Tasmanian Tangle (9 page)

On their arrival at the house, Connie took one look at Tanya's tight expression and hurriedly announced that lunch would be on the table as soon as they were ready for it, then dashed back into the kitchen.

Tanya escaped to her room to take a quick shower, leaving Kade to use the outside washhouse facilities. She lingered over her toilet as long as she dared, and when she couldn't put it off any longer, she made her way down to the dining room to find a sardonic Kade awaiting her arrival.

'Don't take it so hard,' drawled Kade, as he took in her set expression as she took her place at the table. 'Anyone would think you cared!' he added sardonically.

Tanya helped herself to some salad from a bowl on the table and willed herself not to lose her temper. The derision in his voice cut right to the heart of her unhappiness. She could ignore his blunt summing up of her feelings and pretend that she didn't know what he was talking about, but it wouldn't work, she thought dully. She would only be wasting her time. That was something else she had learned about Kade, he preferred the blunt approach.

Somehow she managed to keep her voice steady as

she replied coldly, 'Perhaps in future it would be better if you referred to me as Miss Hume. It sounds better, doesn't it?' she added acidly.

'You're damn right it does ' he answered savagely. `Although no one but a clothhead would have mistaken my meaning. I know some men prefer them young, but I don't happen to be one of them,' he added viciously. 'So don't get any fancy ideas, will you?' he tacked on for good measure.

Tanya almost dropped her knife and fork at his cool assumption that she was about to indulge in daydreams. When she recalled the way he had turned her earlier rejection of him into a ploy to gain his attention, her amazement turned to fury. 'It wouldn't occur to you, of course, that nothing was further from my mind,' she replied in a low vibrant voice. 'My mother married a man who was too old for her and I've no intention of making the same mistake. You can rest assured, Mr Player, that I'm not about to repeat history—not now —or at any time. Just credit me with some common sense in future, and stop seeing yourself as a hunted prize on the matrimonial market—where I'm concerned anyway. That way we'll get on fine! ' she advised him coldly.

Her words made Kade's blue eyes open a shade wider, and she knew she had scored a hit. 'That's how you see me, is it?' he queried softly, out of now narrowed eyes.

Tanya's grey-green eyes had now a definite green tinge in them as she met his. 'Frankly, yes,' she replied acidly. Seeing an amused glint in his eyes, and suspecting the reason behind his amusement, she wanted to slap his handsome arrogant face. `Do you remember telling me that I was still the child who used to follow

you around the orchards on a pony?' she demanded in a tight voice. 'Well, I'll tell you something now. You were right in one sense; I'm still the same person I was then, and I can still remember the way you snubbed every move of mine towards friendship. But it didn't stop at that, did it? When I returned home I got as much welcome from you as I might have got h
ad I been a warring headhunter !
'

Her voice was not quite as steady as it had been before, but she made herself go on. 'If I ever needed a friend, I needed one then, but what did I get?' she said bitterly. 'The same old treatment that I received all those years ago—with just as little reason—at least,' she paused, and drew in a ragged breath. 'I didn't know the reason then, but I do now. Melanie did me a favour when she summed it all up in a few well-chosen words.' Her eyes reflected the dislike she felt for him as she continued: 'She told me you'd had enough trouble with my mother to risk tangling with me.'

Kade's swift indrawn breath was not lost on her, and it gave her the courage to go on. She was no match for him; with a word or a look he could scythe through her defences, and she knew it, but if she could pierce through that supreme confidence of his just once, then she would be well satisfied. 'As for daydreaming, as you so bluntly put it just now, do you honestly think I'm that much of a fool?' She laid her knife and fork down on her plate and pushed it away from her abruptly. Whatever appetite she might have had had now deserted her.

'Eat your lunch,' commanded Kade loftily, just as though she were the child of yesteryear.

Tanya did no such thing, but reached for the coffee

pot and found Kade's strong fingers closing over hers. 'I said, eat your lunch,' he repeated firmly. 'You're much too thin as it is, and you'll need some refuelling to replace all that ammunition you've just shot me down with. Okay,' he said
abruptly, his hand now cl
enched over her wrist to prevent her from carrying out her intention of leaving the table and escaping from his presence. 'You've had your say, now you'll hear mine.'

She had no choice but to do as he had said. He still had an iron hold on her wrist, and although she was forced to sit down on her chair again, he retained his hold on her as if certain that she would make a bolt for the door if he released her, but he did lessen his hold sufficiently for it not to cause her any discomfort.

It was during this highly charged interval that Connie chose to look in to see if they wanted any more coffee, but at Kade's growled, 'Later, Connie,' she made a hasty retreat back into the kitchen.

'So in your estimation I notch up a fair number of points for the Brute of the Year contest,' he began harshly, as the door swung to behind Connie. 'So now I'm saying sorry in the only way I know how, and you'd better accept it,' he said quietly. 'I'm not likely to repeat it again. I guess I didn't make things clear enough the other day, although I did hope you'd see things from my point of view.' His voice was much gentler now. 'As for keeping my distance from you when you were a kid—I had to—as things were then, I couldn't risk giving your mother a chance to capitalise on any friendly overtures in any direction, and that included you.'

His gaze went beyond Tanya and rested on a framed photograph of her mother and father taken on their

wedding day. 'As for not giving you an uproarious welcome when you returned,' he went on gruffly, 'well, I admit to being at fault there, but old memories die hard, especially the bad ones. Things were never the same again between your father and me after you and your mother left. Oh, he trusted me to run his business for him, but he was human enough to wonder if I'd encouraged your mother. He could never be sure, you see.'

His eyes left the photograph and came back to Tanya. 'After what he'd done for my family, how do you think I felt about that?' he demanded in a low voice. 'If there was one man I respected above all others, it was your father. How can you answer unspoken accusations?' he queried bitterly. 'I could have yelled myself hoarse in repudiating them if I'd been given a chance, but you can't yell at intangibles, things that are sensed but never said. Far better to have it out and done with, it's kinder that way,' he added on a weary note.

He released his hold on her wrist and gave her a hard searching look. 'I'm grateful you didn't bottle it all up and gave it straight from the shoulder. I guess the past has been as rough on you as it was for me. Shall we start again,' he asked her softly, 'and see if we can't make a better deal between us?'

Tanya wanted to weep. If only he had said all this before! It was a little late now for him to realise that he had not been the only one who had suffered in the past. As much as she wished that she could accept his belated peace offering, she felt that it was too late.

If Kade altered his approach to her and began treating her with respect, and with the kind of humble humility that had been in his last words, then she

would be totally lost. She might have convinced him that she had no aspirations to become closer to him, and had no romantic notions where he was concerned, but the sad fact of the matter was that she still loved him. Only by whipping up a hate relationship with him could she survive. She was not insensible to the fact that it would mean more heartache for her, but either way, she couldn't win. A scathing and sardonic Kade was preferable to the other side of his personality, that had shown a kind and gentle understanding that had surprised her. If he ever found out that she loved him—her heart missed a beat on the thought as she acknowledged the salient if painful realisation that there could be no such relationship between them. If Tanya had been unhappy before, she was doubly so now, and wanted an end to the whole miserable situation. It wasn't a case of cowardice—as she was sure Kade would see it when she reasserted her wish to leave Orchard Farm. It was plainly and simply a case of survival against overwhelming odds.

TANYA found herself completely unable to look at him as she gave him her answer. She stared down at her hands now twisted together in her lap. 'It won't work, Kade,' she said slowly, and was surprised how firm her voice was. 'There's too much behind us,' she added heavily. 'You said that you were grateful that I'd been honest with you—well, I'm going to be more honest now. I promised to stay for six months, and I'm going to keep my word, but after that I intend to leave.'

She darted a quick look at him and saw the familiar stiffening of his strong jaw. 'I've somewhere to go,' she said quickly. 'I was offered a home when Mother died—and the offer's still open—it will always be there,' she added significantly. 'I know you want to keep your promise to my father, but if he were still here I'm sure that under the circumstances he would understand.' She gave Kade a brittle smile. 'You said I belonged here, but you were wrong. I don't belong—I stopped belonging when Mother walked out all those years ago.'

'And where exactly do you think you belong?' he asked harshly. 'To the place you're going?' Before she could answer, he added pithily, 'And I want to know just where this place is.'

Tanya's brows raised at this; he might have been her father or her elder brother, such was his presumption that he had a right to know. In a way, she conceded, he had a right to know, and it might as well be now. 'In

Oregon,' she said quietly, and on seeing his eyes narrow, she nodded complacently. 'Yes, he was one of my mother's friends, so I'll be well looked after.'

'Why didn't you accept his offer earlier?' he queried, his blue stare pierced into her wide eyes. 'You didn't, did you? You came back home! ' There was an emphasis on the word home and Tanya did not miss that.

'Because I didn't know at that time what I really wanted,' she lied. 'I was upset and unable to think straight. I needed time to work things out.' She took a deep breath. 'Well, I've thought things out now, and have decided to accept his offer.'

'I take it he's a bachelor?' Kade commented sourly, and continued without her confirmation. 'That was six months back, what happens if he's got himself fixed up by now?' he asked sardonically.

Tanya's lovely eyes showed her puzzlement at the question. 'Fixed up?' she repeated slowly.

'Come, come,' jeered Kade, now back to form again. 'He was courting your mother, wasn't he? She had the kind of looks that attracts them in droves. So—like I said—what happens if he's got his eye on someone else? Your presence would be a trifle embarrassing for him, to put it mildly. Have you thought of that?' he shot out at her.

Tanya's eyes sparked shoots of green fire as his implication reached through her earlier puzzlement. She needed no whipping-up of hatred towards him now; he had given her the spur she wanted. Her shocked senses wondered how she could ever have thought she was in love with him. With a few caustic words he had managed to label her mother as a rapacious manhunter, and Lloyd Warren as a loser in the marriage stakes and

now on the trail for a successor. That was bad enough in itself, she thought furiously, but when he had added the further indignity of making her feel the unwanted left-over from the liaison between Lloyd and her mother, her hate towards him became a live sensation. What would he know of such relationships? He'd been too busy protecting himself from his adoring female fans to learn about love, and that it could be a beautiful thing. Tanya was certain that her mother would have married Lloyd had she been able to do so, but she had put her daughter's happiness before her own when she had agreed to abide by the decision made by Tanya's father never to remarry.

There was cold fury in her voice as she replied, 'I don't think that's any business of yours. You might have managed my father's affairs, but I refuse to discuss my private life with you. I'm going to Oregon and that's an end to it.'

'Want to bet on it?' replied Kade with eyes that glinted dangerously. 'When you summed me up a while ago you forgot to add one other ingredient to my list of bad points. I'd prove a bad loser. I've never lost a - fight yet, and I don't intend to start now. I said you belonged here, and I meant just that. By fair or foul means I mean to prove that to you within the stated time limit—so don't think you can run out on me. If my guess about the Oregon connection is right, then you'd do well to listen to me and make up your mind to settle down to the job of running the business.'

He gave the gasping Tanya a long considering look. 'It's my guess you've a lot to learn about life,' he commented quietly. 'You'd find yourself in a hell of a mess if you walked into the kind of situation I've outlined.

I've an idea that that was why you turned him down before, and if you're honest, you'll admit it.'