Ford had the cabbie wait, and Saunders sat patiently, calmly, watching as he opened the garage and clambered up into a decrepit, dilapidated old Land Rover, apparently with the intention of getting it started.
‘I was afraid of that,’ he said on his return a moment later, it’s been a while since I was here, and the old girl needs a bit of work before she comes good. I’m going to send you on with the cab, Saunders, because you have more important things to do while I play motor mechanic. I’ll catch up at tonight’s meeting … promise!’
He hefted out his own luggage from the boot, gave the cabbie directions to the local diabetes centre, then leaned in through the passenger window to kiss Saunders lightly, casually, and quite unexpectedly, on the lips.
‘Gee, you’re beautiful,’ he said. ‘You’ll knock ‘em dead tonight, no matter what you say.’
And before she could reply, while her lips still held the imprint of his kiss and her mind was trying to interpret his last remarks, he waved the taxi away.
She was still pondering whether those remarks had been compliments, insults, or something far, far more important than either, when the taxi arrived at its destination and she had to focus her mind on the task ahead of her instead of the baffling, intriguing, infuriating man she had just left behind.
In the flurry of meeting her compatriots, her billeting hosts for the night and the various other folk involved with the meeting, she managed quite nicely, she thought, to push Ford firmly to the back of her mind and keep him there. Until she found herself at the podium, facing a crowd ten times larger than any she had ever before addressed, and immediately found him sitting in the front row, listening intently, encouraging her with his eyes, his bearing, his very presence, as she launched into a speech that might have been written with only Ford Landell and herself in mind.
Ford was the anchor for her speech. No other face in the large audience held form for her; no one else even really existed. She spoke exclusively to him, aiming each word, each inflexion, all the passion of her genuine beliefs — all at him! He became a sort of conduit, conveying her words, her attitudes, to the crowd around him. It was, she knew, when it was finally over, the finest such speech she would ever give, had ever given. Because of him.
CHAPTER NINE
‘I had nothing to do with it!’
‘Oh, but you did. I didn’t have a chance to tell you last night, and I … 1 meant to,’ Saunders replied. ‘You have no idea how much difference it made, having somebody I knew there in the front, somebody I could focus on.’
‘And I suppose it never occurred to you that I was only sitting in the front row so I could look up your skirt?’
Ford’s comment was so matter-of-fact, his tone so quietly conversational, that Saunders didn’t, for a moment, realise exactly what he’d said. And, when she did twig, she looked over to see him sitting with a perfectly straight face and his eyes never leaving the road ahead.
This, she decided, was yet another side to Ford Landell that she hadn’t realised existed. They had been arguing gently ever since setting out at dawn on the sightseeing venture he’d promised her before they flew back to the mainland.
There had been no time for any personal talk after her speech; Ford had politely hovered until he’d had the opportunity to offer quick congratulations, meet her hostess and arrange to pick Saunders up in the morning, then had pleaded work in progress and disappeared. This morning he’d been rather more effusive in his congratulations, but had refused to accept any personal credit whatsoever.
And now this…
All right, thought Saunders. If you want to play games, we’ll play games.
‘You enjoyed the view, though? Good legs, you thought?’
Now it was his turn to pause before cautiously replying.
‘That’s a strange question.’
‘Not really,’ she said. ‘I just wondered if you would have preferred oak, or maybe pine. That’s all.’
‘On you? I rather doubt it, Saunders.’
‘On the podium I was standing behind the entire time,’ she said then, suddenly a bit unsure who had been leading whom down which garden path.
‘I did think the ankles were just a bit thick.’ He turned to flash his most dazzling smile across the dingy interior of the Land Rover, forcing Saunders to laugh and admit defeat.
‘But seriously,’ he said after a moment, his eyes back on the highway as he steered through the Breadalbane roundabout and headed south, ‘I really would like us to spend this day just being people. No nurse-patient relationship, no blood sugar levels, no glucometers, no diabetes principles, no speeches. Just two people playing tourist. What do you reckon?’
Saunders looked across at him, but he kept his face impassive, his eyes firmly on the highway ahead. But there was, she could see, evidence of tension in the taut tendons of his muscular neck, in the grip of those strong, tanned hands on the steering-wheel.
‘Agreed,’ she said after long consideration, then reached out to take the hand he offered her. A brief shake, an equally brief flash of firm white teeth, then she was left to wonder if all ‘tourists’ drove through the Tasmanian countryside in such a strained, disquieting silence.
The silence lasted down through Campbelltown, where they turned left on to a narrow stretch of bitumen called the Lake Leake Road, but gradually the feeling of strain disappeared. Ford’s silence was merely vocal; he smilingly pointed out newborn lambs, a soaring hawk, a higher-soaring eagle, a flock of white cockatoos floating down into a paddock like so much popcorn into a great green bowl.
It became a companionable silence, a comfortable silence, in which Saunders found herself relaxing, enjoying the relative quiet of the journey, the lack of traffic, the unhurried pace at which they travelled.
The road they travelled was meandering eastward now, and gradually climbing from the rolling midlands into the higher timbered country that, according to the map he had passed over to her, eventually fell away to the island’s east coast.
‘We’ll go waterfalling first, and then if there’s time we can do a bit of fossicking; I know a good place for it.’
The remark came from nowhere, surprised Saunders so much that she flinched in her seat, then realised she had been almost asleep. Ford had slowed down, was turning into an information bay that, upon inspection, listed several waterfalls in the vicinity.
Ten minutes later they were at Lost Falls. ‘Which I reckon were hardly worth finding,’ said Ford after a short walk to where they could look a long way down at a relatively insignificant cascade of water in a small creek. ‘Still, it’s here, and who knows when, if ever, we might come this way again?’
The futuristic sentiments in that comment touched some spark in Saunders, as had the touch of Ford’s hand as he’d guided her out of the Land Rover and had continued to hold her hand until the narrow trail to the look-out made such action difficult.
Meetus Falls, on the Cygnet Rivulet headwaters of the Swan River, about fifteen kilometres to the north, was much more spectacular, well worth the twenty-minute round-trip hike to the look-out platform. Here, the insignificant stream they had crossed on the gravel road en route was transformed into a wind-whipped, shimmering curtain as it tumbled over the escarpment into a pool of mist far below them.
But for Saunders, that day and forever, it was Hardings Falls on the upper Swan River, the third place they visited, which had the greatest impact.
It was nearly eleven by the time they got to the tiny parking area on a scrubby ridge of the coastal escarpment, and it was getting exceptionally warm.
‘Just as well; I’m not sure I’d want to be driving this road in the wet,’ Ford had muttered as the old Land Rover shuddered and shook along the rutted, red dirt track which allegedly continued on to join the coastal highway far below and to the cast.
He descended from the vehicle, stretched mightily and, after opening the rear doors, began to assemble a day-pack.
‘We’ll have lunch by the water, and ma
ybe a swim if the river isn’t insanely cold,’ he said, ‘I’m going to change before we go, too. It’s a fair old hike to the bottom, here, and not much of a track either. It’ll be damned hot walking, I expect. Especially coming back.’
Saunders was left to watch, or not, as he sat on the bumper bar, peeled off his hiking-boots, then matter-of-factly stripped off jumper and jeans. The tanned, muscular body thus revealed was, she decided, definitely worth a look, although she also made a mental note to have her dietician’s eyesight checked. How Diane could have considered this man overweight was beyond her comprehension.
Ford pulled on a pair of well-worn football shorts, tugged a T-shirt over his tousled hair, then knelt to replace the hiking-boots, peering upward at Saunders as he did so.
‘You going like that?’ he asked, then pointed to the day-pack. ‘We’ll be stopping for lunch at the bottom, assuming we get there without breaking a leg. You’ll be far too hot, I warn you.’
There was a curious expression in his eyes, she imagined. Something approaching a dare, or, at the very least, a private, secret laughter. She refused to let herself be drawn to comment, merely turned to throw open her flight-bag and search inside for lighter clothing for herself.
But, having searched out her own light tank-top and shorts, a second glance at Ford — so clearly in expectation of being an audience to her changing — gave her second thoughts. Ignoring his cheeky grin, she stepped to the opposite side of the vehicle to give herself some privacy, only to find that she might escape his eyes, but not his voice.
‘Shy, Miss White? I really wouldn’t have expected it.’ And his voice was teasing, bantering. It wasn’t possible to decide if he was just having a chuckle at her or making a more serious point.
Whichever. Saunders determined to try and make light of the situation, otherwise it was poised to get far too serious, more so, in her opinion, than it deserved, and far more than she wanted.
‘It isn’t that I’m shy,’ she managed to reply, it’s that you, sir, are a dirty old man and quite probably a pervert, and I daren’t encourage you.’
Which was a silly thing to say, and she realised it when she returned around the vehicle and had to endure the deliberate, provocative challenge in those black, black eyes as he ran them over her from top to bottom and back again.
By comparison with his own out-of-doors tan, she expected she must look pale and anaemic, Saunders thought, suddenly distinctly shy as Ford’s eyes revealed his appreciation.
Especially when he nodded and said, ‘I take it all back; you’re not a bit too skinny — not one bit.’ Which was only a tiny, tiny bit of what those dark eyes said as they skimmed her bare white skin like butterfly wings.
‘I wonder…’ he said then, and immediately turned to start rummaging through the interior of the vehicle. When he emerged with a satisfied grunt and locked up the vehicle, he held in his hands a crumpled towelling cap and a small tube of some ointment.
‘Come here,’ he said with a curious little grin, and waved imperiously when Saunders didn’t immediately obey. And when she did eventually go to him, he thrust the towelling cap atop her unruly curls and stepped back to survey the result.
‘Definitely you, Miss White,’ he chuckled. ‘Now, just one more small detail and we can set off on this wondrous journey.’
And before she could even think to resist, he was once again close in front of her, reaching out to lift her sunglasses away and put them into her protesting hand.
‘Skin as fair as yours should never be risked,’ he said in a strangely soft voice, his eyes only inches away from her own as he squeezed a bit of the ointment on to his fingers and began to smooth it gently over her face.
Saunders couldn’t have objected had she wanted to; he held her captive with his eyes, with the oily touch of his fingers as he stroked at her forehead, her cheekbones, the bridge of her nose, her chin, and finally along the slope of her neck, to spread the sun block cream on to her shoulders and upper arms.
His touch there was no longer soft; he rubbed in the cream energetically, only letting his fingers linger when they crossed the points of her collarbones. When he nodded for her to turn, she did so, and again he eschewed tenderness in favour of being thorough, as he plastered the stuff on the exposed portions of her shoulders and back.
‘Right. Let’s get going,’ he said then, abandoning her to thrust the sunscreen into the day-pack, which he hoisted to one shoulder, then he waved the other hand magnanimously in the direction of the signposted track to the falls.
Saunders preceded him, both amused and angry with herself for the strange feelings of shyness that Ford seemed so adept at creating. I’m like a sixteen- year-old on her first date, she thought, absolutely certain that her reaction was totally obvious to the man walking along behind her. In her self-consciousness, she stumbled occasionally over nothing on the well-defined trail that crossed half a dozen tiny bridges of treated pine as it wound beneath large, spreading casuarinas and towering gum trees.
The scrub got thicker as they neared the edge of the escarpment and Saunders could hear, increasing in volume, the sound of flowing water off to her right and ahead. A bit further and they suddenly moved out on to a rough point of rocks, scattered with seeming haphazard manner, and a few cautious steps more brought her to a ragged, stumbling halt. Below and to her left she could see the stream moving into a large, obviously deep bowl, while a continuation of the rocks ahead camouflaged the water’s exit to continue downward … and downward … and downward.
She couldn’t see anything of a waterfall proper, but to her right, and far lower down than the pool, there were enormous rock-slabs, and the occasional glint of flowing water between, then a rush of white-water and another gigantic pool far down the cliff.
‘I’d best go ahead now. The track doesn’t look any better than the last time I was here, and it can be a trifle threatening,’ said Ford, who had stepped up beside her. He turned away to his right and began cautiously picking his way down what Saunders could only just perceive as some sort of winding, switchback trail down the scree slope.
The trail turned out, thankfully, to look much more difficult than it actually was. But it none the less took them a fair time, Saunders thought, carefully to negotiate their path over the treacherous rubble, winding back and forth with never a proper view of the waterfall itself until they finally reached the bottom.
But then it was all worth it, ten times over, she thought. Moving on to the water-worn bottom of the gorge itself, forced to hop over great crevasses and around what appeared to be rainwater pools, they rounded the corner to find themselves faced with a vast panorama of falling waters.
The ridge where they had started off spread right across the valley, and water poured down in a multitude of different places. Some came down in distinct, spray-misted falls, more seemed to spring from the rock itself in tiny trickles, delicate tracings and rippling cascades.
‘There’s been a good deal more rain up-country somewhere than I would have thought from looking at the road,’ Ford commented, leading the way to where a deep, dark pool snuggled beneath clouds of mist and spray before opening out into a white-water run through various smaller pools and eventually to a series of larger ones further below them again.
Ford dropped the pack in a safe place where the base rock had split into a natural table and seats, then wandered along the edge of the frothing currents, apparently lost in contemplation, observing the water, the rock formations, occasionally glancing upward at the surrounding canyon.
Saunders did her own bit of wandering, carefully clambering along until she was as close beneath the main waterfall as she could get, looking upward to where the high sun was making a myriad rainbows through the spray. It was, she found, amazingly invigorating — unexpectedly, splendidly so.
She was standing, staring down into the main pool at the huge boulders strewn across the bottom, when she sensed Ford’s approach, even before he stopped behind her and placed his han
ds gently at her waist.
‘Lunch first, or swim first?’ he asked.
‘Lunch, definitely,’ she replied, not bothering to explain that this swimming fantasy of his could be no more than that. She hadn’t brought swimming gear, was reasonably sure he hadn’t either, and had no intention whatsoever of going skinny-dipping, even in such a delightful setting.
But when Ford began to disperse the contents of his day-pack, she honestly wondered if he mightn’t have swimming costumes in there for both of them; he seemed to have just about everything else!
Crusty wholemeal rolls, crackers and dips, half a dozen varieties of exotic cheese, pickles, olives, even a thermos of steaming coffee, were produced with a magician’s elan, along with napkins, a selection of cutlery, a corkscrew and a bottle of vintage Piper’s Brook wine.
‘I am suitably impressed,’ Saunders said, and meant it.
‘So you should be,’ was the smiling reply. ‘Especially by the Piper’s Brook — it’s so in demand for export you can hardly ever seem to get it locally.’
They ate most of their meal in silence, seemingly both content just to absorb the quiet serenity of their situation. Saunders, who would have sworn at the outset that she was only a touch peckish, not really hungry at all, did full justice to her share of the repast; it was no surprise to see Ford getting through his.
It was sheer bliss but, like the meal, it had to end, and it did, for Saunders, when Ford finished clearing up the remains and rose to this feet with a suddenly ominous litheness.
‘Now, madam, swim?’ he asked. And she knew it was more than the sun’s rays putting that dangerous little gleam in his eyes.
‘I … we … not so soon after eating, surely?’ she stammered, speaking the first halfway legitimate objection that came to mind, knowing — and knowing that he knew — exactly what she was doing, what she was thinking.
An Irresistible Flirtation Page 12
