between them earlier in the night had somehow been driven aside. It was still there, latent, unresolved, but it was another part of them. The professional part-the part that had put them through stringent medical training-was in play and it produced the most effective study Nikki had done. When the big grandfather clock in the hall struck midnight she lifted her head in amazement. ‘Thank you,’ she said simply. ‘I will go to bed now.’
‘To sleep?’ The blue eyes watching her saw too much.
‘Of course.’
‘The shadows let you sleep, then?’
‘What…? What do you mean?’ Unconsciously Nikki clutched the neckline of her housecoat as though seeking warmth from its flimsy fabric. ‘What do you mean-shadows?’
They stand out a mile,’ Luke told her. He stood, stretching his long limbs. He was barefoot, wearing light cotton trousers and a soft, short-sleeved shirt, open at the throat. The two of them could be taken for a married couple, Nikki thought suddenly, and then grimaced. It was a crazy scenario-the two of them alone at this hour. Beattie was long since gone to bed and the house was in whispering stillness. The palms along the veranda which gave the house its name murmured in hushed tones in the night breeze.
‘You’re crazy.’ Nikki stood too and then wished she hadn’t. The movement brought her too close to Luke. She half expected him to move back, but he stayed, looking down at her.
‘Tell me about Scott,’ he said softly.
CHAPTER FIVE
SCOTT…
The name flashed before them like a cruel sword, knifing at Nikki’s heart.
How had Luke…?
‘Tell me about him,’ he repeated gently.
What sort of questioning was this? Nikki’s eyes widened. She stared up at Luke with anger flashing, but Luke’s eyes were reflective and calm.
‘No,’ she whispered.
Luke was between Nikki and the door. Nikki put out a hand to shove him aside but he caught and held it. Her hand lay in his, warmth against warmth, and Nikki’s anger turned to an overwhelming feeling of distress. She pulled again but the grip tightened.
‘Look, it’s none of your business,’ she managed. ‘I don’t know how you found out about Scott…’
‘Beattie,’ he smiled. ‘How else?’
‘Well, Beattie has no right to talk about me. Beattie, Charlotte, and now you!’ Nikki’s voice rose in anger. ‘All of you think you can interfere with my life. Well, I don’t want it. I don’t need your interrogation…’
‘You don’t need anybody.’ Luke’s eyes were still calm, the deep blue penetrating into the depths of her heart. His look was like a red-hot torch, burning in. Nikki had never felt anything like it in her life before. This man could see parts of her that had remained hidden for years-that she had sworn would never again be revealed. ‘You do, though, Nikki,’ he said softly. ‘And whatever is hurting needs to be talked of. So tell me.’
‘No.’
He shook his head. ‘Nikki, I’m only here for three weeks. Then I get out of your life forever. But for those three weeks I intend getting rid of the shadows-or at least having a damned good try. You need someone to talk to. So talk to me.’
‘I don’t want to.’ It was practically a wail, and Luke smiled.
‘Yes, you do,’ he told her, and pulled her firmly in to lie against him. His hand came up to run through her mass of golden-red curls and his fingers sent warmth and reassurance through her body. ‘Beattie tells me you’ve been carrying this for five years. It’s too long to carry bitterness and hate. So tell me.’
Nikki held her body stiffly, resentfully, but the fingers did their work insidiously. His hand moved against her head, sending messages of reassurance and comfort through her. Let the bitterness go, his hand was telling her. Tell me. Tell someone. Spill it out. And he wouldn’t release her until she did…
‘Scott was my husband,’ she said stiffly, reluctantly. ‘But I suppose Beattie told you that.’
‘And he left you?’
‘Yes.’ It was crazy talking to this man, cradled against his shoulder like a child needing comfort. She didn’t feel like a child, though. Nikki felt every inch a woman and her body was achingly aware of his.
And yet…And yet she could talk to him. This was a comfort she had never known-a peace she had never been blessed with.
‘Scott and I grew up together,’ she said slowly. She was talking into the soft folds of Luke’s shirt. His face was above hers. She could feel the beating of his heart. There was no need to talk above a whisper.
‘Scott’s father was a fisherman,’ she continued. ‘But Scott hankered for life away from here. We went to university together in Brisbane-Scott to do law and me to do medicine.’ She sighed. ‘Scott’s motives-well, I’m not sure why he wanted to do law-but my mother had severe rheumatoid arthritis and ever since I was tiny I’d been frustrated by not being able to help. So we went to Brisbane-two kids from a tiny town-and we just kept on together. Scott was always there. Just as he’d been when I was small.’
‘Your parents were wealthy?’
Nikki stiffened in Luke’s hold but his fingers didn’t pause in their gentle stroking. He was way ahead of her. He could read her mind, this man. It seemed that she didn’t need to tell him anything. He knew.
‘My father was the son of a British peer,’ Nikki said bitterly. ‘He had a fight with his father, came to Australia when he was a teenager, married my mother and stayed. Money was never a problem for us-or at least it never appeared a problem. Dad was Lord Peter Russell, and he never stopped using the Lord. My mother’s family left us Whispering Palms but my father always implied that he was humouring her by living in her childhood home rather than something much more grand. My father didn’t work. He spent heaps on my mother and me, and he made it sound as though he had lots for me to inherit. That’s why…’
‘That’s why Scott asked you to marry him.’
Nikki writhed in Luke’s grasp but his hold didn’t ease. Instead it tightened and the waves of warmth and reassurance increased. ‘Tell me, Nikki,’ he said.
‘Of course it was why he asked me to marry him,’ Nikki said reluctantly. ‘But I was too stupid to see. I didn’t realise that the only reason someone so vibrant-so alive-as Scott would want to be with me was because he was on to something he couldn’t get any other way.’ She shook her head and angry tears started behind her eyes.
‘Scott and I were married while we were still at university,’ she continued bitterly. ‘We were happy for a while. And then, just as I graduated, my mother died. And my father-the man who I always thought was the strong one- couldn’t face what was left behind. He took what he believed was the only way out.’
Luke gave an almost soundless whistle. ‘Tough!’ he said softly.
‘It was.’ Nikki put a hand up to wipe away angry tears but Luke was before her, his hand taking the tears away from her eyes. ‘But it got worse. After his funeral they gave me a note which he’d left with his lawyer.’ She took a deep breath. ‘My father left a note saying the money had finished a couple of years earlier-that he couldn’t face life without money and he was deep in debt. He’d managed to hide it until my mother had died but now…Now the only way for him was suicide…’
‘And Scott?’ Luke’s voice was grim.
‘Scott!’ Nikki laughed, a harsh, tight little sound that was caught by Luke’s nearness. ‘At first Scott was so supportive. He was marvellous when my mother died, and when they found my father. I remember thinking, At least I have. Scott. With Scott I can face this. Only then-the night of the funeral-the lawyer gave me the note and Scott and I read it together. And then… and then we sat down and went through my father’s desk and realised that after coping with the bills there would be nothing.’
‘I see.’
Luke did see. From his voice Nikki knew she didn’t have to say the rest. It came out, though. It seemed as if it had to.
‘At first I thought Scott was just upset for me-but then…then I said that at least we still had Whispering Palms. It was my mother’s. She…she must have known about my father’s debts. The house was left in trust for our…for my
