Mistaken Engagement Read online

Mia stared at the sea of names and dates swimming before her on the computer screen. Diagnosing Tilly’s speech delay with her substitution of ‘t’ for ‘k’, and ‘d’ for ‘g’, had been the easy part. Finding enough time to work with her was going to be the problem. She attempted to swallow but her dry mouth had already consumed its quota of moisture. She needed to end this appointment and not only because of the heat. Tension rippled along her vertebrae. She had to get this mirror image of her father, and all that he represented, out of her office.

  She swivelled on her chair to look at Kade. He’d removed his jacket and loosened his tie but otherwise he reclined on the sofa as though he were sitting in an air-conditioned Sydney penthouse.

  She strove for civility. ‘How long are you planning on staying out west?’

  ‘However long it takes for Tilly to receive the help she needs.’

  Mia blanked out the surprising seriousness of his reply. She might have had less trouble believing him if his expression didn’t equal the chill of her air-cooler when working and if he’d been able to comfort his niece.

  ‘We might rival Dubai with the heat but you do know there’s no seven-star service out here.’

  ‘My needs are simple. Food, sleep and…’ he eyed off the contrary air-conditioner, ‘cool air.’

  Now was not a good time for laughter to gleam in his blue eyes.

  ‘Summer here,’ she said in what she hoped passed as a comment and not a snap, ‘only has one temperature setting and today is just a taste of what will be on the weather menu.’

  Stiffness reclaimed his features. ‘Is warning me about the weather your way of saying my niece is too hard to work with?’

  ‘No, not at all.’ She looked toward the play area where Tilly made splashing sounds as Stardust leapt in and out of the pretend pool. ‘Tilly does have a speech delay but with appropriate therapy a positive outcome is achievable.’

  ‘How long…until my ward’s speech can be understood?’

  Had a ragged note of desperation torn through his words? Impossible.

  ‘With all speech therapy it’s important we retain perspective. Even though Tilly is close to five, she hasn’t mastered the three-year old sounds ‘k’ and ‘g’ that occur at the back of the throat. So she substitutes the easier sounds ‘t’ and ‘d’ instead. Hence ‘Kade’ becomes ‘Tade’ and ‘goat’ becomes ‘doat’. Her programme would involve mastering the ‘k’ and ‘g’ sounds and then, like a ladder, progressing up a series of steps. A single step may take over a week to achieve and I must warn you we can only work on one sound at a time.’

  His lips thinned.

  Mia gritted her teeth. She was in no mood to be patient with yet another man who demanded an instant fix. ‘This is the outback town of Whylandra, not the Sydney CBD. And this is a child we’re discussing, not a business negotiation. There are no bonuses for reaching targets early.’

  ‘Believe me, I know.’ He speared a hand through his thick hair. ‘I’m only trying to do the best that I can for my ward.’

  Astonishment held her silent. The sincerity of his voice, the earnest line between his brows, he appeared almost…human. She studied the computer screen. The heat was melting her defences, sucking the life out of her common sense. For a nanosecond she’d actually considered the possibility a heart beat beneath his designer shirt.

  She’d once thought the same about her father.

  ‘Have you finalised a place to stay?’ she asked after a long moment.

  ‘Yes. Berrilea.’

  An edge hardened his voice as though he were telling her information she should have already known. The accommodation details must have been in the unsalvageable paragraphs of the client notes.

  Berrilea. She’d heard of little else but the historic property and its helicopter-flying city owner who was returning to the family home. Rumour had it that Whylandra’s only hair salon had doubled its business in the last week. Wait until the bush telegraph got wind that the very eligible bachelor had a ward in tow. Every maternal instinct in the district would be taken off the shelf and polished until it shone. Just as well her interest would be one of strict professionalism.

  She bit the inside of her cheek and looked across at Tilly’s sweet flushed face as she played with Stardust and softly hummed. Exhaustion smudged dark bruises beneath her eyes. A single meeting with Mia would sentence the little girl to a three-hour round trip.

  ‘You couldn’t have picked a further away place to stay,’ she said. ‘Berrilea’s quite a drive from here.’

  ‘Yes, I know. That’s why your flexibility is much appreciated.’

  What was he talking about? She was a speech pathologist, not a gymnast.

  ‘Of course,’ he said, ‘it goes without saying that I’ll make your co-operation financially worth your while.’

  There it was. The single universal truth of her father’s world and of this man’s world. Money solved everything. A world she’d worked so hard to distance herself from.

  ‘That won’t be necessary.’ Mia was past caring if her words sounded abrupt. ‘It’s my job to help your niece the best way I can.’

  She scrolled through the computer time-table. Blood throbbed in her ears. Her frayed nerves were unravelling as fast as the heat dried her blouse. She had to complete this assessment and get this man out of her office. She had to plug the leak on her memories.

  On Monday she was heading to Sydney for a fortnight to work with a child called Matilda. Her old university mentor had sent an SOS that Mia hadn’t been able to ignore. Yesterday’s power surge had knocked out the internet as well as the air-conditioner and her travel details and paperwork were trapped in her inbox. But it would be safe to assume she’d have an opportunity to see Tilly before she left for the city.

  ‘Right, Tilly’s first appointment can be nine o’clock Monday morning.’ She threw Kade a quick glance. ‘Is that suitable?’

  He nodded.

  She entered Tilly’s details onto the computer. ‘The next appointment will be in two weeks, again at nine o’clock. We can discuss further dates then.’ She typed in the second appointment details and stood. Relief rendered her light-headed. ‘I believe we’re done.’

  Kade too came to his feet. ‘Not so fast. I understood our arrangement provided more than a single initial appointment?’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘I understood that Tilly was to receive back-to-back intensive therapy?’

  She squared her shoulders. His sub-zero tone wasn’t going to work on her. ‘We don’t have an arrangement.’

  Other than for all future appointments you’ll be in the waiting room.

  ‘Didn’t you receive an email outlining the change in plans?’

  ‘Change of plans? I’ve received no email. The power surge didn’t only take out the air-conditioner, the internet is down too.’

  His gaze narrowed before amusement kindled in his blue eyes.

  She pulled her heavy hair off her forehead and fought the slow burn of her short fuse. The loss of her cyber-lifeline to the world had been no laughing matter. Today was day two of battling email-withdrawal symptoms.

  ‘Well, when it is working be sure to check Dr. Sheldon’s email,’ Kade said.

  Her hair slipped through her fingers to fall around her face. ‘Dr. Sheldon? Dr. B–B– Bruce Sheldon from the University of Sydney?’

  She didn’t need the return of her childhood stammer to confirm what every beat of her racing heart told her. She’d been again catapulted out of her comfort zone.

  ‘Yes, that’s the one.’ The left corner of Kade’s mouth lifted. He turned to his niece. ‘You’re looking forward to Ms. Windsor coming to stay at Berrilea with us for a fortnight, aren’t you, Matilda?’

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  Excerpt from Unforgettable by Elise K. Ackers

  In Case of Emergency

  Emma was only in Connor’s life for as long as
he was asleep. The moment he opened his eyes, figured out where he was and remembered who was to blame, he’d cast her out.

  Again.

  Her guilt shadowed her from room to room, slept beside her in bed. She’d taken up a daily vigil of suffering in the hospital alongside him. For as long as he was here, she would be.

  As he slept in the recovery ward, she waited in the cafeteria. Cutlery scraped against ceramic, chairs groaned over the tiled floor and people spoke quietly, ever mindful of where they were and what that meant. Sickness lingered in the air, mixed in with the scents of food, cleaning products and people. Everything about Zouki Café offered an attractive distraction, from the roof tiles that looked like puzzle pieces to the letters carved in the backs of the chairs, but it couldn’t make people forget…especially when a man shuffled to a table wearing a white gown, dragging after him an IV stand on a mobile pedestal.

  Emma turned from one of the many televisions to watch him. He held a mobile phone with both hands, clearly waiting to receive a call. He shifted every so often, checked the screen. Sighed quietly. She wished she knew his number.

  It was raining outside and everyone within the walls of the Royal Melbourne Hospital appeared to know it, even if they hadn’t seen the sky in days. It was a long, wet Sunday and some people had tried everything on the varied Zouki menu by now. People like Emma.

  Today she’d packed lunch. She couldn’t face another slice of cake or stuffed croissant and all the hot food was starting to look and taste the same. She’d been coming here too long. Long enough, in fact, to know which seats caught the sweet aromas of the flower shop down the hallway. Roses, gerberas, Australian natives. She’d bought a bunch yesterday and taken them home. Connor wouldn’t have wanted them. Or even known they were there.

  Just as he wouldn’t know about the horrid purple bear sitting on one of the visitor seats, or the naff ‘Gone but not Frog-otten’ card that his colleagues had signed. If he could open his eyes he would cringe. They were an eyesore and an insult to taste.

  “Are you still thinking about that bear?” her best friend Affni asked.

  Emma spooned a scoop of yoghurt into her mouth. It tasted sour. “That purple hurts my eyes.”

  “It could have been worse. She could have bought the blue.”

  Emma conceded this point with a nod. The blue was infinitely uglier.

  Four nurses seated themselves at the table beside them. Each looked weary, and Emma wondered how many hours they had been tending the sick. One of the women began to speak in fractured English, gesturing wildly with her hands. Spanish slid in and out of her sentences as the others listened on, eating their meals and cradling their coffees. The man in the gown struggled to his feet and left. His phone hadn’t rung.

  “This place is sucking the life out of me,” Emma grumbled. “Everyone’s waiting for something. Waiting to leave, waiting to die.”

  Affni’s fingertips brushed against her wrist—mocha against vanilla. “You’ve been here every day for a fortnight. Maybe you should take a day off. Recharge.”

  Emma shook her head. “I shouldn’t complain.”

  “You’ve every right to. He won’t know, Emma.”

  “I’ll know.”

  Affni squeezed the back of Emma’s hand then began cutting up her schnitzel. She hid her eyes behind her liquorice-coloured fringe, but Emma didn’t need to see them to know there was judgement there. Affni didn’t approve of Emma’s guilt.

  They ate quietly for a time, then Affni said, “I saw Asha in the gift shop again.”

  “Maybe she bought him a pillow with his name on it today.”

  “Maybe.”

  Emma pushed her yoghurt aside and snapped open her container of carrot sticks. They didn’t taste good either.

  A grey-haired woman in a white patterned dressing gown walked past, a loaded plate of stir-fry in her hands and two chattering friends in tow. The three sat down and began discussing grandchildren, a neighbour called Maggie and Donna’s crook hip. Combined they had the appetite of ten men.

  “What will you do when he wakes up?” Affni asked. She kept her head down, her focus on her lunch.

  Emma stopped chewing and considered. That question had haunted her since the accident, and her answer had changed every day. “I don’t know. Maybe I should just buy one of those God-awful cards from the gift shop and apologise in that. Should I even be here?”

  Affni looked up. “I don’t know, Em.” She poked at her potato, as if unsure whether to continue. “Not because it’s your fault, but because of who you are.”

  “Explain it to me again,” Dana insisted.

  Emma struggled to control any sign of her impatience. She didn’t have time to repeat herself; a truckload of steel would be turning into Southbank Boulevard any minute, and she still needed to brief the Auditorium’s General Foreman. But pushing against the client wouldn’t get her out of this meeting room faster, so she took a steadying breath and started again.

  Dana Vickers watched her through narrow pink-rimmed glasses. Her hair tumbled about her face in a kind of controlled chaos, and the enormous peacock broach on her collar winked and glittered in the light. It had been distracting Emma for over an hour. Dana took notes as Emma spoke, her handwriting utterly illegible to Emma’s eye, and made soft sounds in her throat whenever she agreed or understood something. Ten minutes later Emma had heard that sound only twice.

  People around them were beginning to fidget, and some were bold enough to check their watches. Dana was unmoved.

  “If the subcontractor proceeded on the assumption that the technical drawings were unchanged, then they are clearly at fault. The cost should not be absorbed by the project.”

  Emma nodded, not in agreement, but to show that she had listened. “Be that as it may, it is a dangerous step to punish NJK for attempting to keep up with the fast-track program. It sends a bad message. The subcontractors are taking risks for us to keep things moving. If we slam a twenty k bill on their heads for their trouble we could lose a lot more in the long term. Dana, I don’t mean to be rude, but I need to wrap this up. I’m happy to discuss this offline with you but right now I have somewhere I need to be.”

  Dana angled her chin. The woman might have been twenty years her senior, but she didn’t have the authority to question Emma’s priorities. She nodded, and fifteen chairs slid back from the table.

  Another weekly consultant meeting out of the way, at last. Emma hurried to her desk, hoping to intercept Mark before he headed over to site. She dropped her notepad and pen next to her keyboard, scanned her unread email subjects for anything that couldn’t wait, then seized her phone and dialled Mark’s number. It rang in her ear and on the desk nearby. She cursed and ended the call.

  Connor had never left his phone behind—it had been practically grafted to him—but his replacement had a tendency to forget things, like his phone, safety glasses or reporting structure. Whatever her feelings towards Connor, he was good at what he did. Mark was not. So the sooner Connor dragged himself out of bed and back to work the better life would be for everyone.

  Emma hadn’t had a chance to slip out of her high-visibility vest since first putting it on at seven o’clock this morning. She added a hardhat to her ensemble and hooked her safety glasses around the back of her neck.

  A single beep made her turn. Mark stepped through the security door, returning from the toilets, and spotted her. His expression was neutral as he approached. At twenty-eight, Emma was ten years younger than Mark, and she suspected that he was loath to report to her, but that had not yet come up between them. She supposed that her being a woman was a source of consternation for him as well, but he wisely kept this to himself, save for the odd disparaging look or long-suffering sigh.

  “How did the toolbox meeting go this morning?” she asked him. She clipped a radio to the loop in her jeans and pocketed her phone. “Were the subbies briefed on what to expect this afternoon?”

  He nodded. “Damo gave them the spiel t
hen Artie laid down the law. I think he was expecting you to be there.”

  “I can’t split myself in half, Mark. What questions were raised?”

  “None.”

  Damn. There would have been questions had she been there. The subbies felt comfortable enough with her to speak their minds, but something about Mark made people hold their tongues. Maybe it was his attitude and the fact that he strode from place to place with an air of urgency, always on his way to somewhere else. Tell him quick. Don’t hold him up. It was utter rubbish, because the man had nowhere else to be except where he was. As General Foreman of the Auditorium, he stalked the Stalls, Circle and Balcony levels, and most recently the platform atop the birdcage scaffold. If he wasn’t in one of these locations. he was supposed to be at his desk in the project office.

  She missed Connor.

  The thought startled her. Feeling a little off balance, she struggled to find the right answer. Had Mark asked her a question? Damien Long, or ‘Damo’, was the project’s Safety and Environment Manager. Ever diligent, she imagined his briefing would have been a dot-point account of what could go wrong and what had been done to avoid it. He wasn’t the most optimistic of people, but Emma supposed she’d be hardened too if she’d seen the things he had. Arthur Strange was the Site Manager, and his efficient enthusiasm would have been a nice balm over Damo’s sombreness. She wondered what role Mark had played. Had he said anything to bolster the team? Had he had questions of his own? He’d only been on the job a fortnight, after all, not long enough to have found his feet.

  Undoubtedly pride would have kept him mute.

  “I want to have another look at the scaffolding before the steel gets here,” Emma said, “and I want your opinion on a few things. Let’s head over.”

  She didn’t miss the way he bristled before he strode off to get his things.

  Connor, too, had at first grumbled about reporting to her, but they had worked together for so long that there hadn’t been any heat in his complaints. They’d started together on this project almost a year ago, and they had been a stellar team. She missed the half-language they had adopted, the way they had come to anticipate one another. He’d made work easier for her, even fun. She’d lost count of the times she’d heard his booming laugh and found herself smiling too.