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She chose her aunt’s tiniest teacups instead of her usual generous mugs.
He didn’t speak until they were seated at the kitchen table and Blair had poured the tea.
He didn’t speak even then. She bit back a sigh. ‘You said you wanted to apologise?’
He nodded, surveying her over the rim of his cup, his eyes not wavering from hers. ‘That’s right.’
She bit back another sigh. It came from deep down inside her, wistful and full of yearning for something she didn’t want to look at too closely. ‘Apology accepted. Forget about it.’ Life was too short to hold grudges.
‘Hey, I haven’t made it yet. Besides, it’s not that simple, city girl.’ He smiled, but there were shadows in his eyes. ‘Earlier, you said something about looking exactly the same. What did you mean?’
‘Nothing. Forget about it.’ Their gazes clashed and locked, and she cursed her rotten defensive self-consciousness. Earlier he’d looked at her as if he’d liked what he saw—really liked it—and for a moment something inside her had responded.
And then she’d remembered the scars, no right breast, no hair—and had imagined his reaction if he could see the real her. Those tart words had come spilling out of her mouth before she could stop them.
His eyes refused to release her. ‘I’ve been ill.’ She was the first to break eye contact. ‘But I’m all better again.’
Better? Yes.
Would a man ever find her attractive again? Unlikely.
He didn’t say anything for a long moment. She risked a glance at him. He shook his head. ‘I’m sorry you’ve been ill, Blair. You’re home to recuperate?’
‘I’m recuperated.’ She wanted to be clear about that. ‘I’m home for some R&R. A holiday.’
His eyes narrowed. She refused to let hers drop this time. Finally he shook his head. ‘None of that changes the fact that I shouldn’t have lost my temper and said the things I did without a thought for anything but my …’
‘Your?’ She preferred to follow his train of thought than her own.
He set his teacup down. ‘Fear.’
It shouldn’t be sexy when a man admitted to being afraid. Only, where Nicholas Conway was concerned, it was. Maybe it was the way he held her gaze as he made the admission. She moistened suddenly dry lips. He watched the action and his eyes darkened. It was hellishly sexy.
Hellish.
‘Fear never brings out the best in a man, and it seems I was hellbent on yelling at someone.’
She saw now that maybe he’d needed to.
He grimaced. ‘If I’d known you’d been sick, though …’
‘No harm done on my account. Like I said, I’m well again now.’ She nearly spread her arms to add, Don’t I look the picture of health? Only on further consideration she didn’t want him looking at her that closely. He might take it as an invitation, as flirting.
She wasn’t inviting anything.
‘Blair, I really am very sorry. My behaviour was appalling.’
‘Apology accepted.’ Please go now.
‘The thing is, I’ve screwed up royally and I need to make amends.’
‘Not to me.’
‘A bit to you,’ he said cautiously, ‘and a lot to Stevie.’
She sat back.
‘Which is why I need you to forgive me.’
‘Because …?’
‘Because I’m taking back everything I said, I’m asking that Stevie be reinstated as an entrant for the Miss Showgirl quest, and I’m begging you to help Stevie the way you told her you would.’
He took a sip of his tea, as if his throat needed the moisture after that admission. His big hand on the tiny teacup should have looked clumsy, but it didn’t. His eyes surveyed her over the rim and she remembered all the things he’d said about the Miss Showgirl quest. He’d implied that it was a waste of time, a waste of brains, and a waste of talent, and by association that she was worthless too.
And yet with one look he could have her prickling and burning all over. He’d come here fully expecting to be forgiven, presuming she’d be happy to bend over backwards to help him out.
And she had. And she was. And that made her angry too.
‘And what happens next week when you change your mind all over again? Will I find you banging on my door to hurl more abuse at me?’
His jaw dropped. ‘Of course not.’
‘You expect me to take your word for that? I don’t know you from Adam.’
‘I—’
‘Have you changed your mind about the …?’ She cocked her head to one side. ‘What was it? Sad, jumped-up little beauty pageant?’
He didn’t say anything and she realised he hadn’t changed his mind about anything. But he was still going to let Stevie enter? She folded her arms, intrigued despite her best intentions.
‘If I hadn’t interfered, if I hadn’t lost my cool, you’d still be happy to help Stevie out like you’d told her you would.’
She had every intention of keeping her promise to Stevie. Still, it wouldn’t hurt him to sweat for a bit. ‘But now I have to take into account a temperamental parent.’
He half rose out of his chair. ‘I’m not temperamental!’
‘Are you yelling at me, Mr Conway?’
He subsided back into his seat. ‘No,’ he muttered. ‘It’s just … Stevie shouldn’t pay for my mistake.’
No, she shouldn’t.
‘And it’s Nicholas—Nick—not Mr Conway.’
Blair considered him for a moment. She almost chuckled at the way he tried to hide his glower. ‘I was right, wasn’t I? Stevie took your lack of support to mean you didn’t believe she had a scarecrow’s chance of winning. I’m right, aren’t I?’
His deepening scowl told her she was.
‘You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?’ he ground out.
‘I am taking a fiendish kind of delight in it.’ She didn’t scruple to admit it.
‘And when will you deem that I’ve been punished enough?’
‘Oh, your punishment hasn’t even begun yet, Mr—’
‘Nick!’ he snapped. His hand clenched to a fist on the table. ‘Will you help Stevie?’ he burst out. ‘Please?’
He loved his daughter. He wanted her to be happy. And he hated the Miss Showgirl quest.
‘I will help Stevie on one condition, Nicholas. That you support her fully in her Miss Showgirl efforts.’
‘Sure I will. I’m here, aren’t I?’
Her smile grew, and she continued as if he hadn’t spoken. ‘By taking on the role of her fundraising manager. By co-ordinating and directing all her fundraising efforts.’
Nick’s jaw dropped. ‘You can’t expect me to …’ He let the sentence trail off. The pictures rising in his mind were too hideous to put into words. Him get involved in the dog-eat-dog world of a beauty pageant?
She sent him a pitying glance. ‘Oh, no, Nicholas. I expect a whole lot more than that.’
His stomach clenched to hard ball of lead. ‘More?’ he croaked.
‘But fundraising manager will do for a start.’
He wouldn’t know where to begin.
‘You were serious weren’t you? About making it up to Stevie?’
‘Yes, but …’
‘Words are cheap.’
He saw then that she was right. He could repeat over and over again until he was blue in the face that he had faith in her, he could say it till the cows came home—and he would the moment he got home—but the only way to truly reassure Stevie, to prove that he believed in her, was to support her in a material way. Like co-ordinating her fundraising efforts.
On the up side, being involved did mean he’d have a chance of protecting her against the more unsavoury aspects of the pageant, the competitiveness and bitchiness and constant undermining of one’s self-esteem …
‘It looks as though you have yourself a deal, city girl.’ He could have sworn, though, that when he extended his hand she was curiously reluctant to take it.
Blair might act all haughty and aloof, but somehow he knew he’d needled his way in under her skin. The thought made him grin. It made him hold her hand for longer than custom demanded.
When he finally released her the colour in her cheeks was high and a purely masculine satisfaction settled in the pit of his stomach.
Game on.
CHAPTER THREE
THE moment Nick realised where his thoughts were headed he snatched them back. He wasn’t messing about with a woman like Blair Macintyre. He’d allowed one woman to dash all his dreams. He wasn’t giving another one that same opportunity.
He’d achieved what he’d set out to—he’d apologised to Blair and made sure she’d still help Stevie. He’d done what he could to put things back to the way they’d been before he’d so stupidly interfered.
Yet he found himself curiously reluctant to end this meeting, thank Blair, and leave. The colour in her cheeks had receded. He wanted to see—to make—that colour high again.
Her teacup clattered to her saucer as if the way he studied her unnerved her.
Because he wasn’t just studying her—he was staring!
He forced his gaze down to the table and drained what was left in his tiny teacup. Glory would have given him tea in a mug, but Blair had sophisticated city ways. She had gloss and elegance. Would she offer him another cup?
‘So Stevie really socked it to you, huh?’
‘She cried.’ Bile churned in his throat. ‘And she hardly ever cries.’
He risked a glance at her—no staring—and found her delectable lips pursed and her eyes soft with sympathy. He memorised every curve of those lips before lifting his eyes. Their gazes locked and held. His heart slowed and then surged against his ribs.
Blair shot to her feet as if in sudden panic, as if to race away.
He sat back, blinked, and did his best to dislodge his heart from his throat. And then her panic, if that was what it had been, was wiped away and replaced with a thrust out chin and hands planted on slender hips. He wondered if he’d imagined the panic.
He didn’t think so.
He stared at the determined picture she made now and found his muscles bunching. He couldn’t make head nor tail of this woman.
‘Well, what are we waiting for?’
He rose to his feet at her regal tone. ‘Waiting for?’ he ventured.
‘Don’t you want to make things right again for Stevie as soon as you can?’
Sure he did, but … ‘Stevie won’t talk to me until at least dinnertime.’ Which was hours away yet.
‘Which serves you right. But I expect she’ll talk to me.’
His shoulders unhitched. ‘You’ll talk to her?’
Her lips twisted as if she was trying to hold back a smile. ‘Of course I will.’
‘I …’ He couldn’t think of a darn thing to say to that, so he followed her out through the door and waited while she locked it.
‘You deserve to stew for a while yet, country boy, but Stevie doesn’t.’
‘I could kiss you,’ he said fervently.
She took a step away from him. ‘I’d rather you didn’t.’
She could do ice queen as if it was second nature. She grinned suddenly and ice queen transformed to temptress. His blood, and other parts of him, heated up. She rubbed her hands together before motioning to him to lead the way.
Glory’s house was only two streets away from where his automotive workshop fronted the town’s main street. The weatherboard cottage he called home was out at the back.
