Look-Alike Fiancee

‘Taryn.’ He repeated the name. ‘Taryn Conway.’ The bantering note was back in his voice. ‘I might have known it wouldn’t be Jane or Mary. Nothing plain or ordinary for the Conway girl. That wouldn’t do, would it?’

She drew in her lips. Usually people reacted to her name with remarks like, ‘What a pretty name’ or ‘How unusual’, but O’Malley, of course, had to be different and make it into a personal attack. Not that he’d actually said he disliked the name. But it was obvious he thought it too elaborate, chosen purely for effect. As far as she knew, her mother had simply plucked it from a book of names because she’d liked it.

‘And your name is...?’ She cast him a withering look. Heaven help him if it was anything more unusual than Tom, Charlie, or Jack!

‘Mine? Oh, you can call me Mike.’

Mike... She pursed her lips. Well, she could hardly call that elaborate or unusual. Mike... Michael O’Malley. It suited him, she decided, distracted for a second. Sort of tough, masculine, no frills. And very Irish. Not that he sounded the least bit Irish. But then he wouldn’t. The O’Malleys, from the snippets she’d heard about them, had lived in Australia for generations.

‘Won’t your father be getting worried about you?’ she asked tetchily. ‘Especially if he happens to see your horse come back without you.’

‘If my father has any sense he’ll be sheltering inside out of the rain, and won’t even notice if Caesar’s there or not. As for Caesar, he’ll head straight for his food bin and a roof over his head.’

‘But he might be worried,’ she persisted. ‘You should give him a call and—and let him know you’re safe.’

She felt his eyes on her. ‘Your concern for my father does you credit, Miss Conway...sorry, Taryn.’ He paused, slanting his head. ‘Yes...the name does suit you,’ he decided, but he didn’t spell out why. ‘All right...I’ll let him know I’m here. I’ll get him to send his young farmhand to pick me up in the ute. Smudge is much younger and fitter than Dad, so you won’t need to be concerned about him.’

Something shimmered in his eyes as he said it, causing her own eyes to waver. Was he wondering if her concern for his father was genuine?

‘I’d better check on my clothes,’ he said, ‘and see if they’re dry enough to put back on.’ He rose slowly, with a sigh, as if reluctant to leave the table.

Or reluctant to let his father know he was at the Conways?

That was more like it. Patrick O’Malley had made it plain he wanted nothing to do with his new neighbours. Not simply because they were the rich, high-flying Conways—mere hobby-farmers or ‘townies’, as he apparently saw them—but for what he perceived they’d done to him. Buying the rich slice of land he’d wanted to buy. Or rather had wanted to buy back.

Within minutes Mike was back, fully dressed in the jeans and bush shirt he’d taken from the dryer—looking a bit crumpled, but dry. She breathed a sigh of relief. It had been getting harder and harder to avoid looking at that expanse of deeply tanned chest...the taut golden muscles...the trail of dark hair that ran—

She snapped off her thoughts.

‘The phone’s over there...on the wall.’ She waved a hand, her heart picking up a beat as he reached for it and stabbed it several times with his finger. How would his father take it when he heard his son was here at Fernlea? At the Conway house?

‘Damn.’ Mike lowered the phone with a frown. ‘Your phone’s dead. The rain must have soaked into one of the junction boxes. Or a tree’s come down somewhere.’

‘Are you sure?’ She grabbed it from him in disbelief. He had to be making it up! He didn’t want his father knowing he was here. Or he was using it as an excuse to stay here a bit longer. All night, perhaps?

Over my dead body, she thought, a prickling sensation crawling along her skin.

She clamped the phone to her ear. And had to gulp in suddenly needed air. There was silence at the other end. Dead silence. She banged it with her open palm. She frantically pressed some buttons. She shook it

‘I don’t think that’s going to do much good,’ Mike said calmly.

‘We’re completely cut off,’ she moaned. And touched her throat with unsteady fingers, realising what it meant. Now there was no way he could let his father know he was safe. No way he could let his father know he was sheltering here at Fernlea. No way he could get his father’s hired hand to come and fetch him.

Well, you’re not staying here, Michael O’Malley, her eyes told him. No way.

CHAPTER THREE

HER gaze swivelled to the window. ‘I think it’s easing off,’ she blurted. ‘I’ll take you home myself. We’ll have to leave now, so I can be back before dark.’ She knew she was gabbling, but she couldn’t help it. ‘Shall we go? I’ll just grab my purse and keys.’ She whirled out into the hall where she’d left them.

She expected him to argue, but he didn’t. Maybe he could sense that she was in deadly earnest this time. ‘Much obliged,’ was all he said as she came flouncing back into the kitchen, keys and purse in hand.

She snapped on lights as she dashed out of the door, not wanting to come back to a darkened house. Dusk would be falling shortly. Even nightfall, if they didn’t get a move on. Mike was right behind her, pulling the kitchen door shut after him.

‘You want to lock it?’ he asked, but she shook her head and plunged on. She could hear him behind her, taking long, swift strides to keep up.

She didn’t pause until she reached the double garage. There were two vehicles inside, the sturdy Toyota Land Cruiser they kept down here at Fernlea for use around the property and for pulling the horse-float, and her small, zippy Ford Laser, which she used between here and the city, and for running around back in Melbourne.

‘Like me to drive?’ Mike offered, hovering at her shoulder as she unlocked the big four-wheel drive.

‘You don’t trust me to drive you?’ she asked, her eyes coolly taunting him, even as her heart jumped at his closeness, her senses jangling at the faint scent of soap and freshly dried clothes.

‘Well, I hope you don’t drive as wildly as you rush around your yard,’ Mike remarked dryly.

Her dark eyes took on a knife-sharp glitter. So it wasn’t just a courtesy offer...or a male disliking being driven by a female. He was scared that she might land them in a ditch!

‘I guess you’ll just have to take the risk,’ she flung back, hauling herself up into the driver’s seat. He didn’t lend a hand, perhaps sensing that she’d snap his head off if he tried. He stepped round to the passenger’s side without further comment.

She backed out rather more quickly than she normally would, just to keep him on his toes. But once out of the yard and on the road—more a sealed lane than a road, though it would change to bitumen and widen at the old concrete bridge where the lane joined the main road—she slackened her speed and concentrated on where she was going. She had to. It was still raining, though thankfully not so heavily now, and the edges of the road were soft and slushy—to be carefully avoided if she didn’t want to risk sliding off or getting bogged.

Mike didn’t attempt to make conversation, obviously not wanting to spoil her concentration. Even without glancing round, she could feel the hawk-eyed tension in him, and knew that he was watching the road as attentively as she. There could be other dangers besides mud and slush. A wombat or kangaroo could emerge from the bush and cross their path. There were plenty around.

The last thing she expected to see was another car coming towards them. The road they were on led only to Fernlea. Who could be coming to visit her in this weather, she wondered, at this late hour in the day? It couldn’t be her parents. They’d gone back to town only this morning to attend a special dinner tonight.

‘Watch out!’ rasped Mike. ‘There’s a car coming.’

‘I can see it!’ she hissed, slowing down as the two cars drew closer. She reached down to switch her headlights on, just in case the oncoming driver hadn’t seen her. At once the other car’s lights sprang on too, as if the driver had had the same thought.

‘Who is it? Your father? It’s obviously someone who knows you, since he’s heading for Fernlea. Unless it’s someone who’s lost his way. It does happen around these parts.’

‘We’ll soon find out.’ She brought the Land Cruiser to a halt as far to one side of the road as she could—making sure the wheels were still on the solid ground—and opened her window to signal to the other driver to pull up too.

Mike gave a soft whistle as the other car, a sleek red sports car, pulled up a few metres away—not too close, as if the driver was wary of strange four-wheel-drive vehicles that might scratch or muddy his beautiful car.

‘Well...it’s obviously a friend of yours,’ Mike murmured. ‘Porsches don’t often appear in these parts. Or didn’t until the Conways moved in down here.’

A Porsche! Taryn’s stomach lurched. She only knew one person who drove a red Porsche. Rory Silverman...polo-playing playboy son of Rex Silverman, the mining tycoon. The Silvermans owned a huge property the other side of Warragul, less than ten kilometres from here. She’d met Rory at an equestrian function, and he’d rung her a few times since to ask her out. So far she’d had a ready excuse each time—he was far too smooth and full of himself for her liking—but he hadn’t taken the hint.

The last time he’d called her he’d told her that he might pop over to Fernlea one day to see her. ‘We must catch up with each other, Taryn,’ he’d purred, ‘before I go off overseas again.’

She’d hoped he’d forgotten. Or had been too busy. Or had already gone overseas.

Obviously not. No such luck.

‘You stay here,’ she rapped at Mike. ‘I’ll go and speak to him. I know who it is.’

She grabbed an umbrella from the back seat where she always kept one, and clambered out, snapping it open as she strode over to the Porsche.

The driver wound down his window. ‘Taryn...it’s you!’