The House at the Bottom of the Hill Read online

  ‘Not necessarily. You can be charming when you want to be.’

  ‘Name one time I’ve been charming.’ She’d been rude on so many occasions—perhaps she deserved their interference.

  ‘You cook all those fancy tarts and cakes for your executioners. They usually eat them when they’re around your place, attempting to persuade you to think the way they think.’

  ‘Some persuasion.’

  ‘I typed the letter.’

  Her eyes popped open, along with her mouth. ‘You too, Brutus?’ She expected deceit but not of this magnitude.

  He moistened his lips with his tongue. ‘Ted was going to force you to keep it pink or paint it white. So I got involved—to give you a fighting chance.’

  ‘Did you leave me the plant?’

  He didn’t answer.

  ‘I don’t believe it!’ He must have dropped it off when he came over earlier.

  ‘Now don’t get all huffy. I gave you the plant to soften the blow of the letter. I didn’t think about a pink connection. It’s just a bush in a pot.’

  What was it she was doing that got his back up? Why didn’t he like her? She dragged her glass closer.

  ‘Look.’ He slid the glass away. ‘We’re in this together, whether we like it or not. I’m the facilitator between you and the town committee. We’re stuck with that because the other option is to let them run things their way.’

  ‘What’s in this for you?’

  ‘Ah. Well.’ He took a breath and looked her in the eye. ‘You were right, I am up to something and I don’t want the committee knowing too much too soon.’

  Interesting. ‘What?’

  He shifted his stance. ‘I’m going to renovate the upstairs space and turn it into … an apartment for myself.’

  ‘Why would you be concerned about annoying the committee over that? Are you painting it yellow?’

  ‘I’m not concerned, I just know how things work. I told you— you’ve gotta stay calm, chilled, relaxed, and lead people into your plans. Weave around them a bit.’

  ‘So you’re having trouble with them too?’

  ‘Kind of.’

  ‘Welcome to the club.’

  He studied her for long seconds, his features contemplative. ‘Might be best if we join forces and show each other a little admiration.’

  She pulled a face. ‘We argue all the time—how are we going to get over that?’

  ‘I’m sure if we put our minds to it we can find something complimentary to say about each other.’

  Fat chance.

  ‘I’ll start, since you’re suddenly shy and retiring.’

  ‘Yeah, right. That’s the new me.’ She settled her chin in her hand and waited.

  He put both hands on the counter and hauled in a breath. ‘Charlotte, you have beautiful hair.’

  She lifted both eyebrows. ‘What colour is it?’

  ‘I think you called it … titian.’

  She shook her head. It was easy to read his thoughts. ‘Red’ and ‘ginger’ sprang to his mind faster than he could thumb through the pages of a thesaurus.

  ‘And you’ve got a pretty smile.’

  She thinned her lips and scowled at him. ‘How would you know? How many times have you seen my smile?’

  ‘Haven’t seen it since Tuesday.’ He leaned on the bar, arms crossed, head bent towards her. ‘And come to think of it,’ he said softly, ‘I’ve missed it. Smile for me, Charlotte.’

  Her reaction fluttered inside her, like moths caught in a glass jar, their wings beating uncontrollably. Was this the moment Sammy had spoken of? He was close, and it was late and silent. If she listened hard she’d probably hear the mice scurrying behind the skirting boards. ‘I can’t smile,’ she said, before the story in her mind moved forwards to the next part. ‘I’ve lost my smile.’ The part where he kissed her. ‘I haven’t smiled for months.’

  ‘Yes, you have. You smiled outside Julia’s place the day we met. You smiled at me on Tuesday when I pretended to chat you up. Your smile makes you glow.’

  The lights danced in his mink-brown eyes and the moths escaped their jar and flew to her chest in a rush of exhilaration. The air stilled between them and for a moment …

  Charlotte cleared her throat. ‘You’re not getting smarmy on me, are you?’

  He straightened. ‘Not a chance. I’m just trying to make you feel better. That’s my job.’

  Thank God. For a moment she’d almost been tempted to kiss him. She leaned across the bar, grabbed the cocktail shaker and poured a third glass.

  ‘Now it’s your turn.’ He turned on his smile. ‘What’s great about me?’

  Easy. She picked up her drink. ‘Your bum.’

  Dan blinked. Had she said bum as in reference to his backside, or had she called him a bum?

  ‘Very nice backside,’ she said. ‘It’s tight.’

  Man. How many times had she taken a look at his backside, and what went through her mind when she was staring at it? Sex? Did he make her think sexy thoughts? ‘Tight, huh?’

  She put her glass down, lifted her hands and cupped the air as though she were holding a basketball. ‘Tight.’ She wriggled her fingers until he all but felt the thrill of her touch.

  ‘Rugby union training,’ he told her, trying to appear nonchalant. When her pouty mouth wasn’t thinned to a straight line there was enough fascination about her to make him want to kiss her. ‘Lots of squats.’

  ‘I do squats too. And I run.’

  ‘I know, I’ve seen you out jogging, remember?’

  ‘But you didn’t think to compliment my bum, did you?’

  ‘Well …’ Careful, now. What did she want? An exposition on how pert it was? ‘I did take a look.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘When you were taking your sweatshirt off once. You have a nice bum too.’ He hoped he hadn’t gone too far by saying so.

  ‘Pathetic attempt at making me feel better.’ She swung off her stool and faced the doors, thrusting her bottom at him, looking over her shoulder. ‘It’s much tighter now I’ve been running.’ She slapped it. It hardly wobbled.

  Dan swallowed hard.

  ‘Go on,’ she said. ‘Tell me what it’s like.’

  ‘I’m thinking.’

  ‘What do you see?’

  A softly rounded feminine backside, enclosed in a pink skirt, hiked up a little since she was bent forwards. The type of bottom he wouldn’t mind taking a firm hold of and hauling against … ‘I need a closer look.’ He walked around the bar until he stood behind her behind. ‘Yeah,’ he said, studying it. ‘It is firmer now.’ It wasn’t any firmer at all. It had always been a pert, sweet peach shape.

  ‘Go ahead, slap it.’ She slapped it.

  He raised his eyes to the ceiling then brought his gaze back to her. Her green eyes were wide, challenging him … and a little dazed looking. A Cosmopolitan daze.

  He took hold of her shoulders and returned her to the bar stool. ‘I’ll get you a coffee.’ He went behind the bar, flicking the switch on the coffee machine.

  ‘I can’t have coffee, I’ll never get to sleep.’

  Dan picked up a cup and saucer. With the amount of wine she’d had and the three martinis she’d downed in the last ten minutes, chances were she’d sleep for a week.

  She sat on her bar stool, wriggling the pert bottom that hardly wobbled as she settled herself. ‘This is fun,’ she said, smiling.

  Who’d have thought it? He’d made her smile. Would she remember tomorrow, in the hung-over light of day?

  ‘The next stage is to tell each other confidences,’ she said, getting herself cosy on the stool. ‘That would prove the beginning of a true camaraderie against the war council.’

  ‘Not sure I have anything I want to tell you.’ If he didn’t count the hotel rooms and the research he’d done on her. Thank God he’d told her about the letter. It was some compensation for the other underhand deeds.

  ‘Come on, come on.’ She wiggled her fingers. ‘Tell me something
personal.’

  Like how the embers of temptation in his belly flared when he looked at her mouth? ‘Ah … I’m ticklish.’

  Her eyes widened. ‘Where?’

  ‘That’s two secrets, we shook on one.’

  ‘Did we?’ She drew her brow. ‘I don’t remember shaking hands on anything.’

  ‘Well, there’s my secret. Now tell me yours.’

  She took a deep breath and sighed it out long and hard. ‘Okay.’ She hunched her shoulders and leaned across the bar. Dan bent down to her. She turned her face until her mouth was close to his ear, her breath warm on his skin. ‘I haven’t had sex in ages,’ she whispered.

  His heartbeat flatlined.

  ‘Ages,’ she said again, her breath tickling his cheek. She pulled back. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if I’d forgotten how to do it.’

  ‘Right.’ He cricked his neck and rotated his shoulder, the right one, which had got dislocated more times than he remembered. Best to focus on that. The agony when he’d fallen on it in a particularly vicious tackle and it popped again. The pain when it was snapped back into place. The misery of—

  ‘I haven’t had sex for so long I can’t remember what noises I make.’

  He slapped the bar. ‘Too much information, Charlotte. Time to get you home.’ He walked around the counter, turning the coffee machine off as he passed.

  ‘So soon? What about my flat white?’ She pulled back when he took hold of her arm.

  ‘Come and get one tomorrow. You’ll need it.’ The hold he had on her arm wasn’t tight, just firm enough to ensure she accompanied him.

  ‘I can’t go out the front,’ she complained. ‘I’m tipsy. I’ll ruin my reputation.’

  She was only just starting to get one, and if she was found stumbling in his arms she’d lose it. In his arms. ‘We’ll slip out the back then.’ What noises would she make? Little, do that again moans? Or deep, I love the way you do that sighs?

  ‘Don’t even think about it,’ he mumbled.

  ‘What?’ she asked, slipping her arm around his waist and leaning into him.

  He hooked his arm around her shoulder and shunted her forwards.

  ‘Hey, you’re squishing me.’

  ‘Too bad.’

  Dan leaned his weight on his hip and strummed his fingers on the frame of the laundry door at the back of the B&B while Charlotte fiddled with the keys.

  ‘Here,’ he said, taking them off her. ‘Let me, or we’ll be here till sunrise.’ He opened the flyscreen door. ‘What is it with you and locks?’

  ‘There are two doors, two locks.’

  ‘I can see that.’ She had enough keys on the key ring to dam one of the fast-flowing mountain creeks. ‘Why so many, Charlotte?’

  ‘I lock the dream out.’

  ‘What dream?’

  ‘I won’t dream the dream tonight because you’re not the monster.’

  ‘You’re not making any sense, sweetheart.’ He got her through both doors, and closed them quietly behind them, still holding on to her arm.

  ‘I’ll be dreaming about how you look in jeans and nothing else,’ she said, grinning at him.

  He stared into her darkened eyes. ‘Is that right?’ He brushed a thick lock of titian hair from her brow. If she wasn’t sleepy drunk he’d plant a smacker on that lush mouth—to shut her up and halt the flow of images in his head of her watching him walk away, of her looking at his backside. Hell—of him putting his hands on her backside. ‘You going to remember anything about tonight when you wake up?’

  ‘I never forget anything. I have a memory like an elephant.’

  ‘If you say so.’ He led her through the kitchen. Lucy perked up on her bed, but didn’t move. Dan kept Charlotte moving down the hall ahead of him.

  ‘You can stop right there.’ She turned and put the palm of her hand on his chest and pushed with more force than he thought she had. ‘This is my bedroom. Go away.’

  He raised his gaze over her head and took in the room. It was quaint in its tattiness, with a neat little chest of drawers, an old-fashioned wardrobe and a thick, buff-coloured eiderdown on the bed. The curtains were open.

  He removed her hand from his chest and walked around her.

  ‘What are you doing now?’ she asked, turning and stumbling over a pair of fluffy slippers on the floor.

  ‘I’ll close these curtains for you.’ He looked at the window: fastened, latched and locked.

  ‘Thanks for walking me home. You can go now. I’ll lock up behind you.’

  She had an issue with locks but he was stumped as to why. ‘Why don’t you just get into bed and go to sleep? I’ll lock up behind me.’

  She shook her head in firm denial. ‘I’ll lock up behind you.’

  ‘Okay then.’ Best not irritate a tipsy woman.

  ‘That way I can take another look at your bum.’ She giggled as she followed him out of the bedroom and down the hall.

  He stopped at the kitchen door. Lucy still lay on her bed in the laundry, not perturbed by anything. ‘If there’s anyone creeping around outside, which there won’t be—’ He switched the hall light off. ‘Lucy will warn you.’

  She slapped into his back and pushed him away from the light switch. The light came on and she glowered at him. ‘Don’t switch my light off. It chases the monster.’

  This was getting silly—she wasn’t making any sense. Okay, she’d had one too many, but this wasn’t banter. She had a real issue with something that scared her.

  He took hold of her arms and pulled her close to him. ‘Look at me.’

  She blinked up at him, her lips parted.

  ‘Don’t be frightened, Charlotte. You’re safe, okay?’

  Her gaze clouded, tears formed in her eyes. ‘I hate the monster. I have to get rid of him.’

  He nodded. ‘Alright then, let’s get rid of him together. Come on.’ He led her back down the hall. She stumbled beside him, soft and drowsy, so he put his arm around her waist and half carried her into her bedroom.

  ‘Let’s take your shoes off, shall we?’ He wasn’t about to undress her; she’d be okay sleeping in her clothes for one night.

  ‘I’m so tired I could sleep for a week.’

  ‘Yeah, I know. You’re tired.’ He pushed her gently to sit on her bed and bent to take her shoes off. The skin of her ankle was warm in his fingers. He slid his hand down over her smooth heel, pushing her shoe off, until he held the arch of her foot. He ran his hand up to her calf muscle. Soft skin, the muscle a little knotted. But he wasn’t here to give her a sports massage. He pulled her other shoe off, let it fall to the floor and stood.

  She lay back on the bed, the tips of her hair bouncing over the buff-coloured eiderdown in a tangle of fiery red. ‘Come on.’ He took her by the shoulders and moved her across the bed so he could pull the eiderdown up and over her.

  She snuggled in, then wriggled, lengthening her body and reaching behind her. ‘My skirt’s too tight.’ She undid the button, unzipped the skirt and wriggled again as she shimmied it over her hips.

  Dan looked away. ‘Done?’ he asked as his gaze burnt a hole in the ceiling.

  ‘Done.’

  He looked back and shut his eyes quick-smart, but not before he’d caught sight of her white underwear. Man, what was he doing playing babysitter? He tugged the eiderdown from beneath her legs, pulled it up and over her body and tucked it in at her shoulders.

  ‘Thank you,’ she murmured. ‘Goodnight.’

  ‘Goodnight.’

  Her eyes were scrunched closed and her lips compressed. Something was frightening her. He leaned over her, stroked the hair from her brow. It was wispy in his fingers. ‘Go to sleep, Red. You’re safe.’

  ‘I’m safe. Thank you.’

  ‘Okay, sweetheart.’

  He stayed watching her. After few minutes her breathing evened out to the gentle rhythm of sleep. He pulled the bedroom door to but didn’t close it and made his way to the kitchen. ‘You hear anything, Luce, you bark, okay?’ Now he wa
s getting silly. What would the dog hear? There was nothing dangerous in town. Nothing that would harm Charlotte. The loudmouths from the bar would be long gone.

  He made his way to the front door, bolted it top and bottom, put the brass chain into its slot and went back to the kitchen. ‘I’m going out the laundry way,’ he told the dog. He didn’t want to be caught creeping out of her front door after midnight.

  He pulled the snub on the lock so it would catch when he closed it. He couldn’t bolt it though, and she had this fetish for bolts and locks. He propped the empty rubbish bin against the laundry door. If anyone tried to get in, Lucy would bark, and if he kept his bedroom window open all night, he’d hear her. He’d be down Main Street in two ticks. If anything went amiss. Which it wouldn’t, so why was he getting all concerned and tender about Red?

  Eleven

  Bounty and beautification. Dan took both into consideration whenever he turned a property around, but that had been for profit. Kookaburra’s had good bones and he was looking for more than a quick wave of a decorator’s wand. He was aiming for value. Solid rejuvenation, structural and aesthetic. He’d be living in the place, after all. He’d be holding on to it for the rest of his life.

  He unfolded the plans for the renovation and placed them on the bar, smoothing the creases with his hand. He had a strict and meticulous budget he knew he’d be able to stick to—and a contingency in place if he didn’t. He had seven toilets and he had to make a start on the renovations now, before he backed down and lost his nerve.

  ‘Man,’ he muttered. If it wasn’t only ten o’clock in the morning he’d pull a cold one out of the fridge. He still wasn’t sure how he’d handle the fall-out or the repercussions but he knew he had to make his move soon, before this stupid confidence issue took over his rationale. He wasn’t usually bothered about what others thought of him but the truth was, he was no better a communicator than Charlotte or he would have told the townspeople about his plans, like she had. She hadn’t been frightened of any flak— although she hadn’t known she’d be getting it, which smoothed salve on his battle-damaged confidence. But if he wasn’t careful how he handled things now, he and Red would be bickering over business too.