The Wrong Sister (2 page)

“Porridge has probably had it.”
 

She whirled aside to check, scattering cold water everywhere, and making the hot stove-top hiss and steam. Why hadn’t she used the microwave oven? Sure enough, the gluey mixture had stuck fast to the bottom of the saucepan. She scraped at it with the spoon, closing her eyes in fury. Oh, wouldn’t it just!

“So really,” Christian continued with maddening calm, “You’re no help at all. You’ve broken the toaster, burnt the toast, wrecked the porridge and hurt yourself. We’re much better off without you.”

Fiona held his triumphant brown eyes with her own snapping green ones... embarrassed, maddened, but not quite defeated.

“How can you sleep at night, you sanctimonious pig?” she heard herself snarl.

He clicked his tongue. “An honest reaction at last.” He regarded her with something like amusement. “Right now, I don’t sleep too well, thanks, but the doctor says time will help take care of that.”

The awful reality of what she’d just said hit her. “Sorry—so sorry, Christian.” The tell-tale heat of embarrassment rushed through her again. “That wasn’t what I meant, of course.”
 

The half-grin faded from his face. “No, I know that.” His voice was bleak. “You must be hurting too.”

“My only sister.”

“But it’s difficult having you here.”

“Because I remind you too much of Jan?”

He shrugged. “Just difficult. We truly don’t need your help. Amy Houndsworth agreed to continue as part-time housekeeper. She’s been preparing an evening meal for us ever since Jan got really sick. A great fill-in, but I’ll be getting a proper nanny for Nicky now that Jan’s... gone.”

Fiona heard the hurt and hesitation in his voice.

Yes, Jan was gone for always, and it was so hard to say it.

“A nanny is something I could arrange for you, perhaps?”

He blew out a frustrated breath. “There are several agencies in the city. I thought I’d start with those. I’d prefer to choose someone myself, Fee. She’s my daughter.”

“And my only niece. Fifty/fifty then? How about I contact the agencies and you do the interviewing of anyone suitable?”

He shot her an assessing look, nodded and turned away. “So you’ll only be here another few days with any luck,” he tossed over his shoulder.

“Five and a half more weeks,” she managed to return with equal firmness.

He stopped and swung back to her, bristling like an animal protecting its territory. “Five and a half
weeks?
That’s pretty precise. What are you up to exactly?”

Fiona raised her chin. “Not ‘up to’ anything, Christian. But that’s how much more leave I’ve got. That’s how long the ship’s replaced me for. We all hoped Jan would be with us for longer than this.” She poked at the sticky porridge pot to escape his accusing eyes. “I’ve nowhere else to go until then. I want to see more of Nicky, and help if I can. It’s here or a hotel—and that would be pretty silly. It gives you time to do proper nanny interviews and find someone really suitable anyway.”

He glared at her, outmanoeuvred for the moment. “Use the microwave oven for your next attempt at porridge,” he said with unkind directness. “You might manage not to burn it second time around.”

I knew that...

“What about your toast?” she countered, trying not to react to the sting in his microwave dig.

“I said I didn’t want the damn stuff in the first place. Just let it go—okay? I don’t need looking after, whatever you or your mother may think.”

Fiona compressed her lips and turned aside to scrape the porridge from the saucepan. Seriously stuck. Sighing, she ran some hot water into it, added a squirt of dish-wash liquid, and set it to soak before starting a second batch.

Why was he being like this? Yes, he’d lost Jan. But so had she. They should be pulling together to help one another through this appalling time. Instead, he seemed hell-bent on getting her out of the house. So far he’d tried reason, rudeness, the excuse she looked too much like her sister, assurances he could manage without her, the acquisition of a nanny, and strangest of all, the teasing physical closeness.
 

Earlier, by the window, when he’d come to stand directly behind her, almost rubbing himself against her, she’d wondered if he was trying to drive her away with sexual aggression.

Her brother-in-law? Surely not.

CHAPTER TWO

Fiona had long ago resigned herself to Christian’s electric presence and devised coping strategies. She prayed they were still adequate, because this was proving a much more difficult assignment than she’d imagined.
 

Evenings in the house should be bearable. Her guest bedroom on a lower level than the master suite meant she could escape there to read or watch TV the instant Nicky was down for the night. Caring for Nick should be easy enough with Christian not around, but it seemed he planned to remain home for a while. Fiona had expected, and hoped, he’d be at work, well out of her way.

Anyway, he was Jan’s, first and always, she reminded herself sternly as she removed the much more successful porridge from the microwave oven and added milk to cool it.

 
“Open wide, Nicola Jane Hartley.” She brought the teaspoon down with a flourish to her niece’s rosebud mouth, playing jet-planes—copying those that dropped steadily lower over the sparkling water to land at the international airport not far away.
 

Nicola opened her mouth like a baby bird and Fiona zoomed the spoon in. Nicky liked to feed herself, but that was a slow and messy process. The jet-plane game sped things up wonderfully, and she could do without more mishaps today.

She knew Christian still leaned against the doorframe behind her. He’d been there for several long, tense minutes. Fiona kept her full attention on Nicky rather than risk another confrontation.
 

He also said nothing, then finally turned and left them to it. She heard the soles of his trainers squeaking slightly on the marble-tiled floor as he departed, and her spine sagged at last and all the muscles across her shoulders and down her back relaxed in a grateful slump.
   

He’d made her really uneasy with his unrelenting suggestions she should leave. She couldn’t—partly because of the promise she’d made to her parents. They were hundreds of miles away in Auckland now. Both were busy doctors and had opted to return to their duties. She suspected their absorbing work would be the best distraction for them, anyway.
 

Once she’d known her beautiful sister would be irrevocably lost, Fiona had arranged tentative bereavement leave with her employers. As the entertainments officer on the ‘Mediterranean Queen’, she could be replaced for a number of cruises. Jan’s condition grew critical; Fiona returned to New Zealand for a last precious time. And far sooner than anyone expected, Jan had slipped away.

Now, Fiona’s luxury liner plowed through the sunny blue ocean without her, disgorging toasted passengers to admire the scenery in Spain, the south of France, Italy, Greece, Turkey, and North Africa. Until her appointed time to rejoin it, she was literally homeless.

Another five and a half weeks stuck in a hotel or rattling around her parent’s Auckland apartment didn’t appeal in the least. Nicola was desperately in need of mothering—by turns truculent and clingy, confused and sorrowful. She wanted MommaJan, and no explanation sufficed to placate her.
 

Her big blue eyes fastened again and again on Fiona’s, as though Auntie Fee could suddenly produce her missing mother. Fiona felt guilty and helpless. She barely had Nicola’s trust yet, and she ached to bring the little girl whatever comfort was possible. Her visits home had been so sporadic she’d seen her only three times.

And why is that, Ms Delaporte? Because you knew you had to stay away from Christian?
 

She sighed as she lined up the next spoonful of porridge, acknowledging the truth of it. Christian made her heart spark and flutter. Made her skin burn. Made her yearn. She had only to be close to him and she was lost—just like she’d been lost the first time she’d met him—on his wedding day.

The rest of the morning passed peacefully enough. Christian had holed up in the cavernous garage, tinkering with one of his vintage cars. Leaving Nicky in the sandpit again, Fiona intruded with a mug of coffee for him and was amazed to find he had part of an engine in pieces. She’d assumed he’d had washing or waxing in mind.

“So you don’t just do toasters?”

He laughed at that, more relaxed than he had been earlier. “A methodical man can take anything apart.”
 

“And put it back together again?”

“Unless it’s broken beyond repair. These old girls are a good deal easier to play with than modern cars.”

Among other things, Christian and his father owned a highly profitable business creating reproduction vintage motor vehicles, and repairing genuine old models, too. Fiona knew their main market was Japan, which seemed incongruous to her. Surely the bustling streets of Tokyo and Osaka hardly needed these big beauties adding to the traffic congestion? But maybe the cars were kept garaged as precious treasures and rarely saw the road?
 

“So these are real?”
 

Christian squatted to reach in behind a wheel. The old jeans strained around his narrow hips and long thighs so the waistband dipped to reveal a wedge of his lower back below his T-shirt hem.
 

Fiona had the sudden devastating sensation of her mouth moving across that strip of smooth golden skin. She could taste him on her tongue, imagine his scent, feel the tingle in her lips. She knew she should squash the outrageous scene right out of her imagination but it was so vivid and enjoyable.
 

After a few seconds, he rose to his feet, affording her feverish mind a little relief, but still the image burned her brain. Still the guilty pleasure hung in the air.

He shook her out of her daydream when he waved an arm and said “The
crème de la crème.
1905...1913...the old Rolls is late twenties...that’s a 1929 Alfa Zagato...a ‘36 Buick. The E-type Jag is ‘64. Not as old as the others, but a classic for sure.”

“Is there a chance I could borrow a car—not one of these of course—to go down into the city?”
 

The memory of his almost-revealed body still taunted and teased her. Her lucky sister had been able to touch him any time she wanted to.
 

Or maybe her not-so-lucky sister...

“Take Jan’s.” He shot her a glance that looked almost embarrassed. “I’m sorry I lost it earlier. It’s just so damned hard coming to terms with everything right now.” He wrestled a key off his own bunch and held it toward her. “The Audi. I couldn’t bear to sell it while she was still alive. Good thing I didn’t maybe? We’ll have to move my Merc first though.”
 

Fiona reached for the key and he drew a line on her palm with it. Her fingers closed over his as her hand reacted to the stimulus.

“Sorry,” she gasped.

He grinned—wonderful white teeth against his dark stubble.

He still hasn’t shaved. God...

“Flirting with me, sister-in-law?”
 

“Stop it, Christian,” she snapped, ripping the key from his long fingers.
 

“You blush superbly,” he added, raising an eyebrow. Fiona turned and fled, unnerved by his suddenly sexy suggestion. If he had any idea what he was doing to her blood pressure, surely he’d stop it right away? Her face and neck burned, and she knew the blush would flood down through her breasts and make them feel hot and heavy.
 

She’d always blushed easily—although whether that qualified as ‘superbly’ she had no idea.
 

Damn the man. Double damn! But at least she now had a car to use, so she could escape when being close to him became unbearable. It would make it easier to track down an obliging hairdresser as the first step in her ‘not-like-Jan’ makeover, too.

She slowed, turned back, took a deep breath, and poked her head around the garage door. “If I’m so unnecessary to you, can you spare me this afternoon?”

“Fine by me. I was planning to take Nicky down to the beach at Oriental Bay for a while anyway.”
 

She nodded at his dismissal, located the telephone book, and took it outside before Nicky came toddling in to search for MommaJan yet again.
 

She was still occupied in the sandpit, poor little girl. Fiona’s heart ached as she watched Nic trying to make a sandcastle. What must it be like when the most important person in your life had disappeared with no explanation you could understand?
 

Predictably, Nic’s attempts to remove the red plastic bucket collapsed the sandy sides and led to tears of annoyance. Fiona hurried back into the kitchen and grabbed a wide-rimmed stainless steel basin.
 

“This one, Nic,” she encouraged as she returned. She sat back on her heels and watched her niece’s dimpled hands patting the sand into the new container. Together they made a rather breast-like ‘castle’ with the more easily removed basin. Nicky was full of giggles again only seconds later.
 

“Me do, me do,” she squealed, keen to make another all by herself.
 

Fiona smiled sadly. If only it were possible to distract her from her absent mother as easily.

She riffled through the listings for hair salons, chose one at random, and reached for her mobile.
 

“Hi, this is Fiona Delaporte. Is there any chance one of your stylists would have time to cut and color my hair this afternoon? I know it’s not much notice, but...”

She waited a few moments for the girl to check.

“Great! Past my shoulders but I want it shorter. And streaks or foils maybe? A whole new look.”

She wrinkled her nose as she disconnected. If they had an appointment free at such short notice, would they be any good?

She poured herself a cup of coffee, got juice for Nicky, and lazed in one of the comfortable loungers, enjoying the sun. Nicola soon clambered onto her lap and Fiona cuddled her close, thrilled the little girl was starting to trust her. They dozed together, unaware of the passing time.