Kitabı oku: «The Wedding Party And Holiday Escapes Ultimate Collection», sayfa 88

CHAPTER SIX

THE phone rang again next morning, just as Mark came into the kitchen. He’d slept badly, and wasn’t in the mood for phone calls, and he snatched it up angrily.

‘Good morning.’

‘Is that Coolabah Waters?’

The caller was a woman with a rich, mature and highly cultured English accent. Fine hairs lifted on the back of Mark’s neck. Almost certainly the woman was calling Sophie, but, judging by the ominous sounds he’d heard when he’d passed the bathroom just now, she was in the grip of morning sickness.

‘Yes,’ he said carefully. ‘This is Mark Winchester speaking.’

‘Eliza Felsham here, Mark. I believe my daughter, Sophie, may have visited you recently.’

Something brick-shaped lodged in Mark’s throat. He’d been mentally preparing himself for an awkward conversation with Sophie’s father at some stage in the future, but her mother was another matter entirely. He swallowed. ‘Sophie’s still here, Lady Eliza. I—I imagine you’d like to speak to her?’

‘Yes, please. But, before you go, there are a few questions I’d like to ask you.’ The imperious voice made him squirm like a schoolboy summoned to the head-mistress’s office.

‘Certainly.’ Mark hoped his grimace didn’t show in his voice. He took a deep breath. ‘What would you like to know?’

He braced himself for the worst.

Is it true that you’ve impregnated my precious daughter? Haven’t you heard of safe sex in Australia?

‘Where exactly in Australia do you live, Mark?’

The unexpected question caught him flat-footed, and he wished he could clear his throat. ‘I have a cattle property in north-western Queensland.’

‘What’s the name of the nearest town?’

‘Wandabilla.’

‘Wanda what?’ Lady Eliza demanded. ‘How do you spell that?’

Patiently, Mark told her.

‘Hmm…that doesn’t show here. Could you tell me the nearest good-sized city?’

Mark suppressed an uneasy sigh. Lady Eliza’s prima-donna qualities were certainly coming to the fore. ‘The nearest town of note would be Mount Isa.’ He heard the rustle of pages in the background, as if Sophie’s mother was searching through an atlas.

‘Ah, yes, I’ve found it,’ she said. ‘Good heavens.’ There was an unnervingly long beat of silence. ‘You must be very isolated.’

Mark forced a smile into his voice. ‘Coolabah Waters is remote, but don’t worry about your daughter’s safety, Lady Eliza. She’s—’ he inhaled sharply ‘—in good hands.’

‘I’m very pleased to hear that, Mark.’ Her tone was surprisingly pleasant.

‘I’ll get Sophie.’

‘Thank you.’

He hurried down the hallway to the bathroom and knocked on the door. ‘Sophie?’ he called carefully.

There was no reply. No doubt she was upset with him, after last night.

‘Sophie!’ Mark called more loudly, and his heart began an echoing knock against his ribs as he imagined the excuses he would have to offer Lady Eliza if her daughter wasn’t well enough to come to the phone.

But to his relief the door opened and Sophie appeared, looking pale and tired, as if she hadn’t slept.

‘Your mother’s on the phone,’ he told her.

She groaned and closed her eyes, but almost immediately her eyes flashed open again. ‘Does she know about the baby?’

Mark lifted his hands helplessly. ‘She didn’t mention it to me.’

‘I begged Emma not to tell her.’

‘I don’t think she knows. She doesn’t sound upset, but she’s waiting. You can take the call in my study, if you like. I’ll hang up the phone in the kitchen.’

Sophie felt several versions of rotten as she made her way to the study. The continuing effects of jet lag, morning sickness and Mark’s horrible reaction after dinner last night had been a lethal combination.

Gingerly, she lifted the receiver. ‘Hello, Mum. How are you?’

‘I’m perfectly fine, darling. Just a little surprised, of course. I didn’t expect to get back from Milan and find a garbled message on my phone telling me you’ve taken off for Australia on a holiday. That was a sudden decision, wasn’t it?’

‘Well, yes, it was a bit.’

‘You left no information except this one telephone number, Sophie. Are you all right, dear? You sound a little…flat.’

‘I’m fine, Mum.’ Sophie injected extra brightness into her voice. ‘Brilliant, actually.’

‘That’s good to hear.’ After a pause, ‘So how long are you staying at Mark Winchester’s cattle property?’

After last night, she wasn’t sure how she stood with Mark, but she said, ‘About two weeks.’

This was greeted by unpromising silence. And then, ‘When did you meet this young man, darling?’

‘A couple of months ago.’ Sophie tried to sound breezy and cool. ‘At Emma and Tim’s wedding. Mark was Tim’s best man.’

‘Oh, I see.’ Her mother’s tone was instantly lighter, and indicated that she saw much more than Sophie would have liked her to. ‘So Mark’s a good friend of Tim’s, obviously.’

‘That’s right.’

There was a distinct sigh of relief. ‘I’m sure he must be a fine young man, then.’

A coy chuckle on the other end of the line startled Sophie. She swallowed her gasp of surprise.

‘I must say, Mark has the most marvellous voice, Sophie. A very rich baritone. Almost a bass.’

‘Yes, it is deep.’

‘I imagine he must be very tall?’

‘Quite tall.’

‘And dark?’

‘Yes, Mum.’

To Sophie’s alarm, her mother let out a sound that was suspiciously close to a dreamy sigh. ‘It was such a pity that your father and I had to go to Sweden and miss the wedding. I must ring Emma and ask to see her photos.’

Sophie winced. Now her mother was getting disturbingly excited, almost as if she could hear another set of wedding bells in the air. ‘Mum, Mark and I are—are just friends.’

‘Yes, dear. Of course. And his Outback cattle property is so interesting that you don’t want to bother with any of the sights in Australia—Sydney or Uluru or the Great Barrier Reef?’

‘I—I don’t have enough money to visit all those expensive tourist-spots.’

After a pause, Lady Eliza asked, ‘Are there many people living on Coolabah Waters? I understand that some of those big properties have huge numbers of staff.’

‘Umm.’ Sophie’s hand felt suddenly slick with sweat, and she almost dropped the telephone receiver. ‘Mark has a caretaker, but—’ She cast a frantic glance to the doorway, but Mark had disappeared. ‘But he’s had to go away.’

‘How inconvenient.’ Eliza’s voice rippled with a complicated blend of concern and innuendo. ‘So you and Mark are spending two weeks alone?’

‘More—more or less.’

‘Sophie, darling, you are being sensible, aren’t you?’

‘Of course, Mum.’

‘You’re such a warm, impulsive little thing. I’d hate you to break your heart again.’

‘Don’t worry about me. I’m being super-sensible. And I’ll be home again before you know it.’

To her surprise, her mother seemed willing to leave it at that. ‘All right, then. I won’t be a bore and make a fuss. So I suppose there’s not much for me to say, except enjoy yourself, my dear.’

‘I will. Thanks for calling, Mum. Give my love to Dad.’

‘Yes, yes. Stay safe, darling.’

As soon as Sophie hung up, she slumped in the chair beside Mark’s desk. Until this morning, she’d pushed her parents out of her mind. But now she could picture her mother’s intelligent, beautiful face, could hear her relaying this phone conversation to her father. Sir Kenneth would not be so easily mollified, and he certainly wouldn’t be won over by Mark’s smooth, dark, baritone voice.

To make matters worse, Sophie knew that as soon as her mother saw photos of Mark, looking so handsome and splendid in his best man’s suit, she would be convinced that her daughter had fallen head-over-heels in love with him. And she would quiz poor Emma.

And Emma knew about the baby.

Oh, help!

Sophie jumped from the chair in sudden panic and hurried down the hallway to the kitchen. ‘Mark?’

He was doing something with a frying pan at the stove, and he turned as she hurried into the room. ‘Everything all right?’ he asked.

‘On the surface,’ she said with an uncertain shrug.

‘Does your mother know—about the baby?’

‘Not yet. But I’ll have to ring Emma, to warn her to be ready for a call.’

‘That’s fine. Go ahead.’

Mark was polite enough, but he still spoke with an edge of reserve that chilled Sophie. As she returned to the study and dialled Emma’s number, she wished she felt more confident about her chances of convincing him that she hadn’t just used him to get back at Oliver.

But how hard would it be to convince him? She’d known from the start that there was something very strong and rock solid about Mark, a kind of unfailing inner strength, but that probably meant he was also very stubborn.

Emma’s number was engaged. ‘Damn,’ Sophie said softly. ‘I wonder if Mum’s already called her.’ After a panicky moment, she decided she would have to try Emma’s mobile. You never knew, she might answer it even if she was taking another call.

She dialled, and chewed her lip as she waited.

Emma’s voice said, ‘Hello?’

Sophie let out a huff of relief. ‘Emma, it’s Sophie.’

‘Sophie? What a coincidence. I’m in the middle of a phone conversation with your mother.’

‘Oh, she beat me to it. I was hoping to warn you. Is she grilling you about Mark?’

‘And how.’

Sophie nodded sympathetically. ‘You won’t tell her, will you? About the baby?’

‘Trust me, Sox. I won’t spill the beans. But I’d better hurry back. I’m in the middle of telling Lady E how dashing and gorgeous and marriageable your Mark is.’

‘But why? There’s no talk of us getting married!’

‘Well, that’s a jolly shame,’ Emma remarked unhelpfully.

Sophie felt only marginally better as she hung up. She imagined Emma and her mother gossiping madly about her, and she pressed her hands over her mouth to hold back a groan. Very soon her father and sisters would all know about Mark. They would be certain Sophie was madly in love with him. Why else would she have dashed to the other side of the world to be with him?

And, after the fiasco with Oliver, they would be on tenterhooks, half expecting her to end up with a broken heart again. Another failure.

And, unless she could redress last night’s misunderstanding, she knew that was exactly where she was heading.

Mark’s sausages and tomatoes were almost burned black, but he stayed at the stove, wrestling with his thoughts.

He’d been rattled ever since last night’s revelation. Until then, he’d assumed that Sophie had come all this way because she fancied him, because she hoped to make a go of their relationship. Poor fool that he was, he’d allowed himself to imagine that they’d both shared a similar instant attraction at the wedding.

He’d thought a lot about it last night, nursing his ego as he’d tinkered uselessly with the old tractor in the shed.

Now, he realised he hadn’t a clue how Sophie really felt, and it disturbed him more than it probably should to know that he’d been part of a payback manoeuvre. A payback manoeuvre that had misfired.

And how it had misfired! Sophie’s pregnancy had to be the worst possible result.

On top of that, Tim and Emma and Lady Eliza Felsham were all worried that she would be hurt again. Man, talk about pressure on him.

Problem was, he’d fallen halfway in love with a woman who probably had no interest in him apart from the child they’d accidentally conceived.

And yet, he couldn’t help feeling sorry for Sophie, couldn’t help wanting to protect her.

Getting this right was like walking a tightrope, and Mark was damn sure he didn’t want to put a foot wrong. He had to make clear decisions with his head, not his heart. He had to set aside the romantic notion that he could woo Sophie over the next two weeks, had to ignore her tempting little mouth, her delectable body.

He had to remember that she wouldn’t want to live here anyway. His mission had to be to take the best possible care of her and send her home in two weeks’ time with a secure promise of regular contact and financial support.

Until then he would keep her safe.

They ate in uncomfortable silence.

Sophie waited until Mark had finished his breakfast before she tried to take up where they’d left off last night. She’d had a lot of time to think about what she had to say, but she still wasn’t sure that when she opened her mouth the right words would come out.

Butterflies fluttered in her stomach as she watched Mark drain the last of his coffee and set the cup down.

His expression was carefully blank as he looked at her. ‘I thought you might like to take a tour over parts of the property today. If you’re feeling up to it, that is.’

She took a deep breath, and spread her hands flat on the table. ‘Before we talk about that, there’s something else more important that I want to set straight.’

His throat worked. ‘What is it?’ He dropped his gaze, and began to gather up his breakfast things.

‘Look at me, please, Mark.’

His hands stopped moving. Very slowly, he lifted his head, and Sophie’s heart began to thump when she saw that all warmth had drained from his face.

I have to get this right. I can’t make another mistake.

‘You have to believe me,’ she said. ‘It’s true that I started flirting with you at the wedding to get back at Oliver. But my decision to invite you back to my flat had nothing to do with Oliver. It was all about you.’

Nervously she reached out and touched the back of his hand with her fingertips. ‘The only thing that influenced me to sleep with you was how I felt about you. I didn’t give Oliver a single thought. It was all about you, Mark.’

When he didn’t protest, she hurried on more confidently. ‘You were far too dashing and handsome, Mark. I was totally smitten. A girl didn’t stand a chance with you kitted out in your best-man’s finery.’

He was looking deep into her eyes now.

Oh, please let him see that I’m telling the truth!

She held her breath.

Slowly, slowly, a faint glimmer stirred the darkness in his eyes. His upper lip curled as if he was fighting hard not to smile. At last, he said, ‘So the expensive suit I hired did the trick?’

‘I promise. You were a knockout, Mr Winchester.’

‘Touché,’ he said softly. ‘You were far too lovely in your pretty bridesmaid’s gown.’

‘Really?’

‘Oh, yeah.’

His smile came fully then, warming his whole face, making his eyes shine with a glow that caused a clutch in Sophie heart. She drew a deep breath of relief. Mark did the same.

Yesterday, they might have fallen into each other’s arms. Today they were more cautious.

Mark simply stood, but his tread was lighter as he took his dishes to the sink. ‘About this tour of the property,’ he said. ‘Are you interested?’

If Mark had asked that question when she’d first arrived, Sophie might have been content with a tame tour over Coolabah Waters. But ever since Jill’s phone call, she’d been hoping to become more involved in the day-to-day life on his cattle property. She wanted to impress him, needed to prove that she could fit in.

‘Are you sure you have time for a sightseeing tour?’ she asked. ‘What about your work? You’ve been away for a couple of weeks, and I’m sure you must have oodles to do.’

His eyebrows lifted in surprise. ‘There are fences that need fairly urgent attention,’ he admitted. ‘But a fencing job would take me most of the day. It would mean abandoning you again.’

‘Why can’t I come, too?’

Mark couldn’t have looked more surprised if she’d announced that she wanted to walk across the Simpson Desert barefoot. ‘It’s too hot out there, Sophie. You’d hate it.’

‘I’ve been outside. It’s not that bad. I’d like to come.’

‘But you’re pregnant,’ he protested.

‘That doesn’t mean I’m made of porcelain.’

‘You were sick again this morning,’ he added faintly. ‘And I promised your mother I’d take good care of you.’

‘I’m feeling fine now, Mark. I’d like to come.’

He sighed.

Hands on hips, Sophie eyed him levelly. ‘I’m not a snowflake in the desert. I’m prepared to give your Outback a go.’

He cast a cautious glance over her clothes—denim shorts and a sleeveless cotton top.

‘You couldn’t go out dressed like that. That lovely skin of yours would be burned to a crisp in ten minutes out there. You’ll have to cover up. Do you have jeans and a long-sleeved shirt?’

‘I brought jeans, but none of my shirts have long sleeves.’

‘You’ll have to borrow one of mine, then. You can roll the sleeves up and wear it loose over the top—just to keep the sun off.’

Sophie was so pleased that Mark had stopped fighting her objections, she would have worn a tent.

He looked down at her dainty white sandals covered in daisies. ‘Do you have anything sturdier to put on your feet?’

‘Would sneakers do?’

‘They’ll have to. What about a hat?’

‘I brought a sunhat with me.’

‘A decent one with a wide brim?’

‘Well, the brim’s not terribly wide. I needed something I could squash into my suitcase. But if I unpick the daisies—’

Mark laughed. ‘Forget it. You’d better wear one of my hats, too. It might not be pretty, but it will save your complexion.’

Half an hour later, she was grateful for Mark’s big blue, double-pocket cotton shirt and his hat with a brim as wide as a veranda. She was standing in the middle of an enormous brown paddock with a fierce sun beating down, while she watched Mark pace out a line for metal fence-posts that he called star pickets.

To Sophie, the pickets looked rather thin and insubstantial—nothing like the old stone walls and strong timber fences on the farms she’d seen in England.

‘Why don’t you use timber?’ she asked.

‘The white ants would eat timber posts in no time,’ he said as he pulled on leather gloves and began to lift heavy rolls of barbed wire from the back of the ute. ‘We use timber from special termite-resistant trees for the gate posts and strainers, but otherwise these are best.’

‘Do you have to look after all your fences?’ There seemed to be thousands of miles of them.

‘I use contract fencers for the big jobs. This is just a small maintenance job of a few hundred metres.’

‘A bit like me changing a light bulb at home,’ she joked.

Mark’s white teeth flashed as he grinned.

‘So, what can I do to help?’

She was pleased that he only hesitated briefly before he handed her a pair of gloves.

‘You’d be a great help if you could hold the pickets steady, so I can ram them in. Keep your hands away from the top, and hold the picket about halfway down.’

‘Right.’

She crouched to hold the slim black post in place, while Mark used a heavy-capped metal pipe with two handles that fitted over the picket.

He lifted the post driver a foot or so, then slammed the pipe down, forcing the picket into the ground with each blow.

‘Much easier than driving it in with a sledgehammer,’ he grunted.

Sophie thought it still looked like jolly hard work as she watched Mark’s shirt stretch tightly over his broad shoulders, threatening to split.

His shirt tail lifted, exposing a glimpse of bare skin at his waist.

This is why he has such a great body, she thought, admiring his trim hips, strong thighs and wonderful biceps. He did this sort of hard work all the time. No need for a gym workout for this man.

He swung around and she quickly switched her gaze to the ute, but she knew he’d caught her checking him out.

‘Ready with the next one?’ he called.

‘Sure.’

They worked their way along the fence line and, once the pickets were in place, Mark tensioned the wire with a metal lever, a bit like an old-fashioned tyre jack.

Sophie couldn’t drag her eyes from him. His movements were so practised, so easy and fluid and unhurried, and yet he conveyed the capacity to be very quick indeed if it was necessary.

As the fence took shape, she felt a completely un-warranted sense of achievement. OK, so maybe her help had been minimal, but she thought they made a pretty good team.

They lunched in the shade of gum trees, enjoying sandwiches and tea from the flask. Mark found an old blanket in the ute and spread it on the grass.

‘You should have a little rest before we head back,’ he said.

In no mood to argue, she stretched out and looked up at the sky through the tree branches. It was astonishingly blue and clear. There wasn’t a cloud anywhere.

‘A granddad sky,’ she said, speaking her thoughts aloud.

‘I beg your pardon?’ Mark was sitting with his back against a tree trunk and his long legs stretched in front of him, and he regarded her with quizzical amusement.

‘Whenever I see a perfectly clear, blue sky without any clouds, I think of my grandfather. We don’t get too many perfectly spotless blue skies in England. But when I was quite small I was out in the country walking with Grandad and we saw a perfect, clear sky.’

She pointed. ‘Deep blue. Just like this. And he told me if I ever saw another sky better than that I was to write and tell him.’

‘And will you?’

‘I can’t. He died two years ago.’

Mark’s eyes were sympathetic. ‘He sounds like a nice fellow.’

‘He was. The best.’ She watched a flock of brightly coloured little birds swoop down to perch in a small tree to her right.

‘I think Grandad and I were the odd ones out in our family,’ she said. ‘Whenever he came to my mother’s Sunday lunch-parties, he got as bored as I did with all the music gossip, so we usually slipped away. Sometimes we’d just go into the garden to peak into birds’ nests, or hunt for hedgehogs, but other times we’d sneak up to the High Street. He’d let me stuff myself silly with cream cakes and he’d never tell my mother.’

Mark chuckled, and Sophie rolled onto her side so she could see him better. ‘The summer before Grandad died, I took him up to Scotland. I sat on a river bank for hours, reading novels, while he fished for trout to his heart’s content.’

‘Every man should be so lucky.’

A kind of shadow came over his face, and he sighed. ‘My father died five years ago, fighting a bushfire. He worked hard all his life. I wish I’d thought to take him on a holiday.’

‘Perhaps he was happy to be living in the bush on a beautiful property.’

‘Yeah. Perhaps.’ He sent her a grateful smile. ‘Dad and Mum were very close. She died eighteen months later. They called it heart failure, but I think she missed him too much.’

‘That’s very sweet, really.’ A painful lump filled Sophie’s throat as she thought of Mark’s parents living a self-contained, happy life in the Outback. Together and very much in love.

As she lay there, lost in a romantic fantasy where she was the next Mrs Winchester, she rubbed her tummy in an absentminded, careless kind of way.

Watching her, Mark said, ‘I wonder if the baby’s a boy or a girl.’

‘Have you been thinking about that?’ she asked, surprised.

‘Sure. Haven’t you?’

‘I haven’t dared,’ she admitted.

‘You mean you haven’t been playing around, trying out names?’

‘No.’

‘I thought all women liked to do that.’

She closed her eyes. ‘It would make being pregnant all too real.’

‘But it is real, Sophie.’

Mark sounded shocked, and her eyes flashed open. She looked directly at him. His dark eyes were very serious, almost intimidating.

What she hadn’t said was that thinking up names for the baby would have involved trusting the future, and Oliver had spoiled her ability to do that.

‘I—I just think of it as my little bean,’ she said.

‘Bean?’

‘Well, yes. Because it’s just a little thing, a little blob, curled like a bean.’

His expression softened. ‘A human bean?’

‘Yes,’ Sophie said, and her mouth began to twitch. ‘A little human bean. Our little human bean.’

A helpless chuckle broke from her.

Next moment, Mark was grinning, too. Their gazes met, and Sophie felt quite overcome by the sense of connection she felt with him. After their morning working together, she dared to wonder for the first time if she and Mark might still be together when the baby was born.

It was a thought almost too big to take in. She pulled Mark’s hat over her face, and tried to calm down by listening to the sun-drowsed stillness of the Outback.

The silence didn’t disturb her as much today. She no longer missed the background hum of traffic and city sounds, and she was able to enjoy the peacefulness.

She lay very still and let her shoulders, then her whole body, relax. The only sound was the faint buzz of insects in the grass and her soft breathing. She was aware of the faint puffs of air passing from her nostrils and over her upper lip. And as she lay there, thinking about the sky and the tapering blue-green gum trees, her breath drifting slowly in and out, she felt for a fleeting moment connected to the entire universe.