Billionaire on Her Doorstep (14 page)

For an answer he moved her slightly to the left to make sure she was in the prime position; then let her go. She wobbled slightly on her bare feet, then tilted her head in his direction.

“Am I to remove my blindfold yet, or are you in fact about to push me over the cliff in some sort of effort to put me out of my misery? Because I wasn’t kidding earlier. I really am fine. It’s a female thing. A good cry solves all ills.”

Tom laughed. “I’d never condescend to think myself well-adjusted enough to judge anyone else’s misery.”

He allowed himself a couple of long moments to watch her, unnoticed. The long legs, the straight back, the paint-splattered feet. Her messy hair, her delicate neck, the determined, understated strength that for some reason he had only now begun to notice.

“Go ahead,’he said, his voice overly hoarse. “Take it off.”

She lifted her hands and peeled the red fabric over her head.

Her mouth dropped open and her eyes grew wide as she took in the picnic blanket, the open cooler filled with prawns and fresh cob bread and the bottle of wine and array of exotic cheeses.

And the view to the cliff’s face and beyond through the long thin tunnel he had spent the morning clearing.

She turned slowly. “You did all this just this morning?”

“Well, hardly,’Tom said, smiling as her grey eyes sparkled back at him. “I bought the prawns last night and the wine I’ve had in my cellar for a couple of years and - “

Maggie’s right hand sneaked out and thumped him on the shoulder with such speed he didn’t have the chance to get out of the way. “Ow!” he cried. For a slight woman she packed quite a punch.

“I didn’t me an that,’she said, flapping a hand at the cooler. “I mean that! “She waved her arm in front of her, beyond the visual feast, to the slender view of the deep blue ocean be fore her.

She stepped over the picnic blanket and walked down the cool green tunnel towards the cliff’s edge, taking care to keep her arms folded to escape the scrapes and cuts of the brambles reaching out to her from the high thorny walls.

The view was stupendous. Craggy cliffs zigzagged off to their left, while the Mornington beaches curled away to their right. The blue-green ocean lay flat and deep and full of mystery before them, cut through with the odd jetty, pier or sand bar. And, though Tom knew he really couldn’t take the responsibility for all that, he found himself sidling up next to her, so that he could watch her face as she took it all in.

And it hit him like a sandbag to the diaphragm - where Maggie Bryce acrimonious was intriguing, and Maggie Bryce dolled up and laughing for the cameras was a stunner, Maggie Bryce relaxed and happy was heart-stoppingly lovely.

“Worth it?’Tom asked.

She coughed out an overwhelmed laugh. “Are you kidding?” Oh, yeah, it had been worth the backache, the sweat and the sore muscles when the pay-off was that wide happy smile.

Then suddenly, before he even felt her shift, Maggie turned and hugged him. Tight.

Surprised out of his reverie, Tom stiffened in her arms. But it was only a split second before he gave in and hugged her right on back. The relief at having her in his arms again was explosive, connecting her to him in ways deeper than just the contact of flesh and skin. Soothing him, creating warmth deep within his abdomen. By the time he realized the feeling he was experiencing was the slow-burning realisation that he never wanted to let her go, it was too late to stop it.

Maggie cleared her throat of whatever emotion had sent her flying into his arms and, with her head bowed, moved out of his arms and stepped away.

Not quite sure what to do next, Tom moved away himself and shoved his hands into the back pockets of his jeans and kicked at a tuft of grass.

“Come on, sunshine,” he said, his voice dropping to a throaty whisper despite his jocular words. “Even if that view of yours is enough to sustain you, I’ve never worked so hard in my life as I have this morning. I’m starved.”

“Sure. Sorry, of course,” Maggie said, skipping back to the picnic blanket and seating herself down like a good girl. Tom passed her a cushion. She took it without looking him in the eye.

The air around the m buzzed with the oncoming of summer bees. Every now and then the high screech of a seagull split the air. Tom topped up her wine whenever it seemed too low. He passed over paper napkins when her fingers dripped with too much prawn juice. And at one stage he shifted slightly to make sure her face was protected from the worst of the heat.

“Do you know what a belvedere is?” Maggie asked out of the blue, staring up at her big ramshackle house, shielding her eyes from the sun.

“It’s another name for a gazebo sited to command a fine view,” To m said automatically, quoting fro m whatever university text book in which he’d first seen the word.

That’s what I thought,” she said, not even seeming to wondsr how a guy like him knew something like that. “Somebody somewhere had a sense of humour. This rambling house of mine has to be a hundred times bigger than any gazebo I’ve ever seen.”

Though they got the view part right.”

Maggie spun about and looke d out at the deep blue sea over his shoulder and sighed. “That they did.”

“Is this what you were hoping for when you called me?”

She lifted her shoulders and let them slump again. “I’mnot all that sure what I was hoping for. Clarity, perhaps. A sign to tell me what move to make next.”

“Next?”

She glanced at him, something flashing across her eyes too quickly for him to catch it before it was gone and she was eyes down, pouring another glass of wine.

““Whether to sell up and move back to the city. I can likely get work teaching back there if it comesto that. But I’d re ally rather not. This place has begun to get its hooks into me, the way the girls warned me it would.” She turned and shot him a half smile. “And the way it has hooked you.”

But Tom hadn’t heard all that much past the notion that she might sell up and move back to the city. Melbourne was not much more than an hour’s drive away; but he just knew that if Maggie left, if she went back to that life, if she once more became the glossy ice-blonde in the head to toe black, he would never hear from her again.

“But you can’t leave now,” he said, trying his best to keep it light. “You’ve only just begun to imbibe the culinary magnificence that is the Mornington Peninsula. First Tom Campbell signature reheated fettuccini, then The Sorrento Sea Captain’s beer-battered fish. There are at least a dozen other fine, and not so fine, eateries only a ten minute drive from here. I cannot allow you to even think about leaving until you’ve tried them all.”

Maggie looked down at the peeled prawn in her hand and said, “You’ve been terribly good to me, Tom Campbell. Above and beyond any handyman I’ve ever known.”

She smiled up at him, her eyes clear, missing their usual guarded edge. Tom’s hands, which were engaged in a struggle with a cheap napkin, stopped moving. He felt the need to take in an extra large breath to fill his lungs. For he wasn’t all that sure where he fitted with this new Maggie. This confident Maggie.

“You wouldn’t think so if you knew how hard it has been for me not to grab that prawn from your hand and eat it myself. They were really all for me, you know. I just thought if you looked out your window and saw me eating them I’d never be forgiven.”

“Is that so?” Maggie laughed and the infrequent sound floated away on the oce an breeze. She went back to her prawn and Tom wondered if she had any clue that he was being nice in an effort to stop himself from being the complete opposite. His fingers itched to tangle themselves in her soft messy hair so he could better see into her eyes. They itched to run gently over her full bottom lip. His lips itched to move in, to kiss away the tangy taste of seafood sauce filling her mouth.

And then the phone rang.

Their eyes shot to the upstairs room.

“Any idea who that might be?” Tom asked.

Maggie uncurled her lanky form from the picnic blanket and dusted off her short shorts. “Not a clue. A wrong number in all likelihood, but I’d better go see just in case.”

A slow warm smile lit her face as her eyes roved over their secluded little haven. Thank you for today, Tom. I’m touched. Truly. It’s the nicest thing anyone has done for me in as long as I can remember.”

“It was my pleasure.”

Maggie loped away, taking her long legs and her enveloping perfume with her, leaving Tom feeling a bit daft alone on his little picnic blanket.

Maybe it was a wrong number? Or the paint store telling her they’d restocked a color she was waiting on. Or maybe she was so eager to run up and get the damned thing because it could be Carl in Melbourne, now that Tom himself had cleverly gone and told her it would do her good to forgive the bastards who’d screwed her over.

He threw the half-peeled prawn back into his cooler. He suddenly wasn’t hungry any more.

Maggie jogged up the back stairs and answered the phone.

“Maggie Bryce speaking.”

“Ms Bryce, it’s Constance from Home Sweet Home. Just to let you know the coffee-colored lounge suite you were eyeing the other afternoon has come off hold. So, if you want it, it’s yours.”

Maggie grinned into the phone and moved to lean against the edge of the window frame so she could watch Tom pack up the remains of their beautiful picnic.

“You bet I want it, Constance.”

CHAPTER NINE

Wednesday lunch time, Tom switched off the chipper he’d rented from Alex to clean up the mess he’d cleared so far. he’d thought he’d he ard the heavy strains of a truck engine coming up Maggie’s driveway. And he hadn’t been wrong. A furniture re m ova truck w as m aking har d wor k o f he r twiste d, weed-riddled drive.

“Now what has she gone and done?” Tom dropped his goggles and gloves to the ground and walked up the side of the house to meet the driver and Smiley and a jubilant Maggie at the front door.

““What’s going on?” Tom asked.

“Come here,” she said, grabbing him by the arm and yanking him around the back of the truck where Rod Johnson, co-owner of a local ho me ware store, was opening wide the back doors.

And inside? Furniture. Bubble-wrapped, cloth-covered, brand-new furniture. The relief Tom felt was palpable. The burning in his lungs dissipated to a dull smarting. She wasn’t leaving him just yet. Portsea. She wasn’t leaving Portsea.

“Hey, Ms Bryce. Hey, Tom,” Rod said as he and his friend slid a great brown couch off the back of the truck.

“Morning, Rod,’Tom said.

“Just put it anywhere in the great room,” Maggie said. “We’ll figure it all out later.”

“Mind the ferns on the way in,” Tom said. They’re vicious.”

Maggie gave Tom another little shove towards the truck and said, “Come on. Use those muscles for some real hard labour for once.”

Feeling strangely euphoric now he knew that furniture was coming into her house and not going out, Tom grabbed the hand shoving at him and twisted it behind her back, until they were face to face, chest to chest, toe to toe.

“I don’t remember furniture moving being part of our contract, Ms Bryce,” he said.

“Contract schmontract,” she shot back, eyes shining as she grinne d back at him. She didn’t even try to pull away or twist her way out of his grip. If anything she sunk closer to him, her body melting against his of its own accord. “This will be the help of a friend.”

“Mmm,’he said. “A friend, ami? Lucky me.”

He let go of her arm and she slowly let it sink to her side. Then she spun him around and shoved him up into the truck. “Go, go, go! We don’t have all day.”

An hour later, the truck was gone, the furniture was unpacked and bubble-wrap lay in a pile in the comer of the room.

“It looks like a real lounge room now, doesn’t it?” Maggie asked.

“It really does.”

“Do you like?” she asked, her eyes as bright as new silver dollars as they skimmed appreciatively over her new things.

“I like very much. But why now all of a sudden?” he asked.

She opened her mouth to answer, then snapped it shut. Then, with a small breath in and out, she seemed to come to some sort of decision to tell him. She gave a small shrug. “A couple of my paintings were used in a National Gallery calendar this year and some royalties came through. So I kind of splurged.”

“You kind of did,” he agreed.

“All I wanted was a stereo, but I fell in love with the couches. And then I went a bit overboard.” Her brow farrowed ever so slightly. Though I’m sure they’d give me a refund on the cushions and vases if I took them back today - “

“Maggie. It’s all fine. Let yourself enjoy it.”

“Right. You’re right.” She nodded. But she began biting at her bottom lip and flicking at her fingernails.

Tom realized he’d never really come to any conclusion about why she didn’t have any furniture in the first place .He’d liked the idea that it was an eccentric artist thing. It was just another facet to her singular personality. But now he wondered; could it possibly be that since she was in the middle of a divorce, she was struggling to make ends meet?

It made sense. The idea that she might have to sell up and move back to Melbourne to teach. Repayments on a place like this couldn’t come cheap. And it explained the way she was scrunching her toes nervously against the f lo or and glaring at the coffee table as though it had offended her.