And suddenly he did.
‘I’m hardly a Douglas,’ he said, more sharply than he’d intended. ‘My father died when I was three, and I’ve had no contact with anyone but my mother’s family.’
‘But you
‘In name only.’
‘You don’t want to be a Douglas?’
Not if it means all this emotion, he thought, but he didn’t say it.
‘Move over,’ he told her instead. ‘It’s time to put the steak on. Four minutes either side, which gives me time to whip up a salad. But there’s no time for idle chat.’
‘You don’t do idle chat?’
‘No.’
‘I’ll concentrate on my chips, then,’ she told him, and proceeded to sit on the floor, flick on the oven light and watch. Which was distracting all on its own. ‘I know when to butt out where I’m not wanted.’
‘I didn’t mean to be rude.’
‘Neither did I,’ she told him. ‘But maybe that’s the way we have to be. You don’t want to be a Douglas. I can’t bear to be near one. So let’s get tonight over with and then we can both move on in the direction we intend to go.’
CHAPTER THREE
SHE woke to singing.
She must be dreaming, she decided, and closed her eyes but a moment later she opened them again.
‘“I’ll be true to the song I sing. And live and die a pirate king.”’
It was a rich, deep baritone, wafting in from the window out to the garden. Straight out of Gilbert and Sullivan.
Hamish?
It was early. Too early. She’d had trouble getting to sleep. Rosie was still soundly sleeping and she didn’t have to get up yet. She didn’t want to get up yet.
She closed her eyes.
‘“It is, it is a glorious thing, to be a pirate king.”’
She opened one eye and looked at her clock.
Six a.m.
The man was mad, she decided. Singing in the vegetable garden at six in the morning.
It was a great voice.
OK, she’d just look. She rolled out of bed, crawled across the floor under the level of the sill, then raised herself cautiously so she was just peeking…
He was digging her path.
The window was open and the curtains were drawn. Before she’d even thought logically, she’d shoved her hands on the sill and swung herself out. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’
Hamish paused in mid-dig. He was wearing shorts. And boots.
Nothing else.
This wasn’t a stockbroker’s body, Susie thought as he set down his spade and decided what to say. The man had a serious six-pack. He was tanned and muscled-as if he’d spent half his life on a farm rather than in a stockbroker’s office.
He had great legs.
Oh, for heaven’s sake…
‘Whose boots are they?’ she demanded, and then thought, What a ridiculous question to ask. But the boots were decrepit-surely not carefully brought over from New York.
‘I found them in the wet room,’ he told her, looking like he was trying not smile. ‘There’s a whole pile. I figured if I inherited the castle with contents included, then at least one lot of boots must be mine. They’re a size or two big but I’m wearing two pairs of socks. What do you think? Will I take Manhattan by storm?’ He raised a knee to hold up a boot for inspection.
Boris had been supervising the path-digging lying down. Now the big dog rose, put out a tongue and licked the specified boot. Just tasting…
It was such a ridiculous statement-such a ridiculous situation-that Susie started to giggle.
Then she suddenly thought about what she was wearing and stopped giggling. Maybe she should hop right back in through the window.
But he’d already noticed. ‘Nice elephants,’ he said politely.
And she thought, Yep, the window was a good idea. She was wearing a pair of short-very short-boxer-type pyjama bottoms and a top that matched. Purple satin with yellow and crimson elephants.
There was a story behind these elephants. Susie’s two little step-nieces had wanted pyjamas with elephants on them. Harriet from the post office had been in Sydney for a week to visit an ailing sister and had thus been commissioned to find pyjama material with elephants. What she’d found had been royal purple satin with yellow and red elephants-the lot going much cheaper by the roll. Harriet had been so pleased that she’d bought the entire roll, and every second person in Dolphin Bay was now sporting elephant-covered nightwear.
‘They’re home-made,’ Susie managed. ‘I know the seam-stress.’ She managed a smile and Hamish thought-not for the first time-what a lovely smile she had. ‘She’ll make you some too if you like.’
‘No, thank you,’ he said hurriedly, and she grinned.
‘You could really take New York by storm with these.’
‘I don’t think Manhattan is ready for those pyjamas.’
There was a silence. She was trying not to look at his six-pack. He looked like he was trying not to look at her pyjamas.
‘What are you doing?’ she asked, as much to break the silence as anything. Though it was obvious.
The garden was in the full fruit of late autumn. The fruit trees were laden. The lavender hedge was alive with early-morning bees, everything was neat and shipshape, and the only discordant note was the path she’d started digging. She’d dug the first twenty yards. Twenty yards had taken her two days.
Hamish had dug another fifteen.
‘I assume you wanted the rest dug,’ he told her.
She bit her lip. ‘I did. It’s just…’
‘I’ve put the soil in the compost area,’ he told her, guessing her qualms. ‘I’ve left it separate so you can mix it as you want.’
One question answered.
‘And the worms are in the yellow bucket,’ he told her, answering her second.
He was laughing at her! He’d done what represented over a day’s work. She should be grateful. She was grateful! But he was laughing.
‘Worms are important,’ she said defensively, and he nodded.
‘I’ve always thought so. But not the kind that come out of your eyeballs.’
‘There’s no need to mock.’
‘I’m not mocking.’
More silence.
‘You don’t get muscles like those sitting behind a desk,’ she said tentatively. She felt she shouldn’t mention those muscles-but she was unable to stop looking at them.
‘I work out.’
‘You use a gym?’
‘There’s a gym in the building where I live.’
Of course. More silence while she tried again not to concentrate on muscles.
