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‘And there was no other reference to his wife’s name?’
‘No. The rest of the time he referred to “my wife” or “darling” or “sweetheart”—that kind of thing.’
Sam sighed heavily. ‘But there was definitely a will?’
‘It definitely made mention of Tom leaving all his worldly goods to his wife.’
‘Yeah, well, Fred had better hand it over soon.’ He gripped the bottle tightly with both hands for a moment, then suddenly smiled at her.
If only he would stop doing that!
‘Why don’t you forgive me for yesterday? I hear there’s a very good outdoor restaurant over in one of the other bays.’
Fighting back the wild urge to accept was like trying to put out a bushfire with a mere tumbler of water. For Pete’s sake, Sam was by far the best-looking fellow who’d ever asked Meg out. But, she had to be sensible about this. He’d be gone in a day or two. She took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. ‘Thanks for the invite, Sam, but I’ll have to decline.’
Before she changed her mind, she turned and walked quickly away.
Sam watched her go, a wry, admiring smile tugging his lips. When she’d rejected his invitation, she hadn’t added, I can’t trust you, but that was what she’d meant.
Of course, he couldn’t blame Meg for running. He’d given her every reason to be wary. Yesterday, she’d been totally upfront and honest with him and he hadn’t returned the compliment.
Her disdain was exactly what he deserved.
But Meg Bennet was having a strange effect on him. Just thinking about her…about her eyes…her hair…her mouth made him…restless. Was it because she was different? Because she refused to be impressed by the thing that impressed most women—his money? Because she refused to be impressed by anything about him?
His gaze dropped again to the bottle in his hands and he reminded himself that he hadn’t come to Australia looking for romance. He had a business to run and he had to get back to it as soon as possible.
By tomorrow, he’d be grateful Meg had turned him down.
Meg dropped a peach-coloured bath bomb into the warm water and watched it explode and fizz. The steam in her bathroom began to distil a sensuous mixture of citrus and flowers. Dipping her big toe into the fragrant liquid, she felt her body begin at once to relax. She visualised submerging beneath the heated, scented surface of the water.
Br-ring! Br-ring!
Heavens, no! Not the telephone! Hovering with one leg in the air, she glared at the slim, cordless machine lying on the counter next to her hand basin. She toyed with the notion of letting it ring. But, officially, she was still on duty. With an impatient sigh, she crossed the room and picked it up but, as she answered, she returned with it to the bath. There was no way she would waste that beautifully scented hot water.
‘Meg! It’s Fred Raynor,’ the voice snapped.
‘Yes, Fred?’ She lowered herself into the bath and felt the warm liquid swirl softly, seductively around her body. Fragrance drifted upwards, teasing her nostrils, enticing her to relax.
‘You’re not busy tonight are you?’
‘Oh? Not particularly.’ Meg grimaced and rolled her eyes to the ceiling. What on earth could her boss want now? Since she’d refused Sam’s invitation to dinner, she’d had an ongoing battle with her weaker self all afternoon.
That was the main reason she needed to relax now. To pamper herself after a nerve-racking, miserable day.
‘I want you to take Sam Kirby out to dinner, over at Alma Bay.’
Meg gulped. ‘I have to?’
‘Damn right you do.’ Fred snapped.
Frowning, she sat up higher out of the water. She held the phone closer to her ear. ‘Fred, you know this is way beyond the limits of my job as recreation officer.’
‘But we need to keep this guy on our side. There’s a good chance we can get national coverage out of this. He’s big time. We could even get an international story if we play our cards right.’
‘I’m sorry, Fred. I posed for your photos, but this is definitely going too far. It’s verging on sexual harassment.’
She was relieved when, after a noisy grumble, her boss rang off.
Surprised that he’d given in so easily, Meg was about to drop the phone onto the bath mat when it rang again.
‘Give up, Fred!’ she cried. ‘I am not going to dinner with Sam Kirby. Got it?’
‘I’m reading you loud and clear.’
‘Sam?’ she demanded. ‘Is that you?’
‘It is,’ came a response from the other end of the line.
‘For Pete’s sake, what do you want?’ She knew it was ridiculous, but Meg scrambled over the edge of the bath to grab at a fluffy white towel. Even talking on the phone to Sam felt dangerous when she was naked. ‘Did you get Fred to order me out to dinner with you?’
‘I won’t ruin my reputation by answering that.’ There was a pause and then he asked in a lighter tone, ‘Did I hear splashing?’
‘Er, I doubt it,’ she muttered, wrapping herself in the huge towel and perching on the side of the bath.
‘I’m sorry if I interrupted something.’
Meg wanted to be angry. She wanted to depress the disconnect button and to slip back beneath the warm and welcoming water. But the weak side of her clung to the phone, liking too much the sound of his deep voice with that musical North American twang. Besides, she was desperately curious. ‘What did you want?’
‘Actually, it was to try one more time to ask you to dinner, but without Fred’s assistance. Hey, if you were taking a bath, go right ahead. Don’t waste the water.’
‘I might just do that.’
‘By the way,’ he continued, ‘I have a very interesting scientific question.’
‘Oh?’
‘Are you near a mirror?’
‘What do you think? I’m in a bathroom.’
‘Could you look in the mirror for me and tell me what colour your eyes are when you’re not wearing clothes?’
Instinctively, Meg’s glance flashed to the mirror. But then her cheeks warmed. ‘I’ll tell you no such thing.’ She flung her towel aside and slipped back into the bath.
There was an exaggerated sigh on the other end of the line. ‘Another mystery of science remains unanswered.’
‘I guess your eyes stay blue all the time,’ she heard herself say and she wondered how that sultry, flirtatious little hum had crept into her voice.
‘Yeah. I’m afraid my eyes are boring, boring.’
Hardly boring, Sam, she thought, but didn’t dare say so. She lifted her feet out of the suds and rested her toes on the end of the bath, wondering if she should apply some nail polish to make them more glamorous and, the very next second, wondered why they needed to look glamorous.
‘OK,’ he added, ‘try this. While you’re soaking in the tub, practise saying, “Yes, Sam, I’d love to join you for dinner.”’
To her amazement, Meg heard herself purring a reply in her very best attempt at an American accent. ‘Yes, Sam, I’d lurve to join you for dinner.’
‘Wonderful. I’ll meet you at your place at seven.’
She nearly dropped the phone. ‘Hold on! I was only copying your accent! That wasn’t a real acceptance.’
‘Oh, but Meg,’ he replied, his voice warm and hinting somehow that he was smiling his hottest smile, ‘it was a very, very real invitation.’
When he didn’t hang up but waited in silence for her response, Meg closed her eyes and willed herself to be strong. She was furious with this man. She should have hung up as soon as she’d heard his voice.
Letting out her breath on a gusty sigh, she told him, ‘Nice try, Sam Kirby but, as I said at the start, give up.’
‘Now, that,’ he replied in a husky baritone, ‘is a distinct challenge. I can warn you now, Meg Bennet, if I set myself a goal, I never give up.’
‘And what goal are you aiming for?’
There was a long pause and Meg thought she heard a faint chuckle. ‘I’d settle for your acceptance of my apology. For yesterday.’
Meg closed her eyes. ‘OK. Apology accepted,’ she whispered.
‘Good,’ he said simply. ‘And dinner?’
After a beat, she answered, ‘Dinner declined.’
She disconnected the phone and let it drop onto the bath mat and, sinking beneath the sudsy water, she wished she felt more pleased about turning Sam down.
CHAPTER THREE
AS SHE ate her simple supper of cheese on toast, Meg tried not to think about what it would have been like to be dining with Sam. She kept reminding herself that he and the bottle would soon be going home to the United States and she was wise to stay well out of the way. How silly she’d been to imagine that somehow her own destiny was linked to that bottle.
The only connection she had was stumbling across it on the beach and giving way to natural curiosity.
Finishing her meal, she carried her plate through to the kitchen and decided she’d seen too much significance in finding the bottle. Perhaps she’d been grasping at straws. There was a good chance she’d been looking for anything that would help her out of the depressing loneliness she felt these days. Ever since her father had died just three months ago.
It had been bad enough giving up her postgraduate studies in marine biology to nurse her dad through the last horrible months of his illness. But nothing had prepared her for the bereft emptiness of her life after he’d died. He was all the family she’d had. Her mother had died when she was only little and her father had meant everything to her. Since his death, Meg thought she had discovered the utter depths of loneliness.
But tonight she felt more desolate than ever.
The sand crunched beneath Sam’s shoes as he walked towards the water. By the light of a glowing white moon, Florence Bay looked beautiful. On either side of the bay, dark rocky headlands curved out to protect the deserted beach. Hoop pines, rising majestically from between granite boulders, were silhouetted in inky black strokes against the gun metal sky.
The dark water lapped gently.
Somewhere out there in the wider ocean beyond the reefs, Tom Kirby lay at rest. Thinking about his grandfather and the bottle, he hunkered down on the sand and stared ahead. These past few years, he’d been working so hard he hadn’t stopped to contemplate anything deep or meaningful—like death and the hereafter. Or life for that matter.
Lately, he’d been sensing an uneasy awareness that his own life was hurtling forward like a runaway train and he wasn’t at all sure he was heading in the right direction. He was doing the right thing by his family—carrying on the Kirby tradition—and working damn hard to keep it successful—and playing hard, too, when time permitted. But he knew deep down that neither his work nor his play was really making him happy.
Lost in thought, he didn’t hear footsteps so, when a voice suddenly sounded close behind him, he jumped to his feet.
‘Sam, what are you doing here?’
‘Meg!’
She was standing a metre or so away from him, her face pale and her eyes wide with surprise. She was wearing a soft blue sweater and white jeans and, in the moonlight, her hair had a silvery sheen and she looked breathtakingly lovely.
He turned and extended an arm towards the sea. ‘It may sound a little weird, but I’m paying my respects.’
‘To your grandfather?’
‘Yeah.’ Sam shoved his hands in his pockets to prevent himself from reaching for her. ‘I rang my lawyers this afternoon. They’ve been doing some research for me and I couldn’t believe what they told me.’ He kicked at a knob of bleached coral lying on the sand. ‘Tom Kirby died on this day—this very day—in 1942. In the Battle of the Coral Sea.’
‘Oh.’ She sounded suitably shocked.
‘Weird coincidence, isn’t it?’ He swallowed the constriction in his throat. Then he smiled at Meg. ‘But maybe an even better coincidence is that I am seeing you this evening after all,’ he murmured huskily. ‘You never know, maybe we’re destined for each other, Meg.’
Meg was sure Sam was teasing and she felt more than a little miffed that he might be making fun of her. Lifting her chin defiantly high, she shifted her concentration from his strong, handsome face to their surroundings—the little bay and the moon and the rocky headlands.
Time to leave, or to come up with a quick change of subject. Reluctant to hurry back to her lonely cottage, she changed the subject. ‘For some reason, those rocks always remind me of shelled Brazil nuts.’
Sam’s eyebrows rose. ‘That’s an interesting association of ideas. I wonder where it comes from?’
She smiled. ‘I know exactly where it comes from. I’m crazy about Brazil nuts.’ And for a moment she was absorbed by memory. She was sitting once more at a dining table, laden with Christmas fare, and she could see her father’s strong hands wielding the silver nutcracker, breaking open the hard shell and handing her a pure smooth Brazil nut.
‘My father always used to crack them for me and, when he gave me one, he would joke… “Would you like a nut, Meg?” Of course, his nickname for me was Nutmeg.’
‘Nutmeg,’ Sam repeated. ‘I like that.’ He turned to look at her. ‘Does your father live here on the island?’
‘My father’s dead,’ she told him in a shaky whisper.
‘I’m sorry.’ His hand reached out and rubbed her shoulder gently.
‘You know he used to warn me that there are no guarantees in life. He reckoned the only thing you can be sure of is that the angles of a triangle will always add up to one hundred and eighty degrees.’
‘Sounds like he got one or two nasty shocks along the way.’
‘Well, yes. He worked as a draftsman for the same company for thirty-five years and then suddenly they made him redundant.’ She snapped her fingers. ‘Just like that. Downsizing they called it. Profits were more important than loyal and talented employees.’
Sam’s jaw clenched and he swung away so that he no longer looked at her. ‘Sometimes the guys running big companies have to make difficult choices.’
‘And their answers are always about money,’ she responded bitterly.
‘Money,’ he repeated grimly. His hand was still resting on her and suddenly he smiled at her again and obviously decided to have his own stab at changing the subject. ‘As you accepted my apology so nicely this afternoon, we can start afresh, can’t we?’
Meg was sure she should have clarified exactly what Sam thought they were starting. But perhaps it was the setting, or her loneliness, or even moonlight madness, but she suddenly didn’t want to be wary or cautious any more. ‘Yes,’ she said simply. ‘I guess we can.’
