12 Days At Silver Bells House (11 page)

‘I'll go shower,' he said, taking a step back from the cosiness she portrayed in case he suddenly sank onto the Chesterfield, hands behind his head, feet crossed on the arm and asked her to fetch him a beer.

‘Okay.' She looked up, knives and forks in her hand. ‘I'm not going to mention the glass-cleaner squeegee tool I found in your vanity unit, because of course, it isn't my bathroom and therefore I'm in no position to ask you to use it after you've finished in the shower.'

Jamie grinned. ‘Ouch,' he said, and took another step back. ‘I think you just grabbed the landlord by his Bojangles.'

She laughed. ‘Nice one.' She'd kept her hair loose tonight. It fell neatly over her shoulders. ‘You've got twenty minutes to clean up,' she told him. ‘And if you're a really good landlord and use the squeegee tool, there'll be a cold beer waiting for you.'

‘I'm outta here.' Jamie held his hands up in defence and left the room before he succumbed and laid himself out flat on the Chesterfield.

****

Even though he'd assembled the lamb casserole and shoved it in the oven yesterday, having it served by Kate this evening made it feel like she'd hunted, shot, skinned and cooked for her man. She'd set the table to perfection. Knives and forks aligned, water glasses and wine glasses to one side of the dinner plates. And a mat for his bottle of beer which dripped condensation.

‘Beautiful, Kate,' he said, putting his napkin onto the table and pushing his empty plate to one side. ‘Thank you.'

‘There's fruit for dessert. Would you like some? No cream though.' She wagged her finger. ‘Just as well. Don't want us getting fat.'

‘Are you having fruit?'

She shook her head and put her hands onto her stomach. ‘Couldn't fit anything else in.'

Jamie smiled. ‘So what are we doing now? Fancy a game?'

She pushed her chair away from the table and stood. ‘I'd only beat you.'

‘You mean you'd only cheat and beat me.'

She laughed. Then sighed. ‘I'm tired.' She looked away. ‘I don't know why I'm so tired, Jamie.'

The use of his name held an appeal. One that had him wanting to put his arms around her and give her a warm sweet hug. She looked rested alright, but there was also an aura of mental exhaustion around her. The same one he'd seen when he first met her in the paddock. Her flapping emotions seemed to have settled down somewhat, but perhaps they'd only turned into something deeper and more expressively meaningful for her.

‘Want to come outside?' he asked, standing.

She looked across at him, questioningly. ‘I'd planned on maybe having the fruit salad outside on the patio.' She sighed and looked away. ‘I think I've lost my hunger, Jamie.'

Jamie knew she didn't mean for food. He picked up the ice bucket with her wine in it and his bottle of beer and walked to the patio doors. He opened them, letting the night invade the kitchen. ‘Come on, Katie. Let's go sit under the stars and you can tell me your story.'

She gave him a wry smile. ‘You want to hear it?'

He nodded and stepped outside. ‘Come on.'

She followed him. He held the door open for her. ‘Amazing,' she said, lowering herself onto one of the sun loungers on the patio, sprawling flat out and staring up at the sky.

‘Isn't it?' Jamie answered as he sat on the other lounger. He lowered himself a little more cautiously to a lying position and crossed his feet at the ankles.

‘The ceiling of the country,' she murmured.

Jamie had to agree, although he said nothing. The night sky spread above them, an endless summer-blue shadow. Not a cloud in sight, the stars dusting the sky like a gentle snow storm in a glass bowl.

‘So what's the story, Katie?'

She breathed deeply and put her hands behind her head. Maybe the dusky night and the meal she'd eaten had softened her senses. The way she was sprawled, so casually, so contentedly, made Jamie want to leap the distance and take hold of her. Put his arms around her and ask her softly to tell him what her troubles were.

‘I did a stupid thing, Jamie. I allowed the industry I work in to slip by me. I lost it.'

‘Lost what, exactly?'

‘My love of it.'

She quietened then, probably contemplating, and Jamie let her be, waiting for her to continue.

‘I had this dream from a young age. A dream that I fulfilled.' She looked across at him, her eyes darkened in the evening light. ‘I was good.'

He nodded, had no doubt she would be. But she'd said
was
. ‘How good were you?' he asked, and hoped the question would lead to why she no longer felt she was good enough.

‘I know things.' She sat up on her lounger, suddenly vivacious and alive. ‘I know what women today need. I know how they think. I know what they can and cannot afford. I know how hard it is to want to look great but to know that something has to be given up before you get that one little item…' She hunched her shoulders slightly and put her index finger and thumb together. ‘That little gem of a piece of clothing — whether it's a pair of shoes or a skirt, or a scarf. That one thing that makes a woman feel like she's rewarded herself.'

Her enthusiasm caught a hold of him. He could practically envisage her in her office. At her desk. Designing. On the telephone. Laughing and coercing. ‘Go on.'

‘The trick is not to be super-matchy.' Her eyes sparkled, lit with eagerness. ‘It'll look like you're trying too hard. And it's quantity over quality if you're going through a rough financial patch.'

‘Is that why you've got so many outfits in my bedroom wardrobe?'

She laughed, and leaned back to the lounger, hands behind her head, all reflective again. ‘I'll let you in on a secret, Jamie. The woman of your dreams is going to want a big wardrobe because eventually, she'll fill it. And if she doesn't fill it, she'll be happy while she's intent on filling it.'

‘Just as well I don't have one then.'

‘Well I know you don't have a big enough wardrobe,' she said, glancing over at him with a coquettish grin.

Jamie rumbled a cough in his throat and frowned at her. ‘I think everything else I have is big enough for any dream woman that might walk into my life.'

She raised her brow and tilted her mouth in an oh-so-saucy manner. ‘Are you being dirty-minded?'

Yes. Oh, yes. Somebody save him, yes. He smiled, and allowed the devil inside him loose. Just this once.

She shot up to a sitting position and slapped her hands on her knees. ‘You are!' she proclaimed. ‘This is great. You're loosening up.' She paused, and gave him a challenging look. ‘Tell me a dirty joke.'

He laughed. He knew plenty, but didn't think the majority were suitable for a fashionista's perfect little ears. ‘Can't think of a single one.'

‘Go ahead,' she waved her hand at him. ‘I'm not a prude. I work in fashion, remember? There isn't any part of a male body I haven't seen naked, half-dressed or even in some state of arousal.' That index finger of hers waved his way again. ‘Some of the younger male models can't keep it tamed in their trousers when surrounded by half-naked young women.'

‘Really?' He shifted his position as a twinge of jealousy poked at his gut. ‘You're telling me you've slept with all these fashion boys?'

‘Don't be ridiculous. I'm their boss. Rule number one, never sleep with the boss.'

‘Whose rule is that?'

‘Mine.'

Plenty of men must have wanted to sleep with Katie. Plenty had probably tried and failed. All ages. Eighteen to eighty.

‘What about landlords?' The words were out of his mouth before his brain had time to register what he'd just asked her.

Even in the lamp-lit dusk he saw the blue of her eyes darken as awareness stilled her.

‘I've never had a landlord before now,' she said softly. ‘I'm not sure what rules I'd need to put in place.'

Her phone chirruped in the kitchen behind them.

She levered herself upright. Jamie reached across and took hold of her arm at the elbow. ‘Leave it.'

She paused, studying him by looking him directly in the eye. The sky seemed to explode above them, filling the space between them with the light of a million falling stars. Jamie didn't lose eye contact, and neither did she.

After a few moments, she relaxed back on the sun lounger. The mobile phone chirruped three more rings then stopped.

‘I wanted something tangible from my business,' she said quietly. ‘And I had it, for a long time.'

Jamie sighed his relief as silently as possible. She'd chosen to ignore his question about sleeping with landlords. Thank God, because he didn't know where he might have taken things if she'd answered him. ‘So when do you think you lost it?'

She laughed, but it was a dull sound, not one he'd expected from her. It's tone belittling. Of herself, he realised. ‘I have two choices, Jamie. Either I give Jacques the go-ahead to send Sensations out into the up-beat, up-market world or I go under.'

‘Surely not?' He couldn't see Katie going under for anything or anyone. Parrots or fashion moguls.

‘He's got me by the Velcro curlers. Tight enough to need to snip off half a head of well-groomed hair in order to get free.' She angled her head his way, catching his gaze. ‘I was in New York last week. At a fashion shoot. I knew things were tough and that he was doing the devious behind my back but I'd ignored it, hoping for the best — whatever I'd thought the best might be.' She shuddered slightly. ‘I got a call from him on my last night in New York. He'd brokered a deal behind my back. A great deal. An enormous opportunity for my young designers to shine.'

‘And the problem with that is?'

She looked up at the sky. ‘It's not what I built my business to be. And I don't know if I can go along with it. He wants to forge ahead into the big-time. Hit the catwalks world-wide. But that means damaging my vision for what's real for the women in the world.'

‘Do you need to go along with it?'

She nodded. ‘If I don't, Sensations will go under and Jacques will broker the deal anyway.'

‘With a new company,' Jamie said, figuring it out. ‘A new company he's in sole charge of, taking your designer people off you and making the money anyway.'

She blew her breath out. ‘You got it.' She shifted on the lounger. ‘God, let's get off the subject. This starlight thing is making me feel exposed.'

Jamie smiled at her. She had an extraordinary tenacity. One she used to broker her emotions. Not necessarily a healthy way of dealing with problems, but who was he to say she should be reasoning with herself on a different level, a different plane?

‘Let's talk about you.' She angled her head to look behind her, at the house. ‘Wonderful house. I mean, it's so different from anything in town. It's not an Australian style.'

Jamie relaxed into the new conversation, happy to be away from personal causes, his or hers. He leaned across to the side table between them, pulled the Chardonnay bottle out of the ice bucket and topped up her wine. ‘Oh, it's got its Aussie heritage here and there.' The basics of the build, the materials used, the plumbing. But she was right, the style was undoubtedly European.

‘Who built it?' she asked.

‘A couple who moved here fifty years ago. He was an astronomer, she was a gardener. She died first then five years ago he did. He left the house to their son, an amateur astronomer who apparently travelled quite a bit. He didn't want to be tied down with a house so he put it on the market.' Jamie hadn't gone into the happenstance of it too much although he'd recognised it as a coincidence; him being a journeyman, like the amateur astronomer, and since he'd seen the shooting star on one of his first nights in town.

He'd been in Kookaburra's — before it had been sold. He'd left before closing and had been standing on the walkway under a crescent moon when he looked up and caught sight of the flight of a shooting star.

‘A stargazer,' Kate said. ‘That's amazing. You'll never guess what.'

Jamie raised an enquiring eyebrow, pretty sure he was going to find out what.

‘The reason I came here is because of a shooting star.'

The hair on the back of Jamie's neck prickled his skin.

‘That night I told you about, after the shoot in New York. I stepped out onto the street and as the concierge was calling for a taxi I looked up and saw a shooting star. A real one,' she said with emphasis, as though such a sight had never before been seen. ‘I was mesmerised. But the strange thing is — nobody else around me saw it. Nobody looked up. They were going about their business, heads down. Except me. I saw it.' She paused. ‘And I knew it was mine.'

Jamie paused, remembering his own star. Yes, he'd claimed it as his. And the moment it disappeared, he'd made his decision to stay in Swallow's Fall. ‘I'm sure your star was beautiful,' he said softly, imagining her standing on a busy night street in New York City, mouth slightly open, eyes wide with wonder.

He shifted on the lounger and grabbed his bottle of beer from the side table. She'd seen her star only a week ago. Jamie had seen his over two months ago. Nothing coincidental or fateful about that. Shooting stars rode the sky every night and somewhere in the world, someone saw one and imagined fate was leading them to something.

His thoughts went to Sammy. Was she matchmaking here? Sammy was a great one for breaking a guy down. Somehow she'd got him to tell her about the shooting star. They'd been discussing the new surgery and the heritage style both she and Ethan wanted, and Jamie had practically spilled his guts about Silver Bells House and his strange need to settle down. It had been easy talking to both Sammy and Ethan. They'd taken on a role of leadership in town. Everyone loved and admired them. They were a happy couple, and of course Sammy would still be seeing stars herself, having only been married a year or so.