His Brand of Beautiful (21 page)

“You know what I thought?” Lacy’s tone turned winsome. “I thought you’d tell me you missed our training session because Tate came back and he’s had you tied to the bedposts all afternoon.”

There was a muffled protest from Lacy’s end of the phone, then Lacy’s voice again:

“Michael says that was TMI.”

“Darn tooting,” Christina agreed.

She looked at the tiny yellow scrap of bodysuit under the Bernina’s presser foot. Half the embroidered cherub was done. She’d sewn chubby pink cheeks, curly hair, huge eyes, and arms with dimpled creases. The pattern was the closest thing to a Reubens’ cherub she’d been able to find. The suit seemed impossibly small. Surely babies were born bigger?

“What?” Lacy exclaimed.

Oh my God, did I say it aloud?

She heard Mikey shout and the sound of a television volume ratcheted higher.

“What is it, Lace?”

Lacy’s words tumbled down the phone. “CC, Tate’s on
Lateline
. Turn on the ABC. The Minister’s thrown out the live cattle export ban. Tate can come home.”

Lily Malone

Bitumen under the Jeep’s wheels felt great after weeks banging round on dirt. So did Springsteen on the radio and the smell of a briny sea. Only right now Tate couldn’t smell anything except sausage and liliums. The Linkes’ mettwurst even overpowered the flowers, which wasn’t a bad thing—five minutes in the Norwood Florist and his nose thought it had been mugged.

But the weather sure sucked. Flying into Adelaide had been like entering a bushfire zone except instead of orange flames there were boysenberry clouds, some near‐green in the centre, threatening hail. First thing he’d done on landing was hunt out a jacket. The air tasted like chipped ice.

Cellophane crackled. He juggled the liliums—masses of apricot and pink‐tinged buds—across a box filled with crackers, mettwurst, cheese and dips. His other hand held two bottles of champagne in a brown paper bag.

Making it up the steps was easy. The door presented a new set of problems.

Balancing the box on his raised thigh, he was reaching for the doorknob when the door swung toward him, propelled by a muscled forearm the colour of dark coffee.

“Bwana,
jambo
. Need a hand?”

“You’re not kidding, Jobe. Take these before I lose the lot.”

Jobe Basel grabbed the brown paper bag in one hand, tucked it to his ribs and pumped Tate’s palm. “Good to see you, man.”

Clapping Jobe on the back was like smacking a wall. “Good to see you, too. Thanks for holding the fort.”

Tate wiped his feet and stepped into Outback Brands’ reception. He smiled at the Lisas. One of them blushed; caught shoving closed—way too hard—a compartment of the photocopier.

The office smelled of sausage and liliums underlined by printer ink, microwave lunch leftovers, coffee. A day’s worth of grit tracked across bright blue carpet and footsteps thudded on the first floor above his head. It felt like he’d never left.

He dumped the box of nibbles on the counter.

Receptionist Lisa chirped a greeting. Short, blonde and bubbly, she was the opposite of Leesa number two—his first‐year graphic arts trainee—the one slamming paper trays and swearing under her breath.

“Photocopiers build character, Leese,” he told her.

“I’ll take an axe to it in a minute.”

He sympathised. Photocopiers were like toilets—they jammed when you were up to your eyeballs in crap.

“Take it all upstairs, Jobe, and spread the word. Early knock‐off tonight. Friday night drinks.”

“On it, Bwana.” Jobe took the carpeted stairs two at a time.

Like ants after spilt sugar, Outback Brands’ staff swarmed from adjoining offices.

Ruth Landers was about half a minute behind the first wave. Watching her come down the stairs, he could see the difference. Ruth had flown up and down those stairs for six years, now she moved like she carried something precious.

“I’d almost forgotten what you look like.” Her smile showed the wide gap between her two front teeth. Gold links around her neck blinked in the reception foyer lights.

“Congratulations on the cattle job. I bet Jancis tries to hang an AMPRA medal around your neck this time for sure.”

Tate aimed a kiss at her cheek. His nose bumped the arm of her glasses and she blushed, pleased. He held out the flowers. “You’re the one who deserves congratulations.

But I don’t know what I’m going to without you around here. Maybe I’ll start a workplace crèche.”

She put her nose into the bunch. “I would have told you about the baby sooner, but I figured you had enough on your plate.”

Leesa slammed the toner cartridge back into its slot and the buzz of conversation stopped. She held up her hand, index and middle finger crossed, and hit copy.

“Drinks and nibbles in the boardroom, everyone,” he called.

Blonde Lisa’s face fell.

“You can put the answering machine on, Lisa,” Ruth said, and the receptionist’s face lit up. Usually she was the one who got stuck minding phones while everyone else had fun.

Ruth peered into the box on the counter and made a face. “I can have dried apricots, dry crackers and a bunch of grapes.”

“I thought pregnant women weren’t supposed to diet?”

She chuckled. “It’s not about losing weight it’s about
listeria
. You’ll learn all about it one day.”

“What have the Lisas done now?” Jobe called from halfway down the stairs. “It’s five o’clock somewhere, people: beer’s getting warm.”

Leesa kicked the storage doors at the photocopier’s base.

“Let me take a look before you break it, Leese,” Ruth said, not unkindly, bustling around the reception counter into the alcove which held printers, photocopiers, a scanner and a fax. She opened compartments filled with enough yellow warning triangles she could have been about to dismantle a bomb.

“Here.” Ruth’s fingernails hooked beneath a roller and she began a long, steady pull.

A crumpled piece of paper unfurled like pasta from a machine.

“You’re a lifesaver, Ruthie,” Leesa breathed, placing her own skinny fingers on the emerging page. Her dark skin stood out against the white.

Something in the picture caught Tate’s eye. “Show me that.”

Leesa shielded the paper with her hip and pretended she hadn’t heard. He beckoned with his hand. “Leese? I want to see that.”

Her hand shook as she offered the page over the reception desk. He laid it flat, ran his finger over the page, half expecting to feel the grit of red dirt. The colours glowed.

“How did you get the colours?”

“I painted them,” Leesa said, head down. “I was photocopying more templates so I could take them home over the weekend.”

“Does Jobe know you’ve done this?”

“Yes. He told me to. I hope I haven’t got him in trouble.”

“No one’s in trouble. These are great.” He passed the page back into her trembling hand. “You take whatever copies you need. I want to see what you come up with on Monday.”

He grabbed the box of crackers and dips and carried them up the stairs, Ruth two steps behind.

Outback Brands’ staff sprawled in the boardroom chairs. Some leaned against the glass‐fronted cabinet spanning the far wall. He dumped the box in the centre of the table Lily Malone

and left the PR team to sort it out. They excelled at that sort of thing, drinks and nibbles was part of the job description.

Two hours later, he did it all again. Only this time he balanced the whitest spray of orchids with a bottle of Montgomery Sauvignon Blanc, more crackers, a decadent slab of Tasmanian brie and Christina’s favourite brand of smoked‐salmon dip.

Slotting his key into 225 Three Oaks Lane? It felt like coming home.

A key scraped.

Tumblers clacked in the lock and it woke Tate so fast the rush of adrenalin crushed any hint of jet lag. The rainforest scent in the pillows told him exactly where he was, he didn’t need a light to know the ceiling overhead wasn’t speckled with the mould of some Darwin motel.

The rain that had lulled him to sleep thrummed faint percussion on the iron roof. He hadn’t shut the curtain and streetlights streamed over the bed. A check of Christina’s clock-radio showed seven thirty‐three—he’d been comatose for about half an hour.

Three Pale Ales would do that. It had been a long day. Technically two long days of airports and playing backseat pilot from Canberra to Darwin, Darwin to Alice and Alice Springs to Binara. Even by his standards, today’s flight home had been an early start.

“Don’t tiptoe, Christina. I’m awake,” he called to the muted jangle of keys in the hall.

He heard the front door close. A switch clicked and light spilled over the jackets on the coat rack. A rectangle of light fell through the doorway to the carpet.

“Who’s tiptoeing?”

His heart skipped. Satellite phones couldn’t do justice to that buttery voice. Propped on his elbows, he waited for the tap of heels. Then a shadow in a light‐coloured shirt blocked the door. A shadow made bulky by a laptop and a—
sportsbag
? He sat straighter.

Chestnut hair gleamed beneath a—
baseball cap
?

“Lady I think you got the wrong house.”

No wonder Christina hadn’t made a sound on the tiles, those were
joggers
on her feet. “Did you hold a corporate golf day at Clay Wines or something?”

The breath she let out was more like a snort. “No, silly. I told you I had plans with Lacy. We’ve been running.”

“In this weather? You’re shitting me.”

“Lacy didn’t want to miss a session this close to the City to Bay. We took turns on her treadmill.”

The toe of her joggers peeked over the carpet but each heel stayed in the hall, like she played a child’s game where only the tiles were safe.

“When you told me you had plans with Lacy, I thought you meant a few drinks after work.” He held out his hand. “Come here. Where have you buried the woman who owns this house?”

There was an edge to Christina’s giggle and he told himself to take it slow. She had to get used to him again. She stood frozen in the doorway, eyes dark orbs in the pale oval of her face.

After a long moment, the sportsbag thudded into the nearest corner. A water bottle sloshed inside but it was only when she took that first step into the room that he felt himself relax. She laid the laptop carefully over a scrap of pale material on her sewing table, yellow in the filtered light. A branch scraped the window and the laptop slipped from her hands, bumped. She swore.

“Is everything okay? You seem a little jumpy.”

Christina stared out into the rain. Muddy light illuminated the curve of her cheek, showed him the hitch in her profile where she chewed at her lower lip.

Lily Malone

“It’s this deal I had to make with Saffah and Richard to get Cracked Pots. I tread eggshells all day. I worry about every cent we spend. I’m not used to it.” She closed the curtain and the light winked out.

“I can’t imagine anyone making you do anything you don’t want to do.”

“Can’t you?” Her question hovered in the air between them.

Her weight shifted to the other leg. He sensed, more than saw movement and then her knee dug into the top of the mattress and it bounced and she dove at him, slipped on the quilt, cannoned into his chest and almost knocked him flat. His arms went around her and he took her back to the mattress with him.

Her cap pecked his temple. Damp hair whipped his jaw and something wet trickled down his throat. Rainwater or tears? He didn’t know. Holding her still on the bed was like trying to keep a water‐loving retriever from leaping off a boat. The cap came loose, cartwheeled to the floor.

She crawled up his body, tangled her arms around his neck. The mattress shook, made their bodies rock and slide in ways that reminded him of other times, other places. He felt new firmness in the thighs clamped around his hips, a layer of muscle coiled beneath the soft flesh.

“Hello,” she sighed.

“I’ve missed you.” He filled his lungs with her scent. Her breath warmed his throat.

“I can tell.”

“You’ll break it off at that rate,” he grunted, readjusting her weight over the growing ridge of his cock, easing her arms from their stranglehold around his jugular.

She laughed—nothing forced in it this time—and folded her forearms flat across his chest so the point of her chin was on the back of her interlaced hands. He wished for more light, he would have loved to see her face. The tip of his finger traced silky soft skin at the exact point where her cheek joined her ear. It came away wet. Putting it to his lips he tasted salt.

“You’re not crying?”

“Not exactly. I’m happy. I think.” She wiped her cheeks with the backs of both hands and sniffed. “Hell, I don’t know. I really
am
an emotional wreck. I’m such an idiot.”

She laid her ear flat against his chest like she listened for his heartbeat. No stethoscope required there. It could move mountains.

“You’ve lost weight,” he said.

“I haven’t actually. I’m just a bit more—” she hesitated over the word, settled on:

“toned.”

“Are you now? More toned? Let me see.” His hand found bare skin at her waist and it quivered to his touch. When he placed his palm beneath the curve of her belly it thrust back at him. “That’s definitely firmer than I remember,” he teased, breathing her in. Loving her.

Abruptly, her weight disappeared and something heavy thudded to the floor. It took him a second to work out what
. A jogger
. Then its partner. He was stretching for the bedside lamp when a ripping buzz from the foot of the bed diverted his attention completely.

Christina knelt there, her hand on the zip of a now three‐quarter‐open shirt, breasts spilling from a black sports bra, a triangle of light from the hall shining through her spread knees.

She took his breath away.

He reached for the soft swells. The bra had no hook so he had to pull the material out and down to tumble her breasts free. He’d forgotten how full they were. How ripe.

Were they bigger? She leaned forward until her nipples dangled above his mouth, her palms on his chest and when he lifted his head to tongue at her, she moaned. That little sound was electric. Everything inside him boiled.