Buch lesen: «A Bride For Barra Creek»

CHAPTER ONE

‘YOU may kiss the bride.’

Smiling, Lizzy watched as Jack cupped Ellie’s face between his hands and bent his head to kiss her. It was only a brief kiss, but Lizzy was sure that for that moment the two of them had completely forgotten their audience and existed only for each other.

Lucky Ellie, thought Lizzy as she saw Jack’s hand close firmly around her sister’s, and she couldn’t help wondering a little wistfully if it would ever be her turn. When was she going to find someone who belonged with her the way Jack belonged with Ellie?

Not that she didn’t have more important things to worry about, Lizzy reminded herself. Like finding a job. Falling in love would be wonderful, but it wouldn’t pay off her credit card bills, would it?

Lizzy’s mind flickered towards the likely total, and veered away like a startled horse. She shouldn’t have bought those shoes, she thought, glancing down at them a little guiltily. They had been an extravagance, but they were perfect with the dress, and she’d had to look nice for Ellie’s wedding. It wasn’t every day your little sister got married.

Anyway, Lizzy decided firmly, she wasn’t going to think about her overdraft today. This was Ellie’s day.

Blue eyes warm with affection, Lizzy looked around the old woolshed. It looked as if the entire district had turned out to see Ellie marry Jack Henderson. How could their marriage fail to be a success when so many people were there to wish them well? All the faces were familiar to Lizzy, all were smiling.

Except one.

He was standing on his own, not talking, not smiling, just surveying the scene with an air of detached cynicism that made him stand out from the crowd far more than his height or his dark, harsh features.

As a child, Lizzy had been sent a book of fairy tales from England. It had been illustrated with green fields and dense, dark forests that had meant little to a child growing up in the outback. One of the pictures had shown a wolf, barely disguised beneath a fleece, prowling through a field of sheep. It had conveyed the same sense of lurking menace that Lizzy felt now, staring at the stranger, and a tiny shiver tiptoed down her spine.

The photographer was busily arranging family groups and Lizzy was called just then to stand next to her sister. Smiling obediently for the camera, she craned her neck slightly to keep the mysterious stranger in view over the photographer’s shoulder, and her interest deepened when she saw the way the other guests eyed him askance and were careful to give him a wide berth. Clearly she wasn’t the only one who sensed something different about him, something dangerous, yet strangely compelling.

Released by the photographer, Lizzy manoeuvred her way to the edge of the group where she could greet guests waiting to congratulate Jack and Ellie and watch the man at the same time. He had acquired a glass of the champagne that was circulating, and judging by the curl of his lip he didn’t think much of it.

Lizzy was intrigued. Who was he? His hair was dark and cut close to his head, his face angular, with strong features and a forbidding expression. He might be dressed like all the other men in the room, but there was an unmistakably maverick quality about him. It was something to do with the hardness of his mouth, with the coiled power that was evident in the way he held himself, with the cool, watchful eyes.

Her mother must know who he was, Lizzy reasoned. He didn’t look like the kind of man who would drive thirty miles from the nearest sealed road to gatecrash an ordinary outback wedding, so presumably he had been invited.

She turned to ask, but her mother was talking to the celebrant, and when she glanced back to the stranger she found herself looking straight into his eyes. They were piercingly pale in his dark face, and so cold that Lizzy’s heart jerked and the breath dried in her throat.

She had the oddest feeling that the floor of the woolshed had dropped away beneath her feet and only that unnervingly light gaze was holding her above an abyss. It could only have been for a moment, but to Lizzy it felt as if she hung there for ever, her gaze locked with his.

And then he smiled, a swift, mocking smile that for some reason sent the colour surging into her cheeks. Lizzy wrenched her eyes away and pointedly turned her back, furious to find that her heart was hammering in her chest.

It hadn’t been a nice smile. Not really. She wasn’t even going to ask who he was. From now on, she decided, she would ignore him.

Only somehow she couldn’t. Lizzy threw herself into her role as bridesmaid, flitting between groups, hugging old friends, laughing, kissing, agreeing that Ellie looked beautiful and that she and Jack were perfect for each other, but no matter how many times she tried to turn her back, the stranger always seemed to be there, lurking irritatingly at the edge of her vision.

Perversely, the moment she couldn’t see him any more, she missed him. On her way back from the bar that had been set up at one end of the woolshed, Lizzy paused and sipped her champagne, surveying the crowd with a slight frown between her brows. Where had he gone?

‘Looking for me?’ a voice said in her ear, and Lizzy started, the champagne sloshing out of her glass as she swung round.

Sure enough, it was the stranger, looking even more sardonic at close quarters. Close to, Lizzy could see that his eyes were grey, but so light they seemed glacial against the darkness of his hair and lashes, and she had the uncomfortable feeling that they could see right through her.

‘Why should I be looking for you?’ she asked, with what she thought was creditable coolness considering that her heart seemed to have taken up residence in her throat, where it was jumping and fluttering and generally making it ridiculously hard for her to breathe.

‘I’m the only person here you haven’t kissed,’ he said. He had an unusual accent, not wholly Australian nor completely American, but somewhere in between. ‘You wouldn’t want to miss anyone out, would you?’

Lizzy swallowed her heart firmly. ‘I only kiss people I know,’ she said, ‘and I don’t know you.’

‘We could introduce ourselves,’ he pointed out. ‘Although I already know exactly who you are.’

Lizzy, opening her mouth to reply to his suggestion, was thrown. ‘You do?’ she asked uncertainly.

‘I’ve been asking around about you. You’re Elizabeth Walker, always known as Lizzy, elder sister of the bride and all round nice girl.’

For some reason this description annoyed Lizzy. ‘That’s not quite how I’d describe myself,’ she said with something of a snap.

‘Oh? How would you describe yourself?’

‘As a professional woman,’ said Lizzy loftily and not very accurately. ‘I’m in PR.’

‘Ah.’ He nodded down at her feet. ‘That explains the shoes.’

In spite of herself, Lizzy warmed to him. He was the only person who had noticed her shoes. Following his gaze downwards, she couldn’t help smiling. There was just something about shoes, Lizzy felt. You couldn’t put on a pair like this and not feel good.

‘Aren’t they wonderful?’ she said, forgetting for a moment that she didn’t like him.

His eyes travelled slowly up from the shoes to her face. Lizzy was tall and built on generous lines. Whenever she grumbled about losing weight, her friends would roll their eyes and assure her that her figure was perfectly proportioned to her height and her personality. Deep down, Lizzy knew that this was true, but it didn’t stop her grumbling. She was normal, after all.

For Ellie’s wedding she had found a fabulous dress that emphasised her warm curves and glowing, opulent skin. Kingfisher-blue, its colour intensified the blueness of her eyes and made a wonderful foil for her wavy blonde hair, bluntly cut to her chin, and her stylishly bold lipstick.

There was no way that Lizzy could be described as a classical beauty, but her face was so vivid that no one ever noticed that her nose was too big and her mouth too wide or that there were already lines starring the edges of her eyes.

‘Wonderful,’ Tye agreed. His face was quite straight, but something in his voice set a blush stealing into Lizzy’s cheeks, and she looked quickly away. It was a relief when his gaze dropped back to her shoes. ‘But not very practical,’ he added.

They certainly weren’t. She had nearly twisted her ankle several times on the uneven woolshed floor. To her chagrin, Lizzy realised that she had been holding her breath and let it out. ‘There are more important things in life than practicality,’ she said firmly, and a disconcerting gleam of amusement lit the cool grey eyes.

‘You must be the only person in this woolshed to think so!’

That was probably true too, Lizzy reflected, glancing around at the people she had grown up with. They were all wonderful, and she loved them deeply, but they didn’t understand about shoes.

‘You have to be practical if you live in the outback,’ she said, her gaze coming back to meet his almost defiantly. ‘I don’t. I’m a city girl now.’

‘So I gathered.’

Lizzy didn’t quite know what to make of that. There had been an odd undercurrent to his voice that she couldn’t interpret. ‘You seem to know all about me,’ she pointed out with a challenging look, ‘but I still don’t know who you are.’

‘I’m Tye Gibson,’ he told her, and he smiled sardonically at the expression on her face. ‘Yes, that Tye Gibson,’ he answered her unspoken question. ‘Didn’t anyone tell you that the black sheep of the district was back?’

‘No,’ admitted Lizzy, too surprised to think what she was saying.

She couldn’t help staring. Tye Gibson! No one had seen him since he had walked off his family property nearly twenty years ago, but of course they all knew about him. Breaking off all contact with his father, Tye had turned his back on the bush and gone on make his fortune. Not just an ordinary little fortune, not just millions, but serious money.

Lizzy had never been absolutely sure what Tye Gibson did—something to do with communications, she thought—but she knew that his company, GCS, was a global giant, and that his name was a byword for ruthlessness around the world. It wasn’t bad going for a boy from Barra Creek, but nobody wanted to claim him as a local hero. However Tye had made his fortune, it hadn’t been by being nice.

It seemed that anyone who ever had to do business with him regretted it, and the press didn’t like him any better. Refusing to be interviewed or photographed, Tye Gibson was apparently content for people to think of him as heartless and amoral, and the richer and more reclusive he became, the more the myths about him proliferated.

Nor did the district he had grown up in have anything good to say for him. Lizzy had been a little girl when he’d left his father to struggle on his own, and anyway had never met him, but gossip travelled fast around the outback and she knew all about his unsavoury reputation. Nobody had been sorry to see him go.

But now it seemed that he was back—and it wasn’t hard to guess why.

‘Aren’t you a little late?’ she said.

Tye’s dark brows lifted. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Your father’s funeral was a week ago,’ said Lizzy pointedly.

‘So?’

‘So couldn’t you have made the effort to get here in time for that?’

His face hardened. ‘I think that would have been a little hypocritical, don’t you? My father and I hadn’t spoken for twenty years. What would have been the point of me weeping crocodile tears over the coffin? Besides,’ he went on, glancing around him, ‘I doubt if I would have been very welcome. That’s been made very obvious today.’

‘Are you surprised?’

‘Not in the slightest.’ There was a cynical twist to Tye’s lips. ‘Nothing’s changed round here. I never expected to be greeted as the prodigal son.’

‘Perhaps if you’d come back to see your father when he was alive, you would have been,’ said Lizzy tartly.

She must have drunk more champagne than she’d thought. She wasn’t usually like this. Normally she had the sunniest of natures and wanted everyone to like her, but there was something about Tye Gibson that got under her skin and left her feeling ruffled and somehow aggravated.

‘He wanted to see you,’ she told Tye, who lifted a disbelieving eyebrow.

‘Did he?’

Lizzy lost some of her assurance. ‘Well…that’s what I heard. I heard that he’d begged you to come home so that he could see you before he died.’

Tye laughed, but there was no humour in it. ‘I’d like to have seen my father begging for anything!’

It didn’t ring that true with what Lizzy remembered of Frank Gibson either, now that he mentioned it. Frank had been a proud man.

‘You mean it’s not true?’

‘Asking me to post a letter would have been giving in as far as my father was concerned,’ said Tye flatly.

Lizzy hesitated. ‘If he was dying, he might have looked at things differently,’ she suggested, but Tye only smiled ironically.

‘You didn’t know my father very well, did you?’

She looked at him in some puzzlement. ‘What are you doing here, then?’

‘I’ve come to sort out my father’s affairs,’ he said. ‘And to see Barra again.’

‘But I thought—’

Lizzy stopped, uncomfortably aware that she was repeating gossip.

‘You thought what? That my father had disinherited me?’

‘Well…yes,’ she admitted awkwardly.

Frank had made no secret of the fact that he had been bitterly hurt by his son’s rejection, and when Tye hadn’t come back when he was dying everyone had naturally assumed that he would do as he had long threatened and cut Tye out of his will.

‘No, he didn’t do that,’ said Tye, but his mouth was set in a grim line and Lizzy wondered what he was thinking about. It wasn’t anything nice, that was for sure.

What kind of man would refuse to visit his dying father? That had been cruel. She eyed him speculatively from under her lashes. No one had been the least bit surprised at his non-appearance, but it seemed to Lizzy that his face didn’t really live up to his reputation. It was guarded, yes, shuttered and stubborn, but it wasn’t cruel. He had the dark, difficult look of a wild horse that had refused to be broken, she thought. His mouth was hard, but maybe it hadn’t always been that way.

Maybe it would look quite different if he were happy. Lizzy’s blue eyes rested on his mouth, trying to imagine him smiling—not a cynical, mocking smile, but a real smile. What would make him smile like that? A woman? Maybe love? Lizzy found herself imagining what it would be like to see his face soften and his mouth curve, and something stirred treacherously inside her.

Jerking her gaze away, she took a slug of champagne. This was Tye Gibson, remember? Rumour was that he had had his heart surgically removed a long time ago. His idea of happiness was probably a nice day spent asset-stripping a company, followed by a relaxing hour of currency speculation.

A spoon was being banged against a glass for attention, and her father was climbing onto a chair to make a speech. Lizzy’s eyes softened as she watched him. Dear old Dad, so calm and quiet and unflappable. She would be lost without him. She couldn’t imagine not speaking to him for twenty years.

Her father was followed by Jack, who was very funny and made everyone laugh. He finished by toasting Lizzy as bridesmaid and they all clapped and cheered, turning to lift their glasses to where she stood with Tye at the edge of the woolshed.

‘To Lizzy!’ they cried, but she was uneasily aware that Tye was not included in their smiles.

Laughing, she blew a kiss of acknowledgment to Jack, but she was glad when everyone turned back to the bride and groom once more.

She slid a glance from under her lashes at Tye. In his place she would have been mortified by the obvious way he had been ignored, but Tye’s expression gave absolutely nothing away. Lizzy was sure that he had noticed, though. Those watchful eyes would miss nothing.

‘Lizzy!’ Ellie was calling her over the crowd, and Lizzy looked quickly away from Tye to see her sister waving her bouquet. ‘Catch!’ she shouted.

The flowers came sailing through the air towards her, ribbons fluttering. Instinctively, Lizzy thrust her glass into Tye’s hand and jumped, catching the bouquet between both hands, and the room cheered as she flourished them triumphantly.

‘Your turn next!’ someone called, and she laughed.

‘I wish!’

Her face was still alight with laughter as she turned back to Tye. He was watching her with an expression so peculiar that her smile slowly faded. ‘Thanks,’ she said, looking at the glass he still held, and he gave it back to her as if he had forgotten that he had it.

There was a pause. Lizzy was very conscious of Tye’s eyes boring into her face, and she put her glass down so that she could fiddle with the flowers. For some reason she couldn’t look at him.

‘I suppose you think this kind of thing is all very silly,’ she said, a defensive edge to her voice.

‘Why do you say that?’

‘You don’t believe in marriage.’

‘How do you know that?’

Lizzy thought of all the beautiful women who had been out with Tye and then appeared in the gossip columns, complaining about his coldness, his selfishness, his callous refusal to commit to a relationship. It had always been a wonder to Lizzy that they could all sound so aggrieved by their failure to turn a heartless recluse into a party-going romantic. It wasn’t as if they couldn’t have known exactly what to expect.

‘I’ve read about you in the papers,’ she admitted.

‘Oh, the papers!’ Tye didn’t even bother to conceal his sarcasm. ‘It must be true, then!’

‘Isn’t it?’

He shrugged. ‘Let’s say that I have trouble understanding what all the fuss is about.’ His disparaging glance swept the woolshed. ‘Weddings are all the same,’ he told her contemptuously. ‘Everyone looks the same; everyone says the same thing. The same tired old rituals every time. The dress, the photographs, the speeches, the bouquet.’

He sneered at the flowers that Lizzy held in her hand, and she pulled them protectively closer to her. ‘I love all the wedding traditions,’ she said with a defiant look. ‘If I ever got married, I’d have the lot!’

‘But what’s the point?’ Tye asked, and Lizzy could practically see his lip curling at the idea of her in a long white dress.

‘You can cut all the cakes and toss all the bouquets you want,’ he went on, ‘but it won’t change the fact that when it comes down to it marriage is a transaction like any other, and the moment one party thinks it’s not getting its fair share of the deal the whole thing falls apart. Before you know where you are, all the people who forked out for a wedding present are being sent notices about the divorce!’

‘You’re just a cynic,’ Lizzy accused him.

‘A realist,’ he corrected her.

‘Marriage isn’t a transaction! It’s about love and commitment and sharing.’

‘You’re just a romantic,’ mocked Tye.

‘Why do people always sneer when they say that?’ demanded Lizzy hotly, forgetting that she had accused him in exactly the same tone of voice. ‘There’s nothing wrong with believing in love!’

Tye shook his head. ‘It never fails to amaze me how otherwise intelligent people persist in the starry-eyed belief that a wedding is the beginning of happy-ever-after! Haven’t you ever come across the statistics about divorce in those papers you read?’

‘Of course I have,’ she said with dignity. ‘That’s why you should wait until you’re absolutely sure that you’re marrying the right person. And “wait” does seem to be the operative word,’ she added, only half joking. ‘I’m thirty-three, and I’m still waiting! I should never have agreed to be Ellie’s bridesmaid.’ She looked glumly down at the flowers. ‘You know what they say—three times a bridesmaid, never a bride.’

‘Don’t despair,’ said Tye, irony and something else that she couldn’t identify in his voice. ‘You caught the bouquet.’

‘I don’t think it counts if it’s thrown straight at you.’ Lizzy sighed, and then blushed slightly as she caught Tye’s eye. He obviously had her down as a desperate thirty-something. She really must make an effort to sound more positive.

‘Anyway,’ she hurried on, ‘I’ve decided that I’m not getting married until I know it’s going to be perfect, and in the meantime I’m concentrating on my career.’

‘Ah, yes.’ He smiled sardonically. ‘The professional woman. Did you say that you were in PR?’

‘Yes. I’m a freelance consultant,’ she said grandly, hoping that Tye wouldn’t guess that her efforts to establish herself had so far amounted to precisely nothing.

‘There can’t be much scope for public relations around here,’ he commented.

Lizzy shook her head so that the blonde hair bobbed around her face. ‘No, I don’t think anyone in Mathison even knows what PR stands for! I live in Perth,’ she explained. ‘I’ve only come home for Ellie’s wedding, and I’m going back on Monday.’

‘I see.’ For some reason Tye was studying her with a new kind of interest. ‘Are you busy at the moment?’

‘I’ve got several projects in the pipeline,’ she said with feigned nonchalance.

Her project for Monday involved buying the paper and scanning it for a job—any job—that would pay her bills and mean that she didn’t have to go crawling back to her old boss to ask for her old job back. No need to tell Tye Gibson that, though.

‘I don’t suppose you know of anyone who might be interested in a…special assignment?’ he asked casually.

Lizzy stared at him. ‘You’ve got a job?’

‘I guess you could call it that.’

There was a distinctly dry note to his voice, but Lizzy was too excited to notice. Tye Gibson might not be the most popular boss in the world, but there was no doubt that GCS was a hugely prestigious company. If she could put GCS in her portfolio, clients would be queuing up to employ her as a consultant.

‘What kind of a job?’ she asked, trying desperately not to sound too eager.

Tye hesitated slightly. ‘It’s highly confidential,’ he told her. ‘I don’t want to give too much away until I’m sure I’ve got the right person.’

Confidential? That sounded promising. Lizzy moistened her lips. ‘As it happens, I’ve got a window coming up,’ she said airily. ‘I might be interested.’

The cool grey eyes studied her, and she forced herself to meet his gaze calmly. ‘We’re talking about an important position,’ he said eventually. ‘I need somebody with the right instincts.’

Lizzy bridled at his dubious expression. ‘I’m completely professional!’

‘Professional is easy.’ Tye waved a dismissive hand. ‘I’m looking for someone who isn’t afraid to stand out from the crowd. Someone with ambition. Someone who’s prepared to do anything to get the job done.’

‘I’m all of those things,’ she assured him.

‘Are you? I asked around about you earlier, and all anybody would tell me was that you were a nice girl. Now, there’s nothing wrong with nice girls, but they don’t last long in a competitive commercial situation. I think you’re too nice for me,’ he told her bluntly.

‘Not always.’ Lizzy was dismayed. It looked as if the fantastic opportunity that had arisen so unexpectedly was already fading from her grasp. Working for GCS would be the end of all her problems, she thought grimly. She couldn’t let it go.

‘It’s my sister’s wedding,’ she said crisply. ‘Of course I’m being nice today, but I’m quite different when I’m at work.’

Tye looked unconvinced. ‘I haven’t got time to deal with tears and tantrums and wounded feelings,’ he warned her. ‘I’ve only got time for results. Are you telling me that you’re hard-nosed enough to play ball with me?’

‘I know I am,’ said Lizzy with a show of confidence that effectively disguised her inner qualms. She wasn’t going to back down now. She needed that job. ‘What do I have to do to convince you?’

Tye didn’t answer immediately. He considered the matter, looking around the woolshed before his gaze came back to settle speculatively on Lizzy’s face.

‘I’ll do anything,’ she said rashly.

‘OK,’ said Tye. ‘Kiss me.’