The Sister Swap. Susan Napier
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tell you to shut the hell up!’
Anne’s own impulsive temper began to build up steam. ‘Is your vocabulary so stunted you can’t express yourself without swearing?’
‘That’s rich, coming from you!’ he shot back. ‘That rock singer you’re so impressed with was shrieking out far worse at the top of his lungs.’
Anne had the grace to blush. ‘Well—er—the music puts it in a different context,’ she said weakly.
‘Oh, I see. You don’t mind being cursed at, as long as it’s to music.’
She was beginning to get the uncomfortable feeling that this hulking man might be able to run intellectual as well as physical rings around her. She was nervous enough about her move from a tiny rural town to the huge, sprawling city of Auckland and the new life she was embarking on, especially fraught as it was with guilty secrets. She didn’t need any additional undermining of her confidence. Katlin had been bad enough. Her elder sister had deeply impressed on Anne the dire conse- quences of being found out in their deception, at the same time hastily assuring her that the chances of dis- covery were infinitesimal…as long as Anne kept a cool head. Easier said than done.
‘Look, would you mind stating your business—?’
‘I thought I had.’
Anne frowned, her fly-away brows losing their faintly surprised natural arch. ‘You mean about the noise?’ Suddenly the light dawned. ‘Oh, are you from downstairs?’ That would explain the bulging muscles. The men she had seen in the docking bay of the warehouse when she had arrived had been heaving about enormous crates as if they were made of marshmallow. ‘I thought everyone in the warehouse knocked off at four, and anyway, I can’t believe that sound from here would travel—’
‘Not the warehouse. I live in the apartment next door,’ he snapped, jerking a thumb over his shoulder at the open door. ‘And, believe me, the sound travels between the two all too well.’
Anne’s mouth dropped open. ‘Next door? But you can’t be.’ Her voice rose accusingly. ‘Nobody said any- thing about there being anyone else living here!’
Quite the reverse, in fact. She had been shown around the sparsely furnished loft atop the warehouse building by a representative from the foundation which had awarded the year-long grant. The man had given Anne the distinct impression that she would be totally alone and undisturbed in her cosy eyrie close to the sprawling city campus of Auckland University. He certainly hadn’t mentioned any surly, beetle-browed neighbour. The fact that she would have no interfering fellow-residents poking their curious noses into her life and work had been the deciding factor in her agreeing to fulfil the conditions of the grant. Now this, when it was too late to back out!
Thank God she had put her foot down over the money that went along with the grant—at least her conscience was clear on that score. Katlin had wanted to give her the majority of the modest monthly pension, but Anne had adamantly refused to accept anything more than direct expenses, of which she kept a very strict account, just in case there were any official questions later. For herself, Anne was using the precious savings that she had accrued over the years from selling eggs, honey and vegetables at the family farm gate.
‘Perhaps they assumed we wouldn’t notice each other,’ he said sarcastically. ‘Fat chance if you intend to run a one-woman disco at all hours of the day and night…’
Anne’s mouth snapped shut to stop herself saying something equally rude. Live and let live was her motto. If they were neighbours then she’d just have to try and make the best of it.
‘Hardly at all hours, since I’ve only just moved in. I was just celebrating, that’s all,’ she said in her normal, soft, conciliatory tones.
The reply she received was bluntly non-conciliatory. ‘Well, celebrate quietly in future. The walls here are paper-thin. And cut out the acrobatics. These floorboards run almost the length of the whole upper floor. Vibrations travel as effectively as noise.’
Anne’s hazel eyes narrowed. ‘Then you’d better get shock-absorbers as well as ear-muffs because I dance to keep fit.’
That led the fierce black gaze to wander down over her huge, baggy, less-than-pure-white T-shirt and calflength purple cotton leggings with the little darned patch on her knee.
‘Fit for what?’ The rag-bag, was the suggestion in his dismissive gaze.
‘To stand up to bullies like you,’ she snapped. ‘Now you’ve performed your neighbourly act of welcome, would you mind shutting the door behind you? And next time don’t come in until you’re invited!’
‘There won’t be a next time. As far as you’re concerned no one else does live in this building, understand?’
Anne blinked. She understood all right. He was insinuating that she might pester him with unwanted attentions …after he had come thrusting his way into her attention! ‘I won’t bother you as long as you don’t bother me!’ she told him. ‘For your information, Mr—Mr whoever-you-are—’
‘Lewis. Hunter Lewis, Miss Tremaine.’ He glared at her as if he expected to be challenged over his name, and she was momentarily side-tracked from her righteous indignation.
‘How do you know who I am?’
‘You’re the Markham Grant.’
That took the wind out of her sails. The private grant scheme was very low-key and had received no publicity beyond a brief announcement in a literary magazine, the aim being to create a totally unpressured environment in which a writer could work. Was it coincidence that he knew of it, or was he in some way connected with the foundation? Her heart sank at the thought.
‘Oh. Are you here on a grant too?’ she asked cautiously.
‘No, I’m not,’ he snapped, as if she had insulted him. ‘And I’m surprised they’re handing them out like lollies to children these days.’ He gave her brightly mismatched outfit another contemptuous study.
‘Whatever happened to the concept of struggle and suffering for the sake of one’s art? If every new writer got provided with a cushy number in his or her creative infanthood we’d have a generation of writers producing work with as much emotional depth as the telephone directory!’
The door had swung shut behind him before Anne could recover from her shock at the scathing attack. Belatedly she rushed over and flung it open again, just in time to see him duck through a door under the short flight of stairs at the end of the corridor which led to a small, flat section of the roof. She had noticed the door previously but had assumed from its battered appearance and narrow dimensions that it was some kind of caretaker’s store-room.
‘Well!’ she exclaimed disgustedly, annoyed that she hadn’t been quick enough to come up with some pithy little comment that would have hurried him on his way. Not that he’d needed any hurrying. He evidently couldn’t get away from her fast enough.
She turned back to survey her new home and was jolted out of her preoccupation by the sound of slow applause.
‘Oh, my gosh!’ She rushed over to the boxes, pushing them apart until she discovered her concealed audience. The applause was slow because every second clap failed to connect, the owner of the hands not quite having the co-ordination to match his enthusiasm.
‘Oh, Ivan, I forgot all about you!’ She snatched up the chubby baby, horrified by her lapse in attention. ‘What did you crawl in there for? Did that nasty man frighten you?’
Ivan’s face crunched up and for one horrifying moment his rumpled, downy black eyebrows and narrowed dark eyes actually resembled those of the obnoxious Hunter Lewis. Ivan even had the same midnightblack hair…
But no—Anne brought her panicked speculations to a screeching halt. He thought Anne was Katlin Tremaine, so he had never met her striking sister. Besides, Katlin said Ivan’s father was Russian. Hunter Lewis might