Loe raamatut: «Ryan's Rules»

CHAPTER ONE

KIRRILY spied his tall frame waiting by the luggage carousel at first glance. Even if his black jeans and leather bomber jacket hadn’t contrasted with the business suits of late, Friday-night commuters, Ryan Talbot would have stood out in a crowd. Six feet six of solid male athleticism and rugged blond good looks weren’t easily overlooked—at least, not by any red-blooded woman with a pulse.

Unfortunately, Kirrily was forced to concede that not only was she red-blooded but her pulse was positively rabid! Anxious to gain some control over its excited thumping, she stopped dead in her tracks and took a deep breath. Aside from its causing several fellow passengers to cannon into her, nothing happened. Great!

Up until Bob and Pam Talbot’s fortieth wedding anniversary a few months back, she’d been convinced she’d outgrown the teenage crush she’d had on their son, but now, at the age of twenty-four, she’d relapsed into a severe bout of the hots for one Ryan Talbot! As if she didn’t have enough problems!

She sighed. After what she’d left behind in Melbourne, being in Sydney was a godsend, even if it meant exposure to Ryan.

An impatient shove and a frosty look from a wellgroomed matron reminded her she was impeding people’s progress. Muttering an apology, she again started moving towards the waiting Ryan, wishing she could quash the tingle of adrenaline which increased with each step she took. It wasn’t fair! A grown woman wasn’t supposed to react like this to a man who still saw her in pigtails and braces. Realising the male in question had now spotted her, she fixed a serene smile on her face, determined not to let him rile her. She was an adult; she could control both her tongue and her temper. And this time while she was around Ryan she would control them simultaneously! Even if it killed her! No matter what he said!

‘G’day, short stuff!’

The term would have been an insult even if she hadn’t been five feet six, but her vow of self-control and maturity demanded that Kirrily wait until he actually did pat her on the head before she hit him! No pat was forthcoming. Instead Ryan bowed from his superior height and brushed his usual kiss across her cheek before stepping back and studying her from head to toe. Though irritated under his detailed, blue-eyed scrutiny, she forced herself to relax—at least as much as it was possible for her to relax around Ryan; it seemed these days whenever they got within sight of each other the air around them thickened to a point where she could almost chew it.

His inscrutable expression made her wish that she could think of something witty to say. Heck, she’d settle for something inane, if only for the reassurance of knowing she was still capable of thinking of anything besides how damn good Ryan looked! Good? Ha! The guy was as sexy as sin!

‘So how was the trip?’

It took a second for Kirrily’s hormone-corrupted brain to register the question, but, grateful for the nudge back to reality, she rallied quickly.

‘Lousy. We took off from Melbourne in a storm and it stayed with us most of the way. Still, it was worth it to escape another Melbourne winter.’ Not to mention everything else, she added silently.

‘I didn’t know you were a baseball fan.’

Her confusion was caused as much by the question as the effect of his dazzling grin.

‘Your cap, kiddo,’ he said, coming dangerously close to having his orthodontically correct teeth knocked in as he patted her on the head. ‘By the way, you put it on backwards. Now, tell me which bags are yours and let’s get out of here.’

‘I didn’t “put it on backwards”. I’m wearing it backwards intentionally! And for your information it’s a basketball one.’

He raised a surprised eyebrow. ‘Your bag?’

‘No, my cap!’ she snapped, yanking it from her head and holding it so that the Sydney Kings insignia was visible.

‘Good to see living in Melbourne hasn’t swayed your home-town loyalties. Now, if you’ll rein in that temper I see flashing in your eyes,’ he said, ‘and tell me which bags are—’

Spying her two pieces of luggage, she reached to grab them but missed when another commuter pushed past her. Only Ryan’s steadying hand prevented her from ending up spread-eagled on the carousel and vanishing from sight as her luggage now was.

‘K.C., I said to tell me which was yours, not try and crash-tackle the thing yourself.’

The amusement in his tone didn’t do much to lessen her irritation and embarrassment. She refused to look at him as they waited for the bags to reappear.

‘Next time they come around,’ he said tersely, ‘just point at them. I want to get out of here before you’re recognised and we’ve every starry-eyed soap fan in the place stampeding for an autograph.’

‘Ryan, this is Sydney, not Hollywood; I’m hardly going to cause a stampede. Besides, I’m sure you’d protect me to your dying breath—whether I wanted you to or not!’

‘Don’t bet on it,’ he said drily. ‘Now, quit acting like a spoilt brat and tell me which bags are—’

‘That one and that one!’ she snapped, annoyed that he had no difficulty in snaring them as they came past. ‘And don’t blame me if I live down to your low expectations!’

He frowned. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘It means that maybe if you stopped treating me like a petulant child I’d stop acting like one!’

‘Well, that’s one thing we agree on,’ he said.

‘Alleluia! We agree I’m an adult!’

‘No.’ He smirked. ‘We agree you’re petulant.’

K.C.’s expression, before she pivoted and hurried towards the exit, told Ryan that if she’d brought her trademark sense of humour with her from Melbourne it was packed in the bottom of one of the two suitcases he held. Great! K.C. riled up was the last thing he needed.

Had time travel existed, Ryan would have booked a trip back to the day when K.C. had gone from being cute to sexy and stopped it happening. But of course there was no such thing as time travel and, what was more, he couldn’t pinpoint the transformation of Kirrily Claire to any set event.

He suspected that the evolution had been a gradual thing, and it was only irritation at finding himself physically attracted to her which caused him to feel as if she’d actually catapulted from one to the other. Still, it seemed as if one minute he’d been chaperoning her sixteenth birthday party, dressing her down for spiking the punch, and the next he’d been at his parents’ fortieth wedding anniversary, mentally undressing her! Not that the clingy creation she’d worn that night had left much to a man’s imagination! Even the tight jeans and polonecked bodysuit she wore now were an improvement on that, though they, too, hugged her subtle young curves to the point of distraction!

Her pursed-lip silence continued all the way to the car and Ryan felt like a heel—not because he’d upset her but because he’d welcomed the opportunity simply to look at her without having to listen to her. Prize bastard that he was, he’d even gone so far as to walk behind her just so that he could study her cute, denim-clad butt! The fact that he’d found himself speculating on what it might look like minus the denim almost choked him with guilt.

She was his late friend’s kid sister, and he knew Steven Cosgrove hadn’t meant this when he’d made his dying request that Ryan ‘keep an eye on little K.C.’! Hell, if Steve had been alive today to witness Ryan lusting after his sister, he’d have knocked his so-called best mate’s teeth down his throat. And fair enough too, Ryan reasoned; he wouldn’t tolerate anyone leering at Jayne the way he had at K.C.!

Get a grip, mate! he told himself. She’s not your type at all. You like ‘em blonde, buxom and classically beautiful, not brunette and boyish with pixie-cute smiles and basketball caps—even if their legs do stretch into tomorrow!

But the way his feelings kept flipping from platonic caring to physical attraction worried the daylights out of Ryan. In the past he’d reasoned that much of the protectiveness and tenderness he felt for K.C. was accounted for by their families’ close bonds and the fact that he was twelve years older than she. So why was it that all of a sudden the gap between thirty-six and twenty-four seemed narrower than the one between sixteen and twenty-eight? It wasn’t-’

Don’t tell me you’ve locked the keys inside?’

K.C.’s impatient tone dragged him from his troubled thoughts; automatically he checked his pockets. ‘No.’

‘So why are you standing there scowling at the car? Trying to terrify the doors into opening? Hurry up, will you?’ she urged. ‘I’m dying to talk to Jayne.’

‘You’ll have plenty of time. She’s not flying out until Sunday.’

‘That’s if she doesn’t change her mind’

‘You think she will?’

She shrugged. ‘It wouldn’t be the first time.’

Kirrily forced herself to slide into the the passenger seat of his car without commenting, but she had to bite her tongue, hard, to maintain her assumed indifference. Ryan’s passion for Jags was no secret and over the years he’d restored more than a few. Now apparently he didn’t need to satisfy himself with second-hand ones; this beauty was the latest in the XJ series and Kirrily knew that it wore a six-figure price tag. The look on Ryan’s face told her he was waiting for her traditional request to be allowed a test drive, so he could give his traditional answer—no. Perversely she bit down even harder. Besting Ryan, even in such a small matter, was worth permanent teeth marks in her tongue!

Kirrily managed to keep stubbornly silent until Ryan had steered the sleek vehicle into the evening traffic, then she shifted in her seat, smugly satisfied by the puzzled frown marring his forehead. Gotcha! she thought gleefully before speaking.

‘This decision of Jayne’s was awfully sudden,’ she said. ‘The first I knew of it was last night.’

‘The first I knew of it was a couple of hours ago.’

‘You’re kidding. She didn’t sound you out on the idea first?’

‘Nope. Just walked into my office this afternoon, told me she was going and you were covering for her at work.’

The response startled her. Ryan was every bit as pedantic about protecting Jayne as he was Kirrily, but while she’d started bucking ‘Ryan’s Rules’, as she tagged them, at sixteen Jayne’s fragile emotional state had made her more compliant to her brother’s wishes. In fact Kirrily had never known her to make a big decision without ‘running it by Ryan’ first.

‘Have you spoken to Jack and Claire?’ he asked, without taking his eyes from the road.

‘Yeah, last night. I phoned them straight after Jayne called.’ She smiled. ‘They’re thrilled, of course—like your folks.’

‘Mmm.’ The glance he tossed her was too quick to read. ‘And what about you, K.C.?’ he asked. ‘Are you thrilled?’

‘Well, sure!’ she said. ‘Of course I am. Who wouldn’t be? It’s about time Jayne started to do normal stuff. Not that I think she hasn’t been normal!’ she amended hastily, knowing how Ryan tended to be sensitive about references to Jayne’s past emotional problems. ‘Just withdrawn. But…well, she’s only thirty-four and an attractive woman. And—’ She broke off in the face of the cynical look Ryan gave her.

‘Don’t try and kid me, K.C.; we both know Jayne’s existence has been more than “withdrawn”. It’s been positively ritualistic.’

‘I’ll admit it’s been routine—’

‘Stop soft-peddling round the facts,’ he muttered. ‘She’s spent the last fifteen years like a mouse on a treadmill: going through the motions of life without living it! Now this comes from right out of the blue.’ He thumped the steering wheel. ‘Wham! Six weeks ago, she was commemorating Steve’s death with her annual pilgrimage to Kiama and today she announces she’s flying to Europe.’ He shook his head. ‘Believe me, much as I’d like to be able to relax and feel good about her breaking out of her rut, the truth is, I can’t.’

Having braked at a red light, he looked across at her, the rhythmic flashing of a nearby neon sign alternately highlighting and disguising the concern in his face. What had started out as an angry outburst ended in weariness. ‘You’re as uncomfortable about this as I am. So don’t sit there telling me what you think I want to hear.’

‘I’m not,’ she insisted. ‘I’m really thrilled she’s decided to…to get her act together. Everyone’s been praying she’d do it for years and now, finally, it’s happened. It’s a good thing and we—’ She stopped under his disbelieving glare.

‘Oh, OK! OK!’ She sighed. ‘I admit a tiny part of me is worried because, like you said, this came from out of the blue. But there’s a difference between saying you’re going to do something and actually doing it. You’re worried Jayne hasn’t thought things through; I’m worried she might start, that she’ll begin wondering if she’s acted too hastily and back out.’

His frown prompted her to add, ‘A person who makes up their mind quickly can change it just as fast. If Jayne senses we have doubts about her decision, she’ll have doubts. So I think it’s important we don’t reinforce the negatives in this. The bottom line is that she needs to do this; why she’s decided to shouldn’t be an issue.’

There were a few seconds of silence as Ryan obviously mulled over what she’d said, then he turned a bemused smile in her direction.

‘You know, K.C., you surprise me at times. That’s a very astute observation.’

The praise had been too patronisingly bestowed for her to accept it graciously. ‘Well, you know what they say—out of the mouths of children…’

His grin did things to her insides that she both loved and hated. ‘Actually it’s out of the mouths of babes.’

‘I know.’ She gave him a sickly sweet smile. ‘But I hate being called a babe. Besides, I’m trying to wean you off the image of me with a teething ring.’

‘You could try wearing a muzzle,’ he suggested. ‘You’d not only present an alternative image but I’d stop worrying that you were going to bite my head off every time you misconstrued an innocent remark.’

‘You know, Ryan, this will probably be beyond the realms of your imagination…but there are some men who find the idea of me sinking my teeth into them very appealing!’

A wave of nostalgia swept through K.C. as the car swung into the driveway of the house which had been so much her second home in her teenage years that when people had asked for her phone number she’d given them the Talbots’ as well. However, in the five years since Ryan had bought the house from his parents, when, like hers, they’d retired to Victoria, she’d made only a handful of visits and never stayed more than a few hours. For the next three weeks at least, this would be where she was staying.

‘What’s up?’

She smiled in response to Ryan’s curious stare. ‘Nothing. I was just thinking how everything looks exactly as I remember. I always expected you to do some kind of renovations.’

‘Why?’ He frowned. ‘What’s wrong with the house?’ ‘Well, nothing! It’s…it’s just that I’d expect, you having been an architect and having access to building equipment at cost, you’d be tempted to make changes.’ She smiled. ‘I mean, I love the little house I’ve bought, but boy, if I had the money I’d really do something with it! You, however, do have the money.’

He raised an eyebrow.

‘Oh, stop looking like that,’ she chided him. ‘All I ever hear from Mum is how incredibly successful you are and how you’ve quadrupled the company’s profits since taking over from your father.’

‘Claire exaggerates,’ he said.

‘Claimed he, sitting behind the wheel of the latestmodel Jaguar,’ she responded drily.

He grinned. ‘I didn’t think you’d noticed.’

‘Not a chance!’ She laughed, letting her fingers caress the dashboard and no longer bothering to hide her appreciation of the vehicle. ‘So…do I get to drive her while I’m here?’

‘Like you said…not a chance. I’ve seen you drive, K.C.’

‘Huh! You’re the one who taught me.’

‘Don’t remind me. Jayne said you can use her car while she’s away.’

The reference to his sister caused her to glance across to the house. ‘You know, Ryan, maybe now that Jayne’s finally putting Steven’s death behind her it’ll let the rest of us do the same.’ She looked back at the man who had been her late brother’s best friend and almost his brother-in-law.

His gaze narrowed. ‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning maybe now someone will tell me all the facts surrounding the night he was killed.’

‘K.C.—’

‘No,’ she said, raising a hand to stop his words. ‘I know the things that happened after he was killed: about Jayne’s phantom pregnancy and her subsequent breakdown. I even think the real reason you’ve never let me drive one of your cars is because Steve was driving yours when he was killed.’

He tensed noticeably at her words and reached for the doorhandle. ‘Don’t go formulating a lot of half-baked ideas about something that happened when you were nine. Let it go, K.C. It looks like Jayne finally has.’

‘Have you?’

It wasn’t until he wrenched open the driver’s door and activated the car’s interior light that his irritation was visible.

‘I don’t know what kind of fantasies exist in that overimaginative mind of yours, but keep them to yourself! I don’t want Jayne upset.’

‘Is that the reason why, when your parents wanted to sell this house and Jayne didn’t want to move, you bought it?’ Without answering, Ryan got out of the car and slammed the door shut. ‘I’m right, aren’t I?’ she persisted as she, too, climbed from the car. ‘That’s why you haven’t done any alterations to it, because you didn’t want to do anything that might upset Jayne.’

His jaw tightened as if he was clenching his teeth. ‘I thought out-of-work actors waited tables and drove taxis. I had no idea they dabbled in psychoanalysis.’

‘You know me,’ she said, shrugging. ‘I’ll try anything once. As a matter of fact I’m looking forward to doing the accounts for Talbot’s.’

Moving to the open boot, he grunted, ‘That makes one of us.’

‘Ryan?’ she said, coming around to lean against the boot of the car as he removed her luggage. ‘There’s one thing I’ve never been able to understand…’

‘How to quit while you’re ahead?’ he suggested.

‘Why you gave up a partnership in one of Sydney’s most prestigious architectural firms to take over running a building-supply business? I mean, all you ever wanted to be was an architect; you graduated top of your class from university—’

‘Well, of course you don’t understand that, K.C.!’ He slammed the boot closed. ‘The reason is based in responsibility—family responsibility! Our fathers and Steven worked damned hard to build up the business and I for one had no intention of watching their efforts ruined at the hands of outsiders out to make a quick buck.’

‘So you don’t miss architecture?’

‘At the moment all I’m missing is the peace and quiet that existed before I picked you up at the airport. Now, will you just shut up and let me get these bags inside so I can go hunt up the Prozac I got last time you were here?’