‘If she’s worked that hard,’ Blair said gently, ushering Stevie through the gate, ‘then she might deserve to win.’
Stevie stopped. Blair stopped too. ‘You really, truly think I have a chance and you’re not just saying that because you’re our mentor and that’s what you’re supposed to say?’
‘I really, truly mean it.’ Blair crossed her heart. Then she frowned. ‘Is winning that important to you?’
The younger girl shook her head. ‘I just want to know that I have as good a chance as the others, that’s all.’
She sensed there was more. ‘And?’
‘Sometimes I want to be … just more than jeans and T-shirts!’ she burst out. ‘My mum died when I was little so I don’t have anyone to show me how to do all that girly stuff, and when I try I just look stupid!’
No mother? And a father who didn’t think she was pretty? Blair’s heart started to throb for this lovely girl. ‘Scarves,’ she suddenly pronounced.
‘Wha—? I beg your pardon?’
‘I don’t think frills and lots of jewellery are your kind of thing, Stevie. You’d probably find them too fussy. But you can add the most gorgeous feminine touch by using a scarf. And if you wake up in the morning and don’t feel like doing feminine you can change the scarf to something funky or something classic instead. With your lovely cheekbones and long throat you’d look great in a scarf. I’ll do a class on them.’
Stevie stared. ‘Really?’ she breathed.
Something inside Blair’s chest flickered. ‘Sure, why not?’
Stevie continued to stare as if Blair had just given her the secret to the universe. Blair cleared her throat, suddenly self-conscious. ‘Stevie, you want to know my secret?’
The younger girl leant forward, suddenly eager. ‘You mean your secret to winning Miss Showgirl?’ she breathed.
Blair nodded. ‘Bluff.’
Stevie’s face fell. ‘Bluff?’
‘Pretending, play-acting, fooling everyone into believing what you want them to believe—that you’re smart and pretty and confident. If you act like you think you’re pretty and smart and have something to offer the world, if you walk and talk and meet people’s stares head-on with that kind of confidence and belief in yourself, they’ll start to see that you really are something special. And they’ll treat you with respect. It’s not easy to begin with,’ she warned. ‘It’s really, really hard. But it works. And eventually you’ll realise that you’re not pretending any more. You’ll discover that you really are pretty and smart and confident.’
And then, sometimes, something happens that takes it all from you again.
She tried not to flinch at that thought. She tried to banish it to a place where it couldn’t batter her shattered self-esteem further.
‘Bluff?’ Stevie said as if testing the word out.
Blair lifted her chin and squared her shoulders. ‘Bluff.’ And if she said it a little too strongly then so be it. ‘So, will I see you on Thursday?’
Nick slammed his brakes on the moment he saw Stevie. He pulled the car over to the side of the road. What on earth …? She’d told him she was spending the day baking with her best friend Poppy and Poppy’s mother.
So what was his daughter doing here at the exit to the showground, talking to some woman he’d never seen before?
The showground …?
The Miss Showgirl quest?
Nick bit back a groan and rested his head against the steering wheel for a moment before pushing himself out of the car. He dragged a breath into a chest that hurt. ‘Stevie?’
Stevie spun around and her face fell. Almost comically, he noted, only he didn’t feel the least like laughing. Her chin shot up as he drew near. ‘Hey, Dad.’
She said it as if nothing were amiss, but he sensed her defensiveness and it made his hands clench. She said it as if she hadn’t been lying to him. His chest ached harder. ‘What are you doing here?’ He tried to keep his voice even, but he knew his suspicions were about to be confirmed and that made evenness impossible. ‘You told me you were spending the day at Poppy’s.’
She gave a bored shrug and his hands clenched tighter. Where on earth had his madcap, full of laughter, full of fun daughter gone? When had she morphed into all this … attitude?
He didn’t address the unknown woman who’d been talking to Stevie. He didn’t even look at her. This was between him and his daughter. ‘Well?’ He tapped his foot—not that it helped to release much of the tension that had him coiled up tight. ‘Well?’ he demanded again.
Stevie tossed her head. Just for a moment something flickered behind her eyes—something he almost recognised—before her face became an ache of resentment. ‘I’ve just signed on for the Miss Showgirl quest.’
Suspicion confirmed! He hauled in a breath. ‘I told you I would not countenance you taking part in that contest.’
Countenance? When in his life had he ever used that word?
Stevie’s eyes flashed. ‘I decided not to take your advice.’
His control finally slipped. ‘It wasn’t advice. It was an order!’ Stevie enter some stupid beauty pageant? Over his dead body!
He was in charge of his daughter’s moral wellbeing. Letting her get involved in some shallow sham of a contest that objectified women and led young girls to believe their looks were more important than anything else? He snorted. He’d seen what that kind of obsession had done to Sonya. Those weren’t the kind of values he wanted to instil in Stevie. Family, commitment, the long haul—those were things worth pursuing.
‘You can haul your butt back in there and unregister yourself. Now! You are not taking part in that contest!’
‘No.’
The single word chilled him. And it made him blink. Stevie had never openly defied him before.
‘I’m sixteen.’ She planted her hands on her hips. ‘In another two years I’ll be allowed to vote. I have a right to make some decisions about my life and I’m making this one. I’m entering Miss Showgirl whether you like it or not. Whether you support me or not.’
For a moment he could barely think. A part of him even acknowledged that she might have a point.
‘And, regardless of what you think,’ she suddenly yelled at him, ‘Blair Macintyre thinks I have a chance!’
With that she turned and fled in the direction of home.
Blair Macintyre? The name flooded his mind, freezing him. Blair Macintyre? He wished to God that woman had never been born. Or at least that she’d been born and had grown up somewhere other than Dungog. For the life of him he couldn’t remember her, but the constant refrain he’d heard during the course of his marriage to Sonya had been, Blair Macintyre this and Blair Macintyre that. Here she was on the cover of some glossy magazine. There she was on the catwalk in Paris … London … New York. Wherever!
If Blair Macintyre can do it then so can I!
And Sonya had. But that world had destroyed her. He would not let that happen to Stevie. He would do anything to protect his little girl.
The sound of a throat being cleared snapped him to. Damn it, he’d forgotten all about that unknown woman. He turned towards her. ‘I’m Nicholas Conway, and I’m sorry you—’
Everything inside him clenched up tight when he finally came face to face with the woman. He