Bleeding Hearts. Lindy Cameron
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done. Oh look, Vic Market is very busy today. I didn't even know they opened on, whatever today is. How are you going back there, Angela?"
"Just dandy, thanks Dylan. I'd be even better if you weren't babbling so loudly."
"Right. I'll shut up now," he said, facing forwards. "The lights aren't going to get any greener, though," he added, giving Kit a sideways smile.
"Dylan, mate," Kit said, making a left turn, "when you're rich and famous - which Rebecca Jones seems to think is in your stars - I'd like you to do something for me."
Dylan eyed Kit suspiciously. "Sure Katherine, if I can."
"If you make any of those big action movies where you play the hero that saves the girl or the world or both, then every time a stunt person takes a fall for you, I'd like you to remember today," Kit said, tapping her face. Ow! That was dumb.
"Okay," he shrugged. "Why?"
"Because I want you to remember how I got this bruise while you just stood around with a large and useless pole."
"Oh," Dylan nodded. "I could probably do that for you."
"Thank you," Kit said.
What a spiteful place to put a mirror, Kit thought. There you are, on your way to an appointment with Melbourne's top modelling agency on the first floor, or to get advice on your millions from the investment company on the second floor, or to meet the gorgeous lawyer from the third floor for lunch, and you discover - when it's too late to do anything about it - that you look like a lunatic.
Kit ran her hands back through her hair, forwards, then back again. She shook her head and looked at the result in the large mirror that formed the back wall of the lift. A very scary face looked back at her. She tugged on her fringe, but it simply wasn't long enough to cover the map of Tasmania that had formed on her left cheekbone and was crowding her eye. Between the bruise and her wild hair, she really did look like an escapee from a place in which she'd usually be sedated.
Kit undid an extra button on her white shirt, did it up again, made sure the belt on her black slacks was straight, then turned her back on herself and pushed the button for Jenkins, Cazenove, Scott and Harris on the third floor of the William Street office building.
It was 12.25 p.m. She had rung Alex from the police station, an hour before, to say she'd be late. Margaret Richards, the legal firm's receptionist, had promised to pass the message on to Miss Cazenove who was unable to take her call personally as she was 'conferring'.
The lift doors opened. Kit took a deep breath. This is it, she thought. Romance or heartache - what's it going to be?
She pushed at the glass doors of J.C.S. & H. and entered the plush, hushed and everywhere-purple outer-domain of the firm's first line of defence against invading anything. One imperious look from Margaret Richards was enough to make a ruthless crim, a tough cop or a semi-hard-boiled PI shake in her boots. God knows what effect she had on potential clients.
Kit tried smiling, wondering as she did whether the imposing Mrs R. was wearing a huge corset of the whalebone and lots of hooks variety. Because no one, she thought, could be that big and not have rolls of extra body pushing out the fabric of her conservative, but elegant, receptionist attire.
"Ms O'Malley," Margaret pronounced, deliberately emphasising the title to show her disapproval of Kit's previous insistence on its application.
"Margaret," Kit replied nonchalantly, trying to sound wiser and more mature than the chronologically-experienced receptionist. "Is Miz Cazenove still conferring?" she added, in a tone that proved she could also be childish - if she wanted to be.
"Yes, Ms O'Malley. If you'd like to take a seat, she'll be out - when she's out."
Kit propped on the edge of a soft-cushioned couch and resisted the urge to remove her shoes and wriggle her toes in the super-soft pile of the lilac carpet. It seemed like a lifetime since she'd last sat here, with her then new client Quinn Orlando, but then a hell of a lot had happened since January. Miz Cazenove, for example. In fact it had been here on that same first visit to Quinn's solicitor Douglas Scott, that she'd met Alex for the first time. Now that had been embarrassing.
Kit shook her head, at herself, then stared at the Abigail Trellini lithograph on the wall opposite, until the irregular flick-flick of the spotlight above it got to be more than she could take. She got up and walked over to turn it off but, just as she reached out her hand, it plinked - and died.
"Spooky," Kit said. "Would you like me to change the bulb for you?" she asked Margaret.
The 'how dare you speak without being invited' glare lasted two seconds before being replaced with a look of surprise. "Ah, yes," Margaret replied warmly; well, in a tone slightly less Antarctic than usual. "Would you mind?"
"Of course not," Kit replied. "As long as I don't have to stand on anything higher than a kitchen chair I can do almost anything."
"A matchbox is too high for my fear of heights," Margaret admitted.
Kit smiled. "I'm fine up to an elevation of three feet, as long as I have something to brace myself against. Can I stand on that chair?"
"Go ahead," Margaret agreed, stepping out from behind her desk. "Wait while I get the new globe though, then I'll hold it steady for you."
Nothing like a shared phobia to bring two people together, Kit thought, dragging the chair over next to the couch opposite. She turned the light switch off.
Margaret returned to hold the chair while Kit climbed onto it and steadied herself with one hand on the wall. She swapped the dead globe for the live one and switched the light back on again.
"Ta-da!" Kit announced, feeling quite pleased about her small victory over irrational fear, until two unrelated things conspired against her balance and decorum. The first, was the sudden, startling sound of the front door opening behind her, which produced a surge of vertigo-induced adrenaline as she nearly lost her balance. The second, was the delicious sound of her name being uttered by the woman of her dreams, which supercharged the adrenaline with a dose of lust, tipped her wonky scales and sent her tumbling backwards onto the couch. Gravity then took over and dragged her, bum first, onto the floor.
"Ouch!"
"O'Malley?" Alex repeated.
Mortification began making chaotic percussion noises in Kit's head, as her mind whimpered: Oh, dear, I am so embarrassing!
She opened her eyes to find Alex - oh yes - Margaret, Douglas Scott and a not-quite completely strange woman staring down at her. Kit glanced warily at Alex and pulled a 'boy do I feel stupid face', while she tried desperately to reign in her hormones or her pheromones or... maybe they were lipozomes - no, they had something to do with skin elasticity.
Who cares! Come on, O'Malley. Get your warp-core back on line!
Easier said than done she thought. The very sight of Alexis Cazenove - her red-auburn hair curling carelessly just above her shoulders and her grey eyes laughing, while the sexiest mouth in the world tried not to - would have floored her, had her vertigo and klutziness not already taken care of that. Thank you very much!
Déjà vu, Kit sighed. She had been in this exact position - on her arse - the first time she'd ever looked up and into those oh-so-very-amused eyes.
Wow, but she really is drop-dead gorgeous, Kit thought. Not that she doubted that for a second. After all, the absence thing had made her heart do the growing fonder thing. Sadly, it had also taken nothing away from the first-laying-eyes-on-her falling-down-stupid-thing either.
And there she was - her Alex (maybe, hopefully) - in all her gorgeousness, just standing there turning Kit's mind and body to mush, as usual. And probably loving it - as usual.
And here you are, Katherine Frances O'Malley, nanoseconds later (also as usual), still on the floor. Get up woman!
Kit accepted the nearest hands, which belonged to