‘Not true, sweetheart. How could I possibly continue to dislike a woman who spent three-thousand dollars saving the life of her poor little puddy-tat?’
‘Oh,’ she said, and then did the unthinkable.
She blushed.
RYAN could not believe it when Laura’s cheeks flushed a bright red. For a second or two, he was troubled by her reaction. But then he saw it for what it was: a natural response to the unexpected occurence of a man saying something genuinely nice about her.
Ryan suspected that Laura had been short of male compliments over the past few years, particularly with the way she dressed and acted. Clearly, she’d shut down after that disastrous affair she’d had with her client. He would have liked to know a few more details about that affair but knew better than to ask right now.
‘I hope I haven’t said anything out of order,’ he said instead. ‘There’s no reason why I can’t like you, is there?’
To give her credit, she regathered her composure with astonishing speed. ‘Of course not,’ she said with her usual brusqueness. ‘You just took me by surprise, that’s all. And, for what it’s worth, I find I can’t continue to totally dislike a man who would give up his weekend to make my gran happy.’
He had to smile. ‘Careful. We don’t want to get too carried away with the mutual compliments, do we?’
‘You don’t want me to start lying to you, do you?’ she countered tartly.
‘Not till we get to our destination, at which point I think some judicious lying will be necessary, along with some judicious flattery and flirting.’
‘Flirting!’
He almost chuckled at the horror on her face.
‘Absolutely,’ he said with a brilliant poker face. ‘You do know how to flirt, don’t you, Laura?’
‘I’ve never been a flirter. Or a flatterer.’
No, he thought ruefully. You wouldn’t have been.
‘In that case, it’s time you learned. Or are you planning on spending the rest of your life as an old maid?’
She shot him a mutinous look. ‘How I spend the rest of my life is none of your business.’
‘For pity’s sake,’ he snapped, feeling angry with her now. ‘What is it with you? Okay, so some bastard hurt you way back when, obviously very badly. But he’s only one man, not the whole male race. We’re not all rotters. You have to move on, woman. Get back on the horse, so to speak.’
‘Thank you very much!’ she ground out sarcastically.
‘You will, if you do what I say. Look, this weekend is a perfect opportunity for you to learn how to flirt. You can practise on me to your heart’s content without having to put up with any awkward consequences.’
‘No kidding.’
‘You can cut the sarcasm for starters.’
Her sigh sounded … what—weary? Frustrated?
Suddenly he saw that he was being way too forceful. It was a bad habit of his, trying to fix things and to control things. A result maybe of his childhood where everything had been out of his control.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m being obnoxious, aren’t I?’
‘Very,’ she said.
‘You can tell me to shut up, if you like.’
‘Shut up, Ryan.’
He laughed. ‘I promise not be so bossy when we get to your family’s place.’
‘Don’t change too much,’ she advised him dryly. ‘Gran likes forceful men.’
‘But you don’t, Laura. I’m playing your Mr Right, not your gran’s.’
‘And you think you know what my Mr Right would be like?’ she scoffed.
‘I could hazard a guess.’
‘Do tell.’
‘He’d be a true gentleman, for starters. Slightly old-fashioned in a way. But there’d be no chauvinism in him. He’d treat you wonderfully, like a princess. He’d be passionate, but gentle at the same time. Gentle and protective.’
When he slanted a quick glance her way, he could see that he was right on the mark.
‘What are you?’ she asked with surprise in her voice. ‘A mind reader?’
‘No, but I’m a pretty good listener. I heard the way you described your father and I realised he was your ideal man. I dare say the man who hurt you so badly seemed like your ideal man, but it was only a façade. Underneath, he was anything but.’
Laura’s grim silence touched an empathetic chord inside him. Ryan understood full well that talking about some things did not help. All it did was dredge up old memories which were better left unvisited.
‘Sounds like he was a right bastard,’ he continued. ‘One best forgotten.’
Still, she didn’t say a word.
‘Time for some relaxing distraction, I think,’ he said, and put on the radio.
‘Now put your seat back a little and let some of that tension flow out of your body,’ he ordered. ‘And, before you tell me to shut up again, I think you should know that there’s a small part of every woman who wants a man to be forceful with her when the time is right—which is now. So swallow that sarcastic remark which I’m sure your tongue is itching to deliver and just do what I’m telling you. Okay?’
He was pleased when she didn’t object. In fact, she did exactly as he suggested—put her seat back, closed her eyes and let out a very long sigh. He wasn’t quite sure what was going on inside her head, but soon she began to look a lot more relaxed. In fact, if he wasn’t mistaken, she actually drifted off to sleep. It occurred to him that she might not have slept much the night before, worrying over the weekend ahead.
Still, it was as well that he knew the way north as far as the Hawkesbury river. Otherwise, he might have had to rouse her for directions. If he remembered rightly, the Hawkesbury was about a half-hour drive from where they were at the moment. That would give Laura enough time for a cat nap before he’d be forced to disturb her.
Five minutes later, he turned right onto the motorway where he accelerated up to a more enjoyable speed. The traffic thinned appreciably with the triple lanes and the powerful car ate up the miles. The suburban landscape quickly gave way to thick bushland on either side of the road which had been cut through the rocky hills. In considerably less than the half-hour he’d estimated, Ryan began the long incline which he recalled led down to the river and the small hamlet of Brooklyn.
He’d rented a houseboat there once, on a recommendation from a mate who said it was just the place for a romantic weekend getaway.
Ryan frowned as he struggled to remember the name of the girl he’d brought with him. Strange; that had only been about three years ago. Maybe not even that long. Yet he could not remember her name, or even her face. All that came to mind was his pleasure at being out in the open on the water. And the fact that he’d caught a fish.
He glanced over at Laura for a moment. This weekend would hardly qualify as a real romantic getaway. But Ryan rather suspected that he would never forget it, just as he would never forget Laura Ferrugia.
Ryan smiled wryly at this last thought. Impossible to forget the most irritating female he’d ever met!