A Passionate Proposition Page 6

  That explained a lot. Almost everything, in fact. Now Anya knew what had triggered his inexplicable prejudice at their first meeting. It had been the thought of Kate herself, not Anya’s feeble attempt to scrape an acquaintance, which had been the cause of his jaundiced reaction. She wished that she had pinned her elusive cousin down sooner; it might have saved Anya a lot of soul-searching.

  ‘Look, I have to go,’ Kate agitated, the broadcast chatter in the background almost drowning out her voice. ‘This, this—cochon!—is insisting I repack my case and my flight’s almost due to go. E-mail me and let me know how you get on. And do it soon, there’s a sweetie…’

  ‘But—’

  Anya found herself protesting to empty air. Fretting over the call, she didn’t linger in the shower, blow-drying her fine hair until the pale strands fanned like polished silk over her shoulders before drinking more of the wine than the tuna salad could soak up. After putting George out to prowl his nocturnal haunts, she sludged in front of a television reality show busting people in the process of committing shameful acts instead of stimulating her intellect with Bach and books, and ended up going to bed in a mood of belligerent depression.

  It rained overnight, but by mid-morning the sky was clear again and the sun beamed down on the refreshed countryside. Kate had planned a leisurely lie-in to make up for all the early starts at camp, but her eyes snapped open not long after dawn and she found it impossible to wallow in her inactivity for long. She bounced out of bed, brimming with restless energy, and had done all her catch-up housework by breakfast. After her cup of tea and boiled egg she had intended to work off enough of her tension in the garden to enable her to settle down to the essay she was writing for her postgraduate history paper.

  Instead she found herself striding across rain-dewed fields in the direction of The Pines, fuming over the flat battery which had trapped her car in the garage. The local mechanic was out fixing a tractor and wouldn’t be able to fetch her a new one until some time that afternoon. Anya couldn’t wait that long.

  At least the fifteen-minute short-cut across the fenced paddocks would get her to her destination more quickly than trudging along the uneven verge of the winding road. And she didn’t want to risk meeting Mark if he was driving out to meet her.

  Thank goodness Liz Crawford had rung with a sympathetic warning. Mark Ransom’s secretary was the first real friend that Anya had made at the college, and as the headmaster’s assistant she had been well-placed to offer helpful tips on how the various school systems worked, and who to seek out for advice and who to avoid amongst the other staff. The two women often lunched together at the shopping mall across the road from the school and Liz had been the first to know, and cheerfully approve, when Anya and Mark had started tentatively dating.

  ‘Anya? I thought I should warn you—Mark apparently received a phone call at home last night…’ Liz had paused with rather ominous nervousness ‘…from Scott Tyler.’

  ‘Oh, no!’ Anya closed her stricken eyes. She couldn’t believe he had done this to her. And now she had to wonder whether he had an ulterior motive for his vindictiveness. Was he punishing her for something she couldn’t help—being Kate’s cousin? Why did she feel such a terrible sense of betrayal?

  ‘Do you know what it’s all about?’ Liz asked delicately.

  ‘I can guess,’ groaned Anya.

  ‘Mark didn’t go into details, but it’s something to do with you and Sean Monroe at a party at Scott’s on Saturday night—’

  ‘Let me guess—I “contributed to the delinquency of a minor”,’ Anya quoted with crisp sarcasm.

  ‘What? No, there was no mention of that—besides, Sean’s seventeen, isn’t he?’ puzzled Liz. ‘I think it was more of a general concern about the goings-on and what you were doing there. Unfortunately Mark says he can’t not officially act on information like that once it’s brought to his attention—even though it was done outside official channels. You know how stuffy he can be about rules and regs…’

  ‘It’s all rubbish, Liz—’ said Anya, and poured out the farcical chain of events into her friendly ear.

  ‘I’m sure you’ll get it all sorted out,’ Liz chuckled, reacting to the story with a reassuring hilarity.

  Why couldn’t Scott Tyler have seen the funny side of it instead of going off the deep end? Maybe farces were no more to his taste than classical music.

  ‘What I really rang to tell you was that Mark was all het up about it when he came in this morning—’ The school office was kept open during the holiday break to carry on the administrative tasks. ‘—he said he was coming over to talk to you about it before deciding what action to take. He was going to ring, but then he thought it was better to raise the matter face-to-face—you know, to try and keep it informal—so he cancelled his appointments—and I can just see him leaving now from the car park.’ Her voice rose and Anya could picture her going on tiptoe in her office to improve her sight line to the school gates.

  ‘Oh, God…’ Interview by ambush. Anya could think of nothing worse—except perhaps sitting passively around while waiting for the axe to fall.

  ‘I offered to call to check if you were in, but Mark said he knew you’d be home because you were planning on working on your university assignment today. He obviously wants to keep this quiet for now, but he didn’t specifically tell me not to call you, so please act surprised when he knocks on your door…’

  ‘Thanks, Liz, but I may not be here.’ Anya scooped her car keys off the hook by the phone.

  ‘Why? What are you going to do?’

  ‘Get Scott Tyler to retract!’

  As soon as she disconnected the call she flipped through the telephone book and found the number for S.J. Tyler at The Pines which she had dialled from the camp. A brief talk with the housekeeper ascertained that Mr Tyler was working from home today, rather than at his office, and Anya silently punched the air. She hadn’t looked forward to driving all the way to the Manukau City Centre in central South Auckland, where he based his large practice, and then having to run the gauntlet of curious and obstructive staff to get to the Big Man himself without an appointment.

  The flat battery temporarily checked Anya’s momentum, but not for long. She had already changed out of her jeans and T-shirt into a morale-boosting suit, but she quickly swapped it for a cotton-knit top and beige riding pants tucked into supple calf-length leather boots that weren’t afraid of meeting a few cow-pats.

  In one way the strenuous walk was doing her good, she thought breathlessly now, as she ploughed doggedly through the lush emerald-green grass, ignoring the bovine curiosity of the herd of black and white Friesians that grazed across some of the fields, occasionally ambling across her path. It was taking the edge off her temper as well as giving her time to rehearse her opening speech out loud.

  It was a pity she didn’t get the chance to deliver it.

  The short-cut brought her out at the back of The Pines and she climbed through the last wire fence into the huge yard dotted with citrus and fruit trees, wincing when her shoulder brushed the top strand of barbed wire and a tiny loop of woven cotton sprouted beside the seam. Weaving her way through the low-hanging trees, Anya was trying to push the stubborn loop back to the underside of the loose weave with her fingernail as she skirted the side of the house and didn’t at first notice the black-clad figure clinging to the lacy creeper just beneath the top floor dormer window.

  When the dry crack of a breaking twig made her look up, Anya’s first foolish thought was that someone else was trying to sneak a peek into Scott Tyler’s house and had elected to take the direct route. She felt a split-second of envy for their boldness before her social conscience reasserted itself, along with her common sense. A cat-burglar in broad daylight? Then she realised that the figure was moving away from the open window, not towards it, down rather than up, trying to crab over towards the narrow drainpipe that ran the down the side of the house. She also saw that the figure was too small to be that of an adul
t, but unfortunately the sparse upper tendrils of the creeper weren’t strong enough to support even the slight weight that was being tested upon them and were sagging dangerously away from the white-painted wall.

  Anya’s heart leapt into her throat and she opened her mouth to cry out a warning but then realised that a shout might be counter-productive. She saw that the climber had already realised what was happening and was frantically trying to scrabble within reach of the downpipe before the fragile framework collapsed completely.

  Anya began running towards the place on the paved pathway that she judged was directly beneath the dangling figure and as she did so there was the flash of a pale face and she recognised the rude young girl with the nosering whom she had encountered on Saturday night. She was looking down over her straining shoulder at the six-metre drop, her mouth and eyes wide with fright.

  Anya produced a final burst of speed just as there was a tearing, hissing sound and flimsy creeper gave way at both hand and foot. The girl made a final wild swipe at the drainpipe, her fingernails screeching uselessly across the painted copper, and then she was falling backwards, arms flailing, legs bicycling as she tried to twist her body round and grab at handfuls of the vine to slow herself down. But her momentum was too great and the leaves shredded between her fingers.

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll catch you!’ cried Anya, her voice dry with fear as she bent her knees and arched her spine, throwing her head back and flinging her arms wide to try and turn herself into a human safety net.

  In the last split-second everything seemed to be happening in ultra-slow motion and Anya thought she might actually be able to live up to her words, so it was a brutal shock when the moment of impact exploded on her with stunning force, a sharp knee cannoning into her chest and driving her flat to the ground, and the whole world turning to suffocating black velvet.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  ‘OH, HELL, are you all right?’

  Anya stirred, realising that the smothering blackness which had enveloped her wasn’t unconsciousness, but the black-clad chest of the girl who had landed squarely on top of her and smashed her backwards onto the unyielding ground. Anya spat out a mouthful of acrylic cardigan as the girl scrambled off her in a flurry of curses and knelt anxiously at her heaving sides. ‘God, I’m sorry—are you badly hurt?’ she asked, her voice thin with fear.

  The overhead sun dazzled Anya’s eyes, white spots dancing mockingly in her vision as she tried to suck in the breath to answer, but there seemed to be no power in her deflated lungs and she took great, dry, whistling gulps to try and equalise the pressure in her burning chest. Her neck was cricked sideways under the overhanging corner of a low step, the back of her ringing head resting on the damp grass beside the path. As she lay there staring up at the jutting brick she was lucid enough to be thankful that her head had not cracked down on that sharp edge as she fell. It would have been lights out permanently!

  ‘Oh, no—do you think you’ve broken something?’ The girl sprang to her feet, shaken but clearly unhurt, her bright, kohl-lined blue eyes looking huge in her ashen face, and Anya finally managed to pump some air into her abused lungs.

  ‘No—I—don’t—think—so,’ she managed to croak, mentally blessing the fact that the lawn hadn’t been recently mown and the grass beneath her head was thick and springy. She started to squirm away from that threatening overhang. ‘I just—ouch!’

  As she moved her arm she felt a fierce jab from her funny bone and the hot sting of scraped skin on her forearm. She flexed cautiously, finding no screaming pain from any of her other limbs, no sickening grate of broken bone, although the ringing in her head made it difficult to concentrate on the messages coming in from the rest of her body. ‘I think—I’m OK…just—bit stunned…’ she advised threadily.

  The girl bent over, her hands on her hips in a pugnacious pose that Anya recognised from their previous encounter. ‘That was such a dumb thing to do—I could have killed you!’

  Anya gaped up at the scowling face framed in its distinctive dye-job, the spikes of gold-tipped black hair standing up in defiance of gravity, the ring in her nose matched by two smaller ones in each ear. The words were spoken in relief rather than anger, she thought, and with a strong Australian twang.

  ‘Stopped—you—hurting yourself,’ she panted out in between whistling breaths, in defence of the scolding. At any other time she might have been amused at the role-reversal.

  ‘Yeah, and it’s probably going to cost me, big time,’ was the disgruntled reply. Anya decided to try and sit up, but the girl dropped onto her skinny haunches and planted a surprisingly strong hand on Anya’s collarbone, holding her flat against the uneven bricks. ‘No! Don’t try and move yet. I’ll go and get some help—’

  Anya suddenly remembered where she was. ‘No, really, I’m OK—’ she protested weakly. ‘I can feel everything…’ She wiggled her toes to prove it.

  ‘Just wait!’ The young voice, formerly shrill, had now sunk back to its natural husky register and carried an amazing amount of authority for one so young. ‘Jeez, lady, don’t be in such a hurry. Please—don’t try and get up until I get someone to help. I don’t want you dying on me. I’m too young to have that on my conscience. I’d be traumatised for life!’

  Anya doubted it. Not with that resilient sense of humour. ‘You…didn’t mean to…do it,’ she huffed, gracious to a fault.

  ‘No, well…’ The blue eyes sparked with a devilish light that plucked a familiar chord in Anya’s mind. ‘Be a real mate and hold that thought for me, will you?’

  ‘What—?’ But she was already gone, sprinting like a black gazelle towards the back of the house, leaping and hopping from leg to leg as she whipped off her running shoes along the way, dangling them by their laces as she ran. Did she think she was faster in bare feet?

  Anya remained spread-eagled on the ground, not because she was following instructions but because she felt slightly giddy when she lifted her head, and her breathing was still catching unpleasantly in her chest. She would get up in slow stages, she decided, carefully straightening in her limbs in preparation to rolling over and pushing up on her knees.

  She thought she was starting to hallucinate when she suddenly saw the girl’s head and shoulders poke out of the selfsame dormer window high up under the gabled roof. The weirdly skewed sense of déjà vu was shattered as the girl gave her an encouraging wave and launched into a series of ear-piercing screams. Her head abruptly disappeared back inside the room and Anya was left staring blankly upwards, thinking perhaps she was unconscious after all.

  To her confused mind it only seemed bare seconds later when the girl came dashing back up to her prone body, this time from the direction of the front of the house and closely trailed by a babble of voices wanting to know what was going on. One of them, deep and resonant, made Anya utter a fatalistic cry of pained frustration.

  ‘What the—?’ Scott Tyler’s exclamation was cut short as he dropped to his knees beside her, his large hand going to her forehead to brushed away a few crumpled leaves. In his dark trousers and casual open shirt he looked younger and less ruthlessly constrained than he did in his elegant suits.

  ‘What on earth have you done to yourself?’ he muttered, running his eyes rapidly over her body, looking for clues. Over his shoulder Anya was dismayed to see the curious faces of Sean and Samantha, his niece and nephew, falling into startled expressions as they realised who it was lying on the path.

  ‘What are you doing here, anyway?’ he continued, ‘I didn’t see your car parked out front.’

  ‘I—I walked over,’ she said, watching Sean turn around and hurriedly slope off while his sister craned forward.

  ‘Did you trip and hit your head on the bricks?’ he said, sliding his fingers around the back of her skull and feeling for any telltale sponginess.

  ‘No, I—’ Anya tried to pull her head away from his touch and saw the young girl looking down at her with pleading eyes, her hands steepled under her chin. ‘—I f
ell,’ she finished lamely. The girl silently folded her hands to her heart in a mime of swooning gratitude.

  ‘Not watching where you were going?’ murmured Scott Tyler, his dark brows drawn together as he bent over her and placed his flattened palms on either side of her neck, making her pulse jerk. Dark hair flopped across his forehead and she could see the pulse jumping at the base of his own throat through his open shirt-collar.

  ‘The bricks on this path are very uneven, and the steps do tend to sort of blend in,’ chipped in the cause of the accident with inventive flair.

  ‘I was looking up at the house,’ Anya said truthfully, gasping as his big hands smoothed over her shoulders and arms, and down her sides, his fingers trailing over the front of her ribs. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ She squirmed as his hands kept going south, moving over her hips and down her legs.

  ‘Stop writhing about,’ he growled.

  ‘You’re tickling,’ she complained, and blushed when his dark lashes flicked up so that he looked directly into her eyes. Could he tell she was lying?

  ‘Well, at least you don’t appear to be suffering from any loss of feeling,’ he said drily. ‘And your colour seems to be coming back.’

  ‘I had the wind knocked out of me, that’s all,’ she said, putting a hand to her scooped neckline, drawing his attention to her yellow knitted top.

  ‘You look like a wilted buttercup,’ he murmured, ‘mown down by a summer breeze.’

  Anya was flustered by the unexpected whimsicality of his words. Was that a poetical way of saying that she was a weakling? How would he fare on being struck by a human cannonball?

  ‘If you move out of the way I’ll get up,’ she said gruffly.

  She began to hoist herself up on her hands but he remained where he was, tilting his head to frown at the scrape on her arm below her bunched sleeve. ‘I think it was a little more than a winding, but lying there on the damp ground certainly isn’t doing you any good.’