The Boat Builder's Bed (24 page)

And waited, hot and dripping and hating her.

She stepped out looking like a thief.

“I wasn’t expecting you’d be here,” she faltered.

“Bad luck. I am.”

“It doesn’t matter. I just wanted one last look at how things went today and then I’ll be out of your life.” She produced a long cream envelope with the SUBTLE logo and held it out towards him with an unsteady hand.

“My invoice for the rest of the work I’ve done, and the balance for the carpet and the tile-work.” She gave an almost audible swallow. “I don’t suppose you want me to get the top floor finished off now? I can send those boxes back if you like?”

Rafe had to admire her courage.
 

He curled his lip as he reached across for the envelope and stuffed it into the pocket of his shorts.
 

“Come and see it then.” His tone was brusque but he half extended a hand in invitation.

Sophie hesitated a second or two and then crossed the deck to the doors while Rafe slapped and wiped at his wet chest and belly.

They walked down the stairs without talking. She clutched the hand-rail, overcome by all that skin, his quiet air of menace, and her dependence on him settling his account with her.
 

“It’s good,” she said, trying to sound much calmer than she felt. “It’s how I hoped it would look. You think it’s okay?”

“I think it’s fine. No worries with the house, Sophie, but what the hell happened to
us
?”
 

She shrugged, and then said with exaggerated calm, “Oh, that’s easy. I thought you cared for me, and you didn’t even give me a chance to explain before you finished it.”

“Explain to me now.”

She shook her head. “What good would it do? You’re not going to see past the fact I’ve left my daughter in my mother’s care since she was a baby. You don’t know I phone her every night. You don’t give a damn I make the effort to spend every Sunday with her—whole weekends when I can. That I travel on that wretched ferry three hours each way when flying would be so much faster and nicer.”

“I do know you see her. But why do you always sail?”

“
Because it’s half the price of flying!
I can afford to go twice on the ferry compared to once by air. It was the only way I could manage to give Mom money for Camille’s care and save something towards the studio as well.”

Her eyes sought his. “Have you ever seen me wear anything that’s not black or white or blue?” she demanded.

“What the hell’s that got to do with it?”

“Because it’s
all I have
. It’s what I can afford. My clothes all go together different ways. I don’t have spare stuff. I wear it all. None of it’s fancy designer gear like yours and Faye’s—and most of it’s second-hand. You and I live in different worlds and always will. I was mad to ever start hoping.”

She turned and dashed up the stairs, frustration and anguish warring for supremacy in her aching heart.

He was never going to listen properly. Never going to understand. She might as well be talking to a brick wall. He saw what he wanted to see, and that was all.

“Sophie...”
 

What he wanted to see was obviously not her and her daughter.

“When the hell were you planning to tell me the truth?” he shouted after her as she ran across the deck to the cable-car and set the carriage in motion.

“Sod off, Rafe!” she yelled, half-blinded by tears of impotence and fury.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Rafe spent the next few days in an agony of indecision.

The twinkling light that was Sophie had been switched off, and there were shadows where sunshine had been before. He missed her soft skin and her scent and her laughter. Missed her cheeky comments and her enthusiasm. His life seemed flat as a punctured tire.

But...she’d sneakily deceived him. Kept her huge disgusting secret from him, and seemed to have no intention of ever letting him know about her daughter.

And still he was haunted by the taste of her, the feel of her tongue sliding against his, the throaty catch of breath between her kisses.
 

He missed her beyond belief.

As the time dragged by he forced himself to consider if she was really as bad as his hard-hearted mother.
 

Huia had virtually given him away. Was Huia that much under Luca’s thumb? Or—and the thought startled him—had she been so much in love with Luca that she’d been willing to bend to his wishes and give up her dark-skinned child because that’s what her fair-complexioned husband had wanted and demanded?
 

Had Rafe been left in his grandmother’s care because his mother loved her husband more than she loved her son?

He had to concede that hadn’t been the case with Sophie and Camille. Sophie’s partner had died. Her world had no doubt been thrown into chaos, and she’d been left on her own. Young, grieving, and maybe without much financial support.

He paced around the deck, feeling more and more uncomfortable when he contrasted the relative positions of the two women. His mother might have been heartbroken, but she’d made her own choice. Sophie had had her choice ripped away.

But she should have told me. She didn’t trust me. I’m no ogre; she should have known I’d understand.

On Friday morning, after endless anguish and confusion, he paced his splendid master bedroom suite. The walls and carpet and en suite bathroom were perfect. Only the curtains remained to be finished. Indeed they hadn’t even been started. The fabric sample book still leaned against the dressing room door.

Sophie had been gnawing at his composure, wrecking his concentration, messing with his mind at the most inopportune moments. If he got this final reminder of her out of the house perhaps that would put paid to things once and for all.

Or is it the excuse I need to see if there’s a chance of re-igniting what we had?

He lifted the heavy book up and riffled through the swatches, pausing at the one she’d pinned a yellow Post-it note to.

He nodded, confirming the rightness of her taste yet again. At the very least he should get the curtains under way—get the room completed. He needed somehow to get on with his life.

An hour later, clutching the book, he opened the studio door and found she had a customer, a short-haired blonde woman inspecting photos.

Sophie called across to him coolly, “I’ll be with you in just a minute.”

He would have laid the sample book down and returned at a more auspicious time except the customer’s child peeked around the edge of the sofa and then ducked back out of sight with a giggle.

“There’s a fairy behind the sofa,” he whispered, which made the fairy pop its head up again. She had immense blue eyes and a cheeky grin. “Can you do flips?” she asked.

He thought about that for a moment or two.

“What—cartwheels? Somersaults?”

“No—
flips
. You know?”

“Not really,” he said, setting the heavy book aside. “Show me how and then I’ll know.”

She huffed her breath out as though he had a lot to learn. “Like this,” she said, trotting across to the other wall of the studio and launching herself into an exuberant run and tumble. Rafe threw himself sideways and caught her an instant before she smashed the orchids off their stand and scattered crystal and flowers and water the length of the room.

“Camille!” Sophie yelped, and looked across at her ex-lover and her daughter, collapsed on the sofa together, both laughing their heads off.

Rafe drew back to inspect the child, although it was difficult with her determined little arms twined around his neck.

“I’ve heard about you,” he said. He didn’t dare glance at Sophie, but here she was in miniature, cuddled on his knee. Long blonde hair, rose-petal skin, eyes to drown in. “Not a good place for flips, eh?”

He adjusted his arms around her.

“Mom, this is Rafe,” he heard Sophie gulp. “The man with the house...”

Rafe glanced sideways at the sample book. “The man who’s come to order his bedroom curtains,” he said, hoping not to be instantly dismissed. “I’m pleased to meet you, Mrs Calhoun.”

“Have you really?” Sophie asked, her voice far from steady.

“Nice to meet you too, Rafe. My daughter’s just been showing me some photos of what she’s doing for you.”

His eyes finally homed in on Sophie. “I like the sample you’re suggesting.”
 

“Can we please have one conversation at a time?” she asked, back to being the snippy little organizer who’d captured his heart and then broken it.

“My Barbie’s got new silver shoes,” Camille confided, right in his ear. “Your face smells nice.”
 

She twisted so she could look across at Sophie. “Come and smell this man’s face, Mommy.”

“So much for trying to raise a child who won’t climb into cars with strangers,” Nancy said a little later. Her tone was dry but her eyes were warm.

“Camille knows I’m safe.”

“About as safe as a boa constrictor,” Sophie murmured.
 

Rafe continued to sit, unwilling to leave. Camille played with his five hundred dollar tie, spreading sticky marks over it from the Barbie hair-gel she’d been showing him how to use.

Sophie had taken three phone-calls, checked several emails and signed for a courier delivery.

“You’re busy,” he said. “I should get out of your way.” He stayed seated.

“We should
all
get out of her way,” Nancy agreed, also making no move to leave.

“How about I take the three of you out to lunch?”

“McDonald’s?” Camille begged, eyes wide and pleading.

“Or maybe somewhere close to Santa,” Rafe suggested, winking at her, finally rescuing his tie, and rising to his feet. “I’ll be back about 12.30. Okay?”

They lunched at the pretty upstairs café in McKenzie and Raines’ department store. After they’d eaten, Nancy took Camille to see the Santa grotto with its myriad Christmas decorations and lights and automated figures, just as Rafe had hoped she would.

Once he and Sophie were alone he reached across and took her hand, rubbing his thumb softly over her knuckles.

“I’ve got something here of yours.” He rummaged in a pocket with his other hand and rescued the pearl-and-diamond jewelry. “I know I’m still on shaky ground but will you at least wear this for me?”

Sophie closed her eyes for a second or two and then looked up at him.

“The ground seems a bit less shaky now—or am I only imagining that?”
 

He heard definite caution in her voice but the words held enough hope to warm his heart.

“I’m so, so sorry the way things went, Soph.” He lined up the earrings and started to shake the pendant’s chain free of its tangles. “I made assumptions, and I shouldn’t have done that.”

“Based on your own past.”
 

“
Wrong
assumptions. How could I be so stupid? My mother still had my father. Your partner wasn’t around any longer...and was never coming back.”

“I sent Camille away for the best.”

“I know that now. But I hurt you. Must have hurt you a lot, saying what I did.”

“It wasn’t great,” she agreed. “But I gave you a fairly large earful in return as I recall. And I’ve been wishing all week I could take back the ‘sod off’ I yelled when I stomped away.”

He grinned at her bashful face. “No, I quite enjoyed that. Showed you hadn’t lost your spirit. That you still had plenty of fight left.”

Sophie tried to stifle her smile, without success.

“I’ve had to stand up for myself,” she said, taking the pendant from his big hands and making easier work of the tangles than he was. “The only way to get out of the situation was to let Mom help. I never imagined it would take so long or be so hard. Weeks turned into months.” She set the pendant down on the table. “Months turned into long hopeless years.” She sighed and was quiet for a moment. “I thought if I could get the studio up and running I stood a chance of giving Camille a decent future. The only other option was to struggle along on welfare payments with no end in sight.”

Rafe bowed his head. Yes, she was a fighter. Willing even to stand up to him in his foulest mood.
 

“So how long?”

“Since she was about a year old. I was dead of exhaustion and worry. Mom put her life on hold so I could live mine. Which made me feel even more guilty of course.”

“I don’t imagine either of you had it easy?”
 

“I was guilty on all counts,” Sophie continued, ignoring his question. “Guilty for giving up my baby. Guilty for wrecking years my mother should have been able to enjoy. Guilty for not telling you about Camille. I wish I’d told you right at the start. You’ll never know how bad I feel about not doing that.”

She flicked her gaze down to the table top and began to arrange the fine chain so it made a frame for the earrings. “But I hoped maybe—
maybe—
your work was going to be the big break to bring my life right and miraculously return my daughter to me. I was so sure you wouldn’t employ me if you knew.”

She ran the tip of her finger around the earrings in a tight figure-of-eight pattern and when she raised her eyes again he asked, “You really thought I was so biased?”
 

She shrugged.

“Hold your hair out of the way,” he said, picking up the pendant. “And think about this while I’m fiddling with that little catch.” He rose to secure it around her neck. “Can we start again? Take it slow. Make it honest this time. Honest on both sides.” He bent and pressed a tender kiss onto her nape, then closed his hands around her long tail of hair and smoothed it down her back before he sat again. “I wanted you so much I probably rushed you off your feet.”

“Just a bit.” She picked up one of the earrings, and held it dangling so the diamonds danced under the lights. “I quite liked it, if you want the truth.” She hid her face with her other hand, and then looked at him over the tips of her fingers. Her shoulders shook with mirth.

“You can put your own earrings on after telling me that, Ms Calhoun.”