His Convenient Proposal

by Lindsay Armstrong

  Simon looked at his mother with new eyes. ‘Seconded!’ he said crisply.

  ‘And last but not least,’ Brett went on, ‘I’ve been offered a dog.’

  ‘Yes!’ Simon shot up from his chair.

  ‘What kind of a dog and who by?’ Ellie enquired.

  ‘One of my staff. They have eight little Blue Heeler puppies to dispose of in about two weeks’ time.’

  ‘Uh-h-h!’ Simon closed his eyes in sheer bliss. Since a Blue Heeler with black points had been used in a series of motor car ads, Simon had longed for one himself. ‘Mum?’ He turned to her, his blue eyes pleading.

  Ellie hesitated, conscious of Brett’s rather narrowed gaze on her as well. What if we leave? It ran through her mind. What if we have to move to a unit? Why are you doing this—tying me down like this, Brett Spencer?

  ‘Mum, I swear I’ll look after it—hey! They run dog-training classes on the cricket oval every Saturday morning. I bet you I could make it as smart as any dog you know.’

  Ellie stared into his blue eyes. In fact, Simon had been dying for a dog for years. She’d refused for the same reason she should be refusing now—just in case they had to move. But was it not another facet of his life? And how could she refuse the one breed of dog Simon would be devastated to miss out on?

  She sighed inwardly. If they did move on they’d just have to move to a place that took dogs… ‘OK…’

  She received a bear-hug of pure joy from her son but Brett said nothing. Was it her imagination, though, or did she see a faint glimmer of satisfaction in his grey eyes? she wondered. He went out shortly after dinner so she was unable to put it to the test or take issue with his methods.

  That was Tuesday. On Wednesday evening he arrived home with a desk-top computer and enquired whether either of them would have any use for it.

  Simon and Ellie looked at each other.

  ‘Could we ever!’ Simon pronounced.

  ‘Simon—’

  But her son went on blithely, ‘The situation is, Brett, that Mum and I have done a computer course together, and I get to use them at school, she does at work, but so far we haven’t been able to afford one of our own. We’ve got a fund going—hey! Let’s make it a joint venture! We’ll contribute our fund towards it.’

  ‘Simon,’ Ellie said firmly, ‘our fund at this stage would contribute to about one twentieth of a computer. And it’s very important work Brett does so I’m sure he wouldn’t want anyone else on his computer.’

  ‘The situation is, Ms Madigan,’ Brett said smoothly, ‘when we ordered computers for the laboratory, we overestimated our needs so this one is redundant. On discovering this, I purchased it at a discount thinking that this…household could probably use one. As for my “very important work”, I will be doing all that on my new laptop.’

  ‘May I have a word with you in private?’ Ellie said to Brett.

  ‘Sure,’ Simon replied for Brett. ‘I was just going to nip over to Martie’s anyway. When will dinner be ready, Mum?’

  ‘Dinner?’ Ellie looked at him distractedly, as if dinner were in league with flying to the moon. ‘Uh—in an hour.’

  ‘OK, I’ll be back. That should give you plenty of time to sort this out.’ He slung on his baseball cap, backwards, and disappeared through the kitchen door.

  ‘There are times,’ Ellie said slowly and with perfect enunciation, ‘when…’ She paused and looked suddenly stricken.

  ‘You could strangle him?’ Brett suggested. ‘Don’t worry, my mother had the same problem with me.’

  ‘I can believe that!’ Ellie replied fervently and looking slightly less stricken. ‘Between the two of you, you’re enough to drive me insane!’

  ‘What’s so bad about bringing home a redundant computer that would only gather dust otherwise?’ he asked.

  ‘Couldn’t you have returned it and got a refund?’

  He shrugged. ‘Probably. As a research tool for your profession, though, I thought it would be—helpful.’

  Ellie moved a couple of pots around on the stove, not quietly. ‘When do I get the time for that?’ she asked bitterly.

  ‘Well, that’s my other point. Once you have some help in the house, you should have a lot more time for doing the things you enjoy.’

  Ellie sighed and turned away from the stove, to study him. ‘Brett, you’re trying to buy me.’

  ‘Why would I want to buy you, Ellie,’ he countered with a dangerous glitter in his eyes, ‘when I could have you free, gratis and for nothing?’

  She flushed brilliantly but soldiered on. ‘You’re making it impossible for me to tear Simon away, you’re using Simon to keep me as a hostage and you’re doing it deliberately. You went back to the drawing-board and this is what you came up with! It’s blackmail. You even d… You even diabolically,’ she repeated as her voice got clogged up, ‘hit on the one breed of dog Simon adores.’

  ‘There was nothing diabolical about it,’ he denied. ‘I had no idea he was such a fan of that dog but most boys love dogs, they love the companionship, and you were the one who was trying to round out Simon’s life as much as you could, although disastrously to date. No pun on words intended,’ he added with irony. ‘Or was there? Some of your dates were obviously disasters.’

  Ellie literally saw red at this piece of logic—for all that she herself had thought along exactly the same lines, at times. ‘If you say one more word about dates—’ she gripped the handle of an empty pot ‘—I’ll do something I won’t regret!’

  He eyed the pot warily, then moved forward and prised her fingers off the handle. ‘Ellie, you’re over-reacting.’

  ‘I’m not,’ she whispered as he towered over her. ‘I’m doing everything I can to prevent us making an awful mistake, Brett, that’s all.’

  ‘What could possibly be so awful about it?’ he asked dryly.

  She stared at him.

  ‘Do you object to living with me as we are and have been for the past few weeks?’ he persisted.

  ‘No, but—’

  ‘So I don’t have any habits that drive you crazy or make your skin crawl?’

  Ellie licked her lips. ‘No… Well, you do like to get your own way.’

  He smiled briefly. ‘Is there anything I’ve done that hasn’t benefited both you and Simon?’

  ‘Brett, all right.’ She swallowed. ‘Most things you say make sense but what happens when you fall out of lust with me? What happens to Simon then?’

  ‘Or—do you mean—what happens to Elvira Madigan then?’

  ‘I can never separate myself from Simon,’ she said, wilfully choosing to misunderstand him because she was terrified that he’d seen right through to her heart.

  ‘Who doesn’t take that risk, Ellie?’ His gaze was intent and probing. ‘But is it only lust between us?’

  ‘I’ve been here for eleven years, Brett.’ It came out against her better judgement and she closed her eyes briefly.

  ‘Things change,’ he said slowly. ‘Then again, others don’t. You were fascinating then although I chose not to act on it; you’re fascinating now.’

  ‘And in between times?’

  ‘We both got on with our lives. Why don’t you just give in, Ellie? Believe me, you’d love it.’

  Something flickered in her eyes. ‘Simon…’

  ‘There’s something else I had in mind for Simon but I’d never do it without consulting you first.’

  ‘What?’ she asked. ‘Not boarding-school—I’d never agree to that!’

  ‘I’d hardly be suggesting getting him a dog and sending him to boarding-school in the same breath.’ He paused and studied her. ‘I don’t know if you remember but I was the one who packed Tom’s things up and settled his affairs?’

  She took a breath. ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’ve still got them—his personal things. Some photos, his cricket bat, his golf clubs, his old school tie, the pen he won as a maths prize at school—odds and ends like that. I thought, the next time Simon mentions him, we might, all thr
ee of us, go through them together.’

  This time Ellie exhaled deeply and there was a suspicious dampness about her eyes.

  ‘Would that be a yea or a nay, Ms Madigan?’ he asked softly.

  Her shoulders slumped and she looked at the floor.

  He put his arms around her and rested his chin on her head. ‘There are so many things I admire about you, Ellie. Your spirit and grit, the wonderful home you make, your dedication to your career, the free soul I see in you when you fly your kites.’

  He moved her away a little so he could look down into her eyes and disturbed a look of surprise in them. ‘You didn’t realize I saw it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I did. Then,’ he went on, his gaze moving lower, ‘well, I won’t go into details, this being the G-rated hour before dinner, but—well, we both know how—expressive—you can be.’ He waited, his gaze firmly fixed on her breasts.

  But for once fate, or something, was on her side. She was wearing a dress. Sleeveless, with a square neck, loose, apricot and white gingham with a fine blue stripe added, but not only was it loose, it was made of seersucker cotton, full of little bobbles of fabric, in other words, that made it quite concealing.

  When this began to dawn on Brett he raised his eyes to hers to find the little golden points in her eyes gleaming in a way that told him she had scored against him and not only knew it but was amused by it.

  What followed took him even more by surprise, however. She freed herself from his arms and stood gazing at him with her expression rearranged to serious. Then she stepped forward, cupped his face in her hands and murmured, ‘Two can play that game, Brett Spencer.’

  ‘Undoubtedly,’ he agreed, but found himself suddenly mesmerized by the sheen of her lips, the clean shine and perfume of her hair, the slender line of her throat.

  ‘And this.’ She drew her palms down to his chest and moved closer.

  Almost of their own accord, his arms circled her and she moved even closer so that the slender lines of her body were imprinted on his—and his immediate reaction was to take an unexpected breath at the involuntary response this drew from him.

  She smiled, not in triumph but something wiser and eternally feminine. And she stood on tiptoe and rested her lips against his, but just as he made a move to crush her to him she slipped away from him.

  ‘Ellie,’ he said huskily, ‘what was that all about?’

  She shrugged delicately. ‘Something for you to think about, perhaps?’

  ‘Think?’ he repeated.

  ‘It’s what I get told to do a lot and I’m sure it’s good for anyone to shake up their thoughts occasionally.’ She looked at him gravely. ‘For example, you seem to be so sure of a lot of things in relation to me, Brett, but what do you really know about it?’

  And she moved serenely into the dining room where she began to set the table.

  ‘What about the computer?’ He stood in the doorway watching her.

  She looked over her shoulder. ‘It can stay so long as there are no more similar gestures.’

  ‘How kind of you, Ellie,’ he said harshly.

  But not even that dented her composure. She glinted him an enigmatic little look and went on with what she was doing. And Simon came noisily through the back door.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  A TRUCE reigned for the next few days.

  Brett and Simon consulted on a suitable kennel for the new dog and decided to build one themselves.

  The computer was installed and a cleaning lady, recommended by Delia, was acquired. A vigorous woman in her mid-forties who’d come armed with a list of the products she preferred to use. After her first day, Ellie felt jittery and as if her privacy had been invaded despite the gleaming floors and absence of an overflowing ironing basket to make her feel guilty.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  Brett stopped on his way out to the garage where the great kennel construction was under way with a lot of banging. He had a saw in one hand and a metal tape measure in the other, having requested leave to borrow them from her kite-making tools.

  She was sitting at the kitchen table in a brown study. ‘Nothing.’

  ‘You don’t seem to be jumping for joy over your clean house,’ he observed.

  ‘I am, well, I found it a little hard to handle, that’s all.’

  He hesitated. ‘Perhaps you’d be better away from the house while she’s here—is that the problem? Feeling underfoot all the time?’

  ‘That,’ Ellie agreed, ‘and the fact that she rearranged all the ornaments and I found it hard to…give orders, I suppose.’

  ‘How do you treat a cleaning lady kind of thing?’ he hazarded. ‘Simple. Be friendly, have a cup of tea with her occasionally, but be quite clear on what you want her to do. Don’t leave it all up to her, in other words. That’s a sure way to lead to complacency.’

  ‘How do you know all this?’ Ellie enquired with a glimmer of humour.

  ‘Handling staff requires a universal technique whether they’re lab assistants, interns or cleaning ladies. A friendly but firm touch.’ He looked at the tools in his hands and became rueful. ‘Building kennels, on the other hand, is not my area of expertise.’

  ‘Why did you agree to it, then?’

  A look of frustration crossed his face. ‘It’s only a box with a roof on it, I thought it would be a piece of cake!’

  ‘Would you like a hand?’

  ‘No. Thank you, but no,’ he said with dignity. ‘My pride has taken a bit of a hammering as it is so I intend to succeed here.’

  ‘Your…?’

  ‘As you very well know,’ he said softly.

  Ellie looked away first and he went back to the kennel.

  But in the peace of the kitchen she pondered the nature of the truce that reigned at 3 Summerhill Crescent. Had she really given Brett something to think about? If so, what was he thinking? What would be his next step?

  His very next step was to hammer a finger instead of the nail he’d been intending to bang into the kennel, with an accompanying yell and a string of curses that nearly took the roof off.

  When the tumult had subsided somewhat, i.e. he’d been taken to hospital, had it X-rayed to establish whether he’d broken it—he hadn’t but it was severely bruised—and had it bound up securely with all his fingers on that hand immobilized on a splint for pain relief, and they were back home, she said, ‘I thought doctors were particularly nimble-fingered?’

  He looked at her broodingly over the tea she’d made to revive them all. ‘Surgeons are. I’m a different kind of doctor.’

  ‘But surely all doctors learn to operate to a certain level?’

  ‘There’s a vast difference between building a kennel and operating on a human being, Ellie!’

  ‘Mum, leave it,’ Simon advised. He turned to Brett. ‘I wouldn’t worry about it, mate,’ he said kindly. ‘We can’t all be good at everything and Martie’s dad has all the right tools. He’ll finish it off for us. I’m going to bed, I’m worn out. Goodnight.’

  ‘Goodnight,’ Ellie and Brett chorused.

  ‘He’s right,’ Ellie said reasonably. ‘We can’t all be good at everything.’

  ‘When has your son being right, even if you damn well know it, not produced a sense of ire in you if not to say all the indignity of role reversal?’ he enquired acidly.

  Ellie hid a smile. ‘It can be a bit demoralising, I agree. But—’

  ‘Hell! Don’t you start humouring me, Ellie!’

  She sat back. ‘OK. I won’t say another word.’

  He watched her darkly as she sipped her tea then folded her hands in her lap. ‘That doesn’t mean to say you have to stop talking to me!’

  ‘What would you like to talk about?’

  He regarded his immobilized left hand with huge irritation. ‘As a matter of fact I don’t want to talk at all. What I would really like is something quite different.’

  ‘Such as?’ she asked, unwisely as it happened.

  ‘I’d like s
omeone to take me to bed and make love to me very gently, then hold me in her arms until I fell asleep. I’d like some TLC, in other words.’

  For a moment Ellie was truly tempted as they stared into each other’s eyes. To be able to kiss away his blues and lead him down a path of delight for both of them would be heaven, she freely acknowledged. To know that he actually needed her… No, don’t even think about it, she advised herself.

  She stood up. ‘Brett, if I were ever to do that, I think you would be much happier to have full use of both hands. But I do have a light sedative they gave me at the hospital in case you had trouble sleeping.’

  Several expressions chased through his eyes. ‘I told you this once before, but you’re a hard woman, Ellie. It’s going to take more than a light sedative to get me to sleep now.’

  ‘Don’t you believe it. Goodnight,’ she said.

  He stood up himself. ‘Before you go, Ellie.’ He slipped his good arm around her waist, pulled her close with surprising strength and said to her look of surprise, ‘Just thought I’d give you a demonstration of what I can do one-handed.’ He bent his head and started to kiss her in a way that told her plainly he wouldn’t take no for an answer.

  In fact he kissed her breathless and managed to balance his injured hand lightly on her shoulder at the same time. Then he let her go. ‘There. Take that to bed with you, Elvira.’

  She licked her bruised lips and put her hands to her heart in an attempt to slow it down while her body was racked with sensual anticipation that was going to go unrequited because, apart from anything else, she was quite sure she hated him at the moment at least. And her eyes were distinctly stormy as she said tautly, ‘Talk about a boyish attempt to salvage your pride!’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know about that,’ he drawled. ‘Some pride may have been involved.’ His lips twisted. ‘But if you can’t take the heat with a real man, perhaps you should get out of the kitchen?’

  Ellie looked around wildly. They so happened to be in the kitchen.

  Which caused him to look briefly amused. ‘That was a figure of speech.’

  ‘It had better be,’ she said between her teeth and clenched her fists. ‘What’s more, if you weren’t already injured, I’d…’