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Busy enough that they might have pushed her out so she’d find time for a social life again?
Her family had been known to stick their noses into each other’s lives at times. Lally had been guilty of it too. In a big, loving family that would always happen, and she’d had her share of them hinting that she could do with getting out more.
But they wouldn’t take it this far, would they? Of course they wouldn’t…
‘Lunch is almost ready now, if you want to take a seat in the dining room.’ Lally would far rather eat lunch than go on thinking about that topic. She gestured to the freshly polished dining-table. ‘Or we can eat outside, if you’d prefer? It’s frittata. I hope that’s okay.’
‘Inside will be fine, and I eat most things.’ He paused and the hint of a smile lifted the edges of his mouth. ‘No artichoke. Other than that, I’m very agreeable about food.’
‘That will make cooking for you a dream. I’d like to take advantage of the fresh markets for produce for a lot of our meals.’ She wanted to feed him on the freshest items available, because she thought it might help with whatever had been exhausting him—lack of sleep, long hours, book stress, whatever the problem. Even if it didn’t, it would put his body in a good place, health-wise.
Yes, fine, she was acting like a little mother. Why not, when she’d had a hundred or so relatives to practice those skills on? They all deserved to be loved to bits and looked after as much as possible, especially considering how much they’d had to put up with from her.
Not that she felt the need to earn their love. Well, that would be just silly, wouldn’t it? And she didn’t feel like a little mother; she felt like a determined housekeeper.
Lally turned the frittata onto a serving plate, carried it and the salad to the table she’d set, and took her seat. ‘I hope you’ll eat while the food is hot and at its best, and have as much as you want. I made plenty. I do have a bunch of messages from your phone, but I think they can all wait until after you’ve eaten.’
Now she sounded as though she was very generously allowing him to eat his own food, and making his work-related choices for him while she was at it. ‘What if your editor rings?’ Lally asked suddenly. ‘Or your agent?’
‘You’ll be able to tell if they need to speak to me urgently, otherwise they can wait.’ He gave a wry smile. ‘I’m too professional to ask you to dodge them on my behalf if they phone and then ask for a progress update—though there might be certain days when I’ll be tempted to do that if things keep going the way they have for the past few weeks.’
‘You can’t help it if you’re in the middle of a sticky patch with your muse,’ Lally declared. ‘These things happen. It must be quite amazing to be internationally famous too. You probably have fans chasing after you and everything. Lots of women—’
The words burst out of her and Lally’s face flooded with heat.
‘I can’t say I’ve been particularly chased, at least not to my knowledge.’ Cam drawled the words. He felt far too pleased that Lally’s words—when she’d got to the ‘women’ part of her statement—had sounded as though she was quite jealous at the thought of such a thing happening.
Two seconds later he realised that wasn’t exactly the response he should have to her. And he didn’t want women chasing him; he’d rather go and find them when he felt the need.
Cam helped himself to a piece of the frittata and some salad and took a first bite. The frittata was perfect, the accompanying salad the exact counterpoint for it; the zing of tangy dressing hit Cam’s tongue, completing the experience. ‘Did you make the dressing yourself? Where did you learn your cooking skills?’
‘I did make the dressing. I learned to cook from two parents who both love it, and do it very differently but equally as well.’ Lally’s smile softened at whatever memories were in her head. ‘What they didn’t actively teach me, I guess I’ve learned by observation anyway.’
She seemed to take her skill level as nothing out of the ordinary.
‘Your father runs a restaurant; I momentarily forgot that.’ She’d told him that at their interview, and Cam had spent a few moments piecing together her family history in his mind. Torres-Strait Aboriginal mother, Italian father; the surname of ‘Douglas’ suggested that her father might not be fully Italian.
‘Dad’s mother married a Scotsman, just to keep things interesting.’ Lally’s lovely smile lit her face again.
‘You have a diverse family tree.’ Cam returned the smile, and gestured to his plate. ‘The food is delicious, thank you. I think I’ve struck it lucky with you, Lally, if this meal and the work you’ve got through already are any indication.’
‘You’re welcome for all of it.’ Her skin didn’t show a blush. Yet somehow he suspected one had just happened—by the change to the sparkle in her eyes, perhaps?
What would she be like in the middle of passion?
Cam cut the thought off. The answer to that question was that it was not his business to wonder.
‘I’ve done as much work as I could this morning.’ Lally seemed flustered as she pulled the duties list from her pocket and flattened it on the table beside her plate. She glanced at it and raised her gaze to his face. ‘I’ll do all that I can to look after you, help you start to feel more rested and focus on what you need to do with your time.’
‘I appreciate that.’ Surely in another week or two he would get back to sleeping at least the four to four-and-a-half hours a night he usually got? Cam didn’t expect Lally to be able to do a thing about that. Why would she? All the experts had failed to give him any long-term solutions that didn’t involve knocking himself out at night with medications he didn’t want to let become a habit in his life.
‘I haven’t forgotten about book research.’ Her finger rested on a point on the list. ‘I’m ready to help you with that in any way required.’
‘I have a research project for you for after lunch, actually.’ Cam went on to explain what he needed. ‘I have two laptop computers. What I’d like you to do is use the second laptop and get the prohibition laws about using these substances in this state…’ He jotted the names of several chemical compounds onto the bottom of her list.
‘I’ll do the rest of the research myself. Some of it has to be handled carefully; I don’t want you dealing with anything that could be potentially dangerous to you.’ He paused. ‘At least I can still make forward progress with my lead character’s investigations and activities to some degree, even if other aspects of the story are being difficult.’
Lally’s eyes widened and her soft lips parted. ‘You take care with your research? You keep yourself safe?’ Her words were so genuine, filled with concern for him.
Cam got that strange feeling in his chest again. ‘Always. I always take care.’ He was even more determined to take care of her in this admittedly small way.
As their gazes met and held, Cam was very conscious of her.
She was conscious of him. It was there in her guarded expression, the rejection and the self-protectiveness in every line of her body, and didn’t fully manage to conceal the interest beneath.
They threw sparks off each other, and Lally didn’t want to feel those sparks.
Were they for him? Or for any man at the moment?
And, either way, why?
But he didn’t need to know why; Cam told himself this. He needed to develop a three-dimensional book character, not know every aspect of his new housekeeper’s make-up.
They both dropped their gazes at the same time and Cam rubbed his face wearily.
‘Are you okay, Cam? You mentioned you don’t sleep well—I assumed that was due to stress or work pressures.’ Lally’s soft words impinged on his thoughts. ‘If there’s anything else I need to know…’
‘I’m a long-term insomniac. It’s annoying sometimes but it’s nothing to worry about.’
Though he didn’t care who knew about it one way or another, this wasn’t something he discussed often. Cam wouldn’t have held the answer back from her, though, not when her face had filled with such concern.
Lally gave a nod of acknowledgement. ‘It’s no wonder you felt like being spoiled a little. Maybe you can enjoy some more rest than usual, even if it doesn’t come in the form of sleep.’
‘Maybe I will. I’ve got my eye on the pool.’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘A swim now and then would be relaxing.’ He hesitated. ‘If you hear me up and about in the middle of the night…’
‘Do you like company at those times, or to be by yourself?’ Lally’s expression had softened so much, it was almost as though she needed to find a chink in his armour and felt somehow reassured by finding it. ‘I’d be happy to heat you some warm milk or sit up and talk.’
Cam pictured them sitting at this table at midnight. Somehow he doubted that drinking milk or talking would be the first things on his mind. He’d be thinking about kissing his way up the slender column of her neck until he reached those luscious lips and closed his own over them.
The urge to kiss her now, right in this blink of time, silenced him for a moment. It was one thing to imagine, even to want, but this urge felt somehow to be more than that.
Maybe you should just ask her if she’d curl up on the sofa with you, with your head in her lap, and stroke your face with her fingers until you fall asleep, you big baby.
Or you could admit you find her more than a little intriguing and that you’re not doing a very good job of pushing back that interest.
All right, he did find her intriguing, but he wasn’t about to act on it. Theirs was a working relationship and that was exactly how Cam wanted it to be.
And that left how he wanted to deal with the rest of the day. And the next.
Cam cleared his throat and side-stepped the question. ‘I’ll take you to the market tomorrow morning and we can buy fresh produce together. I’ll be awake anyway, so it makes sense that I go with you the first time at least.’
He could tell her what foods he liked the most, could carry her basket for her.
Or throw down his cloak for her to step on if she came across a puddle in her path!
‘Excuse me.’ He got to his feet and assured himself the only thought on his mind was getting back to business.
He was not running; he was planning and retreating so he could focus on his book. A totally different thing.
Cam took Lally’s written list of phone messages and the phone itself from the table. ‘I’ll see to these and drop the phone out to you before I start writing, if that’s okay?’
‘Thanks.’ Lally glanced down at the notes he’d written for her to research. ‘And I’ll bring my research results to you as soon as I have them.’
Cam looked at the sweep of her long black lashes. ‘Other than that, perhaps you can just keep going with your housekeeping jobs.’ If Cam stayed clear for a few hours, maybe he would get these strange reactions to her sorted out a little better.
Lally rose and started to gather dishes into capable hands. ‘Good luck with the writing.’
‘Thanks.’
Cam nodded and left.
CHAPTER FOUR
‘I MEANT to unpack all this as soon as we got home.’ It was the next afternoon. Lally reached into one of the string bags sitting on the kitchen counter in the apartment and pulled out several canned goods.
Her voice was raised a little to be heard over the outside noise of the refurbishing crew. Cam had to admit that right now they sounded more like a destruction mob. ‘Are you okay with that noise? It’s not driving you crazy?’
‘Oh, no,’ she said. ‘I’m fine with it. If anything would get to me, I think it would be too much quiet.’
Cam understood that only too well. Maybe noise was what he needed at night.
You’ve tried that, remember? You’ve tried every trick there is. Noise or no noise; light or dark; quiet or loud; whatever, you don’t sleep beyond what your body has to have to survive. That’s all there is to it.
He returned his gaze to his housekeeper. ‘You got busy when we got back here.’ Lally had called it ‘home’ and hadn’t seemed to notice the word. But in truth where did Lally Douglas call ‘home’? She’d told him she had a room at her parents’ home; was that it? At twenty-four, didn’t she want her freedom at some point?
And why did it even matter to Cam? ‘Home,’ he’d never had. A faceless, nameless apartment in the centre of Sydney that he visited now and then hardly counted.
Yet wouldn’t it be nice to have a home? A real one? With a permanent housekeeper like Lally to look after him?
Dumb thought, Travers. This was a temporary measure, nothing more. Cam drew a breath. ‘There’s nothing in the foodstuffs that will have spoiled.’
‘No. I put the perishables away straight off, at least.’ Lally removed the remaining articles from the bags and started to pack them into the larder.
Cam resisted the urge to help. He’d crossed the line enough by insisting they shop together at the market first thing this morning. When they’d got back, he’d eaten breakfast with her—then had taken himself off to his office and proceeded to give his hero’s love-interest so many of Lally Douglas’s traits and characteristics that he’d had to delete half the work he’d written.
So he’d deleted, and he’d wrestled with his story some more, and he’d come up with what he knew was a great scene-idea—but then he couldn’t get that to work either. Without realising he did it, Cam heaved a sigh.
‘Is the writing not going well?’ Lally’s words were empathetic.
He shook his head. ‘I’ve got a scene planned in my mind, but when I try to write it I can’t visualise it properly. I can’t “see” the heroine in my mind’s eye. I’m not sure how to use their surroundings. It’s a scene that I know will work, but I can’t seem to get it to work. I think as long as the heroine remains shadowy in my mind, this problem is going to continue.’
‘What would bring her to life for you?’ Lally’s eyebrows drew together as she considered the matter. ‘Could you “interview” her? Ask her questions to get to know her?’
‘Stream-of-consciousness interviewing? I did try that about a week ago, but I didn’t get anywhere with it.’ Cam forced himself not to scowl his irritation over this. ‘I feel as though I need to somehow throw her into the middle of this scene, really get in deep there with her. Once I see how she reacts, the pieces will all come together. Maybe.’
‘Hmm.’ Lally was silent for a long moment. She tipped her head to the side and tapped her finger on her chin before her eyes lit up. ‘When Mum gets stuck on a painting, she tells my aunt the concept. Auntie takes a sheet of paper and whips out her interpretation of how she’d do the painting. Mum invariably says that’s not how the idea should be executed! Rejecting one idea helps Mum to figure out how she wants to execute it.’
‘That’s an interesting concept.’ It was Cam’s turn to frown. ‘I’d try that, if there was a chance it would rattle loose my interpretation. But how?’
‘You need a “volunteer from the audience”.’ The smile deepened on Lally’s lovely mouth. ‘Someone, or more than one person, to act out the scene for you. You don’t have to like how they do it, but it might help you figure out what you do want for the scene.’
Cam gave a surprised laugh. ‘That could just work. I’d have to find an acting society or a theatre group willing to act it.’
‘Or you and I could do it.’ The words came out in a little rush and she immediately bit her lip. ‘Not if you didn’t want us to, but if you didn’t want the hassle of trying to find real actors—if you only needed to play-act it to help you figure it out—we could do that, couldn’t we?’
‘We could.’ Her enthusiasm started to spread through him too. ‘My idea is a wheels-within-wheels kind of situation, where he’s pretending interest in her but he suspects her of being a double agent or spy or assassin. He thinks if he disarms her with food, wine and attention he’ll figure out what she’s up to.’ He went on. ‘She’s got an equal number of suspicions about him. She pretends to be “buyable” for the night, to gain access to his hotel room to search it later, and then she’s going to disappear—but he lures her to the roof top of the building after dinner when he suspects her motives are as duplicitous as his are.’
Cam drew a breath. ‘Before dinner he spends money on her, buying her a dress and other gifts.’
‘It really is wheels within wheels.’ Lally’s eyes were like stars. ‘Oh, but that sounds so exciting. We could role-play the whole evening from beginning to end. It wouldn’t have to be an exact match, but it could be a lot of fun!’
‘Let’s do it.’ Cam’s smile spread until it was as wide as hers. ‘It’ll have to be late in the day. If we’re going to do this I want the right atmosphere, time of night, all of it.’
Happiness filled her face. ‘Tonight?’
Cam couldn’t seem to look away from that happiness. ‘Yes, we’ll do it tonight. We’ll leave here at seven p.m. I’d better get on the computer and figure out where we can go that will provide the kind of backdrop I want.’ He started to turn away; he had to turn away. ‘Can you manage that?’
‘Of course.’ She did a little bounce on the balls of her feet. ‘I’ll go on with other work until you’re ready for us to leave.’
He looked at her and tried not to think about the curve of the side of her face, her cheek, her chin and her lush lips that looked soft and kissable. ‘We’ll be out until around midnight, so feel free to take some time off this afternoon before we leave. I don’t want to over-tire you.’
‘I’ll take a nap for an hour if I can get to sleep,’ Lally conceded, but with a glow of anticipation still all over her face.
Somehow Cam doubted she would relax into sleep in this mood, but he wasn’t a good one to gauge her chances. Just because he wouldn’t have been able to sleep in the afternoon didn’t mean she might not be able to nod off any time she decided she wanted to.
‘I’ll see you at seven.’ He glanced at her clothes. ‘You can come dressed as you are now, or in something similar; it doesn’t really matter. Choosing clothes in the same way the female character would do that tonight will be part of our role-play. I’ll need to locate a big hotel that has boutique stores. We’ll shop there, enact the time in the dining room, and then go up on the rooftop for that part.’
Her eyes widened. ‘It—it won’t cost you a lot, will it? I didn’t mean to suggest…’
‘Something that might get my writing back on track after weeks of it driving me crazy because I haven’t been able to get there?’ He felt lighter than he had in all those weeks. ‘If it costs me a little to organise this evening and I get a result, I will be more than happy, so don’t give that another thought. Whatever I spend I’ll be able to tax-deduct, anyway.’
‘Well, I guess.’ Lally frowned. ‘Make sure it’s a hotel that does clothing hire, or has cheap stores. We can go through the motions, buy or hire what we have to, I guess, but keep the expense right down.’
Cam smiled at the earnest face looking at him. ‘You need to think of it as a cross between Cinderella and—I don’t know—winning a shopping spree or something.’
‘Oh, well, okay. I guess.’
‘Good.’ Cam turned away. ‘I’ll see you when it’s time to go.’
