Marion Lennox – The Australian's Desire: Their Lost-and-Found Family / Long-Lost Son: Brand-New Family / A Proposal Worth Waiting For (страница 19)

She was so far from what he thought was desirable in a woman that he shouldn’t have even looked. He liked his women controlled. Elegant. Like … well, like Eloise.

But he couldn’t keep his eyes off her.

Then as the night wore on she approached him. He’d suggested—tentatively if he recalled it right—that they dance. She’d tugged him onto the floor, put her arms around his neck, started moving that gorgeous body in time to the music, close against him …

Alistair’s world was carefully controlled. He’d learned the hard way what happened when that control was lost. How many times had he heard his father use that dumb line—‘I just couldn’t help myself.’

Yeah, well, he could help himself, until he held Georgie in his arms, until he smelt the wild musk smell of her perfume, until he felt her hair brush his cheek …

He picked her up and carried her out of the hall. That, too, was partly at her instigation. ‘Do you want to take me home, big boy?’

It had been a really dumb line. A total cliché. But it was an invitation he couldn’t resist. She held him tight around the neck and she let her knees buckle so he had no choice but to sweep her up into her arms. And carry her outside …

It was just as well Gina saw them go. His cousin moved like lightning, furious with him, concerned for her friend, acting like he was some sort of ghastly sexual predator.

‘She’s in trouble,’ Gina told him. ‘She’s not acting normally. She’s vulnerable. Leave her alone.’

It was like a douche of iced water. Waking him up from a trance.

He left Georgie to her. He walked away, thinking he’d never see her again. But thinking … vulnerable? How the hell did Gina figure that out?

The next day, halfway through Gina’s tour of the hospital, they walked into the midwifery ward and there she was. Georgie Turner. Obstetrician.

He’d assumed she held some sort of menial job at the hospital. But an obstetrician. He was stunned.

She didn’t speak to him. He walked into the ward and she walked out. Once again he felt belittled. Guilty for a sin he hadn’t had a chance to commit.

He should have got over it. And he was, he thought, gazing down at Georgie’s face on the white pillow. He didn’t want anything to do with someone as needy as Georgie.

But things had changed. When he’d returned to the States things had seemed different. His relationship with Eloise, seemingly so suitable, had suddenly seemed cloying. Dull?

A month later he’d told Eloise he couldn’t go through with it. Not because of Georgie—or not directly because of Georgie. It was just that Georgie had showed him there was a life on the other side of control. He hadn’t wanted it, but it hadn’t been fair to Eloise to settle for her as an alternative. Eloise had hardly seemed disappointed, staying friends, accepting his decision with calmness. That had been great. That was why he admired her so much. He wanted that level of control.

He had it—except when he saw Georgie.

He couldn’t stay to watch Georgie sleep. It didn’t make sense.

But he wanted to stay.

‘It’s no use wanting what we can’t have.’ It was his mother’s whiny voice, echoing from his childhood. When his father had disappeared in a cloud of gambling debts, taking off with a woman half his age, his mother’s voice had moved to whine and had never returned to normal.

‘You keep your life under control. You make sure—make sure, Alistair, any way you know how that you never put yourself in the position where you can be humiliated so much you want to take your own life. I’m so close to suicide … All I have is you. Oh, Alistair, be careful.’

It had been a dreadful threat to hang on a child, but Alistair had known she’d meant it. If he’d threatened her nice stable existence—her pride in her son …

Well, he hadn’t. He wouldn’t even now, when his mother was long dead. So what the hell was he doing, staring down at this sleeping woman and thinking …?

He shook himself. He wasn’t thinking anything that’d worry anyone, including him. This was jet-lag. Exhaustion after this morning’s operation. Concern for a woman who had more than she deserved on her shoulders.

So get a grip, he told himself, but he let himself look at her for one long moment before he stood and walked slowly to the door.

And left her to her sleeping.

This wind was getting frightening. As Alistair walked out into the living room a shutter slammed off its hinges, hit the wall, broke off and tumbled crosswise past the house. He heard its progress, not falling but being blown. It was a big shutter.

One of the assembled bridesmaids screamed.

There were so many bridesmaids, still clustered. Apparently they’d dispersed to get their make-up done and now they’d regrouped. How long did bridal preparations last? The photographer was trying to get them lined up but was having trouble.

Gina waved to him from the back row. He hadn’t recognised her until now. Pink tulle?

‘It’s ridiculous,’ she said, abandoning the photo set-up and sidling out of her spot to join him. ‘Poor Em.’

‘Didn’t she plan this?’ he said, staring at … pink?

‘Mrs Poulos planned this,’ she said. ‘Sophia. Mike’s mum. This is a big Greek wedding, just as she’s always dreamed of. Em loves her too much to say no.’

‘I never thought I’d see you in pink tulle.’

‘Apricot,’ she retorted.

‘Right. Apricot.’

‘Sophia wanted the men in apricot dinner suits with apricot and white frills on their dinner shirts. But Mike put his foot down at that. They’re in black tuxes.’

‘Cal, too?’

‘Cal, too.’

‘And for your wedding?’ he asked in a voice of deep foreboding, and she chuckled.

‘If I asked you to wear apricot ruffles to my wedding, would you? Cousin?’

‘No,’ he said, revolted.

‘Not even if I said please?’

‘There’s no love in the world great enough to encompass apricot frills.’

‘Or red stilettos?’ she teased him, and he stopped smiling.

‘Gina …’

‘I know.’ Her smile widened. ‘It’s none of my business. But you and Georgie aren’t slugging any more, I hope?’

‘We were never slugging.’

‘She’s had such a hard time.’

‘I’m starting to realise that.’

‘Georgie’s my only bridesmaid so you have to be nice to her.’ She grinned. ‘And, I promise, no tulle.’

He smiled back. He was trying to think of Georgie in tulle and failing dismally.

‘She’s OK?’ Gina asked.

‘She’d be better if she knew where Max was. I’ve been ringing through a list of her father’s friends.’

‘She let you do that?’ Gina’s eyes widened.

‘I offered.’

‘Yeah, but Georgie …’ She hesitated.

‘Gina, get back in line,’ someone yelled, and Gina sighed and shrugged and smiled.

‘Duty calls. Come and watch the wedding.’

‘I’m not invited.’

‘This is Croc Creek. Everyone’s invited. Come at least to the church. It should be fun.’

And they all left, just like that. The photographer abandoned his work as hopeless and the car drivers ushered the girls out to the waiting cars. They were almost blown off their feet as they ran from house to cars.

Then they were gone, and the silence was unnerving.

What to do?