Mango Kisses (9 page)

The bark of laughter startled her. ‘Miles? Don’t let him hear you saying that? Elderly.’ He went into cackling, wheezing paroxysms of delight, which ended in a coughing fit.

Tiffany waited, smiling politely as he coughed up his lungs. So Miles Frobisher wasn’t elderly and frail.

‘I need to see him,’ she said when he’d recovered enough to hear again.

‘Try the beach and if he’s not there go to his house.’

‘Where is his house?’

‘Look, you can’t miss it.’ He rushed around the end of counter and out on to the footpath. Tiffany followed. He pointed to a low white house surrounded by trees just on the rise where the beach ended to the south and the rocks began. ‘His car will be there because he never drives it. It’s white like his house.’

He paused to contemplate the significance of this odd coincidence, which seemed to have only just struck him.

‘He’s not selling is he?’ the man demanded.

‘Selling what?’

‘The shop?’

‘This shop?’

The man nodded, eyes glued to her face.

‘Not as far as I know.’

‘Great.’

He stepped back inside.

She said quickly, ‘Is Boris coming in today?’

That sly look again.

‘Why do you ask?’

‘He was here when I came in last week. I just wanted to say hello, that’s all,’ she said, embarrassed. What else could she say to him?

‘I’ve never met you before,’ he said.

‘I know,’ Tiffany replied, startled by the trepidation in his voice as much as the non sequitur. ‘I wanted to talk to Boris but it doesn’t matter. Thanks for the directions. Goodbye.’

She hurried down the footpath, ears and cheeks burning. Boris must be there part-time, job sharing with that peculiar man. What a way to run a business. Miles Frobisher should get his act together and sort out his staff if he wanted to make any money out of that place. Sack that derelict for starters.

What had Boris been up to that made his mate so cagey about where he was and who talked to him? Boris was not the sort of man she should be allowing to hijack her mind.

Miles calculated he’d slept for one hour and twelve minutes and he could pretty much say which minutes they were because the longest consecutive stretch was from 3:13 until 3:56, finishing with a last burst of 14 minutes from which he’d just woken, feeling like a wrung out sock, at 7:10.

He lay on his back staring at the cracks in the paint on the ceiling. Marianne had slain him. She’d chopped him into pieces, minced him and spread him all over the floor. Now she’d gone and the chances of ever seeing her again were
nada
, zip, zilch, zero. He knew from that first sight of her running on the beach she was not his sort of girl. Too slick, too hip, too classy.

Fancy running after her in the rain! Straight out of a daytime soap; what a pathetic, hick he must have looked!. And then, when he caught her up all he could say was, ‘Goodbye’. Miles closed his eyes at the mortifying shame of it all. Thank God she was leaving, because there was no way he could face her again after that.

She’d stood there frozen to the spot and no bloody wonder. She must have thought he was mad. And that kiss! After a whole day of lessons and an afternoon of practising, that was the best he could do? And it was his
second
kissing course!

Miles thumped both fists hard into the bed, again and again. He screwed up his face and growled, ‘Bugger, bugger, bugger!’ then threw the covers back and went to the bathroom. When he looked at himself in the mirror a groan echoed about the tiles at the unshaven, dark-ringed, puffy-eyed, sleep-deprived face. One renegade clump of hair stuck out sideways while the rest hung limply over his eyes. He staggered back down the hallway and fell onto his bed. Oblivion.

Someone was leaning on the doorbell. Miles grunted awake. The red numbers on the bedside clock swam into view. 9:29 a.m. He still felt like dog’s vomit. If he ignored the doorbell they’d go away. He stuck his head under the pillow.

They were knocking now.
Bloody hell.
He waited. The knocking stopped. Miles relaxed and breathed deeply. A couple more hours’ sleep and he’d be almost strong enough to face Boris in the shop.

He heard footsteps tapping along the side verandah heading towards the back door.
Persistent bastard.
He sat up, groped around on the floor for a t-shirt and dragged it over his head. He sniffed. Needed a wash. Too bad. Couldn’t be bothered finding jeans, jocks would have to do.

Knuckles banged on the glass of the rear door. The curtains were closed against the morning sun. The whole wall facing the sea was glass, floor to ceiling windows giving a spectacular view of the ocean in all its changing glory.

‘Yeah, yeah,’ he yelled. He shuffled through the sunroom and yanked the cord to part the curtains enough to slide the door open. He peered out, blinking in the harsh onslaught of light. A woman was leaning over the verandah railing shading her eyes and staring out through the trees towards the beach. She turned at the sound of the opening door. The sun hit him in the face, dazzling him with its ferocity. He squinted and rubbed the heel of one hand across sandpapered eyes.

‘Mr Frobisher?’ A voice he recognised instantly and a face that sent a shiver of alarm coupled with intense delight down his spine.
Her
voice,
her
lovely face.

Marianne. Good God!

Chapter Five

‘Boris?’ He looked terrible. What had he been doing? Drinking? Taking drugs? Both?

‘Marianne?’

After a pause during which a cheerful magpie warbled in a nearby tree, they spoke simultaneously.

‘No,’ she said, while he rasped something unintelligible and slammed the door.

Tiffany stood on the verandah with the thud of door in frame echoing in her ears and her brow furrowed. What did he say? Should she wait or was it better to obey her instincts and make a run for it? Erik wouldn’t expect her to deal with a crazy man. Two crazy men, judging by what Boris had just done. Not to mention that weirdo in the surf shop. Three lunatics.

A croaky voice called, ‘Sorry, I’ll get dressed. Wait there. Don’t go away.’

‘Boris?’ she said again. ‘What are you doing here? I’m looking for Miles Frobisher. Is he there?’

‘Yes. Just a minute. Wait. Please?’ He sounded nervous and flustered. Panicky.

She drew a deep, steadying breath. He wasn’t a lunatic — she knew for a fact he wasn’t a lunatic. She’d simply caught him at a bad time. Same as he’d caught her at a bad time at the café. She said, ‘All right. But I can’t stay long. Tell him I have to leave soon.’

What on earth was going on here? Surely Boris and Miles weren’t having some sort of fling? Living together? That would be Murphy’s Law at its grandest. The best looking man she’d ever seen and been kissed by turns out to be gay, or at best a two-way swinger.

It would explain his reluctance to take part in yesterday’s kissing sessions and would certainly explain Fiorella’s guarded little caution not to get personal with him. Boris, gay? She couldn’t believe it, not after the way he looked at her yesterday. Surely she hadn’t read those signals completely wrong? Or was he a man confused about his sexuality? Trust her to pick them.

Tiffany sagged weakly against the wooden verandah railing. The morning sun beat down on her head adding to the heat generated by the gigantic rush of hot prickly blood to her face. Well, if that was the situation, who was she to judge? She liked Boris, very much. They could be friends. They’d have to be friends. But she’d never been so disappointed in her life.

What were they doing in there, Boris and Miles Frobisher? Tiffany looked at her watch. Ten to ten. She’d be paying for tonight at the motel, no way would she get back in time to check out. Add it to Miles Frobisher’s account.

She’d give him two minutes more then she was out of this strange little town forever. Leave Boris behind — a memory. No, not even that. She’d forget all about him by the time she reached the highway. Tiffany pressed her lips together to suppress the choking sobs that bubbled up out of nowhere.

She rummaged in her handbag and found a crumpled tissue to mop her eyes, dabbing carefully to avoid smudging her mascara. The door opened.

‘Marianne. I’m sorry.’ He stood there washed and shiny, freshly showered, shaved, wearing a clean shirt and jeans, smiling at her with that mouth she’d kissed. That mouth that had also kissed...‘Miles Frobisher.’ He stuck out his hand.

Tiffany stared at it. Then at his face.

‘I’m Miles Frobisher,’ he said again.

‘I’m Tiffany Holland,’ she said and shook his hand on automatic because her stunned brain hadn’t caught up yet. Then she started to laugh, giddy with relief, and he joined in. They stood there holding hands laughing until he was able to say, ‘Come in,’ and led her inside.

‘How long have you owned the surf shop?’ Tiffany asked. Miles had made tea and she was sitting with him at one end of the polished wood dining table trying to maintain her professional demeanour in the face of such an extraordinary and wonderful development.

‘I bought it six years ago when I moved here. Mum and I used to come here for our holidays. She loved it. We used to camp because that’s all she could afford, but I thought it was fantastic fun.’

‘Has she moved here too?’

‘She died last year. Cancer.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘I brought her here to live with me when she was diagnosed but at the end she had to go into a palliative care hospice at Coff’s Harbour.’

‘That’s a long way,’ murmured Tiffany, touched by the moisture that had misted his eyes.

‘It was the closest with a bed available.’ He blinked rapidly and picked up his tea.

Tiffany said softly, ‘Is it her estate you need help with?’

He looked at her blankly, puzzled, and she said quickly, ‘Professionally. You asked for someone to come and assess an estate?’

‘I knew I’d heard the name!’ he cried. ‘Tiffany Holland. It went clean out of my head when I saw you standing there. All I saw was Marianne.’

‘All I saw was Boris.’

He grinned but it faded as he continued to gaze at her. ‘Where did you get Marianne, the name, from?’

Tiffany hesitated. She couldn’t say Marianne was sexy, uninhibited and shameless — or that she envied her.

And Boris sounded like a vodka swilling Siberian peasant wearing a thick fur hat against the icy blasts.

‘If I tell you, will you tell me why you chose Boris?’ She studied him through narrowed eyes. ‘Why Jen thought it was such a joke?’

Miles laughed. ‘Boris works for me in the shop and he’s not the smartest bear. Everyone knows him.’

‘Thin, fiftyish, a cough?’

‘Yeah.’ His eyes twinkled.

Tiffany smiled. ‘Now I understand. Marianne’s my best friend.’

‘Fair enough.’

Tiffany pushed the tea mug away, avoiding his insistent eyes, and said in her driest, accountant’s voice, ‘Show me what I need to assess.’

Miles jerked upright.

‘Yes, of course. Sorry. It’s my father’s. I inherited all this and a whole lot more.’ He waved his hand at the stack of papers shoved in an untidy heap at the far end of the table. A cardboard box lay on the floor and looked as though he’d begun to look through it but had been interrupted, never to resume.

‘I’m sorry. You’ve lost both parents so close together.’

Miles’s face took on an unaccustomed expression of distaste. ‘He meant absolutely nothing to me. I’ve no idea why he decided to make me his beneficiary, unless it was to cause more trouble. Executor too, to add insult to injury. He walked out on us when I was a baby and we never heard from him again.’

Tiffany stood up and walked around to the end of the table. She lifted the first piece of paper off the closest pile and cast an eye over it. A hotel statement with an interstate address.

‘Did he live in a residential hotel in Brisbane?’ she asked.

‘I think so.’

‘Does he owe any money?’

‘No idea. The lawyer didn’t say so but he was the one who suggested I get a professional to sort it out.’

‘Who has power of attorney?’

‘I imagine the law firm who contacted me. The card’s there somewhere.’

‘I’ll call them,’ Tiffany said. She shuffled through the rest of the pile quickly. Statements, letters, accounts, receipts. What a muddle of dates and amounts and places. ‘There’s more?’

‘In the spare room,’ Miles confirmed.

‘You were right,’ she said, looking up. ‘This will take a while.’

‘Take as long as you need. I want nothing to do with it. Just tell me at the end what the situation is and I can donate whatever paltry sum he’s left me to charity.’

Tiffany regarded him thoughtfully. ‘You mentioned the lawyer thought there could be a considerable sum involved. Would you donate that to charity?’

‘If it ran into millions I might reconsider,’ he said and laughed disparagingly, ‘I doubt that very much though. The bastard lived in a rundown hotel for years. You’d hardly do that if you were sitting on a fortune.’

She tilted her head. ‘Haven’t you heard of Scrooge? That’s why some of these people end up with millions. Precisely because they don’t spend it. Hoarders.’