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“Now I understand why you didn’t know about Maree from the story in the local paper,” he said coldly. “This isn’t about her, or about any kind of family history, is it?”
Bethany’s look went to the baby playing with a set of brightly colored plastic cups, oblivious of the storm breaking around her. “In a way, what I want to write does concern your family history. I want to do a story about the Frakes Baby House.”
His breath escaped in a whistling sound of annoyance. “If you know about that, then you must know I’m not interested in having it on public show. So your little scheme to get around me by pretending to be something you’re not was a waste of time.”
She had been prepared for the switch from friendliness to hostility as soon as he found out what she wanted, but his callous attack on her integrity made her see red. She didn’t stop to consider whether she would be less angry if he hadn’t charmed her so completely to begin with. “Now just a minute. I wrote to you on my business letterhead, asking for an interview. You were the one who jumped to the wrong conclusions.”
“And it never crossed your mind that I would?”
“Of course it did. But I hoped once we met and I explained to you what I wanted, you would see reason.”
He crossed his arms, towering over her in a blatant invasion of her space. “So you think it’s unreasonable of me to want to maintain my privacy?”
She stood her ground, determined not to back away and reveal how disturbing she found his closeness. “I don’t think it’s unreasonable at all. But my story doesn’t have to be an invasion of your privacy. If you don’t want me to, I won’t even mention your name.”
His eyes glittered ferally. “You’ll just refer to it as the Brand X Baby House?”
She couldn’t and he knew it. All she could do was retreat as gracefully as possible. She only wished it didn’t hurt so much. He hadn’t even given her a chance to explain what she wanted to do, and she still had no idea why he hated the idea of giving any publicity to the dollhouse that had been in his family for generations.
Nor did she understand why it mattered so much to her—not the story, although without it she had almost no chance of saving her journal—but why his good opinion was so important to her that it hurt to be on the receiving end of his derision. She had enjoyed being called a miracle worker and a fairy godmother, but there was more. She had enjoyed the appreciative way he looked at her, even the enthusiasm with which he ate the one thing she cooked well.
Pity help her, she had even enjoyed doing his cleaning and laundry.
For a couple of hours she had felt like a normal, functioning woman, she realized with a heavy heart. After the way Alexander had dumped her because she couldn’t have his children, it had felt good to be appreciated by a man, even one who didn’t really know her. In the guise of helping Nicholas out, she had been playing house, and now it had to stop.
“Thanks for your time. I’ll see myself out,” she said, picking up her bag. This time he didn’t try to stop her, and she was thankful the security door opened easily from the inside. She didn’t fancy having to retrace her steps past the kitchen and out through his bedroom. As she made her way slowly back to her car, which was parked in the shade of a golden wattle tree, she heard Maree start to cry. Bethany’s footsteps faltered but she made herself keep walking.
“Women. You can’t trust ‘em as far as you can throw ’em,” Nicholas seethed, hearing the sound of the security door swing shut. He aimed a kick at a cupboard door and winced as the pain jarred all the way up his leg. “Damn. I should have known she was up to something. Baby house, indeed. She probably thought all she had to do was cook a meal and wash my laundry, and I’d be putty in her hands. Well it didn’t work, did it, Maree? We told her where to get off, didn’t we?”
Hearing her name, the baby looked up, but at the sight of his furious expression, she screwed up her face and dissolved into tears and started banging a plastic cup disconsolately against the bars of her playpen, the sound keeping time with her wails.
Despair coiled through Nicholas. Now look what the wretched woman had done, he thought. She’d managed to upset the baby, just when he’d gotten her quiet and happy. He leaned over the side of the pen, reaching for the child. “Come here, little darling. Don’t cry. I’m not mad at you. I’m mad at Bethany.”
At the sound of the name, Maree’s tear-filled eyes widened and she began to beat at Nicholas’s chest. “Ah, ah, ah,” she screamed, punctuating the sounds with blows.
He regarded the baby curiously. “Bethany? You’re telling me you like Bethany?”
Every time he said the name, there was a fresh gurgle of “ah, ah, ah” sounds.
He shook his head. “Trust me, we’re better off without her. Just because she happens to be damnably attractive—” He broke off as Bethany’s image filled his mind. She was attractive, he realized. He couldn’t recall seeing hair that exact shade of gold before, as if it was perpetually in sunlight. She had nice eyes, too, now he came to think about it. They reminded him of the sky on a summer day. Odd that all the comparisons he could think of related to sunshine.
Her voice was unusual, too, faintly musical and pitched in the lower register, which appealed to his trained ear. When she laughed he could hear wind chimes. He wouldn’t mind recording and analyzing her voice. He was willing to bet even the wavelengths would be picturesque.
“Not that I have any such intentions,” he told Maree severely, annoyed with himself for letting his thoughts run away with him. “The woman’s devious and manipulative. All her schmoozing with you was to get around me. She probably doesn’t even like babies.”
Even as he said it he knew it wasn’t true. All he had to do was compare Bethany’s behavior toward Maree with Lana’s. They were like chalk and cheese. Anything Lana did for Maree was on sufferance and she didn’t care who knew it. If she could have held the child at arm’s length like a piece of soiled clothing she would have done so. Bethany had shown no such aversion, even pitching in to do the laundry without a second thought.
Why hadn’t she simply told him what she wanted instead of sneaking around pretending to be a child care expert?
Because she was right—if she was honest she wouldn’t have gotten to first base with him because of his stupid hang-up about that blasted dollhouse. She couldn’t know why he was so averse to letting the thing see the light of day, and he was in no hurry to explain himself to her. It was probably foolish, but a man had a right to his own kinds of foolishness.
What he didn’t have a right to do was treat her as badly as he had. “You’re right,” he said to the baby in his arms. “What you and I have to do is apologize to Bethany for the way we acted. It’s the least we can do before she leaves.”
The baby bounced up and down in his grasp, grabbing and pulling at strands of his hair. “Ah, ah, ah.”
He gave a yelp of pain but got her message. “Okay, I have to apologize. You got along with her like a house on fire. Come on then, let’s go eat humble pie. But I should warn you, it tastes worse than pureed spinach.”
Bethany was fumbling in her bag for her car keys when the crunch of footsteps on the gravel surface of the driveway made her look up. Nicholas came toward her carrying Maree in his arms, and the baby’s face lit up at the sight of her new friend.
Bethany tried to harden her heart with little success. It was small consolation that she had won a convert in the Frakes family, when it wasn’t the one who could help her. She lifted her head and met Nicholas’s eyes with a defiance she was far from feeling. “Was there another insult you forgot to throw at me?”
He cleared his throat. “What I forgot, and this little lady reminded me, was simple human courtesy. Is it too late to say I’m sorry for acting so hotheaded?”
It was so unexpected that she was momentarily at a loss for words, which her siblings would have found amusing in the extreme. What she lacked in cooking ability she usually made up for in conversational skills. When she finally found her voice she felt bound to be honest. “I deserved some of what you said. You were right, I should have told you what I wanted from the beginning.”
“You probably should, but it doesn’t justify my biting your head off, even if I was tired to the bone.”
Against her better judgment Bethany responded to the sincerity in his tone and smiled back. “I know what it’s like. Considering how small they are, babies demand enormous amounts of time, attention and love. I can hardly criticize you for giving them to Maree.”
He frowned. “If this Baby House of yours isn’t about baby care, how come you know so much about them?”
“I have five brothers and sisters, four of them much younger than me, so I got a lot of practice at helping to bring them up. I’m also a casual worker at a shelter for disadvantaged children in Melbourne.”
He nodded as if she had confirmed something for him. Then he nuzzled the baby’s tiny pink ear. “You know, Maree, you are wise for one so young.” She gurgled a response and he pretended to listen with rapt attention before nodding again. “Good idea, little darling. Exactly what I was thinking myself.”
Baffled, Bethany observed the strange, one-sided conversation, bemused by the way Maree seemed to understand everything Nicholas was saying. Which was more than Bethany herself did. “Excuse me?”
“Oh, sorry. I was consulting my friend here about an idea we just had. Do you know you’re the first person besides me that Maree has taken to since her parents died?”
What about the lovely Lana, Bethany couldn’t help wondering, but decided to quit while she was ahead. Leaving on good terms with him had seemed impossible a few moments ago. She should be thankful for small mercies.
As if to prove his point, the baby leaned out of Nicholas’s embrace and stretched out her arms toward Bethany. “Ah, ah, ah.”
Bethany reacted instinctively, setting her bag on the roof of the car and reaching to take the child from Nicholas. “See what I mean?” he said as the baby wrapped her arms around Bethany’s neck.
The child smelled sweetly of milk and baby powder, and Bethany buried her face in the satiny folds of her neck, making trilling noises with her lips and tongue. The vibrations made Maree chuckle and the sound resonated through Bethany like music. How could anyone not take to such a delightful little creature? Gradually she became aware of Nicholas watching her with something very much like satisfaction. What was going on here?
Since he didn’t seem to be in any hurry to enlighten her, she gave Maree one last hug and forced herself to hand the child back, closing her ears to the chorus of protesting noises. “I’d better be on my way. Thanks for clearing the air.” She tickled Maree under the chin. “Goodbye little one. It was fun meeting you.”
“You don’t have to leave,” Nicholas startled her by saying.
Was he going to grant her the interview after all? She forced down a sudden rush of excitement. If he had changed his mind, it must be for his own reasons. Until she knew what they were, it was as well not to get her hopes up. She might not be willing to meet his terms.
“I don’t?” she echoed, knowing she sounded foolish but unable to think of a more profound response. Where was the outgoing, articulate Bethany Dale now? Tongue-tied by the nearness of a man she didn’t like, who certainly didn’t like her, but who could make her feel hot and breathless simply by standing within two feet of her.
Nicholas gave her a level look while Maree played with his hair. “If you still want that story, maybe we can work something out.”
A sinking feeling gripped her. Surely Nicholas Frakes wasn’t going to turn out to be one of those men who reduced everything to sexual favors?
She drew herself up, uncomfortably aware that she was trapped between her car and Nicholas’s hard body. But he was hampered by the baby in his arms. “I’m afraid I don’t need the interview that much,” she snapped.
For a half second he looked puzzled, then angry as light dawned. “Good grief, woman, this has nothing to do with your body. Just because Lana’s gone doesn’t mean I’m desperate yet.”
Contrarily, rather than reassuring her, his comment hurt more than she could believe possible. “Well thank you very much.”
Evidently realizing his mistake, he tried again. “I don’t mean I’d have to be desperate to be interested in you. You’re a beautiful woman, and from what I’ve seen today, you’re going to make some man incredibly happy. But this has nothing to do with you and me,” he insisted. “I want you to help me take care of Maree.”
This last came out in such a roar that the baby looked startled. It was nothing compared to the way Bethany felt. She had practically accused him of harassment when all he wanted was her parenting skills. He also thought she was beautiful, she couldn’t help noticing, and resisted examining how that felt. “You want me as a baby-sitter?” she asked, dumbfounded.
“In return for conditional access to the Frakes Baby House,” he confirmed. He raked one hand through his close-cropped hair. “What on earth did you think I was going to propose?”
If she hadn’t been so aware of him as a man, she probably wouldn’t have jumped to stupid conclusions, she told herself, wondering at the same time if there wasn’t an element of wishful thinking there, too. Did she want him to want her? Even though her mind produced an instant denial she suspected she wasn’t being entirely honest with herself.
“I don’t know what I was thinking. It’s been a confusing day,” she dissembled. “One minute you can’t wait to get rid of me and the next you want to hire me on a daily basis.”
“Not daily, full-time, live-in, although I’m glad I didn’t suggest it right off the bat, or goodness knows what conclusions you’d have drawn.”
“There’s no need to rub it in,” she said, feeling her face flame. In case she still harbored doubts, he was emphasizing that he wasn’t interested in her as a woman, but purely as a potential caretaker for Maree. The thought stung, but she had only herself to blame for misinterpreting his first overture.
He watched her closely. “Interested?”
“I don’t know about living in,” she said. Most of her misgivings stemmed from her own reactions to Nicholas himself. He might not be interested in her, but she couldn’t deny the flaring of attraction she felt around him. Sharing close quarters with him amounted to playing with fire, and she’d already been burned by her relationship with Alexander. She didn’t need another lesson in her inadequacies as a woman.
Not that she’d get it from Nicholas. Was that what she really feared, that she could live under his roof without affecting him in the slightest, while he had the opposite effect on her?
“Before the accident, my brother and sister-in-law lived here and had set the place up as bed-and-breakfast accommodation. So, you would have your own self-contained quarters,” he went on. “You’d have to live in because it’s too far to commute from Melbourne every day. Besides which, my work involves clients all over the world, so I’m at the computer till all hours. With you here, I might finally manage to catch up on some sleep. As well as giving you access to the dollhouse, I’m prepared to pay well for your services.”
The salary he named would get her out of financial trouble for some time to come. Added to the appeal of a story about the long-lost Frakes Baby House, the package would enable her to clear her debts and bring her business back from the brink.
“It’s only until I can find someone to fill the job permanently,” he added when she hesitated. “Surely the children’s shelter can spare you for a time?”
“As a casual, I work whatever shifts I’m available, so leave isn’t the problem.”
“Then what is the problem?”
He was, she admitted inwardly. No man had ever excited her the way Nicholas did. From the moment she set eyes on him, her response had been instant and annoyingly physical. If she agreed to work for him would it get worse, or would familiarity end up breeding contempt? There was only one way to find out.
“Your offer does have its attractions,” she said with more irony than he could possibly know, “but we need to get a few things straight. First, I’d love to look after Maree but I’m not a housekeeper.”
“Not a problem,” he confirmed. “I’ll get someone to clean the house and take care of the laundry.”
“And I’m a terrible cook,” she confessed in a rush.
“But your omelette was the best I’ve ever tasted.”
“It’s the only thing of mine you’ll ever taste. In fact it’s the only thing I can cook. So if that disqualifies me for the job...”
“No, no,” he denied hastily. “Maree is my first concern and you have her approval, which is what matters. As it happens I’m a passable cook when I’m not so worn out, so we can alternate my dinners with your omelettes. Do we have a deal?”
It was probably the craziest thing she had ever done, but she found herself nodding. “We have a deal.”
Chapter Three
Sam Dale loaded another box into Bethany’s hatchback. “Are you sure you have enough stuff in here? I can tie the refrigerator to the back if you like.”
Bethany pulled a face at him. “Very funny. It only looks like a lot because it’s a small car. I didn’t pack too much because I’ll only be at Yarrawong until Nicholas Frakes finds someone compatible to take care of Maree permanently.”
“Compatible with whom?”
To her annoyance Bethany felt herself redden. “With the baby, of course. He isn’t the slightest bit interested in me, only in how well I get along with Maree.” How could he be interested in Bethany after being involved with a famous beauty like Lana Sinden?
Sam’s eyes narrowed. “Are you sure he isn’t interested in you? Forgive my suspicious mind, and I’ll probably hate myself for admitting this, but you are an attractive female, even if you are my little sister. I don’t like the idea of you moving in with a virtual stranger.”
“I’m going to work for him, not move in with him, as you put it,” Bethany denied. Her brother’s compliment, instead of his usual merciless teasing, was a measure of his concern for her. She draped an arm around his shoulders, although she had to reach up a good eight inches to do so. “Relax, big brother. In the first place, twenty-five isn’t so little anymore. And in the second, when I called his professional organization, they acted as if I wanted a reference for God.”
Sam whirled her off her feet, then set her down again. “At least I’ve taught you some sense over the years. What does this guy do, anyway?”
She frowned, recalling what she had learned. “This guy as you call him is Dr. Nicholas Frakes, Ph.D., and he does consulting work in acoustical engineering for the government. I gather most of his work is classified, but it has something to do with measures to counteract military and industrial eavesdropping.”
Sam grinned. “So walls really do have ears these days?”
“So it seems. All you have to do is point the right laser gadget at a building to hear everything that’s going on inside.”
“Maybe I should hire one and park myself outside your new boss’s, property.”
She threw a beach towel at him. “Go wash your mind out with soap.”
Sam’s grin widened as he snatched the towel out of midair. “You’re attracted to the good doctor, aren’t you?”
“Of course not.” The denial sounded forced even to her own ears.
“Then why are you going to work for him. If it’s only the money there are lots of jobs you can do right here in Melbourne, without marooning yourself in the hills.”
Bethany had asked herself the same question many times in the few days since she accepted Nicholas’s proposition. Sam didn’t know how desperate she was for money right now, and she had no intention of telling him. He would bankrupt himself before letting her struggle, which was precisely why he couldn’t know the full extent of her problems. His fledgling furniture-making business was far from prosperous, and although she had no doubt it would be one day, for now he needed every cent of his capital to keep his own business afloat.
He was right, it wasn’t only money that attracted her to working for Nicholas Frakes. The salary he had offered would solve a lot of her problems, and being able to write about the Frakes Baby House was also a coup, but it still didn’t explain why she felt such a strong need to accept the job.
In Nicholas’s kitchen she had experienced a real sense of belonging, of being accepted without judgment—something her recent experience with Alexander Kouros had made her wonder if she would ever know again. She had been so sure she and Alexander had had a future, although now that she thought about it, his voluble, multigeneration family had always overwhelmed her a little. She was used to large families, but the sense of tradition pervading the Kouros household was stronger than anything in her own family.
Among the Dales, people were accepted on their own merits, innocent until proven guilty and even then cut a considerable amount of slack. Alexander’s father ruled his family with an iron hand, making it clear that Alexander, as the oldest son, would carry on the family’s catering business and most important of all, the family name.
In front of everyone, Stavros and Ellie, Alexander’s father and mother, had happily discussed their future daughter-in-law’s breeding potential. Bethany’s full hips, a source of annoyance to her for years, had pleased them as a sign that she could bear many strong, healthy sons.
It had never occurred to any of them that her hips were the only part of her suited to childbearing. Unknown to anyone including Bethany herself until she needed a checkup for a minor complaint, her ability to have children had been destroyed by the aftereffects of a ruptured appendix in her teens.
She had expected Alexander to be as devastated as she was, but she had also expected his love and support. When he learned that surgery offered her a less than thirty percent chance of removing the scar tissue, he had urged her to go ahead although she explained that the operation couldn’t guarantee she would ever be able to conceive.
She would never forget his disgusted expression when she had suggested fostering or adopting children as her own parents had done.
“They would not have Kouros blood,” he had said, unconsciously echoing his father’s arrogant tones. “It is not a viable alternative.” Then he had walked out.
She had accepted that it was over but hadn’t expected it to hurt so much. Finding out she would never have a baby of her own was bad enough, but Alexander’s rejection had made her feel like damaged goods. The pain still dragged at her, and she knew that her motive to accept Nicholas’s offer was as much for the chance to remind herself of all she still had to offer as it was to solve her financial worries.
Her reverie was interrupted by a shrill call from Bethany’s first-floor window. It was Amanda, Sam’s current girlfriend, who’d come along supposedly to help with the packing, but had spent most of the time drinking coffee and looking decorative. “Telephone for you, Beth. It’s Nick Frakes.”
Bethany gritted her teeth. “Coming.” To Sam, she said, “Can’t you convince Mandy that I hate being called Beth?” She enjoyed it about as much as she imagined Nicholas would like being referred to as Nick.
Sam shrugged. “I’ve told her but she forgets.”
“What does she call you?”
“What do you think? Samuel, of course.”
Maybe Nicholas had changed his mind about hiring her, Bethany thought as she took the stairs two at a time. Maybe Lana Sinden had returned and decided three would be a crowd. It was a surprisingly depressing idea. Bethany silenced the fruitless speculation with a frown. She would know the answer in another two seconds.
Amanda was waiting by the phone and didn’t move away when Bethany picked up the receiver. Cursing her brother’s taste in women, she turned her back slightly. “Hello, Nicholas?”