Mistess of the Groom

by Susan Napier

  'Going to be difficult, isn't it?'

  'What is?' she said, afraid to put the cup down again incase she spilled the contents. She hastily drank some more, pulling a face at the syrupy sweetness.

  'Surviving. I guess it was tough enough doing things with one hand, but Graham says it will be several days before that burn starts to heal. Meantime the dressing has to be changed each day and kept clean and dry so infection doesn't set in if the blisters burst. You can hardly even hold a cup of tea straight; how are you going to cook, or wash, or clean ...in fact do anything around the house?'

  'I can manage,' she claimed, infuriated by his logic.

  He was so smug and male.

  'But why should you have to?' he said smoothly. 'Af­ter all, as you pointed out, it's my fault you're in this state, and I did promise Ava I'd make sure you were OK. She was most concerned to learn that you'd come down here with a broken hand. You didn't tell her that, either...'

  Her cup crashed down sloppily in its saucer. 'Damn you, she hadn't seen the newspapers-I didn't want to go into all that-'

  'Neither did I, so I didn't tell her you'd broken it on my face! Didn't you believe me when I said I was call­ing it quits? When you come back to Auckland you'll find I've already spread the word that you and I have settled whatever differences we had.'

  Jane looked down at her hands as the realisation that had been slowly building over the past two weeks burst, fully-formed, upon her consciousness. She didn't want to go back. Ryan's act of revenge had inadvertently given her the chance to start life completely afresh. Yes, she was afraid of her uncertain future, but she was also exhilarated by her freedom. Cut adrift from the stresses and expectations of the past, she could shape her own destiny. She didn't ever want to go back to being the person she had been-obsessed with success and main­taining control, lonely, driven, profoundly unfulfilled ...

  She drew in a deep breath. 'Look, I don't know why you bothered to follow me down here-'

  'Don't you?' He moved around the table. 'You think I should have accepted your insultingly brief note as the last word on the matter? If you were serious about giving me the kiss-off the least you could have done was to give it to me in person!'

  At the mention of kissing her eyes moved helplessly to his mouth and flickered away, but he had seen the brief flash of hunger.

  His voice deepened with predatory shrewdness. 'Or maybe you just didn't trust yourself to be able to say no to me face to face. Afraid your desires might slip the leash again, Jane, and that we'd end up back in bed together? Is that what sent you scuttling down here?'

  As usual he made her uncomfortably aware of the conflict in her behaviour. Had she been subconsciously delivering a challenge when she had run away? Jane crossed her arms over her chest, shaking her head sharply again, but this time Ryan reached out and caught her pony-tail as it flipped past her ear, winding the silky black skein around his hand, forcing her head to a stop. With his other hand he tipped up her chin.

  'Coward!' he taunted.

  For once she didn't rise to his bait. 'Is it so impossible for you to believe that I'm just not interested!' she asked steadily.

  'Not impossible ... ' He dragged his thumb sugges­tively across her lower lip and watched her eyes dilate and her breasts tremble with a ragged inhalation. 'Just highly unlikely.'

  And before she could argue with the breathtaking ar­rogance of that he added quietly, 'Given our history, maybe you're right to be afraid ... but why let the past deny us a chance to explore the unique pleasure that we give each other? Why not let something good come out of the bad, get it out of both our systems...'

  His thumb rubbed at her mouth. 'You're a city girl. You don't have to live like this-you don't belong out here. Come back with me and I'll provide you with as much challenge and excitement as you can handle. We both know from bitter experience there are no guarantees in life, but one thing I can promise is that I'll do nothing more to deliberately hurt you .. .'

  She believed in the sincerity of his words but the promise rang hollow in her heart.

  No, Ryan might never hurt her deliberately, but he would hurt her all the same. It was as inevitable as the tide rolling up Piha beach each day that if they became lovers Jane would be the one to suffer most from a break-up. If anything, she felt even less equipped to han­dle an affair than she had been two weeks ago. This time alone had stripped from her the hard shell of sophistication that she had always worked so hard to maintain.

  Becoming Ryan's lover might temporarily satisfy the yearning of her body but it would only intensify the craving in her soul. He was like an escalating addiction, and the only safe way to escape before she was totally hooked was to give him up cold turkey.

  'Good, you'll turn around and leave, then,' she said stonily. 'Because it so happens that I actually like living "like this".' She jerked her pony-tail out of his grip with a fierceness that made her eyes brighten with tears, wav­ing her bandaged hands vaguely in the air. 'I don't want to leave Piha and I certainly don't want to get involved in an affair with anyone at the moment! I just want to be left alone. Is that clear enough for you!'

  She was devastated when he didn't even try to argue.

  He merely gave her a hard, all-encompassing look, a grim nod and strode out of the house. She watched his powerful car spitting angry stones from the tyres as he turned on the gravel shoulder of the road outside her gate and roared out of her life. Then she sat back down at the table and sobbed her heart out.

  Mopping up, she told herself that his giving up so easily had proved her doubts about any relationship they might have had. He couldn't have wanted her so badly after all. His ego had demanded he track her down but when he found her in her unkempt surroundings looking plain and scruffy, an object of pity rather than lust, he had realised that she was no longer a challenge to either his intellect or libido.

  All morning, as she doggedly struggled against her new handicap, she told herself that she was better off without him. She would survive this as she had survived every other setback in her life-alone.

  Several hours later she was out in the back garden, tired and sweaty, hunting along the hedge for more eggs, when she thought she heard a strange noise in the house. She put her basket down and moved around the side of the garage, frowning at the sight of a white panel van parked on the sun-burned grass of her front yard, a tele­phone company logo emblazoned on its side. She walked around the front just in time to see a man in white over­alls disappearing through the open front door.

  'Hey!' Jane shouted, and ran after him, nearly tripping over a woman in the same telephone company overalls who was crouched in the narrow hall, drilling into the chipped skirting board. 'Hey, what's going on here?'

  'Hooking you up for phone and fax,' said the woman, around several screws clenched in her teeth. 'Your con­nection to the house checks out OK, but some of this cabling has to be upgraded.'

  'You must have the wrong place. I didn't order any­thing. You've got to stop!' When the woman didn't take any notice Jane gritted her teeth. She still hadn't got used to the fact that people no longer jumped to comply when she gave orders. 'Who's in charge here?'

  The woman jerked her cropped blonde head in the direction of the living room where the man had gone, and Jane hurried to confront the culprit. He was setting up a top-of-the-range fax in the corner on an old kauri desk that Jane had devoted her evenings to restoring, scrubbing away the grime of years and rebuilding a fine patina with oil and beeswax. He was young, and aggra­vatingly unconcerned by her protests.

  'Look, there's obviously been some mistake-' If Ava was desperate to warn her that Ryan had discovered her whereabouts she might have ordered a phone, but no way would she have bothered with a fax, let alone such an extravagant model. 'Have you got a worksheet with you?' she demanded. 'I want to know who ordered these things-'

  'I did.'

  For the second time that day Jane nearly suffered a heart attack at the sudden appearance of Ryan, striding
into the room carrying a large suitcase and a laptop com­puter. He glanced into the largest and sunniest of the bedrooms, which she had commandeered as her own, and walked into the next one. He set his things down on the faded carpet square next to the heavy oak bed.

  'I need the phone and a separate fax line if I'm to keep in touch with my office. Fortunately, these days I don't need to be there in person to run things. I can access Spectrum's mainframe from my laptop and I've got plenty of highly competent deputies willing to han­dle the meetings in my absence. With fax and e-mail I can have their reports sooner than I would have had the hard copy delivered to my desk.'

  He made it sound as if he was moving in! 'Wh-what are you talking about?' '

  Jane followed, still spluttering, as Ryan calmly skirted the worker in the hall and went back outside to a vehicle parked out of sight on the other side of the panel van­, not the sleek Mercedes that he had departed in earlier, but a rugged four-wheel drive that looked well-used but well-cared-for. He placed a hand-tooled boot on the lower rung of the rear bull bars and reached in to haul out another case. Standing behind him Jane was treated to a close-up of faded denim whitening across taut masculine buttocks. He turned and caught her looking, and gave her a smile that made her scalp tingle.

  'Did you think I'd run away with my tail between my legs, Jane?' She flushed at the sexual connotation of his words and he uttered a gravelly laugh that suggested he had noticed her pink eyelids. 'Serves you right. But ac­tions speak louder than words, especially to a bull­-headed woman like you. Like it or not, you need help right now, and if the mountain won't come to Mohammed...'

  She was still arguing with him when the two greatly intrigued telephone workers tested their state-of-the-art communications system and reluctantly left.

  'You can't just move in on me like this.'

  'I already have,' said Ryan. Having ordered his pos­sessions to his liking, he stretched out on the bed he had chosen for his own, grimacing at the dust that rose and the sag in the middle of the creaking old wire weave that barely supported the mattress. 'Is yours any better than this?'

  She refused to answer so he went and investigated for himself, lying out full length on her large divan bed and bouncing his hips a few times. 'Ah, that's better. Not much, but better.' He folded his arms behind his head and looked at Jane, who was glaring at him from the end of the bed. 'I don't suppose you'd like to swap?'

  'No!'

  He looked at her from under dark lashes. 'Or share?' She jerked her eyes away from that hypnotic glitter. 'What's the matter, Jane? Does it disturb you to have me in your bed? Mmm...' He turned his head and rubbed his cheek against the pillow, sniffing, reminding her vividly of how erotic he had found the scent of their lovemaking.

  'You can't stay here!' she said raggedly. 'I won't let you-'

  'What are you going to do, call the police and have me thrown out?' His eyes were bright blue with curi­osity. 'Because that's the only way you're going to get rid of me.'

  She was searching for a suitably devastating put-down when the phone rang. He groaned and got up to answer it. It was his secretary and he was immediately all busi­ness, sitting down at the desk, switching on his laptop and talking as he called up a series of files.

  She went out into the kitchen, wishing she could slam things around to express her frustration but prevented by her injured hands. She had to be content with muttering to herself under her breath. By his confident behaviour he was implying that she had expected him to chase after her, whereas nothing was further from the truth. She wasn't going to take the blame for his predatory sexual instincts!

  'Where's your vacuum cleaner?' She jumped. 'What?'

  'I thought I'd vacuum my room ... bed included. Where do you keep the vacuum cleaner?'

  'I don't,' she told him with malicious satisfaction. 'There's only an old-fashioned carpet sweeper.' He opened his mouth. 'And don't you dare have one deliv­ered or I'll chuck it in the tide.'

  'Like doing things the hard way just for the sake of it, do you, Jane?'

  She looked as haughty as it was possible to do in a slightly grubby T-shirt and shorts. 'What's the matter, Ryan, too used to soft living to expend a bit of honest domestic elbow-grease? I don't think I'm going to need the police to get rid of you; the petty inconveniences of living down here will do it for me!'

  He shrugged and turned away and she yelled after him with relish, 'Just remember you're supposed to be con­serving water and electricity. And you can get your own meals, too. I'm not going to pay the price of your extravagance!'

  A growl rolled back down the hall, and a short time later she heard the thumping rattle of the old carpet sweeper. She watched him haul his mattress out into the yard, as she had done with her own two weeks ago, and attack it with the side of a broom, releasing clouds of dust that frosted his dark hair and made her bite her lip to stop herself laughing. She stopped laughing when he efficiently remade his bed with fresh sheets he found for himself in a crammed linen closet and started poking about, investigating the building's structural deficiencies.

  To avoid his disruptive presence Jane snatched up a towel and a book on self-sufficiency and went down to the beach, only to have Ryan settle down on the sand less than a metre away, wearing electric blue swimming briefs that left nothing to the imagination.

  Without even asking her, he dug a faded beach um­brella-which she recognised as coming from a jumble of beach furniture in the garage-into the sand and an­gled it so that she was fully protected from the sun. Then he lay down on his towel and slowly massaged sun­screen over his thickly muscled body. If she had been wearing sunglasses Jane might have been able to safely ogle him in secret, but she had only the brim of Great­ Aunt Gertrude's moth-eaten straw hat to hide behind, and consequently had to pretend not to notice his ac­tions.

  Since she couldn't go in the water, except to paddle, Jane hadn't bothered to struggle into a swimsuit, but now she felt a desperate need to cool off, especially when a passing bikini-clad blonde detoured from her path to laughingly offer to do Ryan's back.

  He grinned as he modestly refused. 'My girlfriend is very jealous,' he said, casting a look at pink-faced Jane. 'She looks fairly innocuous, doesn't she? But, believe me, she's a tigress when she's defending her territory.'

  She was still boiling at the memory later that evening, when Ryan refused to allow her into the kitchen to heat up some soup for her dinner, propping a chair under the door handle and ignoring her strident demands and sav­age kicks at the solid panels while he cooked up a storm. He finally let her in, but only when she had grudgingly agreed to share his meal.

  The fact that his colourful stir-fry of vegetables and noodles was more delicious than anything Jane had yet cooked for herself added to her resentment. She was only slightly mollified by the sight of some of her bread, sal­vaged from the morning's accident, cut into neat trian­gles and generously buttered.

  He had taken her at her word about the electricity and set candles on the kitchen table instead of using the over­head light, the warm, flickering glow creating a romantic atmosphere that Jane hadn't reckoned on when she had whined about the power bill. But for once Ryan was the perfect gentleman, allaying her fears as she ate by chat­ting about how he had learned to cook when his mother was doing shift work, how he had also looked after his baby sister, Melissa, and how his mother was now married to a chef who owned two restaurants, one of them in partnership with his stepson.

  Jane said very little, concentrating on gingerly bal­ancing her fork between the good fingers of her left hand, and as soon as dinner was over announced her intention of going to bed to read.

  'Is that wise straight after eating?' frowned Ryan. 'Why don't we go for a stroll along the beach? The moon won't be over the hills yet, but I have a torch in the Rover.'

  Warm night, dark beach, crashing waves, sexy man ...

  Jane could feel her heart palpitating at the possibilities.

  'I'm too tired,' she said truthfully.
Too tired to feel like wrestling her own desires as well as his! Ryan's swift first aid had prevented her burn penetrating through many layers of her skin, but it was still smarting quite badly.

  He followed her down the hall and watched her put the candle she was carrying on the low cabinet by her bed. 'How are you planning to wash? After a hot day like today I know you must be dying for a nice soap-­down so your skin is soft and clean when you slide be­tween the sheets, but now you've got both hands out of commission. '

  His words were so evocative that Jane instantly felt every grain of sand and every microscopic speck of dust weighing like boulders on her sun-parched skin.

  'My left one is much better than it was. I'll manage.'

  'Not if your fork-handling is anything to go by. Don't be silly, Jane. You'll take ages and probably hurt your­self in the process. Why not let me give you a nice wash?'

  Jane turned around, her mouth falling open. Standing in the doorway of her room, the devil even managed to look pious as he said, 'You'll feel much better after­wards.'

  She could just imagine!

  Her jaw snapped shut. 'I think I'll skip a wash to­night!'

  He stepped over the threshold, seemingly undismayed by her vehement refusal. In the candlelit shadows he looked very big and very dark. 'What about your night things? What do you wear to bed?'

  With her injured hand she had found it easier to sleep nude than struggle into one of the silky confections that the valuers had fastidiously overlooked. 'None of your business.'

  He took another step. 'I see,' he said and from the huskiness in his voice he saw all too well. 'But maybe with me in the house you'd feel more secure if you wore something. Do you need me to help you get undressed?'

  She shook her head, biting her tongue. He came closer and fingered the bottom of her T-shirt. 'Are you sure?' She nodded dumbly. 'What about your bra? Does it fasten at the front or back?'