The Return of Her Past Page 4

  Mia gasped and jumped up. ‘Will you...will you just go away?’ she flung at him. ‘To...to think,’ she stammered, ‘that I thought you were the nicest of the O’Connors.’

  He lifted a wry eyebrow. ‘The best of a bad bunch?’

  ‘Yes! No. Oh!’ Mia clenched her fists and ground her teeth and suddenly it was all too much for her again and she kicked her shoes off and ran out onto the veranda, onto the lawn and down towards her cottage.

  Of course she came to grief—it was that kind of day.

  She didn’t see the sliver of glass she stepped onto although she yelped in pain.

  Carlos was right behind her, and he said her name on a harsh breath and simply picked her up and turned as if to take her back to the big house.

  ‘No, no,’ she said raggedly. ‘I don’t want to bleed all over the house.’

  ‘Where then?’

  ‘Down there, my cottage. I’ve got a first aid kit. Oh, I’m bleeding all over you.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it. Here we are. Stand on one foot while I open the door and get the lights.’

  A few minutes later Mia was sitting lengthwise on her settee with a towel under her foot. Carlos had turned all the lights on and, following her instructions, had found the first aid kit in the bathroom.

  ‘I’m a good doctor, by the way,’ he said as he laid out tweezers, a bowl of antiseptic, cotton wool and dressings.

  ‘How do you know?’ Mia peeled off her stocking.

  ‘I’ve had no complaints to date.’

  ‘How many people have you actually “doctored”?’ she asked. ‘Is it deep?’

  He studied her heel. ‘Deep enough. But I can’t see anything in it and we should be able to keep it from bleeding until tomorrow when we can get you to a proper doctor. It might need a couple of stitches. You’ll have to keep off it for a while.’

  He dabbed it liberally with cotton wool dipped in antiseptic, then he dried it and applied a dressing.

  ‘There.’ He sat back. Then he reached for her and took her in his arms. ‘And you’re a good patient,’ he said into her hair. ‘Feeling OK?’ He held her away and studied her face. ‘You look a bit pale.’

  Mia grimaced and, without giving it a second thought, laid her head against his shoulder. ‘I’ll be OK. I feel a bit stupid. I always check the lawn for broken glass; when people drink you never know what they can end up doing with their glasses. I never sprint across it barefoot.’

  ‘Why did you?’ He kissed the top of her head and it felt like the most natural thing in the world to Mia.

  But she sighed. ‘I was running away from you, Carlos.’ She lifted her head and looked him in the eye. ‘For a few minutes I really hated you. And thinking back makes me feel that way again.’

  ‘Then don’t think back,’ he advised and traced the outline of her mouth. ‘It always was one of the most delicious mouths I’ve ever seen.’

  Mia was conscious of a growing clamour in her nerve-endings, delicious but at the same time disturbing, as her awareness of him grew. Awareness of how surprisingly strong he was; he’d carried her with ease. Awareness of all the old sensations being in his arms could arouse, the feel of his body against hers, the pure male scent she used to love so much when they rode together, of the cotton of his shirt mingled with a hint of musk.

  Awareness and memories of his hands, so sure when he’d kissed and touched her tonight and once before, even if he was suffering from a concussion on that occasion.

  It was that last thought that brought her up with a start. She had to remember that Carlos was dangerous to her mental health!

  Correspondingly, she pushed herself away from him and changed tack deliberately and completely. ‘This accident couldn’t have happened at a worse time. I’ve got wall-to-wall functions over the next week. I really need to be on my feet!’

  ‘Tomorrow?’ he queried.

  ‘No, not tomorrow but from the day after.’

  He looked at her with some irony. ‘Don’t you have any contingency plans? Are yours the only pair of feet available?’

  Mia sank back. ‘Well, no. There’s Gail.’

  ‘Ah, Gail,’ Carlos murmured with a sudden glint of amusement in his grey eyes. ‘Now, I met Gail. She very kindly introduced herself to me and offered me any assistance I might need.’

  Mia looked briefly heavenward.

  Carlos noted this with a twist to his lips. ‘I did form the impression, however, that, despite being young and impressionable, Gail is a fairly practical person. Possibly a hard worker as well.’

  Mia closed her eyes on her inward irritation, then opened them to say honestly, ‘You’re right. Forgive me, Gail,’ she added in an aside.

  ‘So you can give the orders and Gail can carry them out. Problem solved.’

  Mia cast him a glance liberally laced with a mixture of frustration and exasperation and, in lieu of being able to trust her voice, merely nodded.

  Carlos contemplated her for a long moment, then he said, ‘I see.’

  Mia blinked. ‘What? What do you see?’

  ‘It’s not visible to the naked eye.’

  She blinked again. ‘How do you see it then?’

  ‘It wasn’t that kind of an “I see”.’ He stood up and gathered the first aid accoutrements together and took them to the bathroom. ‘It denoted understanding,’ he said, coming back.

  Mia made a kittenish sound of frustration. ‘Understanding of what?’

  ‘Your state of mind. I get the impression mine is the last advice you’d want to take,’ he said with a flourish. ‘That kind of understanding.’ He moved into the kitchen area. ‘Would there be anything to eat in your establishment, Miss Gardiner?’

  Mia, who didn’t at that moment know whether to laugh or cry—laugh because he could be so crazy at times, cry because he read her so well—said faintly, ‘Look in the fridge,’ and swallowed a lump in her throat. ‘Uh...I’m sorry, I did bleed all over you but cold water is good for getting blood out.’

  ‘You don’t say?’ He looked down at himself and swore softly. ‘I see what you mean. OK, I’ll scrub what I can.’

  She had to laugh when, after he’d washed the bloodstains away, he found her apron hanging on a hook on the wall and donned it.

  ‘There.’ He smoothed it down. ‘Presentable.’ He opened the fridge door and apparently approved of what he saw. He withdrew a bowl of pasta marinara already prepared and just requiring heating up. There was a small salad also made and under cling wrap.

  Lastly he took out a bottle of white wine with a shrug. ‘Is there any point in being virtuous and sober at this end of the day?’

  ‘Virtuous?’ she queried.

  ‘You could hardly call us decadent.’

  ‘Well, no.’ Mia paused as Carlos put the pasta in the microwave and set out some cutlery on her little round kitchen table.

  * * *

  Within minutes they were eating and sharing some of the wine.

  Mia ate from a tray on her knees; she was still ensconced on the settee with her feet up. They talked desultorily—he was the one who’d promoted the conversation by asking her some questions about the reception business.

  ‘So,’ he said at one point, helping himself to more pasta, ‘in the case of a bridal party like today, you actually provide a hairdresser and a make-up person so all the dressing et cetera takes place up here—very sensible. It’d be a long drive all kitted out in a wedding dress. But how do the brides cope with a strange hairdresser? I had a girlfriend once who left me to follow her hairdresser to Townsville.’

  Mia wound her last mouthful of pasta around her fork and couldn’t help grinning. ‘The hairdressers and make-up girls work in salons in Sydney, so the bridal party have a couple of appointments with them before the big day to work out hairstyles and so on.’

  He looked at her with admiration. ‘That’s pretty inspired, Miss Gardiner.’

  She shrugged. ‘It’s just a question of—’ she paused and looked thoughtful ‘—of h
elping Mount Wilson to work its magic, I guess.’

  ‘Mmm...’ He pushed his bowl away and got up to take the tray from her. ‘Who owns the place?’

  She told him and then, unwittingly, voiced her concern. ‘They’re in their eighties now,’ she said slowly, ‘and they seem to be going downhill a bit. They’re getting forgetful and—I guess it’s only natural but I think they’re worried about Bellbird. They have a nephew who’s their heir. He wants them to sell it and invest the money where they’d get a higher return. Of course—’ she gestured ‘—it’s entirely up to them but I might be looking for somewhere else one day. Which would be a pity but—we’ll see.’

  ‘Are you attached to the property?’ he asked after a moment. ‘It’s not only a business proposition for you?’

  Mia sighed and reached for her wine glass. ‘I love it,’ she said dreamily and with a faraway look in her eyes. ‘I’d love to own it. I’d love to pretend I was a lady from another era who had this summer residence in the hills and a garden I could open to the public if the whim took me. I’d love to call this place home.’ She looked at Carlos, smiling. ‘Mount Wilson residents can because they have roots here; they have a bit of history behind them.’ She smiled at her glass and drained her wine. ‘Yes, I think I’d love to play ladies up here at Bellbird. I’d also love to have ten kids.’

  He blinked at her. ‘Ten?’

  She waved a hand. ‘No, not really, but some. I love kids.’

  She paused and recalled one of her early fantasies—having Carlos’s children. She grimaced inwardly but, as had happened to her before, she couldn’t help wondering if she ever would have kids now, if she couldn’t fall in love again.

  ‘I think maybe it was because I was an only child—that’s why a large family appeals. It shouldn’t,’ she said humorously. ‘The last picnic day I had nearly ruined me.’

  ‘Picnic day?’ he queried.

  ‘Twice a year I invite some kids from a youth club in an inner city area up for a picnic—well, a sausage sizzle really. Eight- to ten-year-olds. The last lot were especially spirited. They...um...ran riot, you could say. That’s what Bill said, anyway.’ Her eyes glinted with laughter. ‘He also said if he’d ever seen a bunch of hoodlums in the making they were it.’

  ‘Bill?’

  ‘Oh, didn’t I mention him? He’s the gardener. He and I have a...difficult relationship, although he’s a wonderful gardener. It’s just that I rather fancy myself as a gardener too.’ She shrugged. ‘At least my father thought I had green fingers and if anyone should have known, he would have.’

  Carlos was sitting in one of her ladder-back kitchen chairs. He had his hands behind his head and was tilting the chair. ‘That’s...quite a daydream,’ he said after a long moment.

  Mia dimpled. ‘Daydream being the operative word. But I guess we all have daydreams.’

  ‘Yes.’ He sounded distracted and almost as if he was examining his daydreams and not finding them satisfactory or perhaps not finding any at all.

  ‘Do you have any...well, ambitions or future plans, if not daydreams?’ Mia heard herself asking curiously.

  He thought for a long moment with a frown in his eyes. ‘I have one,’ he said at last. ‘Not so much an ambition but one thing I keep a long-term eye on, you could say. Someone I would hate to see steal a march on me.’

  ‘That sounds more like a vendetta than an ambition,’ Mia commented. ‘Who?’

  ‘Talbot Spencer.’

  She blinked. ‘The Talbot Spencer?’

  He looked at her dryly. ‘Is there another? Yes, him.’

  ‘But he’s a builder, like you. I mean...I don’t mean you actually build things with your hands these days but his is also a multi-million dollar construction company, isn’t it?’

  ‘It is and we’ve been competing against each other for contracts for years. He’s also tried to buy me out a couple of times. That’s one reason why I have a thing about him.’

  ‘He’s a playboy, isn’t he?’ Mia frowned as she ran through her mental resources on the subject of Talbot Spencer. Then her eyes widened. ‘I suppose you could be called one too, though.’

  ‘Thank you, Mia,’ he said sardonically.

  ‘Well—’ she gestured ‘—cars, boats, planes, horses and women. You both seem to qualify.’ She paused and pictured Talbot Spencer in her mind’s eye, not that she’d ever met him but she’d seen him pictured. Not quite as tall as Carlos and fair-haired, he was still interesting-looking.

  ‘So what was the real needle between the two of you? The cut-throat world of business?’

  Carlos leant his chin on his hand and he took so long about it she thought he wasn’t going to answer, then he said, ‘A woman.’

  Mia’s lips parted. ‘He stole a...a girlfriend from you?’

  Carlos shook his head. ‘Not from me; it was my best friend’s girl. Talbot’s a few years older. My friend and I were still at university, whereas he was a seasoned bachelor. She was at uni too. She fell for him and gave my friend his marching orders.’ He fiddled with the tablecloth. ‘She was a country, convent-schooled girl. Anyway, to cut a long story short, Talbot got her pregnant, paid for her abortion and turned his back on her.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ Mia murmured.

  ‘Oh, yes. She was devastated and guilt-ridden over the abortion and she tried to end it all. It took years for her mental scars to heal and my friend went through the mill with her. For which I will never forgive Talbot and he knows it and he knows why. That’s why he’d like to grind O’Connor Construction into the ground... Why the hell am I telling you this, Mia?’

  She had to smile. ‘I don’t know. It’s been quite a day, one way and another. Maybe that’s why.’

  ‘You’re not wrong. Uh...where’s the bedroom?’

  Mia waved a hand in the direction of the loft. ‘Up there.’

  He stood up. ‘That’s the only one?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Mind if I take a look?’

  Mia tried to remember how tidy she’d left her loft, then shrugged. ‘Go ahead.’

  Five minutes later he looked down at her. ‘It’s going to be me up here, you down there, Miss Gardiner. Tell me what you need and I’ll bring it down.’

  Mia sat bolt upright. ‘What do you mean? You can’t be serious!’

  ‘But I am.’

  ‘Carlos—’

  ‘Mia—’ he interrupted firmly ‘—you cannot honestly expect me to abandon you up here on the top of a mountain with not a soul within reach. How come you live so alone like this in the first place?’ he asked irritably.

  ‘I don’t. There’s another cottage where Bill and his wife live, but she’s away at the mo...’ She broke off and bit her lip.

  ‘Away at the moment?’ he supplied.

  Mia nodded.

  ‘Then you’re going to have to put up with me because probably the furthest you’ll be able to go is hop to the bathroom. There’s no way you’re going to be able to get up this ladder, for starters.’

  And, so saying, he tossed down a pair of pyjamas for her plus a pillow and a duvet.

  Mia drew a deep breath as she gathered what he’d thrown down. ‘All right, maybe I couldn’t do that but otherwise I can manage. Thank you very much for the offer, though; it’s really kind of you but I don’t need it.’

  ‘Mia...’ He came down the ladder and sat on the end of the settee. ‘Mia,’ he repeated, ‘I’m not going to ravish you or even seduce you. Believe me.’

  They stared at each other until she said tonelessly, ‘I didn’t think you were. I just don’t like feeling beholden—to anyone.’

  ‘Or are you afraid that even if we’re not into ravishment and seduction,’ he said dryly, ‘you might get to liking me again?’

  Mia opened her mouth but Long John Silver chose that moment to make his presence felt. He neighed shrilly several times.

  Mia’s hand flew to her mouth.

  ‘Your horse?’ Carlos queried.

  ‘Yes. I forgot a
ll about him! He hasn’t been fed or rugged or put in his stall for the night. Oh!’ She made to swing her legs down but sanity prevailed. ‘I’m not going to be able to do it, am I?’ she said hollowly.

  ‘No.’ Carlos got up. ‘But I can. I can also get some more wood for the fire.’

  ‘What about...aren’t you staying with friends, though? Won’t they be wondering where you are?’

  He pulled a mobile from his pocket. ‘I’ll ring them. Any more objections?’ he asked with sudden impatience.

  She lay back with a sigh. ‘No.’ She sat up immediately, though, with anxiety etched into her expression. ‘Be careful with Long John. He can bite.’

  ‘Surely you don’t put up with that?’ Carlos raised an incredulous eyebrow at her.

  ‘Oh, not me,’ Mia assured him. ‘Usually only strangers. Well, Bill, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Bill provokes him.’

  ‘Thanks for the warning,’ he said dryly. ‘Anything else I need to be warned about? Like killer cats or pet snakes in the loft?’

  She had to laugh. ‘No. Oh...’ She grimaced and hesitated.

  ‘Spill it,’ he ordered briefly.

  ‘Well, I didn’t lock up. The main house, I mean. Not that we usually have any crime up here, but I don’t like to leave it all open.’

  ‘Just tell me what to do. Come to think of it, I left my car unlocked.’

  Mia explained how to lock up the house.

  ‘Wish me luck,’ he said wryly and stepped out into the night.

  Mia stared at the closed door and was conscious of never feeling more confused.

  Bewitched, bothered and bewildered, she thought, and closed her eyes. How could she possibly kiss Carlos O’Connor when he had admitted there had never been a future for them?

  A few minutes later she decided to take advantage of his absence and she got up painfully and hopped to the bathroom.

  When she got back to the settee she was colourfully arrayed in her tartan pyjamas and she snuggled under the duvet.

  Perhaps the wine on top of a couple of brandies was helping to dull the pain in her heel, she reflected, but it wasn’t too bad.

  Her last thought was that it certainly wasn’t going to keep her awake and she fell asleep without intending to, without even realising it, on a day of mixed emotions like no other in her life.