A Bride For Barra Creek

‘You’re very formal,’ said Tye, and his eyes glinted. ‘We kissed last time we met,’ he reminded her.

As if she would have forgotten. As if she couldn’t still feel his jacket beneath her fingers, his lips on hers, the deep, dangerous twist of excitement. As if she hadn’t relived every second of that kiss and how it had felt as his arm came round her like an iron bar and lifted her effortlessly against him.

Lizzy moistened her lips surreptitiously. ‘That was just because I wanted an interview,’ she said, raising her voice above the bumping and thumping of her heart.

She wished he would let her hand go, but when she tried to pull it away Tye’s grip tightened. ‘It worked,’ he said, a glimmer of amusement in his eyes as he drew her inexorably towards him, ‘but this time let’s kiss because we’re pleased to see each other.’

It was just like the wedding, only this time it was Tye who made the first move, Tye whose lips brushed the edge of her mouth and lingered against her cheek.

To anyone watching it must have seemed the coolest of kisses, but Lizzy’s senses were drumming beneath her skin, preternaturally alert to the smell of his hair, to the touch of his lips, to the feel of his cool, masculine skin, and she was suddenly overwhelmed by an inexplicable urge to lean into him, to turn her head and let their mouths meet, so that they could kiss just as they had kissed before.

For one dizzying moment she was sure that Tye was going to do just that, and she closed her eyes, bracing herself against the terrifying jolt of response, but after the tiniest of hesitations Tye lifted his head and let her go.

A polite kiss, a mere grazing of cheeks; that was all it had been. Lizzy’s eyes snapped open and her cheeks burned with a mixture of disappointment and fury at her own foolishness in thinking it might have been anything else.

Had Tye guessed how close she had come to making a complete idiot of herself? Lizzy slid a glance at him from under her lashes, but his expression was impossible to read. He looked as sardonic and indifferent as ever, she thought with a spurt of resentment. If the touch of their cheeks had set his senses spinning, he was giving absolutely no sign of it.

‘Come,’ said Tye, taking her arm. ‘We’ll have a drink before we go.’

He steered her towards a bar that was discreetly hidden behind lush potted palms, and Lizzy, burningly aware of the touch of his hand against her bare arm, let herself be led. Her legs felt ridiculously unsteady and she was glad to sink down into one of the plush armchairs.

A barman materialised in response to Tye’s barely lifted finger. ‘Champagne,’ ordered Tye without even looking at him.

‘Certainly, sir.’

‘Champagne?’ Lizzy made an enormous effort to pull herself together. Cool and professional, right?

Right.

‘What are we celebrating?’ she asked, hoping that she sounded like the kind of person who was only ever interviewed over a glass of champagne.

‘The fact that you came.’

Lizzy stared at him. She wasn’t sure what she had been expecting him to say. Perhaps a billion-dollar deal closed, or a rival company crushed. Anything except what he had said.

Belatedly aware that her jaw was hanging open, Lizzy snapped her mouth shut. ‘Did you think that I wouldn’t?’ she asked cautiously.

Tye seemed to consider the matter. ‘I wasn’t sure,’ he said eventually.

‘I wouldn’t have kissed you if I hadn’t really wanted you to consider me for the job,’ Lizzy pointed out, and was then afraid that it might seem as if she was protesting just a little too much.

‘True.’ Tye was unperturbed by her unflattering motives. ‘But I did wonder if you might have changed your mind once I’d left. There must have been plenty of people there trying to persuade you that it would be a terrible mistake to have anything to do with me. Or are you going to tell me that nobody noticed the affectionate farewell you gave me?’

‘They noticed all right,’ said Lizzy with feeling, remembering the moment when she had turned from the woolshed doors to face the avid or outraged stares. ‘Mum wasn’t very pleased.’

That was understatement of the year. Her mother hadn’t actually seen the kiss, but she had heard plenty about it and she had been appalled.

‘It was bad enough him turning up at the wedding at all, without you kissing him! What on earth possessed you to make such an exhibition of yourself?’

‘I felt sorry for him,’ Lizzy had said.

She had been strangely reluctant to admit the truth about that kiss. If she’d told her mother that she had had to kiss Tye to get him to consider her for a job, it would only have added to his reputation, and that was bad enough as it was. Lizzy couldn’t think of any good reason why Tye’s reputation should matter to her; she just knew that she didn’t want to be responsible for blackening it any further.

‘Sorry for Tye Gibson? You must be the first person ever to feel that!’

That was probably true, Lizzy had thought wryly. It wasn’t easy to pity a man like Tye. He was too tough, too competent, too indifferent to what people thought of him.

‘He wasn’t exactly made to feel welcome,’ she’d tried to explain to her mother. ‘I felt as if I ought to make an effort to talk to him. We did invite him, after all.’

‘That was your father’s fault,’ her mother had grumbled. ‘Why did he come, anyway? He didn’t talk to anyone except you.’

‘Maybe that’s because nobody except me bothered to talk to him,’ Lizzy had said with a shade of defiance, even as she’d wondered what on earth she was doing defending Tye Gibson.

‘Nobody except you would have thought they had to fling themselves into his arms just to be polite!’ her mother had retorted, clearly baffled by Lizzy’s behaviour. ‘It’s absolutely typical of you, Lizzy! You always go too far!’

Lizzy had given up then. She did feel a little guilty about having caused a scene at Ellie’s wedding, but it wasn’t as if she had hurt anyone’s feelings. And she certainly didn’t feel guilty enough to give up her best chance yet of a real job.

Muttering vaguely about the possibility of a job in Sydney as she’d left, Lizzy had prudently kept Tye Gibson’s name out of it. Her mother would have a fit when she heard, but Lizzy would deal with that when—if—she got the job.

‘She doesn’t approve of me?’ Tye broke into her thoughts. It was more of a statement than a question.

Her mother’s words rang in Lizzy’s ears: ‘That Tye Gibson is no good! He never was and he never will be! He broke his poor father’s heart, Lizzy, and he’ll break a lot more hearts before he’s finished, you mark my words. Don’t you have anything to do with him!’

‘Well…not really,’ she said cautiously.

‘Good,’ he said coolly. ‘I have to confess when I met you at your sister’s wedding I thought you would be too nice. I had you down as the kind of person who has to be liked, but if you’re prepared to meet me again in the face of family disapproval, that means you’ve got what it takes after all.’

Lizzy couldn’t imagine anyone else being pleased to hear that they were thoroughly disliked. ‘It means I need a job,’ she told him honestly.

‘I know.’ Tye leant forward and looked straight into her puzzled blue eyes. ‘I’ve got a feeling that it also means you could be just the girl I’m looking for!’

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