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She blinked furiously, then a fast breath dashed from her nose. ‘What’s the catch?’
‘There’s no catch. I’ll supply food. A comfy chair. I can get my hands on a new computer if you need me to. It shouldn’t take any longer than, say…two weeks.’
Which was when his crew were due back in London after a shoot in Uzbekistan. And he wanted to be on the next trip out. He needed to be. For, if he wasn’t, he feared he might never get back out there again. And out there was where he belonged.
‘Am I still in charge of its upkeep?’ she asked.
He shook his head. ‘No need. The whole place needs a tidy up. I’ll have to hire a gardener. A backhoe. A mini-skip. Or maybe a magic wand to put things back the way they’re meant to be.’
She nodded. ‘Excellent. Happy with that. But what about after I’ve finished taking notes for you? What kind of deal will I have to make with you then?’
Her arms tightened across her chest, pressing her breasts together until she produced some damn fine cleavage. She glared at him and he tried his hardest to keep eye contact as her hot gaze dared him to even think that she might be thinking something raunchy. But the second the thought entered his mind he could think of little else.
A half hour swim for a kiss. An hour for a roll in the grass. A whole afternoon lazing in the pool and maybe she’d agree to going through the rest of Aunt Fay’s rooms and deciding what furniture and knick-knacks to keep and which to let go. For that he’d let her have the darned pool.
‘None,’ he said. ‘No more deals. Doing this one thing for me would be a huge favour, so for that you can use the pool any time you please. For evermore. So how about we clap hands and a bargain?’ He held out his hand to seal the deal.
‘Henry V,’ she blurted, an honest-to-goodness smile creasing her lovely face. She was something when she frowned; she was something else again when she truly smiled. He decided then and there that if she agreed to his terms it would be his mission over the next two weeks to make that happen again and again.
Then her cheeks turned pink and she bit her lip and looked down at her right foot, which was kicking at a small pile of dead pine needles.
‘Henry who or what?’ Hud asked.
‘Clap hands and a bargain,’ she repeated, looking up at him from beneath her dark eyelashes. ‘That was a quote from the proposal scene of Henry V. It’ll make you laugh and cry and your heart go pitter-pat. And, if it doesn’t, well then, I fear you’re just not human.’
Hud took a moment to wet his suddenly dry throat. The woman not only had the hair of a Botticelli model, the skin of a Scandinavian princess and the ability to fill the dark nooks and crannies of his subconscious with light, but he had just accidentally stumbled upon a subject that made her eyes flash like the heralding of a summer storm.
When he said nothing she continued. ‘Shakespeare. Dead English playwright. Quite famous in his time. Funny too that the line comes from the proposal scene and you just made me a proposal. Not like it’s the same kind of proposal, of course. I’d hardly agree to marry a guy for the use of his amenities—’
‘I have heard of him,’ Hud said, cutting her off before she got herself so deep into a verbal hole that she disappeared into her shoes like the wicked witch at the end of The Wizard of Oz. ‘Though I think it’s too late to bluff my way into making you think I was quoting him on purpose. A guy I work with…used to work with, said it all the time. What’s your excuse?’
‘Double English Lit major at Uni,’ she said, back to kicking at pine needles again as she breathed through her recent verbal misstep. ‘That and a computer will get a girl a fine fact checking job with an added sideline in Shakespeare and Keats and Byron quotes on tap. I’m quite the hit at parties.’
‘I don’t doubt it for a second.’ He’d be surprised if she ever made it out of a party without half a dozen new male fans. He wondered if one of those fans had managed to pin her down. Make her his. And if he truly knew what a gem he had. ‘And might I say I’m suitably impressed. You’re the first girl who has ever picked a Shakespeare quote when I’ve given one. Not that I’d rightly know.’
She grabbed a hunk of layered skirt and gave him a little curtsy. Yeah, it would be a fine thing if some guy at a party had taken this woman off the market. For though he was most enjoying looking, he hadn’t come to Claudel to shop for that kind of…what? Tryst? Crush? Holiday romance? Stormy, once-in-a-lifetime, go-for-broke affair?
This girl was witty, cautious and beguiling. It had taken an instant for him to see she was the kind of woman a man could spend a lifetime unravelling, pleasing, knowing. But he didn’t have a lifetime. He had two weeks. Which was more than he’d given any woman in years. He’d just have to be careful to remember that.
She flattened her skirt back to a less frivolous position. ‘So who’s the guy?’ she asked.
Hud lifted his gaze from the fluttering movement of her pale hands to her magnificent eyes. He raised an eyebrow.
‘Whose quotes you steal?’ she continued. ‘The guy with whom you used to work?’
‘Ah. His name was Grant, a sound guy who works for Voyager Channel films.’
‘His name…was Grant?’ she asked, her voice suddenly softer, slower, winding itself around him like one of Aunt Fay’s warm cashmere throw rugs.
‘It still is Grant, actually. Will be for many long years, I hope. He’s fine. He’s just a million miles away and I’m here, in the middle of backwoods Victoria, only it feels like he’s gone when really that honour goes to me.’
When Hud stopped talking, his heart raced as if he’d climbed a mountain, when really all he’d done was tell this strange girl more than he’d told anyone about what he was really feeling. More than he’d told his boss. Or the doctors in London. Or the editor who’d thrown money at him to ‘tell his tale’. Or any of the friends and colleagues who’d asked how he was every time they’d picked up the phone, which was more and more rare with every passing day.
‘So do we have a deal?’ he asked, knowing the time had come to bring this little rendezvous to a close. ‘Your typing fingers for my pool?’
‘Sure,’ she said, her voice still soft, still making him feel as though she had somehow wrapped him in cotton wool.
This time she held out her hand to seal the deal. He stepped forward and took it, entering her personal space, that intangible area that contained a person’s spent energy, and touched her for the very first time.
Her hand was small. Soft. Warm. Enveloped so wholly in his, it made him feel strong. Big. Commanding. It was a feeling he didn’t realise until that moment had been lost somewhere over the past months. A feeling he wanted back. He wanted more. He needed more.
After a few seconds of simply holding hands, her stormy eyes darted to his. Blinking fast. Locking. Connecting. A current seemed to flow from her hand to his. Or maybe it was the other way around.
And in that moment he saw that she felt it too. This strange compulsion pulling them together. He saw in her eyes a deep-seated desire to hold on to him and not let go.
He understood his own reasoning completely. He was a man on the verge of drowning—in violent memories, in red tape, in commiserations where he was used to commendations. And she was a bright light. Sparky, warm, flitting just out of reach.
What a woman like her saw in a broken man in need of a shave, he had no idea. He had nothing to offer her bar his pool. He consoled himself with the knowledge that she seemed switched on. She’d figure it out soon enough.
He loosened his grip and let her go. She stretched out her fingers before clasping her hands behind her back.
‘So when do we start?’ she asked.
I’m afraid we already have, he thought. But all he said was, ‘Tomorrow’s fine with me. Unless you’re busy.’
But she merely nodded. ‘Mornings are always best for me. Projects tend to slide into my inbox around midday. So nine okay with you?’
‘Sounds as good a time as any.’
She gave him a short wave and turned away, taking all that lovely vibrant energy with her.
‘So why do you need this pool of mine so badly you’re willing to give up your precious time for me?’ he asked, not yet ready to see her go.
‘Training for the Olympics,’ she threw back.
‘Then you’d better not forget your bathers,’ he said.
She waved over her shoulder. ‘Not for all the world.’
‘Feel free to come through the front door next time.’
Her head turned, only slightly, but enough for him to see her smile. It was only half the wattage of the one from earlier but still his chest constricted in response.
‘We haven’t known one another all that long, Hud, but I think you already know me better than that.’
The way his name sounded on her tongue made it feel as if they’d known one another a thousand years, though it was the first time he’d ever heard it. And suddenly he realised he had no idea what her name was.
‘Who are you?’ he called out, knowing his interest went far beyond just knowing her name.
She turned to walk backwards, not in the least fearful that she’d walk into a tree. Perhaps she was a wood sprite, after all.
‘The name’s Kendall York,’ she said. ‘The first.’ The half smile kicking up at one corner created a rosy cheek and a hollow cheekbone. Her bone structure was unbelievable. Photographable.
And, as she began to disappear back into the early morning shadows of the pine forest she seemed to know so well, she shot him one last smile and with it one last statement. ‘If you’d simply asked nicely I would have helped type up your story for nothing, you know. I’m that kind of girl.’
The smile hit dead centre of his chest. Burrowing, melting, until it was too late to get a handle on it and pull it out. He said, ‘And if you’d said no I still would have let you use my pool. I’m that kind of guy.’
Her steps faltered. Only slightly but enough for him to take a step forward, as though he’d be able to catch her if she fell, even though by now she was a good ten metres away.
‘See you tomorrow, Hud,’ was all she said.
‘Looking forward to it, Kendall.’
And with that she picked up her pace and she and her heavy boots and hippy clothes walked away.
Hud watched her until she was no more than a sweet memory which he would happily allow to slide unbidden into his mind any time that day or night.
At a couple of minutes before nine the next morning Kendall stood at the Claudel edge of the pine forest.
A large hemp bag containing her laptop, the notebook she never went anywhere without and a red tartan pencil case she’d had since primary school weighed heavy on her shoulder. The plastic bag carrying her bathers and towel felt lighter than air.
She stared at the grey canted roof of Claudel’s main house. And, as always when she stepped on these grounds, she closed her eyes and imagined herself surrounded by ladies in long white dresses and white hats playing croquet and gentlemen in linen suits drinking Long Island iced teas.
Her eyes flickered open and the view morphed into a garden on the verge of eating the house alive while she stood alone in one of her usual long layered skirts and heavy Doc Martens, rigid with the prospect of finding herself once again in the company of a man who made her feel…what?
Well, that was just it. He made her feel. Nervous. Clumsy. Funny. Feminine. With a flicker of those deep dark hazel eyes, a twitch of those sensuous lips, the rise and fall of that broad chest, he conjured feelings inside her she’d believed long since extinct.
And she’d been fine with them being extinct. For memories of a time when such feelings had been the centre of her life hadn’t faded in the years since the boy who’d shared them with her had gone. Memories that had taught her that being emotionally open to someone made a person vulnerable to a thousand different kinds of hurt.
Not that she felt anything for this guy like she had for George. She barely remembered a time in her young life when George hadn’t been there. The past three years without him she had felt as if she were walking through mist.
Two conversations with a stunning man did not a great love affair make, even for a girl who had studied romantic literature. But she still felt something. A flutter. A whisper. The beginning of something that could so easily turn into another thing. After having looked into Hud Bennington’s eyes—twice—her nerves jangled at the very thought of coming face to face with him again.
She wanted that pool, she needed that pool, but had the deal she had made been the worse of two evils?
If she turned around now and broke their bargain surely she could find another way. Another pool. There must be a hundred public pools this side of Melbourne. Where she would have to get into her bathers in front of people. People who would stare at her left leg, and point, and whisper and wonder.
Or what if she just went for a swim anyway? What could the guy really do? Call the police? Barricade the door? Set up a security barrier with lasers and cameras and snipers?
No. He’d asked for her help. Help she could all too easily give. She had the time, the skill and, beneath all of that, like a diamond-tough thread holding the whole deal together, she wanted to see him again. To know if the warm, delicious skittery feeling enveloping her as she’d fallen asleep the night before had as much to do with him as she thought it had.
Well, stuff it. She’d had a crush on Lord Byron when she was twelve and she’d survived it. Now she was three times the age and had learnt the value of self-control. So long as the flutter of her heart didn’t interfere with access to the pool, she could certainly appear all business. All the way.
She sucked in a long breath, allowing the clean scent of the forest to give her strength, and she strode up to the side door of the house. Her hand shook only slightly when she lifted it to rap on the big carved wooden door.
‘Good morning,’ a deep voice said from somewhere behind her.
Kendall spun to find Hud walking towards her, naked from the waist up. Well-worn jeans clung to his hips. Heavy boots caked in mud balanced out his impossibly broad shoulders. And, using his T-shirt as a pouch, he carried a pile of potatoes, tomatoes and carrots which he must have found in a vegetable garden that had survived the years.
The nearer he came, the harder she found it to swallow. Her neck suddenly felt warm and prickly. For it had been some time since she’d been this close to a wall of male muscle. If ever. George had been academic. A smart guy with the softest lips on the planet. But when his life had been snuffed with the slightest swerve of a steering wheel, he’d been a kid compared with the man who stood before her now.
She blinked rapidly, suppressing those memories and thoughts deep down inside.
Hud lifted his right arm to wipe it across his brow and Kendall caught sight of a tattoo etched on to his upper arm, spanning his large bicep. It was a word. A name. A woman’s name. Mirabella.
She nibbled at her bottom lip.
Was she some ex-girlfriend? Or maybe even a current one? Hud’s wife, even? An intrepid journalist still on the trail? Or a native of some far-flung exotic location who’d stolen his heart for ever, making it wretchedly untouchable.
His arm dropped and she glanced up to find him watching her with one of those faint half smiles that made her stomach tumble.
‘Busy morning?’ She dropped her hand to the strap biting at her shoulder and hitched it to a more comfortable position.
He shrugged and the half smile unexpectedly grew a matching blush, which on a guy of his size just made her feel all gooey inside. ‘Sorry about my state of undress. I’m still on London time. I’ve been up with the birds. I had no idea what time it was.’
‘I guess that means we’re even,’ she said. And then regretted bringing up the whole I was there without permission and naked bar my swimmers thing again when she saw understanding dawn. Understanding and a further darkening of his already unfairly dark eyes.
‘So we are,’ he said. ‘So have you been for a swim yet?’
‘Not yet. I thought I ought to work before claiming my prize. I have no intention of taking any further advantage of you…I mean, of your pool.’
‘Don’t worry about it. Swim in the mornings if it suits. Especially with the Olympics just around the corner and all.’
She felt her cheeks loosen and warm. She bit back a smile as she said, ‘I was pulling your leg about that.’
‘No. Really?’ Sarcasm dripped from his words and the smile spilled across her lips anyway.
‘Yes, really. I need the pool because I’m secretly a synchronised swimming choreographer by trade. I just don’t want it to get out or I’ll have people beating on my door.’
‘Right. Makes perfect sense.’
After a few long, loaded seconds in which the scent of pine needles and late roses mixed with the scent of warm male skin, Hud continued towards her. Kendall swayed back on to her heels.
He reached out to her at the last second. She felt all of her promises to brush off her infatuation melting away with the encroaching heat of day. Of him. Her breath clutched against the edges of her throat.
His hand caressed her shoulder, slid deftly beneath the strap of the too heavy bag, lifted it away from her grasp as though it weighed no more than a handful of feathers. And then he passed, bathing her in a whisper of sandalwood scent, pausing only slightly to throw a quick, ‘Coming?’ over his shoulder before disappearing into the belly of the house.
And if Kendall ever wanted to see her laptop again she had no choice but to follow.
As to finding an opportunity to discover who this Mirabella might be, well, she would just have to remind herself on a minute by minute basis why that was just none of her business.
CHAPTER THREE
THE neat elegance of the outside of the house had given Kendall little indication of the grandeur inside Claudel’s high walls.
Cream wallpaper embossed with pale gold roses drew her through the side hall and into a massive parlour where oak floors were inset with marble friezes in the shape of more roses. The ceiling there was so high she had to crane her neck to see up into the second level, which was bordered with a gallery all the way around. Through arched doorways she spotted hallways leading to rooms and wings in every direction with hints of curling staircases winding up into hidden alcoves. It was huge. Beautiful. Graceful. Like something out of an art history book.
But for all that she detected not an ounce of warmth. Every piece of furniture was covered in white sheets as though the house was closed up and the family still away. Hud’s return had not let any new air into the place.
