Read the book: «Appointment At The Altar»
Appointment at the Altar
Jessica Hart
MILLS & BOON
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For Stella and Julia, my City Screen plotting team
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ONE
LUCY leant on the fence and watched Kevin, perched on a rail on the far side of the corral, waiting his turn at bareback bronc riding. In his Akubra hat, checked shirt and dusty boots, he was outback man incarnate. Strong, silent, lean-jawed, quiet-eyed…he made all her other boyfriends look like silly boys.
Not that he was a boyfriend, exactly, much as she would want to have been able to say so. But she was madly in love with him, and he had kissed her the other night. Things could only get better.
She sighed happily. In London now it would be cold and grey, but here she was in the red heart of Australia with its bright, brassy light and its fierce heat. Closing her eyes with a blissful shiver, Lucy turned her face up to the sunlight and breathed in the smell of dust and horses. She could hear the ‘hup! hup!’ cries of the men coaxing reluctant animals into the chute and feel the sun beating on to her borrowed hat.
I’m happy, she thought.
‘Well, if it isn’t Cinderella!’
The amused voice in her ear froze her smile and her eyes snapped open. She didn’t need to turn her head to know who was standing beside her. There was only one person out here with that accent.
That English accent, reeking of privilege and the most expensive education British money could buy.
Guy Dangerfield.
She had been delighted that morning to find herself squeezed into a truck with Kevin and the other stockmen when they left Wirrindago. There had been no sign of either her intimidating boss, Hal Granger, or his deeply annoying English cousin, which meant that they could all relax and have a good time at the rodeo. But now here was Guy, after all, looking irritatingly handsome and sophisticated and utterly out of place in the outback.
‘Oh,’ she said, not bothering to disguise her lack of enthusiasm. ‘It’s you.’
‘It is,’ Guy agreed.
Lucy hated the way he could say something perfectly unexceptional like that with a straight face and yet still make it sound as if he were laughing at her. It was something to do with the ripple of amusement in his voice, or maybe it was to do with his blue, blue eyes, currently hidden by ridiculously mirrored sunglasses, where a smile always seemed to be lurking even if he was only asking her to pass the toast.
What’s so funny? she wanted to yell at him, but she had the nasty feeling that the answer would be her. Nobody else at Wirrindago seemed to find him annoying. They all thought he was great.
Lucy couldn’t understand it. Guy had the kind of assurance that she always associated with generations of privilege and a gold-plated trust fund, and she didn’t trust his practised charm for a moment. The self-deprecating humour and oh-so-engaging smile were completely wasted on her.
‘Why do you always call me Cinderella?’ she asked irritably.
‘Because you’re very pretty and you never seem to be allowed out of the kitchen,’ said Guy.
‘I’m a cook,’ she reminded him with a touch of sarcasm. ‘Providing three meals a day for eight men—and the occasional visitor like you—tends to mean that you spend a lot of time in the kitchen.’
She was rather pleased with the subtle way she had managed to dismiss him as an ‘occasional visitor’. It made her feel better to remember that he was just passing through, while she had every intention of staying for ever.
‘You certainly seem to work very hard,’ Guy agreed. ‘I’d say a day out is the least you deserve. I quite like the idea of a local rodeo as the outback equivalent of going to the ball, don’t you?’ he said, with one of those smiles that Lucy was sure was meant to have her swooning with delight. ‘Hal gets to be the fairy godmother who says you can go, the stockmen’s old truck is the pumpkin that brought you here…now all you need is a Prince Charming!’
He made a show of patting his pockets. ‘You know, I’m sure I had a glass slipper somewhere…’
‘I’ve already found my Prince Charming,’ said Lucy crushingly, and looked pointedly across the ring to where Kevin was watching a snorting stallion being coaxed into the chute. ‘You just get to be an ugly sister,’ she said.
To her annoyance, Guy’s good humour wasn’t even dented, let alone crushed by her dismissive comment. He just laughed, and she sucked her teeth in irritation. Prince Charming indeed! Of course, he would think that was his role. The man was unbelievably conceited. Yes, he was remarkably handsome—even she couldn’t deny that—but that smooth, blond, blue-eyed look didn’t do it for her. She preferred her men rather more rugged.
Like Kevin, in fact.
‘I didn’t realise that you were coming today,’ she said frostily as she turned back to the arena.
‘Hey, the ugly sisters always get to have a good time,’ he reminded her. ‘And rodeos are always fun—to watch, anyway,’ he added as the stallion made short work of bucking the latest rider off his back. Guy winced as he hit the ground with a thud. ‘Ouch,’ he said. ‘It’s something different, too,’ he went on. ‘We don’t get a lot of rodeos at home, do we?’
Lucy hated the way he said ‘we’ like that, as if they had something in common. He was always doing that, reminding her—and everyone else—that she was English too and didn’t really belong out here any more than he did.
She had been having such a lovely time at Wirrindago. Employed as a cook-cum-housekeeper, she had been thrilled by the isolation and the fact that the men still found horses the easiest way to move around the wild country. It was all so different from the way she had grown up in England, and she had been quite carried away by the romance of it all.
Until Guy had turned up.
Lucy wasn’t used to not liking people but from the moment Guy had strolled into the kitchen a few days ago and introduced himself with that smile—the one that seemed to assume that any woman on the receiving end would instantly swoon at his feet—her normally sunny nature had deserted her. There was just something about him that rubbed her up the wrong way, leaving her irritated and edgy.
Guy might be Hal Granger’s cousin, but it was hard to imagine anyone more different or more out of place in the outback. He was so…so…so English, Lucy decided in frustration. He just didn’t belong, and she wished he would go back to London and stop getting on her nerves.
The way he was doing right now.
‘I wouldn’t have thought rodeos were your kind of thing,’ she said.
‘Oh, I don’t know…’ Casually, Guy leant on the rails next to her. The sleeves of his pristine white shirt were rolled up to reveal surprisingly powerful forearms, covered with a fuzz of golden hairs that drew Lucy’s eyes in spite of herself as they glinted in the bright light. There was something overwhelming about him when he was that close, and she found herself edging away.
‘I spent quite a lot of holidays at Wirrindago when I was a kid,’ he was saying, apparently oblivious to her unease. ‘I remember coming to rodeos like this one with Hal. They used to lay on bareback sheep riding and catching the greasy pig for the youngsters.’
He grinned at the memory and she glimpsed a flash of strong white teeth in his brown, too-handsome face. ‘We had some good fun. I used to want to be like those guys over there,’ he went on, nodding to where the stockmen taking part in the rodeo were sitting on the rails looking for all the world like extras in a classic Western. ‘I told my parents I wanted to be a rodeo rider when I left school.’
Lucy stared at him. ‘A rodeo rider?’ His shirt was dazzlingly white in the glare, and she could see the riders on the rails reflected in his sunglasses. There was a sheen to him, she thought, a kind of glamour that belonged on a yacht in St Tropez or skiing off piste in Gstaad, not here at a ramshackle local rodeo with bull-riding and steer-wrestling and greasy pigs. ‘You?’
Still leaning on the rail, Guy glanced up at her with another of those film-star smiles. ‘Funny, that’s exactly what my father said—and he said it in just that tone of voice too!’
Lucy wished he would stop smiling like that. It was too much. He was too much. Too vibrant. Too good-looking. Too charming. Too everything. She looked away, annoyed to find that the smile seemed to have been imprinted on her vision so that it was just as vivid even when she wasn’t looking at him.
‘What did your mother say?’
‘She told me not to be so silly.’
His imitation of his mother’s crisp tones was no doubt wickedly accurate and, in spite of her determination not to find him the slightest bit amusing, Lucy was betrayed into a laugh, which she tried to cover by adjusting the old stockman’s hat on her head. She had borrowed it that morning and it was a little big, but it made her feel authentic, unlike Guy Dangerfield, smile or no smile. He might have a closer connection to the outback than she did, but at least she tried to fit in. He just stuck out like the proverbial sore thumb.
‘I’m surprised you’re not having a go today if you were that keen,’ she said.
‘I know better now,’ said Guy. ‘I leave the hard stuff to the experts like Prince Charming over there.’
He nodded across the ring to where Kevin was sitting on the rails, looking quietly confident as another wild horse pawed the ground in the chute, impatient for release into the ring. ‘You need to be tough to take on bareback bronc riding.’
‘I know,’ said Lucy, deciding to ignore the Prince Charming jibe. ‘Kevin says it’s the supreme rodeo challenge,’ she was unable to resist adding. She was at that stage of infatuation when just saying Kevin’s name was a thrill.
‘Kevin said something?’ Guy straightened from the rail in mock astonishment. ‘When? I didn’t know he could talk!’
‘Very funny,’ said Lucy coldly.
‘You’ve got to admit that he’s not exactly chatty,’ he said. ‘I’ve hardly heard him say a word at meals since I arrived. I mean, we all know about strong silent types, but that’s ridiculous!’
‘There’s nothing ridiculous about Kevin,’ Lucy flared up. ‘He just doesn’t say anything unless it’s worth saying. It’s one of the things that makes him a real man—unlike some,’ she added pointedly.
Guy leant back against the fence and folded his arms, but Lucy was sure that behind those stupid sunglasses, his eyes were dancing.
‘So you think a real man incapable of making conversation?’
‘No, he just doesn’t waste his time spouting stupid rubbish—like giving people silly nicknames, for instance!’
‘Cinders, are you by any chance implying that you don’t think I am a real man?’ Guy tsk-tsked. ‘I’m hurt!’
If Lucy had believed for a moment that he had been really offended she would have been embarrassed, but, as it was, she just lifted her chin at him.
‘You’re not like Kevin,’ she said.
‘Apart from the fact that I can string more than three words together at a time, what’s the real difference between us?’
‘Kevin’s tough,’ said Lucy. ‘He’s steady, he’s sensible and he works hard.’ Belatedly, she realised that she hadn’t made him sound much fun, and she waited for Guy to point it out, but he only grinned.
‘How do you know you couldn’t say the same thing about me?’
She eyed him with frustration. Surely he must know how frivolous and superficial he appeared next to someone like Kevin? ‘You don’t seem to take anything very seriously,’ she said at last. ‘Do you even have a job?’
‘Of course I do!’ He pretended to sound affronted. ‘I’m in investment banking.’
‘Oh…banking,’ said Lucy disparagingly. ‘That’s not a real job.’
‘Hey, it’s not all late lunches and corporate jollies, you know!’
‘How did you get into banking?’
Guy smiled crookedly. ‘I have to admit that it’s a family firm.’
Just as she’d thought. No doubt he’d been given a token job with a plush office to sit in while everyone else did all the work, Lucy decided. He probably rolled up at ten and spent most of the day at lunch catching up with pals on the old boys’ network.
‘I don’t think you can compare working in a bank with what Kevin does,’ she said, determinedly unimpressed. ‘You don’t need the same kind of skills.’
‘Maybe,’ said Guy, ‘but what can Kevin do that I can’t?’
‘Well…he’s a brilliant horseman.’ Lucy had never, in fact, seen Kevin on a horse. As Guy had pointed out, she was usually in the kitchen when the stockmen were at work, but she had heard them talking about how good Kevin was often enough.
‘I can ride.’
‘I don’t mean English riding.’
‘English riding?’ Guy raised his brows, a smile hovering around his mouth, and she gestured irritably.
‘You know what I mean. Just sitting on the back of the horse and pottering along a country lane. I’m talking about real horsemanship—working with the horse, being able to control it absolutely the way Kevin can. Taming a wild horse, or bringing down a cow without hurting it…all the things he does every day.’
‘I admit I don’t spend a lot of time on horseback in the bank, but that doesn’t mean I couldn’t be a stockman if I wanted. Could Kevin run an investment bank, do you think?’
Lucy looked at him suspiciously. ‘Are you really telling me that you can ride like Kevin?’
‘I’m not saying I’m any good, I’m just saying that I could be a real man if I wanted to.’
As usual, his face was poker straight, but his voice held that undercurrent of amusement that so riled Lucy. She didn’t believe a word of it. He was just teasing her, probably miffed because she thought that Kevin was more of a man.
Lucy’s chin went up. She had had enough of being teased by Guy over the last few days. ‘Prove it,’ she said.
‘Prove that I can ride?’ Guy rubbed his jaw, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. ‘Short of throwing myself on to a spare horse, I’m not sure how I can do that.’
‘We’re at a rodeo,’ she pointed out sweetly. ‘There are plenty of horses back there.’ She nodded in the direction of the holding pens behind the makeshift arena. ‘You could take part in one of the competitions.’
‘Have you seen those horses?’ Guy made a comic face. ‘Half of them are completely wild!’
Lucy shrugged. ‘You said you could ride,’ she reminded him.
‘Well, there’s riding and riding, if you know what I mean.’
‘You’re the one who said you could ride like Kevin. I don’t think it would be easy, but a real man would like a challenge. You obviously don’t,’ she finished dismissively, and then regretted it because Guy had straightened and suddenly he seemed very solid and very close.
For one frozen moment she thought she might have gone too far, but then he smiled. Taking off his sunglasses, he looked directly into Lucy’s hostile eyes. ‘I wouldn’t say that, Cinderella,’ he said softly.
Lucy had the strangest impression that the noise and smells of the rodeo had faded around them while blue eyes locked with blue. Hers were the blue of a summer sky, while Guy’s were darker, a deep ocean blue where laughter lurked like sunlight glinting on the water and, as she stared up at him, held against her will by their gleaming depths, she was suddenly acutely aware of him.
Ever since he had arrived, she had dismissed Guy as a playboy, too handsome for his own good, too charming to be real, but now, all at once, she saw him as a man. A man with warm brown skin and a hint of golden stubble, with a strong jaw and a slightly crooked nose and laughter lines creasing those blue, blue eyes, and something turned over inside her at the realisation that he was not only a very real man but that he was very close.
‘In fact,’ Guy went on, and his voice held that disturbing undercurrent of amusement and something else that sent a tiny shiver down Lucy’s spine, ‘I’d say that I enjoy a challenge just as much as the next man, if not more.’
Swallowing, Lucy succeeded in wrenching her gaze away from his at last and she took a step back. ‘You’ll do it, then?’ she said a little unsteadily. She felt odd, as if the ground had been cut away beneath her feet somehow.
Guy grinned again and, in spite of herself, her pulse gave a little kick. ‘You know it would be much easier if you would just believe me.’
‘I’ll believe you when you take part in the next round. It’s calf roping next, so they’ll give you a proper horse.’
‘Calf-roping? You couldn’t pick something a bit harder?’ said Guy humorously. ‘That means I’ve not only got to stay on the horse but catch a calf with a lasso.’
‘It’ll be a challenge,’ Lucy agreed. ‘And according to you, you like one of those!’
‘Ah, well, if that’s what it takes to convince you, I suppose I’d better—’He broke off as an ‘ooooh’ came from the crowd standing around the ring. ‘Isn’t that Kevin?’
‘Kevin?’ Lucy turned sharply to see Kevin rolling free of the horses’ hooves in a little cloud of dust, but he was smiling broadly as he stood up and helped the men catch the horse that was still bucking furiously around the edge of the ring. People were clapping too, so presumably he had stayed on the horse’s back for longer than the others.
She had missed his moment of glory. Lucy was mortified, and furious with Guy for distracting her. When Kevin dodged his way across the ring towards her, she gave him a dazzling smile that pointedly excluded Guy.
‘You did brilliantly,’ she said, trusting that he had been too busy clinging on to the horse to notice that she’d been talking to Guy instead of watching him.
‘Wasn’t bad,’ said Kevin laconically.
‘Congratulations,’ said Guy, muscling in where he wasn’t wanted, as usual. Anyone with any sensitivity would have murmured an excuse and slipped away to leave her alone with Kevin, but not Guy! No, he was right there, shaking Kevin’s hand, being friendly and interested and asking him about the skills he needed to stay in the saddle so long, until Kevin was getting positively loquacious.
‘Isn’t it time you went and got ready for the calf-roping, Guy?’ Lucy interrupted as a megaphone crackled into life with an announcement about the next competition. ‘You don’t want to miss your chance to have a go, do you?’
‘You going in for that, Guy?’ asked Kevin and she couldn’t help noticing that he seemed more interested in that than in anything she had had to say.
‘So it seems,’ he said, smiling. ‘Lucy’s issued a challenge that I can’t refuse, although I’m not sure that I’ll be able to take part. I wouldn’t blame the organisers if they didn’t want amateurs messing up their competition.’
Lucy wasn’t going to let him weasel out of it that easily. ‘At least you can go and see.’
Kevin looked puzzled as Guy strolled off. ‘I didn’t know he could use a rope,’ he said.
‘He can’t,’ she said scornfully. ‘He’s just calling my bluff. You wait, he’ll be back in a minute with some excuse about why he can’t do it.’
But Guy didn’t come back. Lucy should have been perfectly happy now that she was alone with Kevin, but her attention kept being distracted by the laughter from where all the contestants were gathered. Whenever she glanced over, she could see Guy, clowning around, pretending to get on a horse the wrong way round, borrowing a hat, making everybody laugh.
What a show off the man was! Lucy turned her eyes determinedly back to Kevin’s ruggedly handsome profile, but it was hard to concentrate with Guy playing to the crowd like that.
The sooner this farce was over, the better, she decided, and was relieved when it seemed to be Guy’s turn. They had found him a horse. Someone would give him a boost into the saddle, he could hold on long enough to go round the ring, and she supposed she would have to give him credit for having tried when—
Oh.
Fully expecting him to bungle mounting his horse, Lucy was taken aback when Guy swung easily into the saddle in one fluid movement. Astounded, she watched him manoeuvre his horse behind the barrier and wait while the calf was released from the chute and given a ten second start.
Alarmed by the unfamiliar surroundings, the calf blundered round and round the makeshift arena, looking for a way out until the barrier was raised, and Guy spurred his horse forward, keeping pace with the animal at an easy canter.
Lucy watched, blue eyes gathering wrath as he rode with effortless grace, detaching the lasso from the pommel and testing its weight in his hand as easily as if he had spent his whole life in the saddle.
I can ride. He had told her, but she hadn’t believed him. He had known that she wasn’t going to believe him, and so he had let her think that he was joking. And now there he was, twirling the rope experimentally before sending it snaking through the air to land neatly over the calf’s horns.
Around the ring there was a burst of applause and Guy was instantly in showman mode again, grinning and waving his hat to acknowledge the cheers.
‘Not bad for a Pom,’ said Kevin.
‘No,’ said Lucy tightly. Logically, she knew that Guy couldn’t possibly have set her up to make a fool of herself, but that was how it felt.
‘Come on,’ she said abruptly, having had enough of Guy Dangerfield for one afternoon. ‘Let’s go and find the others.’
‘Might as well dump our swags too,’ said Kevin. ‘There should still be some space down by the creek. That’s where we usually sleep.’
It was a long speech for him, but that wasn’t why Lucy stopped and looked at him blankly. ‘Sleep?’
‘There’s always a party after the rodeo,’ he said as if everybody knew that. ‘We have a few beers and there’s a dance. Nobody wants to drive home after that.’
‘But…I didn’t realise you’d be staying.’ Lucy regarded him with dismay. ‘I promised Hal I’d be back tonight,’ she tried to explain. ‘His niece and nephew are coming tomorrow and I said I’d help him make sure everything was ready.’
Kevin couldn’t see the problem. ‘Hal knows you’re with us. He won’t expect you back until tomorrow.’
She bit her lip uncertainly. ‘Did you bring a swag for me?’
‘Sure did,’ said Kevin and he smiled his slow smile, the one that usually had her heart doing handsprings.
For once, Lucy was too torn to respond. She had longed and longed to spend more time with Kevin, and now, at last, when he seemed to be showing a bit more interest, she wasn’t going to be able to enjoy it. It was so unfair.
If only she could stay. She loved a good party, and tonight would probably be great fun. There would be a barbecue and dancing in the woolshed and later, perhaps, she and Kevin could slip away down to the creek in the starlight…It could be the perfect romantic evening.
How could it be perfect, though, when she had promised Hal she would go back? She would spend the whole time feeling guilty.
Her boss wasn’t the easiest of men and, truth to tell, Lucy was a little intimidated by him, but it was Hal who had given her the job and a chance to work in the outback. If it hadn’t been for him, she would never even have met Kevin. And Hal had made it clear that her priority would be looking after his sister’s children during their stay at Wirrindago. Lucy had signed a stringent contract to that effect but, even if she hadn’t, she wouldn’t have wanted to let him down. She owed him too much.
But how could she insist that Kevin drive her back tonight? The other stockmen would have to come too, as they only had the one truck, and they would all miss the party. They had few enough social occasions to look forward to, Lucy knew. It wouldn’t be fair to them.
She had promised Hal. It wouldn’t be fair to him not to go.
‘I don’t know what to do, Kevin,’ she said helplessly. ‘I’d love to stay, honestly I would, but I did say that I would go back tonight. If I’d known…’
It was at that moment that Guy came strolling up, as pristine as ever. It looked as if he had hardly broken a sweat on that horse in the crushing heat. Lucy eyed him with deep resentment. He could at least have had the decency to fall off. At least then he would look dirty and normal like everyone else.
As it was, she was convinced with no justification whatsoever that the mess she had found herself in was somehow his fault.
‘Satisfied, Cinders?’ he asked with a glinting smile.
Lucy gritted her teeth. ‘Yes,’ she said tersely.
‘You were good,’ said Kevin. ‘You going in for anything else?’
Guy shook his head. ‘I’m challenged out,’ he said with an amused glance at Lucy. ‘I thought I’d head back to Wirrindago now. Hal could do with a bit of support. For a man who can move a thousand head of cattle around without a blink, he seems unnerved by the thought of two children. But I can’t say I blame him!’
‘Maybe Guy would give you a lift back, Lucy,’ said Kevin, and Guy lifted an eyebrow at Lucy in surprise.
‘Aren’t you staying for the ball, Cinders?’
‘It’s not a ball.’ Kevin was bemused. ‘It’s just a party.’
Lucy was too disappointed to explain. She knew he was only trying to help, but he hadn’t even tried to persuade her to stay, and now he was going to offload her on to Guy Dangerfield, of all people!
‘I told Hal I’d be back tonight,’ she admitted to Guy, almost choking on the words. ‘I didn’t realise that everyone else would be staying.’
‘I’m sure Hal would understand if you wanted to go to the party,’ said Guy, who appeared to be able to read her expression without difficulty. ‘It’s not like you’ll really be reduced to rags if you’re here after midnight! I’ll tell him what’s happened, and Kevin can bring you back with the others tomorrow morning.’
‘It’s all right, thank you,’ said Lucy, frigidly polite. She had no intention of enjoying a romantic evening courtesy of Guy, even if she had been sure that Kevin would think to take her down to the creek in the starlight. He certainly didn’t seem to be making any effort to persuade her to stay, she thought glumly. Perhaps he didn’t like her as much as she had hoped?
‘I made a promise,’ she said, ‘and I’ll keep it.’
‘Good girl.’ Guy nodded approvingly. ‘I can’t say I’d mind having some company on the way back,’ he added. ‘It’s a long drive on your own. The pumpkin’s ready whenever you are, Cinders.’
Lucy cast a last longing look at the woolshed. Tonight it would be throbbing with music and laughter, and the old wooden floor would reverberate with dancing feet. The smell of beer would mingle with the smoke from the barbecue, and the light would spill out through the great doors into the vast, silent outback night. It would be the kind of party she had always dreamed of.
And she wouldn’t be there. Kevin would be dancing with a nice Australian girl who could talk horses with him, and she would be stuck with the only Englishman for hundreds of miles around. She could have wept with disappointment, but she had given her word to Hal and there was nothing she could do about it now.
She sighed. ‘I’m ready now,’ she said.
The free excerpt has ended.
