Wolf at the Door Read online

  ‘Dinnnnah ... is served!’

  The result wasn’t quite what she had expected. Instead of the orderly line-up she had expected at the servery, there was only a moment’s stunned silence and then the rumble of feet as the stampede approached. In the pandemonium before her she could see only disaster, and without conscious thought she reached up, slammed down the hatch of the servery, then strode through the adjacent doorway into the dining room to stand, hands on hips, facing the startled throng.

  ‘What do you think this is, a hog trough?’ she demanded of the man closest to her.

  A blond giant of about nineteen, he simply stood and stared at her, his soft blue eyes so full of a longing for something besides food that Kelly was shaken at the intensity. Faltering, she turned to the next closest man, and with a deep breath before she spoke, demanding to know what the reason was for such outrageous behaviour.

  He too, was silent, but somewhere from the back of the throng somebody muttered quite clearly, ‘Man, oh, man, wait until the old grey wolf faces up to this little red fox!’ It drew a half-hearted bout of laughter from the back of the room, but those directly facing Kelly only looked bewildered ... and incredibly shy.

  ‘Well, if he doesn’t behave any better than you lot, he’ll be going to bed hungry,’ she snapped. ‘Now line up and let’s get at it before everything’s cold.’

  It was all she could do to keep a straight face when she flung open the servery again to meet the soulful blue eyes of her young Nordic giant, who headed up an arrow-straight line of silent, embarrassed men. Each in his turn took up his cutlery and tray and stood before Kelly as she dished up for them, but not one of them spoke a single word except please, no, or thank you in response to her questions. And not a single one took his eyes from her for an instant.

  Silently they came, and silently they retreated to the tables, where there was considerable jockeying for seats that allowed a clear view of the servery. It wasn’t until halfway through the meal that at least some of the men resumed a semblance of normality and began to discuss their day’s work and other topics.

  Marie was clearly impressed by the whole performance, and managed to convey to Kelly her approval of the way she had whipped the crew into shape. Clearly, Kelly was going to be a very popular addition to the camp, she said in her patois, very sexy, very pretty, but very tough. You might well approve, Kelly thought to herself, but it’s me who’s shaking in my boots!

  ‘Is that all, then?’ she asked after the last one had taken his loaded tray and departed.

  ‘Oh no. Still the boss yet. He comes soon,’ Marie replied, and Kelly shrugged and began putting lids on the steam trays.

  ‘Well, I hope he isn’t too long, or this isn’t going to be the best meal he’s ever eaten,’ she sighed,

  Kelly was exhausted. Her feet hurt, her legs were trembling from the combination of the long day’s drive and having been on her feet ever since, and she knew she looked and felt a proper mess. Breaking her own rule about smoking in the kitchen … just this once, she promised … she slumped on to a handy stool and breathed deeply as the soothing smoke began to steady her nerves.

  The voices in the dining room seemed to float out of nothingness, but enough of the kaleidoscope of voices filtered through to inform her that most of the men had enjoyed the change in menu, and that they were enjoying the new cook even more.

  Just as well I didn’t get tidied up, she mused with a grin, or half of them wouldn’t be able to eat at all! There was something incredibly satisfying about such wholesale adulation, but it had a frightening side as well, and she could easily appreciate her father’s warning about being in a camp of woman-hungry men. She was having a marvellous fantasy about picking out the strongest to defend her from the rest when a sudden silence from outside brought her back to reality with a jolt.

  It didn’t need much imagination to realise the cause. The boss had arrived. A gravelly voice confirmed it a second later.

  ‘What the hell is going on here?’ it demanded. ‘God, the place smells like a Chinese cat-house!’

  The sarcastic comment made Kelly suddenly aware of the sweetish odour she had been noticing since dinner began, but had been too busy to clarify. After-shave! And worse, cheap after-shave in cloying over-abundance.

  Her nose wrinkled both in distaste and laughter as she sprang to her feet and started loading a plate from the steam trays. A glance at the quantities made her suddenly hopeful that at least some of the men would be back for seconds; there seemed to be an awful lot left. Maybe after the boss had his share, she thought idly, then looked up to take his order.

  ‘Chicken or lamb chops or—’

  ‘Both, please,’ said that suddenly all-too-familiar voice, and Kelly dropped the plate as her eyes saw that craggy face, that frosty grey hair and those piercing, icy grey eyes.

  The plate bounced off the edge of the mashed potatoes compartment before slithering in two pieces into the fried chicken, but Kelly never even noticed. It seemed that her entire being was locked by her eyes to the man before her, a man who said nothing more, merely raised one sooty eyebrow and glanced significantly towards the rack of clean plates.

  It took all of Kelly’s will to help her wrench free her eyes and reach with shaking fingers to fumble up another plate which she filled to his directions.

  Scofield! Grey Scofield? Him! Her mind whirled at the implications, and her legs went all strange at the thought. She barely managed to survive the next twenty minutes as man after man returned for second helpings until the trays were empty except for a single tiny chicken wing.

  Kelly had been too busy to even think of eating, and her unexpected encounter with Grey Scofield would have driven hunger from her in any event, but somehow the sight of that lonely piece of chicken made her stomach scream with emptiness and she started to salivate like a Pavlovian dog.

  Unthinking, she reached out to take it in the tongs, and was just about to pick it up when a movement caught her side-vision and she looked up to see Grey Scofield standing there, plate outstretched. Her stomach flipped over, then howled in protest as she gave the pale-eyed boss a sickly smile and dropped the chicken wing onto his plate. And when he didn’t move, she reached out and took the plate from his fingers, moving quickly across the line of trays to heap on to it the remaining potatoes and vegetables.

  Grey Scofield took it with a mocking, insolent nod and returned to his seat, and Kelly swung away from the servery with a shudder of repressed anger. She looked at the growing stack of dirty dishes, thought vaguely about dirtying still more to fix up something for herself, then threw her hands up in total despair. It was just too much trouble. Marie had taken plates for herself and her husband, so that wasn’t a problem. Kelly gave up.

  She waited only long enough to instruct Marie on the cleaning up, then fled out the back of the dining trailer to her own unit, where she slammed the door and threw herself on to the bed as the tears began to flow.

  She didn’t cry for long; tearful hysterics had never been much in Kelly’s line and she was angrily ashamed at her own weakness within minutes. Rising, red-eyed and flushed, she flung open her suitcases and stripped off the soiled jump-suit before grabbing up her wrap and moving into the small trailer bathroom. With a mental thanks to her father, she turned on the shower and stood under it for what seemed like an hour, allowing the steaming water to sooth away her tiredness and the strain in her muscles.

  To hell with Grey Scofield; to hell with everything, she thought as she wrapped the towel around her and stepped out into the main area of the trailer. Tomorrow would be soon enough—maybe too soon—to work things out. She was just reaching for her wrap when the entire trailer shuddered to the tread of heavy feet on the steps and the door was flung open to admit the head and shoulders of the one man .she wanted least to see at this particular moment.

  ‘Leduc! Just what the hell is that redheaded high school horror doing here in my camp?’ Grey Scofield demanded before he’d so much as looke
d to see who was in the trailer.

  And when he did look, there wasn’t a hint of apology in the steely eyes that frankly appraised Kelly’s scantily-covered figure and startled, wide-eyed face. The two of them stared at each other in silence for a moment, and it was Kelly who spoke first.

  ‘You might have knocked,’ she said through clenched teeth.

  Grey Scofield merely lifted that hateful eyebrow in a gesture of obvious disdain for her growing anger.

  ‘I’m just as glad I didn’t,’ he said, the soft words dripping with innuendo as he contained his appraisal. Kelly felt as if she were naked on an auction block, despite her certain knowledge that the towel covered her at least as adequately as any dressing gown would have.

  She stood, trembling with both anger and something far more primitive, the recognition of this grey-haired young man’s startling masculinity and her own reaction to it. Grey said nothing, but Kelly could see his chest heaving beneath the tidy khaki shirt and the pulse throbbing in his throat as he undressed her with his eyes.

  ‘Will you get out of here!’ she cried in sudden panic, half turning to flee, but flee where? Grey Scofield was standing in the only door the trailer had, and behind her was only a huge double bed that suddenly seemed to loom like a trap.

  ‘Where’s Leduc?’ His voice was strangely gentle, but Kelly started violently as he moved further into the trailer, slipping into a casual slouch against the counter in the office section.

  ‘He’s in Grande Prairie, I expect,’ she replied with equal and unexpected calm.

  ‘And what is he doing in Grande Prairie when he’s supposed to be here in charge of this camp?’

  ‘I’m in charge here now,’ she replied with a slight lift of her head as she tensed for the explosion that had to come. And it did.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Grey Scofield jerked erect with a loud and violent oath, and before Kelly could move had crossed the space be­tween them in a single, pantherish leap to grasp her by the upper arms and lift her so that their eyes were on the same level. With both hands frantically trying to keep the towel around her, she struggled for only an instant before his piercing eyes commanded her to immobility.

  ‘All right, sweetie, now let’s just cut the nonsense,’ he growled in a menacing voice. ‘If you want to come out here and shack up with that French cradle-robber, that’s your business, but don’t try and hand me a bunch of garbage about being in charge of my camp. Now what in the hell’s going on?’

  Kelly went cold inside at the unfairness of his charge, and the anger completely overshadowed her uniquely vulnerable position. Even more surprising, it suddenly cleared away the fear she had felt when Grey had picked her up.

  ‘Put me down,’ she said in a voice quite as fierce as his own, and quite as deathly soft. When he didn’t move after several seconds, but merely stared into her eyes, she made a quick mental judgment about where she would kick him, and even shifted her right foot back a few inches.

  ‘I wouldn’t, if I were you,’ he said in what was almost a whisper.

  ‘Then put me down,’ she replied with deadly calm. ‘Now!’

  ‘And if I don’t?’

  ‘Then I shall kick you where it hurts the most,’ Kelly replied in total seriousness.

  ‘After warning me first?’ Grey Scofield shook his head, a wry grin softening his features. ‘You must be even younger than you look.’

  And to her surprise, he deposited her so gently, so lightly to the floor that she didn’t feel her feet touch it. Then he backed away to his original lounging stance against the counter, where he stood glaring at her with obvious disgust.

  ‘What are you — Leduc’s daughter or something?’ he asked harshly.

  ‘I am not his daughter; and I am most certainly not, as you so crudely put it, shacked up with him either,’ Kelly retorted haughtily. ‘I am—’

  ‘Well, you must be somebody’s daughter,’ Grey interrupted. ‘And whoever he is, he’s got my sympathy. Dammit, child, just what do you think your father would think if he were here right now? If it was me, I’d paddle your pretty little backside until you couldn’t sit down for a month!’

  Kelly took a deep breath, struggling to hold her temper long enough to get some sanity into this outrageous conversation.

  ‘My father…’ she began very slowly and calmly, and then as he appeared about to interrupt, ‘Will you please just shut up and listen to me!’ Her shriek had the desired effect, and his mouth closed long enough for her to continue.

  ‘My father,’ she said again, ‘would probably be wondering, as I am, whatever insanity prompted him to say that you were one of the finest men he knows. Because he obviously doesn’t know you very well, or he’d have warned me that you’re insufferable, arrogant, ignorant and ... and stupid!’

  She could feel the tears coming, and struggled for control as he raised one eyebrow and looked at her without saying a word. Kelly blinked back the tears as the silence continued, and finally burst out, ‘Well, aren’t you going to say anything?’

  ‘Your opinion of me is as irrelevant as it’s obvious,’ he replied calmly. ‘What I want to know is who the hell are you and what are you doing here? And until I know that I couldn’t care less what either you or your father thinks.’

  Kelly gritted her teeth, biting back yet another angry retort. Obviously, she thought, her verbal assault on this strange man had been underplayed, or else he was simply too thick-skinned to bother with it.

  ‘I am Kelly Barnes,’ she finally replied in a slow, specific fashion. ‘My father is Geoff Barnes. He is the owner of this catering firm. He is in the hospital in Grande Prairie. While he is in the hospital, I am in charge of this camp. This is his trailer; therefore it is now my trailer. Now will you kindly get out of here!’

  From Grey Scoficld’s silence, she presumed that finally she had managed to get through to him, and that finally he would accept her authority — and her order to leave the trailer. He did neither.

  Instead, he stayed silently regarding her for what seemed like hours before he finally spoke.

  ‘You did that very well,’ he said solemnly. ‘Almost well enough to be convincing.’

  The evident sarcasm spurred Kelly’s response.

  ‘What do you mean?’ she cried.

  ‘I mean that you’re a pretty fair actress; Leduc has coached you really well,’ he said. ‘But you both forgot one thing—Geoff’s daughter is a grown woman and a fully qualified caterer, not a high-school rabble-rouser.’

  Kelly was stunned by the accusation. The conservation meeting incident notwithstanding, she simply couldn’t accept that this man could be so stubbornly blind as to flatly reject her explanation. But obviously he wasn’t accepting it; his dictatorial silence clearly demanded some other explanation.

  She took a deep breath and drew herself up to the limit of her diminutive height, a gesture that lost most of its dignity when she had to clutch at the slipping, half-forgotten towel. It took every ounce of her self-control to restrain herself from screaming when he grinned patronisingly at the gesture, but when she spoke, it was with total calmness.

  ‘I’m twenty-four. I’m a fully qualified caterer and I’m a Cordon Bleu chef,’ she replied. ‘And no matter what you may think, Mister Scofield, I am Geoff Barnes’ daughter. Would you like to see my passport, my certificates, my driver’s licence? Or since you’ve eaten my cooking, perhaps you’d just like to take my word for it — because it’s the last meal you’ll get in this camp until I get an apology.’

  The calmness evaporated as her last few words rose with her temper, and she was subconsciously looking for something to throw at him when Grey Scofield surprised her by grinning at her with an expression of genuine delight.

  ‘Well, I’ll be damned!’ he said, straightening to his full height before folding his arms across his broad chest and leaning back to regard her with new interest. ‘It was you that cooked that truly splendid meal tonight?’

  Kelly’s expression wa
s answer enough, which was just as well, because his look of honest admiration had thrown her for such a loop she couldn’t speak. Smiling, he looked not only a good deal younger than when he was angry, but very much more handsome. There was a small-boy attractiveness there which clutched at Kelly’s heart, and a mature masculinity that strengthened that grip despite her anger. She was still searching for words when he unfolded his arms and spoke again.

  ‘You’ll be more likely to think of forgiving me if I give you a chance to get dressed,’ he said with a grin. ‘Meanwhile I’ll rustle us up a drink, provided that Frenchman didn’t drink up all of your dad’s whisky.’

  Before Kelly realised what was happening, he picked up her suitcases and carefully set them on the bed beside her, made a second trip for her handbag, then reached up to close the sliding curtain-door that separated the bedroom section from the rest of the trailer, giving her an exaggerated bow as he did so.

  When she slid open the curtain a few minutes later, feeling far more comfortable in one of her slack suits and a light cotton blouse, she found him slouched comfortably in one of the trailer’s easy chairs, a glass of something in one hand and a cigarette in the other. He rose politely to his feet as she stepped into the room.

  ‘Hope you like Scotch; it’s all there was,’ he said, reaching out for her hand as he escorted her gallantly into the other chair and then handed her a glass that looked to hold more Scotch than water. Kelly sipped at it cautiously; his act was wearing just a trifle thin and she was finding that suspicion had replaced her anger. She had never met anybody so changeable and yet so totally in control of himself, nor anybody who had such a strong masculine attraction for her, she admitted silently. The transition from tyrant to slave to gentleman was somewhat unnerving.

  And what was worse, she strongly suspected this grey-eyed, grey-haired, grey-named mystery man was doing his level best to set her up for something. But what? Surely he realised she wouldn’t dare abide by her angry threat to bar him from her dining room. He wasn’t stupid, regardless of what she had said about him. As the pleasant warmth of the whisky streamed down inside her, she quirked her mouth wryly and leaned back in the chair. Let him make the first move.