A Bride For Barra Creek

‘How about why a woman with your personality and apparent ability is so desperate for a job that she’s prepared to take on an assignment without even knowing what it is or what she’ll have to do?’ Tye suggested in a dry voice.

‘It was my own fault,’ Lizzy admitted after a long pause. She might as well tell him. ‘It took me ages to decide what I wanted to do. I tried all sorts of jobs, but eventually I ended up in PR, and it was perfect for me. I loved the parties and the organisation and the…the buzz.’

She waved her hands to try and illustrate the excitement of those heady days. ‘I managed to get a job with one of the top agencies in Perth, and for a while everything was fine. It was more than fine, actually. I had a great job, a fantastic social life, a wonderful boyfriend. We got engaged, had a wild party.’ She smiled a little sadly. ‘I thought I had it all.’

‘So what happened?’ asked Tye, a faint sneer in his voice. ‘Did your wonderful boyfriend turn out to be not so wonderful after all?’

‘No, nothing like that.’ Lizzy shook her head. The light gleamed on her blonde hair as she leant forward to pick up her glass and sipped her champagne as she tried to think how to explain to someone as cynical as Tye what had prompted her to do what she had done.

‘An old friend of mine got married,’ she said at last. ‘I went up for the wedding, and seeing Gray and Clare together…well, I guess it made me realise what I was missing. I don’t really know how to explain it,’ she went on, looking at Tye’s sceptical expression. ‘I enjoy my life, but theirs was somehow more intense, more vivid.

‘I realised that I was in a rut, not just professionally but emotionally. Stephen was—is—wonderful, but we didn’t have what Clare and Gray have. We’d been living together for about a year, and we’d sort of drifted into the idea of getting married. We were good friends, comfortable together, and there wasn’t anyone else for either of us. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but when I compared our relationship to Gray and Clare’s, I knew that it wasn’t enough.’

Lizzy’s head was bent as she told her story, apparently absorbed in the invisible patterns she was tracing on the arm of the chair, but she looked up then to see if Tye was listening. ‘When I went home, I told Stephen I wouldn’t marry him.’

‘It was a bit hard on him, wasn’t it?’ Tye had been listening all right, but he obviously wasn’t impressed. His grey eyes were alert and very cool.

‘Stephen didn’t mind.’ Lizzy went back to her patterns, remembering how they had talked that night. An angry scene would have been awful, but at least it would have meant that Stephen had cared enough about her to try and make her change her mind. Instead it had all been very civilised. He had listened and agreed that breaking their engagement would be for the best.

‘I think he was quite relieved really,’ she went on. It had been just the same with Gray all those years ago. ‘I seem to be the kind of woman men just want to be friends with,’ she sighed.

Tye looked at her across the table. She might sound despondent, but it was hard for her to look glum. There was an irrepressibly merry curve to her mouth, and the laughter lines starring the corners of her deep blue eyes with their tilting lashes gave her expression a warmth and a humour that was much more appealing than mere beauty.

His gaze dropped to her bare shoulders. Her creamy skin was dusted with a golden summer glow. It shadowed invitingly into her cleavage and in the hollow at the base of her throat. Aware of his eyes, Lizzy lifted her hand and pushed the silky mass of hair away from her face in an unconsciously nervous gesture, but it wouldn’t stay behind her ears and fell forward again, swinging softly against her cheek.

‘I wouldn’t say that,’ he said, and he smiled a wickedly attractive smile that sent the colour surging into Lizzy’s cheeks.

How old did you have to be before you stopped blushing when a man looked at you? Lizzy wondered in despair. Avoiding his gaze, she took a defiant gulp of champagne and set her glass back on the table with a sharp click.

‘Yes, well, anyway,’ she said with a tiny cough to clear her throat. ‘Once I’d sorted things out with Stephen I felt much better, but I knew I had to do the same with work. I’d been at the agency too long and I was getting stale. I went in the next day and handed in my resignation in a grand gesture. I told them I needed a new challenge and that I was going to set up on my own as a freelance consultant.’

‘And did you?’

‘I tried, but it was hopeless. There wasn’t enough work to go round as it was, and I couldn’t compete with the agencies. I must have trudged round every office in Perth looking for a client, but I wasn’t getting anywhere. I was about to give in when I met you and you mentioned this job. It’s my last chance to make it on my own.’

‘I’m beginning to see why you were so keen to be considered,’ said Tye.

Lizzy’s colour deepened. He hadn’t said anything, but she knew that he was thinking about the way she had kissed him at the wedding, and she tilted her chin. It wouldn’t do any harm for him to realise that she had only kissed him like that because she had been desperate.

‘It’s been months now since I had a regular income,’ she told him. ‘I know I should be able to manage, but I’m not very good at economising, and I’m up to my ears in debt.’ She sighed. ‘I went about things all wrong; I know that now. I should have waited until I’d decided exactly what I was going to do and had my financial situation sorted out instead of just chucking in a really good job and then wondering how I was going to get by.’

‘I don’t agree,’ said Tye to her surprise.

Lizzy had been prepared for him to pour scorn on her, and his unexpected support took her aback. She eyed him a little warily, wondering if he was being sarcastic.

‘I bet you’d never do anything that stupid!’

‘I believe in going all out for what you want,’ he said coolly, ‘and you don’t get what you want without taking risks. Do you think I’d have got where I am today if I’d played safe? Twenty years ago I left home with nothing. I worked my way to Sydney and found myself a job and somewhere to live. Those aren’t things you take for granted when you’ve had to survive without either, but when I had an idea I took a chance and gambled everything on it.’

He didn’t sound triumphant about it, merely matter-of-fact, and Lizzy looked at him curiously, trying to imagine him as a young man, finding his way in the city, alone and homeless. From that unpromising beginning, he had built up an empire, a vast conglomerate that stretched around the world and had become a watchword for quality and innovation. It made her own idea of a challenge seem pretty pathetic.

‘All you need is ambition,’ said Tye, ‘and if you want it badly enough you can get there. You must have an ambition, don’t you?’

Did she? Lizzy considered the matter. ‘I’d like to do well at my job, of course, but I don’t have any burning desire to succeed. As long as it’s interesting and I’ve got enough to live on, I don’t mind. My ambitions aren’t that focused. What I’d really like is marriage, a family of my own, the usual. I just want to be happy.’

Tye didn’t quite sneer, but there was something very scornful about the way he reached for the champagne bottle and topped up Lizzy’s glass.

‘What about you?’ she asked abruptly.

‘Me?’

‘What are your ambitions, or have you achieved them all?’

‘No,’ said Tye, replacing the bottle carefully in the ice, so that Lizzy couldn’t read his expression. ‘I’ve still got one.’