Falling in Love Page 10

  Thea released a sigh of relief. “Why didn’t you tell me you were looking for an Isabella Cameron? That explains everything. I’m sorry, but you’ve got the wrong Cameron family. I have a daughter but that’s not her name. I suggest you go back to the drawing board and plug the holes in your research. Please excuse me. I need to get back to work.”

  He looked at her as if she’d told him Santa Claus had canceled Christmas this year. She bit back a giggle.

  “I’ll check my records, and if I have any further questions, I may be back later this afternoon.” He stood, retrieved his keys from his leather jacket and waved goodbye.

  As he walked out, she called after him, “No need to rush.”

  “What did he want?” Barbara asked when she joined her at the counter.

  “Case of mistaken identity. He’s looking for someone named Isabella Cameron.”

  “Pity. He had a gorgeous ass.”

  “Barbara!”

  “Didn’t you see it when he walked out? His Calvin Kleins fit him like a second skin. And he has the most beautiful eyes—well, eye. I haven’t seen that shade of blue since Bradley Cooper.” Her daughter’s dreamy expression turned into a grin. “Lighten up, Mum. Just because Graham was a jerk, doesn’t mean all men are useless.”

  “Well, I’m not about to test that theory. I’m not interested in men’s asses, whether or not they’re covered in designer pants.” She rolled her eyes at her daughter. “Can you take over for a while? I want to check on the Independence Day specials for lunch and finish my book mock-up before the girls arrive.”

  Thea returned to her office table to put the finishing touches to the cover for her new cookbook. Twenty minutes later, the book was ready to go to the printer. As she collated her notes to file them, Mark Cheltham’s business card fell out. She picked it up and turned it over in her fingers.

  Although she’d brushed him off, his visit had disturbed her. Doubts glared her in the face. Could Graham have a daughter she knew nothing about? She tapped the edge of the card on the table. After years of humiliation, she hadn’t thought he could still shock her. But another child? She hoped he’d rot in hell.

  Even though she’d stayed in the marriage, she’d shown him she wasn’t the fool he’d thought her to be. He’d laughed at her for opening the café. But with the help of her friend Anna’s legal expertise, she’d taken out the loan to buy and refurbish the old pub. Each one of her friends had helped: Christine, Claudia, and Anna.

  Together they’d wrestled the rundown tavern into a place fit for public use. How many nights had she spent on her knees, scrubbing her anger into the wooden floorboards until they shone in their original glory? As the battle became personal, the Cinnamon became Thea’s Statue of Liberty. And on Tuesday, she planned to repay the outstanding debt—years ahead of time.

  Stray shafts of sunlight filtered through the lace curtains, throwing geometric patterns of light onto the wall beside her table. Barbara came over and placed a hot drink in front of her. “What’s up?”

  “Nothing much. Thanks for the coffee. I’ve finished the layout; what do you think?”

  “I love it.” Her daughter bent down to study the cover. “Sometimes it’s hard to believe how you’ve managed to transform this old place and turn out these amazing cookbooks.”

  “I have you to thank for that. You’re the best thing to come out of that marriage. I love you, my darling. Seeing you with Christopher and the kids makes me hopeful that not all marriages are bad.” She kissed Barbara on the cheek. “When you became my partner, it gave me time to focus on things other than running the café. We make a brilliant team.”

  Thea picked up the PI’s business card and tapped it against her pursed lips a couple of times before throwing it into the wastepaper basket.

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  Preview of Daring To Love

  Connor flinched as lightning cut through the angry black sky, followed by waves of rolling thunder. He checked the rearview mirror and swore under his breath. Damn paparazzi were still chasing him. His maneuver to shake them off a few intersections back hadn’t worked. How were they doing it? Had they stuck a tracking device to his car?

  This day had gone from bad to crazy. The two-hour delay in Tokyo meant he’d arrived late in Auckland—to pouring rain and a thunderstorm. He should have taken the cab that the producers booked for him instead of driving himself—in a foreign country, at night, and on the wrong side of the road for crying out loud. What had he been thinking?

  He glanced up at the mirror again. Blinded by the headlights of the following car, he swore. They’d win and get their shots of him. But not tonight. Tonight, he was just an ordinary guy driving through the sticks of New Zealand. Stunning sticks, or so they’d told him. But he’d be the judge of that. Right now, he could only make out trees and fences as they appeared in the beam of his headlights.

  At a signpost to Dargaville, he hit the brakes and swung the car onto a small side road to the right. Had he outfoxed his followers? With a quick look in the rearview mirror, he jammed his foot hard on the gas pedal, sending the car racing around the corner and up the hill. Too late, he noticed the road’s surface change from asphalt to gravel. His jeep skidded.

  Illuminated by another lightning flash, two cows stood behind a fence, staring at him with their big eyes. He threw the steering wheel around, but his car slid and swerved across the road. The animals bolted in panic as the vehicle crashed sideways into the fence.

  Under the impact of the collision, his body propelled forward, and his head slammed into the windshield. Dizzy and disoriented, he moaned, feeling blood trickling down the right side of his face. The headlights cast an eerie glow onto the scene; the silence disturbed only by the drumroll of the rain on the car’s roof, the squeaking of the wipers, and the hissing steam escaping from the bonnet.

  Connor knew he should get out of the car, but his legs wouldn’t move. Maybe he’d died? Like Patrick Swayze in Ghost before he realized he was dead. Was this what death felt like? Interesting. He’d expected… More… more drama, more…

  Shouldn’t there be Pearly Gates?

  Fear clutched at his heart as darkness descended.

  * * *

  I wish I knew what I was doing!

  Claudia wiped condensation off the windshield and snorted. The course facilitator today had been a real wise guy. Two hundred fifty dollars for a weekend course to tell her what she already knew. So much money wasted in the hopes of finding new answers. Any answer would have done. At this particular juncture of her life, she was open to suggestions. A dozen ‘How to’ parenting books had only confused her further. Izzy wasn’t just any old child. She’d lost both her father and mother in rapid succession. Surely that required some special consideration?

  Startled by the bright lightning cutting through the stormy night and the following loud, sharp cracks of thunder, she gripped the steering wheel with both hands. Although she knew she should slow down, the headlights of the idiot racing up ahead gave her decent enough vision. She shrugged. How many times had she driven this road in the past thirty years? She could probably drive it with her eyes closed and her hands tied behind her back.

  She’d realized raising a ten-year-old orphan would be a massive adjustment. Not that Isabella was a difficult child. Far from it. But it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out losing her parents would cause ripples and bumps that would be hard on the child—and on Claudia.

  But nothing could have prepared her for the emotional roller coaster they now found themselves on. At the time, it had been an easy decision to care for the dying Sophia and promise her she’d give the young girl a home. Claudia had vowed to look after the child and would do so as if she’d given birth to her.

  She and Howard had always wanted children. The inability to have a child of their own had weighed heavily on their marriage. And discovering Howard’s affair with his best friend, Patrick, so soon after Isabella moving in with them certainly
hadn’t helped. Even though she’d hated inflicting another loss on Isabella, unable to stomach Howard’s lies and betrayal, she’d ended their thirty-year marriage immediately.

  With a snort, Claudia shifted down into second gear to take the turnoff. Almost home. Her eyes widened as the car in front of her swerved like a leaf caught in the wind and slammed into the fence. Her fence. Bloody idiot! Who drove at breakneck speed on a gravel road during a thunderstorm? She pumped her brakes until her pickup truck came to a halt behind the jeep. Seeing no movement from the car, she leaped from her truck and ran through the pouring rain to help.

  * * *

  Cows in Heaven? Really?

  Connor stared back at the cows standing near the passenger’s window. He couldn’t be dead because everybody knew cows don’t go to Heaven. Dogs do. All Dogs Go to Heaven. But he’d never seen a movie about cows in Heaven. They had whirled through the air in The Wizard of Oz—or was that Twister? But could a cow tear open a car door with its hooves? Because something just had, and the sound of it felt like a sledgehammer hitting his head.

  Soft hands pried his fingers from the steering wheel before flitting over his face. Pain shot through him and he flinched when they probed his forehead. He lifted his head and looked straight into eyes the color of the Scandinavian amber found on the beaches of the Baltic Sea. He remembered shooting a war movie in the Baltic Sea… ages ago. The eyes belonged to hands that inspected his torso and then his legs.

  Keep going… There are countless bits you haven’t touched yet.

  He beamed at her—at least, that’s what he aimed for. Now seemed the ideal time for his tried-and-true Casablanca line: “Sweetheart, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

  His croaking voice surprised him. Had he lost the power of speech? One of his best assets? Why was she shooting angry, poisonous darts with her eyes? He yelped when she leaned over him to unbuckle his seatbelt. “That hurt!” He squeezed his eyes shut in pain.

  “It appears you’re lucky. Nothing seems broken, but you’re bleeding from your head wound. Your car’s a wreck. We need to get you out of here.” She slid her hands under his armpits. “Can you help? You’re mighty heavy.”

  Connor pushed with his legs and winced. Every single part of his body hurt. As she helped him from the jeep, he slung an arm over her shoulders, trying not to put too much weight on her.

  Battered by unforgiving storm gusts and soaked to the bone, they reached her car. She folded his legs under the dashboard and buckled him in.

  “My bags.” Connor shivered, his teeth chattering as the cold seeped into him.

  “I’ll go lock up your car and grab them for you.”

  He watched her stomp through the rain to his jeep. Rivulets of water ran off her calf-length oilskin coat as she switched off the lights and wipers and closed the door of his damaged car. After one last look at the broken fence, probably to make sure it would still keep the cows contained, she lifted his large bags onto the back seat of her pickup, swung herself behind the wheel, and started the truck.

  “Thank you.” He groaned as he turned to her. “You came just in time to save me from being trampled to death by a stampede of cows.”

  “Nonsense. Molly and Daisy are harmless. They’re part of the family. You almost ran over my only two cows.” She concentrated on the winding road ahead. “I’m glad you didn’t.”

  “You should have seen the murderous looks they gave me! They were out for revenge.”

  She snorted and handed him a stack of tissues. “Of course they were. They do that all the time. Here, hold these against your cut. You look terrible. I’ll take you home so I can check your injuries, and you can change into dry clothes.” She slid the control to warm, and the truck soon filled with hot air.

  “You live nearby?”

  She pointed out into the vast darkness. “This is my farm.”

  Connor glanced at her as the occasional flash of lightning lit up the inside of the car. Fine lines spread out from the corners of her eyes. Were they from squinting into the sunlight or from laughing a lot? He couldn’t make out the shape of her lips because she constantly worried at them as she navigated the many curves and potholes in the road. Her nose made a slight upward swing at the tip, giving her a cheeky, almost mischievous appearance.

  She was in no way remarkable. A battered pickup truck, an oilskin coat, and no makeup told a simple story. Farmer’s wife. It wouldn’t surprise him at all if she stopped the truck, jumped out wielding a wrench, and fixed a fence wire loosened by the storm.

  As a sharp right turn pushed him into the corner, a groan escaped Connor, and he clutched his aching chest. No doubt, by tomorrow, he’d be covered in bruises. And thanks to the damn airbag not inflating, he’d probably even have one in the shape of the steering wheel. Thank God he didn’t have any work that required him to undress in the next two weeks.

  She turned to him with concern in her eyes. “I’m sorry; I should’ve driven slower. We’re home.”

  Two large outside lamps cast pale pools of light onto a deserted farmyard and a dark, towering barn to the right. She drove up to the front steps of a grand weatherboard house. A porch stretched along the front, edged by skillfully turned railings. Two old trees framed the porch, their branches, blown about by the storm, rat-a-tat-tatting against the pitched roof sheltering the front entrance from the weather.

  Connor had lost all sense of where he was in relationship to Auckland Airport and the Kaipara Harbour—his destination. He might have landed on Mars for all he knew. They were miles from any civilization. What was he doing out here in the middle of nowhere? Should he have gone home with a total stranger? Was this like Stephen King’s Misery? Was he in the clutches of a deranged fan?

  She did look a little like one, charging around the car with no regard for the deluge of rain, her dark hair whipping about her head. He’d seen scarecrows looking more appealing than her.

  She opened his door. “Take my arm and let’s see if you can get out by yourself.”

  A soft moan escaped him as he eased himself from the car. Every muscle in his body complained as he limped inside the house with her assistance.

  “Please take a seat and wait here. I’ll fetch your bags so you can change… You do have dry clothes in your bags, don’t you?” She pulled up a chair for him.

  Connor nodded and watched her leave. As soon as the door closed behind her, he slumped onto the chair, dizzy and shivering. Water dripped from him onto a polished wooden floor, which gleamed in the warm light of a standard lamp. This must be the entrance hall; cozy and inviting, it looked like the entrance hall in Home Alone.

  Minutes later, she returned with his two bags and dropped them on the floor. After taking off her coat, she hung it on the hallstand together with his soaked leather jacket. She shook out her dripping wet hair and picked up his bags.

  “Come through to the living room, please. Do you need a hand?”

  “No, thanks. I’ll manage.” Connor paused. “You look like a drowned rat.” A smile quirked up one side of his mouth and soon turned into a loud laugh.

  At first, she looked taken aback. Then she dropped his bags and chuckled. Seconds later, they were both doubled up with laughter.

  “Ouch.” He clutched his ribs.

  She took a first aid kit and some blankets from a closet in the hall, and he followed her through to the living room. “Please lie down on the couch so I can examine you. But first, could you help me with getting you out of your wet clothes?”

  Connor nodded. For the first time, he heard the fatigue in her voice. It triggered his protective instincts and the urge to tell her he could manage on his own. But he said nothing. He knew all about feeling like crap and showing a smiling face to the world.

  With quick hands, she removed his jacket, shoes, and shirt. After a brief hesitation, together they took off his trousers. Then, averting her eyes, she pointed at his boxers. Blushing, he pushed them down and covered himself with a blanket.


  “I don’t want you getting cold.”

  Nothing about her behavior indicated she had anything other than an examination in mind. Too bad. He’d prefer indulging in other activities… Although maybe not just yet. As she cleaned his head wound and applied a dressing to his forehead, he grimaced in pain. She took his pulse and his blood pressure, checked his ribs and rubbed arnica cream on his bruised chest, waved her fingers back and forth in front of his eyes, and finally, checked his legs. He sighed. So many missed opportunities.

  “Now that you’ve seen me in all my glory, I might as well introduce myself. I’m Connor Anderson.”

  A faint flush of color swept across her face, fading so quickly, he thought maybe he’d imagined it.

  “Nice meeting you, Connor, I’m Claudia Milner.” She raked her hair out of her eyes. “It looks like you have a mild concussion and some nasty bruises. I can’t find anything else wrong.”

  She crossed to the fireplace opposite the couch and held a match to the newspaper and kindling sitting underneath a pile of logs. “It should get warm in here in no time. Get some rest, and I’ll check on you soon.”

  After she’d left the room, his chilled, battered limbs warmed up and started to relax. The heat from the crackling fire hit him full on, soothing his battered body. He nestled into the pillow, overcome with a sudden urge to close his eyes.

  * * *

  Claudia couldn’t remember when she’d last felt so exhausted.

  First the stupid workshop, then the drive home in appalling weather, and last but not least, now the bloody fence in the southern paddock lay in ruins. She’d have to ring Patrick and ask him to send out his crew to fix it. And she’d rather have a root canal than ask Patrick for help. One day, she’d be gracious and forgive him for betraying their friendship and starting an affair with her husband. But not today.