The Unexpected Husband. Lindsay Armstrong
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glinted with irony now. ‘As a matter of fact, no. I told her that I had to be out of town for a while.’
‘Was she devastated?’ Lydia demanded.
‘If so she gave no hint of it. I had actually prepared a sort of—not exactly farewell address, but a letting-down-lightly kind of thing, as you so thoughtfully recommended—only it never got said because she took the words right out of my mouth. She said that she thought it would be an excellent idea if we had a bit of a break from each other.’
Lydia digested this, then swore beneath her breath this time.
‘Which indicated to me,’ Joe Jordan said, with a wryly raised eyebrow, ‘that she’s losing interest in me and the idea of me fathering her child.’
No, she’s not, she’s playing hard to get!
Lydia didn’t say it, she bit the words off on the tip of her tongue, but she experienced a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach that generally indicated she was right about her lovely sister Daisy’s state of mind.
‘I can’t believe this,’ she said instead. ‘I was really looking forward to this experience.’
He frowned. ‘Surely my simple presence couldn’t provide that much of a blight?’
‘Your presence is not simple at all,’ she retorted.
He stared at her thoughtfully. ‘Does that mean you were rather intrigued about me, as I discovered I was about you, dear Lydia?’ he queried.
She’d never been a blusher, but she undoubtedly coloured. She could feel the heat of it beneath the smooth skin of her cheeks and down her neck, all of which he noted with a flicker of amusement twisting his lips.
It was his amusement that got her going again, when she really would have loved to crawl into a handy hole to hide. ‘How could you—apart from anything else—transfer from one sister to another just like…clicking your fingers?’ She demonstrated, and he laughed openly this time.
‘Funnily enough, I asked myself that,’ he murmured. ‘The only conclusion I could come up with was that your sister had singled me out from the herd, slightly against my better judgement, whereas you and I…came together differently.’
‘We didn’t,’ she protested. ‘We came together—we met—because of my sister!’
‘Whatever.’ He waved a negligent hand. ‘This interest we share, however, sprang up of its own accord. Daisy had nothing to do with it.’
‘I’m not admitting to…’ She bit her lip and suffered a moment of dread that she would blush again, but she didn’t. ‘I am not interested in you, Mr Jordan. Let’s put it like that.’ She stared at him defiantly.
‘I would have said your first assertion was more truthful, Lydia. The one about not admitting things. But let’s not get ourselves all tied up here and now. Pete’s got your gear off the plane. Would you allow me to drive you up to the homestead? Sarah has lunch waiting.’
Lydia was sorely tempted to press her point, if not to find some way of driving it home with a sledgehammer, but she contained herself and only looked supremely frustrated.
Joe Jordan watched her for a moment, then said, ‘Good. I wouldn’t have believed you anyway, and it’s hot enough without getting oneself unnecessarily hot and bothered. After you, ma’am!’ He walked round the ute and opened the passenger door for her.
She did say stiffly as they drove away, ‘It is hot, for the middle of winter.’
‘Ah, but the nights are deliciously cool at this time of year, in comparison. Ever been up this way before, Lydia?’
‘No.’
‘Then you’re in for a delightful surprise. The country is superb at the moment. We had a good wet season, everything’s still flourishing, you can get about easily—do you ride?’
‘Of course!’ She looked at him scathingly, then looked out of the window.
‘Excellent. Unless, that is, you intend to converse with me only in monosyllables for the next six weeks?’
She turned back to him wide-eyed. ‘You’re not going to be here for six whole weeks, are you?’
He shrugged. ‘More or less.’
‘But why? Surely you don’t usually spend so much time up here!’
‘How would you know?’ he countered.
‘I…well, I assumed you lived most of your life in Sydney,’ she offered—a shade feebly, she couldn’t help thinking.
‘As in making generalisations about people from the same family, one shouldn’t make assumptions based on very little knowledge of the facts, Lydia,’ he reproved gravely.
They were driving along a rocky dirt road towards a stand of tall trees and between them she could see a large tin roof with ‘Katerina’ painted in big black letters on the silver surface: the roof they’d flown over.
Lydia blinked several times and said tersely, ‘I was told you didn’t live here.’
‘Who told you that?’
‘Pete, the pilot. I had no idea, of course, that he was talking about you!’
‘Sprung,’ Joe Jordan remarked with a charming smile as he wrestled the gear lever and they bounced over a large rock. ‘Must get this road fixed, by the way. Uh—no, I don’t actually live here, although I spend quite a bit of time up here.’
Lydia waited, then said pointedly, ‘So?’
‘Several things have happened, that’s all. Rolf and Sarah need a bit of a break. Modern technology means that I can still pursue my chosen career from up here, and—well, the other thing that happened may not recommend itself to you, so I might wait.’
‘Tell me!’ Lydia ordered through her teeth.
He brought the utility to a halt outside a low white pole fence surrounding a lush acre of garden that in turn surrounded the homestead. There were colourful parrots swooping amongst the trees, there was a carpet of thick green grass, the house was old and sprawling, but well maintained, there was a riot of purple, pink and white bougainvillea smothering the tank stands, and a woman standing on the front steps was waving to them.
‘All right.’ Joe Jordan cut the motor and turned to look at her fully.
He didn’t start to speak immediately, however, and, much as she would have wished otherwise, Lydia felt an erratic little frisson run through her at the proximity of this man. Nor was it so hard to define his attractiveness suddenly. It was all there in the lines and angles of his face, the well-cut mouth, those broad shoulders and lean hips, the pair of strong hands, those intelligent hazel eyes, and in the distinct feeling that not only might he be exciting to know, he was also a connoisseur of women.
And he waited until their gazes clashed before he said, ‘I’ve been plagued by the curious yet nevertheless powerful desire to see you without your clothes, Ms Kelso. And the way you walk has taken to invading my thoughts. I do apologise for putting it so plainly, but it is the truth and you did command me to tell you.’
Lydia washed her hands in the bathroom attached to her bedroom and brushed her hair vigorously.
She’d been welcomed warmly by Sarah Simpson, shown her room and asked if she’d like to brush up before lunch. She hadn’t responded to Joe Jordan’s statement, beyond bestowing upon him the fieriest of blue glances before she’d jumped out of the utility. It hadn’t abashed him in the slightest as he’d introduced her to his sister and brother-in-law.
How on earth she was going to face him over a lunch table and for the next six weeks she had no idea, she mused savagely as she flung her brush down and stood with her hands on her hips. And there was Daisy to think about. Daisy, putting her own advice into practice, unless she was much