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She didn’t want to stay here for two more hours. Even if Jack Morgan was an arrogant toad he was a really good-looking arrogant toad. With a great smile... When he could be bothered to produce it. And he loved Maddy; even a fool could see that. So he couldn’t be all bad. She managed a smile herself.
‘Thank you,’ she said submissively. ‘I’d like to go home. Harry and I will sit on the back so the wind takes our smell backward.’
‘No. I want you to sit in the front with me,’ Maddy said stubbornly. ‘We don’t mind the smell—do we, Jack?’
‘We might.’ Jack’s tone was cautious. ‘In fact...’
‘When we found that sick lamb last week I nursed it all the way back to the house in the front of the truck and it smelled horrid,’ Maddy said hastily. ‘You put it in the stove and it smelled all the time until it was warm enough to go back to its mother. My lamb was nice—but Bryony’s better.’
She had a point there. Jack looked hard at Bryony and gave himself a swift mental shake. Get a hold on yourself here, boy! Get this over with. Fast.
‘My truck’s behind the grandstand,’ he said bluntly, then he called his dog, took Maddy by the hand and strode off towards it, as if he couldn’t care less whether Bryony followed or not. Which was about as far from the truth as it was possible to get.
The ensuing drive was tense, to say the least. At Maddy’s insistence, Bryony sat inside the cab, but she was acutely aware that she smelled, that she was soaking the upholstery and that Jack Morgan thought she was some sort of bad joke low life.
Which, all in all, managed to put a stop to Bryony’s normally cheerful chat.
The two dogs stayed in their enclosures on the truck tray and, by the end of the ride, Bryony would almost have preferred to be back there with them.
She gave brief directions to her cottage on the outskirts of town, then huddled herself and her aroma in the corner and concentrated fiercely on not moving. Every time she did, a fresh wave of dung wafted over the cabin. Jack had both windows down as far as they’d go, but even Maddy was looking uncomfortable by the time they pulled up. Bryony was out of the cabin door practically before the truck had ceased moving.
‘Thank you very much for the ride,’ she told them, managing another smile. They seemed to be getting harder. ‘I’ll just get Harry off the back...’
And then she stopped. Jack had carefully placed Jessica in one enclosure and Harry in another. Now they were lying in the one enclosure, side by side, and the pong wafted out from both of them. Jack jumped down from the cabin to help release Harry—and when he saw the dogs his jaw dropped a foot.
‘What...?’ he said, and his tone was back to being dangerous. ‘Who...?’
‘It wasn’t me!’ Bryony’s voice was practically a yelp. ‘They were in separate enclosures when I saw them last, I swear.’
‘It was me.’
Maddy had hardly talked all the way home, answering Bryony’s questions in monosyllables. Now she climbed carefully down from the cabin. She addressed Jack in an ‘I cut down the cherry tree so pack me off to the colonies on bread and water’ tone that made Bryony cringe. ‘I did it while that man came over to talk to you after you’d put the dogs up,’ she continued. ‘Bryony was looking at you and no one was looking at the dogs and Jessica looked lonely.’
Jack closed his eyes, defeated. He would have liked to yell at Bryony, but he had to admit this wasn’t her fault and he couldn’t yell at Maddy. He could still be annoyed.
‘Well, that’s the end of Jess sleeping on your bed tonight, young lady. She’ll smell almost as bad as Harry. We’ll bathe her in the morning.’
Maddy’s face fell, and Bryony had the sudden feeling that, for Maddy, maybe the colonies on bread and water were preferable to a night in bed without a dog.
‘Hey, you can bathe her tonight,’ she volunteered.
‘She takes hours to dry,’ Jack snapped.
‘So use a hairdryer.’
Maddy and Jack both stared at Bryony as if she were talking a foreign language.
‘A hairdryer?’ Bryony looked from one to the other and frowned. ‘You know—a neat little electric gadget that blows hot air on wet heads?’
Maddy looked doubtfully up at Jack. ‘I don’t think we have one of those—do we?’
‘We don’t.’
Bryony sighed.
Escape wasn’t easy.
‘Well, I have two,’ she confessed. ‘You’d better come in and we’ll bathe Jess here. But I get first go at the hot water.’
‘Two...?’
‘Two hairdryers.’
Jack stared. ‘Why on earth do you have two hairdryers?’
‘In case you haven’t noticed, I have rather an oversupply of hair.’ Bryony grinned. ‘I hold the hairdryers one on each side of my ears and my hair flies straight up like something out of Star Wars. It’s a great sensation, and a lot quicker than using one.’
Jack had a sudden mental image of Bryony—fresh out of the shower—naked and glowing, with a hairdryer in each hand, red hair flying upward. He felt dizzy.
‘I don’t know...’ His voice came from a long way away.
‘Oh, stop quibbling. My dog has made your dog smell, so I’ll fix it.’ Bryony leaped lightly up onto the truck tray, released the dogs from their cage, then jumped down again and grabbed Maddy by the hand.
‘Come on in,’ she said cordially. ‘If you give me ten minutes while I wash myself, then I’ll wash both dogs and send you home with a sweet-smelling Jess and a clear conscience. It’s the least I can do—and I always do the least I can do.’
She and Maddy marched forth, dogs following adoringly behind, and this time it was Jack who was left to follow, whether he liked it or not.
Bryony left the dogs outside and Jack and Maddy in her sitting room while she showered. By the time she emerged, Jack was starting to wonder just what sort of madhouse he’d got himself into.
Bryony’s cottage was like no other he’d ever seen. From the outside it was ordinary enough, though the two vast ceramic elephant legs—one on either side of the entrance—were a fair indication of what was to come.
And inside...
This lady was a chronic collector, a magpie, and what she collected was extraordinary. There were furnishings here from all over the world.
The furniture itself was huge—way too big for such a tiny cottage. The lounge sofa and chairs didn’t match. Each was vast and overstuffed and in a different colour of some sort of vivid silk. A riot of huge, squashy cushions tumbled over them and onto the floor. The floor itself had about ten rugs, layered one on top of the other. Each was in a different fabric or texture and the effect was one of some sort of crazy comfort cocoon.
And the paintings...
Weird, wonderful paintings—some of which were astounding, some just plain beautiful and a couple...well, if Jack had his choice he’d turn them to the wall while Maddy was in the room.
And there were things... Sculptures, some big, some small. An array of glasses on the sideboard, none of them matching but each one individual and wonderful. Small tables of exotic wood, with seashells and carvings and strange-looking seed pods...
Maddy wandered about the room, open-mouthed, and Jack sank into one of the vast chairs and just plain stared. This lady was a nut! A complete, utter nut! What sort of person put eight rugs on a floor hardly big enough to hold one?
They heard her in the shower next door, making enough noise to suggest there were a couple of whales in the bathroom. She dropped the soap and they heard her attempts to pick it up with astonishment. Maddy got the giggles.
‘Close your.ears, Maddy,’ Jack growled. ‘You’re not to learn those words.’
‘She doesn’t think we can hear.’
‘No.’
Maddy found this extremely satisfactory. She checked out each seat, chose the highest and clambered into it. Definitely into. You didn’t sit on any of Bryony’s furniture, you sank.
‘This is the best room...’ Maddy sighed. ‘You know you said we could decorate my room? I’d like my room just like this.’ She giggled. ‘Jack, take your hat off. See that horn? I think it’s a hatstand.’ She clambered off her seat, lifted Jack’s hat from his head and took it over to place it on what looked like some sort of bugle, stuck on a bamboo pole. Ridiculous!
But Maddy was grinning, and she’d removed Jack’s hat. For a child who only went near Jack when she had to, it was a beginning. Then Bryony burst back into the room, clad in jeans and an oversized white T-shirt that said ‘No Fear’ in huge red letters. Her amazing hair was turbaned up on her head in a white fluffy towel. She looked fresh and scrubbed and bare-toed—and absolutely gorgeous.
Jack blinked.
‘Your house is wonderful,’ Maddy told her before Bryony could speak. ‘Is the rest like this?’
‘Well, the rest is a bit crowded.’
‘You mean this isn’t?’ Jack stared around in incredulity and Bryony grinned.
‘I collect things. I have visions of one day living in a big house and needing all this. When I moved from New York I tried to sell a bit but selling things is okay in principle. It’s only when you pick up each thing and look at it and remember where you found it that it gets impossible. And storing... I know I should put some of these rugs into storage, but they’re sort of fun like this.’
‘You brought all this from America? It must have cost you a fortune.’
‘Mmm. But I couldn’t leave it behind.’ She grinned down at Maddy. Could I, now? Want to see my bed?’
‘Oh, yes...’ Maddy bounced across the room and grabbed Bryony’s hands. ‘Please...’
Bryony grinned at Jack. ‘You can see it, too, if you’re interested,’ she offered. ‘Otherwise, go grab a beer from the kitchen straight down the hall. I should have offered you one before I showered. I’m sorry. All I could think of was getting rid of my smell.’
Jack forgave her. Just like that. He got up in a daze and found himself not getting a beer but standing by Bryony’s bedroom door staring in amazement at the bed.
It was vast, king-sized or bigger, carved in some sort of deep red wood—mahogany or something similar—with huge posts at each corner and all hung with gold and purple drapes—like something out of a sultan’s palace.
‘It’s ridiculous.’ Bryony chuckled. ‘I’ll have to sell this. Roger says he won’t sleep in it in a fit and it’s hardly a guest bed.’
‘Roger?’ Jack was finding it hard to catch his breath.
‘My fiancé.’
A fiancé. Yeah, right. Jack managed to catch his breath on that one. For some reason, it made things seem more in control.
‘I’d like to sleep in it,’ Maddy announced, unaware that a spiral had just stopped mid-spin for Jack. ‘Very, very much.’
‘Well, if Jack says you can, then maybe one night you can spend the night with me and Harry.’
‘Harry sleeps here, too?’
‘Actually,’ Bryony admitted, ‘Harry and I swim in this bed. I told him he should really have been a giant wolfhound just to fill it up. We thought of letting out pillow space.’ She ruffled the little girl’s pigtails, and Maddy, who normally cringed when touched, wiggled her head as if she thoroughly enjoyed being ruffled. ‘Okay, miss. Let’s cope with these dogs. Harry first because he’s the worst. And then your Jess.’
What followed was a very silly hour. If anyone had ever told Jack he’d enjoy himself so much washing and blowdrying a couple of smelly dogs he would have thought them ridiculous. But Bryony had them all in fits of laughter. They ended up—all of them—back in her crazy sitting room, knee deep in rugs with damp dogs and hot air going everywhere.
The dogs thought it was wonderful and so did Maddy. Jack was just plain hornswoggled. Who the hell was Roger? Finally he could bear it no longer.
‘So tell me,’ he said as the overfluffed and pristine dogs rolled on the rugs with Bryony and Maddy. ‘What the hell are you doing here in Hamilton? Is Roger a local?’
Bryony’s laughter died a little.
‘Roger lives in Sydney.’
‘But...you’re marrying Roger.’
‘Not until next year.’
‘I see,’ he lied. He didn’t see at all. But...presumably you came from New York to marry Roger?’
‘Well, sort of.’ Bryony grabbed a passing dog and started brushing. She sighed. ‘Roger and I have known each other for ever. He proposed years ago, but I hadn’t seen the world yet so I took off to America. I’m an interior designer.’ She grinned. ‘If you hadn’t guessed.’
Silence. Bryony cast a swift look at Jack. He was frowning, and for some reason Bryony found herself fighting for words.
‘I built up an interior design agency in New York, but I missed Australia,’ she continued, talking too fast now. ‘And Roger kept visiting and giving me all the good reasons I should marry him. And then Myrna—I met Myrna at university and we started in business together way back in the Dark Ages—wrote that she was having twins and her interior design business here would have to close if she couldn’t find anyone to look after it for a while. So I figured I’d come home in stages. Twelve months living here getting used to not being in New York—and then Sydney and marriage to Roger.’
‘but...I thought you were American.’ Maddy didn’t like this turn of events. Bryony moving on...Bryony an Australian...
‘I’m half American,’ Bryony told her. ‘My mom was American, but she married my dad a long, long time ago and he’s an Australian.’
‘Oh.’ Maddy’s face cleared. ‘You’re still like me, then.’
‘Yep.’
‘But...you’re going to live in Sydney?’ The disappointment in Maddy’s voice was poignant and Bryony reached to give her a hug. Jack stared. Maddy... Hugs...
‘I’m not going to Sydney for yonks.’
‘What’s yonks?’ Maddy asked, bewildered.
‘Yonks is so far ahead I refuse to think about it.’
‘Don’t you want to marry Roger?’
‘Sure I want to marry Roger.’ Bryony’s voice was defensive. ‘He’s cute.’
‘So’s Harry,’ Jack said dryly, and Bryony grinned.
‘Yeah, well, Roger has certain advantages over Harry.’
‘What?’ Maddy demanded.
Bryony’s green eyes twinkled. ‘Well, for a start he’s a rich lawyer. He can keep me in the manner to which I wish to become accustomed.’
‘Jack’s rich,’ Maddy retorted. ‘You could marry him.’ Yeah, right. All of a sudden, the silence was loaded. Bryony scrambled to her feet. ‘Tea,’ she said. ‘I’m starving. Are you?’
