Wife in the Making

Bryn coolly studied Fleur’s reaction to his words as he continued, “I’m not on the marriage market.”

“I see. But I’m not on the marriage market either, so—” she smiled at him ruefully “—we might even find we get along like a house on fire, Mr. Wallis.”

“Are you running away from a man, Fleur?”

“What makes you think that?”

Bryn shrugged. “You must attract men like bees to a honey pot.”

LINDSAY ARMSTRONG was born in South Africa, but now lives in Australia with her New Zealand-born husband and their five children. They have lived in nearly every state of Australia and tried their hand at some unusual, for them, occupations, such as farming and horse training—all grist to the mill for a writer! Lindsay started writing romances when their youngest child began school and she was left feeling at a loose end. She is still doing it and loving it.

Wife in the Making

Lindsay Armstrong

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER ONE

FLEUR MILLAR studied the brief from the employment agency as she sat in the back of a taxi on her way to a Brisbane hotel for a job interview. One Bryn Wallis, restaurateur, was seeking a personal assistant cum bookkeeper who was also experienced with computers.

‘Personal Assistant’ was highlighted on the brief and there was a handwritten note that suggested a broad interpretation should be placed on this—‘Be prepared to turn your hand to just about anything’ was what the note said.

Fleur smiled fleetingly because she liked the sound of that—especially as the restaurant was situated on a tropical island. It would certainly make a change from being cooped up in an office as well as the rest of it. In fact, she realised, the prospect of this job had made her feel better and more positive than she had for a while…

The taxi deposited her and she made her way into the foyer of the luxury hotel and across to Reception, where she gave the name of the person she was to meet, and was personally—and more effusively than she would have expected—escorted by the concierge to a table in the adjacent lounge. The man sitting at it stood up with a frown as she approached and, rather distractedly, shook her proffered hand.

Early thirties, Fleur estimated, tall with a rangy, rugged physique that let you know he’d be quite capable of tossing you over his shoulder should he so desire—to add you to his harem, for example—and the unconventional but interesting looks that made you wonder whether you mightn’t mind…

On the other hand, his clothes suggested very much a man about town. He wore a pair of superfine bone-cord trousers, a trendy cream linen shirt and a beautiful and faultlessly-tailored tweed jacket. His hair was longish, a dark copper colour, his eyes were hazel, very penetrating and not entirely approving, she couldn’t help feeling, and his hand was lean and strong.

So, mixed signals, she thought. Damn! Why couldn’t he have been a more conventional restaurateur? But she immediately countered this thought with the wry reflection that there was probably no such thing, as well as a caution not to judge on appearances, and sat down to smile across at him, unable to hide her eagerness to get this job.

Bryn Wallis shoved a hand through his tawny hair and stared grimly at the girl sitting opposite him so hopefully. She was gorgeous, having stunning, long-lashed deep blue eyes, a river of smooth, bluntly cut, medium blonde hair that fell loose from a side parting to below her shoulders, a wide brow tapering to a beautifully defined jaw line and the most elegant, fastidious nose.

Her perfection didn’t end there, either. Her whole aura was elegant although her clothes were simple. She wore well-pressed, tailored jeans, a white shirt and a navy jacket. But beneath was a shapely body and long legs—she was about five feet six, he judged—and a graceful mover with slim expressive hands, although—the only fault he could find—she bit her nails.

She was also not a day over twenty, if he was any judge, which meant all sorts of things but principally that he could end up feeling responsible for her and that would be counterproductive, since he’d been down that road before and because he was looking for someone to share his responsibilities.

He sighed savagely. ‘What the hell am I going to do with you—uh—’ he glanced at the paperwork in front of him to discover that she was aptly named ‘—Fleur?’

She put a thumb to her mouth as if to bite the nail then stopped herself and twisted her hands together. ‘I gather I’m not what you expected, Mr Wallis?’

‘Not in the least. That is to say,’ he sought to sweeten that blunt statement then shrugged and decided to opt for honesty, ‘you’re far too young and inexperienced, you would be the kind of distraction I need like a hole in the head and I don’t think you’d be tough enough.’

She thought through this quite calmly, which surprised him a bit, but she surprised him even more when she said with a slight smile, ‘I don’t know why but people do tend to take me for younger when in fact I’m twenty-three.’

He blinked then frowned down at the paperwork, to have this fact confirmed. ‘All the same—’ he started to say.

‘No, although I have a degree, I’m not terribly experienced in the workplace,’ she agreed, ‘but you will find a couple of good references amongst my résumé and you’d be very welcome to check them out.’

This time he flicked through the paperwork to see that she did indeed have a degree in computer science and business applications, with honours, what was more. And the two references, which he scanned swiftly, were impressive.

‘I’m not quite sure what you mean by a distraction,’ she went on, with—could it have been a secret little gleam of laughter in those stunning eyes? he wondered, ‘but perhaps I should reassure you that I never,’ she paused for emphasis, ‘mix business with pleasure.’

Bryn Wallis knew he was doing it but couldn’t help himself—he smiled coolly and cynically.

She said nothing but looked him straight in the eye, all secret amusement gone from hers now so that it was a particularly level gaze he found himself returning.

Well, well, Miss Fleur, he thought and, for the first time since the employment agency had presented him with this highly unsuitable candidate, felt intrigued.

‘And,’ she said, ‘I’m not sure why I would need to be for personal assistant duties and to work a computer, but I’m as strong as a horse, Mr Wallis.’

‘I meant mentally tough, Ms…?’ He found he couldn’t remember her surname.

‘Millar,’ she supplied flatly. ‘Fleur Millar, with an A.’

It was the second tinge of acerbity he’d detected, a sign that he might be getting under the gorgeous Miss Millar’s skin, Bryn mused and decided he enjoyed doing that for some odd reason…

So he went on with a certain amount of relish, ‘I’m not easy to work with, I can be impatient, scathing, intolerant and the last thing I need is a girl who will dissolve into tears when the going gets rough.’ He waited but she made no comment other than narrowing those blue eyes slightly.

‘What’s more,’ he continued, ‘since this is a live-in position on an island, you wouldn’t be able to go home to Mum every evening, out to the movies or whatever, to slough all that off.’

‘It’s not a permanent position, though,’ she pointed out. ‘I was given to understand the duration was three months. That’s not very long.’

He grimaced. ‘Long enough to have a gutful of me, Fleur. The other thing is, it’s not only straight PA,’ he gestured impatiently, ‘office duties I had in mind, so you could in fact be over-qualified for the position.’ He paused and congratulated himself on thinking of that.

‘I,’ he went on, ‘need someone who is prepared to muck in and be a receptionist, wait tables, play cricket with my kid when I don’t have the time—even peel potatoes should I be short-staffed. I need a bloke in other words.’ Once more Bryn Wallis shoved his hand through his hair. ‘That’s why I asked the agency not for a Girl Friday but a Man Friday,’ he added bitterly.

Fleur raised her eyebrows. ‘I don’t think you’re allowed to do that in this day and age, Mr Wallis. Discriminate on the basis of sex. And it so happens that while I’m not much good at cricket, I do play a mean game of chess, I like children and…I can peel potatoes as well as any man.’

He paused and their gazes clashed.

‘I also gather,’ she said after a long, fraught moment, ‘that your bookwork is in a bit of a mess. I’ve recently specialized in a computer program that I could install and run for you, so it could all be done electronically and correctly and I’d be happy to show you how to work it.’

Bryn lay back in his chair and looked around the plush Brisbane hotel lounge he was conducting this interview in at the same time as he pondered how deceptive appearances could be. This girl, who had started out looking vulnerable and hopeful as well as potential Hollywood starlet material, was beginning to exhibit a mind like a steel trap.

Perhaps his less than tactful approach had crushed that hopeful air he’d divined, or perhaps he’d imagined it—not that it mattered, he still didn’t want her for the job, but…

‘Why do you want to bury yourself on an island for three months, anyway?’ he asked abruptly.

He saw the momentary hesitation in her eyes before she looked away, and said quietly, ‘I thought it would be a nice change from working in an office, in a high-rise building, in a city.’

Yes, and all the rest you don’t want to tell me, Miss Millar, he reflected sardonically. ‘Incidentally,’ he said, ‘I don’t believe in mixing business with pleasure either. But it’d be fair to say you would provide a distraction I need like a hole in the head.’

Her gaze came back to him. ‘Why?’

He looked her up and down from head to toe ironically. ‘Hedge Island,’ he said, ‘does not have a large population but we recently acquired an upmarket resort situated on the other side of the island from Clam Cove, where I am. This has been a boon for my restaurant,’ he said rather shortly, ‘because guests of the resort patronize me when they feel like a change of scene, not to mention stunning food.’

‘So?’ Fleur enquired politely.

‘I don’t know if you’re familiar with the workings of upmarket island resorts—’

‘It so happens I am,’ she said coolly.

He chewed his lip and studied her. ‘Well, then,’ he drawled, ‘you probably don’t need me to tell you that their water-sports department alone employs at least six lusty, good-looking young men who are cut off from their sweethearts or whatever. Then there’s the golf instructor, the tennis coach, the pilots, the guests themselves and so on. Thus,’ he said, ‘it could become a full-time job helping you to fend off unwelcome advances.’ He eyed her sardonically. ‘Not to mention the possibility of you being poached away from my job.’

‘I can do my own fending off, thank you, and I have no intention of being poached. On the other hand,’ she said thoughtfully, ‘if my presence were to bring in more customers, could that be a bad thing, Mr Wallis?’

Getting more and more like a steel trap by the moment, Bryn mused unamusedly. ‘You might be right,’ he replied with a glint of satire in his hazel eyes. ‘Both on the customer issue and because I think you might also be a smart…be smart enough to look after yourself.’

‘Thank you,’ she said, serenely ignoring his heavily sarcastic tone and what he patently hadn’t said. ‘When would you like me to start?’

‘Oh, no, you don’t, Miss Millar. I haven’t agreed to anything yet because even if we dismiss your looks—please don’t think I mean to be uncomplimentary about them incidentally but—’

‘Forgive me for doubting you, Mr Wallis,’ she broke in swiftly, ‘but I do. I seem to have put your hackles up from the moment you laid eyes on me. What puzzles me is why, at the same time, you should be attributing these…’ she gestured ‘…these…Helen of Troy powers to me? One would have thought it was quite a contradiction.’ She gazed at him questioningly then added composedly, ‘Other than that, I’m quite sure I could cope with the job. But, naturally, it’s up to you.’

Somewhat to his amazement, Bryn heard himself saying, ‘It’s isolated unless you want to hang around the resort. If you’re not attuned to the life, it can be boring. Getting to the mainland, to hairdressers, beauty parlours, the movies and the like on your days off takes an hour boat ride each way and I’m told boats are most conducive to bad hair days anyway.’

She merely looked at him with that secret amusement again.

‘All right. There is one last embargo, Fleur Millar.’ He studied her coolly. ‘Don’t set your sights on me.’

Whether it was his bluntness or the subject itself, he couldn’t say, but those blue eyes definitely widened in surprise. And she seemed genuinely lost for words.

Then she made a rolling motion with her slim hands as she said, ‘You…have a problem with that?’

‘I have a problem with that,’ he agreed ironically. ‘But I’m not on the marriage market.’

‘I see. Well,’ she enlarged and summed him up from head to toe, ‘it’s not hard to see why—you have the problem, I mean.’

‘Thank you,’ he returned, grimly polite.

‘But I’m not on the marriage market either, so,’ she smiled at him ruefully, ‘we might even find we get along like a house on fire, Mr Wallis.’

He let about half a minute pass in silence, then, ‘Are you running away from a man, Fleur?’

‘What makes you think that?’

He didn’t answer immediately because he’d noted that momentary hesitation again. Then he shrugged. ‘A girl with your undoubted intelligence despite your looks should know why I’m wondering that, Fleur. You must attract men like bees to a honey pot.’

He saw the shutters come down in her eyes, and noted the way her gorgeous mouth trembled slightly. But she stood up and said evenly enough, ‘Keep your job, Mr Wallis. I’ll find something else.’

He stood up too. ‘Sorry—that was unnecessary. If you want it, it’s yours.’

Her eyes widened. ‘What made you change your mind?’

Heaven alone knows, Bryn Wallis thought drily; I can feel in my bones that I’m going to regret this! He said, however, and smiled crookedly, ‘I’m desperate.’

Three weeks later Fleur walked along a sandy beach that fringed a turquoise bay between steep, wooded headlands to her tiny bungalow on Hedge Island.

There were three accommodation bungalows set wide apart next to the beach. The largest was inhabited by Bryn Wallis and his son, and a slightly larger version of her own was currently occupied by the only other live-in restaurant staff, Julene and Eric Philips, who were taking a break from sailing around the world to earn some money.

Julene was assistant chef although that was another job description worthy of a broad interpretation. And Eric, who was a giant of a man with bleached blond hair that made you think of a Viking reincarnated, was very much a jack-of-all-trades, who could turn his hand to just about anything—bar keeping the books. In contrast to his wife, he said very little. All other staff were locals who lived on the island.

Although her bungalow was the essence of simplicity with a palm-thatch roof and similar windows that you propped open, it was sturdily built, and had its own modern bathroom. It also afforded her absolute privacy and the veranda, complete with hammock, had stunning views over the bay.

In fact she often felt like a castaway not on a desert island but in a tropical paradise. There was the beach and some coral reefs at the mouth of the bay which were wonderful to snorkel over and also protected the bay. There were the headlands, covered in bush and studded with tall, dark green hoop pines and grey boulders, and she loved to watch the fish hawks and brahminy kites that soared from their nests through the sky with their high, clear whistles. There were cockatoos and rosellas, pigeons and plovers and often, at night, the mournful cry of curlews.

Behind the beach and around the buildings that fitted in with the landscape so well, a riot of colour had been created. Bougainvillaea, in many shades, the yellow trumpet flowers of the allamanda creeper, frangipani and hibiscus as well as native grevilleas, bottle brush and melaleucas, coral trees and impatiens.

All of it appealed not only to her senses but suited her mood and her simple needs of the moment. Not only that, she reflected and rubbed her neck wearily as she walked up the steps, the beauty of Clam Cove formed her retreat from the impossible demands of Bryn Wallis.

She poured herself a cool drink and slipped into the hammock. He was every bit as bad as he’d painted himself—sarcastic, arrogant, impatient and volatile. Added to all that, she’d divined that, although he loved to cook, not far beneath the surface there were times when he not only loathed to cook for the public but he loathed having to share his bit of tropical paradise with them.

So why, she wondered not for the first time, was he doing it?

But Bryn Wallis was a mystery in many respects. His son, Tom, six, was a delightful bundle of energy and mischief as well as extremely bright, and she and Tom had formed an instant rapport because he was wild to learn about computers and have someone to play computer games with. But, while it was patently obvious that Tom didn’t have a mother around, there was no explanation of what might have happened to her. Tom never spoke of her.

Fleur had found out that they’d lived on Hedge Island for some time and that the restaurant was only open during the cooler winter months. Although other people lived on the island, the population was small and, although people came to the island all year round, it was the winter influx of southern visitors, visitors escaping the rigours of colder winters down south for the still balmy warmth of the north, that made it viable.

All in all, she thought, Bryn Wallis came across as a man who had decided to opt out of the rat race, but the reason for it was another matter. There was no sign at Clam Cove, which was the name of his restaurant as well as his little slice of paradise, that he’d ever been anything else but a beachcomber who loved to dive, swim, fish, cook when the mood was on him, and turn his hand to building bungalows and making some exquisite pieces of wooden furniture.

Although she did wonder sometimes if he was a writer because of something Tom had said, and because, some nights when she couldn’t sleep, often the early hours of the morning she’d noticed a lamp on in the main bungalow.

He was also a man of decided opinions and causes. In two and a half weeks she’d heard him declaim scathingly on the iniquities of longline fishing and the declining albatross and dolphin population and conversely on the protection of crocodiles to the extent that the creatures could now be found in Cairns, their nearest coastal city, itself. She’d been subjected to his vehemence on genetic food engineering and discovered that he had a thing about women who wore artificial nails.

It had amused her to think that was probably the only thing he approved of about her.

As for the restaurant itself, it had soaring palm-thatch ceilings, was open-sided with roll-down clear plastic blinds in case of inclement weather, and was built over the beach. It featured his pieces of furniture, some wonderful pottery urns planted with flowering plants and creepers, as well as nautical and beachcomber memorabilia hung from the rafters.

There was no separate cooking area. The chef operated from a raised, counter-enclosed area where Bryn did a lot of his cooking on rotisserie spits and grids over charcoal fires. On starry, moonlit nights with the water lapping close by it was especially exotic and romantic.

One mystery she had solved, though, was why he might not be on the marriage market.

The deputy manager of the resort on the other side of the island was a woman, Stella Sinclair, a very attractive brunette in her early thirties. Although she blended in with the tropical ambience of the island well, Fleur had detected a sharp brain and consummate businesswoman in Stella Sinclair. And Julene, who was something of a character, had let slip to Fleur that, although on account of Tom it was never alluded to at Clam Cove, the rest of the island well knew that Stella was Bryn Wallis’s lover.

But the most puzzling aspect of all about the man, Fleur reflected, was his deep and instant antipathy to her. Yes, no one around him got a smooth ride when the restaurant was busy and things went wrong even if they were not the culprit. But they put up with it because at other times he could be charming, funny, kind even and irresistible. His son adored him and he seemed to have a natural way with the boy.

They were often to be seen working together, which meant that Tom fetched and carried tools for Bryn as he did some woodwork. They were often to be heard having long, serious conversations about anything and everything then breaking up into laughter or song. And Tom cherished the growing menagerie of little animals Bryn carved for him.

Not so with her, however. He had a subtle way of needling her, he was a genius at innuendo and the kind of double entendre that might float over other heads but found their mark with her unerringly like well-placed arrows intended to wound. There was an undoubted and barely veiled hostility in all his dealings with her even though, so far, she’d not retaliated in kind. Why? she wondered, staring out to sea unseeingly.

In the two and a half weeks since she’d started working for him she’d gone out of her way not to put a foot wrong. She’d ‘turned her hand’ to everything that was requested of her, including all the things he himself had mentioned bar cricket. But she’d more than compensated for that by spending as much time with Tom as she could when Bryn wasn’t able to. This had been no hardship. Tom was a real character and exceptionally articulate for his age.

And she’d gone out of her way, when helping out in the restaurant, to attract as little attention as possible. She’d scraped her hair back, worn no make-up and a dowdy, voluminous dress she’d had the forethought to purchase before arriving on the island. Not only that, but to date she hadn’t set foot beyond Clam Cove.

Also, while she’d been meticulous as a waitress or the receptionist, she’d also been at pains not to allow her natural sense of fun or anything that could be termed joie de vivre, come-hitherness or whatever it was Helen of Troy might have possessed, to show through.

True, there had still been some speculative glances but to say that she was providing the kind of distraction he needed like a hole in the head was simply not true. Unless…

No, she thought. No. She couldn’t be distracting him. There was absolutely no sign of it, he had Stella… No.

In fact, he had Stella at that moment, although quite properly, she realized as her gaze focused over the veranda. The deputy manager of the resort had come for lunch and was now strolling along the beach with Tom and Bryn. They all wore their swimming costumes, and as Fleur watched they plunged into the sea and started to splash each other.

She watched for a while, unable to control a desolate little sense of envy. They looked like a family engaged in such simple fun and togetherness. Stella wore a red bikini and Bryn a faded pair of green board shorts. In fact, board shorts, an old frayed straw hat and a shark’s tooth on a leather thong around his neck was his preferred mode of dress on the island. Nor did his preferred mode of dress on the island do much to conceal a rather breathtaking physique.