The Everywhere Man Read online

  There was just enough arrogance in the gesture that she immediately bristled, questioning out loud the need for such action.

  ‘Well, just for starters I’d like to make sure you haven’t punched a hole in the radiator or some such thing,’ he retorted coolly. ‘Cars like this aren’t exactly designed for driving down ditches, you know.’

  Flushing with the impact of his implied criticism, Alix pulled the appropriate lever and then went to stand beside him as he used the torch to inspect the innards of her wagon. It took him only a few minutes, but they stretched out as he mumbled to himself throughout the exercise.

  ‘Looks all right,’ he finally muttered in grudging tones. ‘Now we’ll just have a final check on His Majesty here, and then you can go back to being the terror of the highways again.’

  Alix squeaked out a protest that the stranger blithely ignored as he reached into her vehicle for the leash and chain collar that lay on the passenger seat. Striding confidently to the rear of the station wagon, he flung open the tailgate and said, ‘All right, old Nick. Come out of there and let’s have a look at you.’

  Somewhat to Alix’s chagrin, Nick bounced down, his stub of a tail fluttering vigorously as the tall man slipped the collar over his head and led him at a brisk trot along the shoulder of the highway. The man’s easy handling of the dog bespoke a long familiarity with dogs, but even so, Alix couldn’t quite understand the ease with which Nick accepted him. The big dog had been hers since he was a puppy, and normally was both reserved and stand-offish with strangers.

  ‘All right, back you go,’ said the man, and Nick hopped obediently into the rear of the vehicle, sitting patiently as the collar and lead were removed. He didn’t even whimper as the tail-gate was closed upon him; just sat in quiet observation as the man turned and handed the leash back to Alix.

  ‘He moves well,’ he said, and Alix could only nod at the compliment before the voice continued, ‘You’re sure you feel all right to drive now? It’s not that far to Bundy in any event, but I’ll stick around if you’d rather sit a bit longer.’

  ‘I’m just fine,’ she replied, ‘and in any event I hardly think I need a nursemaid.’

  She regretted the provocative remark even as it passed her lips, but once said it couldn’t be retracted, and she stood looking defiantly up at his faintly amused grin.

  ‘Well, if you’d had a better one when you were a child you might show better manners,’ he said then. ‘Or is it part of some Women’s Lib programme to be ungrateful, stroppy and generally disagreeable?’

  ‘Well, what would you like me to do — get down and kiss your feet?’ she retorted angrily. ‘I’m afraid that’s too high a price just for a little tow out of the ditch, if you don’t mind.’

  ‘Actually, a simple thank you would have sufficed,’ he replied grimly. ‘We’ll just ignore the possibility of you saying you’re sorry for damned near killing us both with your stupid driving.’

  ‘All right! Thank you. And I’m sorry for driving so poorly and I’m sorry I almost ran you off the road. Are you happy now?’ The words emerged in an atmosphere so chilly Alix almost expected to see them solid in the air between them, sheathed in ice. And she didn’t care, either. This man’s absurd arrogance was just a little too much to bear after two long days of driving.

  He shook his head sadly. ‘Childishness doesn’t become you, despite your tender years,’ he said quietly, but scorn was evident in his eyes.

  ‘I’m twenty-seven years old, not that it’s any of your business,’ Alix retorted hotly.

  ‘Well, fancy that! I’d have said more like ten or twelve,’ he replied. ‘But I’ll take your word for it, although thousands wouldn’t.’

  ‘Which doesn’t concern me in the slightest,’ she answered, shaking her head in a haughty gesture that sent her hair flying round her head in a shimmering halo. Damn the man, anyway. He was deliberately baiting her, and she didn’t seem capable of avoiding the verbal traps he was setting with every comment.

  Alix turned away, walking to the driver’s door of her vehicle in total awareness of the tall figure by her side. She opened the door and flung the leash and collar inside with a gesture that revealed more of her anger than she would normally have wished.

  ‘You’ve been very kind, I suppose,’ she said with what she hoped was total calm. ‘I think I’ll go now.’

  ‘But you haven’t kissed my feet yet,’ he said so quietly she barely heard him. Yet not too quietly, and Alix couldn’t help the reflex that spun her round to face him once again.

  ‘Nor shall I ...’ she began, only to find herself being pulled toward him, her shoulders imprisoned by strong hands as his lips bent to meet her own.

  The kiss was far from gentle, yet it held no crude savagery. Only a vast knowing, a deliberate and experienced expertise that somehow swept aside her surprise and anger so that she was responding before she realised it. His lips claimed her mouth and the hard length of his body was startlingly aware of her own slender figure as some intangible current sparked between them.

  It went on and on, one of his hands dropping from her shoulder to hold her even closer against him as he explored her mouth with his own until finally Alix’s inner strength took hold once again.

  Her free hand slashed towards his face, claws outstretched as she struggled to draw her face away from his tauntingly knowledgeable lips, but he reached up to catch her wrist in mid-air and the grin on his face said almost everything. Almost...

  ‘Naughty, haughty,’ he chuckled, and stood there, a look of quiet, dominating amusement in his fire-green eyes as Alix struggled in futile rage to free herself.

  ‘You ... you ...!’ Words failed her; she could only stare up at him, vainly hoping that looks could kill.

  ‘Try bastard,’ he grinned. ‘It’s true, too, at least in its proper usage. And I’ll take back what I said earlier; you’re a little older than twelve.’

  ‘You’re contemptible!’

  ‘No. I just believe in paying my debts, and in having debts paid to me as they’re owed,’ he replied, still making no move towards releasing her.

  Alix tensed, raising one foot as the thought of kicking him occurred to her, but he raised one eyebrow in reproach and warned her against it. ‘I’d only kick you back, if nothing else,’ he laughed. ‘Why not relax? You’ve only one more kiss to finish the debt.’

  And he’d have it, too. Alix knew her strength was no match for this tall, powerful stranger. Strangely, she felt no great fear of him. He wasn’t a rapist or a madman, just a strong, self-assured and terribly masculine person who would have his own way in this disagreement but would never really harm her. How did she know that? she wondered. How could she? Yet she did, though it wasn’t quite the comforting thought it might have been.

  ‘I think perhaps you over-value yourself,’ she replied, stiffly holding herself away from him and trying to ignore the helplessness she felt.

  ‘Now that’s something I never do,’ he said calmly.

  ‘So you’re conceited as well!’

  ‘Only last year; this year I’m perfect,’ he replied quite soberly, but the laughter was there, in those mocking green eyes, and Alix couldn’t quite repress a chuckle of her own at the hoary old line.

  ‘Has it occurred to you that perhaps I simply don’t want to kiss you again?’ she said, trying to get some lightness into her voice.

  ‘Oh, indeed. But you will, because you’re an honourable woman, all else aside,’ he said. ‘I’m sure you also believe in paying your debts.’

  ‘I didn’t contract any debt with you,’ said Alix.

  ‘Well, we could always push your car back into the ditch,’ he said. ‘That way you wouldn’t have to kiss me again. We’d be even for you having run me off the road, and...’

  ‘And you don’t know how tempting a suggestion that is,’ she interrupted. ‘Personally I’d rather just get it over with.’ And she stood there, eyes closed and lips pursed as she waited, looking like a sulky, spoiled c
hild and all too well aware of it.

  His fingers tightened on her shoulder, but only for an instant, and then, even with her eyes shut, she knew he had moved away from her. The removal of his hands was like the breaking of an unseen current.

  It was a trick! But even as she thought it, Alix knew she was mistaken, and the proof was there when she finally worked up the nerve to open her eyes. He was gone, walking back towards his Rover without a backward glance.

  ‘But ...’ she whispered the word unconsciously, hardly expecting, once it had escaped, that he might have heard her. But of course he would ... and he did.

  ‘I’ll take a rain check,’ he replied without looking back, and the words floated back to her with a tangible amusement that nearly made her stamp one foot in renewed anger. Then his truck door slammed and the engine rumbled to life as he swung into a U-turn that returned him to his original direction. And he drove past her with a mocking grin and a superior thumbs-up gesture that was almost defiant.

  Alix returned the gesture half-heartedly, then grinned to herself as she settled into her own vehicle and reached to fasten the seat belt. By the time she was half a kilometre down the road, the humour of the entire situation had her chuckling aloud, amused as much at her own come-uppance well deserved as anything else.

  What a fiasco. And what a man! Even with his arrogance and high-handed, masculine superiority, she had to admit he had broken off the encounter deliberately at a point where neither of them suffered any severe loss of face. A second kiss would have been a less satisfactory conclusion for her, she admitted, and he had lost nothing by taking his ‘rain check’ — except for the likelihood of ever collecting on it.

  He didn’t even know her name. Not that it mattered, of course, since she couldn’t imagine their paths crossing anyway. Unless, perhaps, he was from Bundaberg. But he’d been going away from the sugar city, and late enough at night that she might reasonably expect him to be on his way home.

  During the next few moments she couldn’t help wondering about him, though. Especially by comparison to Bruce, and that didn’t please Alix very much at all.

  Bruce! Damn Bruce anyway. Damn Bruce and damn all men, she thought, responding instinctively to the hurt that welled up inside her as she thought of her handsome Canadian fiancé — former fiancé — who had jilted her in a fashion so chillingly, horribly final that she still had trouble comprehending it.

  Bruce had been an architect, and a good one. His position with the firm she had worked for in Melbourne was part of an exchange programme with a Canadian branch of the firm, and almost from the first day he had arrived, two years before, Alix had found their attraction both mutual and gratifying.

  Tall, blond and so handsome he was almost pretty, Bruce had been the object of intense attention from every female in the firm. Alix had been no less intrigued than the other girls, but she had had the advantage of being chosen to work closely with him on the first of many important jobs where her talents as a design draughtswoman played a significant role.

  Within a week he had asked her to dinner; within a month they were constantly in each other’s company. By the end of the first year they were making serious plans for marriage — or at least Alix thought they were serious.

  How could she have been so naive? So blind? Even in retrospect — especially in retrospect — she could see that all of the plans and dreams were centred on one thing: Bruce’s eventual return to Canada was a preface to all of their planning.

  Thinking of it now, Alix realised that he had hated Australia, covering his hatred with a veneer of amused contempt that she had often found just a trifle hard to bear. Except that she had loved him, and therefore been able to gloss over his deficiencies to keep him high and unsullied on the pedestal in her heart.

  And he had been so suave, so gentle and forgiving and non-aggressive in his lovemaking. He had never questioned Alix’s rather inexperienced shyness, never wondered that she had come to the age of twenty-five with firm if somewhat old-fashioned ideas about premarital sex. Indeed, he had accepted it a shade too readily, she reflected, and realised she had often thought him just a shade too patient in his approaches.

  Too patient! What a laugh that was now. Of course he had been patient; it wasn’t difficult for somebody involved not in love, not in planning for a life together at all, but only playing a cunning, deceitful game that cleverly covered up his real interests.

  It hadn’t been until he had gone — returned to Canada on an aircraft at exactly the moment she had been waiting for him in their favourite little restaurant — that an older, wiser, and maliciously well-meaning co-worker had finally helped Alix to see the truth.

  Alix had suffered in silence the first few days of meaningful winks and nudges and pitying glances. In truth she was barely aware of them, suffocating as she was in her own confusion and pain. Bruce gone! Not a word, not a note, not any sort of explanation. Just gone! He had disappeared like the proverbial thief in the night, and not until the following Monday did she receive confirmation that he had actually left the country.

  And thief in the night was too good a simile, she found out much, much later. Later, when the hurt and pain had begun to scar over, when she had been so gently and so deliberately advised of what he had really been doing on the two nights a week he had always insisted on reserving for ‘study’. He had been studying all right, studying a more compliant and willing type of Australian woman than Alix ever intended to be. And that one of them had been her flatmate, a girl living with studied and cold-hearted pseudo-innocence beneath the same roof...

  That had been her only satisfaction in the whole affair: being able to stack Monica’s hastily packed luggage on the front porch of the house left to Alix by her parents and icily command the saucy redhead to leave and never, never return. But it was small compensation compared to the announcement in the company newsletter of Bruce’s marriage to a childhood sweetheart in Canada, and much, much less than the final galling insult.

  The design award he had won — in Canada and while he was still in Australia — was for her design. Alix’s very own work, altered only enough so that he could easily claim credit even if she dared to lodge a complaint.

  She hadn’t, of course. And he had known she wouldn’t. Had counted on it in fact. Nor would she register complaint about the half-dozen other drawings she had found missing from the portfolio she kept of ideas for improving known and patented products that for one reason or another had caught her interest,

  Alix, of course, hadn’t realised the significance of her improvements. She was no design engineer, no architect. She was merely a draughtswoman and a good one, with an eye for detail, an eye for structure and design and — thanks to Bruce’s two ‘study’ nights each week — the time to doodle away the long hours without him.

  Nobody else knew of that particular aspect of her talent, since it wasn’t especially called for in her job. She had won a couple of contests and competitions, working and entering them on a freelance basis, but none were of a type to interest her firm and they went unnoticed by everyone but Bruce. Bruce the bastard!

  What everyone did notice, however, was how seriously Alix had been rocked by Bruce’s abrupt departure. There was an initial hiatus before several other young men in the firm began to make tentative approaches of their own. But it wasn’t until her first date with the fourth one in a row to get quite demandingly specific that Alix finally became aware of the final, ultimate degradation. This young man, who had worked quite closely with Bruce, was sufficiently less diplomatic than the others for Alix to finally get the message loud and clear.

  She had handled the revelation quite well, she thought. At least on the surface. There was nothing she could do about the scalding tears inside that tore open all of her heart-wounds anew and left them brimming with pain.

  T would have thought you’d worked with Bruce long enough to know what a liar he is,’ she had told the insistent young man in tones so icily, nonchalantly chilling that h
e had actually drawn away from her in surprised confusion. It was enough of a foot in the door to give Alix confidence, and she had followed up swiftly.

  ‘Even if I did sleep around,’ she had declared, ‘it would take far more than a dinner out and an evening at the theatre to give somebody like you a hope!’ Whereupon she had left him ... simply picked up her purse, opened the door of his shiny new car, and walked slowly and calmly into her yard. She had even paused to pat Nick on the head as he came to greet her at the gate. Not a tear, not a tremble, not a single obvious sign of the demon that raged inside her, frothing to be displayed in tears and tantrums and visible despair.

  She had even fooled herself, to some degree. She waited until the offensive young man had driven away, smiled when Nick had trotted over bearing collar and lead, and spent the next two hours exercising him in the safe, silent darkness of a nearby park. It wasn’t until she was alone in her bed with the big dog sprawled on the floor beside her that the first tear came.

  Then she sobbed and cried all night, with the bewildered GSP whining his own accompaniment as he tried to comfort her without knowing how.

  Alix had never been over-superstitious, but she came to think of that night as an omen. It cured her for ever of Bruce, for one thing. But more important, it helped prepare her mind for what happened the next day — for the biggest and best omen of all.

  She arrived at work with her resignation already written in her head, and stared only briefly through red-rimmed eyes at the typewriter she borrowed to compose it. No excuses, no reasons, only the bare bones of it. She had enjoyed her work but felt a change was vital to her future. She would prefer to give no notice at all, but would, of course, work out the generally accepted month’s notice if required.

  It was signed, sealed, and on the General Manager’s desk before the G.M. arrived that morning, but only moments before a vaguely confused switchboard operator announced that Alix had a long-distance call. A Mr Jennings from Bundaberg. Did she know him?