Mango Kisses (11 page)

The ravaged face now looked confused.

‘He’s not here.’

‘I know.’

‘But you just asked for him,’ he pointed out.

Now Tiffany was confused.

‘Because I want to speak to him.’

‘But he’s not here so there’s no point asking for him here.’

‘But he was here and I thought he was still here.’

‘No, he’s not.’

‘Where is he then?’

‘Gone home.’

Tiffany said carefully and slowly, ‘But I was just at his home and he’s not there. Where else could he be?’

‘Lots of places,’ he said, smiling hopefully as though they had now reached a familiar signpost in their wandering conversation.

‘The motel? The take-away? Fiorella’s? The pub?’ She was running out of possible venues.

‘The beach,’ he piped up.

‘Of course. Thank you, Boris.’

Tiffany headed for the door but paused to say, ‘If I miss him tell him I’m at the motel.’

‘Right. Will do.’ He nodded solemnly. Then he licked his finger and turned the page of the magazine.

Tiffany walked across the baking hot tar of the road and felt her shoes stick with each step. It was ridiculously hot; she should have worn her new hat. Miles had probably gone for a swim and who could blame him? That’s what she was planning to do this afternoon. Head for the beach with a book.

In the sparse shade of a Norfolk Island pine, she stood on the springy grass of the shoreline and scanned the bodies lying on the sand. He wasn’t sunbaking. And she’d never spot him out there in the waves. Her stomach gurgled, reminding her that she missed lunch.

Fish from Xanthi. Her mouth watering in anticipation, Tiffany strode back across the road and pushed through the flapping coloured plastic strips to join the queue. A man had joined Xanthi behind the counter. He looked just like Xanthi, same shape, same Greek colouring and features, same white, food-spattered apron. He stood guard over the deep fryer while Xanthi served customers and yelled the orders at him.

When it was Tiffany’s turn Xanthi shouted, ‘Spiro, this is Miles’s lady friend.’ She winked at Tiffany and grinned.

‘I’m not Miles’s lady friend,’ Tiffany said.
How did news travel so fast in these places? And how did it get scrambled so quickly?

‘You don’t like Miles?’ asked Spiro. ‘Maybe you like me better, eh?’ He winked as well.

‘Shut up, Spiro,’ said Xanthi, then to Tiffany. ‘Don’t listen to him. What you like today?’

Tiffany placed her order and escaped to the relaxed calm of the hippies’ fruit and vege shop. Jim sold her a slab of chilled watermelon and blended her a mix of fresh pineapple and mango juice.

‘Enjoying your visit?’ he asked as the juicer whirred and he rammed in pineapple chunks.

‘It’s a lovely place,’ said Tiffany.

‘Will your work keep you here much longer?’

‘My work?’

‘I’m sorry, I thought you were doing some work for Miles, something to do with the business. I only ask because we could do with some financial advice, Sharon and me.’

Why on earth did Miles think that hiring an accountant from out of town would keep his business more private?
Tiffany opened her purse as she considered her reply and the implications of the question. The repartee next door revealed Birrigai’s vast unknown gossip networks the existence of which she’d been totally unaware. What else did the town know about her? Did Fiorella entertain drinkers at the pub with stories of her kissing couples? Did Miles?

Her fumbling, clammy fingers sent coins bouncing and careering across the wooden floor. Tiffany darted about retrieving them, uncomfortably aware of Jim’s startled gaze. Clumsiness wasn’t her usual style, especially with money, and as she stamped her foot on a rolling twenty cent piece, she realised she’d left her briefcase behind at Miles’ house. She had never, ever done that before. Her briefcase was almost a part of her. Leaving it behind when working was akin to leaving the house without shoes on.

‘I wouldn’t dream of asking if you were here purely on holiday,’ Jim said when she straightened up and offered a handful of coins over the counter.

‘I am here on holiday,’ said Tiffany. ‘Who told you I was working?’

‘Word gets around. You get used to everyone knowing everything. It’s what we love about living here, the strong community vibe. We’re all part of a big, cosmic family.’

‘Families can have secrets,’ Tiffany commented wryly. Mr Naïve. She was fairly certain Miles didn’t regard Jim and Sharon as siblings, cosmic or terrestrial. And did they know Fleur? They’d get two-in-one there. ‘What did you want to ask?’

‘Whether we should expand the store. We’d need to take out a loan. We’re just numbers on a piece of paper to the bank.’

‘But I don’t know you either.’

‘Miles does, and we know you a bit. Sharon read your aura and she says you’re sympathetic and kind. She said it was unmistakable, the first thing she noticed when you came in that first day.’

‘Really? No-one’s ever done that before.’ Tiffany had to clamp her lips together firmly to stop from laughing at his earnest expression. ‘What colour was it?’

‘A mix of pinks and orange, I think. With a touch of green.’

‘Goodness.’ She’d have to rethink her wardrobe. If it had been the day she’d had the horrible headache it would have been bilious green.

‘So would you give us your professional advice? We’d pay you for your time, of course.’ His teeth gleamed white through the shaggy beard. ‘Couldn’t ask you to do it for nothing.’

She wouldn’t do it for nothing, that’s for sure. ‘I’m not a professional financial planner.’

‘That’s okay, you know more about the business side of things than we do and you can assess our situation.’

‘I really shouldn’t,’ she began.

‘How about payment in kind? All the fruit, juice and yoghurt you can eat,’ he suggested eagerly.

Tiffany glanced around and her gaze fell upon a stack of luscious orange mangoes, ripe and juicy. Her mind flew to lips and kisses and sweet, slippery fruit. Her head began nodding before her brain sent the words to her mouth.

‘It’s a deal,’ she said.

Chapter Six

Back in the motel room, sitting on the bed eating fish and chips in her underwear, Tiffany contemplated the immediate future.

The really immediate future would be spent on the beach after she found Miles and told him she would sort out his inheritance. This evening she was visiting Jim and Sharon at their home in the bush about six kilometres out of town. Dinner with them in lieu of payment for her advice. With Sharon assessing her aura, it was difficult to decide what to wear. Something neutral like blue jeans and a white blouse, perhaps?

Tomorrow between nine and twelve she’d start working seriously on the piles of paper. Miles had to be informed he was in possession of hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, and must change the accounts into his name. She could tell him this afternoon.

The contact between Grant Davidson and Nancy Frobisher tickled her imagination with persistence. What was it that couldn’t be related to Miles by a mother to whom he was presumably so close in many other ways?

Someone tapped on the door.

‘Just a minute.’

Tiffany wiped her greasy fingers on the balled up fish and chips wrapping paper and grabbed for decency in shorts and a t-shirt.

Miles waited patiently outside her door. He wondered if she would accept his offer to stay. He doubted it. It wouldn’t fit her idea of professional conduct. If she remained in Birrigai long enough she’d find out that nothing here fitted a city person’s idea of anything which was why he loved it. People did things because they felt right or helped someone else — not from a notion of professional conduct but from basic humanity. Sometimes, as in Xanthi’s case, it was pure nosiness, of course.

But the premise seemed logical to him. Payment in kind.

The door opened and Tiffany stood there a little breathless in those sexy, white shorts and a tight white singlet style top, which revealed becoming curves and soft female bulges. She had a sheen of oil on her mouth and lips and a distinctive fish shop odour. He licked his lips and wished he could do the same to hers. Could he pretend it was an extension of the kissing exercise they’d shared?

‘Hello,’ she said. ‘I’ve been looking for you.’ Her voice was slightly husky.

‘Boris told me.’ So was his.

The top had a low neckline. He’d kissed that delicious neck and almost made it to the swell of her breasts. He tore his eyes away from the perfection of her chest before she accused him of being a lecher. Lower down her bare legs tempted his fingers unbearably. His gaze snapped upward to her eyes. He
was
a lecher.

She smiled.

‘I have some good news, Mr Frobisher. My boss said I should stay and sort out your financial situation for you. I’ll be working at your house from nine until twelve each morning.’

‘Will you accept my offer to stay?’ he asked, ever hopeful but knowing he shouldn’t underestimate her devotion to professionalism.

‘No, thank you.’

‘If you change your mind...’

‘I won’t.’

‘You might.’ He stepped nearer, rested his hand on the door frame beside her head.

‘I won’t.’ The words tumbled out. She completely failed to meet his eyes, but her blush travelled right down into the shadowy hollow between those breasts. ‘Mr Frobisher, I think I should tell you, from my preliminary reading, and it is only cursory at this stage, but from what I’ve seen so far, there are two bank accounts — savings.’

She paused and he jumped in, unable to conceal the anger any reference to his father evoked. ‘I told you, I’m not interested in his money. Whatever he had, give it away.’

It would be filthy money, tainted by the selfishness and callousness of a father he never knew. A reminder of the hardship, pain and suffering his mother need not have endured for much of her life. He couldn’t possibly use it, spend it.

‘Give it away,’ he said again, dropped his hand from the frame and shoved it deep in his pocket. He half turned from her to glare across the empty parking area.

She spoke quietly behind him. ‘Mr Frobisher, I can do that but you should understand the amounts involved are considerable. In cash. As I said I’ve barely touched on the information and haven’t even looked in the other boxes, but those two bank accounts total close to three hundred thousand dollars.’

Miles jaw went weak and his mouth dropped open in astonishment. ‘What did you say? Three hundred thousand?’ He spun around to find her watching him with an expression of reserved, professional blankness.

She nodded. ‘And that’s just in the bank. I’m fairly sure there are properties and stock holdings as well. You father was very wealthy. He just didn’t live expensively.’

‘He was a bloody miser, just as you said.’ The ugly words blurted from him in the shock of the moment but deep down a small venal voice crowed.
Three hundred thousand dollars. Mine.

She wouldn’t think three hundred thousand dollars was anything to get excited about — she probably dealt in millions — but to him...he could pay off the loan in one clean stroke. Both loans — the shop and the mortgage on the house, which he’d taken out to pay for his mother’s care. He could be debt-free. The bloody man owed him that much. Repayment for the suffering of his abandoned wife. He’d given them nothing else, why not take this?

Tiffany said nothing. She watched the emotions dance across his face. Was she witnessing the beginning of the end of the laid back, casual man she was half in love with? The fantasy man who’d haunted her dreams since high school. Had she found him and destroyed him in the space of three days?

Money exerted strange and strong effects on people. No-one knew how they’d react in a given situation. They could speculate about winning the lottery and how it wouldn’t change them, but it did. Large amounts of money always did. She’d seen it happen to clients who came for help with their affairs, wanting a financial plan after a redundancy or superannuation fund lump sum payout. More money in one place than they’d ever seen in their lives. Some kept their heads, others blew it in one big, exhilarating, mad splurge. Which would Miles be? Or would he stick to his guns and insist it be given to charity?

‘What should I do?’ he asked in a subdued voice.

‘I think you should think very carefully before you make any decisions. There’s probably more capital tied up in property and investment. I don’t know yet.’ She studied his face. What was he thinking? That he’d be a rich man all of a sudden?

‘I don’t know what your personal financial situation is,’ she said delicately, ‘But it’s a good idea to reduce your debt if you have money owing, on loans, for example. Interest rates are high at the moment. Profits can be swallowed up very quickly.’

‘What profits?’ He laughed. ‘I make do. Just.’

Tiffany nodded. ‘With proper management and a business plan that shop could do very well.’

‘I’m not interested in making vast amounts of money,’ he said, obviously stung by her oblique aspersion on his managerial abilities.

She folded her arms against his dismissal. ‘Well, it’s my job to tell you what you’ve inherited and its value. How you run your business is not my concern. I’ll be starting work tomorrow at nine. Will you be there?’

‘Sure. I’ll make coffee and toast.’

Tiffany eyed him coolly. ‘That won’t be necessary, thanks, I’ll have had breakfast. There is one thing though, a favour, if you don’t mind.’ She unfolded her arms and rubbed one palm against her shorts.

‘Ask away.’

This was extremely unprofessional but she wasn’t brave enough to face Kevin. ‘Could I bring some washing and use your machine, please?’

Miles laughed and his eyes sparkled again. ‘Of course. If you hang it out first thing it’ll dry by midday.’

‘Would it be all right if I arrived at eight forty-five and started my washing so as not to intrude on work time?’

‘Whenever you like. I’ll be back from my swim by eight. I may see you on the beach.’

‘Maybe.’ Tiffany grinned suddenly. ‘I’ve never asked a client if I could use his washing machine before.’

‘I bet you’ve never kissed a client before, either.’ His eyes shone with laughter. ‘Have you?’