Claimed: One Wife Page 15

  'I'll come now,' she said decisively. Published papers added kudos to one's name and weight to job applications. And she could wave it in the face of her examiners later in the year.

  Think work, Sally, and keep thinking work!

  She reshelved the book which had failed to supply the list she wanted, and followed Grant out of the subterranean room.

  Having separate cars made the drive easier, though apprehension gnawed at Sally's nerves.

  And standing in the lift, being whisked upward, was even more unsettling. The walls seemed to close in, while the air sparked with the awareness which, hopefully, only she could feel.

  But as he opened the door memories came flooding back and she faltered so it took a firm hand in the small of her back to actually get her over the threshold.

  Into a room where one high-heeled, scarlet shoe sat, like a piece of sculpture, or perhaps a trophy, dead centre on the bar between the living room and kitchen.

  CHAPTER TEN

  I'll ignore it, Sally decided. Won't even acknowledge it's mine. After all, its mate is long gone.

  'Cup of coffee?' Grant offered.

  'No, thanks!'

  Definitely not! Being alone with him was bad enough, but now the air in the apartment was doing dreadful things to her skin. As if she'd left tangible memories of his kisses in the room, and they were now gravitating back towards her.

  'I'll just get the book and go home.'

  Grant understood this was his cue to head for the second bedroom which he used as a study, find Hurst and return with it in his hand, but his feet wouldn't move without direction, and right now his brain was too busy coping with memories of another Sally Cochrane to be providing help for his feet.

  Though she certainly didn't seem fazed by it all. Standing there, cool, calm and very, very collected. A slight sprite of a woman in her figure-hugging jeans and cotton T-shirt.

  Yet he was remembering her in the red dress.

  And out of the red dress.

  'Did the dress recover? I recall it was slightly torn.'

  She looked startled for a moment, then smiled.

  'I've other dresses,' she said.

  'Like that?' he muttered, unable to believe the Sally Cochrane he'd met that night had been anything other than an aberration.

  Although there'd been the gold dress the week before!

  Her smile widened, and a glitter of something he didn't recognise sparked in her eyes.

  'Short and tight, you mean?' She didn't wait for his reply. 'Dozens!'

  Which made him feel almost as bad as acknowledging that some women, possibly Sally amongst them, could treat mutually satisfying sex as nothing more than a pleasant interlude.

  She must have read some reaction in his face, because her smile hardened.

  'Double standards, Dr Hudson? It's OK for men to go out to pick up a woman for the night, but not for a woman to do the same thing?'

  'Why on earth would I be thinking that?' he demanded. 'What you wear is your own business. As is who you "pick up", as you so aptly put it. It has nothing to do with me at all.'

  'Exactly,' she said crisply. 'Now, if I could trouble you for the book, I'll be off. Saturday night! Time to slip into something extremely short and slinky and go a-hunting again.'

  This time the messages got through to his feet, which moved him swiftly from the room. He'd give her the damned book and get her out of here.

  No matter that locking her in his bathroom—or better still, his bedroom—might seem like a far better idea.

  He found the heavy volume and carried it back through to the living room.

  'And where's the "in" place in Brisbane?' The question startled him as much as it appeared to startle Sally, but he pushed valiantly on. 'I'm new in town, remember.'

  It took Sally a moment to register what he'd asked. She'd been busy chastising herself for her smart-alec answer to the dress question.

  Something about nightclubs. In places? Though she wasn't interested herself, she knew she'd heard people talking about the latest bars and clubs, but for the life of her she couldn't put a name to one.

  'Where do you go?' he persisted.

  'City Rowers!'

  She blurted out the words, hoping she had it right. The boys sometimes went to the riverside club after one of their gigs. Sometimes joined in an impromptu jam session. But even when she'd been younger, she'd usually gone home. Far more interested in sleep than partying.

  'And is that where you're going tonight?'

  A-hunting? Had she really used that word?

  'P-perhaps,' she stuttered, then, hearing the desperation in her voice, she tried again. 'Though now I have the book I might have a night at home.'

  His disbelieving look eroded several layers of skin, but she found a smile and flashed it at him, said a polite 'Thank you' and headed for the door.

  'Don't you want your shoe?' he asked, his voice husky and somehow seductive.

  But there was no way she was going to give in to husky or seductive. She waved a hand airily towards it.

  'Oh, is that mine? Did I leave it here?'

  .'I found it downstairs the next morning,' he said, deliberately reminding her of how that evening had begun.

  Sally hid her shiver of remembered fear, and stayed determinedly in her newly adopted character.

  'Pity you didn't find its mate, but as that's gone, one's no good to me. You might as well keep it. Actually, it adds a bit of colour to your room. Like a retro objet d'art!'

  She continued on her way towards the door, praying she'd sounded casual enough.

  Though it was more likely she'd sounded plain demented.

  Still, demented was better than besotted, which was a more accurate description of her inner state.

  Grant let her go. No way was he getting back into a lift with her. He'd had a hard enough time keeping his hands off her on the way up. Why tempt fate?

  City Rowers.

  Not that he intended going there in search of her.

  No way.

  He'd had good, sensible, practical reasons for putting his suggestion of no fraternisation in place, and all those reasons still held.

  More strongly than ever, in fact.

  The mere thought of Sally in a slinky, sexy dress, out on the prowl for a man, was enough to give him heartburn. Get any more entangled with her and he'd end up with a coronary.

  Sally didn't turn up at City Rowers that Saturday night, and the following Saturday, when Tom was up from Sydney and Grant persuaded him and his now fiancée, Sam Abbot, to join him at the nightclub, Sally was again notable by her absence.

  All he'd achieved had been smoke-smelling clothes which he'd had to send to the cleaners and a couple of headaches from the din.

  At work she was unfailingly polite, and formally distant, her demeanour constantly reminding him of his own edict about fraternisation.

  Talk about a stupid thing to have suggested!

  Tom's temporary presence in his apartment, and his decision to get married before he returned to work, was causing enough chaos to distract Grant in his off-duty hours, so it was only when he lay in bed at night he felt the ache of loneliness, and only when he saw Sam and Tom together that envy ate into his soul.

  'Do you want to invite anyone to the wedding?' Tom asked, when the last-minute invitations were going out. 'Jocelyn will be there, of course. Mum insisted she be asked as her parents are coming up from Sydney both to see her and to attend.'

  He paused, as if waiting for a reply, then, when Grant remained silent said, 'Perhaps the owner of. the red shoe?'

  Grant's eyes went unerringly to the breakfast bar but the shoe was no longer there. He'd packed it away before Tom had arrived, but his brother must have come across it while rummaging through cupboards in search of something else.

  'I found the red shoe,' Grant told him, and told himself it wasn't quite a lie.

  Tom shrugged.

  'OK, then. Up to you! But you've been as edgy as hell since I ar
rived. I thought I must be putting a damper on your social life. Keeping some woman from frequenting the place.'

  'Just because you've decided to get hitched doesn't mean we both have to behave like jackasses,' Grant told him. 'That's taking the twin thing too far.'

  But Tom wasn't put off by his grumpiness. He immediately launched into a defence of his decision then slid effortlessly into praise of his delightful Sam, leaving his brother's love life, or lack of it, alone.

  In the week preceding the big day, Grant's accommodation was stretched even further by the arrival of his parents. A family dinner at Sam's grandmother's house was an occasion to introduce everyone to each other, and Grant had his first taste of Sam's twin brothers' humour.

  'Ignore them as much as possible,' Sam advised. 'They're so caught up in the fact that we'll have a double dose of twins in the family, they'll drive you nuts, given half a chance.'

  But Grant found them fun, and talking to them, sharing in the excitement that was infecting the air, made the days go faster and the nights a little easier.

  The wedding day finally arrived. Grant stood beside his brother, and had to swallow a lump in his throat when he saw the bride arrive, stars in her eyes as she walked towards them.

  But the love and tenderness in Tom's eyes shook him even more. Maybe this love thing had something going for it.

  Maybe he'd caught it, the way they'd always caught their childhood ailments from each other.

  He glanced towards Sam, and in his mind saw dark shiny hair instead of red-gold curls beneath the veil. Gold-shot brown eyes instead of green.

  Could he be sick?

  Feverish?

  Maybe it was an ailment!

  'We need the ring.'

  The minister's voice brought him back to reality. Grant handed it over, playing out his allotted role, even if he did feel detached, perhaps excluded, from the special magic happening right there in front of him.

  There had to be sixty people in the church but he knew Tom and Sam were unaware of them, elevated to some plane above mere mortals by their feelings for each other.

  The ceremony over, Grant took the arm of Sam's best friend, Patty, and followed the couple to the registry to do the paperwork. As the door closed behind them he heard music start up, then a voice, an alto, pure and strong, rising and falling with the notes of what sounded like a couple of guitars and a keyboard.

  Singing songs of love.

  'Who's that?' he whispered to Patty, a young woman from Sam's home town whom he'd first met at the dinner earlier in the week. 'There wasn't any singing at the rehearsal.'

  'It's some cousin of Sam's,' Patty whispered back. 'Hasn't she got a gorgeous voice?'

  But it was more than the voice. It was the seductive power of the words, reaching him clearly even through the closed door.

  The words of love.

  For some reason they made him think of his aggravating resident.

  Of her ridiculous conditions of no strings and no regrets.

  He shook his head to clear it.

  Words of love affecting him? Wasn't he cured of love?

  It's emotion, he told himself. A surfeit of it, given this wedding business.

  Nothing to do with Sally Cochrane.

  The signing done, Patty adjusted Sam's long veil, then Tom took his bride's hand and together they walked back into the church.

  The singing stopped and the traditional organ music took over as Dr and Mrs Tom Hudson greeted their guests. Grant and Patty followed the newly-weds down the aisle, then, as they reached the door and family closed in to kiss and congratulate the couple, Grant turned back into the church, dark after the daylight outside, hoping to see the songstress.

  She was coming out of the choir stalls, candles on the altar throwing shadows on her slim, shapely legs as she stepped carefully down the steep stairs.

  A cousin of Sam's!

  His heart told him who it was before he recognised the gold dress.

  Then one of the band members swept her into his arms and hugged her, and jealousy pounded like a disease in Grant's blood.

  Caution forgotten, he strode up the aisle.

  'You didn't tell me you'd be here!' He all but yelled the accusation at her.

  'I didn't know I would be. I'm on duty so it was in the lap of the gods. Brad's fiancée, Meggie, would have filled in if I hadn't been able to make it.'

  She was so darned calm, standing there with candlelight making her look utterly beautiful, chatting away as if they were in the ward discussing patients.

  'You've met Eddie. Have you met Brad and Phil?'

  As she introduced them, he realised these men were her brothers. He shook hands with them as Sally continued chatting.

  'Meggie's outside,' she continued. 'She actually sings better than me but Sam wanted the family connection.'

  'Meggie's been away, which was why Sally was filling in for us as band vocalist on Saturday nights,' Brad said to him. Then he nodded, and added, 'And now I've met you, thank you for what you did for her that night. I've told her how stupid she was, but I'm grateful. We all are. And we should have caught up with you earlier to tell you.'

  Not wanting to be reminded of 'that' night, Grant waved away the gruff expression of gratitude.

  The three brothers packed up their paraphernalia, nodded to him and walked away, leaving Grant and Sally alone in the small church.

  'Well?' he said, and she had the cheek to smile at him.

  'Well what?' she asked.

  'You know well what!' he muttered. 'Why did you let me think you went out picking up men? And why mention that noisy place, City Rowers? If you knew how much sleep I've wasted at that nightclub!'

  Her startled gasp gave him some satisfaction.

  'Why would you have gone there?' she demanded.

  'Because you made me think that's where you went. You did it deliberately. Don't come over all innocent with me, Sally Cochrane.'

  'You asked what was a popular place and it was all I could think of,' she told him, the candles highlighting the golden gleams in her eyes. 'I didn't say I went there.'

  'Splitting straws!' he muttered, knowing this conversation wasn't going anywhere near the way he wanted it to.

  And wondering if it were possible that his own deepening inner turmoil might simply be a reflection of Tom's emotions on this, his wedding day.

  'Grant, you're needed for photos.'

  It had to be Jocelyn who'd been sent to summon him, which added to his aggravated reaction.

  'You'd better go,' Sally said before he could protest. She looked more relieved than annoyed by the interruption.

  'I'll see you later?' he asked, then realised hesitancy wasn't the best of approaches with Sally and turned the question into a statement. 'I will see you later.'

  Sally watched as he followed Jocelyn out of the church, then she leant against the altar and fingered a velvety rose petal that had fallen from one of the pale roses in the central arrangement.

  She'd known that coming to the wedding, having, out of politeness, to socialise with Grant Hudson, would be difficult. But seeing the carbon-copy brother standing there at the altar, pledging his love for Sam, had almost broken Sally's heart.

  She'd been so busy denying the attraction between them, writing off what she felt as lust, it hadn't occurred to her that the feelings she had for Grant could possibly be love.

  Yet when, from her perch in the choir stalls, she'd seen him walk in with his brother, identical men in identical dinner suits, she'd unerringly recognised 'her' Dr Hudson. And had had to press her hand against her breast to still the racing of her heart.

  If it wasn't love, then it was coming close, she'd realised, and she'd spilled her feelings into the songs she'd sung when the bridal party had left the church to sign their wedding certificates.

  'Are you OK, Sally?'

  Eddie was standing halfway down an aisle and the fact that he wasn't carrying his guitar told her he'd already been outside and had returned to l
ook for her.

  She dropped the bruised petal back on the gleaming wooden surface.

  'I'm fine,' she said, and hurried to join him.

  Outside, the bridal party had already been whisked off to a park for photographs, and guests were making their way to cars to drive back to the big family house at Toowong for the reception.

  Sally waved away an offer to travel with Brad and Meggie in her brother's more reliable car.

  'I'll take the clunker,' she said, knowing she might need it to escape if the tension got too much.

  What she'd really like to do is go home. Plead study, or tiredness, or perhaps a touch of typhoid, to avoid what was to come.

  But Grant's words—'I will see you later'—suggested he'd track her down, wherever she hid, and whatever excuse she offered.

  For Grant the ensuing hours went so slowly he was burning with frustration by the time the official part of the evening was done and he could finally seek out the dark-haired, gold-clad nymph who'd hovered like a flickering candle in his peripheral vision all evening.

  But was she to be found?

  Not a sign of her, although he searched through the rooms, and walked around the wide verandahs.

  'I think I saw her out by the pool a little earlier,' Sam's brother Pete—or maybe it was Sean—told him when he sought the help of someone who knew the layout of the rambling old house.

  There were lights around the pool, but the thick growth of palms and tree-ferns threw patches of shadow, so standing on the verandah, peering down there, didn't help.

  In the end, he made his way down the back steps and, avoiding a couple—surely Jocelyn was one of the pair—kissing in the rockery, he walked out to the pool.

  The gleam of gold gave Sally away. She was leaning on the fence, gazing up at the night sky, her back to the house and his approach.

  He moved towards her, then, remembering how put out she always was when he, in her opinion, crept up on her, he called her name and saw the moonlight shimmer on her hair as she turned to face him.

  'Sally?' he said again, for no other words would come, and when she didn't answer—didn't help him in any way- he let instinct be his guide. He took her in his arms, drew her close, looked down into her bewildered eyes and kissed her.