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His head reared up at the splash of acid in her voice. ‘It is for me.’
She would concede that. Too many messy complications.
‘What if she got a divorce?’ prodded Kate.
‘I’m not going to sleep with her, Kate, not even to justify your jealousy.’
He was so smug! ‘I’m not jealous!’
He flipped his wrist, winnowing the thin fabric, wafting warm air around her bare thighs and midriff. ‘You look pretty green to me!’
His sly humour struck her on the raw. ‘Green also happens to be associated with harmony, growth and fertility—’ She stopped, stricken. He continued to hold on, his eyes alert with sharpening curiosity, and with a little gasp she rotated quickly away in a balletic twirl that shed her gauzy cocoon, leaving him holding an empty snatch of nothing as her bikini-clad figure disappeared into the house, a sharp click of the latch signalling that her tantalising flight was not an invitation to pursue!
CHAPTER FIVE
KATE was still alive in a state of angry embarrassment a few mornings later when she backed her car out of the garage to head down to the wharf and see if any of the fishing boats she had seen coming in were willing to sell some of their catch from the boat.
The anger was mostly with herself for being a wimp. After coming all this way to challenge Drake, she was now ducking and diving to avoid being seen until her chaotic hormones stopped her leaking tears at inappropriate moments, skulking around inside the house with the doors locked, taking long walks up the beach to find a hidden spot in the sand-dunes where she could do her sunbathing, and driving up into the hills to explore the nature trails.
The embarrassment followed a very uncomfortable second encounter with Melissa Jayson at a local roadside vegetable stall, where Kate had paused on one of her carefully timed walks to buy a bunch of leafy green silver beet, a brown bag of crunchy sugar-snap peas and a large head of broccoli. The stall was a little wooden shed at the entrance to a long driveway heading down into the bush along the estuary shore, the method of payment an honesty box with a large, rusting padlock attached. Kate had been fishing in the lightweight fanny-pack clipped around her waist for the coins to post in the slot when the crunch of tyres and whirr of an electric window had made her turn her head.
‘Hello,’ Melissa Jayson called from the driver’s seat on the far side of the late-model station-wagon. She was in a figure-hugging dress with full make-up emphasising her striking features, but this time all Kate could see was the wedding ring prominently displayed on the finger tapping the steering wheel in time to the beat on the stereo. ‘Would you like a lift back to the house?’
‘No, thanks, I’m going in the other direction. I’m walking for fitness,’ Kate said quickly as her coins clinked into the box.
‘Are you sure?’ Kate could he
ar her scepticism. It did seem rather unlikely that she would carry a large bouquet of vegetables around to wilt in the hot sun, when the logical thing would have been to buy them on her way back.
‘I’m sure.’ Was this an olive branch or a prelude to more backbiting? Should she apologise for calling her a Grade-A bitch? According to Drake the poor woman had only been trying to guard her client’s back, or protect her investment, even if with questionable vigour.
‘Would you like me to at least take the vegies for you? I could put them in our fridge until you’ve finished your walk.’
Our fridge? It was ridiculous how much that casually possessive little word grated.
‘No, thanks. Really, I’ll be fine. I haven’t got that much further to go.’ For all Drake’s protestations that there was nothing between them, Kate was still picking up a vibe that suggested a more than simply professional interest on the redhead’s part.
‘Well, OK, then, if I can’t persuade you…’
‘No, but thanks for stopping,’ she made herself say.
The Other Woman laughed wryly. ‘Really? I bet you wished I’d kept on driving—straight on down into the estuary.’
‘The thought did cross my mind,’ Kate admitted.
‘Well, if it’s any consolation, darling, Drake was in a furniture-chewing mood when he came back to the house the other day. He practically got out the thumbscrews to find out what we’d said to each other.’
‘Did you tell him?’
This time Melissa’s laugh was genuine. ‘Are you kidding? After he prowled about like a cat on hot bricks when you arrived, moaning that he wasn’t going to be able to write a word while you were breathing down his neck, and then acted as if I’d violated one of the ten commandments by telling you? Let him stew! I gather you didn’t tell him much, either—just enough to set him marinating in his own juices. Once he’s done he might go well with that broccoli.’
Damn! thought Kate as the car roared off. I wanted to keep hating her and now she won’t let me. Sharp, pushy, but up front and funny…Kate could see why Drake might find her good to work with.
It was all his fault. If he hadn’t primed both women to resent each other with his manipulative behaviour, she and Melissa might even have been friends. But, of course, Drake wouldn’t want that to happen, she brooded—the two opposite sides of his life meeting instead of keeping to his rigid lines of demarcation…
And there was still one good reason to resent Melissa, she reminded herself. She was obviously great at her job. Her position with Drake was highly valued and secure, whereas Kate’s was already shaking on its flimsy foundations. Drake would have no trouble finding another lover, but first-class private editors were extremely thin on the ground.
Knowing that she was letting her fears for the future paralyse her will put Kate even more out of sorts. Procrastination had the effect of concentrating her mind on safely trivial concerns, like the fact that every time she set foot outside her door the three-legged dog would dash out of nowhere, drool a greeting over her toes, and hang about with a lugubrious expression until she fed it a few biscuits or a bowl of yoghurt. Or the elusive rodent whose phantom squeak was bothering her at odd times of the day, as well as spooking her at night. She had found an old mousetrap pushed to the back of the cupboard under the bench in the kitchen, still baited with a rock-hard lump of old cheese, but it looked a bit flimsy for the task. Judging by the volume of the squeak her unwanted house-guest was not your average house-mouse.
