One More Night Read online

  ‘Well, nearly,’ she amended to herself, looking down at her khaki linen pants and sage-green blouse and fingering the wide tan leather belt around her waist, all of which was clinging to her damply or, in the case of the belt, grippingly. ‘But I suspect, in this climate, the less you wear the better. It’s just as well I visited the Gone Troppo boutique and got myself a few really flimsy pieces.’ Then she jumped as someone touched her on the shoulder and she looked up to see an airline representative standing before her.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry, I was daydreaming!’

  ‘So I gathered,’ the man said with a grin. ‘It’s Miss Patterson, isn’t it? Your flight to Brampton has landed and they’ll be off again as soon as you’re aboard.’

  ‘Am I the only passenger?’ asked Evonne, looking around.

  ‘Today you are, but there’s also some extra baggage to go across. You’ll still be there in time for lunch, by the way.’

  ‘Great! I’m…I’m hungry,’ she said with some surprise as she stood up and went with him towards the tarmac, and he smiled at her again as he took in her figure, the way she walked with a model’s ease and grace, her glossy dark hair and beautiful skin, with the kind of admiration she was very used to seeing in men’s eyes but had closed her heart to completely.

  She discovered on the short flight across the water to the island that Brampton had in fact escaped Captain Cook’s notice on his voyage of discovery up the east coast of Australia in the late seventeen-hundreds.

  ‘Didn’t miss much, the old boy,’ the genial pilot said into the PA, ‘but see this bigger island to the right of Brampton—we’re actually passing between them now for our final descent—it hid Brampton from view.’

  She also learned that Brampton was part of the Cumberland group of islands, that the resort had recently been rebuilt, a process that had not quite been completed, but most of the facilities were now very modern yet designed to blend with the landscape—and that she had a namesake on the island. A tame, very curious emu called Evonne, although it was possibly spelt with a Y.

  For some reason or other, hearing this completed Evonne’s (i.e. Patterson) as she thought of it in brackets, restoration. Her headache had gone, she discovered, she was still tired, but pleasantly so now, and filled with a mild sort of anticipation. Really, she thought, as they floated down to land and she looked down on to a vista of curved beach, sparkling sea, green, wooded hills, flowering trees and creepers, I might just enjoy this project after all.

  *

  ‘Yes, Mr… er… Mr Emerson did get a message that you were arriving, Miss… Miss Patterson,’ the receptionist said to Evonne with a trace of confusion. ‘He got a telegram from Melbourne, in fact, but… well, look, as soon as I can lay my hands on him, I’ll let him know you’re here. He’s probably on the beach or gone in to lunch, but in the meantime, we’ve allocated you a room next door to his, and it’s in a lovely spot, right on the beach. I’m sure you’ll like it—also the opportunity to freshen up for lunch. Susan here, from Guest Liaison, will be your guide and show you the way. Your luggage should already be there now.’

  ‘Thank you,’ smiled Evonne, and started to turn away, then she turned back, ‘Look, don’t worry about tracking Mr Emerson down. If we’re in next-door rooms, I’ll catch up with him sooner or later. There’s no urgency.’

  ‘If you’re sure?’

  ‘Quite sure,’ Evonne said definitely, thinking that she would allow young Ricky Emerson a further few hours of freedom and provide herself with the opportunity to further unwind at the same time.

  Susan, whose job it was to help organise entertainment for guests, chatted charmingly as she led Evonne through the resort, pointing out places of interest at the same time. ‘That’s where they feed the rainbow lorikeets and demonstrate how to open coconuts. Those are the old Carlisle units which are due to be demolished very soon— you’re in the new Blue Lagoon ones.’

  ‘Carlisle?’ queried Evonne with a lift of an eyebrow.

  ‘It’s the name of our twin island just across the channel, the one that hid Brampton from Captain Cook and Matthew Flinders—and this railway line we’re crossing goes over to the Deepwater Jetty; it’s a miniature train really and the only form of transport there, but it’s fun. It meets all the boats that come in. Now these are the new Blue Lagoon units. They’re different, aren’t they?’

  Evonne nodded in agreement as they wended their way along a flagged path between biscuit-coloured, steep-roofed, two-storeyed buildings, each containing eight rooms and surrounded by trees, shrubs and with exotic creepers trained up their walls. Different but rather nice, she thought.

  Finally, after assuring Susan that if she needed anything at all she wouldn’t hesitate to contact her, she closed the door of her upstairs room and breathed deeply as she looked around. It was pleasantly furnished in pastels with full-length windows on two sides that opened on to a veranda. From the veranda, she realised she was indeed just above the beach and had a lovely view, and that Ricky Emerson’s room next door faced the same way and his veranda was separated from hers by a wooden latticework screen. But there was no sign of life on his veranda or sound from his room, and Evonne moved inside again, glanced at the wide smooth bed and decided she was not so much hungry now as sleepy, so she opened a bag and withdrew a filmy sarong, stripped and wrapped herself in it and lay down. Two minutes later she was asleep.

  It was four o’clock before she woke, and the sun was starting to slide towards the horizon. She stood just inside the glass veranda door and gazed around for a couple of minutes. The beach looked incredibly inviting and the bay was studded with the colourful sails of little catamarans skimming the water. A swim, she thought, will just about complete the cure. Then I’ll be ready to take on the world as well as Ricky Emerson.

  Her costume was one-piece and strapless, emerald and black, emerald to her hips, utterly figure-hugging with a turnover stitched cuff across her breasts, and briefly black below. She tied her hair back with a black gabardine ribbon, searched briefly through her case for the thick emerald beach towel she had brought, picked up her sunglasses with the green frames and sallied forth.

  She found herself a long white lounger on the beach which was not crowded but not deserted either, draped her towel on it and stood for a moment contemplating the water. Because they were inside the Great Barrier Reef, there was no surf, just a gentle lapping against the pale golden sand, and because the tide was high all available modes of water transport were in use. People were not only sailing the catamarans but paddling surf skis, riding sailboards and windsurfers and queueing up to water-ski—there was obviously only one place to be on this beautiful summer afternoon, in or on the water. Evonne contemplated no longer.

  She was not a strong swimmer, but she stayed in for over half and hour, so safe was the water, so refreshing and with such a beautiful clean sandy bottom.

  And when she finally came out, she decided Captain Cook and Matthew Flinders had definitely missed out on a small bit of paradise!

  It was a low whistle that brought her back to earth as she came to her lounger and picked up her towel. A wolf whistle, for all that it had been barely audible, and for some reason it didn’t occur to her that it was directed at her until she turned around and found herself looking straight into a pair of lazy green eyes beneath a ragged straw hat. Then there could be no doubt as that same green gaze travelled over her from head to toe in an insolently admiring manner, and a rather wry smile twisted a pair of chiselled lips as she froze for a moment with her towel bunched up in her hands.

  In the next moment, however, she was mentally castigating herself for this breach in her usually iron-clad defences, and employing a tactic she occasionally fell back on. She stared back coolly and observed that those lazy green eyes accompanied a rather splendid male physique sprawled out on a lounger and clad only in a pair of brightly hued cotton shorts. Over six foot, she judged, and tanned golden with wide, sleek shoulders, narrow hips and long legs on which the
hairs were lighter gold. About thirty, she judged, her eyes travelling back to his face—what she could see of it beneath the hat, and good-looking even without those startlingly green eyes. And above all, very sure of himself.

  But then so am I, she reminded herself, and unhurriedly turned away, gathered her sunglasses from the chair and walked away to another free lounger, but one that put some distance of beach between them. She wasn’t sure if it was her imagination, but she thought she heard the sound of low laughter following her, and for another moment she reacted uncharacteristically—she felt her blood boil briefly and set her teeth annoyedly. She even muttered beneath her breath, ‘Damn men!’ before taking hold and relaxing.

  Her ploy appeared to work, though. Twenty minutes later, when she glanced up the beach, her insolent admirer had his back to her and was surrounded by a bevy of girls—well, three, but all young and gorgeous even from a distance and obviously lapping up his company.

  A glint of contempt lit Evonne’s dark eyes briefly, then she lay back and let the late afternoon sunlight caress and soothe her.

  While she was showering and thinking rather longingly of dinner, someone knocked loudly on her door.

  ‘Hell!’ she muttered, stepping out and dabbing at herself hastily with a towel, then awkwardly donning a long watermelon-pink cotton robe, ‘that must be Ricky! I’m coming,’ she called as the knock sounded again, definitely an impatient tattoo this time. ‘I’m coming!’ I just hope you’re not a little monster, she added to herself, fiddling for the sash, not finding it and, impatient herself now, wrapping the robe around her.

  But it was no little monster standing outside the door with his hand raised to knock again. It was a tall man instantly recognisable even without his hat, for his green eyes, his body still only clad in shorts and despite the fact that he was leaning on a walking-stick.

  ‘Oh, now look here,’ said Evonne after a second during which her heart had beat an odd tattoo of its own, ‘this is…’

  ‘Good heavens!’ the man broke in, amusement crinkling the corners of his eyes. ‘Don’t tell me you’re Patterson?’

  Evonne’s mouth fell open.

  ‘Uncle Amos sent me this ambiguous telegram this morning. He… er… neglected to mention that you were a woman.’

  CHAPTER TWO

  EVONNE fell back a pace, her lips still parted, her dark eyes stunned and uncomprehending.

  ‘You are… this Patterson person Uncle Amos has seen fit to foist on to me?’ Richard Carlisle Emerson enquired with a faint frown between his eyes. ‘I bumped into Susan a few minutes ago and she said they’d put you next door.’

  Evonne closed her mouth and licked her lips. ‘I don’t understand,’ she said hoarsely. ‘He said you were young—little more than a boy.’

  The frown faded, to be replaced by a look of wry humour. ‘Did he say that? I’m thirty-one— I guess he’s well into his sixties now, Uncle Amos, so thirty could be little more than a boy to him…’ ‘No,’ Evonne broke in raggedly. ‘He even talked about the generation gap there would be between me…and you. There must be some mistake!’

  ‘Perhaps there is a generation gap between us,’ Richard Emerson countered. ‘I’m pretty young at heart, whereas you look to me to be one sophisticated but rather uptight lady—also very beautiful,’ he added softly, those green eyes roaming leisurely over her again.

  ‘Oh!’ She turned away in disgust and he took the opportunity to follow her into the room and close the door, and when she turned around he was standing behind her.

  ‘I bet it’s a long time since anyone called you Ricky,’ she said bitterly.

  ‘Well, yes, it’s mostly Rick nowadays—why are you so upset about this?’

  ‘Because your uncle Amos deliberately misled me, for reasons I’ve yet to fathom,’ Evonne replied tautly.

  ‘For that matter, me too,’ Richard Emerson said meditatively. ‘In fact I’m just as much in the dark as you. You see, his telegram, which I can show you—no, I can’t, I threw it away in disgust—but believe me, it said… Patterson comma my very own personal assistant comma arriving today to take care of all your needs. Place yourself in these wise hands… Full stop. Whereupon I immediately perceived, or thought I did, the old lure with a different bait.’

  Evonne stared at him.

  ‘My uncle Amos,’ he explained with a grin, ‘has been trying to get me into his business for years. I thought this was a fresh approach, a different line… ah!’ He looked at her searchingly. ‘Was I right?’

  Evonne compressed her lips.

  ‘Then you are his personal assistant? And you have come to help me with my book and at the same time try to entice me into the world of haberdashery and hosiery, homeware and horticultural products…’ He broke off and burst out laughing, then sobered and said with mocking respect, ‘Uncle Amos, I salute you this time, I really do! This ploy is a stroke of pure genius— a real live, eminently desirable woman to take care of all my needs and woo… even seduce me into the business. The old boy might have even come up trumps this time!’

  ‘If you’ve quite finished,’ Evonne said icily but with a faint delicate flush staining her throat that he noticed and watched with idle fascination for a moment, ‘I’d like to say a few words. I was lured into this…ploy,’ she paused and stared him straight in the eye, ‘under false pretences and therefore will have no qualms about ending my part in it at the earliest opportunity.’

  He started to smile, but restrained himself and said gravely, ‘Now, Patterson, that’s a bit extreme, surely? Can’t we discuss it further?’

  ‘There’s nothing to discuss.’

  ‘All right, what if I admit I might have interpreted my uncle’s colourful way with words a little… liberally?’

  ‘There would still be nothing to discuss!’ ‘Just say I were little more than a boy, would you stay then? Is that your main grievance?’

  ‘That,’ said Evonne, unwisely, she was to realise later, ‘and the fact that you obviously have no intention of gratifying your uncle—and aunt’s—dearest wish. It would only be a waste of my time.’

  ‘What about my book?’ he demanded. ‘I can assure you I desperately need your wise— although I would have thought exquisite would be a better description——’ he corrected with a swift, downward glance ‘—hands for that.’ He couldn’t restrain his smile this time and the reminiscent little gleam that came to his green eyes as he said softly, ‘I really wish now that I’d preserved that telegram.’

  ‘Mr Emerson,’ Evonne said grimly, and noted but did not understand the faint look of surprise, then speculation, that came to his green eyes, ‘nothing on earth would induce me to have anything further to do with you!’

  He was silent for a time as he observed her curiously and until Evonne became uncomfortably aware of how lightly she was clad. Then he said softly, ‘Because I whistled at you?’

  She looked at him disdainfully and as if that was the last thing in the world she would care about, as if it was totally beneath her notice.

  He smiled slightly. ‘Because I laughed, then? Tell me something, are you off men, Patterson?’ ‘Why should you assume that?’

  ‘Your magnificent scorn,’ he said barely audibly. ‘Also the fact that you don’t mind boys, apparently. Is that for your own peace of mind?’ ‘My peace of mind has nothing to do with you,’ she retorted.

  ‘Oh, but it does, Patterson,’ he drawled. ‘Because you see, for whatever purpose my uncle sent you to me, I intend to keep you.’

  ‘Don’t keep calling me that, and…’

  ‘I don’t know what else to call you. Are you a Miss or a Ms? I see you’re not a Mrs, I saw that straight off—at least, at present you’re not. Like to tell me about it?’

  Evonne took a distraught breath, then counted to ten, marvelling at the same time at how she had contrived to let this encounter get so out of hand, and she shot Richard Emerson a fiery dark glance before she veiled her eyes and said with an effort, but coolly, ‘I’m a Mi
ss, I’ve never been married and my name is Evonne—and before you laugh, I do know about the emu here, my namesake, apparently. One or two other things I might enlighten you about—I’m very hungry because I missed lunch, no one has yet been able to keep me anywhere I don’t want to be, and, while there are some men I like a lot, your brand of wolf-whistling insolence appears to me to be simply a mark of immaturity.’

  But she might as well not have wasted her breath, because Richard Emerson placed his hand on his heart and sighed plaintively, ‘I am undone.’ Evonne realised she was breathing heavily with frustration and futility.

  ‘One thing I can rectify,’ he added. ‘I can take you to dinner. Perhaps you’ll see things in a better light after you’ve eaten? Personally, I’m always impossible too, when I’m starving. I shall come back to collect you in, say—half an hour?’ And he limped out, leaving Evonne staring after him, struck speechless.

  One of the new outfits she had brought comprised a sleeveless, V-neck, crossover button-through top, over a slim skirt. It was also pillarbox red with narrow black stripes forming squares, but despite the colour, the material was silky and cool. Evonne put it on, adjusted the black patent belt at her waist, bloused out the top above the belt and smoothed it over her hips below, then slid her bare feet into black patent open-toed shoes with little heels. Then she paused in front of the bathroom mirror and studied her make-up and hair. In fact she wore not much make-up at all because of the heat, but her lips were painted to match the outfit, there was a delicate application of silvery grey eye-shadow on her eyelids beneath her naturally curved eyebrows that she didn’t have to do much to at all, other than smooth with her fingertips. Her hair, which when loose was shoulder-length, she had brushed back from her face and put up in an elegant bun. It was an austere frame for her face but made her large dark eyes, fringed by long lashes that she had no need to augment, appear even larger.