for the problems of a young teenager under such circumstances. ‘I just don’t see why your father didn’t…’ She floundered there, unable to continue, unwilling to force herself into his privacy.
Dare had no such problems. ‘You’d have to have known my father,’ he replied. ‘He was typical of his breed, I suppose, would never admit the problem, much less explain it to somebody my age. Indeed, he may not even have known, but he’d have backed Mum up regardless — and did!’
He continued, ‘Which is why I was bundled off to college in Sydney at the first opportunity, although the fact that we never really got along very well may have had as much to do with it; I was bit of a problem when I was young.’
‘But you must have been very close to Amanda at one time,’ Fiona interjected. ‘Didn’t she ever say anything?’
His grin was faint. ‘You’ve read these letters — what do you think?’
It was an easy admission. ‘Point taken,’ Fiona said. ‘It’s certainly clear enough that when the soldier died at Kapyong, her love-life died with him. That was what I found so sad, and so surprising, really. It all seemed terribly Victorian to me — I mean, it’s the kind of thing you read about from the First World War, or the Crimea, but in the 1950s?’
‘Doesn’t surprise me at all,’ was the unexpectedly confident reply. ‘Tasmania’s always been a touch isolated, and certainly was then. Terribly conservative at the best of times. Amanda Boyd was a woman of terribly strong principles and convictions. I have no trouble accepting that she’d only ever love once, and for life.’
He paused, then grinned provocatively at Fiona. ‘I’d think you’d have no problems understanding that; you’re a person of strict principles and firm convictions. In fact, I rather think Amanda would have been pleased to find you here instead of most women I could think of. And I certainly agree with her. Well ... sort of, anyway.’
Fiona couldn’t reply. She was too busy fighting tears.
Lost in her contemplation of a dead woman’s concepts of right and wrong, she was oblivious to Dare’s voice until he reached out and took her hand, forcing her attention.
‘You really do have a problem with compliments, don’t you?’ he said with a gentle smile and soft, warm glance.
‘I ... I’m sorry; I only really heard the first part,’ she replied. ‘I was just thinking, how sad.’
He repeated himself, a statement which brought Fiona back to the present with a rush of caution and confusion.
‘You can’t mean that,’ she finally said. ‘You’ve objected to me from the very beginning and you’ve made it abundantly clear that you’d do anything to get this place back.’
‘Not from the beginning — at the beginning,’ he corrected her, although she found it difficult to perceive the difference. Not that he gave her much chance.
‘I have since come to reassess my feelings on the subject rather dramatically,’ he said. ‘And, as you say, these letters sort of sink me on legal or moral grounds anyway, not that it matters.’
‘It does to me,’ she replied, not arguing, just cautious.
‘Fair enough.’ His smile was still there, his eyes still soft, his whole being relaxed, almost confident. ‘We both know that, anyway. About the only way I’d get my hands on this place now would be to marry you, I suppose, which wouldn’t be the best of solutions for either of us.’
Fiona’s heart thundered; her eyes widened.
Dare’s grin only widened. ‘I wouldn’t marry you for the land, and you wouldn’t let me anyway,’ he continued, holding her with his eyes, forcing her to silence, forcing her to listen, to concentrate. He still seemed totally relaxed, but his grip on her fingers, she fancied, trembled.
‘But 1 really would like to marry you,’ he said, and his voice seemed to thunder into her ears despite the softness of it. ‘Because you’re everything I’ve ever imagined in a wife, and because,’ he sighed, ‘I suppose I’ll have to admit it — I’m hopelessly in love with you.’
Fiona couldn’t reply. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing, and truly didn’t understand it. She simply sat and stared into his eyes, mesmerised, mute.
Dare waited. Did his grip on her fingers really tremble more, or did she imagine it? Fiona didn’t dare to think about that.
‘We could fill that monster house of mine with the children it deserves, and you could keep this for one of them, or just for your dog school, or even sell it, for all I care,’ he was saying. ‘It isn’t between us any longer; it’s yours. Aren’t you listening to me?’
She was. But summoning the courage to reply was something else again! She took a deep breath, then another. He just sat there, her eyes gripped by his, her fingers gripped by his.
‘I ... I can’t marry you,’ she started. ‘You don’t even know me, don’t know anything about me.’
‘I know all I need to know. I know more, I suspect, than you think I do.’ And still he was just so damned calm. Fiona, by comparison, felt as if her heart would explode, as if she’d never draw another proper breath. How could she tell him, but then how could she not? If he wanted to marry her, he had at least the right to know, even if her admission changed his mind as she knew it would.
‘I’m ... I’m not what you think,’ she said, gathering her courage. ‘I’ve... been married before!’
And she waited, unable to look away but wanting to, not wanting to see the condemnation, the disgust. He was so typical of country Tasmanians, so conservative, she thought, that her admission would provoke those, at least.
But to her surprise, he only raised one dark eyebrow and shook his head before uttering a bark of laughter. ‘When you were too young to know better, and to a cunning, devious, conniving bastard who ought to have been drowned at birth. I’m surprised you even gave him kennel space.’
He knew! He’d known all along! That knowledge spun her around, made rational thought impossible. She felt herself yank her fingers from his grip, heard the astonishing words emerge from her own lips.
‘You’re cunning and devious and conniving and ... and downright sneaky into the bargain,’ she found herself shouting in accusation.
‘Only to protect people I care about,’ he replied with that incredible calm. ‘Or people I love — like you. I did tell you that I LOVE YOU, did I not?’
Fiona listened, heard, even understood. But her entire logic was in full flight now, fired by confusion, emotion, and the sheer surprise of it all.
‘And what about that ... that woman?’ she raged. ‘I suppose you’ll just keep her around to exercise your horses?’ It was, she realised, about the stupidest thing she’d ever said, especially considering the circumstances.
‘I’m not keeping her around for anything,’ was the calm reply. ‘Now look ... it seems you don’t want to listen to any of this stuff that requires a decision on your part, so how about we cha
nge the subject and talk about my important revelation? Otherwise we’ll be sitting here arguing until breakfast, and there are far more important things to do than that.’
Fiona could only stare as he reached out once more to take her hand, holding her fingers lightly but with a grip that brooked no argument.
‘Right, here goes,’ he said. ‘First off, I’ve solved the mystery of the warehouse vandalism thing, and of course you locked up, just as always.’
She tried to reply, but was sternly shushed. ‘The vandals were deliberately let into the building, specifically to do what they did,’ he continued. ‘Which was, of course, to scotch the sales deal and implicate you. It took me longer than I like to admit to realise it, but it was easier than I expected to prove, which perhaps makes up for that.’
Fiona stared, silent and now thoroughly confused.
‘Now I haven’t arranged for charges or anything yet,’ she heard him say, ‘because I didn’t know how you’d feel about that, considering they were only fifteen-year-old kids and they were damned well put up to it — paid, in fact.’
‘Paid?’ These startling revelations were sufficient to pull that single word out of her, then Fiona returned to silently staring at this man who said he wanted to marry her!
She might as well have not spoken; Dare continued his narrative without answering.
‘Which means we can’t really get to her, legally, without involving these poor damned kids, and I’d rather avoid it myself, because there are better ways of sorting out both.’
‘Her?’ Fiona found herself shaking her head, wondering at how stupid she sounded, but unable to get out more than one word, one idea at a time.
‘The kids came from the city’s small South American community, so no prizes for guessing who,’ he again continued. ‘I’ve got enough influence there to sort out the kids, who aren’t bad types — yet. And,’ he continued grimly, ‘more than enough influence to sort her out, as well.’
He paused; she stayed silent; he continued, ‘I’ve already talked to your former landlord, who’s also agreed to let you have the final decision. He’s already got the insurance money, so he doesn’t care one way or the other. And,’ Dare grinned slyly, obviously understanding the man, ‘he sends his apologies, not that I expect they mean much.’
Love Thy Neighbour Page 16
